This is my 1.5 page contribution to “Un Monde en Crises“, an analytical digest of the world today written by researchers of the Centre de Recherches Internationales. It argues that the Somali state is not a failure for Somali elites, who distribute international funding to their clan constituencies. Since all clans are represented in the current make-up of the Federal State, this maintains some stability in the country.
Continue readingrevised on 28/06 01.00 am
I participated in a workshop on academic publishing in peer-reviewed journals, given by the editors of a journal based in Central Europe. This journal has become part of the Palgrave-Springer conglomerate.
While nearly all journal editors, all reviewers and authors work for free, and authors that want to publish ‘open access’ with one of those journals need to pay a fee of typically 1500-3000 USD (so their article does not appear behind a paywall), the journals themselves make whopping profit margins of 40% on average by selling subscriptions and individual articles for very high prices.
Continue readingRobert Kluijver | Expert internationale betrekkingen
In de Hoorn van Afrika verkruimelen staatsstructuren. Het Westen moet steun geven aan plaatselijke zelfhulpinitiatieven van burgers, zegt Robert Kluijver.
De Hoorn van Afrika staat in brand en staatsapparaten verkruimelen. In Somalië ging de centrale staat al ten onder in 1991, in Ethiopië nemen sinds 2020 regio’s het op tegen de centrale autoriteit. En in Soedan raakten de machthebbers vorige maand onderling slaags. Maar de bevolking zit niet bij de pakken neer en werkt aan alternatieve vormen van bestuur. De vraag is hoe om te gaan met dit proces van eroderende staatsstructuren. Misschien is het misplaatst om een sterke centrale regering te willen vestigen en moet juist steun worden gegeven aan plaatselijke zelfhulpinitiatieven van burgers, zoals de verzetsgroepen in Soedan en de lokale vredesinitiatieven in Somalië. Dat betoogt Robert Kluijver, die westerse pogingen bestudeert om liberale democratieën te vestigen in landen die cultureel vaak enorm verschillen.
Wat is er over van de staat in Soedan?
Continue readingTwo books I read recently, ‘Limonov’ by Emmanuel Carrère and ‘Le Mage du Kremlin’ by Guiliano da Empoli, ignited my old passion for Russia.
In 1997 I spent a few days in Moscow on my way to Tajikistan, where I learnt to speak Russian. I took the train from Bishkek to Moscow on the way back, managing to blend in sufficiently to cross into Russia without a visa, and spent a week or so in Moscow figuring out how I would travel onward. After that experience I did a Masters in Post-Soviet Studies (in a programme set up by Hélène Carrère d’Encausse, the mother of Emmanuel) and returned a few times to Central Asia, Russia and Ukraine for research or simply travelling, before life pushed me southwards to Afghanistan and the Middle East.
Continue readingNote: this article has appeared in African Arguments (Sudan: Revolutionary Reflections amid a Raging War) on May 5, 2023. A French version, more didactic and less politically engaged but otherwise substantially the same, appeared in the French edition of The Conversation (Soudan: la Transition Démocratique en Péril) on May 3, 2023.
The current fighting between military factions in Sudan must be seen against the backdrop of the Sudanese revolution that started in December 2018.
Continue readingIn May and June 2002 I oversaw the holding of elections in Kandahar, Helmand, Zabul and Uruzgan. I was the only UN political/civil affairs officer in south-west Afghanistan and had to single-handedly support – I barely had office staff – the Afghan team in charge of organizing the elections. This meant
Continue readingThis was my submission to an ‘Ideas Festival’ organized by the Full Circle in Brussels from 2-4 December 2022
The human species is like an organism in which each individual is a node connected in dynamic ways to other individual nodes. Like the cells in a body, together we form a super-organism: humanity.
We may wonder whether Agent Smith in the Matrix was right when he characterizes humanity as a cancer exhausting and ultimately destroying its natural environment.
This text covers my experience writing a PhD in a mid-career phase of my life. The experience is of course specific to me, but it might help other people contemplating this move. I sometimes sought such reflections online, when I felt lost, and rarely found anything useful.
I have not yet defended my dissertation (that will happen on 26 January 2023) so it may be a bit premature to share this experience, but whatever the result of my defence, the trajectory leading to it will remain the same.
Continue readingOver the past years, most of my visits to contemporary art exhibitions have ended in disappointment. I consider myself an ex-curator: after my last show in 2015 I decided to step out of the art world. I usually tell people I enjoyed working with artists but increasingly disliked the art world, in both its commercial and institutional aspects. But this Biennale has left me inspired and hopeful for the art world – reviving my old hope that artists give creative expression to the deep undercurrents of collective development, giving an indication of where we are heading. This impression was left especially by “The Milk of Dreams” show curated by Cecilia Alemani, but surprisingly also by many of the national pavilions and some of the collateral events.
Continue readingOn 11 May, the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke for one hour, through video connection, to the students of Sciences Po; students from other universities were also present. It appears to be the first time Zelensky addresses foreign students since the war began.
Noting that he had been briefed that at the end of his speech, five students would be allowed to ask a question, he said he found that a bit unfair towards other students, and that he preferred a dialogue. In his 15 minutes introductory speech, Zelensky asked a few pointed questions to the political science students:
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