R Abrahamsen
Biographic Data
| ID | 65483 |
|---|---|
| NAME | R Abrahamsen |
| GIVEN NAMES | R |
| FAMILY NAME | Abrahamsen |
| SIGNATURE | ABRAHAMSEN R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Ottawa |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9001-3782 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 45 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 440 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 45 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1997 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 11 |
The Emergence of a Global Radical Right
When the American activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated in September 2025, his death was mourned by radical conservatives around the world. This outpouring of grief is but one illustration of the expanding and deepening networks of the radical conservative movement. For all their differences, radical conservatives increasingly see themselves as part of a global movement with a shared agenda—united by their perceived persecution by the same globa…
World of the Right
The contemporary radical Right is not merely a series of nationalist projects but a global phenomenon. This book shows how radical conservative thinkers have developed long-term counter-hegemonic strategies that challenge prevailing social and political orders both nationally and internationally. At the heart of this ideological project is a critique of liberal globalisation that seeks to mobilise transversal alliances against a common enemy: the…
Thank You to Reviewers
Radical Right Dystopias in the Global Culture Wars
Despite the pervasive description of our times as dystopian, the disciplines of political theory and international relations seldom consider the political power of dystopian imaginaries. This article seeks to remedy this neglect by focusing on the radical Right's invocation of dystopias. These dystopian narratives go beyond mere scaremongering and constitute instead “critical dystopias” that follow a distinct grammar rooted in the radical Right's…
From peacekeeping missions to global peacekeeping assemblages
How does the experience of peacekeeping shape the countries that contribute troops and the troops themselves, individually and collectively? Most of the peacekeeping literature's focus has traditionally been on field missions, the countries that host them and the challenges of attracting sufficient and appropriately trained troops. We suggest that more emphasis should be put not only on the locations where missions deploy, but also on the individ…
Introduction
Long considered peripheral to both international affairs and the discipline of international relations (IR), Africa is increasingly at the center of global politics and academic debates. Global powers are competing for economic, political, and strategic influence on the continent, while Africa itself has emerged as an increasingly powerful and confident actor on the world stage. In large part, this is due to the leadership of the African Union (A…
Kenya Virtual Issue
Canada and the African Union
In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, global powers are not only scrambling for Africa’s abundant resources but also jostling for its political attention. In the midst of this new geopolitical environment of heightened tension, Canada is developing its first ever engagement framework for Africa. In light of this, we argue that the African Union (AU) should be central to Canada’s engagement strategy. Canada’s ability to engage bilaterally w…
Uganda's Fraudulent Election
In January 2021, Uganda's president and ruling party were returned to power in an election that was the most violent and least fair in the country's history. The electoral performance of the opposition nevertheless exposed significant weaknesses in the regime's grip on power and demonstrated its lack of support and legitimacy among Uganda's large urban youth population. This article analyzes the fraudulent tactics employed in the election. It arg…
Internationalists, sovereigntists, nativists
Contrary to common assumptions that the liberal world order was ‘made in the West’, this article argues that it was produced in interaction with Pan-African ideology and actors. Developing a morphological analysis, it identifies three contending visions of world order within Pan-Africanism: a world of continental unity and transnational solidarity; a world of national sovereignty; and a world of racially defined units. It concludes that Pan-Afric…
South Sudan’s civil war
Narratives of conflict in Africa often become morality tales of good versus evil, identifying heroes and villains, victims and saviours, and ultimately the comforting prospect of a peaceful ever-after. Not so in John Young’s account of South Sudan’s rapid descent into civil war, which portrays instead ‘the principle-less world of South Sudanese politics’ (p. 160). Bereft of heroes and saviours, there is neither an immanent end to the bloodshed, n…
Confronting the International Political Sociology of the New Right
The rise of radical right-wing leaders, parties, movements, and ideas have transformed not only domestic political landscapes but also the direction and dynamics of international relations. Yet for all their emphasis on nationalist identity, on 'America First' and 'Taking Back Control,' there is an unmistakable international dimension to contemporary nationalist, populist movements. Yet these movements are also often transnationally linked. We ar…
Defensive development, combative contradictions
Drawing on international political sociology, this article shows how the merger of development and security has become part of the ideational architecture that facilitates a new ‘feel-good’ militarism in Africa. Contemporary international reform efforts are designed to restrain military power in the name of development, democracy and civilian oversight, but also to strengthen the coercive capacities of African security institutions and make them …
Introduction
At a time when liberal internationalism and institutions of multilateral cooperation are being dealt almost daily blows, this special issue revisits the notion and practice of middle power liberal internationalism. The introduction suggests that while liberal internationalism is far from dead, the challenges are serious and multiple. Reflecting on the seven essays contained in the volume, it argues that the biggest challenge for a future liberal …
Return of the generals? Global militarism in Africa from the Cold War to the present
Militarism is always historically constructed and context specific and must therefore be studied at the intersection of the global and the local. This article does so by tracing the continuities and changes of global militarism in Africa from the Cold War to the present. It argues that contemporary global militarism on the continent differs from its predecessor in two crucial aspects. First, it is promoted by development actors as much as by mili…
Africa and international relations
This Research Note contributes to recent debates about Africa's place within the discipline of International Relations (IR). It argues that bringing Africa into IR cannot be simply a question of ‘add Africa and stir’, as the continent does not enter the discipline as a neutral object of study. Instead, it is already overdetermined and embedded within the politics and structure of values of the academe, which are in turn influenced in complex ways…
Exporting decentred security governance
Security Sector Reform (SSR) has become the developed world’s preferred approach to transforming security governance in poor and fragile countries and a key instrument in the state builder’s toolkit. This article approaches SSR as a social technology informed by international ‘best practice’ and models of governance that seek to build secure communities in so-called fragile states while simultaneously securing the developed world from the perceiv…
Uganda's 2016 elections
Uganda's 2016 elections may have been the most competitive in the country's long struggle for democracy, but almost everything about this election was a foregone conclusion: nobody expected a free and fair ballot. Nobody expected President Museveni to lose. And nobody was surprised when ‘the Old Man’, Uganda's ruler for the last 30 years, was declared the undisputed winner with 60.6 percent of the vote. Even the post-election condemnations by the…
The Return of the Public in Global Governance
Many international relations scholars argue that private authority and private actors are playing increasingly prominent roles in global governance. This book focuses on the other side of the equation: the transformation of the public dimension of governance in the era of globalization. It analyses that transformation, advancing two major claims: first, that the public is beginning to play a more significant role in global governance, and, second…
Domesticating vigilantism in Africa
Domesticating vigilantism in Africa, edited by Thomas G. Kirsch and Tilo Gratz, Oxford, James Currey, 2010, 190 pp., £40.00 (hardback), ISBN 9781847010285 This edited collection is a useful additio
African democracy - still disciplined after all these years
Rekonfigurering av sikkerhet
Security Beyond the State
Across the globe, from mega-cities to isolated resource enclaves, the provision and governance of security takes place within assemblages that are de-territorialized in terms of actors, technologies, norms and discourses. They are embedded in a complex transnational architecture, defying conventional distinctions between public and private, global and local. Drawing on theories of globalization and late modernity, along with insights from crimino…
High Stakes and Stakeholders. Oil Conflict and Security in Nigeria
High Stakes and Stakeholders. Oil Conflict and Security in Nigeria, by Kenneth Omeje. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006; pp. 199; £50 (hb). ISBN 07546277. In discussions of the conflict in the Niger Delta
Security Beyond the State
Journal Article Security Beyond the State: Global Security Assemblages in International Politics Get access Rita Abrahamsen, Rita Abrahamsen University of Ottawa Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Michael C. Williams Michael C. Williams University of Ottawa Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Political Sociology, Volume 3, Issue 1, March 2009, Pages 1–17, htt…
Blair's Africa
Prime Minister Tony Blair has described Africa as a “scar on the conscience of the world.” This article argues that New Labour's increasing attention to Africa is part of an ongoing securitization of the continent; interactions with Africa are gradually shifting from the category of “development/humanitarianism” toward a category of “risk/fear/threat” in the context of the “war on terrorism.” The securitization of Africa has helped legitimize thi…
Security Beyond the State
Journal Article Security Beyond the State: Global Security Assemblages in International Politics Get access Rita Abrahamsen, Rita Abrahamsen University of Ottawa Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Michael C. Williams Michael C. Williams University of Ottawa Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Political Sociology, Volume 3, Issue 1, March 2009, Pages 1–17, htt…
The power of partnerships in global governance
Development partnerships are frequently represented as a way of giving recipient countries ‘ownership’ of their development programmes, whereas critics argue that partnerships are little more than conditionality by another name. Drawing on analyses of governmentality in modern liberal societies, this article advances an alternative understanding and argues that development partnerships can be regarded as a form of advanced liberal rule that incre…
African studies and the postcolonial challenge
Postcolonial theory is frequently dismissed as too theoretical and esoteric, and hence irrelevant to the study of contemporary African politics and society. This article challenges this dismissal of postcolonialism, and argues for a more constructive dialogue between African studies and postcolonial approaches. Recognizing that postcolonialism cannot be regarded as a uniform body of theory, or a school of thought in the conventional academic sens…
Return of the generals? Global militarism in Africa from the Cold War to the present
Militarism is always historically constructed and context specific and must therefore be studied at the intersection of the global and the local. This article does so by tracing the continuities and changes of global militarism in Africa from the Cold War to the present. It argues that contemporary global militarism on the continent differs from its predecessor in two crucial aspects. First, it is promoted by development actors as much as by mili…
Confronting the International Political Sociology of the New Right
The rise of radical right-wing leaders, parties, movements, and ideas have transformed not only domestic political landscapes but also the direction and dynamics of international relations. Yet for all their emphasis on nationalist identity, on 'America First' and 'Taking Back Control,' there is an unmistakable international dimension to contemporary nationalist, populist movements. Yet these movements are also often transnationally linked. We ar…
Uganda's 2016 elections
Uganda's 2016 elections may have been the most competitive in the country's long struggle for democracy, but almost everything about this election was a foregone conclusion: nobody expected a free and fair ballot. Nobody expected President Museveni to lose. And nobody was surprised when ‘the Old Man’, Uganda's ruler for the last 30 years, was declared the undisputed winner with 60.6 percent of the vote. Even the post-election condemnations by the…
A breeding ground for terrorists? Africa & Britain's ‘war on terrorism’
Prime Minister Tony Blair has famously described Africa as a‘scar on the conscience of the world’, drawing attention to the UK's moral and humanitarian obligations towards the continent. This article argues that New Labour's increasing attention to Africa is best understood in the context of an ongoing‘securitisation’ of the continent, which received added impetus following the events of September 11, 2001. Through this securitisation, interactio…
Securing the City
The past decade has witnessed a remarkable expansion and globalisation of the private security sector. These developments mark the emergence of public-private, global-local security networks that play increasingly important roles in global governance. Rather than representing a simple retreat of the state, security privatisation is a part of broad processes in which the role of the state - and the nature and locus of authority - is being transfor…
Internationalists, sovereigntists, nativists
Contrary to common assumptions that the liberal world order was ‘made in the West’, this article argues that it was produced in interaction with Pan-African ideology and actors. Developing a morphological analysis, it identifies three contending visions of world order within Pan-Africanism: a world of continental unity and transnational solidarity; a world of national sovereignty; and a world of racially defined units. It concludes that Pan-Afric…
Ethics and Foreign Policy
This article explores how New Labour has attempted to implement its ideas about a ‘third way’ foreign policy in sub-Saharan Africa. Through an examination of British foreign policy practices, we explore whether New Labour has succeeded in finding a ‘third way’ between traditional views of socialism and capitalism in Africa. In particular, the article focuses on New Labour's attempts to build peace, prosperity and democracy on the African continen…
Uganda's Fraudulent Election
In January 2021, Uganda's president and ruling party were returned to power in an election that was the most violent and least fair in the country's history. The electoral performance of the opposition nevertheless exposed significant weaknesses in the regime's grip on power and demonstrated its lack of support and legitimacy among Uganda's large urban youth population. This article analyzes the fraudulent tactics employed in the election. It arg…
Africa and international relations
This Research Note contributes to recent debates about Africa's place within the discipline of International Relations (IR). It argues that bringing Africa into IR cannot be simply a question of ‘add Africa and stir’, as the continent does not enter the discipline as a neutral object of study. Instead, it is already overdetermined and embedded within the politics and structure of values of the academe, which are in turn influenced in complex ways…
The Victory of Popular Forces or Passive Revolution? A Neo-Gramscian Perspective on Democratisation
In the flourish of literature now attempting to explain transitions to democracy in sub-Saharan Africa a curious consensus has emerged concerning the relative importance of internal and external causes. It is almost uniformly maintained that the real causes were internal, and that international factors were merely supportive. Accordingly, John Wiseman claims in the introduction to his recently edited volume on democratic reform that changes in th…
Introduction
At a time when liberal internationalism and institutions of multilateral cooperation are being dealt almost daily blows, this special issue revisits the notion and practice of middle power liberal internationalism. The introduction suggests that while liberal internationalism is far from dead, the challenges are serious and multiple. Reflecting on the seven essays contained in the volume, it argues that the biggest challenge for a future liberal …
Exporting decentred security governance
Security Sector Reform (SSR) has become the developed world’s preferred approach to transforming security governance in poor and fragile countries and a key instrument in the state builder’s toolkit. This article approaches SSR as a social technology informed by international ‘best practice’ and models of governance that seek to build secure communities in so-called fragile states while simultaneously securing the developed world from the perceiv…
Public/Private, Global/Local
From conflict zones to shopping malls, from resource extraction sites to luxury tourist enclaves, private security has become a ubiquitous feature of modern life. While the ‘monopoly of legitimate
Introduction
Long considered peripheral to both international affairs and the discipline of international relations (IR), Africa is increasingly at the center of global politics and academic debates. Global powers are competing for economic, political, and strategic influence on the continent, while Africa itself has emerged as an increasingly powerful and confident actor on the world stage. In large part, this is due to the leadership of the African Union (A…
Defensive development, combative contradictions
Drawing on international political sociology, this article shows how the merger of development and security has become part of the ideational architecture that facilitates a new ‘feel-good’ militarism in Africa. Contemporary international reform efforts are designed to restrain military power in the name of development, democracy and civilian oversight, but also to strengthen the coercive capacities of African security institutions and make them …
Selling security
The rise of the private military industry has become an important and controversial issue in international politics. This article reviews the contributions of four books that analyse the rise and consequences of the privatization of force. Placing military privatization in a broader political context shows how a fuller understanding of these developments requires a global focus and an emphasis on their relationship both to global capital and to s…
Introduction
Agendas, past & future
This issue marks the 30th anniversary of the birth of The Review of African Political Economy in 1974. At the time, its founders were unsure if it would get off the ground and they certainly never thought it would last thirty years! Apart from debate about what its role would be, there were doubts about their own stamina, and about whether successor generations would emerge to take it on. The challenge was set out by Anderson in relation to anoth…
Radical Right Dystopias in the Global Culture Wars
Despite the pervasive description of our times as dystopian, the disciplines of political theory and international relations seldom consider the political power of dystopian imaginaries. This article seeks to remedy this neglect by focusing on the radical Right's invocation of dystopias. These dystopian narratives go beyond mere scaremongering and constitute instead “critical dystopias” that follow a distinct grammar rooted in the radical Right's…
From peacekeeping missions to global peacekeeping assemblages
How does the experience of peacekeeping shape the countries that contribute troops and the troops themselves, individually and collectively? Most of the peacekeeping literature's focus has traditionally been on field missions, the countries that host them and the challenges of attracting sufficient and appropriately trained troops. We suggest that more emphasis should be put not only on the locations where missions deploy, but also on the individ…
Security sector reform
As the links between security and development have been increasingly recognized, Security Sector Reform (SSR) has become a central part of development policy. Following a traditional Weberian conception of the state, these programmes are almost exclusively focused on the public security sector, neglecting the extent to which people in developing countries have come to rely on private security providers for their day-to-day security needs. While t…
The Victory of Popular Forces or Passive Revolution? A Neo-Gramscian Perspective on Democratisation
In the flourish of literature now attempting to explain transitions to democracy in sub-Saharan Africa a curious consensus has emerged concerning the relative importance of internal and external causes. It is almost uniformly maintained that the real causes were internal, and that international factors were merely supportive. Accordingly, John Wiseman claims in the introduction to his recently edited volume on democratic reform that changes in th…
Gender dimensions of Aids in Zambia
This article is based on research investigating the socio‐economic impact of AIDS on poor urban households in Kitwe, Zambia. It is argued that within the household, AIDS affects women disproportionately. Women have to care for the ill and devise survival strategies when household income falls and living standards deteriorate. AIDS also has a number of other gender dimensions which are linked to women's limited access to resources and their subord…
Development policy and the democratic peace in Sub-Saharan Africa
The contention that ‘democracies do not ?ght one another’ has gained widespread acceptance in the discipline of international relations, as well as among policymakers and international institutions. In the post-Cold War era, this contention has formed part of the justi?cation for making development assistance conditional on democratic reforms in recipient countries. This article explores the democratic peace thesis in relation to Sub-Saharan Afri…
Books reviewed
Global Economy, Global Justice: Theoretical and Policy Alternatives to Neoliberalism George F. DeMartino Routledge (2000), London, ISBN 0415224012. Foreign Aid and Development: Lessons Learnt and Directions for the Future Finn Tarp, ed. Routledge (2000), London, ISBN 0415233631. Evaluating Development Aid: Issues, Problems and Solutions B.E. Cracknell Sage (2000), London. ISBN 0761994033. The Third World in the Age of Globalisation: Requiem or Ne…
Disciplining Democracy
Ethics and Foreign Policy
This article explores how New Labour has attempted to implement its ideas about a ‘third way’ foreign policy in sub-Saharan Africa. Through an examination of British foreign policy practices, we explore whether New Labour has succeeded in finding a ‘third way’ between traditional views of socialism and capitalism in Africa. In particular, the article focuses on New Labour's attempts to build peace, prosperity and democracy on the African continen…
Disciplining Democracy
Disciplining Democracy
War & the Forgotten Continent
As US and UK military forces invade Iraq the death of innocents in the Middle East will be added to those dying from AIDS, famine and preventable illness in Africa. The waging of war at any time, when not sanctioned by international law and the victims pose no threat to neighbours or invaders, is monstrous. It is even more so as US and UK resources are diverted towards the aims of death and destruction when millions in Africa are starving to deat…
African studies and the postcolonial challenge
Postcolonial theory is frequently dismissed as too theoretical and esoteric, and hence irrelevant to the study of contemporary African politics and society. This article challenges this dismissal of postcolonialism, and argues for a more constructive dialogue between African studies and postcolonial approaches. Recognizing that postcolonialism cannot be regarded as a uniform body of theory, or a school of thought in the conventional academic sens…
A breeding ground for terrorists? Africa & Britain's ‘war on terrorism’
Prime Minister Tony Blair has famously described Africa as a‘scar on the conscience of the world’, drawing attention to the UK's moral and humanitarian obligations towards the continent. This article argues that New Labour's increasing attention to Africa is best understood in the context of an ongoing‘securitisation’ of the continent, which received added impetus following the events of September 11, 2001. Through this securitisation, interactio…
Agendas, past & future
This issue marks the 30th anniversary of the birth of The Review of African Political Economy in 1974. At the time, its founders were unsure if it would get off the ground and they certainly never thought it would last thirty years! Apart from debate about what its role would be, there were doubts about their own stamina, and about whether successor generations would emerge to take it on. The challenge was set out by Anderson in relation to anoth…
The power of partnerships in global governance
Development partnerships are frequently represented as a way of giving recipient countries ‘ownership’ of their development programmes, whereas critics argue that partnerships are little more than conditionality by another name. Drawing on analyses of governmentality in modern liberal societies, this article advances an alternative understanding and argues that development partnerships can be regarded as a form of advanced liberal rule that incre…
Disciplining Democracy
Disciplining Democracy: Development Discourses and Good Governance in Africa. By Rita Abrahamsen. London: Zed Books, 2000. Pp. xv, 168. $65.00 cloth, $22.50 paper. The nature of global politics has changed tremendously since the Soviet collapse. Optimistic pronouncements that world had reached the end of history in 1989 ring hollow in a post-9/11 world.1 While communism has all but disappeared as a geopolitical force, terrorism has replaced it as…
Blair's Africa
Prime Minister Tony Blair has described Africa as a “scar on the conscience of the world.” This article argues that New Labour's increasing attention to Africa is part of an ongoing securitization of the continent; interactions with Africa are gradually shifting from the category of “development/humanitarianism” toward a category of “risk/fear/threat” in the context of the “war on terrorism.” The securitization of Africa has helped legitimize thi…
Security sector reform
As the links between security and development have been increasingly recognized, Security Sector Reform (SSR) has become a central part of development policy. Following a traditional Weberian conception of the state, these programmes are almost exclusively focused on the public security sector, neglecting the extent to which people in developing countries have come to rely on private security providers for their day-to-day security needs. While t…
Selling security
The rise of the private military industry has become an important and controversial issue in international politics. This article reviews the contributions of four books that analyse the rise and consequences of the privatization of force. Placing military privatization in a broader political context shows how a fuller understanding of these developments requires a global focus and an emphasis on their relationship both to global capital and to s…
Introduction
Securing the City
The past decade has witnessed a remarkable expansion and globalisation of the private security sector. These developments mark the emergence of public-private, global-local security networks that play increasingly important roles in global governance. Rather than representing a simple retreat of the state, security privatisation is a part of broad processes in which the role of the state - and the nature and locus of authority - is being transfor…
Public/Private, Global/Local
From conflict zones to shopping malls, from resource extraction sites to luxury tourist enclaves, private security has become a ubiquitous feature of modern life. While the ‘monopoly of legitimate
High Stakes and Stakeholders. Oil Conflict and Security in Nigeria
High Stakes and Stakeholders. Oil Conflict and Security in Nigeria, by Kenneth Omeje. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006; pp. 199; £50 (hb). ISBN 07546277. In discussions of the conflict in the Niger Delta
Security Beyond the State
Journal Article Security Beyond the State: Global Security Assemblages in International Politics Get access Rita Abrahamsen, Rita Abrahamsen University of Ottawa Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Michael C. Williams Michael C. Williams University of Ottawa Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Political Sociology, Volume 3, Issue 1, March 2009, Pages 1–17, htt…
Security Beyond the State
Across the globe, from mega-cities to isolated resource enclaves, the provision and governance of security takes place within assemblages that are de-territorialized in terms of actors, technologies, norms and discourses. They are embedded in a complex transnational architecture, defying conventional distinctions between public and private, global and local. Drawing on theories of globalization and late modernity, along with insights from crimino…
Rekonfigurering av sikkerhet
Domesticating vigilantism in Africa
Domesticating vigilantism in Africa, edited by Thomas G. Kirsch and Tilo Gratz, Oxford, James Currey, 2010, 190 pp., £40.00 (hardback), ISBN 9781847010285 This edited collection is a useful additio
Political science (43 works) · Law (34 works) · Politics (33 works) · Sociology (30 works) · Political economy (29 works) · Economics (25 works) · Law (17 works) · International Development and Aid (15 works) · Democracy (13 works) · Development economics (13 works)