The history of colonialism encompassed diverse meetings between societies and cultures, providing chances for discovery (by both the colonizing and the colonized) of differing sexual attitudes and behaviors. Varying sexual cultures inspired European ethnographical research, relativised sexual certainties and incited both fantasies and moral concern. Eroticised images of foreign men appeared in art, and affective relationships between Europeans and non-Europeans featured in literary works. The sex lives of “natives” and Europeans overseas provided subjects of speculation. The conquest of overseas territories by European and other expanding powers also led to the imposition of Western law codes regulating sexuality, including same-sex relations, gender norms, and marriage. Prohibitions on “sodomy” entered law codes throughout the British Empire, often with provisions of severe penalties. Only in the late 1900s did decriminalization occur in the British settler Dominions, though less often in former colonies in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean. For European countries where same-sex activity had been decriminalized, such as France, it generally remained legal in the colonies, though surrounded with taboos and social opprobrium. Same-sex desire (and relations between Europeans or between them and indigenous people) appeared in many forms in colonial societies and in the lives of men associated with overseas empires. It was castigated by authorities as a menace to colonial mores but experienced by some men in the colonies as an opportunity for pleasure and a source of male bonding; non-Western sexual cultures provided arguments for both campaigns of “moralization” and for homosexual emancipation in Europe. Occasional scandals underscored the ways in which debates about sexual difference intertwined with colonial-era attitudes and policies.
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Historical Views of Homosexuality: European Colonialism
Robert Aldrich
Article
Homosexuality Under Socialism in the German Democratic Republic
Josh Armstrong
In general, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) did not treat its gay and lesbian citizens very favorably. Although the legal situation was more liberal than in the Federal Republic (West Germany) and other Western European countries, most homosexual East Germans lived in a state of invisibility at best, or suffered direct homophobia at worst, often at the hands of the government. In the mid-1980s, the public and government stance toward homosexuality liberalized slightly, leading to small improvements in the lives of gay East Germans. However, gay East Germans never experienced many of the same freedoms or opportunities that their West German, other Western European, or American counterparts enjoyed.
Gay East Germans occupied a difficult position within the socialist ideology of the GDR. In theory, each East German was equal, enjoying universal rights and opportunities, and living free from discrimination. At the same time, however, the smallest building block of the society was the heterosexual, reproductive, married couple: a model into which same-sex desiring people could not fit. This doctrine of supposed equality probably contributed to the fact that homosexuality was decriminalized earlier in the GDR than in the Federal Republic, but it was also used by the SED (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands: the ruling, dictatorial party) as an excuse not to engage further with the specific needs of gay citizens until the mid-1980s.
The GDR saw some limited gay activism in the 1970s in the form of the Homosexuelle Interessengemeinschaft Berlin (HIB); however, the group’s activities never really extended outside of East Berlin and did not lead to significant political or social change. More impactful activism occurred in the 1980s under the aegis of the Protestant Church as the only organization in the GDR that operated largely outside of state control. The SED eventually yielded to some of the demands of gay activists—by sanctioning publications and meeting spaces, for example—but did so primarily to draw gay activists out of the protection of Church structures and in order to be able to monitor and control them more easily.
There are few East German literary or artistic works that engage with homosexuality, although a number of relevant literary works were published in the 1980s. These contributed to a fledgling discourse around homosexuality, shifting the issue from a taboo topic to one more acceptable for discussion in the public sphere. However, when East German audiences viewed Heiner Carow’s Coming Out in 1989—the first and only East German feature film to depict homosexual relationships—many claimed that it was their first exposure to homosexuality. And, since the GDR ceased to exist as a state fairly abruptly in 1990, one will never know how the trajectory of gay rights activism may have continued.
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The Horn of Africa: Regional Politics and Dynamics
Christopher Clapham
The peculiar politics of the Horn of Africa derives from the region’s exceptional pattern of state formation. At its center, Ethiopia was Africa’s sole indigenous state to remain independent through the period of colonial conquest, and also imposed its rule on areas not historically subject to it. The Somalis, most numerous of the pastoralist peoples, were unique in rejecting the colonial partition, which divided them between British and Italian Somalilands, French Djibouti, Kenya, and Ethiopia, while formerly Italian Eritrea, incorporated into Ethiopia in the post-World War II settlement, retained a sense of separate identity that fueled a long struggle for independence. These differences, coupled with the 1974 revolution in Ethiopia, led to wars that culminated in 1991 in the independence of Eritrea, the collapse of the Somali state, and the creation in Ethiopia of a federal system based on ethnicity. Developments since that time provide a distinctive slant on the legacies of colonial rule, the impact of guerrilla warfare, the role of religion in a region divided between Christianity and Islam, the management of ethnicity, and external intervention geared to largely futile attempts at state reconstruction. The Horn continues to follow trajectories of its own, at variance from the rest of Africa.
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Ideas and Political Mobilization in Africa
Anne Heffernan
Ideas play a key role in political mobilization around the world, and often ideas travel cross-nationally. It is important to recognize the diverse influences and iterative processes that produce political ideologies and influence mobilization. The sociological literature on diffusion offers scholars a framework for thinking about and recognizing the channels through which ideas move. When tracing such channels, scholars must also be cognizant of the ways that movement of this sort affects ideas and ideologies themselves; international concepts will always be read through domestic lenses, and local realities prompt reinterpretation of global ideas. The Black Consciousness Movement offers a case study to analyze some key channels through which global ideas moved and impacted a university student movement in 1970s South Africa. Influenced by anti-colonialism and antiracism discourses originating in Europe, the Caribbean, and the United States, Black Consciousness thinkers took these ideas and refashioned them into their own ideology. They used relational networks as well as channels like art, theatre, fashion, and development projects to mobilize a constituency and to propagate their own ideas, which have endured beyond the end of the formal Black Consciousness Movement.
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India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh: Civil-Military Relations
Sumit Ganguly
Civil–military relations in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh constitute an interesting puzzle because all three nations are inheritors of the British colonial tradition of military subordination to civilian authority. The patterns that have emerged and evolved in these countries stand out in marked contrast to one another. In India, barring important and marked exceptions, the military has mostly remained away from politics and has, for the most part, been subordinate to civilian authority. In the early part of the 21st century, however, there have been some disturbing developments which call into question the political neutrality of the military. Yet it is unclear if these will lead to an erosion of the mostly apolitical ethos of the military. In Pakistan, in marked contrast, the military took part in four coups (1958, 1969, 1978, 1999), ruled the country for extensive periods of time and has secured a position in the country’s governing structure. Barring extraordinary endogenous or exogenous shocks, it is hard to envisage a dramatic change in the structure of civil–military relations in the country. In Bangladesh, the military led coups in 1975, 1982, and 2007. Even though it does not have a formal role in government, it nevertheless remains an important force in the politics of the country. No national leader can act on critical questions of public policy without taking into account the views of the uniformed military. More to the point, elements within the military have remained restive and have chafed at civilian control.
What explains the three divergent pathways in these countries despite their common colonial heritage? What are the salient features of civil–military relations in these states? How have India and Pakistan’s acquisition of nuclear weapons affected the scope and dimensions of their civil–military relations? What does the future hold for civil–military relations in all three states? These are the principal questions that will addressed be drawing on a substantial swath of extant literature.
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Inducements in Interstate Relations
Paige Cone and Rupal N. Mehta
What has the academic scholarship found to date on the role of inducements, external incentives, or punishments to change the behavior of states in the international system? To understand the role of inducements in international relations, it is imperative to explore the full package of options, often referred to as “carrots and sticks” that are available in foreign policy decision-making to best understand when and why certain inducements are successful and why some may be more so than others. There are two big debates of policy importance to note here: Can nuclear decision-making be influenced by external actors, such as the United States? And, second, which set of tools are most helpful to the state seeking to change the behavior of another: carrots, sticks, or some combination of both? Although both incentives and punishments are generally used to change behavior in interstate relations, there are unique policy levers in the nuclear arena that scholars have recently begun to explore. The literature on inducements directly impacts ongoing policy debates, which in turn ultimately highlights the need for more research on nuclear-specific inducements. This article offers the first in-depth, systematic analysis of these inducement options, starting with their general use and then focusing specifically on inducements in the nuclear proliferation arena.
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Interconnected Asian History and “Open” World Orders
Manjeet S. Pardesi
Historical Asia was an interconnected system of “open” world orders. This is a crucial theoretical takeaway for International Relations (IR) theory from historical Asia. In other words, there has never been one single order covering all of Asia or any of its subregions. There were multiple, unevenly overlapping orders in historical Asia. This perspective, which is rooted in the global historical approach to IR, challenges the Eurocentric notion of the “containerized” version of Asian regional worlds and world orders that only came into meaningful contact with each other because of the early modern European expansion. At the same time, this global and historical perspective also challenges all essentialist views of the East Asian past that characterize that part of the world as living in splendid Sinocentric isolation for thousands of years until China and East Asia were “opened up” by the West. Two crucial periods and processes of Asian history show the deep and transformative impact of the entanglements between South Asia and East Asia for Asian world orders: the Indic-Buddhist impact on China in the 1st millennium (and into the early centuries of the 2nd millennium), and the role of India in the so-called opening up of China by the West in the 19th and 20th centuries.
These processes provide two crucial insights. First, historical East Asia was not a China-centered system for 2,000 years. The Buddhist impact on China had a profound impact on both the Chinese worldview and the world order(s) that existed in (East) Asia. More specifically, the Buddhist interconnections across Asia demonstrate that the “international” (or the global) was larger than East Asia, and that China and its eastern neighbors knew that too. Second, and relatedly, pre-European East Asia was not a “closed” system. While the expansion of Europe may have “opened up” China and East Asia in the 19th century, this represented the “opening up” of that part of the world for the West, and not because East Asia lived in Sinocentric isolation from the rest of Asia. Furthermore, Indian resources played a fundamental role in that Sino-Western encounter, thereby demonstrating the interconnectedness of the world orders of South and East Asia. Asia and its subregions defy singular and all-encompassing orders, and Asian history points toward a plurality of open and overlapping orders. Notably, the emerging regional orders in Asia are also pointing toward such a configuration. Asia is not one, but Asia is not disconnected either.
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The International Crisis Behavior Project
Kyle Beardsley, Patrick James, Jonathan Wilkenfeld, and Michael Brecher
Over the course of more than four decades the International Crisis Behavior (ICB) Project, a major and ongoing data-gathering enterprise in the social sciences, has compiled data that continues to be accessed heavily in scholarship on conflict processes. ICB holdings consist of full-length qualitative case studies, along with an expanding range of quantitative data sets. Founded in 1975, the ICB Project is among the most visible and influential within the discipline of International Relations (IR). A wide range of studies based either primarily or in part on the ICB’s concepts and data have accumulated and cover subjects that include the causes, processes, and consequences of crises. The breadth of ICB’s contribution has expanded over time to go beyond a purely state-centric approach to include crisis-related activities of transnational actors across a range of categories. ICB also offers depth through, for example, potential resolution of contemporary debates about mediation in crises on the basis of nuanced findings about long- versus short-term impact with regard to conflict resolution.
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International Security in Latin America
Sebastian Bitar and Tom Long
Latin America exhibits some of the world’s most worrisome patterns of insecurity. Homicide rates have reached alarming levels in dozens of cities in Mexico, Central America, Brazil, Venezuela, and Colombia. Drug and other illicit trafficking generate massive income for criminal organizations. Fighting among these organizations, and between criminal groups and the state, threatens human security in zones of production and along transit routes. Refugee crises—especially an exodus of 4 million Venezuelans by 2019—could increase substantially. Receiving countries struggle to respond.
Insecurity in Latin America cannot be fully understood through comparison of the domestic challenges of each country in the region. The sources of contemporary insecurity are not contained within countries, but extend to transnational criminal networks, flows of illicit goods, and human trafficking and displacement. Likewise, isolated state responses are insufficient to respond to transnational dynamics; although some coordination has been achieved, intergovernmental responses have produced limited gains and substantial unintended consequences. Thus, we consider security challenges in the region as a “security complex” that includes Latin American and Caribbean countries, but in which the United States remains significant.
On the other hand, international conflict and civil war, as traditionally defined, have almost vanished from Latin America. Threats of military coups and politically motivated violence have declined after being a key security issue for decades. However, some troubling cases and trends complicate this positive trend. Venezuela’s governing civilian–military alliance eroded basic democratic institutions and produced an economic, political, and humanitarian crisis. In response, the United States has raised the specter of military intervention or coup sponsorship. Honduras and especially Nicaragua have turned to authoritarianism, accompanied by alarming levels of repression of protesters and civil society activists. U.S. policies under the Trump administration toward migrants from Central America and Mexico are creating great tension in the region and fear of reprisals. Although most border disputes have been settled a few still are unresolved or contested and could generate tensions between countries in the region.
The academic literature about international security in Latin America reflects the complex dynamics described above, covers historical and contemporary security challenges in the region, and presents debates and developments on Latin American security at the international and national levels. Despite its wide scope, the existing literature presents areas where more work is needed to account for emerging trends of (in)security.
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Iran: Imperial and Republican Civil–Military Relations
Ahmed S. Hashim
Iran has traditionally been troubled by unstable civil–military relations throughout its history. In the past, even before the emergence of the academic study of civil–military relations, Iranian imperial monarchs attempted, but often failed to ensure complete oversight of their military forces, due to the nature of imperial rule with its multiple power centers, and to the existence of myriad military forces that were often not under the monarch’s control. The rise of a centralized state in the early 20th century under Reza Shah ensured the emergence of stability in civil–military relations by means of carrots and sticks. Under Mohammad Reza Shah (r.1941–1979), early civil–military relations were quite unstable due to political turmoil and the young ruler’s lack of confidence; in subsequent years, he managed to cement his control over the military by means of patronage, insulation from domestic politics, and stringent oversight of the senior officer corps. The Iranian revolution (1978–1979) succeeded, to a large extent, due to the Shah’s own failures and those of the senior officer corps, both of which were paralyzed in the face of massive political and social turmoil. The successor state, the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) achieved control over the armed forces through ideological control and oversight and the creation of institutionalized parallel military structures. Nonetheless, the IRI has faced and continues to face instability in civil–military relations due to war, domestic political and socioeconomic crises, and foreign pressures.
Article
Israel and the European Union
Sharon Pardo
Israeli-European Union (EU) relations have consisted of a number of conflicting trends that have resulted in the emergence of a highly problematic and volatile relationship: one characterized by a strong and ever-increasing network of economic, cultural, and personal ties, yet marked, at the political level, by disappointment, bitterness, and anger. On the one hand, Israel has displayed a genuine desire to strengthen its ties with the EU and to be included as part of the European integration project. On the other hand, Israelis are deeply suspicious of the Union’s policies and are untrusting of the Union’s intentions toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and to the Middle East as a whole. As a result, Israel has been determined to minimize the EU’s role in the Middle East peace process (MEPP), and to deny it any direct involvement in the negotiations with the Palestinians. The article summarizes some key developments in Israeli-European Community (EC)/EU relations since 1957: the Israeli (re)turn to Europe in the late 1950s; EC–Israeli economic and trade relations; the 1980 Venice Declaration and the EC/EU involvement in the MEPP; EU–Israeli relations in a regional/Mediterranean context; the question of Israeli settlements’ products entering free of duty to the European Common Market; EU–Israeli relations in the age of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP); the failed attempt to upgrade EU–Israeli relations between the years 2007 and 2014; and the Union’s prohibition on EU funding to Israeli entities beyond the 1967 borders. By discussing the history of this uneasy relationship, the article further offers insights into how the EU is actually judged as a global-normative actor by Israelis.
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Japan and the European Union
Hitoshi Suzuki, Yu Suzuki, and Yoshimi Igawa
Japan and the European Union have historically developed relations, from trade conflicts to mutual cooperation between global actors. Japan’s prewar attitude and postwar rapid reconstruction caused misunderstandings and frictions, but these were gradually overcome thanks to the efforts made by Japan, the European Commission and member state governments. After the Cold War ended, policy fields of cooperation expanded from “mutual” market liberalization to foreign direct investments, aid, security, and environment. Japan and the EU jointly aided the newly liberalized countries in Central Eastern Europe, while the EU sought to strengthen its relations with countries in the Asia-Pacific. The Japan–EU Economic Partnership Agreement and the Strategic Partnership Agreement of 2018 were signed on the 50th anniversary of the customs union. The Agreements are jointly aimed by both parties to foster global free trade and shared values. For the first time in postwar history, Japan and the EU had reached an agreement before achieving one with the United States. Japan–EU relations are the strongest they have been since 1959 when the Japanese Mission to the European Communities and the European Commission Delegation to Japan were established. But the security threats in the Pacific indicate that bilateral relations between Japan and member states—the United Kingdom and France at the forefront—are still in play. The impact of Brexit, estimated to be felt more on the Japanese side, is also an issue requiring close study.
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Kosovo and the European Union
Spyros Economides
The European Union’s involvement with and in Kosovo is of three main types. First, it participated in war diplomacy in the late 1990s in an attempt to find a peaceful solution to the Kosovo conflict between Kosovar Albanians and the Serb forces of the former Yugoslavia. This demonstrated of the Union’s limited ability to influence less powerful actors in its backyard through its Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). This resulted from the difficulty the EU found in attempting to forge a consensus among its member states on a significant matter of regional security with humanitarian implications, the limitations in effectiveness of the EU’s civilian instruments of foreign policy, and the low credibility and influence stemming from the lack of an EU military capability. Second, the EU took a leading role in economic reconstruction and state-building in Kosovo following the end of the conflict. Initially, this was in tandem with the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK). Subsequently, the EU became the lead organization, focusing its efforts not only on the physical and economic reconstruction of the territory but also on building human and administrative capacity and democratic institutions and establishing good governance and the rule of law, especially through its EULEX mission. Third, the EU attempted to help transform Kosovo beyond democratization toward EU integration through instruments such as the Stabilisation and Association Process (SAP). A significant part of this process has also been linked with EU-led mediation attempts at resolving outstanding issues between Kosovo and Serbia through a process of normalization of relations without which EU accession cannot be envisaged.
Throughout the post-war phases of the EU’s involvement in Kosovo, its efforts have been undermined by the most important outstanding issue, the disputed status of Kosovo. Kosovo was set on the path to increasing self-government and autonomy at the end of the conflict in 1999, but it was still legally part of sovereign Yugoslavia. In 2008, Kosovo unilaterally declared its independence. While over 100 states recognized Kosovo, it never acquired enough recognitions to be eligible for UN membership: Serbia does not recognize it and, most importantly, neither do five EU member states. This status issue has seriously complicated the EU–Kosovo relationship in all its aspects and slowed down the prospect of “Euro-Atlantic integration” for Kosovo.
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Land-Related Conflict and Electoral Politics in Africa
Catherine Boone
Land-related disputes and land conflicts are sometimes politicized in elections in African countries, but this is usually not the case. Usually, land-related conflict is highly localized, managed at the micro-political level by neo-customary authorities, and not connected to electoral competition. Why do land conflicts sometimes become entangled in electoral politics, and sometimes “scale up” to become divisive issues in regional and national elections? A key determinant of why and how land disputes become politicized is the nature of the underlying land tenure regime, which varies across space (often by subnational district) within African countries. Under the neo-customary land tenure regimes that prevail in most regions of smallholder agriculture in most African countries, land disputes tend to be “bottled up” in neo-customary land-management processes at the local level. Under the statist land tenure regimes that exist in some districts of many African countries, government agents and officials are directly involved in land allocation and directly implicated in dispute resolution. Under “statist” land tenure institutions, the politicization of land conflict, especially around elections, becomes more likely. Land tenure institutions in African countries define landholders’ relations to each other, the state, and markets. Understanding these institutions, including how they come under pressure and change, goes far in explaining how and where land rights become politicized.
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Lebanon: A Military in Politics in a Divided Society
Oren Barak
Since Lebanon’s independence in the mid-1940s, its military—the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF)—has played a pivotal role in the country’s politics. The political role of the LAF in Lebanon might seem surprising since the Lebanese state did not militarize, and its political leaders have continuously managed to keep their military relatively weak and small. Indeed, in this respect Lebanon has been markedly different from its close neighbors (Syria and Israel), but also from several other Middle Eastern states (especially Egypt and Iraq), where the military, which was large and powerful, was continuously involved in politics. Additionally, both Lebanon and the LAF have persistently striven to distance themselves from regional conflicts since 1949, particularly in relation to the Palestinian issue, albeit not always successfully. Still, and despite these ostensibly unfavorable factors for the military’s involvement in politics in Lebanon, the LAF has played an important political role in the state since its independence. This role, which has been marked by elements of continuity and change over the years, included mediation and arbitration between rival political factions (in 1945–1958, 2008, 2011, and 2019); attempts to dominate the political system (in 1958–1970 and 1988–1990); intervention in the Lebanese civil war (in 1975–1976 and 1982–1984); attempts to regain its balancing role in politics (in 1979–1982 and 1984–1988); and facilitating the state’s postwar reconstruction (since 1991). The political role of the military in Lebanon can be explained by several factors. First, the weakness of Lebanon’s political system and its inability to resolve crises between its members. Second, Lebanon’s divided society and its members’ general distrust towards its civilian politicians. Third, the basic characteristics of Lebanon’s military, which, in most periods, enjoyed broad public support that cuts across the lines of community, region, and family, and found appeal among domestic and external audiences, which, in their turn, acquiesced to its political role in the state.
Article
Liberation Movements in Power in Africa
Roger Southall
Liberation movements in Africa are nationalist movements that have resorted to armed struggle to overthrow colonialism, white minority rule, or oppressive postcolonial governments. Claiming to represent the national will, some are intolerant of opposition, others dubious of the legitimacy of multiparty democracy: this difference is a reflection of whether the military wing of the liberation movement dominates the political movement or whether the reverse situation applies. In the post–Cold War era, liberation movements espouse notions of the “developmental state,” continuing to ascribe the state a primary role in economic development event though they may simultaneously embrace the market. The extent to which they subordinate political considerations and freedoms to the pursuit of economic growth dictates whether they pursue paths of authoritarian development or developmental stagnation
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Macedonia: Troublesome Relations Among Politics, Ethnicity, and the Military
Biljana Vankovska
At first sight, relations between politics and the military in Macedonia, one of the ex-Yugoslav republics that gained independence in 1991, seem to resemble the typical evolution of civil–military relations in other countries in transition. Yet, history in Macedonia is far from straightforward and simple. First, the country’s appearance on the world scene was unique: it was practically a demilitarized state with no army! Apart from that, amid the Yugoslav imbroglio it was known as an “oasis of peace.” Only 10 years later, in 2001, Macedonia found itself on the verge of an ethnic conflict, with a powerless (Macedonian-dominated) military that confronted apparently well-organized Albanian paramilitary forces. In March 2020, Macedonia became NATO’s 30th member state. Yet, the dilemma that affects civil–military relations at both the political-military and societal-military levels has not gone away. Theoretically and practically, any meaningful analysis requires detection of the troublesome aspects of each side of the triangle: state/politics/military/society/ethnicity. Though the society–state dimension is far from inconsiderable, on methodological grounds the analysis that follows is restricted to the other two dimensions.
NATO membership for a transitional country usually presupposes a successful democratic transition, internal stability, and societal consensus over key national values and interests. Macedonia’s case belies that assumption. The Macedonian military has been practically invisible in internal politics, while it has been widely cited as a key asset for bringing the country closer to NATO by direct involvement in military interventions launched by the United States or NATO, starting with Afghanistan and Iraq and extending to the plans for involvement in Mali’s affairs. Behind the façade, there is silent internal strife within the ranks along political and ethnic lines (i.e., the same lines that sharply divide the state and society, challenging the country’s internal cohesion and democratic prospects). In addition, the military has to make do with scant essential resources, while the military officers’ self-respect is severely diminished by the low societal rewards for their profession. Macedonia’s democratic transition is far from complete, since the country is going through a deep internal crisis related to its societal/security dilemma, and the military is just one of the institutions that suffer because of ethnic competition and unprincipled power-sharing bargaining.
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The Military in African Politics
Maggie Dwyer
Interstate conflict has been rare in sub-Saharan Africa and militaries often do not fit the image of a force focused on external threats. Instead, they have often been heavily engaged in domestic politics, regularly serving as regime protection. For many militaries on the continent, the continued internal focus of the armed forces has been shaped by practices under colonialism.
One defining feature of African militaries’ involvement in politics is the coup d’état. From the 1960s to the 1980s coups were the primary method of regime change, making the military central to the political landscape of the continent. By the start of the 21st century there were far fewer direct attempts at military control of African states, yet militaries continue to influence politics even under civilian leadership. While there are differences in the role of militaries based on the unique circumstances of each state, there are also general patterns regarding new missions undertaken by armed forces following the end of the Cold War. These include peacekeeping, counterterrorism, and humanitarian assistance, all of which generally involve international partnerships and cooperation. Yet these missions have also had domestic political motivations and effects.
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Military Learning and Evolutions in Warfare in the Modern Era
Nathan W. Toronto
The way militaries learn has evolved over time, and the first two decades of the 21st century once again see military learning on the cusp of change. Since the start of the modern era in the early 18th century, military learning has evolved from a focus on technical, tactical skills relevant to specific combat branches to a generalized study of war and warfare that blends theory and practice. These changes have come about in response to developments in human capital, battlefield technology, and warfare, or how military forces fight. The early 21st century has witnessed a new shift in warfare, from networked warfare—in which information is synchronized across location, targeting, and precision guidance systems to find, fix, and destroy the enemy with deadly efficiency—to unconventional information warfare—in which non-state actors have access to many of the same information resources and, combined with cyber capabilities that rely on anonymity and occasional state support, negate many of the advantages of networked warfare. This portends a change in how militaries learn, to patterns of learning that can cope with a battlespace that is potentially omnipresent, where states must incorporate all elements of national power coherently in order to achieve success in war.
These changes are evident not only on the battlefield, but also in military schools. The theories of Napoleonic warfare born at the dawn of the modern era seem increasingly inadequate for the realities of modern combat. This calls for the generation of new bodies of knowledge by military officers and other specialists in the field. The notion that war itself is politics conducted by other means is increasingly under threat. Likewise, curricula at military schools bear an increasing resemblance to curricula at academic civilian programs in security studies, leadership, and international relations, and more and more civilians are sitting side by side with military officers in the classroom. Since the end of World War II, the bounds of the battlefield have bled into the traditionally civilian space of information, so the study of war and warfare is no longer the unique province of the military officer. This process has accelerated in the 21st century, and a range of defense analysts, scholars, and policymakers have commented on how military forces prepare to fight.
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Nationalism in African Politics
Sara Rich Dorman
African nationalism’s origins are found in anti-colonial protest and the artificial boundaries of post-colonial states. But it has proven a resilient force in African politics, alongside the colonially engineered states, with few border changes in the post-independence period. Despite the artificiality of the new states and nations, only a few new states emerge, with most political conflict aimed at ensuring inclusion within the state’s original boundaries. The experience of decolonization has led nationalist politics to be coalitional in form rather than ideological, bringing together diverse groups. Nation building strategies are deployed after independence to promote unity and development while depoliticizing, homogenizing, and gendering the nationalist legacy. Memorialization and iconography are deployed in this cause, but unevenly. The decades after independence are marked by single party or no-party rule in which the nationalist generations hold on to power. After the end of the cold war, when multiparty elections resumed in many states, and with the aging nationalists increasingly unable to maintain their hold on power, identity-based politics was transformed into an often violent politics of belonging, identifying some ethnic and racial groups as more fully national than others. In states that experienced liberation wars, the generation that led the struggle proved particularly resistant to handing over power, basing their claims on their nationalist credentials and seeking to discredit others. Yet generational and technological change ensured that subaltern groups, through creative and social media, as well as political movements, continued to claim, contest, and transform national imaginaries.
