Tim GlawionGerman Institute of Global and Area Studies | GIGA · Institute of African Affairs (IAA)
Tim Glawion
PhD
co-EIC Africa Spectrum - feel free to reach out to me with submission / SI ideas!
About
18
Publications
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42
Citations
Citations since 2017
Introduction
Author of "The Security Arena in Africa" published by Cambridge University Press.
Political analyst and field researcher on issues of local security and civil war in fragile states.
Research in the Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Kenya, Haiti, South Sudan, and Somaliland.
Four languages (Arabic, English, French, German).
BA (Heidelberg University,) MA (King’s College London), doctorate (University of Freiburg)..
Publications
Publications (18)
Rebel governance assumes a symbiotic relationship between coercion and public goods provision. However, in the rebel-held town of Ndélé, Central African Republic, we find that governance happens in rebel-held territory, but rarely by rebels. Rebels allowed other actors to provide services for the people only when this did not hinder rebels extracti...
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Examinations of substate security and everyday peace in hybrid political orders are mostly limited to single-case studies or statistical analyses. Seldom are qualitative methods applied with a comparative aim that can unveil patterns of security production. I attempt such an approach by studying 12 cases across...
Qualitative empirical enquiries into dynamics of security and insecurity often include a blind spot that bear theoretical ramifications because only those areas and respondents that allow for relatively safe fieldwork are studied. To transparently articulate the spheres of projection that creep into our knowledge production, we propose a distinctio...
The labels 'state fragility' and 'civil war' suggest that security within several African countries has broken down. As Tim Glawion observes, however, while people do experience insecurity in some parts of conflict-affected countries, in other areas they live in relative security. Conducting in-depth field-research between 2014 and 2018, The Securi...
External stabilization interventions often have unforeseen impacts on local dynamics in terms of state legitimacy and inclusivity. This affects the prospects for ‘legitimate stability’. The process through which such external interventions and local actors interact and produce new, often unplanned, outcomes for good or ill is called ‘friction’.1 Th...
This policy report unpacks the similarities and differences between the aims and objectives of external intervenors, on the one hand, and the desires of local communities and key stakeholders, on the other. It brings together the findings of two complementary policy studies—Securing Legitimate Stability in CAR: External Assumptions and Local Perspe...
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is undergoing its first peaceful transfer of power at the same time as a strategic review of the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) is being conducted. It is a pivotal time to be reflecting on the best ways forward.
This policy study uses bo...
La région du nord-est de la République Centrafricaine est sous le contrôle des rebelles du Front populaire pour la renaissance de la Centrafrique. Ouvertement opposés au pouvoir de Bangui, ils surveillent militairement l’accès à leur territoire et ont chassé plusieurs représentants de l’Etat. Pourtant, la présence des fonctionnaires de l’éducation...
The Central African Republic experienced unprecedented violence between 2012 and 2014. We analyse three recent ruptures that developed as a result of this crisis, suggesting a break with the country's past. First, the Séléka rebellion that started in 2012; second, the establishment of a robust UN Peacekeeping mission in 2014; and finally, the democ...
Die Menschen Zentralafrikas widersetzen sich autokratischen Herrschern, anhaltendem Reformunwillen, ökonomischer Stagnation und breiter Unsicherheit. Unter die zum Großteil friedlichen Protestbewegungen mischen sich zunehmend gewaltbereite Akteure. Es gilt die Lage eingehend zu verstehen, um von außen positive Anreize für Wege aus der Krise zu setz...
For the past four years, the Fund for Peace has ranked the Central African Republic, Somalia and South Sudan as the ‘most fragile states’ in the world, in its annual Fragile States Index (FSI). The three countries’ almost identical scores suggest comparability; however, critics raise concerns about the FSI's data aggregation methods, and its confla...
Qualitative field research on statehood necessitates a degree of flexibility, reminding us that abstractions are there to aid in understanding reality and not vice versa. This contribution will discuss the challenges of case selection and the gathering of qualitative data on statehood (cf. the definition of statehood in the introduction) on a sub-n...
The most recent wave of violence in the Central African Republic (CAR) began sweeping across the country in 2012. It started when the Séléka, an alliance of rebel groups operating in the north-east of the country, set off for the capital Bangui. They ousted President François Bozizé in March 2013 and installed their leader, Michel Djotodia, as pres...
The most recent wave of violence in the Central African Republic (CAR) began sweeping across the country in 2012. It started when the Séléka, an alliance of rebel groups operating in the north-east of the country, set off for the capital Bangui. They ousted President François Bozizé in March 2013 and installed their leader, Michel Djotodia, as pres...
Anarchy and war reigning throughout Africa threaten to bring about a “failed” continent. This article, on the contrary, argues that to understand the evolution of African state systems, political order should be defined as a conflict mediation institution and process. Through a quantitative analysis, this paper challenges Charles Tilly's notion tha...
Projects
Projects (2)
Why do states’ attempts to monopolize the use of force at times create divergent objective and subjective levels of security?
Based on field work and surveys in CAR and Lebanon.
Policy relevance for local society, nation-builders and external supporters.
Why do some areas of limited statehood produce security while others are fraught with persistent insecurity?
This research project focuses on areas where state presence is limited and where other local and external non-state actors are involved in providing security to citizens. By developing a micro-perspective on local arenas of security provision in Somaliland, South Sudan and the Central African Republic, the project seeks to understand what explains the differences in effective security provision in areas where statehood is limited. The research provides insights into how security is provided to citizens in peripheral areas of the three countries, which allows for a comparison of underlying causes of security and for an assessment of needed policy adjustments.
