International Intervention Research Articles

Explaining Support for Human Rights Actions: Experimentally Studying Democracy and Personal Authoritarianism

ABSTRACT How do authoritarian attitudes affect public support for international intervention against human rights abuses? Does U.S. residents’ support for human rights actions against perpetrators depend on the type of regime committing human rights violations? These questions are important for understanding how U.S. residents form opinions on U.S. actions toward foreign regimes that perpetrate human rights abuses. We conducted a survey experiment to determine whether support for actions against human rights violators are influenced by the type of regime that committed the human rights violations, repetition of repression, and their preexisting personal authoritarian attitudes. We find that individuals with high personal authoritarianism, which we define as favorable attitudes toward centralized power and appeals to authority for cultural preservation, are less likely to support symbolic actions like naming and shaming or humanitarian aid. They are more likely, however, to support sending peacekeeping troops. We find little evidence that the regime type of the perpetrator or the perpetrator’s past behavior affects support. International audiences generally support action in favor of human rights, but the kind of action they prefer is shaped by their preexisting views about authority.

The Last Jihadist Battle in Syria: Externalisation and the Regional and International Responses to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in Idlib

When Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) seized Idlib, it alarmed and disturbed international observers. However, HTS is only one among a number of radical Islamist groups in a part of Syria that has become an incubator of Jihadism. As the last remaining redoubt of the armed opposition in the country, the governorate has become an international concern. Events have now reached an impasse, and the time is thus right for a reappraisal that steps back and considers contemporary developments in the wider context of ongoing events in the governorate. This article also places local developments in a wider context in another sense by considering how regional and international interventions contributed to HTS’s rise in the Idlib governorate. This is particularly important as external interventions by Turkey, Iran, Russia and the US have not only failed to establish a sustainable basis for peace by addressing the root causes of violence but have actually inflamed hostilities and exacerbated the various challenges involved in ending the conflict, which has at times taken on the appearance of a proxy war. In seeking to better theorise externalisation, this article draws on peacebuilding theory. This historical and political contextualisation seeks to contribute to an improved understanding of HTS’s rise and the means through which it can be most effectively combated in the future.

The legitimacy of the Security Council in the humanitarian step in Syria

The international humanitarian intervention in Syria portrays the protection of civilians in armed conflicts and the overall international humanitarian law, especially the concerns of the security council which aims to reduce human rights violations suffered by the Syrian people. The difference between the definitions is that there are multiple reasons for maintaining international peace and security or humanitarian reasons that is, excessive violence against civilians and subsequent arbitrary arrests mass killings and displacement. Supporters and opponents have different views on international humanitarian intervention. As for the increase of the suffering of the Syrian people the security council is left with the problematic presence of coercion that limits the international humanitarian intervention, especially the sovereignty of the state and under the internal jurisdiction of the hand, and justifies the exclusion contained in the text of article 2/7 of the UN charter, which authorized intervention under chapter VII of the order to alleviate the suffering of the Syrian people as aresult of human rights violations.

Deterring the Influence of Organized Crime in Sistan and Baluchistan Province on the National Security of Islamic Republic of Iran

Domestic challenges have continuously gone alongside the international interventions in Iran. Out of the domestic security challenges of the country, organized crime and physical security instability and proposing possible propositions to address these challenges have been of vital significance. The diverse population, geographic placement, varied believes, potential marginalization, governance centralism, isolated borders and lack of cross-border control are considered significant factors of the subject. This organized crime has a direct and indirect influence on the national security of the country. This research studies the political facts and factors that can deter the influence of organized crime on the national security of the country and propose feasible and attainable recommendations to deter this influence.

Normalization Interventions in World Politics

ABSTRACT International interventions are accompanied by different discursive frameworks. We argue that understanding the intricate, fluid, and effective interventions in global politics would benefit from exploring the discourse and practice of normalization. We identify three different types of normalization practices, those that aim: to impose a new normalcy on fragile states; to either restore or build a more resilient normalcy in disaster-affected states; and those that are prepared to accept an endogenous normalcy in suppressive states. The article aims to contribute to current debates by exposing how normalization is invoked interchangeably as a method, process, and outcome of interventions.

Bankruptcy and international intervention: The case of Addiko bank

AbstractIn 2014, the Austrian bank Hypo Group Alpe Adria was purchased by the American banking group Advent International, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and re‐branded as Addiko bank. In this paper, I explore how this purchase of Addiko Bank by an international multilateral development bank (MDB) affected exporting firms in Croatia. Using a difference‐in‐differences specification to investigate whether there was a meaningful effect of this turnover on firm performance, I find that the turnover of Addiko bank led to a $160,000 decrease in loans taken out by firms. However, this effect seems to occur immediately after the turnover, and vanishes over time. This effect is seen among domestically‐owned firms and non‐manufacturing firms, but not multinational affiliates and manufacturing firms. Additionally, I find no effect of this turnover on firm revenues. These results indicate that after an initial period of turmoil, the intervention by EBRD and Advent International had no lasting negative effects on firms in Croatia. The intervention by a MDB can help reform a financial sector and will not necessarily lead to detrimental effects at the micro‐level.

The COVID-19 Pandemic: A Comprehensive Review of Global Impacts and Mitigation Strategies

The COVID-19 pandemic, caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), emerged as a global health crisis in late 2019 and quickly spread across continents, disrupting societies, economies, and healthcare systems worldwide. This article provides a comprehensive review of the COVID-19 pandemic's origins, epidemiology, clinical manifestations, global impacts, and the various strategies implemented to mitigate its spread. Additionally, it analyzes the lessons learned from this unprecedented event, highlighting the importance of international cooperation, preparedness, and evidence-based interventions to combat future pandemics.

How do the emotional and embodied experiences of international interveners influence their understanding and practice of peacebuilding?

What happens if international interveners feel emotions that they consider unsanctioned, unwanted and unprofessional? What if they enact and manage their emotions in ways that they – or others – deem unacceptable? If international interveners face anxiety about being ‘too emotional’ or not feeling or expressing the ‘right’ emotions, does this challenge their sense of identity? And what consequences could this have for peacebuilding and the conflict-affected population in which they were working? Building on the growing body of critical peace and conflict scholarship that has analysed international interveners at the micro-scale, this article analyses how individual interveners’ emotional and embodied experiences influence their understanding and practice of peacebuilding. Based on a discourse analysis of the memoirs of 10 international interveners, this article identifies two primary interpretive repertoires that the interveners employed and argues that they generated two ideal-type subject positions: the intervener as objective, rational, technocratic ‘expert’ and the intervener as irrational, fallible, vulnerable ‘human’. These subject positions determined the feeling rules that the interveners followed and the dilemmas they faced. This, in turn, affected how the interveners perceived the conflict-affected societies in which they were working, and how they understood and practised peacebuilding.

Prison reform in conflict-affected contexts: evidence from Somaliland and Puntland

Prisons are key institutions for strengthening justice and security and are increasingly targets of international interventions. However, prison reform in conflict-affected settings is understudied. To understand the conditions underpinning successes and pitfalls of international prison reform, this study examines the local conditions under which international prison reform interventions take place. Drawing on unique data from interviews with inmates and staff members in Hargeisa Central Prison and Garowe Prison, we analyse United Nations prison reform cases in Somaliland and Puntland, Somalia. We find that the international prison reform in these contexts not only falls short in delivering on some set objectives but also does not engage with the particularities of local conditions and contexts. Furthermore, existing reform programmes embed a conflict of interest: while the beneficiaries of prison reform are concerned with the mental and physical well-being of inmates, the international actors aim to shape prison practices along international standards and incapacitate a subset of serious offenders.

Unsettling Peace: The Settler-Colonial Challenge to the Local Turn

ABSTRACT The local turn in Peace Studies has raised important practical and normative questions around the ‘liberal peace’ approach that defines post-Cold War international peacebuilding. However, recent critical interventions reveal the limits of the local turn’s engagement with themes including race, gender, class, and colonialism. Engaging Indigenous authors who ground diverse conceptualizations of peace in the restitution of Indigenous land, the following discussion shows how the local turn’s theoretical framing of indigeneity risks erasing decolonial accounts of Indigenous peacebuilding in settler-colonial societies through its conceptual reliance on international intervention and normative prioritization of hybrid peace outcomes.

Designing an international research experience for graduate students

As a result of the ongoing globalization, international student experiences are becoming fundamental to advance students’ development and knowledge. Even though such growing importance, the body of knowledge regarding international interventions is dominated by subjective accounts and lacks contrasted results. In order to design an international research experience for graduate students, recommendations on the design and content of such experiences based on the review of literature were explored. A qualitative and bibliographical analysis of 40 studies evaluating the influence of international student interventions informed about the variables that such interventions should measure and the impact of such experiences on student development. Researchers especially measured the competencies intercultural development (83%), intellectual growth (58%), personal development (58%), professional development (50%), and academic development (15%). However, most of the studies failed to develop an appropriate research design that enables researchers to capture the breadth and depth of an international intervention. Results include addressing various competencies that students can gain during their experience abroad, using mixed methods to collect the data, whereby data should be collected at different time points including before, and multiple times after the international experience by different means.

The impact of international law enforcement training on the South African Police Service’s effectiveness

The need for globalisation and a competitive edge in the ever-changing policing trends and crime-combatting strategies necessitates training and development interaction on a global platform. Essential in this regard is the development of skills, among others the training, development, and support of the South African Police Service (SAPS), through local and international training interventions in policing. This study followed the quantitative research design using the random sampling method. One hundred respondents from various SAPS divisions and at provincial level who attended international police training interventions were used as respondents and subjected to the completion of structured questionnaires. The main topic of this research revealed that international law enforcement training interventions were beneficial to the SAPS as it impacts positively on the SAPS’ effectiveness in service delivery. The results of this study is indicative that SAPS engages in the international field on policing practices as a means to train and develop its members beyond the scope of local practices to enable them to expand their knowledge and skills in order to further improve service delivery.

A Federal Nightmare: The People’s Republic of China and the Breakup of Yugoslavia

This paper explores how the breakup of Yugoslavia was interpreted, commented on, and used for internal and international political purposes in China, with a focus on the role played by key concepts such as “federalism” and “sovereignty” in consolidating the Chinese interpretation of those dramatic events, and ultimately in shaping the CCP’s pro-Milošević stance in the dramatic unfolding of the conflict in Kosovo. In particular, the preoccupation with separatism and international humanitarian intervention, and the interpretation of the Yugoslav dissolution as a federal failure by the Chinese elite, help link the global event (the collapse of the Balkan political order) to the local Chinese debate on centralization and decentralization, an issue that had been polarizing the CCP since the launch of the “reform and opening” agenda by Deng Xiaoping at the end of the 1970s.

Statecraft and international intervention: Israeli diplomacy and UN peacekeeping forces in the 1960s*

ABSTRACT The nature of the relationship between statecraft and third-party interventions is complex and remains an issue that has not been fully explored in the academic literature. Experience shows that the two often interact, at times creating harmonious coordination, at times exacerbating tensions. These actions and reactions were present for Israel after the War of Independence as it worked to form an effective approach to the UN and its peacekeeping forces that were created to supervise implementation of the 1949 Arab-Israeli armistice agreements. This article examines how Israel strove to develop its own foreign policy statecraft strategies and to protect its national and strategic interests in the early 1960s, while contending with the involvement of UNTSO under the activist leadership of Swedish Maj. Gen. Carl Von Horn.

An analytical framework for household entitlement assessment in civil war.

Amartya Sen, the economist and philosopher, defines entitlement as command over resources that permits a household to have access to essential goods and services to sustain life within legal and established social norms and practices. Entitlement failure occurs when a household's command over all available combinations of resources does not ensure sufficient provisions of food to avoid starvation. This paper provides an overview of the literature on causal relations between civil war and household entitlements. It suggests a conceptual framework for empirically analysing the ramifications of armed political conflict on household entitlements. In addition, it develops a composite index as a tool to investigate the effect of civil war on household entitlements and to guide policy in the context of conflict-related international humanitarian interventions. The paper's key contribution is to suggest an empirical framework for quantitative measurement of the impact of civil war on household entitlements and to improve targeting criteria in post-conflict rehabilitation efforts.

Outcome measures from international older adult care home intervention research: a scoping review.

Care homes are increasingly important settings for intervention research to enhance evidence-informed care. For such research to demonstrate effectiveness, it is essential that measures are appropriate for the population, setting and practice contexts. To identify care home intervention studies and describe the resident outcome measures used. Scoping review. We reviewed international care home research published from 2015 to August 2022. We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL and ASSIA. We included any intervention study conducted in a care home, reporting resident outcomes. We extracted resident outcome measures, organised these using the domains of an adapted framework and described their use. From 7,330 records screened, we included 396 datasets reported in 436 publications. These included 12,167 care homes and 836,842 residents, with an average of 80 residents per study. The studies evaluated 859 unique resident outcomes 2,030 times using 732 outcome measures. Outcomes were evaluated between 1 and 112 times, with 75.1% of outcomes evaluated only once. Outcome measures were used 1-120 times, with 68.4% of measures used only once. Only 14 measures were used ≥20 times. Functional status, mood & behaviour and medications were the commonest outcome domains assessed. More than half of outcomes were assessed using scales, with a fifth using existing records or administrative data. There is significant heterogeneity in the choice and assessment of outcomes for intervention research in care homes. There is an urgent need to develop a consensus on useful and sensitive tools for care homes, working with residents, families and friends and staff.

Paradoxes of Project Subjectivity in Bosnia and Herzegovina: International Intervention and Reconfigurations of Work

This paper analyses the relationship between international intervention in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and reconfigurations of labor. Positioned primarily against permanent publicly‑funded jobs, still widely regarded as a norm, short‑term project‑based employment under the umbrella of a postwar humanitarian, peacebuilding, democratizing intervention is marked by specific forms of precarity, living from project to project (along with certain degree of privilege). Based on qualitative research amongst people engaged in internationally funded projects, the study asks: what changes has such employment produced in understandings of work as such, life trajectories and subjectivity?

Amazonian visions of Visión Amazonía: Indigenous Peoples' perspectives on a forest conservation and climate programme in the Colombian Amazon

AbstractAlthough Indigenous Peoples' rights to own, control and manage their lands and territories are well established under international law, Indigenous Peoples affected by forest conservation and climate protection programmes continue to denounce interventions that fail to uphold their rights. This article focuses on the internationally funded Visión Amazonía REDD Early Movers programme in the Colombian Amazon. Drawing on observations and critiques by Indigenous rightsholders in the Middle Caquetá River and human rights insights from a legal complaint raised by one Indigenous community against the programme, we demonstrate the programme's inadequate protection of collective rights, especially relating to the fundamental right to free, prior and informed consent and the resulting inequitable benefit sharing. We focus on conflicting views between Indigenous and non-Indigenous actors over the definition of direct effects on Indigenous Peoples (which triggers the requirement for prior consultation and consent), the basis for inclusion of Indigenous Peoples as programme beneficiaries, and the role accorded to Indigenous science in such programmes. Notions of permission and consent in the customary law and economic practices of the concerned Indigenous Peoples are central to the conviviality and reproduction of human and non-human societies within their territories. To ensure more accountable and sustainable international environmental finance and conservation interventions, and to ensure respect for Indigenous Peoples' self-determination and territorial and cultural rights, we recommend that these initiatives adopt human rights-based, pluri-legal and intercultural approaches centring on the right to free, prior and informed consent as a structuring principle. Additionally, we call for more robust measures in forest and climate protection programmes, to recognize and respect customary law, collective property, traditional livelihoods and Indigenous science.

Rethinking international intervention through coeval engagement: Non-formal youth education and the politics of improvement

AbstractAfter important critiques highlighted that studies of peacebuilding and statebuilding tend to bypass people living the consequences of intervention, scholars moved to include local experiences and subjects into knowledge production. This article builds upon these efforts by identifying and then furthering their common goal of coeval engagement. Coeval engagement implies encountering interlocutors as contemporaneous subjects of international politics and centring their experiences as a base for knowledge production. While the urgency and ongoing failures of coeval engagement are widely discussed, I focus on a thus far unconsidered possibility: that coeval engagement is impossible within the conceptual confines of intervention itself. The article delineates two defining parameters of intervention thinking that limit ongoing efforts at coeval engagement: predefined fields of visibility and the local-international binary. As an alternative, it proposes seeing intervention as part of a wider politics of improvement. This conceptual shift leads to unexpected empirical sites and continues challenging intervention’s constitutive binaries. The potential of this reorientation is demonstrated by showing how a common tool of ‘soft’ statebuliding – non-formal youth education – functions within the politics of youth (un)employment in Serbia.

Обмеження державного сувернітету в умовах глобалізації: теоретико-правовий аспект

In the article, the author discusses the current state and use of the concept of state sovereignty in international law. The author analyzes the issue of limiting sovereignty from the standpoint of real and recent examples in international practice. The article also attempts to trace the evolution of ideas about state sovereignty and analyzes various theoretical and legal approaches to the signs of sovereignty. It was determined that the specific forms of limitation of sovereignty are full and partial (as a result of annexation or gradual inclusion of the territory into another state), as well as voluntary and forced (voluntary entry into any supranational association, for example, the European Union, or restrictions imposed as a result of international interventions in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Syria) restrictions. Based on the results, it is concluded that the observed erosion of the concept of state sovereignty threatens the destruction of the modern system of international relations and the erosion of the very concept of the state as we know and understand it today. One of the drivers of this process is globalization, within the framework of which the sovereign state becomes "redundant" and, in fact, "unnecessary", causing a quick return to the state "before Westphalia", characterized primarily by a huge number of political overlords, whose sovereignty has a weak connection with any separate formal state entities.