Democratizing security sector governance in West Africa: trends and challenges

While other regions of Africa have had their share of crises, the challenge of meeting numerous security threats has been particularly arduous in West Africa. Nevertheless, there are unmistakable signs that, through its collective regional integration instrument, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the sub-region is beginning to awaken fully to the need to tackle its security crisis. This article makes two interrelated arguments. First, although the creation of democratic spaces in democratizing states, or complete rebuilding of collapsed states, provides greater opportunities for security sector reform (SSR), the relationship between democratization and democratic governance of the security sector is less clear. Second, a combination of norm setting at the sub-regional level as well as activism in the non-governmental sector across the region is driving the move (even if slow and seemingly uncoordinated) toward improved governance, including in the security sector at the national level. However, the commitment of states to principles of good governance at the inter-governmental level does not naturally lead to corresponding change within the state. Therefore, there is a clear need to promote a security sector governance (SSG) agenda at both sub-regional and national levels in order to expand the space for meaningful SSR processes in West Africa.     

Regional and multi-level governance: East Asian leadership after the global financial crisis

Although the economies of East Asia emerged from the global financial crisis of 2008 in comparatively strong positions, they remain structurally embedded within global markets. The degree of regional integration that has occurred within East Asia is thus predicated on the on-going interdependence with the economies of Europe and North America. Moves to advance East Asian regional cooperation in the wake of the crisis reflect this global interdependence, as well as intra-regional differences in interests and a lack of strong leadership within the region. Modest cooperation on an East Asian basis has continued since 2008 but the region is very far from realising a substantive regional governance model on economic and financial issues and does not appear to be pursuing a distinctive governance agenda. This article examines recent developments in East Asian regional cooperation, with a view to assessing the significance of current achievements and explaining the mixed and sometimes contradictory nature of initiatives for regional governance in East Asia.     

Leadership, decision-making and governance in the EU and East Asia: crisis and post-crisis

The global financial crisis of the late 2000s has affected the EU and East Asia differently. The EU has seen its economic, political and social structures undermined by the problems derived from the global crisis and subsequent eurozone sovereign debt crisis. In contrast, East Asia has gone through the global crisis relatively unscathed and has seen its standing at the global level reinforced. As a result, there has been a reconfiguration of leadership, decision-making and governance structures in both regions. In the case of the EU, Germany has emerged as the clear leader of European efforts to solve regional economic problems. Meanwhile, intergovernmentalism has replaced supranationalism as the decision-making and even implementation procedure of choice. Differently, there is no single leader in East Asia. China has become one of the most important powers at the global level, but at the regional level, different countries have shaped East Asia’s response to the crisis. Concurrently, there has been some move towards increasing integration, even though intergovernmentalism still defines governance structures in the region. Thus, the global financial crisis of the late 2000s has helped to shape new leadership, decision-making and governance structures in both regions.     

Putting security governance to the test: conceptual,empirical, and normative challenges

Security governance has featured prominently in recent debates about fragmentation, informalization, and privatization in the increasingly diverse field of security policy. It has inspired much valuable research. Yet, there are not just very different conceptual understandings of security governance; there is also a lack of clarity regarding its empirical manifestations and normative connotations. After a decade of research, the special issue therefore puts security governance to the test and scrutinizes its analytical and political pitfalls and potentials. This editorial briefly reviews the rise of security governance, identifies central conceptual, empirical, and normative challenges that need to be addressed, and introduces the individual contributions to this special issue.     

ASEM and the future of Asia-Europe relations: Background,characteristics and challenges

The article mainly discusses the background and implications of Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM), from an Asian perspective. It will be clarified that the ASEM process was a by-product of increasing tensions between multilateralism and regionalism. As a comprehensive cooperation forum between the EU and 10 East Asian countries, comprising political, economic and cultural agenda, ASEMs approach so far was multi-purposed and multi-faceted. The Asian members of ASEM have shown different strategic behavior in approaching ASEM, which is the result of their diverse geopolitical positions. However, the Asians, especially since the financial crisis of 1997, are well aware of the utility and necessity of their own regionalism, and many initiatives have already been brought into effect, negotiated or even feasibility-studied. The ASEM process may, therefore, find itself in increasing tension with this increasing regionalist tendency in East Asia. It is an immediate task for both European and Asian members of ASEM to revitalize the dynamics of ASEM cooperation.     

Towards the global social: sociological reflections on governance and risk in the context of the current financial crisis

This article explores the relationship between contemporary forms of governance and risk. International Relations scholarship tends to locate governance within a theoretical framework derived from sovereignty. I suggest that a Foucauldian notion of ‘governmentality’ entails a better understanding of modes of governance, especially in so-called advanced liberal societies. In these societies, a particular form of rationality and a series of invasive techniques render individuals as objectified, classified and calculable things, in turn, making them more amenable to risk-based technologies of control. Via a survey of credit-rating, auditing, insuring and other calculative practices, I examine that ways in which governance operates as a biopolitical technology. This clears the way for thinking about governance in terms of the ‘global social’.     

The governance of global security and development: convergence,divergence and coherence

This paper discusses the gaps in the present international system that in the final analysis threaten the objectives of conflict management. It asks if there is the interest and institutional will within the international community to close such gaps. It poses this challenge from the perspective of coherence. As noted in companion pieces to this study, the concept of coherence has at least four inter-related and complementary dimensions, i.e. internal, whole of government, harmonisation and alignment.     

联合国的现在与未来

“9·1 1事件”一年来 ,联合国在国际反恐中发挥了重要作用。 2 0 0 2年 8月 2 6日 ,联合国在南非召开了可持续发展“地球峰会” ,有一百多个国家的政府领导人与会。 9月1 0日 ,第 57届联大揭幕。联合国的地位、作用及其在 2 1世纪的发展前景再次成为人们关注与思考的焦点。为此 ,本期特邀请中国现代国际关系研究所的几位专家 ,以联合国的现在与未来为题举行对谈 ,就联合国的发展演变、其地位与作用的变化、特别是“9·1 1”后联合国面临的新使命和新挑战及 2 1世纪发展前景等问题 ,进行了探讨。或许 ,这些探讨还有欠深入 ,如能由此引发您的进一步思考并就相关问题提出新观点、新看法 ,将是我们的最大收获。     

The power of Trump-speak: populist crisis narratives and ontological security

Abstract

For most observers, the election of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States (US) came as a shock. This has been widely recast as the culmination of the American public’s long-standing dissatisfaction with the political elite and deep-seated frustrations with broader socio-economic conditions. We argue that the Trump campaign’s success also stemmed from its effective use of an emotionally charged, anti-establishment crisis narrative. With insights from political psychology, we examine the socio-linguistic mechanisms that underlie the effectiveness of ‘Trump-speak’ through both quantitative and qualitative content analysis of Trump’s communications toolkit during the 2016?US presidential election campaign. We show that his leadership legitimation claims rest significantly upon ‘crisis talk’ that puts his audience in a loss frame with nothing to lose and explain why ‘crisis talk’ impacts on political behaviour. As we demonstrate, the crisis stories that political agents tell simultaneously instil ontological insecurity among the American public and serve to transform their anxiety into confidence that the narrator’s policy agendas are the route back to ‘normality’. Through these rhetorical mechanisms, the Trump campaign manipulated individuals’ ontological (in)security as a tool in the politics of reassurance at the broader, societal level.     

The coordinate plane of global governance

The ‘coordinate plane of global governance’ developed in this paper describes the trade-off between static gains and dynamic losses associated with international policy harmonization. A simple model illustrates how potential gains result from producing positive international spill-overs, whereas potential losses come from restricted systems competition between national policy regimes. The solution to this model allows identifying the cut-off level between policies suitable for global harmonization and policies which should better not be centralized. An application of the concept to selected policy fields illustrates its relevance for decision-making on global governance.

The human organisation: challenges in NGOs and development programmes

It is frequently contended that NGOs and the wider context of development are intrinsically different from other organisational settings within which Human Resource Development (HRD) is believed to play an important role. The author outlines the basic concepts underpinning human development within organisations, and organisational development, and sets out the arguments for greater investment in people. While this can raise ethical and practical issues in organisations that depend on external funds rather than generating their own income, the failure to develop the staff on whom a development organisation ultimately depends carries far greater risks. Management and specifically HRD are not desk-bound activities that can be pursued through the application of protocols and sanctions, but require vision, leadership, and hands-on engagement.     

A near miss: The North Korean nuclear crisis

Don Oberdorfer, The Two Koreas (New York: Addison‐Wesley, 1998), xvii, 472 pp./$30.00 cloth; Leon V. Sigal, Disarming Strangers (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), xi, 321 pp./$29.95 cloth.     

Urban governance and multilateral aid organizations: The case of informal water supply systems

This paper explores the different urban governance models proposed by multilateral aid organizations in accessing water through informal supply systems, to assess the rationale and the guiding principles at the basis of their different ‘governance approaches’. There can be no doubt that most developing countries are now experiencing a rapid and unprecedented urban growth, which is bringing about a rising demand for urban services, especially those concerning water supply. To cope with this pressing issue, the response of multilateral aid organizations—such as the World Bank, UN-HABITAT and the European Union––has been represented by the design and implementation of different urban governance and management systems, called to support an equitable and efficient access to urban water supply services. This paper focuses on the different urban governance approaches through which multilateral donors support informal networks and small scale providers to provide water supply in cities of developing countries. It highlights how these different urban governance approaches address the overall issues of poverty reduction whilst in reality, in certain cases, they also aim to affect and regulate domestic public policies of Third World countries. In particular, it argues that the governance model proposed––and imposed––by the World Bank continues to belong to a neo-liberal policy agenda, which considers water and urban services as commodities to be managed through widespread competition and market mechanisms. On the contrary, UN-HABITAT, and the European Union to a certain extent, highlight the need for an urban governance system that promotes the ownership of development strategies by local communities and that rests on the principles of inclusiveness and equity.