"[...] This thesis contributes to the emerging academic literature on media development and its role in statebuilding. It does so by investigating media development in the new state of South Sudan. Ethnographic observations, a social survey, and unstructured interviews have been applied during a fie
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ldwork spell in Juba, which lasted from November 2014 to August 2015. The application of three methods allowed for an in-depth investigation of the South Sudanese understanding of media, which differed significantly from the aims of western media experts implementing media development projects. Furthermore, the thesis compares the strengths and weaknesses, and the results delivered, by each utilised research method, and thus investigates how these methods perform in a country of the global South. I argue that the various understandings of media in South Sudan differ significantly from the thinking and practices of western media practitioners. In South Sudan, this resulted in a deteriorating relationship between the country’s government and its international donors and led to problems for the newly trained journalists. Furthermore, my results show the limitations of using just one method in a country of the global South; and they provide an argument for bricolage, a research approach that combines perspectives, theories, and methods, when researching policy-relevant questions in environments where the researcher is not a cultural native." (Abstract)
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"Why has the US so dramatically failed in Afghanistan since 2001? Dominant explanations have ignored the bureaucratic divisions and personality conflicts inside the US state. This book rectifies this weakness in commentary on Afghanistan by exploring the significant role of these divisions in the US
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’s difficulties in the country that meant the battle was virtually lost before it even began. The main objective of the book is to deepen readers’ understanding of the impact of bureaucratic politics on nation-building in Afghanistan, focusing primarily on the Bush administration. It rejects the ‘rational actor’ model, according to which the US functions as a coherent, monolithic agent. Instead, internal divisions within the foreign policy bureaucracy are explored, to build up a picture of the internal tensions and contradictions that bedevilled US nation-building efforts. The book also contributes to the vexed issue of whether or not the US should engage in nation-building at all, and if so under what conditions." (Publisher description)
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"This article explores whether, and to what extent, local knowledge features in research on the role of ICTs in statebuilding and peacebuilding in Africa, with a particular focus on neighboring Somalia, Kenya, and Ethiopia. We question whether the claims of the transformative power of ICTs are backe
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d by ‘evidence’ and whether local knowledge – e.g., traditional mechanisms for conflict resolution – is taken into consideration by ICT-based development initiatives. To assess this, we systematically reviewed literature in the region, focusing on academic outputs as well as research published by non-governmental and governmental organizations. Several key findings emerged, including: 1) empirical evidence on the successful use of ICTs to promote peacebuilding and statebuilding is thin; 2) few differences exist between scholarship emanating from the Global North and from Africa; and 3) overall, the literature exhibits a simplistic assumption that ICTs will drive democratic development without sufficient consideration of how ICTs are actually used by the public." (Abstract)
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