Just the Two of Us? Civil Conflicts,Pro-State Militants,and the Violence Premium

Quantitative literature discussing violence in civil conflicts tends towards a typical model of engagement between governments and revolutionaries. Whilst recent work has shown the significant impact of multiple anti-government groups, a further feature remains understudied—the role of pro-state militants. This article theorizes a “violence premium” when such groups arise, which leads to all connected groups devoting greater energy to conflict than they would in isolation. Employing duration analysis and data from The Troubles in Northern Ireland, where Republicans act as revolutionary insurgents, Loyalists as pro-state militants, and the British Army as government forces, the violence premium is empirically confirmed. Both Loyalists and Republicans deviate from their underlying strategies to attack more frequently when violence by their rivals increases, with Republicans and the British Army engaging in the same way. An extended analysis, accounting for the status of the victim, shows that the violence premium resulting from interaction between Loyalists and Republicans targeted only the civilian population of Northern Ireland, elucidating the sectarian component of The Troubles. These results show that including all conflict parties and considering how they are linked are important features in studies that aim to determine the net level of violence in civil conflicts.     

Introduction to the forum ‘The EU's Common Security and Defence Policy and the challenge of democratic legitimacy beyond the nation-state’

The democratic control and legitimacy of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) has received growing attention. However, thus far, studies have mostly focused on ‘blue prints’, i.e., the analysis of formal powers of formal institutions, especially the European Parliament. These studies leave two desiderata that the contributions to this forum aim at overcoming: Firstly, in-depth case studies are required on how formal institutions make actual use of their formal powers in CSDP. Secondly, an examination of the ‘sociocultural infrastructure’ in which formal institutions and decision-making processes are embedded is required. The contributions to this forum redress both deficits. First, the actual practices of parliamentary involvement in the case of the EU's first maritime mission ‘Atalanta’ are examined. Second, the most important dimensions of the ‘sociocultural infrastructure’ are empirically studied, namely public opinion, the public sphere and civil society.     

Guest Editor’s Introduction: India’s Economy: Growth,Governance, and Reform

This introduction provides the context for, summarizes, and connects the articles in the special issue.     

Beyond ‘Engagement and Integration’ : An Analysis of the Adjustment of the Obama Administration’s Economic Policies toward China

As part of its new strategy of ＂returning to the Asia-Pacific region＂, the ~Obama administration has adopted some tough economic policies towards China, notably promoting the Trans-Pacific Partnership （TPP） and attempting to establish new rules of international trade and investment aimed at strengthening economic ties with other Westem countries through the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership Agreement（TTIP ）,     

Subcontracting,facilitating and qualities of regional power: the UK’s partial pivot to Asia

Asia Europe Journal - This article explores the UK’s foreign policy “pivot” to Asia, a decade after its tentative beginnings. This pivot is understood to be Britain’s...     

Human Rights and Foreign Policy: Wilson and the Greek Dictators, 1967–1970

The military coup of 21 April 1967 brought to power a repressive dictatorship in Greece. It proceeded to deprive Greeks of their human rights and civil liberties, outraged international public opinion and strained transatlantic relations during the Cold War. The “Greek case” culminated in the withdrawal of Greece from the Council of Europe and calls for its expulsion from NATO. This article will analyse the foreign policy considerations that determined British policy towards the Greek junta during 1967—such as Cold War realities, alliance dynamics, economic and commercial imperatives, regional instability in the Mediterranean and domestic pressures. It will look at how these factors coalesced into shaping British policy towards the Greek junta into one in which human rights had little bearing. The article will also consider the impact of the “Greek case” on the image and credibility of the Labour government of 1966–1970 and explain why vociferous anti-junta activities in London were to create such policy difficulties for the British government.     

Africa Isn’t an Island: An Emerging Continent and the Geopolitics of the 21st Century

Long treated as marginal to United States strategic interests, political, economic, and security, developments on the African continent have forced a reconsideration of Africa's geopolitical (and geoeconomics) significance in the twenty-first century. Moreover, the success of efforts to lower carbon emissions and other measures to combat the effects of climate change are highly dependent on access to Africa's mineral reserves—another factor driving both global and regional powers increasingly to become engaged on the continent. Criticism of former President Donald Trump's reported statements about African countries notwithstanding, the significant shift towards analytical realism under that administration—including not treating Africa in isolation from global trends—should be a lasting legacy.     

Introduction: understanding the consequences of the Arab uprisings – starting points and divergent trajectories

This introduction sets the context for the following articles by first conceptualizing the divergent post-uprising trajectories taken by varying states: these are distinguished first by whether state capacity collapses or persists, and if it persists, whether the outcome is a hybrid regime or polyarchy. It then assesses how far starting points – the features of the regime and of the uprising – explain these pathways. Specifically, the varying levels of anti-regime mobilization, explained by factors such as levels of grievances, patterns of cleavages, and opportunity structure, determine whether rulers are quickly removed or stalemate sets in. Additionally, the ability of regime and opposition softliners to reach a transition pact greatly shapes democratic prospects. But, also important is the capacity – coercive and co-optative – of the authoritarian rulers to resist, itself a function of factors such as the balance between the patrimonial and bureaucratic features of neo-patrimonial regimes.     

In defence of intra‐disciplinarity: ‘European studies’, the ‘New Regionalism’, and the issue of democratisation

This article argues in favour of an intra‐disciplinary rapprochement between ‘EU studies’ and those working in the ‘new regionalism’ (NR). I take the issue of democratisation as an example of how scholars of both the EU and NR could usefully learn from each other. European Union studies has recently undergone a ‘normative turn’, through which inter/intra‐disciplinarity has received a fillip; I argue that at both conceptual and empirical levels, new regionalist studies would benefit from a similar mainstreaming of democracy issues and a similarly open approach to inter/intra‐disciplinarity. Moreover, EU studies scholars would benefit both conceptually (an escape from the ‘N=1’ problem that has plagued integration theory, the adoption of a clear critical theory perspective) and empirically (further cases in which to test hypotheses and generate data) from such a rapprochement.1 I would like to thank the three anonymous referees who made such supportive and helpful comments on the first draft of this article. View all notes     

Sovereignty and Human Rights: Re-examining Carter’s Foreign Policy Towards the Third World

This analysis examines the evolution of Jimmy Carter’s human rights policy towards the Third World during the course of his Administration. By exploring the impact of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Soviet-backed Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, it analyses how Carter responded to international outcry by pairing sovereignty as a human right, which specifically appealed to the concerns of newly independent nations in the late 1970s. Carter’s shift is explained first by a brief outline of his initial human rights policy and stumbling blocks; second, by examining Third World responses to the dual invasions; and, finally, exploring how this affected Carter’s human rights policy. It moves beyond claims that Carter abandoned his human rights agenda as he encountered an increasingly volatile international environment, instead examining the very real ways that he re-imagined this policy in the face of a changing global landscape.     

What’s Law Got to Do With It? Economics,Nation-Building,and Human Rights in India and Beyond

The review essay examines three recently published books: Eleanor Newbigin’s The Hindu Family and the Emergence of Modern India: Law, Citizenship and Community, Narendra Subramanian’s Nation and Family: Personal Law, Cultural Pluralism, and Gendered Citizenship in India, and Yüksel Sezgin’s Human Rights Under State-Enforced Religious Family Laws in Israel, Egypt and India.     

Obstacles to NGOs’ accountability to intended beneficiaries: the case of ActionAid

While NGO accountability is widely discussed in the literature, there has been little work done on how accountability systems operate in practice. This article aims to address this gap by using qualitative empirical data to provide a case study of one NGO’s initiative in this area. ActionAid has made substantial, high-profile efforts to improve its downward accountability since 2000. Using data from fieldwork conducted in Uganda and internationally, the article reveals the operational obstacles which have hindered ActionAid in its attempts to strengthen its accountability to intended beneficiaries at the community level, and reviews ActionAid’s ongoing commitment to this goal.     

An assessment of democratic vulnerability: regime type,economic development,and coups d’état

Prior research has not established a clear relationship between democracy and insulation from coups d’état, with very few studies illustrating robust findings on the subject. I contend that the lack of attention paid to the conditional influences of democracy on coups has resulted in these mixed findings. I posit that insulation from coups occurs at higher levels of economic development in both autocracies and democracies. However, the vulnerability present at low levels of economic development is significantly greater in democracies. Poor democracies lack the coercive capacity associated with authoritarian states, suffer from relatively weaker patronage networks, and have smaller pots for public goods provision, all making them less capable of maintaining elite loyalty. An assessment of 165 states for the years 1950–2011 offers strong support for the argument. Democracies are indeed an important part of the coup story, but only when simultaneously addressing their level of economic development.