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The paradox of field research permits
The paradox of field research permits
This essay provides an account of the way in which permits for field research in South Sudan were obtained. It shows how, despite the fact that the new country did not have a formal procedure for researchers, doing fieldwork at South Sudans borders with DR Congo and Uganda would have been impossible without a few letters of endorsement signed by people within the South Sudanese government. This inherent contradiction is further complicated by a paradox: The security personnel at the border interpreted the letters differently than the staff in the government offices in the capital. The essay argues that the contradiction between practice and procedures and the paradox of variable legitimacies provide key insight in the everyday organization of the state in South Sudan, both in the center and in the periphery.

The replacement of grassroots environmental movements with institutionalized mass membership organizations in Western nations during the 1980s & 1990s is examined, hypothesizing that the degree of institutionalization is primarily determined by national political opportunity structure. An analysis of the environmental movements of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Netherlands, & Switzerland reveals that they are highly institutionalized in comparison to France. Moreover, it is demonstrated that different political opportunity structures generate international differences among highly institutionalized environmental movements. 10 Tables, 56 References. Adapted from the source document.

The subject of this study is the strategic cooperation of the permanent members in the Security Council in the period 1946 2000. Because of their right of veto the cooperation of the permanent members has a significant influence on the functioning of the Council. The most important aspects of the cooperation that were investigated are the intensity of the cooperation and the ef-fectiveness of this cooperation in preventing and ending wars. To investigate these aspects, for both the intensity and the effectiveness measuring instruments were constructed. These measuring instruments were based on comprehensive sets of so-called 'leading indicators' and statistical methods and techniques. The intensity of the cooperation increased gradually from 1946 until 1990 (the end of the Cold War). Then it started to increase rapidly until 1996. From 1996 a slight decrease can be discer-ned. The strong increase in the strategic cooperation of the permanent members in the security Council can be established in all the majors forms of cooperation in the Council: the numbers of adopted strategic resolutions and presidential statements, the numbers of employed means (like peacekeeping missions and enforcement actions) and the amounts of money that were spent on peacekeeping activities. Further it was established that the response times of the Council regarding potential and waged wars dropped significantly since the end of the Cold War. The effectiveness of the cooperation of the permanent members in the Council was, insofar this was measurable with the applied method, not good for many years, but after the Cold War a clear improvement can be discerned. This goes for the prevention of wars, as well as for post war peacebuilding and the ending of wars. Also the numbers of potential and waged wars in which the Council not intervened dropped significantly since the end of the Cold War, as well as the use of vetoes. The large number of potential and waged wars in which the Council did not intervene during the Cold War was nearly exclusively caused by 'non decisions' (the non placing of wars on the agenda), and not by the use of vetoes by permanent members, as is often assumed in literature. Further, a comparison of two phase classifications of the Cold War showed that the great powers, even when there are great tensions among them, are prepared to cooperate in the Security Council to resolve strategic matters, if they consider this in their interest. Analyses of the adopted strategic resolutions during the Cold War revealed that cooperation here was nearly exclusively limited to issues that were not core issues of the Cold War. From this it can be concluded that cooperation against third party states was a basis of cooperation of the great powers in the Security Council. Finally, the results of this study show clearly that the Security Council was regarded and used to a large extent by the permanent members in the period 1946 2000 as an instrument of foreign policy to pursue their national interests, and not as an instrument of the world community to prevent and end wars.

International bureaucracy is a phenomenon peculiar to our time, but it is difficult to study: From the outside, studies remain superficial; from the inside, they can become biased. However, certain qualities of this bur'cy appear when we study the civil servants (CS's) of the various European states. Characteristic (1) is the diversity of the various groups of CS's. Each org acts independently; some CS's like those of the CECA, have legal status, while others are hired on a contractual basis. There is also diversity in treatment, in pensions, in conditions of service, & it is impossible to move from one org to another. Characteristic (2) is the uncertainty of the recruitment process: some subordinate positions & important posts are filled in advance; there is also direct recruitment at every level of employment with a consequent risk of cooptation. Furthermore, these civil servants must belong, in a predetermined proportion, to the countries of the various member nations, which of course creates difficulties of all kinds. Finally, it must be recognised that the role of this bur'cy is ill-defined. Psychol'ly, European CS's are in a difficult situation. They feel that they are uprooted, far from the country of their origin, and not part of an established hierarchical framework. Tr by J. A. Broussard from IPSA.