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.     

Reforming the notion of national sovereignty by external intervention

In principle, national sovereignty is the right of a nation to govern its internal affairs without foreign interference. In practice, it is defined by one's interpretation of international law, which may permit legal external intervention under some circumstances, ultimately removing a nation's sovereignty. This paper will examine the current system of international law outlined by the United Nations, analyse the ambiguities contained within its Charter and elaborate on how external intervention can be justified. The case-study of recent developments related to Libya will demonstrate that the manner in which international law is interpreted is changing the notion of principles of sovereignty.     

From Remote Control to Collaboration: Conducting NGO Research at a Distance in Tajikistan

ABSTRACT

Using a domestic violence-prevention project in Tajikistan as an example, we examine how international non-governmental organisations’ (NGOs) knowledge production-at-a-distance, working through in-country teams who in turn rely on their local brokers, raises questions around ownership, power and privilege. These include issues around language and translation; motivations and agendas; and the neo-coloniality of data extraction and analysis. Yet, long-distance approaches can also have an emancipatory dynamic, leading to new forms of coproducing knowledge, although the frameworks for this continue to be de?ned by the Global North, even if the categories of ‘Global North’ and ‘Global South’ are becoming increasingly blurred.     

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.     

Reclaiming the local in EU peacebuilding: Effectiveness,ownership, and resistance

ABSTRACT

Since the early 2000s, the “local turn” has thoroughly transformed the field of peacebuilding. The European Union (EU) policy discourse on peacebuilding has also aligned with this trend, with an increasing number of EU policy statements insisting on the importance of “the local.” However, most studies on EU peacebuilding still adopt a top-down approach and focus on institutions, capabilities, and decision-making at the EU level. This special issue contributes to the literature by focusing on bottom-up and local dynamics of EU peacebuilding. After outlining the rationale and the scope of the special issue, this article discusses the local turn in international peacebuilding and identifies several interrelated concepts relevant to theorizing the role of the local, specifically those of effectiveness, ownership, and resistance. In the conclusion, we summarize the key contributions of this special issue and suggest some avenues for further research.     

The Power of the NPT: International Norms and Ukraine's Nuclear Disarmament

ABSTRACT

There is a lingering disagreement among scholars on how the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) affects nonproliferation and disarmament outcomes. Drawing on constructivist scholarship on international norms, this article examines the extent of the NPT's effect in the case of Ukraine's nuclear disarmament. In the wake of the Soviet Union's collapse, Ukraine found itself host to the world's third largest nuclear arsenal. Despite Ukraine's initial commitment to become a non-nuclear state, it proceeded along a difficult path toward NPT accession. Most controversial and directly at odds with the NPT was Ukraine's claim to ownership of its nuclear inheritance as a successor state of the Soviet Union. This article argues that, while much domestic discourse about the fate of these nuclear weapons was embedded in the negotiation of Ukraine's new identity as a sovereign state vis-à-vis Russia and the West, the NPT played an important, structural role by outlining a separate normative space for nuclear weapons and providing the grammar of denuclearization with which Ukraine's decision makers had to grapple.     

Walking the Line: Brokering Humanitarian Identities in Conflict Research

ABSTRACT

Increasingly, academic research in conflict-affected contexts relies on support from humanitarian organizations. Humanitarian organizations constitute sites of study in and of themselves; they partner with academics to roll out surveys or randomized program interventions; and they frequently facilitate security, logistics and transportation for independent researchers. We use a research partnership between IRC, the World Bank, and academic researchers in the UK, the US and eastern DR Congo, to explore the effects of humanitarian affiliation on conflict field research. In investigating when, how and under what conditions humanitarian identities are adopted by researchers (and how these affiliations shape research dynamics) we identify three paradoxes. First, “wearing humanitarian clothes” to facilitate research logistics can both facilitate and constrain access. Second, humanitarian affiliations invoked by researchers to ensure security and protection in volatile research sites can undermine the “insider” status of local staff. Finally, working through humanitarian organizations allows local and international researchers to benefit from the protections and privileges afforded to humanitarian employees without providing any of the services on which privileged access rests. In this article, we map out decisions faced by local and international researchers concerning when to adopt and discard humanitarian identities, and the fraught logistical, ethical and methodological consequences of these decisions.     

Institutional parameters that condition farmer–herder conflicts in Tivland of Benue State,Nigeria

ABSTRACT

This conceptual review examines institutional parameters that underpin farmer–herder conflicts in Tivland of Benue State, Nigeria. Anchored on the theory of New Institutionalism, it argues that tensions and conflicts between Tiv-farmers and the Fulani-herdsmen is occasioned largely by the disarticulation of the traditional institutional norms/rules of interaction by formal political institutions expressed in land use laws, West African sub-regional protocol, human rights provision of the Nigerian constitution and the Benue State law on anti-grazing. In these contrasting institutional forms, the formal political institution is prioritised by the state while farmers and herders are divided about the institutional basis of their coexistence. Farmers who host the herdsmen demonstrate preference for traditional norms of land ownership and control while the herdsmen incline towards new political/legal instruments which they interpret, purports to give them access to grazing lands and hence an alibi for rejecting institutions that contradict their claim to access spaces for pastoralism. Thus, persisting claims to the exercise of rights to freedom of movement and access to grazing land as opposed to claims to traditional rights of ownership and control of ancestral lands explain the origin and continuity of the farmer–herder conflicts in Benue state, Nigeria.     

In Defense of Mercy

ABSTRACT

Though it is legally permissible to kill combatants in war, unless they are rendered hors de combat, the existence of “Naked Soldiers” raises an important moral question: should combatants kill vulnerable enemy combatants or show mercy towards them? Most philosophers who address this question argue that it is morally permissible to kill the Naked Soldier given the extended notion of self-defense during war. They ground their arguments in a form of collectivism. In this article, I use Larry May’s argument. He offers an approach that extends the principle of discrimination that would apply also to combatants. Instead of assuming all combatants are de facto dangerous, this approach would allow for nuance in targeting the enemy and showing mercy when enemy combatants clearly pose no danger, in other words, when they are Naked Soldiers. I defend this view against two criticisms: Noam Zohar’s view of armies as complex collectives and Stephen Deakin’s view that a policy that spares Naked Soldiers would be open to abuse. I argue that it is not only morally suspect to kill Naked Soldiers, but also it is within the spirit of both international laws governing war and the just war tradition to offer mercy whenever possible.     

Hans Morgenthau and the Lasting Implications of World War I

ABSTRACT

World War I was an epochal event that permanently redefined international politics. Yet, there is no consensus about what kind of international system it erected. This article argues that since 1918 to the present day, there is a unique revolutionary/revisionist system in existence. To confirm the argument, this article will revisit the mid-twentieth century writings of political realism's founding father Hans J. Morgenthau. His political thought is premised on the co-constitutive relation between ethics and politics, which characterized international politics throughout the Westphalian era and which was irreversibly lost in the tragedy of World War I. By sketching some of Morgenthau’s main arguments on the political and ethical transformations brought about by total war and total politics, the article argues that World War I generated a revolutionary system indifferent to political and non-political spheres, where insulated ethical systems clash in a kind of “global civil war”.     

Reconsidering the Legal Equality of Combatants

ABSTRACT

The legal equality of combatants (LEC) is a fixture of international law and just war theory. Both scholars who embrace and those who reject the moral equality of combatants seem committed to the legal equality of combatants. Their reasons usually include pragmatic worries about unjust combatants committing even more harm if they were to be simply prohibited from fighting. In this article I argue that this sweeping commitment to the legal equality of combatants is mistaken and that it is often grounded in a misunderstanding of the way international law governs behavior.     

French Exception or Western Variation? A Historical Look at the French Irregular Way of War

ABSTRACT

This article aims at challenging the notion of a French exception in the realm of irregular warfare, suggesting that it rather amounts to a western variation. Born out of a transatlantic community under British influence, the French irregular experience carried on through the early Cold War challenges, strengthening France’s ties with its Western allies. France’s subsequent involvement in post-colonial counter-insurgencies did contribute to generating some specific strategic features, although never totally disconnected from international circulation. Finally, the post-Cold War order significantly drove French irregular warfare back into its Western fold through the adoption of US- and NATO-sponsored concepts and doctrines, thus enhancing interoperability and some degree of standardisation.     

Security sector reform in Africa: Donor approaches versus local needs

Many African states have security sector reform (SSR) programs. These are often internationally funded. But how do such programs account for previously existing security institutions and the security needs of local communities? This article examines SSR all over Africa to assess local ownership and path dependency from a New Institutionalist perspective. It finds that SSR, particularly in post-conflict countries, tends to be driven by ideas and perceptions of international donors promoting generalized blueprints. Often, such programs only account in a very limited way for path-dependent aspects of security institutions or the local context. Hence, the reforms often lack local participation and are thus not accepted by the local community eventually.     

Pragmatism over principle: US intervention and burden shifting in Somalia, 1992–1993

ABSTRACT

The conventional wisdom about the 1992 US intervention in Somalia is that it was a quintessentially humanitarian mission pushed by President George H. W. Bush. This article challenges that interpretation, drawing on newly declassified documents. The Somalia intervention, I argue, was largely a pragmatic response to concerns held by the US military. In late 1992, as the small UN mission in Somalia was collapsing, senior American generals worried about being drawn into the resulting vacuum. Hence they reluctantly recommended a robust US intervention, in the expectation that this would allow the UN to assemble a larger peacekeeping force that would take over within months. The intervention ultimately failed, but the military learned useful lessons from this experience on how to achieve smoother UN handoffs in the future and thus effectively shift longer-term stabilisation burdens to the international community.     

Choosing the Right Sidekick: Economic Complements to US Military Grand Strategies

ABSTRACT

Scholars and practitioners of grand strategy agree that the use of military force should be supplemented by appropriate economic policies. However, strangely few accounts of economic complements to military grand strategies have been presented in recent discourse on US grand strategy. This paper takes a first step to fill this information gap. I first assess the role that could be played by economic measures under two types of grand strategies – one focusing on the balance of power and the other emphasising influence and order. Second, I introduce what I call ‘the influence-capability dilemma’ and discuss tradeoffs in adopting certain economic policies in order to help the US sustain pre-eminence in the international system. Third, I discuss how the US should address this dilemma of economic means in dealing with the rising China.     

Legitimacy and the Politics of Recognition in Kosovo

Abstract

How do contemporary secessionist movements gain international recognition of their claims to self-determination? I argue that international recognition is forthcoming when a sufficient number of states believe a claim to self-determination ought to be accepted. That is, states recognize claims to self-determination when they perceive them to be legitimate. To convince outsiders of the legitimacy of their claims, separatist movements invoke resonant norms and symbols in a moral economy that structures decision-making. I contrast this argument with prevailing explanations of recognition dynamics. To illustrate the argument, I examine the diplomacy surrounding Kosovo’s independence bid and unilateral secession.     

The Republic of Korea and Its Navy: Perceptions of Security and the Utility of Seapower

Abstract

Understanding the development of Republic of Korea (ROK) seapower is central in exploring the evolution and nature of its security consciousness. This article aims to examine how the wider East Asian maritime sphere has influenced ROK perceptions of its own security and how such perceptions have come into conflict with the needs of maintaining its deterrent capabilities within the peninsular context. In doing so it concludes that for the ROK seapower has been an expression of wider engagement and international developing security concerns but that it is curtailed and influenced by the realities of the threat from the North.     

The Underlying Causes of Violent Conflict in the North Waziristan Tribal Areas of Pakistan

ABSTRACT

Following the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, Pakistan and the merged Tribal Districts, particularly the North Waziristan Tribal District (NWTD), experienced increasing violent conflict. This paper examines the causes of conflict in North Waziristan from the perspective of local communities. The study is based on qualitative primary data collected in NWTD. The study identifies deep-rooted internal factors such as poor socio-economic conditions, political exclusion, degradation of local institutions and culture, introduction and promotion of Jihadi culture and militancy as the main drivers of conflict in NWTD. External factors, like the USSR and US invasions in Afghanistan, a porous border and unseen international actors, have contributed to the start and even escalation of the more recent conflict, but mainly through exacerbating internal factors. The study recommends that policies aiming to reduce violent conflict in this region pay due attention to the significance of addressing the underlying internal drivers of conflict.     

The South African Denuclearization Exemplar

ABSTRACT

South Africa's nuclear disarmament is a unique historical case, notable in part for the dramatic shift from deception to cooperation. The unprecedented transparency it demonstrated in order to convince the international community of the veracity of their disarmament is heralded as an exemplar for verifiable denuclearization. Less known is how this case affords insights into how a nuclear weapon program can be clandestinely hidden by the ambiguity provided by an otherwise completely legitimate, peaceful, nuclear energy program. Using a variety of open sources, including newly declassified internal South African and US government reports, it can be shown that South Africa employed a variety of deceptive tactics before it disarmed, and even for nearly two years after becoming a signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. This article reviews that information to derive instructive lessons on the lengths that a nuclear proliferant state might go to conceal its true capabilities and intentions, and to thwart international discovery of the existence and full extent of an existing—or, in this case, a former—nuclear weapon program.     

Nuclear Disarmament and Stability in the Logic of Habit

ABSTRACT

In 2008, the announcement of the Global Zero campaign—an international effort to eliminate nuclear weapons—coincided with the election of Barack Obama. The new president, avowedly pro-disarmament, made getting to zero nuclear weapons a centerpiece of his foreign policy. This article takes on the question of what impact global disarmament might have on international strategic stability. In a break with much of the literature and analysis on nuclear policy, it explicitly focuses on how publics understand the significance of nuclear weapons. In so doing, the article draws on recent international relations scholarship on the role of habit to argue that eliminating nuclear weapons can generate instability by creating widespread perceptions of insecurity and anxiety. If disarmament campaigners wish to achieve their goal without generating instability, they will need to work over the long-term to break habituated beliefs about nuclear weapons.