Vol. 19 No. 2 (2024):

This issue marks the start of a couple of journal initiatives.

The article by Mahamadou Bassirou Tangara is the first of a series that result from a collaboration between CORN West Africa and UNU-WIDER that supports researchers from West Africa working on conflict and development to bring their local knowledge and expertise to global discourses on peace and statebuilding. The initiative aims to amplify voices from the Global South to help shape sustainable solutions for critical development challenges. By strengthening local research capabilities, the partnership contributes to research outcomes that are relevant to local needs and contexts and contribute meaningfully to global policy debates. Tarila Marclint Ebiede is director of CORN West Africa and Patricia Justino and Laura Saavvedra-Lux are the UNU-WIDER collaborators. The papers are produced within the CORN network and then go through a process of review at WIDER and become working papers, before being considered by the journal through its normal procedures.

 The article by Ron Smith is an important review of defense budgets in the U.K. With the recent growth in international tension growing military spending has become commonplace. But this raises important issues of what the expenditure is, how it is measured and what choices need to be made and how comparisons are made. Just increasing defense spending does not necessarily lead to an increase in capability or security. It is more complicated than that. This review of the U.K. has led us to solicit more case studies covering the same issues for other countries which will be published in future issues.

The issue also includes Lindgren et al.’s substantive comparative review of how the armed forces in NATO and NATO-partner countries pay and compensate military personnel and the issues involved. It goes on to highlight the lessons learned from this comparison (for instance, monetary incentives are not as homogenous as might be expected) and how this review may be expanded.