| dc.description.abstract | The morning of 24 February 2022, the world awoke to war on the European continent between the Russian Federation and Ukraine. This thesis sheds light on the R-U war and its impacts on international food security, with particular emphasis on the Global South. I adapt a scalar approach where food security impacts are examined with attention to local, national, and international scales. I apply the local scale when examining specific events, for example Russian attacks on Ukrainian farmland and grain storage. To explore impacts in the Global South, the national scale informs the analysis on the empirical examples of Tunisia, Lebanon and Zimbabwe. Each of the three countries illustrates varying impacts of the food security-conflict link of the R-U war. The international scale examines food price variations and trade restrictions which became apparent following the conflict outbreak. My findings indicates that increasing food market pressure, in the form of price variations and limited Ukrainian Black Sea exports resulted in the launch of the Black Sea Grain Initiative (BSGI). Through a detailed analysis of the BSGI, I find that the initiative represents a form of food security governance, which emphasizes short-term solutions to reduce the pressure in international food markets. The findings further suggest that food security has undergone weaponization and politicization processes. In the R-U case, food security was used as a deliberate weapon of war and as political leverage to obtain support from other political actors. The thesis applied a triangulation of methods, which included semi-structured interviews, document analysis and rhetorical analysis. The interviews were conducted with people working in Norwegian politics, bureaucracy, research, journalism and maritime industry. The aim of the interviews was to obtain knowledge about the R-U war and the food security-conflict connection in this given case. A systematic document analysis was completed to examine the views of the international stakeholders the UN, FAO, WB, WFP, WTO and UNCTAD. Each of these stakeholders represent varying interests and agendas, but all of them share a common connection to working on food security and conflict in diverse ways. I also completed a rhetorical analysis of the two warring countries’ Foreign Ministry Affairs statements on the BSGI. I conclude that the R-U war illustrates the scalar links between food security and conflict and how impacts propagate across different scales. The case of the R-U war sheds light on the importance of continuous attention to long-term food security to build resilience towards shocks. | eng |