A Good Ally - Norway and International Statebuilding in Afghanistan, 2001-2014

The article examines the findings of the Commission of Inquiry established by the Norwegian government in 2014 to evaluate all aspects of Norway’s civilian and military contribution to the international operation in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2014. Concerned with the wider implications of the Commission’s findings, it focuses on two issues in particular: (1) Norway’s relations with the US, a close and long-standing strategic ally whose resources, capabilities and dominance of decision-making dwarfed that of all other coalition partners in Afghanistan; and (2) Norway’s record in the province of Faryab, where, from 2005 to 2012, a Norwegian-led Provincial Reconstruction Team was charged with bringing security, good governance and development to the province. How Norway prioritised and managed relations with the US highlights and helps to problematise the challenges – political, practical and moral – facing small and medium-sized powers operating in a coalition alongside the US. Norwegian efforts in Faryab are revealing of the dilemmas and contradictions that plagued and, ultimately, fatally undermined the international intervention as a whole. As such, Norway’s experience provides a microcosm through which the inherent limitations of the attempt to transfer the structures of modern statehood and Western democracy to Afghanistan can be better understood.     

The State of UN Peacekeeping: Lessons from Congo

The article considers the state of UN peacekeeping through the prism of its long-running operation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Focusing in particular on the challenges raised by use of force and the protection of civilians in conditions of ongoing armed conflict, it argues that UN field operations must be aligned much more closely than they have been over the past 15 years to political and diplomatic efforts aimed at securing viable political settlements to internal conflict. The issues raised by the history of the UN’s troubled mission in the DRC are deeply relevant to the wider discussion of the organisation’s role in the field of peace and security.     

Research Brokers We Use and Abuse while Researching Civil Wars and Their Aftermaths – Methodological Concerns

ABSTRACT

In this practitioners note I want, with a number of cases from my own fieldworks, highlight problems and possibilities of collecting first hand material about conflict with a specific focus on research brokers.     

Exploring the Backstage: Methodological and Ethical Issues Surrounding the Role of Research Brokers in Insecure Zones

ABSTRACT

The contribution and situation of research brokers problematically tend to be shrouded in silence in most research texts. In this article we probe into the particular ethical and methodological challenges that we may encounter when working with brokers in conflict settings, drawing upon existing literature and contributions of this special issue. Reposing on post-colonial perspectives, we problematize both the increasing securitization of conflict research with its one-sided focus on researcher safety and the notion of researcher responsibility. Moreover, we argue that the inequalities marking researcher-broker relations are often particularly glaring in conflict settings, thus increasing the risk for exploitation.     

Governance through brokerage: informal governance in post-civil war societies

There is currently a lack of knowledge about how elites rule post-civil war societies without strong state institutions. This paper argues that elites oftentimes overcome such institutional deficiencies by engaging in governance through brokerage. According to this perspective, elites outsource central state functions to influential broker figures. This is particularly true when dealing with war-affected groups that possess much violent agency. By functioning as social membranes, brokers can help elites and war-affected groups to redefine a new social contract. Liberia is employed as an example to illustrate the paper’s central arguments.