The Death of the European Agency for Reconstruction: A Peculiar Case of Termination of the Agencies of the European Union

Among many issues regarding the work and functioning of EU agencies, the termination of an agency is an important aspect to consider. The European Agency for Reconstruction (EAR), an EU agency that managed EU aid to the Western Balkans from 2001 to 2008, proved to be an efficient and effective agency in delivering aid. Although termination of any EU agency is a rare phenomenon, the EAR was terminated in 2008, despite its successful record. The termination of this highly successful agency stands as an example for the utility of putting termination theory into a larger framework of the existence of EU agencies, as scholarly literature has largely ignored the issue of termination in the work of the EU agencies. The EAR represented an institutional model of independence from politics and policy-making. The purpose of this paper is to assess the structure and operations of the EAR and reasons that led to its termination

Clientelism and informality in Albania

Albania made revolutionary progress in its post-communist transition. Nevertheless, there have been setbacks, including the emergence and failure in the fight against organized crime. In this fight, the attitude of governments and of the public has often been political and clientelistic. In Albania, regional, cultural and political polarization has constantly existed. This polarization has also played a role in governments’ responses to organized crime, which in turn has been important for the economic survival of communities and this has come to survive in informal forms. In this context, organized crime has come to be tolerated by people. This article analyses the fight against organized crime in Albania and how phenomena such as clientelism have affected this fight. Clientelism has emerged as the reason for the general absence of active opposition against criminality among the population in Albania. The article finds that people’s own clientelistic and political views affect their decisions and attitudes towards organized crime

Albania’s Transformation since 1997: Successes and Failures

In 1997 Albania experienced a collapse of order and widespread violence, which resulted in a situation where the government was overthrown and some 2,000 people were killed. The 1997 disorder came as a result of the collapse of fraudulent financial pyramid schemes that had all the features of a war-like economic structure. During the 1997 events, large-scale confiscation and stealing of state assets occurred. Albania’s transitional period from communism to democracy, which began in 1990, led to the establishment of new structures for profiting from the country’s resources. Some of these political and economic structures, in the aftermath of the 1997 events, disappeared and others, including their structural effects, persist and have had an impact on the country’s political stability and economic progress. Today, both the successes and failures of the country are assessed based on the progress that the country has made since the 1997 events. The paper analyses the 1997 events and the transformation of Albania’s political and economic structures between 1997 and 2016, considering both achievements and failures. It looks at how the country has dealt with the post-1997 peace-building and development agenda from the perspective of it being a success. It looks at the factors that led to state failure in 1997 and at the factors that continue and have generated a path dependency to the current political context of the country. Although a lot has been written concerning the 1997 events, very little analysis has been conducted concerning what it means from the perspective of research on state failure. In this context, the proposed paper seeks to offer Albania as a case study example of a transformation process, from the uprising to the current situation, which is characterized as a mixture of successes and failures. The belief is that the proposed paper will point to some lessons learned for the strategies directed at the transformation processes

Cyber Security Politics: Socio-Technological Transformations and Political Fragmentation

This edited volume by CSS' Myriam Dunn Cavelty and CSS director Andreas Wenger, examines new and challenging political aspects of cyber security and presents it as an issue defined by socio-technological uncertainty and political fragmentation. The first part looks at the current use of cyber space in conflictual settings, while the second focuses on political responses by state and non-state actors in an environment defined by uncertainties. Within this, it highlights four key debates that encapsulate the complexities and paradoxes of cyber security politics from a Western perspective. This book will be of much interest to students of cyber security, global governance, technology studies, and international relations.Dieser Sammelband, herausgegeben von CSS Forscherin Myriam Dunn Cavelty und CSS Direktor Andreas Wenger, untersucht neue und herausfordernde politische Aspekte der Cybersicherheit und präsentiert sie als eine Problematik, welche durch sozio-technologische Unsicherheit und politische Fragmentierung definiert ist. Der erste Teil befasst sich mit der aktuellen Nutzung des Cyberraums in Konfliktsituationen, während sich der zweite Teil auf politische Reaktionen staatlicher und nichtstaatlicher Akteure in einem von Unsicherheiten geprägten Umfeld konzentriert. Darin werden vier Schlüsseldebatten hervorgehoben, welche die Komplexität und Paradoxa der Cybersicherheitspolitik aus westlicher Perspektive zusammenfassen. Dieses Buch wird von grossem Interesse für Studierende der Cybersicherheit, Global Governance, Technologiestudien und internationalen Beziehungen sein

States and International Criminal Justice: COST CA18228 Scoping Survey (version 1)

Categorical and scale data in three formats (Google drive; .csv; and .sav) and further free text data, collected from experts in response to a survey organised under the auspices of COST Action CA18228 (Global Atrocity Justice Constellations)Researchers were invited to respond to a series of prompts designed to measure the impact of international criminal justice on specific countries, and the engagement of those countries to international criminal justice institutions. The first set of results, covering 12 countries in Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe are published here. A further round of data collection is underway, and an updated version will be published by the end of the Action in April 2024. We invite researchers to make use of the data here, citing accordingly.Aydın-Aitchison, A., E. Brandon, M. Buljubašić, M. Dobrovolskis, A. Gerdeci, T Hoffmann, N. Higgins, M.P. Hossain, N. Jeiranashvili, I. Jusufi, G. Maguire, A. Maljević, M. Mancini, U. Markevičiūtė, L. Martinaitytė, Matsiko, J. Radmanović, I.M. Ragaišytė, B. Ristivojević, S. Samardžić, R. Steponavičiūtė, N. Stojanović, G. Švedas, and A. Vosyliūtė (2023) States and International Criminal Justice: COST CA18228 Scoping Survey (version 1), available online at: https://justice-360.com/scoping-survey

States and International Criminal Justice: COST CA18228 Scoping Survey (version 2)

The data consists of two elements, both derived from a survey developed and administered through the EU Cost Action CA18228 (Global Atrocity Justice Constellations). The first element is made up of quantitative and categorical data; the second of qualitative text responses. The survey seeks to record and measure different elements of states' engagement with international criminal justice, including the integration of relevant provisions to domestic law; cooperation with and support for international and hybrid courts; various policy measures around prosecution of crimes defined in international law, and for the support of victims of such crimes; domestic prosecutions; NGO activity; and memorialisation, museums and other cultural activities. The survey covers 23 countries in Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe. In each case, data was provided by individual scholars or teams of scholars coming from, working in, or working on the country in question. In some instances additional support was provided from NGOs or governmental agencies.Aksamitowska, Karolina; Andaya, Raymond; Anosova, Iuliia; Aydın-Aitchison, Andy; Bernasol, Joseph; Bhadra, Poulomi; Brandon, Emma; Buljubašić, Mirza; Chakrabarty, Ishita; Christensen, Mikkel Jarle; de León Agosto, Luis; Dobrovolskis, Martynas; Emasealu, Martha; Gërdeci, Alba; Ghiasi, Sumaya; Gómez Alcorta, Elizabeth; Hoffmann, Tamás; Higgins, Noelle; Hossain, Mohammad Pizuar; Hronum, Caroline; Jeiranashvili, Nika; Jusufi, Islam; Kirabira, Tonny; Lingaas, Carola; Lohne, Kjersti; Maguire, Gerard; Maljević, Almir; Mancini, Marina; Markevičiūtė, Ugnė; Martinaitytė, Laura; Matsiko, Samuel; Mejía, Gretel; Munivrana, Maja; Dalsgaard Nielsen, Toke Andersson; Oyewole, Oriola; Radmanović, Jelena; Ragaišytė, Ieva Marija; Ristivojević, Branislav; Roksandić, Sunčana; Samardžić, Stefan; Šestan, Katarina; Steponavičiūtė, Ramunė; Stojanović, Nikola; Švedas, Gintaras; Tamayo Gomez, Camilo; Vegh Weis, Valeria; Vosyliūtė, Andželika; Holá, Barbora; Rodrigues, Fatima; Vasiliev, Sergey. (2023). States and International Criminal Justice: COST CA18228 Scoping Survey (version 2), 2020-2023 [dataset]. University of Edinburgh. School of Law. https://doi.org/10.7488/ds/7536