Democratic security sector governance in Serbia

"Serbia's democracy celebrated its tenth anniversary in October 2010. Filip Ejdus takes this jubilee as an opportunity to consider the level of democratization achieved. For this purpose he studies the extent to which the process of democratic reform has influenced security sector governance as this is the key to the consolidation of democracy. He specifies the factors that have hampered democratic development, appreciates the achievements and names the remaining challenges. He concludes that there is still a lot to be done. Although the formal mechanisms of democratic security sector governance are largely in place, consolidation is still inadequate in practice." (author's abstract

'Not a heap of stones':material environments and ontological security in international relations

Extant scholarship on ontological security in international relations has focused on the significance of social environments for state identity. In this article, I argue that material environments also provide an important source of ontological security for states. In order to assume this role material environments need to be discursively linked to state identity through either projection or introjection. Once incorporated into state identity narratives, material environments become ontic spaces': spatial extensions of the collective self that cause state identities to appear more firm and continuous. However, ontic spaces are inherently unstable and require maintenance, especially during periods of crisis or transition. States bear agency in this process but they never achieve full control, as identity discourses are continuously contested both domestically and internationally. I illustrate these claims by looking at the role of the General Staff Headquarters in Belgrade, destroyed by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1999, in the ontological security of Serbia

The Spectre of an Arms Race in the Western Balkans

Security in the Western Balkans has recently deteriorated due to heightened geopolitical tensions, EU enlargement fatigue and democratic backsliding. Despite some positive developments, Bosnia and Herzegovina remains unstable, and the Belgrade/Pristina dialogue is still deadlocked. In addition, all Western Balkan states have increased their defence budgets and have engaged in military modernization. At the same time, policymakers and the media in the region often evoke the spectre of military competition and an arms race. This Policy Brief shows that, although the letter of the Agreement on Sub-Regional Arms Control signed in Florence in 1996 is still being complied with, these developments have already eroded trust in the region. If allowed to unfold, they could lead to further escalation in the future

Local ownership as international governmentality: Evidence from the EU mission in the Horn of Africa

While some Foucault-inspired studies construe local ownership in international interventions as a form of liberal governmentality that aims to govern through freedom, others lambast it as an illiberal governmentality that is likely to be resisted because it undermines local autonomy. However, we still do not know what is the rationality behind local ownership, how it is being operationalized, and why a principle that aims to govern through freedom ends up curtailing it. I argue that local ownership, echoing the colonial principle of indirect rule, is driven by the rationality of advanced democracies on how best to govern global insecurities at a distance. Consequently, ownership is operationalized as responsibilization for externally designed objectives. This often gives rise to local resistance which undermines international efforts to achieve ownership. I illustrate my arguments with evidence from the EU Mission on Regional Maritime Capacity Building in the Horn of Africa (EUCAP Nestor)

Serbia's military neutrality: Origins, effects and challenges

Serbia is the only state in the Westen Balkns that is not seeking NATO membeship. In Decembr 2007, Serbia dclared military neutrality and in spite of its EU membrship aspirations, developd very close relatons with Moscow. The objective of this paper is treefold First, I argue that in order to understand why Serbia decared military neutrality, one has to look both at the discursive terrain and domestic power struggles The key narrative that was strategically usd by mnemonic entrereneurs, most importanty by the former Prime Minister Vojislav Koštunica, to legitimize militay neutrality was the trauma of NATO intervention in 1999 and the ensuing secession of Kosovo. In the second part of the paper, I discuss the operational consequences of the military neuality policy for Serbia's relations with NATO and Russia, as well as for mitary reform and EU accession Finaly, I spell out the challenges ahad in Serbia's neutrality plicy and argue that its decision makers will increasingly be caught between pragmatic foreign plicy requirements on the oe hand and deeply enrenhed traumatic memories on the other

Critical situations, fundamental questions and ontological insecurity in world politics

The central premise of ontological security theory is that states are ready to compromise their physical security and other important material gains in order to protect their ontological security. While the existing studies have primarily focused on how states defend or maintain their ontological security, little attention has been paid to critical situations that make states ontologically insecure in the first place. Drawing on the work of Anthony Giddens, I conceptualise critical situations in world politics as radical disjunctions that challenge the ability of collective actors to 'go on' by bringing into the realm of discursive consciousness four fundamental questions related to existence, finitude, relations and autobiography. The argument is illustrated in a case study of ontological insecurity produced in Serbia by the secession of Kosovo.Peer-reviewed manuscript: [http://rfpn.fpn.bg.ac.rs/handle/123456789/834