Search results

This article suggests an agenda for juridical civil-military relations by considering how recent developments in human rights law in Europe breed new forms of juridical civil-military relations. The argument is that the human right driven recasting of legal authority over military affairs from military justice systems to civilian justice systems entwines these systems. Furthermore, that in so far the theories and studies of civil-military relations have not yet addressed the juridical dimension of civil-military relations as a subject of its own right, this entwining calls for a new subject in the study of civil-military relations, straddling the institutional entwining as well as the sociological dimension of practical cooperation. Adapted from the source document.

Counterinsurgency strategies employed by the US military in Afghanistan have led to the US military embarking on civil governance reform. This has created new forms of civil-military relations with Afghan and international counterparts. These relations appear less dramatic than 'conventional' civil-military relations, in that they do not create the same visible alignment on the ground between military and non-military identities. In addition, the increased merging of civil and military work areas creates a new complexity that stems from semantic confusion. This complexity is mostly about norms and principles, in that the core puzzle is the more general question of what kinds of tasks the military should and should not do, rather than about violent consequences to civilians and questions of neutrality. This article proposes the term 'third-generation civil-military relations' to capture and examine the conceptual challenges that stem from the merging of military and civil work areas in Afghanistan's reconstruction. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd., copyright PRIO, www.prio.no]

Today, in what has been described as a re-emergence of privately organized extraterritorial force, the private military and security industry supplies the major military powers with a range of core services. This article asks how such a development came about, and why it has become politically uncomplicated to outsource such intimate state functions as the executive branches of foreign policy programmes. How did certain states arrive at a situation where it is unclear whether core military and security affairs are run by public or private agencies? The article answers these questions by presenting and commenting on general explanations as to why the private military industry has grown so much in post-invasion Iraq. It adds new perspectives to existing scholarly work by suggesting that the reappearance of private extraterritorial force could not have occurred on such a scale without a restructuring of neutrality in international relations. It is suggested that this change in neutrality might constitute the sine qua non of the re-emergence of private extraterritorial force. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd., copyright 2008 PRIO, www.prio.no]

Organized mentoring has become a principal method in statebuilding. Relying on field work in Afghanistan, the article argues that mentoring represents a new intensified mode of statebuilding, one that goes beyond simple technical reform, focusing on the deeper levels of the Afghan deputies' personalities. The rise of mentoring reflects a turn towards an enhanced focus on the contextualized individual and personal capabilities as well as dispositions. Mentoring produces personal relations that are closer and more intimate than technical assistance programmes, and thereby constitute a new form of interface between donor states and the Afghan state. Consequently, the mentor becomes a new figure in international relations-a new meeting ground between nations that reflects the contextualized and decentred prudence of neoliberal governmentality. Adapted from the source document.