When success is an orphan: informal institutional governance and the EU–Turkey deal

This article traces the role of the EU institutions in the process leading up to the EU–Turkey Action Plan and EU–Turkey Statement. The EU–Turkey deal is the proverbial ‘orphan’ in EU crises management, with none of the key actors and institutions eager to claim ownership. Yet when judged from the perspective of process management, the deal resulted from effective inter-institutional collaboration, which stands in stark contrast to the EU’s handling of the relocation schemes or the Dublin reform. Using insights from the informal governance literature, the article maps the inter-institutional network that managed this process, traces the activities within the network, and determines the effects these had on the final outcome. On an analytical level, the mechanism contains five key elements of informal institutional governance: linking, bridging, shielding, laying out the tracks and creative fixes. The conclusion reflects on the wider applicability and scope conditions of this mechanism.     

Constructing patient–psychiatrist relations in psychiatric hospitals: the role of space and personal action

This essay investigates the role of space and personal action in the construction of patient–psychiatrist relations at psychiatric hospitals. In order to explore such a theme, the writings of R.D. Laing prove to be salutary. This is namely accredited to Laing's tenet that the staff and patients of a psychiatric hospital are institutionalised by both physical structures and personal action. A central approach taken in this essay is to explore Laing's theory through an inter-textual reading of Michel Foucault's Madness and Civilization (1967) and Erving Goffman's Asylums (1961).     

The recovery of radical Islam in the wake of the defeat of the Taliban11Many of the websites cited in this article have either been suppressed or have moved from address to address. When this is the case I have placed an asterix in brackets (∗) at the end of the URL.

This article analyses the intellectual and religious processes through which radical Islam has had to confront its defeat in Afghanistan and rebuild during the period since that time, including paradigms of battle, dreams and martyrologies and apocalyptic readings of history and current events.     

To govern,or not to govern? Opportunity and post-coup military behaviour in Egypt 2011–2014

This article examines Egyptian military behaviour in 2011 and 2013 to address the question of why officers remain in power following some successful coups, and allow for a transition to civilian rule after others. My evidence suggests that in post-1970 cases where international factors fail to exert sufficient pressure, outcome variation is influenced by levels of corporate opportunity, defined here as the ease with which the army can use control of the state to expand its corporate interests. Drawing on the existing literature, I posit consensus against military rule, high popular support for democracy, strong civil society, the presence of a strong opposition party, and low levels of cohesion among officers as factors which constrain opportunity. Prior research suggests that when the level of opportunity is high, controlling the state becomes a high-risk/low-reward endeavour, making it likely that officers will allow for a transition to civilian rule. My study contributes to the existing scholarship by using original data gathered through interviews with Egyptian officers, as well as other experts on the Egyptian military, to argue that low consensus against military rule, low support for democracy, and high organizational cohesion are jointly sufficient to produce governing intervention.     

NATO's Response Force: finally getting it right?

Abstract

At the Riga Summit in November 2006, NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) declared the NATO Response Force (NRF) a fully operational capability. Yet only 8 months later – and behind closed doors – the Alliance's military authorities rescinded the declaration as it became increasingly clear that member states were unwilling to make the necessary commitments to the force. To this day, the force has been a qualified failure: while many allies have benefited from participating in the NRF, lack of concrete troop commitments and disagreement as to the force's operational role have largely eroded its credibility. This could change with the allies' recent adoption of a revised NRF-construct. However, as NATO is still in a state of strategic confusion, the NRF is likely to continue to be different things to different nations.