Election 2019: Empowering women, without women?
Japan’s government has put women’s empowerment high on its agenda – but women remain poorly represented in politics, and that shows few signs of changing, writes Wrenn Yennie Lindgren in this op-ed.
United Nations Stabilization Operations: Chapter Seven and a Half
The UN Security Council has in recent years included the term ‘stabilization’ in the name of the operations deployed to Haiti, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali and Central African Republic. But, are they stabilization operations? Although the concept has become increasingly popular in the UN context, it seems to denote everything from robust military action to early peacebuilding activities, and for this reason the UN high-level independent panel on peace operations in 2015 recommended to avoid the concept until it was further clarified. To contribute to this clarification, the article follows two main lines of inquiry—first it unpacks the different meanings of stabilization in UN peace operations by drawing upon the experiences of current UN stabilization missions such as MONUSCO in the DRC and MINUSMA in Mali. Based on this inquiry, it argues that what we are witnessing is cognitive slippage—where a broad range of unrelated activities are gathered under the same concept as a discursive tool to get financial and political support from Western partners. Second, the article ventures on to examine how the center of gravity of international interventions has moved on to a prevalence of ad-hoc coalitions undertaking counterterrorism operations, and what impact this has on UN peace operations, and in particular the understanding of stabilization in these. It argues that these missions could be termed Chapter seven and a half operations as they combine UN peace operations under Chapter VII mandates with the inclusion of regional ad hoc coalitions of the willing.
Lebanese Sunni Islamism: A Post-Election Review
This research note analyses the internal and external factors that led to Al-Jama‘a al-Islamiyya‘s loss of its only parliamentary seat in 2018. Al-Jama‘a al-Islamiyya is the Lebanese branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Through this case, the author assesses the status of Lebanon’s Sunni community and the electoral fortunes of regional Muslim Brotherhood organizations more generally. The main external factors leading to Al-Jama‘a al-Islamiyya’s electoral decline included the abandonment by the Future Movement, the law on proportional representation, potential regional involvement in the Lebanese elections and the rise of pro-Hezbollah Sunni MPs like those belonging to al-Ahbash. The internal challenges faced by Al-Jama‘a al-Islamiyya, on the other hand, include its strategic dilemma on how to position itself in the sectarianized 'New Middle East' after the Arab uprisings, as well as its organizational structure and its inability to properly convince its supporters of the last-minute alliance with the Christian Free Patriotic Movement (FPM). This note also analyses the fate of Lebanon’s Salafis and their absence from the elections, a result of the security pressures they face following their political support of the Islamist armed opposition in neighboring Syria. Furthermore, the research note explores the trajectory of the Al Masharee’ Association known as Al-Ahbash which, by returning to parliament in 2018, presented a fatal blow to the electoral hopes of Lebanon’s Sunni Islamists.
Frukostseminar: EU i Sahel – frå gode intensjonar til Europa først?
Forskarar frå nokre av dei leiande institutta i verda har i eit treårig prosjekt sett nærare på kva for nokre lokale innverknader EUs kriserespons har hatt i områda der desse har funne stad, og korleis unionen kan forbetre responsmekanismane sine.
BRI in Central Asia: Energy Connectivity Projects
One of the strategic objectives of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in Central Asia is to provide China with alternative import/export and energy supply routes. This data article shows that the presentation and coverage of BRI projects varies considerably from country to country. The largest number of BRI projects in Central Asia are implemented in Kazakhstan and are in the oil and gas sector. By contrast, Turkmenistan is implementing only a few Chinese energy projects, though they are large-scale and its sum of investment is the second-largest of the Central Asian states.
Renewable Energy Policies of the Central Asian Countries
This data article surveys the government policies in support of renewable energy in the five Central Asian republics: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. It begins by providing general information and key energy statistics for these countries. It then presents comparative data on their regulatory policies, fiscal incentives, and public financing policies. The data were collected from government institutions of the Central Asian states, official national statistics, media reports, and international organizations.
Derfor skal vi bry oss om G20-toppmøtet i Japan
Utfordringene knyttet til frihandel og markedstilgang er svært viktige for Norge. Det vil de fortsette å være når G20 forflytter seg til Riyadh i 2020, skriver Wrenn Yennie Lindgren i denne kronikken.
Hvordan forholder islamist-grupper seg til den moderne staten?
Forskerne bak HYRES-prosjektet ser nærmere på islamistgrupper i Mali, Irak, Libya og Libanon. Nå er de første resultatene klare.