‘Bumps in the Road Ahead’: How External Actors Defuse Power-Sharing Crises

ABSTRACT

Power-sharing is a governance approach favoured by external actors for building state capacity and legitimacy in post-conflict societies. Yet it can be unstable and crisis-prone, compelling external actors to guide cross-community cooperation. Why and how do external actors seek to maintain power-sharing and prevent its collapse when operational difficulties emerge? We explore the distinction between ‘light touch’ and ‘heavy hand’ techniques and the motivations of external actors in defusing power-sharing crises. We find a trade-off between the short-term value of crisis management (‘putting out fires’) and the long-term objectives of sustainable local arrangements and external exit (local actors ‘going it alone’).     

Tax Evasion and the Role of the State Actor(s) in Bangladesh

Little attention has been paid to tax evasion in developing countries due to a lack of data. This article addresses this lacuna by investigating the tax evasion practices and finds significant increases in tax evasion in Bangladesh. The study makes a major contribution to the literature in tax evasion, and indicates that the norms of state actor(s) (i.e. the National Board of Revenue–the sole tax authority in Bangladesh) lie in the interests of politicians and the continuation of corruption. The legitimacy of the state actors in this case means that they act as facilitators for increasing tax evasion practices. Therefore, the current system has endured remarkably robustly to date, and coercive isomorphism is indeed needed in the institutionalization process.     

A Critical Perspective on Terrorism: Case Study of Jundallah and Jeish ul-Adl in Iran

ABSTRACT

An extensive body of traditional terrorism research exists where the focus is on Iran as a terrorist state and a terrorism sponsor. This article explores an alternative terrorism narrative by examining the non-state actors, Jundallah and Jeish ul-Adl. The deficiency of information in the literature is addressed by applying the first and second-order critique approach of Richard Jackson’s knowledge, power and politics theoretical framework in contrast with the traditional terrorism studies approach. A first-order critique seeks to destabilise the accepted knowledge that Iran is both a terrorist state and a terrorism sponsor. This provides the grounds to study other aspects of “knowing” in relation to the second-order critique, where a critical ground outside the discourse suggests that Iranian officials have declared that the non-state terrorist actors of Jundallah and Jeish ul-Adl constitute a threat to Iran’s political stability. The outcome of the analyses here bridges the gap between the new aspect of terrorism, the non-state actors, and critical terrorism studies in order to contest the traditional discussion of terrorism in Iran. The rationale behind new terrorism varies and necessitates that new meanings and strategies be adopted in relation to Iran.     

文本与实践的悖离——对我国村民自治发展困境的解读

我国村民自治制度产生的20多年里,一方面村民自治的制度文本不断完善,另一方面又出现了实践对文本的不断偏离,致使村民自治难以充分实现其治理绩效。文章借用国家与社会的研究范式以及制度分析与行动者概念,通过对村民自治生长与变迁路径的解读,合理诠释了其文本与实践之间的差异。村民自治的制度文本与具体实践间的悖离,应归因于国家在村民自治的制度建立与实践运作过程中限制了村民的主体性,因而难以实现其基层民主训练的愿景。     

Globalisation and the (Non‐) defence of the welfare state

This article explores the relationship between globalisation and the development of the British and Norwegian welfare states. Focusing on the welfare state policies of the British and Norwegian labour parties and their relationships to the European Union (an important indicator of the impact of globalisation on West European nation‐states), it argues that despite the growing importance of global dynamics and pressures, national‐level forces were the predominate factors in the development of the British and Norwegian welfare states and relations to the EU in the 1980s and 1990s. Consequently, globalisation does not lead to welfare state convergence, but to divergence, interwoven with national‐level dynamics.     

Economic Actors' Political Activity in 'Overlap Issues': Privatisation and EU State Aid Control

This article considers the political activity of economic actors in what we refer to as 'overlap issues'. The cases examined here are the domestic level privatisation policy-making processes in Spain, France and Ireland, and the subsequent European Commission decisions on state aids given during the sales. Although the influence of economic actors is crucial in understanding the domestic-level privatisation aid negotiations, such actors' participation is absent in the supranational decision-making process. In order to explain this limited political activity of firms at the EU level, attention is focused on both the role of the member states and the paradoxes in EU policies that simultaneously guide and constrain the Commission from making a decision against capital.     

Civil society and the regulatory state of the South: A commentary

The basic rationale of the regulatory state is to insulate certain kinds of decisionmaking from political actors. The main purpose of this commentary is to assess the ways that members of civil society, in fact, often shadow and contest the central actors of the regulatory state, even though they are ostensibly well outside it. I offer three distinctions to help broaden and sharpen analysis of the roles and impact of civil society actors: whether civil society actors have special expertise or not; whether the regulatory state is being put in place or already exists; and whether civil society actions are broadly complementary to, or substitutive of, state action. In discussing each of these, I also explore the consequences of the transfer of the regulatory state to the global South, and the way that change in location shapes both the role and impact of civil society and the regulatory state itself.     

非国家行为体核恐怖主义犯罪防范理论研究——以《制止核恐怖主义行为国际公约》为视角

全球化时代对国际犯罪进行全球综合治理的思维范式和多边的冲突解决机制使反恐行动模式更加国际化。《制止核恐怖主义行为国际公约》的签署使防范当前核恐怖主义犯罪在界定核恐怖主义犯罪、完善打击恐怖主义的国际法律框架、有效防范核恐怖主义犯罪方面都将有进一步的发展。在此框架下,完全有必要对相关基础概念和特征进一步展开讨论,对我国防范核恐怖主义犯罪事业的经验进行总结,并提出新时期的完善建议,以期全面遏止非国家行为体核恐怖主义犯罪。     

世界新秩序的建立与国家的选择

苏东剧变结束了二战以来的雅尔塔体制,也结束了冷战秩序。震荡之后,世界在经济和科技的发展带动之下,开启了真正意义的全球化大门,不再有两个阵营之间的固定壁垒,取而代之的是世界上的任何国际行为主体间都有了交流与合作的自由。国际社会体系的这种重大而深刻的变革对世界新秩序的形成造成了极大的冲击,各种力量重新调整彼此之间的关系,探索自身发挥影响所能达到的限度,寄希望于在新的世界秩序中占据有利地位。正是在这样一个格局转变的时刻,国家对于利益的追求方式也在做出新的选择。     

The politics of security reform in post-2011 Tunisia: assessing the role of exogenous shocks,domestic policy entrepreneurs and external actors

Abstract

In post—2011 Tunisia, the reform of the security sector has proceeded haphazardly, hindering security efficiency and lowering the overall effectiveness in countering threats. Since 2015, the combination of three factors — external shocks, international actors' pressures and domestic configurations of political power — have paved the way for a progressive overhaul of the efficiency of security agencies. Following the 2015 terrorist attacks, that destabilized the political system and risked derailing the trajectory of democratic consolidation, European powers exerted pressure to improve efficiency in the security sector. Lastly, these push factors needed an enabling condition, a strong presidency of the republic, to make the changes happen. The measures adopted reflect a technical and supposedly depoliticized view of reforms, in line with a broader post‐interventionist trend in Security Assistance. Based on process-tracing, the analysis of primary documents and several in‐depth interviews carried out between 2015 and 2017, the article illustrates the workings of the policy process in the security arena. It sheds light on the conditions that made possible the adoption of reforms, the role external actors played in pushing for change and in creating a new multilateral mechanism, the G7+, which produced an unintended set of domestic consequences.