Gilberto Algar-Faria

EU local capacity building: ownership, complexity, and agency

ABSTRACT Capacity building has become a key focus area in EU peacebuilding and conflict prevention. Yet, despite considerable efforts, EU capacity building activities have struggled to deliver on their objectives. While such programmes have sometimes been able to strengthen pockets of capacity in specific organizations, they have had less success in building capacity in the round and in a sustainable manner. Drawing on empirical evidence from EU capacity building programmes in the Horn of Africa and the Western Balkans, this article shows that, to a great extent, this failure has been a consequence of the difficulties EU capacity builders have faced in engaging with local actors in complex political contexts. This, in turn, has led to a “legitimacy deficit” for EU programmes, which have had little involvement from local stakeholders and knowledge, and whose goals have often been at odds with local preferences and priorities.

Push back: Sri Lanka’s dance with global governance

an oceans policy capable of matching economic interest with environmental sustainability. Overall, the book’s ambitious scope exceeds the space available, some significant themes are introduced but not always fully developed. Some minor errors have crept in: the International Organisation for Migration is not a United Nations agency, while New Zealand at no stage departed the so-called Five Eyes intelligence sharing arrangement involving the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. More substantially, Part One needed to acknowledge that the continuing militarisation of foreign relations by major powers will disturb future world orders, even those most insular are not exempt. Never as insular as its geography might suggest, James sees New Zealand as well aware of a need to buckle in for the international turbulence predicted ahead. Like other entities, it faces a challenge of choice, globalisation’s cantankerous impacts requiring enhanced social resilience, policy flexibility and accountable institutional performance.

Social movement theory and resistance groups: the Global Justice Movement and Occupy Wall Street: a response to Helma G. E. de Vries-Jordan

This is a reply to:de Vries-Jordan, Helma G. E. 2014. “The Global Justice Movement and Occupy Wall Street: spillover, spillout, or coalescence?” Global Discourse. 4 (2–3): 182–202. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23269995.2014.904547.