New Frontiers in Conflict Management and Peace Economics: With a Focus on Human Security: Volume 29

Using long-run trend data for US tactical and bomber aircraft, Norman Augustine’s Law 16 famously suggests continuously rising US armament unit costs. By the year 2054, the country’s entire defence budget would be expended on a single aircraft, which an industry colleague dubbed as the Battlestar Galactica. However, while it is thought provoking, what does Law 16 in fact entail? It appears that the mechanics of Augustine’s ‘Law’ has never been examined in detail. To help disentangle the matter and assess its relevance in the context of today’s battlefield technology, which is increasingly focussed on the application of large numbers of small, cheap, expendable, electronically linked, yet highly autonomous systems, this chapter introduces the concept of an Augustine weapons system.

In this work, the author explores the specific structural conditions that render multilateral arms control agreements problematic by situating their dynamic in a three-person Prisoner’s Dilemma game. The addition of even a third state to an arms race compounds many times over the structural difficulties that face two racing states. Nevertheless, even in multilateral arms races, conditions exist that make it rational for all participating states to pause. The most salient of these conditions is the existence of a coalition that is collectively rational for a subset of the racing states. It was suggested that if such a coalition exists naturally, or if one forms as a result of a exogenous shock to the system, then it is possible for it to offer incentives to all states not in the coalition to join it and, at the same time, increase the payoffs to the original members of the coalition. Thus, if such a coalition exists, then the possibility also exists that all the participating states could be induced to stop arming. Nonetheless, the major lesson that should be drawn from this chapter is the realisation that the conditions under which multilateral arms races might rationally be terminated are generally quite restrictive.

In the aftermath of the Eastern Japan Earthquake in 2011, the Sendai Framework for Action introduced a new task called ‘Build Back Better (B3)’. This study discusses this new task and proposes an extended framework which strategically includes a pre-disaster period. This extended framework is named ‘Build Back Better, even Before Disaster (B⁴)’. The following points are observed:

SMART Governance under Persistent Disruptive Stressors (PDS) proposed by Okada offers an effective new methodology for systematically studying B⁴ problems.

For the purpose of actual practice and social implementation, we need to set up, then foster and repeatedly activate a communicative place, where participants meet openly, plan and act together step by step.

The place can be very small in size, particularly at the start but needs to be adaptively designed and recreated though a communicative process.

Yonmenkaigi System Method (YSM) serves as a useful media and tool for place-making and process design for involving stakeholders in making collaborative action development towards win–win solutions.

Finally, we consider the Case of the Merapi Volcano region in Indonesia to establish the above points.

Climate and environment-related financial risks could significantly and negatively impact the financial sector in future, particularly its financing to those sectors adversely impacted by the climate-related risks, low-carbon policies and the transition from traditional energy sources-based economy to a more sustainable system with alternative energy sources. The participatory countries of the Paris Agreement agreed to align finance flows with a low-emission, low-carbon and climate-resilient growth, in order to facilitate achieving the long-term climate goals. The financial sector, therefore, needs to play a proactive role in aligning financial flows. It is, therefore, of utmost importance to study low-carbon finance and climate-related financial risks. This chapter examine how climate change can affect the financial sector. It discusses the concept, nature, measurement of climate risks and climate-related financial risks and associated prospects and challenges in the assessment and the measurement of these risks. It also presents the green financing initiatives and role of central banks and supervisory authorities and their monetary and financial policies in enhancing green financing and redirecting finance to low-carbon activities. In the financial sector, the insurance industry is highly vulnerable to such risks. The banking sector is yet to witness the serious impact of these risks. With the slowing of global economic growth, appropriate policies are needed to encourage banks to provide increased green finance with an adequate profitability. Studies recommend that climate-related risk has a strong potential impact on banks’ loan default rate as well as on the financial stability, there is hence a need to incorporate climate-related criteria and the systemic risk arising out of climate change into banks’ decision-making process and risk modelling and management. There is a need for developing an appropriate methodology for assessing and reducing these risks. Moreover, observers also anticipate a need for cooperation between banking regulators and banks to develop and adopt best practices in the management of environmental risks. The environment-related risks will call forth a multi-country, or regional, research office to collect and compile the required data and undertake analysis to enhance the banking sectors’ understanding of, and capacity to address, potential systemic environmental risks. What is needed is to test the feasibility of incorporating forward-looking scenarios for assessing potential impacts of providing credit to environmentally unsustainable or sustainable activities on financial stability.

This chapter analyses some internal territorial and economic conflicts in Spain among its autonomous communities. The Basque country has a very favourable tax system from 1878, which historically is stipulated in the Spanish constitution as a special case. This generates an asymmetry with respect to the other 18 Spanish communities including Catalonia, which would like to have a fiscal regime similar to that of the Basque country. After the Spanish state has built the fiscal balances for all autonomous communities, the Catalans argue that Spain steals them and they demand independence for Catalonia, which would affect the political and economic stability of the European Union. Specifically, this chapter attempts to describe a way to resolve territorial conflicts that have been exacerbated by the results of the fiscal balances in a context of fiscal decentralisation, since capital stock balances are not considered in the fiscal balances or in the inter-regional balance of payments. In this chapter, a production function approach, where the public capital production factor is separated into internal and imported capital stock, is used to calculate how the capital stock of the transportation infrastructure actually used can affect the labour productivity in each province or region. This study takes into account the direct effects of the capital stock of the road transport infrastructure of a region and the indirect effects that it receives from the use of infrastructures in other regions. Both types of public capital have been calculated by a network analysis, which allows us to calculate the stock of public capital effectively used in commercial activities, across 47 Spanish provinces during the period 1980–2007. The author estimates the spillover effects using spatial panel data techniques including spatial auto-correlation models with auto-regressive disturbances. In terms of labour productivity, the results indicate that the stock of imported capital is highly significant in all estimates while internal capital is not significant for all Spanish provinces, which classifies the Spanish provinces into users and used. This indicates that capital stock balances should be considered in some way into the inter-regional compensation fund to balance local fiscal balances, minimising some conflicts among regions.

Approximately 3.5% of the world’s population currently lives outside the borders of its birthplace, and the impetus for its emigration are myriad, but underlying all migration is the anticipation of improved opportunities. Among the specific reasons that people migrate is the aim to escape conflict in the homeland; included in the range of experiences that immigrants may have in the host country is conflict. This chapter provides an overview of global migration with particular focus on (1) when its impetus is conflict in the homeland, and (2) migration-related conflict in the host country. It addresses both voluntary and forced migration and presents a model of the migration – conflict nexus and some thoughts, methods, and tools that can be utilised to mitigate difficulties in both nation of origin and of destination.

Public employment in India is often viewed as a source of job security. Hence, public employment seems to propel human security in India away from poverty and social exclusion. In the recent work, a significant attention has been accorded to understand how globalisation has impacted on job security and thereby human security in many developing countries. The literature revolves around two opposing effects of globalisation on the human security in a country: firstly, the efficiency hypothesis posits that globalisation tends to reduce the size of the government of a country to enable the country to attain comparative advantage for gainfully trading in the global economy. A reduction in the capacity of the government is argued to lead to a decline in public employment and, hence, a decline in human security with rising globalisation. Secondly, the compensation hypothesis argues that the size of government, and hence public employment, will increase with globalisation mainly to suitably manage a domestic economy in a complex global setting with an increased role of government for creating social stability and social security. Depending on the relative strengths of the mutually opposing forces of globalisation on public employment, the impact of globalisation on the human security of a country is ambiguous. A gap in the existing literature is a lack of documentation of the Indian experience. In this work, the authors seek to empirically test if globalisation has increased, or decreased, job security in India.

Is India backing out from its commitment to No First Use (NFU) of nuclear weapons (NWs)? It was a highly debated issue in newspapers and electronic media in August 2019. What triggered this question? In this chapter, I intend to, after explaining significance of NWs in Indian defence strategy and nuclear doctrine that includes Indian commitment to NFU of NWs, answer the two questions raised in reverse order briefly.

The historiography of international health after the Second World War is now extremely well populated and rich. And yet, this body of work remains stubbornly and peculiarly focussed upon the views and actions of relatively small numbers of people within North America and Western Europe, even when the events and activities being described relate to regions and countries further afield. The biggest problem in this body of work is rooted in unmoving assumptions about the importance of a small set of nations in the post-war era and insufficiently tested presumptions about their dominance over the negotiations that led to the creation of new post-war institutions (such as the United Nations). Post-war agencies are, in turn, described simplistically, where their Europe- and USA-based headquarters are presented as all powerful and capable of dictating actions of representatives located all over the world; this is done with suspiciously limited research, with almost no attention being paid to the birth of regional and national branches of UN organisations, and their intricate negotiations with governments of newly independent, assertive countries who were willing to invest heavily, both financially and through new international alliances, in the modernisation of health, science and technology. This chapter will highlight alternative perspectives to understand how to better manage global health risks from pandemics like COVID-19.

Today business, especially mainstream global business, seems to be at war with society and nature. Striving for profit and competitiveness, mainstream business produces monetary results at the expense of nature, society and future generations. With its exclusive focus on profit-making, mainstream businesses violates the integrity and diversity of natural ecosystems, the autonomy and culture of local communities and the chance that future generations will lead a decent life.

We should go beyond the market metaphysics of mainstream business and adopt a more substantive way of economic activities. The substantive meaning of the economy – as Karl Polanyi pointed out – stems from human beings’ patent dependence for their livelihood upon nature and their fellow beings. Humans survive by virtue of an institutionalised interaction between their communities and the natural environment.

If we want to sustain the Human–Earth system for a long time, we need a radical transformation of business. This requires that economic actors have the intrinsic motivation to serve the greater good and are ready to measure success using broader value categories than money alone. Without these motivational and institutional changes business cannot become a peace agent. Instead, it will generate more conflict and violence.

Employment is considered to be one of the principal economic benefits for individuals and households, in the areas impacted by the extractive industry, which have traditionally gone predominantly to men. Previous researches suggested that women were less likely to be in leadership positions and have gainful employment in countries with a higher economic dependence on the extractive industries, than countries with a low dependency. World Bank (2013) highlighted that increasing women’s employment opportunities is good both for business, as well as for local economic development. International Finance Corporation (IFC, 2013) research indicated that higher female labour force participation may increase profits by 6–20%, drive innovation, raise attendance and retention rates, and reduce organisational risks within businesses. The current research primarily aims to investigate the representation of women in the European Union’s (EU) energy sector. The area of focus will be the companies operating in the energy sector, both renewable and non-renewable.