Research news

We are very glad to invite you to submit papers and full panels to the 2020 ECPR General conference in Innsbruck, Section Populism, Radicalism and Extremism: At the Margins and into the Mainstream.

The Section is endorsed by the Standing Group on Extremism and Democracy and will be chaired by Pietro Castelli Gattinara (C-REX, University of Oslo), Léonie de Jonge (University of Groningen), and Ofra Klein (European University Institute).

Ethnonationalism has been as common in Georgia as in other post-Soviet countries, but the far-right social movement has especially been gaining traction for the past five years, gradually becoming larger, more diverse, and more violent. The parliamentary elections approaching in 2020 create a window of opportunity for far-right actors to gain access to mainstream politics. ​

During the last few years, especially around the refugee crisis in 2015-16, vigilante groups popped up all over Europe and North America, patrolling the streets and national borders. They claimed to protect the local citizenry against crime and security threats constituted by illegal migrants and minority groups.

Little is known about how governments put together and put to use policy advisory commissions. In her dissertation, Stine Hesstvedt seeks to find out if and how politics play a role in the Norwegian policy advisory commission system.

Who is a dissident? When did the word enter international political vocabulary, and how did it come to mean human rights activists rather than religious heretics?

Liberal Roots of Far-Right Activism, by Lars Erik Berntzen, discusses the nature and implications of the anti-Islamic turn of the contemporary far right in Western Europe, North America and beyond.

This Working paper intends to give a thorough introduction of the Nordic Resistance Movement (NRM) and Generation Identity (GI) to inform future research, policy-making, and preventive work.

Decision-makers are often trusting of scientific and technical expertise. But could expertise replace democratic control?

Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are highly hereditary diseases. But is it possible to predict who will get them? That is one of the aims of Associate Professor Lars Tjelta Westlye, who is now to receive the Anders Jahre Prize for Young Scientists.

The United Kingdom will become the EU's first ex-member state. Can the relationship between the non-member Norway and the EU be used as a model for the UK after Brexit?

In the aftermath of the episodes of mass political violence that have occurred across Europe over the past decade, scholars and commentators are regularly confronted with the question of ‘how can we prevent this from happening again?’. Håvard Haugstvedt, PhD at the University of Stavanger and visiting researcher at C-REX, explains why answering is more complex than usually assumed.

ARENA celebrated its 25th anniversary with a half-day public conference at the House of Literature on 18 November 2019. 

Wednesday, October 9, 2019 – when the Jewish community all over the world was celebrating the holiest day in the year, Yom Kippur – 27-year-old German Stephan B. was mounting a helmet in a rented car and prepared for what he hoped would be a mass shooting attack against the nearby synagogue in Halle an der Saale.

In the wake of Sunday´s general election in Austria, the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) has faced a sharp decline in votes. FPÖ´s major loss is due to a recent corruption scandal, but it is also most likely caused by the declining salience of the immigration issue

Sir Ivan Rogers, former UK ambassador to the EU held the first EU3D Future of Europe Lecture at the University of Oslo on 18 September 2019. 

Petter Nesser's key note lecture on Society for Terrorism Research annual conference, Oslo, 21 June 2019

Elisabeth Schober has received a prestigious research grant from the EU to ethnographically explore how global capitalism plays out in four key ports across the world.

What does it mean to be a European citizen? 25 years after the Treaty of Maastricht, ARENA researchers Espen D. H. Olsen and Agustín José Menéndez argue that provisions intended to create a European community may create more friction than harmony.

What can we learn from Brexit? What can we expect from the newly elected European Parliament and the new leaders of the Commission, and what does it mean for Norway? These were some of the main questions ARENA asked at Arendalsuka. 

Helene Sjursen organized a NORTIA research workshop on 5-7 June 2019 in Poznan. 

Last month saw more than 900 million eligible voters at the ballot box in the world’s largest democracy. India’s national election once again resulted in the landslide victory of Prime Minister Narendra Modi of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The established radical right party in Denmark experienced a significant setback in the general election. The main reasons are a combination of mainstream cooptation, radical competitors and an unfavorable political agenda. 

This is a party that embraces Mussolini and Che Guevara — and cartoons and pop culture

The contribution from the Scandinavian far right – the Danish People’s Party (DF) and the Sweden Democrats (SD) – to Salvini's alliance, the European Alliance of People and Nations, is likely to be very small. In short, because DF is losing support and because SD is uninterested in joining.

ARENA researchers were well represented at the 16th biennial EUSA conference, which took place on 9-11 May in Denver, Colorado.