Ingrid Barnsley

Bio: Ingrid Barnsley is an academic researcher from American University of Paris. The author has contributed to research in topics: Sovereignty & Territorial integrity. The author has an hindex of 1, co-authored 1 publications receiving 15 citations.

Self-determination: from decolonization to deterritorialization

Abstract: Unresolved claims to self-determination are among the biggest challenges in global politics today. A large number of groups in all parts of the world, from indigenous peoples to religious, linguistic and ethnic minorities, seek independence or greater participation in the determination of their futures. However, several problems associated with the conceptualization of self-determination are limiting opportunities for the peaceful resolution of such claims. The international community lacks a coherent legal framework for extending the right of self-determination to all peoples, particularly to groups outside the decolonization context. More seriously, the issue of self-determination remains linked to a deeply entrenched concept of state sovereignty which revolves around an artificial link between nations, states and territorial integrity. Given that the boundaries of identity and community are fluid and constantly shifting, this territorial model of sovereignty more often precipitates rather than accommod...

Territory's Continuing Allure

Abstract: The role of the territorial state has changed in recent decades in the wake of the communications revolution; the explosion of transnational social, political, and economic formations; accelerated ...

A Pedagogy of Peacebuilding: Infrapolitics, Resistance, and Liberation

Abstract: A post-liberal peace engages with the politics of hybridity emerging from a mixture of contextual and international social, political, economic, cultural, and historical dynamics of peace It represents an attempt to escape liberal enclosure and distant administration as well as contextual forms of violence in post-conflict zones—from Bosnia Herzegovina to Afghanistan Critical agency as a form of resistance aimed at liberation from the structures of conflict, and structural violence—wherever they lie—rather than solely relying on external norms and capacity, is key From this tension, a range of “local,” transversal, and transnational agencies can be uncovered in many peacebuilding or statebuilding contexts, which may resist, modify, or co-opt intervention in unexpected ways A hybrid form of peace emerges from this agonistic process, which points to an understanding of peacebuilding-as-liberation Rather than producing subjects, this enables subjects to produce peace

Self-determination after Kosovo

Abstract: This article discusses the meaning of self-determination in its historical and contemporary contexts and examines the different options available for the accommodation of contested self-determination claims. Among these, the creation of a new state, arguably, is the most radical of options and one that has significant regional and global implications beyond the territory to which it is applied. Detailing these implications in relation to the case of Kosovo, we make a broader argument that, even if secession is one mechanism to resolve self-determination disputes, this does not do away with the need to continue exploring settlements short of secession as alternatives to changing established international boundaries.

Consuming democracy : local agencies and liberal peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Abstract: This thesis focuses on liberal peace building in the DRC. The thesis takes a critical approach which emphasises local agencies and their engagements with liberal peace building. However, it seeks to bring this critique back to the institutions with which liberal peace building is preoccupied, by focusing on the hidden local that operates within these institutions. This approach seeks to give new meaning to processes of institution building without rendering institutions irrelevant as a top-down approach. Focusing on the first legislature of the Congolese Third Republic (2006-2011) this thesis provides a case study of how local agencies consume liberal democracy within the National Assembly, and make it their own. It discusses current liberal peace building practices as a process of mutual disengagement, in which both the local and liberal intervention seek to disengage from each other. Although this results in a lack of legitimacy of the peace building project both locally as well as with liberal interventions, it also creates hybrid space in which local agencies consume liberal democracy. The thesis conceptualises these local agencies as being convivial, in other words, they are enabled by people's relations. The thesis therefore focuses on MPs relations with their electorate, as well as with the executive and other MPs in their party or ruling coalition. In through these interactions local agencies consume liberal democracy - it is accepted, rejected, diverted, substituted, etc. The thesis concludes that through these practices of consumption local agencies negotiate liberal democracy. The liberal democratic framework is kept intact, but it is not enabled to function as foreseen, because local agencies are responsive to a moral matrix of the father-family. However, the liberal democratic framework itself provides new tools through which local agencies also renegotiate the unwritten rules of the moral matrix of the father-family.

The use of private military and security companies in international society: contestation and legitimation of state practice

Abstract: The objective of this dissertation is to understand how the legitimacy of the state’s international use of PMSCs is evolving in contemporary international society. The first part of the dissertation develops an analytical framework that combines theoretical propositions of the English School and the ‘German’ constructivist strand with a reflective-analyticist philosophical ontology and with content and discourse analytical methods. The empirical part of the dissertation provides an overview of contemporary state practice, investigates how international society has responded to state practice in the UN Security Council and UN General Assembly, and finally analyses the roles of members of world society in creating and shaping this discourse. The empirical analysis points to two major driving forces behind the increased legitimation of the practice. First, the recursive relationship between behaviour and norms means that widespread use of PMSCs reinforces legitimacy. Second, normative shifts in international society have contributed to the legitimation of the practice. On the one hand, norms that are in tension with an expanded PMSC use have become weaker or sidelined, if still strongly supported by some actors: this is the anti-mercenary norm, and particular understandings of self-determination and the monopoly on the legitimate use of force. On the other hand, and partly linked to the weakening of the latter norms, human rights have gained strength as legitimacy principles. In the contestation over the state use of PMSCs, conflicting moves toward legitimation and delegitimation do not cancel each other out. Rather, structural and more immediate factors put strategic efforts and inadvertent moves of legitimation at an advantage while at the same time marginalizing calls for a reduction or prohibition of the state practice. I examine not only how human rights contribute to the legitimation of the practice, but also why and how actors that seek to limit, contain, or reverse the state practice have increasingly lost ground. Overall, the dissertation contributes to empirical research by substantiating claims of an increased legitimation of PMSC use. It also contributes to the broader IR discipline by proposing a change in perspective: away from an atomistic focus on norms to a more holistic study of legitimacy and legitimation. The resulting framework is particularly fruitful for the analysis of other controversial issues of international relations.