Morten Bøås
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 134684 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Morten Bøås |
| PRENOMES | Morten |
| SOBRENOME | Bøås |
| ASSINATURA | BØÅS M |
| AFILIAÇÕES | Norwegian Institute of International Affairs |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8417-5582 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 84 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 448 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 73 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 10 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 1997 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 12 |
Failed International Interventions and the Making of New Social Contracts in Mali
The Perfect Storm?
Facing up to the challenges this book has presented will be very difficult as it is happening in some of the weakest and most fragile states in the world. Add violent conflict and the fact that the Sahel has become a pawn in the new geopolitical contestation makes it even more difficult to imagine solutions. A perfect storm in the Sahel can bring about a regional collapse as governments lose what little control they have. But the jihadi insurgent…
Politics in Hard Times
Assisting their country and its population in times of precarity is certainly a function of religious leaders, but in Mali they have also strategically maneuvered to gain more followers and influence. Religious leaders have largely been considered as pious, honest and non-corrupt. This is in stark contrast to how most Malians view politics, which is considered a “dirty” practice of shady deals and of patron–client relations where “Big Men” seek t…
The Sahel—An Enabling Environment?
This chapter offers a conceptual discussion of violence in the Sahel. What must be defined as violent extremism tends to be justified on religious or political grounds, but the path to participation often starts with much more material grievances. Concerns over insecurity, unemployment, lack of economic opportunities, and not the least various local access-rights conflicts as those over land, water, grazing land, or trade routes are frequent caus…
Mali
This chapter first discuss the main factors in the crisis that confronts Mali and neighboring Sahel states. After this discussion the main insurgencies are presented, and the chapter explain why the idea of a Sahelian exception of collaborative cohabitation between groups leaning towards al-Qaeda and Islamic State ideology was but a moment and not one that could not be sustained. Not only due to ideological and theological differences, but even m…
Sahel
The Sahel is the borderland of 3 million square kilometers between the Sahara Desert and the African savannah and forest lands further south. Much of this huge area is inhospitable. Insurgencies are common, as are migration and smuggling, jobs being as rare here as effective government intervention–state power extends only fitfully, and the region resists attempts to subdue militants, people-traffickers, nomadic herders or anyone excluded from po…
Borders Ending Nowhere
Russia has been involved in Africa since Tsarist times, but its involvement has ebbed and flowed. Nonetheless, the idea of Africa as an open political landscape in which Russia could act as a great power has been relatively persistent, often in connection with the domestic resurfacing of civilisational discourses on Russian exceptionalism. Recently, there has been much concern in the West about the expansion of Russian projection in Africa, with …
Jihadists of North Africa and the Sahel
Journal Article Jihadists of North Africa and the Sahel: Local Politics and Rebel Groups, By Alexander Thurston Get access Jihadists of North Africa and the Sahel: Local Politics and Rebel GroupsBy Alexander Thurston (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), x + 349 pp. Price PB £22.99. EAN 978–1108726863. Morten Bøås Morten Bøås Norwegian Institute of International Affairs E-mail: [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford…
Legacies and futures for Global South research
The End of Stability – How Burkina Faso Fell Apart
Not so long-ago Burkina Faso was considered an “island” of stability in a conflict-prone part of Africa. This is not the case anymore as armed insurgencies have caused widespread insecurity. While spill-over effects from the conflict in Mali clearly play a role, we argue that the sudden demise of the rule and regime of Blaise Compaoré also is an important contributing factor. To decipher to what extent regime transition shaped the current state o…
Doing Fieldwork in Areas of International Intervention
Doing Fieldwork in Areas of International Intervention
Doing Fieldwork in Areas of International Intervention
Using detailed insights from those with first-hand experience of conducting research in areas of international intervention and conflict, this handbook provides essential practical guidance for researchers and students embarking on fieldwork in violent, repressive and closed contexts. Contributors detail their own experiences from areas including the Congo, Sudan, Yemen, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Myanmar, inviting readers into their reflections …
Doing Fieldwork in Areas of International Intervention
Using insights from those with first-hand experience of conducting research in areas of international intervention and conflict across the world, this book provides essential practical guidance, discussion of mistakes, key reflections and raises important questions for researchers and students embarking on fieldwork in violent and closed contexts. Chapters detail personal experiences from areas including the Congo, Sudan, Yemen, Bosnia and Herzeg…
Doing Fieldwork in Areas of International Intervention
Using detailed insights from those with first-hand experience of conducting research in areas of international intervention and conflict, this handbook provides essential practical guidance for researchers and students embarking on fieldwork in violent, repressive and closed contexts. Contributors detail their own experiences from areas including the Congo, Sudan, Yemen, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Myanmar, inviting readers into their reflections …
Introduction
The areas south of Libya have experienced more than their fair share of conflict and rapid social change. In earlier times, the main routes of trade, commerce and pilgrimage between West African and the Arab Peninsula passed through this region, also once inhabited by mighty warrior empires (see for example Bawuro 1972). However, as the empires along these routes faded away, and international ocean shipping opened up this part of Africa to the fo…
Explaining Violence in Tillabéri
The Tillabéri region in Niger has quickly lapsed into a state of violence and come under the control of ‘violent entrepreneurs’ – that is, non-state armed actors possessing some kind of political agenda, which is implemented in tandem with different types of income-generating activities. Violent entrepreneurs rule by force and violence, but they also distribute resources, provide some level of order and offer protection to (at least parts of) the…
Governance, Fragility and Insurgency in the Sahel
Once a region that rarely featured in debates about global security, the Sahel has become increasingly topical as it confronts the international community with intertwined challenges related to climate variability, poverty, food insecurity, population displacement, transnational crime, contested statehood and jihadist insurgencies. This Special Issue discerns the contours of political orders in the making. After situating the Sahel region in time…
EU migration management in the Sahel
The policies implemented in the Sahel by the EU and individual member states have reduced the number of migrants transiting through the region towards Europe. However, the sustainability of this approach should be questioned as it may also increase domestic tensions in politically fragile and administratively weak states, leading to increased pressure on political and social systems that already are struggling to stay afloat. Thus, whereas making…
The sheikh versus the president
In the lead up to the military coup in Mali in August 2020, Imam Mahmoud Dicko solidified his status as one of the country’s most important power brokers. How did a religious leader achieve this in a country where politics is considered ‘dirty’, the social capital of religious leaders rests on being seen as honest and pious, and politics and religion are considered constitutionally separate? Drawing on recent work in African Studies that utilises…
Islamist Social Movements and Hybrid Regime Types in the Muslim World
Since the Arab Uprisings in 2010–2011 and subsequent counterrevolutions, socio-economic and political crises have occurred with rapid frequency in the Arab Middle East, North Africa, and the Sahel. The aim of our special issue is to investigate how and why social movements that use references to Islam or an explicit Islamist framework have adapted their ideology and their toolbox in order to negotiate and navigate the social and political terrain…
Africas Insurgents
Amid an array of shifting national, regional, and global forces, how have African insurgents managed to adapt and survive? And what differences and similarities can be found, both among the continent's diverse rebellions and guerilla movements and between them and movements elsewhere in the world? Addressing these issues, the authors of Africa's Insurgents explore how new groups are emerging and existing ones changing in response to an evolving l…
Negotiating justice
The plural legal system in post-conflict Liberia expresses tensions between modern and customary institutions. This article seeks to understand how Liberians navigate choices in the plural legal system to address gender-based violence cases. By asking how and why people make the choices they do, we highlight how Liberians solve tensions between institutions, by creating flexible categories that allow them to pursue a course of action that does no…
Displacement, Belonging, and Land Rights in Grand Gedeh, Liberia
Conflicts over local land rights between groups considered as "sons of the soil" and newcomers such as refugees can trigger autochthony-inspired violence. However, such conflicts are not always manifested, even when the conditions are in place. The question we explore in this article is whether such conflicts are less likely to emerge if the "other" is from a group with a longstanding bond of interethnic allegiance with the host community. Based …
Norge, Oljefondet og sårbare stater
Citation: Morten Bøås (2016). «Norge, Oljefondet og sårbare stater». Internasjonal Politikk, 74, 1: 1–8. http://dx.doi.org/10.17585/ip.v74.319
Transactions and Interactions
This article introduces and justifies the concept of the peacekeeping economy. The peacekeeping economy refers to economic activity that either would not occur, or would occur at a much lower scale and pay-rate, without the international presence. In particular, the concern is with the formal and informal economic activity that directly links the international presence with the local individual. The approach thus foregrounds empirical research th…
Getting in, getting out
Liberian ex-combatants are generally seen as uprooted urban youths with a history of unemployment, underemployment and idleness. The data that form the basis of this article suggest another picture. What caused the Liberian youth to fight were mainly security concerns, suggesting that the effects of 'idleness' and 'unemployment' are overstated with regards to people joining armed groups. They went to school, worked and lived with parents or close…
Insecurity and Development
EU migration management in the Sahel
The policies implemented in the Sahel by the EU and individual member states have reduced the number of migrants transiting through the region towards Europe. However, the sustainability of this approach should be questioned as it may also increase domestic tensions in politically fragile and administratively weak states, leading to increased pressure on political and social systems that already are struggling to stay afloat. Thus, whereas making…
The Trouble in Mali—corruption, collusion, resistance
The combined force of the 2012 coup in Bamako and the rebellion in the north entailed an unmasking of Mali. What had been presented as a showcase of democracy, good governance, and peace and reconciliation proved to be a facade for institutional weakness and mismanagement. The collusion between regional and national ‘big man’ interests that the crisis revealed showed little if any respect for human security and development. This article will anal…
Failed States’ and ‘State Failure’
This paper takes a critical look at the way the ‘failed state’ concept has been understood and operationalised, especially in the wake of the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. Drawing on five case studies—Afghanistan, Somalia, Liberia, Sudan, and the Niger Delta region of Nigeria—it examines the circumstances under which the ‘failed state’ label is (or is not) applied. We argue that the use of the ‘failed state’ label is inherently politica…
The liberian civil war
The Liberian civil war has been portrayed as a primary example of 'new wars', drawing attention both to the economic motives and the global character of the conflict. However, to focus excessively on material explanations and greed-inspired motivations of actors may lead to one-sided explanations of conflict. This article suggests that there is little 'new' about the Liberian war. Rather, it can best be understood as a violent expression of the t…
New' Nationalism and Autochthony -Tales of Origin as Political Cleavage
The conflicts in Liberia, Eastern DRC and Côte d'Ivoire can be 'read' as 'wars of modernity' as they are concerned with the composition of their respective polities: who is a citizen and who is not. However, these contemporary conflicts are deeply embedded in a long history of violence: integral to this history is the issue of land. Citizenship in itself does not secure access to land, but at the very least it allows those with this status a legi…
Crime, Coping, and Resistance in the Mali-Sahel Periphery
The Mali-Sahel periphery is not an “ungoverned space” captured and preyed on by the transnational forces of global “crime-terrorism” nexuses but an area of overlapping and competing networks of informal governance. Some have an agenda of resistance, others are more aligned with coping and criminality. What they share is that they are neither entirely state nor nonstate but somewhere in between. Different competing “big men” vie for the role of no…
Governance, Fragility and Insurgency in the Sahel
Once a region that rarely featured in debates about global security, the Sahel has become increasingly topical as it confronts the international community with intertwined challenges related to climate variability, poverty, food insecurity, population displacement, transnational crime, contested statehood and jihadist insurgencies. This Special Issue discerns the contours of political orders in the making. After situating the Sahel region in time…
Security Communities
The End of Stability – How Burkina Faso Fell Apart
Not so long-ago Burkina Faso was considered an “island” of stability in a conflict-prone part of Africa. This is not the case anymore as armed insurgencies have caused widespread insecurity. While spill-over effects from the conflict in Mali clearly play a role, we argue that the sudden demise of the rule and regime of Blaise Compaoré also is an important contributing factor. To decipher to what extent regime transition shaped the current state o…
The political economy of new regionalisms
(1999). The political economy of new regionalisms. Third World Quarterly: Vol. 20, No. 5, pp. 897-910
Explaining Violence in Tillabéri
The Tillabéri region in Niger has quickly lapsed into a state of violence and come under the control of ‘violent entrepreneurs’ – that is, non-state armed actors possessing some kind of political agenda, which is implemented in tandem with different types of income-generating activities. Violent entrepreneurs rule by force and violence, but they also distribute resources, provide some level of order and offer protection to (at least parts of) the…
Liberia and Sierra Leone—dead ringers? The logic of neopatrimonial rule
There are many different causes behind the two civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Some are clearly unique to each country, whereas some of the most significant causes of war are shared in both cases. This article argues that the most basic reasons for these two wars are to be found in the extreme version of neopatrimonial politics that was developed in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Neopatrimonialism is not unique to these two countries, nor to A…
Security Sector Reform in Liberia
The security situation in Liberia is currently quite good, and at a glance the peacebuilding process seems to be moving ahead. However, the root causes of the conflict have not been adequately addressed, but have in fact become more interlinked in the aftermath of the civil war. Instead of addressing local perceptions of insecurity the international community made plans for Liberia without considering the context in which reforms were to be imple…
Youth agency in the 'violent life-worlds' of Kono District (Sierra Leone), Voinjama (Liberia) and Northern Mali
Rather than moving in a seamlessly globalised world, the majority of West African youth is confined mostly to geographical as opposed to social mobility. This is illustrated by the cases of youth agency in Kono District (Sierra Leone), Voinjama (Northern Liberia) and Northern Mali. The key question asked in this article is not only about attempted survival, but more importantly how the youth struggle to make some meaning out of an existence that …
Ethnicity Kills? The Politics of War, Peace and Ethnicity in Sub Saharan Africa
List of Tables, Figures and Maps Preface Abbreviations Notes on the Contributors PART I: INTRODUCTION Ethnicity Kills? Social Struggles for Power, Resources and Identities in the Neopatrimonial State E.Braathen, M.Boas & G.Saether The Politics of War: A Meditation V.Y.Mudimbe PART 2: ETHNICITY AND CIVIL WAR The Somali Catastrophe: Explanation and Implications A.I.Samatar Causes of Civil War in Rwanda: The Weight of History and Socio-Cultural Stru…
Peeling the onion
Many different attempts have been made to explain the ongoing conflict in the DRC, ranging from ethnicity, to greed and resource wars, to the role of colonialism, and each provides useful contributions to the debate. In this article, we emphasise the concept of autochthony, which links identity and space, enabling the speaker to establish a direct claim to territory by asserting that he or she is an original inhabitant, a ‘son of the soil’. Its e…
Liberia—The Hellbound Heart? Regime Breakdown and the Deconstruction of Society
Child Labour in West Africa
Based on data from four different surveys – street children in Accra, Ghana; street children in Bamako, Mali; children and youth in alluvial‐diamond production in Kono district, Sierra Leone; and war‐affected children in Voinjama district, Liberia – this article analyzes how children and youth seek to use different economic strategies to shape their lives. In each of these cases, child labour is a consequence of poverty, steep school fees and the…
Between Ruptures and Continuity
The field of development studies provides a number of diverging perspectives to the pressing challenges of our time, but few clear answers to them. This article therefore questions why six decades of development studies have not been able to come up with more generally acceptable recommendations and solutions to old as well as new challenges. The argument is that as a field of study development studies has been so fixated with ruptures and paradi…
Fragile States as the New Development Agenda
As Europe struggles with the repercussions of violent conflict in the Middle East, North Africa and the Sahel, including high numbers of refugees attempting to enter Europe, the issue of fragile st
The international intervention in Mali
Islamist rebels have retreated from northern Mali; however, a number of challenges for that country remain. The Islamists have gone into hiding but have not surrendered; there is a clear risk of long-term asymmetric warfare. The populations in both northern and southern Mali are divided in their views on the best way forward. The capacities of the Malian government and the Malian armed forces to contain the conflict and retain credible leadership…
Just Another Day”—The North Kivu Security Predicament After the 2006 Congolese Elections
Elections produce winners and losers, but not necessarily reconciliation. In fact, the 2006 Congolese elections cemented several of the cleavages that led to the war in the first place. In North Kivu, the situation is still tense and uncertain, and the North Kivu security predicament is situated in the conflict nexus between migration, land rights, and identity issues. The Congo crisis is neither an international conspiracy nor a “resource war” m…
Liberia—The Hellbound Heart? Regime Breakdown and the Deconstruction of Society
Governance as Multilateral Development Bank Policy
The weave-world
(1999). The weave-world: Regionalisms in the south in the new millennium. Third World Quarterly: Vol. 20, No. 5, pp. 1061-1070
The political economy of new regionalisms
(1999). The political economy of new regionalisms. Third World Quarterly: Vol. 20, No. 5, pp. 897-910
Ethnicity Kills?
The book examines, among other issues, the emergence of civil war as a result of political struggles. The construction of Africa as the 'other' has meant that factors commonly used to explain war else
Conclusion
The two main ideas behind this volume have been a) to shed critical light on the reduction of African civil wars to ethnic conflicts, and b) to argue for the emergence of civil wars as the result of political struggles over power, resources and identities. The construction of Africa as the ‘other’ has entailed that factors commonly used to explain war elsewhere too often have been neglected in accounts of African civil wars. Writing on war in Afr…
Ethnicity Kills? Social Struggles for Power, Resources and Identities in the Neo-Patrimonial State
In almost all recent dramatic events in SubSaharan Africa issues of ethnicity and contested identities seem to be at the heart of the matter. But can the crisis in countries like Angola, Congo-Brazzaville, Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Mozambique, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Somalia really be reduced to ethnic cleavages
Borgerkrigen i Sierra Leone
The Trade‐Environment Nexus and the Potential of Regional Trade Institutions
(2000). The Trade‐Environment Nexus and the Potential of Regional Trade Institutions. New Political Economy: Vol. 5, No. 3, pp. 415-432
Security Communities
Liberia and Sierra Leone—dead ringers? The logic of neopatrimonial rule
There are many different causes behind the two civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Some are clearly unique to each country, whereas some of the most significant causes of war are shared in both cases. This article argues that the most basic reasons for these two wars are to be found in the extreme version of neopatrimonial politics that was developed in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Neopatrimonialism is not unique to these two countries, nor to A…
The Perils of Ethnicity
Ethnicity Kills? The Politics of War, Peace and Ethnicity in Sub Saharan Africa
List of Tables, Figures and Maps Preface Abbreviations Notes on the Contributors PART I: INTRODUCTION Ethnicity Kills? Social Struggles for Power, Resources and Identities in the Neopatrimonial State E.Braathen, M.Boas & G.Saether The Politics of War: A Meditation V.Y.Mudimbe PART 2: ETHNICITY AND CIVIL WAR The Somali Catastrophe: Explanation and Implications A.I.Samatar Causes of Civil War in Rwanda: The Weight of History and Socio-Cultural Stru…
Politisk økonomi i Afrika – mellom formell og uformell struktur
Multilateral Institutions
Borgerkrigen i Liberia. En neopatrimonial stat i krise i det vestafrikanske statssystemet
Multilateral institutions
Global Institutions and Development
Global Institutions and Development
Africa's Young Guerrillas
A shared experience of brutalization, abuse, and marginalization informs the worldview of these movements. Each has emerged, too, within the context of a deeply dysfunctional state
Vest-Afrika – regionale og nasjonale konflikter
Uganda in the regional war zone
Private Sector Influence in the Multilateral System
Private sector participation in the multilateral system has increased significantly over the last years. Critics have characterized this as a ‘privatization’ of the multilateral system, leading to a decreasing power of the institutions and the states that direct them. However, changes in the multilateral system relate to, and form an integral part of, the changing nature of global governance. In order to understand the consequences of this we nee…
Bokspalte
The liberian civil war
The Liberian civil war has been portrayed as a primary example of 'new wars', drawing attention both to the economic motives and the global character of the conflict. However, to focus excessively on material explanations and greed-inspired motivations of actors may lead to one-sided explanations of conflict. This article suggests that there is little 'new' about the Liberian war. Rather, it can best be understood as a violent expression of the t…
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