Suchergebnisse

EU-Japan security cooperation in context / Emil Kirchner -- Regional security / Thomas Diez and Jun Tsubouchi -- EU-Japan military relations / Hiroyasu Akutsu and Simon Duke -- Non-proliferation / Nicola Casarini and Michito Tsuruoka -- The EU and Japan in the fight against terrorism and organised crime / Raphael Bossong and Sarah Bothe -- EU and Japanese climate and energy security policy / Katja Biedenkopf and Hiroshi Ohta -- Human security: more potential for cooperation? / Sebastian Harnisch and Ken Masujima -- Civil protection: enhancing resilience through collaboration / Han Dorussen, Daisuke Madokoro and Atsushi Tago -- EU-Japan cybersecurity cooperation / George Christou and Yoko Nitta -- The economic security dimension in EU-Japan relations / Thomas Christiansen, Jean-Christophe Defraigne and Hiromasa Kubo -- The EU-Japan security dialogue and migration: a search for common ground / Harlan Koff, Junichi Akashi and Midori Okabe -- New horizons in EU-Japan security cooperation? / Emil Kirchner and Han Dorussen

Violent crime in Colombia is analyzed following the demobilization of ex-combatants using municipal-level data. The main findings are that an increased presence of ex-combatants does not systematically increase homicides, but may increase robberies. Reintegration programs are shown to matter. Former paramilitaries who are not in a reintegration program increase crime. Former guerillas increase robberies, regardless of whether they are in or out of reintegration, but homicides decrease for guerrillas in reintegration. Ex-combatants often settle in municipalities with more crime. Controlling for reverse causality, ex-combatants only increase crime if they are not in reintegration, while in reintegration they may reduce crime.

Multidimensional peacekeeping has drawn the United Nations (UN) into state-building, and missions have taken on significant responsibilities for good governance. Since it aims at transforming states from fragile post-conflict situations into inclusive, well-governed societies, multidimensional peacekeeping is more complex and arguably also more contentious than traditional peacekeeping. Multidimensional peacekeeping affects the balance of power between the government and rebels and provides them with opportunities for rent-seeking. Although the potential gains are obvious, the process is bound to lead to uncertainty and controversy. Whereas the international community mainly appreciates the opportunity of comprehensive peacekeeping to create value, local actors may be more concerned with opportunities for claiming value. What will be the responses of local actors to peacekeeping given the likely impact on the distribution of power between rebels and governments and their uneven opportunities to benefit from collaborating? Using event data for post-Cold War UN peacekeeping missions in Africa, the analysis considers when peacekeeping elicits cooperation rather than conflict, focusing on (a) the authorities involved in the event, (b) the policies implemented, and (c) the role of the peacekeepers. Key findings are that government authorities are more likely to respond cooperatively to peacekeeping actions, while rebels are more likely to respond with hostility. Both the government and rebels are unlikely to contest policies that aim to strengthen state capacity, while both are more likely to contest human rights policies. Finally, rebels tend to respond more cooperatively when peacekeepers have a mainly supportive role.

The UN has developed a diverse range of peacemaking tools, including different forms of political initiatives (diplomatic, technocratic, and political-development missions) and peacekeeping operations. Yet we know surprisingly little about when and why we observe the onset of different types of UN missions. Examining an "escalatory trajectory," we analyze the United Nations Peace Initiatives data, a new dataset providing information on all different types of UN engagements. Our main contributions are that we provide insights into how the different types of missions relate to one another and conceptual clarity about what the different types of missions are.

The UN has developed a diverse range of peacemaking tools, including different forms of political initiatives (diplomatic, technocratic, and political-development missions) and peacekeeping operations. Yet we know surprisingly little about when and why we observe the onset of different types of UN missions. Examining an "escalatory trajectory," we analyze the United Nations Peace Initiatives data, a new dataset providing information on all different types of UN engagements. Our main contributions are that we provide insights into how the different types of missions relate to one another and conceptual clarity about what the different types of missions are.

Network theory and methods are becoming increasingly used to study the causes and consequences of conflict. Network analysis allows researchers to develop a better understanding of the causal dynamics and structural geometry of the complex web of interdependencies at work in the onset, incidence, and diffusion of conflict and peace. This issue features new theoretical and empirical research demonstrating how properly accounting for networked interdependencies has profound implications for our understanding of the processes thought to be responsible for the conflict behavior of state and non-state actors. The contributors examine the variation in networks of states and transnational actors to explain outcomes related to international conflict and peace. They highlight how networked interdependencies affect conflict and cooperation in a broad range of areas at the center of international relations scholarship. It is helpful to distinguish between three uses of networks, namely: (1) as theoretical tools, (2) as measurement tools, and (3) as inferential tools. The introduction discusses each of these uses and shows how the contributions rely on one or several of them. Next, Monte Carlo simulations are used to illustrate one of the strengths of network analysis, namely that it helps researchers avoid biased inferences when the data generating process underlying the observed data contains extradyadic interdependencies.

The authors argue that the effects of economic globalization on social democratic parties in Western Europe are conditional on the position of the median voter. If the median is far enough to the right, such parties will adopt business-friendly policies because they are required to win office. Only when the median is relatively far to the left will globalization constrain social democratic parties, forcing them to adopt policies further to the right in order to retain credibility. It is on this basis the authors argue that empirical studies are misspecified unless they include an interaction between measures of globalization and the position of the median. In addition to presenting formal theoretical arguments, the article reports empirical findings from fifteen countries in the period from 1973 to 2002 that support the conclusion that the effects of globalization are indeed contingent on the median. The authors find that the effects of globalization are significant for social democratic parties only in circumstances in which the median is relatively far to the left.

Testing the reliability of experts should be a key element of expert interviews. Using the Condorcet Jury Theorem, it is shown that expert reliability can provide an indication of the validity of expert-opinion data. The theoretical framework is applied to expert-interview data collected in the Domestic Structures and European Integration (DOSEI) project. Special attention is paid to the role of 'leading' experts and salient issues. Evaluating the DOSEI data, the main findings are that (i) with some exceptions, there are acceptable levels of inter-expert agreement, (ii) whether the leading expert is included or not does not make a large difference to expert agreement, and (iii) experts are more in agreement on salient issues.