Disarming Somalia: lessons in stabilisation from a collapsed state

International efforts to resolve the Somali crisis have foundered on one central paradox: the restoration of state institutions is both an apparent solution to the conflict and its most important underlying cause. Somalis tend to approach disarmament and demobilisation—two central pillars of the ‘state-building’ process—with the fundamental question: who is disarming whom? If the answer threatens to entrench unbalanced and unstable power relations, then it may also exacerbate and prolong the conflict. In this paper, the authors examine disarmament and demobilisation initiatives from southern Somalia, Puntland and Somaliland. In southern Somalia, externally-driven disarmament and demobilisation initiatives in support of successive interim ‘governments’ have been widely viewed with suspicion and alarm. In Somaliland and Puntland, Somali-led, locally owned efforts have achieved a degree of success that can be instructive elsewhere. The authors conclude that conventional international approaches to ‘state-building’ in Somalia must be reassessed—notably that security sector issues must be treated not as a purely ‘technical’ issue, but as an integral part of the political process.     

The Opportunistic President: How US Presidents Determine Their Legislative Programs

The president is the most influential policy actor in US politics, and his legislative program greatly influences Congress's agenda. Yet little research has focused on what factors affect the president's choices when constructing his agenda. We develop a theory that determines when a president will include an issue in his program. We hypothesize that presidents structure their agendas around the congressional calendar for consideration of expiring laws and salient issues. Using data over 28 years and across 12 policy areas, we find presidents build their programs around these policymaking opportunities. We assert that presidential agendas are less driven by individual priorities than previous accounts have concluded.     

IP litigation, the new money-spinner

It is a truism that intellectual property litigation costs alot of money. It can be ruinously expensive even for the victor,never mind the beaten, bloodied loser. Much effort has beendirected at reducing the cost of combat in court: streamliningthe trial process, rocket dockets, better case management, toname a few, have produced some relief for costly litigationbut no cure. However, since the reward for the winner is sooften the opportunity of either enforcing a     

Presentence Reports

This study investigated the use made by judges of background information provided in presentence reports in reaching their sentencing decisions. The presentence reports were furnished in a number of modified forms during an experimental manipulation in a real-life setting. By obtaining judges' provisional decisions during their reading of the report, along with their indications of what they found useful, the influence of different sections of information in the report was determined. All sections. were used by judges to some extent. The recommendation section was analyzed in some detail; while there was high agreement between the probation officer's recommendation and the judge's final disposal, judges tended to rate the recommedation low in terms of usefulness. However, analysis of changes to intended disposals, which occurred during reading of the reports, indicated that these recommendations were in fact quite influential, and even when there was not perfect agreement the recommendation produced a high frequency of shifts in the final disposal, bringing it closer to the recommendation than a preliminary decision had been. Reasons for these inconsistencies are considered in terms of the different methods used.     

Recovering Lost Years: British Foreign Policy After the War of the Polish Succession

A study of a neglected period in British foreign policy serves to question schematic approaches to the history of international relations and to underline the indeterminacy felt by contemporaries, and their sense of the roles of contingency and personality. The problems faced then in conceptualizing international relations can be mirrored today.