Author: Seth G. Jones
Publisher: Rand Corporation
ISBN: 0833040189
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 232
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Book Description
The United States has provided assistance to the security forces of a number of repressive states that do not share its political ideals. This practice raises several questions, the answers to which have significant policy implications: Has U.S. assistance improved the effectiveness of internal security forces in countering security threats? Has it improved the accountability and human rights records of these forces? What is the relationship between improving security and improving accountability and human rights? This study addresses these questions by examining the results of U.S. assistance to four states: El Salvador, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. U.S. assistance to El Salvador improved the accountability and human rights practices of the Salvadoran police but not their effectiveness as violent crime rates soared. In Uzbekistan, programs focused on counterproliferation, export control, and specific investigatory techniques were effective. But autocracy and repression by Uzbek officials, including security forces, have increased in recent years. Assistance to Afghanistan has somewhat improved the accountability and human rights practices of Afghan security forces. The vast majority of serious human rights abuses in the country are now committed by insurgent groups and warlords. In Pakistan, the U.S. government has not paid significant attention to the implications of its security assistance for the improvement of accountability and human rights, in large part because these goals have not been a focus of that assistance. Overall, these analyses suggest that efforts to improve the effectiveness, human rights, and accountability of internal security forces are more likely to be successful when states are transitioning from repressive to democratic systems. In addition, several factors are critical for success: the duration of assistance, viability of the justice system, and support and buy-in from the local government (including key ministries).
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
This report examines U.S. government assistance to the police and internal security agencies of repressive and transitioning states. Throughout its history, the United States has provided assistance to a number of countries that have not shared its political ideals. Their security forces were not accountable to the public, and their practices and approaches were not transparent. The decision to provide assistance to repressive and autocratic states (and states that are, to varying extents, seeking to transition away from repression) raises a number of questions, the answers to which have significant policy implications. Can U.S. assistance improve the effectiveness of internal security agencies in countering security threats? Has U.S. assistance improved the accountability and human rights records of these agencies? What is the relationship between improving security and improving accountability and human rights?
Author: Robert Perito
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Afghanistan
Languages : en
Pages : 16
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Book Description
Introduction -- The Afghan National Police -- Key reasons for ANP shortcomings -- Conclusions and recommendations.
Author: Amin Saikal
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0857725211
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 281
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Book Description
The protests that swept across the Middle East and North Africa in late 2010 and 2011 confounded long-time observers of the region, in both the media and academia. After addressing the conditions in the Middle East and North Africa that produced these attempts at revolution, Amin Saikal and Amitav Acharya explore the global impact of the protests, both in terms of their ideological influence on opposition groups and the prospects for democratic transition in a variety of authoritarian and semi-authoritarian governments. Democracy and Reform in the Middle East and Asia commences with a comprehensive attempt to understand the cultural, economic and political background out of which the uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya emerged. It then expands outwards investigating the impact of the Arab uprisings on a regional level in other Middle Eastern and north African states such as Iran, Morocco and Algeria, and on a more global level in the Asian states of China, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and the former Soviet Muslim republics. Saikal and Acharya bring a global perspective to the still-unfolding wave of calls for more meaningful political participation, which continues to make itself felt in the Middle East, to shed light upon the ideal role of both regional and international actors in promoting sustainable transitions from authoritarianism to democracy. This book not only offers explanations for why certain countries were more susceptible to the spread of the uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa, but also contrasts the organic and grassroots vehicles for democratization characteristic of the most recent Arab uprisings with the Western model of externally imposed regime change to illustrate the conditions necessary for a successful democratic transition. Touching on perennial issues in politics - for example, democracy, authoritarian rule and social protest - this book is vital for researchers of politics and international relations.
Author: Mark Moyar
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316473112
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 548
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Book Description
Current foreign aid programs are failing because they are based upon flawed assumptions about how countries develop. They attempt to achieve development without first achieving good governance and security, which are essential prerequisites for sustainable development. In focusing on the poorer members of society, they neglect the elites upon whose leadership the quality of governance and security depends. By downplaying the relevance of cultural factors to development, they avoid altering cultural characteristics that account for most of the weaknesses of elites in poor nations. Drawing on a wealth of examples from around the world, the author shows that foreign aid can be made much more effective by focusing it on human capital development. Training, education, and other forms of assistance can confer both skills and cultural attributes on current and future leaders, especially those responsible for security and governance.
Author: United States. Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction
Publisher: Government Printing Office
ISBN: 9780160941382
Category : Afghan War, 2001-2021
Languages : en
Pages : 284
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Book Description
Author: United States. Congress. House. Committee on Foreign Affairs. Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 88
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Book Description
Author: Frederick D. Barton
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538113015
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 313
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Book Description
Bosnia, Rwanda, Haiti, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria - a quarter-century of stumbles in America’s pursuit of a more peaceful and just world. American military interventions have cost thousands of lives and billions of dollars, yet we rarely manage to enact positive and sustainable change. In Peace Works: America's Unifying Role in a Turbulent World, ambassador and global conflict leader Rick Barton uses a mix of stories, history, and analysis for a transformative approach to foreign affairs and offers concrete and attainable solutions for the future. Drawing on his lifetime of experience as a diplomat, foreign policy expert, and State Department advisor, Rick Barton grapples with the fact that the U.S. is strategically positioned and morally obligated to defuse international conflicts, but often inadvertently escalates conflicts instead. Guided by the need to find solutions that will yield tangible results, Barton does a deep analysis of our last several interventions and discusses why they failed and how they could have succeeded. He outlines a few key directives in his foreign policy strategy: remain transparent with the American public, act as a catalyzing (not colonizing!) force, and engage local partners. But above all else, he insists that the U.S. must maintain a focus on people. Since a country’s greatest resource is often the ingenuity of its local citizens, it is counterproductive to ignore them while planning an intervention. By anchoring each chapter to a story from a specific conflict zone, Barton is able to discuss opportunities pursued and missed, areas for improvement, and policy recommendations. This balance between storytelling and concrete policy suggestions both humanizes distant stories of foreign crises, and provides going-forward solutions for desperate situations. The book begins and ends in Syria – the ultimate failure of our current approach to foreign policy, and with devastating consequences.
Author: Alexander Cooley
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199978581
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 322
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Book Description
The struggle between Russia and Great Britain over Central Asia in the nineteenth century was the original "great game." But in the past quarter century, a new "great game" has emerged, pitting America against a newly aggressive Russia and a resource-hungry China, all struggling for influence over the same region, now one of the most volatile areas in the world: the long border region stretching from Iran through Pakistan to Kashmir. In Great Games, Local Rules, Alexander Cooley, one of America's most respected international relations scholars, explores the dynamics of the new competition for control of the region since 9/11. All three great powers have crafted strategies to increase their power in the area, which includes Afghanistan and the former Soviet republics of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan. Each nation is pursuing important goals: basing rights for the US, access to natural resources for the Chinese, and increased political influence for the Russians. However, overlooked in all of the talk about this new great game is fact that the Central Asian governments have proven themselves critical agents in their own right, establishing local rules for external power involvement that serve to fend off foreign interest. As a result, despite a decade of intense interest from the United States, Russia, and China, Central Asia remains a collection of segmented states, and the external competition has merely reinforced the sovereign authority of the individual Central Asian governments. A careful and surprising analysis of how small states interact with great powers in a vital region, Great Games, Local Rules greatly advances our understanding of how global politics actually works in the contemporary era.
Author: C. Christine Fair
Publisher: Rand Corporation
ISBN: 0833048708
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 261
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Book Description
The authors exposit likely developments in Pakistan's internal and external security environment over the coming decade; assess Pakistan's national will and capacity to solve its problems, especially those relating to security; describe U.S. interests in Pakistan; and suggest policies for the U.S. government to pursue in order to secure those interests.
