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1. The Global Terrorist Threat Forecast in 2025

Author:
Liu Chunlin and Rohan Gunaratna
Publication Date:
01-2025
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Revista UNISCI/UNISCI Journal
Institution:
Unidad de investigación sobre seguridad y cooperación (UNISCI)
Abstract:
The global terrorist threat remains persistent and pervasive as the world moves into 2025. Armed conflicts from Ukraine to Gaza and destabilisation by both State and non-State actors are redefining international stability. The influence of groups such as Islamic State, al-Qaeda and Iranian-backed militias underscores the enduring risks. Key challenges include geopolitical rivalries, radicalisation and increasingly sophisticated cyber and physical attacks. With the Middle East at the epicentre of escalating tensions and Africa emerging as a new hotspot, coordinated international efforts are essential to prevent and counter threats. States must strengthen cooperation in intelligence, security and strategic foresight to deal with a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous global landscape.
Topic:
Security, Terrorism, Counter-terrorism, Radicalization, Cybersecurity, Geopolitics, Collaboration, Threat Assessment, 2023 Gaza War, Transnational Threats, and Salafi-Jihadism
Political Geography:
Middle East and Global Focus

2. Understanding and Interrupting Authoritarian Collaboration

Author:
Christina Cottiero and Cassandra Emmons
Publication Date:
05-2024
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES)
Abstract:
For many decades, autocrats have been considered less cooperative than democrats in international politics. While researchers endeavored to learn how international democratic practices spread through political, economic, and social networks, little attention was paid to autocratic collaboration tendencies. However, growing bodies of evidence from human rights and democracy support to international security and international development demonstrate that authoritarian regimes are collaborating through formal organizations and informal channels to stabilize or entrench their rule, disrupt democratic civil society, and even extend the reach of repressive institutions beyond state boundaries. Autocrats face common threats, including: pro-democracy groups and dissenters at home; stigmatization and illegitimacy of their authoritarian governance tactics abroad; conditionalities on critically needed aid or loans that prioritize democratic governance structures and policies; and evolving and increased security threats. In response, authoritarian regimes are sharing information; working to legitimate (or de-stigmatize) repressive practices; supporting one another as they weather shocks and crises resulting from international integration (economic or political); and even lending resources for co-opting and managing critical constituencies. These and other tactics allow them to entrench authoritarian practices. To enable the democracy support community to effectively bolster democratic resilience in the face of growing authoritarianism, we must better understand these practices. This paper provides an overview of modern authoritarian collaboration, analyzing its purposes and methods. It goes on to consider implications for international order and suggests that democracy defenders challenge pernicious authoritarian collaboration, for instance by leveraging their own transnational networks to disrupt authoritarian collaboration on surveillance and repression; provide compelling counter-narratives and debunk disinformation through effective civic education campaigns; and international standard setting and rule enforcement that cuts off authoritarian actors from financial and other resources.
Topic:
Authoritarianism, Resilience, Collaboration, Autocracy, and Democratic Backsliding
Political Geography:
Global Focus

3. Mind the Gap: Bridging the Divide between Cooperation Providers

Author:
Beata Cichocka, Rachael Calleja, Sara Casadevall Bellés, and Emma Mawdsley
Publication Date:
01-2024
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for Global Development (CGD)
Abstract:
Despite the increasing imperative for cross-provider collaboration, the quest for a truly “global” development paradigm remains elusive, marked by persistent divides between different types of development providers’ normative frameworks, models, experiences, capacities, and institutional allegiances. This paper explores the potential role of countries to act as bridges across these varying institutional, normative, or technical “distances” between providers. We begin by examining why, when, and under what conditions countries choose to act as bridges, given their differing capacities, credibility, knowledge, and willingness to act in the role. We then identify some common types and illustrative examples of bridging countries, including “dual donors,” “development experience” bridges, “political” bridges, and “geographic or cultural” bridges, and explore some of the most common types of actions that they can undertake. While all of these actions—whether joint project implementation, hosting forums, brokering agreements, or contributing to the creation of more inclusive norms and multilateral spaces— require some level of both political and technical commitment, they vary in terms of the level of ambition and mutual trust required to undertake action and therefore provide a broad range of options suited to a variety of contexts, agendas, and actors wishing to play a bridging role. Following a brief examination of the benefits and risks associated with bridging, the paper concludes with some policy recommendations for bridging countries that wish to approach this ambitious challenge more strategically.
Topic:
Development, Government, Donors, and Collaboration
Political Geography:
Global Focus

4. What Works in Conflict Prevention?

Author:
David Steven and Gizem Sucoglu
Publication Date:
03-2023
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation (CIC)
Abstract:
This paper compares examples of collaborations that have aimed to prevent violence and conflict. The focus is primarily on ‘at risk’ and ‘acute’ settings, but with a recognition of the need to access a broader range of universal approaches to prevention where possible.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Security, Development, Diplomacy, and Collaboration
Political Geography:
Global Focus

5. A CERN Model for Studying the Information Environment

Author:
Alicia Wanless and Jacob N. Shapiro
Publication Date:
11-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
After the Second World War, European science was suffering. Scientists were leaving Europe in pursuit of safety and work opportunities, among other reasons. To stem the exodus and unite the community around a vision of science for peace, in 1949, a transatlantic group of scholars proposed the creation of a world-class physics research facility in Europe.1 The grand vision was for this center to unlock the mysteries of the universe. Their white paper laid the foundation for the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN), which today supports fundamental research in physics across an international community of more than 10,000 scientists from twenty-three member states and more than seventy other nations.2 Together, researchers at CERN built cutting-edge instruments to observe dozens of subatomic particles for the first time. And along the way they invented the World Wide Web, which was originally conceived as a tool to empower CERN’s distributed teams. Such large-scale collaboration is once again needed to connect scholars, policymakers, and practitioners internationally and to accelerate research, this time to unlock the mysteries of the information environment. Democracies around the world are grappling with how to safeguard democratic values against online abuse, the proliferation of illiberal and xenophobic narratives, malign interference, and a host of other challenges related to a rapidly evolving information environment. What are the conditions within the information environment that can foster democratic societies and encourage active citizen participation? Sadly, the evidence needed to guide policymaking and social action in this domain is sorely lacking. Researchers, governments, and civil society must come together to help. This paper explores how CERN can serve as a model for developing the Institute for Research on the Information Environment (IRIE).3 By connecting disciplines and providing shared engineering resources and capacity-building across the world’s democracies, IRIE will scale up applied research to enable evidence-based policymaking and implementation. Where CERN “exists to understand the mystery of nature for the benefit of humankind,” IRIE will exist to understand the mystery of the information environment for the benefit of democracies and their citizens.4 While the laws of physics change slowly, the conditions within the information environment are little understood and changing rapidly through the addition of new technology. Additionally, studying the information environment will require analysis of personal and at times sensitive data of internet users, increasing the need for international collaboration. As CERN did by inventing new collaboration tools, IRIE will leverage those same technologies to unlock the collective genius of researchers and practitioners from a variety of fields to strengthen democracy, alongside interested citizens who contribute their own data and expertise. While there are obvious differences between the field of physics and those emerging to study the information environment, aspects of CERN’s development can guide the creation of IRIE, an institution that can uniquely address the growing needs of researchers.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Research, Collaboration, Information, and CERN
Political Geography:
Global Focus

6. Building bridges – Working towards cross-field collaboration amongst VAC and VAW stakeholders

Author:
SVRI
Publication Date:
01-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Sexual Violence Research Initiative (SVRI)
Abstract:
Despite a growing body of evidence1,2 and calls for more coordination, collaboration, and partnerships between those working to address violence against children (VAC) and those working to address violence against women (VAW), there continues to be significant tensions between these fields and very few evaluated examples of integrated or coordinated programming in practice3–7. We explore what factors may contribute to more equitable, and innovative partnerships and collaborations based on what we learned through a series of consultative processes8 with stakeholders working on VAC and VAW from around the world.
Topic:
Partnerships, Gender Based Violence, Collaboration, Violence Against Children (VAC), and Violence Against Women (VAW)
Political Geography:
Global Focus

7. SVRI Knowledge Exchange: Building bridges – Working towards cross-field collaboration amongst VAC and VAW stakeholders

Author:
Anik Gevers, Ayesha Mago, and Elizabeth Dartnall
Publication Date:
05-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Sexual Violence Research Initiative (SVRI)
Abstract:
Despite a growing body of evidence and calls for more coordination, collaboration, and partnerships between those working to address violence against children (VAC) and those working to address violence against women (VAW), there continues to be significant tensions between these fields and very few evaluated examples of integrated or coordinated programming in practice. We explore what factors may contribute to more equitable, and innovative partnerships and collaborations based on what we learned through a series of consultative processes with stakeholders working on VAC and VAW from around the world.
Topic:
Partnerships, Gender Based Violence, Collaboration, Violence Against Children (VAC), and Violence Against Women (VAW)
Political Geography:
Global Focus

8. Designing Institutional Collaboration into Global Governance

Author:
C. Randall Henning
Publication Date:
07-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI)
Abstract:
Collaboration among international institutions is essential for high-quality governance in many areas of global policy, yet it is chronically undersupplied. Numerous opportunities for institutional collaboration are being missed and there are calls for deepening collaboration in discourse on global governance — in new areas of governance, such as digital privacy, content moderation and platforms; better-established areas, such as climate change and biodiversity; as well as long-established but nonetheless evolving areas, such as international finance, development and trade. There are several obstacles to collaboration, including key countries’ using some institutions to constrain others, a strategy of “complexity for control.” This policy brief suggests that in designing international institutions, states and other principals should draw from a tool kit of strategies and techniques for promoting collaboration, including introducing or developing formal and informal mechanisms, and harnessing the Group of Seven and the Group of Twenty to foster collaboration proactively. New institutions should be designed from the outset to collaborate with others in a dense institutional environment.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Privacy, Institutions, Innovation, and Collaboration
Political Geography:
Global Focus

9. Influence and Hegemony: Shifting Patterns of Material and Social Power in World Politics

Author:
Simon Reich and Richard Ned Lebow
Publication Date:
01-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:
Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:
Throughout the postwar era, many realists and liberals have maintained the fiction of American hegemony. They have described it as the keystone to global political and economic stability.1 They have also worried that US hegemony was in decline. In the 1970s, these fears were triggered by the resurgence of Germany and Japan, and in the last decade, by the remarkable rise of China. We contend that US hegemony, to the extent it ever existed, was a shortlived postwar phenomenon; that the US frequently behaved in ways that has threatened the order it is allegedly committed to upholding; that hegemony is unnecessary – perhaps inimical – to global stability; and that the functions associated with hegemony have in practice become increasingly diffused among the great powers. Conceptually, the commitment to hegemony stands in the way of our understanding of contemporary international relations. Substantively, it offers an inappropriate and unrealistic role model for American policymakers.
Topic:
Hegemony, Realism, Liberalism, Power, Influence, Sponsorship, and Collaboration
Political Geography:
Global Focus and United States of America