Militarized Approach Research Articles

Central America’s agro-ecological suitability for cultivating coca, Erythroxylum spp

Abstract We assess how much of Central America is likely to be agriculturally suitable for cultivating coca (Erythroxylum spp), the main ingredient in cocaine. Since 2017, organized criminal groups (not smallholders) have been establishing coca plantations in Central America for cocaine production. This has broken South America’s long monopoly on coca leaf production for the global cocaine trade and raised concerns about future expansion in the isthmus. Yet it is not clear how much of Central America has suitable biophysical characteristics for a crop domesticated in, and long associated with the Andean region. We combine geo-located data from coca cultivation locations in Colombia with reported coca sites in Central America to model the soil, climate, and topography of Central American landscapes that might be suitable for coca production under standard management practices. We find that 47% of northern Central America (Honduras, Guatemala, and Belize) has biophysical characteristics that appear highly suitable for coca-growing, while most of southern Central America does not. Biophysical factors, then, are unlikely to constrain coca’s spread in northern Central America. Whether or not the crop is more widely planted will depend on complex and multi-scalar social, economic, and political factors. Among them is whether Central American countries and their allies will continue to prioritize militarized approaches to the drug trade through coca eradication and drug interdiction, which are likely to induce further expansion, not contain it. Novel approaches to the drug trade will be required to avert this outcome.

Ad-hoc Security Initiatives in Africa: a New Type of Security Community?

Abstract Specific transnational security challenges in the Lake Chad Basin (lcb), the Sahel, and parts of Central Africa have necessitated a collective response in the form of ad-hoc security initiatives (asi s). These asi s represent distinct structures and operations which could be viewed in contrast to the United Nations (UN) or African Union (au) peacekeeping operations, Regional Economic Communities (rec s) interventions or even other collective security approaches further afield such as, the North-American Treaty Organization (nato) or Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (osce). The asi s are therefore a display of a unique arrangement which warrants serious discussion within international relations theory. Through an analysis of the rci-lra, mnjtf and the G5 Sahel Joint Force, this paper seeks to examine whether these asi s can be identified as security communities using the conceptual framework initiated by Emmanuel Adler and Michael Barnett (1998). A careful examination of the task forces finds that while the asi s display convincing degrees of mutual trust and a collective identity – some defining features of a security community, its overall compatibility is limited by its inability to guarantee the expectation of peaceful change for citizens, based on its purely militarized approach. In addition, the asi s have not demonstrated the ability to operate independently from external sources of funding, which has the potential to influence dynamics within the arrangement. However, this discussion does point to useful ideas on how the framework of security communities needs to consider the complexity of contemporary conflicts in defining expectations of peaceful change.

A New Era: Power in Partnership Peacekeeping

AbstractUN blue helmets increasingly deploy in partnership with regional organizations and coalitions of states. While this development is hailed as a way out of geopolitical fragmentation and capacity overstretch, little is known about the effectiveness of these peacekeeping partnerships. We argue that UN and non-UN operations exercise different forms of power, which reinforce each other to reduce battle violence in active wars. If non-UN military operations actively engage in combat, the UN can focus on what it does best—employing its broad toolbox to coerce, induce, and persuade. Our quantitative analysis of the interaction between UN and non-UN peacekeeping supports these expectations: partnership peacekeeping works. With a non-UN partner, UN troops can reduce battlefield violence more effectively, that is, with fewer blue helmets. Importantly, non-UN missions need UN operations to successfully curb violence. The UN’s multidimensional engagement offsets the potential negative effects of an all-too militarized approach to violence reduction. Regional and coalition peacekeeping can only support the UN, not replace it.

Memorial tourism as a component of memorial culture

The purpose of the article is to demonstrate the memorial tourism as a component of memorial culture — promising direction of post-war tourism in Ukraine, to determine the reasons for its demand and the role it can play in current cultural situation. Memorial tourism is a new form of memorial activity: the creation of a “place of memory” for committed crimes (museumification of places of tragedies; opening of individual monuments; memorial complexes; museums; exhibitions dedicated to tragic events; creation of organized burials), etc.
 The methodology. In the research process, the methods of abstraction, analysis and synthesis were used in the historiographical study of the memorial tourism, empirical method was used for collecting and describing material about the first virtual museums of the Russian-Ukrainian war, content analysis and statistical method were used for comparing the content of popular Telegram news channels about the war with the exhibits of these museums.
 The results. The analysis of the literature showed that the phenomenon of memorial tourism has a global character. It becomes part of the global structure of contemporary mediating and tourism narratives of peace, reconciliation and sustainability paradigms. The paradigms of “shared memories” introduce a new vision of war memory as an alternative of the patriotic, aggressive and militarized approach. The authors note that the most expedient is the promotion of Ukraine on the international arena as a “place of memory” for the largest-scale destruction since the Second World War. This is the practice of the first virtual museums of the Russian-Ukrainian war. It currently corresponds to the content of acute cultural memory, represented in one of the most widespread Ukraininan media discourses. This approach will allow the state to popularize civic values, encourage active diplomacy, and stimulate tourism as a tool of economic development.
 The scientific novelty. Consideration of the relationship between the theory of memorial tourism and the first practices of museumification of the Russian-Ukrainian war and one of the leading Ukrainian media discourses of its coverage.
 The practical significance. The materials of this article can be used to develop programs or strategies for the development of memorial tourism in the war and post-war times in Ukraine.

Mexico’s Long War on Drugs: Past and Present Failures of a Punitive Approach to Drugs

The aim of this policy commentary is two-fold. First, to examine new historical research regarding the political, cultural, and social drivers informing the design and implementation of Mexico’s ‘war on drugs’ – a set of state policies centered on punitive and militarized responses towards the drug problem – during the first and second halves of the twentieth-century. Second, to analyze how the longer history of Mexico’s war on drugs can help us better understand this country’s enduring reliance on such punitive and militarized approaches despite the detrimental consequences these had and continue to have on citizens’ wellbeing and on the country’s democratic institutions.

Subordinating Space: Immigration Enforcement, Hierarchy, and the Politics of Scale in Mexico and Central America

In recent years, security and immigration enforcement has expanded rapidly throughout Mexico. From checkpoints and patrols to a vast system of detention and deportation, Mexican officials have implemented far-reaching measures to curtail international migration from Central America. Many of these efforts have been concentrated along the Mexico–Guatemala border and deep within southern Mexico, culminating in Programa Frontera Sur, a militarized approach to border security implemented in 2014. In this article, we explore how security and immigration enforcement in Mexico rely on spatial hierarchies that divide north and south. The practice of security and immigration enforcement has received significant attention across many disciplines. The notion of spatial hierarchies and the ways in which scalar differentiation impinges upon well-being has been less covered. As we show, these hierarchies partition North and Central America according to colonial modes, subordinating the latter as inferior while working across global, national, and local scales. Crucially, the linkages between securitization and the spatialization of hierarchies provide insights into nation-building and regional identity, where Mexico and the United States are increasingly designated as separate from South and Central America.

The Logic of Criminal Territorial Control: Military Intervention in Rio de Janeiro

How do organized criminal groups (OCGs) respond to military interventions intended to weaken and subdue them? In many cases, such crackdowns have proven counterproductive as OCGs militarize, engage in violence, and confront state forces directly. Existing studies have pointed to several explanations: inter-criminal competition, unconditional militarized approaches, and existing criminal governance arrangements. Much of this work, however, has focused on national, regional, or even municipal level variation and explanations. This article takes a micro-comparative approach based on 18 months of ethnographic research in a group of Rio de Janeiro favelas (impoverished and informal neighborhoods) divided between three drug trafficking gangs and occupied by the Brazilian military from 2014 to 2015. It argues that an active territorial threat from a rival is the primary mechanism leading OCGs to respond violently to military intervention. It also demonstrates that geographic patterns of recruitment play an important role in where OCG rivalries turn violent during intervention.

On the Nature of the Border: Trash Thresholds in Luis Alberto Urrea’s By the Lake of Sleeping Children

In this essay, I undertake an analysis of Luis Alberto Urrea’s non-fiction book By the Lake of Sleeping Children (1996), which portrays a community of trash pickers and orphans in Tijuana at a moment in which the effects of NAFTA and an increasingly militarized approach to policing the U.S.-Mexico border were taking shape. My engagement with the text combines close reading with concepts from both ecocriticism and biopolitics in order to tease out the way in which Urrea’s vignettes trouble received notions of progress, freedom, and containment. By considering the book’s deployment of two descriptive techniques for rendering the garbage dump and other spaces—one, a technique I call “time-lapse description” and the other, the insistent use of lists—I propose that the border zone that Urrea depicts is a space from which to think through the troubling and mutually-imbricated environmental, political, and economic crises that are paradoxically exceptional and exemplary of the current order of things.

Why militarized conservation may be counter-productive: illegal wildlife hunting as defiance

In response to the past decade's surge in the illegal hunting of rhinoceros for the global trade in their horn, conservation authorities in southern Africa have increased the securitization of protected area conservation. Political ecologists have warned that violent, militarized approaches are counter-productive, because they fail to address the root causes of poachingand may provide the moral justification for those already marginalized by conservation to hunt wildlife illegally. This is a powerful set of critiques, but scholars have yet to provide an empirically derived explanation of how and why militarized conservation might contribute to, rather than prevent, environmental harms. This lack of explanation emerges from a concerning scarcity of scholarly attention to the people who are actually living with militarized conservation. In response to the increased monitoring and arrests that accompanied the securitization of Mozambique's Limpopo National Park (LNP), Park residents expressed fear, anger, and resentment. Yet they continued to engage in the illegal subsistence-based practices of fishing and hunting in the face of mounting enforcements against these practices. In interviews and public demonstrations, residents consistently questioned the legitimacy of rangers' actions and authority, neutralizing the problem of their own potential involvement in illegal activities by focusing instead on the unjust and morally questionable behaviors of rangers. According to defiance theory, environmental harms will increase as the legitimacy of conservation policies, tactics, and authority decline. As defiance figures into and informs residents' decisions to continue to engage in subsistence-based practices, it may also motivate and justify people's involvement in the more lucrative and harmful activity of hunting threatened and endangered wildlife for the global trade. This article demonstrates why there is a need to fundamentally rethink the increased securitization of protected area conservation and addresses the need for improved understandings of human agency in the face of militarized conservation.

“When you are working in this environment, you’re more likely to get sick”: Mapping Care Relationships in LTC

The pandemic has shone a light on problems within the long-term care (LTC) sector. As was true prior to COVID-19, many of the present issues in LTC can be traced to challenging working conditions, such as persistent understaffing of care workers. Working short-staffed means rushing through care, while only satisfying the most basic bodily needs of the resident. This presentation shares early findings from a thematic analysis of interviews conducted with seven care workers as part of the “Mapping Care Relationships” stream of the Seniors –Adding Life to Years (SALTY) project, a pan-Canadian research program that maps how promising approaches to care relationships are organized and experienced in LTC. The purpose of the analysis was to understand how short-staffing is affecting the formation and preservation of meaningful staff-resident relations, and what the impact is on quality of care. Two overarching themes emerged: 1) a relationship between time and work-place illness, injury and violence; 2) a relationship between care worker autonomy and resident quality of care. When working conditions do not support workers in voicing and/or addressing challenges they experience in the workplace, whether this results from understaffing or hierarchical power structures, care workers’ ability to deliver even basic care is jeopardized, and resident and worker health and wellness are placed at risk. Themes are discussed in the context of COVID-19 in light of responses to outbreaks in LTC that have reduced the availability of care workers, family visitors and volunteers, and emphasized top-down and even militarized approaches to care management.

CONFLICT RESOLUTION BY INDIVIDUAL TRANSFORMATION

There are many issues that most Nigerians have an agreement on. As a Contemporary Social Psychologist, one of these is that we want a better Nigeria. We need transformation in all our circumstances as a people and as a nation, to live in peace and unity for enduring economic development. This paper uses the theory of conflict by Karl Marx to interrogate how conflict resolution could be achieved through the process of individual transformation. All Nigerians are likely to agree that they want a peaceful, stable, and prosperous country. Nigerians as also aware of the reality of conflicts manifest in inter- communal clashes, ethnic rivalries, religious rivalries, and terrorism. While government often seek militarized approaches to conflict resolution, this paper, anchored on the belief that all conflicts are first personal before they become communal and national. The paper also proposes the deliberate education of the individual citizen on conflict resolution. The paper therefore examines types of conflicts, actors, conflict development in Nigeria and offers eighteen (18) conflict management approaches.

The hidden injustices of advancing solar geoengineering research

AbstractAdvancing solar geoengineering research is associated with multiple hidden injustices that are revealed by addressing three questions: Who is conducting and funding solar geoengineering research? How do those advocating for solar geoengineering research think about social justice and social change? How is this technology likely to be deployed? Navigating these questions reveals that solar geoengineering research is being advocated for by a small group of primarily white men at elite institutions in the Global North, funded largely by billionaires or their philanthropic arms, who are increasingly adopting militarized approaches and logics. Solar geoengineering research advances an extreme, expert–elite technocratic intervention into the global climate system that would serve to further concentrate contemporary forms of political and economic power. For these reasons, we argue that it is unethical and unjust to advance solar geoengineering research.

Exploiting the Wilderness: An Analysis of Wildlife Crime, Greg. L. Warchol

Reviewed by: Exploiting the Wilderness: An Analysis of Wildlife Crime by Greg L. Warchol Tariro Kamuti BOOK REVIEW of Warchol, Greg L. 2017. Exploiting the Wilderness: An Analysis of Wildlife Crime. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. 208 pp. Illegal wildlife trade is one of today's foremost challenges, and it has caused heated debates in contemporary conservation narratives, especially concerning how to address it in the face of the risk of extinction of some species. The book offers an eagle's-eye view by parsing the broad spectrum of issues related to illegal wildlife trade from the local to the global scale, with a focus on the "activities of individuals, informal networks, and criminal syndicates that target a range of animals and plants for personal use and profit" (5). The content of this book is clear, simple, concise, and layperson-friendly while being useful as a quick reference guide for experts. The author speaks from experience to give an empirically based exposition of, for instance, the intricate networks of illegal wildlife trade syndicates in particular countries in eastern and southern Africa, where he traveled extensively for more than fourteen years. Getting to the core of the illegal wildlife trade requires some explanation of the crime and its causes. Warchol finds no "simple explanation of this offense," as it is "driven by a myriad of influences that are the product of historical developments, opportunities[,] and consumer trends" (77). There is no better way to present this conundrum, which refers to how these historical developments shifted human–nature relations in ownership of, access to, and ultimately benefits derived from natural resources. For example, the transition from traditional African systems of managing wildlife resources to the colonial system of protected areas and private property rights (at the expense of people as they were relocated, marginalized, and eventually alienated from wildlife) caused tension between colonial powers and the dispossessed. As if that were not enough, the slow rate of land reform and genuine effort to mainstream the marginalized, which has been witnessed in the aftermath of the transition to self-rule in some African states, has perpetuated this skewed relationship, mired in resentment and resulting in further marginalization. In the same vein, there is a need to understand the markets that fuel the illegal wildlife trade. Warchol's use of descriptive social science research and applied criminological theory is helpful in this regard. It is the story of the poacher who always hogs the limelight, while in fact, he is only part of a long distribution chain, which eventually feeds the silent but rich consumer far afield. For this reason, one would argue that inasmuch as Exploiting Wilderness defines the "trade in wildlife" from the onset by focusing on the "legal and illegal components" (2), there is a need to problematize poaching in conjunction with consumer demand, as these concerns are not mutually exclusive to the distribution chain of wildlife products. This is because local communities shoulder the blame as poachers, right at the beginning of the distribution chain. They bear the brunt of deprivation while living close [End Page 143] to wildlife, and they face a state that has to coordinate the safeguarding of wildlife resources. This is a tall order for developing nations (which constitute the major source of illegally traded wildlife products), burdened with numerous other primary challenges, which require huge financial resources and institutional capacity. The entrenchment of militarized approaches to conservation has become a bone of contention from a human rights perspective, despite efforts toward strengthening the justice delivery system. Exploiting the Wilderness is a welcome contribution for attempting to expose the complexities of the illegal wildlife trade. It ends by outlining potential scenarios to provide various points of departure for those with a passion for species survival, sustainable communities, and stable states through collectively nurturing and equitably harnessing their natural resources. Tariro Kamuti University of Cape Town Copyright © 2019 The Trustees of Indiana University

Linking green militarization and critical military studies

ABSTRACTThe precipitous increase in commercial poaching across parts of Africa has been met by progressively more militarized responses. Amounting to green militarization, we now see national armies, increasingly paramilitarized rangers, military tactics, and even sophisticated military technology used to address the problem. Scholarly investigations on the topic have largely been approached from a political ecology perspective and hence have not made connections with the equally relevant field of critical military studies (CMS). We see this as a missed opportunity. This paper is thus an early attempt to begin forging these connections. At the most general level, we introduce green militarization – as a practice and realm of scholarly debate – into CMS. By bringing in environmental conservation and non-human nature, this offers a broader view into the vast areas of nominally civilian life that are increasingly militarized, a defining interest of CMS. Second, we draw from core CMS insights – especially regarding the link between development and security – to grasp changing practices and trends in green militarization. In particular, we illustrate how the recent shift towards softer militarized approaches amounts to poaching-related soft counter-insurgency, which we capture in the concept of the conservation–security–development nexus. Here, communities become the object of development interventions to ‘win hearts and minds’ and prevent their involvement in poaching, thereby neutralizing the security threats poaching might pose. We close by suggesting future areas of intersection between CMS and the political-ecological work on green militarization in hopes of inciting a deeper engagement.

Inclusive Anti-poaching? Exploring the Potential and Challenges of Community-based Anti-Poaching

In acknowledgement that the largely (para)militarized approach to anti-poaching has its limitations, alternative approaches to conservation law enforcement are being sought. One alternative focuses on including people from local communities in anti-poaching, what we call inclusive anti-poaching. Using a case study of a community scout programme from southern Mozambique, located adjacent South Africa’s Kruger National Park, we examine the potential of a community scout initiative to move towards a more inclusive and sustainable approach to anti-poaching and conservation. While highlighting its challenges and potential drawbacks, we argue that including local people into conservation law enforcement efforts can help address poaching and problematic aspects of current anti-poaching measures. However, to be a genuine and sustainable alternative, community ranger programmes must be part of a broader shift towards developing local wildlife economies that benefits local communities as opposed to supporting pre-existing anti-poaching interventions.

Inclusive Anti-poaching? Exploring the Potential and Challenges of Community-based Anti-Poaching

In acknowledgement that the largely (para)militarized approach to anti-poaching has its limitations, alternative approaches to conservation law enforcement are being sought. One alternative focuses on including people from local communities in anti-poaching, what we call inclusive anti-poaching. Using a case study of a community scout programme from southern Mozambique, located adjacent South Africa’s Kruger National Park, we examine the potential of a community scout initiative to move towards a more inclusive and sustainable approach to anti-poaching and conservation. While highlighting its challenges and potential drawbacks, we argue that including local people into conservation law enforcement efforts can help address poaching and problematic aspects of current anti-poaching measures. However, to be a genuine and sustainable alternative, community ranger programmes must be part of a broader shift towards developing local wildlife economies that benefits local communities as opposed to supporting pre-existing anti-poaching interventions.

ИЗАЗОВ ЗА НАЦИОНАЛНУ БЕЗБЕДНОСТ У КОНТЕКСТУ ГЛОБАЛИЗАЦИЈЕ НЕОЛИБЕРАЛНОГ ФУНДАМЕНТАЛИЗМА

Transformation towards a social order based on neoliberal values in the states of east Europe has resulted in most cases in the harm for Orthodox-Christian communities. The basic thesis is that neoliberalism represents the value negation of Orthodox Christianity, due to which its universalization is characterized by a militarized approach. The examination of this hypothesis includes the analysis of the consequences of the universalization of neoliberalism in Orthodox Christian communities and in the international system. The obtained results indicate that neoliberalism requires the institutionalization of autonomous individual wills and their associations, which undermines value foundations of Orthodox Christian societies. The findings represent sufficient ground for concluding that violent imposing, even at the cost of destruction of traditional societies, is an immanent characteristic of the implementation of rigid neoliberal value system in Orthodox societies.

Todos Somos Juárez. Competition in state-making y la guerra contra el narcotráfico (2006-2012)

In the 2016 World Economic Forum, Ciudad Juarez stood out as one of the Latin American cities that achieved a remarkable reduction of drug trafficking-related crimes and violence, leaving thus behind the stigma of being the most dangerous city in the world. Taking this into consideration, the question could be raised: how did such change emerge? During the war on drugs (2006-2012), former President Felipe Calderon deployed the army in critical areas besieged by drug cartels. However, and following a massacre in Juarez –a border city shaken by drug trafficking-violence–, the Federal Government took a new turn in its militarized approach. As a result, the military operations were accompanied by an unprecedented socio-economic aid program: Todos Somos Juarez aimed at building resilient communities to the penetration of organized crime. Based on the concept of «competition in state-making», this paper first analyzes the design and implementation of the above-mentioned initiative; then, it performs an assessment of the results obtained after his execution; and finally, it identifies some key lessons that can be drawn from the Mexican experience. The amin conclusion of the article is that Todos Somos Juarez was based on three strategic pillars: holistic approach, active citizen participation and coordination between the three levels of Government (federal, state and municipal).

Selling green militarization: The discursive (re)production of militarized conservation in the Virunga National Park, Democratic Republic of the Congo

In recent years, the militarization of nature conservation has intensified, especially in protected areas located in conflict zones or plagued by ‘poaching crises’. Such ‘green militarization’ is enabled by a range of discursive techniques that allow it to be seen as a ‘normal’ and ‘legitimate’ response. This article analyzes these techniques in relation to the Virunga National Park, located in the war-ridden east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where militarized approaches to conservation have a long lineage. It demonstrates that many of the discursive techniques that are currently at play show strong continuities with the past. These include moral boundary-drawing grounded in colonial tropes that accomplish the (racial) Othering of poachers and rebels, and the long-established practice of invoking states of emergency as part of wider mechanisms of securitization. However, the rise of neoliberal conservation, with its emphasis on marketing and marketization, has induced transformations in the employed discursive techniques. Notably, it has intensified the spectacularization of militarized conservation and anchored it in everyday consumer practices, by actively inviting individual supporters to directly fund militarized interventions, thus generating ‘militarization by consumption’. This shows that ‘green militarization’ is not only driven by the growing commodification of nature conservation, but is increasingly subject to commodification itself.

Waging a war to save biodiversity: the rise of militarized conservation

This article examines the rise in militarized approaches towards conservation, as part of a new ‘war for biodiversity’. This is a defining moment in the international politics of conservation and needs further examination. The claims that rhinos and elephants are under threat from highly organized criminal gangs of poachers shapes and determines conservation practice on the ground. Indeed, a central focus of the 2014 London Declaration on the Illegal Wildlife Trade is the strengthening of law enforcement, and recent policy statements by the US government and the Clinton Global Initiative also draw the link between poaching, global security and the need for greater levels of enforcement. Such statements and initiatives contribute substantially to the growing sense of a war for biodiversity. This article offers a critique of that argument, essentially by asking how we define poachers, and if militarized approaches mean conservationists are becoming more willing to engage in coercive, repressive policies that are ultimately counterproductive. Further, this article examines how the new war for biodiversity is justified and promoted by referring to wider debates about intervention in a post-Cold War era; notably that the international community has a responsibility towards wildlife, especially endangered species, and that military forms of intervention may be required to save them.