Status symbols have become a central focus in the second wave of research on international status. This article examines Chile’s transportation and display of a several-ton Antarctic iceberg at Expo ’92 in Seville as a strategic attempt to regain international standing after the Pinochet dictatorship. Drawing on archival and media sources, we show that the iceberg was designed to secure European recognition of Chile as a modern, civilized country while distancing it from stereotypical images of Latin America. Yet, rather than consolidating prestige, the display generated backlash at home and abroad. This resistance did not arise primarily from rationalistic concerns over cost, corruption, or deference—as identified in existing status-backlash literature—but from perceptions of identity misrepresentation : the sense that the iceberg projected an inauthentic or sanitized version of Chilean identity. The article advances status research in three ways. First, it introduces identity misrepresentation as a fourth mode of critique against status symbols. Second, it shows how enduring civilizational hierarchies shape status aspirations among smaller states in the Global South. Third, it highlights international exhibitions as an underexamined arena where states perform, contest, and negotiate status before multiple audiences.

In this analytical essay, I aim to advance the debate on trust in International Relations (IR) by clarifying how trust can be understood in practice-theoretical terms. To this end, I build on recent IR scholarship that has shifted from viewing trust as a mental state to viewing it as an active process through which social actors relate to one another—that is, as trusting . To clarify what this shift entails and initiate a more systematic dialogue between the dynamic yet still largely unconnected literatures on trust in international politics and on international practices, I proceed as follows: first, I survey how IR scholars have thought about trust thus far; second, I identify three commitments that give coherence to the emerging practice-theoretical literature on trust, namely, a focus on relations, processes, and agency; and third, I outline three theoretical options for studying trust in practice-theoretical terms: conceiving of trust as a product of practices, as a background of practices, or as itself a practice.

Nordic International Relations (IR) scholarship is marked by a “parochial internationalization” that balances proximity to the dominant American mainstream with an independent scholarly identity. This article examines the sociological features of the “Nordic IR” strategy—focusing on institutional, intellectual, and policy orientations—by presenting data from the Teaching, Research, and International Policy (TRIP) surveys conducted in 2011, 2014, 2017, and 2024. Institutionally, Nordic IR has undergone significant transformations, including a decline in regional conferences, shifts in publishing patterns toward Anglo-American outlets, and increasing engagement with European and global academic networks. Yet, it still retains a regional identity and recognition structure, and its scholars are largely homegrown, which reinforces the parochialism. Intellectually, Nordic IR generally leans post-positivist and constructivist in the broader global picture, but there are also intra-Nordic differences. Norway is more positivist and quantitatively inclined than Denmark, Sweden, and Finland. Finally, in terms of policy orientation, we find Nordic IR to also be somewhat parochial, for example, by geographically studying their immediate proximity, although we identify a shift from Western Europe toward Russia, the Arctic, and Central and Eastern Europe. Overall, we argue that Nordic IR scholars today have an opportunity to re-invent the regional community and diversify its parochial internationalization strategy.

How should the diversity of Nordic War/Military Studies be explained? Despite having experienced similar external shocks to international security since the end of the Cold War, and notwithstanding their relative cultural homogeneity, university environments throughout the Nordic states have developed diverging conceptualizations of War/Military Studies. We demonstrate that this variation can be explained in terms of supply and demand factors in relation to teacher expertise and target professions for students, with proximity to the military profession as a main factor. This affect whether the subjects focus on the conduct of war or include issues in relation to the full “conflict cycle.” In addition, whereas we identify a Nordic consensus in favor of multi-disciplinary conceptualization of War/Military Studies, we find that constraining regulations for accreditation can motivate more mono-disciplinary conceptualizations. We argue that the examined factors can explain broad categorizations of conceptualization of Nordic War/Military Studies, but that further research should investigate the role of individual entrepreneurs and bureaucracy to flesh out disciplinary trajectories at the individual institutions. In conclusion, we propose that Nordic War/Military studies have the potential to converge on a shared ontological and epistemological approach, but that the field is best served by affirming divergent disciplinary foci and breadth.

The Nordic countries have been described as generous front-runners in their development assistance, making observers suggest the existence of a ‘Nordic Model’. They have been claimed to play a leadership role in a European and global context. Recently, however, this characterisation has been challenged due to changes in Nordic policies and in the external environment. We investigate the development policies of Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden – and their changing roles and priorities from the start of Nordic aid programmes, with a focus on developments and trends in the last 15 years and ask if we have come to the end of the Nordic Model. We identify three key changes in their policies: (1) an increased emphasis on security and migration, (2) the traditional focus on poverty reductions is increasingly competing both with other value-related objectives and with self-interested goals and (3) an increased emphasis on the role of the private sector and trade as instruments for development. We argue that perceptions of a Nordic leadership role still exist, despite these challenges, although in a diluted and more complex shape. The Nordic Model is not abandoned but has been eroded by external and internal forces.

Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine in 2022 unleashed a series of foreign and security policy changes in Europe. One of the most notable ruptures was the decision by Finland and Sweden to apply for North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) membership in May 2022 after a long tradition of military non-alignment, which has deeply characterised their state identities. This article focuses on this foreign and security rupture from the perspective of ontological security, employing an interpretative triangle of traditions, beliefs, and dilemmas to explain how ontological security was enhanced in Finland and Sweden. The article argues that although Russia’s full-scale attack on Ukraine was seen as a serious threat to physical security both in Finland and Sweden, prompting the states to rapidly apply for NATO membership, it paradoxically provided conducive conditions for a more solid sense of ontological security in the two Nordic states. The article argues that routinising relationship with significant others, adjusting states identities, establishing a secure place called ‘home’, and avoiding behaviours that can generate a sense of shame enhanced ontological security in the critical situation. However, unresolved dilemmas will likely cause ontological tensions in the new self-articulation of Finnish and Swedish state identity.

Rhetoric is one of the oldest concepts in politics, but it remains elusive: It is difficult to adequately capture its content, assess components of rhetoric in a methodologically robust manner or examine elements of leadership rhetoric in different settings. Similarly, when considering persuasion in International Relations (IR), there is a tendency to focus on political leaders, such as Western public elites; however, this limits analysis of insurgent leadership and the framing of activism. In this article, we propose an approach for analysing the rhetoric through consideration of each of its three core components: speaker credibility and character (ethos), emotional appeal (pathos) and logic (logos) using an interpretive methodology and rhetorical assemblages, to move from abstract theorisation to practical application. We then apply this approach to a unique corpus of 55 communiqués issued by domestic and foreign leaders involved in the insurgencies in Russia’s North Caucasus and Syria between 1995 and 2017. Our findings support interest in persuasion in IR and illustrate that the analysis of rhetoric employed by insurgent leaders in the North Caucasus and Syria, as well as in violent movements more generally, needs to move beyond considerations of strategy and doctrine, thereby opening up new avenues for research in IR.

This article examines the effect of foreign aid for peace on civilian victimisation. The existing literature on the effects of post-conflict foreign aid suggests that aid can have both positive and negative outcomes. For instance, it can promote economic growth and equality, but under certain circumstances, it can also fuel corruption, create dependence and even perpetuate violence. This mixed record indicates the need for a better understanding of how intended and desirable outcomes of foreign aid for peace can be achieved. Therefore, this article examines the impact of EU aid for peace in Colombia from 2002 to 2018 on civilian victimisation. By employing a difference-in-differences model and semi-structured interviews, this study aims to clarify the causal mechanisms linking EU aid for peace to reductions in civilian victimisation. The main finding is that EU aid for peace reduces civilian victimisation by strengthening civilian agency and enhancing the visibility of violence in the municipalities where interventions occurred.

This article presents theory for how third-party ceasefire monitoring may contribute to, and even motivate, ceasefire noncompliance. That credible ceasefire monitoring may help produce new violence, even if inadvertently, challenges prevailing positive understandings of third-party observation and monitoring, in which ceasefire monitoring is often seen as a form of intervention that helps conflict parties comply with ceasefire commitments. Four mechanisms by which noncompliance may occur when ceasefire monitoring is present are identified. These are, first, that monitoring provides conflict parties with new signaling options in which violence has a potential communicative function; second, that conflict actors’ noncompliance can seek to influence how monitors operate; third, that conflict actors’ noncompliance can help test monitors’ detection capacities; and, fourth, that noncompliance allows conflict parties to check for audience costs. In outlining these mechanisms, this article suggests that there are multiple means by which ceasefire monitoring, like other interventions, can have unintended consequences.

This article zooms in on the pre-conditions on the citizens’ level for deeper Nordic cooperation on civil defence matters. Historical ties, Nordic security cooperation, high-trusting citizens and the fact that all five Nordic states now are members of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) speak in favour of increased cooperation on civil defence. Still, the experiences from the Covid-19 pandemic with different strategies, diverging policies and closed borders, as well as heated exchanges of views, provide us with contradicting expectations. Based on a unique dataset with over 11,000 Nordic respondents, we address these mixed expectations and study the trust of the Nordic citizens in both their respective government’s civil defence preparedness and the citizens’ preferences regarding Nordic and other forms of international cooperation in this area. The results show a significant variation of trust in the civil preparedness of national governments (Finland highest trust, Sweden lowest trust). The variation returns in the desire for deeper international cooperation with considerably lower level of support for enhanced Nordic cooperation among the Danish respondents and strong support for such cooperation among the Finns, Norwegians and Swedes. Hence, our results indicate a potential for enhanced cooperation among some Nordics, but not all.