Internal Security Threats Research Articles

Secured File Sharing using Trust Mechanism in Wireless Sensor Network

Wireless sensor network is an emerging technology. WSN’s are deployed in an open and unattended environment. Therefore they are prone to security threats. The traditional approach of cryptography alone was not sufficient for security. Cryptography was not able to prevent internal adversaries from inserting the forged data. As a result Trust factor scheme was introduced in wireless sensor networks to prevent internal security threats in a network. In a distributed deployment of wireless sensor network, nodes communicate with each other on the basis of their trustworthiness. But in a huge network it becomes challenge for sensor nodes to recognize all the sensor nodes present in a network and retain their trust values with it, as the changes are very frequent in wireless sensor networks. So nodes are more vulnerable to attacks. In a proposed work, the main base station keeps the trust value of all the sensor nodes. The trust values are defined by belief of an individual node in a network. Belief is the subjective trust which can be justified by the past judgments in a network. If the value of belief is more, the sensor node will be more trustworthy. Different algorithms have been applied to authenticate the new sensor node and to provide secured file sharing in a wireless sensor network.

Bliskowschodni wymiar doktryny bezpieczeństwa narodowego USA po 11 września 2001 r.

Middle Eastern dimension of US national security doctrine after 09/11. Doctrines of George W. Bush and Barack Obama The paper aims at analyzing of the foreign policy through the so called presidential doctrines after 11th September of 2001. Tremendous change in the viewing of the international security threats, influenced resolutely the political ideologies in the United States. Changed view of multiple issues important for the internal security leads to the conclusion, that new kind of international security policy came into being after those terroristic attacks. Such classification allows to send clear message to the recipients of those doctrines, that the stabilization and security are the basis for a new creation of international relations.

Indonesia's Ascent: Power, Leadership, and the Regional Order

Indonesia's Ascent: Leadership, and the Regional Order. Edited by Christopher B. Roberts, Ahmad D. Habir and Leonard C. Sebastian. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. Hardcover: 372pp. Indonesia has made enormous strides over the past fifteen years. It emerged from authoritarian control, turned around an ailing economy and transformed itself into a regional powerhouse characterized by greater political stability, economic growth, democratic values and more confidence on the world stage. The international community now speaks of the country's remarkable rise using terms such as potential Power and pivotal state--descriptions far removed from the disintegration of the state some naysayers predicted after 1998. As a direct result of these trends, some commentators have begun to ask whether Indonesia could be a state capable of influencing international affairs, that is, a Great Power, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region. Indonesia's ascent demands closer examination. With a decade of relative stability and growth under President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, it is up to his successor, President Joko Widodo, or Jokowi as he prefers to be called, to manage, sustain and direct the country's rise. Despite early wins by reducing fuel subsidies, questions remain about his management of security and legal affairs, evidenced by his attempted appointment of a graft suspect as chief of police in early 2015. With a population of 240 million, and a growing gap between the rich and the poor, Jokowi must focus on infrastructure upgrades and better social services, the progress of which was seen to have stagnated under Yudhoyono. Tepid economic growth rates in late 2014 and early 2015 suggest that Indonesia could run out of steam. Indonesia must also negotiate an evolving Asia-Pacific security environment made problematic by a more assertive China, an ASEAN lurching towards economic integration, and a United States whose relative power and influence is perceived to be in decline. Will Indonesia be able to meet these challenges? Indonesia's Ascent: Leadership, and the Regional Order is a sixteen-chapter edited volume that grapples directly with the question of whether Indonesia will be a major power. Penned by academics, experts and former practitioners based in Australia, Indonesia and Singapore, the book delivers scholarly but accessible accounts of the country's transformation since 1998 in key areas such as political stability, economics, the standing of Islam in the country, internal and external security threats, foreign policy, Indonesia's relations with ASEAN and the Powers and Jakarta's maritime policies. One of the book's strengths is that some of these areas are examined across multiple chapters by various authors, allowing for greater comparison of perspectives from within and without Indonesia. With power being the central theme, the book draws inspiration from International Relations scholarship but avoids getting entangled in theoretical discussions. Several chapters are prefaced with a brief historical overview from which the reader gains a fuller appreciation on how much (or how little) Indonesian thinking has evolved in certain areas. One good example is Chapter Fifteen, by Leonard C. Sebastian, Ristian Atriandi Supriyanto and I. Made Andi Arsana, which examines Indonesia's maritime domain, beginning with a discussion of how the Dutch emphasized the importance of securing waterways. This, in turn, influenced the concept of Indonesia's archipelagic outlook. This reveals in more detail the historical foundation of Jokowi's emphasis on transforming Indonesia into a global maritime axis and the need to strenuously protect its sovereignty and maritime rights and interests. …

Disaster as an Internal Security Threat to India: A Comparative Study of Natural and Man Made Disasters in India

The word disaster originally taken from the French word “desastre” the word desastre is a combination of two words des and aster in this the meaning of the word ‘des’ is bad and the meaning of aster is ‘star’. Thus the word disaster refers to “bad or evil star”. According to The disaster management Act.2005 of Government of India, disaster means a catastrophe, mishap, calamity of grave occurrence in any area, arising from natural or manmade causes, of by accident or negligence which results in substantial loss of life or human suffering or damage to, and destruction of, property or damage to, or degradation of, environment, and is of such a nature of magnitude as to be beyond the coping capacity of the community of the affected area. Disaster is mainly divided in Natural disaster and manmade disaster. As per India is concerned out of it 35 States and Union Territories 27 are prone to Natural and Manmade disasters. Natural disaster includes Earthquake, Cloudburst, Cyclone, Drought, Tsunami, etc. and Manmade disasters include arms conflict armed conflict, technological and chemical disasters, and disasters that are not caused by natural hazards but that occurs in human sentiments.If we take and account from 2001 to September 2014 approximately 36,079 people lost their lives due to natural disasters. If we consider terrorists activities as a part of armed conflict which is considered as part of manmade disaster in between the year 2001 to 2014 approximately 6977 people lost their lives which includes 4375 civilians and 2602 security force personnel. By comparing these human casualties one can understand that more lives are lost because of natural disaster. That means government of India should focus equally on the management of natural disasters as on manmade disasters like terrorist attacks.

Liberalism(s) and the Critical Securitization of Development Debate

The securitization of development theme has developed substantially since the late 1990s within the critical global governance literature. To varying degrees, contributors to this debate argue that a liberal global governance complex links the discourses of security and development in what is described as the ‘security–development nexus’, such that the South is conceived as an international security threat. Whilst the security–development nexus itself has been thoroughly explored, the use of the central concept of liberalism has not. This paper addresses this issue through demarcating and critiquing the three readings of liberalism relevant to the securitization of development debate. Identifying and elucidating the three distinct strands of liberalism enable this paper to identify several weaknesses within the debate and propose a number of amendments. This includes proposing that the liberal discourse of global governance reflects complexity rather than consensus and that the centrality of ‘liberalism’ is at the expense of a robust investigation into how the structural power of global capitalism underpins the security–development nexus.

Organised Crime in South Africa since Transition to Democracy

This paper presents extend of the spread of organised crime in South Africa. The purpose of the paper is to highlight how transition to democracy added fuel for the growth of organised crime in South Africa. Political changes in South Africa provided openings for criminals which had not existed previously. When apartheid ended, border controls were weakened, thus creating potential areas of operation for organised crime. The paper used secondary data, collected from various scholarly documents on organised crime in South Africa. Findings reveal that organised crime was transformed from a domestic to an international phenomenon and from a law and order problem to a national and international security threat. Organised crime is a major threat to social stability and economic growth. It is also viewed as a major impediment to good governance and security in Africa. Policing organised crime relies heavily on the ability of the police agencies to gather intelligence on groups, activities and individuals and their contacts. The paper draws conclusions from the findings and makes recommendations on measures that can be put in place to reduce organised crime problem in South Africa.

How well do India's Multiple Language Dailies Provide Political Knowledge to Citizens of this Electoral Democracy?

This article investigates journalism's supply of political knowledge to citizens in India's democracy. The contribution of newspapers to informed citizenship is measured by content analysis measuring the quantity, quality, and regional equality of political knowledge distribution. The content area selected for analysis of newspaper representations is the indigenous armed struggle modeled on China's Maoist revolution, the alternative to electoral democracy that both the Manmohan Singh and Narendra Modi administrations consider India's greatest internal security threat. All coverage from 2011 to 2012 in the highest circulation daily in each of five languages (Hindi, Telegu, Bengali, Urdu, and English) was selected for analysis. Findings in this article focus on the differences in the amount of coverage, topics that set the public agenda, how they were framed, and how the stories performed on a specially prepared news comprehensiveness index. Concerns are raised about significant regional inequalities in political knowledge supply to distinct linguistic electoral constituencies that are pulling at the seams of this young multiple-nation democracy. The article closes with a question relevant to all democracies: can for-profit news organizations be relied on as the only pillar of public citizenship education essential to democratic functioning?

Maoism, a Recalcitrant Citizenry and Counterinsurgency Measures in India

India has unfriendly neighbours and yet there is hardly a significant external threat since the 1999 Kargil war involving Pakistan. What is dubbed as the biggest internal security threat to India is the left-wing-extremist movement that has spread to the majority of the Indian provinces in recent years. Also identified as the Maoist insurgency, it has ideologically inspired a large section of India’s tribal population who, so far, remain left out from the mainstream politics. This is not merely a law-and-order problem, as was usually construed by the major security agencies in the past, but an outcome of the India’s planned development strategies which failed to bring about uniform economic growth cutting across regions. Left-wing extremism is thus a contextual response to historical wrongs that the Indian state has committed by being indifferent to the poverty-stricken masses around the country. This is now recognized by the policy makers in India, who seem to have evolved an appropriate strategy by seeking to fulfil, on a priority basis, the basic human requirements of the disempowered sections of the population. The article thus argues that the threat to India’s internal security is far more complex and cannot thus be addressed meaningfully by coercion alone; it requires a well thought out pro-people socio-economic programme, which needs to be applied regardless of class, clan and creed.

Naxal Problem in India: An Economic Analysis

India, having one of the fastest growing economies in the world, and being the most populous democratic country, has great potential to become a future superpower. However, in this increasingly globalised environment, India faces several threats to its security. The Naxalites has been identified as the biggest internal security threat to India by none other than the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The complex and structural causes of the problem support this proposition. The Naxal movement also presents the greatest overall threat to India in the future, as it highlights various underlying weaknesses of India’s governance, political institutions and socio-economic structure.so here we analyse the root cause of this problem and economic analysis.

Geopolitics, Gender, and Genre: The Work of Pre-Title/Title Sequences in James Bond Films

IntroductionAlmost since inception of Bond series, one of most recognizable features of films has been opening sequences. From now iconic images of a male figure (Bond) seen through barrel of a gun to un- dulating female bodies, pre-title/title se- quences mark screen in ways that are both familiar and enticing to viewers. The pre-title sequence of Cold War classic From Russia with Love (1963), for example, second film in James Bond series and first to deploy pre-title/title formula, opens with a shot of Bond seen through a gun barrel that then gives way to figure of 007 walking guard- edly through a formal garden in dead of night. A man sneaks up on Bond and strangles him to death with a thin wire. At this moment, exterior lights illuminate garden to reveal a large mansion with many people standing around. The agent is congratulated for his rapid kill, and then a mask is peeled from dead body to reveal that it is not Bond who has been slain-the exercise was simply a practice ses- sion for agent. The scene then cuts to title sequence, where credits are projected onto shimmying bodies of women in belly dancer costumes.1 In almost every subsequent Bond film, sequences function similarly, introduc- ing film's hero and its broader gender poli- tics as well as security threat that Bond will thwart. In each new installment of series, these high-impact, fast-moving pre-title/title sequences refer back to previous Bond films, forging intertextual linkages. At same time, pre-title/title sequences serve both di- egetic and metonymic functions, re-presenting real international politics and global security threats within a normalizing male hegemony.Despite their obvious relevance to Bond series viability, curiously little has been written on pre-titles and titles.2 This article seeks to fill this gap, exploring multiple functions of sequences in three of most recent Bond films, Die Another Day (2002), Casino Royale (2006), and Quantum of Solace (2008).3 These particular films are interesting because they mark (at time much-publicized) shift from Pierce Brosnan to Daniel Craig in role of James Bond and because they also signal changing risks presented by a turbulent international security situation. Taken together, these films not only provide a window into ways in which pre-title/title sequences anchor Bond series, they also offer a template for understanding power of genre in structuring filmic articulations of contemporary geopolitics and gender politics and discourses. After a brief discussion of title and pre-title sequences and role of genre in Bond films, we turn to an examination of geopolitics and diegetic contemporaneity as found in Die Another Day, Casino Royale, and Quantum of Solace. We then look more particularly at pre-title/title sequences and their generic, diegetic, and met- onymic functions, arguing that sequences, like films as a whole, telescope contempo- rary geopolitics and gender politics.Pre-Titles, Titles, and Generic ImaginingsIn Reading Title Sequence, Georg Stan- itzek points to complexity and multiple functions of title sequences. These functions are economic and legal (i.e., production and distribution credits), aesthetic (49), and spa- tial, facilitating transition from outside to inside and thus allowing viewers to engage film. This opening then is both integral and semi-autonomous (45) because of its struc- ture and because of extra-diegetic informa- tion that it provides. As Stanitzek writes, the title sequences come into being as an eminent space of cinematic intermediality (45). The title sequence of first Bond film, Dr. No (1962), acts as Stanitzek's article suggests, al- lowing audience to leave mundane ev- eryday and enter world of Bond. However, beginning with second film in series (From Russia with Love) title sequence is preceded by an action sequence that is inte- gral not only to threshold experience of viewing but also to establishing diegesis. …

Fighting Maoist violence with promises: Evidence from India’s Employment Guarantee Scheme

The Indian state faces a substantial internal security threat in the form of a Maoist insurgency, but decades of relying predominantly on military strength have not been a successful strategy for resolving the conflict. Recently, there has been a growing interest in whether anti-poverty programs can increase the effectiveness of the government forces by improving the relationship between citizens and the state and making civilians more willing to share information on insurgents. A prime candidate for such a program is the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), the world’s largest public-works program. We find that the introduction of NREGS leads to an increase in violence in the short run that is driven by police-initiated attacks, and an increase in the number of captured Maoists. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that civilians assist the police because of NREGS, and suggest that the role of civilians in internal conflicts should not be ignored.

Afghan Heroin and Turkey: Ramifications of an International Security Threat

Afghanistan has been the global epicenter of heroin production for the past decade. Heroin networks and drug lords present a principal impediment to security, state building, and democratic governance. Beyond the national boundaries, Afghan-originated heroin creates enormous challenges for international security by financing terrorism, instigating corruption, killing nearly 100,000 users worldwide every year, undermining public order, and debilitating economic development. The devastating impacts of the Afghan heroin trade have spilled over into Southwest Asia, Central Asia, Russia, China, the Balkans, and Europe. Because Turkey stands on the shortest transit pathway between Southwest Asia and Europe, it is intensively exposed to illicit flows of Afghan heroin along the Balkan Route. Transnational crime syndicates have been exploiting Turkish territories for decades for the purpose of trafficking heroin to European markets. This paper discusses Afghan heroin as an international security conundrum. It further seeks to explore the dimensions of the threat in Turkey, new patterns in heroin trafficking, and profiles and operation modes of transnational syndicates. The analyses are based upon the scrutiny of important case files, national seizure database, and annual KOM provincial questionnaires. In conclusion, the paper puts forward policy recommendations for security elites both in Turkey and in other states affected by the illicit trade of Afghan heroin.

Pakistan's Changing Counterterrorism Strategy: A Window of Opportunity?

Abstract: In spite of growing US uncertainty about Pakistani intentions, a window of opportunity may be opening for the United States to put in place new counterterrorism measures with Pakistan. ********** Over the past decade, Pakistan has been increasingly viewed in US foreign policy circles as a reluctant, almost recalcitrant, partner in efforts to end the long Afghan war and to combat global terrorism. While steadfastly India-centric in its defense posture, Pakistan's regional role in South Central Asia is widely viewed as indispensable. To help the United States engage more effectively on counterterrorism, American analysts advocate a wide range of policy options. Some scholars such as Ambassador Peter Tomsen argue that should stop praising Pakistan's generals for their cooperation on counterterrorism, stop showering them with unconditioned military aid, and stop embracing them with benign diplomacy sprinkled with ambiguous warnings that current conditions are not acceptable. (1) Others, like former Pakistani Ambassador Hussain Haqqani, seem to agree, 1947, dependence, deception and defiance have characterized US-Pakistan relations. sought US aid in return for promises we did not keep. Although even strong allies do not have 100 percent congruent interests, in the case of Pakistan and the United States, the divergence far exceeded the similarities. (2) In spite of growing US uncertainty about Pakistani intentions, most observers, and Washington, hew to a middle course. US-Pakistan relations became tense after the killing of Osama Bin Laden in northwestern Pakistan in May 2011; since then, policymakers sought greater continuity and cooperation with Pakistan. On the eve of Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's visit to Washington in October 2013, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney noted, We want to find ways for our two countries to cooperate even as we have differences on some issues, and we want to make sure the trajectory of this relationship is a positive one. (3) Despite the need for improved US-Pakistan relations, however, so-called transformational steps needed to reinvigorate Pakistan's counterterrorism efforts along its 1,640-mile border with Afghanistan and to forge more preemptive measures against global terrorism have been avoided in favor of risk-averse business-as-usual. Pakistan's evolving security interests may be converging with the Coalition's counterterrorism efforts; these new developments may open a window for stronger engagement with Pakistan on the joint Afghanistan and global terrorism fronts. A New Window? A window of opportunity may be opening for the United States to put in place a new set of counterterrorism measures with Pakistan, coupled with badly needed visibility on future financial assistance to the country, if the US Congress buys into a confidence-building approach. This new approach requires nesting Afghanistan's transition, US counterterrorism policies, the intra-Afghan peace process, and endorsement by Coalition states and other allies. While such a future course is complex, its promise of better traction on counterterrorism results in Afghanistan may outweigh the risks of the current open-ended US policy that seems to be playing not to lose rather than achieving clear goals permitting a permanent drawdown of Coalition forces in Afghanistan. This policy opening cannot be described as transformative, however, because it remains uncertain if Pakistan's complex civilian-military authority structure can and will agree on identifying specific terrorist groups as internal security threats. Pakistan's civilian and military leaders are not unified in their perceptions of national priorities and interests. As a result, the central thesis argued here is that the United States needs to engage with those officials who are supportive of broader counterterrorism engagement while using aid more explicitly to bring other quarters on board. …

Information Security Behavioral Model: Towards Employees’ Knowledge and Attitude

Information Security has become a significant concern for today’s organizations. The internal security threats acts as the most curtail type of security threat within an organization. These internal security threats are a result of poor conduct of security behavior by the employees within an organization. If not deal properly, it may hamper the auditing of organization. Auditing plays an important role in the business environment. Before conducting auditing it is essential to examine the behavioral aspect of the employees. The objective of this paper is to take out this internal threat that acts as a security slack, out of an organization by using a well-structured approach to develop a security behavior model. To validate the proposed model a survey method is used. The survey method measures the knowledge and attitude of an individual employee towards information security to analyze the behavioral security aspect of the employee’s. Statistical Analysis of the result of survey indicates that the employees’ knowledge and his attitude towards information security derive his behavior towards achieving ultimate organizational goal and thus validates the proposed security model.

Niektóre czynniki zagrożenia bezpieczeństwa wewnętrznego krajów Zachodu

Niektóre czynniki zagrożenia bezpieczeństwa wewnętrznego krajów Zachodu

India’s Internal Security Situation: Threats and Responses

Challenges to internal security of India are numerous. The extent and scope of threats are complex, varied and vast. No other country in the world confronts so many threats, with so much intensity, at the same time. Overall, more than 50 per cent of India is said to be affected by one or the other of these threats, which are not just ‘law and order’ problems. They have increasing external dimension falsifying conventional wisdom that internal security threats are caused mainly by internal sources. They threaten the body politic like a ‘cancer’. The state of poor internal security situation is not because of India’s unfavourable strategic environment but also due to weak internal security mechanism, especially its criminal justice system. In this context, the article argues that if appropriate actions are not taken, the threats may result in the gradual degradation of the Indian State. It suggests renewed set of policies and mechanisms in political, economic, socio-cultural, military and diplomatic arena.

Regime Security: A New Theory for Understanding the Proliferation of Chemical and Biological Weapons

The literature on the proliferation of chemical and biological weapons (CBW) emphasizes the role of external security threats as the primary motive for states to acquire and use these weapons. As recent events in Syria demonstrate, governments lacking political legitimacy may use these weapons to repress domestic challenges to their rule. The concept of regime security provides a theoretical framework for understanding how the threat of military coups, insurgencies, or domestic rivals influences the acquisition and use of CBW by authoritarian regimes. The cases of South Africa and Iraq illustrate how a government's concerns about internal security threats can impact its CBW proliferation decision-making. Omitting regime security as a factor in CBW decision-making may lead to the adoption of inappropriate nonproliferation and deterrent strategies. In light of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's use of chemical weapons against his own people, developing a deeper understanding of the influence of regime security on the acquisition and use of chemical and biological weapons should be a priority.

New Actors and the State: Addressing Maritime Security Threats in Southeast Asia

Over the past two decades, maritime security threats such as piracy, illegal fishing and maritime terrorism in Southeast Asia have attracted greater attention and concern. Responding to these threats and ensuring national security have long been seen as the responsibility of governments. This is reflected in much of the literature on Southeast Asian security issues, which focuses largely on state responses to threats. However, the notion of the state as the sole provider of security is being increasingly challenged in many parts of the world, with actors such as non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and private businesses playing ever more important roles in providing security. To gain a comprehensive understanding of the security sectors of Southeast Asian countries and security governance in the region, it is important to ask if this trend can also be observed in Southeast Asia. This special issue of Contemporary Southeast Asia (1) demonstrates that in recent years new actors have become involved in addressing national and regional security threats in Southeast Asia. The focus is on three distinctive types of actors--for-profit actors, not-for-profit actors and multilateral institutions--in responding to maritime security threats such as smuggling, piracy and illegal fishing. This issue investigates the ways in which new actors address these threats and considers how their participation has affected the role of the state as the primary provider of maritime security. It therefore offers insights into alternative methods for tackling contemporary maritime security threats in Southeast Asia, including hybrid forms of maritime security governance. Significantly, by revealing the contribution of new actors in Southeast Asia, a region where government responses and sovereignty have long played a central role, it demonstrates how and why established patterns of security governance in Southeast Asia are changing. This paper first situates our discussion in the broader theoretical debate that focuses on the rise of new actors in security governance around the world. The second section narrows the lens to Southeast Asia. It provides a brief overview of contemporary maritime security threats in Southeast Asia and discusses state responses to these threats. The third section elaborates our analytical framework, identifying the new actors discussed in this special issue and the nature of their responses to maritime security threats. It also examines the distinctive, often complex inter-relationships between these actors and the state across the region. Changes in Security Governance Economic, political and social problems such as financial crises and climate change that have emerged since the end of the Cold War seriously challenge existing state institutions worldwide. As a result, new actors have emerged that offer a wide range of governance responses to current problems at sub-national, national and international levels. (2) One area where new actors play an ever more important role is in responses to national and international security threats. Indeed, it has become increasingly clear that many contemporary non-traditional security threats, such as terrorism or transnational crime, cannot be addressed by existing national agencies or individual states alone. As a result, the line between national and international security has become blurred and security challenges are today met by a range of new actors. Three kinds of actors are arguably most important in addressing security challenges: (1) for-profit actors; (2) not-for-profit actors; and (3) multilateral institutions. The nature and scale of these actors' involvement depends on their motivations, capacities and interests. Their involvement can also be regarded in different ways. On the one hand, the involvement of new actors can be seen as ineffective in addressing security problems or as problematic --as exemplified by, the controversy and scandals that followed the large scale employment of private security firms in Iraq. …

Practising homeland security across the Atlantic: practical learning and policy convergence in Europe and North America

Despite different traditions, interests and perceptions characterizing North American and European approaches to homeland security, since 9/11 policy-makers across the Atlantic have formulated increasingly similar policies to deal with terrorism and other international security threats. Challenging mainstream accounts elaborated in the policy convergence literature, and drawing from sociological works in performance studies, this essay argues that the recent evolution of homeland security policies in Europe and North America can be understood as an instance of ‘practical learning’. From this perspective, this outcome is the result of the acquisition on the part of European and North American policy-makers of the practical knowledge necessary to carry out the new policies, policies learned by mimicking the practices of their counterparts across the Atlantic. This argument is then applied to examine two cases of policy convergence in Europe and North America – the proposal for a ‘European Passenger Name Record’ system and the project of a regional ‘Security Perimeter’.

Swords into ploughshares: The effect of pacifist public opinion on foreign policy in Western democracies

This analysis focuses on the effects of domestic public pacifist opinion and international security threats on foreign policy outputs. Much work has suggested that governments’ foreign policy outputs are responsive to public opinion in advanced democratic countries. Using the cases of several Western democracies, this article offers a theory of the effect of public pacifism on foreign policy. It employs a cross-sectional time-series analysis over a period of a quarter century to test the theory and the generalizability of the hypothesis of an opinion–foreign policy nexus using new measures and broader data. Results here contradict literature on expected public opinion and policy outputs in the Cold War period, yet are supported after. The findings indicate that the predicted effect of public opinion on foreign policy outputs to be conditional on the presence of security threats. Convergence between leaders and public opinion in post-Cold War Western democracies is likely to make hawkish foreign policy less tenable in the West.