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This brief synthesises the IECEU project's most essential findings on the effectiveness of European Union (EU) missions in four Africa countries: Libya, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the Central African Republic (CAR). It describes the main elements and impact of the EU missions in these countries, identifies key strategic and operational shortfalls and offers recommendations on how the EU can improve its effectiveness in future conflict prevention and crisis management missions. The EU missions investigated differ in scale, length, objective, budget, priority and context. However, the EU missions presented in this brief share the main characteristic that they have all been deployed under the union's Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP)2 with the explicit intent of improving the overall security situation and addressing conflicts in Africa. This brief will start by providing a short overview of each case, describing the conflict(s), security situation, mission objectives and obstacles. In this way, it compares the overall effectiveness of EU operational conflict prevention across the four African countries and discusses what lessons can be learned from them. The brief does not include all factors needed to answer thisquestion, but highlights the IECEU project's most significant findings in these cases.

Ansettelsen i 2020 av ny sjef for Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM) har igjen skapt debatt om skatteparadiser som har vært et økende internasjonalt tema siden finanskrisen i 2008. Artikkelen analyserer Norges Banks tilnærming til skatteparadiser slik den fremkom gjennom ansettelsesprosessen, og illustrerer tradisjonelle skillelinjer i debatten om skatteparadiser. Artikkelen har derfor relevans ut over å klargjøre Norges Banks tilnærming. Analysen bygger på offentlig tilgjengelige muntlige og skriftlige uttalelser knyttet til ansettelsen, og relevante dokumenter som opplyser bakgrunnen for at skatt ble innlemmet i NBIMs etikkarbeid fra 2017. Vi argumenterer for at sentralbanken posisjonerer seg tydelig på en forsvarslinje som utfordrer en anmodning fra Stortinget om å innlemme selskapers skatteposisjon i etiske retningslinjer. Det begrunnes med fire aspekter ved sentralbankens tilnærming til skatteparadiser: en snevrest mulig definisjon av skatteparadiser som fenomen; en uklar holdning til aggressiv skatteplanlegging; en nedtoning av skatteparadisenes negative konsekvenser; en snever tolkning av eget ansvar. Diskusjonen illustrerer et behov for en avklaring av innholdet i norsk politikk på skatt og åpenhet, herunder skatteparadiser.
Abstract in English:In the Central Bank's Blind SpotThe appointment in 2020 of a new head of the Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM), has actualized a debate on tax havens, a growing concern following the international financial crisis of 2008. The article analyses the Norwegian central bank's approach to tax havens as it unfolded throughout the appointment process and illustrates traditional divisions in tax haven debates. The analysis builds on publicly available oral and written statements following the appointment, and relevant documents that inform the background of how tax and transparency became integrated in NBIM's work on ethics from 2017. The central argument put forward here is that the central bank position represents a traditional defense of tax haven use, in which challenges a request by the Norwegian Parliament to subordinate companies' tax strategies to ethical guidelines. We show that this is justified with four identified aspects of the central bank's tax haven approach: a narrow definition of the tax haven phenomenon; an unclear attitude to aggressive tax planning; a downplay of negative consequences of tax havens; a narrow interpretation of its own responsibilities. The discussions illustrate the need to clarify the content and practical management of the Norwegian policy on tax and transparency, including tax havens.

Nogle kalder hvidvask-skandalen i Danske Bank for verdens største. Men i skyggen af den mere end to år lange kampagne i både Danmark og internationalt står en forhenværende amerikansk statsborger ved navn Bill Browder. Han var indtil 2005 den største udenlandske kapitalfondschef i Rusland. Han var i årevis en stor fan af Ruslands præsident Vladimir Putin, indtil adskillige skattesager, et indrejseforbud og en død skatterådgiver, ændrede historien. Siden har Browder udnævnt sig selv til Putins fjende No. 1. Han har de seneste 10 år med kolossal succes kørt en verdensomspændende mediekampagne under dække af sin døde skatterådgiver, Sergej Magnitskij. Om hvidvask, menneskerettigheder og lejemord. Han har sin egen hær af advokater, sin egen lov i USA og sin egne partnere i den etablerede medieverden. Bogen afslører, hvordan hans historier i bedste fald er fordrejede og til tider helt og aldeles falske. Og hvordan han er blevet en af de centrale figurer i den nye kolde krig mellem Vesten og Rusland. Danske Bank har de seneste år været en central brik i Bill Browders kyniske spil om opmærksomhed, der handler om alt mulig andet end hvidvask

This article examines whether mayors' social capital increases local governments' performance. Putnam suggests that politicians' social networks with residents may deteriorate political transparency and thus decrease performance. However, no direct relationships have been clarified. So, we focus on the Philippines as a case and conduct a survey on national representative 300 cities and municipalities in 2011. We find that (1) by distributions, among three indexes of performance as dependent variables, valuing fundamentals of governance have the highest scores. Social governance and administrative governance follow. Among mayors' networks as independent variables, mayors meet residents most, and local politicians, provincial politicians, and the central government officers follow. (2) By regression analyses, meeting residents promotes social governance, while meeting central government officers increases administrative governance. Multi-level analyses support these results. Therefore, mayors' social capital increases local governments' performance. Yet different social capital promotes different performance.

Denne artikel foretager en diskursanalyse af en række centrale tekster fra partierne Nye Borgerlige og Dansk Folkeparti med fokus på disses brug af den populistiske figur hjertelandet: Et narrativ om det altid allerede tabte eller truede harmoniske fællesskab, der skal forsvares imod folkets fjender. Det konkluder-es, at idéen om hjertelandet er stærkt til stede i partiernes respektive diskurser, og at det i Nye Borgerliges diskurs i lige høj grad trues af de fremmede og eliten, mens det i Dansk Folkepartis diskurs mest trues af de fremmede, og antagonismen til eliten er nedtonet. ; This paper analyzes a series of central texts from the Danish parties The New Right and the Danish People's Party with emphasis on their use of the populist figure of the heartland: A narrative about the always already lost or threatened harmonic community that needs to be protected against enemies of the people. The paper concludes that the idea of the heartland is strongly present in the discourses of both parties, and that in The New Right's discourse the heartland is equally threated by foreigners and the elite, while in the discourse of the Danish People's Party it is mostly threatened by immigrants whereas the antagonism to the elite is downplayed.

Nesten to tiår etter den USA-ledete intervensjonen i Afghanistan, på tross av massiv innsats for å bygge en afghansk stat, så kollapset den afghanske regjeringsstrukturen i august 2021, og Taliban gjeninntok hovedstaden Kabul. Hvorfor mislyktes det internasjonale statsbyggingsprosjektet? Kunne ekstern statsbygging ha lykkes om tilnærmingen var en annen? Denne artikkelen tar utgangspunkt i nyere litteratur (David Lake, Melissa Lee, Roland Paris, Timothy Sisk) og gjør en analyse av hvordan dilemmaer i ekstern statsbygging manifesterte seg i Afghanistan henholdsvis på det politiske, militære og økonomiske området. Historisk har stabilitet i Afghanistan hvilt på en balanse mellom en svak sentralmakt og et betydelig rom for tradisjonelle samfunnsstrukturer. USA, som ekstern statsbygger, var opptatt av lojalitet fra en sterk sentralmakt, og underminerte derfor en maktfordeling som kunne gitt større grad av legitimitet. Resultatet ble en stat som var helt avhengig av ekstern støtte, og idet USA inngikk en avtale direkte med den væpnede opposisjonen, Taliban, så går den afghanske staten i oppløsning.
Abstract in EnglishDoomed to Fail? The US and the Afghan State-building Project, 2001–2021Nearly two decades after the US-led intervention in Afghanistan, following a massive effort to build an Afghan state, the country's government structure collapsed in August 2021, and the Taliban took control of the capitol Kabul. Why did international state-building fail? Could external state-building have been successful if the approach had been a different one? This article takes recent contributions to the literature on the dilemmas of external state-building as its point of departure (David Lake, Melissa Lee, Roland Paris, Timothy Sisk), and presents an analysis if how these dilemmas came to the fore in the political, military, and economic domains. Historically, Afghan stability have rested on a balance between a weak central authority, with considerable influence resting with traditional societal actors. The US, as an external state-builder, was concerned with loyalty from a strong central power, and thereby undermined the division of power that could otherwise have gained a higher degree of legitimacy. The result is a state which was fully dependent on external support, and as the US entered a treaty with the armed opposition, the Taliban, the Afghan state apparatus collapses.