Five Questions on Gender Equality in Foreign Policy: Joanna Roper

Image courtesy of UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office/Flickr. (CC BY 2.0) 

This article was originally published by the Council on Foreign Relations on 27 March 2020.

This blog post is part of the Women and Foreign Policy program’s interview series on Gender Equality in Foreign Policy, featuring global and U.S. officials leading initiatives to promote gender equality in the defense, development, and diplomatic sectors. This interview is with Joanna Roper, the United Kingdom Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s first Special Envoy for Gender Equality.

Categories
Cyber

The Future of Values in Cyber Security Strategies

Image courtesy of Ecole polytechnique/Flickr. (CC BY-SA 2.0)

This article was originally published by the Elcano Royal Institute on 27 February 2020.

Theme

While national cyber security strategies have proliferated worldwide in the past decade, most have been overwhelmingly focused on resilience at the expense of political values. This paper addresses the challenges that have arisen from an overly technical focus on cyber security that has failed to consider the application of value sets in strategy creation.

Categories
CSS Blog

Mediation Perspectives: The Speaker as Mediator in a Polarized Parliament

Image courtesy UK Parliament/Flickr. This image is subject to parliamentary copyright. (CC BY-NC 2.0)

Mediation Perspectives is a periodic blog entry that’s provided by the CSS’ Mediation Support Team and occasional guest authors.

John Bercow, who stepped down as “Speaker” of the House of Commons in the United Kingdom (UK) Parliament on 31 October 2019, catapulted the otherwise obscure role into the public eye on an international level. This is due to the controversy over the Brexit parliamentary debates, his forthright manner, distinctive cry of “Or-derr!” whenever proceedings became rowdy – but I argue here that it is also due to his understanding of the role of speaker as mediator. In this blog post, I explore this understanding, and highlight what speakers of parliaments as well as mediators can learn from it.

Post-Brexit: What Could a Transformative, Values-based EU and UK Partnership in Foreign Policy Look Like?

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This article was originally published by the Foreign Policy Centre on 21 September 2018.

As like-minded partners, sharing many policy traditions, norms and standards the EU and UK have every strategic interest in working together on a values-based foreign policy post-Brexit.

In the ongoing white noise of the Brexit negotiations, we hear very little spoken about UK-EU relations on foreign policy and development assistance. Yet this is an area where the UK and the EU have every interest in working closely together, in a way which recognises the strong alignment of the UK and EU on norms, values and priorities. The UK can work with the EU post-Brexit to ensure its vision remains at the heart of a future relationship, and that the vision remains based on shared values, grounded in human rights, democracy and the rule of law. The UK should also recognise where in the past it has been able to capitalise on its membership to advance its normative vision and seek ways to recreate the relationships that emulate this.

What Third-country Role is Open to the UK in Defence?

Image courtesy of European External Action Service/Flickr. (CC BY-NC 2.0)

This article was originally published by the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) on 24 April 2018.

What expectations should the EU harbour with respect to Britain’s continued contribution to EU defence activities after Brexit and can the former member state expect special treatment?

With Brexit, the UK will become a ‘third state’ vis-à-vis the European Union. In the defence domain, this means that the UK will no longer take part in EU decision-making or operational (planning) bodies, will not command or be the framework nation of an EU-led force, and any British contribution to an EU operation will be subject to the rules that apply to third countries.