National security is no longer ensured solely by maintaining the sanctity of one’s borders, but is also highly dependent upon a state’s ability to navigate safely through the global commons: the sea, air, outer space, and cyberspace. In recognizing the growing importance of the commons, Tara Murphy investigates the contemporary challenges that the United States faces in formulating its policies in these four increasingly contested arenas.
Although U.S.-based private military companies (PMCs) are widely believed to operate outside of any legal framework, such an understanding is based on a perceived, rather than real gap in jurisdiction. Mitchell McNaylor details how recent attempts by the U.S. Congress to subject PMCs to more stringent legal punitions are having unintended consequences that may undermine their ability to be effective agents of security assurance.
Why do minority populations often grow faster than majorities? States in dyadic conflict with a minority whose population growth exceeds that of the majority are prone to protective measures to bolster the majority’s grip on power. Under conditions of ethnic control, however, such measures appear to precipitate higher fertility rates among the minority. Christian Leuprecht develops the logic of a demographic security dilemma to account for this pervasive puzzle.
The most urgent dangers to security today come not from terrorism, but from the convergence of global systemic crises, including those of climate change,hydrocarbon energy depletion, economic and financial breakdown, and plummeting food production. Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed argues for the necessity of recognizing the interdependence of these threats on the path towards re-conceptualizing the meaning of ‘security’ today.
With the announcement that Rio de Janeiro will host the 2016 Olympic Games, global attention has turned to the city’s infamous history of insecurity. Samantha R. McRoskey analyzes the history and causes of the city’s insecurity, and argues that if the Games’ organizers are able to construct and execute a successful plan to ensure spectator safety, the result could be the incorporation of often overlooked developing states into the hosting circuit of the Olympic Games in the future.
Typically not counted amongst the battles to be waged in the fight for global security, Mark V. Vlasic and Jenae N. Noell argue that stemming corruption through stolen asset recovery programs has the ability to fortify the rule of law and reduce state impunity in the developing world.
David Aphrasidze and David Siroky analyze the dynamics of development, democracy and conflict in pre- and post-Rose Revolution Georgia, highlighting the nexus of ethnic nationalism, state capacity, and institution building as it relates to future insecurity in the state.
State capacity has become a central concept in security studies. Matthew Adam Kocher argues that common uses of the concept to explain violent conflict are tautological and instead outlines several approaches to disaggregate the state analytically so as to lead to more rigorous empirical research on violence.
