Military action, limited or otherwise, is not the answer to the much more fundamental problems that the region faces and poses. It is likely not even part of that answer. The quicker we move beyond the narrow debate over military responses to a more comprehensive strategy, the better for Syria, the Arab Spring, and ultimately for us.
International Conflict Management
Tears and terror as Egypt slides towards civil war
The key challenge for the rival factions in Egypt is to learn the right lessons from its so-far disastrous post-Mubarak transition and find the courage to right the wrongs committed by both sides.
West has key role to play amid Yemen’s al-Qaeda resurgence
Western powers can and must play a key role in containing the threat posed by al-Qaeda, if only to to create the space in which local political, religious, civic, and business leaders can eradicate the fertile ground of regime illegitimacy from which al-Qaeda will otherwise, more likely than not, rise and rise again.
Minority Languages in Europe
Minority languages are part of Europe's shared cultural heritage and there is a broad consensus that it is important to protect and encourage linguistic and cultural diversity during the process of continuing European integration. But what legislative and policy...
The Limits of Non-military International Intervention: A Case Study of Kosovo
Published in Understanding the War in Kosovo (ed. by Florian Bieber and Zhidas Daskalovski, 2003), this chapter argues that the difficulties the international community was experiencing in formulating and implementing a consistent and effective policy approach towards...
Ethnopolitics in Central and Eastern Europe: Accommodation through De-ethnicisiation?
Published in JEMIE – Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe in 2002, this article engages with Will Kymlicka's ideas of exporting liberal pluralism and explores the contemporary nature of ethnopolitics in Central and Eastern Europe. It examines the...
Peace at Last?
Spanning more than thirty years, and costing over 3000 lives, the conflict in and over Northern Ireland has been one of the most protracted ethnic conflicts in Western Europe. After several failed attempts to resolve the fundamental differences over national belonging...
The Peace Process in Northern Ireland since 1998: Success or Failure of Post-agreement Reconstruction?
Published in Civil Wars in 2002, this article argues that the key to the long-term stability of peace settlements is the ability of political leaders to change the social organisation and execution of power from force/violence-centred structures to those of consensual...
Conflict Management in Northern Ireland
Published in the UNESCO Diversities (vol. 4, no. 1, 2002) and subsequently re-printed in Democracy and Human Rights in Multicultural Societies (ed. by Matthias Koenig and Paul de Guchteneire, Routledge, 2007), this essay analyses the different policies employed by the...