Counter‐terrorism and the Politics of Aid: Civil Society Responses in Kenya

Against the backdrop of terrorist attacks in 1998 and 2002, Kenya has come under pressure from aid donors and diplomatic circles to co‐operate in achieving the political and military objectives of the War on Terror. The Kenyan government has received legal, technical and financial support to implement new counter‐terrorism structures. However, while these have raised concerns around human rights and the ability of people to come together and organize on shared interests, the response of civil society in Kenya has been muted. It is mainly human rights campaigners, lawyers, Muslim organizations and leaders, and some politicians that have opposed proposed anti‐terrorism legislation. Even fewer groups have spoken out against the government's participation in a regional rendition programme in the Horn of Africa supported by the United States. This weak response reflects the significant ethnic and regional fragmentation that prevails in the country. This article critically examines the impacts of counter‐terrorism in Kenya and civil society responses to these in a shifting political landscape.     

Osama or the Georges: Shifting Threats and State Policy towards Civil Society in Uzbekistan

In examining the relationship between the War on Terror and restrictions on civil society, Uzbekistan is an important case, given its emergence as a key player in the operations in Afghanistan, its own terrorist threat, and its particularly stringent policy towards civil society. This article argues that while the ‘crackdown’ on civil society has followed a similar pattern to that of other countries where civil society is perceived as harbouring a threat, there has been a significant shift since the War on Terror began as to the perceived nature of the threat. At the time of 9/11, the government of Uzbekistan took Islamic terrorism to be the main threat; yet within the space of just over two years a new threat was perceived. Western support for civil society, a concession made to the US‐led coalition in return for support against Islamic terrorism, emerged as an even greater threat to the regime. It is this perceived threat that has primarily driven state policy towards civil society, raising important questions about how democracy promotion can be best taken forward in the post‐9/11 world.     

Counter‐terrorism and the Regulation of Civil Society in the USA

This article examines the impact of counter‐terrorism measures on non‐profit regulation in the USA, where some of the most interventionist legal and policy responses took hold soon after the brutal attacks of September 2001. It highlights the sternness of these measures by comparing the US approach to counter‐terrorism and charity regulation with that of the UK. It suggests that the different institutional arrangements for charity regulation in the two countries account in part for different treatment and policy choices, with implications for civil society groups working domestically and overseas. The article particularly analyses the impact of legislation and policy on the American philanthropic sector, and the responses of civil society to measures enacted and undertaken in the USA. It argues that groups directly affected by the new legislation and hardened policy, especially Muslim charities and some civil liberties group, have openly resisted these measures, while mainstream non‐profit sector and philanthropic institutions have often acquiesced in the introduction of new policies, ‘guidelines’ and legislation, opposing them only when they felt directly threatened.     

Embedding the War on Terror: State and Civil Society Relations

The global war on terror was used by the Bush administration and its allies to defend a US dominated geopolitical configuration. To this end, counter‐terrorism measures (CTMs) were introduced which strengthened the alignment of development aid with diplomacy and defence. The broad, adverse effects of CTMs on civil liberties and human rights are well documented. Despite the advent of a new US administration and a ‘soft power’ approach to international relations, the legacy of the war on terror remains embedded in the laws, policies and attitudes of many states and regimes that continue to enclose the lives of citizens. This article describes the experiences of civil society organizations (CSOs) as ‘securitization’ processes unfolded. Studies over two years involving some forty countries provide an on‐the‐ground view to probe the gains and losses of securitization, both for governments in the US‐led ‘coalition of the willing’ and for civil society in terms of the pressures emerging from a development‐for‐security agenda. The authors identify some of the perverse zero‐sum effects on governments of CTM philosophy and the means employed. Findings also show asymmetry between northern and southern CSOs in terms of their negative‐sum subordination, found in the definition of security and in the vulnerability to new risks involved in undertaking development work.     

An Exceptional Response? Security,Development and Civil Society in Spanish Policy after 11‐M

This article considers the ways in which Spanish state institutions responded to the Madrid bombings of 11 March 2004 in the context of the global ‘War on Terror’. It examines three inter‐related arenas of Spanish policy after 9/11 in which security and civil society are invoked in ways that impact upon the country's development agenda toward its southern Mediterranean partners. The first relates to Spain's external relations with its North African neighbours, and in particular the place of migration in shaping these relations over the last decade. The second concerns Spain's political relations with the representative organizations of its own Muslim populations. A third area of analysis pertains to the juridical‐institutional reactions of the state to the 11 March attacks: how have public authorities and civil society been affected and refashioned in the face of jihadist terrorism on the peninsula? The author argues that in each of these domains, the post‐9/11 context generally, and the 11 March attacks in particular, have elicited a securitization of civil society, which has in turn been associated with the country's international relations and domestic politics. Such securitization, however, has only been partially successful, thus vindicating the continuation of ‘politics as usual’ among Spain's state officials and its civil society.     

Sousveilling the ‘Global War on Terror’

This article theorises what it means to challenge official regimes of surveillance in the War on Terror by further developing the notion of ‘sousveillance’. In particular, we focus on the performative dimension of surveillance by attending to its sites of struggle, particularly where alternative and counter-performances work to disrupt and dislodge official regimes of vision. These potent counter-performances have become important flashpoints for discussion in the ongoing negotiation of security state power since the onset of the War on Terror. The article begins by considering what it means to call surveillance ‘performative’ and how such official performances have had a documented chilling effect on free expression and democratic deliberation. It continues by exploring Steve Mann’s notion of ‘sousveillance’, or the view from below, as a theoretical resource for understanding counter-visual performances that otherwise challenge authoritarian surveillant practices. Finally, the article illustrates these dynamics through a number of sousveillant performances that have provoked new deliberative spaces in the context of the War on Terror.     

The problem with ‘radicalization’: the remit of ‘Prevent’ and the need to refocus on terrorism in the UK

This article questions the utility of the term ‘radicalization’ as a focus for counter‐terrorism response in the UK. It argues that the lack of clarity as to who the radicalized are has helped to facilitate a ‘Prevent’ strand of counterterrorism strategy that has confusingly oscillated between tackling violent extremism, in particular, to promoting community cohesion and ‘shared values’ more broadly. The article suggests that the focus of counterterrorism strategy should be on countering terrorism and not on the broader remit implied by wider conceptions of radical‐ization. This is not to diminish the importance of contextual or ‘root cause’ factors behind terrorism, but, if it is terrorism that is to be understood and countered, then such factors should be viewed within the terrorism‐counterterrorism discourse and not a radicalization‐counter‐radicalization one. The article goes on to consider the characterization of those presenting a terrorist threat to the UK as being ‘vulnerable’ to violent extremism. While it argues that the notion of vulnerable individuals and communities also lends itself to a wider ‘Prevent’ remit, it cautions that the impetus towards viewing terrorism as the product of vulnerability should not deflect us from what has generally been agreed in terrorism studies—that terrorism involves the perpetration of rational and calculated acts of violence.     

The desert of the real and the simulacrum of war

As the global war on terror bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, a new inter‐and intra‐service struggle emerged within the military, between what we might call the ‘transformationists’ and the ‘neotraditionalists’. The transformationists put their faith in network‐centric warfare and precision munitions to resolve the intractable political, civil and religious conflicts of the twenty‐first century. The neotraditionalists, in contrast, go back to the future for lessons, to the ‘low‐intensity conflicts’ of Malaya and Vietnam, the ‘small wars’ that Marines fought in Central America in the interwar period, and even the instructions given to American servicemen deployed to assist the British occupation of Iraq during the Second World War. Lumped together under the rubric of ‘irregular warfare’, two new watchwords have had emerged from the neotraditionalist camp: ‘counter‐insurgency’ and ‘cultural awareness’. As the neotraditionalists reach out to social scientists to assist them in their efforts, a secondary civil war has erupted in the universities over whether academics should become involved in the new war efforts. Based on a week spent embedded with the 1/25th Marines at 29 Palms and extensive interviews with key proponents and critics, this article maps (and reflexively questions the practice of mapping) the future of warfare as it is planned, taught, gamed and operationalized by the US military.     

Mungiki,Vernacular Organization and Political Society in Kenya

This article uses the concept of ‘political society’ as unfolded by the ‘subaltern studies’ in India to shed new light on present‐day political actors and democratic transitions in Africa. It discusses the political practices and discursive terrains of organizations within ‘really existing’ civil society that are based on identities and regarded as outside legitimate civil society. It looks at politics from below, taking the example of the 2007 elections in Kenya, and the role of Mungiki, an organization characterized by the intersection of class, generation, religion and ethnicity. Mungiki builds on Kenya's history and rich archive of indigenous popular culture. It originated in the early 1990s’ turmoil of ‘ethnic clashes’ and population displacement and now operates in rural and poor urban areas, providing income opportunities, service delivery and extortion/protection. During elections, sections of Mungiki have been recruited by political leaders and functioned as violent militia; concurrently, it seeks representation in formal and parliamentary politics. The organization is distinct from ‘respectable’ segments of Kenya's civil society who participate in NGO activities and mainstream churches. The article ends by calling for an inclusive and non‐normative approach to the study of state–civil society engagement that recognizes culturally based discourses and organizations when analysing the transitions to and the broadening of democracy in post‐colonial societies.     

Decentralization and Democracy in Indonesia: A Critique of Neo‐Institutionalist Perspectives

This article assesses some of the major premises of neo‐institutionalist explanations of decentralization policy and practices, but focuses especially on the relationship between decentralization and democracy, in the context of the recent and ongoing Indonesian experience with decentralization. In the last two decades ‘decentralization’ has become, along with ‘civil society’, ‘social capital’ and ‘good governance’, an integral part of the contemporary neo‐institutionalist lexicon, especially that part which is intended to draw greater attention to ‘social’ development. The concern of this article is to demystify how, as a policy objective, decentralization has come to embody a barely acknowledged political, not just theoretical, agenda. It also suggests alternative ways of understanding why decentralization has often failed to achieve its stated aims in terms of promoting democracy, ‘good governance’, and the like. What is offered is an understanding of decentralization processes that more fully incorporates the factors of power, struggle and interests, which tend to be overlooked by neo‐institutionalist perspectives. The current Indonesian experience clearly illustrates the way in which institutions can be hijacked by a wide range of interests that may sideline those that champion the worldview of ‘technocratic rationality’.     

‘Operation Restore Public Hope’: Youth and the Magic of Modernity in Vanuatu

ABSTRACT This paper explores the measures known as ‘Operation Restore Public Hope,’ which were authorized during the State of Emergency in January 1998 in Port Vila, Vanuatu, after rioting and looting erupted over the alleged government mismanagement of the mandatory workers' savings fund. The excessive police violence associated with these ‘clean‐up measures’, I argue, undermined the state's claim ‘to restore public hope’ and illuminated the changing relationship between kastomary leaders and the state as well as their competing strategies to define and maintain social order. The extraordinary events of the State of Emergency point to the confluence of sorcery practices and police violence; underline the contested nature of everyday life, and draw attention to the disciplining of young bodies in new urban spaces. Exploring the deployment of a sorcery technique to counter police violence highlights the landscapes of modern power in Vanuatu where magical and state practices coexist with regimes of violence.     

Unpacking the ‘Joint’ in Joint Forest Management

This article examines the concept of ‘jointness’ in India’s Joint Forest Management (JFM) programme, understood as an engagement between the state (in this case the Forest Department) and people organized into ‘communities’, with NGOs, where available, acting as the interface. By examining the commonalities between older examples of joint or co‐management of resources and current practices of joint forest management, the article challenges the notion that ‘jointness’ is a new feature of forest policy, or that it represents a resurgence of civil society against the state. Further, insofar as the basic agenda of the programme is pre‐determined, it cannot be considered very participatory in nature. None the less, within the limited degree of choice that JFM allows, there is a new and joint construction of needs.     

Identity,class and civil society in Scotland’s neo‐nationalism

Civil society has become a central and contested concept in the study of Scottish nationalism. This article aims to scrutinise and qualify the concept by relating it to Weber’s model of classes, status groups and parties, and by exploring the development of Scotland’s civil society along with the welfare state in the twentieth century. It argues that civil society needs to be understood as a zone of status‐group formation, and that attempts to relate ‘class’ and ‘identity’ to support for constitutional change in Scotland need to be complemented by attention to the role of status groups in civil society. It concludes with the suggestion that such an approach might be fruitful in the study of other cases of neo‐nationalism.     

Post‐conflict Statebuilding and State Legitimacy: From Negative to Positive Peace?

This article is concerned with the potential that statebuilding interventions have to institutionalize social justice, in addition to their more immediate ‘negative’ peace mandates, and the impact this might have, both on local state legitimacy and the character of the ‘peace’ that might follow. Much recent scholarship has stressed the legitimacy of a state's behaviour in relation to conformity to global governance norms or democratic ‘best practice’. Less evident is a discussion of the extent to which post‐conflict polities are able to engender the societal legitimacy central to political stability. As long as this level of legitimacy is absent (and it is hard to generate), civil society is likely to remain distant from the state, and peace and stability may remain elusive. A solution to this may be to apply existing international legislation centred in the UN and the ILO to compel international organizations and national states to deliver basic needs security through their institutions. This has the effect of stimulating local‐level state legitimacy while simultaneously formalizing social justice and positive peacebuilding.     

Protecting vulnerable cities: the UK's resilience response to defending everyday urban infrastructure

The events of September 11 2001 in New York and Washington, and of July 7 2005 in London, have ushered in a new era in protective counterterrorist planning within UK urban areas. With the mode of terrorist attack now encompassing the possibility of no‐warning suicide attacks, and target selection now often being seen as related to crowd density, a variety of public places such as sports stadiums, shopping centres, light rail systems, and nightclubs now have to consider ‘designed‐in’ counterterrorism measures. As such the UK has developed a national counterterrorist strategy (CONTEST) which is constantly revised, and one strand of which focuses on protective security measures. In the context of this ‘Protect’ strand of policy, and the increased targeting of crowded places by international terrorist groups, this article outlines the recent attempts to design‐in counterterrorism features to the urban landscape while paying attention not just to their effectiveness and robustness, but also to their acceptability to the general public and impact upon the everyday experience of the city. The article also addresses how the need to consider counterterrorism has affected the practices of built‐environment professionals such as spatial planners. Reflections upon how this aspect of counterterrorism policy might develop in the future are also offered.     

Greed and grievance in civil war

While economic agendas have been shown to be an important factor in shaping civil wars, there are several problems with prominent explanations centring on rebel ‘greed’, notably those put forward by Paul Collier. Among these are: the way proxies for ‘greed’ and ‘grievance’ have been used; the lack of attention to links between ‘greed’ and ‘grievance’; and the lack of attention to ‘greed’ among elements associated with counter‐insurgencies. Why has Collier's analysis proven so popular, despite its flaws? I suggest that it represents an attractive over‐simplification with a scientific aura. It achieves a degree of simplicity by excluding many of the most important features of civil wars, even to the extent of asserting that there is no point in asking rebels about their motivations. Furthermore, it is often politically convenient in that it tends to exclude a number of western governments—and (sometimes favoured) governments in poorer countries—from serious scrutiny. By contrast, the emphasis placed by Frances Stewart and her associates on the role of economic and political inequalities between groups offers a more nuanced understanding of how civil wars are caused and shaped, an understanding that is better able to take account of the nature of grievances and of the role of abusive government‐affiliated actors in generating grievances.     

Forging the nation as an imagined community

This article examines the ways in which young Canadians represent the ‘the War on Terror’ in their narratives. I explore how a hegemonic nationalist narrative enters into this representation in different ways and positions itself in a dynamic tension with the USA, at times eliding the difference and at times affirming it. I illustrate that these students do not simply tell the narrative of the war, but use the deixis of ‘we/us/our’ or ‘them/they/their’ in a way that constructs multiple imagined communities. I argue that these presumably benign representations of Canadian involvement in the war produce banal nationalism that excludes ‘others’, and binds human imagination into a framework that works against critical thinking.     

Reputation and responsibility in Australia's 2003 intervention in the Solomon Islands

This article reinterprets Australia's motives for its 2003 intervention in the Solomon Islands. The central argument is that considerations of Australia's international reputation have not been afforded sufficient importance in explaining the Howard government's decision to intervene. A primary concern for the Howard government was to bolster Australia's reputation in the ‘War on Terror’ vis-à-vis the USA and the international community more broadly by being seen to maintain order in its regional sphere of responsibility. The article establishes the historical basis for Canberra's claims to a special responsibility for the South-West Pacific region. It then demonstrates the close connection between Australia's responsibility for order in its region and the reputational norms that evolved during the early years of the War on Terror. These claims are substantiated through an analysis of the Solomon Islands crisis from June 2000 until the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands was deployed in July 2003.     

Rape as a Weapon of War(riors): The Militarisation of Sexual Violence in the United States, 1990–2000

This article uses a transnational feminist lens to examine how accusations of sexual violence were mobilised by the United States (US) government to justify military intervention at the same time that the US military failed to address sexual violence perpetrated by and against its own service members. Drawing upon an archive of civilian representations ranging from the New York Times to G.I. Jane, the author explores US interventions in the Persian Gulf, Haiti and the former Yugoslavia alongside sexual assaults committed by servicemen at the Tailhook Convention, on Okinawa and at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds. This article draws connections between feminism and neo‐imperialism, between Cold War and War on Terror ideologies, and between rape as a weapon of war and rape during times of ‘peace’ in order to better understand the relationships between sexual politics and geopolitics at the end of the twentieth century.