Afghanistan's India–Pakistan dilemma: advocacy coalitions in weak states

This article seeks to examine the foreign policy behaviour of weak states in regions marked by politically turbulent geostrategic environments. An analysis of Afghanistan's foreign policy behaviour vis-à-vis Pakistan and India lends focus to this aim. India–Pakistan rivalry has gained traction as a key factor in determining Afghanistan's stability in the wake of the drawdown of Coalition forces. Missing from this debate, however, is consideration of Afghanistan's agency as a weak state with an independent set of policy preferences. Based on primary interviews with a diverse set of Afghan political actors the article outlines two competing policy advocacies: Pakistan friendly and Pakistan averse. The article argues that these advocacies are key to understanding Afghanistan's India–Pakistan dilemma. Departing from the ethnic lens used to explain Afghan politics and its regional linkages, this article shows that Kabul's relations with Islamabad determine its approach towards New Delhi regardless of ethnic rivalries. Understanding domestic Afghan narratives in this regional context is therefore imperative to adequately assess South Asia's prospective security calculus.     

Going on the Run: What Drives Military Desertion in Civil War?

Under which circumstances do soldiers and officers desert in a violent domestic conflict? This article studies individual military insubordination in the Syrian civil war, drawing on interviews with deserters from the Syrian army now based in Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon. A plausibility probe of existing explanations reveals that desertion opportunities originating in conflict events and the presence of safe-havens fail to explain individual deserters' decision making. Accounting for socio-psychological factors—moral grievances and fear—generates more promising results for an inquiry into the conditions under which military personnel desert. While moral concerns with continued military service contribute to accumulating grievances among military members engaged in the civil war, fear—that is, soldiers' concerns for their own safety—is a more effective triggering cause of desertion. The article presents a theory-generating case study on the causes of military insubordination and disintegration during violent conflict.     

Rationalist state,revolutionist EU and realist war: Austria in international society

This article examines Austria's position as a small, neutral state in the international society as framed by the English School. This examination is chiefly done in the face of the effects of great power conflicts and their impact on Western Europe's society of states. In doing so, the article provides insights to the fundamental puzzles concerning the ways power is managed between states, great and small alike. The article surveys how war (such as in South Ossetia in 2008) and war-like incidents affected Austria's position in the international society and the understanding of its place in great power conflicts between East and West. I argue that neutrality, despite European integration in the context of a peaceful international society, remains a political option for small states such as Austria. This option is especially lively if there is a domestic sentimental attachment to it and sticking to it does not undermine domestic or European and international foreign policy rationale and interests.     

Beyond the Target State: Foreign Military Intervention and Neighboring State Stability

Despite the abundance of research on the consequences of foreign military intervention for target countries, scant research has been devoted to the possible regional externalities of intervention. This article examines whether large-scale armed operations affect the likelihood of civil conflict onset in countries neighboring the target of intervention. We posit that interventions against the target regime reduce the government's ability to maintain full control over the entire national territory by diminishing its coercive and administrative capacity. This might, in turn, result in safe haven possibilities for neighboring rival groups in the target and facilitate the transnational spread of arms and other illicit activities that increase the risk of civil conflict onset in the contiguous countries. Armed interventions supportive or neutral toward the target state, on the other hand, bolster the government's coercive capacity and mitigate ongoing crises in the target. Such armed intrusions might therefore undermine the likelihood of internal armed conflict in neighboring countries triggered by the factors associated with “bad neighborhoods”: safe haven possibilities, transnational spread of arms, and refugee flows. To substantiate these claims, we use time-series, cross-national data for the 1951–2004 period. Results indicate that hostile interventions increase the probability of civil conflict onset in connected countries while supportive interventions have a regional pacifying effect, reducing the likelihood of domestic unrest in countries neighboring the target state. Neutral interventions, on the other hand, are unlikely to have any discernible effect on regional stability. Further, the primary motive of intervention, whether for humanitarian or other purposes, has no statistically significant impact on the stability of neighboring countries.     

Populists in government? Hungary's “system of national cooperation”

This article considers Hungary's political system from 2010 to 2014 with Fidesz in power and domestic and international actors’ responses to the challenge of populists-in-government. The article argues that domestic responses were weakened by Fidesz’ use of its supermajority for a partisan redrafting of the country's constitutional order, but also by its mainstream competitors’ failure to offer a contrasting yet positive vision for the electorate. External actors, and the European Union (EU) in particular, may therefore have emerged as the main bulwark against the effects of populists-in-government. However, the EU was relatively ill-equipped to deal with systemic violations of the common values of the Union with respect to its member states, and arguably even the available measures were not used to their full potential. The main explanation for this lies in Fidesz’ origins: rather than starting its life on the fringes of the electoral space, the party had been the major, mainstream centre-right alternative. This position in Hungary's party system had in turn endowed Fidesz with strong transnational links which outlasted the party's own transformation and continued to act to dampen EU action.     

Gender Equality and State Aggression: The Impact of Domestic Gender Equality on State First Use of Force

I examine the role of domestic gender equality in predicting whether or not a state is more aggressive in international disputes. This research adds to a growing body of feminist research in international relations, which demonstrates that states with higher levels of gender equality exhibit lower levels of violence during international disputes and during international crises. Many scholars have argued that a domestic environment of inequality and violence results in a greater likelihood of state use of violence internationally. This argument is most fully developed within feminist literature; however, research in the field of ethno-nationalism has also highlighted the negative impact of domestic discrimination and violence on state behavior at the international level. Using the MID data set and new data on first use of force, I test, using logistic regression, whether states with higher levels of gender equality are less likely to be aggressive when involved in international disputes, controlling for other possible causes of state use of force. Beyond this project's contribution to the conflict literature, this research expands feminist theory by further incorporating it into traditional international relations theory to deepen our understanding of the impact of domestic gender equality on state behavior internationally.     

The Limits of Diversion: Rethinking Internal and External Conflict

The diversionary hypothesis offers a powerful alternative to rationalist explanations of war based on the state as a unitary actor. Most recently, it has been used to explain why democratizing states are more likely to initiate the use of force. In the past two decades, however, quantitative tests have produced mixed and often contradictory empirical results regarding the relationship between domestic unrest and external conflict. This article uses a modified “most likely” case study research design to test the hypothesis. Examination of Argentina's seizure of the Falkland Islands and Turkey's invasion of Cyprus, two cases that should be easy for diversion to explain, provide surprisingly little empirical support for the hypothesis, raising doubts about its wider validity as well as the relationship between democratization and war.     

Centers of Gravity: Regional Powers,Democracy, and Trade

Classic studies on hegemonic stability and power transition suggest that concentration of capabilities favoring a single state can promote economic cooperation and discourage militarized conflict. However, tests of these arguments have been primarily limited to examining temporal variation in global capability distributions and corresponding levels of system-wide cooperation; few have examined the impact of capability concentration at the region level. In this article, we contend that concentration of regional military capabilities corresponds to lower trade costs for states throughout a region and to an incentive for weaker states to de-prioritize expenditure on the military, freeing resources that can be used to promote trade. As a result, this condition promotes higher levels of trade, particularly within the region. We also argue that democratic regional powers are better able to foster confidence in the sustainability of cooperation; thus, the trade-enhancing impact of concentrated regional capabilities is stronger when the predominant state is more democratic. We find evidence in support of our expectations in statistical models examining state trade between 1960 and 2007.     

Foreign Policy Restructuring: Egypt's Disengagement from the Arab–Israeli Conflict Revisited

This article first examines the relative potency of explanations of Egypt's disengagement from the Arab–Israeli conflict that have stressed Sadat's beliefs, class interests or US influence, and it then makes the case for a state–society-centred explanation. Much is written about a diversionary internal–external linkage when a state threatened by internal unrest resorts to international aggression. This article makes the case for a preservative linkage between domestic tensions and accommodationist external behaviour. It identifies the fiscal crisis and societal challenges as key factors behind the policy shift and examines state utilisation of the policy shift to reduce domestic threats. Foreign policy provided the means for easing strained state–society relations by generating resources to alleviate societal crisis and limit the politically costly domestic taxation. Though this did not necessitate making a specific decision (e.g. the visit to Jerusalem), it tipped the scales towards a particular policy option, in this case disengaging from the external conflict rather than maintaining the status quo.     

War Museums in Postwar Lebanon: Memory,Violence, and Performance

Abstract

This article examines three museums that address Lebanon’s history of conflict: the newly opened Beit Beirut on the capital’s former Green Line, the Hezbollah-run Mleeta Resistance Tourist Landmark in south Lebanon, and Umam Documentation and Research’s online archive “Memory at Work.” Each testing the parameters of what the term museum can mean in Lebanon today, these cases highlight the still-contested nature of war narratives. While many Lebanese youth express desire for a shared national history of the civil war, the affective complexities of recuperated memorial sites and the inconsistent involvement of the state suggest that the possibility of publicly staging such a history is far from secure.     

Transatlantic conflict management inside-out: the impact of domestic norms on regional security practices

This article explores the impact of domestic norms on regional security practices in a pluralistic security community in the transatlantic area. A security community is considered to be ‘a group which has become integrated, where integration is defined as the attainment of a sense of community, accompanied by formal or informal institutions or practices, sufficiently strong and widespread to assure peaceful change among members of a group with “reasonable” certainty over a “long” period of time’ (Karl W Deutsch, Sidney A Burrell, Robert A Kann, Maurice Lee Jr, Martin Lichterman, Raymond E Lindgren, Francis L Loewenheim and Richard W Van Wagenen (1957) Political community and the North Atlantic area: international organization in the light of historical experience (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press)). Recent studies have aligned the concept of security community with the practice turn in International Relations theory. Although practice theory is able to explain peaceful conflict resolution within a security community, this article shows that its explanatory power is significantly weaker when it comes to military interventions outside the security community. The article theoretically and empirically investigates this argument by using the empirical case of extraregional conflict management in Afghanistan. The importance of domestic norms in constructing and perceiving regional security practices in out-of-area operations emphasizes the ‘local’ over the ‘regional’ as a crucial driver behind the emergence of a regional actor's understanding of security and thus for the formation and consolidation of regional peace.     

Time Present and Time Past: Rivalry and the Duration of Interstate Wars, 1846-1985

This article sits at the intersection of the rivalry, war duration, and bargaining literatures, suggesting that histories of armed conflict between states increase war duration through their effects on the selectorate and the wartime bargaining process. I argue that the historical relationship between two states plays an integral role in the duration of future conflict. Specifically, historical conflict between states intensifies the preference of national selectorates for military victory and narrows the range of negotiated settlements that leaders might pursue while still maintaining domestic political support. I employ Bennett and Stam's (1996) ex ante data set and Crescenzi and Enterline's (2001) International Interaction Score to provide an empirical test of the ability to generalize appropriately coded historical interaction to the topic of war duration. Contradicting earlier studies, the results of this analysis show that a properly operationalized measure of rivalry has significant and positive effects on war duration.     

India’s role during the 1956 Suez Crisis: Between peacemaking and postcolonial solidarity

ABSTRACT

The 1956 Suez conflict was not inevitable. The involvement of an impartial third party had offered an exit ramp for the main protagonists. Largely forgotten today, India strove to reconcile the interests of the Westerns powers with Arab nationalism. Displaying creativity and perseverance in attempting to arrest the sudden deterioration in security in its extended neighborhood, India’s unceasing but responsible support for a weaker Arab state in the backdrop of determined Western coercion is a useful illustration for contemporary policymakers who are attempting to craft a sustainable approach towards a tumultuous West Asia. Using previously unused archival documents, this paper adds to the small literature on India’s involvement in this crisis by offering the first detailed account of India’s attempt to prevent the outbreak of hostilities in those fateful months of 1956. By doing so, this article also reveals interesting facets of India’s approach to conflict management and regional stability in the 1950s, a role that was predicated on not just promoting strategic restraint between antagonistic states but also enabling conflict resolution options that preserved the vital interests of competing actors.     

Military Dialogue in the Euro‐Mediterranean Charter: An Unjustified Absence

The summer 2006 war in Lebanon can be perceived through at least five different frames of reference. The US administration saw the war in Lebanon as a local manifestation of the global war on terror. According to this framework, Hezbollah is an Al Qaeda-type enemy, not a national group with a local agenda and constituency; bargaining with Hezbollah is not possible. This point of view makes fighting global terror more difficult and jeopardises the search for stability and peace in the region. Many Israeli and European politicians saw the war as a confrontation between radical Islam and a modern Israeli state, a clash of cultures between Islamic fundamentalists and Western civilisation. This frame of reference, however, fails to recognise the fault line within the Muslim world itself, between those who want to integrate their societies into a globalised world and those who do not. The conflict in Lebanon can also be interpreted as a consequence of the weakening of a state, a framework which underlines the need to strengthen Arab institutions, or as an asymmetrical war between an armed nation state and a guerrilla movement. Finally, the war in Lebanon can be seen as a conflict over power, land, resources and sovereignty–the classic realist perspective. If the international community fails to work toward a comprehensive peace settlement in the Middle East, another framework will gain strength in the Arab world: one that interprets events according to a theory of non-negotiable conflicts between Western imperialism and radical Islamic resistance.     

The Rise and Demise of the Two-State Paradigm

The conventional wisdom recommends the establishment of a Palestinian state to bring about an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (the two-state paradigm). This article first reviews the confluence of domestic and international factors that led to the resurgence of the two-state paradigm. Next, it concludes that a peaceful outcome in accordance with this paradigm is unlikely to emerge in the near future: the two national movements, the Palestinian and the Zionist, are not close to a historic compromise, and the Palestinians are not able to build a state. Finally, the article analyzes the policy options available to policymakers. State-building is unlikely to succeed. Similarly, a binational state, where Arabs and Jews live peacefully together is not within reach. A regional approach that advocates a greater role for Arab states in Palestinian affairs has better chances of stabilizing the situation than the previous options. Finally, in the absence of a solution, the most realistic policy appears to be conflict management.     

Power-sharing after the Arab Spring? Insights from Lebanon’s Political Transition

Abstract

The article looks at the legacy of consociationalism in Lebanon with the aim of illuminating some insights on the linkages between power-sharing and conflict resolution in the post-2011 Middle East. It highlights three core dilemmas or governance traps that have recurred in Lebanon’s political dynamic: the power-sharing formula’s proneness to deadlock, its dependence on the external environment as an avenue for partisanship and sectarian leverage, and its weak responsiveness to demands from below. The article shows how these dilemmas are tightly linked to the politics of sectarianism. While Lebanon’s postwar transition (1990 onward) serves as a backdrop for exploring these dilemmas, emphasis is placed on the performance of Lebanon’s political system in the post–Arab Spring era. The aim is to assess whether Lebanon’s consociational performance has matured over time. The Lebanese experience brings into sharper focus the limitations of sectarian power-sharing. Still, it provides useful insights for reshaping the debate on power-sharing in divided societies of the Arab world.     

The Failure of the Indian Federation's Process of Civic Nation Formation

The States Reorganization Act of 1956, which reformed India's state boundaries primarily along linguistic lines, derailed civic nation creation in postindependence India. Thereafter, regional politicians were given a linguistic community with occasional ethnic congruence as their vote bank. This post-1956 political reality incentivized regional identity formation for regional politicians consolidating political power and eroded the influence of the independence era English-educated secular elite. In addition, the 1956 act made it a strategic rational choice for regional political elites not given their own states, to fight for the formation of new states. The hypothesis demonstrated in this article follows: The States Reorganization Act of 1956 made it the rational choice for regional political and intellectual elites to consolidate power based upon linguistic regional identities, making the central independence era goal of an overarching civic nationalism for the Indian federation impossible.     

Explaining India’s foreign policy: theoretical explorations

ABSTRACT

This article explores new lines of conceptualization to understand India’s regional behavior. It argues that the twin concepts of relational power and domestic balance of forces provide better insights into India’s post-Cold war responses than some of the available explanations. It allows us to connect the domestic and external dimensions of policy and identify the cluster of state and non-state actors that shape policy responses. Imagining India’s regional behavior in relational terms allows us to better explain the gap between power and policies, what current literature has identified as the key puzzle in India’s foreign policy behavior.     

Europe Vis-À-Vis the Changing Regional Order in the MENA

Europe’s relations with the states of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are facing a critical juncture. When looking at a regional security architecture, Europe’s overarching interest is stability as it prevents conflict and state vacuums from menacing trade and energy supply routes, creating safe havens for terrorist organizations or hostile powers and fueling refugee flows toward Europe. However, compared to the past, European actors are confronted with a sharply new scenario in MENA that challenges these interests, given a progressive retrenchment of the United States, the rise of China, and MENA actors playing a more assertive role in regional politics and conflicts. The February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine is further accelerating these trends. Against this shifting background, MENA countries have intensified efforts to diversify their partnerships with rising global and regional players. European actors still struggle to come to grip with the multipolar scenario in the making—and to design an appropriate strategy to respond.     

Does capitalism need the state system?

Contemporary Marxist students of international relations, like their mainstream counterparts, disagree over whether geopolitics has a future. Many believe that it has none, either because globalized capitalism has overcome the nation-state or because the ‘informal empire’ of the United States has overridden inter-state conflict. This article supports those who argue that significant economic and political conflicts persist among the main capitalist states. It does so by exploring the question of whether, in Marxist theory, the capitalist economic system and the international system of states are necessarily or contingently related. Marx's method in Capital offers, it is argued, a way of non-reductively incorporating the state system within the capitalist mode of production. This argument provides the basis for a partial reconciliation of Marxism and realism. More importantly, it offers a theoretical framework in which to explore the scope for inter-state conflict in the 21^st century.