Governing Security After War

In 'Governing Security After War', Louis-Alexandre Berg examines the political dilemmas around international efforts to restructure police and military forces in conflict-affected countries. Berg explains the success and failure of international peacebuilding and security assistance programs by focusing on the internal political dynamics facing leaders in these countries. Through a novel theoretical framework, statistical analysis of an original dataset, and in-depth case studies, Berg provides new insights into the role and impact of international involvement in countries affected by violent internal conflict.

"This book explores the political dilemmas around security forces in war-torn countries. Well-governed military and police forces are central to sustained peace after civil war, and efforts to restructure security forces are major components of peacebuilding and stabilization efforts. As international actors have attempted to strengthen oversight and curb abuse, however, they have run into thorny political obstacles. Varied outcomes have raised questions about the value of international assistance for strengthening state institutions"--

Conflicts in Eurasia have been receiving significant attention in the last few years from political scientists and international relations scholars. The geographic area of Eurasia lies at the intersection of global and regional conflicts and coordination games. On the one hand, regional controversies in Eurasia often affect relations among the great powers on a global scale – for instance, Russia believes it is engaged in a clash with the United States and its allies in post-Soviet Eurasia and that by obstructing EU and US policies in its neighbourhood, Moscow not only protects its security interests but also precipitates the demise of the US-centric world order. On the other hand, global rivalries can either exacerbate tensions or facilitate negotiated solutions across Eurasia, mostly as a result of competitive behaviour among major powers in conflict mediation. Few scholars have focused on the negotiation process or brought together the whole variety of seemingly disparate yet comparable cases. This volume, edited by two global security experts – one from Canada and one from Russia – examines negotiations that continue after the “hot phase” of a conflict has ended and the focus becomes the search for lasting security solutions. Tug of War brings together conflict and security experts from Russia, Eurasia, and the West to tackle the overarching question: how useful has the process of negotiation been in resolving or mitigating different conflicts and coordination problems in Eurasia, compared to attempts at exploiting or achieving a decisive advantage over one’s opponents?

A long-term evaluation and analysis of the UK's involvement in Sierra Leone before and after the conflict which ended in 2002. This book looks at how UK intervention moved from initial involvement through to war fighting and then post-conflict reconstruction, specifically of the security infrastructure.

According to politicians, we now live in a radically interconnected world. Unless there is international stability – even in the most distant places – the West's way of life is threatened. In meeting this global danger, reducing poverty and developing the unstable regions of the world are now imperative. In what has become a truism of the post-Cold War period, security without development is questionable, while development without security is impossible. In this accessible and path-breaking book, Mark Duffield questions this conventional wisdom and lays bare development not as a way of bettering other people but of governing them. He offers a profound critique of the new wave of Western humanitarian and peace interventionism, arguing that rather than bridging the lifechance divide between development and underdevelopment, it maintains and polices it. As part of the defence of an insatiable mass consumer society, those living beyond its borders must be content with self-reliance. With case studies drawn from Mozambique, Ethiopia and Afghanistan, the book provides a critical and historically informed analysis of the NGO movement, humanitarian intervention, sustainable development, human security, coherence, fragile states, migration and the place of racism within development. It is a must-read for all students and scholars of development, humanitarian intervention and security studies as well as anyone concerned with our present predicament.

The end of the Cold War created an opportunity for the United Nations to reconceptualize the rationale and extent of its peacebuilding efforts, and in the 1990s, democracy and good governance became legitimizing concepts for an expansion of UN activities. The United Nations sought not only to democratize disorderly states but also to take responsibility for protecting people around the world from a range of dangers, including poverty, disease, natural disasters, and gross violations of human rights. National sovereignty came to be considered less an entitlement enforced by international law than a privilege based on states’ satisfactory performance of their perceived obligations. In Governing Disorder, Laura Zanotti combines her firsthand experience of UN peacebuilding operations with the insights of Michel Foucault to examine the genealogy of post–Cold War discourses promoting international security. Zanotti also maps the changes in legitimizing principles for intervention, explores the specific techniques of governance deployed in UN operations, and identifies the forms of resistance these operations encounter from local populations and the (often unintended) political consequences they produce. Case studies of UN interventions in Haiti and Croatia allow her to highlight the dynamics at play in the interactions between local societies and international peacekeepers.

This book explores post-Soviet Eurasian regional security governance, as embedded in the military alliance of Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). CSTO was established in 2002 and consists of six post-Soviet countries: Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Moving studies of regional security governance beyond the so-called Eurocentrism trend expressed, inter alia, via the focus on Western military alliance, such as NATO, this book examines CSTO as a new, post-Soviet form of regional security cooperation by looking at the reasons and drivers behind the establishment of the post-Soviet Eurasian security governance; the organization's institutional design; the military capabilities of its member states; the degree of the members' integration within the alliance; the cooperation pattern adopted by CSTO members; as well as the effect and effectiveness of this military alliance.