This book analyses trends and changes in the European Union's (EU) humanitarian aid policy, by focusing on the performance of Non-governmental Organisations (NGOs). NGOs have developed strong relationships with international institutions but have also maintained direct interaction with EU member states. The result is a multi-layered process in which national interests, common values, universal principles and global duties meet and interact. By combining a deepening of the theoretical debate with the use of empirical data on the funding of NGO projects by EU institutions and member states, the book significantly furthers our understanding of the complex relationship between these actors. It will appeal to students and scholars interested in EU politics, global security, and international aid, as well as practitioners in the humanitarian field.

Errors in crisis management operations can have deadly consequences. Some international organizations take steps to reform, whereas other organizations tend to repeat the same errors. As budget cuts have led to increased turnover in personnel, how is it that international organizations have maintained any knowledge about past errors? This book introduces an argument for how and why international organizations develop institutional memory of strategic errors. As Heidi Hardt shows, formal learning processes - such as lessons learned offices and databases - can ironically deter elite officials from using the processes to share their relevant knowledge. Elites have few professional incentives to report observed strategic errors. As a result, most memory-building occurs behind the scenes via informal processes. These informal processes include elites' use of transnational interpersonal networks, private documentation, and conversations during crisis management exercises. Such processes ensure that institutional memory develops, but they do so at a price: an organization's memory is vulnerable to knowledge loss if even one critical elite chooses to retire. Hardt tests her argument through extensive, original field research inside one of the world's largest crisis management organizations - the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). She conducted interviews and a survey experiment with 120 NATO elites, including almost all NATO ambassadors and military representatives, all assistant secretary generals, and civilian and military leaders engaged in the decision-making and planning of operations. Her findings provide insights into NATO's institutional memory concerning three cases of crisis management in Afghanistan, Libya, and Ukraine. Ultimately, this book argues that formal learning processes alone are insufficient for an organization to capture knowledge, learn and change.

Why are there so many crises in the world? Is it true that the global system is today riskier and more dangerous than in past decades? Do we have any tools at our disposal to bring these problems under control, to reduce the global system's proneness to instability? These are the tantalizing questions addressed in this book. Using a variety of demographic, economic, financial, social, and political indicators, the book demonstrates that the global system has indeed become an 'architecture of collapse' subject to a variety of shocks. An analysis of the global financial crisis of 2008, the bilateral relationship between the U.S. and China, and the European sovereign debt crisis illustrates how the complexity and tight coupling of system components creates a situation of precarious stability and periodic disruption. This state of affairs can only be improved by enhancing the shock-absorbing components of the system, especially the capacity of states and governments to act, and by containing the shock-diffusing mechanisms. In particular, those related to phenomena such as trade imbalances, portfolio investment, cross-border banking, population ageing, and income and wealth inequality.

Two decades ago, V. Spike Peterson published a book titled Gendered States in which she asked, what difference does gender make in international relations and the construction of the sovereign state system? In the intervening years, a wealth of feminist scholarship has responded to her question, but in doing so, has looked past the nation state to consider the gendered dimensions of issues such as human rights, nationalist movements, development, and economic globalization. Moreover, since 2001, feminist international relations has also focused on international security, forging a new subfield of feminist security studies that revisits more traditional IR topics such as war and national security, albeit from very different perspectives. With a preface by V. Spike Peterson, this book aims to connect the earlier debates of Peterson's book with the gendered state today, one that exists within a globalized and increasingly securitized world. Bringing together an international group of contributors from the Global South, United States, Europe, and Australia, this volume will answer three overarching questions. First, it will answer whether the concept of a "gendered state" is generic or if some states are particularly gendered in their identities and interests, and with what implications for the type of citizenship, society, and international security. Second, it will look at the continued theoretical significance of the gendered state for current IR scholarship. And, finally, it will explain to what extent postcolonial states are distinctive from metropolitan states with regard to gender. Including scholars from International Relations, Postcolonial Studies, and Development Studies, this volume collectively theorizes the modern state and its intricate relationship to security, identity politics, and gender.

The desire exists within Governments to provide for those who are on the fringes of society. Therefore, indigenous approaches seem relevant in the redistribution of resources among citizens. This book is therefore not only essential, but also timely. Indigenous Social Security Systems in Southern and West Africa (ISSS) contributes to human service literature for Africa, Southern Africa and West Africa in particular. The richness of the book lies within the variety of contributions that encourage its origin. The book’s value is extensive and captures many essential and current topics that have an appeal to academicians, policy-makers, analysts and practitioners in the field of social welfare and social security. Ultimately, the book serves as a pragmatic and expedient tool for human service practitioners and any enthusiast of social security systems.

In February of 2011, Libyan citizens rebelled against Muammar Qaddafi and quickly unseated him. The speed of the regime's collapse confounded many observers, and the ensuing civil war showed Foreign Policy's index of failed states to be deeply flawed-FP had, in 2010, identified 110 states as being more likely than Libya to descend into chaos. They were spectacularly wrong, but this points to a larger error in conventional foreign policy wisdom: failed, or weak and unstable, states are not anomalies but are instead in the majority. More states resemble Libya than Sweden. Why are most states weak and unstable? Taking as his launching point Charles Tilly's famous dictum that 'war made the state, and the state made war,' Arjun Chowdhury argues that the problem lies in our mistaken equation of democracy and economic power with stability. But major wars are the true source of stability: only the existential crisis that such wars produced could lead citizens to willingly sacrifice the resources that allowed the state to build the capacity it needed for survival. Developing states in the postcolonial era never experienced the demands major interstate war placed on European states, and hence citizens in those nations have been unwilling to sacrifice the resources that would build state capacity. For example, India and Mexico are established democracies with large economies. Despite their indices of stability, both countries are far from stable: there is an active Maoist insurgency in almost a quarter of India's districts, and Mexico is plagued by violence, drug trafficking, and high levels of corruption in local government. Nor are either effective at collecting revenue. As a consequence, they do not have the tax base necessary to perform the most fundamental tasks of modern states: controlling organized violence in a given territory and providing basic services to citizens. By this standard, the majority of states in the world-about two thirds-are weak states. Chowdury maintains that an accurate evaluation of international security requires a normative shift : the language of weakness and failure belies the fact that strong states are exceptions. Chowdhury believes that dismantling this norm is crucial, as it encourages developing states to pursue state-building via war, which is an extremely costly approach-in terms of human lives and capital. Moreover, in our era, such an approach is destined to fail because the total wars of the past are highly unlikely to occur today. Just as importantly, the non-state alternatives on offer are not viable alternatives. For better or worse, we will continue to live in a state-dominated world where most states are weak. Counterintuitive and sweeping in its coverage, The Myth of International Order demands that we fundamentally rethink foundational concepts of international politics like political stability and state failure.

The extent of Islamicity, or what Islam demands, is measured to confirm that self-declared Muslim countries have not adopted foundational Islamic teachings for rule-compliant Muslim communities. Western countries, on the other hand, are demonstrated to have better implemented fundamental Islamic teachings for a thriving society.

Regional Resurgence in Africa: Prospects and Challenges of African Union perceives the AU as a Pan-African entity with its mandate for 'comprehensive security' in the continent, implying its pursuit of three security objectives: resolution of armed conflicts, political stability and economic security. The AU's interrelationship with the state system, existing and emerging social faultlines, and the multiple regional processes in Africa are interrogated by undertaking case studies on territorial, political and economic security concerns. The findings of this analysis are used to explore the scope for policy improvisation pertaining to the interface among the AU, its member countries and the emerging extra-regional powers, including India.

This book explores how international organizations (IOs) have expanded their powers over time without formally amending their founding treaties. IOs intervene in military, financial, economic, political, social, and cultural affairs, and increasingly take on roles not explicitly assigned to them by law. Sinclair contends that this 'mission creep' has allowed IOs to intervene internationally in a way that has allowed them to recast institutions within and interactions among states, societies, and peoples on a broadly Western, liberal model. Adopting a historical and interdisciplinary, socio-legal approach, Sinclair supports this claim through detailed investigations of historical episodes involving three very different organizations: the International Labour Organization in the interwar period; the United Nations in the two decades following the Second World War; and the World Bank from the 1950s through to the 1990s. The book draws on a wide range of original institutional and archival materials, bringing to light little-known aspects of each organization's activities, identifying continuities in the ideas and practices of international governance across the twentieth century, and speaking to a range of pressing theoretical questions in present-day international law and international relations.

International organizations (IOs) develop institutional provisions to make sure that their policies do not violate human rights. Accordingly, whilst IOs have a greater scope of action and ability to promote collective goods than ever before, they also have a greater capacity to do harm. Based on ten case studies on UN and EU sanctions policy, UN and NATO peacekeeping, and World Bank and IMF lending, this book examines human rights violations which can arise from the actions of IOs rather than those of states. It further explains how powerful IOs have introduced human rights protection provisions and analyzes the features of these provisions, including differences in their design and quality. This book provides evidence of a novel legitimation strategy authoritative IOs draw on that has, as yet, never been systematically studied before.

The Independent Evaluation Group's (IEG) Results and Performance of the World Bank Group (RAP) is a comprehensive assessment of World Bank Group performance, drawing on recent IEG evaluations. The report also examines how effectively the World Bank Group addressed current and emerging development challenges. This year's RAP focuses on gender integration in World Bank Group operations, building on previous examinations of World Bank Group approaches to risk management (RAP 2013) and the Millennium Development Goals (RAP 2014). 'No country, community, or economy can achieve its potential or meet the challenges of the 21st century without the full and equal participation of women and men, girls and boys.' This statement from the World Bank Group website's topic page on gender states the essential importance of gender for development. In line with that view, the World Bank Group made considerable progress in addressing gender issues during the past 15 years. Gender has been a prominent corporate objective since the first World Bank Group strategy, introduced in 2001. This year, a new World Bank Group gender strategy has been launched - the first joint World Bank - International Finance Corporation (IFC) strategy to focus on gender. It is an important step toward sharpening the corporate focus on gender and improving the approach to gender mainstreaming. This report describes how mechanisms for integrating gender in projects and country strategies are working, and to what extent they provide meaningful information about progress and results on gender. The analysis aims to inform World Bank Group efforts to strengthen the approach to documenting, assessing, and evaluating results as part of the new strategy rollout. The report also reviews how effectively the World Bank Group's portfolio and country programs deliver results, and its system for monitoring the implementation of IEG's recommendations.

The Puzzle of Peace moves beyond defining peace as the absence of war and develops a broader conceptualization and explanation for the increasing peacefulness of the international system. The authors track the rise of peace as a new phenomenon in international history starting after 1945. International peace has increased because international society has developed a set of norms dealing with territorial conflict, by far the greatest source of international war over previous centuries. These norms prohibit the use of military force in resolving territorial disputes and acquiring territory, thereby promoting border stability. This includes the prohibition of the acquisition of territory by military means as well as attempts by secessionist groups to form states through military force. International norms for managing international conflict have been accompanied by increased mediation and adjudication as means of managing existing territorial conflicts.

Virtually every important question of public policy today involves an international organization. From trade to intellectual property to health policy and beyond, governments interact with international organizations in almost everything they do. Increasingly, individual citizens are directly affected by the work of international organizations. Aimed at academics, students, practitioners, and lawyers, this book gives a comprehensive overview of the world of international organizations today. It emphasizes both the practical aspects of their organization and operation, and the conceptual issues that arise at the junctures between nation-states and international authority, and between law and politics. While the focus is on inter-governmental organizations, the book also encompasses non-governmental organizations and public policy networks. With essays by the leading scholars and practitioners, the book first considers the main international organizations and the kinds of problems they address. This includes chapters on the organizations that relate to trade, humanitarian aid, peace operations, and more, as well as chapters on the history of international organizations. The book then looks at the constituent parts and internal functioning of international organizations. This addresses the internal management of the organization, and includes chapters on the distribution of decision-making power within the organizations, the structure of their assemblies, the role of Secretaries-General and other heads, budgets and finance, and other elements of complex bureaucracies at the international level. This book is essential reading for scholars, practitioners, and students alike.

After the conservative Arab Gulf Monarchies - Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) - joined forces on 25 May 1981 within the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC), few fathomed that security requirements on and around the Arabian Peninsula would be so precarious and for so long. To answer their search for permanent stability, Arab Gulf rulers erected a regional alliance that sought to integrate internal and regional defences, as well as strengthen their existing socio-economic ties. Several of the monarchies even hoped that co-ordination on foreign policy issues over which near unanimity existed could, eventually, lead to a full-fledged union as envisaged in the organisation's founding charter. Between 1981 and 2015 these Arab Gulf monarchies experienced major socio-political transformations resulting from upheavals throughout the Arab and Muslim worlds. The perceived necessity to bring about a full-fledged union has come into conflict with entrenched viewpoints from regimes that value traditional military/political roles and norms. In this new study, Joseph A Kechichian provides an evaluation of GCC States' military institutions to better evaluate whether a stable alliance is capable of enduring over the next few decades, and how civilian leaders perceive the role and influence of their military officers for the task. Kechichian raises fundamental questions over internal, regional and international threats, including an existential challenge emanating from the Islamic revolutionary government of Iran, and assesses how GCC professionals may be pre-paring to tackle them. He further elucidates on the best methods to meet security challenges not only to secure political survival but also to determine whether conservative Arab Gulf regimes can flourish outside an effective alliance. The volume concludes with an examination of evolving civil-military relations in the GCC States.

After the conservative Arab Gulf Monarchies - Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) - joined forces on 25 May 1981 within the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC), few fathomed that security requirements on and around the Arabian Peninsula would be so precarious and for so long. To answer their search for permanent stability, Arab Gulf rulers erected a regional alliance that sought to integrate internal and regional defences, as well as strengthen their existing socio-economic ties. Several of the monarchies even hoped that co-ordination on foreign policy issues over which near unanimity existed could, eventually, lead to a full-fledged union as envisaged in the organisation's founding charter. Between 1981 and 2015 these Arab Gulf monarchies experienced major socio-political transformations resulting from upheavals throughout the Arab and Muslim worlds. The perceived necessity to bring about a full-fledged union has come into conflict with entrenched viewpoints from regimes that value traditional military/political roles and norms. In this new study, Joseph A Kechichian provides an evaluation of GCC States' military institutions to better evaluate whether a stable alliance is capable of enduring over the next few decades, and how civilian leaders perceive the role and influence of their military officers for the task. Kechichian raises fundamental questions over internal, regional and international threats, including an existential challenge emanating from the Islamic revolutionary government of Iran, and assesses how GCC professionals may be pre-paring to tackle them. He further elucidates on the best methods to meet security challenges not only to secure political survival but also to determine whether conservative Arab Gulf regimes can flourish outside an effective alliance. The volume concludes with an examination of evolving civil-military relations in the GCC States.

The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea is an independent judicial body established by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea to adjudicate disputes arising out of the interpretation and application of the Convention. This volume contains the texts of the judicial decisions rendered by the Tribunal in the year 2015 in English and French.

The development paradigm has shifted toward private investment, and the private sector has become central in development strategies. There is much to be learned about how to effectively facilitate and mobilize private sector contributions to development. Effective monitoring and evaluation (M and E) systems are critical for learning to catalyze private sector development. In line with this advance, the International Finance Corporation and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency are developing and refining their M and E efforts. In this Biennial Report on Operations Evaluation, the Independent Evaluation Group takes stock of the evolution of the M and E systems in the two organizations, assessing their adequacy, coverage, and quality, as well as their respective results measurement systems. IEG acknowledges progress by the two institutions. IFC has advanced its systems for gathering, analyzing, and applying project information and has strengthened its coverage of indicators that measure results. Information from M and E has become more prominent in its business decisions. However, the institution s corporate goals are built on indicators of client reach that cannot be solely attributable to IFC, so there is no credible articulation of IFC s impact. MIGA has introduced self-evaluation of its projects and started gathering some standard development indicators. As a result, individual learning is taking place in the institution. The report shows the importance of IFC and MIGA managements continuing their efforts to deepen M and E and improve their systems. To gain the full benefit of learning from evidence that M and E brings to light, key areas need improvement. IEG offers recommendations for IFC regarding quality, verification of data, and tracing effects. For MIGA, IEG notes that it needs to adapt and streamline its evaluation approach to fit its business practices."

The creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was one of the most important accomplishments of American diplomacy in countering the Soviet threat during the early days of the Cold War. Why and how such a reversal of a 150-year nonalignment policy by the United States was brought about, and how the goals of the treaty became a reality, are questions addressed here by a leading scholar of NATO. The importance of restoring Europe to strength and stability in the post-World War II years was as obvious to America as to its allies, but the means of achieving that goal were far from clear. The problem for European statesmen was how to secure much- needed American economic and military aid without sacrificing political independence. For American policymakers, in contrast, a degree of American control was seen as an essential quid pro quo. As Mr. Kaplan shows, the lengthy negotiations of 1947 and 1948 were chiefly concerned with reconciling these opposing views.For the Truman administration, the difficulties of achieving a treaty acceptable to the allies were matched by those of winning its acceptance by Congress and the public. Many Americans saw such an "entangling alliance" as a threat not only to American security but to the viability of the United Nations. Mr. Kaplan demonstrates the tortuous course of the debate on the treaty and the pivotal role of the communist invasion of South Korea in its ultimate approval. This authoritative study offers a timely reevaluation of the origins of an alliance that continues to play a critical role in the balance of power and in the prospects for world peace.

Since the Libya War in 2011 it has been widely suggested that NATO's role in US security policy has diminished, because Washington gives Europe less and Asia more strategic priority (a tendency that is reinforced by budget restraints), and because the US is no longer interested in always leading NATO activities that mainly concern European conditions. Several experts have suggested that the US expect that the European security challenges primarily should be handled by NATO's European allies in a new transatlantic burden sharing model, and that the US role should principally be Article V-focused. This book investigates to what extent these claims are valid, and what consequences they may have for European and international security.

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, NATO's middle powers have been pressured into shouldering an increasing share of the costs of the transatlantic alliance. In Sharing the Burden? Benjamin Zyla rejects the claim that countries like Canada have shirked their responsibilities within NATO.

Using a range of measures that go beyond troop numbers and defense budgets to include peacekeeping commitments, foreign economic assistance, and contributions to NATO's rapid reaction forces and infrastructure, Zyla argues that, proportionally, Canada's NATO commitments in the 1990s rivaled those of the alliance's major powers. At the same time, he demonstrates that Canadian policy was driven by strong normative principles to assist failed and failing states rather than a desire to ride the coattails of the United States, as is often presumed.

An important challenge to realist theories, Sharing the Burden? is a significant contribution to the debate on the nature of alliances in international relations.

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, NATO's middle powers have been pressured into shouldering an increasing share of the costs of the transatlantic alliance. In Sharing the Burden? Benjamin Zyla rejects the claim that countries like Canada have shirked their responsibilities within NATO.

Using a range of measures that go beyond troop numbers and defense budgets to include peacekeeping commitments, foreign economic assistance, and contributions to NATO's rapid reaction forces and infrastructure, Zyla argues that, proportionally, Canada's NATO commitments in the 1990s rivaled those of the alliance's major powers. At the same time, he demonstrates that Canadian policy was driven by strong normative principles to assist failed and failing states rather than a desire to ride the coattails of the United States, as is often presumed.

An important challenge to realist theories, Sharing the Burden? is a significant contribution to the debate on the nature of alliances in international relations.

IEG s evaluation shows that the World Bank Group remained an important partner for the government in addressing many key policy challenges. The World Bank adapted its program effectively to meet shifting country needs, which shifted to subnational government support in the mid-2000s. The International Finance Corporation (IFC) provided useful advisory support for structuring public-private partnership projects and trade finance during the 2008 09 global financial crisis. The Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) concentrated its activities on the electricity transmission subsector. IEG rates the overall outcome of the Bank Group program as moderately satisfactory, with some important variability across themes. The Bank Group made significant contributions when it served as an advisor, providing analytical input and exchanging views on relevant policy issues. Advisory support for structuring public-private partnership projects leveraged IFC s global expertise in project financing. The Bank Group s convening power provided diverse stakeholders with a platform to examine issues and trade-offs that cut across organizational boundaries. In addition, the Bank helped reduce deforestation in the Amazon through support for a major expansion of protected areas and indigenous territories, as well as for building the capacity of national and state environmental agencies. Results were less satisfactory in addressing infrastructure bottlenecks, particularly in logistics and the cost of doing business. These areas remained critical constraints to Brazil s growth and a key government concern. A question regarding the overall country strategy is whether the use of a few very large operations with opportunity cost relative to the IBRD exposure limit was appropriate. The strong demand for Bank Group financial and knowledge support in Brazil is likely to continue. To ensure efficient use of operational resources, the Bank Group must maximize its contribution per dollar loaned and per dollar of Bank Group budget resources. IEG recommends that the Bank Group make catalytic impact a major criterion in the design of its future strategy in Brazil. This means that in selecting the programs and projects to support, the emphasis should be on those with benefits beyond the individual intervention."