Book Review: General Politics: Rethinking Security Governance: The Problem of Unintended Consequences
| Published date | 01 May 2013 |
| Date | 01 May 2013 |
| Author | Yuliya Zabyelina |
| DOI | 10.1111/1478-9302.12016_71 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
would appeal to criminal law experts and those with an
appropriate legal background interested in understand-
ing the foundational aspects of criminal law in liberal
states better. For those who have no grounding in the
philosophy of criminal law and the work of Duff, this
is not, in my view, the book to read to become first
acquainted with either. Overall, the editors have done a
superb job; this is no hagiography, but a serious and
professional engagement with the work of a leading
criminal law scholar.
Stéphane Lefebvre
(Carleton University, Ottawa)
Rethinking Security Governance: The Problem
of Unintended Consequences by Christopher
Daase and Cornelius Friesendorf (eds). London:
Routledge, 2010. 223pp., £85.50, ISBN
9780415532624
Unintended consequences may fulfil the initial inten-
tions of policy initiators or, on the contrary, frustrate
the original aims and backfire with unexpected nega-
tive results. Aiming to raise awareness about negative
policy outcomes, this edited volume inquires about
unintended consequences of security governance.
The first four chapters explore international inter-
ventions and reform programmes. Kohnstall’s chapter
on the World Bank’s involvement in Egypt’s higher
education reform demonstrates the ambiguity of
donors’ aid to authoritarian regimes, in which the aid
was redirected to reinforce the incumbent regime.
Penksa analyses the negative unintended effects of
foreign military interventions in domestic law enforce-
ment in Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Focusing on
international state building, each of the contributions
by Scheneckener and Schroeder suggest that policy
initiators need to develop more sophisticated assess-
ment mechanisms for dealing with unintended negative
externalities that are recurrent by-products of the appli-
cation of Western policy frameworks to non-Western
societies.
The remaining five chapters analyse the conse-
quences of sanctions and a partial privatisation of
security. Shedding light on the criminalisation of the
Balkans at the end of the 1990s, Andreas argues that
it was due to economic sanctions that a powerful
underground economy emerged. Eriksson’s analysis of
targeted sanctions enlightens the reader about human
rights violations, negative economic developments and
missed opportunities for dialogue as some of the
negative unintended consequences of sanctions in
target countries. Biersteker’s contribution uncovers
the possibility of positive unintended consequences.
The formation of the counter-terrorism financing
regime, he argues, has created the mechanisms
employed in anti-money laundering and anti-tax
evasion initiatives. Friedrich warns that positive unin-
tended consequences are unfortunately ephemeral.
Positive externalities of private armed forces may
eventually undermine public security. Buckland
emphasises that policy initiators often sacrifice nega-
tive externalities, however grave they may be, to reach
a particular positive outcome. He provides evidence
that the securitisation of migration-oriented counter-
trafficking policies was successful in curtailing migra-
tion, but also criminalised migrants and pushed them
into illegal migration channels.
As the volume gathers contributions by leading
experts in the field, little space is left for criticism.
Some suggestions should, however, be articulated. If
one does not open the black box of domestic policy
making, what is the most appropriate way of studying
intention? Are negative unintended consequences more
likely to follow policies adopted by fragile states or by
more developed and institutionally stable societies?
What mechanisms guide the formation of unintended
consequences?
Overall, the book is undoubtedly an important
contribution to understanding the complexity of
security governance. It is a piece of easy-to-read spe-
cialised literature that sophisticated and experienced
readers in academia and policy making will certainly
appreciate.
Yuliya Zabyelina
(University of Trento)
The Oxford Handbook of Civil Society by
Michael Edwards (ed.). Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2011.515pp., £95.00, ISBN 978 0 19 539857 1
The popularity of academic terms often leads to con-
ceptual ambiguity and the loss of their explanatory
value. Despite its position as a subject of intense aca-
demic interest, ‘civil society’ has suffered from such a
lack of conceptual clarity and integrity. The Oxford
Handbook of Civil Society fills this lacuna and successfully
BOOK REVIEWS 271
© 2013 TheAuthors. Political Studies Review © 2013 Political Studies Association
Political Studies Review: 2013, 11(2)
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