Showing papers in "Global Change, Peace & Security in 2010"
TL;DR: In this article, Transformative learning theory is used to understand the internal and cognitive processes inherent to radicalization, and apply it to homegrown terrorism, which helps explain how formerly non-violen...
Abstract: Since 2001, a preponderance of terrorist activity in Europe, North America, and Australia, has involved radicalized Westerners inspired by al Qaeda. Described as ‘homegrown terrorism’, perpetrators are citizens and residents born, raised, and educated within the countries they attack. While most scholars and policy-makers agree that radicalization plays a central role in persuading Westerners to embrace terrorism, little research properly investigates the internal and cognitive processes inherent to radicalization. Transformative learning theory, developed from the sciences in education, health, and rehabilitation, provides an unconventional and interdisciplinary way to understand the radicalization process. The theory suggests that sustained behavioural change can occur when critical reflection and the development of novel personal belief systems are provoked by specific triggering factors. In applying transformative learning theory to homegrown terrorism, this study helps explain how formerly non-violen...
153 citations
TL;DR: In the last decade some efforts have been made to fill this vacuum within the UN but they have faced considerable resistance, and instead initiatives have multiplied outside it as discussed by the authors, leading to almost a normative and institutional vacuum on energy.
Abstract: The link between energy, economic development and national security has often made governments reluctant to address energy in global governance. In the United Nations (UN) system and beyond, the result has been almost a normative and institutional vacuum on energy. In the last decade some efforts have been made to fill this vacuum within the UN but they have faced considerable resistance, and instead initiatives have multiplied outside it. This article outlines the dynamics of the low profile of the energy issue on the agenda of the UN since the organisation's birth, analyses in more detail the efforts to strengthen this agenda in the 2000s, and also why they failed. Finally, it discusses possible future options for the UN and the international community at large to address this urgent issue, situates this discussion in the rationalist and constructivist theories of effective and legitimate global governance and outlines further research avenues.
48 citations
TL;DR: The authors argues that Bei Beijing's handling of the Xinjiang and Uyghur issues at the domestic, regional and international levels is characterised by a number of contradictions, and that China's longstanding approach to Xinjiang is at risk of failure due to the contradictions inherent in the logic that underpins Beijing's strategy.
Abstract: This paper argues that Beiijing's handling of the Xinjiang and Uyghur issues at the domestic, regional and international levels is characterised by a number of contradictions. Domestically, the July 2009 unrest suggests that China's longstanding approach to Xinjiang is at risk of failure due to the contradictions inherent in the logic that underpins Beijing's strategy. Regionally, Beijing faces a contradiction between its growing influence on the governments of Central Asia and the ambivalent attitude of Central Asian publics towards China. Internationally, the major implication of the July unrest has been to signal the internationalisation of the Uyghur issue whereby it has become a significant irritant in Beijing's relations with a number of major Western states, including the USA and Australia. It has been Beijing's own approach to Xinjiang domestically and its handling of the Uyghur issue in its diplomacy that has contributed to the internationalisation of the issue.
32 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyzed all major earthquakes, floods, storms, and tsunamis between 1950 and 2006 and found that serious disaster increases the general likelihood of conflict initiation, and reached two key conclusions about the specific causal mechanisms driving post-disaster conflict.
Abstract: This article asks under what circumstances natural disaster can lead to interstate conflict initiation. Through an analysis of all major earthquakes, floods, storms, and tsunamis between 1950 and 2006, I find that serious disaster increases the general likelihood of conflict initiation, and I reach two key conclusions about the specific causal mechanisms driving post-disaster conflict. First, I show that there is not a single instance of a rival or opponent state taking the opportunity to initiate military conflict in the aftermath of serious disaster. This finding supports the developing literature on ‘disaster diplomacy’. Second, there are, however, cases in which states with a recent history of significant civil disruption initiate such conflicts themselves. In these situations, disaster can contribute to the conflict environment and can make conflict initiation significantly more likely. I find that, counter-intuitively, it is the very states most vulnerable and most weakened by disaster that are like...
32 citations
TL;DR: This article argued that the proceedings of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) have contributed to an identity crisis among the Serbs, and identified the issues of individual versus collective guilt and legal versus political trials as major factors.
Abstract: Being attentive to initial reconstruction of identities in post-conflict environments is critical because robust group images are absent and there remains time and space for shifts in policy. Applying theories of social psychology, overlooked in literature on ethnic violence, peace-building, and reconciliation, this article examines characteristics and consequences of the emerging socio-psychological trend of ‘defensive nationalism’ in post-conflict Serb narratives. The article argues that the proceedings of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) have contributed to an identity crisis among the Serbs, and identifies the issues of ‘individual versus collective’ guilt and ‘legal versus political’ trials as major factors. The destabilization of the Serb self-image on the global scene has instigated new, and furthered old, forms of defensiveness, leading to the dismissal of the tribunal's proceedings in favor of contradictory and conspiracy accounts. The point of conducting fair ...
23 citations
TL;DR: The work of religious non-governmental organisations (RNGOs) at the United Nations and their engagement with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) within the UN system is discussed in this article.
Abstract: This article reflects on religious non-governmental organisations (RNGOs) at the United Nations and their engagement with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) within the UN system. It also situates this engagement within the wider context of contemporary global civil society. It aims to give an introduction to the contemporary situation of religious NGOs at the UN and some of the related and critically debated issues, making use of in-depth interviews with key actors, relevant literature and other documentary materials, as well as selected examples of three major RNGOs engaging with the MDGs. An improved understanding of the work of religious NGOs at the UN and the historical context in which their work takes place can make valuable contributions: it can inform UN agencies and government agencies' policy recommendations and planning decisions, it can enhance self-reflection by civil society organisations, and it can help to identify common ground for all these actors as they seek to develop multi-stake...
22 citations
TL;DR: Carmola et al. as discussed by the authors discuss risk, law and ethics in private security contractors and new wars, and present a case study of a private security contractor and a new war.
Abstract: Private security contractors and new wars: risk, law and ethics, by Kateri Carmola. London and New York, Routledge, 2010, 189 pp., US$140 (hardback), ISBN 978-0-415-77171-9
20 citations
TL;DR: In May 2009, Sri Lanka's government declared that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had been defeated as discussed by the authors, which was later confirmed by the United Nations.
Abstract: In May 2009 Sri Lanka's government proclaimed that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which spent 26 years waging a brutal war to create a separate state, had been defeated.1 Amidst the j...
19 citations
TL;DR: The work of the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) as discussed by the authors, an independent body established by the government of Thailand to address a violent conflict in the country's southern border provinces, was examined.
Abstract: This article examines the work of the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) (2005–06), an independent body established by the government of Thailand to address a violent conflict in the country's southern border provinces. From the outset, the 50-member NRC chaired by former Prime Minister Anand Panyarachun was too large and unwieldy to function effectively. At the most basic level, there was a lack of trust and openness among the Commission's members which curtailed frank discussions. Because the political dimensions of the conflict were seen as off-limits, for a variety of cultural and historical reasons, the NRC produced a report that emphasized issues of justice, but failed to engage with the core questions underpinning the violence. Locating the NRC within an emerging global landscape of comparable ‘truth commissions’, the article argues that however well-intentioned, the Thai commission lacked clear goals, and was rather disappointing in its achievements.
18 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors propose that values of justice, freedom, equality, and peace are critical for cross-cultural conflict resolution and should be promoted through conflict resolution processes, which will assist in creating overarching goals, needs and interests as well as producing lasting outcomes.
Abstract: The need to promote common goals, aspirations and shared values in the resolution of cross-cultural conflicts cannot be over-emphasized. Conflict resolution processes seek to find ways of satisfying the interests of all parties in conflict whilst promoting dialogue on issues that appear intractable. To achieve lasting outcomes, conflict resolution processes must assist in defining overarching needs, goals and interests. This article proposes that values of justice, freedom, equality, and peace are critical for cross-cultural conflict resolution and should be promoted through conflict resolution processes. Promoting values through conflict resolution processes will assist in creating overarching goals, needs and interests as well as producing lasting outcomes. In addition, promoting values will pave the way for addressing the root causes of cross-cultural conflicts.
16 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that "the absence of conflict is not the absence of conflicts, but the presence of creative alternatives for responding to conflict" - alternatives to passive or aggressive responses, alternatives to violence.
Abstract: Peace is not the absence of conflict but the presence of creative alternatives for responding to conflict – alternatives to passive or aggressive responses, alternatives to violence. (Dorothy Thompson, 1893–1961, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Thompson)
TL;DR: Walk with us and listen: political reconciliation in Africa, by Charles Villa-Vicencio, Washington, DC, Georgetown University Press, 2009, 248 pp., US$29.95 (paperback), ISBN 978-1-58901-572-2
Abstract: Walk with us and listen: political reconciliation in Africa, by Charles Villa-Vicencio, Washington, DC, Georgetown University Press, 2009, 248 pp., US$29.95 (paperback), ISBN 978-1-58901-572-2
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that an interactionist paradigm is needed for Sri Lanka to progress towards permanent just peace and genuine national reconciliation and argue that a paradigm shift is necessary if a genuine end to the destructive socioeconomic and political tensions is to be brought about.
Abstract: Introduction This essay argues that an interactionist paradigm is needed for Sri Lanka to progress towards a permanent just peace and genuine national reconciliation. The country’s elite, however, even after the military defeat of the separatist insurgency, continues to deal with the issue within a conflict paradigm. A paradigm shift is necessary if a genuine end to the destructive socioeconomic and political tensions is to be brought about. The scope of this article will be limited to looking at the causes of political violence in the island and the groundwork needed for political reconciliation to avoid a recurrence of such violence.
TL;DR: In May 2009, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were defeated by the Sri Lankan Armed Forces after a protracted war in which thousands of civilians and soldiers died as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: In May 2009 the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were defeated by the Sri Lankan Armed Forces after a protracted war in which thousands of civilians and soldiers died. This was the end of an...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a comprehensive critique of the concept of human security, for which the reader should look to some of the authors cited here and those whom they cite.
Abstract: This paper is not a comprehensive critique of the concept of human security, for which the reader should look to some of the authors cited here and those whom they cite. Rather, it is based on rema...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors re-evaluated the claim that civil conflicts are more likely to occur in semi-democracies than in either autocracies or democracies through multinomial regression analysis and found that only democracies have a significantly lower probability of experiencing intrastate fighting and warfare.
Abstract: Previous studies nearly unanimously agree that civil conflicts are more likely to occur in semi-democracies than in either autocracies or democracies. Through multinomial regression analysis, this article re-evaluates this claim by testing the relationship between regime type and civil conflict for the post-Cold War period. Controlling for the material wealth of a country, the heterogeneity of the population, income inequalities and the size of the state, this research finds that the occurrence of minor intrastate wars (25 to 1000 deaths) and major civil wars (more than 1000 deaths) does not differ between hybrid regimes and autocracies. Only democracies have a significantly lower probability of experiencing intrastate fighting and warfare.
TL;DR: It's the 1990s. The Cold War is over. Europe coalesces into a Union. The cool kids are listening to techno, hip-hop, and grunge as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: It's the 1990s. The Cold War is over. McDonald's opens in Moscow. The cool kids are listening to techno, hip-hop, and grunge. Europe coalesces into a Union. Racism is a faux pas. The food is stacke...
TL;DR: The Naga intra-community dialogue has gained strong momentum since 2000 as a result of its growing capacity to address issues of violence and security in Naga-inhabited areas in India.
Abstract: The Naga intra-community dialogue is one of the most distinctive community-based dialogue processes in the world for the prevention, management and resolution of violent ethnic conflicts. Ongoing since the 1950s, the Naga dialogue has gained strong momentum since 2000 as a result of its growing capacity to address issues of violence and security in Naga-inhabited areas in India. The dialogue enjoys popular support as the formal ceasefire agreements between the Union Government and the Naga militant actors have failed to address issues of inter-factional violence and civilian deaths. The article argues that the Naga intra-community dialogue enjoys legitimacy in Naga society due to its representative character and visible impact in controlling the ‘escalation’ of violence in society. The article also argues that the formal Naga peace negotiations between the Government of India and the National Socialist Council of Nagalim-Isak-Muivah–NSCN (IM) will become more effective and inclusive in character if it is ...
TL;DR: In a little-known, obscure essay published in 1952, Martin Wight seems to have embraced this method in an effort to analyse Europe's balance of power as it was precariously poised in March 1939 as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Imaginary dialogues may have been a persistent feature of political and international thought from Thucydides’s History of the Peloponnesian War and Plato’s Republic to Hobbes’s Behemoth, but they are far less common in modern times. In a little-known, obscure essay published in 1952, Martin Wight seems to have embraced this method in an effort to analyse Europe’s balance of power as it was precariously poised in March 1939. But Wight does more than just analyse the balance of power here, he also dramatizes it; breathing life back into the protagonists of Europe’s 20 years’ crisis as they face the consequences of Hitler’s 15 March invasion of Czechoslovakia. By putting words into the protagonists’ mouths in the style of Thucydides, Wight is able to reconstruct the situation, with all its ideological disagreements, political grievances and strategic interests. Michele Chiaruzzi’s article is a reflection on this dialogic text written by Wight for the Royal Institute of International Affairs’s Survey of International Affairs, a series under the editorship of Arnold J. Toynbee. The article that follows appears as an Epilogue to Chiaruzzi’s eloquent recent book, Politica di Potenza nell’Eta del Leviatano: La Teoria Internazionale di Martin Wight (Power Politics in the Age of Leviathan: The International Theory of Martin Wight). This book straddles two bodies of literature: the ever-expanding literature on the English School and its key protagonists, and the Italian study of international relations theory.Chiaruzzi ends his book with the following Epilogue which serves as an introduction to an Italian translation of Wight’s three-cornered dialogue. It is to be hoped that Chiaruzzi’s efforts will at least raise awareness of Wight’s neglected essay on the balance of power and encourage greater reflection on the insights yielded through dialogic texts, but if it encourages greater interest in Italian contributions to the study of international, so much the better. © 2010 Societa editrice il Mulino
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors consider the different approaches to criminal responsibility for minors in domestic legal systems and under international law, and conclude that the prosecution of child soldiers should only be pursued in exceptional circumstances.
Abstract: There is considerable disagreement among governments, civil society groups and scholars as to whether the prosecution of child soldiers who have committed war crimes is ever appropriate. In one camp are those who argue that child soldiers should always be considered as victims, and that prosecutions are necessarily at odds with rehabilitation and reintegration efforts. On the other side of the debate are those who maintain that the prosecution of the worst child offenders – those who have occupied command positions in armed forces, and carried out particularly egregious crimes – can help to end impunity for war criminals and bring a degree of solace to the victims of their brutal assaults. This article considers the different approaches to criminal responsibility for minors in domestic legal systems and under international law, and concludes that the prosecution of child soldiers should only be pursued in exceptional circumstances.
TL;DR: The authors argue that there is, in fact, something novel about today's ideological landscape: a new social imaginary is on the rise, defined here as the expansion and intensification of social relations and consciousness across world time and world space.
Abstract: The defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945 and the collapse of the Soviet Empire in 1991 enticed scores of Western commentators to relegate ‘ideology’ to the dustbin of history. Proclaiming a radically new era in human history, they argued that ideology had ended with the final triumph of liberal capitalism. This dream of a universal set of political ideas ruling the world came crashing down with the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001. Since then, influential political leaders have argued that the contest with jihadist Islamism represents much more than the military conflict. It is, as Presidents Bush and Obama put it, the ‘decisive ideological struggle of our time’. Far from being moribund, then, competing political belief systems are alive and well in the early twenty-first century. But which ideologies? Liberalism? Conservatism? Socialism? This is where the confusion starts. Recognizing that ideology has not ended, we nonetheless grope for words to name what is actually new. What have we come up with so far? Neoliberalism. Neoconservatism. Neofascism. Postmarxism. Postmodernism. Postcolonialism. And so on. The remarkable proliferation of prefixes like ‘neo’ and ‘post’ that adorn conventional ‘isms’ casts a long shadow on the contemporary relevance of traditional political ideologies. Is there, indeed, something genuinely ‘neo’ about today’s ‘-isms’? Have we really moved ‘post’ our familiar ideational constellations? If so, what are the implications of transforming ideologies for students of globalization? I argue that there is, in fact, something novel about today’s ideological landscape: a new social imaginary is on the rise. It erupts with increasing frequency within and onto the familiar framework of the national, and across all geographical scales. Stoked by, among other things, scientific innovation and migration dynamics, this ‘global imaginary’ destabilizes the grand political ideologies codified by social elites in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Thus, our changing ideational constellations are intimately related to the forces of globalization, defined here as the expansion and intensification of social relations and consciousness across world time and world space.
TL;DR: In this article, the focus is placed upon Islam and the Sufi teachings that articulate Islamic mysticism, and those of Bawa Muhaiyadden, a Sufi saint and sage are briefly outlined.
Abstract: In the modernist context that frames contemporary world affairs, questions about the pursuit of world peace are typically answered in terms that prioritize the use of reason as an end in itself. Modernist rationalism is not the only way in which questions about the pursuit of peace can be asked and answered, however. There are sacralist alternatives to it and there are cosmopious alternatives to both modernism and sacralism. Cosmopiety is the heart of every global religion. Since in this article the sacral focus is placed upon Islam, it is therefore placed upon the Sufi teachings that articulate Islamic mysticism. To show what such teachings entail, those of Bawa Muhaiyadden, a Sufi saint and sage, are briefly outlined.
TL;DR: In this article, the role of nature in conflict transformation and peacebuilding is examined, and the results of studies highlighting nature's function in human evolution and in improving mental health and well-being.
Abstract: Winning essay: the 2009 Routledge – GCP&S Essay Competition† Scholars often re-tell and analyze peacebuilding stories as independent of locale, as though place does not matter. Inspired by a Mayan priest's observation that academic peacebuilding frameworks are missing ‘the earth and skies, the winds and rocks’, this article examines the role of nature in conflict transformation and peacebuilding. It reviews the results of studies highlighting nature's function in human evolution and in improving mental health and well-being. It then presents three case studies of peacebuilding processes in which participants interacted with one another in natural settings. When these cases are taken at the convergence of the empirical research on nature's emotional and physiological benefits to human beings, a meaningful pattern emerges. Each case becomes understood as tied to the ecologies of the place where participants engaged with one another, thus suggesting that nature is an active yet overlooked participant in conf...
TL;DR: The round-the-clock sit-in protest by the Takae residents against the construction of US military helipads in their area continues to this day as discussed by the authors, despite the non-fulfillment of legal requirements, such as obtaining an environmental impact assessment.
Abstract: The round-the-clock sit-in protest by the Takae residents against the construction of US military helipads in their area continues to this day. The planned helipads are to be built around Takae, an area that is close to the US Marine Corps’ Jungle Warfare Training Center (the Northern Training Area), which covers 7500 hectares. Takae provides the best environment for training the US military in survival skills. The training center is the only US Marine training center of its kind in the world. Since 2 July 2007, the sit-in protesters have been strongly demanding that the construction of the helipads be stopped; their primary objection is that the presence of these helipads will disrupt the peaceful life of Takae’s local residents. The construction of the military infrastructure has begun despite the non-fulfillment of legal requirements, such as obtaining an environmental impact assessment. Takae is located in the northern part of a tiny village called Higashi-son in the Kunigami-gun area of Okinawa Prefecture. It takes more than three hours by bus to get there from Naha, the capital of Okinawa. Takae has a population of around one hundred and sixty, and 20% of the population consists of children of junior high school age or under. The local people are very proud of Takae’s beautiful, subtropical environment and call their neighborhood the ‘oriental Galapagos’, or yanbaru, which, in the local Okinawan dialect, means the region of mountains and forests in northern Okinawa. The subtropical environment is recognized as an important habitat for several local species of birds, reptiles, and mammals, including the Okinawa woodpecker and the Okinawa rail. According to WWF Japan, the area serves as the habitat for more than four thousand wildlife species, of which 11 indigenous animals and 12 indigenous plants are unique and thus cannot be found anywhere else in the world. The following quotation from a member of Takae’s local environmental protection group gives us an insight into the daily lives of the inhabitants of the district:
TL;DR: The Rise of the Global Imaginary as discussed by the authors is a seminal work in the study of political change in the 21st century, and it is the most important work to date in the field of political economy.
Abstract: Mongolian hip-hop artists import an American idiom, a commercialized cooptation of counterhegemony, to voice nationalist opposition to Chinese regional imperialism – evoking the forbidden heritage of Genghis Khan from a previous wave of hegemony, and citing the transgressive influences of Michael Jackson and shamanic drumming. This is not your father’s globalization. ‘The old is fading away and the new is not yet born. . .’ Globalization is a process of increasing connection, communication, commodification and institutional cosmopolitanism, with contradictory consequences for human well-being. The question is how much, and how, these changes have changed our consciousness – and what impact changes in consciousness will have on the subsequent development of the realities that constructed them. In the maximal reading of the ‘soft power’ of information, the era of globalization is uniquely susceptible to such transformation: ‘The new power lies in the codes of information and in the images of representation around which societies organize their institutions, and people build their lives, and decide their behavior. The sites of this power are people’s minds.’ In The Rise of the Global Imaginary, Manfred Steger offers a path-breaking and important analysis of this problematic. His work masterfully deconstructs the master narrative of globalism, and advances our understanding of the grammar of ideas. Steger’s opus very usefully expands the presentist political economy debate to a historically rich account of the central process of social change of our times. Yet his own vision falls short of its full potential when it remains ineluctably Western and totalizing. Steger’s central, powerful insight is to show that seemingly diverse ideologies of an era are grounded in a common political unconscious that sets the terms of debate – and indeed, of identity. His discussion of how the national imaginary informs the liberal, conservative, and even socialist ideologies elucidates vast swathes of history, including both world wars. With the rise of the national, the doctrine of citizenship instantiated membership and rights in the territorial state, and constructed the international as a society of states. Changes of government, the rise and fall of regime types like totalitarianism, and even international configuration (such as decolonization) were all family quarrels within the national imaginary. Steger innovatively shows how this imaginary is first transformed by the collective nationalist movements for third-world liberation, which end up forging a transnational consciousness of self-determination that extends to a global context. As he carries the concept forward to the global imaginary, Steger makes a convincing case that ‘Jihad vs. McWorld’ is a similar sort of argument, rather than a true ‘clash of civilizations’: a debate over outcomes in a mutually intelligible language by mutually recognized actors, not a