Addressing Security Risks at the Ukrainian Border Through Best Practices on Good Governance


Book Description

With the current security crisis in the Ukraine, border security has become a pressing issue. Both the annexation of Crimea and the temporary occupation of the Donbas region represent serious violations of the country's territorial integrity and of the wider international legal order. This book contains 13 presentations delivered during the two-day NATO Advanced Research Workshop (ARW) 'Addressing Security Risks at the Ukrainian Border through Best Practices on Good Governance – Sources and Counter Measures', which took place in Kyiv, Ukraine, in February 2016. The workshop consisted of 5 expert panels devoted to various aspects of building the integrity of the Ukrainian border management agencies to enhance the border security of the eastern flank of NATO. The topics of these panels were: the integrity of the security sector in Ukraine; corruption as a security risk in border management; institutional tools to combat corruption in border management; increasing preparedness for cross-border crises; and bilateral and multilateral dimensions of international cooperation to enhance the integrity of border management agencies. The workshop contributed to raising awareness of emerging border security challenges, as well as providing a forum for the close cooperation of and the exchange of knowledge between the most relevant local and international agencies. It also made possible the discussion of issues such as the current refugee crisis and the implications - for security - of corruption in border management in a wider context.







Governance Beyond the Law


Book Description

This volume explores the continuous line from informal and unrecorded practices all the way up to illegal and criminal practices, performed and reproduced by both individuals and organisations. The authors classify them as alternative, subversive forms of governance performed by marginal (and often invisible) peripheral actors. The volume studies how the informal and the extra-legal unfold transnationally and, in particular, how and why they have been/are being progressively criminalized and integrated into the construction of global and local dangerhoods; how the above-mentioned phenomena are embedded into a post-liberal security order; and whether they shape new states of exception and generate moral panic whose ultimate function is regulatory, disciplinary and one of crafting practices of political ordering.




Informality, Labour Mobility and Precariousness


Book Description

From the erosion of state legitimacy in Lebanon to the use of smartphones in Kyrgyzstan, from a Polish suburb to the music scene in Azerbaijan, this volume attempts to explain why, in a variety of world regions, a substantial number of people tend to ignore or act against state rules. We propose to look at informality beyond simplistic associations of the phenomenon with a single category such as "informal labour" or "corruption". By doing this, we propose to look for a correlation between the emergence, and persistence, of some informal practices and the quality of governance in a given area. We also suggest that a better understanding of the variety of informal practices present in a region can help conceptualising more adequate interventions and eventually improve the socio-economic conditions of its inhabitants.




The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Regionalism


Book Description

The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Regionalism - the first of its kind - offers a systematic and wide-ranging survey of the scholarship on regionalism, regionalization, and regional governance. Unpacking the major debates, leading authors of the field synthesize the state of the art, provide a guide to the comparative study of regionalism, and identify future avenues of research. Twenty-seven chapters review the theoretical and empirical scholarship with regard to the emergence of regionalism, the institutional design of regional organizations and issue-specific governance, as well as the effects of regionalism and its relationship with processes of regionalization. The authors explore theories of cooperation, integration, and diffusion explaining the rise and the different forms of regionalism. The handbook also discusses the state of the art on the world regions: North America, Latin America, Europe, Eurasia, Asia, North Africa and the Middle East, and Sub-Saharan Africa. Various chapters survey the literature on regional governance in major issue areas such as security and peace, trade and finance, environment, migration, social and gender policies, as well as democracy and human rights. Finally, the handbook engages in cross-regional comparisons with regard to institutional design, dispute settlement, identities and communities, legitimacy and democracy, as well as inter- and transregionalism.




Global Trends 2040


Book Description

"The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic marks the most significant, singular global disruption since World War II, with health, economic, political, and security implications that will ripple for years to come." -Global Trends 2040 (2021) Global Trends 2040-A More Contested World (2021), released by the US National Intelligence Council, is the latest report in its series of reports starting in 1997 about megatrends and the world's future. This report, strongly influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, paints a bleak picture of the future and describes a contested, fragmented and turbulent world. It specifically discusses the four main trends that will shape tomorrow's world: - Demographics-by 2040, 1.4 billion people will be added mostly in Africa and South Asia. - Economics-increased government debt and concentrated economic power will escalate problems for the poor and middleclass. - Climate-a hotter world will increase water, food, and health insecurity. - Technology-the emergence of new technologies could both solve and cause problems for human life. Students of trends, policymakers, entrepreneurs, academics, journalists and anyone eager for a glimpse into the next decades, will find this report, with colored graphs, essential reading.




Rewiring Regional Security in a Fragmented World


Book Description

Rewiring Regional Security in a Fragmented World examines conflict management capacities and gaps regionally and globally, and assesses whether regions--through their regional organizations or through loose coalitions of states, regional bodies, and non-official actors--are able to address an array of new and emerging security threats.







Border Management Modernization


Book Description

Border clearance processes by customs and other agencies are among the most important and problematic links in the global supply chain. Delays and costs at the border undermine a country’s competitiveness, either by taxing imported inputs with deadweight inefficiencies or by adding costs and reducing the competitiveness of exports. This book provides a practical guide to assist policy makers, administrators, and border management professionals with information and advice on how to improve border management systems, procedures, and institutions.




NL ARMS Netherlands Annual Review of Military Studies 2020


Book Description

This open access volume surveys the state of the field to examine whether a fifth wave of deterrence theory is emerging. Bringing together insights from world-leading experts from three continents, the volume identifies the most pressing strategic challenges, frames theoretical concepts, and describes new strategies. The use and utility of deterrence in today’s strategic environment is a topic of paramount concern to scholars, strategists and policymakers. Ours is a period of considerable strategic turbulence, which in recent years has featured a renewed emphasis on nuclear weapons used in defence postures across different theatres; a dramatic growth in the scale of military cyber capabilities and the frequency with which these are used; and rapid technological progress including the proliferation of long-range strike and unmanned systems. These military-strategic developments occur in a polarized international system, where cooperation between leading powers on arms control regimes is breaking down, states widely make use of hybrid conflict strategies, and the number of internationalized intrastate proxy conflicts has quintupled over the past two decades. Contemporary conflict actors exploit a wider gamut of coercive instruments, which they apply across a wider range of domains. The prevalence of multi-domain coercion across but also beyond traditional dimensions of armed conflict raises an important question: what does effective deterrence look like in the 21st century? Answering that question requires a re-appraisal of key theoretical concepts and dominant strategies of Western and non-Western actors in order to assess how they hold up in today’s world. Air Commodore Professor Dr. Frans Osinga is the Chair of the War Studies Department of the Netherlands Defence Academy and the Special Chair in War Studies at the University Leiden. Dr. Tim Sweijs is the Director of Research at The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies and a Research Fellow at the Faculty of Military Sciences of the Netherlands Defence Academy in Breda.