Jardar N Østbø

Østbø has been employed by the Institute for Defence Studies since 2017, since 2021 as full professor. From 2019 to 2023 he led the international research project Russia’s Politicized Economy, Elite Dynamics, and the Domestic-Foreign Policy Nexus (RUSECOPOL), and he is currently leading the project The Russian Hybrid Intelligence State: The Dynamics of Russian Intelligence-(Mis)Led Domestic Politics and Foreign/Security Policy (RUSINTELSTATE), which will go on until March 2027. Østbø has also written on luxury and (anti-)corruption and data-driven governance in Russia. 

He has published the monographies The New Third Rome: Readings of a Russian Nationalist Myth (Ibidem 2016) og Luxury and Corruption: Challenging the Anti-Corruption Consensus (Bristol University Press 2024, together with Tereza Østbø Kuldova and Thomas Raymen). His articles have appeared in journals such as Post-Soviet Affairs, Journal of Extreme Anthropology, Intelligence and National Security, Cultural Politics, Social Movement Studies og Demokratizatsiya: Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization. 

PhD in Russian Studies from the University of Bergen (2011), MA in Russian (2004) from the University of Oslo. Postdoctoral Research Fellow, NEPORUS project (New Political Groups and the Russian State), University of Oslo (2014–2017). Political analyst, Norwegian Armed Forces (2011–2014). 

Jardar Østbø has also taught Russian history and society at the University of Oslo, Russian literature and culture at the University of Bergen, and Albanian language. Previously, he has served as an Albanian–Norwegian interpreter in the Norwegian KFOR on the Balkans. He has also had assignments as an adviser/Russian-Norwegian interpreter for the Governor of Svalbard. A member of the Norwegian Association of Literary Translators, Østbø has translated Albanian and Russian literature into Norwegian.