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Boland ST, Balabanova D, Mayhew S. Examining the militarised hierarchy of Sierra Leone's Ebola response and implications for decision making during public health emergencies. Global Health 2023; 19:89. [PMID: 37993942 PMCID: PMC10664671 DOI: 10.1186/s12992-023-00995-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/08/2023] [Accepted: 11/13/2023] [Indexed: 11/24/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND In September, 2014, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) called for militarised assistance in response to the rapidly escalating West Africa Ebola Epidemic. Soon after, the United Kingdom deployed its military to Sierra Leone, which (among other contributions) helped to support the establishment of novel and military-led Ebola Virus Disease (Ebola) response centres throughout the country. To examine these civil-military structures and their effects, 110 semi-structured interviews with civilian and military Ebola Response Workers (ERWs) were conducted and analysed using neo-Durkheimian theory. RESULTS The hierarchical Ebola response centres were found to be spaces of 'conflict attenuation' for their use of 'rule-bound niches', 'neutral zones', 'co-dependence', and 'hybridity', thereby not only easing civil-military relationships (CMRel), but also increasing the efficiency of their application to Ebola response interventions. Furthermore, the hierarchical response centres were also found to be inclusive spaces that further increased efficiency through the decentralisation and localisation of these interventions and daily decision making, albeit for mostly privileged groups and in limited ways. CONCLUSIONS This demonstrates how hierarchy and localisation can (and perhaps should) go hand-in-hand during future public health emergency responses as a strategy for more robustly including typically marginalised local actors, while also improving necessary efficiency-in other words, an 'inclusive hierarchical coordination' that is both operationally viable and an ethical imperative.
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Affiliation(s)
- Samuel T Boland
- Centre for Universal Health, Chatham House, 10 St James's Square, London, SW1Y 4LE, UK.
| | - Dina Balabanova
- Department of Global Health & Development, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, 15-17 Tavistock Square, London, WC1H 9SH, UK
| | - Susannah Mayhew
- Department of Global Health & Development, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, 15-17 Tavistock Square, London, WC1H 9SH, UK
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Boland ST, Balabanova D, Mayhew S. The political economy of expedience: examining perspectives on military support to Sierra Leone's Ebola response. Confl Health 2023; 17:53. [PMID: 37932772 PMCID: PMC10626636 DOI: 10.1186/s13031-023-00553-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/19/2023] [Accepted: 11/01/2023] [Indexed: 11/08/2023] Open
Abstract
The 2013-2016 West Africa Ebola Epidemic is the largest outbreak of Ebola in history. By September, 2014 the outbreak was worsening significantly, and the international president of Médecins Sans Frontières called for military assistance. In Sierra Leone, the British and Sierra Leonean militaries intervened. They quickly established a National Ebola Response Centre and a constituent network of District Ebola Response Centres. Thereafter, these inherently militarised centres are where almost all Ebola response activities were coordinated. In order to examine perspectives on the nature of the militaries' intervention, 110 semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted and analysed. Military support to Sierra Leone's Ebola response was felt by most respondents to be a valuable contribution to the overall effort to contain the outbreak, especially in light of the perceived weakness of the Ministry of Health and Sanitation to effectively do so. However, a smaller number of respondents emphasised that the military deployments facilitated various structural harms, including for how the perceived exclusion of public institutions (as above) and other local actors from Ebola response decision making was felt to prevent capacity building, and in turn, to limit resilience to future crises. The concurrent provision of life-saving assistance and rendering of structural harm resulting from the militaries' intervention is ultimately found to be part of a vicious cycle, which this article conceptualises as the 'political economy of expedience', a paradox that should be considered inherent in any militarised intervention during humanitarian and public health crises.
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Affiliation(s)
- Samuel T Boland
- Centre for Universal Health, Chatham House, 10 St James's Square, London, SW1Y 4LE, UK.
| | - Dina Balabanova
- Department of Global Health and Development, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, 15-17 Tavistock Square, London, WC1H 9SH, UK
| | - Susannah Mayhew
- Department of Global Health and Development, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, 15-17 Tavistock Square, London, WC1H 9SH, UK
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Schmitt A, Spaeter S. Providing pandemic business interruption coverage with double trigger cat bonds. Geneva Pap Risk Insur Issues Pract 2023; 48:1-27. [PMID: 37359235 PMCID: PMC10228458 DOI: 10.1057/s41288-023-00299-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/30/2022] [Accepted: 04/17/2023] [Indexed: 06/28/2023]
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to show how qualified investors in cat bonds can offer adequate pandemic business interruption protection in a comprehensive public-private coverage scheme. First, we propose a numerical model to expose how cat bonds can contribute to complement standard re/insurance by improving coverage of cedents even though risks are positively correlated during a pandemic. Second, we introduce double trigger pandemic business interruption cat bonds, which we name PBI bonds, and discuss their precise characteristics to provide efficient coverage. A first trigger should be pulled when the World Health Organization declares a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). The second trigger determines the payout of the bond based on the modelised business interruption losses of an industry in a country. We discuss moral hazard, basis risk, correlation and liquidity issues which are critical in the context of a pandemic. Third, we simulate the life of theoretical PBI bonds in the restaurant industry in France by using data gathered during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Affiliation(s)
- André Schmitt
- BETA, Université de Strasbourg, CNRS, 61, Avenue de la Forêt-Noire, 67085 Strasbourg Cedex, France
| | - Sandrine Spaeter
- BETA, Université de Strasbourg, CNRS, 61, Avenue de la Forêt-Noire, 67085 Strasbourg Cedex, France
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Ayilu RK. Limits to blue economy: challenges to accessing fishing livelihoods in Ghana's port communities. Marit Stud 2023; 22:11. [PMID: 36974141 PMCID: PMC10032261 DOI: 10.1007/s40152-023-00302-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/23/2022] [Accepted: 03/09/2023] [Indexed: 06/18/2023]
Abstract
The blue economy concept has drawn global attention to the maritime economy, recognising expanding maritime industries such as shipping as crucial drivers of economic growth. In recent decades, seaports have correspondingly witnessed significant expansion, allowing them to play a substantial role in achieving blue growth. This study examines the challenges faced by small-scale fishing actors in gaining access to fishing livelihoods in coastal fishing communities close to Ghanaian ports. Drawing on political ecology, the study demonstrates how securitisation in port areas and dispossession has resulted in unstable fishing livelihoods in port communities. The study shows that the growth-oriented goals of port expansions and port security measures have restricted fishing communities' access to coastal fishing spaces and caused congestion in the canoe bays of Ghana's fishing harbours. In addition, the urbanisation around the ports has impacted fishers' ability to meet the rising cost of living in fishing communities with fishing incomes. Furthermore, the study discusses how the new Jamestown fishing harbour complex project has displaced small-scale fishing actors and become a site of contestation between a coastal fishing community and local government authorities. In conclusion, as coastal fishing actors lose their only source of livelihood, resistance may escalate into different forms of maritime conflicts in the blue economy. The study recommends addressing the marginalisation and exclusion of traditional coastal fishing livelihoods to ensure a more equitable blue economy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Raymond K. Ayilu
- Climate, Society & Environment Research Centre, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Technology Sydney, Broadway, Sydney, NSW 2007 Australia
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Elander I, Granberg M, Montin S. Governance and planning in a 'perfect storm': Securitising climate change, migration and Covid-19 in Sweden. Prog Plann 2022; 164:100634. [PMID: 36217494 PMCID: PMC9535694 DOI: 10.1016/j.progress.2021.100634] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/08/2021] [Revised: 10/12/2021] [Accepted: 10/26/2021] [Indexed: 06/16/2023]
Abstract
The article describes and reflects upon how multi-level governance and planning in Sweden have been affected by and reacted upon three pending major challenges confronting humanity, namely climate change, migration and the Covid-19 pandemic. These 'crises' are broadly considered 'existential threats' in need of 'securitisation'. Causes and adequate reactions are contested, and there are no given solutions how to securitise the perceived threats, neither one by one, no less together. Government securitisation strategies are challenged by counter-securitisation demands, and plaguing vulnerable groups in society by in-securitising predicaments. Taking Sweden as an example the article applies an analytical approach drawing upon strands of securitisation, governance and planning theory. Targeting policy responses to the three perceived crises the intricate relations between government levels, responsibilities, capacities, and actions are scrutinized, including a focus upon the role of planning. Overriding research questions are: How has the governance and planning system - central, regional and local governments - in Sweden responded to the challenges of climate change, migration and Covid-19? What threats were identified? What solutions were proposed? What consequences could be traced? What prospects wait around the corner? Comparing crucial aspects of the crises' anatomies the article adds to the understanding of the way multilevel, cross-sectional, hybrid governance and planning respond to concurrent crises, thereby also offering clues for action in other geopolitical contexts. The article mainly draws upon recent and ongoing research on manifestations of three cases in the Swedish context. Applying a pragmatic, methodological approach combining elements of securitisation, governance and planning theories with Carol Lee Bacchi's 'What is the problem represented to be' and a touch of interpretive/narrative theory, the study reveals distinct differences between the anatomies of the three crises and their handling. Urgency, extension, state of knowledge/epistemology, governance and planning make different imprints on crises management. Sweden's long-term climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies imply slow, micro-steps forward based on a combination of social-liberal, 'circular' and a touch of 'green growth' economies. Migration policy displays a Janus face, on the one hand largely respecting the UN refugee quota system on the other hand applying a detailed regulatory framework causing severe insecurity especially for minor refugees wanting to stay and make their living in Sweden. The Covid-19 outbreak revealed a lack of foresight and eroded/fragmented responsibility causing huge stress upon personnel in elderly and health care and appalling death rates among elderly patients, although governance and planning slowly adapted through securitising policies, leading to potential de-securitisation of the issue. The three crises have caused a security wake-up among governments at all levels and the public in general, and the article concludes by discussing whether this 'perfect storm' of crises will result in a farewell to neoliberalism - towards a neo-regulatory state facing further challenges and crises for governance, planning and the role of planners. The tentative prospect rather indicates a mixture of context-dependent 'hybrid governance', thus also underlining the crucial role of planners' role as 'chameleons' in complicated governance processes of politics, policy and planning.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Mikael Granberg
- Political science and the Centre for Societal Risk Research, Karlstad University, SE- 651 88, Karlstad, Sweden
- The Centre for Natural Hazards and Disaster Science (CNDS), Uppsala University, 752 36 Uppsala, Sweden
- The Centre for Urban Research (CUR), RMIT University, Melbourne VIC 3000, Australia
| | - Stig Montin
- Gothenburg University, Box 712, SE- 411 23, Göteborg, Sweden
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Moyo K, Sebba KR, Zanker F. Who is watching? Refugee protection during a pandemic - responses from Uganda and South Africa. Comp Migr Stud 2021; 9:37. [PMID: 34395194 PMCID: PMC8352609 DOI: 10.1186/s40878-021-00243-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/20/2020] [Accepted: 05/01/2021] [Indexed: 06/13/2023]
Abstract
Both Uganda and South Africa were quick to respond to the global pandemic - Uganda for example imposing quarantine on foreign travellers after only a handful of cases before shutting off all international flights, and South Africa imposing one of the first lockdowns on the continent. Reflecting on the first 6 months of the pandemic responses in terms of refugee protection, the two countries have taken diverging pathways. South Africa used the pandemic to start building a border fence on the border with Zimbabwe, initially curtailed all foreign shop owners from opening under lockdown and excluded asylum seekers from emergency relief grants. In contrast, Uganda opened its borders to refugees from the DRC in June, when border closures were still the global norm. Whilst both responses are not unusual in light of their standard governance approaches, they highlight the own self-image the countries espouse - with Uganda positioning itself as the world's premier refugee protector at a time when it is desperately in need of more funds and South Africa looking to politically capitalize internally from reiterating a division between migrant communities as a threat to poor and disenfranchised South Africans. Even during a pandemic, the practice of refugee protection does not happen in a political vacuum. This paper is based on over 50 in-person and digital interviews conducted in Uganda and South Africa in 2020, as well as nine focus groups with refugee and host communities.
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Affiliation(s)
- Khangelani Moyo
- Global Change Institute, University of Witwatersrand, 1 Jan Smuts Avenue, Johannesburg, 2001 South Africa
| | | | - Franzisca Zanker
- Arnold Bergstraesser Institute at the University of Freiburg, Windausstr. 16, 79110 Freiburg, Germany
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Freier LF, Pérez LM. Nationality-Based Criminalisation of South-South Migration: the Experience of Venezuelan Forced Migrants in Peru. Eur J Crim Pol Res 2021; 27:113-133. [PMID: 33462528 PMCID: PMC7807400 DOI: 10.1007/s10610-020-09475-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 12/09/2020] [Indexed: 06/12/2023]
Abstract
This article examines how Venezuelan forced migrants in Peru experience xenophobic discrimination, which has become increasingly linked to their criminalisation as thieves and murderers. Based on 12 months of qualitative fieldwork, including 72 in-depth interviews, five focus groups, and a survey (N116) in five Peruvian cities, we explore how Venezuelans experience, and make sense of, discrimination and criminalisation in everyday life. First, we discuss how criminalisation compares to general xenophobic discrimination, and other types of discrimination experiences. Second, we juxtapose the prevalence of xenophobic discrimination and criminalisation experiences across the five cities of our study, and between public spaces and the workspace. We then move to the qualitative discussion of the criminalisation experience in these different spaces. Fourth, we discuss how Venezuelan migrants perceive this criminalising discrimination as linked to their villanisation in the media and political discourses. Finally, we discuss our findings and make suggestion for further research. The paper contributes to the literature on migrant criminalisation by exploring how criminalisation processes play out in the context of large-scale intraregional forced displacement in the global South.
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Kamminga J. States simply do not care: The failure of international securitisation of drug control in Afghanistan. Int J Drug Policy 2019; 68:3-8. [PMID: 30965153 DOI: 10.1016/j.drugpo.2019.03.019] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/27/2018] [Revised: 01/20/2019] [Accepted: 03/02/2019] [Indexed: 10/27/2022]
Abstract
The link between the world drug problem and securitisation has been predominantly established to argue that an existential threat discourse reinforces the international prohibitionist regime and makes it harder for alternative policy models to arise. This analysis is problematic for three main reasons. Firstly, it overestimates the current strength of the international drug control regime as a normative and regulatory system that prescribes state behaviour. Secondly, the current international regime does not inhibit policy reforms. While the international treaty system proves resistant to change, it is at the national and local levels where new drug policies arise. Moreover, these are generally not the draconian or emergency measures that successful securitisation would predict. Thirdly, the analysis so far misinterprets criminalisation or militarisation as evidence of securitisation. As the case of Afghanistan shows, securitisation attempts, such as those linking the Taliban and the illicit opium economy, may have reinforced the militarisation of drug control in Afghanistan, but did not elevate the illicit drug economy as an external threat or a top priority. While there have been short-lived spikes of attention and provincial level campaigns to eradicate poppy cultivation, these have never translated into a sustained structural effort to combat illicit drugs in Afghanistan. Even the latest push for militarisation, the US-led campaign of airstrikes on drug processing laboratories since November 2017, represents more a shift in counter-insurgency strategy than successful securitisation. While Afghanistan's illicit drug economy has been politicised for several reasons, states are not convinced that this economy somehow represents an existential threat to their survival.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jorrit Kamminga
- Netherlands Institute of International Relations Clingendael, Clingendael 7, 2597 VH The Hague, the Netherlands.
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