Suchergebnisse

Throughout history, state and non-state actors have used their power over water and water infrastructure to demonstrate the power they have to oppress civilians or gain ground in combat. Today, climate change and associated water scarcity make this practice even more effective and harmful. However, the use of water and water infrastructure as a weapon continues to be neglected in both the political and academic arenas. The time is long overdue for decision makers and scientists to raise awareness of and spur action that addresses this phenomenon, but as water becomes increasingly scarce it has become an urgent matter.

Rodrigo Duterte has become infamous for his war on drugs in the Philippines that cost the lives of thousands of Filipinos. However, killings were far from uniformly spread across the country. Otherwise comparable local government units even reacted in fundamentally different ways to the "license-to-kill" granted to the police and vigilantes by the President. Peter Kreuzer shows that local government makes a big difference. Local governments with leaders who had made public safety a key component of their political agenda even before Duterte took office used established practices and good contacts with the local police to neutralize central government directives. By contrast, heads of government who had left the politically unprofitable issue of public security to the police tolerated or supported the escalatory dynamics emanating from the political center. How these dynamics developed in practice is illustrated by an analysis of seven local government units.

Since Rodrigo Duterte was elected President of the Philippines in 2016, he has been responsible for the killing of thousands of Philippine citizens in his war on drugs, threatening political opponents and increasingly undermining crucial political freedoms. International media condemns his government as oppressive and illiberal, at the same time surveys show that the vast majority of the country's population support Duterte's law and order politics. In this report, Peter Kreuzer explores how a rogue politician could become the most popular president in years. He gives insights into Philippine clientelistic politics, political elites and Filipinos' desire for a politician who puts his promises into action.

Almost 20 years after the adoption of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325), it remains an important instrument in feminist lobbying and gender-sensitive peacekeeping. While the resolution is considered a major step towards protecting women's rights in conflict zones and contributing to gender just peace, criticism is widespread and questions remain about its impact beyond statistics. This report takes a closer look by investigating the ways that UNSCR 1325 has been conceptualized and put into practice in the South African National Defence Force. South Africa is deploying a relatively high proportion of female peacekeepers, but shortcomings of UNSCR 1325, specifically related to gender essentialisms, have affected discourses within the armed forces. While this has led to contradictions and contestations concerning sameness and difference among male and female peacekeepers, the study also reveals a critical engagement with military peacekeeper masculinities, pointing towards a surpassing of the limited premise of UNSCR 1325.

Artificial intelligence (AI), especially AI driven by machine learning, is on everyone's lips. Even in armaments such systems are playing an increasingly important role: Some weapons systems are already able to identify targets independently and engage in combat with them. This poses problems for traditional forms of arms control originally designed to monitor physical objects such as mines and small arms and their internal function. In addition, important additional effects of reliable control such as confidence- building and stabilization of diplomatic relations are not addressed. It is important for arms control to address such risks as well. At the same time, the deployment of Machine Learning-powered Artificial Intelligence (MLpAI) as a tool offers tremendous potential for improving arms control processes. Here, more precise and comprehensive data processing can engender more trust between states in particular. This tension between the risks and the opportunities connected with the use of MLpAI in arms control is highlighted in this report.

Der Ende 2016 ausgehandelte Friedensvertrag zwischen der kolumbianischen Regierung und der ältesten lateinamerikanischen Guerilla Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – Ejército del Pueblo (FARC-EP) beendete einen mehr als 50 Jahre anhaltenden bewaffneten Konflikt und wurde international gefeiert. Doch mit der Unterzeichnung dieses Friedensschlusses sind die Probleme nicht gelöst, der Aufbau eines stabilen und dauerhaften Friedens ist in vielerlei Hinsicht noch unsicher. Trotz weitgehend erfolgreicher Demobilisierung und der Waffenabgabe der FARC-EP sowie einer allgemeinen Reduktion der Gewalt stieg die Anzahl der Morde an "sozialen Anführerinnen und Anführern" seit 2016 kontinuierlich an und erreichte 2018 einen nie zuvor dokumentierten Höchststand. Vor diesem Hintergrund sucht der vorliegende Report nach den Ursachen und Bedingungen, die diesem jüngsten Anstieg der Gewalt zugrunde liegen.

NATO's 1999 intervention in Kosovo was highly contested and seen as a turning point in international responses to mass violence. Making use of a new dataset on so-called "humanitarian military interventions" since the Second World War, the author examines the extent to which the Kosovo intervention has indeed initiated new trends. A comparison with other cases shows that NATO's Operation Allied Force differed from other military interventions with a declared humanitarian purpose. Moreover, the author introduces a typology of humanitarian military interventions and proposes a new measurement of their outcome that can facilitate comparative research.

Künstliche Intelligenz, insbesondere selbstlernende KI, ist in aller Munde: auch in der Rüstung spielen solche Systeme eine zunehmend größere Rolle: Manche Waffensysteme sind bereits in der Lage, Ziele eigenständig zu identifizieren und zu bekämpfen. Dies stellt die klassische Rüstungskontrolle zunächst vor Probleme, denn ihre Verfahren sind auf die Regulierung physischer Gegenstände wie Raketen und Sprengköpfe und deren innerer Funktionsweise ausgelegt. Auch weitere wichtige Effekte einer verlässlichen Kontrolle wie Vertrauensbildung und Stabilisierung von diplomatischen Beziehungen werden erschwert. Solchen Risiken muss sich die Rüstungskontrolle stellen.

In 2013 the Philip­pines brought a case before the Per­manent Court of Arbi­tration (PCA) against China over ter­ritorial sove­reignty and mari­time rights in the South China Sea. Ad­mitted­ly, they were suc­ces­sful before the court, but in the after­math the ten­sions bet­ween both parties iten­si­fied drama­ti­cally - and no con­flict re­so­lution was in sight. Philip­pine President Duterte, in­au­gu­rated in 2016, as­sumed a new stance. He offered to ignore the court ruling for the time being, in­ten­si­fied eco­nomic re­lations and re-es­tab­lished bi­lateral com­muni­cation chan­nels. Kreuzer pre­sents two les­sons learned in deal­ing with China: first, that ap­plying too much pres­sure through legal in­stru­ments may in­crease China's re­sis­tance and, second, that China's be­havior can be in­fluenced through strat­egies that re­spond po­sitively to the country's core needs and pre­di­ca­ments.

Is democracy in crisis throughout the world and how alarmed should we be? And what about international democracy promotion - is there a need for reconceptualization? This PRIF Report is a joint policy paper written by members of the research network "External Democracy Promotion" (EDP Network). It aims at giving a concise and pointed overview of key trends and challenges that characterize the field of international democracy promotion today, and it offers recommendations for democracy promoters and policy makers on how to continue a more promising engagement. The report is intended for practitioners, academics and all those interested in the state and future of democracy globally.