I am a global historian and social scientist of Scandinavian roots. Born, living and now also working in the northwestern Swedish archipelago, in rooms with a view and the boats next door but unfortunately a bit away from skiing in the north (pictures below). Educated at the universities of Gothenburg and Uppsala (PhD 1983). Professor of Political Science and Development Research at the University of Oslo from 1997. My focus, since half a century, is the rise and decline of the second (anti-colonial) and third (liberal and civic) waves of democracy, along with efforts at rights based development. Especially in South- and Southeast Asia, but also the effects and reactions in the North, particularly Scandinavia. My own fieldwork has been in India (mainly Kerala), the Philippines and especially Indonesia, where I was also co-directing research with the democracy movement 1996-2016. However, the studies are carried out in a wider comparative framework, along with colleagues in various parts of the Global South and North. With the rise of conservative nationalism around the world, in Scandinavia too, it has also been necessary to focus in the imperative of international solidarity, including in the increasingly inward oriented Scandinavian countries .