The other War on Terror revealed: global governmentality and the Financial Action Task Force's campaign against terrorist financing

Abstract. Despite initial fanfare surrounding its launch in the White House Rose Garden, the War on Terrorist Finances (WOTF) has thus far languished as a sideshow, in the shadows of military campaigns against terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq. This neglect is unfortunate, for the WOTF reflects the other multilateral cooperative dimension of the US-led ‘war on terror’, quite contrary to conventional sweeping accusations of American unilateralism. Yet the existing academic literature has been confined mostly to niche specialist journals dedicated to technical, legalistic and financial regulatory aspects of the WOTF. Using the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) as a case study, this article seeks to steer discussions on the WOTF onto a broader theoretical IR perspective. Building upon emerging academic works that extend Foucauldian ideas of governmentality to the global level, we examine the interwoven overlapping national, regional and global regulatory practices emerging against terrorist financing, and the implications for notions of government, regulation and sovereignty

Pirates, failed states and the EU - Security practice and European identity

Since the end of the Cold War the narrative of Europe has had to change in terms of defining what had hitherto been externally defined limits to defining Europe’s role in what President Bush identified as a ‘New World Order’. The early results of this process were mixed, on the hand there were the successful transitions in central and Eastern Europe culminating in accession in 2004. While on the other there was the inability of the EU to prevent ethnic cleansing in the Balkans. Even accession posed difficulties in terms of Europe’s identity as a global actor with divisions apparent over the US decision to go to war in Iraq and the conduct of the War on Terror. This paper argues, following Campbell, that security practices are performative, that is to say they play an active role in constructing the ‘selves’ which they claim to protect and indeed the ‘others’ whom are deemed threatening. This paper seeks to examine 21st century European security practices in order to examine what, if any, security identity is being constructed by the EU. The particular focus will be on the recent EUFOR mission in Chad and the EUNAVFOR mission in the Gulf of Aden

Risk, human rights and the bureacratisation of counter-terrorism

Since the events of September 11th 2001 much as been written on how the construction of the terrorist threat post-9/11 contributed to the legitimising and use of extraordinary practices outside of the traditional boundaries of legal and, indeed, security practice. Much of this literature has focussed on the violation of the human rights of individuals caught up in the web of practices ranging from extraordinary rendition to targeted assassination to military intervention. Simultaneously a growing literature has drawn attention to the low key risk-based institutions and practices that have grown up around the ‘War on Terror’ such as the efforts against terrorist financing, the growing web of dataveillance and the emergence of risk management bureaucracies designed to calculate and manage risks to a tolerable level. This paper seeks to examine these latter discussions towards the concerns raised in relation to the less visible practices of counter-terrorism. What are the implications of the construction of risk-bureaucracies that operate on the logic of prevention and risk-management for our understandings of human rights? What accountability mechanisms are in place and how do they operate in practice? Given the complex and largely hidden nature of such regimes, the question of how we can reconcile them with the ideals of democratic and liberal societies is a pressing one, particularly as such structures once established may prove to be more long-lasting and have greater repercussions than the more controversial but visible practices mentioned above

After the 'War on Terror': regulatory states, risk bureaucracies and the risk-based governance of terror

In March 2009, the Obama administration sent a message to senior Pentagon staff instructing them to refrain from using either of the terms ‘Long War’ or ‘Global War on Terror’ and to replace these terms with ‘Overseas Contingency Operations’. Similarly, the 2009 UK Strategy for Countering International Terrorism eschews military terminology, preferring instead National Risk Assessments whose overall aim is ‘to reduce the risk to the UK’. This paper seeks to explore what it terms an emerging risk-based approach being deployed by states. Such an approach has already played a significant role in the ‘War on Terror’ to date, particularly in relation to Anti-Terrorist Financing and Aviation security guidelines. The change in tone and, potentially, substance from the Obama White House may however create the opportunity for risk-based approaches to move further onto the centre stage in the war on terror, just as it has in the wider Risk Society. This paper argues that the end of the ‘War on Terror’ at the rhetorical level suggests a need to shift our academic attention towards developing appropriate analytical frameworks for examining such risk-based strategies for countering terrorism. Our framework proposed here deploys the twin concepts of ‘risk bureaucracies’ and risk regulatory regimes (RRRs) in examining terrorist financing and aviation security regulations

The Next European Century?

This Special Section uses the 100th Anniversary of the Armistice that ended World War One as an opportunity to reflect on the past, present and future of Europe in a global context. In this preface the section editor, Dr Kenneth McDonagh, introduces the contributions and places them in the context of the section as whole

Research techniques made simple: workflow for searching databases to reduce evidence selection bias in systematic reviews

Clinical trials and basic science studies without statistically significant results are less likely to be published than studies with statistically significant results. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses that omit unpublished data are at high risk of distorted conclusions. Here, we describe methods to search beyond bibliographical databases to reduce evidence selection bias in systematic reviews. Unpublished studies may be identified by searching conference proceedings. Moreover, clinical trial registries—databases of planned and ongoing trials—and regulatory agency websites such as the European Medicine Agency (EMA) and the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) may provide summaries of efficacy and safety data. Primary and secondary outcomes are prespecified in trial registries, thus allowing the assessment of outcome reporting bias by comparison with the trial report. The sources of trial data and documents are still evolving, with ongoing initiatives promoting broader access to clinical study reports and individual patient data. There is currently no established methodology to ensure that the multiple sources of information are incorporated. Nonetheless, systematic reviews must adapt to these improvements and cover the new sources in their search strategies

Characterization of the insulin sensitivity of ghrelin receptor KO mice using glycemic clamps

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>We and others have demonstrated previously that ghrelin receptor (<it>GhrR</it>) knock out (KO) mice fed a high fat diet (HFD) have increased insulin sensitivity and metabolic flexibility relative to WT littermates. A striking feature of the HFD-fed <it>GhrR </it>KO mouse is the dramatic decrease in hepatic steatosis. To characterize further the underlying mechanisms of glucose homeostasis in <it>GhrR </it>KO mice, we conducted both hyperglycemic (HG) and hyperinsulinemic-euglycemic (HI-E) clamps. Additionally, we investigated tissue glucose uptake and specifically examined liver insulin sensitivity.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Consistent with glucose tolerance-test data, in HG clamp experiments, <it>GhrR </it>KO mice showed a reduction in glucose-stimulated insulin release relative to WT littermates. Nevertheless, a robust 1^stphase insulin secretion was still achieved, indicating that a healthy β-cell response is maintained. Additionally, <it>GhrR </it>KO mice demonstrated both a significantly increased glucose infusion rate and significantly reduced insulin requirement for maintenance of the HG clamp, consistent with their relative insulin sensitivity. In HI-E clamps, both LFD-fed and HFD-fed <it>GhrR </it>KO mice showed higher peripheral insulin sensitivity relative to WT littermates as indicated by a significant increase in insulin-stimulated glucose disposal (Rd), and decreased hepatic glucose production (HGP). HFD-fed <it>GhrR </it>KO mice showed a marked increase in peripheral tissue glucose uptake in a variety of tissues, including skeletal muscle, brown adipose tissue and white adipose tissue. <it>GhrR </it>KO mice fed a HFD also showed a modest, but significant decrease in conversion of pyruvate to glucose, as would be anticipated if these mice displayed increased liver insulin sensitivity. Additionally, the levels of UCP2 and UCP1 were reduced in the liver and BAT, respectively, in <it>GhrR </it>KO mice relative to WT mice.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>These results indicate that improved glucose homeostasis of <it>GhrR </it>KO mice is characterized by robust improvements of glucose disposal in both normal and metabolically challenged states, relative to WT controls. <it>GhrR </it>KO mice have an intact 1^stphase insulin response but require significantly less insulin for glucose disposal. Our experiments reveal that the insulin sensitivity of <it>GhrR </it>KO mice is due to both BW independent and dependent factors. We also provide several lines of evidence that a key feature of the <it>GhrR </it>KO mouse is maintenance of hepatic insulin sensitivity during metabolic challenge.</p

Exceptional wars : how were the US military interventions in the \u27War on Terror\u27 possible?

THESIS 9462How were the US military interventions in the \u27War on Terror\u27 possible? This thesis argues that intervention in the \u27War on Terror\u27 was rendered possible through the strategic use of language that located intervention as consistent with pre-existing societal narratives of national identity in the American context, particularly those associated with the idea of American Exceptionalism. The thesis will treat of the Foreign Policy discourse of the Bush Administration after September 11th 2001 in order to answer the above question. A secondary aim of this thesis is to contribute to the growing body of literature that takes a Discourse Theory approach to the study of International Relations