Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Maintaining security in a post-conflict country is often seen to be dependant on peace-building and reconstruction. One can hardly escape terms such as ?building sustainable peace? and ?post-conflict construction.? The ?disarmament,? ?demobilization,? ?reintegration,? and ?rehabilitation,? or DDR-R process for former combatants is being touted as an ideal model for ensuring that post-conflict societies return to peace. These ?four simple steps to lasting security? have been used as a model in war torn countries like Liberia, Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Angola. The logic is that these steps aid in restoring countries to more secure, stable times. More specifically, this model streamlines former combatants from ?soldiers to citizens.? Given that the task of this process is to encourage combatants to shed their roles as fighters and to return to their former pre-war roles, it seems intuitive that the way that women and girls go through this process is of particular interest. In fact, despite the ascendancy of this DDR-R model, there has been little critical analysis of the implications of this process for women in war-torn countries. Using Sierra Leone as a case study, I explore how women and girls have been included and treated at each phase of this process. I look specifically at the tendency of organizations and agencies operating DDR-R programs to promote a ?return? of women and girls to their pre-war roles and the tension that women and girls feel between the power they gained as combatants and the social pressure to ?reintegrate.? I also examine the implications, for women and girls, of international and national organizations? commitment to equating security with the return to pre-war society rather than rethinking relations of power. I include testimonies from 50 former girl soldiers who talk about their roles during the conflict and their hopes for themselves today.

Publication Type: Proceeding

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Nearly 25,000 private security contractors are estimated to operate currently in Iraq. Many earn between $100,000 and $200,000 per year – up to ten times more than they were paid in the national armed or police forces where most of them received their training and worked for many years. Unsurprisingly, military personnel are leaving the armed forces in large numbers.
This paper examines the emergence of the private military contractor in North America and Europe as a new model of the soldier. It proposes that there have been three ideal-type models of the soldier since the beginning of the 20th century: the citizen-soldier, the military professional and the military entrepreneur. Each of these models is based on distinct notions of the relationship between the citizen, the soldier and the state. In particular, these types of soldiers can be distinguished in terms of their ideal relation with the state, their motivation, their identity, and their connection between political and military roles.
Following a detailed analysis of the three models, the second part of the paper proceeds to investigate how the shift from the citizen-soldier to the military entrepreneur can be explained. It suggests that arguments which focus on the changing national and international security environment are incomplete. While the security environment does play a role, its impact is filtered by the changing balance between the ideological principles which underlie the different models of the soldier in the transatlantic region, namely between republicanism and liberalism.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Why do some countries use child soldiers in armed conflicts and not in others? This paper examines the relationship between militarized interstate disputes and the probability of the recruitment of child soldiers by government armed groups. The finding shows that the higher level of hostility incident is significantly associated with an increase in the probability of the recruitment of child soldiers. In addition, the analysis confirms Achvarina, Nordås, Østby, and Rustad’s (2007) finding in that the infant mortality rate is significantly associated with an increase in the probability of child soldier recruitment. The theoretical explanation is built upon the perception of threat, domestic conditions, and the intensity of militarized interstate disputes. The theory posits that the higher intensity of militarized interstate disputes and low level of socioeconomic condition increases the government’s perception of threat, which, in turn, increases the probability of child soldier recruitment. To test the theory, a dichotomous dependent variable of the government recruitment of child soldiers was coded to analyze all 192 countries from 1998-2001. A coding scheme is created to code the information from the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers: The Child Solders Global Report 2001 and 2004. The Correlate of War: Militarized Interstate Disputes (MID) was employed in a logistic analysis.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In this essay, I engage the distinction between “ritual” and “transmission” views of voting to clarify the poles of the debate over the first large-scale implementation of absentee voting in the United States. Absentee soldier voting serves as a historical case study of the rhetorical, administrative, and technical means by the “public” is disengaged from the physical limitations of the people comprising it. I seek to establish an empirical starting point for thinking more broadly about enduring tensions between notions of “public space” and “public sphere” in communication scholarship. Tentatively, I suggest that the topic of soldier voting illustrates one possible condition for civic nationalism: the transfer of the electorate from public space to public sphere through a process of reimagining the nature of the vote as a communicative act.