On April 25, 2013, UN's Security Council established a 12,600-strong peacekeeping force for Mali. The United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission (MINUSMA) is to take over and continue the security and stabilization task that the French-led military operation in cooperation with UN's African-led International Support Mission to Mali, AFISMA, initiated in January 2013. The aim of this report is to present a number of long- and short-term perspectives for the recently initiated peace- and state-building process in Mali by focusing on the historical, structural and political causes of the crisis in Mali. Understanding these causes and handling their derived conflict potentials provide a minimum of prerequisites for establishing long-term peace. The report is structured according to four intertwined conflict potentials: Mali's fragile state, the status and background of the Tuareg rebellion, the organized crime and the regional cooperation. .
Den islamske republikken Iran har bygd et transnasjonalt nettverk av sjiamilitser siden 1979, ofte referert til som dens asymmetriske krigføringsstyrke og 'strategiske dybde'. Mens det er velkjent at Iran har mobilisert disse aktørene for å styrke sin regionale posisjon, har hvordan den har gjort det blitt viet lite vitenskapelig oppmerksomhet. Denne artikkelen forsøker derfor å forklare dette fenomenet ved å undersøke hvordan Iran har mobilisert irakiske sjiamilitser siden 1979. De utvalgte analyseenhetene representerer de mest innflytelsesrike sjiamilitsene med tilknytning til Iran i Irak i dag: Badr Organisation, Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq og Kata'ib Hizbullah. Selv om variasjon eksisterer mellom dem, er alle del av et transnasjonalt nettverk som har hjulpet Iran med å delta i skjult og/eller indirekte konfliktintervensjon i Midtøsten i flere tiår. Den komparative casestudien har blitt benyttet som forskningsdesign, med prosessporing og semi-strukturerte intervjuer som metode for datainnsamling. Den empiriske analysen har blitt rettledet av et teoretisk rammeverk som har forsøkt å bygge en bro mellom contentious politics og eksisterende litteratur om dynamikken mellom stater og væpnede opprørere. De empiriske funnene antyder at Iran har opptrådt som en sekterisk entreprenør som på pragmatisk vis har kombinert sine materielle og ikke-materielle ressurser for å mobilisere likesinnede militser til å delta i kollektiv vold og fremme felles krav.
Abstract in English:
The Islamic Republic of Iran has been building a transnational network of Shi'a militias since 1979, commonly referred to as its asymmetric warfare capability and 'strategic depth'. While it is a known fact that Iran has mobilised Shi'a militias in other countries to strengthen its regional position, how they have done it has not received much scholarly attention. The objective of this paper is to explain this phenomenon by examining how Iran has mobilised Iraqi Shi'a militias since 1979. The selected cases are the mobilisation processes of three most prominent Shi'a militias in Iraq today: Badr Organisation, Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq, and Kata'ib Hizbullah. Although variation exists between them, they are all cases of Iran's network of armed resistance groups, which have allowed it to engage in covert or indirect conflict intervention in the Middle East. To logically connect the empirical data with the study's research question, I have used a case study research design, with process tracing and the semi-structured interview as methods for data collection. Furthermore, the empirical analysis has been guided by a theoretical framework that has attempted to build a bridge between the existing literatures on state-militia dynamics and contentious politics.
