Showing papers in "Global Change, Peace & Security in 2008"

The Solomon Islands intervention and the instabilities of the post-colonial state

Abstract: Shortcomings in the prevailing discourse of ‘failed states’ and the practical challenges of international state-building are examined in this article through a detailed case study of the Solomon Islands, a small independent Pacific island country that since mid-2003 has been the subject of a substantial Australian-led regional state-building exercise. The Solomon Islands intervention and the difficulties it has encountered are examined in the larger context of that country's longer history of state-building and the particular challenges posed by its colonial legacies, the nature of its modern political development and the manner of its integration into the global economy.

Peacebuilding theory and the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission: implications for non-UN interventions

Abstract: The extensive experience of the United Nations in peacekeeping and peacebuilding is beginning to reap rewards in terms of lessons learned and improved peacebuilding practice. Evolving peacebuilding theory and ideas about best practice to promote sustainable peacebuilding have been boosted by the creation of the UN Peacebuilding Commission (PBC). This paper reviews sustainable peacebuilding theory and the potential contribution of the PBC to addressing some of the challenges faced by non-UN interventions such as the Australian-led Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI), as well as the US-led interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan. We argue that the adoption by non-UN interventions of peacebuilding principles and best practice could increase their legitimacy, accountability, transparency, integration and effectiveness.

The interaction of material and ideational factors in the East China Sea dispute: impact on future dispute management

Abstract: This article seeks to explain the current phase of the East China Sea dispute between China and Japan. It argues that previous analyses privilege one aspect of the dispute over the other. Some stress the nationalist dimension of the dispute while others argue the primary motivations relate to the material wealth of the seabed combined with increased energy needs in China and Japan. By analysing the interaction between the nationalist (ideational) and resource (material) dimensions, it becomes clear why it has become increasingly difficult for policy elites in either state to seek compromise. This is because nationalist constituencies in China and Japan have extended their nationalist/ideational sentiment from the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands to the entire East China Sea. Simultaneously, Beijing and Tokyo's interest in the material exploitation and security of the East China Sea has risen. This convergence between nationalist and elite interest became clear in April 2005 and significantly raised bilateral tensio...

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...

Analysing desecuritisations: prospects and problems for Israeli–Palestinian reconciliation

Abstract: Securitisation theory, which has been developed by a number of scholars affiliated to the Copenhagen Peace Research Institute, has become one of the most attractive analytical tools in contemporary critical security studies. The work of Barry Buzan, Ole Waever and others has made a major contribution to our understanding of the dynamics of security by introducing the concepts of ‘securitisation’ and ‘desecuritisation’. However, while this approach has made a major theoretical contribution in general, there have been few attempts at applying the concept of desecuritisation in particular. Moreover, at the theoretical level, there are also problems, notably an under-theorisation of the desecuritisation. This article is an attempt to apply the under-employed/under-theorised concept of desecuritisation to the Israeli–Palestinian case with a particular focus on the potential for desecuritisation arising from Israeli–Palestinian cooperation/coexistence efforts. Based on a conceptual framework that integrates dese...

September 11 and the rise of political fundamentalism in the Bush administration: domestic legitimatization versus international estrangement?

Abstract: This article explores the tension between the role of religious language as a domestic legitimising device for the Bush administration and its adverse impact on Washington's foreign policy image. It argues that President Bush's political fundamentalism after 9/11 has become a major obstacle to effectively addressing the challenge of international terrorism. It examines the interface between religion and the traditional idea of US exceptionalism, considers the political rise of the Christian right in American politics since the 1970s, shows how 9/11 served as a transformative event in the emergence of political fundamentalism in the White House and explores the impact of the construction of President Bush's ‘war on terror’ policies on the domestic and international environments. The conclusion acknowledges a substantial gulf between the domestic and international responses to President Bush's brand of political fundamentalism, but concedes that these differences have been narrowing over time.

Gender, sexual violence and justice in war-torn societies

Abstract: Despite a growing awareness among scholars and policymakers of the role that gender plays in mobilising war crimes and human rights abuses and the need for attention to gender in the aftermath of violent conflicts, the international community has not yet paid sufficient attention to gender in the construction of mechanisms intended to promote justice in war-torn societies. Similarly, scholars have neglected gender as an explanatory concept in their analyses of efforts to promote ‘post-conflict justice’. In an effort to address this void, this paper examines the limitations of prevailing approaches to justice in war-torn societies due to their failure to adequately consider the role of gender norms as a constraint on participation in the dominant mechanisms for pursuing ‘post-conflict justice’. It also considers how mechanisms intended to promote justice in war-torn societies might be most appropriately constructed in an effort to bring justice to all victims of wartime violence.

Modernisation or participatory development: the emerging divide in journalist training for conflict-affected societies

Abstract: The field of media development, as an intervention in conflict-affected societies, is both growing, and divided. This article identifies and discusses some emerging divisions in the sub-field of jo...

Navigating through the Bosphorus: relocating Turkey's European/Western fault line

Abstract: Until the end of the twentieth century, Turkey's East–West paradigm found refuge in the ambiguous construct of Eurasia and was entrenched in an authoritative centralised state. With EU candidature and the radical reforms ushered in by the Islamist-based government, the Turkish Republic finds itself at its most critical juncture since its formation in 1923. In reviewinccg Turkey's reform process, the paper exposes the rifts in its dual Western–Anatolian personality, the ineptness of its Eurasia synthesis, the fragility of its special relationship with the United States and the inherent contradictions embedded in Kemalist statism. The paper argues that by seeking to join the EU, Turkey has also—inadvertently—embarked on a collision course with the Kemalist Devlet (state). The paper surveys the (European) fault line that currently divides Turkey, accentuating deep-seated dualisms—some dating to Ottoman times—that have been concealed by the Kemalist state. Finally, the paper argues that success (or failure) o...

Solidarity and public participation: the role of the Aarhus Convention in containing environmentally induced social conflict

Abstract: This paper argues that the Aarhus Convention on Access to Environmental Information, Public Participations in Decision Making and Access to Environmental Justice is an international environmental convention whose rationale can be partially explained by its potential to reduce the incidence of social conflict caused by environmental change or changes to the environmental caused by industrial and/or scientific and technological development. This particular rationale of the convention is explained with reference to contemporary social conflict induced by environmental politics in the Republic of Ireland.

Does foreign aid alleviate violent tensions

Abstract: Throughout most of its history, donors have perceived official development assistance (ODA) as a potentially helpful and mostly harmless form of intervention. Despite some destructive consequences, it was not until the late 1990s when the donor community realised that badly designed and insensitively implemented ODA can be just as disastrous to the recipient society as poorly executed military interventions or indiscriminate economic sanctions. Increasing interest in the impact of economic assistance on conflict made all major donor agencies adopt guidelines to avoid harming recipient societies and to maximise the positive impact of their aid on peace. This paper summarises the key literature on the role of ODA in ongoing conflicts as well as in times of peace, focusing on the influence of aid on violent tensions in the recipient societies. It traces the evolution of ideas which led to the recognition that aid can do harm. It argues that many of these connections, seemingly obvious, are unclear and likely...

Islam in the framework of Turkey–EU relations: situations in flux and moving targets

Abstract: The notion that Turkish potential membership has provoked—or exacerbated—an ‘identity crisis’ for the European Union is by now a familiar truism. This article is concerned with the specifically religious identity crisis sparked by the Turkish accession process to the (secular) European Union. It takes a broadly comparative approach to the role of Islam in the Turkish political sphere and the role of religion within the European Union, suggesting that a parallel examination sheds light on a number of telling similarities between the two pictures. Complex interplay between religion, secularism, national identity and European identity is a recurrent theme here. Placed within the broader framework of discussions on the place of religion in the European public sphere, this examination yields insight into the state of flux characterising religion in Europe, which, in turn, may bear repercussions for Islam in the Turkish political sphere, for Islam within the EU and for Turkey–EU relations.

World state or global governmentality? Constitutive power and resistance in a post-imperial world

Abstract: This article addresses recent theoretical discussion about the state under conditions of globalisation, focusing in particular on recently popular ‘world state’ theory, as articulated by Martin Shaw and Alexander Wendt. It suggests that while world state theory is useful to the extent that it historicises the function of the state, it can be challenged for its uncritical approach to the question of how state power is actually constituted. To make this argument, the article refers first to an emerging Marxist critique that focuses on liberal hypocrisy and the role of imperial violence in the formation of the world state. However, while this approach reveals the elision of many forms of violence in world state theory, it shares world state theory's tendency to avoid exploring the role of more constitutive forms of power. Challenging this view, the article turns to Foucault's theory of governmentality and some recent applications of it to Imperialism, Empire, and the War on Terror. These works speak not only...

The Unhappy Marriage Between International Relations Theory and International Law

Abstract: As the world moves into a particularly fluid phase of global politics, interdisciplinary engagement between international law and international relations is becoming a critical task. Reformulating how we theorise the ‘global’ will be central to the development of institutions, laws, policies, and norms that govern how we manage conflict, deal with environmental challenges, smooth out the highly uneven political economy, and allow new political communities to develop beyond the nation-state. The role of international law and international relations scholarship will be central to this endeavour. Practitioners and policymakers have a particular responsibility to help develop and shape new global systems and institutions. Teachers have a responsibility to current and future generations of young scholars to equip them with the requisite intellectual tools for making choices in the policy arena that frequently straddle the various levels of international law and international relations. This article explores ho...

Chinese Northeast Asia policies and the tragedy of Northeast Asia's security architecture

Abstract: China's status-quo-oriented post-Cold-War grand strategy of promoting cooperative security and multipolarity on the basis of the UN system is not applied in Northeast Asia. China's definition of its interests in Northeast Asia runs up against those promoted by the US alliance system, and no common political framework exists to encourage Beijing and Washington to adopt definitions that correspond to global rules of proper state conduct. Scholars and policymakers often base their analyses of Northeast Asian strategic uncertainty on the assumption that China applies its grand strategy in Northeast Asia as elsewhere, but that the regional context makes successful implementation difficult. This article instead argues that China has persuaded the international community that Northeast Asia is a region where special rules apply, justifying that Chinese policies towards Taiwan, Japan and the Korean peninsula are exempt from the principles of state conduct underpinning China's global grand strategy.

Islam and the West: the clash of values

Abstract: Whether or not the notion of the world as made of civilizations in varying degrees of alliance or conflict is valid, and however reliable or unreliable the idea of an ‘Islamic World’ or a ‘Western World’, it is an indisputable reality that there are histories and institutions that are described by and purport to be ‘of the West’ and ‘of Islam’. Indeed, it is commonplace in discourse about international affairs to refer to Islam and the West as distinguishable by values and the 57 nations that comprise the Organization of the Islamic Conference (the OIC) and the 47 nations that comprise the Council of Europe (COE) purport to represent the values respectively of Islam and the West. As usually expressed, however, the frequently used comparative values individualism, piety, liberalism, rule of law, family, abstemiousness and so on are, epistemologically, arguably worthless. Can values be identified for Islam and the West that provide an epistemologically valid distinction? When the OIC and the COE are analyse...

Twin towers of cultural confusion? Contemporary crises of identity in Europe and European Islam

Abstract: This article analyses the social and cultural dislocation that Muslim communities are currently experiencing in contemporary European society against the background of an increasingly vague and ill-defined European socio-cultural identity. The principal objective is to assess whether this dislocation should be interpreted as a problem pertaining to Islam or to what extent it mirrors and is fuelled by Europe's own cultural dilemma. As such, the article examines the current socio-cultural impasse that overshadows much of the relationship between Muslim communities and Europe in order to assess the implications of this major internal challenge to the future of the European project.

Military intervention and humanitarian assistance

Abstract: The greater danger for a more just world order comes from too little, rather than too much, humanitarian intervention; there should be more, rather than fewer, military–civilian interactions; we sh...

The perception among Muslim minorities of host European countries: influence of legal status and citizenship

Abstract: Until the middle of the twentieth century, Muslims living in European countries were mainly indigenous people, completely assimilated with the rest of the population Both their religion and their representative organizations enjoyed legal recognition, sometimes centuries long A significant influx of immigrants of Muslim origin to Europe began in the mid twentieth century and a need for legal regulations sanctioning the status of Muslims within largely Christian societies became apparent Their situation in this respect differs from country to country, sometimes due to a lack of an organization that would represent all the Muslims in a particular country, sometimes because of legal technicalities In some countries, it is not even possible for Muslim immigrants to become citizens The legal situation of Islam and its adherents exerts an important influence on their attitude towards their new country of residence and towards Europe, as well as significantly influencing their loyalty

European values and the Muslim world: Turkish cases at the European Court of Human Rights

Abstract: ‘Europe’ is supposed to be an Enlightenment project that embodies the accumulated experiences of modernity. This project declares that secularism and human rights are the basic conditions for creating an ideal world that is expected to be embodied within the institution of the European Union. The integration of Europe has been based above all on the acceptance of standardized human rights that are the expression of the heritage of the Enlightenment. The realization of human rights requires political neutrality towards all religions, which in turn guarantees the legal equality of all citizens. It is only if secularism can be made the social and legal foundation of Europe that Turkey's accession to the EU as a Muslim country might be made possible. Otherwise the EU is most likely to remain a Christian-oriented union within a non-secular context. However, there seems to be some resistance to accepting Turkey on religious grounds. This in turn undermines the so-called ‘European values’ (at the top of which is...

Europe between Islam and the United States: interests, identity and geopolitics

Abstract: Europe and its leaders, though they may not fully comprehend the significance of the events that are rapidly unfolding, and whether they like it or not, are key players in the historical process that will shape the geopolitics of the Middle East and Islam's response to the challenge of modernity. This is not say that Europe has it in its power to determine the choices that Iran and the Arab world will make, nor indeed should it attempt to do so. On the other hand, it does have a margin of manoeuvre which, depending on the way it is exercised, may tilt the balance in favour either of the politics of coexistence and cooperation or the politics of confrontation. European choices and capacities will revolve around four questions: How will European policies and attitudes position themselves vis-a-vis the Orientalist tendencies of the past? What steps might be taken to clear the backlog of unresolved geopolitical tensions and misunderstandings? Can Europe develop a programmatic approach to regional and internat...

The dilemmas of militant humanitarianism

Abstract: Let me begin by declaring my scepticism about the moral credentials of armed humanitarian intervention. My scepticism is not total, but it is pretty comprehensive. What I mean is that I am doubtful about the enthusiasm that exists in some quarters for the project of curing the human rights abuses around the world by the use of military might to invade other countries. And here I use ‘invade’ in that perfectly normal sense that means an intervention against the will of the incumbent governments of those countries. There may be some rare cases where this resort can be morally justified, but I claim that the moral and political presumption is standardly and rightly against it. To avoid confusion, I should expand a little on the ‘normal sense’ of invasion in relation to the phrase ‘military intervention’. By ‘military intervention’, I shall mean one power singly, or several powers jointly, acting without the express consent or invitation of the state invaded. Some would object that ‘intervention’ should have a wider meaning since outsiders should be taken to intervene even when the target country has agreed to their military presence. There is some linguistic justification for this proposal, especially where the consent is reluctant or pressured, but the more interesting moral issues arise when there is lack of consent, so I shall keep to the narrower interpretation. Hence, the Australian military response in East Timor does not count as intervention for me, because Indonesia agreed to the Australian presence. This agreement may have been unpopular in many Indonesian circles, but it meant that the ‘intervention’ was in a quite different moral and political category from an Australian invasion that had no consent from the Indonesian government. An adequate definition along these lines should probably include armed support for subversion as well as direct intervention. A problem for this style of definition arises for cases where there is in effect no government in control of a country, as can happen with what are often called ‘failed states’. Somalia for some time had no government and even now its ‘government’ is largely nominal. Other states may approximate to this sort of situation, though there are clearly dangers in powerful states jumping too quickly to the conclusion that some nation is ‘a failed state’. In any case, if there is no government, the question of acting with or against the government’s will does not arise. Such cases are rare enough perhaps to be treated as merely minor conceptual irritants upon the task of determining the morality of armed intervention. We might nonetheless very plausibly accommodate them under the definition by deeming any military incursion into a failed state an intervention on the grounds that it has necessarily been undertaken without the consent of an incumbent state. As for the humanitarian element, this motive has to be primary for an intervention to count as humanitarian, though it may co-exist with other motives. It is tempting to hold that an

Crises, interventions and profits: a political economic perspective

Abstract: Crises and interventions often generate opportunities for profitable business activities. This can have a significant effect on the outcomes of interventions. This article explores how economic interests can create crises and how the nature of interventions may be shaped by business interests. It looks further at the macroeconomic consequences of crises, the possibilities of corruption and neo-imperialism. Reference is made to examples of crises and interventions that illustrate these political economic concerns.