Nina Boy left PRIO in 2017. The information on this page is kept for historical reasons.
Nina Boy
Senior Researcher
Email: nina@prio.org
Work phone: +47 22 54 77 08
Research Interests
- Security studies
- Global Finance, International Political Economy
- Sovereignty, sovereign debt, public credit
- History and theory of pledge, money, value, debt, collateral
- Financial security, safe assets
- Digital economy and cashless society
- Critical theory and post-structuralism, contemporary conditions of critique
My research is based at the intersection of security studies and international political economy, focusing in particular on conceptions of (in)security in global finance. This includes theories of money, debt, value and collateral, informed by a socio-political perspective that is grounded in the technicalities of modern finance.
My doctoral thesis The Security of Public Credit examined state power in the form of the credible sovereign, rather than the military state. Through four articles it analysed state security both in the narrow financial term of the 'safe asset' and more broadly as 'public credit', raising the question of how this economic imaginary of the state relates to the legal fiction of the state person.
International networks:
Over the past 6 years I have pursued the developing research agenda of finance-security relations in different international settings: as organiser of the Research Council of Norway-funded workshop series 'Understanding financial security in an age of uncertainty' (2009-2011); as leader of a working group on money and credit in the COST Action 'System risk, financial crisis and credit' (2010-2014); as co-convenor of the EWIS workshops 'Security and finance: performativity, narrativity and uncertainty' in Izmir, Turkey (2014) and 'Living the 'new normal': Post-crisis politics of money, debt and time' in Tuebingen, Germany (2016); and as leader of the work package on 'Societal security of financial systems' of the FP7 Virtual Centre of Excellence on Societal Security (SOURCE) (2014-2017). This agenda is also a key focus of my visiting fellowship at the Collaborative Research Centre 'Dynamics of security: Types of securitisation in historical perspective' at the Universities of Giessen and Marburg 2016-2017.
Editing:
In 2016 I joined Nathan Coombs and Amin Samman as co-editor of Finance and Society.
Teaching:
I teach the following courses at the Research School on Peace and Conflict: Interconnections of Security and Finance; Contemporary critique: power, value(s), economy; Societal Security in Europe: A Reassessment
Latest publications
All publications
Societal Ethics of Biometric Technologies. 2nd edition
PRIO Paper
Societal Ethics and Biometric Technologies
Report - Other
Financial security
Book Chapter in Transformations of Security Studies: Dialogues, Diversity and Discipline
Sovereign safety
Journal Article in Security Dialogue
SOURCE deliverable 5.2 Report on the role of financial regulation in the provision of security
Report - Other
SOURCE deliverable 5.1 Report on the theory of risk as a societal security instrument
Report - Other
SOURCE deliverable 5.3 Analytic report on the impact of the financial crisis on societal security
Report - Other
The backstory of the risk-free asset: how government debt became "safe"
Book Chapter in Central Banking at a Crossroads
Oeffentlichkeit als public credit
Book Chapter in Finanzmarktpublika: Moralitaet, Krisen und Teilhabe in der oekonomischen Moderne/ Financial market publics: Morality, Crises and Participation in Economic Modernity
The Security of Public Credit
PhD Thesis
Latest news
Call for Applications: PhD Course on Contemporary conditions of critique: power, value(s), economy
The Research School on Peace and Conflict invites applications for the course Contemporary conditions of critique: power, value(s), economy to take place in Oslo on 20-22 September 2017.
The deadline for applications is 9 June 2017.
Will Brexit Cause a New Financial Crisis?
Call for Applications: PhD Course on 'Critique'
The Research School on Peace and Conflict invites applications for the PhD course Critique, to be held 28-30 November 2016. The deadline for applications is 9 September 2016.
Nina Boy joins Editorial Team of New Journal Finance and Society
Call for Applications: PhD Course on Societal Security
The Research School on Peace and Conflict invites applications for the course Societal security in Europe – a reassessment, 29 February – 2 March 2016. The deadline for applications is 20 January 2016.
PhD Course on Interconnections of Finance and Security
The Research School on Peace and Conflict invites applications for the course Interconnections of Finance and Security, 8th -10th October 2015. The course is organized by Nina Boy (PRIO). Course lecturers include Marieke de Goede (University of Amsterdam), Martijn Konings (University of Sydney), Daniela Gabor (University of the West of England), Andreas Langenohl (Justus Liebig University Giessen) and Luis Lobo-Guerrero (University of Groningen).
SOURCE launches an Online-Questionnaire
The SOURCE project has developed a questionnaire to understand how the different sectors involved in societal security interact, and whether or not they encounter any difficulties thereby. The aim is further to develop tools, processes and guidelines to improve the knowledge exchange between the different sectors.
Award to Nina Boy
Nina Boy, former doctoral researcher at PRIO, received an award worth $700 from the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE) on the occasion of the 25th SASE Annual Conference "States in Crisis" to take place in Milan, 27-29 June 2013. The awards committee selected her paper Sovereign Credit: A Financial Concept of Security as an outstanding submission.
Succesful Doctoral Dissertation Defence by Nina Boy
Nina Boy defended her PhD dissertation on Tuesday 19 February at Lancaster University, UK.
The thesis, titled 'The Security of Public Credit', is an analysis of the evolution of the notion of national credit as a pillar of national sovereignty. Through a series of four articles, it examines the affinities between security understood as a national concern and security as it has developed in financial discourses. In their report, the two PhD examiners, Marieke de Goede (University of Amsterdam) and Paul Crosthwaite (University of Edinburgh), described the thesis as ‘an innovative and important contribution to critical security studies and an original critique of Foucault, beautifully written’.
Kick-Off Meeting for ETTIS
On January 11, the EU funded project (FP7) European Security Trends and Threats in Society (ETTIS), coordinated by Peter’s team, will hold its kick-off meeting at PRIO. ETTIS is a collaborative research project that gathers ten highly distinguished research institutions from Europe and Israel.
Latest events
Exploring the Cashless Society: Money, Security, Technology, Value(s)
PhD Course on Interconnections of Finance and Security
From Innovation to Imposition: How Technology is Shaping EU Security Policy and Transforming European Values
Workshop on The Future of Societal Security Research
Research groups
