Browse

This chapter focuses on the absence of certain marginal groups from the United Nations’ Women, Peace, and Security Agenda and suggests correctives to those exclusions. The chapter discusses how men and boys as victims of sexual and gender-based violence have been erased in this agenda, and the consequences of this erasure. It challenges the assumptions of militarized masculinity as a uniformly shared identity among conflict-engaged men. It also looks at the outcome of pregnancies resulting from wartime rape and shows how children born of rape are presented and treated in their communities. The chapter draws on research conducted in Peru and Colombia and shows the necessity of understanding both the perpetration and experience of violence in nuanced ways.

This chapter examines the politics of Swedish military activism and the paradoxes they involve. Since the end of the Cold War, Sweden has been involved a range of international military operations—from Bosnia and Congo to Afghanistan and Libya—that are very different from traditional peacekeeping. We argue that this military activism is driven both by the Swedish internationalist tradition of “doing good” in the world, but also for instrumental purposes. These include a desire for political influence in international institutions, an interest in collective milieu shaping, and a concern to improve the interoperability and effectiveness of the Swedish military.

This article discusses Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) and intelligence accountability in the United Kingdom. It discusses the origins of intelligence oversight in the United Kingdom including ISC's independence, its ability to maintain secrets, its means of access to information, and its expertise and investigative powers. The article also discusses the reforms undertaken by the ISC to retain public confidence in the committee such as recognizing its limitations and imposing accountability.

The debate concerning how water access, availability, and change will impact conflict is bolstered by growing evidence that some influence exists, however inconsistent. Clear conclusions are obscured by the variety of water issues in developing countries, the difference between direct and indirect effects on conflict, and the additional uncertainty of what future climate changes may do to water availability and rights. This chapter summarizes how the conflict literature has integrated water issues into analyses of violence. In contrast, water researchers are mainly concerned with how little and how poorly water resources are used and managed across Africa. Resource management and politics emerge as the most serious contributors to water stress. Initial conclusions suggest that climate change and associated water shortages are far less of a problem than access and scarcity, and that water politics is leading to new contests, possibly violent, embedded in patterns of marginalization, exclusion, and poor governance.

Contemporary theoretical debates surrounding accountability in global economic governance have often adopted a problem-focused analytical lens—centred on real-world political controversies surrounding the accountability of global governing authorities. This chapter explores four distinctive problems of global accountability for which empirical inquiry has usefully informed normative analysis: first, the problem of unaccountable power within global governance processes; second, the problem of decentred political authority in global governance; third, problems establishing appropriate foundations of social power through which normatively desirable transnational accountabilities can be rendered practically effective at multiple scales; finally, problems associated with the need to traverse significant forms of social and cultural difference in negotiating appropriate normative terms of transnational accountability relationships. In relation to each, this chapter examines how systematic engagement between empirical and normative modes of analysis can both illuminate the theoretical problem and inform practical political strategies for strengthening accountability in global economic governance.

Governance is about creating processes and structures that constrain and regulate behavior. There is a wide variety of global governance organizations. Global governance organizations have an impact on a vast number of lives, but they are not guided by the legal, political and organizational rules that govern democratic domestic governance organizations. Accountability in global governance is really about legitimacy. Global governance organizations need to be able to clarify why they can define global rules of the game? For global governance organizations, being accountable means one (or more) of five things: transparency, liability, controllability, responsibility and responsiveness. The combination of these expectations easily culminates in organizational tensions.

The demand for more accountable international relations is really a demand for greater legitimacy. While many transnational actors are highly accountable, they lack legitimacy because they are not democratically accountable. Recent innovations in the theory and practice of accountability suggest that accountability to democratic standards can provide greater legitimacy for transnational actors and international relations without requiring the replication of democratic mechanisms of accountability globally.

This article discusses the development of accountability and intelligence culture. It begins with the contentious issues that have prevailed in the field of intelligence. It defines the use of certain terms such as accountability and responsibility within the context of intelligence. The article also looks at how systems of oversight and accountability have developed in Canada's longest and most enduring intelligence partners. The focus here is on the causes, legislative practices, and shortcomings. Following the discussion on the systems of oversight and accountability in Canadian intelligence, the article proceeds with a discussion on how Canada has developed its own systems. The emphasis here is on the external procedures and independent institutions. The purpose in this section is twofold: first, is to illustrate that even close allies have followed different paths and, second, is to show that Canada, while initially getting off to a sound start, has failed to keep pace not only with its key intelligence allies but also with the changing threat environment. Finally, the article suggests what a system of oversight and accountability that will meet Canada's future needs might look like and what it would do.

This article investigates a new category of intelligence problems called “complexities”. These complexities include terrorism, terrorist groups, “sensemaking” in the homeland security, and “sensemaking” in the law enforcement. The challenge is what intelligence and other agencies can usefully say about them for policymakers, ranging from senior leaders of government to police on the street. This article first defines complexities and explores their implications, then looks at several examples of how complexities might be addressed in counterterrorism intelligence and law enforcement.

Since its inception, the responsibility to protect (R2P) principle has been progressively narrowed in its scope and application in order to capture widespread support from governments and civil society. However, as this chapter will explore, R2P came perilously close to failing to recognize the gendered dimension of mass atrocity crimes and the prevention of these crimes. The chapter examines how R2P came to be characterized as ‘gender blind’, and details how, since 2006, the principle’s supporters have engaged and responded to this challenge. The author argues that there is a need to continually theorize and engage in areas of common discourse to collectively progress the mutual agenda of gender equitable human protection.

UN Security Council Resolution 1325 was not adopted in a vacuum, but rather can be read with a number of other programs within the Security Council (SC) and UN architecture. These include other thematic resolutions, as well as broader policy initiatives. Taken together, these diverse strands sought to shift the understanding of the SC’s role in the maintenance of international peace and security, away from a classic state-oriented approach to one that places people at its center. The adoption of Resolution 1325, along with these other developments, had implications for the making of international law (the place of civil society and experts within the international legal and institutional framework), for rethinking participation, and the meaning of security/protection. This chapter suggests that 2000 was a pivotal moment when a more human-oriented international law seemed a real possibility and before the turn back toward militarism and national security in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

The women, peace, and security agenda is contested ground for activists, academics, and practitioners. With the issue of women and conflict the locus of tension between feminists, bureaucrats, military actors, and government officials, assessing WPS advocacy provokes a series of questions. Whose goals count in advocacy on women, peace, and security, and what counts as success when these goals are deeply contested? Drawing on the advocacy efforts of the NGO Working Group on WPS at the UN Security Council, this chapter looks to answer these questions. It examines the capacity of advocacy to effect change via multilateral institutions, including the UN Security Council. Ultimately the effectiveness of these tools hinges not just upon the creative and strategic design of policy frameworks, but upon the political will in the UNSC to utilize them. As such, any advocacy approach that seeks to move accountability forward in the Council needs to be resilient to the political ebbs and flows within the Council.

War is as much a function of affordability as it is strategy, structure, and planning. And, for a balance to be struck between what is needed and what can be afforded, a key and enduring relationship must be established between the tasks armed forces must undertake and the capability and capacities such forces possess. It is a mark of the defence economic challenges faced by all NATO and EU states that in spite of Britain's current difficulties it remains only one of three other NATO European members to spend above the minimum 2 per cent of GDP on defence. This article explores the key relationship between forces and resources and uses Britain as a case study to consider the affordability of modern armed forces in an age of austerity. The core message is essentially simple: whatever the financial situation a state faces, security and defence of the realm must be afforded.

The African Union has been acclaimed for its effort in adopting policies that seek to protect civilian populations from mass atrocity crimes. It has transited from the principle of non-interference to non-indifference through the adoption of Article 4(h) of the Constitutive Act of 2000, which enjoins it to intervene in respect of war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity. Article 4(h) and the responsibility to protect share striking commonalities—both are rooted in the notion of sovereignty as responsibility. However, limited progress has been made in translating these normative principles into concrete action. This chapter notes the lingering issues of sovereignty and limited capacity for enforcement, as well as the state-centric approach to prevention without regard for local sources of resilience. Effective implementation of R2P should address the challenges of cooperation between the AU and other organs, and consider hybrid forms of prevention which exist in many African states.

This chapter focuses on the African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID), a peacekeeping mission created by the UN Security Council in July 2007 to protect civilians in Sudan in the wake of the Darfur crisis, monitor ceasefire agreements, and support the implementation of the Darfur Peace Agreement signed in May 2006. After providing an overview of the conflict in Darfur, the chapter outlines UNAMID’s mandate and evaluates its operational achievements and limitations, particularly in terms of providing protection to civilians and internally displaced persons. It argues that UNAMID’s record was mixed, with its principal failures stemming from a lack of resources, its inability to overcome Khartoum’s obstructionism, and its flawed strategic vision.

Several interrelated technological and doctrinal developments over the past two decades have changed the character of air warfare and indeed of the US-led Western way of war in general. It is notably different from the images of air warfare in the total wars of the twentieth century and was central in what has been termed the ‘revolution in military affairs’ of the 1990s. Recent wars, both conventional and irregular, have demonstrated the increased utility of the resultant new air power capabilities but also the necessity for ensuring proper strategic preconditions for effectuating the potential of post-industrial-age armed forces, of which air power is the cutting edge.

This article analyzes U.S. immigration policy as both a dependent and an independent variable in the politics of race and ethnicity. It argues that immigration policies at all levels of government have often been the direct result of racial considerations designed to support the American racial stratification system; have important influence on the context of immigrant reception and its connection to how immigrant and minority groups experience politics; and have influenced the social construction of various immigrant groups and the formation of racial and ethnic identities.

This chapter provides an overview of the literature on alliances. It discusses the classical scholarship dealing with the formation of alliances and their impact on the international system, but also assesses trending debates on the relationship between alliances and, on the one hand, the maintenance of international order, and on the other, the nature of multinational military interventions. The study of alliances has traditionally focused on states and war, with alliances being a tool with which the former could manage the latter. In recent years, the field has widened, taking into account alliances’ evolving and contested relationship to both broader collective security institutions and narrower and supposedly more effective coalitions. As they change in character, alliances will continuously define the frontier between cooperation and conflict and be of central concern to security studies scholars.

The role and functioning of alliances may range from minimum entanglement, with very few commitments (such as merely diplomatic consultations), to the most compelling set of agreements for planning and organizing, well in advance, the conditions of joint military operations under a unified command (as was the case of NATO during the Cold War). Alliances are supposed to work efficiently when the political preconditions and modi operandi that made them achievable are the result of positive will unconstrained by any kind of unfriendly pressures. On the other hand, volte-faces are possible, as exemplified by the Tauroggen convention, in 1812, when Prussia renounced the treaty of Tilsit forced on it by Napoleon and made a U-turn in favour of siding with Russia against the French.

The other contributions in this volume take seriously the proposition that having a universal grand strategy is essential for a great power. This chapter considers three alternative propositions: (1) that in many cases grand strategy in a classic sense is not achievable given bureaucratic and political impediments, (2) that all great powers do not require a grand strategy, and, (3) that under some circumstances, the great power can thrive by pursuing calibrated grand strategies depending on both region and threats. The first proposition will build upon the work of scholars (Jervis 1998; Metz 1997) who have argued that the United States and other countries often “muddle through” both strategic formulation and implementation. The second considers arguments about the process of developing grand strategies, such as those advanced by Ionut Popescu (2017) who advocate focusing on “emergent strategies” as understood by scholars studying business corporations. The final proposal builds upon my own research (Reich and Dombrowski 2018) that argues that it is impossible to implement one coherent grand strategy: there are six variants and the United States has inevitably pursued many if not all of them simultaneously in the post–Cold War era. Inverting top-down formulations, the choice of any one strategy in a theater of (potential) conflict is contingent upon the nature of the threat, the actors, and the potential conflicts as interpreted by senior political and military leaders, and the bureaucratic environment in which they operate. In the end, this chapter offers both conceptual and substantive challenges to traditional understandings of grand strategy.