Suchergebnisse

Why do international actors, including powerful states, often fail to develop clear foreign policies and instead adopt indecisive, 'muddling-through' approaches? This book develops a concept and a theory of reluctance in world politics. Applying it to the study of regional crisis management by leading powers, it finds that reluctance emerges when governments fail to devise clear foreign policy preferences and face competing international pressures. The study of reluctance in world politics sheds new light on some of the most pressing problems of our time, from weak crisis management to cooperation deficits in global governance.

While mediation efforts in violent conflicts often fail, the academic literature on mediation has long ignored both this phenomenon and its consequences. This paper aims to fill this significant knowledge gap by examining the conditions under which the failure of mediation leads to an escalation of civil war. Based on the literature on bargaining, we argue that the degree of negotiability of the conflict parties' strategic objectives, as well as the relative weight of hardliners and moderates within those conflict parties, influence the likelihood of escalation after mediation failure. A plausibility test carried out for Norway's failed mediation in the Sri Lankan civil war confirms the usefulness of our model. In particular, the suspension of negotiations in April 2003 led to a shift towards less negotiable strategic objectives for both conflict parties and to a strengthening of hardliners within the government. This contributed to the escalation of the conflict, up to its eventual termination in May 2009. -- Sri Lanka ; mediation ; civil war ; mediation failure ; conflict parties

The paper provides an assessment of India's role in the final years of the civil war in Sri Lanka (2003-2009). In particular, it looks for explanations for India's inability to act as a conflict manager in its own region, which is in contrast to predominant assumptions about the role of powerful regional states. It also seeks to explain the surprising turn in India's approach to the conflict, when in 2007 New Delhi began to rather explicitly support the Sri Lankan government - in disregard of its traditional preference for a peaceful solution and its sensitivity for the fate of Sri Lankan Tamils. While historical and domestic pressures led to India's indecisive approach during the years 2003-2007, starting from 2007 regional and international factors - most notably the skillful diplomacy of the Sri Lankan government and the growing Chinese presence there induced New Delhi to support the government side in order to keep some leverage on Sri Lankan affairs. The analysis of the Sri Lankan case opens several avenues for further research in the fields of regional conflict management and foreign policy analysis. -- India ; Sri Lanka ; conflict management; civil war

According to the theory of "democratic peace" India, as the largest democracy in the world and as South Asia's predominant regional power, should be expected to promote democracy in neighboring countries. However, New Delhi lacks any official democracypromotion policy, and its past record on democracy in the region is mixed at best. Against this background, the paper analyzes the substantial role India came to play in the peace and democratization process in Nepal in the years 2005-2008, asking whether this constitutes a departure from New Delhi's traditional policy of noninterference in its neighbors- internal affairs and a move towards a more assertive approach to democracy promotion. The analysis shows that India's involvement in Nepal was the product of short-term stability concerns rather than being an indicator of a long-term change in strategy with the intention of becoming an active player in international democracy promotion. -- democracy promotion ; India ; Nepal ; regional power ; peace process ; democratization

Rising powers have often been characterised as 'reluctant' when it comes to their contributions to global governance. However, also within their regions they have sometimes pursued indecisive, muddling-through policies, including in the field of security. This paper addresses the puzzling issue of rising powers' reluctant approach to regional crisis management. It conceptualises reluctance as entailing the two constitutive dimensions of hesitation and recalcitrance, and it seeks to approach a theorisation of reluctance that focuses on a combination of international expectations and domestic preference formation. The empirical analysis addresses instances of regional crisis management by the democratic rising powers India and Brazil during phases of domestic political stability under the Modi (2014–2018) and the Lula (2003–2011) governments, respectively. The analysis of India's crisis management efforts in Afghanistan and Nepal, and of Brazil's leadership of the MINUSTAH mission and its approach to the civil war in Colombia, reveal that reluctance emerges if a government is faced with (competing) expectations articulated by international actors as well as with a range of domestic factors that lead to unclear preference formation.