Valuable natural resources: conflict, peacebuilding, and development
My early work on natural resources focused on unraveling whether or not valuable natural resources, such as oil and diamonds, have an effect on conflict through the incentives and opportunities they provide for rebel movements. My work departed from the standard approach to empirical conflict analysis at the time in which analysis was conducted at the country level. My work on valuable natural resources and armed civil conflict has provided three central contributions to the conflict literature:
Since the work on high-value natural resources and armed conflict, I have enlarged my scope within this field to study the challenges of building peace in resource-rich countries and, most recently, I have focused on transparency and accountability in natural resource revenue management.
You can find more information on my publications and projects relating to valuable natural resources here.
Climate change: Mitigation and adaptation to climate change and climate related hazards
In climate research one of my focuses has been on identifying ways of measuring and mapping the degree to which Norwegian municipalities are vulnerable, and resilient, to climate change and natural hazards.
Recently, I have got fascinated by how people perceive risk, vulnerability, and resilience in the context of climate change and natural hazards. I believe that understanding public risk perception related to possible consequences of climate change is of paramount importance as it can both shape climate policy and generate support for initiatives for adaptation and mitigation. The work within this domain studies, among other things, how local inhabitants perceive and prepare for possible extreme events induced by climate change.
Even more recently, I have together with colleagues at the CMI and in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and USA, set to assess and analyze how well countries and communities are able to cope with displacement caused by climate change. We will do so by creating sub-national indexes to assess resettlement capacity within countries and through a series of experiments in Bangladesh and Ethiopia that examine how attitudes towards the displaced form and evolve, and whether and how they can be influenced to ease resettlement processes and avert tension. You can read more about this project, partners and publications here.
You can find more information on my publications and projects relating to climate change here.
My other research interests
My other research interests include topics such as origins of economic backwardness and social tension (together with Christa Brunnschweiler), transboundary peace parks and interstate conflict, climate change and conflict (a and b), and dropout in upper secondary education.
My early work on natural resources focused on unraveling whether or not valuable natural resources, such as oil and diamonds, have an effect on conflict through the incentives and opportunities they provide for rebel movements. My work departed from the standard approach to empirical conflict analysis at the time in which analysis was conducted at the country level. My work on valuable natural resources and armed civil conflict has provided three central contributions to the conflict literature:
- Location matters. This has had a clear and important implication for empirical conflict research in general: it is imperative to control for local conditions if we want to explain rebel behavior in conflict.
- Natural resources have a direct effect on rebel movement.
- Natural resources need be considered individually and not lumped together: their effect on conflict need to be studied separately.
Since the work on high-value natural resources and armed conflict, I have enlarged my scope within this field to study the challenges of building peace in resource-rich countries and, most recently, I have focused on transparency and accountability in natural resource revenue management.
You can find more information on my publications and projects relating to valuable natural resources here.
Climate change: Mitigation and adaptation to climate change and climate related hazards
In climate research one of my focuses has been on identifying ways of measuring and mapping the degree to which Norwegian municipalities are vulnerable, and resilient, to climate change and natural hazards.
Recently, I have got fascinated by how people perceive risk, vulnerability, and resilience in the context of climate change and natural hazards. I believe that understanding public risk perception related to possible consequences of climate change is of paramount importance as it can both shape climate policy and generate support for initiatives for adaptation and mitigation. The work within this domain studies, among other things, how local inhabitants perceive and prepare for possible extreme events induced by climate change.
Even more recently, I have together with colleagues at the CMI and in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and USA, set to assess and analyze how well countries and communities are able to cope with displacement caused by climate change. We will do so by creating sub-national indexes to assess resettlement capacity within countries and through a series of experiments in Bangladesh and Ethiopia that examine how attitudes towards the displaced form and evolve, and whether and how they can be influenced to ease resettlement processes and avert tension. You can read more about this project, partners and publications here.
You can find more information on my publications and projects relating to climate change here.
My other research interests
My other research interests include topics such as origins of economic backwardness and social tension (together with Christa Brunnschweiler), transboundary peace parks and interstate conflict, climate change and conflict (a and b), and dropout in upper secondary education.