Across the world, the free market is being overtaken by state capitalism, a system in which the state is the leading economic actor. How should the United States respond?
The recent deterioration in relations between Russia and Ukraine should be of great concern to the West, because Ukraine's security is critical to Europe's stability. Ukraine must be placed back on the policy agenda as a player in its own right.
On march 30, 2009, militants launched a deadly assault on a police training center outside Lahore, the capital of Pakistan's Punjab Province. Eight police cadets were killed. Less than a month earlier, on March 3, gunmen in Lahore ambushed members of the visiting Sri Lankan cricket team, killing at least eight people. Punjab, the most populated of Pakistan's provinces, has largely escaped the bloodshed plaguing the country's troubled northwest. Yet since 2007, violence has escalated in the province. The bold terrorist attacks in Pakistan's heartland—within Punjab Province and in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad—show that local logistical support for these attacks is attributable to what is often labeled the “Punjabi Taliban” network. The major factions of this network include operatives from Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan and Jaysh-i-Muhammad—all groups that were previously strictly focused on Kashmir and domestic sectarian violence.
Topic:
Terrorism
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, United States, Europe, Taliban, and Punjab
Olga Martin-Ortega, Chandra Lekha Sriram, and Johanna Herman
Publication Date:
05-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre on Human Rights in Conflict
Abstract:
Following the end of violent conflicts, whether by military victory or negotiated settlement, international actors such as the European Union and the United Nations play an increasing role in peacebuilding, through a range of security, governance, and development activities. These may or may not be mandated by a peace agreement or other formal settlement, and may or may not follow or work in tandem with a peacekeeping mission. International, regional, national, and local actors may work in a more or less collaborative, or coherent fashion. Nonetheless, many of the key challenges of peacebuilding remain the same, and a familiar set of policies and strategies have emerged in contemporary practice to address these. Chief among the challenges of contemporary peacebuilding is that of addressing demands for some form of accountability, often termed transitional justice (discussed in section 3). However, as this guidance paper explains, the demands of transitional justice and its relation to broader peacebuilding activities, involve not just decisions about accountability, but a complex set of policy and institutional choices about security and governance as well. Thus, this guidance paper examines peacebuilding and transitional justice as a set of linked policies and strategies regarding not just accountability, but security sector reform (SSR), disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) of ex-combatants, and development of the rule of law.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Security, Political Violence, Government, Peace Studies, United Nations, and War
The newspaper press is a great power, but just as an unchained torrent of water submerges the whole countryside and devastates crops, even so an uncontrolled pen serves but to destroy. If the control is from without, it proves more poisonous than want of control. It can be profitable only when exercised from within.” Typically, authoritarian regimes exert control over what can and cannot be published or broadcast by requiring news content to be submitted to a censor prior to publication, by seizing control of media outlets or by intimidating or arresting journalists and media company owners. In many countries, censorship of the news media now manifests itself in far more subtle ways, phenomena sometimes referred to collectively as “soft censorship.” This report explores the spread of these indirect means of censorship and examines possible remedies that might be employed to attack the problem.
Diaspora and migrant associations are often praised as new 'agents of change' for their contributions to development in their countries of origin. While much is known about Latin American hometown associations, there has been less focus on African diaspora associations. This DIIS Brief examines Somali and Ghanaian migrant associations in Denmark and their involvement in development. It shows how associations involve themselves on the basis of particular loyalties and emphasizes the importance of local partners and collaboration.
The social sciences have many different understandings of 'normative power'. The purpose of this brief is to help clarify the concept of normative power in world politics as developed in European Union (EU) studies over the last ten years. The brief uses a five-point conceptualisation of normative power as being ideational; involving principles, actions, and impact; as well as having broader consequences in world politics. For each point both a general observation about world politics and a specific comment about the EU is made.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, and International Affairs
The outbreak of a new strain of deadly swine flu, which has killed more than one hundred people in Mexico and spread to the United States and Europe, has global health experts considering whether this may be the start of a long-feared pandemic. Michael T. Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, says there are a lot of unknowns about the new flu strain but so far it presents "a very different picture" from that of recent avian flu outbreaks and the 2003 sudden acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak. "Osterholm says it may be a matter of months before experts understand the disease. He cautions against international policy overreactions, citing some countries' travel warnings and bans on some imported foods from the United States and Mexico as "hysterical." He says the best way to deal with panics is to keep people informed and not create false expectations.
Topic:
International Relations, Globalization, Health, Human Welfare, and International Cooperation
This report describes and analyses the procedures applied by Danish political parties when selecting candidates for EP elections 2009. Furthermore, it examines Danish political party cooperation at the European level with both European party federations and political groups in the EP.
Topic:
Democratization, Politics, and Regional Cooperation