Olav Fagelund Knudsen

• Master of Arts 1969, Ph.D. 1972 University of Denver
• Retired at Swedish Institute of International Affairs

The article takes as its point of departure the apparently contradictory findings in recent research about accident rates in shipping and IMO implementation records. It is argued here that although IMO conventions have probably greatly improved shipping safety, they cannot credibly be held to be the chief cause of reduced accident rates as claimed...

In the environmentally exposed Baltic Sea, a prolonged confrontation has set the transport interests of Russian crude oil against environmental interests, promoted by Russia's neighbours. During the 1990s all the Baltic littoral states - including Russia - collaborated well on marine environmental issues. When Russian oil exports accelerated after...

The book under review: Northern Security and Global Politics: Nordic-Baltic Strategic Influence in a Post-Unipolar World. Edited by Ann-Sofie Dahl and Pauli Järvenpää. Routledge Global Security Studies. London/New York: Routledge 2014.

The short Baltic export route for Russian oil is an attractive source of supply for the European energy market. The article examines the Russian oil export trade in the Baltic based on Automatic Identification System (AIS) data from 2005 matched with supplementary data. The first part of the article gives a survey of activities and characteristics...

The book asks new questions about power, focusing on the weaker end of the relationship – the underdog; the habitual loser. It points out how the avoidance of confrontation is a common – and commonly overlooked - response to superior power, in the power literature as well as in empirical studies. This perspective informs the empirical look at a gre...

This full-text is a pre-proof version of the chapter subsequently printed. The paper seeks a better understanding of power disparities and the role of the weaker side in power relations, placing the targets’ avoidance behavior and subjective power assessments in focus. Recognized power differentials usually lead to various avoidance tactics. This t...

Editor's introduction.

This paper assesses the desirability and/or feasibility of the EU assuming a more traditional role as a global power, what it would mean and with what consequences.

Baltic Sea Area Studies: Northern Dimension of Europe. BaltSeaNet Working Papers volume 13. Gdansk-Berlin: Wydawnictvo Uniwersytetu Gdanskiego; Nordeuropa-Institut der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 2004.

Baltic Sea Area Studies: Northern Dimension of Europe. BaltSeaNet Working Papers volume 13. Gdansk-Berlin: Wydawnictvo Uniwersytetu Gdanskiego; Nordeuropa-Institut der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.

Small-state studies are fragmented into several disconnected streams of literature. This necessitates a more comprehensive perspective. Over the past two generations, small-state studies have gone through alternating trends, all assuming a small state in being. This article brings into view other streams of literature not based on this assumption....

Contributions from a symposium on the Baltic Sea Region and international security, focusing on puzzles in the German-Russian relationship, the regional issues in Russia, the role of the United States, the Russian-Western relationship, the function of threat images, the peace-building promise of transnational cooperation, the prospects for a stable...

In the first post-Cold War decade, Nordic states' policymakers were confronted by fundamental changes in their security environment - with Soviet dismemberment being pushed by, and leading to the renewed independence of the three Baltic states. This situation required the immediate concern and attention of Nordic states around the Baltic. New, emer...

Full text available here: http://www.iss.europa.eu/publications/detail/article/cooperative-security-in-the-baltic-sea-region/ [From the Summary]. Although progress has been made in the Baltic Sea region during the 1990s, elements of instability remain and a pattern of ambiguity characterizes the region. The problem is how to move from confrontation...

Brassey's Atlantic Commentaries No. 8.

The book is a tribute to Johan Jorgen Holst, Norway's late Minister of Foreign Affairs. It considers the outstanding issues of our time: the high politics of East/West confrontation and the post-Cold War readjustment in Europe. Holst contributed significant ideas to the handling of these issues. Though representing merely a small state, Johan Holst...

This chapter analyses the policy of the Norwegian governments towards the Baltic states, the Baltic Sea region and Russia in the period from before the Baltic states' declarations of independence in 1990 until the spring of 1996.

The underlying theme of this book has been the linkages between policy analysis, national policy and international politics. We have explored various aspects of those linkages, using the life and work of one man as a medium. Over a 25-year period this man increasingly influenced the substance of Norwegian security policy, over time also ensuring th...

Full text is now available.

The article surveys and analyzes the foreign policies and relevant domestic political conditions of the Baltic states since 1918, emphasizing the period after 11 March 1990. The general argument is that small states located near a great power can choose between alliance with their more powerful neighbor, alliance with his chief rival, or some kind...

ISSN 0800-0018. Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (Oslo). Research Reports Series.

The article raises the question of the optimal strategy for ensuring the long-term security of small, contiguous neighbors of great powers. The main options available to the small state may be called `accommodation' and `intransigence'. The author seeks to determine whether the small state's choice makes a difference to the great power next door. O...

Norway is a typical small industrial democracy, expe riencing a continuous tension between external pressures and inter nally generated aspirations. In security policy a compromise—the reassurance policy—softens the collision between the two forces. When the Storting or the electorate decides policy directly, foreign policy may become the nonlogica...

See English version: "Did Accommodation Work?" Journal of Peace Research, 1992. The Norwegian version presented here contains the actual data on which the English version is based, and to which the English version also refers.

Data extracted from the Military Balance, published annually by The International Institute for Strategic Studies, London. In table form with Norwegian text. Table headings translate into English as follows: Table 1: Soviet Ground Forces, Central Europe. Table 2: Index of Ground Forces, Southern USSR ("Caucasus and Soviet Central Asia" acc. to the...

Examines possible developing country response to agricultural liberalization of industrial market economies through simulating the policy options or choices open to three types of developing countries when faced with a more liberalized market. The comparisons of policy options before and after the anticipated changes in international prices are ana...

A four-page critique of the 234 page book, emphasizing the book's lack of a clear link between the title and its contents. The book presents a strong argument against what was at the time a popular approach called comparative foreign policy, and an equally popular approach often called behavioral foreign policy studies. Unfortunately in making his...

(Norwegian text, written while at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs.) Having a well-coordinated and consistent foreign policy is a common ambition of governments, which tends to clash with the needs of actual problem-solving in specific policy areas. The article describes the reform enacted 1988 in Norway's administration of foreign...

Knudsen, O. F. Of Lambs and Lions: Relations Between Great Powers and their Smaller Neighbors. Cooperation and Conflict, XXIII, 1988, 111-122. The relations between great powers and their smaller neighbors are accentuated cases of great-power/small-state relations generally and thus potentially useful for exploring such asymmetries. The article pre...

Revised, with an epilogue, February 2005.

Knudsen, O.F. and Underdal, A. Patterns of Norwegian Foreign Policy Behavior: An Exploratory Analysis. Cooperation and Conflict, XX, 1985, 229-251. In this article the authors use events data for a 7-month period in 1978-9 to explore the following question: Who (in Norway's governmental apparatus) does what to whom (meaning to other states, societi...

Setting their focus on the role of decision-makers at intermediate and higher levels of a country's foreign policy administration, the authors analyze contextual factors that may determine the impact of decision-makers' personal characteristics on foreign policy. The article highlights the dynamics of these factors in the case of Norwegian foreign...

Knudsen, O. Foreign Investment and Multinational Corporations in the Nordic Countries. Cooperation and Conflict, XV, 1980, 209-215. The main question here is: How exposed are the Nordic countries to the political influence of multinational corporations? The article briefly surveys and compares the Nordic regulatory systems for foreign business. Con...

Empirical survey of Nordic subsidiaries of global multinational corporations (active in more than 10 countries), merging public data with anonymized individual corporate data, for 1975, made available by the Nordic statistical bureaus. Query: To what extent are the Nordic economies being "taken over" by foreign direct investments (FDI) made by glob...

Knudsen, O. National Interests and Foreign Policy: On the National Pursuit of Material Interests. Cooperation and Conflict, XIV, 1979, 11-19. The classical concept of 'the national interest' is not at issue here. Rather, an attempt is made to systematize some quite simple and familiar ideas about 'what is to the material advantage' of a state in gi...

Based on PhD-dissertation, empirical parts revised. Uses global events data from specialized shipping news sources covering 1946-1968, the book analyzes the actions of governments as they pursue their policies in the area of maritime transport, with special attention paid to relations of conflict and whether cold war conflict got mixed up with ship...

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Denver, 1972. Microfilm.