Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace

THIS is a book of great length (444 pages of text), great learning (168 pages of notes), but not of commensurate understanding. It is a pity, because its defects may conceal its undoubted merits. When Dr. Popper is not caricaturing writers whose views he dislikes-and he dislikes a great many-he has a useful contribution to make to political thought, and his general moral theory (mainly to be found in the notes) is eminently sane and sensible. But for his passion for tilting at windmills he would have written a better and shorter book. The Open Society and its Enemies By K. R. Popper. Vol. 1: The Spell of Plato. Pp. vii + 268. Vol. 2: The High Tide of Prophecy—Hegel, Marx and the Aftermath. Pp. v + 352. (London: George Koutledge and Sons, Ltd., 1945.) 2 vols., 42s. net.

The Open Society and its Enemies

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Closing of the American Mind

Among the many things which distinguish man from the lower animals and perhaps in a more spectacular but less extensive way distinguish man at an advanced level of culture from primitive man is the capacity to use the recorded experience of the past. This can help determine his actions in the present and thus determine in part what kind of future the world will see. The codification of knowledge of the past and its interpretation constitute the material of history. Doctrines and beliefs, various schools, and ideological sets about history determine each period's interpretation of what has gone on in the past. For instance, how may one reconcile the doctrinal myth of progress with the fix that the world is in now? In the light of contemporary ideas about causation, determinism, accident, objectivity, and the function and role, if any, of the individual person in history, ideas thin out. Professor

What is History

This article examines questions of local ownership in post-conflict peacebuilding and makes the case that the complex relationship between insiders and outsiders lies at the very heart of contemporary peacebuilding processes. While the discourse of local ownership has increasingly become part of the vocabulary of post-conflict peacebuilding, the discussion to date on both the meanings and the practices of local ownership in peacebuilding contexts remains underdeveloped. This article is therefore an effort to add substance to the local ownership debate, and outlines two forms of peacebuilding—liberal and communitarian—which contain markedly different assumptions concerning the role of local actors in peacebuilding processes. Ultimately, the article suggests that the search for ways to operationalize local ownership principles remains one of the key challenges of contemporary peacebuilding, and outlines a vision of peacebuilding as cultural exchange as a way forward.

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Empowerment or Imposition? Dilemmas of Local Ownership in Post-Conflict Peacebuilding Processes

Urban violence is a major preoccupation of policymakers, planners and development practitioners in cities around the world. Public authorities routinely seek to contain such violence through repression, as well as through its exportation to and containment at the periphery of metropolitan centres. Yet, urban violence is a highly heterogeneous phenomenon and not amenable to reified diagnosis and coercive intervention. Muscular state-led responses tend to overlook and conceal the underlying factors shaping the emergence of urban violence, as well as the motivations and means of so-called violence entrepreneurs. This is very obviously the case of urban gangs in Central America, which are regularly labelled a ‘new urban insurgency’ threatening the integrity of governments and public order. This article considers both the shape and character of Central American gang violence and attempts to reduce it, highlighting the complex relationship between these two phenomena. We advance a threefold approach to measuring the effectiveness of interventions, focusing in turn on discursive, practical and outcome-based criteria. In this way, the article demonstrates how, contrary to their reported success in diminishing gang violence, repressive first-generation approaches have tended instead to radicalize gangs, potentially pushing them towards more organized forms of criminality. Moreover, although credited with some modest successes, more preventive second-generation interventions seem to have yielded more rhetorical advances than meaningful reductions in gang violence.

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Gangs, Urban Violence, and Security Interventions in Central America:

This article presents a critical overview of the contemporary practice of post-conflict peacebuilding (PCPB), arguing that contemporary post-conflict operations rest upon the assumption that a sophisticated social engineering approach could replace, or accelerate, a process of state formation that occurs rather more organically. Yet, PCPB is subject to the same tensions and dilemmas as the process of state formation. Many recent post-conflict reconstruction and rehabilitation programmes have been conducted with little critical self-reflection on the underlying assumptions or structural biases of PCPB efforts. One major reason for this is the missing connection, in the minds of policymakers and practitioners, between security and development concerns. The concept of human security can help bridge this gap and is also compatible with a form of Popperian ‘piecemeal’ social engineering that is more consistent with a critical approach to PCPB.

Peace, Security and Development in Post-Conflict Environments:

1. Hans J. Morgenthau in International Relations 2. The justiciability of disputes 3. Hans Kelsen and the reality of norms 4. Legal realism and behaviouralist social science 5. Legalism, romanticism and irresponsible statecraft 6. The legacy of legal formalism.

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Oliver Jütersonke

Papers

Gangs, Urban Violence, and Security Interventions in Central America:

Peace, Security and Development in Post-Conflict Environments:

Morgenthau, Law and Realism

Urban violence in an urban village: a case study of Dili, Timor Leste

Hans J. Morgenthau on the Limits of Justiciability in International Law