"Global Civil Society" and the Political Depoliticization of Global Governance

Activists, officials, and academics alike have often linked observations about an emerging global civil society to an incipient democratization of world politics. Global civil society is assumed to bring public scrutiny and "bottom-up" politics to international decision making "from outside" formal political institutions. Based on an analysis of uses of the concept of global civil society in 1990s global governance discourse (especially related to the major UN world conferences), this paper argues that the presumed democratization of world politics is better understood in terms of a double movement: on the one hand, "global civil society" depoliticizes global governance through the promotion of "human security" and "social development"; on the other hand, the emerging international public sphere (in the UN context) operates as a subsystem of world politics rather than opposing the system from outside. Practices of depoliticization are thus part of the political logic of (neo-)liberal global governance. The argument draws on Luhmann's systems theory and Foucault's analysis of governmentality.     

Guilty Bodies, Productive Bodies, Destructive Bodies: Crossing the Biometric Borders

This article examines the forms of power brought into play by the deployment of biometrics under the lenses of Foucault's notions of discipline and biopower. These developments are then analyzed from the perspective of governmentality, highlighting how the broader spread of biometrics throughout the social fabric owes not merely to the convergence of public and private surveillance, but rather to a deeper logic of power under the governmental state, orchestrated by the security function, which ultimately strengthens the state. It is associated with the rise of a new governmentality discourse, which operates on a binary logic of productive/destructive, and where, in fact, the very distinctions between private and public, guilty, and innocent—classic categories of sovereignty—find decreasing currency. However, biometric borders reveal a complicated game of renegotiations between sovereignty and governmentality, whereby sovereignty is colonized by governmentality on the one hand, but still functions as a counterweight to it on the other. Furthermore, they bring out a particular function of the "destructive body" for the governmental state: it is both the key figure ruling the whole design of security management, and the blind spot, the inconceivable, for a form of power geared toward producing productive bodies.     

Imperial Warfare in the Naked City—Sociality as Critical Infrastructure

The Global War on Terror (GWOT), framed as conflict with groups and individuals determined to disrupt and destroy "critical infrastructures," is heavily dependent on technological and psychological discourses and practices to find terrorists and their plots. ¹ These methods seek to protect the material "backbone" of contemporary society and to detect those individuals whose capabilities might progress to action. Yet, the social nature of all action suggests that "critical infrastructure is people," and that surveillance cannot, by itself, determine who might act and who will not. The ultimate purpose and effect of the GWOT is better understood as involving the transformation of individual mentalities, so that "heretical" thoughts and practices become impossible.     

Financial Intelligence: A Price Worth Paying?

The harvesting of financial intelligence by law enforcement and intelligence services through various forms of surveillance is now so prevalent that it has become a core feature of contemporary security practice. Not surprisingly, concerns have been raised regarding the intrusive nature of financial intelligence collection and the emerging challenges posed to liberty. This article, whilst written primarily from a UK perspective, considers the trade-offs that inevitably emerge when liberty and security collide. Above all it argues that such measures are a necessary consequence of a changing security environment and that effective counter measures inevitably come at a price. The value added from data surveillance by the state, when lawfully sanctioned, audited and regulated are in the interests of public safety and national security, deemed a price worth paying.     

Sympathy for the Devil: When and How to Negotiate with Criminal Gangs—Case of El Salvador

ABSTRACT

Criminal gangs, while posing the most substantial threat to security in the Western hemisphere, fall outside the scope of contemporary studies in the field of mediation and negotiation. The prevailing wisdom that gangs are unmanageable due to their apolitical nature and the high political cost of dialogue has led to an approach that relies heavily on the security sector. While the security sector can and must play a role, confrontation alone has proven insufficient. The three-step theory presented in this article seeks to explain how and when to engage in dialogue as an alternative means of confronting criminal gangs. The success of this process, a reduction in violence and criminality through the transformation of gang-related conflict, hinges on sequencing and begins with state-sponsored mediation conducted in secret to establish a cease-fire between the gangs, then enters the phase of public negotiation between the state and the gangs, and finally concludes with a process of mainstreaming the reformed structures into society. This theory assumes that mediators can work with the gangs through a process of assisted articulation to develop a negotiating position, opening a zone of possible agreement between the government and the gangs. El Salvador offers a compelling example of how a society steeped in gang violence might pursue dialogue while also highlighting the threats posed to any negotiation.     

A Human Security Peace-Building Agenda

International peace building in post-conflict societies has helped to bring armed conflicts to an end and reduced the recurrence of war. According to some scholars, peace building has therefore contributed to the apparent downward trend of major intra-state conflict in recent years. However, the liberal institutionalist values which underpin international peace building—emphasising democracy, free market economics and the liberal state—have raised a range of criticisms and challenges from scholars as well as local stakeholders in the societies in which peace-building programmes are deployed. In particular, the prevailing approaches to peace-building give insufficient attention to basic and everyday human needs, and promote externally conceived models of state institutions which are not always appropriate. This article explores the problems of contemporary peace building and argues that an alternative vision which draws upon the concept of human security and gives greater emphasis to welfare, livelihoods and local engagement can make peace building more legitimate and sustainable.     

中国地缘安全环境中的“安全困境”问题解析

"安全困境"是国际安全领域中的一个基本概念,是构成国际紧张、对立乃至冲突的动因之一。在现实的国际社会中,"安全困境"现象很难完全消除。中国在崛起的进程中,其地缘安全环境中的"安全困境"问题尤为突出。美国把中国列为主要的地缘战略对手,认为中国的崛起挑战美国的霸权甚至威胁美国的安全;日本面对中国崛起,表现出严重的不适应,千方百计强化日美同盟,增强军事实力以牵制中国;中俄互有需求建立"战略协作伙伴关系",但中俄地理上的邻近使发展动力有限,也存在若隐若现的"安全困境"问题;印度作为拥有核武器的军事大国的崛起,肯定会分散中国的精力,使中国的地缘安全环境更趋复杂。     

Intellectual Property and Food Security in Least Developed Countries

This paper analyses the impact of intellectual property laws on food security in Least Developed Countries (LDCs), taking the Pacific Islands countries as an example. It argues that ip laws are increasingly impacting upon food security, but are not being adequately taken into account in national policy development. Consequently, national ip regimes are developing in ways that undermine, rather than promote, food security. The paper argues that the particular context of LDCs, including a lack of technological development and reliance upon traditional agricultural systems, requires an approach to intellectual property that is substantially different from the ‘one size fits all’ approach mandated by the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights.     

美国国家安全战略的思想根源

战略观念与战略思维是影响国家战略行为的深层因素。美国在成长为超级大国的历史进程中,逐步形成了自身独特的战略安全观念与战略思维方式。综合考察战后以来尤其是冷战期间美国国家安全战略的缔造与实施过程,可以看出,美国战略安全观念与战略思维方式有几个近乎一以贯之的显著特点:立足"最坏假设",强调实力地位,保持技术优势,偏重军事手段,追求绝对安全,维持全球霸权,秉持道德普遍主义和意识形态优越论。其中,物质与精神并重,权力尤其武力手段与道德、意识形态旗帜并举,是最具美国特色的战略思想。这些思想特征构成美国安全战略的深层脉络,在战略实践中起起落落但从未销声匿迹。这些思想观念所塑造的全球战略既成就了美国的超强地位,也造成了美国霸权的困境,是理解当前和未来美国国家安全战略的重要历史与思想线索。     

The role of architecture in the Republic of Georgia’s European aspirations

Alignment with Europe has been a popular foreign policy objective among post-socialist nations. In the Republic of Georgia, discourse surrounding the country’s Euro-Atlantic orientation surged in the decade after the 2003 Rose Revolution. While such discourse has been examined in the context of political reforms and national security goals, this article foregrounds how it was incorporated into alterations of the built environment. Focusing on the urban transformations of the city of Batumi after the rise to power of the United National Movement government, it demonstrates how architecture served as a tool for selectively rewriting Georgia’s contemporary European identity. This article concentrates on two parallel initiatives to transform Batumi into a contemporary European city: the reconstruction of portions of the Old City and the new development along the seaside boulevard. Using evidence collected through qualitative methods, it further highlights the contradictions that emerged during this process of redevelopment and rebranding, as the state balanced initiatives for new development with other post-revolutionary state-building objectives, such as political reform and tourism-market production. Accordingly, it unpacks the various national and international politico-economic forces at play in the process of developing Batumi into the image of a contemporary European city.     

Civil Society’s Claims to Political Representation in Brazil

Civil society is laying claim to political representation in contemporary democracies, destabilizing long-standing ideas about democratic legitimacy. The participatory governance structures that have emerged alongside classic institutions of representative democracy encompass not only direct citizen participation but also political representation by civil society actors. Using original data from São Paulo, Brazil, we show that most of civil society actors that work for the urban poor claim political representation of their “constituency.” Theirs is more often than not an “assumed representation,” we suggest, because our data show that most lack formal members and do not select leaders through elections. Civil society actors (in contrast to political parties and labor unions) lack historically settled and politically sanctioned mechanisms to authorize and hold accountable their representation. This new layer of political representatives therefore faces a historic challenge—constructing novel notions of democratic legitimacy that can support their forms of representation. We examine what new notions of representations are emerging and trace the historic roots of the most widespread and promising that focus on remedying inequality in access to the state.     

Making the Sky Relevant to Battle Strategy: Counterinsurgency and the Prospects of Air Power in Nigeria

One of the most important roles in counterinsurgency (COIN) is to maintain adequate security presence to protect lives and properties of the affected population and restore law and order in the society. Accordingly, the state of affairs in Nigeria's COIN theater has been affected by the quantity and quality of security presence, most especially the ability of the operatives to gather timely and relevant information and mobilize for prompt response. Although the roles of the ground operatives have dominated public attention, the local air force and the complementary air powers have affected the security situations with the level of their presence or absence in the sky for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; firepower; and transportation in the theater. This study examines the relevance of security presence to achieve the objective of COIN and the prospects of air power in this arrangement in Nigeria and the Lake Chad region.     

The Politics of Local Policy-Making in Urban Bangladesh: The Case of Rajshahi City Corporation

Some of the contemporary writings provide a different outlook in adopting institutional analysis by claiming that society-rooted politics is foremost in shaping the third world's political institutions. This paper, drawing on an empirical study, puts special emphasis on understanding the nature of society rooted politics in designing the local government system in Bangladesh and how it has shaped local policy-making. By focusing on the policy-making of a municipal corporation, this paper identifies the actors and factors and their roles in the urban local governance process in Bangladesh.     

Security Sector Reform and State Building

This article argues that there is a close link between security sector reform (ssr) and state building. Focusing on UK approaches to state building and ssr, it argues that these are an extension of liberal models containing a number of assumptions about the nature of states and how they should be constructed and that any analysis of ssr approaches needs to be seen within a broader framework of the international community, which tends to see the replacement of ‘dysfunctional’ societies as desirable both for the people of those states and for the international community. As a result, state building has largely been carried out as a ‘technical-administrative’ exercise focusing on the technicalities of constructing and running organisations rather than on the politics of creating states, leading to a lack of overall political coherence in terms of where ssr is, or should be, going and of what kinds of state are being constructed. Politics is frequently cited by practitioners as representing a set of obstacles to be overcome to achieve ssr rather than a set of assumptions about actually doing it. The effect of development and security policies working closely together in insecure environments is an overarching emphasis on security at the expense of the harder, more long-term process of development.     

Risking Security: Policies and Paradoxes of Cyberspace Security

Conceptualizations of cyberspace security can be divided into two related dimensions, articulated as "risks": risks to the physical realm of computer and communication technologies (risks to cyberspace); and risks that arise from cyberspace and are facilitated or generated by its technologies, but do not directly target the infrastructures per se (risks through cyberspace). There is robust international consensus, growing communities of practice, and an emerging normative regime around risks to cyberspace. This is less the case when it comes to risks through cyberspace. While states do collaborate around some policy areas, cooperation declines as the object of risk becomes politically contestable and where national interests vary widely. These include the nature of political opposition and the right to dissent or protest, minority rights and independence movements, religious belief, cultural values, or historical claims. The contrast between the domains has led to contradictory tendencies and paradoxical outcomes.     

“Illiberal Spaces:” Uzbekistan's extraterritorial security practices and the spatial politics of contemporary authoritarianism

Research on comparative authoritarianism has tended to neglect spatial approaches to the politics of non-democratic states. This article argues that spatial theory offers a useful framework for exploring extraterritorial security practices designed to counter political opposition among migrant and exile communities. A case study of Uzbekistan explores how the state responded to the perceived security threats posed by rapidly growing communities of labor migrants and the activities of many political and religious activists in exile. The security services developed a network of extraterritorial intelligence and security mechanisms – including surveillance, detention, interrogation and forced returns – to pre-empt or respond to any perceived threats to the regime emanating from abroad. These security practices extended the state in complex ways beyond its borders, resulting in new “state spaces” that reproduced elements of domestic repression in other jurisdictions. The article suggests that such extraterritorial practices are typical of contemporary authoritarian regimes, as such states seek to manage the spatial challenges produced by mass global migration, international financial flows, and transnational processes of knowledge production.     

The Myth of Ulsterization in British Security Policy in Northern Ireland

For many years, the term "Ulsterization" has been a byword for the cynicism with which British governments decided to transfer the responsibility (as well as the human cost) for law enforcement to the local population of Northern Ireland. This analysis, however, demonstrates that Ulsterization has generally been misunderstood. Given that the expansion of local security forces was limited to the police, it is perhaps more appropriate to use the term "de-militarization." Also, the label "Ulsterization" has prevented students of the conflict from understanding the most significant development to follow from the policy changes of 1974-75, namely, the professionalization of the local security forces.­     

Space, Boundaries, and the Problem of Order: A View from Systems Theory

The idea our global polity is chiefly divided by territorially organized nation-states captures contemporary constellations of power and authority only insufficiently. Through a decoupling of power and the state, political spaces no longer match geographical spaces. Instead of simply acknowledging a challenge to the state, there is the need to rethink the changing meaning of space for political processes. The paper identifies three aspects, a reconceptualization of the spatial assumptions that IR needs to address: the production of space, the constitutive role of boundaries, and the problem of order. With this contribution, we argue that one avenue in understanding the production of space and the following questions of order is by converging systems theory and critical geopolitics. While the latter has already developed a conceptual apparatus to analyze the production of space, the former comes with an encompassing theoretical background, which takes "world society" as the starting point of analysis. In this respect, nation states are understood as a form of internal differentiation of a wider system, namely world society.     

Moving Development and Security Narratives a Step Further: Human Security in the Human Development Reports

During the last 20 years, the idea of human security has been spreading globally and locally, albeit unevenly. One factor in this growth has been the role of Human Development Reports as sources of alternative narratives to understand social problems and progress. This paper describes how National and Regional Human Development Reports have generated a rich and analytically fruitful set of approaches to examining and responding to contextual threats, following human security principles – for people-centred, comprehensive, context-specific and prevention-oriented analysis and exploring basic security questions. However, this richness has not fed back yet into the global apex of Human Development Reports and related work, reflecting a disconnection between levels of analysis that hinders the transformation of development and security narratives.     

Michel Foucault's Analytics of War: The Social, the International, and the Racial

The absence of the international as a distinct socio-political sphere in Michel Foucault's work forms a major part of the postcolonial critique of his writings. The absence of the international has a number of consequences for any critical engagement with Foucault in the context of global politics. The significance of these consequences becomes apparent when we consider Foucault's analytics of war and power, situate these in relation to the particularity of the international, consider the very pertinent critiques of Foucault emanating from postcolonial writings, and finally re-locate Foucault in the international not, as is the predominant approach in International Relations, through the application of Foucaultian concepts, but through Foucault's own political writings on the non-western arena, specifically his engagement with the Iranian Revolution. While limited in their scope, an evaluation of these writings appears to vindicate postcolonial critiques of Foucault, though with some revealing qualifications.