Niels Byrjalsen

Niels Byrjalsen

Academic staff

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Niels Byrjalsen is a PhD fellow in the Department of Political Science at the University of Copenhagen. His PhD project explores the link between trust, security community, and international order. It conceptualizes trust as distinct type of relation in international relations and examines how trust affects the production of international order in the transatlantic area (especially in the NATO context).

The project is supervised by professor Christian Bueger.

Current research

PhD project on trust, the transatlantic security community, and international order.

Research project on subversion, strategy, and statecraft with Henrik Breitenbauch.

Fields of interest

Niels has previously been employed as a research assistant at the Centre for Military Studies at the University of Copenhagen. He took part in research projects on European security, Russia, and strategies for handling Europe's southern agenda as well as on the development of European security and defence cooperation, including the Nordic countries response to this development.

Generally, he is interested in some of the 'big' issues of International Relations, including questions of security, order, justice, cooperation, and change at the international and global level. Currently, he is especially interested in whether and how a focus on trust can help address some of these questions. Moreover, his current research focuses on the international politics of subversion as well as on the changes in European security and the transatlantic relationship.

In addition, he has a particular interest in philosophy of science, scientific practices, the role of science (especially social science) in society, and the relationship between universities, media, and decision makers.

Primary fields of research

  • International Relations
  • Trust
  • International order
  • Security communities
  • Diplomacy
  • Constructivism and practice theory
  • Defence and security policy
  • Small states
  • Subversion
  • Statecraft and strategy
  • Foreign policy
  • Great power politics
  • NATO
  • IR theory

Teaching

Autumn 2019 - Trust and distrust in International Relations (with Larissa Versloot).

I supervise within all my fields of research and interest.

ID: 173271476