The Importance of Statebuilding: Additional Contributions from a Military Perspective

Since the early beginning, stability, prosperity and security have been core values for the members of the transatlantic community. Efforts have been made for reconciliation over human lives lost in war, to understand and to solve dramatic changes in societies, to rebuild economies after heavy losses in goods, and to repair and maintain destroyed basic infrastructure; these are still ongoing concerns that present periodical challenges for all participating states. Statebuilding approaches can be described in many theoretical ways, but in practice – based on historical experience – they can be either peaceful or very bloody. In order to realise unknown and extreme factors and to give them adequate answers there is an urgent need for a stable, reliable and effective system.The Hungarian Defence Forces has a long history in peace operations, however, the latest missions conducted, especially in the Balkans and in Afghanistan, provided lots of useful experience related to different statebuilding efforts. In this paper the authors explain the basic general relations between state and the military, in normal – or ideal – circumstances, illustrated – as a comparison – with different elements and factors in statebuilding efforts in case of extreme conditions such as war, failing states or even a hypocritical emergence of state-like entities.

The atlas of human cardiac promoters and enhancers reveals an important role for regulatory elements in heart failure

A continuous increase in the prevalence of heart failure and the lack of adequate therapy highlight poor understanding of the underlying genetic regulatory mechanisms involved in heart failure pathogenesis. Growing evidence has demonstrated a significant contribution of non-coding genome regulatory elements towards transcriptomic changes in heart disease. Thus, there is a pressing need for a comprehensive resource of the human cardiac regulatory network in healthy and failing states. We applied cap analysis of gene expression sequencing to directly measure the expression of RNA associated with enhancers and promoters. Based on this data, we constructed the atlas of transcribed cardiac regulatory elements from 21 healthy and 10 failing (ischemic and non-ischemic cardiomyopathy) human hearts. In total, we have sequenced 109 samples from the left and right atria and ventricles, identifying 17,668 promoters and 14,920 enhancers associated with 14,519 genes. Leveraging this atlas, we provide insights into functional and structural regulatory changes between healthy and failing hearts. Healthy atria and ventricles had distinct pathway enrichment and transcription factor binding patterns, significantly remodeled by heart failure. Using the advantages of deep sequencing that allow effective analysis of cis-regulatory elements-derived RNA, we found that heart failure is associated with the expression of transcripts derived from alternative promoters and a specific set of transcribed enhancers. Furthermore, we identified a high prevalence of single nucleotide polymorphisms associated with cardiovascular diseases within the regulatory regions highlighting their importance in disease pathogenesis. This open-source atlas will serve the cardiovascular community to improve understanding cardiac regulatory network and facilitate the development of novel therapeutics.

At What Price? Managing the Costs of Tolerating Corrupt or Criminal Partners in Stability Interventions

States or coalitions may conduct intervention operations to stabilise weak or failing states. Intervening powers often use military or police forces to impose security while development agencies rebuild the affected state’s institutions, including the Rule of Law. However, recent experience suggests that interventions may perpetuate criminal conduct. This paper examines the NATO missions in Afghanistan and other interventions to suggest links between partnering with corrupt or criminal actors and subsequent setbacks in stabilisation. It then proposes strategies by which future intervention forces may mitigate the risks of perpetuating criminal conduct. The paper asserts that intervention forces may empower criminal actors inadvertently or deliberately. It suggests that criminal allies may offer apparent security gains, and command popular support; and may be the only allies available. However, it concludes that perpetuating crime and corruption undermines the legitimacy of the affected state’s government and the intervention force, and potentially enables state capture. These outcomes may perpetuate violence. The paper suggests that intervention forces may mitigate these risks by setting clear priorities, planning against all potential threats including organised criminals, linking aid to the achievement of governance objectives, delaying transition until the affected state’s institutions are ready, and conducting deep selection of future leaders.

The collapse of cooperation: the endogeneity of institutional break-up and its asymmetry with emergence

Decline and break-up of institutionalized cooperation, at all levels, has occurred frequently. Some of its concomitants, such as international migration, have become topical in the globalized world. Aspects of the phenomenon have also become known as failing states. However, the focus in most social sciences has been on institutional emergence and persistence, not collapse. We develop an endogenous explanation of collapsing institutions. Collapse may be an implication of the very economic success of institutionalized cooperation and of increasing system complexity, when cognitive conditions for effective collective decision-making do not proportionately evolve. Moreover, we show that collapse is not a simple logical reverse of emergence. Rather, institutions break up at different factor constellations than the ones prevailing at emergence. We approach endogenous institutional break-up and its asymmetry from various paradigmatic and disciplinary perspectives, employing psychology, anthropology, network analysis, and institutional economics. These perspectives cover individuals, groups, interaction-arenas, populations, and social networks.

Political Theory of Societal Association: Case of the Failed State Of Syria—Part 5 Brexit

In this fifth paper of a series on failing states, we analyze the impact that the large numbers of Syrian refugees from the Syrian civil war (2010-2019) had on political association in Britain – triggering a major change British policy and possibly threatening national unity. The theoretical model of political association is composed of three dimensions in the political dichotomies of: (1) ‘kinship or reciprocal-altruism’, (2) ‘centralization or decentralization-of-power’, and (3) ‘idealism or realism;. This is a cross-disciplinary political theory which can apply to different societies and to different times in a society.

7. The challenges ahead

This chapter offers directions for more effective approaches to refugee situations. As long as the growing scale of forced migration is driven by severe human rights violations, failing states, and intrastate conflicts, the prospects of solutions for refugees depend largely on resolving these issues. International organizations need to adopt programmes and policies to involve and strengthen civil society and local institutions. Lasting solutions will only be found if a concerted effort is made to defuse ethnic and religious tensions, resolve armed conflicts, protect human rights, strengthen arms control measures, and promote equitable and sustainable development. Through shared responsibility, collective action, and the active participation of refugees themselves, solutions are possible.

Waging War against Non-State Actors: The Contemporary Debate on the Prohibition of Force

Recent events have triggered scholarship arguing that international law should embrace the widespread state practice of using force against violent non-state actors such as terrorists. The evolution of state practice since 9/11 suggests an alternate interpretation of Article 2(4) and Article 51 of the UN charter, per treaty mechanisms. Specifically, academics and government officials have argued that the threat posed by terrorism necessitates lowering the state responsibility threshold. Doing so would make states hosting terrorists liable for violence undertaken from within their territory, giving aggrieved nations a license to intervene militarily. This essay argues that the traditional legal understanding of Article 2(4) and 51, which prohibit the use of force except in self-defence and then only against state actors, should be upheld, as war is not an effective means of eliminating non-state actor violence. Rather, nations need to address non-state actor violence by focusing on economic and social measures which foster development in failing States, as addressing civilian grievances is the most effective way to combat and deter terrorism.