Journal of Autonomy and Security Studies
The Journal of Autonomy and Security Studies (JASS) is a peer-reviewed, open access e-journal published by the Åland Islands Peace Institute (ÅIPI). The journal addresses its overarching theme of peace and security from the perspectives of autonomy, demilitarisation, and minority protection.
The Space-Nuclear Nexus and the U.S. Private Sector
Outer space affairs have undergone many changes since nuclear deterrence last played a central role in great power competition. These changes in outer space affairs have been driven in great part by the private sector and its evolving role in this domain. This research note provides an introduction to the roles played by U.S. private actors in the space-nuclear nexus. It covers more traditional roles for private actors, such as constructing satellites, and potentially destabilising novel trends, namely the emergence of private companies as operators for military clients in space. Within these categories, launch services, satellite communications, remote sensing, satellite operations and space situational awareness, as well as warfighting itself are analysed. These discussions briefly consider the role of private companies as political players, economic actors, and members of the international community. The text concludes that the involvement of private actors within the space-nuclear nexus is neither inherently stabilising nor destabilising. However, far better governance and greater transparency will be necessary to ensure that this trend has a positive impact on nuclear strategic stability.
Copyright (c) 2026 Nicolas A. Ayala Arboleda https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
This research note argues that the regime of space governance has emerged and changed across time in part due to its close connection with strategic nuclear weapons. It charts this coexistence and entanglement across the Cold War development of space governance, the post-Cold War shift away from nuclear strategy, and the contemporary return to great power competition.
Copyright (c) 2026 Dr. P.J. Blount https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Reshaping a Balanced Context of Space Arms Control
In the discussions on space arms control, the terms of space sustainability and space threat are frequently mentioned. Space sustainability has been taken as the objective for space arms control negotiation, and the recognition of space threat is always deemed as the prerequisite for such rules-making processes. By contrast, space stability and space deterrence are seldom mentioned on purpose or as an omission. However, the recognition and determination of these two terms will be critical and even decisive for space security rules-making. When addressing all kinds of counter-space capabilities in the process of Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space (PAROS), it is always associated with the concept of space threat, in particular kinetic weapons, for instance Anti-Satellite (ASAT) tests. Subsequently, this brings about discussions on how to limit or ban such threats. It cannot be denied that these capabilities, when being defined as threats, are also the main sources of strategic or tactical deterrence. An arms control strategy involves interpreting an adversary’s deterrence as a threat to the international community, thereby weakening or even prohibiting the adversary’s deterrence through arms control initiatives. Space deterrence does not solely, or even necessarily, aim to deter space operations; rather, it may combine with nuclear, conventional, and informational deterrence capabilities to shape an adversary’s overall perceptions and behavior. The complex interactions among space threats, deterrence, and threat perception shape international strategic dynamics, exerting significant influence on the international security landscape and policymaking. Therefore, it is imperative to foster a shared and balanced understanding of these interrelated concepts among states, so as to minimize the risk of misperception and miscalculation and thereby develop more balanced and practical rules for space arms control.
Copyright (c) 2026 Dr. Guoyu Wang, Chengyun Zhang, Yifan Hu https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Golden Dome for America and its Impact on Nuclear Strategic Stability
This report examines the Golden Dome for America (GDA) and its potential implications for nuclear strategic stability. Drawing on insights from a three-event webinar series organised by International Student/Young Pugwash (ISYP) and Student/Young Pugwash UK (SYP UK) in late 2025, it reviews the initiative’s conceptual scope, projected architecture, budgetary requirements, and technical feasibility, with particular attention to space-based sensors and interceptors, midcourse and boost phase missile defence, and systems aimed at countering hypersonic glide vehicles. The report finds that GDA remains highly ambitious, politically significant, and conceptually fluid, while facing major technical, industrial, budgetary, and operational constraints. At the same time, the initiative is already shaping strategic perceptions among major nuclear powers. By extending US homeland missile defence aspirations beyond limited threats and toward peer competitors, GDA risks accelerating offensive and defensive arms competitions, intensifying counterspace developments, and undermining adversaries’ confidence in the effectiveness of their nuclear deterrents. The report also briefly considers the limited conditions under which missile defence could have stabilising effects and identifies recommendations aimed at reducing misperception, improving transparency, strengthening pre-launch notification mechanisms, and grounding policy in realistic technical assessments.
Copyright (c) 2026 Nicolas A. Ayala Arboleda, Ching Wei Sooi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Space is increasingly a theater for States’ and private companies’ activities. Space as a normative environment faces multiple challenges. Some of these are innate to space law proper, such as the limited applicability of the Moon Agreement. Others emanate from the general erosion of international law and arms control, technological developments and innovation. The limits of accepted space behaviors need urgent clarification. Absence of clear rules is likely to contribute to further unilateralism, at the cost of existing multilateral rules like the UN Charter, and to increased risk of conflict. A clear normative environment in space provides an environment with predictability, clarity and risk-minimization for states and private actors alike. To achieve this, states and private actors may want to look for progressive soft law steps, starting by agreeing on gaps, on useful measures to promote, like the ENMOD Convention, and on priorities such as the clarification of the law of self-defense and its limits.
Copyright (c) 2026 Dr. Katariina Simonen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Satellite signal interference is a core component of electronic warfare. It has become a daily phenomenon in today's conflict zones, considering that most military systems are electric and thereby potential targets of electronic warfare. However, electronic warfare is rather indiscriminate. Its effects are often felt by civilians in third countries, with increasing risks to civil aviation, navigation, telecommunications and humanitarian operations. International humanitarian law sets several requirements for targeting during electronic warfare operations. Yet many legal ambiguities remain, hampering not only the full protection afforded under international humanitarian law but also blurring the threshold of armed conflict. In today's context of erosion of international humanitarian law, there is a pressing need to co-operate on a wide front and inclusively, in order to strengthen and clarify norms on electronic warfare and, thereby, acceptable space behaviors.
Rethinking the Contemporary Influences of Commerce on Language Use: Lessons for the Åland Islands from an Imperfect Comparison with Madawaska, Maine
Located in between, but separated from, the mainlands of Finland and Sweden, the Åland Islands have for a century negotiated complex relationships of politics, language and culture with both regions. Åland is an autonomous territory of Finland but its language base is distinctly Swedish rather than Finnish. Technically, Åland’s single official Swedish language is protected by the Finnish constitution and even a ruling of the Council of the League of Nations. But Ålanders have long feared incursions from Finland that might erode the protections for Åland’s Swedish speech. In the academic literature these fears have largely been addressed in terms of the legal competences held by Åland as an island territory and/or the politics that drive Åland’s relationship with its metropole Finland. This research note shows that the Swedish language in Åland may be at threat from a novel angle, namely shifts in both language and imagined community that can occur in the wake of changing global business relationships. To explain this threat, the research note explores the corresponding shifts that have transformed the remote and formerly bilingual region of Madawaska in the northeast United States. Although from a distant location – geographically, politically and culturally – this story of Madawaska stands as an important and potentially controversial cautionary tale for Åland.
The Åland Islands, Madawaska, territorial sovereignty, international commerce, global value chains, protection of regional language and culture
Copyright (c) 2022 Kevin Sobel-Read https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
On Body and Soil : The Potential of Territorial and Environmental Dimensions of Disarmament
If territory is part of the problem in the quest for peaceful relations, it should also be part of the solution. This is the core argument in the present text, where the work of international lawyer Louis Sohn during the Cold War and efforts towards territorial disarmament across time and space are used as starting points for the exploration of possibilities today, including in the global commons and other territories beyond the jurisdiction of individual states. I explore a range of experiences of territorial disarmament already in operation alongside the opportunities currently offered in the nexus between protection of the environment and armed conflicts. Finally, the recently adopted Kunming-Montreal Global Diversity Framework and the UN Principles on protection of the environment in armed conflict developed by the International Law Commission are looked at as opportunities for the successive protection of territories through various forms of disarmament and neutralisation.
Disarmament, demilitarisation, neutralisation, armed conflict, international law, global commons, environment, biological diversity
Copyright (c) 2023 Sia Spiliopoulou Åkermark https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Strategic Nuclear Patrols and an Arctic Military Code of Conduct
While rising northern tensions clearly challenge notions of the Arctic as a durable zone of peace, current tensions are rooted in fears of a European conflict spilling northward, not in conflict endemic to the Arctic. Two decades of high north military expansion have certainly added to the region’s strategic uncertainty, but more consequential are the currently increasing levels and pace of competing strategic patrols in the Arctic, especially those that undermine basic nuclear deterrence. Proposals for an Arctic code of conduct, designed to avoid provocative behaviour and reduce risks of accidental encounters escalating, seek to preserve the Arctic as a low-tension security environment, and proposals to constraint strategic patrols rest on the same principle. In particular U.S. anti submarine warfare operations aimed at Russia’s sea-based nuclear deterrent forces threaten the latter’s second-strike forces and thus destabilize mutual strategic deterrence. Strategic ASW operations have been of enduring concern and have led to a succession of proposals to constrain such deployments. Those ideas, however, have never been elevated to sustained exploration or drawn into formal arms control negotiations. Early 2023 may not seem a propitious time to revive ideas of anti-submarine warfare constraint, but in the long term, strategic stability and resumed arms control and disarmament will require attention to them.
anti-submarine warfare, militarization, nuclear deterrence, strategic stability, zone of peace
Copyright (c) 2023 Ernie Regehr https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Post-Soviet Territorial Autonomy – Why So Resilient?
The article considers the reasons why most territorial autonomies in Northern Eurasia have survived to date after the Soviet Union’s collapse despite authoritarian rule, homogenizing policies, and national elites’ sceptical attitudes towards ethnic and regional particularism. The author highlights the insufficiency of the existing explanatory frameworks resting on the notions of path dependence, contentious politics, sham arrangements, and political informality. The article seeks to offer a new supplementary perspective through analyzing autonomy arrangements in the framework of governmentality, depoliticization, and consent-based rule. The article’s point of departure is that Soviet territorial autonomy was a complex institutional setting that generated ambiguous and eclectic narratives coupled with durable routines of governance. During the USSR’s demise and the turn to public politics, these organizational and discursive forms demonstrated endurance. The further overview of functionable autonomy arrangements in seven countries shows similar dynamics and patterns independent of authoritarian or pluralist environment. The author concludes that these common features can be addressed as the overall societal reluctance to engage in contentious politics in favor of post-political technocratic rule. Concurrently, the formal recognition of territorial autonomy serves as a minimal necessary condition for the societal consent about the basics.
Copyright (c) 2025 Alexander Osipov https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
This study examines the impact of informal arrangements between the Northern Rangeland Trust (NRT), a non-governmental organization, pastoral communities, and state actors in northern Kenya, focusing on Isiolo and Samburu counties. The cases in these counties highlight the contrasting impacts of NRT-led conservation interventions on natural resource management (NRM). The work draws on 56 in-depth interviews, 41 focus group discussions, repeated field observation, and transect walks conducted between 2018 and 2024 with key informants, including NRT representatives, government officials, civil society actors, and pastoral community members, triangulating findings with conservation literature and government documents. The analysis reveals that public-private partnerships (PPPs) involving NRT and government actors are characterized by secrecy, and their influence is primarily evident through their impacts. Conservation efforts, often justified under the guise of environmental protection, have increasingly relied on the privatization and legitimization of coercive force. This militarized approach exacerbates resource conflicts and perpetuates cycles of violence. The study, thus, underscores the need for greater transparency and accountability in conservation initiatives to balance resource management and community livelihoods effectively.
Copyright (c) 2024 Clifford Collins Omondi Okwany, Evelyne Atieno Owino https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Increasingly the go-to option for managing separatism, territorial autonomy provides special self-government for territorially concentrated minorities. Rather than an institution in its own right, autonomy is often studied as a form of decentralization and federalism or an endpoint in peace processes. To aid in conceptual development and demonstrate varied applications, this paper analyzes the varied forms and uses of territorial autonomy. The best-known forms are democratic and post-conflict. Less understood are indigenous, authoritarian, and ‘nested’ autonomies. These types of territorial autonomy are approach by distinct scholarly subfields and feature varied causes, institutions, effects, and defects.
Copyright (c) 2024 Shane Barter https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Nuclear Risk in the Arctic and Further: A Peace Movement’s Perspective
This speech gives a short overview of the existing risks of nuclear war and of the catastrophic humanitarian and climate consequences of even a regional nuclear war.
nuclear weapons, nuclear winter, ICAN, IPPNW
Copyright (c) 2023 Kat Juva https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
INF v. Missile Defence Confrontation and Vulnerabilities of Logistics across the Baltic Sea
Three types of problems are discussed in this speech: nuclear missile confrontation, logistics risks across the Baltic Sea as well as communication and electricity undersea networks.
INF treaty, nuclear confrontation, undersea networks
Copyright (c) 2023 Matti Vuorio https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
A Cooperative Regime for the Arctic: Addressing Sea Lines of Communication and Nuclear Weapons
The UN Convention on the Law of the Seas has established a solid legal foundation for Arctic activities, but it does not prevent the geopolitical rivalry between the USA, China and Russia from extending into the region. Joint action to alleviate upcoming tensions are presently on hold because of the war in Ukraine, but in the meantime, cooperative approaches are worth exploring. Two interrelated issues merit particular attention: how to protect sea lines of communication (SLOCs) without triggering big power conflict, and how to deal with the problems posed by nuclear weapons.
Arctic, geopolitics, sea lines of communication, nuclear, regime
Copyright (c) 2023 Sverre Lodgaard https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Territorialisation, Patronage and Meddling: How Does Great Power Competition Impact Territorial Autonomy?
How is great power competition today relevant to territorial autonomies? The competition between established and rising powers has implications for all political actors across the world, including territorial autonomies. However, the interaction between the rivalry among the great powers and the politics of territorial autonomies has been seldom scrutinised, at least not when addressing the early XXIst century. This commentary proposes three points where these topics connect: the territorialisation of foreign policy, patronage and networking, and meddling and unsettling conflict. By raising these points, this commentary aims to spark a new discussion on how territorial autonomy and international relations at the global level interact in the current era.
territorial autonomy, great powers, international relations, paradiplomacy
Copyright (c) 2023 Ivan Ulises Kentros Klyszcz https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
The Unsettled Alliance: Risk, Fear and Solidarity in NATO
NATO never managed to settle how the Alliance should manage Russia post-Cold War. Consequently, the Alliance is still experiencing an internal dichotomy. This article explores the Alliance dynamics since the end of the Cold War and argues that the North-eastern flank countries’ perceptions of Russia and Russian intentionality appear to be based on fear which lead them to pursue an ever-strengthened forward defence. Moreover, this is seen by the flank to be at odds with their Western allies that are willing to pursue a more cooperative approach to Russia. Risk reduction policies therefore become a potential point of contention between the allies, however also a vehicle for the North-eastern flank to boost the forward defence in the region.
NATO, NATO-Russia, North-Eastern flank, risk reduction, deterrence, post-Cold War
Copyright (c) 2023 Gry Thomasen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
When an autonomy has come of age it becomes – from a comparative perspective – an arrangement that raises new questions compared to when the autonomy was ”young”, or recently founded. How can it be so? Isn’t an autonomy an active, continuously developing legal and political construct that is managing an originally historic conflict which otherwise would erupt again? The Åland Islands are now celebrating 100 years of autonomy, making it the oldest autonomy still in active operation. The jubilee is an excellent opportunity to reflect upon comparative aspects of Åland´s autonomy through research and seminars. When the ledger of experiences and reflections shall make a final reconciliation on the last page of the autonomy’s first century, we have both historic and contemporary analyses available. Returning to the initial question above, a dimension to which lasting conflict resolution mechanisms are exposed is the sustainability aspect. What is it that makes a solution last, and – even more interesting – is it the original conflict that continues to be managed by the mechanism after say 50 years, or 100? The hidden hypothesis behind the question is of course the statement that forces other than fear of a non-peaceful repetition have taken over as a fundament for the autonomy; call them institutionalisation, contextual changes, reframed inter-group relations, or an internationalisation of political and social relations. If there is some support for a hypothesis along these lines, the ironic situation emerges that the longer an autonomy stays, and – if so – the more its sustainability rests on post-settlement conditions other than the original ones, the less useful the autonomy becomes as a case for comparison with new and freshly framed autonomy arrangements, be they special arrangements or components in major constitutional projects. On the other hand, the quality of an autonomy that survives and reframes its original problems may actually serve as an example of other and more general political insights. One such insight could be that the more the subsidiarity principle is employed, and the closer democracy is to its constituents, the more we are likely to see a peaceful and trusting local community based on its own character and identity. Maybe autonomies in a changing global environment are sustained because of their flexibility and adaptability, rather than through clinging to tensions that once existed but have been overtaken by other priorities? In this issue of the Journal of Autonomy and Security Studies you will encounter comparative perspectives that have horizons of different distances. Under the surface is always the constant question of to what extent old tensions are alive, and exploitable, or if a new reality has taken over the priorities of the people – and if so, hopefully also their leaders. The question is always present: which problem is in any moment regulated by an autonomy? Who formulates that, and does it bring focus towards history or towards the future?
Copyright (c) 2021 Kjell-Åke Nordquist https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Federalism and Security: The Special Police in Ethiopia
Ensuring security is one of the defining characteristics and central claims of a state. In federal countries there is a possibility for two or more actors at different levels to have some mandate over security. In the case of federal Ethiopia the security sector remains complicated. The constituent units have established special police in addition to the regular police, and its role and status remains contested. What is the constitutional basis of the special police? Do regional states have a mandate to establish such a police? Is it a force for stability or instability? How should it be regulated? These are the main questions that this article aims to investigate based on qualitative method, relevant comparative study, and empirical investigation into this rather complex sector. The findings show that the special police resemble more an army than a police force. It has also taken over the mandate of the army, which is a federal mandate. Lately, its size has increased significantly and retired army generals have begun to join it, hinting that the army is being drained. The fact that the impact of the army is depleting owing to the ongoing civil war in the country and the constituent unit special police is slowly taking over mandate implies the center is losing control and the country is slowly falling apart along ethno- national fault lines. The article further explains the race behind the special police and proposes options on how to regulate it.
Special police Ethiopia, ethno federation, peace and security, regional police
Copyright (c) 2022 Assefa Fiseha https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
The 1-O that recalled Franco: The Civil War and Dictatorship in Parties’ accounts of the 2017 ’Catalan crisis’
The Catalan Independence referendum in 2017 (1-O), and the events following it, launched a political crisis unparalleled to anything in Spain during the last decades. The relationship between the central state and Catalonia is affected by interpretations and recollections of past events: the past motivates action, evaluates them, and outlines the collective the recaller belongs to. Collective memory can significantly complicate conflict resolution. To understand the complex link between memory and conflict, this study examines how the memory of the Civil War and Franco was present in regional politicians’ statements from the time. In total 622 online articles from 2017 were collected from the six regional parties, covering campaigning before the referendum, declaration of independence, and the regional elections. The interpretations of current issues mimic collective memories, leaning on their assumptions. The recollections of independentists were more detailed, focusing on the Second Republic, the Civil War, Franco, and memory politics. Constitutionalists directed the attention towards Basque nationalism and the coup of 23-F, praising the transition. Both nations were defined using memory, and all accuse the opponents of being Francoist. The main distinction lies in how connected the current Spanish state is to its Francoist past, and what today’s independentists and Basque nationalists have in common.
Collective memory, Catalan crisis, Catalan independence movement, Franco, the Spanish Civil War, memory in conflicts, frame analysis
Copyright (c) 2022 Aune Sanz https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Demilitarisation and neutralisation in the context of European security
Speech held by Dr Åsa Gustafsson at the Åland Parliament Conference 'Demilitarisation and neutralisation - A stabilising force for peace in the region'
demilitarisation, neutralisation, Åland solution, European security
Copyright (c) 2022 Åsa Gustafsson https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
The 1921 Convention on the Non-Fortification and Neutralisation of the Åland Islands as an integral part of the Åland Solution
Speech held by Dr Sia Spiliopoulou Åkermark at the Åland Parliament Conference 'Demilitarisation and Nautralisation– a stabilising force for peace in the region'
demilitarisation, neutralisation, Åland solution
Copyright (c) 2022 Sia Spiliopoulou Åkermark https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Åland Demilitarisation and Neutralisation – International Lessons
Speech held by Deputy Minister For Foreign Affairs Of Sweden, Mr Robert Rydberg
Copyright (c) 2022 Robert Rydberg https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Speech by the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Finland
Speech by the Minister for Foriegn Affairs of Finland at the Åland Parliament Conference 'The demilitarisation and neutralisation of Åland, a stabilising force for peace in the region'
Copyright (c) 2022 Pekka Haavisto https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Opening speech by the President of the Republic of Finland
Opening speech at the Åland Parliament seminar on 20 October 2021: ‘Demilitarisation and neutralisation – a stabilising force for peace in the region'
Copyright (c) 2022 Sauli Niinistö https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Can Federalism Achieve the ‘Purpose of Government’? : Ethnic Crisis and Protection of Life and Property in Nigeria
The study resulted from the writers’ observation on raising cases of inter-ethnic crisis, insecurity, and the multiplier effects of loss incurred by residents in Nigeria. Loss of lives and properties possibly complicates an uncertainty in inter-ethnic relationships and insecurity in the country. Thus, while studies have examined the internally displaced persons (IDPs), and insecurity in the country, there is no study that has bridged the gap between the resettlement of residents on the one hand, and sustainable inter-ethnic residents’ crisis management in Nigeria on the other. The study highlights the approaches of government for the resettlement of residents in residence in post-conflict situations, and identifies the reasons why the approaches of government on conflict prevention and management have failed to ensure residential rights in Nigeria. A descriptive research design was adopted, and qualitative data was sourced from secondary materials including newspaper articles, textbooks, and published and unpublished research studies. Cases of inter-ethnic clashes were purposively selected and analysed across the six geo-political zones in the country. Data were analysed using the desktop review method. The study revealed that there are no clearcut policies for the resettlement of displaced residents thus far in Nigeria. The measures of government on conflict prevention and management remain failed either due to lack of capacity for prevention ormanagement of attacks.
Ethnic crisis, Ethnicity, Federalism, Indigene, Insecurity, Settler
Copyright (c) 2021 Sunday Tunde Akindele and Rotimi Adeforiti https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Territorial Autonomy as a Constitutional Mechanism to Address Diversity-Driven Conflicts: An Ethiopian Case Study
Ethiopia is the oldest independent, and the second most populous, country in Africa. It is the home of over eighty ethnolinguistic communities, also known as ‘nations, nationalities and peoples’. None of them represents 50 percent of the total population. The constitution adopted following the regime change in 1991 has introduced a federal state structure that bestows territorial autonomy, including the unconditional right to secession, to all the ethnolinguistic communities equally and irrespective of their demographic size and settlement pattern. The framers and advocates of the constitution consider this model of territorial autonomy as an approach to deal with diversity and respond to identity-related questions. Others contend that the constitution is an instrument for the ethnicization of administrative provinces that heightens and proliferates intercommunal conflicts in the country, rather than resolving the longstanding political turmoil associated with identity-related questions. I analyze the historical discourse that led to the formation of the federation, the interplay between the central/federal government and sub-state governments, the protection of diffused minorities, the issue of boundary demarcation between sub-states, and the status and role of the sub-states` security apparatuses. Though much was token about its successes, I argue that the constitution is defective in its design, and if it has not aggravated the underlying causes of persistent political crisis across the country it has certainly not addressed them. After about three decades of the inauguration of the federation, the unsettled identity-related questions that have manifested in outspread interethnic clashes and tension between sub-states due to land claims and/or identity questions prove the deficiency of the constitutional mechanism, notably the multi-level territorial autonomy model, to resolve such protracted and complex issues which have unprecedentedly riddled the country. Thus, reconsideration of the constitution through a stable and comprehensive transitional justice process is necessary to address outstanding issues and re-legitimize and consolidate the Ethiopian polity.
Ethnolinguistic community, Federalism, Polity, Territorial autonomy
Copyright (c) 2021 Tesfaye Ayalew Mekonen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
The Race to Carbon Neutrality: What Does it Mean for Territorial Autonomies and Diversity Management?
This paper highlights the rapid development and implementation of sustainable energy policy and its effects on Territorial Autonomies. It explores current and potential future developments on the Åland Islands off the south-west coast of Finland, and the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in southern China. Findings suggest that Territorial Autonomies would benefit from a more comprehensive sub regional approach to global energy sustainability and carbon neutrality.
Carbon neutrality, Territorial Autonomy, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Åland Islands
Copyright (c) 2021 Walker Darke https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Joint Bodies - a Key Factor for Successful Autonomous Systems? The Cases of the Italian Special Regions and the Åland Islands
Territorial autonomy is significantly affected by the operation of IGR (intergovernmental relations) institutions and practices. Indeed, it could be said that autonomous arrangements need an effective system of IGR – be it formal or informal – based on mutual trust in order to work successfully and realize their potential. With a view to shedding some light on the described relation between autonomy and IGR, the article deals with particular IGR institutions existing in the Italian and Finnish legal systems, namely the joint committees (JC) for the implementation of the Autonomy Statutes (ASt) (of the special Regions) and the Åland Delegation (ÅD). Both are bodies equally composed of members of the central state and the autonomous entity, and they are considered of particular interest for they seem to be among the main keys to the success of the analyzed autonomies. The comparison – which takes into account institutional and, insofar as possible, non-institutional aspects – aims primarily to verify this statement in both cases. Moreover, comparing them may be of further interest to increase the knowledge surrounding these institutions and their role, as well as to draw inspiration for possible solutions for both these and other systems.
Territorial autonomy, IGR, Joint bodies, Italy, Finland, Joint committees, Åland delegation
Copyright (c) 2021 Nicolò Paolo Alessi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Swedish-American Relations and the Vietnam War, 1965–1975
Between 1965-1975, Sweden and the United States experienced a worsening diplomatic relationship as a result of domestic pressures caused by the Vietnam War. In Sweden, this came initially in the form of grassroots activism, which spread into the electoral base of the governing Social Democratic Party, whose leadership feared losing voters to the Communist Party. Simultaneously, the government of the United States sought to combat any criticism towards its campaign while at the same time not alienating an otherwise strategic partner. The massive fluctuation in diplomatic relations was further complicated by a wide array of issues, ranging from American deserters to Swedish mediation efforts and attempts at freeing American prisoners of war. Notably, military and intelligence cooperation during this period remained strong and largely unaffected. This episode offers many lessons on Cold War neutrality and attempts by small states to forge an independent foreign policy while seeking to maintain relations.
Cold War, Vietnam War, Swedish-American Relations
Copyright (c) 2020 Naman Karl-Thomas Habtom https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0