African security and global militarism

ABSTRACT

This Special Issue asks: what is the current place of militarism in relation to security where Africa is concerned? It aims to contribute to emerging debates interested in critical inquiry of the relation between militarism and security, and to explore its diverse articulations in African settings. We advance an international political sociological (IPS) approach to militarism in order to explore militarised security politics as a field of contested practices and logics. We discuss why this approach enables us to uncover the interconnected historical patterns and power relations in which practices and logics of security and militarism become linked and grounded in simultaneously local and transnational African settings.     

Human security and the rise of global therapeutic governance

This article discusses the emergence of global therapeutic governance or the influence of social psychology on international development policy. Therapeutic governance links psychosocial well-being and security, and seeks to foster personalities able to cope with risk and insecurity. The article analyses how Western alarm at the destabilizing impact of development eroded its support for an industrialization model of development. The article then examines how the basic needs model is underpinned by social psychological theories and involves an abandonment of national development. Finally, the article considers development as therapeutic governance and the implications of abandoning national development for the concept of human security.     

俄美关于反导问题的斗争及其对世界军事安全的影响

冷战结束后,美国为了取得"世界核霸权"地位,不断扩展其反导系统的发展计划,并加紧技术研制和实际部署,这给包括俄罗斯在内的世界其他国家的军事安全带来严峻挑战。俄罗斯为了维持与美国的"战略平衡",对美国发展反导系统采取了一系列"反制措施",双方之间展开了激烈的战略交锋。俄美围绕反导问题展开的斗争不仅关乎两国自身军事安全,而且对世界军事安全也具有直接重大影响。     

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.     

On regional security governance once again: how analysis of the Southern Caucasus can advance the concept

Already introduced to the academic and political debate some years ago, the concept of “security governance” still needs to be clarified. In particular, four main shortcomings need to be overcome to make the concept more useful for an assessment of current security dynamics: in the first place, attention has been devoted more to “governance” than to “security”, while failing to consider the role of the understandings and perceptions of the actors involved in the governance system. Second, the literature on the actors (governmental or not) involved is still fragmented. Third, the literature on security governance has too often been detached from reflections on regionalism, while it would be useful to further explore the relationship between cognitive definitions of regional and security dynamics. Fourth, the literature has predominantly focused on Europe and the transatlantic area, overlooking processes of “region-building” in security terms in other “unexpected” geographical spaces. After proposing avenues to overcome the current gaps in the literature, the Southern Caucasus is chosen as a case study to show the different instances of security governance emerging, thanks to definitions of the region in security terms that have involved regional and external actors, of a state and non-state nature.     

Human security and the separation of security and development

This article advances a counter-intuitive argument about what are argued to be the links between security and development in human security. The argument is counter-intuitive because the merging of development and security is explicitly part of the human security discourse. However, this paper will argue that human security can better be understood not through its own discourse, but placed in the context of the changing relationship between the developing world and the developed world after the end of the Cold War. Rather than the merging of security and development it will suggest that human security is representative of a period in international relations in which there is a separation of security and development. The broader international context is one in which the developing world is less of a security concern to the developed than was the case during the Cold War.     

道教与越南传统文化

道教是中国惟一本土宗教 ,它是在中国古代道家思想理论的基础上 ,吸收神仙家的修炼方术、民间鬼神崇拜观念和巫术活动而形成的一种有组织的宗教。道教自创立以来 ,不仅为下层广大民众所信奉 ,而且曾一度为上层统治者所器重 ,其势力遍及中华大地 ,并流传于海外一些国家和地区。中越两国关系悠久 ,文化交流源远流长 ,越南历史上曾有一千多年处于中国封建王朝统治下 ,史称“北属时期” ,可以说越南深受汉文化的影响。其间 ,道教也随着中越文化交流传到了越南 ,并对其民间信仰、本土宗教、风俗习惯和文学、艺术产生了一定影响。一、道教与越南民…     

Designing effective national aviation security systems: The building blocks for an enhanced global response

By closely analysing Naxalite propaganda material, I explain the functionality of martyrdom in the Maoist movement in India. I show that their concept of secular martyrdom is multifaceted, but can be traced to a mix of several elements in classical Maoist doctrine (sacrifice, dialectics, and critique). As such, the cult of the secular martyr serves both practical and ideological aims. My analysis, tracing martyrdom to secular ideology, opens new possibilities for studying this type of martyrdom, which has come under pressure in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.     

Confucianism and the concept of liberty

Liberty is a concept absent in, and alien to, Confucianism. The term “tsu-you,” (or “cha-yu,” in Korean) is a modern neologism concocted by East Asian thinkers in the 19th century struggling to translate and come to grips with Western political theory. Moreover, the term that they ultimately decided to use was a Taoist, not a Confucian, term. Hence, if this lecture was entitled “Concept of Liberty in Confucianism,” it would have been a very short one. Confucianism has no room for liberty.

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The EU's security and the sea: defining a maritime security strategy

Abstract

This article comprehensively discusses the maritime dimension of the European Union's (EU's) security, which encompasses military and civilian aspects, intergovernmental and community components as well as institutional and geopolitical elements. First, the article provides a narrative of the development of the maritime element in the EU's security policy since the adoption of the European Security Strategy in 2003. By depicting the interrelations between the sea and the EU's security, the article shows that the maritime dimension of EU security is generally well established, but often obscured by the complicated institutional structure of the Union. Thereafter, the article emphasises the need to define an effective EU Maritime Security Strategy, which would provide a strategic framework for the Union's security-related activities regarding the sea that encompass maritime power projection, as well as maritime security and safety. Accordingly the article provides some recommendations concerning the definition of such a strategy and for appropriate constituting elements: the maritime-related risks and threats, the maritime strategic objectives, the means to implement the strategy, and the theatres of EU maritime operations.     

东南亚的儒释道文化

从宗教信仰角度看,东南亚的11个国家中,越南和新加坡属于祖宗崇拜、儒释道为主的文化。此外,在东南亚众多的族群、6亿多人口中,越南的京族和各国的华侨华人以祖宗崇拜和信奉儒释道为主,人口约有1.5亿。     

Constructing Southeast Asian security: the pitfalls of imagining a security community and the temptations of orthodoxy

At the ninth summit of the Association of South‐East Asian Nations (ASEAN) in October 2003, the organisation's leaders declared their intention of transforming ASEAN into a security community. In making the case that ASEAN has functioned as a realist security institution since its inception in 1967, this article argues that the theoretical literature underpinning the ASEAN security community idea is characterised by significant conceptual and empirical flaws. First, a number of problems surround the variables—either norms or identity—that are used to explain the emergence of a putative security community among the ASEAN states. Second, critical issues in the ASEAN security community literature include the tautological nature of the arguments and a failure to rule out alternative explanations. Third, from an empirical perspective, the nascent ASEAN security community has arguably never existed.     

Youths in the interface of development and security

This article interrogates the link between youth, security and development in Africa and argues that the central determinant in the link is ‘governance’, especially as this implies the ability of the state to harness the productive potential of youths and to meet their demands on a number of issues. The article also asserts that the reality of a youth bulge in many African countries presents challenges (as opposed to crises), as much as opportunities for national socio-economic transformation. Besides, youths in many developing countries have been the victims of developmental experiments often tele-guided by international financial and development agencies. In its conclusion, the articles argues that efforts to address the challenges posed by youths must move from platitudinous wish-list into formulation of coherent policy agenda that is consistent with the socio-economic and political realities of individual countries; in which youths themselves active agents; and one which must be incorporated into the wider governance framework of nation-states.

The issue of youth and violent conflict concerns more than youth, it is a reflection of society in crisis and hence of development itself. If a society's values, norms, customs, practices, structures and institutions are under threat and such changes in turn threaten the development of its children into youth and then adults, then that society cannot sustain itself.1 ?1. UNDP, Youth and Violent Conflict, p.12. View all notes

The state … the economy… are predicated on notions of adulthood; they all require the participation of adults in order to function. If youth are unable to fully make this transition to the minimal conditions of adulthood, then such structures are unsustainable and will either fracture or mutate in unforeseen ways. An understanding of the intersections between youth, violent conflict and society is a way of re-examining development and developing societies. Youth, those who engage in violence and especially those who do not, are located at the junctures between development, security, peace and conflict.2 ?2. UNDP, Youth and Violent Conflict, p.13. View all notes     

Hybrid security governance in Africa: rethinking the foundations of security,justice and legitimate public authority

This article asks whether the concept of ‘hybridity’ offers a more convincing account of security governance in Africa than the standard state-focused models. It seeks to clarify the complex intersections between formal and informal, state and non-state security actors, and the varied terrains on which hybridity is constructed, instrumentalised and recalibrated over time. Rather than romanticising informal or ‘traditional’ institutions, it suggests that they too embed their own power hierarchies, become sites of contestation, and do not work equally well for everyone, least of all for the weak, vulnerable and excluded. Thus the focus is placed upon the real governance of security in hybrid systems, and the patterns of inclusion and exclusion (including gender biases) they reinforce. Finally the paper considers how policy-makers and shapers can work with the grain of hybrid security arrangements to create more legitimate, broadly-based and effective African security governance.