African Voices, African Arguments Podcast
The podcast series “African Voices, African Arguments” features African scholars, writers, policy makers and activists on issues of peace, justice
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Blog
Corruption in the Indonesian arms business
Authors Xiaodon Liang and Sam Perlo-Freeman examine the problem of corruption in the military sector in Indonesia in the post-Suharto era, in particular in relation to arms procurement, and discuss the significance of recent tentative signs of greater efforts by the Indonesian civil and military authorities to address the problem. It illustrates crucial points about democratization and corruption in the arms trade.
Read moreOperation Starvation, expanded version 2
This is the second half of a two part extended version of an essay published in the London Review of Books
Read moreOperation Starvation, expanded version 1
This is the first half of a two part extended version of an essay published in the London Review of Books
Read moreOn Visiting the September 11 Memorial and Museum
My research over the past year has returned to a topic I once spent a great deal of time thinking
Read moreOperation Starvation
Alex de Waal has a new essay in the London Review of Books (39:12, 15 June 2017, pp. 9 – 12),
Read moreEnding Mass Atrocities: An Empirical Reinterpretation of ‘Successful’ International Military Intervention in East Timor
Claire Smith, a political scientist at York University and one of our collaborators on the how mass atrocities end project,
Read moreThe Ethiopian post-transition security sector reform experience
The Ethiopian state underwent major restructuring at the beginning of the 1990s. It replaced a once highly-centralised state with a federal system, adopting a democratic constitution, the transfer of power through elections, and the recognition of the rights associated with freedom of expression.
More specifically, the Ethiopian security sector was transformed from 1991 onwards; political changes led to a new conception of threats and security needs, and the institutional structure of the country’s security agencies was brought into alignment with the new federal arrangements. The defence review was developed in the context of this wider security sector transformation.
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Lessons from African Union-United Nations Cooperation in peace operations in CAR
This article examines the roles of the United Nations (UN) and the African Union (AU) in the Central African Republic (CAR), where there is a long history of successive conflict resolution efforts that have been overseen by the international community and the region alternatively. The AU, regional economic communities (RECs) such as the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), and regional leaders have also played important roles during the many initiatives aimed at resolving conflict in CAR. This article analyses the responses and relationship between these institutions and actors, beginning with the deployment of an inter-African monitoring mission in 1997. It focuses less on what happened during those conflicts and more on who defined the objectives and strategies of international responses, and who decided which instruments should be used in pursuit of these goals.
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