Development & Security

Crisis del Estado y dominios civiles en África December 2006
Mariano Aguirre and David Sogge
Los conflictos y la pobreza del África subsahariana causan gran preocupación en la comunidad internacional, que busca intensamente nuevos remedios para el continente. Dos textos analizan, a través de la historia, la política y las características actuales de la sociedad civil y los efectos de siglos de expolio colonialista e intervenciones extranjeras.

Mercosur: entre doctrinas, mercado y seguridad
Adriana Rossi
TNI briefing series 3, September 2006
Mercosur, a regional trade bloc consisting of Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay and, more recently, Venezuela, has always been seen by Washington as both a security threat and an opportunity to promote free trade. The presidencies of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Evo Morales in Bolivia, an associate member of Mercosur, have only augmented Washington’s wish to undermine its capacity to provide continental leadership. Andriana Rossi charts the challenges to Mercosur.

From What Now to What Next
Reflections on three decades of international politics and development June 2006
By Praful Bidwai
Today’s globalised world is deeply contradictory. Growing interdependence, exchange and interaction have been accompanied by large-scale exclusion, insecurity, economic and political devastation. In this contribution to the Dag Hammarskjold Foundation’s “What Next” project, Bidwai charts thirty years of international politics and development. There have been several positive trends, including decolonisation and political independence, massive increases in literacy, and impressive gains in life expectancy. But there have been many more changes for the worse. North-South disparities have grown, thanks to skewed world trade and investment regimes, the failure of aid, and the neoliberal undermining of states in the global South. Processes of domination (including a US politics of empire) and overconsumption (particularly of fossil fuels, with the climate change implications already being felt) are coupled by multiple processes of erosion – of natural wealth, the environment, cultures and languages, of security and, worst of all, of democracy. But civil society resistance to neoliberalism does, at least, offer a silver lining to this dark cloud, writes Bidwai.

Angola: Global "Good Governance" Also Needed [PDF] June 2006
By David Sogge
Although Angola has emerged from war, a hoped-for “peace dividend” has yet to be paid to most of its citizens. The country’s political and business elites enjoy the fruits of the country’s petrodollars, but ordinary citizens face collosal deficits in public services, livelihoods and legitimate governmance. Sogge charts Angola’s tragedy and what role international corporations and Western powers play in it.

State crisis and regional projects in Africa [PDF]
Crisis del Estado y proyectos regionales en África May 2006
By Mariano Aguirre
Aguirre considers Uniting Africa, a new book reflecting upon regional cooperation on peace, security and crisis issues.

The Rise of the Relief and Reconstruction Complex May 2006
By Walden Bello
The current US brand of ‘humanitarianism’ has put strategic considerations before people’s needs. Disaster relief and post-conflict resolution are increasingly influenced by neo-liberal market economics, as promoted by the World Bank and influenced by the US, its dominant member. Bello maps the rise of this new relief and reconstruction complex, and calls for the return of the United Nations and the Red Cross as the main actors in disaster relief and post-conflict reconstruction work.

Naciones Unidas y España en Haití
United Nations and Spain in Haiti [PDF] February 2006
Mariano Aguirre
With the aid of a flexible reading of Haiti's election law, Rene Preval became the country's president, hopefully bringing some stability to the island. Haiti's instability is a consequence of its colonial past, exacerbated by the effects of globalisation. If the Brazilian-led UN peacekeeping operation is not extended beyond six months, when the current mission expires, Haiti could recede into chaos, predicts Aguirre.

The United Nations and Spain in Haití [PDF]
Naciones Unidas y España en Haití [PDF], February 2006
By Mariano Aguirre
With the aid of a flexible reading of Haiti's election law, Rene Preval became the country's president, hopefully bringing some stability to the island. Haiti's instability is a consequence of its colonial past, exacerbated by the effects of globalisation. If the Brazilian-led UN peacekeeping operation is not extended beyond six months, when the current mission expires, Haiti could recede into chaos, predicts Aguirre.

Failed states or weak democracies? The state in Latin America 17 January 2006
By Mariano Aguirre
Latin Americans’ search for new models of governance can benefit from an understanding of how their fragile states encourage violence and block democracy, writes Mariano Aguirre.

Falta de desarrollo y violencia: combinación letal1 Enero 2006
By Mariano Aguirre
World security cannot be achieved without a focus on development and poverty eradication. The recourse to arms as the principal means of achieving security is certain to aggravate the situation, increase violence, and threaten international rules. Aguirre analyses the inadequacies of the 2005 UN report “In larger Freedom”, and highlights need for an integral approach that links security to poverty reduction, disarmament, and human development.

Una superpotencia en constante declive December 2005
By Mariano Aguirre
Aguirre dissects the failed policies of the Bush Administration, both within and without the US, and asks whether the Bush Administration will be remembered for the beginning of the long fall of US hegemony.

Violencia y Estados (¿frágiles?) en América Latina December 2005
By Mariano Aguirre
In his review of the new book "State and Violence" by Dutch authors Kees Koning and Dirk Kruijt, Aguirre highlights the question as to whether the frailty of a state originates in the illegitimacy of its institutions, or in its civil society that perhaps trusts in violence more than dialogue.

Bush: An Assessment Progreso Weekly, 20 October 2005
By Saul Landau
With his criminal policy in Iraq, and mismanagement of the hurricane disasters, Bush's popularity continues to fall. Now, when even his media manipulator Karl Rove is deep in corruption, Bush will find it increasingly difficult to keep his public image, writes Landau.

Bush Sends John Bolton to the United Nations 3 August 2005
By Phyllis Bennis
Relying on an emergency constitutional provision President Bush appointed John Bolton the new US ambassador to the UN. He is unequivocally committed to the Bush administration's long-standing policy of unilateralism. But following his reputation of a bully, few at UN headquarters are likely to take his "persuasions" seriously. As a result, this may turn out to be an opportunity for international social movements and allied governments to advance campaign to reclaim the United Nations.

The War and Peace Equation Today: Global Trends Threaten Local Initiatives
By Walden Bello
Speech delivered at the founding conference of the Global Partnership for
the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC), held at the UN General Assembly
Hall, New York City, 19-21 July 2005
Negative developments at the global level are leading towards greater
destabilisation and greater human insecurity. GPPAC should relate to the
global peace and justice movements if it is to contribute effectively to
the making of a truly more secure world, says Bello. He also calls on
global civil society to join in a strategic alliance with Southern
governments in the UN reform debate.

Exporting Democracy, Revising Torture: The Complex Missions of Michael Ignatieff 15 July 2005
By Mariano Aguirre
Analysing Michael Ignatieff's patriotic article that claims that with occupation of Iraq and the war against terrorism, the US is promoting the "Jeffersonian dream" of promoting democracy, Aguirre shows that the government that went to war in defiance of the UN Security Council, actively promotes the failure of the UN, refuses to sign international treaties, opts out of international justice and ignores human rights in prisons is a government that is violating rather than promoting the Jeffersonian dream.

David Sogge States with adjectives March 2004
By David Sogge
Sogge explores the new phenomenon of failed states, and warns of the dangerous discourse in terms of preferred solutions: the imposition from outside and from above of a new regime, military occupation, and protectorates. This is imperialism with adjectives - like "benign" or "humanitarian".

Failed and Collapsed States in the International System
A report prepared by The Transnational Institute (Amsterdam), The African Studies Centre (Leiden), The Center of Social Studies (Coimbra University, Portugal) and The Peace Research Center- CIP-FUHEM (Madrid), December 2003

Aid =/= Help: Development Aid Is Driven by Politics, Not a Desire to Alleviate Poverty
By David Sogge
Over the past couple of decades, a major problem has been dogging foreign aid: where its leading institutions hold sway, poverty tends to get worse, not better. That is because the main aid institutions basically pay recipients to adopt a Big Idea, which is market fundamentalism. It requires countries to open their economies, push down labour costs, restrict consumption, sell off assets and radically reduce central government taxing and spending except to repay foreign debts. Sogge calls for coherence and democratisation of the aid if it is to serve to reduce poverty.

Angola: The Client Who Came in From the Cold Winter 2000
by David Sogge

Foreign Aid: Does it harm or help? 23 February 2000
By David Sogge

The Strings Attached to Aid in Africa 22 may 1999
By David Sogge