Hylke Dijkstra
Hylke Dijkstra is an Assistant Professor (with tenure) at the Department of Political Science of Maastricht University, The Netherlands. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of Contemporary Security Policy. He studies how international organisations address contemporary security challenges. Dijkstra is the author of “International Organizations and Military Affairs” (Routledge, 2016) and “Policy-Making in EU Security and Defense” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).
Biography
Dr Hylke Dijkstra is an Assistant Professor (with tenure) at the Department of Political Science of Maastricht University, The Netherlands. He was previously a Marie Curie Fellow at the Department of Politics and International Relations of the University of Oxford, where he was also affiliated to Nuffield College. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the peer-reviewed journal Contemporary Security Policy.Hylke Dijkstra holds a PhD in Political Science (cum laude) from Maastricht University. He read Contemporary European Studies (MPhil) in Cambridge and European Studies (BA) and Economics (BSc) in Maastricht. During his graduate and undergraduate studies, he spent short periods at Yale University, the Corvinus University of Budapest and Stockholm University. He also worked for the Dutch EU Presidency at the Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York and DG Enlargement of the European Commission.
Hylke Dijkstra is interested in the role of international organizations in the area of security. He has published extensively on policy-making in the context of the European Union, NATO and the United Nations, including in Cooperation and Conflict, European Integration Online Papers, International Peacekeeping, Journal of European Public Policy and the Review of International Organizations. He is author of International Organizations and Military Affairs (Routledge, 2016) and Policy-Making in EU Security and Defense (Palgrave, 2013).
Hylke Dijkstra is the winner of the 2008 prize for best article in European Foreign Affairs Review for scholars under the age of thirty-five. For his dissertation, he received the Otto von der Gablentz Academic Prize and the G.A. Van Poelje Prize.
Education
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MPhil in European Studies, University of Cambridge (2007)
PhD in Political Science, Maastricht University (2011)
Websites
Contemporary Security Policy
Google Scholar Citation Profile
Personal Profile
Thomson Reuters Profile
Books
News
Book Review of "International Organizations and Military Affairs"
By: Hylke Dijkstra
Subjects: Military & Security Studies, Other
Hylke Dijkstra, International Organizations and Military Affairs (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2016), 258 pp.
Reviewed by: Sebastian Mayer (The Review of International Organizations)
After the Cold War, global and regional security organizations have increasingly helped to accomplish a wide range of objectives, including protecting civilians, preventing violence, and managing crises. Compared to acting unilaterally, security institutions both add to and constrain state power (Haftendorn et al. 1999; Weitsman 2014). States use international organizations (IOs) despite their particularly binding arrangements to increase the efficiency of multilateral cooperation: by providing information which reduces uncertainty; by supplying rules for negotiation, decision-making, and implementation; and by creating incentives to conform to joint agreements. These benefits can also be gained in the issue area of security (Keohane and Martin 1995: 43–44). But because it falls within the realm of high politics with its relative gains, self-help, and sovereignty concerns, cooperation in security IOs tends to be less systematic, less binding, and with less independence of IO secretariats than in other issue areas.
Centering on bureaucracies of security IOs, Hylke Dijkstra’s International Organizations and Military Affairs for that reason encompasses least likely case studies. The United Nations (UN) Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), NATO’s International Staff (IS), and the EU’s European External Action Service all are hard cases for authority delegation and agent autonomy, i.e., the potential for bureaucratic action undesired by members. Looking at the three civil services from a Principal/Agent (P/A) perspective, Dijkstra inquires how "the member states of international organizations control international secretariats in the area of military affairs" (pp. 5–6). The few comparative studies on security IOs tend to be descriptive or are policy-driven (Kirchner and Dominguez 2011; Tavares 2010). Laying emphasis on the states/security bureaucracy nexus in a spirit of cumulative research, Dijkstra makes a welcome contribution to the third-generation scholarship on formal models of international institutions with a focus on IO bureaucracies (Gilligan and Johns 2012: 228–238).
Book Review of “International Organizations and Military Affairs”
By: Hylke Dijkstra
Subjects: Military & Security Studies, Other
Hylke Dijkstra, International Organizations and Military Affairs (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2016), 258 pp.
Reviewed by Kseniya Oksamytna (University of Warwick)
States increasingly choose to carry out crisis management operations through international organizations, such as the UN, the EU, NATO, the African Union, and even the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). In doing so, states face a familiar conundrum of how much authority to delegate to secretariats of international organizations in order to reap the benefits of delegation without sacrificing too much control. International Organizations and Military Affairs explores how the members of the UN, NATO, and the EU resolve this dilemma. The book asks the following question: how do the member states of international organizations control international secretariats in the area of military affairs? It concludes that the states exercise a considerable degree of control, which often results in policy costs due to suboptimal organizational performance. (read further).
Interview with Oxford University Politics Blog
By: Hylke Dijkstra
Subjects: Military & Security Studies, Other
Dr Hylke Dijkstra has recently published a new book entitled International Organizations and Military Affairs (Routledge, 2016). This book represents the first comparative study of the politics behind the scenes at the United Nations, NATO and the European Union concerning the use of military force. It is also the result of a research project carried out at the Department of Politics and International Relations in Oxford. DPhil candidate Dana Landau interviews him on the most pertinent questions that arise from his work.
Author Q&A Session: International Organizations and Military Affairs
By: Hylke Dijkstra
Subjects: Military & Security Studies, Other
Routledge Politics is pleased to share with you our author Q&A session with Hylke Dijkstra! Author of International Organizations and Military Affairs, Dijkstra talks about his title and what makes it so unique.
From the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations to the NATO International Staff and the European External Action Service, international bureaucrats make decisions that affect life and death. In carrying out their functions, these officials not only facilitate the work of the member states, but also pursue their own distinct agendas. This book analyzes how states seek to control secretariats when it comes to military operations by international organizations. It introduces an innovative theoretical framework that identifies different types of control mechanisms.