The problem of peace: understanding the ‘liberal peace’

To remember Hiroshima is to commit oneself to peace. Pope John Paul II, 1 ?1. Pope John Paul II, 25 February 1981. View all notes 1981

Pax Invictis2 ?2. ‘Peace to the undefeated’ or the victor's peace. Inscribed on the Tomb of the Unknown Solider in St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney, Australia. View all notes

Virtue runs amok. Attributed to G.K. Chesterton     

The symbiosis between Palestinian ‘Fayyadism’ and Israeli ‘economic peace’: the political economy of capitalist peace in the context of colonisation

Abstract

Recent years have seen both the Palestinian Authority and Israeli government conveying the supremacy of economic approaches over politics to achieve peace and stability. More specifically, the encounter and symbiosis between Palestinian 'Fayyadism' as a professional application of neo-liberal approaches to state-building and economic development, and the Israeli strategy of 'economic peace' towards the Palestinians have shaped much of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict dynamic, with a particularly discernible materialisation in the West Bank. This article critically analyses this dynamic in light of the recently revived theory of 'capitalist peace', which, despite valid criticism, entails considerable similarities with the basic assumptions of 'Fayyadism' and 'economic peace'. While two key dimensions express this symbiosis—security co-ordination and economic normalisation—the article focuses mainly on the economic part, particularly the case of joint industrial zones, which exemplify the most extreme example of this symbiosis.     

The case for ‘face-time’ in a computer-mediated global economy

Abstract

The structuring of marketing and communication management within key organisations in South Africa is changing. These changes are affecting the relationship between marketing and communication practitioners, as well as the key tasks they are responsible for within the organisation. Globally, companies are downsizing, restructuring and eliminating hierarchy. This article investigates how key South African companies have responded to these changes, by looking at how the marketing and communication functions are structured within the organisation. Marketing and communication managers from top South African companies were interviewed telephonically. Findings from the study indicate that the two functions are progressively moving towards an integrated approach. However, a commonly agreed organisational structure is still not pervasive. Each organisation structured the marketing and communication functions differently, and various perspectives existed on the key tasks of both marketing and communication managers. From these findings, it is evident that the relationship between marketing and communication, as well as the role and tasks of marketing and communication managers, is still very diverse in the South African context.     

The problem of peace and the meaning of ‘post-war’

The literature on war endings and peace-building pivots on a concept that it in fact continues to struggle with: peace. I argue that we should abandon the conceptualisation of peace as a condition. By implication, we must also abandon the notion of war-to-peace transition and the underlying teleology that projects peace as a deferred and ambiguous end state. Instead, I propose the term post-war transition. Importantly, the prefix post should not be understood as a temporal breakpoint: a definitive after. Rather, it signals an ambition to address and move beyond, analogous to the term post-colonialism. I subsequently draw on the post-colonial literature to further elaborate my conceptualisation of post-war transition with three propositions, respectively concerning: the discursive politics of retrospectivity; the assertion of sovereignty as the foundational referent of law and political order; and the concept of articulation to juxtapose contingent change and constrained agency. I then apply these ideas to the Sri Lankan case to illustrate what angles and insights my conceptualisation of post-war transition could offer.     

Civilian supremacy in democracies with ‘fault lines’: The role of the parliamentary standing committee on defence in Bangladesh

This article sets out to identify the conditions that promote civilian supremacy over the military in the post-military democracies. The article addresses the case of Bangladesh, where a decade-old post-military democratic political process is riddled with problems, such as the absence of opposition parties in the parliament, chronic political instability and violence and inefficient governance. However, the powerful military has not yet shown any inclination towards intervention in domestic politics. Rather, various civilian institutions, such as the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence (PSCD), have been successful in raising the level of the military's accountability to the civilian government and society. The article seeks to explain the role of PSCD during 1998–2001 in promoting civilian supremacy in Bangladesh. It argues that three sets of factors can explain the PSCD's role. First, there is intense competition for political power between the two major parties, which resists the military's involvement in politics in favour of any one political party. Second, there is the important role of civil society in favour of civilian supremacy. Third, there are external factors such as the donor countries' and international agencies' stance in favour of democracy and the Bangladesh military's participation in United Nations peacekeeping missions, which are discouraging military intervention in politics at home.     

The Area of Freedom,Security and Justice: The Construction of a ‘European Public Order’

Abstract

Despite the significant growth the Area of Freedom, Justice and Security (AFSJ) has seen recently, it is still comparatively under-researched. The main argument of the article is that norms have been constructed over recent years in such a way that the AFSJ has set a project in motion which aims to create a veritable ‘European Public Order’. This change has not come overnight though, and it has been normatively constructed over the past decade. In agreement with Christiansen, it is argued that a constructivist institutionalist approach may be best suited to analyse these developments, representing one of the new ‘high points’ of European construction. Four different stages of development are examined, i.e. the pre- and post-Maastricht, the Amsterdam and Tampere, and the Constitutional Treaty phases. These developments have now significantly altered the norm of national sovereignty in EU internal security. As a consequence of this, some of the most spectacular changes in the EU can be expected in this area in the future with the new five-year ASFJ programme agreed in The Hague.     

The politics of security sector reform in ‘fragile’ or ‘post-conflict’ settings: a critical review of the experience in Timor-Leste

Security sector reform (SSR) policy has, for the better part of a decade, been viewed as instrumental to the larger international project of improving and strengthening the ‘capacity’ of post-conflict and ‘fragile’ states. The current policy approach, which represents a merging of security and development agendas in the post-Cold War era, is based on the premise that fragmented, ineffective, poorly managed and politicised state security institutions threaten political stability and undermine poverty reduction and sustainable development goals. The objective of this article is to examine aspects of what has been described as the ‘SSR policy-practice gap’ that arose in the course of implementing SSR policy in Timor-Leste by analysing the systemic basis of the gap. An analytical framework that untangles the relationship between SSR policy objectives, targets and outcomes is presented in concert with a discussion of the social and political circumstances that confronted international organisations and donor countries when they sought to implement SSR policy in Timor-Leste. By using the analytical framework to assess the policy coherence between SSR objectives and the SSR programme contained in UN Security Council Resolution 1704, the ubiquitous disconnect between SSR ‘Gospel and Reality’ is pulled more sharply into focus.     

Moving beyond rethinking the ‘state of the state’: to the challenge of reshaping international contributions to peace operations

The need for an accurate understanding of the environment into which peace- and capacity-building missions are deployed cannot be overstated. Suppositions about the mission environment inform every facet of an intervention's design and implementation, in addition to expectations surrounding success. Yet this critical element continues to be misunderstood by those most in need of an accurate grasp, a condition which severely undermines the war to peace transition. Rather than continuing to assume that recipient ‘states’ are states in the Western sense of the term, we must instead focus our energies on how best to enable sustainable peace in the hybrid political orders which do in fact constitute these troubled places. After setting out the largely unrecognised characteristics of recipient societies, the article explores alternative forms of assistance with promise to complement such realities.     

Project ‘RAMBO’: an initiative to improve rickshaw pullers’ earnings

Rickshaw pulling is a large, labour-intensive, unorganised sector in India, involving 8 million individuals belonging to the lowest social strata. The article describes an initiative to increase the daily earnings of rickshaw pullers by training them to retail branded products, on a ‘bulk-buying retail-selling’ model. The article reports on a project that began with 30 rickshaw pullers in Jaunpur, a semi-urban district of eastern India. Critical issues related to the sustainability and future of such projects on a large scale are discussed.     

Muslims in Italy: The Need for an ‘Intesa’ with the Italian State

Muslims in Italy are now a consistent, although not new, phenomenon in the social and political panorama of the country. Like other communities, they are in search of an agreement with the state that would allow them to live and prosper within a legal framework that guarantees rights and duties. Unfortunately, attempts at achieving such an agreement have come up against a wall of prejudice and fear from the Italian population, as well as a lack of courage and foresight on the part of Italian state institutions. The problems and difficulties associated with the struggle of Italian Muslims in reaching an intesa are outlined and analytically presented along with a discussion of how integration may lead to the type of pluralism and tolerance enshrined in the Italian constitution.     

‘Old’ un peacekeeping principles and ‘new’ conflicts: Some ideas to reduce the troubles of post‐cold war peace missions

The European Union (EU) has declared its European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) operational. It has put the institutional structures in place to manage the political aspects of security and defence policy and the member-states have pledged a range of military capabilities, which the EU may call upon. However there are significant issues that need to be resolved for the ESDP to be a truly effective and credible policy. On the whole, these issues revolve around military capabilities, defence spending and a strategic concept. Without investing in critical military capabilities and without a clear direction, ESDP will become a policy without substance.     

The perils of ‘going local’: liberal peace-building agendas in Nepal

Responding to recent critiques, foreign aid organisations are increasingly ‘going local’ in their operations in order to integrate local actors into their peace-building and aid projects. This is done under the belief that entering into partnerships directly with grassroots actors will increase local autonomy in joint ventures, thus empowering locals as agents of change both during and after the project period. But despite its normative and conceptual appeal, we argue that this model is not workable in practice and cannot be under the current structural conditions of the international aid environment. This is due to a fundamental disconnect between the conceptualisation and rationale of ‘going local’ and the structural and institutional frameworks within which ‘local ownership’ is supposed to be operationalised and implemented. This paper uses the example of Nepal to illustrate that this disconnect not only prevents foreign aid organisations from reaching their stated goals, but exacerbates the very problems that ‘going local’ is supposed to address.     

Mining codes in Africa: emergence of a ‘fourth’ generation?

A burgeoning interest among academics, policy-makers and civil society groups has developed concerning Africa's extractive sector and particularly its mining codes, which are now at the centre of a wider policy debate over natural resource governance and economic development on the continent. This article reviews the evolution of Africa's regulatory codes in the mining sector, which has undergone what Bonnie Campbell describes as ‘three generations’ of liberalization since the 1980s. We also highlight new voluntary, regional and transnational initiatives, driven by a host of heterogeneous actors from Africa and abroad, which constitute a ‘fourth’ generation of mining codes and natural resource governance practices that place primary emphasis on transparency and accountability by both mining companies and host governments. This new generation of natural resource governance initiatives presents new opportunities as well as unique challenges, particularly with the growing role of emerging economies such as the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). We conclude by assessing future trends and policy challenges in Africa's extractive sector governance.     

‘The camp’ and ‘the lesser evil’: humanitarianism in Sri Lanka

This article examines the 2009 humanitarian disaster in Sri Lanka through fieldwork conducted at the time and through theoretical lenses supplied by Arendt, Foucault and Agamben. The article suggests that this catastrophe represents a salutary example of the consequences of promoting a ‘lesser evil’ in the context of a government-fuelled human rights disaster. In line with Arendt's critique of the ‘lesser evil’, the case illustrates the limits to prioritising compromise, quietude and ‘access’. At the same time, while ‘democracy’ and ‘terror’ have frequently been posed as opposites, this tragedy shows how democratic forces, nationally and even internationally, can embrace something that approximates to Agamben's ‘camp’, a state of emergency in which entire groups of people lose their rights and can, at the extreme, be killed with impunity. Meanwhile, a pervasive official language of ‘care’ and ‘humanitarianism’ (corresponding to Foucault's politics of ‘life’) not only proved entirely consistent with ethnic cleansing and the large-scale killing of civilians; it also actively assisted in this endeavour by creating a smokescreen behind which massacres could be carried out.     

The ‘future’ republic of Macedonia: The last best hope

Macedonia is the last genuinely multi‐ethnic state in the Balkans. For some, this suggests the impossibility of its continued existence. As ethnic Albanian leader Arben Xhaferi would have it, however, Macedonia's incentive for success is compelled by the inevitable allure of the West. In retrospect, when the Badinter Commission of the European Union released its opinion regarding the status of former Yugoslav states on 15 January 1992, the commission found that only two former republics sufficiently met the established criteria for recognition by the European Community: Slovenia and Macedonia. Yet Macedonia, unlike Slovenia, is an ethnically diverse nation and the poorest of the former Yugoslav republics. A review of the various geographic and geopolitical influences reveals that conflicting and often competing political, economic, social, cultural, and historic forces constantly conflict in Macedonia. The absence of increased attention and support to integrate Macedonia within the fold of Europe suggests that this tiny nation‐state's future is more precarious than it ought to be, given the record of continued Yugoslav disintegration that preceded it during the 1990s.     

Securing the global city?: an analysis of the ‘Medellín Model’ through participatory research

This article explores the potential contribution to a better understanding and practice of urban security from participatory research methodologies with communities most affected by insecurity and violence. It focusses on the case of Medellín, Colombia, and analyses the key features and impacts of what is known as the ‘Medellín Model’, an approach to urban security widely regarded as innovative and successful. It locates this approach in a history of efforts to reframe security in Latin America, where urban violence has escalated greatly. The shift from ‘security as repression’ to ‘security as management’ has ushered in new models for governing ‘ungoverned’ neighbourhoods. The scrutiny of the effectiveness of these models is limited, however, by the accumulated mistrust and fear in such spaces. This article analyses a methodology for researching security practice on the ground. The paper assesses what difference it makes when academic, civic and social organisations come together to co-produce knowledge with community researchers living in the midst of mutating forms of violence. The methodology, it is argued, enables those most impacted by chronic violence to highlight how insecurity is differentially experienced and to show they can exercise agency in public security policies, making these more relevant and sustainable.     

The ‘responsibility to protect’ in natural disasters: another excuse for interventionism? Nargis Cyclone,Myanmar

The ‘responsibility to protect’ (R2P) places the ‘international community’ under an obligation to take coercive action for the protection of lives in the circumstances of genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. Following the dismal response to the May 2008 cyclone disaster in Myanmar where many affected people were provided with almost no relief assistance by the country's military regime that also hampered external assistance, the idea of military humanitarian intervention under the rubric of R2P was proposed by Bernard Kouchner. However, considering the urgency of the provision of relief assistance in an emergency, which is often a matter of life or death, this paper questions the effectiveness of invoking R2P as a possible response strategy in the aftermath of natural disasters. Therefore, in relation to state sovereignty the paper focuses on the concept of ‘humanitarian diplomacy’ at macro and micro levels as an alternative strategy and having analysed the issue in the wider framework of humanitarianism, the paper concludes with the importance of exploring the opportunities provided by humanitarian diplomacy before invoking R2P in the context of natural disasters.     

Russia and the role of the OSCE in European security: a ‘Forum’ for dialog or a ‘Battlefield’ of interests?

Abstract

This essay explores Russia's Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) policy, by focusing on two questions. First of all, analysts have noted Russia's disinterest and obstructive policies towards the Organization. Thus, the question is what – if anything – does the Russian Federation still want from the OSCE? Secondly, does the OSCE still serve as a forum for dialog? These two issues are studied on the basis of rational institutionalism and realism. The essay demonstrates that Russia is still interested in the OSCE, but its policy has become more pragmatic, selective and instrumentalist. It includes obstructive and constructive strategies. At the same time, today the Russian Federation ascribes less significance to the Organization in European security. This is predetermined not only by its inability to push its interests through the OSCE, but also by the declining interest of other participating States in the Organization. The differences between OSCE participants have turned it into a battlefield of interests in many areas.     

From ‘feckless pluralism’ to ‘dominant power politics’? The transformation of Russia's party system

The transformation of Russia's party system demonstrates a trend towards a decrease in party competition since the establishment of the party of power, United Russia, which claims to have become the dominant party. These developments are unique among post-Soviet countries, which merely attempted to create personalist, rather than party-based, monopolies of ruling elites. Why have Russia's elites opted to build a party-based monopoly and what are the prospects of this enterprise? The formation of the ruling group's party-based monopoly is explained with the help of a part-contingent model of an interrelated chain of causes and effects: (1) open electoral conflict among elites; (2) forced instrumental use of political parties as tools by the elites, in this conflict; (3) elite conflict turned into a zero-sum game; (4) a set of incentives for the ruling elite to make further instrumental use of the party of power; (5) an effective constellation of ideological and organizational resources of the party of power. The article also analyses the benefits and risks of the dominance of the party of power and its possible role in the consolidation of a non-democratic regime in Russia, along lines comparable to the Institutional Revolutionary Party in Mexico.