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421. EU Civilian Rapid Reaction - trouble ahead!

Author:
Peter Viggo Jakobsen
Publication Date:
12-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)
Abstract:
This brief takes issue with the prevailing view that the ESDP capacity building process is easier and has been more successful in the civilian than in the military field. It argues that civilian capacity building is harder than military capacity building, demonstrates that the EU's civilian rapid reaction capacity is considerably smaller and less integrated than it is generally assumed, and that the capacity goals set for 2008 are unattainable. Yet another major EU expectations-capability gap has been created and there is now a real danger that this gap will seriously damage the EU's reputation as the global leader in civilian crisis management.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Civil Society, and Development
Political Geography:
Europe

422. After Enlargement: Europe's New Migration System

Author:
Adrian Favell
Publication Date:
12-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)
Abstract:
Policy makers underestimate the importance of underlying demographics and labour market dynamics on future East-West migration in Europe. Flows have generally been demand driven, and have therefore been drawn by European nations with the most open and informal labour markets – such as Britain, Ireland, Italy and Spain –rather than more highly regulated welfare states such as Denmark. They are also more likely to be circular and temporary than one way immigration. I discuss the desirability of the apparently inevitable trend in Europe towards a more US style international labour market that strongly parallels the migration system between the US and Mexico. The underlying trend in Europe is towards the emergence of a more regionalised system, in which West European societies come to rely on East European movers to fill secondary labour market needs in the service economy, rather than more racially or ethnically distinct non-European immigrants.
Topic:
Development, Migration, and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe

423. Hydrogen Fuel Cells and Transport Alternatives: Issues for Developing Countries

Author:
Grant Boyle and Lynn Mytelka
Publication Date:
05-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Recent technological advances in the application of hydrogen fuel cells in the transport sector have drawn considerable attention and increased funding from both public and private sources over the past ten years. The International Energy Agency estimates that about US$1billion per year is currently being invested in public hydrogen and fuel cell research, development, test vehicles, prototype refuelling stations and demonstration projects, as compared to the total annual public budget for energy research, development and demonstration of around US$8billion. While still in the early stages of development and costly in comparison to conventional vehicle propulsion and fuel technologies, fuel cells and hydrogen offer a promising solution to address growing concerns over the transport sector's dependence on oil and its impact on climate change.
Topic:
Development, Energy Policy, Science and Technology, and Third World
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

424. Promoting security sector governance in the EU's neighbourhood

Author:
Heiner Hänggi and Fred Tanner
Publication Date:
07-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
European Union Institute for Security Studies
Abstract:
With the European Union's enlargement eastwards and southwards, its neighbourhood now stretches from the Balkans to the south Caucasus, and from Russia to the southern Mediterranean. The EU's eastern and southern neighbourhood is composed of areas which, to a greater or lesser extent, have serious deficits in security, development and democracy. There are many types of security problems, ranging from weak states and rampant international crime to spoilers in post-conflict reconstruction and unpredictable authoritarian leaders who pursue regime security often at the expense of national or regional security. In terms of socio-economic development, most of the countries in the EU's neighbourhood are fragile, often struggling with the effects of black market economies and cronyism, and burdened by bloated defence and security sectors that escape any accountability. As regards political systems, the EU's neighbourhood is composed of regime types ranging from new but weak democracies to regimes with authoritarian features and limited political participation.
Topic:
Security, Development, and Government
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Caucasus, and Balkans

425. The European Union and the United Nations Partners in Effective Multilateralism

Author:
Sven Biscop, Francesco Francioni, Kennedy Graham, Tânia Felício, Jeffrey Laurenti, Thierry Tardy, and Jean-Marie Guéhenno
Publication Date:
06-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
European Union Institute for Security Studies
Abstract:
In a famous speech to the United Nations General Assembly on 23 September 2003, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan launched a reflection process on the future of the organisation. He pointed out: we have come to a fork in the road. This may be a moment no less decisive than 1945 itself, when the United Nations was founded. At that time, a group of far-sighted leaders, led and inspired by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, were determined to make the second half of the twentieth century different from the first half. They saw that the human race had only one world to live in, and that unless it managed its affairs prudently, all human beings may perish. So they drew up rules to govern international behaviour, and founded a network of institutions, with the United Nations at its centre, in which the peoples of the world could work together for the common good. Now we must decide whether it is possible to continue on the basis agreed then, or whether radical changes are needed.
Topic:
Security, Development, and United Nations
Political Geography:
Europe

426. The OSCE Between Crisis and Reform: Towards a New Lease on Life

Author:
Victor-Yves Ghébali
Publication Date:
11-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance (DCAF)
Abstract:
In the post-Cold War landscape of European security, four quite different type of multilateral institutions are operating with partially intersecting mandates: NATO, the European Union, the Council of Europe and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). As a direct offspring of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), or the Helsinki process, the OSCE certainly illustrates a most original creation of multilateral security diplomacy. Its institutional identity is characterised by a number of features which actually represent proper assets.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Security, and Development
Political Geography:
Europe

427. New Trends in Policing in Western Europe: The Challenges for Bosnia and Herzegovina

Author:
Dominique Wisler
Publication Date:
02-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance (DCAF)
Abstract:
While there is a wide consensus today on the basic principles of democratic policing there is no blueprint of international standards of policing or internationally accepted organisational scheme to which a police in transition looking for guidance could simply seek to conform. Beyond many differences originating from history and political regimes, what exists instead - and can serve as guidance - are best policing practices as well as trends in organising a police service. In fact, as I would like to argue, Western police are experiencing dramatic changes since two decades, changes that affect the organization and the practices profoundly. Police services are indeed reorganized using the conceptual framework of “processes and services” rather than the traditional silos of exclusive competencies between various police branches. Starting from services such as local security, rapid intervention, crowd control and the fight against serious, complex and organized criminality, the architecture of police forces is being remodelled by reformers. Judiciary competencies have ceased to be the basis of a rigid division between the judiciary police and the uniformed police, but, as we will see below, the uniformed police are tasked today with new competencies as a result of a process-oriented reorganisation. This led to a 180 degree shift in the policing architecture: once conceived vertically in hermetic silos of competencies, services are conceptualized more horizontally, process-oriented, cross-cutting competencies.
Topic:
Security, Development, and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe, Bosnia, and Herzegovina

428. The Process from Authoritarianism to Democracy in Spain: the Impact of the 1981 Failed Cup

Author:
José A. Olmeda
Publication Date:
02-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance (DCAF)
Abstract:
It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things. For the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new (Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, Chapter 6).
Topic:
Security, Development, and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe and Spain

429. Increasing Military Influence in Danish Civil-Military Relations

Author:
Henning Sørensen
Publication Date:
02-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance (DCAF)
Abstract:
This chapter pursues developments of Danish civil-military relations to identify changes in the degree of military influence. Two case studies are put forward. The first case deals with long-term change processes in the field of civil-military relations. In this case study, four major areas are investigated: the personnel composition of the Danish defence, its expenditures per capita, its organisational structure, and military participation in defence commissions. Changes in all four areas are pursued over the last-half century revealing increased military influence in Danish civil-military relations. A striking indicator of this development is the case of top military disobedience in 2001, which constitutes the second case study entitled 'Military disobedience of the Danish defence commander'. The consequences of the major military influence for three actors: 'politicians', 'media', and the 'armed forces' are discussed and it is argued that neither of them gains from the increased military influence, not even the professional soldiers. The reported extreme of military behaviour contrasts many examples of military respectful democratic decision-making. Reasons for the military disobedience may be explained by the distinction 'to have' or 'to exercise' democratic control, where the former is the proper type of democratic control of the armed forces and not the latter as wrongfully perceived by the former Danish Joint Chief of Staff (JCS).
Topic:
Security, Civil Society, and Development
Political Geography:
Europe

430. Police and Gendarmerie Reform in Belgium: from Force to Service

Author:
Denis Bergmans
Publication Date:
02-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance (DCAF)
Abstract:
It is for me, as a representative of the Gendar merie, the Belgian federal police, a great honour to be invited as a speaker for this seminar.
Topic:
Security, Development, and Education
Political Geography:
Europe and Belgium