The significance of the Cracow summit

This article assesses whether the EU contributes to long-term positive change in societies emerging from violent conflict, helping them ‘mend’ or whether it simply encourages societies to ‘make do’ with the status quo. To do so, the article focuses on two of the principles found in the Treaty, peace and justice for human rights violations. It examines how the EU translates the principles of peace and justice into policy and puts them into practice by analyzing EU engagement in peace mediation, transitional justice, and security sector reform in general and through in-depth examination of EU engagement in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It questions the prevailing discourse that greater inter-institutional coherence would improve EU security provision and considers whether and how the EU prioritizes between peace and justice. The article finds that principles may be translated into policy and put into practice, and practice is often ahead of policy. But this is uneven within as well as across the institutions. Greater coherence between principle, policy, and practice, rather than between institutions, would improve EU security provision and enable prioritization. If the EU settles for making do, it undermines its considerable potential to contribute to long-term solutions to complex conflicts.     

Hybrid security governance in Africa: rethinking the foundations of security,justice and legitimate public authority

This article asks whether the concept of ‘hybridity’ offers a more convincing account of security governance in Africa than the standard state-focused models. It seeks to clarify the complex intersections between formal and informal, state and non-state security actors, and the varied terrains on which hybridity is constructed, instrumentalised and recalibrated over time. Rather than romanticising informal or ‘traditional’ institutions, it suggests that they too embed their own power hierarchies, become sites of contestation, and do not work equally well for everyone, least of all for the weak, vulnerable and excluded. Thus the focus is placed upon the real governance of security in hybrid systems, and the patterns of inclusion and exclusion (including gender biases) they reinforce. Finally the paper considers how policy-makers and shapers can work with the grain of hybrid security arrangements to create more legitimate, broadly-based and effective African security governance.     

Evidence-Based Policy Research to Inform the ENP: Five Recommendations for Europe and its Neighbours

The September 2014 referendum is a milestone in Scotland’s history. After 307 years of union with England and a 15-year experience with devolution, Scottish nationalism is within reach of its ultimate goal. Independence would be consensual and Scotland and the rest of the UK would retain multiple links. The EU dimension looms large in the debate and is entangled with the UK’s own review of its membership. Scotland’s referendum is part of a wider trend seeing other ‘stateless nations’ in the democratic world pursuing independence. Even if opinion polls indicate voters will likely reject secession, Scotland’s experience holds important lessons for the wider world.     

The F-word and the S-word – too much of one and not enough of the other

This article questions the growing use of the term ‘faith-based’ in development policy and practice. It is argued that it homogenises people in minority migrant and developing-country contexts and excludes many who are working for human rights and social justice from secular perspectives, thus providing an unsound analytical base for policy. Against the background of the ‘war on terror’, the author also examines the differences in US and British development policy arising out of the term ‘faith-based’.     

Multi-layered justice and security delivery in post-conflict and fragile states

This paper examines the value of an alternative approach to SSR policy, namely a multi-layered one in post-conflict and fragile state environments. It begins by arguing that there is a state-centric bias in current SSR policy and practice. This contradicts development principles of a ‘people-centred, locally owned’ approach in post-conflict and fragile state contexts. The SSR's state-centric approach rests upon two fallacies: that the post-conflict and fragile state is capable of delivering justice and security; and that it is the main actor in security and justice. The paper goes on to present the outline of a multi-layered strategy. This addresses the issue of who is actually providing justice and security in post-conflict and fragile states. The paper continues by describing the accountability mechanisms that could be pursued by SSR programmes in support of this approach. The conclusion is that the advantage of the multi-layered approach is that it is based not on the state's capacity, but on the quality and efficacy of the services received by the end user, regardless of who delivers that service.     

New Security Challenges and the Need for New Forms of EU Cooperation: The Solidarity Declaration against Terrorism and the Open Method of Coordination

Abstract

The new transnational security threats, such as terrorism, challenge traditional methods of European Union cooperation. In the era of threats to inter-state peace the Union engendered security through ‘passive’ integration in the form of the abolition of European borders. Today the EU is increasingly given the responsibility for creating security and safety, both externally and internally, by the means of ‘active’ security instruments such as the European Security and Defence Policy and the Solidarity Declaration of 2004. The challenge is that these policies and principles require a vision beyond that of a free market, common threat perceptions and effective coordination of the crisis management capacity of EU member states. This article argues that the practical needs following this qualitative step, such as the strategic engagement of new security actors and levels of EU governance on a long term basis, are very similar to the ones that the Open Method of Coordination has attempted to resolve in EU cooperation in the field of welfare policies. It suggests that this method should be used also to strengthen the Union security policy and crisis management capacity.     

Counter-terrorism and alien justice: the case of security certificates in Canada

This article examines the security certificate process that has been in effect in Canada since 1978 and the 2008 amendment (Bill C-3) of the Immigration and Refugees Protection Act. It highlights how democratic means can be used to subvert meaningful policy changes, and underscores the antinomy inherent in a nation-state's zeal to protect its citizens and appeals by a group of Arab Muslim men held under security certificates for suspected terrorist activities for their human rights to be recognised and respected by a state in which they are non-citizens. The problematic immanent in nation-states serving as guarantors of human rights and its concomitant misconstruing of human rights for citizenship rights are used to demonstrate that an ‘internal Other’ has been created in Canada. The security certificate, it is argued, in stipulating that detainees may request to be deported to countries where they regularly reside or hold nationality, makes them akin to Hannah Arendt's notion of the ‘rightless’ – people who have not only lost their home (i.e., polity) or ‘distinct place in the world’, but also their legal status. Consequently, even in an advanced democracy with grandiose claims to, and assurances of, individual liberty and fundamental freedoms, ‘rightless’ people face a great danger by the fact of being nothing beyond ‘human’.     

Not quite the ‘Great Britain of the Far East’: Japan's security,the US–Japan alliance and the ‘war on terror’ in East Asia

Japan, in responding to US expectations for support in the ‘war on terror’, has displayed a degree of strategic convergence on global security objectives, thus prompting policy-makers and observers to dub it the ‘Great Britain of the Far East’. This article argues, however, that Japan is far from assuming this role. For Japan, the ‘war on terror’ serves more as a political pretext for legitimating long-planned changes in military security policy that are often only marginally related to the US's anti-terrorism agenda. Instead, Japan has focused much more on using the terror threat rationale as a means to push forward its response to the regional and traditional security challenges of North Korea and China, even if at times it attempts to depict both as ‘new security challenges’ or as involving elements of counterterrorism. The final conclusion is that US military hegemony may be weakened by Japan's and the Asia-Pacific's potential divergence from the US global security agenda.     

The Eu's Response to 9/11: A Case Study of Institutional Roles and Policy Processes with Special Reference to Issues of Accountability and Human Rights

ABSTRACT

The challenges of 9/11 required a wide ranging response across all three of the broad divisions of EU policymaking competence: the economic and monetary union, common foreign and security policy and internal security. These policy divisions make up the ‘three pillars’ of the EU's political architecture. This article reviews general issues of accountability and human rights protection in the EU's policymaking and implementation process, the evolution of the EU's response to terrorism, and the general response to 9/11. It then considers, in detail, the implications of the various response measures adopted under each ‘pillar’. The article demonstrates the emphasis that the Member States have placed on security measures and the wider concerns that their content and speed of adoption left little scope for other views to be heard. The article lays stress upon the fact that the effectiveness of the response measures are crucially dependent on the variable implementation capacity of the Member States. The article concludes by noting how the 2004 EU Constitution [Article I-42] requires Member States to ‘…?act jointly in a spirit of solidarity if a Member State is a victim of a terrorist attack….’     

The Berlin Republic,Iraq, and the Use of Force

This article holds that German security policy and attitudes towards the use of force remain framed by the distinct strategic culture that emerged during West Germany’s rearmament and international rehabilitation in the 1950’s. This strategic culture, characterised by strong anti-military sentiment and a commitment to multilateral diplomacy and international law, determined Germany’s position over Iraq and its ongoing opposition to the US-led invasion of the country. However, the strength and highly vociferous nature of Germany’s opposition to US policy also indicated that German strategic culture is itself evolving, as both elites and society reconsider aspects of German national history and the role of collective memory. Much of this new discourse relates to the notion of the ‘Berlin Republic’, which in foreign and security policy terms is synonymous with the emergence of greater self confidence, the introduction of more ‘national’ vocabulary into foregin policy statements and a less reflexive attitude to transatlantic security.     

The web of responsibility in and for the Arctic

What does it mean to be responsible in and for the Arctic? This article addresses this question, noting that responsibility has become a core policy norm in different governance areas in recent decades. The article contributes to the current debate on responsibility in global politics, arguing that one should consider not only who is responsible (and what for) but also the capability foundations upon which responsibility is exercised, as well as the underlying normativity of this practice. Instead of only focusing on capabilities as first principles from which responsibilities arise, this article suggests approaching responsibility as a web of relations. On the basis of this theoretical discussion the article turns to two cases of contemporary Arctic policy where we can observe responsibility ‘at work’. The fields of search and rescue and sustainable development are both marked by a cooperative approach among (state and non-state) parties, whose interactions centre on a particular ethical understanding of responsibility rather than on power-oriented politics. Yet each policy field contains specific dilemmas, as Arctic governance is characterised by a web of responsibility that comprises multiple subjects in charge and/or objects for which they are responsible.     

The international politics of air disasters: lessons for aviation disaster governance from Asia, 2014–2015

Abstract

Through a qualitative analysis of three air disasters from Asia in recent years—MH370, MH17 and QZ8501—this article investigates the puzzle of how aviation disasters open up a sovereign state’s domestic governance and foreign policy to international questioning within an anarchic international system. This enquiry thereby highlights the gaps in the global governance of aviation, particularly in the areas of safety and recovery in the wake of aviation disasters. Three linked literatures demonstrate this dynamic. First, aligned with the ‘emotional turn’ in international relations, we show that the portrayal of air disasters and grieving next of kin in global media highlights the politics of grief and trauma. Second, aviation disasters surface the politics of disaster diplomacy in the guise of ‘security competition by proxy’ in the recovery process. Third, we emphasize that these shortfalls in domestic governance and international cooperation demonstrated by the attention-grabbing spectacle of aviation disasters consequently underscore important knowledge, norms and compliance gaps in global aviation governance. Aviation disasters and their aftermath thus shine an international spotlight on the state’s domestic governance and foreign policies in these three manners.     

Concepts of dialogue as counterterrorism: narrating the self-reform of the Muslim Other

Since 9/11, the terrorist is often awarded the position of the radical Other: the personified existential threat to the West. The counterterrorism strategy presented by the Danish government describes itself as covering a ‘broad spectrum’ of efforts. It includes an ‘active foreign policy’ in relation to the Muslim world and an ‘active integration policy’ in relation to Muslim migrants. Both inside and outside the nation-state, efforts range from ‘hard power’ security strategies of elimination and control involving military, police and intelligence operations, to ‘soft power’ strategies of information, partnerships and dialogue. This article analyses Danish counterterrorism policy narratives to identify the concepts of dialogue implied and the positions awarded to less-than-radical Muslim Others. This article finds that Muslims might – especially after the Danish Muhammad cartoon affair – in counterterrorism dialogue find a position for talking back, even if it is still a position circumscribed by control and securitisation.     

Securitisation from below: the relationship between immigration and foreign policy in South Africa's approach to the Zimbabwe crisis

The political and economic debacle in Zimbabwe has led to a large-scale influx of Zimbabweans into neighbouring South Africa. This article argues that there is a complex and significant link between the domestic response to this immigration influx and South Africa's foreign policy towards Zimbabwe. South Africa's foreign and security policy elite preferred to use an immigration approach of benign neglect as a tool to promote its ‘quiet diplomacy’ approach towards the Zimbabwean regime, treating the influx as a ‘non-problem’. But increased xenophobic violence, vigilantism and protests in townships and informal settlements against Zimbabwean and other African immigrants, culminating in widespread riots across the country in 2008, contributed to a change not only in immigration policy but also in the mediation efforts towards the Zimbabwean parties. I argue that this foreign policy change was pushed by a process of ‘securitisation from below’, where the understanding of Zimbabwean immigrants as a security threat were promoted not by traditional security elites but by South Africa's marginalised urban poor.     

Private Military Services in the UK and Germany: Between Partnership and Regulation1

Abstract

Controversial cases such as the aborted coup in Equatorial Guinea and the employment of private contractors in the Abu Ghraib prison have brought the proliferation of private ‘mercenaries’ to worldwide attention. However, the privatization of military security is more diverse and complex than generally suggested. Specifically, one needs to distinguish between the use of private mercenaries in developing countries and the privatization of military services in Europe. Focussing on the latter, this article proposes that the privatization of military services in industrialized countries can be understood in terms of a shift from ‘government’ to ‘governance’. As a consequence, the emergence of a private military industry in Europe is not only characterized by distinct forms of governance failure; European governments have also developed new modes of governance to control the industry. Using the United Kingdom and Germany as examples, this article examines two modes in particular: public private partnerships and governmental regulation.     

EU cooperation on terrorism prevention and violent radicalization: frustrated ambitions or new forms of EU security governance?

This article questions the effectiveness of EU efforts to prevent terrorism and violent radicalization as well as the future prospects of such efforts. Driven by the pressure of attacks, member states have agreed on a comprehensive strategy to prevent radicalization and recruitment into terrorism, but simultaneously the strategy traces the limits of EU authority in member states in this regard. Meanwhile, the European Commission has focused on indirect measures, such as research support, for counter radicalization. However, over time, both flexible cooperation among a subset of member states and new EU initiatives have generated only few or biased policy outputs. The Stockholm Programme renewed the ambition to prevent terrorism at an early stage and underlined the EU's role in evaluation and knowledge exchange. This article questions the resulting proposal to create a network of local or subnational actors for best practice exchange. The article argues that preventive counterterrorism relies on contentious scientific evidence and that authoritative evaluations remain tied to national policy-making. Finally, the EU Commission cannot mobilize sufficient resources to ensure that ‘frontline’ organizations, such as police services, implement new practices. Taken together, this limits the potential for depoliticizing multilevel governance approaches to terrorism prevention. The conclusions of this article raise further research questions on the use of knowledge and complex governance patterns in EU internal security.     

Europe's global ambitions and the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD): of what relevance is the Politique Africaine?

The New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) agreed in 2001 between the G7 and African leaders is an ambitious initiative to resolve the problems of economic underdevelopment, political instability and armed conflict in Africa. Essentially, it rests on the promise of increased economic aid in exchange for African commitment to liberal political and economic governance. This article examines the implications of NEPAD for the EU's policies towards Africa. It argues that the EU's economic instruments are more suitable for tackling security problems in Africa than its evolving military capacity or global multilateral cooperation with African states through NEPAD structures. It is argued that extant structures of European-African relations can significantly impact on African governance processes and their security outcomes only if they can be graduated into ‘constitutive’ forms of economic intervention similar to processes of accession into the EU. Such a modification, based on variegated competitive partnerships, would be consistent with the French origins of European-African relations and maybe possible because of the links between French foreign policy and Europe's evolving global role.     

Practising homeland security across the Atlantic: practical learning and policy convergence in Europe and North America

Abstract

Despite different traditions, interests and perceptions characterizing North American and European approaches to homeland security, since 9/11 policy-makers across the Atlantic have formulated increasingly similar policies to deal with terrorism and other international security threats. Challenging mainstream accounts elaborated in the policy convergence literature, and drawing from sociological works in performance studies, this essay argues that the recent evolution of homeland security policies in Europe and North America can be understood as an instance of ‘practical learning’. From this perspective, this outcome is the result of the acquisition on the part of European and North American policy-makers of the practical knowledge necessary to carry out the new policies, policies learned by mimicking the practices of their counterparts across the Atlantic. This argument is then applied to examine two cases of policy convergence in Europe and North America – the proposal for a ‘European Passenger Name Record’ system and the project of a regional ‘Security Perimeter’.     

Europe’s engagement with China: shifting Chinese views of the EU and the EU-China relationship

This article discusses the dramatic recent shifts in Chinese policy perspectives on the European Union (EU) and on EU-China relations. Whereas for more than a decade, policy makers and Europe specialists in China had regarded the EU as an exemplar of regional integration and as a promising new ‘pole’ in the global order, a recent survey shows that today, in the wake of the Eurozone crisis, the refugee crisis, and the ‘Brexit’ referendum, many perceive the EU as a troubled actor unfit to deal with the existential challenges confronting it, let alone play a credible leadership role beyond its own borders. Despite this, Beijing’s ambitious international agenda at a time of increasing global uncertainty guarantees China’s ever-growing stake in building a reliable, long-term partnership with the EU, even though recent Chinese diplomatic and economic initiatives are gravitating toward the Union’s periphery, targeting subregional groupings of Member States along Europe’s re-emerging, traditional fault lines. Based on the research findings presented in this paper, the authors argue that the EU and the Member States need to rethink the basic assumptions underlying their China policies in the so-called ‘New Era’ and explore new approaches of engagement that match these shifting perceptions, policies and political realities.     

Interregional relations and legitimacy in global governance: the EU in ASEM

This article explores the ramifications of the European Union’s (EU) internal legitimacy debate for its external relations. It applies the Asia–Europe Meeting (ASEM) as a case study to examine the EU’s attempts to promote legitimacy in global governance, more specifically in interregional institutions. The article’s theoretical framework draws from the EU’s legitimacy debate. It identifies three key sources of legitimacy, namely, (i) input legitimacy or democratic control and accountability, (ii) output legitimacy or performance and achievement of core purposes, and (iii) the degree of common identity as externalised through collective representation and the articulation of shared norms and values. The empirical analysis thereafter leads to three observations. First, the EU’s presence has contributed to an increased democratic involvement by ASEM’s different stakeholders including parliaments and civil society. Second, purely from an institutional legitimacy perspective ASEM achieves its purpose as a forum to ‘constructively engage’ with Asian countries and address issues relating to global governance. Third, ASEM reveals the EU’s dual identity as an intergovernmental grouping and an organisation with a gradually increasing capacity of collective representation. However, the advancement of the EU’s normative objectives through ASEM has been problematic, leading to a more interest-based and pragmatic policy path. The article concludes that the EU’s legitimacy debate has had a bearing on relations with Asia and, in particular, with ASEM. Importantly, and given the EU’s setbacks, some elements of the ‘EU’s way’ have proven successful in promoting democratic notions of legitimacy beyond the state.