The GEOPOL Centre will strengthen knowledge about international power relations and the positions of the major powers, and how this affects Norway's interests and politics.

The world is in a period of sharp intensification of political and economic rivalry. Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine is an expression of this, but political and economic tensions between the US and China have also increased. The rivalry now takes place under different conditions than in previous historical periods. There is a different distribution of power and geographical focal points, intertwined global investments and trade relations, several institutional players and rapid technological changes.

The rivalry will have a strong impact on Norway. Therefore, we must prepare foreign policy responses and strategies based on new forms of geopolitical analysis.

The Centre will investigate the key drivers and content of intensifying relations between great powers, and the consequences for international order and for Norway. GEOPOL will research structural features of great power rivalry with analyses both of domestic factors, regional-level differences, as well as variation across issue-areas The project will have a particular focus on issues of relevance for Norway.

The Centre is led by The Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI) and is a partnership with the Fridtjof Nansen Institute (FNI), the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies, UiT -The Arctic University of Norway and the University of Oslo. Together, the Centre combines country-specific expertise on USA, China, the EU and Russia, regional expertise on the Arctic, Asia, Africa, Europe and America, and expertise on key themes such as security, multilateralism, growth and innovation, and energy and sustainability.

FNI leads the work on geopolitical rivalry related to sustainability, with a focus on Chinese climate and energy policies, and Arctic Geopolitics. Topics include domestic drivers of energy policies, energy security, critical materials, the role of the Arctic in Sino-American rivalry and in Sino-Russian relations, as well as China’s and India’s policies/interests in the Arctic and their role in Arctic regional governance mechanisms. In this work, we assess the content of geopolitical rivalry related to sustainability and the Arctic, including the extent to which Chinese energy policies reflect such rivalry, and how other great powers may respond, and its possible manifestations within global environmental governance. We analyze the drivers of shifts within these policy areas. We further outline the consequences political rivalry may have on these issue-areas, and its impact on Norway.

Project period: 2023 - 2029