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| 1 |
ID:
165050
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article examines the role of Argentina, Brazil and Chile (the ‘ABC countries’) in supporting democracy through the logic of consequences and appropriateness in three emblematic cases: the removal of President Zelaya in Honduras in 2009, the constitutional crisis that led to the removal of President Fernando Lugo in Paraguay 2012 and the sudden closing of the National Assembly in Venezuela in 2017. The authors argue that the ABC governments’ responses to governance crises have been shaped by a mixture of motivations, both instrumental (geopolitical interest or ideological affinity) and ideational (a normative preference for democracy). This mixture has resulted in inconsistent policies deriving from the mismatch between the normative commitments made by these countries, enshrined in multilateral instruments such as democracy clauses, which have often limited their room for manoeuvre, and their preference for a measured, prudent foreign policy based upon traditional principles of non-intervention. Specifically, the authors find that the ABC countries’ stance on democracy support depends on two fundamental conditions: their leverage vis-à -vis the target state and the degree of certainty regarding a potential resolution of a given democratic crisis.
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ID:
165040
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Trinidad and Tobago (T&T), a small twin-island republic in the Caribbean, has one of the highest rates of foreign fighter radicalization in the western hemisphere. According to official estimates, around 130 Trinidadian nationals migrated to ISIS-controlled territory in Syria and Iraq between 2013 and 2016. This article seeks to make sense of these migrations, placing them in the broader historical and social context in which they occurred. Drawing on a range of quantitative and qualitative primary source material, the article finds, contrary to expectation, that the archetypal adult ISIS traveller from T&T is not a marginalized, youthful and mostly male city dweller who radicalized outside of a mosque, but is in fact as likely to be female, in his or her mid-30s, married, have children, attend a mosque, live in a rural area, and have suffered neither the pains of economic hardship nor the ill effects of marginalization from the wider society because of his or her Muslim identity. As well as emphasizing the intersection between the local and the global in jihadist foreign traveller mobilization, the article also demonstrates the importance of personal connections in the migrations of Trinidadians to Syria and Iraq, lending further support to research on the centrality of social networks in facilitating radicalization and foreign fighter mobilization.
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| 3 |
ID:
165038
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‘Hybridity’ is in vogue these days. Yet, the utility of the hybrid label is often contested in security studies. A problem relates to how the concept of hybrid warfare has been extended to cases that have little in common with the cases from which the concept was originally derived. This article suggests making a conceptual distinction between hybrid warfare and hybrid interference. The article is devoted to developing this latter, new strategic concept. In essence, hybrid interference is conceptualized as a ‘wedge strategy’, namely a policy of dividing a target country or coalition, thereby weakening its counterbalancing potential. By drawing particularly on recent practices by China and Russia, the article shows how hybrid interference uses a panoply of state-controlled, non-kinetic means, which are more or less concealed in order to provide the divider with plausible deniability and to control targeted actors without elevating their threat perceptions. Three main bundles of means are central to hybrid interference: 1) clandestine diplomacy; 2) geoeconomics; and 3) disinformation. The article shows how western democracies are vulnerable to hybrid interference. Hybrid interference makes use of the liberal values that characterize western democracy, exploiting them as opportunities to drive wedges through democratic societies and undermine governability. The article argues that this sort of external interference has been overlooked in the debate on democratic deconsolidation, that it is becoming more common, and discusses some counter-measures to defend against it.
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| 4 |
ID:
165049
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| Summary/Abstract |
The main motivation of the Congolese government in signing the Sicomines deal, the most important Sino-African resource financed infrastructure (RFI) agreement, was the creation of a set infrastructure elements with a long-term positive impact on the population's living conditions. In this article, we present the results of an intermediary assessment of the main socioeconomic consequences of the so-called ‘deal of the century’. Additionally, we also provide relevant evidence about China's resource-financed infrastructure (RFI) model, which is key to determining China's potential role as a valuable strategic partner in building a better future for Africa. This analysis compares objectives and evidence in the main areas of the agreement: mining production, infrastructure, debt, economic growth and development. The appraisal has been carried out on the basis of a combination of evaluation tools, relying on extensive data collection from the most relevant DRC and international sources. In addition, several data sources have been checked to mitigate the unreliability of statistics and relevant qualitative information has been included with the objective of going beyond quantitative statistics. We conclude that in this first decade the Sicomines deal has not had the beneficial socio-economic consequences that were promised; the evidence shows that the DRC is exchanging part of its mineral wealth for deficient roads and poor equipment. This is a relevant conclusion since the outcomes of major pioneer RFI initiatives such as Sicomines may well determine the success of China's new financing and development paradigm in Africa.
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ID:
165042
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Iran has been a critical player in the Syrian war since 2011, crafting a complex foreign policy and military strategy to preserve its Syrian ally. What have been the drivers of Iranian decision-making in this conflict? And how has Iranian strategy evolved over the course of the war? This article argues that the logic of deterrence has been fundamental not just for shaping the contours of Iran–Syria relations since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, but also for determining the overall trajectory of Iranian strategy in the Syrian war. The authors outline Iran's decision-making calculus and divide the country's strategy on Syria after the Arab Spring into four primary phases: 1) a ‘Basij’ strategy to establish local militias in Syria; 2) a regionalization strategy to incorporate transnational fighters and militias in the war effort; 3) an internationalization strategy to incorporate Russia and balance the United States; and 4) a post-ISIS deterrence strategy to balance against the United States, Turkey and Israel. Iran's Syria strategy progressively escalated in response to the possible defeat of its ally and the deterioration of its forward deterrence capacities against the United States and Israel. Today, the potential for direct inter-state conflict is rising as proxy warfare declines and Iran attempts to maintain the credibility of its forward deterrence.
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| 6 |
ID:
165039
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With its 2018 Nuclear Posture Review, the Trump administration expanded the scope of US nuclear deterrence, re-emphasizing the importance of non-strategic nuclear weapons, perceptively lowering the threshold for nuclear use and casting doubt on the future of arms control. The authors argue that these changes are consistent with the administration's wider ‘peace through strength’ approach that draws on traditional Republican thinking on security policy. While designed to demonstrate credibility and resolve to both allies and adversaries, however, this assertive approach to security policy and specifically nuclear policy as a necessary precursor to renewed engagement in strategic negotiations may have unintended consequences. This article focuses on European reactions to the strategy and argues that the Trump administration's nuclear posture challenges common European understandings in three principal areas. First, changes to US declaratory policy contest European assumptions on the role of nuclear weapons in defending NATO. Second, US modernization plans and their implications for intra-alliance relations risk accentuating controversial debates about the US commitment to Europe. Third, the apparent US rejection of arms control widens the scope for discord with European leaders. If European leaders assert a clear and credible alternative vision advocating nuclear restraint, risk reduction and arms control they could rebuild trust and confidence between the United States, NATO and Russia, demonstrating real strength and ultimately leading to more genuine opportunities for peace and sustainable European security.
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| 7 |
ID:
165048
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Nearly six years after the onset of international intervention in 2013, the security situation in Mali continues to deteriorate. Despite a plethora of security sector assistance initiatives, the Malian army is struggling to become a more effective fighting force. This article analyses security sector assistance by describing local responses to international intervention. Based on original research in Bamako and dozens of interviews with Malian army officers and foreign advisers, diplomats and defence officials it traces the mutual perceptions of interveners and their Malian interlocutors. The author shows that both sides hold often diverging views of the analysis of the problem (a weak army), their respective roles, as well as the appropriate modalities and strategies of army reconstruction. While interveners routinely bemoan a lack of local ownership, Malians are exasperated by what they depict as the invasive and paternalistic behaviour of external actors who negate the existence of Malian expertise and agency. The dissonance triggers forms of subtle resistance against externally-driven reform that undermines cooperation. Yet, strong mutual interests in the perpetuation of cooperation imply that Mali and its international backers are locked into a dysfunctional partnership that none of the two sides has an incentive to leave.
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| 8 |
ID:
165043
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This article examines an important dimension of how states influence each other: by damaging or tarnishing their reputations. It illustrates this form of reputational pressure by analysing the European Union's (EU) efforts to combat tax evasion in Asian financial centres. The aim is to understand changes in the EU's approach to preventing EU-domiciled high net worth individuals (HNWIs) from hiding their wealth in Hong Kong and Singapore, Asia's most important financial centres. The article finds that the deliberate deployment of reputational pressure plays a major role in accounting for the isomorphist tendencies of the regulatory architecture governing tax evasion and harmful tax competition. It contextualizes the evolving anti-tax evasion regulatory regime in the EU and tracks its influence on Hong Kong and Singapore. The crackdown on tax evasion has made it more difficult for both cities not to comply with EU regulatory preferences without suffering major reputational damage. The article suggests that the EU and member states have been successful in pressuring Asian financial centres into higher degrees of regulatory compliance.
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| 9 |
ID:
165041
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State and non-state actors across many protracted conflicts and prolonged occupations in the Middle East and North Africa have systematically targeted civilian infrastructures. We use the cases of the West Bank and Gaza, characterized by more than five decades of occupation and periods of intermittent violent conflict, to analyse how the targeting of water, energy, and agricultural infrastructures has created humanitarian crises and undermined civilian livelihoods. Our analysis draws upon an original database tracking the targeting of environmental and civilian infrastructures and on interviews with humanitarian organizations, government officials and civil society actors. The analysis shows how the targeting of infrastructure has differed in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. In the West Bank, damage to essential infrastructure and restrictions on infrastructure development are forms of slow violence that accumulate over time, carried out by both state authorities and settlers. In the Gaza Strip, recurrent violent conflict between Israel and Hamas has produced extensive destruction across all types of infrastructure, while the internationally-sanctioned blockade has hindered effective reconstruction. In both cases agriculture is the most frequently targeted sector, undermining livelihoods and connections to land, while damage to water and energy systems has limited economic activity and rendered civilian life increasingly precarious.
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| 10 |
ID:
165047
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| Summary/Abstract |
The UK's departure from the European Union (EU) represents a major shift in the diplomatic strategy of one of Europe's leading economic, diplomatic and security players. This article limits its focus to the UK's European diplomatic strategy. The article argues that the UK's future relationship with the EU will condition the UK's broader diplomatic approach to Europe. But in exiting the EU the ambitions and modalities of the UK's other bilateral and multilateral relationships in Europe will undergo a recalibration. With the UK government having struggled since June 2016 to provide comprehensive detail on its ambitions for its future economic, political and security relationship with the EU, the development of the broader aspects of the UK's post-Brexit European diplomatic strategy has been retarded. However, through analysis of key speeches, government white papers, and other supporting documents and statements (and the experience of negotiating Brexit with the EU27), the outlines of a nascent post-Brexit UK European diplomatic strategy can be discerned. Whether this strategy will be adequate to provide the UK with a significant degree of influence on Europe's international relations and whether it gives the UK sufficient ability to addresses the key challenges that it will face in Europe is less certain.
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