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This brief paper summarizes results from an analysis of the World Development Report (WDR) homicide dataset (February 24, 2010), which is based primarily on estimates from the United Nations Office against Drugs and Crime (UNODC), with some changes or additions from national sources and the World Health organization (WHO). Although homicide rates appear to be the most reliable cross-national measure of crime, the best estimates have are still probably much less reliable than parallel measures have for presence and scale of civil conflict involving organized armed groups. This is so for two main reasons. First, the data are collected and reported by country agencies (police, usually), and procedures, definitions, and competence can vary greatly across countries and over time within them. Looking at the time series for particular countries suggests in many cases that large changes must be due to changed procedures or data collection policies, rather than changes in actual homicide rates. Second, there is a great deal of missing data.

From almost the first days of the Second Palestine War, U.S. officials have with increasing — if nonetheless ineffective stridency — called upon Israel to establish an acceptable plan for "the day after." Led by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Washington wants a roadmap of what Israel intends to do with the Gaza Strip and its two plus million inhabitants, the vast majority now homeless in a spit of Palestine made all but inhabitable by the war. Washington has declared its own nominal preferences – a return of the hapless PLO to Gaza, no forced expulsion of Palestinians, and no Israeli military occupation.Americans like plans, even though their own plans for the conduct of recent wars and their aftermath – from Vietnam to Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan – are nothing to be proud of. Yet this has not stopped the Biden administration from offering aspirational advice to the government of Benjamin Netanyahu – on issues ranging from the necessary levels of humanitarian aid to the deployment of the warfighting plan for Rafah, the need to empower a reformed PLO, and the tactics of the IDF in Gaza.The Netanyahu government, with minor exceptions, has either rejected or ignored this American advice. Israel and its generals are willing to humor Washington as it dispenses operational insights gained from its misadventures in Afghanistan, Syria's al Jazira and beyond, or the dubious advantages of "strengthening Abu Mazen." It is watching with careful if bemused attention to the creation of an almost $320 million maritime humanitarian pipeline into Gaza, the administration of which is whetting the appetites of prospective private contractors. But, like the "pier" now about to open on the Gaza beach, Washington's remedies for Gaza in 2024 are so far removed from the challenges and opportunities as Israel sees them as to be all but irrelevant to the reconstruction of Gaza's security and humanitarian environment, which remain all but exclusively in Israeli hands.Indeed, this disconnect has been a central feature of Washington's approach to Israel's occupation writ large since June 1967. And Washington's current effort promises to be no more successful than the almost half century of stillborn U.S. plans for addressing Israel's enduring intention to prevent the creation of Palestinian sovereignty anywhere west of the Jordan River.Consider for a moment the American, and indeed the international demand for an Israeli "plan" to solve the crisis in Gaza. Such a concept may be popular in western capitals, but it is an all but alien notion to Israeli policy makers today, just as it was to the generation of Israeli leaders who oversaw the West Bank and Gaza after Israel's June 1967 victory. The policy that now defines Israel's actions in Gaza today has nothing whatsoever to do with U.S. experiences in Fallujah or Helmand. Nor would Israel be wise to see them as examples to be followed or even to learn from. Israeli policy today evolved in the aftermath of the 1967 war and was best described by its architect, Moshe Dayan. The challenge for Israel and the international community, he explained in 1977, was not to arrive at a "solution" to Israel's occupation, but rather to learn to live without one (solution). Only in this way could Israel retain the freedom of action to ensure its strategic security — no Arab sovereignty west of the Jordan — and nationalist settlement objectives. The West Bank settler population at that time was less than 15,000. Throughout the decades since 1967, and in Gaza today, Israel, eschewing master plans for achieving its overriding objectives, has exhibited a maddeningly opportunistic approach to its rule over the West Bank, which among other achievements now boasts more than one half million settlers.Israel, in contrast to U.S. warnings, has a far more varied and arguably successful experience in how to plan for "the day after" in Palestine than has Washington, which busies itself with making security plans that have no security anchor and enjoining understandably reluctant Arab partners to join in the administration of and responsibility for Gaza's boundless maladies. In the Gaza Strip, war cabinet minister Benny Gantz explains that Israel will insist on 100% security authority but zero percent responsibility for civilian concerns. This policy is at odds with Washington's call for a postwar retreat, but is consistent with Israel's Occupation 101 playbook. Washington hangs on to the prospect of the PLO's resurrection in Gaza, a policy Israel has actively undermined for at least two decades. An Israeli television commentator recently marveled at Washington's focus on the PLO and a two-state solution, for which, she declared, Israelis "hardly give a thought." In that vein, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon recently explained that, "If the PLO wants to quit, Israel will look for international or local forces to take charge of the PA, and if they can't find them and the PA collapses, that will not be the end of the world for Israel." (In fact, defense minister Yoav Gallant issued his own "plan" for the "day after" on Wednesday, which includes, as he told columnist David Ignatius, "local Palestinian actors backed by international actors.")Israel today is waging three intimately related wars. The first is the actual battlefield war itself, now in its eighth month. The second war is the war about the war — that is, the international battle for public opinion from The Hague to American college campuses that has been unleashed by the war itself. This battle promises to define Israel's place in the international community for a generation, and attests to the price we all pay for the enduring failure of diplomacy and politicians to establish a viable reconciliation of Israeli and Palestinian demands.The third is the war after the war — that is, the ongoing military campaign led by Hamas against Israel's intention to remain in security control of the entire Gaza Strip. Gaza is no stranger to such Palestinian insurgencies, whether in the early 1970s, during the first Intifada in 1988, or during the Oslo decade.The Biden White House is ever so ready to pronounce the prospect of such conflict as evidence of a failure of Israeli plans for Gaza. Blinken has warned that unless Israel takes unspecified actions "they will be left holding the bag on an enduring insurgency." Blinken may be undone by such a prospect, but neither Netanyahu nor Sinwar are deterred. For each, the battle is understood as the price one must be prepared to pay to prevail in a war that began not on October 7, but in 1948.

Firearm trafficking as defined in the UN Protocol against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Their Parts and Components and Ammunition, refers to the unauthorized "…import, export, acquisition, sale, delivery, movement or transfer of firearms, their parts and components and ammunition…" across internal or state borders (UNGA 2001: 4). The term trafficking is also used to designate the intentional diversion of firearms from legal to illegal commerce, without involving the movement of items across physical borders. Illicit manufacture is closely tied to the act of firearm trafficking and it incorporates the "manufacture or assembly of firearms, firearm parts and components or ammunition" from illicitly produced parts (UNGA 2001: 3).

There are at least 875 million combined civilian, law enforcement and military firearms in the world (Small Arms Survey 2012). The value of the documented global authorized trade in firearms has been estimated at approximately US$1.58 billion in 2006, with unrecorded but licit transactions making up another US$100 million. The most commonly cited estimate for the size of the illicit market is 10–20 percent of the licit market, which would be about US$170 million to US$320 million per annum (Small Arms Survey 2012). While there are various types of arms that are trafficked, small arms and light weapons (SALW)1 trafficking has been instrumental in many of the world's conflicts since 1990, with 90 percent of all war casualties since World War II being attributed to small arms weaponry (Bassiouni 2010; Stohl 1999; Shah 2006).

The majority of SALW producers are located in the West. According to the Small Arms Survey, in 2010, the top exporters of SALW (those with annual exports of at least USD 100 million), according to available customs data, were (in descending order) the United States, Germany, Italy, Brazil, Switzerland, Israel, Austria, the Russian Federation, South Korea, and Sweden. In 2010 the top importers of SALW (those with annual imports of at least USD 100 million), according to available customs data, were (in descending order) the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia, South Korea, France, and Thailand (Small Arms Survey 2013).2 When it comes to international trafficking of major weapons, the flow of arms to Africa, the Americas, and Asia and Oceania increased significantly between 2004–2013. European imports however decreased by 25 per cent between 2004–2013. The UK was the largest importer of major weapons in Europe, followed by Azerbaijan and Greece. Many European states are choosing second-hand weapons as cheaper alternatives. The level of arms transfers to the Middle East remained more or less unchanged (Wezemen & Wezemen 2014).3

SALW trafficking involves a host of actors ranging from the individual rogue seller and buyer to intermediaries, transnational networks, transport companies, states, and corporate organizations (Rothe and Collins 2011). Some trafficking operations appear to be more sophisticated and to involve organized crime groups, licensed dealers, and/or corrupt state officials, while others are a result of theft, for example. In the literature (see, Rothe and Collins 2011; Cragin and Hoffman 2003), four types of markets for small arms sales are mentioned; white, black, gray, and covert military transactions. The white market refers to the legal sale of weapons by governments or private manufacturers to other countries or governments. While the white market is considered a legal market, a large proportion of trafficked arms are said to originate from government weapons surplus that make their way into the illicit market (Greene 2000).

Black market deals are illegal by the covert nature of the transaction as well as through the illegal status of the buyer, seller, or transaction. Transactions can be hidden through the concealment of the weapons through mislabeling, forging of documents, and the laundering of the criminal proceeds. This also includes covert government (military) transfers of arms to another country, specifically to insurgent forces due to their lack of transparency (Mouzos 2002; Rothe and Collins 2011).

The gray market makes reference to those transactions that are not considered illegal, but do not fall within the category of white market dealings. For example, while there are direct violations of arms embargoes (black market deals), there are also sales of arms to a non-embargo country (B) with the knowledge that such arms will then be sold to the intended state (A) to bypass the embargo, through the use of proxy individual brokers or insurgency groups (see, Rothe and Collins 2011).

In the US most firearms appear to be trafficked via a corrupt licensed dealer (see Fig. 1). A similar situation is reported in Australia (Bricknell 2012). Licensed firearm dealers are well placed to divert firearms—they have access to large firearm collections, and their familiarity with legislation and processes around the importation, sale and distribution of firearms will have revealed where vulnerabilities exist and can be best exploited. Theft is also cited as an important source of illegal firearms in countries such as the US (Kleck and Wang 2009; Wright and Rossi 1994) and inferred in other jurisdictions such as England and Wales (Hales et al. 2006) and within the European Union (Spapens 2007).
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Fig. 1
Source of weapons and type of trafficking Source: UNODC Transnational Organized Crime Threat Assessment (2012) (Based on US Bureau of Justice Statistics 2002 & ATF 2000)



The trafficking of firearms is unlike many of the other forms of trafficking. Unlike drugs, cigarettes, or counterfeit pharmaceuticals, AK-47 will last indefinitely. As a result, a logical argument follows: arms trafficking is episodic, often from an established stockpile to a region descending into crisis (UNODC 2010). However, the "rationality" of the illicit firearms market is one of the topics further discussed in this special issue, since this market deals with a product that is significantly different from other illicit products or services offered by criminal networks. For example, it is essential to understand that the inherent nature of firearms and other weapons is their ability to take and/or protect human life. Their ability is to intimidate, threaten or defend the survival of "imagined communities" including, groups, gangs, and nation states. Arms do not only help rebel groups and governments to maintain control over territories, but they are also a very "useful tool" for expanding the influence of organized crime groups and for projecting "masculinity" (Davis et al. 2001; Arsovska and Kostakos 2008).

An American government delegation recently traveled to Niger to, according to the State Department, "continue ongoing discussions since August with leaders of the National Council for Safeguarding the Homeland (CNSP) regarding Niger's return to a democratic path and the future of our security and development partnership."The CNSP is the junta that took power in Niger in July 2023, in a coup that extended a trend of military takeovers in the Sahel. For the U.S., the Nigerien coup was the most consequential of these putsches, given longstanding and intensive security cooperation, including the presence of a major U.S. drone base in the northern city of Agadez.The visit went poorly. Initially scheduled for March 12-13, the delegation extended its stay by one day in hopes of meeting military head of state General Abdourahamane Tiani, but was denied. Then, on March 16, the CNSP announced that it was rejecting the military cooperation agreements between Niger and the U.S. The junta has suggested that in the absence of what it considers a viable and legal status of forces agreement (referring to a 2013 document that the junta now rejects), American civilian and military personnel are no longer welcome in Niger. The Pentagon and the wider U.S. government are working through the implications of that statement while attempting to convince the Nigerien authorities to let U.S. personnel stay.Diplomatically, the U.S. side appears to have stumbled in several ways. The CNSP's spokesman criticized the U.S. for its "unilateral" announcement of the delegation's arrival date and composition and said that the Nigerien authorities received the delegation out of simple courtesy and hospitality. It's also possible that the Americans inadvertently insulted their hosts by sending what the U.S. regarded as a "high-level" team but what the Nigeriens may have seen as insufficiently senior. The delegation was headed by Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Molly Phee and AFRICOM Commander General Michael Langley and included other senior officials such as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Celeste Wallander.This episode has been a flashback to my yearlong fellowship in the State Department in 2013-2014. During that time, one thing that shocked and dismayed me is that the assistant secretary of state — as a position — was implicitly considered within the State Department as a position equivalent in rank to an African head of state.Within State (and I assume within Defense and within AFRICOM), senior officials are treated with extraordinary deference and sometimes fear by their own subordinates. But there is no reason why an African leader should see things that way. To be lectured at by an American official whose rank is far junior to one's own is an experience that many African officials tolerate, but it cannot be pleasant. For the Sahel's newly minted juntas, who emphasize a particular brand of sovereignty and who have not been shy about antagonizing Paris, it is not a stretch to rebuke Americans over perceived (and, I would argue, actual) arrogance.The delegation met Nigerien Prime Minister Ali Lamine Zeine along with senior members of Niger's junta, such as Generals Salifou Mody and Mohamed Toumba. But I suspect one reason the delegation could not see Tiani is because they misread how seriously the Nigeriens want to be taken.Substantively, the conversation also seems to have gone badly. According to some reports, the American officials seem to have been criticizing Niger's turn towards Russia and to a lesser extent Iran. The junta also appears to have tired of criticism over the generals' handling of the "transition" back to civilian rule — criticism that is well deserved, since no serious transition appears to be underway, but that is nevertheless unwelcome.The episode underscores both the misguidedness of America's pre-coup policies towards Niger and the incoherence of current policymaking. In terms of pre-coup policies, Niger was a darling of American counterterrorism in Africa. Looking the other way over civilian overreach (particularly under President Mahamadou Issoufou from 2011-2021) and military abuses was long justified in the name of the "partnership."But one thing for American policymakers to reflect on is why the supposed closeness of the two militaries — including longstanding relationships at the senior level — has not translated into any substantial American influence over the junta. If huge investments in training and infrastructure can evaporate with a change in political fortunes, and if those investments cannot be proven to have flattened the curve of the Sahelian insurgency in the first place, then what are they worth?In terms of current policymaking, American officials don't seem to know what they want — an ambivalence that was easily detectable during the months of foot-dragging over invoking U.S. law that calls for suspensions of security assistance to coup-afflicted countries. The U.S. has sometimes appeared to view the Nigerien junta more favorably (or be more desperate to curry its favor) than the juntas in Mali and Burkina Faso, again due to the massive U.S. investments and sunk costs in Niger. Yet the U.S. also appears to lecture Niger over democracy, Russia, and more. Perhaps the delegation calculated that the might, prestige, and resources of the U.S. would continue to impress the Nigeriens— they calculated wrong, and so achieved neither of the two contradictory pulls in U.S. policy, advancing neither democracy nor security cooperation.I was not in the room, obviously, but it also strikes me that AFRICOM's preferred rhetorical frames may play very badly on the ground in the Sahel now. In their annual posture statements, successive AFRICOM commanders depict Africa as a place where outsiders (al-Qaida, the Islamic State, Russia, China, etc.) cause havoc, to be opposed by a stalwart coalition of the U.S. and its "partners." This is a view of Africa that offers little room for Africans to exist other than as victims of some outside force or as junior partners to the U.S., junior partners within their own story. That might play well to Congress — but it did not go over well in Niamey, and it would be received even less warmly in Bamako or Ouagadougou. The juntas could also easily read how negatively they are depicted by AFRICOM; while AFRICOM's criticisms of the juntas are largely fair (I shared many of them), U.S. officials cannot expect to dismiss the juntas as malevolent and incompetent but then go to make asks of them.Going forward, one thing to watch for advocates of restraint is whether and how easily the U.S. can pivot out of Niger. It may turn out that the drone base there, billed as essential to the fight against Sahelian jihadism, is not so essential after all. The critical question to ask will not be whether things get worse — security has steadily degraded since approximately 2015 in many parts of the central Sahel — but whether there is any proof that the presence or absence of vast American military expenditures makes any discernable difference.The U.S. may yet salvage something in Niger, but if it exits, that will not necessarily be a tragedy for Nigeriens or Americans. And sadly, U.S. policy incoherence and diplomatic missteps may have squandered, for the medium term, whatever opportunity had existed to place meaningful pressure on the junta over democracy and human rights.

Zbor imaat graǵanite: The First Sociological Study, the Polish Sociological Expert Aid to Macedonia in the Mid-1960s and the Post-Earthquake History of Interethnic Relations in SkopjeOn the early morning of 26 July 1963, a calamitous earthquake struck the Macedonian capital of Skopje, taking the lives of 1,070 people and destroying more than two-thirds of the urban fabric. The politically non-aligned Yugoslav government immediately issued a call for help for the earthquake-torn city, which was picked up by more than eighty states across the globe, as well as the United Nations and other international organizations. The domestic authorities, in turn, sought to reimagine post-disaster Skopje as a "City of Solidarity," a symbol of the trans-bloc cooperation, and an "Open City" – one open to domestic and intra-federal migrations and the epitome of the trans-Yugoslav state-building slogan of "brotherhood and unity." However, the mounting interethnic tensions in the 1980s, the Yugoslav dissolution, and the 2001 insurgency dramatically shifted the public optics over the post-earthquake urban reconstruction and demographic politics – a narrative which found a particular stronghold in the memory politics of post-2001 Macedonia.construct their own interpretations of the social change.The present paper discusses one overlooked episode from the post-earthquake reconstruction of Skopje: from December 1964 to April 1965, the first ever large-scale sociological survey was conducted among Skopjans as part of the Polish expert aid and the preparations for the UN-sponsored Skopje Urban Project. Although the published study contained an exclusive portrayal of the economic and demographic features of the local households and revealed some of the major interethnic issues in the city, it never received proper treatment by the authorities and – up to the Yugoslav dissolution – in the scholarship. Thus, in order to present the major outcomes of this cross-national endeavor, I reconstruct the prehistory, the fieldwork and the immediate results of the survey by triangulating a set of archival materials, semi-structured interviews with its Polish and Macedonian conveners, and secondary literature on Skopje's urban reconstruction. Finally, I argue that the survey – its realization, results and aftermath – can be read as a key to a better understanding of the post-earthquake history of Skopje and the interethnic relations in the city.Збор имаат граѓаните: Првата социолошка студија, полската социолошка експертска помош во Македонија од средината на 1960-тите и пост-земјотресната историја на меѓуетнички односи во СкопјеСкопското утро од 26 јули 1963 година е моментот кога градот беше погоден од катастрофален земјотрес што резултираше со 1070 жртви, а уништи и две третини од градските објекти и инфраструктура. Политички неврзаната југословенска влада веднаш објави повик за помош на разурнатиот град, на којшто, пак, одговорија преку 80 држави ширум светот, Обединетите нации и други меѓународни организации. Овој голем одзив ги поттикна домашните власти да го преобмислат пост-земјотресно Скопје како "Град на солидарноста" – симбол на трансблоковската соработка – и "Отворен град" – отворен за домашни миграции и миграции во рамки на Федерацијата, како и пример за сè-југословенската државотворна парола "братство и единство". Сепак, растечките меѓуетнички тензии во 1980-тите, распадот на Југославија и конфликтот од 2001 година придонесоа за драматичен пресврт на јавната призма за пост-земјотресната обнова и демографските политики; наратив што беше особено промовиран преку мемориските политики во Македонија по 2001 година.Овој труд се однесува на една прилично занемарена епизода од пост-земјотресната обнова на Скопје: првата социолошка студија од поголеми размери во градот, од декември 1964 година до април 1965 година, изведена како дел од полската експертска помош за пост- земјотресно Скопје и во рамки на подготовките за Генералниот план за Скопје, спонзорирани од страна на ОН. Иако објавената студија содржеше екслузивни резултати за економските и демографските услови во коишто живееја локалните домаќинства и преглед за некои од доминантните меѓуетнички проблеми во градот, студијата не го доби потребното вниманите од властите, а до распадот на Југославија беше занемарена и во научната литература. Па така, со цел да ги презентирам главните резултати од овој меѓудржавен проект, во овој труд ќе ја реконструирам предисторијата, теренското истражување и првичните резултати на социолошката студија преку триангулација на архивски материјали, полуструктурирани интервјуа со полските и македонски истражувачи ангажирани за работата на студијата и секундарна литература за скопската урбана обнова. Конечно, заклучувам дека студијата – нејзината реализација, резултати и последователни толкувања – може да се чита како клуч за подобро разбирање на пост-земјотресната историја на Скопје и меѓуетничките односи во градот. Obywatele mają głos. Pierwsze studium socjologiczne, polska socjologiczna pomoc ekspercka w Macedonii w połowie lat 60. XX wieku i historia stosunków międzyetnicznych w Skopje po trzęsieniu ziemiPoranek w Skopje 26 lipca 1963 roku był momentem, kiedy miasto zo­stało dotknie katastrofalnym trzęsieniem ziemi, które przyniosło 1070 ofiar [wśród mieszkańców – JS], i zniszczyło dwie trzecie miasta. Należąca do blo­ku państw niezaangażowanych Jugosławia natychmiast poprosiła o pomoc dla zrujnowanego miasta, na którą odpowiedziało 80 państw z całego świata, z Organizacji Narodów Zjednoczonych i z innych organizacji międzynaro­dowych. Tak masowa reakcja [ze strony świata] zainspirowała miejscowe władze do wymyślenia [na nowo] Skopje po trzęsieniu ziemi jako "miasta solidarności" – symbolu współpracy ponad podziałami na bloki [politycz­ne] i "miasta otwartego" na migrację wewnętrzną [w ramach republiki] i w ramach Federacji [jugosłowiańskiej], wreszcie jako przykład [reali­zacji] ogólnojugosłowiańskiego państwowotwórczego hasła "braterstwo i jedność". Jednakże rosnące od lat 80. XX wieku napięcia międzyetnicz­ne, rozpad Jugosławii i konflikt z 2001 roku przyniosły dramatyczny zwrot na płaszczyźnie oficjalnej w kwestii odnowy [miasta] po trzęsieniu ziemi i w stosunku do polityki demograficznej. Ta narracja była szczególnie pro­mowana poprzez praktyki upamiętniania w Macedonii po 2001 roku.Niniejszy artykuł zajmuje się całkiem zapomnianym epizodem z cza­sów przebudowy Skopje po trzęsieniu ziemi: [przedmiotem analizy będzie] pierwsze większe socjologiczne opracowanie obejmujące okres od grudnia 1964 do kwietnia 1965, które jest częścią polskiej pomocy eksperckiej dla Skopje po trzęsieniu ziemi w ramach przygotowań do tzw. planu general­nego dla miasta, finansowanego przez ONZ. Pomimo, że opublikowane studium zawiera wyjątkowe dane co do ekonomicznego i demograficznego poziomu życia miejscowych gospodarstw domowych i przegląd najważ­niejszych problemów międzyetnicznych w mieście, nie zyskało koniecznej uwagi ze strony władz, a do rozpadu Jugosławii nie było zauważane tak­ że w literaturze naukowej. Celem mojego artykułu jest zatem prezentacja głównych wyników badań tego międzynarodowego projektu, rekonstruk­cja badań terenowych i pierwszych rezultatów socjologicznych [wywiadów] przy zastosowaniu metody triangulacyjnej [korzystającej z wielu technik badawczych]: analizy materiałów archiwalnych, nieustrukturyzowanych wywiadów z polskimi i macedońskimi badaczami zaangażowanymi w pra­cę nad projektem, opracowań dotyczących odnowy tkanki miejskiej Skopje. W konkluzji dowodzę, że opracowanie – jego realizacja, wyniki i prognozy – można czytać jako klucz do lepszego zrozumienia stosunków etnicznych i historii Skopje po trzęsieniu ziemi. archiwalnych, nieustrukturyzowanych wywiadów z polskimi i macedońskimi badaczami zaangażowanymi w pra­cę nad projektem, opracowań dotyczących odnowy tkanki miejskiej Skopje. W konkluzji dowodzę, że opracowanie – jego realizacja, wyniki i prognozy – można czytać jako klucz do lepszego zrozumienia stosunków etnicznych i historii Skopje po trzęsieniu ziemi.

Vlada demokratskog jedinstva nastala je u početcima otvorene velikosrpske agresije na Hrvatsku, ali i usred krize strateško-obrambene koncepcije. Tuđmanova politika čekanja i kupovanja vremena te izbjegavanja frontalnog i općeg sukoba s JNA, doveli su do javnog kritiziranja njegove obrambene politike od strane oporbe i dijela HDZ-a. U okolnostima sveobuhvatne agresije i, prema nekim navodima, očekivanja raskola u hrvatskoj politici, sredinom srpnja počela je rekonstrukcija postojeće Vlade. Novi mandatar Franjo Gregurić okupljao je kadrove za sastavljanje Vlade, a u tom razdoblju javila se ideja o potrebi proširenja Vlade i nekim nestranačkim kandidatima pa i predstavnicima oporbe. U samo dva-tri dana pregovora postignut je nacionalni konsenzus i potpisan Sporazum saborskih stranaka, čime je stvorena Vlada demokratskog jedinstva. Vlada se sastojala od devet parlamentarnih stranaka, od kojih je osam imalo svoje predstavnike u Vladi. Unatoč činjenici da je 1990-ih godina u Hrvatskoj na snazi bio polupredsjednički sustav koji je predsjedniku Republike davao prilično široke ovlasti, Vlada je na području obrambene i vanjske politike pokazivala određeni stupanj samostalnosti. Prema nekim tvrdnjama Vrhovno državno vijeće je ograničavalo slobodu djelovanja Vlade tako da se za svog jednogodišnjeg mandata Vlada trebala često boriti za veću samostalnost i slobodu djelovanja. S druge strane, Vlada je imala potpunu slobodu u unutarnjim poslovima, primjerice u njezinoj politici prema prognanicima i izbjeglicama, kao i u gospodarskoj politici. Unatoč tvrdnjama o "nestanku" oporbe u vrijeme te višestranačke vlade, s obzirom na to da su potpisivanjem Sporazuma o Vladi demokratskog jedinstva saborske stranke od oporbenih formalno postale koalicijske, dostupni izvori navode na drukčiji zaključak. Naime, predstavnici pojedinih oporbenih i ujedno koalicijskih stranaka od listopada 1991. godine često su kritizirali neke odluke vlasti, koje su se posebno odnosile na vanjsku politiku. Predmet njihovih kritika bile su ujedno Vladine i Tuđmanove uredbe sa zakonskom snagom. Vlada je posljednjih šest mjeseci svog mandata bila izložena pritiscima oporbe i dijela HDZ-a. Međunarodno priznanje Hrvatske i priprema za nove parlamentarne i predsjedničke izbore uzrokovali su pritiske na Vladu demokratskog jedinstva, što se prije svega očitovalo u odlascima određenih nestranačkih i oporbenih ministara, a kasnije dovelo i do velike travanjske rekonstrukcije Vlade u kojoj je u znatnoj mjeri promijenjen njezin sastav u korist HDZ-a. Vlada demokratskog jedinstva nastavila je djelovati do kolovoza, kad je nakon novih parlamentarnih izbora formirana nova, jednostranačka HDZ-ova vlada. ; After the democratic elections in Croatia in the spring of 1990 and the victory of Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), the new Croatian Government faced the Serbian insurgency which expressed approval for the Milošević's Greater-Serbian policy. The insurgency was supported by the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) that had disarmed Croatia just after the elections in May 1990. In the summer of 1991, the Yugoslav crisis aggravated. Previous occasional and sporadic conflicts between Croatian police forces and the Serbian insurgents escalated into the open aggression of Serbia, Montenegro and JNA against Croatia. In such conditions, Croatian leadership was conflicted about the defense policy. The disagreement caused the appearance of some fractions in the parliament parties, especially in HDZ. Some participants of Croatian politics in the early 1990s today assert that there were at least two main fractions in HDZ – the "moderate" one that supported Tuđman's policy based on avoiding head-on conflict with JNA, and the "radical" one that wanted to declare JNA and Serbia the aggressors on Croatia and to fight back. Some claim that the "radical" fraction even wanted to bring down Tuđman and replace him with someone else. There isn't enough evidence to verify such statements. It probably was the case of dissatisfaction with the situation on the battlefield. Some write about wide discontent and criticism of Tuđman regarding his defense policy, which was evident at the meetings of the main Board of HDZ in the middle of July, Supreme State Council in the end of July and parliamentary session in the beginning of August 1991. Regarding the attitude towards Tuđman, there is a widespread and simplified opinion that his party turned its back on him and that the opposition expressed him support. Exactly the opposite, the opposition, especially heads of the parties Croatian Social-Liberal Party (HSLS), Croatian democratic party (HDS), and Croatian People's party (HNS) expressed equal, or even more severe, criticism of Tuđman's defense policy. In that kind of atmosphere, the reconstruction of the Government resulted in the national consensus – Democratic Unity Government was formed. It was the third democratic Government and the first multiparty Government after the democratic elections. It is an example of a Grand coalition formed during the war in many countries. The main goal of the new Government was to create more effective defense policy that would gather all the necessary political and military structures and establish the unified command structure. That resulted in entering of the Crisis Staff into the Government and forming of the General Staff of the Croatian Army. In the first two months of its mandate, the Government proposed and adopted measures for emergency readiness in order to organize life in the crisis areas. One of those measures included the blockade of the JNA barracks which Tuđman approved September 13 1991. With the blockade, the previous measured and careful attitude of the Croatian leadership towards JNA shifted from passive to active. One part of the research discussed the role of the Government in defense of the cities of Vukovar and Dubrovnik. Regarding Vukovar, there are some controversies embodied in widespread claims that Croatian leadership "betrayed" and "sacrificed" Vukovar by not sending enough weaponry and ammunition. However, available sources, primarily transcripts and records of the Government sessions, suggest that Vukovar was the priority in the supply of weaponry and ammunition. Furthermore, some members of the Government and other representatives of the Croatian leadership visited Vukovar and Eastern-Slavonian battlefield. In the context of all the crisis areas on the Croatian battlefield, Vukovar was the most dominant topic at the Government sessions. At the session held November 17, the Government adopted a series of decisions pertaining to the protection of Vukovar civilians. In the appeals to the international organizations, Vukovar and Dubrovnik were the two most mentioned cities. As was the case with Vukovar, the Government sent weaponry and other military equipment, transported humanitarian aid to Dubrovnik and appealed for help. It is worth mentioning convoy "Libertas" which supplied humanitarian aid to the surrounded Dubrovnik and broke the naval blockade. Also, some Government members came by the convoy to Dubrovnik to show their support. At the end of November 1991, Government sent three of its ministers to Dubrovnik where they had to represent the Government and facilitate its operation in Southern Dalmatia, maintain contacts with the international organizations, negotiate with the JNA representatives and maintain communication with the Croatian Army. The three ministers Davorin Rudolf, Petar Kriste and Ivan Cifrić were situated in Dubrovnik during its heaviest attack and the day after they agreed to a truce with the JNA representatives. The Government supported the negotiations between the city military and civil representatives and JNA because it wanted to procrastinate with the attacks and buy some time to strengthen the military and international position of Croatia. On the other hand, the Government and Tuđman strongly opposed to intentions of "demilitarization" of Dubrovnik which would surrender its arms to the JNA under the supervision of representatives of the international community, i.e. surrender of the city to the aggressor. Second most important task of the Government was the struggle for international recognition. The establishment of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs showed all the problems of the political structures that young democratic state had to face. Such problems refer to lack of experience as well as technical and financial resources. The Government cooperated with the European Community and the United Nations. Although, Tuđman was the designer of the Forreign Affairs and the Government often had to put into action his decisions, during the Conference of peace in Hague it showed some differentiation, such as declaring it would abort the attending of the Conference unless JNA left Croatia. After the arms embargo in September 1991, the Croatian Government deprived of the right of representation of Croatia in the UN Budimir Lončar and Darko Šilović, due to their role in instigating the decision of the UN regarding embargo. The Government Memorandum, addressed to ministerial Council of the EC in November 22, stated that economic sanctions of the Roman declaration of November 8 would affect mostly Croatia. Such view showed a certain degree of independence of the Democratic Unity Government. The Government accepted the Vance plan but argued the methods of its implementation. The activity of the Government in Forreign Affairs reflects in numerous official and unofficial meetings and encounters with various politicians and statesmen. The main task of the Government members was to appeal to stop the war and recognize Croatia, but they also had to struggle against Serbian propaganda which spread lies about rehabilitation of Ustasha and Independent State of Croatia (NDH) and portrayed president Tuđman and the Croatian Government as anti-Semitic. In that context, some think that the Croatian Government and leadership in general, provided insufficient to the international public. In this research, I also analyzed social politics of the Democratic Unity Government, that is, politics towards Croatian displaced persons and refugees as well as Bosnian-Herzegovinian refugees during 1991 and 1992. At the very beginning of the aggression against Croatia, new Croatian Government had to face refugee crisis. Forcible relocations of the Croatian civilians, among which some moved into safe areas in Croatia, while others left the country, induced Government to, with the term "refugee", which refers to those persons who had to emigrate their own country, introduce another one – "displaced persons", which referred to those civilians who hadn't left Croatia, only were displaced to some other territory within the country. Government also adopted some measures to secure accommodation for the displaced persons and refugees by emptying hotels and resorts and founding of the Office for the displaced persons and refugees in November 1991. Funds for the displaced persons and refugees Government secured mostly from the state budget, while all requests for financial help from the international community were unsuccessful. Consequently, in that period Croatia funded also Bosnian-Herzegovinian refugees from its budget, while the international community helped only with humanitarian help. In this chapter the Government activity in prevention of persecution of the civilian population was discussed through several examples. In that aspect, its activities were mostly limited to addressing the international community. In the case of Ilok, from where in October 1991 approximately 10.000 people were banished, Government founded the Commission of the Parliament and Government to try to stop the persecution, but it failed to achieve its goal, since the persecution had already begun. After the fall and occupation of Vukovar in November 1991, the Government organized evacuation of approximately 15.000 people, but it was carried out only partially. The Government didn't have control over the war zone, which means that its opportunities for safe and efficient evacuation were highly limited. One of the main plans for the displaced persons and refugees was Government's Return Program, which began its realization only after the end of the war and peaceful reintegration of Podunavlje in 1998. Economic politics of the Democratic Unity Government was reflected in its independence from Serbia. Following measures and decisions of the previous Croatian Government, on the day of its establishment, Democratic Unity Government broke off economic relations with Serbia, however only partially. Those companies with strong business ties with some companies in Serbia, had liberty to continue their cooperation. The export to Serbia and Montenegro was limited only to some "strategic" raw materials and products, such as petroleum. The Government also introduced its own currency, hrvatski dinar (HRD). One of the main achievements of the Government was that it avoided the transit to "war economy", in spite of the increased military spending. Since priority of the Croatian Government was determined by war, its activities gravitated towards repair of the enormous war damage in transport, utility and residential infrastructure. In the end of 1991 the Government established the Ministry of Reconstruction, while in the first half of 1992 the Government composed the Reconstruction Program and its Financial Plan that was adopted by the Croatian Parliament in June 1992. Nevertheless, because of the status quo imposed by the UNPROFOR, located on the occupied territories in Croatia, the reconstruction of the country began after the war had ended in 1995. Analyzed activities of the Government in the Defense policy, Foreign Affairs, as well as its Social and Economic policy raise the question of the Government's independence regarding Tuđman and Croatian Parliament. Considering the semi-presidential system, the Government was the executive authority of the president of the Republic and Croatian Parliament. Government also had legislative powers authorized by the Parliament, because in the wartime a great number of important decisions had to be made in a very short amount of time. The Government was not only the executive body of the President, but it also functioned as his close associate. That manifests mostly through the measures for emergency readiness in August and September 1991. Sometimes, the Government had to step out of its Constitutional powers if developments on the battlefield required it to, for example regarding the decisions about Vukovar, November 17 1991. Regarding activities of the Government in the researched areas, it can be concluded that Democratic Unity Government had a high level of autonomy, taking into account the existing semi-presidential system. Nevertheless, the powers of the Government were limited in the Defense policy and Forregin Affairs, while on the other hand, it had complete autonomy in Internal Affairs, in this case, in its Social and Economic politics. An issue that requires special consideration in this research regards the opposition in Croatia during the mandate of the Democratic Unity Government. Some claim that with forming of the multiparty Government, the opposition in Croatia "disappeared". The remark is understandable considering that all the parliament parties signed the Agreement of Democratic Unity Government, which marked their transition from the opposition to coalition partners. But, did the opposition really "disappeared" form Croatian political life? Numerous public appearances of various representatives of opposition parties and parties in general, indicate otherwise. Activity of the opposition at the Parliament sessions from October 1991 to May and June 1992 shows agility of the opposition life in Croatia. From the beginning of the Democratic Unity Government in August till October, the opposition parties didn't raise any questions in public about some decisions of the Croatian leadership, but from October began severe criticism towards Tuđman and the Government. Discontent was expressed primarily to the acceptance of the Carrington's arrangement in Hague. Criticism of Foreign Affairs arose also after the acceptance of the Vance plan. In the last six months of its mandate, the Government was exposed to various pressures from the opposition and from one part of the HDZ, which reinforced especially after the international recognition at the beginning of 1992. Some opposition and nonpartisan ministers left the Government, whereas in April 1992 there was the reconstruction of the Government which changed significantly the personnel composition of the Government, resulting in the increase of the HDZ members. It was obvious that it was not the exact same Government from the beginning of August 1991 and that its end was near. In the new elections held August 2 1992, the HDZ defeated its opponents and ten days later, new, One-party Government was formed. Establishment and presented activities of the Democratic Unity Government is the proof of the democratic system in Republic of Croatia at the beginning of 1990s and counter-argument for theses about Tuđman's authoritarian style of rule. A multiparty Government, whose prominent members were opposition representatives, couldn't have been formed in an undemocratic or authoritarian system. Forming of the Grand Coalition merely one year after HDZ had won the elections, provides a valuable contribution to the study of Tuđman's policy, shows larger picture of the Croatian leadership and opens the door for further research of Croatian political life in the early 1990s.

A brutal attack by militants "mercilessly slaughtering" civilians in their homes occurred simultaneously with attacks against military targets of an occupying power. These attacks resulted in an overwhelming military retaliation that killed so many people, one soldier wrote, "they had to be buried with bulldozers." While this sounds like coverage of October 7 and the current Gaza War, these are descriptions of the 1955 "Philippeville massacre" in Algeria. That event marked a major turning point in the Algerian War of Independence against 125 years of French occupation. It led to seven more years of brutality that killed 300,000 to one million Algerians and threatened a civil war in France. It also sowed seeds for future violence in Algeria and around the world. Americans should reflect on the history of the French experience in Algeria in the context of the current Gaza War and the longer history of the Israel-Palestine conflict. The United States has played a major role in this conflict, one which people across the Middle East clearly recognize and resent, even if most Americans do not. It is important to recognize the bigger picture and historical context in which events occur. Confusing specific actions, such as the Philippeville massacre or Hamas's 7 October attacks with the overall goals of an insurgency risks mistaking means for ends, resulting in a fundamental misunderstanding of the overall situation. Prior to the Philippeville massacre, Algerian nationalists struggled for over a century against French rule. Emir Abd al-Qadir resisted French occupation for over a decade in the 1830s, and other major revolts occurred in the 1860s-70s. Moderate Algerians called for reforms, a constitution, and amelioration of social and economic concerns. Unanswered petitions escalated to demands for autonomy, peaceful demands for independence, and eventually support for new armed resistance. Yet the French refused to seriously consider addressing these longer-term political grievances, viewing resistance solely from a military perspective. Some fixated on FLN (National Liberation Front) terror tactics, with one French leader exhorting, "Let us swear before these coffins to do everything…to revenge those who have been taken away from us." Another French military official viewed the Algerian revolt as part of a larger "march of Communism." Other French perspectives claimed: "We have not come here to defend colonialism. We are the defenders of liberty and of a new order." Others, including much of the French public and settlers in Algeria, staunchly defended French colonialism and viewed Algeria as an indissoluble part of France, refusing to entertain Algerian desires for independence. Hamas's ultimate "end," like that of the FLN, is not the violence of October 7 itself, but the establishment of an independent state. Like the Algerians, Palestinians have long advocated for Palestinian statehood, the just resolution of the conflict, protection of human rights, opposition to settlements and settler violence, restructuring of Palestinian institutions, modification of U.S. policies, access to services and resources, and redress of inequality and discrimination. When the Arab Center surveyed Arab public opinion about reasons motivating Hamas's attack, they found widespread understanding of the historical context and nationalist aims: While 35% of respondents stated that the most important reason was the continued Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, 24% stated that it was Israel's targeting of Al-Aqsa Mosque, 8% said it was the ongoing siege on the Gaza Strip, and 6% attributed it to the continuation of Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories.Most Western observers' attention on Hamas focuses on its intent to destroy Israel, as outlined in Hamas's founding charter. This focus ignores its 2008 offer of a truce based on acceptance of the 1967 borders and implicit recognition of Israel. It ignores Hamas's publication of a new "manifesto" in 2017 which announced it would accept the 1967 borders and details of any deal, including the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, approved by referendum of the Palestinian people, upon implementation of that deal. It also ignores the potential to negotiate any alternative resolution than that espoused by the rhetoric of key Hamas leaders. This also assumes that Hamas's original and maximalist position is the only option for an acceptable resolution among Palestinians. This assumption ignores historical precedent for negotiated settlements, including missed opportunities for negotiated peace in Algeria. A second lesson from the French experience in Algeria is also a warning: excessive French violence against Algerians, including explicit orders to implement "collective responsibility," ultimately increased support for armed resistance. One French administrator observed: "To send in tank units, to destroy villages…it is using a sledgehammer to kill fleas. And what is much more serious, it is to encourage the young – and sometimes the less young – to go into the maquis." An Algerian leader similarly noted: "The French ratissages operations were 'our best recruiting agent.'" A later FLN statement declared "to colonialism's policy of collective repression we must reply with collective reprisals against the Europeans, military and civil, who are all united behind the crimes committed upon our people. For them, no pity, no quarter!"This also convinced moderate Algerians to support hardline resistance, reducing avenues and interlocutors for political compromise. "My role, today, is to stand aside for the chiefs of the armed resistance," declared one moderate leader. "The methods that I have upheld for the last fifteen years — co-operation, discussion, persuasion — have shown themselves to be ineffective".Another devastating French policy that achieved some short-term military success but ultimately proved counterproductive was forced displacement, which was aimed at "isolating communities from the FLN and thus denying it refuge and supplies." This forced over one million civilians from their homes, into spaces where they were "crammed together in unbroken wretchedness" and where "children [died] from hunger" and cold. Other brutal practices included mass detentions, widespread torture, and abuse of detainees. While French officials argued that these methods achieved short-term military success, historian Alistair Horne argues that they were ultimately self-defeating: "[Colonel] Massu won the Battle of Algiers; but that meant losing the war." The shocking death toll, displacement, disproportionate destruction, allegations of collective punishment, and inhumane treatment and possible torture of detainees in Gaza offer chilling parallels between current Israeli military operations and the French in Algeria. Like the Algerians, displaced Palestinians in Gaza currently face starvation and receive woefully insufficient humanitarian assistance and medical care. These reports are important for investigating allegations of violations of international law, which are examined elsewhere, but they are also generating global outrage similar to the international condemnation of French actions in Algeria. Likewise, these actions are counterproductive as they increase support for armed Palestinian resistance, as indicated in an Arab Barometer survey.The French ultimately accepted Algerian independence in 1962, five years after the French "victory" in the Battle of Algiers, seven years after the Philippeville massacre, 18 years after Algerian demands for federal autonomy, and 132 years after Algerian nationalists first used armed resistance against French occupation. Nonetheless, violence continued because of seeds sown during the war, shaping authoritarian rule in Algeria, the 1990s Algerian civil war, and connections to global terrorism. The current Gaza War mirrors the French experience of repeated resistance, as demonstrated by armed groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, which emerged largely as a result of Israel's occupation of south Lebanon after its 1982 war against the PLO in that country. This demonstrates that even if Hamas is militarily defeated, if Palestinian political demands and underlying grievances are not addressed, another armed resistance group will emerge. Americans must learn from these lessons by understanding the full context of the current war in Gaza and recognize the ultimately self-defeating impact of Israel's pursuit of an overwhelmingly brutal military "total victory," facilitated by unconditional U.S. support.

Federal prosecutors unveiled charges against Sen. Bob Menendez (D–N.J.) on Friday that read like a combination of James Bond and The Sopranos. The indictment accuses Menendez of accepting bribes for a variety of favors, from helping local businessmen stay out of jail to green-lighting arms deals with the Egyptian military. Prosecutors allege that Menendez's wife Nadine Arslanian was paid, in the classic Sopranos style, through a no-show job at an Egyptian meat company. The FBI found hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and gold at Arslanian's suburban home.The senator and his co-defendants pleaded not guilty during a Wednesday court hearing. He claimed at a Monday press conference that the indictment was a "limited set of facts framed by the prosecution to be as salacious as possible." While Menendez has stepped down from his post as head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he vowed on Monday to stay in the Senate "on behalf of the 9 million people who call New Jersey home." However, a growing chorus of Democrats — including both national and New Jersey officials — has demanded that Menendez step down from his seat in light of the charges.The combination of local wheeling-and-dealing with international intrigue is nothing new in New Jersey politics. While the state is often known for its weird ambient smells, Mafia families, and party beaches, New Jersey also hosts some of New York City's wealthiest suburbs. Many well-organized diasporas have roots there, and many powerful foreigners park their money there. The career of a New Jersey politician is often intertwined with foreign policy.FBI agents raided Arslanian's home in Englewood Cliffs, 15 minutes away from the exclusive country club where Nikki Haley spoke to pro-Israel donors last week. The nearby town of Englewood had previously been the center of an international incident in 2009, when Libyan ruler Muammar Qadhafi was preparing to address the United Nations. The Libyan foreign ministry owns a mansion in Englewood for its UN ambassador, and sudden construction led to rumors Qadhafi was staying there.Qadhafi's next-door neighbor would have been Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, a prominent pro-Israel activist with ties to settlers in the Palestinian territories. The rabbi waged a high-profile campaign to ward off Qadhafi, using his column in the Jerusalem Post to complain about the construction workers' treatment of his trees. Shmuley threatened to sue the Libyan foreign ministry so that "Libyan money will go toward peaceful projects like planting trees rather than blowing up planes," and offered to host Qadhafi himself if Libya recognized Israel.The Libyan delegation ended up renting property in suburban New York from Donald Trump, who took the money and kicked them out. Qadhafi was so enraged by his treatment that he scattered unsecured nuclear materials across a Libyan airfield. Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who lives close to the Trump property, had to talk Qadhafi down. All politics is local politics, as they say.Menendez started his political career within the Cuban community of Hudson County, the region of New Jersey just across from midtown Manhattan. The large Cuban diaspora there, traumatized by Fidel Castro's revolution, turned to militant anticommunist politics. The Weehawken Duelling Grounds, where Aaron Burr shot Alexander Hamilton in 1804, now features a statue of Cuban national poet José Martí and a monument to Assault Brigade 2506, a force sent by the CIA to overthrow Castro during the Bay of Pigs incident in 1961.

The monument to the fallen from the CIA's Assault Brigade 2506, which fought against Fidel Castro's government at the Bay of Pigs. Photo: Matthew PettiDuring the Monday press conference, Menendez implied that he was also one of the many fleeing Communism. He called himself the "son of Cuban refugees," and said that the cash found by the FBI was "from my personal savings account, which I have kept for emergencies, and because of the history of my family facing confiscation in Cuba." But Menendez was born in New Jersey years before Castro's revolution, to a family of working-class immigrants who had left Cuba under the previous, capitalist dictatorship. Menendez's Senate office did not respond to a question about what confiscation his family faced.Menendez was surrounded by the politics of the anticommunist emigres nonetheless. In the 1970s, when Menendez was on the Union City school board, several rival Cuban-American guerrilla groups held rallies and ran extortion rackets. Union City brothers Guillermo and Ignacio Novo were convicted of killing Chilean leftist politician Orlando Letelier with a car bomb in Washington; their convictions were overturned on appeal. Menendez himself helped raise money for the legal defense fund of Eduardo Arocena, a Union City guerrilla leader convicted of murdering a Cuban diplomat in New York and organizing other bomb attacks, in the 1980s.Since branching out into statewide politics, Menendez cultivated ties with other diaspora groups. He's member of the Friends of the Irish National Caucus and the Armenian Caucus, and has touted Arslanian's Lebanese-Armenian roots. The senator is sure to show up at Hindu holiday festivals, and once condemned Time Magazine for making fun of Hindu believers in New Jersey. Rabbi Shmuley, himself a Republican, praised Menendez for being a non-Jewish friend of Israel. A local Greek diaspora newspaper simply described Menendez as "our guy."

Aerial photo of Englewood Cliffs just across the river from New York City. Photo: Matthew PettiThese diaspora ties have sometimes landed Menendez in legal trouble. The senator was indicted in 2015 for a scheme that involved Dominican-American doctor Salomon Melgen's attempts to score a contract in the Dominican Republic. (Menendez escaped jail time after a mistrial was declared in 2018, and successfully pressured the Trump administration to grant Melgen clemency.) Friday's indictment similarly involved immigrant businesspeople in Menendez's social circles.Two of the alleged bribe-givers were Lebanese-American real estate developer Fred Daibes and Egyptian-American meat merchant Wael Hana, whom Arslanian was friends with in the past. Like many things in New Jersey politics, the alleged favors to his associates mixed the local and the global. Menendez allegedly tried to protect Daibes and another local businessman, José Uribe, from fraud charges. He also allegedly tried to help Hana maintain his monopoly on halal meat exports to Egypt — a monopoly that caught the attention of Egyptian media in 2019.The most explosive accusations involve Menendez's contacts with Egyptian military and intelligence officers that he met through Hana. Menendez allegedly passed on sensitive data about U.S. Embassy staff and ghost-wrote a letter on behalf of an Egyptian general asking for military aid. Prosecutors also claimed that the Egyptians bribed Menendez to make sure American arms sales to Egypt went through smoothly.Menendez allegedly asked Arslanian to tell Hana that he had approved the sale of 10,000 tank ammunition rounds and 46,000 target practice rounds to Egypt, for use against the Sinai insurgency. Arslanian forwarded the senator's text message to Hana, who forwarded it to an Egyptian army officer, who responded only with a 👍 emoji, according to the indictment.The indictment also includes a photo of Menendez and Arslanian at the house of an unnamed "senior Egyptian intelligence official," whom researcher Amy Hawthorne identified as Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel. Menendez, on his return from Egypt, allegedly googled "how much is one kilo of gold worth." Hana also allegedly helped pay off the mortgage on Arslanian's Englewood Cliffs home. He returned to the United States and was arrested at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York City on Tuesday.On Friday, news reporters showed up in Englewood Cliffs, looking for the Mercedes-Benz convertible that Menendez had allegedly bought with Uribe's bribe money. One reporter seemed surprised to see that Arslanian's house — the place where so much cash and gold were hidden — was an average-sized suburban bungalow. But looks are deceiving. Englewood Cliffs is an expensive area, and Arslanian's house is worth about $1.1 million.New Jersey, in a nutshell: global power hidden in plain sight.A version of this article first appeared on the author's Substack page, "Matthew's Notebook."

My dissertation, titled "Rearticulating the Social: Spatial Practices, Collective Subjects, and Oaxaca's Art of Protest," explores how the popular uprising begun in Oaxaca, Mexico in 2006 is reconfiguring conceptions of public space and rights to the city, redefining political participation through novel practices of self-formation, and questioning the role of democratic government in Mexico's future. As both an architect and an anthropologist, my central research objective was to analyze how shifts in Oaxacan's habitual practices enabled and engendered socio-political and subjective transformations. In eighteen months of ethnographic fieldwork (2007-2008), I thus worked closely with and became a member of a group of political street artists from marginalized communities who were part of the coalition of individuals, collectives, and social organizations that became the Popular Assembly of the People's of Oaxaca, or APPO. Focusing on practices of struggle such as the making and maintaining of barricades, protest marches, sit-in strikes, and making the art of protest, the dissertation argues that APPO's practices of struggle in Oaxaca have been both highly mobile and mobilizing. As the dissertation argues, greater attention to both senses of movement as moving bodies and the capacity of spatial practices to mobilize people affectively allows us greater understanding of the materiality and imagined political geographies of social movements. The dissertation focuses on the role of practices of struggle and the competing aesthetics of political street artists, protest groups, elite cultural and governmental institutions, and ordinary Oaxacans to emphasize the importance of everyday spatial practices and a recognition that, as Michel de Certeau writes, "history begins at ground level, with footsteps" (1984:129). Whether manifested as literal occupations and appropriations of city spaces or as different modalities for inhabiting and making place, Oaxacans' spatial practices disrupted dominant understandings and uses of the open and democratic nature of public space. In stenciling their graphic messages on city walls, street artists gave visual form to a long history of the systemic marginalization of the Oaxacan people and, more importantly, to the Oaxacan people's courage in mobilizing to find a solution. Speaking from the perspective of shared experiences and struggles, images on city walls revealed common points of identification that interpellated the collective subject of el pueblo (the people). Focusing on the transformative potential of artists' spatial practices through their investment in the material spaces of the city, my dissertation contends that political subjectivities are formed in and through an encounter with the city's material environment. Consequently, I argue that urban space is not a passive landscape but is an actant--to use Bruno Latour's terminology--that interpellates individuals as members of particular political publics. This is rendered visible, for example, in how an anti-government stencil hailing el pueblo on the façade of a municipal building invites a different mode for inhabiting social and physical space from a billboard promoting tourism for foreigners framing the city as the heritage and patrimony of all Oaxacans. An empirical and theoretical focus on these practices of struggle is central to work that I conceive of as an anthropology of urban space and provides a critical perspective on spatial practices that are changing definitions of political agency and public responsibility in an increasingly polarized urban world.Though artistic expression has been central to contemporary and past social movements such as those of the Black Panthers, the Chicano movement and the United Farm Workers, and more recent struggles against the World Trade Organization, the artistic and social relevance of this cultural production has not received much scholarly attention in anthropology. For the economically impoverished and socially marginalized youths that made up the street art collective I worked with, artistic expression and collective organization became a means not just to make their voices heard, however, but fostered communal practices that gave rise to alternative models of human flourishing or of "the good life." Organized through participatory assembly, creating and collaborating on art projects as a group, and holding art workshops to teach artistic skills to members and others, members of the art collective were able to transform their isolation and create a space of dialogue and debate that produced a powerful sociality that went beyond aesthetic expression or the imagined political and social horizon of the social movement engendered by APPO. Assessing the social and political dynamics produced by the art of protest, the dissertation addresses how Oaxaca's terrain of political positioning was constantly shifting, putting into doubt the notion of a possible scripted strategy pre-existing the mobile dynamics of contestation and struggle. The practices of struggle that APPO engendered were an invitation to insurgency, yet lacked any roadmap. As situated spatial practices with multiple mobile manifestations, the practices exceed the possibility to pin down APPO as a political formation, model, or organization. This raises challenges for mapping Left and populist politics in Latin America and the Global South, yet offers new opportunities for considering the power and possibilities of social movements from Caracas to Cairo to change and challenge not just governing regimes, but dominant social norms and forms. Attentive to the spatial practices through which collective political subjectivities were formed in Oaxaca's social movement, my dissertation also brings a critical perspective to how social movements in the Global South are commonly assessed in political imaginaries in the West. Filtered through discourses of democratic representation or human rights, social movements are generally appraised in relation to the possibilities that these afford for subaltern groups to subvert the dominant structures that marginalize them by giving voice to the injurious workings of power. I argue that an important effect of the political imaginaries of resistance that emerge from this perspective is to conceive of political traction through the lens of what Michael Warner refers to as "state-based thinking." Under the framework of state-based political imaginaries, agency is acquired in relation to the state and the state remains the means of political self-realization. However, by looking at the internal processes that social movements enable, I consider how social movements produce possibilities for social transformation that go beyond the external goals that they set forth. The mobilizing practices of struggle in Oaxaca demanded and gained recognition and rights to the city at a multiplicity of social and geographic scales. While marches, local media takeovers, and stencils on city walls were localized political practices, their political traction and demand for recognition addressed multiple audiences that included, but were not limited to, regional or federal government bodies. The dissertation argues that, when the state is imagined as the ground by which to secure social justice and political change, this marginalizes the productive power of practices of struggle in social movements as transformative of spaces and social relations in their own right. In a contemporary moment where democracy is both seen as the global future and yet is also in need of being defended and implemented militarily, the dissertation contends that practices of social protest in urban settings produce forms of organizing collective life that call into question prevalent conceptions of representative democracy and the state as the pinnacle of political organization. What emerges from an ethnographic analysis of the practices of struggle of the public assemblies, neighborhood barricades, political art on city walls, and the megamarches of millions are the ways in which these transcended the purely confrontational aspect of a repudiation of the governor to become their own point of reference; Oaxacans' embodied practices are forming alternative conceptions of ethical communities and a collective subject that bypasses state-based frameworks as the necessary horizon of Oaxaca's future. I thus argue that making the populist collective subject of "the people" is just as important as challenging the state in pursuing social justice and making a space for politics. Delimiting the political and social effect of APPO in relation to the authoritarian politics of Oaxaca's governor means neglecting how its mobilizing practices of struggle changed forms of political subjectivity and social community, with effects that continue to reverberate to this day.

The author presents measures with which to map institution building during the transition from centrally planned to market economies. Data collection and indicators are measured in terms of five institutional dimensions of governance: a) accountability; b) quality of the bureaucracy; c) rule of law; d) character of policy-making process; and e) strength of civil society. The author highlights the differences over time and between Central and Eastern European countries and those of the former Soviet Union. In terms of effects of per capita income and school enrollment, he finds the rule of law to be the most important institutional dimension, both for the sample as a whole and for differences between the two regions. In terms of life expectancy, however, the quality of the bureaucracy plays the most crucial role. One important message the author draws from the results is that institutions do change over time and are by no means as immutable as the literature has suggested. The range of feasible policy choices (for changing institutions) may be much wider than is often assumed.

 I am not sure that the past month's headaches and insomnia are due to the challenges of thinking about the Israel-Palestine conflict, but I am going to use that as my intro to this effort to think through this stuff.Usual caveats apply: I am not a political theorist or moral philosopher, I am not an expert on the conflict itself.  Oh, and I was raised Jewish and the education I got at Hebrew school did not adequately present the realities of the past.  I did take one Mideast politics course in college, and I did spend one week on an amazing and amazingly depressing tour of Israel and Palestine with a bunch of other academics four years ago.One of the conversations that disturbed me most this past week was when a rabbi I met on that trip     responded to my criticisms of Israel's attack upon the hospital.  He asked what is the right way to attack a group using a hospital as a shield (and as a trap), and my answer was simplistic: don't.  I get that he and some of my relatives feel as if there are unfair standards being applied to Israel.  And I absolutely get that anti-semitism is on the rise in the US, Canada, and Europe, although I wonder how much of this pro-Palestinian and how much of this opportunist far right folks using this moment (something to discuss another day).  But Israel is fucking up in a major way here, and I want to think through why I think that, and why it is legitimate to criticize Israel at this moment of crisis.  Oh, and one more caveat: Hamas is more evil.  It is bad to target the civilians of the adversary, but it is even worse to deliberately endanger one's own civilians.  Netanyahu has indirectly engaged Israelis by empowering Hamas and by diverting troops to protect expansionist (irredentist!) settlers, leaving communities close to Gaza essentially unguarded.  So, even as I criticize Israel, I am not apologizing for or supporting Hamas.  I want Hamas to be defeated, but in the right way.  More on that below.So, I am starting with first principles:Everyone is deserving of self-determination: Jews, Palestinians, Ukrainians, Taiwanese (oops), Quebecois, etc.  Violence is bad, so it should only be used proportionately.Just because someone did something in the past, such as mass bombing of cities, does not legitimate folks using the same strategy today.  The bible speaks of laws of war that we generally find abhorrent--there has been progress in our moral stances and also in our strategic understanding.  The best way to provide people with self-determination is democracy.  It is better, in my humble opinion, that infinite secession where every group has its own state, because the act of secession or partition will probably increase the grievances of some groups that are left behind. Quebec's separatism had a very small burst of violence largely because Quebecois could and did exert power via voting to get damn near everything they wanted. Not everything, but all the stuff that might have been worth fighting for.One state from sea to river with all Palestinians and all Jews sharing one state with heaps of religious and other rights .... would be cool, but, well, Jews want a Jewish state since bad things have happened in democracies where other groups have more votes.  Alternatively, a single state where Jews have rights and Palestinians don't is inherently problematic and wrong--the apartheid label feels icky but when you run a massive open-air prison with no end in sight, it is hard to think of it in any other way.  I have believed for quite some time that Israeli Jews faced a choice--Israel could remain a theocratic state or it remain a democracy, but not both.  Some of my relatives have said that the Arab countries should welcome the Palestinians.  The thing is: the Palestinians think they are a people, the Arab countries think the Palestinians are a people, and since nationalism is intersubjective, Jews can't wish away Palestinian identity.  However, Netanyahu can use the Israeli military to destroy many symbols that resonate with Palestinian identity, and that gets us to the g word.Threatening a second nabka, which would expel the Palestinians from the occupied territories would be ethnic cleansing.  If the Palestinians were to win and push the Jews out, that too would be ethnic cleansing.  And it would not be legitimate even if one considers all Jews to be settlers-colonizers.  We can't unwind history with heaps of bloodshed and call it justice.  Anyhow, I try to avoid using the word genocide because it is very fraught.  In the past, did Canadians practice genocide against its Indigenous peoples. Yeah.  Now?  I'd say no, as state policies are not aimed at reducing or eliminating these peoples, even if bad policies continue and are harmful.  But I can see why some folks may argue this and I probably need more info to take a clearer stance.Is Israel engaged in genocide right now?  It is using lots of violence to reduce the population of Palestinians in Gaza.  It is not proportionate, and it is not well aimed at achieving military objectives, two of the requirements for the just use of force. Israel is making Gaza uninhabitable. While Israel has not been all that strategic/deliberate--this is mostly about revenge since 10/7--the way force has been used is suggestive--to solve the Gaza problem by getting rid of the residents.  That has some echoes, doesn't it?So, the hospital: Hamas had some stuff based at the hospital?  Does that make it either a legitimate (morally speaking) or sound (strategically speaking) target?  No.  Most of the folks at the hospital had limited agency--they neither voted for Hamas nor had power to remove Hamas, nor much ability to leave.  So, one should not target many vulnerable civilians if the aim is to kill a few Palestinian leaders.  With that specific campaign over, we are learning that the Israelis never had the best intelligence about the threat posed by those in the hospital, which is now a trend--Israeli intelligence failure.  Would it be legitimate and smart to hit the hospital if it had a ticking weapon of mass destruction?  Sure.  Anything short of that?  Not so much.  The Hamas use of human shields is ... a TRAP!  And the Israelis walked right into it.  War is, as they say, politics by other means, and so the Israelis lost big time on the world stage by attacking a hospital  Their strategic communications about all of this has been awful.  International support matters for both sides, and Israel surrendered whatever moral authority and international support it gained on October 7th, much like the US gave up all of the goodwill from 9/11 by attacking Iraq.  Jews are upset because Hamas is not getting as much criticism, and that is for a few reasons.  One is that countries are siding with the Arab world due to strategy or convenience or cheap oil or whatever.  Another is that Hamas being evil is baked in.  It has been held to a lower standard because it is a terrorist group.  Palestinians in Europe and North America support Hamas and cheer on Israeli defeats, including, alas, the attacks on kids.  Jews in Israel and elsewhere are cheering on violence against Palestinians.  Both are wrong--both because the people of both sides deserve human dignity and because the attacks are not going to achieve anything.  We hold Israel to a higher standard because it is a democracy and it is the more powerful side, which means, yes, it has more responsibility.One of the ingredients of just war is whether an attack is actually going to accomplish something.  If you repeatedly use violence with little expectation of changing the situation, that is morally problematic--revenge, for instance, is not a legitimate justification for the use of violence. If some violence can avert more violence and end a conflict, then it is more just (and more sound from a tactical or strategic standpoint).  Ukraine has a morally superior position for continuing the war because Russia has abused those who have been on their side of the lines.  Violence, targeted at Russian troops and Russian military assets, is legitimate and also strategically sound.  Russian attacks on Ukrainian hospitals and other civilian locations is not.  And no, I am not saying Russia and Israel are morally equivalent... but I am saying that Israel's actions are positioning Israel closer to Russia.  And who would want that?  During the insurgencies of the 2000's, scholars and American military folks came to the same conclusion, more or less: that the best way to win (or at least not lose) a counter-insurgency effort is to minimize civilian casualties.  These casualties would undermine the war effort--not just by creating more insurgents--the family and friends of those killed-but also by undermining the legitimacy of the Irag and Afghan governments.  So, a policy of "courageous restraint" was enunciated, although I am not sure how well it was observed.  The basic idea is that if you want to attack a certain military leader or target, and there  are a bunch of kids or other non-combatants present, you wait for a better time.  Indeed, our rules of engagement for air attacks often lead to hitting targets at night when buildings are not as occupied.The point here is that there are ways to deal with a hospital that may have some "bad guys" in it.  Leveling it is not one of them.   Which leads to the question of a cease-fire.  I don't always support cease-fires (I am clearly not a pacifist), as it make give one side a big advantage.  In the case of Russia-Ukraine, a ceasefire with Russia on Ukrainian land would be bad because it would allow Russian to continue to abuse the Ukrainians and it would potentially create a semi-frozen conflict that limits Ukraine's ability to free its territory and enable Russia to fuck with Ukraine in a variety of ways.  In this case?  I think with so many civilians in harm's way, and with a cease-fire perhaps giving time for Israelis to think about what they are doing (like following Netanyahu), it might lead to a better, more humane outcome.  Would Hamas benefit from a cease-fire?  Probably, but so would Israel.  This all has avoided the big questions: what should Israel's objectives be?  Because you can't have a strategy unless you know what the goal is. If the objective is a one-state Israel with the occupied territories full of folks having no rights and no access to power, then buckle up for unending conflict.  Eradicating Hamas should not be an end to itself because removing one organization from the territories will not change the fundamental challenge of two peoples living in this area between river and sea. Removing the Palestinians from Gaza might be the objective now, and, if so, that is horrifying.Until October 7th, Israel focused on tactics to perpetuate the status quo: deterrence by punishment.  Or to put in pop culture terms, the strategy that Sean Connery told Kevin Costner in the Untouchables: they came with a knife, you come with a gun.  They send your guy to the hospital, you send their guy to the morgue.  I will always remember a conversation I had with a retired Israeli special ops general while our group was at the Golan Heights.  He was being critical of Obama for not hitting harder than the US got hit by various attacks.  That Israel's tactic was always to escalate a bit, to hit harder than have been hit.  And I basically asked: how has that worked to end the threat to Israel and stop the violence.  Maybe it was kind of working for Israel, but that ended on October 7th, when Hamas decided it was not just willing to take Israel's punishment for an attack that was far more aggressive and damaging to Israelis than previous ones, but actually eager for that punishment.  Deterrence only works if the costs of punishment are both credible and greater than the costs of the status quo.  To Hamas, they apparently felt the Abraham Accords and other moves were more threatening than getting shellacked by Israel.  Maybe their own domestic political game needed as much distraction as Netanyahu did/has.  Anyhow, it was a limited strategy since it was mostly kicking the can down the road and had episodes of violence priced in.  It may still be working with Hezbollah, but mostly because Hezbollah is in no shape to get into a war with Israel with Lebanon being such a mess (I am guessing here).  But the days of deterring Hamas are gone, so what now?Eradicating Hamas?  Not so easy.  Israel should be doing cost/benefit calculations of the various ways to attack Hamas, which would, yes, mean not attacking hospitals.  I think Israel's old strategy was and is the best option: after the Munich Olympics, Israel went out and targeted each person responsible for that attack and, as far as I recall, killed most of them.  Israel can do the same here with Hamas's leadership--they might miss a few, but better to miss a few awful Hamas leaders than to kill a lot of civilians.  This, of course, requires patience, which Netanyahu does not and cannot have, given the precarity of his political position.And this gets to the one of the key problems: Israelis have voted for various far right parties that have trapped Israel into more and more dangerous paths.  Making Israel more theocratic may be good for the Orthodox, but it is bad for the economy and for the political system.  Destroying the possibility of a two-state solution not only angers Palestinians but reduces bargaining options and exit strategies.  Putting corrupt, awful Netanyahu back into power again and again undermines Israel's democracy, its legitimacy, its military, and its security.  And ultimately its future.I am so angry and frustrated not because this is a hard situation, but because it didn't have to be this bad, it didn't have to be this way.  Netanyahu and the parties backing him have made things worse.  My anger towards Hamas is baked in--never democratic, always autocratic, always determined to wipe Israel from the map.  I never had any hope for that organization.  I had some hope for the Palestinian Authority until I visited Israel and got a better understanding of its limits.  But I had some hope that Israel would see the trap so visibly set in front of it and not hop into it so enthusiastically.  It is hard to kill one's way through a counter-insurgency, it is both wrong and counter-productive to kill so many civilians along the way.  As a scholar who used to study ethnic conflict, I understand that it is hard to end these kinds of disputes.  But I also understand that conflicts end, that violence is not inevitable--that it is a choice.  And as a scholar of civil-military relations, I am so glad I never studied Israel.I am not sure if any of this is coherent, but I am just trying to think through this situation.  Do I feel any better now that I have spewed my thoughts here?  Not really.   

Niger's July 26 military coup, which ousted President Mohamed Bazoum, has created a volatile situation. While France and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) threaten military action against the Nigerien junta under the guise, respectively, of protecting French diplomatic and military facilities and restoring Niger's constitutional order, the crisis risks escalating into a regional conflict.Each of Niger's seven neighbors has a unique set of interests and perspectives on Niger's situation. Algeria, which shares a 620-mile border with Niger, is focused on promoting stability and a return to Niger's constitutional order while also preventing foreign powers from violating the country's sovereignty.Algiers is concerned about instability spilling into neighboring countries (including Algeria) and violent extremists exploiting the turmoil in Niger itself. Memories of Algeria's "Black Decade" (1991-99), in which a jihadist insurgency and a state-led crackdown led to much bloodshed, remain vivid in Algerian minds. No Algerian takes peace and stability at home for granted."National security officials in Algiers already have their hands full due to increasing tensions with Morocco to the west, continued instability in Libya to the east, and the worsening economic situation in Tunisia, also to the east," Gordon Gray, the former U.S. ambassador to Tunisia, told RS. "Uncertainty to the south, i.e., along the border with Niger, is yet another problematic development they will need to deal with."In 2012, three hardline jihadist terrorist groups — al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa, and Ansar Dine — gained control of two-thirds of Mali, including territory bordering Algeria. Algerians worried about these armed extremists' ability to threaten Algeria's security. The 2013 In Amenas hostage crisis further informed Algeria's understandings of its vulnerability to transnational terror groups operating in neighboring countries. Today, Algerian officials have similar concerns about instability in Niger creating opportunities for the ISIS- and al-Qaida-linked terrorist groups operating in the country to wage attacks throughout the region.Algerian officials also worry about the devastating impact that the situation could have on Niger's 25 million people. ECOWAS-imposed sanctions on Niger in the wake of the July 26 coup do not include humanitarian exemptions, and Algeria's government worries that political turmoil and a worsening economic situation in Niger could prompt refugee flows into Algeria and other neighboring countries, further threatening regional stability.Algeria's concerns about Niger's crisis go beyond the threat of terrorism and worsening humanitarian disasters. Although in favor of restoring Niger's constitutional order, Algiers strongly opposes military intervention by foreign forces."Algeria opposes all kinds of external intervention in North Africa and the Sahel, whether it is military or political. Algiers stands firm by the principle of sovereignty and considers any foreign presence in its neighborhood as an infringement on the local countries' sovereignty, regardless of the nature of the foreign intervention or presence," Ricardo Fabbiani, North Africa project director for the International Crisis Group, told RS."For Algeria, a military intervention against Niger would be a catastrophe. The Algerians point out that the previous interventions in Libya and Mali have exacerbated pre-existing problems, rather than solving them," he added. "These operations have a significant political and security impact, with repercussions that can be felt for decades."In this sense, Algeria occupies a somewhat unique position — at odds with both France and ECOWAS threatening to wage a military campaign to reverse the coup on one side, and Burkina Faso and Mali vowing to militarily assist Niger's junta if ECOWAS attacks on the other.Seeing itself as a regional heavyweight, Algeria's sensibilities and principles guide the country's foreign policy. Having existed as a French colony before waging a war for independence (1954-62), Algerians view national sovereignty as sacrosanct. This history helps one understand the North African country's past opposition to foreign interventions in Libya, Iraq, Mali, and Syria.Viewing itself as a vanguard in anti-imperialist, pan-African, and Arab nationalist causes, Algeria will always oppose Western (especially French) military intervention in Africa, the Middle East, or anywhere in the Global South. Whereas many states evolve in their foreign policy strategies, Algeria's firm commitment to certain principles, concepts, and institutions has remained consistent over the decades, making Algiers' stance vis-a-vis Niger both predictable and characteristic.Within this context, Algeria is playing a leading role in advocating for a diplomatic solution to the Nigerien crisis that prevents any external military intervention. Last month, Foreign Minister Ahmed Attaf visited three ECOWAS member-states — Nigeria, Benin, and Ghana — on orders from President Abdelmadjid Tebboune. After the visits, Attaf proposed a six-month transition plan to bring civilian rule and democracy back to Niger.He stressed Algeria's opposition to foreign military intervention and affirmed that external actors will be barred from transiting Algerian airspace as part of any intervention. The six-point plan's objective is to "formulate political arrangements with the acceptance of all parties in Niger without excluding any party" within the six-month-window, according to Algeria's top diplomat, who has also had contacts with junta members, as well as Nigerian civilian leaders. Overseeing this process should be a "civilian power led by a consensus figure."Before Attaf announced Algeria's plan, Niger's military leadership, backed by Burkina Faso and Mali, laid out its own very different plan. The junta called for a three-year transition period to restore constitutional order. ECOWAS has summarily rejected that plan, asserting that three years is much too long. Some members even called the junta's proposal a "provocation."Algeria is hoping that its proposal offers a middle ground that saves face on all sides but also leads to a restoration of democracy in Niger while preventing any military action against the landlocked and sanctioned country.Fortunately for Algeria, there is growing international support from foreign governments, such as Italy's, for its mediation efforts as the standoff over Niger intensifies. "If successful, this diplomatic effort could strengthen Algeria's role in the Sahel, which is one of Algeria's long-term goals in the area," said Fabiani.Washington has not yet taken a position on Algeria's plan and has generally followed a more cautious approach than Paris, a source of irritation between the two NATO allies. Despite an early unsuccessful mission by a top State Department official to engage the junta, the U.S. has thus far declined to label Bazoum's ouster a "coup," a legal determination that would require the U.S. to end military aid to Niamey, a key counterterrorism partner in the Sahel for years."The United States remains focused on diplomatic efforts toward a peaceful resolution to preserve Niger's hard-earned democracy," a State Department spokesperson told RS. "We all want a peaceful end to this crisis and the preservation of the constitutional order."Looking ahead, officials in Algiers understand that they must address the Nigerien crisis pragmatically while accepting the limitations of Algeria's influence in Niamey. Algerian policymakers are "working on a shortened timeline for the transition" and Algiers "thinks that the coup is difficult to reverse," which leaves them believing that "the quickest route out of this predicament is by accelerating the transition announced by the military junta and guaranteeing Bazoum's personal safety," explained Fabiani. "Yet, it is unclear what leverage Algeria has to make this happen and, most importantly, how willing to listen are the military authorities, given the regional polarization around this issue.""Today, Algiers doesn't want to antagonize the military junta in Niger, nor does it want to push for a military intervention," Dalia Ghanem, a Middle East and North Africa Senior Analyst at the European Union Institute for Security Studies, told RS. "Yet, Algiers learned that this noninterference stance is no longer efficient because it leaves the door open to foreign meddling like in Libya. The country's [leadership is] hence stuck between an old doctrine and the new regional realities. The country had no other [option] than [to] maximize security at its borders and this can't be done without hard choices being taken."In the public eye, Algeria will continue investing diplomatic energy into its six-month transition plan. Yet, as Gray told RS, "Behind the scenes, Algeria will be seeking ways to cooperate with the military junta to ensure the security of its southern border."

The impacts of climate change are felt worldwide and manifest differently in various parts of the globe. While extreme weather events such as monsoons, hurricanes, torrential rains, wildfires, droughts and heat waves with the resulting impacts on human lives and settlements are common, climate change also manifests in slow onset events such as sea level rise, increasing temperatures, ocean acidification, glacial retreat, salinization, land and forest degradation, loss of biodiversity, and desertification. It is found by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that the adverse effects of slow onset events are already affecting developing countries, resulting in loss of fertile land and the scarcity of water resources. In many parts of developing countries where farming constitutes the main livelihood and source of income, changes in the natural environment and in the distribution and availability of water resources may induce social disturbances that may range from migration to social instability and even violent conflicts. Lake Chad Basin and Northeast Nigeria in particular are seen as a climate hot spot partially due to the high variability of precipitations in the region. The Lake Chad that offers livelihood to millions of people in the region has been highly affected by climate change, losing up to 90% of its size between the early 1960s and today. Political issues have also emerged in the region with the birth of the islamist insurgent group Boko Haram in 2009. Since then, social structures have been highly disturbed, with millions of people leaving their homes in search of safety and the fulfilment of their basic needs, therefore becoming Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in their countries or crossing the border to become refugees in neighbouring countries. While the insurgency of the Boko Haram group and the response by various governments of the Lake Chad region including Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger may seem to be the main cause of migration in the region, understanding migration in the Lake Chad Basin is made complex for a few reasons: on the one hand, the link between conflict and migration is easily made by conflict experts; on the other hand, environmental scientists easily establish a correlation between environmental degradation and migration. Meanwhile, conflict and environmental degradation have not been treated simultaneously as causes of migration. To close this gap, this thesis divides into four studies, in which a multitude of research methods and empirical data are used. After the analysis of historical, socioeconomic and the environmental root causes of the crisis in northeast Nigeria in the first study, the second study introduces a comparative analysis of political factors (the conflict) and environmental factors (loss of fertile land and water scarcity) as causes of migration in northeast Nigeria. More explicitly, the role that environmental factors play on migration is dissociated from the role that conflict plays on migration in the study area. The next study examines how water scarcity contributes to migration in the region by studying the association between the local residents' intention to migrate and water related factors. Furthermore, since migration creates new social structures, the last study introduces a Social Network Analysis (SNA) of IDPs in Maiduguri. This approach allows to understand the networks in which IDPs are involved in Maiduguri, the main city in northeast Nigeria where most IDPs are found. It also allows to predict the potential of tensions between IDPs and host communities in the long term. To better address these issues, 204 IDPs in the Bakassi IDP camp located in Maiduguri, 100 members of the host community in the close proximity with the Bakassi IDP camp and experts in various governmental, non-governmental and international organizations based in Nigeria were interviewed. Findings reveal that conflict is the main push factor of migration in the region. However, the time of migration or the time that people spent in conflict before migrating varies from one community to another community. While in some communities people migrated very early after the community was affected by the conflict or even before conflict arrived, in other communities, people stayed several months or years with the conflict before migrating. Findings in this study also reveal that other factors including income, land ownership, occupation, and history of previous resource scarcity have a medium to large effect on the time of migration in some of the communities. Furthermore, the SNA in the Bakassi IDP camp and the host community reveal that the relationships between IDPs within the Bakassi IDP camp were usually friendly, while only few relationships between IDPs and host community members were reported. Host community members were connected to IDPs in other camps far away from their community rather than IDPs in the Bakassi IDP camp that was closer to them. This behaviour is seen in the fourth study in this thesis as a way of securing the few available resources and income generating opportunities that are available to the host community. Even though the network of friendly relationships between IDPs and host community members is denser than the network of conflicting relationships, suggesting a dominance of friendly relationships in the community, most experts believe that the friendly nature of the relationships between IDPs and their host communities may quickly turn conflicting or even violent as the pressure on resources grows and the IDPs population keeps rising. In conclusions, solving the crisis in the Lake Chad Basin and especially in northeast Nigeria is a complex task to the Lake Chad Basin governments, given the complexity of the crisis itself. Besides efforts by the international community to reduce greenhouse gases emissions in order to mitigate global warming and reduce the impact on vulnerable regions such as the Lake Chad Basin, local efforts are needed in the short and long term to address the crisis in the Lake Chad Basin. In the short term, improving humanitarian assistance to IDPs and extending it to poorer households in host communities will not only reduce pressure on the resources in the host communities, but also reduce the potential of tensions between IDPs and members of host communities. In the long term, creating additional income generating opportunities by industrializing the region will reduce the chronic poverty that pushes many young people to join armed groups. The protection of water resources through the construction of boreholes and the regulation of irrigation activities will ensure a sustainable use of water and increase food security in the region. ; Die Auswirkungen des Klimawandels sind weltweit spürbar und manifestieren sich unterschiedlich in verschiedenen Teilen der Erde. Während extreme Wetterereignisse wie Monsun, Wirbelstürme, sintflutartige Regenfälle, Waldbrände, Dürren und Hitzewellen mit den daraus resultierenden Auswirkungen auf Menschenleben und Siedlungen weit verbreitet sind, zeigt sich der Klimawandel auch in langsam einsetzenden Ereignissen wie dem Anstieg des Meeresspiegels, steigenden Temperaturen, Versauerung der Ozeane, Rückzug der Gletscher, Versalzung, Land- und Walddegradierung, Verlust der biologischen Vielfalt und Wüstenbildung. Die Klimarahmenkonvention der Vereinten Nationen (UNFCCC) stellt fest, dass die nachteiligen Auswirkungen langsam einsetzender Ereignisse die Entwicklungsländer bereits treffen und zum Verlust von fruchtbarem Land und zur Verknappung von Wasserressourcen führen. In vielen Teilen der Entwicklungsländer, in denen die Landwirtschaft die wichtigste Lebensgrundlage und Einkommensquelle darstellt, können Veränderungen in der natürlichen Umwelt sowie in der Verteilung und Verfügbarkeit von Wasserressourcen Auswirkungen auf das soziale Gefüge haben und zu Migration, sozialer Instabilität und gewaltsamen Konflikten führen. Insbesondere die Lake Tschad Region und der Nordosten Nigerias gelten als klimatische Brennpunkte. Dies ist teilweise auf die hohe Variabilität der Niederschläge in der Region zurückzuführen. Der Tschadsee, der Millionen von Menschen in der Region eine Lebensgrundlage bietet, wurde vom Klimawandel stark in Mitleidenschaft gezogen und verlor zwischen dem Anfang der 60er Jahre und heute bis zu 90% seiner Größe. Mit dem Erstarken der islamistischen Rebellengruppe Boko Haram im Jahr 2009 sind in der Region auch politische Fragen aufgeworfen worden. Seither sind die sozialen Strukturen in hohem Maße gestört, da Millionen von Menschen auf der Suche nach Sicherheit und der Befriedigung ihrer Grundbedürfnisse ihre Heimat verlassen und deshalb zu Binnenvertriebenen (engl. Internally Displaced Persons - IDPs) in ihren Ländern werden oder die Grenze überqueren, um als Geflüchtete in die Nachbarländer zu gelangen. Während der Aufstand der Boko-Haram-Gruppe und die Reaktion verschiedener Regierungen der Lake Tschad-Region, darunter Nigeria, Kamerun, Tschad und Niger, als Hauptursache für die Migration in der Region erscheinen mögen, wird das Verständnis der Migration in der Lake Tschad Region aus mehreren Gründen kompliziert: Einerseits wird eine klare Verbindung zwischen Konflikt und Migration von Konfliktexperten gesehen; andererseits stellen Umweltwissenschaftler einen Zusammenhang zwischen Umweltzerstörung und Migration her. Jedoch sind Konflikt und Umweltzerstörung bisher nicht zusammen als Ursachen von Migration behandelt worden. Um diese Lücke zu schließen, ist diese Arbeit in vier Studien unterteilt. Nach der Analyse der historischen, sozioökonomischen und umweltbedingten Ursachen der Krise im Nordosten Nigerias in der ersten Studie führt die zweite Studie eine vergleichende Analyse der politischen Faktoren (der Konflikt) und der Umweltfaktoren (Verlust von fruchtbarem Land und Wasserknappheit) als Ursachen der Migration im Nordosten Nigerias ein. Dabei wird die Rolle, die Umweltfaktoren bei der Migration spielen, expliziter von der Rolle abgegrenzt, die der Konflikt für die Migration im Untersuchungsgebiet spielt. In der nächsten Studie wird untersucht, wie Wasserknappheit zur Migration in der Region beiträgt, indem der Zusammenhang zwischen der Migrationsabsicht der Einheimischen und wasserbezogenen Faktoren untersucht wird. Da Migration zudem neue soziale Strukturen schafft, führt die letzte Studie eine soziale Netzwerkanalyse (SNA) der Binnenvertriebenen in Maiduguri ein. Dieser Ansatz ermöglicht es, die Netzwerke zu verstehen, in die die Binnenflüchtlinge in Maiduguri eingebunden sind und das Potenzial von Spannungen zwischen Binnenflüchtlingen und Aufnahmegemeinschaften langfristig vorherzusagen. Zu diesem Zweck befragte ich 204 Binnenvertriebene im Binnenvertriebenenlager Bakassi in Maiduguri, 100 Mitglieder der Gastgemeinde in unmittelbarer Nähe des Binnenvertriebenenlagers Bakassi sowie Experten verschiedener staatlicher, nichtstaatlicher und internationaler Organisationen mit Sitz in Abuja, der Hauptstadt Nigerias. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass der Konflikt der wichtigste Push-Faktor für Migration in der Region ist. Die Zeit der Migration oder die Zeit, die Menschen vor der Migration im Konflikt verbrachten, variiert jedoch von einer Gemeinschaft zur anderen Gemeinschaft. Während in einigen Gemeinschaften die Menschen schon sehr früh migrierten, nachdem die Gemeinschaft von dem Konflikt betroffen war oder sogar bevor der Konflikt eintraf, blieben die Menschen in anderen Gemeinschaften mehrere Monate oder Jahre innerhalb des Konfliktkontextes, bevor sie migrierten. Die Ergebnisse dieser Studie zeigen auch, dass andere Faktoren wie Einkommen, Landbesitz, Besatzung und die Geschichte früherer Ressourcenknappheit in einigen der Gemeinschaften einen mittleren bis großen Einfluss auf den Zeitpunkt der Migration haben. Darüber hinaus zeigt die Analyse des sozialen Netzwerks im Binnenflüchtlingslager Bakassi und der Gastgemeinde, dass die Beziehungen zwischen den Binnenflüchtlingen innerhalb des Binnenflüchtlingslagers von Bakassi in der Regel freundschaftlich waren, während nur über wenige Beziehungen zwischen Binnenflüchtlingen und Mitgliedern der Gastgemeinde berichtet wurde. Die Mitglieder der Gastgemeinde standen eher mit Binnenvertriebenen in anderen Lagern in Verbindung, die weit von ihrer Gemeinde entfernt waren, als mit Binnenvertriebenen in dem ihnen näher gelegenen Binnenflüchtlingslager Bakassi. Dieses Verhalten wird in der vierten Studie dieser Arbeit als eine Möglichkeit gesehen, die wenigen verfügbaren Ressourcen und Einkommensmöglichkeiten, die der Gastgemeinde zur Verfügung stehen, zu sichern. Auch wenn das Netz der freundschaftlichen Beziehungen zwischen Binnenvertriebenen und Mitgliedern der Gastgemeinde dichter ist als das Netz der konfliktreichen Beziehungen, was auf eine Dominanz freundschaftlicher Beziehungen in der Gemeinde hindeutet, glauben die meisten Experten, dass der freundschaftliche Charakter der Beziehungen zwischen Binnenvertriebenen und ihren Gastgemeinden mit zunehmendem Druck auf die Ressourcen und steigender Zahl der Binnenvertriebenen schnell in konfliktreiche oder sogar gewalttätige Beziehungen umschlagen könnte. Zusammenfassend ist die Lösung der Krise in der Lake Tschad Region und insbesondere im Nordosten Nigerias angesichts der Komplexität der Krise selbst eine komplexe Aufgabe für die Regierungen in der Lake Tschad Region. Neben den Bemühungen der internationalen Gemeinschaft, die Treibhausgasemissionen zu reduzieren, um die globale Erwärmung einzudämmen und die Auswirkungen auf gefährdete Regionen wie der Lake Tschad Region zu verringern, sind kurz- und langfristig lokale Anstrengungen erforderlich, um die Krise in der Lake Tschad Region zu bewältigen. Kurzfristig wird die Verbesserung der humanitären Hilfe für Binnenvertriebene und ihre Ausweitung auf ärmere Haushalte in den Gastgemeinden nicht nur den Druck auf die Ressourcen in den Gastgemeinden verringern, sondern auch das Potenzial von Spannungen zwischen Binnenvertriebenen und Mitgliedern der Gastgemeinden reduzieren. Langfristig wird die Schaffung zusätzlicher Einkommensmöglichkeiten durch die Industrialisierung der Region die chronische Armut verringern, die viele junge Menschen dazu treibt, sich bewaffneten Gruppen anzuschließen. Der Schutz der Wasserressourcen durch den Bau von Bohrlöchern und die Regulierung von Bewässerungsaktivitäten wird eine nachhaltige Wassernutzung sicherstellen und die Ernährungssicherheit in der Region erhöhen.

Acknowledgments -- Map of Southern Europe -- Introduction: Southern Europe and the making of a global revolutionary South -- Conspiracy and military careers in the Napoleonic Wars -- Pronunciamentos and the military origins of the revolutions -- Civil wars: armies, guerrilla warfare and mobilization in the rural world -- National wars of liberation and the end of the revolutionary experiences -- Crossing the Mediterranean: volunteers, mercenaries, refugees -- Re-conceiving territories: the revolutions as territorial crises -- Electing parliamentary assemblies -- Petitioning in the name of the constitution -- Shaping public opinion -- Taking control of public space -- A counterrevolutionary public sphere? The popular culture of absolutism -- Christianity against despotism -- A revolution within the Church -- Epilogue: Unfinished business. The Age of Revolutions after the 1820s -- Chronology -- Bibliography -- Index.

This paper is one of a series aimed at deepening the World Bank's capacity to follow through on commitments made in response to the World Development Report (WDR) 2011, which gave renewed prominence to the nexus between conflict, security, and development. Nigeria is a remarkable illustration of how deeply intractable the cycle of poverty, conflict, and fragility can become when tied to the ferocious battles associated with the political economy of oil. This paper places the corpus of analytic and programmatic work concerning institutional reform in conversation with a now substantial body of work on resource politics and most especially, the debate over the politico-institutional character (sometimes called political settlements or pacting arrangements associated with the order of power) and reform landscape of the petro-state. Recent institution reform policy writing appears to have little to say about the political and economic conditions in which crises and institutional disjunctures may authorize, and thereby enable, agents to embark on institutional reforms. The authors focus on Edo state for two reasons. First, it does not on its face appear to be an obvious location in which to explore a reform experience, given its entanglement in the Niger Delta conflict and the maladies typically associated with state fragility. Second, Edo is of interest also because of the changes that its experience is contributing to the World Bank country team's effort to engage operationally across all its instruments with the political economy of institutional reform in Nigeria, its largest client country in Africa.