‘Tesco for Terrorists’ Reconsidered: Arms and Conflict Dynamics in Libya and in the Sahara-Sahel Region

How does arms availability affect armed conflict? What implications does increased arms availability have for the organisation of armed groups involved in war against the state? This article explores these questions by looking into the civil war in Libya and the subsequent proliferation of weapons in the broader Sahel/North Africa region. Its argument is based on secondary sources: online databases, international organisations reports and news media. First, we examine the question of firearms in Libya in order to understand how changing conditions of weapons availability affected the formation of armed groups during different phases of war hostilities (February–October 2011). We highlight that, as weapons became more readily available to fighters in the field during this period, a process of fragmentation occurred, hindering efforts to build mechanisms that would allow control of the direction of the revolutionary armed movement. Next, as security continued to be a primary challenge in the new Libya, we consider the way in which unaccountable firearms and light weapons have affected the post-war landscape in the period from October 2011 to the end of 2013. Finally, we put the regional and international dimensions under scrutiny, and consider how the proliferation of weapons to nearby insurgencies and armed groups has raised major concern among Libya’s neighbours. Short of establishing any causal relationship stricto sensu, we underscore the ways in which weapons from Libya have rekindled or altered local conflicts, creating permissive conditions for new tactical options, and accelerating splintering processes within armed movements in the Sahara-Sahel region.     

Enduring Financial Sustainability Through “Bottom-Up” Local Authority Ingenuity and Rational “Top-Down” State Regulation: The Case of Lake Macquarie City Council

For decades Australian policy-makers have relied on the blunt instrument of forced amalgamation to reform local government. However, a host of recent public inquiries has demonstrated that despite compulsory mergers in all states, except WA, financial unsustainability has become more acute. Using the case study of the successful achievement of ongoing financial sustainability by Lake Macquarie City Council in NSW through its resourceful “bottom-up” use of the “top-down” financial parameters set for NSW local government, this paper argues that state governments should concentrate on “process change” by establishing sound “top-down” regulatory frameworks thereby enabling “bottom-up” ingenuity by local authorities rather than “structural change” through compulsory mergers.     

Unequaled Acts of Injustice: Pan‐Indigenous Encounters with Colonial School Systems

This essay reviews a recent film dealing with the forced removal of Australian Aboriginal children from their communities by the Australian government for the best part of 60 years. It uses the review to draw parallels between Australian Aboriginal ‘stolen generations,’ the colonial schooling experienced by the indigenous Maori of New Zealand, the ‘mission school syndrome’ suffered by First Nations people in North America, and the routine punishment for language offenders experienced by the Coorg people from India. Anachronistic as they may seem, such racist policies are not relics of the past but features of modern governance that have only been abandoned relatively recently. In some cases, their ramifications are only just beginning to be felt. Some of the implications for criminology are touched upon. The film is situated in the context of existing video and literary materials dealing with the issue of schooling as a tool for assimilation that readers may find equally informative.     

Health care system change and the cross-border transfer of ideas: influence of the Dutch model on the 2007 German health reform

To increase understanding of the cross-border transfer of ideas through a case study of the 2007 German health reform, this article draws on Kingdon's approach of streams and follows two main objectives: first, to understand the extent to which the German health reform was actually influenced by the Dutch model and, second, in theoretical terms, to inform inductively on how ideas from abroad enter government agendas. The results show that the streams of problem recognition and policy proposals have not been predominantly influenced by the cross-border transfer of ideas from the Netherlands to Germany. The Dutch experience was taken into consideration only after a policy window opened by a shift in politics in the third, the political, stream: the change of government in 2005. In many respects, the way Germany learned from the Netherlands in this case sharply contrasts with an image of solving policy problems by either lesson drawing or transnational deliberation. Instead, the process was dominated by problem solving in the sphere of politics, that is, finding a way to prove the grand coalition was capable of acting.     

A Critical Evaluation of Australian Mineral Resources Rent Tax

An embryonic literature exists on policy failures by the Australian Government, which has examined inter alia the Home Insulation Program, the Green Loans Program, the Building the Education Revolution, and the macroeconomic stimulus package following the global financial crisis. This article contributes to this literature by considering the introduction of the Mineral Resources Rent Tax (MRRT) and its subsequent performance in terms of revenue. We evaluate the implementation of the MRRT using theoretical insights from the policy analysis literature and attempt to draw some broader public policy “lessons”.     

Democracy and Nuclear Arms Control—Destiny or Ambiguity?

Is there a particularly democratic way of dealing with nuclear arms control? Against the background of democratic peace (DP) theory, and using Immanuel Kant's writing as a starting point, this article argues that democracies should indeed develop a preference for arms control, but that Liberalism as well as the nature of nuclear weapons opens the possibility for contingent developments within a DP framework. While DP theory can thus account for the existence of variance, we maintain that a social constructivist complement based on role, identity, and enemy perception can best explain why a given democracy follows a specific path. Case studies of six Western democracies reveal a considerable variance in their nuclear arms control policies, which can indeed be traced back to the countries' respective roles, identities, and images of the Kantian “unjust enemy.”     

Non-Compliance with EU Directives in the Member States: Opposition through the Backdoor?

To what extent are European rules complied with, and what are the reasons for non-compliance with EU law? According to an intergovernmentalist perspective, implementation problems should occur when member states failed to assert their interests in the European decision-making process. Focusing on 26 infringement procedures from the area of labour law, we show that such ‘opposition through the backdoor’ does occur occasionally. However, we demonstrate that opposition at the end of the EU policy process may also arise without prior opposition at the beginning. Additionally, our findings indicate that non-compliance is often unrelated to opposition, and due to administrative shortcomings, interpretation problems, and issue linkage. This study is based on unique in-depth data stemming from a ground-level analysis of the implementation of six EU Directives in all 15 member states.     

Performance accountability in the UN Secretariat – The conflictual way toward more flexibility

The article investigates accountability structures in the Secretariat of the United Nations (UN) by emphasizing the institutional design and the interaction between member states and Secretariat. Empirical findings indicate that reform endeavors toward a more performance‐based accountability in the UN Secretariat have fallen short. The article finds that mistrust between Secretariat and member states and among the member states themselves is predominantly responsible for the identified shortcomings and outlines how polarized the legislative organs – namely the member states – are. Evidently, a substantial concern of the countries represented in the G77 is that an empowerment of the Secretariat would ultimately lead to an empowerment of the influential donor countries and the permanent members of the Security Council. Consequently, the authors identify three main challenges that have to be handled in order to move toward a more performance oriented accountability structure: The creation of a trusting environment and strategic partnerships between the governing bodies, the further empowerment of senior managers, and a review of the current performance management system. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.