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The a priori identification and development of army personnel competencies are necessary to enable effective and efficient responses to rapidly changing climate conditions. Accordingly, this study aims to identify the performance requirements of a military flood responder and the competencies (knowledge, skills and abilities) required to perform it.

Using an abductive approach, the authors conducted both secondary and primary research to generate a validated framework of performance criteria and competencies for army personnel responding to floods. This literature review integrated both the peer-reviewed academic literature and public sector grey literature. Using the critical incident technique, the authors then conducted semi-structured interviews with 15 members of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) who had previously been tasked with flood response operations. Participants were asked about the tasks required while conducting flood response operations. Interview transcripts were then content analysed to identify themes regarding those tasks, and the competencies needed to perform those tasks were then extracted and contrasted with the literature review findings. Inter-rater reliability for the analysis was established via iterative discussion between the two co-authors.

The primary data reinforced and expanded the list of performance expectations that the authors deductively identified from the integrated literature review, adding granularity to each. It also identified competencies (including both hard and soft skills) and highlighted previously neglected contextual antecedents of military flood response effectiveness.

though knowledge saturation was achieved from the 15 interviews conducted, further research with larger samples could more deeply ground the evidence discovered in this study. Nevertheless, the competencies identified in this paper could serve as a starting guide to staffing and/or training interventions targeted at improving these competencies for personnel responding to flood scenarios.

The theoretical findings also have immediate practical relevance to training for flood response operations. In particular, the subtle challenges in competency crossover from military operations to flood response operations may facilitate not only more efficient, targeted training (that could improve the effectiveness of army personnel involved in humanitarian roles), but could be applied to the selection of army personnel as well. This study may also help provincial/municipal operators and emergency planners by better communicating the strengths and limitations of army personnel in addressing civilian military cooperation for humanitarian operations. Thus, the findings of this research study represent an important first step in prompting attention to the strategic human resource planning studies required to make all responders more efficient and effective in their respective division of labour within the humanitarian domain.

Peering a little beyond these research findings, human-induced climate change is expected to continue increasing the frequency of such events (IPCC, 2021), and a timely, national force is likely to be increasingly required for Canadians impacted by major disasters stemming from natural hazards when local resources become overwhelmed. Yet, there is some concern from the CAF that increasing responsiveness to disaster operations will affect their military readiness (Leuprecht and Kasurak, 2020). One can indeed envision a paradox whereby the CAF is both a “force of last resort” while increasingly becoming a “first choice for domestic disaster and emergency assistance”. The practical implications from this research also suggest that military personnel, while fully capable of successfully conducting flood response operations, may become overburdened and less able to adopt yet greater capacity and training for other additional humanitarian work. Nevertheless, the competencies highlighted by participants can help inform the next flood response operation in Canada.

Most literature in the field of emergency response focuses on cooperation between civilian and military resources and other strategic-level themes. The findings address critical granularity missing at the operational and tactical levels of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief research. The authors also draw implications beyond the military context, including for local/regional governmental players (operators and emergency planners) as well as for volunteers in flood response roles.

The purpose of this study is to cover the change that happened in the American foreign policy toward Iran by changing the American leadership from Obama to Trump. In addition to its coverage for the Iranian foreign policy toward the Arab region during the presidency period of Obama in the USA and also during the presidency period of Trump, to discover whether a change has happened in the Iranian foreign policy toward the Arab region is a result of the change in the American foreign policy or not. This can be discovered by concentrating on Yemen, Syria and Iraq, taking into consideration the Iranian and American national interests in the Arab region, as well as the regional role of Iran and its intervention in the Arab region.

This study was based on the analytical method of the foreign policy that is based on analyzing facts and events, as well as analyzing the roles and interests within the framework of the states’ foreign policy. This method was used in the study for the purpose of analyzing the impact of the change in the American leadership from Obama to Trump on the US foreign policy toward Iran in the light of the American interest; in addition to the Iranian foreign policy toward the Arab region (Yemen, Syria and Iraq) in the presidency period of both Obama and Trump in light of the regional role of Iran and its passion to achieve its national interest.

The study concluded that the change in the American foreign policy toward Iran is a result of the change of the American leadership from Obama to Trump by the American interest requirements in accordance to the respective of both of them. The change in the American policy led to a change in the trends of the Iranian foreign policy toward the Arab region in the term of the regional Iranian role. Under the American and Iranian convergence in the period of Obama, the Iranian role in the Arab region was limited to what could achieve its national interest and what did not threaten the American interest, especially after Iran had guaranteed that the USA is by its side. In the framework of the American and Iranian confrontation under Trump’s current presidency, the Iranian role has expanded in the Arab region, where Iran has intensified its intervention in Yemen, Syria and Iraq politically and militarily. Iran became more threatening to the American interest, as it became a means of pressure to the USA under Trump’s ruling in the purpose of changing its position toward it.

The importance of the study stems from the fact that it is seeking to analyze the change of the American foreign policy toward Iran within the period of two different presidential years of Obama and Trump, whereas, their trends were different in dealing with Iran between rapprochement and hostility toward it, on the basis of the American interest. In addition to testing whether this change in the American foreign policy toward Iran has been accompanied by a change in the Iranian foreign policy toward the Arab region.

“Genderwashing is an organizational tool that presents the myth of gender equality in organizations through discourse and text” (Fox-Kirk et al., 2020, p. 586). Existing literature focuses upon business and economy, e.g., considering how representations of equality are used to enhance profit. The contribution of this chapter is to show how two processes – gender washing and militarization – might function in support of each other. To do this, I firstly argue that the concept of genderwashing should be broadened to consider spaces outside of business and economy. I show how sex, gender and feminism are employed in ways that position martial organizations (such as militaries and arms manufacturers) as socially progressive, “washing” their reputation for militarized violence. Secondly, analyses must consider how the impact of genderwashing goes beyond individual organizations. Martial organizations marginalize their female staff, but I argue that we must look further: in a context in which people can be killed, we must consider what broader harms genderwashing visits upon civilian populations also.

The current political situation in Europe has amplified economic sanctions as a retaliatory measure for states not directly involved in the conflict but wanting to influence the political situation. The purpose of this paper is to further understand the interplay of the neutrality principle and employment of economic sanctions.

Through an extensive literature review, heavily based on the publications of the Swiss Confederacy, neutrality as a foreign policy serving to promote Swiss interests is explored. The room for interpretation and freedom of action in the neutrality principle is highlighted above all.

Economic sanctions are compatible with the neutrality principle, but do not necessarily further the same purpose. Political pressure to participate in sanctions does not take into consideration the ways in which the credibility of neutrality can be implicated, as well as the value of protecting Switzerland’s role as an international mediator.

The consistency with which the neutrality principle is translated into the modern geopolitical context is crucial for its longevity. The novelty of the current political sanctions, still unfolding, demands a careful examination into the history of neutrality and the use of sanctions. No better insight can be offered than by the development of neutrality in the history of the titan of neutrality, Switzerland.

The purpose of the article is to show the regime of truth in the institutional commissions that have the objective of restoring history by establishing a democratic, equitable, comprehensive, inclusive and fair criterion against the attempts of re-victimization and suppression of memory that Western political and cultural traditions have installed through their mechanisms of power.

Based on the analysis of the cases of Inés Fernández Ortega and Valentina Rosendo Cantú, they establish the material conditions from which prejudices and hegemonic stereotypes are intertwined to reproduce serious violations of human rights in democratic political and epistemic frameworks. The colonial function of the truth commissions in Mexico is analyzed, which are presented as mechanisms for social development, political and colonial reproduction of liberal democracy.

The qualitative results allow considering the way in which the different truth commissions in Mexico have been strongly linked to epistemic mechanisms in which truth and justice favor the reproduction of established relationships based on race, social class and gender. Especially in the so-called democratic transition, violence, truth and justice come together to highlight power relations in situations that have been disavowed by the intelligentsia.

The limitations of the research are found in the historical configuration of the truth commissions in Mexico. The data, references and assessments are crossed by the initial function of the truth commissions and the establishment of apparatuses and mechanisms based on transitional justice. Based on this, it can be considered a methodological oversight to shift the analysis of truth commissions toward a critical assessment of the truth as a regime of government and hegemonic and colonization criteria from two very specific cases.

The originality of the work is found in the critical discernment of truth as a political category and the coloniality of power.

This paper aims to present the continuous Nigerian Government’s failure to protect the lives and property of its citizens against the incessant itinerant herders’ violence, despite its numerous programs in attempts to end the carnage. It sought also to examine the relationship between this government’s failure to meet its responsibility and the ineluctable self-defense mechanisms adopted by the people of Plateau State, Nigeria.

The research was both quantitative and qualitative. The study was conducted in four of the 17 Local Government Areas of the state: Bassa, Jos-south, Riyom and Barkin Ladi. A sample size of 400 was determined using Yamane Taro’s sampling size formula. Four hundred respondents were interviewed using a Google questionnaire (found at this link: https://forms.gle/tu96ZDwP85e8JsGu8). In this study, a total of seven key informant interviews and nine focus group discussions were conducted.

The finding revealed that most indigenous ethnic groups were dissatisfied with the government’s handling of the nomadic herders’ aggression. Therefore, 99.1% of Berom, 99.0% of Irigwe and 92.9% of other ethnicities argued that the government’s failure to protect them is a tacit permission for self-defense. On the contrary, 60.0% of the Fulani were satisfied with the government’s strategies in ending the aggression and 95.0% of them argued that the government’s failure to protect its citizens is not an implied permission for self-defense. It was also found that a relationship exists between the government’s lack of capacity to end the nomadic herders’ aggression and implied consent for self-defense in Plateau State, Nigeria.

This is a research paper that uses primary data. The findings are germane to ending the challenge of recurrent aggression of nomadic herders on other Nigerians. The study concludes that the government must live up to its responsibility of the protection of its citizens’ lives and property, failure to do so is an implicit permission to the citizens to defend themselves. It also recommended that the government should return displaced people to their communities.