Abstract:
‘Stabilisation’, ‘stability operations’ and ‘instability’ are relatively new
terms in the conflict transformation lexicon and the literature on these areas
has grown significantly over a fairly short time period. For better or for
worse, knowledge in this area has been shaped predominantly by the formative
experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq. These operations are based on a view that
weak and failing states pose a direct threat to wider international and national
security. This article provides a literature survey which takes this sentiment
and these two significant operations as its points of departure, particularly in
light of the significance of 9/11 as a defining moment in thinking about
international security and the nature of the international system. One trend has
been to situate analyses of stability operations in the broader context of
instability and fragile states, with early warning and statebuilding as core
concepts, and in part formed by the experiences of counter-insurgency and its
attendant military doctrine. Notwithstanding these experiences, the literature
on stabilisation operations has not yet matured sufficiently to join with
related areas of research in a more systematic and explicitly theoretical way.
Nor has a systematic, academic and referenced literature based on these cases
yet emerged. National and regional perspectives which have shaped case studies
are reliant upon Afghanistan and Iraq and finding any references to
stabilisation operations beyond these two theatres is not forthcoming.1 Thus,
the gap in the analytical literature is particularly acute at the level of
evidence and analysis, which limits the deeper examination of the inter-linkages
and interdependencies across actors and activities involved, particularly in
understanding the challenges for achieving a more coherent ‘whole-of-government’
approach to future stabilisatio
