The New Age of Security: Implications for refugees and internally displaced persons in the Horn of Africa

Cawo M. Abdi looks at the Somali crisis as the most recent conflict being fought in the name of ‘war against terrorism’. She argues that it entails major implications for migration in general and for migrant women in particular. Her central concerns are to track the new realities in the various forms of migration across the world and to better understand at a policy level how migration and development nexus encourages south–north, south–south social and economic relations with more open and accountable development paths. She tracks how the migration and development nexus challenges concepts of citizenship, trans-national borders, diversity, social protection and security. Development (2007) 50, 75–81. doi:10.1057/palgrave.development.1100434

Actor-networking the ‘failed state’ — an enquiry into the life of concepts

Concepts such as the ‘failed state’ are jointly produced by academics and political actors and hence connect academia and global politics. Little attention has been spent to study such concepts and the practices that create them and sustain their relevance. We develop an innovative framework for studying concepts. Relying on actor-network theory, we suggest studying concepts as effects of relations between different actors building an actor-network. We introduce actor-network theory and demonstrate its value for international relations (IR) research. Our empirical case study of the concept of failed states combines bibliometric analysis and qualitative text analysis. We show how various actors have brought the concept of failed states to life; analyse how actors transformed because of their participation; and investigate the persistent struggles to define and homogenise the concept. In summary, this is an article about the life of the failed state, the discipline of IR and its relations to other actors, and an introduction of the actor-network theory toolbox to the sociology of IR