Fighting on: emotion and conflict termination

Why do states persist in enduring, expensive conflicts when the costs seem so high, the potential benefits, at best, somewhat ambiguous? This article suggests that emotional psychology can provide some insights into this problem. Decision-makers construct a vision of the future that is greatly informed by affect. How they feel in the present has a big impact on their conception of events and their decisions about them. The risks they are prepared to take, the desires they anticipate having in future, the lessons of the past they draw on—all are constructed under the influence of current emotions, and all may encourage the persistence of conflict beyond a point at which more dispassionate minds might desist. This theoretical argument is then illustrated with a discussion of US policy-making in the Vietnam War.     

International NGOs and the challenge of modernity

The forces associated with economic globalisation and the apparent supremacy of market forces have unleashed a range of political and social processes that have served, and were indeed designed, to enrich and empower the few at the expense of the majority. These include phenomena such as the rise in armed conflict, threats to food security, the loss of livelihoods and traditional ways of life of millions of people worldwide, the commodification of social provision, assaults on national sovereignty, and the privatisation of citizenship. However, the author argues, the most significant impact of globalisation is the 'localisation' of social and political struggle, and the emergence of new forms of international solidarity. Many NGOs have too readily succumbed to the view that globalisation in its present form is inevitable and irreversible, and have accommodated to it by trading their essential values for technical professionalism, often imported from the private sector. However, if NGOs are to assume their place as part of a transformational movement for social justice, they must rediscover and foster the values of citizen participation and develop a genuine respect for diversity.     

Changing arenas for agricultural climate change adaptation in Vietnam

Great changes are underway in how climate and agricultural risks are managed in Vietnam. Uncertainties are emerging regarding the role of the state in managing these risks and what this implies for assumptions regarding hoped-for climate change transformations. Local government control is waning in relation to the expanding roles of the private sector and the growing autonomy of farmers themselves. This article presents cases that illustrate the ways that farmers, private investors, and local authorities are responding to climate risk within roles relating to the other risks involving markets, food security, and pressures on common property resources.     

Dangerous Days: The Impact of Nationalism on Interstate Conflict

Does an upsurge in nationalism make interstate conflict more likely? This article gives evidence to suggest that spikes in nationalism do have a direct impact on the likelihood of disputes between states. In it, I use national days or anniversaries as occasions that increase the salience of a national identity and its historical wars. I show that in the two months following national days, conflict is markedly higher than would be expected—almost 30 percent more likely than the rest of the year—and particularly likely for states who initiate conflict or who have revisionist intentions. I demonstrate further how nationalist sentiment can increase international tensions with a case study of national anniversaries in China and Japan. Together, this evidence suggests that the increase in nationalism around national days provides both risks and opportunities to regimes and shapes when they choose conflict over cooperation in international relations.     

Wheeled Warriors: Explaining Variations in the Use of Violence by Private Security Companies in Iraq

This article engages one of the most widely discussed but poorly understood aspects of the Iraq War: the use of violence by private security companies. It explains why, despite sharing several important characteristics—coming from the same general population of military and police veterans, working for the same client during the same time period, performing the same tasks under the same client-imposed rules of engagement, and facing the same kinds of threats in the same general operating environment—the personnel who worked for Blackwater, the chief protector of US State Department employees in Iraq, killed and seriously injured far more people than their counterparts in DynCorp. The article argues that Blackwater's personnel killed and seriously injured far more people in Iraq than their DynCorp counterparts because Blackwater maintained a relatively bellicose military culture that placed strong emphasis on norms encouraging its security teams to exercise personal initiative, proactive use of force, and an exclusive approach to security, which together motivated its personnel to use violence quite freely against anyone suspected of posing a threat. If the trends established during the Iraq and Afghan Wars continue, then private security companies will see extensive employment in future conflicts. These findings, consequently, have implications that extend beyond the Iraq War and the particular firms under study. Indeed, they indicate that governments and other future clients should analyze the military cultures of the firms vying for their business and use the results as a basis for deciding which firms to hire and, to a great extent, represent them in unstable conflict zones.     

Managing ethical standards: When rhetoric meets reality

In the last two decades, the private sector has been placed under intensifying pressure to ensure it operates in an environmentally and socially responsible manner. Companies have moved through various phases of response, starting with a ‘deny and defend’ position, moving to ‘paying penance’ through donations and philanthropy, and currently settling on risk management through mitigating the negative impacts of their business operations. Drawing on research undertaken by Oxfam International mainly in the retail sector, as well as in the coffee and pharmaceutical sector, this article argues that the current approach is, as yet, inadequate. Simply mitigating negative impacts through castigating intermediaries or suppliers does not contribute to sustainable solutions. For the private sector to meet corporate social responsibility pledges, companies need to pursue alternative business models that forge connectivity, coherence, and interdependence between their core business operations and their ethical and environmental commitments.     

War's dark glamour: ethics of research in war and conflict zones

The article addresses three questions concerning violent conflicts in Sri Lanka, Burma and southern Thailand: How is it possible to investigate questions of war and conflict in the field, especially concerning access and exit options? Access was gained in different ways in all three areas depending on the respective situations; special conditions and restrictions influenced the type and quality of data to be collected. The second question concerns the ethics and permissibility of research and data collection in conflict zones. What are the dangers or risks for both researcher and the local informants? What will be the quality of data so gathered? Third is a related question of ethics, that of impartiality: this is less a question of whether it is possible than of whether it is permissible for the researcher to stay ‘neutral’ in violent conflicts. This also has to be determined individually and in a different manner for each conflict zone. It is obvious that all researchers violate the ideal of ‘objectivity’ implicitly or explicitly from the start, yet this need not invalidate their findings. The paper concludes that research in conflict zones is mandatory, despite all doubts and qualifications. Only making such zones public can shape perceptions, give voice to the voiceless and so prevent these conflicts becoming invisible—‘war without witness’.     

Veterinary services in the Horn of Africa: where are we now?

Pastoralists are marginalised in the Horn of Africa and receive inadequate veterinary services. Under economic structural adjustment programmes, public veterinary services became increasingly ineffective and, in response, community-based NGO programmes were established in some pastoral areas. While these programmes were often considered to be effective, with few exceptions they were small in scale, isolated from central government, and based on subsidised systems of drug distribution. Consequently, their sustainability was questionable. Governments now have incentives to improve veterinary services to pastoralists because of new possibilities for increasing livestock exports alongside new concerns about protecting consumers from livestock-related diseases. Current policy and institutional reform is encouraging a greater role for the private sector in service delivery but this is developing slowly, particularly in pastoral areas where future provision is likely to involve public–private partnerships.     

欧债危机对拉美经济的影响:现状及展望

2011年以来,欧洲主权债务危机不断深化,其未来发展存在重大不确定性。新兴经济体受到明显冲击,其经济增长速度明显下滑。随着欧债危机的深化,拉美经济的宏观稳定和金融稳定风险不断累积。拉美经济体面临着政策持续与政策退出、政策刺激与衍生风险、经济增长与金融稳定等目标之间的两难抉择。债务问题还将持续冲击金融市场,拉美经济体的主要金融市场中短期内将保持震荡甚至是下行格局,国际资本流动更加紊乱。未来欧债危机对拉美经济体的影响将体现为:全球经济可能二次探底,部分拉美经济体可能硬着陆,需警惕滞胀风险;全球总需求仍不足,拉美经济体出口将进一步放缓;国际资本流动可能逆转,拉美经济体金融风险需谨慎。     

Incentives to Rebel,Bargaining, and Civil War

To fully understand the effects of factors that encourage rebellion, we must differentiate between the way such factors influence mass decisions to join an ongoing rebellion and the way they influence the level of concessions offered by the government. We analyze a three-player bargaining model that allows us to do so. Our results indicate that governments tolerate a greater risk of conflict with their chosen concessions when any conflict that does occur is likely to take the form of a limited, rather than popular, rebellion. We demonstrate that rebellions are more likely to be popular when the general populace is relatively dissatisfied with the status quo and when the government is relatively incapable of putting down rebellions. Widespread poverty and low state capacity might therefore be associated with a lower likelihood of conflict, but a greater probability that the general populace will participate in any conflict that does occur.     

Single-party government,Prime Minister psychology,and the diversionary use of force: theory and evidence from the British case

ABSTRACT

This paper develops expectations about the likelihood of diversionary conflict initiation by parliamentary democracies with single-party majoritarian (SPM) governments. While most of the literature on diversion and governmental arrangement claims that SPMs have little incentive and/or limited capacity to execute diversionary gambits, we contend that the structural and environmental impetuses for diversion in such states are in fact largely indeterminate. We posit that the psychological attributes of prime ministers under SPM – in particular, their level of distrust – is the most important predictor of how they view structural and environmental constraints, and thus of whether they will militarily divert from poor economic conditions. Distrustful prime ministers are predisposed to the use of force, will dwell on the costs of economic problems, and fear that co-partisan MPs (especially in the cabinet) have designs on their office. Thus, despite having a legislative majority, these leaders will choose diversionary conflict over economic policy fixes. We conduct a partial test of this hypothesis in the British case from 1945 to 2007, and our analyses provide robust support.     

Domestic political conflict,issue areas,and some dimensions of foreign policy behavior other than conflict∗

This paper examines the seemingly complex linkage between domestic political conflict and external behavior by broadening our consideration of foreign policy behavior. Underlying this analysis is a view that there are elements of both assertiveness and caution in the political use of foreign policy by domestically threatened leaders. They act assertively to divert attention away from domestic issues and enhance the image of their regime, but at the same time they are likely to show some restraint in order to avoid costly military and economic reactions by foreign actors. It is hypothesized that domestic conflict affects the degree of independence, commitment, and intensity in a nation's foreign policy behavior, but no so much its foreign conflict. Supplementing this, the mediating role of another foreign policy property, substantive issue area, is examined as a means of identifying conditions under which the impact of internal unrest would be greatest. The results of the analysis are mixed, but they do lend credibility to the idea that domestic conflict is related to multiple dimensions of foreign policy. More broadly, they suggest that governments employ different foreign policy strategies in coping with different types of domestic political conflict.     

Universal soldiers or parochial actors: Understanding jihadists as products of their environments

ABSTRACT

Why did the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) and Jabhat al-Nusra (JN)—two groups that shared similar ideological preferences and were both initially part of the Al Qaeda network—take different paths in the Syrian conflict? Part of the answer lies in the fact that JN is primarily a Syrian organization, whereas Iraqis lead ISIS. A jihadist group’s relationship to its country of origin and domicile (the two are not always the same) helps to explain that organization’s ideological preferences and alliance behavior. Yet no method of categorization based on jihadist-state relations exists. I fill this gap by theorizing an explanatory typology based on a jihadist group’s relationship with its country of origin and/or domicile. This typology consists of two tiers. The first classifies jihadist organizations based on whether they are nationally homogeneous or heterogeneous, and whether they are based in their country of origin, exile, or multiple locations. The second tier categorizes groups based on the nature of their engagement—collaborative, belligerent, or neutral—with a state. This new typology enables the generation of multiple hypotheses and has practical implications given that most U.S. counterterrorism efforts require cooperation from partner nations.     

Young Afghans in ‘transition’: towards Afghanisation,exit or violence?

This article (re)examines Afghan youth within the post-Taliban nation-building process through a close review of the growing academic literature on the nexus of development and conflict, as well as the author's personal, in-country interactions with Afghans over the past decade. It argues that when people believe in development, they view inequalities as a particular stage that they must pass through to emerge on the other side. Yet, when a country's people lose faith in the promise of development, they begin to view inequalities without the hope that reaching the other side is simply a matter of time and patience. When this ‘loss of faith’ occurs one option is to try to exit to a better place. The second option is violence—to break through to the ‘other side’ through force. This article argues that with the decade long failure of development in Afghanistan such trends are increasingly visible among Afghan youth, and suggests the need for a critical paradigm shift in the way that we view the country and the context of development there.     

Private-sector development in a transition economy: The case of Vietnam

Since Vietnam introduced its Doi Moi reform policy in 1986, the development of the private sector has been a main policy concern for the government and the ruling Communist Party. The main development challenge for Vietnam is how to sustain economic growth and reduce poverty as the labour force continues to expand. It is envisaged that the private sector will play a major role in that respect. This article looks into the issue of whether the private sector can live up to widespread expectations. High and stable economic growth indicates that reforms have been consistent but also that private-sector initiatives have moved ahead of formal institutional changes. Private-sector development is new in Vietnam and starts from a low level. The public and foreign investment sectors are major players compared to the domestic private sector, which comprises many small firms. Poverty reduction has been impressive but it is only now that private-sector development is becoming an important contributor. Stemming the growth in inequality remains a challenge where the private sector's contribution to increasing public revenue has yet to materialise.     

Security sector reform: bringing the private in

As the links between security and development have been increasingly recognized, Security Sector Reform (SSR) has become a central part of development policy. Following a traditional Weberian conception of the state, these programmes are almost exclusively focused on the public security sector, neglecting the extent to which people in developing countries have come to rely on private security providers for their day-to-day security needs. While the reform of public security institutions is undoubtedly important, this article argues that a strict public/private distinction is a poor guide to security sector reform. Focusing on Sierra Leone and Kenya, the article argues that ‘bringing the private in’ is crucial to a comprehensive understanding of the security situation in most countries and that any attempt to ensure better security for all must take account of private actors. Private security companies and their integration into SSR matter not simply in terms of the maintenance of law and order, but also in terms of who has access to security, and ultimately, for the legitimacy of social and political orders.     

Policy Lessons from the Eurozone Crisis

The current European crisis has shed light on several weaknesses and the institutional incompleteness characterizing the euro area. The manifestation of Europe's fragility was preceded by a large build-up of debt in the private sector, associated with national current account divergences and the deterioration of competitiveness particularly of the euro periphery countries. With the economic situation deteriorating, private sector debt became less credible, contaminating banks’ balance sheets and placing a heavy burden on governments. A sovereign-bank vicious circle emerged: on the one hand, with banking risk translating into higher sovereign risk because of the governments’ guarantor role and, on the other hand, with the deterioration of government's creditworthiness affecting the banking systems through banks’ sovereign bond holdings. In principle, this negative feedback can be stopped by breaking one of the channels of transmission. A banking union at the European level is proposed as one solution.     

The Diplomacy of Business

The “new” global capitalism is transforming the ways in which commerce is conducted and organized. Business enterprises have to perform and compete in a largely unregulated global market economy if they are to survive, let alone prosper, and contend with higher levels of financial and political risks. Transnational Corporations (TNCs) have come to occupy a pivotal position in the world economy, commanding immense financial resources and employing tens of thousands throughout the world, and are active participants in global political and economic affairs. TNC executives—the global corporate elite—crisscross the planet as they manage local, national, and international relationships, and represent and advance their global interests in myriad international conferences and meetings. TNCs are now interacting with states and international governmental organizations on a broad array of issues and problems (many far removed from the core business). As global actors with distinct and clear interests, they have had to develop their own representational mechanisms to manage the complex relationships that mark today’s global system.     

Socioeconomic Inequality and Communal Conflict: A Disaggregated Analysis of Sub-Saharan Africa, 1990–2008

This article examines the role of economic inequality in influencing the risk of armed conflict between communal groups in Sub-Saharan Africa. We argue that socioeconomic inequality can generate intergroup grievances, which, due to the exclusionary legitimacy of the African state and elite incentives to engage in competitive mobilization of communal groups, precipitate violent communal conflict. To examine this argument, we rely on a series of household surveys to construct subnational inequality measures. For each region, we calculate measures of inequality in terms of household welfare and education between individuals (vertical inequality) and between ethnic groups (horizontal inequality). Combining the inequality data with new georeferenced data on communal conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa for the period 1990–2008, we find that regions with strong socioeconomic inequalities—both vertical and horizontal—are significantly more exposed to violent communal conflicts. More specifically, regions in which the largest ethnic group is severely disadvantaged compared to other groups are particularly prone to experience communal conflict.     

A Quality of Government Peace? Explaining the Onset of Militarized Interstate Disputes, 1985–2001

That democracies do not wage wars against each other is one of the most widely accepted claims within the study of international relations, although challenged lately by the capitalist peace argument. In addition to confirming both the democratic and capitalist peace effects, this article finds that the impact of quality of government—that is, having an impartial, nonpoliticized, and noncorrupt bureaucracy—on the risk of interstate conflict is at least on par with the influence of democracy. This result draws on dyadic Militarized Interstate Disputes (MIDs) data in 1985–2001 and holds even under control for incomplete democratization and economic development, as well as for fatal MIDs, the Cold War era, and within politically relevant dyads. I argue that the causal mechanism underlying this finding is that quality of government reduces information uncertainty among potentially warring parties and improves their ability to credibly commit to keeping their promises. Both democratic and capitalist peace theory needs to be complemented by theories “bringing the state back in” to the study of interstate armed conflict.