1,720,987 research outputs found
The Merits of Military Aid An Examination of the Interactions between US Military Aid and Terrorism in the East African Community
No full textOver the past twenty years, the United States has been increasingly involved in combatting terrorism across the globe. To combat terrorism, the United States has made billions of dollars in disbursements of both developmental and military aid to foreign states. Extant literature suggests that there is a strong interaction between, developmental aid and terrorist incidences, where increased levels of developmental aid disbursements, reduce the number of terrorism incidences. However, the potential relationship between military aid disbursements and the frequency of terrorism incidences is less understood. Therefore, this article seeks to further nuance our understanding of this potential relationship, by analyzing the potential impacts that United States military aid disbursement has had on the frequency of terrorist attacks in East African Community (EAC) member-states. During the twenty years between 1998 and 2018, the United States disbursed over one billion dollars of military aid to the East African Community member states. Members of this bloc including Kenya and Uganda have also become key partners in the United States in combatting terrorism in Africa. Moreover, this regional bloc has endured over 2,6000 terrorist attacks during the same twenty-year period. As such key insights into the relationship between US military aid disbursements and terrorist incidences can be gained by analyzing the available data about disbursements and terrorist incidences in the East African Community during this period. As such the EAC is an ideal unit of analysis to track this potential relationship because member states of this political union have a long-shared history and have seen different levels of terrorist events and US military aid disbursements during this period
THE GREAT POWERS’ RECOGNITION: CRUCIAL FOR KOSOVO AND IRAQI KURDISTAN SECESSION
Get PDFBoth Kosovo and Iraqi Kurdistan’s secessionist movements, in a journey for self-determination and state-building, suffered mass crimes and ethnic cleansing from the host states; however, only Kosovo acquired a positive final outcome, de jure independence. The major powers in both cases employed military interventions to protect civil and human rights against Serbia and Iraq at the end of the 20th century. The theories of secession differ, and there is no consensus in defining the criteria for state-building and the international institutional process of recognition. Thus, many secessionist movements escalate into ethnic conflicts requiring international involvement. The historical similarities between these two cases beg the question: Why has the international community recognized Kosovo as an independent state and not Iraqi Kurdistan? Are foreign or domestic factors more important in explaining these different outcomes in these cases? In the comparative case study of Kosovo and Iraqi Kurdistan, I use as a guide Coggins’ (2014) explanatory theory for the Great Powers’ recognition based on the decisions made on the international level--geostrategic/external security--and the domestic level--national distinctiveness and mobilization, institutional empowerment, and decisive relative strength. I employ the method of Most Similar Systems Design between Kosovo and Iraqi Kurdistan to highlight the similarities of national indicators in both cases and emphasize the importance of the external support and the international context in the coordination of dynamics of secession. Based on the case study of Kosovo and Iraqi Kurdistan, the presence of a strong ally supporting secession triggers a different final status. The Great Power’s relations with the home state, rivals, and allies influence the decision for recognition of secessionists. The Great Powers’ support, crucial for recognition applies especially to the Yugoslavian and Soviet disintegrations, and might find applicability in other secessionist cases
Protracted Refugee Situations: A Feminist Perspective on Refugee Depiction by UNHCR
Get PDFProtracted refugee situations are some of the most complex political, human rights, and humanitarian challenges facing the international community today. While scholarship on the phenomenon typically focuses on empirical data using non-critical methods, this paper uses a feminist approach to study the discursive depiction of refugees in protracted situations by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). As the largest organization mandated with the protection of refugees and finding solutions for their plight, UNHCR has a unique responsibility, position, and capability to shape discourse and influence policy. Gendered characteristics used in the construction of protracted refugee narratives can contribute to the way protection is packaged, which accordingly can determine how states perceive and therefore respond to refugee situations at the community, state, regional, and international level. A qualitative content analysis of UNHCR documents obtained through the online resource Refworld reveals that UNHCR’s depiction of refugees in protracted situations as dependent burdens capable of self-reliance if empowered simultaneously genders them in feminine and masculine ways
Iranian State Strength & Domestic Terrorism: How Iran Came to be the Cool Spot in a Hotbed of Terrorism
Get PDFThis study focuses examines the relationship between domestic terrorism and state strength within in Iran from 1978 to 2010., and It seeks to understand what the specific factors are that are most influentialimpactful in determining the ebb and flow of terrorism. Despite Iran’s position in a region fraught with terrorism, Iran has experienced very low levels of terrorist activity, and yet the literature focusing on terrorism in Iran is largely absent. In order to gain a better understanding of how the strength of the state impacts domestic terrorism, the this study used utilizes various dimensions of state strength the literature available to find key determinants of state strength highlighted in the literature, including economic data and coercive capacity. In addition, I also consider several alternative explanations of terrorism, such as authoritarianism and historical and/or major event, in the context of Iranian domestic terrorism. as well as key causes of terrorism. The study focused on eight different years in which terrorist activity was high as well as low and then compared economic data, the Freedom House scores, historical and/or major events, and the state’s coercive capacity for each of the years to determine the strength of the state and how it compares to the level of terror activity. The study showsanalysis reveals that the economy, Iranian’s’ confidence in the state, and historical and/or major events are most significant in determining heightened the high levels of terrorism that Iran experienced during this period
NATO's Post-Cold War Relevance in Counter Terrorism
Get PDFFrom the end of the Cold War, through the process of globalization, national security has transitioned from an idea of purely state versus state interaction into a concept including both state and non-state actors. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), once the counter balance to the Soviet Union, has evolved into an alliance that has expanded its attention to include non-state actors, such as international terrorist organizations. Scholars have theorized on the lifespan of NATO post-Cold War, however the majority of these theories have focused on state versus state issues, a common paradigm of the 20th century, and not included state versus non-state issues, such as international terrorism. As NATO continues to be a post-Cold War, state alliance has it been able to transition to a relevant counter terrorism force and reduce the number of terrorist attacks within each member state, the alliance as a whole, and/or in the international community? With statistical data of terrorist attacks within NATO member states from the Global Terrorism Database this study focuses on each new member that joined during three influential time periods before and after the end of the Cold War in order to determine if becoming a member correlates to an increase or decrease in the number of terrorist attacks. Complementing the statistical data is a content analysis of NATO Summit Declarations in order to determine the combined strategies of each member state in reference to international terrorism. According to the findings of the statistical data, I hypothesize that each state will have experienced a decrease in terrorist attacks within their borders after becoming a member of NATO. The content analysis will illustrate that the alliance has continued to evolve its existence by increasing attention and resources to the fight against international terrorism
Guns and ships, but does the balance shift? The impact of naval balance of power on China's maritime disputes
No full textPrevious research suggests that the makeup of a state’s naval power plays a significant role in the likelihood of states to enter into militarized disputes (Gartzke and Lindsay 2020, Mitchell 2020, Crisher 2017). Decisionmakers should likewise consider the perceived balance of military power in a crisis bargaining or dispute scenario (Slantchev 2005, Fearon 1995). In the context of maritime disputes, states must rely on capabilities that can project military means into the sea. Naval combat in turn privileges platforms (ships, aircraft, missiles, etc) by its defining characteristics relative to land combat (Hughes 2018, Vego 2020, Caverley and Dombrowski 2020). Even states with nominally weaker navies, in this capability-centric paradigm of military power, may be capable of inflicting significant damage on relatively strong opponents (Hughes 2018, Biddle 2004). To date, studies of the impact of navies on militarization of disputes and militarized episodes use total tonnage displacement and broad ship-type data from the Crisher and Souva (2014) dataset. In this study, I propose a different measure of naval capacity using the relative proportion of a state’s fleet that is equipped with missiles. I examine the utility of this more nuanced measure of naval capability in the context of China’s maritime Militarized Interstate Disputes (MIDs) from the Correlates of War Dyadic MIDs dataset (Maoz et al. 2018) with Vietnam, the Philippines, and Japan between 1987 and 2018. I find that using a technology-based capability measure such as the one used in this study offers at least the same degree of explanatory power - and in some cases additional insight - to the pattern of initiation and hostility of MIDs that occur between China and its dispute partners relative to using a tonnage or broad category ship classification method. My results support findings by Fravel (2007) that China tends to engage in higher levels of militarization when its dispute position is threatened by a rival whose military is increasing in capability, and Mitchell’s (2020) finding that disputes are more “stable” in militarization trend when the balance of naval power is lopsided versus when it is moving towards parity. My results suggest that a capability-based measure of naval power should be especially considered in a case of a relatively weak navy that is rising in capability relative to a stronger rival, such as the case between Vietnam and China over the last 20 years
Starving the Beast: the Effects of China and the United Nations’ Sanctions on North Korean Rason City’s Rice Prices.
Get PDFDo economic sanctions targeting authoritarian regimes have effects on non-sanctioned goods, especially food commodities? Although there is a large and increasing amount of literature written on the effects of economic sanctions on authoritarian countries, only a handful of them have delved into the collateral damage of economic sanctions. Among these handful of studies, few studies have proposed a clear mechanism of how non-sanctioned goods could also be influenced by economic sanctions targeting authoritarian regimes with relatively isolated economies. In this article, by using of a unique quantitative data set consisting of daily food commodities prices sourced from North Korea Rason City’s black and gray markets along with ten qualitative interviews with Chinese formal and informal business people in October and November 2017, I found that depending on the relationship between the targeted country and its ally which could potentially serve as its sanction buster country, economic sanctions targeting authoritarian countries could have larger negative influence on non-sanctioned goods, especially food commodities, even on countries that have relatively isolated economies. I also found that as for authoritarian countries with isolated economies such as North Korea, foreign goods could flow into the targeted country through both formal and informal (smuggling and illicit trade) trade channels. When sanctions are imposed, the higher demand for foreign goods stimulates the flourish of underground channels, which facilitates the inflow of both non-sanctioned and sanctioned goods into the targeted country’s domestic market from the targeted country’s sanction buster country. However, when the targeted country’s sanction buster country which is economically connected to the targeted country through both formal and informal trade channels also participates in the international community to impose economic sanctions on the targeted country, economic sanctions from the targeted country’s sanction buster country could have negative effects on even non-sanctioned goods because the previous underground channels could be cut (formal channels are also likely to diminish due to economic pressure), hence the inflow of both sanctioned and non-sanctioned goods could be prohibited. Combined these findings, I propose a unique method to study and measure the effects of economic sanctions on authoritarian regimes with isolated economies: by looking at the effects of economic sanctions on non-sanctioned goods, especially food commodities. Because when economic sanctions are imposed on authoritarian regimes with isolated economies, non-sanctioned goods could follow the flow of sanctioned goods into the targeted country through informal trade channels, hence we can monitor whether economic sanctions do have negative effects on sanctioned goods or not by looking at sanctions’ effects on non-sanctioned goods: if non-sanctioned goods are in fact immune to economic sanctions and remain non-influenced by economic sanctions, then it is likely that underground channels still remain active, which provides potential valid opportunities for informal traders to smuggle sanctioned goods into the targeted country, and hence eventually bust sanctions. On the other hand, if economic sanctions are proved to have larger effects even on non-sanctioned goods, then this phenomenon suggests that underground channels have already been cut and hence the underground flow of sanctioned goods are likely to have been sufficiently prohibited
Is Aid Worth it? An Analysis of US Counterterror Programs: Weapons, Training, and Terror
No full textIs counterterrorism aid effective? Some counterterrorism aid programs focus on training and education, others focus on weapons disbursements. I argue that the type of aid program affects the effectiveness of the aid in countering terror. Education programs are more likely to reduce terror than weapons programs because education programs have higher levels of government control and are less likely to be mismanaged. I use data from USAID and the Global Terrorism Database to explore the relationship between aid and terror. I find support for my hypothesis; education programs reduce the likelihood of terrorist attacks in the recipient country. Weapons programs have ambiguous effects. These results suggest that it is better to spend US counterterrorism dollars on teaching and training than bullets and bombs.
‘Kollaborativ Konkurrens’ : ‘Stance-taking’ och positionering i Europaparlamentet
No full textThe European Parliament (EP) is the scene where certain issues concerning over 500 million ‘Europeans’ are publicly debated and where politically relevant groupings are discursively coconstructed. While the Members of the Parliament (MEPs) pursue their political agendas, intergroup boundaries are drawn, reinforced, and/or transgressed. Speakers constantly take stances on behalf of groupings in relation to some presupposed other groupings and argue what differentiates ‘Self’ from ‘Others’. This study examines patterns of language use by the MEPs as they engage in the contextually and historically situated dialogical processes of intergroup positioning and stance-taking. It further focuses on the strategic and competitive activities of grouping, grounding, and alignment in order to reveal the dynamic construction of intergroup boundaries. The study is based on a collection of Blue-card question-answer sequences from the plenary debates held at the EP in 2011, when the Sovereign Debt Crisis had been stabilized to some degree but still evoked plenty of controversy. Theoretically the study builds on Stance Theory (Du Bois, 2007), Positioning Theory (Davies & Harré, 1990), and several broadly social constructivist approaches to discourse analysis (Fairclough, 1995). The analysis shows that intergroup positioning in the EP emerges as what I call a ‘collaborative competition’ between contradictory ideologies and political agendas. The MEPs strategically manipulate their opponents' prior or projected utterances in order to set up positions for self, a grouping he or she stands for, and thereby its adversaries. All participants engage in the maintenance and negotiation of intergroup boundaries, even though the boundaries hardly ever coincide between the different speakers. They discursively fence off some imaginary territories, leaving their adversaries with vague positions. When asking Blue-card questions, the MEPs use a particular turn organization, which involves routine forms of interactional units, namely addressing, question framing and question forms, each of which is shown to contribute to stance-taking. A dynamic model of stance-taking is suggested, allowing for a fluid transformation of the stance object as well as the discursively constructed stance-takers. While Blue-card questions are meant to serve as a structured procedure for eliciting information from a speaker, the analysis demonstrates that the MEPs accomplish various divergent actions that serve intergroup positioning. The dissertation thus contributes to the understanding of the discursive games played in the EP as the MEPs strive to construct social realities that fit their political ends.Europaparlamentet (EP) är scenen där vissa frågor rörande mer än 500 miljoner ‘européer’ officiellt debatteras och där politiskt relevanta grupperingar diskursivt konstrueras [co-constructed]. Medan parlamentsmedlemmarna (MEPs) driver sina egna politiska agendor dras gränser mellan grupperna, och dessa gränser förstärks och/eller överträds. Talare intar oavbrutet vad man skulle kunna kalla för olika ‘hållningar’ (stances) för olika grupperingar i relation till vissa förutsatta andra grupperingar, och argumenterar för vad som skiljer ‘jaget/det egna’ (Self) från ‘de andra’ (Others). Denna studie undersöker språkmönster som används av parlamentsledamöterna när de hänger sig åt kontextuellt och historiskt situerade dialogiska processer rörande positionering mellan grupper (intergroup positioning) och stance-taking. Den fokuserar vidare på de strategiska och konkurrensutsatta aktiviteterna grouping (gruppformering), grounding (ung. legitimering av en talares stance) och alignment (när man placerar sig i linje med eller tar avstånd från en annan talares åsikter) för att urskilja den dynamiska konstruktionen av gränser mellan grupper. Studien baseras på en korpus av så kallade ‘Blue-card question-answer sequences’ från plenardebatter som hölls i EP under 2011, när statsskuldkrisen hade stabiliserats något men fortfarande utgjorde grunden för många kontroverser. Teoretiskt sett bygger studien på Stance-teori (Du Bois, 2007), Positionerings-teori (Davies & Harré, 1990) och ett flertal breda socialkonstruktivistiska infallsvinklar till diskursanalys (Fairclough, 1995). Analysen visar att positioneringen mellan de olika grupperingarna i EP framstår som något jag kallar ‘kollaborativ konkurrens’ mellan motstridiga ideologier och politiska agendor. Parlamentsledamöterna manipulerar strategiskt sina motståndares tidigare eller förutsedda yttranden för att positionera sig själva, en gruppering de står för, och därigenom dess meningsmotståndare. Alla deltagare agerar för att upprätthålla och förhandla gränsdragningen mellan grupperna, trots att gränserna nästan aldrig överensstämmer mellan de olika talarna. Diskursivt styckar de av några imaginära territorier, vilket lämnar deras motståndare i vaga positioner. När de ställer Blue-card questions använder sig parlamentsledamöterna av en särskild turtagningsorganisation, vilken inbegriper rutinformer av interaktionsenheter (interactional units), tilltal (addressing), hur frågor initieras (question framing), och frågeformer (question forms), av vilka var och en visar sig bidra till stance-taking. En dynamisk modell för stance-taking föreslås, vilket möjliggör en transformation av det kontinuerligt omdefinierade stance-objektet såväl som av de diskursivt konstruerade stance-takers. Medan Blue-card questions är avsedda att fungera som en strukturerad procedur för att få fram information från en talare demonstrerar analysen att parlamentsledamöterna lyckas med olika avledande manövrer som tjänar positioneringen mellan grupper. Avhandlingen bidrar på så vis till förståelsen av det diskursiva spelet i Europaparlamentet där parlamentsledamöterna strävar efter att konstruera sociala realiteter som tjänar deras politiska mål
States' Pursuit of Sovereignty in a Globalized Security Context: Controlling International Human Mobility
No full textThe goal of this dissertation is to inquire into how states balance economic motivations and security concerns when pursuing sovereignty at borders. More precisely, the dissertation examines tradeoffs between interdependence sovereignty -control over transborder flows--and Westphalian sovereignty defined as exclusion of external actors from states' authoritative space. Focusing on control over cross-border human mobility as the issue area, I put forward the securitized interdependence framework as a theory that encompasses economic and security logics of policy-making. Because migration control rests at the nexus of economic/material and geopolitical/military dimensions of state security, it provides an ideal testing ground for observing the interaction of economic and security motives. The theoretical framework draws on the literature on complex interdependence and the logic of the trading state to postulate empirically verifiable propositions on migration control policies. The central claim of the dissertation is that human mobility is conditionally securitized and that security logics are modulated by material/economic incentives. Facing informational asymmetries vis-à-vis transnational terrorists, states rely on migration and border control strategies to screen and deter non-state threats to security. However, economic interdependence--trade and capital ties--mitigates fears over transnational terrorism by reconfiguring state preferences, bolstering the relative salience of material concerns in policy-making, tempering perceptions of threat, and creating vested interests at the domestic level. To test the theory I have collected and compiled data on i)visa restrictions for pairs of 207 X 207 directed dyads ii)visa rejection rates for European Union and/or Schengen member countries for the period 2003-2007, and iii)asylum recognition rates for 20 select OECD recipient states for the period 1980-2007. I then use this data to test the implications of the theory by distinguishing between economic/voluntary and political/involuntary migration. Additionally, I tease out the distinct effects of two different types of security concerns over transnational terrorism: a reputational effect that considers origin country citizens' involvement in terrorism incidents worldwide and a targeted/directed impact through which states take into account past experience as targets of terrorism. To illustrate the effect of economic interdependence, I analyze trade and capital flows separately and illustrate that both types of commercial ties facilitate liberalization of controls over human mobility through direct and indirect mechanisms. I employ a variety of statistical techniques to study the effect of economic and security concerns including several cross-sectional time series techniques, structural break and recursive residual tests for temporal change, and maximum likelihood. Furthermore, I complement my quantitative empirical analysis with an in-depth process tracing approach that traces the evolution of Turkey's migration policies in the context of Turkey's post-1980 economic liberalization. The qualitative analysis makes use of primary and secondary resources obtained from archival field work in Ankara and Istanbul, Turkey.The dissertation demonstrates that the impact of security concerns over transnational terrorism is contingent on the type of migration policy under consideration. In particular, policies of control over involuntary/political migration are guided by humanitarian and normative motives, limiting the effect of security concerns. Furthermore, the securitization of visa policies is strongest if recipient states are directly targeted by incidents of transnational terrorism perpetrated by origin country nationals. While states take into account incidents of global terrorism ---attacks against other country nationals or territories by origin country citizens-- this channel of impact is more modest. Additionally, empirical results show that economic interdependence effectively undercuts the effect of global terrorism, driving migration control policies towards liberalization. In sum, the dissertation demonstrates that ways in which states assert interdependence sovereignty exhibit temporal and cross-sectional variation as well as functional differentiation across types of border and migration control policies.</p
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