VI National and Area Studies / Études Nationales et Régionales
| Published date | 01 April 2022 |
| Date | 01 April 2022 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00208345221094117 |
276
VI
NATIONAL AND AREA STUDIES
ÉTUDES NATIONALES ET RÉGIONALES
72.2607 AEBY, Michael — Building peace among monitors? The
monitoring and implementation of Zimbabwe’s global po-
litical agreement. Journal of Southern African Studies 47(4),
2021 : 683-702 .
Signatories, guarantors and stakeholders of peace treaties and global po-
litical agreements (GPA) need reliable information on the agreement’s im-
plementation to track progress, ensure com pliance and prevent renewed
conflict. Implementation monitoring mechanisms (IMMs) are, therefore, an
important component of peace and transitional governance processes.
Whereas monitoring can be entrusted to an independent third party, the
signatories of Zimbabwe’s GPA set up a Joint Monitoring and Implemen-
tation Committee (JOMIC). This article outlines the implementation of the
GPA and discusses the hybrid design and workings of JOMIC, which
sought to build peace among monitors from power-sharing parties, who
jointly observed the agreement’s implementation. It argues that JOMIC
was not a viable substitution for an independent IMM despite having some
merit in observing political violence and gathering information for the
power-sharing parties. [R, abr.]
72.2608 AGOSTINIS, Giovanni ; PARTHENAY, Kevin — Exploring
the determinants of regional health governance modes in
the Global South: a comparative analysis of Central and
South America. Review of International Studies 47(4), Oct.
2021 : 399-421.
What explains the variation in how states collectively deal with public
health challenges across different regions? We tackle this puzzle by com-
paring the regional health governance efforts pursued within the Central
American Integration System (SICA) and the Union of South American
Nations (UNASUR). We show that Central America's health governance
has been driven by external actors, whereas South America's was driven
by states within the region, and remained insulated from external actors’
influence. We argue that the explanation for such variation lies in the in-
terplay of state capacity and regional leadership. In Central America, weak
state capacity combined with the absence of a regional leader willing to
provide governance resources. This opened up space for external actors
to contribute actively to regional health governance, complementing the
governance of Central American governments. [R, abr.]
72.2609 AHMED, Zahid Shahab ; SHAHZAD, Rizwana — The role of
peace education in countering violent extremism in Paki-
stan: an assessment of non-governmental efforts. Conflict
Security and Development 21(3), 2021 : 199-222.
This article is located in the wider discourse on the nexus of policy, re-
search and practice of peace education for countering violent extremism
(CVE) with a focus on learnings and insights from non-governmental initi-
atives in Pakistan. It presents an analysis of how the diverse and complex
school education system in Pakistan ‘does’ and/or ‘does not’ respond to
the challenges of an increasing scale and manifestations of violence, con-
flict and extremism in society. Moving beyond the discussion on the his-
torical emergence, drivers, actors and characteristics of violent extremism
in Pakistan, this paper engages with the erstwhile literature on the re-
search-policy-practice nexus to examine nine peace education projects —
mostly foreign-funded — in Pakistan. [R, abr.]
72.2610 AHSAN, Syed Badrul — Bangladesh at 50: coups, assassi-
nations and democratic struggle. Asian Affairs (London)
52(3), 2021 : 554-562.
This article provides an overview of the developments in the politics of
Bangladesh since its independence from Pakistan 50 years ago in 1971.
It focuses particularly on the struggle for independence led by Sheikh Mu-
jibur Rahman, seen as the founder of the nation, the development of par-
ties, extremism, the coups and counter-coups suffered by the country and
the long-term impact these have had on the democratic process and civil
society, and also the country's prospects for the future. [R]
72.2611 ALBERT, Isaac Olawale — Decapitation strategies and the
significance of Abubakar Shekau's death in Nigeria's
Boko Haram crisis. International Affairs 97(6), Nov. 2021 :
1691-1708.
Decapitation strategies have often been linked to counterterrorism. The
existing literature suggests the results of these strategies are mixed. Pre-
vious studies suggest that the death of a prominent leader may not nec-
essarily end the crisis; it all depends on the group's infrastructure,
ideology, leadership traditions, and extent of its penetration in society. This
article takes a critical look at the impact of a recent leadership decapitation
in Nigeria. Abubakar Shekau, the leader of the Boko Haram movement in
the Lake Chad Basin countries, was killed on 19 May 2021 by a faction of
the movement known as the Islamic State of West African Province
(ISWAP). This article argues that Shekau's case has paradoxically helped
to strengthen ISWAP's position, giving it new recruits and other resources
and perhaps most importantly reinforced its position with local communi-
ties. [R, abr.]
72.2612 ANCESCHI, Luca — After personalism: rethinking power
transfers in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Journal of Con-
temporary Asia 51(4), 2021 : 660-680.
What happens to elites when the personalistic leader they supported for
so long suddenly dies? This article tackles comparatively transitions out of
first presidencies in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, presenting an analyti-
cal framework that seeks to explain why these transitions unfolded in rel-
atively smooth fashion. The overall stability defining power transfer pro-
cesses instigated by the non-violent death of personalistic rulers in both
contexts is explained here through the intersection of three key factors:
the regimes’ resort to succession practices consolidated in the Soviet era,
the emergence of temporary forms of collective decision-making in both
transitional contexts, and the implementation of de-personalisation strate-
gies pursuing the obliteration of specific pockets of cadres but stopping
short of wider regime re-organisation. [R, abr.]
72.2613 ANDREWS, Leighton — The forward march of devolution
halted — And the limits of progressive unionism. Political
Quarterly 92(3), July-Sept. 2021 : 512-521.
The philosophy underlying the creation of the devolved institutions in
Wales and Scotland was expansive, leading to a growth in powers over
twenty years. That approach is now under challenge following recent
Brexit legislation, which marks a sharp contrast with the unionist ap-
proaches of the past. The COVID-19 pandemic provided a visibility boost
for devolution, while exposing existing tensions in intergovernmental rela-
tions. This article identifies four forms of unionism in operation over the
last twenty years — passive, activist, progressive and muscular — and
questions whether muscular unionism can now be considered a form of
statecraft. Those ‘progressive unionists’ who advocate further devolution
should avoid ‘constitutional determinism’ — the assumption that muscular
unionism will inevitably lead to a breakup of the UK unless further consti-
tutional reform takes place. [R]
72.2614 ANGELIS, Gabriele De ; OLIVEIRA, Emellin de — COVID-19
and the “state of exception”: assessing institutional resil-
ience in consolidated democracies — a comparative anal-
ysis of Italy and Portugal. Democratization 28(4), 2021 :
1602-1621.
How can we assess the institutional resilience of consolidated democra-
cies in emergency situations? How can we know which regulations of the
state of emergency best immunize democratic systems from intra- or inter-
regime shifts? With the COVID -19 pandemic, these questions have be-
come urgent. Although worries that intra- or inter-regime shifts may in-
crease due to the proclamation of the state of emergency mainly target
countries that were already prone to autocratization, specific complaints
have been addressed at undue impingements on fundamental rights in
consolidated democracies, too. In most of the current indexes, the pres-
ence or absence of certain institutional features is usually considered as
per se sufficient to determine the degree of a system’s resilience. Instead,
our analysis suggests that these criteria ought to be used as heuristics in
the context of an in-depth analysis of institutional mechanisms. [R, abr.]
72.2615 ARNEMANN, Laura ; KONRAD, Kai A. ; POTRAFKE, Niklas
— Collective memories on the 2010 European debt crisis.
We examine whether collective memories on the aid and reform programs
chosen to handle the 2010 European debt crisis differ between citizens
from borrower and lender countries. We use new international survey data
for non-experts and experts in member countries of the euro area. The
results show that non-experts from borrower and lender countries remem-
ber aspects of the programs in different manners; indicating biases for as-
sessments of how the crisis outcomes are perceived in borrower and
lender countries. Nation-serving biases may well explain that the 2010
Études nationales et régionales
277
European debt crisis has reduced the sense of belonging rather than
bringing European citizens closer together. [R]
72.2616 AUGSBURGER, Aaron — The plurinational state and Bo-
livia’s formación abigarrada. Third World Quarterly 42(7),
2021 : 1566-1582.
This paper examines how the concept of plurinationality relates to the no-
tion of Bolivia as a formación abigarrada (motley, disjointed social for-
mation), and how that social form corresponds with the political form of the
state. René Zavaleta Mercado is best known for his conceptualisation of
the country as a formación abigarrada, which underscores the coexistence
of multiple m odes of production and historical temporalities in the same
geographic space. Zavaleta used this concept to examine Bolivian society
as a set of historical structural articulations that develop over time in rela-
tion to different state forms. I argue that whereas the disjointedness of Bo-
livia’s social formation was always seen as a negative condition for Zava-
leta, plurinationality has been enunciated as a positive possibility, a hori-
zon beyond the socio-political formation of the liberal nation-state. [R, abr.]
72.2617 BAE, YoungJa — Nuclear safety governance in East Asia.
Review of International and Area Studies 30(1), 2021 : 107-
140.
This study examines the nuclear safety governance in East Asia from the
perspective of ‘Emerging Security’ and ‘ANT (Actor Network Theory),’ em-
phasizing on the necessity of complex and interacting domestic, regional,
and global nuclear safety governance and taking technology factor seri-
ously in reforming the current nuclear safety governance. After investigat-
ing the role of IAEA at the global level, ANSA (Asian Nuclear Safety Net-
work) and TRM (Top Regulator’s Meeting) for nuclear safety in the region,
and the organizational characteristics of domestic nuclear safety regula-
tion in Korea, China and Japan, the paper argues that a complex nuclear
safety governance should be designed to decrease the risk against poten-
tial nuclear accidents in the region. [R, abr.]
72.2618 BARAKAT, Sultan ; MILTON, Sansom ; ELKAHLOUT,
Ghassan — Reconstruction under siege: the Gaza Strip
since 2007. Disasters 44(3), July 2021 : 477-498.
This paper examines the siege of the Gaza Strip, a self-governing Pales-
tinian territory, since 2007. Research on sieges tends to concentrate on
the coping strategies of besieged communities, humanitarian issues asso-
ciated with the impacts, humanitarian access, and the prioritisation of
needs, with little or no attention paid to reconstruction. However, Gaza is
unusual as a siege environment within which reconstruction has become
a high priority in the aftermath of its three destructive wars with Israel. Fol-
lowing an overview of research on sieges in contemporary warfare and a
brief contextualisation of Gaza, this paper examines why reconstruction
outcomes have varied over time through the application of a theoretical
framework that stipulates the importance of four key factors: time; needs;
scarcity; and political context. [R, abr.]
72.2619 BASTA, Karlo ; HENDERSON, Ailsa — Multinationalism,
constitutional asymmetry and COVID: UK responses to
the pandemic. Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 27(3), 2021 :
293-310.
This article explores how the asymmetric institutionalization of the UK’s
multinationality interacted with the COVID-19 pandemic. The UK’s political
elite has traditionally accepted the country’s multinational character, but
democratic institutionalization of it occurred relatively recently and in a re-
markably asymmetric manner. Only the UK’s minority nations possess de-
volved governments, while the largest nation, England, is governed di-
rectly from the center. This framework has consequences for the pan-
demic response. It has clarified the relevance of devolved legislatures, but
also highlights continued resistance of the UK’s governing elite to
acknowledge the multi-level character of the state. [R] [See Abstr.
72.2153]
72.2620 BATORY, Agnes — A free lunch from the EU? Public per-
ceptions of corruption in cohesion policy expenditure in
post-communist EU member states. Journal of European In-
tegration 43(6), 2021 : 651-666.
Under the EU’s cohesion policy, post-communist member states in Central
and Eastern Europe (CEE) are amongst the largest recipients of European
Structural and Investment (ESI) Funds. This article focuses on popular
narratives of corruption and abuse in the allocation of the funds in the ‘new’
member states. Specifically, it aims to investigate how citizens perceive
and evaluate the origins and motivations of the EU for providing the funds,
the abuse affecting these resources, and who they blame for the misuse,
relying on focus group discussions in Hungary, Romania and Slovenia.
Popular narratives indicate that citizens perceive cohesion policy imple-
mentation as intertwined with grand corruption. While national political
elites are considered as the main culprit, EU institutions are also seen as
failing in their duties. These findings are significant because perceived EU
inaction against grand corruption undermines notions of European solidar-
ity and damages the EU’s credibility and legitimacy. [R]
72.2621 BENNOUNA, Cyril, et al. — Pandemic policymaking in pres-
idential federations: explaining subnational responses to
COVID-19 in Brazil, Mexico, and the United States. Publius
51(4), Fall 2021 : 570-600.
Why do COVID-19 social distancing policies vary so widely across states
in federal countries? This mixed-methods study of Brazil, Mexico, and the
US finds that state-level variation in the stringency of social distancing pol-
icies is driven not by the epidemiological, demographic, or socio-economic
factors commonly emphasized in previous research, but largely by political
factors. Introducing a novel framework for explaining pandemic policymak-
ing, the study shows the central importance of political parties, presidential
power, and governors’ coalitions in determining state-level policy strin-
gency. In the US and Mexico, statistical and qualitative evidence indicates
that interstate collaboration among governors, combined with top-down
pressures from national party elites and presidents, led to greater policy
alignment among coordinated states. In Brazil, in contrast, where there is
little evidence of either policy coordination or alignment, state-level policies
resulted instead from intrastate factors and diffusion. [R, abr.] [See Abstr.
72.2695]
72.2622 BERLIN, David Pion ; IVEY, Andrew — Military dissent in the
United States: are there lessons from Latin America? De-
fense and Security Analysis 37(2), 2021 : 193-211.
The civil-military relations of the Trump Presidency became increasingly
troubled. The President attempted not only to involve the military in parti-
san politics, but also in counter-protest operations in the face of nationwide
demonstrations. Such operations increase the likelihood of human rights
abuses by the military, which prides itself on professionalism and public
approval. How can officers resist a commander-in-chief pulling them into
partisan politics, particularly when this endangers military professionalism
and quite possibly democracy itself? This article finds that US military com-
manders might turn to their counterparts across Latin America for exam-
ples and lessons. Commanders in Chile, Ecuador, Colombia and Brazil
have found innovative waves to resist unwise Presidential orders and po-
tentially save lives in the process. Critically, we find that these instances
of justifiable dissent did not result in an erosion of civilian control. [R]
72.2623 BIRKLAND, Thomas A., et al. — Governing in a polarized
era: federalism and the response of US State and federal
governments to the COVID-19 pandemic. Publius 51(4), Fall
2021 : 650-672.
How does the state of American federalism explain responses to COVID-
19? State-by-state variations to the COVID-19 pandemic illustrate the po-
litical dynamics of “kaleidoscopic federalism,” under which there is no sin-
gle prevailing principle of federalism. In the COVID-19 pandemic, features
of kaleidoscopic federalism combined with shortcomings in the public
health system under the Trump administration, leading to fragmented re-
sponses to the pandemic among the states. Federalism alone does not
explain the shortcomings of the US response to the pandemic. Rather, the
fragmented response was driven by state partisanship, which shaped
state public health interventions and resulted in differences in public health
outcomes. This has sobering implications for American federalism be-
cause state-level partisan differences yield different and unequal re-
sponses to the pandemic. [R] [See Abstr. 72.2695]
72.2624 BITSCHNAU, Marco, et al. — Politicising immigration in
times of crisis: empirical evidence from Switzerland. Jour-
nal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 47(17), 2021 : 3864-3890.
This article investigates the politicisation of immigration in Switzerland dur-
ing two major socioeconomic crises: the oil crisis of the 1970s and the
financial crisis of the late 2000s. Based on 2,853 newspaper claims from
1970 to 1976 and 1995 to 2018, we measure and compare differences in
salience, polarisation, actor diversity and frame use between crisis and
noncrisis periods. We find that while claims-making on immigration was
indeed more salient, polarised, and diversified during the oil crisis, the em-
pirical data for the financial crisis are inconclusive or show a slight de-
crease. Nonetheless, we still find a noteworthy increase in the use of iden-
tity frames during both periods. We conclude that while crises may influ-
ence claims-making about immigration and thus affect the politicisation of
the matter, their contextual links to particular immigrant groups appear to
be of importance as well. Crises do not increase politicisation automati-
cally but may provide important opportunity structures that foster it. [R]
72.2625 BLOCH, Jens Hundevad, et al. — Not all hubs are made
equal: a case study of airport governance in Europe. Eu-
ropean Urban and Regional Studies 28(3), July 2021 : 241-
262.
This research sheds light on the societal underpinnings of the makings of
hub airports. From an airport governance perspective, a case study of four
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