INTERNATIONAL SECURITY AND DEFENSE
AP Photo
April 2009
"Securitization and Desecuritization: Female Soldiers and the Reconstruction of Women in Post-Conflict Sierra Leone"
Journal Article, Security Studies, issue 2, volume 18
By Megan Mackenzie, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program/Women in Public Policy Program, 2008-2009
This article focuses on the construction of "soldier" and "victim" by post-conflict programs in Sierra Leone. Focusing on the absence of individual testimonies and interviews that inform representations of women and girls post-conflict, this article demonstrates that the ideal of the female war victim has limited the ways in which female combatants are addressed by disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) programs in Sierra Leone. It is argued that titles given to female soldiers such as "females associated with the war," "dependents," or "camp followers" reveal the reluctance of reintegration agencies to identify females who participated in war as soldiers. In addition, I argue that men and masculinity are securitized post-conflict while women—even when they act in highly securitized roles such as soldiers—are desecuritized and, in effect, de-emphasized in post-conflict policy making. The impact of this categorization has been that the reintegration process for men has been securitized, or emphasized as an essential element of the transition from war to peace. In contrast, the reintegration process for females has been deemed a social concern and has been moralized as a return to normal.
Photo by Michael Casey
April 8, 2009
"Frazer offers lessons on transformative U.S.-Africa policy"
News
By Beth Maclin, Communications Assistant
Former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer gave a public address," Solutions: A Transformative U.S.-Africa Policy," at Harvard Kennedy School's John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum on April 7, 2009. Belfer Center Director Graham Allison moderated the event.
AP Photo
April 2009
"Nasty, Brutish and Long"
Magazine or Newspaper Article, Prospect, issue 157
By Monica Duffy Toft, Associate Professor of Public Policy
It’s a busy time for civil wars. The Sri Lankan army has pushed far into Tamil territory, seeking a decisive victory. The killings in Northern Ireland show how spoilers try to gain advantage over rivals in any political process. Then there is the threat that recently pacified civil wars, such as those in Iraq and Sudan, will come back, while the global recession may push new ones forward.
Winter 2008-09
Belfer Center Newsletter Winter 2008-09
Newsletter
By Sharon Wilke, Associate Director of Communications
The Winter 2008-09 issue of the Belfer Center newsletter features recent and upcoming research, activities, and analysis by Center faculty, fellows, and staff on critical global issues. "What should the next president do first?" is a question raised in this issue. Belfer Center experts respond to the question with advice on what they consider priority issues of national security, climate/energy policy, and the economic crisis.
The Winter 2008-09 issue also features take-aways from the Center’s recent “Acting in Time on Energy Policy” conference hosted by the Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group. In addition, it spotlights Belfer Center Faculty Affiliate Richard Clarke and new Kennedy School Professor Nicholas Burns.
October 2008
China into Africa: Trade, Aid, and Influence
Book
By Robert Rotberg, Director, Program on Intrastate Conflict and Conflict Resolution
“Two myths have been concocted by the West on Africa: that the Western impact on Africa has been benign while China’s record in Africa has only been negative. The truth in both areas is more complex. This volume, China into Africa, brings out the complexity of the China story in Africa and illustrates why more balanced assessments are needed on Africa’s relations with the world”
--Kishore Mahbubani
Dean, the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore
AP Photo
Summer 2008
"Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict"
Journal Article, International Security, issue 1, volume 33
By Maria Stephan, Former Research Fellow, Intrastate Conflict Program/International Security Program, 2003-2005 and Erica Chenoweth, Associate, International Security Program
The historical record indicates that nonviolent campaigns have been more successful than armed campaigns in achieving ultimate goals in political struggles, even when used against similar opponents and in the face of repression. Nonviolent campaigns are more likely to win legitimacy, attract widespread domestic and international support, neutralize the opponent's security forces, and compel loyalty shifts among erstwhile opponent supporters than are armed campaigns, which enjoin the active support of a relatively small number of people, offer the opponent a justification for violent counterattacks, and are less likely to prompt loyalty shifts and defections. An original, aggregate data set of all known major nonviolent and violent resistance campaigns from 1900 to 2006 is used to test these claims. These dynamics are further explored in case studies of resistance campaigns in Southeast Asia that have featured periods of both violent and nonviolent resistance.
Summer 2008
"Divining Nuclear Intentions: A Review Essay"
Journal Article, International Security, issue 1, volume 33
By William C. Potter and Gaukhar Mukhatzhanova
Although projections of nuclear proliferation abound, they rarely are founded on empirical research or guided by theory. Even fewer studies are informed by a comparative perspective. The two books under review—The Psychology of Nuclear Proliferation: Identity, Emotions, and Foreign Policy, by Jacques Hymans, and Nuclear Logics: Alternative Paths in East Asia and the Middle East, by Etel Solingen, are welcome exceptions to this general state of affairs, and represent the cutting edge of nonproliferation research. Both works challenge conventional conceptions of the sources of nuclear weapons decisions and offer new insights into why past predictions of rapid proliferation failed to materialize and why current prognoses about rampant proliferation are similarly flawed. While sharing a number of common features, including a focus on subsystemic determinants of national behavior, the books differ in their methodology, level of analysis, receptivity to multicausal explanations, and assumptions about decisionmaker rationality and the revolutionary nature of the decision. Where one author emphasizes the importance of the individual leader’s national identity conception in determining a state’s nuclear path, the other explains nuclear decisions primarily with regard to the political-economic orientation of the ruling coalition. Notwithstanding a tendency to overinterpret evidence, the books represent the best of contemporary social science research and provide compelling interpretations of nuclear proliferation dynamics of great relevance to scholars and policymakers alike.
February 1, 2008
"Kenya Countdown"
Magazine or Newspaper Article, Newsweek
Should foreign peacekeepers be deployed to Kenya? In spite of the involvement of high-profile facilitators, like former U.N. secretary-general Kofi Annan, killings are continuing in what was once one of Africa's most stable countries.
January 17, 2008
Ruthless Humanitarianism
Book Chapter
By Doug Brooks and Matan Chorev, Senior Research Assistant, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
Over the past twenty years, Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs) have become significant elements of national security arrangements, assuming many of the functions that have traditionally been undertaken by state armies. Given the centrality of control over the use of coercive force to the functioning and identity of the modern state, and to international order, these developments clearly are of great practical and conceptual interest.
This edited volume provides an interdisciplinary overview of PMSCs: what they are, why they have emerged in their current form, how they operate, their current and likely future military, political, social and economic impact, and the moral and legal constraints that do and should apply to their operation. The book focuses firstly upon normative issues raised by the development of PMSCs, and then upon state regulation and policy towards PMSCs, examining finally the impact of PMSCs on civil-military relations. It takes an innovative approach, bringing theory and empirical research into mutually illuminating contact. Includes contributions from experts in IR, political theory, international and corporate law, and economics, and also breaks important new ground by including philosophical discussions of PMSCs.
2008
War, Peace and Hegemony in a Globalized World:The Changing Balance of Power in the Twenty-First Century
Book
This book focuses on how the US could adapt its foreign policy initiatives to fit in with the growing aspirations of a multipolar world for a more balanced international order.
