Local perceptions of the EU’s role in peacebuilding: The case of security sector reform in Palestine

ABSTRACT

Perception research can make a valuable contribution to the study of the local dimension in EU peacebuilding. The conceptual framework developed in this article distinguishes between perceptions of the “legitimacy,” “effectiveness,” and “credibility” of EU peacebuilding practices, which are crucial factors for successful peacebuilding. Relying on the case of the EU’s support for security sector reform (SSR) in Palestine, this article shows that local stakeholders—which participate in various EU-sponsored training and capacity-building programs—display considerable support for liberal peacebuilding norms. Yet, perceived discrepancies between the EU’s peacebuilding rhetoric and its SSR activities have severely undermined the potential of the EU’s liberal peacebuilding model in the eyes of Palestinian stakeholders. Critical local perceptions are frequently articulated with reference to the EU’s own liberal peacebuilding discourse, pointing to a lack of inclusiveness of the SSR process and deficits in terms of democratic governance and the rule of law.     

The limits of technocracy and local encounters: The European Union and peacebuilding

ABSTRACT

This article is the conclusion to a special issue that examines the European Union (EU), peacebuilding, and “the local.” It argues that technocracy—particularly EU technocracy—shapes the extent to which local actors can hope to achieve ownership of externally funded and directed peace support projects and programs. Although some actors within the EU have worked hard to push localization agendas, a number of technocracy linked factors come together to limit the extent to which the EU can truly connect with the local level in its peace support activities. While the EU and other international actors have invested heavily into capacity building in conflict-affected contexts, the EU’s own capacity has not necessarily been built to address the scalar problem of accessing the local in ways that are meaningful.     

The interaction between local and international power in EU police reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina

ABSTRACT

This article explores the interaction between local and international power structures in EU peacebuilding. While citizens in a state only face order from one authority (the state), local actors in a peacebuilding context are subject to orders from two institutions (the domestic state and the peacebuilding mission). This article explores the nature of interactions of these two institutions and their effect on local police officers’ compliance and resistance. Specifically, it analyzes the example of the police restructuring process in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It demonstrates that the choices of local officers to comply or resist depended on whether the interactions between the EU Police Mission and the local police organization were positive and mutually supportive, or whether they were competitive and contradictory. The findings of the article contribute to the debates on the role of local power and the importance of local legitimacy in peacebuilding.     

Addressing the “headwinds” faced by the European arms industry

ABSTRACT

The European arms industry is challenged by several adverse “headwinds.” Fragmentation leads to costly duplications and, in conjunction with stagnating budgets and sharply increasing costs, prevents firms from exploiting economies of scale and learning. This is exacerbated by size differentials vis-a-vis the leading US arms manufacturers and competition from emerging producers. As some “headwinds” are self-enforcing, far-reaching industrial and policy responses are required to improve the industry's outlook. As exports may not indefinitely compensate for low domestic demand, there is an economic imperative for further cross-border collaboration and consolidation. Despite various EU policy initiatives, progresses regarding the European Defence Equipment Market and strengthening the European Defence Technological Industrial Base have been relatively slow. It remains to be seen whether the European Defence Fund will be the proclaimed “game-changer,” raising competitiveness of the European arms industry. At the same time, the UK's withdrawal from the EU adds uncertainties.     

GENDER AWARENESS IN RESEARCH AND POLICY MAKING

Abstract

There is an assumption that we can enhance peacebuilding by improving the tools that we use for assessments, planning and evaluation. However, the focus on tools creates the impression that peacebuilding challenges are technical. Improving tools is not meaningless, but our preoccupation with tools has a negative effect when it becomes a front for avoiding dealing with the deeper inherent contradictions in peacebuilding. There are limits to our knowledge and our ability to engineer specific outcomes in complex systems. There are unrealistically high expectations of coherence, unity of purpose and cooperation among peacebuilding actors. Peacebuilding agents are interconnected, but that does not imply that they have the same objectives, mandates, principles and values. Interconnected problems call for interconnected responses, not for one coherent response. Coherence should not be about negotiating a common position, and then promoting it regardless of changing dynamics. Coherence should be about continuously managing competing interests and interdependencies. The interaction between dissention, competition for resources, and the tension between different approaches and policy choices is not only normal but necessary to ensure the optimal functioning of the system.     

EU security sector reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Reform or resist?

ABSTRACT

Attempts to explain the failure to reform the security sectors in post-conflict countries have often resorted to two sets of explanatory factors: international and local factors. This article seeks to move from that unhelpful dichotomy to an explanation linking both factors. Drawing on a Foucauldian approach and the concept of “counter-conduct,” it examines the rationality and practices of European Union (EU) governmentality and how governing technologies are resisted and reversed by local elites involved in security sector reform (SSR). Instead of understanding power and resistance as binary opposites, this article argues that counter-conduct can be conceived as implicated in the very relations of power that it seeks to resist. To tease out these relations, the article analyzes the EU's efforts in SSR in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where it identifies four forms of counter-conduct: upholding European standards, using the local ownership trap, simulating reforms, and lowering the bar.     

Preserving defense technologies: A strategy for economic conversion†

This paper presents a model for converting legacy defense production facilities into private‐sector economic resources. Specifically, this paper will examine as a case study the first successful conversion of a former U.S. Department of Energy nuclear weapons production installation, including reasons for its success, its costs and benefits, and lessons for public policy. It is envisioned that this model may be useful for mitigating local economic hardship resulting from defense “downsizing” and for privatizing production capacities critical for national defense.     

Effective? Locally owned? Beyond the technocratic perspective on the European Union Police Mission for the Palestinian Territories

ABSTRACT

The European Union Police Mission for the Palestinian Territories (EUPOL COPPS) was established in 2006 to contribute to the establishment of effective policing in support of an independent and democratic Palestinian state. EUPOL COPPS is often commended for its contribution to the professionalization of the Palestinian security sector under local ownership. Drawing on 40 interviews, we argue that the mission can be considered effective and locally owned only from a narrow technocratic perspective, which denies the political reality of continued occupation and absence of democracy. A broader analysis, which includes the voices of ordinary Palestinians, reveals that EUPOL COPPS contributed to the professionalization of authoritarian policing under continued Israeli occupation. Our findings show the limits of technocratic approaches to peacebuilding interventions and call for a stronger engagement with the ultimate beneficiaries of peacebuilding missions.     

The Cyprus puzzle and the Greek - Turkish arms race: Forecasting developments using genetically evolved fuzzy cognitive maps

The scope of this paper is to forecast the extent to which a settlement of the Cyprus issue may be possible given the decisions taken during the Copenhagen EU summit. It aims, in addition, at investigating the possibilities of improvement in Greek-Turkish relations which may lead, in turn, to reducing the arms race between the two countries. The paper uses a Genetically Evolved Certainty Neuron Fuzzy Cognitive Map algorithm to consider a number of scenarios examining the possible reactions of all sides involved in the Cyprus issue, namely Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, the Turkish-Cypriot community and the international environment. All simulation exercises suggest that the Greek and the Cypriot side should not necessarily rely on the decisions taken during the Copenhagen summit conference. The forecasts point out, in addition, that the optimism of the Greek government concerning the outlook of its relations with Turkey, and a subsequent reduction of the arms race against it, is far from being justified.     

All Together Now? Questioning WMDs as a Useful Analytical Unit for Understanding Chemical and Biological Weapons Proliferation

ABSTRACT

The popular use of the term “weapons of mass destruction” (WMD) can be understood to imply a relationship between nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons proliferation insofar as it assumes that the separate weapons technologies can be usefully grouped into a single analytic category. This article explores whether WMD is actually a useful construct. It begins by reviewing the literature on nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons proliferation, including a recent study that sought to estimate the relationship between the pursuit and acquisition of these different weapons. It then explores some policy inferences that academics and policy makers may be tempted to draw from these studies, particularly regarding the Barack Obama administration's pursuit of deep nuclear reductions. It argues that many of these policy inferences are premature at best and misleading at worst. It concludes with a call for additional research into the causes and consequences of chemical and biological weapons proliferation, and a call for scholars to remain cautious in their desire to draw premature policy implications from their studies in order to be “policy relevant.”     

Pakistan's policy on minimum deterrence: why minimum is not the minimum?

This article focuses on Pakistan's policy option of “minimum deterrence” (MD) post-1998 nuclearization of South Asia and explores why “minimum” in reality is not the minimum. It states that the term “minimum” has not been fully defined yet due to which MD stays ambiguous. In addition, it endeavors to elaborate the rudimentary factors responsible for the non-existence of an MD, which, in turn, keeps the Pakistani stance on MD dynamic and evolving.     

Reading the Riot Act: Toward a More Comprehensive Ban on Chemical Weapons

ABSTRACT

The recent use of chemicals in warfare in Syria and Iraq illustrates that, despite the important work of the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), the world has not yet been totally successful in stopping the use of indiscriminate toxic agents in conflicts, either by states or non-state actors. Michael Crowley's excellent and timely new book, Chemical Control, analyzes the use of “riot control agents” (RCAs) and “incapacitating chemical agents” (ICAs), including launch and dispersal systems, by police, paramilitary, and military forces over the last decades and raises the challenging question about where the red line might be drawn between banned and permitted uses of chemicals. He discusses this problem not only in the context of the CWC, which allows use of RCAs for civilian riot control, but also in the context of international law, human rights, and criminal justice, including the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention and other disarmament and abolition regimes. He proposes a “holistic, three-stage approach” to addressing this issue “for effective regulation or prohibition of the weapon or weapon-related technology of concern.” As we approach the global abolition of a whole class of weapons of mass destruction in the next decade or even sooner, Chemical Control is helpful in better understanding and solving the dilemma of what's actually banned or permitted under international law, and precluding states undermining the chemical weapons ban.     

North Korea,deterrence, and engagement

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) justifies its nuclear weapon arsenal with the concept of deterrence. It means that it will try to miniaturize and modernize its warheads and missiles. This leads to a first-use doctrine of nuclear weapons. Obama's policy of engagement does not offer a solution to the North Korean nuclear issue as yet. In the context of its policy of critical engagement with the DPRK, the European Union has three key interests: regional peace and stability, denuclearization, and human rights. The Conference on Security and Cooperation (CSCE) could be a precedent. The CSCE process was based on three “baskets”: security, economics, and humanitarian. The multilateral Trans-Pacific Partnership is a step in this regard. This article looks at three theoretical approaches: realism, liberal institutionalism, and liberal internationalism. It concludes that a political strategy to create a stable North Korean peninsula has to go beyond nuclear deterrence that is based on the realist notion of balance of power.     

On queues with dependent interarrival and service times

AnM/G/1 queueing system is studied in which the service time required by a customer is dependent on the interarrival time between his arrival and that of his predecessor Assuming the two variables are “associated,” we prove that the expected delay in this system is less than or equal to than of a conventional M/G/1 queue This conclusion has been verified via simulation by Mitchell and Paulson [9] for a special class of dependent M/M/1 queue. Their model is a special case of the one we consider here. We also study another modified GI/G/1 queue. where the arrival process and/or the service process are individually “associated”.     

France and its allies: A comparative study of defence spending trends since 1985*

Within the EU France devotes to defence the largest financial and human resources although it is not the richest country, nor has it the largest population or labour force. The cost of nuclear weapons accounts for only a small fraction of this abnormally high French defence effort. If France had restructured its military capabilities at the same rate as its principal Allies during the 1985–1994 period, then French defence outlays would be about 20% less than at present. The fundamental reasons for France's excess defence outlay comprise virtual total dependence on French sources for equipment, produced in very small numbers; a military presence outside of Europe; and too many personnel. These deficiencies, and the consequent absence hitherto of a “peace dividend”, indicate a failure to identify the country's real strategic requirements, and a lack of will to reorganise efficiently French defence. The recently announced reform towards an all‐professional force is unlikely to achieve the potential and desirable improvement in cost‐effectiveness.     

Understanding China’s goals and strategy in the South China Sea: bringing context to a revisionist systemic challenge – intentions and impact

ABSTRACT

The slow moving conflict in the South China Sea has been characterized by some as “not worth the candle.” China claims the entirety of the South China Sea pursuant to a nine-dash line, the legal impact of which has been limited by international courts. At the same time, China has changed the reality of control over the South China Sea by building a number of fortified islands in the Spratly Islands and elsewhere. The US has either refused to stand up to China's behavior (Obama) or responded unevenly (Trump). This paper examines the impact of China's behaviour on local parties, US interests, and the liberal international system.     

AID,Policy and Peace: Reducing the risks of civil conflict

We analyze theoretically and empirically the effects of economic policy and the receipt of foreign aid on the risk of civil war. We find that aid and policy do not have direct effects upon conflict risk. However, both directly affect the growth rate and the extent of dependence upon primary commodity exports, and these in turn affect the risk of conflict. Simulating the effect of a package of policy reform and increased aid on the average aid recipient country, we find that after five years the risk of conflict is reduced by nearly 30%.     

ASSESSING RUSSIAN ATTITUDES TOWARD PHASED,DEEP NUCLEAR REDUCTIONS

As the United States and Russia contemplate the next stage of nuclear arms reductions beyond the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, another issue enters the agenda—that of the impact of possible deep reductions on the shape of the global nuclear balance. As the gap between the US/Russian arsenals and the arsenals of “second-tier” nuclear weapon states narrows, the familiar shape of the global balance, which remains, to a large extent, bipolar, is likely to change. The article explores the Russian approach to the relationship between further US-Russian reductions and the prospect of “nuclear multipolarity,” and assesses the relative weight of this issue in Russian arms control policy as well as the views on the two specific regional balances—the one in Europe (including UK and French nuclear weapons) and in Asia (the possible dynamic of the Russian-Chinese nuclear balance).     

Resilience in peacebuilding: Contesting uncertainty,ambiguity, and complexity

With the failure of liberal peace strategies in the Global South, resilience has recently become the risk management strategy par excellence in peacebuilding. Since it is not possible to predict when the next crisis will take place, peacebuilders must invest in bottom-up adaptive capacities to cope with external shocks. This article moves away from governmentality accounts of resilience which are overtly deterministic and depoliticizing. Instead, it posits that the uncertainty, ambiguity, and complexity associated with resilience mean that we should expect opportunities for contestation and institutional agency. This argument will be illustrated by drawing upon the European Union’s adoption of the resilience approach in its peacebuilding and security policies. The article argues that while uncertainty, ambiguity, and complexity constitute the ontological conditions that underpin the rise of resilience in peacebuilding, they are also likely to lead to its potential demise.