In 1973, Yashev Raval wrote The Power of Wisdom, correctly pointing out that collusion between East and West had kept not only the balance of terror but provided the glue that kept geographic spheres of influence stable. Africa was part of that arena for global rivalry. With the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1991, the stifling grip the superpowers had exercised throughout the world was fundamentally altered. The transformation of the international security system, coupled with political democratization, allowed the partial reorganisation of the security establishments on the African continent to embark upon the New African Civil Military Relations (ACMR). In the last decade and half, the implosion of African states exposed to forces of democratization has escalated, manifest in Algeria, Egypt, Mali, Madagascar, Somalia, South Sudan, Central African Republic and Lesotho. At the heart of the states’ implosion has been weak, fragile and partisan defence and security institutions – a phenomenon that requires urgent research intervention to guide the much-needed reforms. In 2014, the Russian Academy of Sciences hosted the bi-annual African Studies Conference, with the lead author accorded the responsibility of organizing a Session on ACMR. From amongst some of the exciting Abstracts presented, authors submitted these as full chapters for this book which captures International African Studies Perspectives, managed by the African Public Policy & Research Institute (APPRI). This process was further facilitated by one of the presenters and now co-editor, Maj Henrik Laugesen from the Royal Danish Defence College, who agreed to lead on the fundraising – succeeding in securing support from the Royal Danish Defence College. The result is this book.

This volume examines and evaluates the impact of international statebuilding interventions on the political economy of post-conflict countries over the past 20 years. While statebuilding today is typically discussed in the context ofpeacebuilding and ‘stabilisation operations, the current phase of interest in external interventions to (re)build and strengthen governmental institutions can be traced back to thegood governance policies of the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) in the early 1990s. These sought political changes and improvements in the quality of governance in countries that were subject to, or were seeking support under, IFI-designed structural adjustment programmes.The focus of this book is specifically on state-building efforts in conflict-affected countries: countries that are emerging, or have recently emerged, from periods of war and violent conflict. The interventions covered in the present volume fall into three broad and overlapping categories:International administrations and transformative occupations (East Timor, Iraq, and Kosovo); Complex peace operations (Afghanistan, Burundi, Haiti, and Sudan); Governance and state-building programmes conducted in the context of economic assistance (Georgia and Macedonia).This book will be of much interest to students of statebuilding, humanitarian intervention, post-conflict reconstruction, political economy, international organisations and IR/Security Studies in general.

Traditionally, much of the work studying war and conflict has focused on men. Men commonly appear as soldiers, commanders, casualties, and civilians. Women, by contrast, are invisible as combatants, and, when seen, are typically pictured as victims. The field of war and conflict studies is changing: more recently, scholars of war and conflict have paid increasing notice to men as a gendered category and given sizeable attention to women's multiple roles in conflict and post-conflict settings. The Oxford Handbook of Gender and Conflict focuses on the multidimensionality of gender in conflict, yet it also prioritizes the experience of women, given both the changing nature of war and the historical de-emphasis on women's experiences. Today's wars are not staged encounters involving formal armies, but societal wars that operate at all levels, from house to village to city. Women are necessarily involved at each level. Operating from this basic intellectual foundation, the editors have arranged the volume into seven core sections: the theoretical foundations of the role of gender in violent conflicts; the sources for studying contemporary conflict; the conflicts themselves; the post-conflict process; institutions and actors; the challenges presented by the evolving nature of war; and, finally, a substantial set of case studies from across the globe. Genuinely comprehensive, this Handbook will not only serve as an authoritative overview of this massive topic, it will set the research agenda for years to come.

Why did the Arab Spring have such calamitous outcomes? Loved Egyptian Night fundamentally reassesses the Arab Spring, refuting the stories the Western powers fed to the world. There is no doubt that the toppling of Ben Ali in Tunisia in January 2011 and what it led to amounted to a political revolution. But the uprisings in Egypt, Libya and Syria - countries with quite different histories and political traditions - were never revolutions. As Hugh Roberts explains, the bitter ends of these episodes were inscribed in their misunderstood beginnings. To celebrate these uprisings as 'revolutions' preempts and inhibits critical analysis and expresses an abdication of intellectual responsibility. After so much wishful thinking, what remains is the debris of a cynical pretension. Outside interference, ostensibly on behalf of these 'revolutions', reduced Libya to anarchy and condemned Syria to a devastating proxy war now in its twelfth year. In Egypt, the Free Officers' state was re-booted in its most brutal ever form. The Americans and Europeans did not vainly try to help the Egyptians or anyone else escape from authoritarian rule. Instead, they contrived to seal them up in it. The long oppression of these societies, Kipling’s 'loved Egyptian night,' is not going to be ended by the Western powers; these days it is guaranteed by them.