Researcher
Ole Jacob Sending
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Summary
Ole Jacob Sending is Research Professor in the Research group for global order and diplomacy at NUPI.
Sending does research on global governance, with a particular focus on the role of international and non-governmental organizations in peacebuilding, humanitarian relief, and development. His publications have appeared, inter alia, in International Studies Quarterly, European Journal of International Relations, and International Theory.
Expertise
Education
2004 Dr. Polit., Department of Administration and Organization Theory, University of Bergen
1998 Master of Science, Political Science. Department of Political Science, SUNY, Albany, New York
1997 Cand. Mag., University of Bergen, Norway. (Economics, Political Science, Sociology)
Work Experience
2023- Research Professor, NUPI
2012-2023 Research Director, Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI)
2008-2009 Visiting Scholar, Fulbright Scholarship, Dept. of Sociology, UC Berkeley
2008- Senior Researcher, NUPI
2008-2014 Adjunct Senior Researcher, Chr. Michelsen Institute, Bergen
2006-2008 Senior Adviser, Policy Analysis Unit, Royal Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Norway
2003- Senior Researcher, NUPI
2002 Visiting Research Fellow, Stanford University (SCANCOR)
1999-2003 Research Fellow, NUPI, PhD Student, University of Bergen
Aktivitet
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The GEOPOL Annual Lecture 2026: Great power competition or collusion?
What characterises the great-power politics of today, and could it lead to the end of the liberal international order?
Comrade, Customer, Client, or Critic? European States’ Engagements with China’s Belt and Road Initiative
Why do some European states embrace China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), while others keep it at arm’s length or actively oppose it? States like Greece and Hungary have welcomed BRI investments as a political counterweight to Brussels, while Germany and others have remained skeptical, despite their economic ties to China. To capture the variation in how states respond to the BRI, we draw on theories of incomplete contracts and relational contracting, which foreground recipient states’ agency in negotiating with a more powerful counterpart. Here, what shapes the engagement is the character of the relations between the parties rather than the content of the contracts. We propose four ideal-typical relations of Comrade, Client, Customer, and Critic, each associated with distinct policy behaviors and underlying drivers, to assess how the BRI interacts with domestic politics and historical and existing relations. We argue that the BRI does not necessarily change existing alignments, but rather that it may reinforce or be adapted to them—and that such changes are contingent on domestic and institutional recalibrations. The proposed ideal-typical patterns help us understand the different, specific trajectories that emerge in the four studied cases—Greece, Poland, Hungary, and Germany—and how they are mediated by domestic politics. Further, the ideal-typical relations proposed here can help us assess the political and economic significance of the BRI while also contributing to broader debates about possible changes in China’s global position and the building blocks of an emerging international order.
The Political Effects of China’s Belt and Road Initiative: Context, Competition, and Infrastructure Politics
In this special issue, the authors identify three contextual dimensions that are particularly important for understanding the political effects of the Belt Road Initiative (BRI). First, bilateral relations and domestic politics: how a country’s history of interactions with China, and the particularities of its domestic politics, affects how the BRI is received, negotiated, and politicized. Second, the politics of international goods substitution: the BRI does not operate in a vacuum but in an ecology of competing providers of infrastructures and related international goods. The effects of any given investment will depend on what alternatives are available to recipient states. Third, symbolic and ideational contexts. Beyond its material dimensions, the BRI can function as an identity or status marker—for China, for recipient states, and for adversaries—in ways that may carry independent political consequences. Engaging with these three contextual dimensions, the authors argue, is key to moving beyond abstraction or insulation, and toward a fuller picture of the political effects of the BRI. The contributions to this special issue all investigate how these contextual dimensions of the BRI condition its political effects across regions and issue areas. Thereby, they seek to bridge the gap between macro-level accounts of China’s rise, and the more fine-grained studies of BRI projects. In this introduction, the authors first review the evolution of research on the BRI before addressing these three contextual dimensions in more detail and how they relate to the contributions comprising the special issue.
“Ambassador, you’re really spoiling us!” Diplomatic gifts and profligate autocrats
Qatar’s “unconditional” gift of a $400 million Boeing 747-8 to Donald Trump serves as a reminder that states have long used diplomatic gifts to impress others, forge bonds, and secure favorable treatment. However, in an age where citizens and media outlets routinely scrutinize public spending, there is good reason to think that not all governments are able to justify lavishing large sums on such interactions. In this paper, we test the claim that autocracies are less constrained in their diplomatic gift giving due to an absence of domestic accountability mechanisms. To evidence this, the authors draw on a dataset of diplomatic gifts presented to U.S. presidents from 2001 to 2018. The results show that autocratic regimes systematically spend more on diplomatic gifts than do democracies. Supplementary analyses suggest that this is, in part, due to new media in democracies being able to criticize profligate diplomatic practices. Interviews with Norwegian diplomats corroborate the importance of domestic media scrutiny in shaping diplomatic gift giving. The article contributes to scholarship that probes the relationship between regime type and public spending, by showing its relevance to diplomatic interactions.
Who Killed the Liberal International Order and What Comes Next?
The Norwegian Centre for Geopolitics invites you to a lecture on the world's most urgent ‘whodunnit’: "Who Killed the Liberal International Order and What Comes Next?".
Når USA gjør det slutt – hva Trumps sikkerhetsstrategi betyr for Europa - og Norge
Dagens Næringsliv: Ole Jacob Sending (NUPI) forklarer at av-og-på forholdet mellom Europa og USA er lite oppbyggelig, og i utenrikspolitikken også direkte farlig. Han viser til Trump administrasjonens nye Nasjonale Sikkerhetsstrategi, og skriver at Norge blir vesentlig mer utsatt fordi USA nå svekker det viktigste av tre ben i den norske utenrikspolitiske strategien.
The Chinese are Coming! US Think Thanks and the Belt and Road Initative in the Middle East and North Africa
Neil Ketchley (University of Oxford), Moren S. Andersen (NUPI) and Ole Jacob Sending (NUPI) shed light on the consequences of American think tanks portraying China's Belt and Road Initiative as a significant threat to American interests in the Middle East and North Africa, even though Chinese projects there are still relatively small. This perceived threat is used to strengthen and justify existing American foreign policy goals, even in regions where Chinese influence is still limited.
Is U.S. foreign policy now "open for business"?
In this episode of the World Stage podcast, host Ole Jacob Sending (The Norwegian Centre for Geopolitics, NUPI) sits down with Alex Cooley (Columb...
India in South Asia: Quest for regional dominance in a multipolar world
This seminar will present a new report on India's role in South Asia.