“Here is your mission,now own it!” The rhetoric and practice of local ownership in EU interventions

One of the core principles of EU interventions under the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) has been local ownership. While the EU takes pride in fully respecting this principle, the existing research suggests that the implementation has been far from smooth. However, we still know very little how this principle is conceptualised and operationalised, let alone why its implementation has been so difficult. Drawing on document analysis and 27 in-depth interviews, the article makes 3 arguments. First, ownership is increasingly construed in the EU policy rhetoric as a middle ground between imposition and restraint. Second, in practice, ownership is operationalised as an externally driven, top-down endeavour, resulting in the low degree of local participation. Third, in addition to the obstacles normally faced by other peace-builders, the EU’s efforts to implement ownership are constrained by the politics and policy-making of CSDP. The arguments are illustrated in a case study of the European Union Mission on Regional Maritime Capacity Building in the Horn of Africa (EUCAP Nestor).     

‘Not a heap of stones’: material environments and ontological security in international relations

Extant scholarship on ontological security in international relations has focused on the significance of social environments for state identity. In this article, I argue that material environments also provide an important source of ontological security for states. In order to assume this role material environments need to be discursively linked to state identity through either projection or introjection. Once incorporated into state identity narratives, material environments become ‘ontic spaces’: spatial extensions of the collective self that cause state identities to appear more firm and continuous. However, ontic spaces are inherently unstable and require maintenance, especially during periods of crisis or transition. States bear agency in this process but they never achieve full control, as identity discourses are continuously contested both domestically and internationally. I illustrate these claims by looking at the role of the General Staff Headquarters in Belgrade, destroyed by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1999, in the ontological security of Serbia.     

Improper Selection of High-Cost Producers in the Rent-Seeking Contest

The resources two rival businesses spend to raise their own chanceof getting a unique monopoly license are a cost of rent-seeking.When those businesses differ in the costs of producing themonopoly good there is an additional cost of rent-seeking that hasnot been sufficiently studied in the literature. If the high cost producer winsthe license, the difference between his cost and the costs of hismore efficient rival is a social loss from improper selection ofproducers by the political process. The loss becomes more severewhen the ability to lobby of the inefficient producer outstripsthat of the efficient producer. This may help to explain whyspecialized lobbying evolved. Specialized lobbying reduces thesocial cost from improper selection of firms by allowing efficientproducers to hire expert rent-seekers and so to raise theirchances of gaining monopoly concessions.     

Why we will miss Ye,Teddy

• In this commentary, written by senior commentator and presidential advisor Michael Sommer, who served all three Kennedy brothers, the author argues that the dying Senator Ted Kennedy has always truly fought for all Americans, has opponents but no enemies, that the world knows it, and that his liberalism is “the best American political philosophy” that America has. The author maintains that the Senator “represents the best that is in Americans, what America really stands for,” and that the world recognizes that, too. The author believes that President‐elect Obama will once again vigorously show the world the same Kennedy‐like enabling vision, hope, great leadership and true American spirit, that the world has tragically missed from America for the past eight years.

Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Rwanda, ten years on: From genocide to dictatorship

Ten years after the 1994 genocide, Rwanda is experiencing notdemocracy and reconciliation but dictatorship and exclusion.Although the government led by the Rwanda Patriotic Front hasachieved rapid institutional reconstruction and relatively goodbureaucratic governance, it has also concentrated power andwealth in the hands of a very small minority, practised ethnicdiscrimination, eliminated every form of dissent, destroyedcivil society, conducted a fundamentally flawed ‘democratization’process, and massively violated human rights at home and abroad.The Rwandan army twice invaded neighbouring Zaire-Congo, whereits initial security concerns gave way to a logic of plunder.It has caused protracted regional instability and derailed thetransition process in the Democratic Republic of Congo. TheRwandan government has succeeded in avoiding condemnation byastutely exploiting the ‘genocide credit’ and byskilful information management. The international communityhas been complicit in the rebuilding of a dictatorship underthe guise of democracy. It assumes a grave responsibility inallowing structural violence to develop once again, just asbefore 1994. In years to come, this may well lead to renewedacute violence.     

Die beschr?nkte K?rperschaftsteuerbefreiung gemeinnütziger Bauvereinigungen als im europarechtlichen Sinn staatliche Beihilfe?

Der vorliegende Beitrag geht der Frage nach, inwieweit die grunds?tzliche K?rperschaftsteuerbefreiung nach dem Wohnungsgemeinnützigkeitsgesetz anerkannter gemeinnütziger Bauvereinigungen für den Kernbereich ihrer wohnungswirtschaftlichen T?tigkeiten in einem Spannungsfeld zur europ?ischen Beihilfenproblematik steht.     

The State of Political Participation in Post-Communist Democracies: Low but Surprisingly Little Biased Citizen Engagement

The article assesses the state of political participation in Central and East European post-communist democracies. Incorporating the most recent data, it compares the emerging trends in political participation to those observed in the established democracies of Western Europe. The findings reveal that post-communist citizens participate substantially less than their Western counterparts, and, contrary to some expectations, no convergence has been taking place. This is due to a host of factors, the importance of which seems to vary according to the type of political activity. It is subsequently shown that while political participation is lower than in Western Europe, it is not markedly more biased. The poor state of political participation therefore does not appear to seriously undermine the quality of the post-communist democratic process.     

The Chinese in space: the third man in the fourth battlefield?

This commentary piece explores the several ramifications of China's October 2003 successful manned space mission, when the People's Republic of China became the third nation, following the lead of the USA and the Soviet Union, to independently launch a manned space mission. While the achievement resulted in prestige and justifiable pride in China, the potential ‘dual use’ of space for military purposes remains speculative, and is of concern to Washington's ‘Blue Team’, suspicious of China's possible aggressive intentions. While China's space efforts include militarisation, it remains an open question as to whether it intends to fully develop space weapons against a background of its belief that the USA already has ‘abundant power’, especially in space. Copyright © 2004 Henry Stewart Publications