This article analyses security privatisation in Norway through the lens of Assemblage Theory, conceptualising it not as a retreat of the state but as a strategic reconfiguration of authority, responsibility, and control. Based on legal analysis, policy documents, and empirical research, the study examines how public authorities, private security providers, and technological systems co-produce security across three domains: nightlife governance, maritime protection, and critical infrastructure security. The findings demonstrate that security privatisation in Norway is predominantly state-orchestrated, characterised by selective delegation, strict regulatory embedding, and clear boundary-setting. Private actors operate within tightly defined institutional frameworks that preserve the state’s monopoly over legitimate coercion while redistributing operational tasks and frontline security labour. By framing these arrangements as a territorialised yet adaptive security assemblage, the article advances debates on se
This article examines the historical and ideological drivers of Iranian foreign policy toward the Western bloc, with a focus on the United States and Israel. It traces the origins of Western antagonism toward Iran to intellectual and clerical discourse prior to the 1979 Islamic Revolution, highlighting how this sentiment became central to the Islamic Republic’s foreign policy after the monarchy's fall. The study underscores that Iranian foreign policy, while often characterised as irrational or fanatical in public discourse, is fundamentally shaped by pragmatic and rational considerations. Persistent tensions between ideological and pragmatic factions have significantly influenced Iran’s domestic political debates and international strategy. The article provides a nuanced perspective on how ideological commitments and strategic interests intersect in shaping Iran’s actions on the global stage.
This article analyses security privatisation in Norway through the lens of Assemblage Theory, conceptualising it not as a retreat of the state but as a strategic reconfiguration of authority, responsibility, and control. Based on legal analysis, policy documents, and empirical research, the study examines how public authorities, private security providers, and technological systems co-produce security across three domains: nightlife governance, maritime protection, and critical infrastructure security. The findings demonstrate that security privatisation in Norway is predominantly state-orchestrated, characterised by selective delegation, strict regulatory embedding, and clear boundary-setting. Private actors operate within tightly defined institutional frameworks that preserve the state’s monopoly over legitimate coercion while redistributing operational tasks and frontline security labour. By framing these arrangements as a territorialised yet adaptive security assemblage, the article advances debates on security governance in high-capacity welfare states and challenges interpretations of privatisation as neoliberal deregulation or state withdrawal.
This article examines the historical and ideological drivers of Iranian foreign policy toward the Western bloc, with a focus on the United States and Israel. It traces the origins of Western antagonism toward Iran to intellectual and clerical discourse prior to the 1979 Islamic Revolution, highlighting how this sentiment became central to the Islamic Republic’s foreign policy after the monarchy's fall. The study underscores that Iranian foreign policy, while often characterised as irrational or fanatical in public discourse, is fundamentally shaped by pragmatic and rational considerations. Persistent tensions between ideological and pragmatic factions have significantly influenced Iran’s domestic political debates and international strategy. The article provides a nuanced perspective on how ideological commitments and strategic interests intersect in shaping Iran’s actions on the global stage.
This article investigates NATO burden-sharing as a multidimensional phenomenon that extends beyond defence spending benchmarks. Drawing on the economic theory of alliances, it conceptualises alliance behaviour as shaped by political signalling, defence effort, investment structure, economic capacity, and threat perception. Using Ward’s hierarchical clustering and K-means analysis on 27 NATO member states, the study integrates six indicators, including defence expenditure, equipment investment, GDP per capita, negotiation commitments, and perceived threat from Russia. The results identify distinct behavioural clusters, including a highly committed core, converging contributors, moderate performers, and fiscally constrained states. The findings demonstrate that variation in burden-sharing is not explained by economic capacity alone, but by the interaction of threat salience, political commitment, and spending structure. The study contributes to research on alliance cohesion by showing that effective capability generation depends on the consistency with which political commitments translate into sustained defence investment patterns.
