Conceptualizing the State Within: Norway, the Nobel Committee and the Nobel Peace Prize Ingvild Johnsen Master Thesis 30 credits 2012 International Relations, Noragric Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisor, Iver B. Neumann, for all support, ideas, comments, and optimism on my behalf, both related to this and other projects. I would also like to thank Halvard Leira for reading, commenting and being generally helpful. There are many others at NUPI who also deserve thanks for being encouraging and inspiring, among them my fellow interns who have provided a good working environment. I am also very grateful to those who have put up with this project, and me, every day – Tormod, Konrad and Brage. 17. desember 2012 Ingvild Johnsen 2 CONTENTS 1.0. INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………..1 1.1. Existing research…………………………………………………………........................2 1.2. Disposition……………………………………………………………………………….5 1.3. Contribution……………………………………………………………………………...7 1.4. Methodological approach………………………………………………………………..7 2.0. CONSTRUCTIONS OF THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE AND THE NOBEL COMMITTEE, 1897-2012…………………………………………………………………..10 2.0.1.Why Norway?.....................................................................................................11 2.1. Preliminary administrative duties or honourable mandate?.............................................13 2.2. The Nobel Institute as ‘foreign policy institution’……………………………………...15 2.3. Awards in line with foreign policy?.................................................................................17 2.4. The prize to Ossietzky and the need for a clearer delineation…………………………..20 2.5. The Parliament’s committee: the nation’s oldest and greyest men……………………...22 2.6. Recent prizes, 2009-2012………………………………………………………………..26 2.7. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………….29 3.0. THEORIZING THE NOBEL COMMITTEE…………………………………………...32 3.1. What is the state?...............................................................................................................35 3.1.1. The state as a procedural legal order……………………………………………….36 3.1.2. State theory and the construction of independence………………………………..39 3.1.3. The state as a (fictional) person……………………………………………………...41 3.2. The Nobel system as a peace ISA………………………………………………………..45 3.2.1. Ideological state apparatuses…………………………………………………..........46 3.2.2. Disciplines and governmentality……………………………………………………..48 3.2.3. A new way of governing……………………………………………………………….49 3.3. The Nobel Peace Prize and the ISA……………………………………………………...52 3.3.1. “Another aspect of the government of Norway”…………………………………..53 3.3.2. Effects of the peace ISA………………………………………………………………..54 3.4. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………….57 4.0. IDENTITY, FOREGIN POLICY AND STATUS………………………………………58 4.1. Identity: a peace nation…………………………………………………………………..61 4.2. Foreign policy……………………………………………………………………………64 4.3. Public diplomacy and status……………………………………………………………...67 4.3.1. Perceptions of Norway………………………………………………………………...70 4.4. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………….73 5.0. CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………………………..74 5.0.1. Agents versus structures………………………………………………………………75 REFERENCES……………………………………………………………………………….79 3 4 1. INTRODUCTION «… anyone who does a thorough analysis of Norway will know about the Nobel Committee’s independence, and the distinct separation between the committee and Norwegian authorities.»1 1.0.Introduction Discussions about the Nobel Committee’s independence from the Norwegian state are almost as old as the committee itself. Drawing a line between the committee and the state was not seen as very important during the first decades, however. Up until 1936 the committee was seen by many as one of the committees of Parliament, and cabinet ministers frequently served as ministers. During the first decades it was quite common for political representatives to have several other important mandates and functions. One reason specific to foreign relations was the fact that the people with knowledge and understanding of foreign policy amounted to a small group of people. This is demonstrated also in Halvdan Koht’s alleged complaint to the British ambassador that: “the Norwegians in general, including the press, knew nothing whatever about foreign affairs. He had found it quite useless to say anything to them because there was no bottom to their ignorance.”2 The foreign ministry was also small, which was common for small states at the time, with only sixteen officials and seven secretaries in 1906.3 In addition the ideas about impartiality and independence were different from ours. Impartiality was quite natural – something which was part of being a free individual. One might also see this in connection to the view that Norway itself is impartial – a small state without a colonial past.4 As a consequence, it was not very controversial when Foreign Minister Jørgen Løvland said the following words at the opening of the Nobel Institute in 1906: “The Institute is situated here … as a conjuring call to the Norwegian people and the Norwegian Parliament that they will solve the task which is given to them with honour. I want to state a wish, which I address to the President, that Parliament must succeed in thinking highly of this task so that it year by year will become a more glorious memorial of the founder and honour for our fatherland.”5 In recent decades, and especially after the prize to Liu Xiaobo in 2010, the Norwegian government has stressed the committee’s independence. Issues of independence and 1 Jonas Gahr Støre quoted in Dagens Næringsliv, “Støre ber om fred med Kina” (11.10.11.) 2 Geir Lundestad, “Lange linjer i norsk utenrikspolitikk,” Internasjonal politikk 57, 2 (1999): 290. Halvdan Koht was Foreign Minister 1935-41. 3 Iver B. Neumann & Halvard Leira, Aktiv og avventende (Oslo: Pax Forlag, 2005), 61. 4 A more recent example of this view is presented in Egeland, Jan, Impotent superpower - potent small state (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1988). 5 Jørgen Løvland quoted in Mathias Brynildsen Reinar, “Lille land – hva da? Nobelinstituttet og begynnelsen på den norske fredstradisjonen, 1897-1913” (Institutt for sosiologi og statsvitenskap, NTNU, 2011): 83. 5 impartiality involve understandings of state and society, and the border between the two. If the Nobel Committee is independent, it must be a part of society, and distinctly not a part of the state. No one in Norway today would accuse the Norwegian government of interfering with the committee’s decisions. In other words, while the purely bureaucratic and organizational independence of the Nobel committee is a fact, what is at stake is something else. My research question is thus: Is the Nobel Committee and the Nobel Peace Prize a part of Norwegian state or society? How do these institutions function in Norway? 1.1. Existing research The most recent name on the list of writers on the Nobel Peace Prize, Jay Nordlinger writes that “A history of the Nobel Peace Prize is, among other things, a collection of people, a parade of personalities.”6 This relates to many of the books and articles that have been written about the prize. The major reference work was written by the American historian Irwin Abrams in 1989, (centennial edition in 2001).7 It gives an overview of the winners and the procedures of nomination and selection and views the work of the Nobel Committees sympathetically: “The Norwegian Nobel Committees have become used to criticism for their decisions. Unlike the other Nobel Prizes, there are no ‘authorities’ in the field of peacemaking, and everyone feels confident in expressing an opinion. There is general agreement, however, that the Nobel Peace Prize has come to represent the most prestigious world prize for service to humanity. In the midst of stories about violence, terrorism, and conflict, twice a year peace makes news – in October, when the Nobel Prize is announced, and in December, when it is awarded.”8 Øyvind Tønnesson has written about trends in Nobel Peace Prizes in the twentieth century based on who has received the prize. He notes one of the difficulties of studying the peace prize: “We know most about the laureates themselves because their character and accomplishments become public knowledge. We know a good deal about the Nobel Committee, because its members are public figures, but less about its deliberations. The committee has the assistance of professional advisers, but makes its decisions alone and, in fact, these deliberations … are not even to be recorded.”9 In other words we will never have access to material which can clarify why and how the Nobel Committee reached its decision. 6 Jay Nordlinger, Peace, they say (New York: Encounter Books, 2012), 3. 7 Irwin Abrams, The Nobel Peace Prize and the Laureates (Nantucket: Watson Publishing International, 2001). 8 Abrams, The Nobel Peace Prize and the Laureates: ix. 9 Øyvind Tønnesson, «Trends in the Nobel Peace Prizes in the Twentieth Century,» Peace & Change 26, 4 (2001). 6 Another challenge to assessments of the peace prize is that peace is an elusive concept. Geir Lundestad calls peace “a treacherous field” and Halvard Leira states that the committee operates in “a minefield.” 10 When Nobel wrote his will in 1895 the world looked very different and obviously the concept of peace was also in many ways different. Douglas Bulloch looks at the three measures for awarding the prize in the sentence which provides the “entire institutional and symbolic edifice of the Nobel Peace Prize.”11 In the will it is stated that the prize should