MOZAMBIQUE: Presidential, National and Provincial Assembly Elections 15 October 2019:Commonwealth Observer Group

Commonwealth Observer Group election repor

Nigeria Presidential and National Assembly Elections:25 February 2023

In line with the provisions of the 2018 Revised Commonwealth Guidelines for the Conduct of Election Observation in Member Countries, the Commonwealth Secretary-General, Rt Hon Patricia Scotland KC, constituted an Observer Group for the 25 February 2023 presidential and National Assembly elections in Nigeria, following an invitation from the Chair of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).The Commonwealth Observer Group was led by His Excellency Thabo Mbeki, former President of the Republic of South Africa, and comprised 16 other eminent Commonwealth citizens. A staff team of 11 from the Commonwealth Secretariat provided technical support to the Group

Mass‐loading the Earth's dayside magnetopause boundary layer and its effect on magnetic reconnection

When the interplanetary magnetic field is northward for a period of time, O+ from the high‐latitude ionosphere escapes along reconnected magnetic field lines into the dayside magnetopause boundary layer. Dual‐lobe reconnection closes these field lines, which traps O+ and mass loads the boundary layer. This O+ is an additional source of magnetospheric plasma that interacts with magnetosheath plasma through magnetic reconnection. This mass loading and interaction is illustrated through analysis of a magnetopause crossing by the Magnetospheric Multiscale spacecraft. While in the O+‐rich boundary layer, the interplanetary magnetic field turns southward. As the Magnetospheric Multiscale spacecraft cross the high‐shear magnetopause, reconnection signatures are observed. While the reconnection rate is likely reduced by the mass loading, reconnection is not suppressed at the magnetopause. The high‐latitude dayside ionosphere is therefore a source of magnetospheric ions that contributes often to transient reduction in the reconnection rate at the dayside magnetopause.publishedVersio

Policy Entrepreneurship by International Bureaucracies: The Evolution of Public Information in UN Peacekeeping

The UN Secretariat’s role in the expansion of peacekeeping after the cold war is debated. Different theoretical accounts offer competing interpretations: principal–agent models and sociological institutionalism tend to emphasize the Secretariat’s risk-averse behaviour; organizational learning scholarship and international political sociology find evidence of the Secretariat’s activism; constructivism analyses instances of both. I argue that the UN Secretariat can be both enthusiastic and cautious about new tasks depending on the circumstances and the issue area. For example, UN officials have been the driving force behind the development of public information campaigns by peacekeeping missions aimed at the local population. During the cold war, it was not regarded as necessary for UN missions to communicate with the public in the area of operation: their interlocutors were parties to the conflict and the diplomatic community. With the deployment of the first multidimensional missions in the late 1980s and the early 1990s, UN staff realized the need to explain the organization’s role to the local population and provide information about UN-supported elections. In promoting this innovation, they played the role of policy entrepreneurs. The institutionalization of this innovation, however, was not an automatic process and required continuous advocacy by UN information staff

The Impact of Mercenaries and Private Military and Security Companies on Civil War Severity between 1946 and 2002

Research has long abandoned the view that only states wage war. On the contrary, civil war research has produced an impressive body of literature on violent non-state actors. Still, a particular group of actors—mercenaries—has been widely neglected so far, although they have participated in numerous conflicts in the second half of the twentieth century. Whether their presence aggravated or improved the situation is a matter of dispute. Some believe that the additional military capabilities provided by mercenaries help to end civil wars quickly without increased bloodshed, while others deem mercenaries greedy and bloodthirsty combatants who contribute to making civil wars more brutal, while a third opinion differentiates between different types of mercenaries. This article tests the impact of mercenaries on civil war severity. The evidence indicates that the presence of both mercenaries and private military and security contractors increases its severity