About Dr. Gabriella Gricius
I am a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Konstanz. and obtained my Ph.D. in Political Science at Colorado State University. My research encompasses three general pillars:
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The intersection of international and regional geopolitics
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Agential politics
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Environmental change and foreign policy
Across these pillars, I focus on Arctic and Northern European security - including both traditional military security as well as expanded conceptions of security such as environmental, societal, and human security.
I also work with Dr. Wilfred Greaves and Dr. Whitney Lackenbauer at the North American and Arctic Defense and Security Network (NAADSN), focusing on NATO in the Arctic, human security, the role of China in the Arctic, and public opinion polls. I have expertise in European, Arctic, and transatlantic security.
In my spare time, I write for a variety of online publications including Foreign Policy, Global Security Review, and Riddle Russia amongst many others.
I am fluent in English and German and am professionally proficient in Dutch and Russian. I received certification in both Indigenous Awareness and Indigenous Communication & Consultation from Indigenous Awareness Canada. Furthermore, I have experience coding in HTML, CSS, Ruby on Rails, Python, R, LaTeX, and Javascript. When I'm not busy, I also teach yoga classes, am certified as a RYT-200 Hour Vinyasa teacher with Yoga Alliance, run marathons and do love powerlifting in my spare time.
My Most Recent Projects
Practicing Security in the Arctic, Baltic, and North Atlantic: Nordic Defence Cooperation and the Making of a Security Community
The security environment has rapidly changed in Europe, but specifically in Northern Europe since 2022. While most literature has focused on the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO or focuses on either the Arctic, Baltic, or North Atlantic theatres, this project brings them together to argue that there is a new type of Nordic security community emerging. Certainly, the Nordics have not been in danger of going to war with one another for many decades, but the changed spatial constitution of the Nordics bears paying attention to. In this project, I argue that the Nordic security community is a processual and negotiated entity characterized by a duality of cohesion and divergence. Traditional theoretical frameworks—realism, institutionalism, and constructivism—offer only partial explanations for why these states sustain deep cooperation despite differing strategic geographic orientations and long held distinct national threat perceptions.
Instead, the project proposes a "layer cake" approach built on two primary factors. First, it identifies shared securitization, a convergence of threat perceptions regarding Russia that has generated a shared vocabulary of security particularly since 2014 and 2022. Second, it highlights everyday coordination practices, which are informal, habitual interactions among military and ministerial officials—facilitated by frequent exercises and personal relationships—that provide the speed and flexibility necessary for rapid integration. Drawing on discourse analysis, elite interviews, and a comprehensive database of military exercises, the study bridges the often-siloed fields of Arctic and European security. Ultimately, the project demonstrates that the Nordic security community is not a static achievement but is constantly becoming through the negotiation of spatial and temporal boundaries, informal relations, and shared practices.
(De)Securitization as Regional Legitimacy: Brazil’s, China’s and India’s Influence on Arctic Governance (with Marc Jacobsen)
The Arctic is increasingly framed not only as a regional space but as a site of global political relevance, attracting growing engagement from non-Arctic states, including members of the BRICS grouping. This article examines how Brazil, India, and China legitimize their presence in the Arctic despite their geographical distance from the region. Drawing on securitization theory and by using a refined focus on scale and cascading effects, we analyze how these states employ climate-related narratives to link Arctic environmental change to domestic vulnerabilities. Using qualitative discourse analysis of policy documents, official statements, and speeches, we trace how securitizing moves operate both vertically, from the global to the local level, and horizontally, across environmental, economic, and societal sectors of security.
The analysis shows that all three cases mobilize climate change as a key legitimizing frame, yet with important variation. India most explicitly securitizes Arctic change through a chain argument connecting Arctic warming to monsoon disruption, food security, and population welfare. Brazil adopts a softer, institutionally embedded securitization emphasizing environmental security and global sustainability within existing governance structures. China, by contrast, largely avoids overt securitization in international-facing discourse, favoring legitimation through multilateralism and scientific cooperation. Together, these findings demonstrate how non-Arctic BRICS states construct political proximity to the Arctic without directly challenging Arctic sovereignty or governance arrangements. The article contributes to scholarship on Arctic governance and security politics by showing how climate change functions as a cross-scalar macrosecuritization enabling distant engagement.