New Frontiers,Old Problems: The War on Terror and the Notion of Anticipating the Enemy

Netherlands International Law Review -     

Explaining municipal governance in Kosovo: local agency,credibility and party patronage

ABSTRACT

What can explain the varied effectiveness of internationally led attempts at statebuilding? This article seeks to answer this question by comparing the contrasting trajectories of governance in two municipalities in Kosovo: Hani i Elezit/Elez Han and Kamenica. In Hani i Elezit, evidence suggests that effective and accountable governance is embedded. However, in Kamenica informal and clientelist practices persist and residents are less satisfied with the municipality’s performance. As the nature and extent of internationally led statebuilding has been similar in both municipalities, explaining variation requires an analytical shift to how local leadership interacts with, receives and ultimately shapes statebuilding processes. The data are based on fieldwork from 2012 to 2015. The article focuses on two critical dimensions of statebuilding: capacity building and social accountability. It argues that the impact of externally led statebuilding strategies depends on the orientation of the political leadership of the municipalities. The article identifies features of the political environment, namely credibility and the organization of political parties, which constrain the kind of public-oriented leadership necessary for effective and accountable governance.     

Canada's GBA+ framework in a (post)pandemic world: Issues,tensions and paths forward

This article traces the theoretical foundations, evolution, and limitations of Gender-Based Analysis Plus (GBA+), which is the Government of Canada's primary framework for attending to diversity and inclusion in public policy. We argue that GBA+ is, in its current form, inadequate to guide ambitious and transformative policy in the post-pandemic years given four interlocking issues: (1) a weak integration of intersectionality; (2) insufficient attention to the power structures and socio-political context undergirding social relations and policymaking; (3) an instrumental understanding of policy; and (4) a misreading of identity. Drawing on feminist, intersectional and post-structuralist methods, we adjust the GBA+ framework with the aim of addressing the conceptual shortcomings identified in our analysis. Ultimately, we demonstrate how a more explicit engagement with notions of intersectionality, power and policy's instrumental and productive aspects can enrich the ways we think about public policy as both a mechanism and a venue for transformative change.     

Hague Case Law: Latest Developments

Netherlands International Law Review -     

Local Ordering and Peacebuilding in Kyrgyzstan: What Can Customary Orders Achieve?

ABSTRACT

The post-liberal IR debate on peacebuilding has made considerable efforts to reintroduce ‘the local’. In principle, critical peace studies follow the argument that communal capacities for peace formation exist in every society. However, few take the further conceptual step of taking emic perspectives on ordering and peacebuilding more seriously. This article aims at exploring and understanding customary concepts and practices of ordering with examples from Kyrgyzstan. It asks how and why communal actors and institutions contribute to ordering in the context of limited local tensions and how these actors navigate at national and international levels.     

Co-production of cybersecurity: a case of reported data system break-ins

ABSTRACT

In this study, we contributed on research of policing cyberspace by analysing how different stakeholder groups (nodal clusters) participate in the formal security network during detecting and handling of data system break-ins in practice. The goal of this article was to study whether citizens have roles within the security network. The analysis was based on data system break-ins (n = 220) reported to the Finnish national computer emergency response team, CERT-FI, in 2012. We detected five types of nodal clusters: computer emergency response teams (CERTs), companies, public organisations, private persons and associations. The roles of nodal clusters were described by using cultural, social, political, economic and symbolic capital. However, the results show that there are differences not only between the nodal clusters but also inside them regarding their positioning within the network. We argue that instead of a type of nodal cluster, division based on the roles and individual needs could be more relevant. Recognition of roles could encourage netizens to co-produce cybersecurity from their respective premises.