Pierre Bourdieu and the Birth of European Defense

This paper uses an analytical framework derived from Pierre Bourdieu's sociology to explain the genesis of the European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP). Long-term social and institutional processes at work in the making of ESDP are addressed through an emphasis on the institutionalization of social fields, the impact of structural crises, and the socialization of policy makers into specific schemes of perception and action (habitus). Two arguments follow from this framework. First, the paper shows that the creation of ESDP after 1998 would have been impossible without the prior institutionalization of two transgovernmental arenas: (1) the European foreign policy field, wherein EU diplomats vie for influence over EU policies; and (2) the international defense field, centered upon military relations within NATO. Second, ESDP results from the strategies of a number of diplomats and military leaders who, following the end of the Cold War, perceived that they faced important organizational crises in their respective fields. This sociological framework provides a more nuanced account of ESDP's creation than that proposed by the two dominant explanations in international relations theory—realism's balancing and constructivism's strategic culture convergence. Combining structural and ideational factors, it elucidates three empirical puzzles: the lack of opposition to ESDP when it was launched, the motives of policy makers who proposed ESDP, and the disappearance of alternative options for the European security architecture.     

Bringing the Leader Back In: Internal Threats and Alignment Theory in the Commonwealth of Independent States

Traditional alignment theories, such as balance-of-power and balance-of-threat theories, suggest that states confronted by more powerful or threatening states are more likely to balance against those states than to bandwagon with them. Yet in the context of the newly independent states of the Commonwealth of Independent States (cis), this proposition has not held true. A refinement of Steven David's theory of omnibalancing sheds light on this empirical puzzle. Using in-depth case studies of Ukraine and Uzbekistan, the authors argue that the alignment calculations of cis leaders have been driven more by internal threats to those leaders' political survival than by external threats to the state. These internal threats include the more traditional variants, such as assassination attempts, coups, and civil war, but also include opposition leaders and parties that may be perceived as challenging a leader's political survival. The post–September 11 security environment and the u.s.-led war on terrorism has also fundamentally changed the strategic calculations of cis leaders, as the United States is now willing to assist leaders against Islamist extremism and terrorism, taking over a role formerly played by Russia. The theoretical nuances offered here provide a more robust and accurate understanding of alignment motivations in the cis, especially in light of recent revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan.     

Mayhem,Myths, and Martyrdom: The Shi'a Conception of Jihad

The article examines the perception of jihad in Shi'a Islam. It first provides an overview of the understanding of jihad in Islam at large, and then examines the reflections of four central Shi'a thinkers on jihad. More so than the traditional Sunni approach to this concept, the Shi'a understanding of jihad is heavily influenced by perceptions of historical suffering, placing an emphasis on injustice, tyrannical rule, indignity, humiliation, and resistance. In recent decades, Shi'a and Sunni notions of jihad have become more closely aligned, as Salafi-Jihadists, who increasingly monopolize the Sunni discourse on jihad, persistently frame jihad as a response to the oppression by Western “infidel” regimes and tyrannical “apostate” regimes in the Arab and Muslim world.     

The politics of war and debt relief in Uganda

This article analyses the politics behind Uganda's relations with its multilateral creditors, particularly the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, in the context of the country's military intervention in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Ugandan officials exploit the anxieties of creditors, which want the country to be considered a successful case of debt relief and reform to justify similar policies in other states around the world. In reality, however, multilateral creditors help to sustain patronage politics that is increasingly based on access to plunder in a neighbouring state. Positive economic-growth figures and social indicators mask the underlying vulnerability of Ugandan state institutions, as the country's military officers pursue private interests. As a result, creditors face real dilemmas in deepening their support for the regime of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, which is increasingly reliant on its external backers. Creditors are indirectly subsidising a patronage-based political strategy and the war in the DRC. Alternatively, if they decide to abandon Uganda, they may have to accept a dramatic rise in internal instability.     

Undermining Adversaries: Unipolarity,Threat Perception,and Negative Balancing Strategies after the Cold War

This paper engages the ongoing soft balancing debate by suggesting a new analytical framework for states’ countervailing strategies—a negative balancing model—to explain why states do not form alliances and conduct arms races to balance against power or threats as they previously did. Negative balancing refers to a state's strategies or diplomatic efforts aiming to undermine a rival's power. By contrast, positive balancing means to strengthen a state's own power in world politics. I argue that a state's balancing strategies are shaped by the level of threat perception regarding its rival. The higher the threat perception, the more likely it is for a state to choose positive balancing. The lower the threat perception, the more likely it is for a state to choose negative balancing. I suggest that the hegemon provides security as a public good to the international system in a unipolar world in which the relatively low-threat propensity of the system renders positive balancing strategies incompatible with state interests after the Cold War. Instead, states have employed various negative balancing strategies to undermine each other's power, especially when dealing with us primacy. China's negative balancing strategy against the United States and the us negative balancing strategy against Russia are two case studies that test the validity of the negative balancing model.     

Terrorism,the LTTE and the conflict in Sri Lanka

For decades, a number of developing countries have been adversely affected by terrorism, with little sympathy or support from Western governments, in particular. The attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, DC, on 11 September 2001, however, have made the world's sole superpower and its allies painfully aware of the devastation caused by such action. This article analyses how the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LITE), a terrorist group seeking to create a separate state in northeastern Sri Lanka, has been pushing the limits of international tolerance in this regard for almost two decades. While increased international action against terrorism is necessary to stem this destructive menace, the Sri Lankan state must also put forward a durable political solution to the ethnic problem. Ultimately, it would be a mistake for Western governments to allow their frustrations with the slow pace of reform in Sri Lanka to be interpreted as empathy with a terroristic cause.     

Stuxnet and the Limits of Cyber Warfare

American foreign policy analysts have generally viewed World War II as the most important of the six wars the country fought in the twentieth century. By entering this war, so the argument goes, the United States prevented the gravest geopolitical threat to its security—German and Japanese hegemonies in Eurasia—from materializing. Careful reexamination of the best case for U.S. entry into World War II, made by Nicholas Spykman in 1942, demonstrates that the traditional view is misplaced: the United States could have remained secure over the long term had it not entered the war and had it allowed Germany and Japan to win. Its standard of living and its way of life, however, would most likely have suffered. Avoidance of those two outcomes was the real reason to have entered the war. The implications of this analysis for balance of power theory and current American grand strategy are spelled out.     

Flipping the Switch: Combat,State Building,and Junior Officers in Iraq and Afghanistan

Contemporary us counterinsurgency doctrine in Iraq and Afghanistan requires junior leaders to engage in both combat and state-building activities. This study aims to explain the fundamental challenge in merging these. I argue that difficulty lies in separating insurgents from civilians, and translating doctrine from senior to junior officers. Junior officers consistently develop a similar ad hoc decision-making tool— role-switching—to simplify complex situations to a binary of “hostile or not.” They understand themselves to fill only two roles, the violent “on” role and the non-violent “off” role and develop several tools to minimize the difficulty of role-switching, help their subordinates switch, and signal switching to local populations. Ultimately, however, problems with role-switching—role stickiness, inappropriate switching, and role bias—can in some cases encourage indiscriminate and excessive violence, pointing to the fundamental failures of using military forces as a one-size-fits-all solution to state-building projects abroad.     

Israel's Deterrence Strategy Revisited

During the 2001–2009 period when American foreign policy was internationally unpopular and perceived as unilateral, many states strengthened their security cooperation with the United States and facilitated the reach of the us military. This behavior spans a range of actions along a spectrum from reaffirming traditional alliances to far more subtle forms of alignment. This pattern is in large part driven by the actions of regional powers such as Russia and China whose rising power pushes neighboring states to seek the assurance of the United States, and it has distinct implications for the endurance of American hegemony. As those regional powers seek to expand their influence, secondary states may increase their contributions to the maintenance of American hegemony, thus helping to extend it well into the future. They are less prone to do so, however, if the United States follows a strategy of restraint that calls into question its willingness to defend its hegemony. Therefore, a policy focused on maintaining American military preeminence and the demonstrated willingness to use it may be what sustains the cooperation from second-tier states that helps to maintain American hegemony.     

“I SEE DEAD PEOPLE”: AIR-RAID PHOBIA AND BRITAIN'S BEHAVIOR IN THE MUNICH CRISIS

Arguments about the importance of democracy for international behavior assume that states rely on military organizations rather than “hired guns.” With the growth of the private security market this assumption no longer holds true. Focusing on the United States, we use original data to compare the impacts of using private military/security forces and military forces on attributes identified as endemic to democracies: constitutionalism, transparency, and public consent. Our evidence indicates that forces raised via contract are harder to learn about and thus less transparent than military forces. Largely due to lowered transparency, Congress has a harder time exercising its constitutional role, which impedes constitutionalism. Finally, though the public is just as sensitive to the deaths of private forces as it is to military deaths, it is less likely to know about them. Thus the lack of transparency also circumvents meaningful public consent. We conclude with a consideration of the potential implications of these changes for U.S. foreign policy.     

Old Europe,New Europe and Transatlantic Relations

This article establishes the broader framework for the rest of the volume by addressing the contemporary context of transatlantic relations and secondly by establishing strategic culture as the conceptual tool for the collection. The article takes issue with realist/material explanations of recent transatlantic disputes, as posited, for example, by Rober Kagan, which tend to portray the transatlantic divide as the US on one side and Europe on the other. In fact Europe itself was very much divided over Iraq and the conduct of US foreign policy. Moreover, the sources of this division, manifest vividly in the notion of Old and New Europe, were based on cultural, historical as well as material factors and as such are best understood by invoking the concept of strategic culture.

Thoughtful Europeans know that Europe must unite in some form if it is to play a major role in the long run. They are aware, too, that Europe does not make even approximately the defense effort of which it is capable. But European unity is stymied and domestic politics has almost everywhere dominated security policy. The result is a massive frustration which expresses itself in special testiness toward the United States. (Henry Kissinger, 1969) ¹ 1 Henry A. Kissinger, American Foreign Policy: Three Essays, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1969, p. 69. ¹The author is grateful to several anonymous reviewers for valuable comments on a previous draft.      

Why Japan Could Revise Its Constitution and What It Would Mean for Japanese Security Policy

This article seeks to make sense of the policy debate on constitutional revision underway in Japan, to consider what international and domestic factors are driving the debate forward, to assess the range of proposals currently on the table, and to gauge the likelihood of actual constitutional change. Additionally, it considers how various forms of constitutional revision, if actually implemented, might affect Japan's military doctrines and capabilities; the extent of its alliance cooperation with the United States; its devotion of military capabilities to un operations; and the repercussions for Japan's regional relations in East Asia.     

Militancy and violence in West Africa: reflecting on radicalisation,comparing contexts and evaluating effectiveness of preventive policies

By 2000, ‘radicalisation’ had become a major global issue. Although ‘9/11’ was still a year away, the American Embassies in East Africa had been bombed in 1998 and violent conflicts simmered in many parts of the world. At just about the same time, bitter civil wars, resource-centred conflicts and intra-ethnic strife raged in West Africa. Against the background of research being undertaken at King's College London,1 1. For example, Dr Olonisakin was researching into the civil wars in the region and was completing her book on the politics of United Nations involvement in the Sierra Leone war, while Dr Alao Alao, Abiodun. 2007. Natural Resources and Conflict in Africa: The Tragedy of Endowment, Rochester: University of Rochester Press.  [Google Scholar] was looking at the politics of natural resource conflicts in the region and was also completing a book on the subject. The Conflict Security and Development Group (CSDG), King's College London, was awarded a grant from the UK Department for International Development (DfID) to undertake a research project on youth vulnerability and exclusion in West Africa, with Dr Olonisakin Olonisakin, 'Funmi. 2008. Peacekeeping in Sierra Leone: The Story of UNAMSIL, Boulder: Lynne Reinner.  [Google Scholar] as principal investigator. the mutually reinforcing links between ‘radicalisation’ and ‘violence’ (potentially sensitive terms, discussed below) in West Africa became clearly obvious and a successful application to investigate this was submitted to the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).2 2. ‘Militancy and Violence in West Africa: Reflecting on Radicalisation, Comparing Contexts, and Evaluating Effectiveness of Preventive Policies’. Dr F. Olonisakin and Prof A.J.W. Gow. ESRC Award No. RES-181-25-0024. This Special Issue contains articles emerging from that work, with a set of country studies complemented by overarching synthetic analysis.     

The potential of evaluation to promote sustainable development in Russian forest management

This article discusses the potential of evaluation to help NGOs, namely the WWF (the World Wide Fund for Nature), to promote sustainable development in the Russian forest sector. Application of evaluation can strengthen two out of three main functions of NGOs – their expertise and lobbying. The third function of NGOs, as legitimisers, is difficult to perform in the Russian institutional climate. International partnerships address the issue of legitimacy and secure funding for NGOs. This international support is beneficial to a capacity building process and should promote the implementation of independent evaluation, which, in turn, can be helpful to promote sustainable development.

Le potentiel de l'évaluation au moment de promouvoir le développement durable dans la gestion forestière en Russie

Cet article traite du potentiel de l'évaluation au moment d'aider les ONG, et notamment le WWF (Fonds mondial pour la nature), à promouvoir le développement durable dans le secteur forestier russe. L'application de l'évaluation peut renforcer deux des trois principales fonctions des ONG – leurs connaissances techniques et leur exercice de pression. La troisième fonction des ONG, celle de la légitimation, est difficile à mener dans le climat institutionnel russe. Les partenariats internationaux abordent la question de la légitimité et du financement sûr pour les ONG. Ce soutien international est avantageux pour un processus de renforcement des capacités et devrait promouvoir la mise en ?uvre d'une évaluation indépendante, laquelle peut se révéler utile dans la promotion du développement durable.

El potencial de la evaluación en la promoción del desarrollo sostenible en la gestión de bosques en Rusia

El presente artículo analiza el potencial que tiene la evaluación para apoyar a las ong, en particular el wwf (siglas en inglés del World Wide Fund for Nature), en su trabajo orientado a promover el desarrollo sostenible del sector forestal en Rusia. La aplicación de evaluaciones puede contribuir a fortalecer dos de las tres principales funciones de las ong: su experiencia y su cabildeo. La tercera función de las ong, ser legitimadoras, difícilmente puede ser realizada en el contexto institucional de Rusia. Más bien son las alianzas internacionales las que abordan el tema de la legitimidad y obtienen fondos para las ong. Este apoyo internacional aporta beneficios para el proceso de construcción de capacidades, pudiendo promover la implementación de evaluaciones independientes, las cuales, a su vez, pueden ser útiles para impulsar el desarrollo sostenible.

O potencial da avaliação para promover desenvolvimento sustentável na gestão florestal russa

Este artigo discute o potencial da avaliação para ajudar ONGs, especificamente o WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature), para promover o desenvolvimento sustentável no setor florestal russo. A aplicação da avaliação pode fortalecer duas das três principais funções das ONGs – seu conhecimento e trabalho de lobby. A terceira função das ONGs, como legitimadoras, é difícil desempenhar no ambiente institucional russo. Parcerias internacionais abordam a questão da legitimidade e asseguram financiamento para ONGs. Este apoio internacional é benéfico para um processo de capacitação e deve promover a implementação de avaliações independentes que, por sua vez, podem ser úteis para promover o desenvolvimento sustentável.     

Arab Muslim Attitudes Toward the West: Cultural,Social, and Political Explanations

We utilize pooled data from Zogby International's 2002 Zogby, James. 2002. What Arabs Think: Values Beliefs and Concerns, Utica NY: Zogby International.  [Google Scholar] Arab Values Survey (carried out in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Kuwait, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and UAE) in order to test for “cultural,” “social” and/or international “political” influences on Arab Muslim attitudes toward “Western” countries (Canada, France, Germany, UK, and USA). We find little support for “cultural” hypotheses to the effect that hostility to the West is a mark-up on Muslim and/or Arab identity. We find only limited support for “social” hypotheses that suggest that hostility to the West is predicted by socioeconomic deprivation, youth, and/or being male. We find the strongest support for a lone “political” hypothesis: hostility toward specific Western countries is predicted by those countries' recent and visible international political actions in regard to salient international issues (e.g., Western foreign policies toward Palestine).     

Informal institutions,forms of state and democracy: the Turkish deep state

Democratization studies have proven that the main difference between autocracy and democracy is, counter-intuitively, not the basic regime structure, but rather, the function and validity of democratic formal institutions defined as rules and norms.1 For the institutionalist turn in democratization studies, see O'Donnell, ‘Delegative Democracy’; O'Donnell, ‘Another Institutionalization’; O'Donnell, ‘Polyarchies’; Lauth, ‘Informal Institutions’; Merkel and Croissant, ‘Formale und informale Institutionen’; Weyland, ‘Limitations’; Helmke and Levitsky, Informal Institutions. View all notes In ‘defective democracies’,2 Merkel, ‘Embedded and Defective’. View all notes or in the grey zone between authoritarian regimes and consolidated democracies, formal institutions disguise specific informal institutions which are usually ‘the actual rules that are being followed’.3 O'Donnell, ‘Illusions About Consolidation’, 10. View all notes Moreover, scholars have investigated the issue of stateness: ‘without a state, no modern democracy is possible’.4 Linz and Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition, 17. View all notes This article sheds light on this grey zone, particularly, on the type of state whose coercive state apparatus is autonomous. Its autonomy results primarily from the interplay between formal and informal institutions in post-transitional settings where ‘perverse institutionalization’5 Valenzuela, ‘Democratic Consolidation’, 62. View all notes creates and fosters undemocratic informal rules and/or enshrines them as formal codes. If the military autonomy reaches a threshold ranging from high to very high, constitutional institutions become Janus-faced and can enforce a sui generis repertoire of undemocratic informal institutions. Thus, the state exerts formal and informal ‘domination’,6 Weber, Economy and Society. View all notes Herrschaft in a Weberian sense. This modality of dual domination is what I call ‘deep state’.     

Challenging international law: a dilemma of private security companies

Since the end of the Cold War, there has been a marked increase in the sale of military services by private security companies (PSCs).1 ?1. The term private security company is used throughout the article instead of private military companies or private military firms. View all notes These companies sell anything from combat support for government military operations to military training and assistance, logistical support and more conventional security protection services. They have undertaken operations in countries as diverse as Sierra Leone, Croatia, and Columbia and now Iraq and Afghanistan. The presence of these companies on the international stage raises fundamental questions about the way war is now being fought. Unfortunately, the legal issues raised by their presence in conflicts have not yet been properly addressed. This article sets out to examine the suitability of international law in defining and controlling the activities of PSCs on the battlefield. It then goes on to discuss the problems associated with national regulation. Here the focus is on the attempts by the United States (US), South Africa, and United Kingdom (UK) governments to introduce effective legislation to control the industry.     

Improved learning for greater effectiveness in development NGOs

Learning is a critical component of organisational effectiveness, particularly in the complex world of development NGOs. Drawing from the literature on organisational learning, this article highlights the key dynamics of a strong learning organisation and proposes an integrated ‘leverage-learning’ model adapted to the NGO context. This model integrates learning domains that are critical for greater effectiveness, or leverage. The model is then applied to evaluate the effectiveness of the learning culture and commitment of a specific development NGO, World Vision Burundi. The model shows promise as an heuristic tool to evaluate NGOs and help them become more effective in aid delivery.

Amélioration de l'apprentissage pour parvenir à une efficacité accrue dans les ONG de développement

L'apprentissage est un élément crucial de l'efficacité organisationnelle, en particulier dans le monde complexe des ONG de développement. En s'inspirant des écrits portant sur l'apprentissage organisationnel, cet article met en relief la dynamique clé d'une organisation apprenante robuste et propose un modèle intégré d'« apprentissage par effet de levier » adapté au contexte des ONG. Ce modèle intègre les domaines d'apprentissage qui sont cruciaux pour une efficacité accrue, ou pour parvenir à l'effet de levier. Ce modèle est ensuite appliqué pour évaluer l'efficacité de la culture d'apprentissage et l'engagement d'une ONG de développement précise, World Vision Burundi. C'est un modèle prometteur comme outil heuristique pour évaluer les ONG et les aider à devenir plus efficaces dans la prestation d'aide.

Mejorando el aprendizaje para lograr mayor eficacia entre las ong de desarrollo

El aprendizaje constituye un componente clave de la eficacia organizacional, particularmente en el complejo mundo de las ong de desarrollo. Apoyándose en los conocimientos existentes en torno al aprendizaje organizacional, el presente artículo pone de relieve las dinámicas más importantes de una fuerte organización de aprendizaje, presentando un modelo integrado de “aprendizaje-apalancado” que ha sido adaptado para el contexto de las ong. Dicho modelo incorpora los ámbitos de aprendizaje que se consideran vitales para lograr mayor eficacia o apalancamiento. El modelo se utilizó para evaluar la eficacia de la cultura de aprendizaje y el compromiso de una ong de desarrollo específica, Visión Mundial en Burundi, demostrando tener posibilidades como método heurístico orientado a evaluar a las ong y a apoyarlas en su esfuerzo por ser más eficaces en la entrega de ayuda humanitaria.

Um melhor aprendizado para uma maior efetividade nas ONGs de desenvolvimento

O aprendizado é um componente crítico para a efetividade organizacional, particularmente em um mundo complexo das ONGs de desenvolvimento. Baseando-se na literatura sobre aprendizado organizacional, este artigo destaca as dinâmicas essenciais da organização de um aprendizado sólido e propõe um modelo integrado de “alavanca de aprendizado” adaptado para o contexto das ONGs. Este modelo integra os setores que são cruciais para uma maior efetividade, ou alavanca. O modelo é, então, aplicado para avaliar a efetividade da cultura do aprendizado e compromisso de uma ONG de desenvolvimento específica, a World Vision Burundi. O modelo mostra um compromisso de ferramenta heurística para avaliar ONGs e ajuda essas ONGs a tornarem-se mais efetivas na implementação da ajuda.     

Narrating the cultural trauma of 3/11: the debris of post-Fukushima literature and film

Abstract

Images of debris dominate our understanding of the 3/11 triple disaster – earthquake, tsunami, nuclear meltdown – that took place in Japan on 11 March 2011. They have been effectively used to rewrite the story of individual suffering into one of collective tragedy. In this article, debris is a locus for examining the construction of the narrative of 3/11 as cultural trauma. The article analyzes three texts that deal directly with images of 3.11 debris: Fujiwara Toshi's documentary film No Man's Zone and two short stories: Murakami Ryū's ‘Little eucalyptus leaves’ (Yūkari no chisana ha, 2012 Murakami, Ryū, 2012b. Yūkari no chisana ha. In: Sore de mo sangatsu wa, mata. Tokyo: Kōdansha, 245–60. [Google Scholar]) and Saeki Kazumi's ‘Hiyoriyama’ (2012) Saeki, Kazumi, 2012a. Hiyoriyama. Trans. Jeffrey Hunter. In: Elmer Luke and David Karashima eds. March Was Made of Yarn. New York: Vintage Books, 163–81. [Google Scholar]. Fujiwara interrogates the position of the viewer via images of destruction, Murakami connects 3/11 to the multidirectional memory of other global traumas like Auschwitz, and Saeki constructs a local narrative that contrasts the personal experience of the disaster with a televisual or filmic representation. These texts are engaged in the cultural work of constructing 3/11 as collective trauma. They create a collective identity, a ‘we’, for this trauma that speaks both for and against the national narratives of recovery. This article examines images of debris around the one-year anniversary of 3/11 and speculates on the concurrent lack of images of bodies.