A Tale of Two Illiberalisms: Why Is Poland Failing Where Hungary Succeeded?

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This article was originally published by IPI Global Observatory on 2 August 2017.

The European Union has threatened to sanction Poland unless it drops legal reforms that undermine the independence of its judiciary. The Polish legislation mirrors earlier changes in Hungary, leading many analysts to draw parallels between the broader challenges to liberal democracy by the two regimes.

There are certainly similarities between the goals and rhetoric of Fidesz, the ruling party in Hungary since 2010, and PiS (Law and Justice), in power in Poland since 2015. Both appear to be following the same template: First, target the highest courts and the judiciary, then restrict the independence of the media and civil society, and finally transform the constitutional framework and electoral laws in ways that enshrine their hold on power. Viktor Orban of Fidesz and Jaroslaw Kaczynski of PiS share the same goals, have had lengthy meetings together, and have repeatedly vowed to protect each other from potential EU sanctions.

Europe in the German Federal Elections: What Do the Manifestos Say?

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This article was originally published by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) on 26 July 2017.

Here we compare the parties’ positions on the four core EU policy domains: common security and defence, migration, financial, and trade policy.

How does Europe feature in the German elections? How do Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU), Martin Schulz’ social democrats (SPD), the Greens (Bündnis90/Die Grünen), the business-friendly free democrats (FDP), the left party (Die Linke), and the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) aim to reshape four core EU policy domains: common security and defence, migration, financial and trade policy? A comparison of their election manifestos provides some first answers to these questions.

Nearly all established parties running for the coming Bundestagswahl on 24 September have adopted a narrative that combines a pro-European outlook with an emphasis on the need for European reforms. Only the Eurosceptic AfD bucks the trend with its calls for a ‘Dexit’ referendum.

The Time for European Defence Has Come: Rome Must Step Up to the Task

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This article was originally posed by the Istituto Affari Internazionali on 3 August 2017.

When it comes to European defence, more has been achieved over the last year than in the past decade. Some would go as far back as 1950, the fateful year in which the French Pleven Plan on a European defence community was rejected by the French themselves. In turn, the Union’s founders devised a roundabout to make war on the continent unthinkable: the integration of coal and steel, which kicked off the functionalist logic at the heart of the European project six decades ago. Seventy-seven years later, talk about a European defence union is rife within and beyond the Brussels bubble. But what does such a union consist of? Why is it coming about now? And how should Italy position itself in this process?

The EU Global Strategy (EUGS) presented by High Representative and Vice President of the European Commission Federica Mogherini to the European Council in June 2016 triggered renewed work on a security and defence union. As noted by the EUGS: “The EU Global Strategy starts at home”[1]: the first priority for the EU’s role in the world is the security of the Union itself, achieved through systemic defence cooperation. The implementation of the EUGS in its first year concentrated heavily on security and defence. The establishment of a permanent headquarters – a military planning and conduct capability in Eurocratese –, and the preparatory work to activate a coordinated annual review on defence between member states, or a permanent structured cooperation between a group of member states (PESCO) are all mentioned in the EUGS. These are necessary tools to travel the long and bumpy road towards a European security and defence union, which would feature more systematic defence cooperation as a first step, potentially going all the way to a common defence, as allowed for in the Lisbon Treaty.

The Dynamics of Peacekeeping Budget Cuts: The Case of MONUSCO

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This article was originally published by IPI Global Observatory on 10 July 2017.

The United Nations General Assembly has approved $6.8 billion in peacekeeping expenditures for the 2017/18 budget year. This total will increase, possibly to as much as $7.3 billion, since states only agreed on the first six months of funding for two ongoing operations. Yet even that total would still be some $600 million less than the amount requested by UN Secretary-General António Guterres and $500 million less than the approved resources for the previous year.

United States Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley has celebrated this reduction: “Just five months into our time here, we’ve already been able to cut over half a billion dollars from the U.N. peacekeeping budget and we’re only getting started.” The UN’s Africa Group has warned, however, that excessive budget cuts would “endanger the implementation of [mission] mandates.”

Studying Conflict and Practicing Peacebuilding

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This article was originally published by E-International Relations on 20 July 2017.

What can one say about the academic study of violent conflict and its implications for the practice of peacebuilding? There is no reason to assume a necessary relationship between these two spheres of activity; the study of armed conflict may or may not have any practical significance for peacebuilding. Of course many scholars in this field are motivated in part by the hope and expectation that their findings will make a contribution, however slight, to the building and maintenance of peace. The editors of Journal of Peace Research articulated this same expectation when, in the inaugural issue of the journal some 50 years ago, they expressed the view that ‘[p]eace research should … concern itself with [the] reduction of violence and [the] promotion of integration.…and should, preferably, have relevance for peace policy’ (Editorial 1964, 2,4). There are two aspects to this question: one is the relationship between the study of war and the study of peace, which other scholars have addressed (Gledhill and Bright 2017); the other is the relationship between the study of war and the practice of peacebuilding. This essay is concerned with the latter aspect and, more specifically, with how the academic study of armed conflict may be able to further enrich the practice of peacebuilding.