A qualitative case study comparing the negotiations with FARC initiated by President Pastrana in 1998 and the peace talks initiated in 2012 by President Santos in order to test the robustness of Manwaring’s Paradigm.
Genom Sveriges medlemsansökan till Nato bryter staten en lång tradition av militär alliansfrihet. Den militära alliansfriheten har sedan Sverige senast var i krig syftat till att landet skulle kunna förbli neutralti händelse av krig i närområdet. Enligt svenska politiker har denna isolationistiska strategi varit en bidragande orsak till att Sverige klarat sig undan krig i mer än 200 år. Med den historiska bakgrunden är därför Sveriges erfarenheter av att vara medlem i en militär allians ringa. Polen däremot har sedan 1999 varit medlem i Nato och har därför mer än 20 års erfarenheter vilka Sverige skulle kunna dra nytta av iett kommande medlemskap i Nato.
Denna studie analyserar vilka samverkans- och militärstrategiska val Polen och Sverige gjort före och efter respektive stats val att bli medlemmar i Nato. De polska erfarenheterna från mer än 20 års medlemskap appliceras därefter på en svensk kontext där dessa erfarenheter identifierar möjligastrategiska vägval för Sverige. Slutligen diskuteras huruvida det är möjligt att på förhand identifierakonsekvenser av en stats val av samverkansstrategi utifrån en annan stats erfarenheter.
Sverige kommer behöva se över sina militärstrategiska medel och metoder för att nå de militärstrategiska målen. Den nu valda samverkansstrategin, att ingå i en militär allians och balansera det upplevda hotet, innebär att Sverige inte längre enbart kan fokusera på statens enskilda behov utan behöver även väga in Natos behov för att bidra till kollektiv säkerhet inom alliansen. Om Sverige väljer att sätta svenska intressen före Natos kan det innebära att Sverige inte uppfattas som trovärdig, pålitlig och solidarisk.
This article examines patterns of oppositional behaviour in the GermanBundestag’s Committee on European Union Affairs (EAC) for two separate legislative periods (2005–2009 and 2009–2013). The study makes two contributionsto previous research. It, first, shed some much-needed empirical light on politicalopposition in the Bundestag by examining how much and what kind of opposition exists in the German EAC. Secondly, the article examines the differences inoppositional behaviour of the Members of Parliament between the two legislative periods following an institutional reform in 2009 that afforded theBundestag with increased opportunity structures in Europen Union affairs.
The Montreal Protocol - the regime designed to protect the stratospheric ozone layer - has widely been hailed as the gold standard of global environmental governance and is one of few examples of international institutional cooperative arrangements successfully solving complex transnational problems. Although the stratospheric ozone layer still bears the impacts of ozone depleting substances (ODSs), the problem of ozone depletion is well on its way to being solved due to the protocol. This chapter examines how the protocol was designed and implemented in a way that has allowed it to successfully overcome a number of thorny challenges that most international environmental regimes must face: how to attract sufficient participation, how to promote compliance and manage non-compliance, how to strengthen commitments over time, how to neutralize or co-opt potential ‘veto players’, how to make the costs of implementation affordable, how to leverage public opinion in support of the regime’s goals, and, ultimately, how to promote the behavioural and policy changes needed to solve the problems and achieve the goals the regime was designed to solve. The chapter concludes that while some of the reasons for the Montreal Protocol’s success, such as fairly affordable, available substitutes for ODSs, are not easy to replicate, there are many other elements of this story that can be utilized when thinking about how to design solutions to other transnational environmental problems.
This study aims to give an alternative understanding of why military doctrines could be rejected by its organization. Previous researcher has explained doctrinal rejection and reluctance to change mainly through organizational and cultural theories. This study takes its point of departure in theresearch of doctrinal implementation. A doctrine can be perfectly writtenbut if the organization does not understand it, the doctrine will fail its purpose. Education is considered a vital part of implementation and doctrinalunderstanding, but the subject is underexplored. The study therefore examines military teachers understanding of military doctrines. With an ideal typology the study presents three types of understandings and revenue of doctrine and then draws the conclusion that doctrinal implementation needs toaddress a variation of ides to be properly incorporated in the education ofofficers to avoid a contradictory dynamic.
Under 2022, i samband med Rysslands krig mot Ukraina, valde Sverige tillsammans med Finland att ansöka om Nato-medlemskap. Sverige omvandlas därmed från att ha varit militärt alliansfria med ett defensivt luftförsvar med förmågor utvecklade för att enskilt kunna försvara landet, till att ingå i en stor försvarsallians. Denna studie syftar till att försöka kartlägga hur de svenska luftstridskrafterna bidrar till Natos avskräckning i norra Europa. Genom att svara på studiens frågeställning kan eventuellt förmågor belysas som behöver justeras för att skapa en så bra avskräckning som möjligt för Nato. För att kunna svara på studiens frågeställning undersöks vad Flygvapnet högsta företrädare anser om luftstridskrafternas bidrag till Natos avskräckning. Luftmaktsrepresentanternas svar kompletteras med en analys av Försvarsmaktens styrande dokument i syfte att kartlägga hur dessa skapar förutsättningar för en trovärdig avskräckning.
Studien grundar sig till del på Thomas C. Schellings avskräckningsteori, John Stones definition av trovärdig avskräckning samt Robert A. Papes luftmaktsteori.
Studiens visar att svenska luftstridskrafter kommer att bidra med defensivt luftförsvar samt tillgången till Sveriges territorium och geografiska läge. Det senare medför logistiska fördelar, vilket leder till att ett högre tempo i luftstriden kan föras och fler flyguppdrag kan utföras.
This thesis has attempted to answer why a stronger response isn’t seen from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in the South China Sea when two of its member states are vocal claimants of islands in the sea. According to the theory of security communities created by Karl Deutsch, members of a security community should have the same perception of external threats and deal with threats against another member of the community as a threat to their own state and well-being. This is not the response we have seen from ASEAN, but instead a divided ASEAN has tried to organize various forums to create dialogue with China on implementing the 2002 Declaration of the code of conduct in the South China Sea (DOC) as well as creating a binding version of a Code of Conduct (COC). This weak and divided response to China's expansive claims in the South China Sea could be due to weak security integration within the organization.
Through discourse analysis of statements by all ASEAN member states concerning the South China Sea I conclude that there has been an increased level of security integration within ASEAN, where member states now have started to define threats and values equally. Still there exists a considerable wedge in the view of China as a threat, which stands in the way of full security integration and in turn this stands in the way for ASEAN to become a fully mature security community.
Affect and friendship change the way we think about research (epistemology) and conduct research (methodology). This article accounts for affect and friendship as feminist methods in peace research. It argues that affective feminist conversations, practices and actions through friendship can drastically modify how we think about peace. Based on fieldwork conducted in Colombia (2019 and 2022) with female ex-guerrilleras from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army (Farc-ep), it (1) draws upon the concepts of camaradería and being insurgent proposed by the women of the Farc-ep to (2) trace how affect and friendship can change the way we do peace research. Ultimately, the article proposes four aspects for the adoption of friendship as a method in peace research by: 1) deconstructing the linearity in peace research methods; 2) multiplying data collection’s methods; 3) including affects throughout the whole research process and 4) advocating for an insurgent peace research that vindicates long-term ‘transversal politics’ and translocal coalition-building.
Under sommaren 2018 utbröt ett stort antal skogsbränder runt om i Sverige på grund av det ihållande varma och torra vädret. Bränder uppstod även på flera av Fortifikationsverkets fastigheter. Den största brandutvecklingen skedde på Älvdalens skjutfält i Dalarna och krävde en gemensam insats från kommunala räddningstjänsten, Fortifikationsverkets egen personal, Försvarsmakten, Hemvärnet och frivilliga för att hantera. Som fastighetsägare ansvarade Fortifikationsverket främst för eftersläcknings- och bevakningsarbete. Fortifikationsverkets hantering av bränderna innehöll många positiva delar: initiativförmåga, improvisation och engagemang. Människor ville och kunde göra en insats. Alla dessa är viktiga komponenter i krishantering. Då detta är en av de största händelserna som Fortifikationsverket har fått hantera så har det lett till en rad nya kunskaper och erfarenheter som kan bidra till att utveckla myndighetens krisberedskap, men också till totalförsvarsplaneringen.
Fortifikationsverket gav Försvarshögskolans Centrum för totalförsvar och samhällets säkerhet (FHS/CTSS) i uppdrag att dels utvärdera myndighetens insats i hanteringen av skogsbränderna vid Älvdalens skjutfält, och dels myndighetens generella förmåga att hantera uppkomna kriser. Underlaget till utvärderingen består dels av en analys av de dokument som togs fram under insatsen, av myndighetens instruktioner och planer samt av gällande författningar. Därtill har intervjuer genomförts med medarbetare och chefer inom Fortifikationsverket som satt på viktiga krisledningsfunktioner vid insatsen, samt med räddningstjänsten som samverkade med Fortifikationsverket under bränderna. Utvärderingen har resulterat i ett antal slutsatser och rekommendationer som presenteras kortfattat nedan. Rapporten har även kompletterats med en bilaga, ”Typfall skogsbrand”. Bilagan består av ett scenario där utbredda skogsbränder drabbar Fortifikationsverkets fastigheter och olika situationer uppstår som måste hanteras av myndigheten. Därutöver finns en checklista som kan fungera som stöd både före, under och efter en händelse, till exempel en skogsbrand. Bilagan är tänkt att användas till utbildning, övning och planering.
Trettiofem mil från den svenska gränsen börjar havsgränsen genom Barents hav mellan Ryssland och Norge. Under kalla kriget var denna gräns en skiljelinje mellan öst och väst. En ökad arktisk klimatpåverkan och smältande havsisar leder till nya ekonomiskt värdefulla fyndigheter i området. Detta frigör nya havsområden för de arktiska länderna att exploatera. Ekonomiska intressen leder till ökad militär verksamhet.
Studien belyser det säkerhetspolitiska läget i Barents hav mellan de två största aktörerna i området, Norge och Ryssland. Ländernas olika förhållningssätt och ageranden i Barentsområdet beskrivs i ländernas arktiska strategier och utrikespolitiska linjer, som i studien jämförs med en kvalitativ textanalys. Utifrån detta görs en styrkeanalys av ländernas marina enheter. Syftet med studien är att belysa eventuella likheter och olikheter i ländernas strategier, samt att jämföra ländernas marina medel kopplat till respektive strategi. Detta för att undersöka om syftet med de marina medlen följer den uttalade politik som förs.
Resultatet visar att det finns många olikheter, men även många likheter mellan de två ländernas strategier. Likheterna framträder till största del i den civila och ekonomiska strategin och olikheterna främst i den militära. Enligt studien ligger tyngdpunkten i den norska marinen i fartyg av mindre storlek, trots marinens procentuellt sätt stora andel oceangående fartyg. Den ryska marinens tyngdpunkt ligger i ubåtsförmågan och främst i den strategiska. Utöver detta visar studien att de använda marina medlen enbart till viss del följer den politik som förs och att detta skulle kunna leda till konsekvenser för det politiska projektets genomförande.
I samband med Covid-19-pandemin tilldelades Tillväxtverket uppdraget att ansvara för fördelningen av ekonomiskt stöd för korttidsarbete. Korttidsarbete (även kallat korttidspermittering) kan användas när företag drabbas av tillfälliga ekonomiska problem till följd av att något oväntat händer. Syftet med undersökningen har varit att utforska hur den extraordinära kontexten som Tillväxtverkets upprättade organisation verkat i har påverkat respondenternas ledarskapsförväntningar. En kvalitativ metod med semistrukturerade intervjuer och tematisk analys tillämpades som metodologiskt angreppssätt för studien. Undersökningen består av totalt tolv deltagare, varav hälften gruppchefer (se; ledare) och hälften handläggare (se; följare). Den tematiska analysen genererade tre teman, komplexitet, ledarstilar och den organisatoriska strukturen. Faktorer ur den extraordinära kontexten som identifierats påverkat respondenternas förväntningar gällande komplexitet var resursbrister avseende personal och systemstöd, och osäkerhet kring uppdragets uppskattade tidsomfång. Även externa beslutsfattare såsom riksdag och regering samt det stora inflödet av nyutexaminerade anställda utan tidigare relevant arbetserfarenhet har illustrerats i temat. Det andra urskilda temat var ledarstilar, varav fokus på behovsmallar och att etablera en personlig relation mellan ledare och följare igenkänts. Likaså engagemang för att skapa en stark sammanhållning för att säkra en god arbetsmiljö samt uppföljning och feedback utmärker sig ha påverkat respondenternas förväntningar. Det tredje och sista temat berör den organisatoriska strukturen, såsom beslutsfattande i en top-down modell och den interna kommunikationen. Den arbetsrelaterade förståelsen inom organisationen gällande lägesbilder och informationsdelgivning identifierades dito, och avslutningsvis urskiljs förtroendeskifte med ökad tillit till följarna.
The Second Lebanon War has proved to be a complex war in a new and different context. An important part of this is the globalization that Kaldor refers to. The Second Lebanon War shows an example of this regarding Hezbollah which originally was a guerrilla group that was founded in 1985. What is special here is that Hezbollah since then has developed more into an organization that has established a strong foothold in Lebanese politics. They have thus evolved into the form of a kind of sub state, since they cannot be defined as a guerrilla group or a state, which means that they are classed as something intermediate. The analysis also shows this problem when explaining what problems Israel was facing before and during the war, which they were not prepared for. Another part of the globalization that has affected this problem is the involvement of all outside states and actors and that the war was waged in Lebanon but not against the state but against a regional "guerilla group" that is classified as something else than an ordinary guerilla group.
The purpose of this study is to increase the understanding of the Second Lebanon war, which in turn contributes to an increased understanding of contemporary war and understanding of the empirical basis of Mary Kaldor's theory of “New Wars”. Furthermore, the war has been analyzed to ascertain whether it can be considered a new war and if so to what extent. The result has then shown that Kaldor's theory has been well successfully applied to the Second Lebanese War and that the war can be considered to be a new war based on her theoretical framework.
Uppsatsen syftar till att öka förståelsen för betydelsen av atlantfördragets femte artikel, stadfästandet av det gemensamma försvaret i NATO, ofta refererad till som alliansens säkerhetsgaranti. Sedan atlantfördragets tecknande 1949 har betydelsen av artikel V kommit att ha olika betydelse utifrån betraktare, kontext och tidsperiod även om traktatstextens ursprungliga ordalydelse är oförändrad. Traktatstexten är generellt hållen och således tolkningsbar vilket bildar kärnan i problemet; Hur har betydelsen av artikel V förändras under tiden 1949 – 2009?
I ansats att besvara undersökningsfrågan introduceras utförligt tre olika teoretiska perspektiv till stöd för förståelse och analys av artikel V:s betydelse under aktuell tidsperiod. De tre valda perspektiven utgörs av; den inomorganisatoriska säkerhetsgarantin, den utomorganisatoriska avskräckningen och det utrikespolitiska instrumentet. Empirin behandlas därefter för att utifrån aktörerna alliansen, medlemsländerna och de utomstående utvinna slutsatser om hur betydelsen har förändrats.
För alliansen tecknas en förändringslinje med utgångspunkt i betydelsen säkerhetsgaranti för att tidigt på 1950-talet övergå till avskräckning under hela det kalla kriget, för att bli mer svårbedömd efter den bipolära världens upphörande. Närmare nutid uppfattas två divergerande betydelser för alliansen; för senare tillkomna medlemmar, ofta randstater, eftersträvas betydelsen säkerhetsgaranti för den av medlemsländerna begränsade regionen medan för övriga ofta resursmässigt starkare medlemmar sker ett närmande till det utrikespolitiska instrumentet i strävan efter att med alliansen skapa en global säkerhetsaktör.
Undersökningen visar även att det finns repetitiva mönster för hur tillkommande medlemmar utvecklar den uppfattade betydelsen av artikel V oavsett tidpunkt inom det undersökta intervallet.
Since the Helsinki Headline goals of 1999 the European Union has been trying to increase its military capability to conduct military operations abroad. The EU led operation Artemis in the Congo inspired the creation of the Battlegroup concept. The concept is intended to conduct military operations up to a distance of 6000 km from Brussels at short notice. The development of the Battlegroup differs between different member states, which have chosen different organisations. Bigger nations have better possibilities to contribute to the Battlegroup. Research indicates some nations prioritise the military aspect of the Battlegroup and other nations focus on the integration effect of cooperation. The new security challenges after the Cold War require new solutions by the old militaries and an answer to this problem is closer cooperation between European states.
The purpose of this thesis is to compare Sweden´s and Austria´s contributions to realising the European Battlegroup Concept. These two countries represent two similar countries in regards to size and historic traditions and research surrounding these two countries has not been conducted earlier.
The conclusion of the thesis shows big contributions from both countries since the start of the Battlegroup Concept in 2007. Austria began contributing to the Battlegroup later, but has developed its contribution during recent years. Sweden contributed early on to the development of the Battlegroup concept as a Framework Nation to the Nordic Battlegroup. Because of early work and bigger contributions Sweden has contributed more to realise the European Battlegroup Concept.
In this study I examine the decisions to sign and later terminate the so called Saudi agreement, a military memorandum of understanding (MoU) between Sweden and Saudi Arabia, understood as a gateway agreement for future arms deals as well as exchange of defense technology knowledge. Comparing statements from the Social Democratic Party (SAP), who held government both in 2005 when the agreement was signed as well as in 2015 when it was terminated unilaterally by Sweden, I examine the ideological preferences of Swedish foreign policy. Could the shift in policy be explained by ideology?
Denna essä tar utgångspunkt inom teoribildningen rörande ”Intelligence Failure” och hävdaratt det går att fastställa om en organisation har ”lärt av sina misstag” utifrån tre undersökandeperspektiv. Först kan man undersöka organisationens erfarenhetshantering, vilket gerunderlag av formell karaktär. Här lyfts exempel från Försvarsmaktens erfarenhetshanteringfram. Därefter kan man undersöka organisationens reformering utifrån olika utkast om”Intelligence Failure” exemplifierade av Zegart, Betts och Bar-Joseph & Kruglanski. Slutligenkan man undersöka organisationens prestationer över tiden och därigenom få underlag omeffekten av lärandet. Det finns dock flera historiografiska utmaningar med att dra slutsatserutifrån fallstudier och varje perspektiv ovan bidrar helt eller delvis med underlag, beroendepå det särskilda fallet. I kombination formar de emellertid ett stabilt ramverk för undersökningarsom kan påvisa om en organisation ”lärt av sina misstag”.
This dissertation deals with the “Fall of the Shah” in 1978 from the perspective of intelligence concerning Regime Change. It compares the US and Israeli intelligence effort using intelligence failure theories in combination with intelligence success. The dissertation builds on released documents from the US National Security Archives as well as a variety of secondary sources. It argues that the US failure was caused by mistakes on multiple levels, the lion’s share within policy making and analysis, but also that comprehensive understanding of the case requires an intermixture of theories. Further, several relevant lessons learned can be drawn and the intertwinement of intelligence and Covert Action is highlighted.
The purpose of this study is to understand to what extent and how anti-immigration disinformation was utilised in Swedish online news media before the 2018 Swedish national elections. Disinformation is intentionally misleading or false information that benefits the creator and aims to influence how people think, feel and act regarding a certain issue. The analytical framework used in this study was based on theory and previous research. Disinformation can adopt different strategies: constructive, disruptive or distractive. Research also suggests that disinformation can be categorized into different types: fabrication, manipulation, misappropriation, propaganda, satire and parody. This study analyzed 123 articles from different online news media from ten days before the election up until election day. Using qualitative content analysis this study showed that 20 percent of the articles contained anti-immigration disinformation. All of those articles were found in far-right online news media where almost 50 percent of the published articles during the examined time period contained disinformation. All different types were found, but misappropriation, fabrication and propaganda were most common. About half of the articles containing disinformation used a constructive strategy and about one third used a disruptive strategy. A bit more than one third of the articles had a combination of two or more types and strategies. The results indicate that disinformation can indeed constitute a problem, especially for those who seek information on far-right platforms. This study unveils a polarized debate on immigration with a lion's share of the disinformation coming from far-right online news media, while the mainstream media only publish very few critical articles on immigration. As research shows that a negative framing of immigration can affect attitudes, and by extension voting behaviour, further research to examine the effects of anti-immigration disinformation on voter behaviour and election results is needed. Especially in light of a diminished trust in democratic institutions, a growing demand for populism and increasing support for anti-immigration parties.
This thesis contributes to the literature on status seeking and transboundary crises by studying the dynamics of a group of states’ collective status seeking during times of crisis. The implications of the covid-19 pandemic for the common status seeking of the Nordic countries are explored through a study of the collective Nordic identity. A narrative analysis of the views on Sweden in the two Nordic countries Norway and Denmark is carried out using news media articles during first three months of the pandemic. The results show a rift in the collective Nordic identity during the covid-19 pandemic. The main conclusion is that a transboundary crisis can undermine states’ collective status seeking if the cooperative status seeking processesare not backed up by collaboration in times of crisis.
This essay deals with the Chinese mega-project Belt and Road Initiative and investigates whether itis possible that it could have a positive impact on regional peace. Previous research, as well as thetwo major IR-theories realism and liberalism, have assumed the project will lead to more tensionand even increase the likelihood of war in the future. According to the constructivist securitycommunity theory this does not have to be the case. By applying Adler and Barnett's rendition ofDeutsch classical theory to the case of BRI through a literary analysis the possibility of a peacefuloutcome is investigated. The analysis concludes that at the moment of writing BRI does not live upto the criteria necessary to be classified as a nascent security community. However, three of the fourindicators, establishing of multinational institutions, coordination of inter-state relationships and acore power leading the integration are fulfilled. Only when it comes to expression of sameness inpolitical, cultural, ideological or social areas is BRI lacking. If more focus is placed on cultivating acommon identity, the possibility of BRI developing into a security community can not be ruled out.
This thesis compares the projection of strategic narratives in Chinese and Russian state media narratives in their pursuit of spheres of influence. Previous research about spheres of influence have sought to explain why and how spheres of influence are maintained and under what circumstances one’s sphere is accepted or rejected by external great powers. Arguing that China and Russia seek power projection through various means, the aim of this thesis is to broaden the constructivist understanding of how spheres of influence are pursued by authoritarian states. This is done by bridging the concept of spheres of influence with research on strategic narratives, accounting for the communicative power used by Russia and China to legitimize each other’s spheres. Using a framework inspired by Somers (1994), news articles published by Chinese Global Times in 2014 and 2022 and by Russian Sputnik and RT in 2020-2022 are analyzed. The study found that Chinese and Russian state media project narratives that might strengthen each other’s and, by extension, their own sphere of influence. This is primarily done by narrating a new international order and by deploying antagonistic narratives.
The Arctic is experiencing an increased drawback of the polar ice due to warmer temperatures across the earth, which affects the Arctic in particular. The decreasing area in which the ice stays for the whole year has sparked new interest and focus on the once peaceful Arctic. An increased presence and buildup of military forces is occurring due to new sea lines of communications opening and enormous oil, gas and mineral deposits becoming available. The increased attention of the area has prompted Sweden, Norway and Finland to sign a trilateral agreement of military cooperation in the Arctic. By examining and comparing Sweden and Norway’s military strategy for this region, this paper will shed light on each country’s military strategy for the Arctic, where Sweden especially has been over-looked in the past. The research compares Sweden and Norway’s strategy and aims to understand and explain the differences and similarities with the small state theory. The result of the essay indicates that the strategic military goal of each country is similar, however, it is attained by different methods and means. The result also conclude that Sweden falls behind in describing their military strategy for the Arctic. The differences and similarities of the strategies can furthermore be explained widely with the theory.
The Swedish Armed Forces aim to reflect Swedish society, including its ethnical composition. Despite these ambitions and the fact that non-native Swedes are overrepresented among unemployed Swedes, recruitment is over all slow. Perhaps the Swedish Armed Forces know too little about what motivates this potential group of recruits? And perhaps the recruitment process is discriminating against non-native Swedes? This essay aims to answer what attracts foreign born citizens to join the military and what makes them stay in the service. The research methodology includes interviews and surveys of immigrants. The results of these interviews and surveys are subsequently analysed and viewed through the perspective of military sociologist Fabrizio Battistellis’ theory about soldiers' incentives. According to Battistelli, three types of incentives exist: the paleomodern, the modern and the postmodern. His own study, Peacekeeping and the Postmodern Soldier, determined Italian solders primarily enlisted for postmodern incentives. Swedish scholars has found that the same pattern applies to Swedish military personnel. But how about the non-native Swedes? This study shows that predominantly modern incentives attract non-native Swedes to join the military, and mainly paleomodern incentives make them stay within it. However, while Swedish soldiers seem to be driven by postmodern incentives, immigrants are not influenced by these in any noticeable way. Instead the study’s results indicate that there are further categories of motives affecting the non-native Swedes, namely contextual and cultural incentives.
This thesis concerns the notion that the terms success and fiasco are often used, but seldom put into a context. By studying the Swedish handling of the Swine flu, or H1N1-outbreak in 2009, this brings two new notions into the research surrounding policy success and fiasco, namely framing theory and specialized media. An incremental dichotomy is proposed as for measuring success and fiasco within the media, then frames, found both deductively and through a mixed approach are sought after. This was done in national Swedish media as well as what this thesis calls specialized media, i.e. media that is focused on the health care industry. This lead to results pointing to frequent use of different perspectives, or reference objects when framing either success or fiasco. Another result is that of the ubiquitous relativity of the notions of success and fiasco, a relativity that needs further addressing.
Sammanfattning:
Bristen på luftmaktsteorier för småstater har medfört att de oftast försökt använda sig av luftmaktsteorier för stormakter. Med allt snabbare teknikutveckling och utveckling i militärt tänkande har chanserna ökat för att en småstat ska kunna använda luftmakt till en strategisk fördel mot en stormakt. Genom att småstaten kan utnyttja asymmetriska fördelar med sina förmågor inom luftmakt kan småstaten utmana motståndarens dominans på slagfältet. För att åstadkomma detta måste småstatens säregenskaper och tillgängliga resurser omhändertas i luftmaktsteorierna.
Studiens syfte är att studera det första året i kriget mellan Ukraina och Ryssland och pröva två luftmaktsteorier skrivna för småstater ur ukrainskt och ryskt perspektiv avseende luftstridskrafterna. Det två teorierna som prövas är Shaun Clarkes SPOT-paradigm och Arash Pashakhanlous the Underdog´s Model.
Studien visar att Pashakhanlous luftmaktsteori kan till del förklara Ukrainas användning av luftstridskrafter men belägg saknas för att förklara Rysslands användning av teorin. Vad avser Clarkes SPOT-paradigm så saknas belägg för användning från båda länderna. Till del kan det förklaras med att Ukrainas militära stöd haft begränsningar att bara användas över ukrainskt territorium.
The aim of this article is to present how Chinese strategies are manifested into offensive cyberspace operations targeting Sweden. It is commonly known that People’s Republic of China (PRC, and in this definition the meaning of thegovernment and its military), uses five-year plans (FYP) for social and economic steering strategy of their country. This has been going on since 1953 until today. In 2015, the national strategic plan Made in China 2025 (中国制造2025) was launched by Le Keqiang, the Premier of the State Council of PRC. The main goal with this plan is to strengthen the economic development. In addition, Chinese military strategists noted the importance of information warfare and intelligence during military operations. This article is based on open sources: the official English translated version of the 13th Five-year plan (FYP) and other reporting on cyberspace operations linked to the PRC. A number of cases are presented to highlight the link between the PRC FYP and their targets. Next, the current situation in Sweden is presented and how the country is targeted by PRC-linked activities, both in and through cyberspace, but also military infiltration on academia. The results show that Sweden has been, and is continuously the target of offensive cyberspace operations. In parallel, the country is also the target of military infiltration on the academia, and direct investment strategies such as Huawei attempting to compete for the 5G frequency actions arranged by the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority. In conclusion, Sweden will continue to experience cyberespionage from PRC on all levels and on all domains; science, technology, IP and privacy information theft. Previously unveiled cyberspace operations cases in this article have proven to be a convenient strategy for the PRC to reduce its research and development gap in several ways; innovatively, financially and to shortening the time-to-market (TTM).
Historically, female presence in international PSOs has been very low and research has shown that while there is an increase of women serving in civilian capacities, men still dominate serving in military and police capacities. Research shows that the integration of gender is lacking a wider commitment to take gender seriously in peace efforts. Women’s vulnerability is typically addressed in terms of how the presence of PSOs affect women in the host countries. However, I argue for the urgency in addressing the vulnerabilities of women working within PSOs governed by masculine norms. TIPH is a particularly interesting subject of study in relation to PSOs due to its all-civilian mandate.
The aim of this dissertation is to gain understanding into the gender dynamics of TIPH by investigating women’s experiences in the mission, by highlighting the particularities of women’s vulnerabilities and resistance. Theories of gender and hegemonic masculinity provide the theoretical framework and methodologically, a qualitative three-pronged approach is used for analysing (1) personal observations, (2) narratives from interviews and end of mission reports, and (3) analysis of relevant documents.
The study finds that gender-perspectives were not successfully integrated into the mission and that women’s vulnerabilities were most apparent in the day-today operations as they were exposed to the masculine norms that permeated and dominated TIPH. The study further finds that women continuously resisted these norms, firstly through their mere physical presence in the mission and any time they challenged status quo by raising their concerns, and secondly through the narratives and experiences they have shared since returning from TIPH.
This study makes an important contribution to the limited body of research on TIPH by adding a perspective that has been missing up until this point – the resistance and vulnerabilities of female seconded observers.
This article revisits and revives the concept of ‘the Stranger’ in theorising international relations by discussing how this figure appears and what role it plays in the politics of (collective) identity. It shows that this concept is central to poststructuralist logic discussing the political production of discourses of danger and to scholarship on ontological security but remains subdued in their analytical narratives. Making the concept of the Stranger explicit is important, we argue, because it directs attention to ambivalence as a source of anxiety and grasps the unsettling experiences that political strategies of conquest or conversion, including practices of securitisation, respond to. Against this backdrop, the article provides a nuanced reading of the Stanger as a form of otherness that captures ambiguity as a threat to modern conceptions of identity, and outlines three scenarios of how it may be encountered in interstate relations: the phenomenon of ‘rising powers’ from the perspective of the hegemon, the dissolution of enmity (overcoming an antagonistic relationship), and the dissolution of friendship (close allies drifting apart). Aware that recovering the concept is not simply an academic exercise but may feed into how the term is used in political discourse and how practitioners deal with ‘strange encounters’, we conclude by pointing to alternative readings of the Stranger/strangeness and the value of doing so.
The shift in UN peacekeeping, from humanitarian focused to today’s robust militarised version, occurred at the same time as the human security paradigm became increasingly dominant within the UN system, at the expense of traditional state security. This is a development which scholars of security studies, a subfield of international relations, has an increasingly hard time understanding. It also has an effect on UN itself; the union wrestles with what it wants to achieve with its security work. Pursuing one type of security usually involves cutbacks in another type. This issue is explored in the thesis by applying both a state and a human security perspective on UN resolution 2100. The resolution created the mandate for the MINUSMA mission in Mali and serves as a good example of modern UN peacekeeping. This thesis examines the extent of which the UN's view of security within resolution 2100 is characterised by state and human security respectively. The research design for this involves creating ideal types of state and human security, applying them to the resolution, and analysing the text using qualitative text analysis. Both ideal types are equally applicable and prevalent in the analysis. The conclusion shows that the resolution includes too many different elements of security in the same text, making it both contradictory and too all-encompassing. The UN struggles with what type of security it wants to pursue and type it needs to pursue. An aim that everybody should be safe from everything isn’t feasible. There is therefore a need for the UN to streamline its use of the term ’security’ in order to avoid further confusion.
Svensk doktrin stipulerar att grunden för Försvarsmaktens uppträdande att avskräcka olika aktörer från att använda våld. Detta ifrågasätts här grundat på att avskräckning oftast utgår ifrån numerär överlägsenhet, och Sverige kan anses ha en hotbild från regionala stormakter.
Vilka luftoperativa förmågor kan då ligga bakom en avskräckande effekt hos en numerärt underlägsen luftstridskraft? Syftet är att förklara detta genom en flerfallstudie utifrån avskräckningsteorier kopplade till luftmaktsteori i ett småstatsperspektiv. I en avslutande diskussion återkopplas detta mot Sveriges luftoperativa förmågor för att utröna om dessa bidrar till den avskräckande effekt som beskrivs som grundläggande i Försvarsmaktens doktrin.
Fallstudien gav att Jaktflyg var den enda variabeln som sågs samvariera med lyckad avskräckning. I diskussionen om Sveriges motsvarande förmågor framkom att Försvarsmakten har en relativt hög förmåga till jaktflyg.
Soft power, the power of attraction, coined by Nye during the end of the Cold War risk being too vague to be relevant. The loss of relevance does not stem from its theoretical dimension, but rather from a changing global landscape. Ultimately, Nye argued that the attractiveness of a nation’s culture, values, and policy would be more influential on diplomatic relations than material resources. However, countries appear to be pushing the boundaries of soft power, China being the most controversial case. China conceives soft power in a broader sense and through aid and investment the country is blurring the boundaries between soft power and economic power. Beijing is building economic attraction which includes skillful economic-diplomacy and the main instrument of attraction to China today is built upon money rather than traditional soft power. Therefore, the term, soft power must be combined with economic-statecraft as well, to be used as a policy tool for China. This essay therefore, uses the term soft power with Chinese characteristics, which includes both soft power and economic-statecraft to explain how China is using its economic power to create attraction in the Association of Southeast Asian Countries. The purpose of this thesis is to describe the interplay between soft power and economics and the importance of introducing a new term to understand China’s foreign policy within the Association of Southeast Asian Countries. The thesis concludes that soft power which Chinese characteristics should be used as a policy tool because Chinese soft power is heavily dependent on its economic power and as long as there is a great concern in ASEAN about Chinese foreign policy, Chinese investment will continue to generate a low soft power return.
Municipalities in Sweden are every fourth year required to create a risk and vulnerability analysis, identifying, prioritising and analysing the risks specific to the municipality. By looking at such analyses from 20 municipalities, this study show there is an unexpectedly high divergence of which risks municipalities prioritise, a divergence not explained by geography or demography. Some municipalities also prioritise unlikely or odd risks, such as solar storms, over likely ones. These observations warrant questions about on what grounds risk prioritising is made. Creating a risk and vulnerability analysis involves decision making under uncertainty, which studies have shown is subjected to systematic cognitive biases. An organisational environment focused on measurable results and audits may also make decision makers prone to these biases. This study utilizes psychological and organisational theories to examine the puzzle of divergence and the occurrence of unlikely risks in municipal risk prioritising. Through analysing a few observations, conclusions include that there is support for risk averse thinking, disadvantageous organisational conditions and political compromises giving room for short-sightedness and irrationality. A limited selection of municipalities and the interpretation of a specific risk value given in the risk and vulnerability analyses as being synonymous with risk prioritisation may affect the validity and reliability of the study. An array of reasons influences risk prevention strategies and the reasons dealt with in this study are far from comprehensive. Further research could explore how an interplay of factors influence risk prevention.
Specialförband ska tillföra handlingsalternativ som ligger utanför reguljära förbands förmågor. Specialförband ska genomföra specialoperationer i hela kontinuumet mellan fred och krig med bred palett av förmågor. Detta ställer höga krav på en adekvat materielförsörjning som svarar mot de krav som ställs på specialförbanden. Trots detta är det lite forskat inom detta område.
Syftet med denna uppsats är att med utgångspunkt i McRavens specialförbandsteori och med stöd av strategiskt vald empiri inom materielförsörjning identifiera kriterier som bör beaktas vid materielförsörjning av specialförband. Resultatet är femton kriterier som är av vikt för en materielförsörjningsorganisation. Kriterierna klustrades i fyra grupper: personliga egenskaper, organisatoriska egenskaper, metodologiska egenskaper och materiella egenskaper. Det uppsatsen visar på som är mycket viktigt är de personliga egenskaperna, utan dessa kommer det vara svårt att uppnå de övriga kriterierna som identifierades.
The European security order has for an extended period of time time rested on the assumption that interstate trade, and other economic ties, will lower the incentives for conflict initiation and thereby result in peace. This assumption was called into question on February 24, 2022, by the Russian re-invasion of Ukraine. Germany, as one of Europe’s primary proponents of interdependence, especially in its trade relationship to Russia defined by the pipeline natural gas, spirals into an energy crisis. How did it come to this? This thesis is an exploration of the concept of interdependence and its theoretical framework. Using congruence method, this thesis maps the internal processes of the concept, through two pieces of seminal research on interdependence theory – Robert O. Keohane & Joseph S. Nye’s Power and Interdependence and Dale C. Copeland’s Economic Interdependence and War – and their respective ability to comprehend the case of Russo-German gas relations. The results show that the two theoretical interpretations can, although not with equal strength, to a certain degree predict the outcome of the Russo-German case. In spite of this, the theories struggle to capture the existence of regional conflict, and the slight contradiction that the Russo-German relationship continued to deepen after the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Frågan om praktisk examination och hur man kan och bör examinera praktik är någonting som under en längre tid har varit uppe för diskussion på Försvarshögskolan (FHS). Denna artikel syftar till att diskutera möjligheter och begränsningar med praktisk examination. Fokus kommer att vara på utbildningen av officerare inom det ämne författarna verkar – krigsvetenskap. Artikeln tar sig an frågan med utgångspunkt i gällande rättsläge, högskolepedagogisk forskning- och praktik. Det övergripande syftet är att förstå vad man faktiskt får göra, hur det sker rättssäkert och hur det kan göras i praktiken. Artikeln diskuterar även vad som bör examineras praktiskt och hur detta då skall göras.
This article draws on feminist perspectives on the everyday to explore women’s everyday experiences of peace in Kayah state in Myanmar. We locate the daily practices women engage in to maintain life and minimise violence, making visible women’s contributions to everyday peace. In addition, we examine the ways in which women are disproportionally affected by war and prevented from benefitting from post-war changes. Our findings demonstrate that practices of care and silence are key avenues for women’s everyday peacebuilding, through which women sustain peace, ensure survival, and minimise violence in their families and wider communities. At the same time, however, these practices are conditioned by and may contribute to gendered insecurity and marginalisation for women. Through this focus, our analysis shows how women’s positioning in gendered relations of power may both enable their agency in peacebuilding and reinforce their gendered inequality and marginalisation in the post-war period. We conclude that while everyday peace practices may hold the potential for positive change, these can also contribute to the reproduction of inequality, oppression and structural violence.
Under 2017 och 2018 ökade Kinas direktinvesteringar i Sverige avsevärt till följd av ett antal stora förvärv, mestadels i fordonsindustrin. Samtidigt har den svenska offentliga debatten kring kinesiska investeringar blivit mer kritisk sedan 2017, då investeringarna överlag talades om i positiva ordalag. Under 2018 och 2019 har en rad aktörer inom statliga myndigheter, politiska partier, media och civilsamhället beskrivit Kinas investeringar som ett potentiellt säkerhetshot. Näringslivsrepresentanter är mindre synliga i debatten men även här finns det en tydlig trend av ökad uppmärksamhet på potentiella säkerhetsrisker kopplade till kinesiska investeringar. Den svenska synen på Kina tycks konvergera allt mer med vad EU har kallat för sin nya ”mer realistiska” hållning gentemot Peking. Ett antal policyprocesser har inletts, vilket sannolikt kommer leda till att svensk lagstiftning stärks på flera områden för att öka kontrollen av Kinas investeringar och engagemang i Sverige, särskilt i kritisk infrastruktur såsom telekommunikationsnät men även vad gäller företag vars verksamhet anses som säkerhetskänslig i mer generell bemärkelse.
Sweden’s response to the Coronavirus Disease 19 (COVID-19) pandemic is dominated by the general advice issued by its Public Health Agency. This appears to be a technical, rational, and apolitical approach that preserves individual freedoms in a world of quarantines and overt control, suggesting that less power is exercised in Sweden than elsewhere. This paper challenges this assumption, as well as the technical rationality behind the Swedish response. Drawing from Foucault’s lectures on biopower and engaging empirically with discourse, it argues that the general advice should instead be read as a distinct technology of biopower. Additionally, this paper makes an analytical contribution to the literature on Foucauldian biopower by demonstrating that the biopolitical securing of populations is inextricably linked with individualized discipline.