Governance and post-statist security: The politics of US and Norwegian foreign aid for demining in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Sudan.

Bolton, Matthew (2009) Governance and post-statist security: The politics of US and Norwegian foreign aid for demining in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Sudan. PhD thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science.

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Abstract

While governance has traditionally been the realm of states, new "Emerging Political Complexes," as Mark Duffield calls them, incorporate networks of public and private actors. These networks of governance come in two competing ideal types: a) strategic-commercial complexes, shaped by particularist interests, that provide protection to a select few, whether citizens of a great power or 'the client', and b) human security-civil society complexes, shaped by norms, ideals and more global notions of public interest, that aim to extend protection to whole populations. This PhD examines the effects and impact of these two approaches in managing and neutralizing the threat of landmines and unexploded ordnance. At the donor level, it compares the US and Norway, arguing that Norway, working with NGOs, churches and other small states, has been at the forefront of efforts to ban landmines and cluster munitions, whereas the US has resisted tight regulation. Moreover, US funding of clearance and mitigation programs was shaped by narrow strategic interests and favored a commercially-driven process. In contrast, Norway's programs, implemented through international NGOs, were shaped more by more global conceptions of interest and normative commitments to humanitarianism, multilateralism and international law. At the level of implementation in mine and ordnance-affected countries - Afghanistan, Bosnia and Sudan - the PhD argues that Norwegian long-term grants to international NGOs produced demining that, while more expensive and slower, was better targeted on humanitarian priorities, safer and of better quality. Such programs also attempted to build inclusive institutions and resist the politics of violence. In contrast, US efforts, often driven by strategic concems and tendered out to commercial companies, were cheaper and faster but also less safe and of lower quality. These companies were also embedded in the political economy of war and may have contributed to the fragmentation of the public monopoly on force.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Political Science, International Relations
Sets:	Collections > ProQuest Etheses Departments > Government
URI:	http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/2337

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