Reflections on mentoring experiences for evidence-informed decision-making in South Africa and Malawi

This article is based on the consensus that the availability and utilisation of research enhances policy discussions. The article reflects on the experiences within one approach: capacity building through mentoring. The UJ-BCURE programme aimed to increase the capacity of decision-makers to use evidence in decision-making via mentoring models. Mentoring is described as an interactive, facilitated process that promotes learning. The features of the models that have contributed to the programme’s success are orientation workshops with mentees combined with participatory, needs-led, and flexible approaches. UJ-BCURE experiences are relevant to the field of evidence-informed decision-making in an African government context.     

“Gendering” European security: policy changes,reform coalitions and opposition in the OSCE

The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has rarely been considered in scholarship on gender and security, even though it was one of the regional security organisations whose gender policy predated the United Nations Security Council’s call for more international attention to issues related to women, peace and security in October 2000. Based on an analysis of official OSCE documents and on semi-structured interviews, we trace the integration of gender issues in the OSCE and explore the rationale behind and the challenges associated with it. We identify two phases of gender policy change in the OSCE and show how the integration of UNSCR 1325 brought about an expansion of OSCE gender policy from an exclusive focus on “soft” security issues towards increased inclusion of gender in the area of “hard” security. Drawing on historical and feminist institutionalism, we argue that reform coalitions were crucial for the policy changes in the OSCE but that they encountered institutional and ideational barriers, which hampered implementation of the gender policy. In light of rising opposition, our analysis warns of a backlash that might jeopardise current achievements.     

The military dimension of Russia’s connection with Europe

The Russian challenge to the European security system is internal rather than external, because despite all the political efforts at distancing Russia from Europe, the indivisibility remains undiminished. The underlying assumption for Russia’s course is that the West is in irreversible decline, and the conclusion about the dissolution of the West-controlled world order is established in the key doctrinal documents. Instead of passively waiting for this meltdown to develop, it makes perfect sense for the Russian leadership to accelerate it pro-actively, using various levers, including military force. Moscow acts on the assumption that its “unconventional” methods could yield results only if augmented by military threats, against which the Europeans cannot master convincing counter-argument. The imperative to sustain and update credibility of these threats necessitates allocation of greater share of available resources to military build-up, which clashes with economic rationale of reducing this burden in the situation of protracted stagnation.     

Does European defence really matter? Fortunes and misfortunes of the Common Security and Defence Policy

This article examines how the defence component of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) has been revisited over the last few years. It argues that while the CSDP has grown predominantly as a security – rather than defence – policy, the latest developments that include the creation of a military headquarter, the launching of a Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) and the new role for the European Commission in defence funding, attest to an evolution towards a more central EU defence policy. In the meantime, the article points to some structural impediments to the materialisation of European defence. The momentum says little about the form and finality of military operations that EU states will have to conduct so as to give a meaning to defence in a European context. Moreover, persisting divergences in the EU member states’ respective strategic cultures and institutional preferences – notably vis-à-vis NATO – are likely to continue to constrain European defence self-assertion.     

To revise or not to revise: the ‘peace constitution’, pro-revision movement,and Japan's national identity

Why do conservative nationalists in Japan continuously seek to revise the constitution despite the past failures, and what is the likelihood of successful revision and its impact on Japan's norm of pacifism and its use of force? The article offers an analytical framework for the issue based on national pride and national security, and argues that the ‘revisionists’ seek to create a new national identity, one that infuses a greater sense of national pride among the public and enables the exercise of collective self-defense, thereby removing Japan's postwar psychological and institutional limitations on nationalism and military activities. The LDP's 2012 draft is most explicit and ambitious in this regard, with the current revision attempt under Abe having the highest chance of success since the 1950s. Successful revision would significantly expand Japan's security activities, particularly within the framework of the US–Japan Security Alliance, and entail the end of Japan's unique postwar institutionalized pacifism, although the norm of pacifism will linger on as a constitutional principle. For a smoother return to the international military scene, the Japanese government must distance itself from historical revisionism and utilize its enhanced military role to promote regional public goods rather than merely protecting its narrow national interests.     

Shinzo Abe's security legislation reform and peacebuilding in Mindanao

Recent literature on Japanese foreign policy has focused on analysing the implications of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's security legislation reform for the bilateral security alliance relationship with the US amidst a rising China and the right to collective self-defence. Its impact on Japan's multilateral security policy, in particular, peacebuilding, has so far received little attention. In what ways and to what extent does Japan play a peacebuilding role under this change? This article examines key implications of the security legislation reform, along with the renewal of Japan's Official Development Assistance charter, for its peacebuilding efforts. By taking Mindanao, the Philippines, as a case study, it argues that Abe focuses on taking a foreign aid-centred approach while showing little interest in sending Japanese Self-Defence Force. This article provides a counter-narrative to the claim that Japan is taking a more assertive approach to international security. Abe is more risk-averse as far as his approach to peacebuilding is concerned.     

莫迪执政以来印度海洋安全战略的观念与实践

2014年莫迪在印度执政以来,引领印度经济持续快速发展,印度其对外贸易、国内民生与国家安全对海洋的依赖越来越高。莫迪政府清醒认识到海洋特别是印度洋对印度的安全与发展的关键意义,并于2015年起适时调整海洋安全战略,将2007年确立的以“自由使用海洋”为主题的海上军事战略在有所继承的基础上调整为以“确保安全的海洋”为主题的海洋安全战略。这说明印度在自由使用海洋的过程中,遭遇了多样的海上安全挑战。来自海上以及发生在海上的安全风险直接影响到印度的对外贸易和海上运输、海洋经济活动的展开、海岸和港口城市的安全、海外资产与海外公民的安全,最终危及印度的国家安全。印度调整海上安全战略,明确以印度洋地区为首要利益区,同时加强以印度海军为主体的海上安全保障力量,为之确立多样任务目标下的军事战略,并积极采取有针对性的海上军事行动。同时,印度政府还通过外交手段,与周边邻国、关键的地区大国或国家集团以及全球大国建立双边和多边海上安全机制来应对多样的海上安全威胁,维护海洋安全,最终服务于印度的经济发展和国家安全,并为印度寻求印度洋的主导地位积累资本、创造条件。     

特朗普安全战略的调整与限度

随着特朗普政府陆续出台一系列战略文件,相关安全政策付诸实施,其安全战略的基本态势逐渐清晰。特朗普的安全观和政策举措,共同构成执政初期安全战略的主体。特朗普的安全观建立在其自身对世界“霍布斯主义”认知的基础上,同时融合了共和党现实主义安全观的基本主张,反映了军工企业及军人群体等背后主要利益集团的核心诉求。特朗普的安全政策仍处于成型中,在军事战略、新空间战略和地区安全战略三个层面举措较多,相关布局较为系统,集中折射了其安全理念。在军事安全层面,在重塑美军优势的核心目标下,扩张性的态势表现明显;在新空间战略层面,进攻性、军事化的特征尤为突出;在地区安全战略层面虽然在手段上有所变化,但总体延续了防御性战略。特朗普的安全战略调整未来仍将面临诸多限度,包括财政制约、同时应对两个大国难以兼顾、建制派的牵制等。特朗普的安全战略将加剧中美在安全领域的对抗态势,两国在军事战略、新空间战略稳定以及南海问题上的对冲和深层矛盾或进一步发酵。安全关系的上述变化将给中美“竞争”增添新变数。     

When school meets the Other: intercultural policies in the Basque inclusive school

ABSTRACT

Gatti, Irazuzta and Martinez address the intercultural public policies implemented in the education system of the Autonomous Region of the Basque Country (Spain). Focusing on the education system allows them to reconstruct the historicity of identity-alterity production in a region in which language has been central for the establishment of ethnic frontiers. More specifically, they examine the implementation of these policies in three pre-school and primary educational institutions in a multicultural neighbourhood of the city of Bilbao. They look at Euskara—the Basque language—as a key element of the us-them distinction. The various education models regarding language and the teaching in/of Euskara or Spanish pave the way for the specialization and spatialization of the schools analysed. ‘Integration’ policies are implemented in ethnically marked schools only, based on a rhetoric of interculturality that assumes that any ‘racial or ethnic discrimination’ can be overcome through knowledge of the Other. Moreover, the assessment of public policies through ‘interculturality figures and best practice’ developed to address the so-called ‘immigration issue’ promotes a protectionist intervention on behalf of the assumed social vulnerabilities of immigrant schoolchildren and their families, which are read as ‘problematic characteristics’. The article argues that, as a result of the approach based on the social conditions of immigrant children and their families in the Basque Country, the race issue evaporates.     

From ambiguity to contestation: discourse(s) of non-traditional security in the ASEAN community

‘Non-traditional security’ (NTS) is prominently featured in the agenda of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and other ASEAN-led institutions in the Asia-Pacific. ‘NTS’ brings together a series transnational and non-military security threats that are considered common among regional states, urgent for them to attend to, and non-sensitive all at the same time. This a priori makes it a self-evident focus of attempts to bring regional security cooperation ‘to a higher plane’. However, this paper reveals that the uncontroversial character of NTS is overestimated, by shedding light on the co-existence of divergent – and potentially contradictory – interpretations of its meaning and implications in ASEAN and the wider region. In a context where ASEAN's relevance to the pursuit of regional security is increasingly being measured against its (in)ability to provide a coherent approach to security challenges that affect the region, the contested nature of NTS has important implications for the grouping's resilience in the twenty-first century.