Pathologies of Security Governance: Efforts Against Human Trafficking in Europe

The trafficking of women and girls for the purpose of sexual exploitation has reportedly been booming in Europe since the 1990s. Governments, international organizations, and private actors have addressed the causes and consequences of sex trafficking in various ways. This article shows that the concept of security governance helps to understand efforts against human trafficking and their shortcomings. The anti-trafficking security governance system consists of five approaches: legal measures, prosecution, protection, prevention in countries of origin, and prevention in countries of destination. Although progress has been made, the security governance system is marked by several pathologies, especially a lack of programs that prevent trafficking in countries of origin and destination, insufficient protection for trafficked persons, and deficient networks bringing together the various actors involved in anti-trafficking. To make governance against human trafficking more effective, efficient, and just, the security governance system must be better balanced and networked

Squeezing the balloon?: United States Air Interdiction and the Restructuring of the South American Drug Industry in the 1990s

Drug policy scholars generally agree that coercive attempts by the United States to reduce drug supplies from abroad have negative side effects. This article confirms that US coercion has made a bad situation worse. However, it also argues against oversimplified statements about the creation of side effects. The empirical focus is on the Air Bridge Denial Program, a US-sponsored attempt from the late 1980s to 2001 to reduce aerial drug trafficking in South America. A causal mechanism is developed that helps to understand and explain how air interdiction contributed to the displacement of coca cultivation from Peru to Colombia, an increase in Peruvian and Bolivian cocaine production, and a diversification of trafficking routes and methods. The analysis also examines contingent conditions, empirical black boxes, and alternative explanations. A complex empirical picture means that the popular metaphor of a balloon whose air, when squeezed, simply moves elsewhere is misleading. Although US-sponsored air interdiction has contributed to displacement, other factors have played a role as wel

International Intervention and the Use of Force

Intervening states apply different approaches to the use force in war-torn countries. Calibrating the use of force according to the situation on the ground requires a convergence of military and police roles: soldiers have to be able to scale down, and police officers to scale up their use of force. In practice, intervening states display widely differing abilities to demonstrate such versatility. This paper argues that these differences are shaped by how the domestic institutions of sending states mediate between demands for versatile force and their own intervention practices. It considers the use of force by Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States in three contexts of international intervention: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and Afghanistan. The paper highlights quite different responses to security problems as varied as insurgency, terrorism, organised crime and riots. This analysis offers important lessons. Those planning and implementing international interventions should take into account differences in the use of force. At the same time, moving towards versatile force profoundly changes the characteristics of security forces and may increase their short-term risks. This difficulty points to a key message emerging from this paper: effective, sustainable support to states emerging from conflict will only be feasible if intervening states reform their own security policies and practices

Militarisierung statt Bürgernähe: das Missverhältnis beim Aufbau der afghanischen Polizei

"Seit die USA die Führungsrolle beim Polizeiaufbau in Afghanistan übernommen haben, erfolgte ein Wandel vom zivilen zum militärisch dominierten Polizeiaufbau. Internationale Akteure argumentieren, die afghanische Polizei müsse gestärkt werden, damit sie gegen nicht-staatliche bewaffnete Gruppen vorgehen und sich gegen diese verteidigen kann. Die Autoren überprüfen diese Argumentation und stoßen auf eine Reihe von Nachteilen, die mit der schnellen Militarisierung der Polizei einhergehen: Die Polizei kann weiterhin kein Vertrauen zur Bevölkerung aufbauen, was eine effektive Polizeiarbeit verhindert und die Legitimität des Staates schwächt. Es gibt wenige Hinweise, dass die Militarisierung die Überlebenschancen der afghanischen Polizei erhöht. Zudem wird es später schwierig sein, den Geist der Militarisierung wieder rückgängig zu machen. Die Autoren plädieren daher für die Stärkung ziviler Elemente in der Polizeireform. Dafür ist es erforderlich, mehr zivile Trainer, Partner und Mentoren zu entsenden, Ausbildungsinhalte wie bürgernahe Polizeiarbeit und Alphabetisierungskampagnen zu forcieren und zivilen Polizeiexperten stärkeres Mitspracherecht zu gewähren. Diese Maßnahmen müssen flankiert werden durch eine nachhaltige Reform des Innenministeriums und eine Verzahnung mit dem Justizsektor. All dies erfordert, so die Autoren des Reports, eine langfristige internationale Unterstützung der afghanischen Polizei." (Autorenreferat

Flexible Sicherheitskräfte für Auslandseinsätze: Afghanistan und die Grenzen deutscher Sicherheitspolitik

"Auslandseinsätze stellen internationale Sicherheitskräfte vor besondere Herausforderungen. Die Sicherheitslage in den Einsatzgebieten, internationale Normen und Demokratie verlangen von Soldaten und Polizisten, sowohl sich selbst als auch Zivilisten vor Ort gegen Gewalt zu schützen. In der Praxis bedeutet dies eine Konvergenz traditioneller militärischer und polizeilicher Rollen. Dieser Report untersucht die Schwierigkeiten der Bundeswehr und der deutschen Polizei, in Afghanistan flexibel beim Einsatz von Zwangs- und Gewaltmittel zu sein. Die Autoren zeigen, dass eine größere Flexibilität deutscher Sicherheitskräfte in Auslandseinsätzen sowohl notwendig als auch risikoreich ist, und formulieren Vorschläge, wie Deutschland mit diesem Dilemma umgehen kann." (Autorenreferat

The Internal-External Security Nexus and EU Police/Rule of Law Missions in the Western Balkans

Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) police/rule of law missions in the Western Balkans are increasingly guided by externally imposed normative agendas that respond primarily to EU internal security needs rather than functional imperatives or local realities. In line with these needs, EU police reform efforts tend to prioritise effectiveness and crime fighting over longer- term democratic policing and good governance reforms. In practice this means that police reform initiatives are technocratically oriented, yet value ridden fitting EU security concerns and needs. As a result, the police reform process can be—and often is—disconnected from the political and socio-economic reforms necessary for long-term stability and sustainable peace. Police assistance in Bosnia and Herzegovina has been shaped by a determined albeit questionable focus on organised crime and corruption. The focus of EU police reform in Macedonia on primarily crime-fighting aspects of policing has compromised the functioning of the Macedonian police. Similarly, the politics of (non-)recognition of Kosovo's self-proclaimed independence and the intrusiveness of EULEX Kosovo's executive mandate contravene meeting local challenges

Afghanistan: guerilla warfare works

Guerillas win as long as they do not lose, and government forces lose as long as they do not win. In Afghanistan, this adage holds, once again, true. Western civilian and military leaders want us to believe that insurgents and criminals are running out of options. Indeed, after much initial stuttering, NATO has transformed into a veritable counter-insurgency machine, with the United States shouldering most of the burden. Casualties among the Taliban and other enemies of NATO are enormous. Enormous, too, is the coalition of NATO and Afghan troops, approaching half a million soldiers and militia-types