Publications

Die ägyptische Regierung geht hart gegen Oppositionelle und Kritiker vor. Auf anhaltende Terroranschläge auf der Sinai-Halbinsel und in Kairo reagiert sie vor allem militärisch. Die wirtschaftliche Misere, einer der Hauptgründe für die Konfliktanfälligkeit des Landes, verschärft sich durch die Covid-19-Pandemie weiter.

Seit dem Amtsantritt von Premierminister Abiy Ahmed Ali leidet Äthiopien am "Fluch der Transformation". Angesichts seines mutigen Reformkurses fürchten die alten Eliten um ihre Pfründe und lassen ethno-nationalistische Konflikte im Vielvölkerstaat eskalieren. Eine Heuschreckenplage und Covid-19 wirken als Konfliktbeschleuniger.

After decades of irrelevance, the 2011 regime changes in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia stimulated hope that political parties would eventually strengthen their importance across North Africa, as in the projected future democracies the varieties of opinions across the citizenries were expected to be needed represented better in the political processes. Local as well as international organisations engaged in tailormade programmes for the setup and support of democratic and inclusive political parties.

Introduction to Themed Section: Based on analyses of the migration policies of Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco, the overall idea behind this themed issue is to present a comparative study of responses by Arab Mediterranean states to EU foreign and security policy incentives.

This article adds the case of Egypt to the themed section’s overall research interest, examining the extent to which the Egyptian government has reacted in its migration policies to incentives provided by the EU. It shows that Egypt’s 2016 ‘Anti-Smuggling Law’ (ASL), praised as a ‘milestone’, was crucial for the regime’s further power consolidation. Building on Tsourapas’s concept of ‘migration interdependence’, Egypt’s migration policy rather fulfils the purpose as ‘dramaturgical act’, aimed more at pleasing an international audience than improving migrants’ living conditions.

Die Pandemie hat gravierende Auswirkungen auf Migranten und Geflüchtete. Gleichzeitig wird ihre Systemrelevanz deutlich.

While exposing how essential they are to the system, the pandemic has grave consequences for migrants and refugees.

Migrant civil society has played an influential role in the deliberations of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM). Setbacks notwithstanding, this influence can be found in the final document regarding the language used as well as the inclusion of civil society’s agenda and policy goals. The challenge for migrant civil society now is to get access to and eventually influence the complex process of monitoring and implementation of the GCM goals. This complexity is just one of several obstacles for meaningful civil society involvement.

The term civil society covers a variety of organisational forms, levels of operation, and advocacy. This also holds true for the spectrum of civil society organisations in the field of migration and development. This chapter discusses the role of the various actors, ranging from Hometown Associations (HTAs) and diaspora organisations to transnational advocacy networks and global migrant civil society.

This paper will analyze a process that attempts to democratize the governance of migration within and from Asia through connectivity from below: the Asian Inter-Parliamentary Caucus on Labour Migration. The caucus was initiated by the Migrant Forum in Asia (MFA), the major regional network of migrants’ rights organizations, in 2007. Since 2008, meetings have been held in parallel to the ASEAN Inter- Parliamentary Assembly (AIPA).

La emergente gobernanza mundial de la migración se caracteriza por su fragmentación en términos de instituciones, normativas y convenciones subyacentes. La Organización Interna- cional para las Migraciones (oim) ocupa un lugar peculiar dentro de este marco: por un lado, hasta hace muy poco se había situado fuera de la Organización de las Naciones Unidas (onu), se considera un organismo «no normativo» y ha actuado principalmente como un proveedor de servicios basado en beneficios para los Estados nacionales.

The emerging global governance of migration is characterized by its fragmentation in terms of institutions, underlying norms and conventions. The International Organization for Migration (iom) holds a peculiar place within this framework: On the one side, it has been si- tuated outside the United Nations System until very recently, considers itself a «non-normative» agency, and has mostly acted as a profit-based service provider for nation-states.

While Jordan is one of the main targets of US and European attempts at ‘democracy promotion’, it also demonstrates a remarkably stable authoritarian system. Existing literature on ‘democracy promotion’ however mostly fails to see a connection between authoritarian reinforcement and external efforts at moral intervention. The dominant approaches to the study of ‘democracy promotion’ widely suffer from a narrow focus on developing policy recommendations and/or from a lack of empirical research.

Brief summary and presentation of 'Promoting Democracy, Reinforcing Authoritarianism: US and European Policy in Jordan' (CUP, 2019).

External attempts at “democracy promotion” are one of the defining features of global liberalism. A core principle guiding this Essential Reading is that the topic at hand needs to be unequivocally situated against the backdrop of a critical analysis of liberal thought. A main shortcoming of much of the mainstream literature on “democracy promotion” is the tendency to ignore related fundamental questions.

How to rethink authoritarian power in ways that better account for authoritarian connections beyond nation-state boundaries? By reconceptualizing the context in which to analyze authoritarian power, we bring to light transregional authoritarian connections between the secondary port cities Aqaba/Jordan and Buenaventura/Colombia.

Hardly a day goes by without a panicky reminder of the so-called global refugee crisis. Whether it is the UNHCR statistics on the rising numbers of forcibly displaced people crossing borders or internally displaced people coupled with shrinking numbers of resettlement places, or the images of drowned, suffocated or dehydrated bodies in a desert, fears of losing control over mass people movements are everywhere, but particularly powerful in the Global North.

Kutupalong – which, located near Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, is the biggest refugee camp in the world with an estimated 700,000 inhabitants – has just witnessed its first coronavirus death. The 71-year-old victim was among at least 29 Rohingya refugees in the camp who had recently tested positive for the virus. The death of the refugee has increased concerns that the deadly virus could spread rapidly through refugee camps in Bangladesh, which are home to an estimated 1 million refugees.

The decline in the smuggling of people from Indonesia to Australia since late 2013 is primarily attributable to unilateral deterrence policies under Australia's Operation Sovereign Borders. When seeking to prevent asylum seekers from coming to Australia to enjoy the right to asylum there, the Australian government has tested a number of deterrent mechanisms that sometimes border on illegality and even state crime.

There has been growing pressure on states to “solve” the phenomenon of irregular migration. Destination countries have transferred this pressure onto transit countries, which are assumed to have the political will, ability, and means to stop irregular migration. This special section looks at the ways in which transit countries respond to challenges, pressures, and compromises in matters of irregular migration policies through a number of empirical case studies.

The growing literature on transit countries places much emphasis on the policy interventions of destination countries. In the case of Southeast Asia, Australian policies have disproportionate effects across borders into the region, including those of Indonesia and Malaysia. However, so-called transit countries also counterweigh foreign policy incursions with domestic politics, their own policies of externalizing their borders, and negotiations with destination countries to fund their domestic capacity.

Der Himmel hat ihn doch nicht gerettet, auch wenn der langjährige burundische Präsident sich immer auf göttlichen Beistand verlassen hatte: Am 8. Juni starb der erst 55jährige Pierre Nkurunziza völlig überraschend – offiziellen Verlautbarungen zufolge an Herzversagen, aller Wahrscheinlichkeit nach jedoch an einer Infektion mit dem Coronavirus, das der Präsident für nicht existent hielt. Schon im Mai war seine Frau an Covid-19 erkrankt und überlebte nur dank ihrer Evakuierung nach Kenia.

Abgesehen von Überfällen von Boko Haram im Südwesten des Landes finden im Tschad derzeit keine militärischen Auseinandersetzungen statt. Der seit 1990 regierende Präsident Déby gewann 2016 erneut die Wahlen und unterdrückt jegliche Opposition. Misswirtschaft und sinkende Erdölpreise verstärken Armut und Unzufriedenheit der Bevölkerung.