Search

This research addresses the complexity of Sahel terrorism and its regional and global effects. The paper focuses on the following questions: What are the multifaceted dimensions through which terrorism in al-Sahil influences the region? Furthermore, how do regional and international actors influence and shape the dynamics of terrorism in this region? By delving deeper into these inquiries, this paper aims to shed light on the complex nature of terrorism in the al-Sahil region, considering its impact dimensions and the various influences it encounters from both regional and international actors. Concerning the findings, first, the problem of terrorism is indeed a much larger shady business in which various regional and international actors are still involved and benefiting from its notoriety. States, regimes, and transnational interests within and beyond the Sahel region are implicated in confabulating never-ending terror. Second, terrorism's obscure nature is reflected in the international practice of the possibility of the enemy today being a friend tomorrow and vice versa. Third, insecurity in al-Saharan borders is not an issue of proximity to the Sahara but the ramifications of the ongoing politics of surrogate violence perpetrated in the pursuit of wealth and power. The research concluded that facing this compound problem necessitates a comprehensive strategy to address socio-political and economic causes and promote interregional and international cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most significant institutional developments in Bosnia and Herzegovina after the last war (1992-1995) was the establishment of the state-level Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Its relevance increased when, as part of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia’s exit strategy, it was decided that a War Crimes Chamber would be established in the Court to continue the trial process. It should be noted that the very existence of an integral state of Bosnia and Herzegovina (one of the reasons for the war) is still in question today. Thus the creation of the Court was interpreted as a bid to strengthen state capacities. For this reason, since its very establishment, and even more so for its task of judging the war, it has been resented by the political leadership of one of the country's entities, the Republika Srpska, which has even tried to eliminate it. Against this background, the aim of this paper is to analyze how the Court itself perceives its actions (through statements of its presidency and official publications), especially the adjudication of war crimes, in the context of the debates on what the state of Bosnia-Herzegovina should be. The focus is on the period 2004-2017, when the presidency of the Court was held by Meddžida Kreso, particularly active in promoting her institution and in helping to identify it as an expression of the state.

This research explores human rights violations in Papua, focusing on the feasibility of international troop deployment as an intervention strategy against a backdrop of severe abuses such as extrajudicial killings and arbitrary arrests documented by organizations such as Amnesty International. The study aims to assess the potential role of international troops in safeguarding human rights and maintaining peace, using a qualitative methodology to analyze secondary data from human rights organizations and governmental sources to identify trends and challenges. The main contributions include highlighting gaps in existing interventions, proposing a conceptual framework for international troop deployment that considers legal, political, and ethical dimensions, and contextualizing issues of state sovereignty and regional diplomacy within the ASEAN framework. Specific findings indicate that while international troop deployment could enhance civilian protection and accountability, it faces significant barriers, including legal constraints related to international law, political resistance from local authorities and neighboring states, and ethical concerns such as the risk of escalating violence and undermining local governance. The study concludes by suggesting a balanced approach emphasizing dialogue, sustainable development, and cooperation within ASEAN to address human rights issues in Papua effectively.

The principle of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) stands as one of the most ambitious and morally charged constructs in contemporary political philosophy and international law. It endeavors to articulate the conditions under which the international community bears an obligation to intervene in the face of gross human rights violations – genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity. Yet, as the protracted crises in Israel-Palestine and Russia-Ukraine starkly reveal, the application of R2P is fraught with profound challenges, arising at the tangled nexus of geopolitical rivalries, ethical imperatives, and the inviolable claims of state sovereignty. This study engages the theoretical frameworks of John Rawls and Michael Walzer, probing the normative boundaries of justice, legitimacy, and intervention in these fraught contexts. It examines the extent to which the ideals of R2P can withstand the realities of power politics and ethical ambivalence, and in doing so, critically evaluates the contradictions that beset the international community in its aspirations to uphold universal human dignity amidst competing interests and moral uncertainties. Through this lens, it seeks to deepen our understanding of both the promise and the perils of one of the most defining principles of our global moral order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian war, which erupted on October 7th, 2023, contributes to explaining its causes, reasoning, consequences, and the necessary measures to end human suffering caused by it. It is argued that to understand its eruption, unfolding, and ramifications, we must look at the broader interplay between local, regional, and international factors. This integrative approach means that it is crucial to explore the context that has fed its flames and determined its timing and brutality. This means that it is not possible to disconnect this war from profound developments in Israeli and Palestinian societies in the last couple of decades. It also means that although this war was instigated by a particular player, it is an integral component of a system composed of a balance of power between multiple players. Therefore, it resulted from polarity in a regional and international system of power in which players have sought to either maintain the status quo or change it to their advantage. Such an understanding enables us to highlight its strategic meaning and emphasize the moral measures that international players must take to avoid further Israeli-Palestinian wars in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article traces transformations of labor through an exploration of a relatively new employment sector in supervised postsocialist, postwar Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), where internationally funded, temporary, project-based contracts are the rule. Focusing on atypical white-collar precarious workers who have strung together 10 to 25 years on successive short projects in IGOs and NGOs in Sarajevo (under the umbrella of democratization, peacebuilding and EU integration agendas), I investigate their ways of strategizing to accumulate such continuity through cultivation of three kinds of assets: sector-specific competences, favorable positionality, and a disposition of optimism. I argue that their "successful" strategizing, generally in line with neoliberal rationality and mainly developed within this sector, is facilitated by similar structural conditions of overall precarity, temporariness and provisionality in wider BiH society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the role of international intervention for refugee protection by conducting a within-case analysis of two similar groups in China: Vietnamese and North Korean refugees. It argues that states make refugee policy decisions based on cost-benefit calculations, but this self-centered behavior can be mitigated by international intervention. Without amending national laws and official policies, the international community can improve refugee protection in authoritarian regimes through external assistance and support that shares and reduces the burden on host states and persuades state behavior toward refugees. The evidence of this study further suggests that international intervention matters, but the formats of intervention are even more critical to improving a state's refugee protection, especially in dealing with a powerful authoritarian state like China in the context of the Post-Cold War era. More specifically, positive inducements are preferable than sanctions and criticism to address China's human rights violations regarding North Korean refugees because the strategies help China to leverage its power in the Korean peninsula and the Asian region more broadly by providing them enough political coverage to save its face from allies and constituents and maintain close diplomatic relationships with its all neighbors, including the two Koreas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an emerging consensus that international intervention can secure peace by helping combatants resolve commitment problems following civil wars. But how do interveners accomplish this? Some suggest that intervention primarily works through military coercion, while others propose non-military instruments. We build on the existing literature to theorize that interveners commonly condition political, economic, and legal incentives on compliance with peace processes. Despite a rich literature on intervention, scholars have only started to test the underlying instruments. This article takes a critical step toward this end, examining peacekeeping missions led by the United Nations from 1989 to 2012. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we show military coercion is neither commonly used nor necessary to ensure peace. Missions that employ conditional incentives—on which we collect original data—are consistently correlated with a reduced risk of conflict recurrence, even when controlling for observed selection effects, and regardless of whether they are also authorized to use military coercion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Anuario de Historia Regional y de las Fronteras is the property of Universidad Industrial de Santander and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Under what conditions can UN military peacekeeping operations (PKOs) succeed in contexts of civil war? This is an important question given the prevalence and cost of civil wars and the high, yet not always fulfilled, expectations of very costly military PKOs as responses to them by the international community. Yet, the academic and policy debates on this question are as long-standing as they are unresolved. Our article contributes to existing scholarship in several ways. First, adopting a nuanced and multi-dimensional definition of success that considers violence, displacement, and contagion as its 3 essential components, we identified 19 cases of full or partial successes, and 13 full or partial failures, covering all 32 UN military PKOs deployed to civil war settings. Second, we develop an original dataset and analytical framework that identifies a wide range of plausible factors related to the dynamics of both the intervention and the underlying conflict it is meant to address. Third, applying qualitative comparative analysis to our dataset of these 32 military PKOs, our key finding is that what matters most and consistently across all of these missions is the presence or absence of domestic consent to, and cooperation with, deployed PKOs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article addresses the question of whether international democracy aid helps to protect presidential term limits – a commonly accepted but increasingly challenged safeguard for democracy. According to our analysis, democracy aid is effective in countering attempts to circumvent term limits, thus, it contributed towards protecting democratic standards in African and Latin American countries between 1990 and 2014. Democracy aid helps to fend off term-limit circumventions, but it is not as effective in deterring presidents from trying to circumvent presidential term limits. Our analysis furthermore suggests that there is double the risk of an attempt to circumvent term limits in Latin American than in African states. Although our results confirm prior findings that "targeted aid" such as democracy aid makes a difference for maintaining democratic institutions, it challenges studies that argue democracy assistance has become "tame." Our findings furthermore support previous indications that more refined theories on the effects of democracy aid in different phases of domestic processes are necessary, in particular in the face of global autocratization trends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transitional justice literature emphasizes the importance of domestic actors in the successful design and implementation of mechanisms such as trials if the rule of law is to meaningfully develop in post-transitional societies. Yet in many post-conflict states the international community is involved in these policies from the beginning. Using a Most Similar System Design to compare the experiences of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, which incorporates data from the author's fieldwork in both countries from 2016–2021, this article finds that expectations in the literature are overstated. Improvements in the rule of law as a result of transitional justice were found when there was a mix of international and domestic participation. Additionally, this analysis proposes a new methodology to categorize transitional justice when the international community and domestic actors are involved in these programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores and illustrates the diverse manifestations of the phenomenon of the 'humanitarian alibi', drawing upon historical and contemporary cases of violent conflict in order to identify substitutionary phenomena by governments and international actors. It affirms the existence of substitution process where humanitarian aid intervention substitutes for the prevention and resolution of violent conflict and the protection of civilian populations. The paper argues for expanding the humanitarian alibi, however, to take into account how international aid intervention compensates for both the systemic neglect of conflict related crises and for the systemic harm that exacerbates and perpetuates these crises. It also challenges the suggestion that the humanitarian alibi phenomenon is the product of a bygone era, and finds that the use of aid as a substitute for peacemaking can co-exist alongside the use of aid as a direct component of international intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the impact of the book People's Law and State Law: the Bellagio Papers, edited by Anthony Allott and Gordon Woodman, published in 1985. It sets out why I consider this publication to be a seminal text in establishing and developing the field of legal pluralism, which had a great impact on both the development of the Journal of Legal Pluralism and on my own development as a young legal scholar. In looking beyond the text, I consider the ways in which scholars have engaged with the book's call for legal and social science to "work from a new map". In doing so I explore a recent arena of scholarship involving international intervention. The article highlights the important contribution that empirical studies can make to research on legal pluralism, by moving beyond the binaries of state and non-state actors, as well as through pursuing how scholars are adopting a more integrated and relational approach to law, one that may involve breaking down traditional disciplinary boundaries. In particular, I explore how concepts such as space and time contribute to a multi-dimensional, scalar perception of law at odds with a formalist, state-centred view of legal pluralism. This allows new insights to be generated into the operation of plural legal structures and constellations in which people operate allowing for a view of law that involves multiple networks of relations cutting across international, national and local boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the relevance of ontological assumptions for justifications of agency and ethics. It critiques Kantian ethics for being based upon an ontological imaginary that starts from the substantialism of Newtonian physics. Substantialism shapes Western political philosophy's view about who we are as subjects and how the world works. In this ontological imaginary, validation of ethics is based upon universality and abstractions. Furthermore, Kantian ethics underscores an anthropocentric and theocratic vision of how to govern societies. I argue Kantian criteria are not only insufficient to make good choices but are also conducive to wrong ones, since they elicit self-appeasement in international intervention, and contribute to the conceptual repertoire of coloniality. I propose that an ontology of entanglements opens possibilities for overcoming the shortcomings of an ethos based upon abstractions and possibly for correcting some of its moral failures. In a quantum ontological imaginary, the validation of ethical choices relies instead upon the exploration of the apparatuses we deploy, as well as upon careful situational evaluation. Specific practices, rather than an abstract humanity, are the referents for devising such ethos. This position, I argue, resonates with the critical project of decoloniality and its acknowledgment of the political salience of ontological imaginaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Russian interventionism manifests itself in a broad number of shapes and forms, which are explained by the circumstances of international politics and generally speaking, dependent on Russia’s grand foreign policy. Therefore, I have taken the case of Russian intervention in Georgia to establish whether there is a specific typology and methods followed through by Russia when it decides to intervene outside its borders. Thus, through the motivation of international intervention, I will eventually identify, under the paradigm of the Copenhagen School, the many forms of Russian interventionism after the year 2000. The definition of Russian interventionism is achieved both through programmatic documents and by their implementation in various ways.

Copyright of Relações Internacionais is the property of Relacoes Internacionais and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Examining 50 intra-state peace processes (1989–2006) through fsQCA, we identify three clusters of peace agreements being consistently associated with successful war-to peace transitions: 'an international approach', 'a transitional justice approach', and 'a domestic approach'. Probing these configurations at the case level shows that successful peace processes typically include packages of provisions which trigger both cost-increasing and fear-reducing mechanisms; that transitional justice provisions and education reform can trigger cost-increasing mechanisms; and that territorial self-governance can substitute effectively foreign involvement in separatist conflicts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article aims to investigate the role of the United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Haiti (Minustah) in the social and political landscape of the country, and how it failed to bring a sustainable contribution for peacebuilding and stabilisation, despite specific positive outcomes, especially for violence reduction and Security Sector Reform (SSR) during the period of 2006-2010. The intervention in 2004 based on violent coercion and the lack of a peace process and political settlement led the operation to aggravate, instead of treating, the social and political conflicts present in the country, contributing for the (re)production of predatory political economies, violent contestation and further social and political fragmentation. I propose that this outcome in Haiti, similar to other cases of countries with international interventions, can be better understood with a critical assessment of the peace-as-statebuilding paradigm of international interveners, and its disregard for the local legitimation of peace processes, political settlements and the building of state institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The application of complex adaptive systems (CAS) analysis can enhance the effectiveness of coordination in international peacebuilding interventions. This study demonstrates the utility of an inductive CAS analysis approach using rich field data from Kosovo in 2010. It reveals unintended patterns of interaction across key sectors that blocked many intervenors' peacebuilding policies. Most notably, it shows that international actors pragmatically using informal coordination practices to advance peacebuilding goals also fuelled negative dynamics that, paradoxically, undermined those same goals. The methodology employed illuminates the complex, non-linear dynamics of interactions between international and local actors that led to many hybrid outcomes in Kosovo. Although the resulting insights on Kosovo's challenges are specific to the 2010 period, many continue to resonate today. More broadly, it shows how a CAS approach can be used to support evidence-based coordination and adaptive management processes in international peacebuilding interventions to improve outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of societal resilience has rapidly spread throughout the policy world, driven by the desire to use systems theories and process understandings to develop new security approaches for coping, bouncing-back, and adaptive improvement in the face of shocks and disturbances. However, this article argues that under the auspices of the Anthropocene, the assumptions and goals of societal resilience become problematic. This is because external interventions often ignore feedback effects, meaning that attempts to resolve problems through focusing upon enabling and capacity-building can be seen as counterproductive "fire-fighting" rather than tackling causation. Even more "alternative" or "community-based" approaches, relying upon interventions to enable so-called "natural" processes, either through an emphasis on local and traditional knowledge or new monitoring technologies, constitute problems for resilience advocacy: firstly, the problem of unrecognized exploitation; and secondly, the problem of continuing to sacrifice others to maintain unsustainable Western modes of consumption and production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International actors have used multiple discursive frameworks for justifying interventions, from human security to the responsibility to protect, and, most recently, resilience-building. We argue that the language of normalization, hidden behind these narratives of interventions, has also contributed to structure the intervention landscape, albeit in less obvious and overt ways than other competing narratives of intervention. This article disentangles the different practices of normalization in order to highlight their ramifications. It introduces the concept of normal peace—a new conceptual reference to understand interventions undertaken by the international community to impose, restore or accept normalcy in turbulent societies. The article argues that the optimization of interventions entails selective responses to govern risk and adapt to the transitional international order. The art of what is politically possible underlines the choice of optimal intervention, be that to impose an external order of normalcy, restore the previous order of normalcy, or accept the existing order of normalcy.

Access to food is more than ever a question of interest. The world needs to produce at least 50% more food to feed 9 billion people by 2050. The land, biodiversity, oceans, forests, and other forms of natural capital are being depleted at unprecedented rates. Unless we change how we grow our food and manage our natural capital, food security – especially for the world’s poorest – will be at risk. In this context we expect that the struggle for food to generate migration, conflicts and, why not, international intervention defined by the new Copenhagen School of Security Studies paradigm. Since March 2008 governments, UN agencies and many social movements have adopted positions on the causes of the food crisis and the means to address it. Unfortunately, while these parties are trying to coordinate their activities and suggest new approaches, the old recipes for producing more food are often brought up. Contradictory proposals are made and the thought given to the causes underlying hunger and the food crisis (social, economic and political discrimination and exclusion) has gone largely unheeded. The first Millennium Development Goal, which called for cutting the percentage of hungry people by half by 2015, is clearly out of reach. But the food crisis might lead to a new world food order.

Copyright of Al Malweah for Archaeological & Historical Studies is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

International military intervention in many countries was legitimized under many justifications, including the protection of the rights of civilians, the fight against terrorism, etc, however the parties authorized to intervene violated the rules of international humanitarian law, both with regard to the protection of civilians and civilian objects, as they had taken camps in cities, used internationally prohibited weapons whose effects continued over time, this led to the killing of many women, children and civilians, and the destruction of hospitals, homes, places of worship and others, without any criminal follow-up to the interventionist countries or reparation of the victims by the authority that authorized them to intervene on their behalf. This study examines some examples of violations committed by those authorized or engaged in military intervention in some countries, such as Iraq, Somalia and Libya, the purpose was to clarify who was responsible for these violations, whether the State or "authorized organization responsible for the conduct of operations", or whether the United Nations was responsible as the Security Council was authorized to follow up the implementation of the decision to intervene [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Masar Ibrahim al-Khalil is a trail 330kms long in the Palestinian West Bank. The object of this research is the social 'nonmovement', to borrow a term from Asef Bayat, of walkers from the US and Europe and their Palestinian hosts. Based on her own experience of walking and on interviews with other international visitors, the author concludes that this social nonmovement connects places along the trail (and beyond), walkers to each other and the people they encounter, and plural narratives of affective solidarity. These findings unsettle the idea of securitized territorial solutions and invite the possibility of continuous, open geographies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Middle Eastern Studies / Ortadoğu Etütleri is the property of Turkmen Cooperation & Cultural Foundation Center for Middle Eastern Strategic Studies (ORSAM) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Much of the literature explaining Nigeria's failure to counter the Boko Haram insurgency since 2009 has focused on the country's internal governance, drawing on variations of the "weak state" concept. In this article, we argue that analysts also need to examine Nigeria's international relations for a more critical explanation of why it took over five years to eventually halt the violent group's territorial expansion and regular commission of atrocities. Through analysis of primary documents from various institutions involved in responding to Boko Haram between 2010 to 2015, and elite interviews with academics, security officials and other analysts, this article argues that Nigeria's relatively powerful regional and global positions effectively precluded coercive international intervention and, in doing so, reduced external pressure on Abuja to act more decisively to counter this major threat to security at the human, national and regional levels. Thus, we demonstrate that so-called "weak" states that are simultaneously powerful internationally can manage pressure for action on violence occurring inside their borders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Foreign Policy Journal (CFPJ) is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This special issue was provoked by the desire to critically interrogate the frequently made Eurocentric assertions by many politicians and academics that 'the West' and 'the rest' are fundamentally different in terms of their aims and methods of intervention. Bringing together scholars of intervention with regional experts on China, Russia, the Gulf Arab states and Turkey, detailed empirical knowledge is used to analyse current interventionist practices by Western and non-Western actors, and to assess whether they are similar or fundamentally different. Through their analyses of different forms of intervention (that constitute a wider range of actions than just 'boots on the ground'), the authors present informed critiques of existing categories, question the episteme of interveners, and observe changes of language in the justifications made for interventions – for both Western and non-Western actors. These allow us to conclude overall that the difference between 'the West' and 'the rest' in interventionist terms is not so huge, and that existing categories and frameworks in intervention studies are inadequate and require a rethink. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]