Katrine Antonsen

• Lohne, Kjersti; Solhjell, Randi & Antonsen, Katrine (2027). Extraterritorial crime control: governing, positioning, resisting. Routledge. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The edited volume develops the concept of extraterritorial crime control to make sense of the nexus between criminal justice, foreign affairs and international relations. By extraterritorial crime control, we mean the ways in which states and international organisations project and deploy criminal justice tools, institutions and norms beyond their territorial borders in order to govern, discipline or strategically shape other sovereign spaces. The extraterritorial lens enables us to see the strategic and often asymmetric ways in which criminal justice is mobilised and exported. As such, the book is aimed at understanding how extraterritorial criminal justice can function both as governance at a distance and as a form of state positioning in international relations.

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• Antonsen, Katrine (2026). Exporting “exceptionalism”: The rise of Norway’s international prison reform work and the paradox of domestic decline. Full text in Research Archive
• Lohne, Kjersti; Solhjell, Randi & Antonsen, Katrine (2026). Crime, Justice and Foreign Affairs: forthcoming edited volume. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Criminal justice is an integrated—but underexplored—dimension of states’ foreign affairs. Criminologists have studied the widening net of global crime governance as part of the liberal international project, where efforts to fight transnational and international crimes and insecurities while promoting penal reform in the Global South have dovetailed liberal universals of human rights, rule of law, democracy, and development (Lohne 2019; Russo and Stambøl 2022; see also Cohen 1982). Today, due in part to seismic geopolitical shifts, the liberal international order underpinning these discourses, and their practices are in rapid decline (Goddard et al., 2024; Lake et al., 2021). Crime, Justice, and Foreign Affairs is a forthcoming volume that explores the relationship between criminal justice and notions of order-making beyond territorial sovereignty: How do crime control policies, practices, logics, and technologies of crime governance factor in the foreign policy toolbox? How is criminal justice part of states’ external logics and manifestations of sovereign power—and their efforts to contribute to global order-making? By offering a set of original empirical analyses of the “external” logics of crime governance from a diverse set of authors from around the world, the book seeks to advance criminological knowledge on how penality fares outside the territorially bounded nation-state order of analysis. Such a rescaled focus on order and order-making represents a new direction in criminology, which despite its fixation on social order, has by and large taken international order for granted.

• Antonsen, Katrine & Solhjell, Randi (2026). Norway, the EU and the Politics of “Humane” Incarceration. doi: https:/eurocrim2026.com/. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This chapter explores how Norway uses “humane” (Pratt, 2007a) incarceration as a foreign policy instrument in its relationship with the European Union. We focus on the European Economic Area and Norway Grants Agreements in the funding of prison reform and correctional services in Eastern Europe. We argue that these funds advance liberal norms, showcase Norway’s penal exceptionalism and secure the country’s economic and geopolitical interests while it remains outside of the EU. Informed by a review of 180 prison-related projects (2004-2021) and interviews with key stakeholders, this chapter finds that Norway has increasingly professionalised its efforts to export the ideals and practices typically associated with its penal system. We argue that once penal reform becomes an element of foreign policy, a new set of motivations, considerations and strategic interests comes into play. We identify brand alignment, whereby Norway’s humanitarian profile and its reputation as a “good punisher” (Lohne, 2023) are fused in order to gain recognition, influence and market access. Finally, we reflect on the fragility of Norway’s position in an increasingly illiberal international order.

• Antonsen, Katrine (2025). Crime, Justice and Foreign Affairs: A case study of Norway’s support for correctional reform in the newest EU member states. Full text in Research Archive
• Antonsen, Katrine (2025). Norwegian prisons as foreign policy. Full text in Research Archive
• Alecu, Andreea Ioana; Antonsen, Katrine & Lohne, Kjersti (2025). Descriptive statistics from penality on the move. Part 3: Danish Penal Aid | Oxford Law Blogs. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  How does penal power travel beyond the nation state? This question has concerned border criminology for some time now, which have helped uncovered various ways in which humanitarianism has been put to work on and for penal power in legitimating its transfer beyond the nation state (see themed series on ‘penal humanitarianism’). In our current research project, we have set out to map the intersections of humanitarian reason and penal governance in detail, focusing on the forms of penality leaving Denmark, Norway, and Sweden through development aid—indeed, as a form of ‘penal aid’ handed over to other states, societies, and citizens and as part of the ‘crime-development’ nexus. In three country-specific blog entries, we present descriptive statistics and visualizations from our datasets on Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish penal aid from 1990 to 2022, focusing on ‘what’ Scandinavian penal aid is, ‘where’ it is delivered, ‘how’ it is categorized and funded, and through ‘who’, meaning, which actors are involved in this form of penal transfer.

• Antonsen, Katrine; Lohne, Kjersti & Alecu, Andreea Ioana (2025). Descriptive statistics from penality on the move. Part 2: Swedish Penal Aid | Oxford Law Blogs. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  How does penal power travel beyond the nation state? This question has concerned border criminology for some time now, which have helped uncovered various ways in which humanitarianism has been put to work on and for penal power in legitimating its transfer beyond the nation state (see themed series on ‘penal humanitarianism’). In our current research project, we have set out to map the intersections of humanitarian reason and penal governance in detail, focusing on forms of penality leaving Norway, Sweden and Denmark through development aid—indeed, as a form of ‘penal aid’ handed over to other states, societies, and citizens and as part of the ‘crime-development’ nexus. In three country-specific blog entries, we present descriptive statistics and visualizations from our datasets on Norwegian, Swedish and Danish penal aid from 1990 to 2022, focusing on ‘what’ Scandinavian penal aid is, ‘where’ it is delivered, ‘how’ it is categorized and funded, and through ‘who’, meaning, which actors are involved in this form of penal transfer.   

• Lohne, Kjersti; Alecu, Andreea Ioana & Antonsen, Katrine (2025). Descriptive statistics from penality on the move. Part 1: Norwegian Penal Aid. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  How does penal power travel beyond the nation state? This question has concerned border criminology for some time now, which have helped uncovered various ways in which humanitarianism has been put to work on and for penal power in legitimating its transfer beyond the nation state (see themed series on ‘penal humanitarianism’). In our current research project, we have set out to map the intersections of humanitarian reason and penal governance in detail, focusing on forms of penality leaving Norway, Sweden and Denmark through development aid—indeed, as a form of ‘penal aid’ handed over to other states, societies, and citizens and as part of the ‘crime-development’ nexus. In three country-specific blog entries, we present descriptive statistics and visualizations from our datasets on Norwegian, Swedish and Danish penal aid from 1990 to 2022, focusing on ‘what’ Scandinavian penal aid is, ‘where’ it is delivered, ‘how’ it is categorized and funded, and through ‘who’, meaning, which actors are involved in this form of penal transfer.   

• Antonsen, Katrine (2025). Bak lukkede dører vokser krisen. Full text in Research Archive
• Antonsen, Katrine (2025). Panelsamtale: Norsk kriminalomsorg ved et veiskille. Full text in Research Archive
• Antonsen, Katrine (2024). Scandinavian ‘Prison Aid’ to the Global Peripheries. Full text in Research Archive
• Langeland, Camilla Løvschall; Antonsen, Katrine & Myrvang, Thea (2024). Fra prosjekt til praksis. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Institutt for kriminologi og rettssosiologi har gleden av å presentere ferske masterprosjekter fra 2024. Felles for prosjektene er at de bidrar med unike og originale studier innen kriminologi og rettssosiologi med både faglig og praktisk relevans.

• Antonsen, Katrine (2024). Scandinavian prisons as development aid and foreign policy. Full text in Research Archive
• Antonsen, Katrine; Solhjell, Randi & Lohne, Kjersti (2024). Update on qualitative and quantitative research in JustExports. Full text in Research Archive
• Antonsen, Katrine & Lohne, Kjersti (2024). Kriminalitet og straff i norsk bistand. Full text in Research Archive
• Antonsen, Katrine (2024). Scandinavian Prison Aid: A Comparative Analysis. Full text in Research Archive
• Hol, Maud; Antonsen, Katrine & Damsa, Dorina (2023). Kvinner uten nordisk statsborgerskap i de nordiske velferdsstatene. [Internet]. Universitetet i Oslo. doi: https:/www.jus.uio.no/ikrs/forskning/aktuelt/aktuelle-saker/2023/kvinner-uten-nordisk-statsborgerskap-velferdsstat.html. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Gjennom intervjuer med kvinner med utenlandsk statsborgerskap som opplever «illegalisering» i Norge, utforsker Dorina Damsa spenninger rundt spørsmål om statsborgerskap, straff og velferd.

• Langeland, Camilla Løvschall & Antonsen, Katrine (2023). Kriminologikonferansen 2023. Full text in Research Archive
• Antonsen, Katrine (2023). The export of an 'exceptional' penal system. Full text in Research Archive
• Antonsen, Katrine (2023). "What’s in it for us?" A study of the Norwegian Correctional Services’ International Engagements. Full text in Research Archive
• Antonsen, Katrine (2023). The export of an 'exceptional' penal system. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The Norwegian penal system has long been considered exceptional and one of the most humane in the world. The allegedly low reoffending rates, good material conditions, as well as the ambition to “turn prisoners into good neighbours” have attracted and astonished researchers, journalists and NGOs worldwide. But what happens when one attempts to export Scandinavian penal values to countries with completely different tolerances, societal conditions and political contexts? Can the Scandinavian penal system be replicated outside of the Scandinavian welfare state? And what does Norway gain from such efforts? The Norwegian Correctional Services have engaged in the export of Scandinavian penal values for decades. Nevertheless, this practice has rarely been the subject of analysis. Except for the evaluation of single projects, no studies deal with the topic from a holistic point of view. Drawing on qualitative analysis of policy documents as well as interviews with key actors, this paper seeks to investigate what the NCS are involved in, how, and why. The aim is to make an empirical and theoretical contribution to the field of Scandinavian penal exports and to develop data and analysis that can enhance further criminological study on the phenomenon.

• Antonsen, Katrine; Solhjell, Randi & Lohne, Kjersti (2023). Promoting justice in a time of friction. Full text in Research Archive
• Antonsen, Katrine (2023). Criminal justice exports in Norwegian development aid. Full text in Research Archive

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