The determinants of election to the United Nations Security Council

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11127-013-0096-4.The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is the foremost international body responsible for the maintenance of international peace and security. Members vote on issues of global importance and consequently receive perks—election to the UNSC predicts, for instance, World Bank and IMF loans. But who gets elected to the UNSC? Addressing this question empirically is not straightforward as it requires a model that allows for discrete choices at the regional and international levels; the former nominates candidates while the latter ratifies them. Using an original multiple discrete choice model to analyze a dataset of 180 elections from 1970 to 2005, we find that UNSC election appears to derive from a compromise between the demands of populous countries to win election more frequently and a norm of giving each country its turn. We also find evidence that richer countries from the developing world win election more often, while involvement in warfare lowers election probability. By contrast, development aid does not predict election

Probing the Links between Political Economy and Non-Traditional Security: Themes, Approaches, and Instruments

This is a pre-print of an article published in International Politics. The definitive publisher-authenticated version of: Hameiri, Shahar, and Lee Jones. "Probing the links between political economy and non-traditional security: Themes, approaches and instruments." International Politics (2015), is available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/ip.2015.1In recent decades, the security agenda for states and international organisations has expanded dramatically to include a range of ‘non-traditional’, transnational security issues. It is often suggested that globalisation has been a key driver for the emergence or intensification of these problems, but, surprisingly, little sustained scholarly effort has been made to examine the link between responses to the new security agenda and the changing political economy. This curious neglect largely reflects the mutual blind-spots of the sub-disciplines of International Security Studies and International Political Economy, coupled with the dominance of approaches that tend to neglect economic factors. This special issue, which this article introduces, aims to overcome this significant gap. In particular, it focuses on three key themes: the broad relationship between security and the political economy; what is being secured in the name of security, and how this has changed; and how things are being secured – what modes of governance have emerged to manage security problems. In all of these areas, the contributions point to the crucial role of the state in translating shifting state-economy relations to new security definitions and practices

The Elephant in the Room: Off-shore companies, liberalisation and extension of presidential power in DR Congo

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, donors promoted rapid liberalisation and presidential elections in the aftermath of the war, and after two terms, President Kabila has not left office. This article engages with the question of how liberalisation and elections are connected, and how they are related to the extension of presidential power. It finds that the international market for minerals has shaped the domestic political economy but its nature has effectively been ignored in the formulation of donor policy; efforts at regulating trade have been concentrated on due diligence of origin in Congo but have not addressed the secrecy of international trade. Liberalisation has removed control of economic resources from Congo, provided returns for elite politicians and funded violence to control the disenfranchised population. The offshore companies are the elephant in the room; without acknowledging them, analysis of the liberalisation and its interaction with presidential tenure lacks assessment of the opportunities, interests and power that shaped the processes

The fatal attraction of civil war economies: foreign direct investment and political violence. A case study of Colombia

Civil war acutely inhibits economic growth, according to a prominent set of civil war literature. However, recent scholarship observes that Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), considered a central vehicle of growth, is entering countries with internal armed conflicts unabated. Furthermore, some civil war economies exhibit substantial increases in FDI during conflict. According to this scholarship, FDI enters conflict zones in spite of violence. This article contrastingly adopts a critical framework acknowledging the often violent characteristics of globalised capitalism. By analysing Colombia’s oil industry (the country’s largest sector of FDI), this article suggests that civil war violence can create conditions that facilitate FDI inflows. More specifically, this article posits that violence perpetrated by armed groups sympathetic to the interests of the oil sector – namely, the public armed forces and right-wing paramilitaries – have facilitated FDI in Colombia’s oil sector. In particular, processes of forced displacement and violence against civilian groups have served to protect economically important infrastructure and have acquired land for oil exploration. Moreover, civilian groups deemed inimical to oil interests have been violently targeted. By using disaggregate-level data on the conflict in Arauca, an important oil producing region of Colombia, this case study indicates that intensifying levels of civil war violence in areas of economic interest are followed by increases in oil production, exploration and investment

Beyond Reintegration: War Veteranship in Mozambique and El Salvador

This article proposes the concept of ‘war veteranship’ to better understand war veterans’ positioning in and engagement with post‐war societies and state‐building processes. The study is based on ethnographic research with former insurgent movements, specifically the Mozambican National Resistance (RENAMO) in Mozambique and the Farabundo Martí Front for National Liberation (FMLN) in El Salvador. The concept of war veteranship allows for the exploration of trajectories of former combatants not necessarily, and certainly not exclusively, in terms of reintegration, but rather in relation to the manifold ways in which the status and connections associated with armed group participation may hold currency in the veterans’ lives, and particularly in relation to political processes. The article argues that war veteranship is best understood as a distinct type of post‐war citizenship. Integral to the political accommodations that shape post‐war societies, war veteranship involves the construction, negotiation and contestation of the societal status of different categories of war veterans. Drawing on the analyses of political struggles of war veterans in RENAMO and FMLN over two decades, this study's findings underscore the longue‐durée socio‐political relevance of war veteranship, extending above and beyond reintegration efforts

Social Capital Made Explicit: The Role of Norms, Networks, and Trust in Reintegrating Ex-combatants and Peacebuilding in Liberia

Processes for Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) are a fundamental component in peacebuilding. While disarmament can be relatively straightforward, reintegration is more complex and has varying degrees of success. Economic factors tend to be the focus, neglecting social reintegration in its fullest sense. This article draws on two sets of related field research data (collected in 2007, 2010 and 2011) in Liberia to highlight the role of social capital in shaping DDR outcomes. This is an important factor in the reintegration of ex-combatants, in terms of establishing and testing norms, engaging social networks, and building relationships and trust. These components of social capital are directly influenced by the reintegration experience, and in turn have a significant role in translating reintegration into peacebuilding. In addition, building on pre-existing social structures such as family connections, religious or community groups, and trading networks can in fact contribute to successful reintegration. When DDR initiatives fail, these structures are often the only way an ex-combatant has of reintegrating