The Decade Horribilis. Organized Violence and Organized Crime along the Balkan Peripheries: 1991-2001

The 10-year-long cycle of war that swept the Balkan peripheries saw the soldering of nationalist agendas, local clientelistic interests, and transnational illicit activities. This investigation seeks to shed light on the nexus that exists between this collusive admixture and the process of violent geopolitical rearticulation. Using mainly investigative journalism and specialized research, the author explores underground political economies, mapping out illicit flows, reading the modifications in routes and distribution modalities in connection with power shifts and war. The analysis moves from the Croatian secession to the explosion of the ‘Albanian question’, from the underpinnings of Milosevic´’s regime to the independence of Montenegro. The author identifies distinctive regularities that underlie the symbiotic relationship between political power and organized crime structures: a possible discontinuity is discerned in the longue durée trajectory of state making, war making and illicit trades. While the political holds primacy, the global neo-liberal economy de-structures traditional organizational models, empowers intermediation, and gives organized crime a formidable opportunity to emancipate itself from the traditional role of provider, often allowing direct intervention in the management of political violence and in the moulding of state structures

Jihadism in Mali and the Sahel: evolving dynamics and patterns

The Sahel is a crisis polygon. Following the French intervention in Mali in 2013, this vast and sparsely inhabited region has seen the gradual resurgence and the realignment of jihadist armed groups that have extended their operational range further south – across northwest African borders, where they interfere in and interact with already existing conflicts – and increased the challenges for regional stability. Growing levels of insecurity and banditry, partly triggered also by Bamako’s playing realignment and repositioning games among local groups, are ultimately beneficial to jihadists. By sitting on the fence, jihadists can appear as an effective alternative source of assistance, protection and dispute resolution – both political and economic – to disempowered segments of the population

Dissecting the EU response to the ‘migration crisis’

This chapter is interested in the framing and construction of the ‘migration crisis’ that faced the EU in the 2010s and its responses to that ‘crisis’. The framing of the migration issues chapter was influenced by the internal politics of member states, the rise of populist and anti-incumbency politics, and a general trend towards securitising issues that previously had been examined outside of a security frame. The chapter details the specific tools adopted by the EU to deal with the ‘crisis’ and notes a withdrawal to a realist policy mind-set that was primarily interested in stabilisation and containment rather than examining the drivers of migration or the populist instrumentalisation of it

Governance, Fragility and Insurgency in the Sahel: A Hybrid Political Order in the Making

Once a region that rarely featured in debates about global security, the Sahel has become increasingly topical as it confronts the international community with intertwined challenges related to climate variability, poverty, food insecurity, population displacement, transnational crime, contested statehood and jihadist insurgencies. This Special Issue discerns the contours of political orders in the making. After situating the Sahel region in time and space, we focus on the trajectory of regional security dynamics over the past decade, which are marked by two military coups in Mali (2012 and 2020). In addressing state fragility and societal resilience in the context of increasing external intervention and growing international rivalry, we seek to consider broader and deeper transformations that can be neither ignored nor patched up through the framework of the ‘war on terror’ projected onto ‘ungoverned spaces’. Focusing especially on the mobilisation of material and immaterial resources, we apply political economy lenses in combination with a historical sociological approach to shed light on how extra-legal governance plays a crucial role in the deformation, transformation and reformation of political orders

Working Paper: The implementation of EU Crisis Response in Libya: Bridging theory and practice

This working paper explores how the EU substantiates its crisis response in Libya by focusing on local stakeholders’ perceptions and practices. Complementing EUNPACK’s study on the EU’s framing of the crisis in Libya (Ivaschenko-Stadnik et al. 2017) and our preliminary survey on local perceptions of EU crisis response (Loschi and Raineri 2017), the present paper provides an in-depth analysis of the output level and impact of these measures. in Libya, the EU’s crisis response has come in for unprecedented levels of criticism. The securitisation of migration, and the framing of the latter as a crisis with destabilising potential, have led to the EU’s normative commitments being overlooked, if not abandoned, in spite of their relevance precisely in times of crisis. The shortcomings of the crisis response in Libya suggest that for the foreseeable future the European Union may face serious challenges if it wishes to be perceived as a credible actor inspired by “principled pragmatism” (European Commission 2016a), let alone as a “force for good” (European Commission 2003) in its foreign policy and in its neighbourhood

Securitisation of research : fieldwork under new restrictions in Darfur and Mali

This work was supported by the Norges Forskningsråd [grant number 238066].Knowledge on conflict-affected areas is becoming increasingly important for scholarship and policy. This article identifies a recent change in knowledge production regarding 'zones of danger', attributing it not only to the external environment, but also to an on-going process of securitisation of research resulting from institutional and disciplinary practices. Research is increasingly framed by security concerns and is becoming a security concern in itself, although the implications are not readily acknowledged. To illustrate these developments, we draw on fieldwork in Mali and Darfur.PostprintPeer reviewe

Gloria Russa, Nazione Tatara e Stato Ucraino: La Crimea nello Spazio Post-Sovietico

Europe & the Balkans Occasional Paper n. 14 - Ed. Longo Ravenn