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Presents evidence that Ba'athists were deliberately restored to power, and demonstrates that this was not a war for disarmament, or for 'regime change', but a war for power. [back cover]

A bloody coup attempt, the government responding by dismantling the state of law and an unending series of terror attacks have turned Turkey into a different country. In foreign policy, Ankara's rapprochement with Moscow raises the question of whether the West can still consider Turkey a reliable partner. Officially, the country continues to be a candidate for membership of the European Union. However, for some time now the talk has been more of the dangers that an unstable and anti-Western Turkey creates for the EU than of how Brussels might influence Turkish politics. NATO too is concerned about Turkey. Will it remain in the Western camp? Can it recover domestically? What sort of future do the more recent developments in foreign and domestic policy predict for Turkey? (author's abstract)

The election of Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in May 2014 as Egypt's President has ushered in a new order. The tacit alliance forged during the rule of Sisi's predecessor, Mohammed Morsi, between the Muslim Brotherhood and the military had gradually eroded by the end of 2012. Currently, the military and the business elites constitute the core of an emerging tactical alliance, with the Salafist Nour party and secular political forces occupying a secondary position. In the mid-term, the consolidation of the post-July 2013 order will depend first and foremost on the alliance's capacity to ensure economic recovery. Secular and Islamist forces have each been forging electoral coalitions to try to win seats in the coming parliamentary elections, which are supposed to take place before the end of 2014. (Autorenreferat)

The 18th military coup in Thai history ended the era of Thaksin Shinawatra. The reasons
for the coup lie in both the lacking professionalization of the Thai military and the
increasing confrontation between the prime minister and the military generals. After the
putsch initially has been welcomed by the Thai middle class and the Crown, the military
now is preparing to stay in power till the next elections. It remains to be seen whether
this will be accepted by the vibrant civil society of Bangkok and the masses in Thaksin's
stronghold in the north of the country.

Disintegration of the old regime -- The ultra left -- President elect but not in power -- Destroying the bases of capitalism -- The economic consequences of Professor Vuskovic -- The middle class strikes -- The hidden hand moves.

This paper focuses on the political crises shaping Burmese' peoples' im-mobilities during the COVID-19 pandemic. As governments around the world urged people to stay at home to be protected from infection and transmission, throughout 2021 many Burmese people protested the military coup of 1 February and fled Myanmar for safety. I problematize these movements of the Burmese peoples through the complex interplay between the triple C of (ethnic) conflict, COVID-19, and coup. I contend that, in Myanmar, adhering to COVID-19 measures emphasizing (self-)isolation and immobility was impossible as they served the military to suppress peoples' critique and protests regarding the government's coup and its mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic. As such, Burmese peoples' physical movements and political mobilisation were necessitated to fight against an ensuing political disempowerment of the people. In other words, the unfolding of the COVID-19 pandemic in correlation with long-standing 'ethnic' conflicts and a military coup required the Burmese peoples to carefully contest an internationally propagated so-called 'new norm' of self-isolation at home and other social distancing measures, which bore the risk of suppression and of renewing political isolation experienced since the country's first military government.

Focusing on the memorialization, sacralization and politicization of madness through the case of the holy-madman Şeywuşen (Hüseyin Tatar, 1930–95), this dissertation explores the relationship between the political and spiritual spheres in the heavily militarized and politically contested landscape of Dersim (officially Tunceli) in eastern Turkey, the only city in Turkey where the Kurdish-Alevi population forms a majority. Tracing the life story of Şeywuşen allows reassessing the historical events that became landmarks in the collective memory of the contested landscape of Dersim: the genocidal violence experienced in 1915 and in 1938, the coup d'état of 1980 and military clashes between the Kurdish movement and the Turkish Armed Forces in the 1990s. Using historical and ethnographic material collected in Dersim, along with oral history interviews conducted with members of the Dersim diaspora living in Germany, the dissertation analyzes the ways in which the identity of Şeywuşen as a holy-madman is constructed as a metaphor for the injury caused by the racialized and secularized state violence and the source of therapeutic power to heal that injury. Analyzing the ways in which Şeywuşen has been memorialized and sacralized, the dissertation explores the particular experience of the political in a region that has been pathologized and labelled as "irrational" by diverse political actors throughout the late Ottoman period and in modern Turkey. Through a gendered analysis of the narrated reasons for Şeywuşen's madness, it frames the formation of the holy-mad identity as the process of affliction of otherness that has been attributed to the region. Looking at rituals and practices woven around holy-mad figures, it conceptualizes holy-madness as a site where a brutally silenced past haunts the present in creative ways that allows bounded temporalities to be transcended and to construct different identity claims. The inauguration of a statue of Şeywuşen in Dersim during the 1990s enables an analysis of the limits of heroic and militarist representation in the Turkish public sphere. The dissertation proposes that tracing the political connotations of holy-madness challenges the limits of what can be articulated in the realm of politics through a special emphasis on what is not conducive to be instrumentalized by political or social movements. Shifting attention from what state violence destroys to what it produces, this dissertation contributes not only to studies on the Middle East but also to the history and anthropology of state violence. With its focus on the sacred characteristics of madness, it offers an original contribution to the contemporary literature on politics, which is widely discussed within the secular rational framework. Bringing into conversation the literature on space, state violence, and emotions, it illustrates that space-making cannot be thought of separately from the inscription of its spatial emotional regime. The dissertation also contributes to the literature on secularism by examining the challenge that representations of holy-madness, and the devotional practices woven around it, pose to secular conceptions of politics. ; Anhand der Biografie des göttlichen Wahnsinnigen (budela) Şeywuşen (Hüseyin Tatar, 1930-1995) untersucht diese Dissertation das Verhältnis von göttlichem Wahnsinn und staatlich-finanzierter Gewalt in der politisch heftig umstrittenen Region um Dersim (offiziell Tunceli) in der Ost-Türkei. Der Lebensgeschichte Şeywuşens folgend, denkt die Dissertation die politische Geschichte Dersims, der einzigen Stadt in der Türkei, in der die alevitisch-kurdische Bevölkerung in der Mehrheit ist, neu. Das Nachzeichnen der Lebensgeschichte Şeywuşens erlaubt eine Neubewertung der historischen Ereignisse, die eine zentrale Rolle im kollektiven Gedächtnis des umstrittenen Dersims spielen: die genozidale Gewalt von 1915 und 1938, der Staatsstreich von 1980 und die militärischen Auseinandersetzungen zwischen der kurdischen Bewegung und der türkischen Armee. Auf Grundlage historischer und ethnologischer Quellen aus Dersim und Oral History Interviews mit Mitgliedern der Dersimdiaspora in Deutschland analysiert die Dissertation die Rolle von staatlicher Gewalt in Narrativen und die emotionale Bindung an Figuren des göttlichen Wahnsinns. Durch die Analyse der Formen von Memorialisierung und Sakralisierung Şeywuşens untersucht die Dissertation die besondere Erfahrung des Politischen in einer Region, die durch diverse politische Akteure seit dem späten Osmanischen Reich und in der gesamten türkischen Geschichte immer wieder pathologisiert und als "irrational" bezeichnet worden ist. Mithilfe einer Genderanalyse der vorgebrachten Gründe für Şeywuşens Wahnsinn fasst diese Studie die Entstehung einer Identität des göttlichen Wahnsinns als einen Prozess auf, der aus der Zuschreibung der Region als das "Andere" entsteht. Indem sie Rituale und Praktiken um Figuren des göttlichen Wahnsinns untersucht, konzeptualisiert die Dissertation den göttlichen Wahnsinn als einen Ort, an dem gewaltsam unterdrückte Vergangenheit und emotionale Bindungen ausgedrückt werden. Der Fokus auf die Errichtung der Statue Şeywuşens in der politischen Atmosphäre der 1990er Jahre erlaubt es, die Grenzen heroischer und militaristischer Repräsentation in der türkischen Öffentlichkeit aufzuzeigen. Die Dissertation regt an, dass die Analyse der politischen Konnotationen des göttlichen Wahnsinns die Grenzen des Sagbaren im politischen Raum in Frage stellt. Dabei achtet sie besonders auf das, was nicht durch politische oder soziale Bewegungen instrumentalisiert werden kann. Indem sie die Aufmerksamkeit von dem, was staatliche Gewalt zerstört, auf das lenkt, was Gewalt hervorbringt, leistet diese Dissertation nicht nur einen Beitrag zu Studien des Nahen und Mittleren Ostens, sondern auch zur Geschichte und Anthropologie von staatlicher Gewalt. Durch ihren Fokus auf die göttlichen Eigenschaften von Wahnsinn trägt sie mit einem neuen Blickwinkel zur derzeitigen Literatur über das Politische bei, die größtenteils im säkular-rationalen Bereich bleibt. Indem sie die Literatur über Raum, staatliche Gewalt und Emotionen miteinander ins Gespräch bringt, zeigt die Studie, dass die Aushandlung von Raum untrennbar von den räumlichen emotionalen Ordnungen ist. Außerdem trägt die Dissertation zur Literatur des Säkularismus bei, indem sie die Herausforderung untersucht, die die Repräsentation göttlichen Wahnsinns und der damit verbundenen Andachtspraktiken an säkulare Konzepte des Politischen stellt.

"Im Zuge der Unruhen, die Burundi seit Ende April erschüttern, haben mit Belgien, den Niederlanden, Deutschland und Frankreich fast alle Partner der burundischen Sicherheitskräfte ihre finanzielle Unterstützung bis auf Weiteres eingestellt. Grund dafür war das brutale Vorgehen der Sicherheitskräfte gegen Demonstrantinnen und Demonstranten, die gegen eine als verfassungswidrig geltende dritte Amtszeit des Präsidenten protestierten, sowie gegen Militärs, die am 13. Mai zu putschen versuchten. Während die Polizei bereits seit Beginn der Proteste durch den massiven Einsatz von Gewalt aufgefallen war, galt die Armee bis zum Putschversuch als neutral und konfliktentschärfend. Nun treten enorme Spannungen innerhalb des Militärs zutage, die von Präsident Nkurunziza noch durch Verhaftungen, Entlassungen und die selektive Verfolgung von Offizieren verschärft werden. Der Rückzug der Geber könnte die Lage weiter anheizen. Das Verhalten der Armee in den nächsten Wochen wird maßgeblich sein für den weiteren Verlauf des Konflikts." (Autorenreferat)

"This report investigates how Thailand has translated the global norms of security sector reform (SSR) into its own local setting. The author offers a detailed overview of Thailand's security sector and its actors, assesses the military influence and analyzes the SSR attempts until the last putsch in 2014 and the efforts made since then. He shows that SSR approaches in Thailand do exist, but there is nothing about them which upholds the rule of law under elected civilian rule or the civilian monitoring of military institutions. He therefore names the attempts made 'security sector deforms' instead of 'reforms'. The author argues that true SSR leading to institutionalized civilian control will only come to Thailand from within, when the current junta's image becomes increasingly tarnished, when traditional elite institutions reject supporting military rule, and when Thai people from all functional backgrounds unite to prioritize SSR and deny military coup plotters the chance to ever usurp power again." (author's abstract)

Economic integration among West African member states was the original mandate of ECOWAS. Threats to development, peace and security led the community to expand its mandate to include conflict management. ECOWAS has established a commendable record in peacekeeping. Its intervention in Liberia ended the conflict. In Sierra Leone, it provided the necessary support to the legitimate government, but in Guinea Bissau, it failed to stop the violence. In 2004, ECOMOG was replaced by the ECOWAS Standby Force (ESF), made up of military, police and civilian personnel. As part of its missions, ECOWAS has implemented conflict prevention and resolution mechanisms outlined in its Conflict Prevention Framework (ECPF). However, the organisation relies on its member states to achieve its objectives. Unfortunately, the latter is mostly characterised by a lack of political and financial commitment. In recent years, ECOWAS has focused on counter-terrorism strategies. However, these too have been hampered by capacity constraints, the persistence of a socioeconomic environment increasingly conducive to religious fundamentalism and extremism, and varying levels of political will and commitment. The ECOWAS institution's conflict prevention tools are currently stronger than its conflict management tools. At present, the ESF lacks the logistical and financial capacity for military deployment. Nigeria, the main troop and financial contributor, was supposed to provide more than half of the pledged ESF troops. But it has internal security challenges of its own. It is therefore doubtful that it could spare its pledged troops for an ESF mission. All this suggests that ECOWAS, once a force to be reckoned with in West Africa, has been reduced to a paper tiger. It's warning to intervene, by military force if necessary, in the current conflict in Niger, where a coup has overthrown the legitimate government, was reckoned as an empty threat. Especially since the coup leaders in Mali, Niger and Guinea have been backed by Russia.

Der Putsch vom 25. Oktober 2021 setzte dem demokratischen Übergangsprozess in Sudan ein jähes Ende. Militär- und Sicherheitskräften gelingt es seitdem jedoch nicht, ihre Herrschaft zu festigen. Eine Rückkehr zu einer dauerhaften und stabilen Militärregierung in Sudan ist unwahrscheinlich. Zu groß sind die internen Gegen­sätze der Putschistengruppierungen und die wirtschaftlichen Herausforderungen des Landes. Die Demokratiebewegung ist gut organisiert und dank ihrer dezentralen Struktur in der Lage, Verhaftungen und Gewalt zu trotzen. Ein neuer demokratischer Übergangsprozess wird nicht allein durch Wahlen herbeizuführen sein, welche die Putschisten für Sommer 2023 planen. Jedwede internationale Vermittlung in Sudan hat nur dann eine Chance, wenn sie eng auf die zivilgesellschaftlichen Pläne für eine Neuausrichtung des Staates abgestimmt ist. (Autorenreferat)