Disposable rebels: US military assistance to insurgents in the Syrian war
During the Syrian War, the US and other Western countries trained, equipped and paid Syrian rebels to fight the government and, later, root out the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). When states use armed groups to attain foreign policy objectives, control is a key concern. The US sought to enforce such control over providers and recipients of lethal military assistance in the period from 2013–18. We investigate the parallel CIA and Department of Defence assistance programmes . We challenge theoretical assumptions related to the application of the principal-agent model to explain the dynamics of foreign assistance to rebels. We argue that, in the US strategy to control rebels, co-ordinating the providers and dividing the recipients of security assistance were essential conditions. Meanwhile, the delays in recruitment, the limitations on the number of soldiers trained, the short supply of weapons and the strict regulation of the actions carried out by the rebels all reduced the efficacy of the assistance. This way of instrumentalising security assistance helped the US and its Western allies to crush ISIL while avoiding a collapse in Damascus. However, this happened at the expense of rebel cohesion, autonomy, and legitimacy.
Iran – revolusjon igjen?
Ei ung kvinnes død etter å ha blitt arrestert av moralpolitiet utløyste dei sterkaste protestane i Iran sidan revolusjonen i 1979. Den islamske republikken er tilbake der han starta.
'The generation that will inherit Syria’: education as citizen aid and political opportunity
Grassroots initiatives to provide education were an integral part of efforts to stem the humanitarian disaster unleashed by the armed conflict in Syria. This article studies activists who organised informal schooling for children amid the devastating war. Building on life story interviews, we highlight the versatility of initiatives in the field of education for citizens who simultaneously engage in humanitarian action and mobilise for political change. There is a natural concern to detach humanitarian work from politics in order to gain and maintain a space for action. This has distanced the study of humanitarian aid from social movements research, which focuses on long-term struggles over power and political structures. We maintain, however, that the social movement literature generally, and studies on structural and cognitive political opportunity specifically, can help refine our understanding of the illusive nature of citizen aid. Our findings indicate that Syrians involved in humanitarian educational activities constructed their own structure of opportunities by monitoring shifting political and humanitarian conditions. Opening schools was a technical and pragmatic solution to the educational disaster caused by war. At the same time, it was motivated by a long lasting desire to free Syria from its political plight and to offer an alternative.
Journalism in the Grey Zone: Pluralism and Media Capture in Lebanon and Tunisia
Lebanon and Tunisia are two of the freest countries in the Middle East and North Africa, but elites in both countries seek to manipulate media organisations and individual journalists to shore up support for themselves and attack opponents. This book explores the political role of journalism in these hybrid settings where democratic and authoritarian practices coexist – a growing trend all over the world. Through interviews with journalists in different positions and analyses of key events in recent years, Journalism in the Grey Zone explains the tensions that media instrumentalisation creates in the news media and how journalists navigate conflicting pressures from powerholders and a marginalised populace. Despite ‘capture’ of the media by political and economic actors, journalism remains a powerful and occasionally disruptive force.
Free, but manipulated? Journalism and politics in Tunisia’s fall from democracy
Tunisia was the only country that started developing as a democracy after the Arab Spring. Several important institutions were established to safeguard a democratic development, not least freedom of speech and free media. Today, however, the country is sliding towards authoritarianism. What happened, and what is the role of the media and journalism in Tunisia's withering democracy?
Johanna Kettenbach
Johanna Kettenbach is a PhD fellow in the Research Group on Peace, Conflict and Development. She is a PhD student in Sociology at the University o...
Islamist Social Movements and Hybrid Regime Types in the Muslim World
Since the Arab Uprisings in 2010–2011 and subsequent counterrevolutions, socio-economic and political crises have occurred with rapid frequency in the Arab Middle East, North Africa, and the Sahel. The aim of our special issue is to investigate how and why social movements that use references to Islam or an explicit Islamist framework have adapted their ideology and their toolbox in order to negotiate and navigate the social and political terrain created by the upheavals in the recent period? Using recent field data to enrich our knowledge of Islamist movements in countries where the Islamist phenomenon has been understudied, this collection provides a framework to understand the growing political volatility and hybridity in Islamist repertoires of contention. The authors of the volume each analyse cases of Islamist social movements shifting, or attempting to shift, from one repertoire to another – from transnational to national, from non-violent to violent or vice versa. The collection shows that social movements adapt in different ways and make use of resources available to them, at times moving far beyond their established ideology and traditional theological references.
Revisiting nuclear hedging: ballistic missiles and the Iranian example
Technological shifts have made nascent nuclear arsenals more vulnerable. In this article, Henrik Stålhane Hiim argues that this provides “nuclear hedgers” – states that deliberately seeking to develop the ability to go nuclear – with strong incentives to acquiring ballistic missiles. The article illustrates this tendency through a case-study of the Iranian missile and rocket programs. It finds that missile acquisition has indeed been an integral part of Iran's hedging strategy, and that several of the systems it has acquired indicate an interest in nuclear weapons delivery.
RUSMENA round tables in Rome and Florence on 1 and 2 June 2022
Climate, Peace and Security Fact Sheet: Iraq