The Social Structures of Interventions: Projects, International Organizations and Border Security in Central Asia

ABSTRACT

This article aims to cut through the organizational mess that characterizes interventionist practices. It combines the concept of bureaucratic field with Multiple Correspondence Analysis to bring out the structures that underpin interventions. This quali-quantitative method can therefore break new ground in charting the social structures to which statebuilding gives birth, as the case study on bordering interventions in Central Asia illustrates. In this region, international bureaucrats work across borders in order to change how borders work. The experts of the European Commission and the OSCE wield more power than those of the IOM and the UNODC in turning the interstate borders of Central Asian States into filters that decelerate threats and accelerate wealth.

KEYWORDS:

• Field
• data visualization
• border security
• Central Asia
• international organizations
• Bourdieu

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Médéric Martin-Mazé holds a PhD in international relations from Sciences Po Paris, which he received in December 2013. His doctoral dissertation focused on the professionals of security who assist Central Asian Republics in securing their borders. Between 2014 and 2016, he worked as a Research Assistant at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. He was in charge of mapping the institutions and professions of security in Europe for the EU-Funded SOURCE Project. Since September 2016, he is a lecturer at the Department Science of Université Paris 8/CRESPPA-LabToP. His current research interests span international organizations and security aid in postcolonial States as well as the practices and effects of antiterrorist practices in Europe. He published in Journal of Common Market Studies, Cultures et Conflits and International Political Sociology.

Notes

1 Author’s interview with BOMCA’s Chief Technical Adviser in Uzbekistan, Tashkent, September 2008.

2 Author’s interview with a political adviser to the EU special representative for Central Asia, Almaty, November 2008.

3 Author’s interview with an employee of the Delegation of the European Union in Tajikistan, Dushanbe, September 2010.

4 Author’s interview with an employee of the Delegation of the European Union, Dushanbe, September 2010.

5 Author’s interview with the director of the OSCE border staff College, Dushanbe, September 2010.

6 Author’s interview with an employee of the Delegation of the European Commission, Almaty, November 2008.

7 This variable corresponds to non-acquired data and was therefore set as supplementary in the analysis.

8 Interview with BOMCA Chief Technical Adviser in Kyrgyzstan, October 2008. Dostuk is an important border crossing located between the cities of Andijan in Uzbekistan and Osh in Kyrgyzstan.

9 For this and following variable, I created classes according to the same methodology as explained in the above, for the variable ‘budget’.

10 The annex features a table of the contributions of all variables and categories.

11 The modified rate measures the difference between a perfect virtual sphere and the original multidimensional cloud derived from the matrix. They are commonly used in MCA to interpret axes (Le Roux and Rouanet 2010, 10). In this case, it means that the first dimension captures 54.4 per cent of the deformation, which is fairly high. For comparison, the axis one in the taste example used by Le Roux and Rouanet is 47.6 per cent.

Additional information

Funding

The doctoral research was supported by a grand from the Délégation générale de l'armement/Direction Générale de l’Armement.