Global Policy最新文献

This policy analysis asks: what has caused and now sustains the violent escalation cycle that is re-defining the Middle East and how will this all end? It analyses Iran and Israel's grand strategies. It argues that both employ force to achieve strategic depth and both bifurcate the region into two blocs doomed to constantly fight for hegemony. Equally, they both share the same flaws. Israel and Iran alike prioritise conflict management over conflict resolution. But neither are effective are achieving this pessimistic goal. Concurrently, the ongoing conflict has precipitated a role reversal in Iran and Israel's regional visions. Israel is a traditionally a status quo power, whereas Iran has followed a revisionist grand strategy. However, it is Israel that is now the region's peremptory revisionist power. This is because the October 7 attacks have caused Israel to no longer tolerate hostile actors on its borders. Equally, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seeks a1967 moment: a regional reordering in Israel's favour. Conversely, Iran is now an increasingly status quo power; it seeks a cease-fire in the current conflict because it feels that it is losing and needs to preserve its regional assets.

Original text in paragraph 2 of “Introduction” section

With its 17 SDGs and 169 targets, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development1. demonstrates the international commitment to achieving worldwide sustainable development in its social, economic and environmental dimension (United Nations, 2015). What makes the SDGs special is the broad acceptance and commitment of the international community, the comprehensive definition of sustainable development in its different dimensions made measurable through 232 indicators, and the understanding that these sustainability goals are universal, integrated and indivisible. The emergence of the goals can be understood in the context of and as a response to global problems emerging in the wake of globalization processes and increasing global interconnectedness.

Correction

In paragraph 2 of the “Introduction” section, the paragraph should be replaced with the following:

Building on the achievements of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a set of 17 objectives that aim to eradicate poverty, safeguard the environment, and promote peace and prosperity, among others. Achieving any one of the 17 goals will require addressing problems related to another. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development features 169 targets and 17 Sustainable Development Goals, indicates the global commitment to attaining sustainable development in all its social, economic, and environmental dimensions (United Nations, 2015). The comprehensive definition of sustainable development is quantified by 232 indicators in all dimensions, widely accepted and committed by the international community. It is also recognized that these sustainability goals are universal, integrated, and inseparable.

As Glass and Newig (2019) perceptively point out, there is broad acceptance and commitment of the international community to SDG2030, the comprehensive definition of sustainable development in its different dimensions made measurable through 232 indicators, and the understanding that these sustainability goals are universal, integrated and indivisible. Decision making and interactions between different stakeholders are defined by institutions, procedures and systems that make up global governance. The emergence of these goals can be understood in the context of and as a response to global problems emerging in the wake of globalization processes and increasing global interconnectedness.

We apologise for the unintentional omission of the citation of the 2019 article by Professors Glass and Newig due to the oversight that the reference being omitted in the final version submitted. To rectify this problem, we have made a correction on the opening paragraph of the essay to include the citation of the 2019 article by Glass and Newig.

We advocate for ethnomusicology—the critical study of the dialogical relationship between music and the contexts that define it—as one of the research approaches that humanitarians and peacekeepers should use to better understand civilians' self-protection strategies during conflict. Humanitarian protection strategies have not kept all civilians safe, so there is growing scholarly and policy attention to self-protection strategies. It is important that humanitarians do not simply instrumentalise self-protection strategies but understand the politics and logics behind them. This article argues that paying attention to music can help humanitarians understand self-protection strategies, especially as music can create space for discussion even about emotive or political topics that cannot be verbalised in other ways. Musicians also often have an authority that can help shape behaviour, and songs are often used to share strategies to stay safe. Music can also create important memories and social meanings around protection strategies. This article is based on research in Warrap State, South Sudan—a region that has long histories of colonial and post-colonial armed conflict, military mobilizations and aid actor interventions as well as established musical norms and evolving self-protection strategies.

Recent wars have brutally shown that civilians are not safe. This is despite high-level global commitments and multi-billion-dollar humanitarian spending to keep civilian strangers protected. The high civilian death tolls in recent armed conflicts are prompting new questions about how and if we can protect civilians in times of war, and what the real politics of such protection is. In this special section and its introduction, we argue that it is essential to pay attention to civilians' actual experiences of protection and their own strategies for staying safe. Normative schemes, including those that seek to offer safety to strangers, are always contested and negotiated and are always bound up in claims for legitimacy, power and public authority. We argue that it is in civilians' quotidian experiences of staying safe that we can best see and understand the local, national and international politics of civilian protection, as well as the forms of safety that are prioritised by civilians themselves. To do this, the special section draws together qualitative, ethnographic and ethnomusicological research in Sudan, South Sudan and Uganda to shed light on how the international community can keep civilians safe.

Christianity occupies an integral part of South Sudanese journeys through wars and displacement. This article explores the role of Christian faith communities in providing protection during South Sudanese displacement. As an epicentre for displaced South Sudanese in the region, this research focuses on the displaced South Sudanese at camps and camp-like settlements in Khartoum, Sudan. In these camps there is a lack of access to basic services due to the displaced South Sudanese's compromised position as refugees and foreigners. The article builds on previous scholarship on the role of Christian communities as peace brokers, community leaders and spiritual mentors in South Sudan and the borderlands. It argues that through self and community—protection strategies, including advocacy and mobilisation of displaced South Sudanese and collaborations with other protection actors, Christian faith communities leverage their position as ‘displaced believers’ to provide vulnerable South Sudanese in Khartoum with a sense of community, dignity and protection.

Humanitarian assistance is framed around ‘protection’. Deciding whom to protect and against what is not straightforward, particularly during a pandemic. In Uganda, policies to protect against COVID-19 embraced containment through the reduction of movement and the securitisation of borders. Refugees in Uganda were described as particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 and therefore in need of protection, whilst simultaneously perceived to be a health security threat. This article critically explores containment and protection by focusing on refugee self-protection. Ethnographic research was carried out during COVID-19 in Palabek refugee settlement in northern Uganda, amongst refugees from South Sudan. In contrast to containment policies that curtailed mobility in order to ‘protect’, research findings demonstrate that self-protection included dynamic social boundaries around the settlement, and harnessed mobility. The latter drew on social, political, and historical borderland dynamics between (South) Sudan and Uganda. Effective social boundaries around Palabek were only created when policies of containment had legitimacy. Boundaries were circumvented when legitimacy waned and wider socio-economic challenges, particularly regarding food insecurity, came to the fore. If humanitarians and the Ugandan government had understood the essential need to consider self-protection, they might have paid more attention to ensuring the long-lasting legitimacy of COVID-19 containment policies amongst refugees.

Protection of artists during times of conflict has no specific framework in international humanitarian law. However, cultural sites, artefacts and institutions are protected. Advocates working from the position of ‘cultural rights’ understand that artists who are specifically persecuted should be protected for defending human rights. Artists are targeted during conflict just like material culture for their symbolic contribution to society. During times of armed conflict, artists have few places to go. This worsens in protracted conflicts that drag on for generations. In contemporary South Sudan, conflict has driven out artists seeking protection and freedom of expression. This article contributes empirical evidence from South Sudan to reveal how artists experience the protection gap and how they become informal protection stakeholders. Identifying self-protection strategies gives insights for opening up further research on social and political phenomena impacting disputed territories or places impacted by long-term symbolic violence. In these contexts, this chapter shows the pathways artists take to not only seek shelter but to continue their work in exile.