Kristin Haugevik is a Research Professor and Research Director at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI) in Oslo, Norway, and one of two Editors-in-Chief of the journal Cooperation and Conflict. An International Relations scholar, she is interested in the social aspects of international diplomacy and in everyday practices of inter-state friendship, recognition, and trust. Her work has theorised and empirically explored how states develop, maintain, and sometimes end different types of amicable relationships, particularly in transatlantic, European, and Nordic settings. These include friendships, special relationships, kinship ties, communities, alliances, and like-minded groupings. She works primarily with qualitative methods, specialising in discourse analysis and the study of narratives.

Keywords: special relationships, kinship, minilateralism, like-mindedness, social differentiation