Under what circumstances does security assistance (SA) produce effective outcomes? This article develops a typological theory of SA effectiveness, adapting the Competence-Control (CC) framework to military assistance. It argues that SA outcomes depend on whether providers prioritise recipient competence or control, and whether the strategic environment supports either. This yields three ideal-type outcomes: cooptation, orchestration, and breakdown. First, the article reviews scholarship on SA. Second, it adapts CC theory to SA. Third, it assesses the plausibility of the mechanisms through three illustrative cases, offering a structured basis for evaluating SA as indirect governance.
This article makes the argument that the character of gender order shapes and is shaped by war and that different types of contemporary warfare construct different patterns of gender order. It contends that the conjunction of different types of war, especially `new wars', in the contemporary period has led to a fragmentation of gender orders. It develops this argument through four dimensions of war - narratives, roles, harms, and political economy - and applies the framework to the war in Ukraine for illustration. It concludes that the UN Security Council's Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda fails to take fragmentation into account.
This article proposes peace-making insights for the Korean peninsula from the Northern Ireland peace process. It begins by considering three different approaches to drawing lessons from a peace process case which have been termed analytical-technical, political-strategic, and educative-psychological. It then compares the peace processes across four domains: politics and governance, security, civil society input, and international support. The discussion suggests analytical-technical, political-strategic, and educative-psychological lessons, including how the Irish experience overall, based on gradualism and 'parity of esteem', may be valuable as an illustration of a consensual and open-ended approach to peace on the Korean peninsula.
This article explores the Syrian community's disillusionment with the Koblenz trials, which prosecuted members of the Al-Assad regime before its fall in 2024. Initially seen as a victory for justice, many Syrians felt alienated by the German legal framework. By trying to prosecute crimes from one country in another's court, the official proceedings sparked struggles over ownership, reflecting decolonial critiques of Transitional Justice. Hence, the article examines artistic and activist efforts that create spaces for Syrian survivors, not only challenging the limitations of Universal Jurisdiction, but reshaping justice beyond legal confines, offering decolonial perspectives on justice for Syrian diaspora.
