With friends like these: foreign policy as personal relationship

Governments are run by humans who have sympathies and moods. The study of leaders' personalities, albeit not widespread, is an important tool for foreign policy analysis. Plus, friendship is a feeling that decision-makers like to express for each other. This paper analyses the activity of Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's three times premier, who has made ‘friendship’ a central tenet of his personal foreign policy. Three cases are considered, namely, Berlusconi's relationship with George W. Bush, Tony Blair and Vladimir Putin. The paper concludes that his friendship-based foreign policy has somehow worked; but, because he decided to ignore Italy's structural constraints in the international arena, he ended up wasting opportunities and resources.     

In Harm's Way: Why and When a Modern Democracy Risks the Lives of Its Uniformed Citizens

Robert Serber with Robert P. Crease, Peace and War: Reminiscences of a Life on the Frontiers of Science. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998. Pp. xxii + 241, notes, illus., index. $29.95. ISBN 0–231–10546–0.

Constantine P. Danopoulos and Kostas G. Messas (eds.), Crises in the Balkans: Views from the Participants. Boulder, CO: Westview Press 1997. Pp.389, 7 maps, biblio, index. $75/£45.50. ISBN: 0–8133–8918–6.

Alan C. Tidwell, Conflict Resolved? A Critical Assessment of Conflict Resolution. London and New York: Pinter, Cassell, 1998. Pp.xii + 177, biblio, index. £45 (cloth), £15.99 (paper). ISBN 1–85567–42–0 and 543–9.

Stefan Troebst, Conflict in Kosovo: Failure of Prevention? An Analytical Documentation, 1992–1998. Flensburg: European Center for Minority Issues, 1998, Pp. xi + 107, 2 maps, abbreviation list. ISSN 1435–9812.     

The Invisible Hand? Critical Information Infrastructures,Commercialisation and National Security

Corporatisation of critical information infrastructure (CII) is rooted in the ‘privatisation wave’ of the 1980s-90s, when the ground was laid for outsourcing public utilities. Despite well-known risks relating to reliability, resilience, and accountability, commitment to efficiency imperatives have driven governments to outsource key public services and infrastructures. A recent illustrative case with enormous implications is the 2017 Swedish ICT scandal, where outsourcing of CII caused major security breaches. With the transfer of the Swedish Transport Agency’s ICT system to IBM and subcontractors, classified data and protected identities were made accessible to non-vetted foreign private employees – sensitive data could thus now be in anyone’s hands. This case clearly demonstrates accountability gaps that can arise in public-private governance of CII.