Showing papers on "Sovereignty published in 1985"

The Nation-State and Violence

Abstract: Introduction. 1. State, Society and Modern History. 2. The Traditional State: Domination and Military Power. 3. The Traditional State: Bureaucracy, Class, Ideology. 4. The Absolutist State and the Nation--State. 5. Capitalism, Industrialism and Social Transformation. 6. Capitalism and the State: From Absolutism to the Nation--State. 7. Administrative Power, Internal Pacification. 8. Class, Sovereignty and Citizenship. 9. Capitalist Development and the Industrialization of War. 10. Nation--States in the Global State System. 11. Modernity, Totalitarianism and Critical Theory. Notes. Bibliography. Index.

The Rani of Sirmur: An Essay in Reading the Archives

Abstract: Two years ago, when a conference with the title "Europe and Its Others" was proposed by the Sociology of Literature Group at Essex, I made some pious remarks about an alternative title, namely, "Europe as an Other." It has since then seemed to me that the proposed revision was ill-considered in at least two ways. First, it ignored the fact that the history and the theory that such a conference would want to expose are precisely those of how Europe had consolidated itself as sovereign subject by defining its colonies as "Others," even as it constituted them, for purposes of administration and the expansion of markets, into programmed near-images of that very sovereign self. Second, the proposed revision nostalgically assumed that a critique of imperialism would restore a sovereignty for the lost self of the colonies so that Europe could, once and for all, be put in the place of the other that it always was. It now seems to me that it is this kind of revisionary impulse that is allowing the emergence of the "Third World" as a convenient signifier. If instead we concentrated on documenting and theorizing the itinerary of the consolidation of Europe as sovereign subject, indeed sovereign and subject, then we would produce an alternative historical narrative of the "worlding" of what is today called "the Third World." To think of the Third World as distant cultures, exploited but with rich intact heritages waiting to be recovered, interpreted, and curricularized in English translation helps the emergence of "the Third World" as a signifier that allows us to forget that "worlding," even as it expands the empire of the discipline.'

Culture and History in Medieval Iceland: An Anthropological Analysis of Structure and Change

Abstract: In 930, Iceland first established a common law for the island and became an autonomous republic, which lasted until it came under the sovereignty of the Norwegian king nearly three and a half centuries later. This volume is a two-part analysis of that society, known as the Icelandic "commonwealth" or "Freestate." The first section examines how medieval Icelanders classified and perceived such domains as time, space, kinship, political organization, and cosmology, linking together these various realms to present an integrated picture of the society's world-view. The second section focuses on the changes that took place during the period in the fields of ecology, demography, religion, property relations, and the law, and explains how and why these changes, interacting with more fundamental social structures and beliefs, undermined--and ultimately destroyed--the society.

Sovereignty and coinage in classical Greece

Abstract: The Description for this book, Sovereignty and Coinage in Classical Greece, will be forthcoming.

The Quest for Justice: Aboriginal Peoples and Aboriginal Rights

Abstract: This collection of many voices develops more deeply and exhaustively the issues raised in the editors' earlier volume, Pathways to Self-Determination. It contains some twenty-three papers from representatives of the aboriginal people's organizations, of governments, and of a variety of academic disciplines, along with introductions and an epilogue by the editors and appendices of the key constitutional documents from 1763. The contributors represent a broad cross-section of tribal, geographic, and organizational perspectives. They discuss constitutional questions such as land rights, the concerns of Metis, non-status Indians, and Inuit; and native rights in broad contexts - historical, legal/constitutional, political, regional, and international. The issue of aboriginal rights and of what these rights mean in terms of land and sovereignty has become increasingly important on the Canadian political agenda. The constitutional conferences between government and aboriginal peoples have revealed the gulf between what each side means by aboriginal rights: for the Indians these rights are meaningless without sovereign self-government, an idea the federal and provincial governments are not willing to entertain. Somewhere in the middle lies the concept of nationhood status. Ultimately, the aboriginal peoples are asking for justice from the dominant society around them; if it is denied or felt to be denied, the editors conclude, the consequences for the Canadian self-concept would be costly and debilitating. The twenty-four contributors provide a find guide to this profound and complex problem, whose solution depends on our understanding and our political wisdom.

New Developments in Humanitarian Law: A Challenge to the Concept of Sovereignty

Abstract: THE four Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949,1 the main instruments of contemporary international humanitarian law, apply as a whole in an international armed conflict if at least two of the High Contracting Parties are parties to that conflict.2 The most striking problem of humanitarian law today is its general lack of applicability. In the past 15 years several internal and international armed conflicts have occurred. However, in almost every case at least one of the parties to the conflict did not consider international humanitarian law to be applicable. This article will attempt to analyse this most difficult problem and to outline a possible solution.

European Community and nation-state: a case for a neo-federalism?

Abstract: The European states did not afford their citizens security and prosperity between 1914 and 1945. Many British writers put the blame on national sovereignty. Laski warned in 1933 that 'until we recognise that an interdependent economic world ... is incompatible with a system of political units which bears no relation to that inescapable unity, we shall have left untouched the central cause of war'.1 Robbins wrote in 1939 that 'the anarchic political organisation of the world is the root disease of our civilisation' and went on to advocate a European federation after Germany was restored to democracy.2 Such was the consensus by early 1940 that Ivor Jennings was able to start his book A federation for Western Europe by affirming that 'the desirability of replacing international anarchy by international government is so generally recognised in Great Britain that it needs no demonstration'.3 Among the many academics, journalists and politicians who wrote at that time on that assumption, a number, including Beveridge, Brailsford, Hayek, Jennings, Robbins, Wilson and Wootton, worked together in the Federal Union Research Institute to produce proposals for a postwar European federation, centred on Britain, France and a democratic Germany, with a federal legislature, executive and court, with its own armed forces and basic economic powers, and with federal laws and taxes applying directly to the European citizen.4 This remarkable intellectual effort accompanied a major movement of public opinion, with Federal Union, the organization founded in 1939 to promote the idea, gaining 10,000 members by the spring of 1940, and with editorial support from The Times, The Guardian, The New Statesman and The Spectator.5 This may help to explain why, when Churchill presented to the Cabinet on 16 June 1940 the proposal that 'France and Britain shall no longer be two nations, but one Franco-British Union', with common citizenship and a common executive, he saw to his surprise 'the staid, solid, experienced politicians of all parties engage themselves so passionately in an

Labour and the British State

Abstract: This book takes a fresh look at the basic nature of the British government as seen through the eyes of the Labour Party. In recent years, four issues have emerged that underline Labour's historically ambivalent attitude toward the State and raise the State as a major political question in its own right: Labour's attitude toward the machinery of the State: Labour's relationship to the machinery of the State; Labour's relationship to the industrial State; Labour's identification with the territorial integrity of the State in the face of rising Scottish and Welsh nationalism; and Labour's response to the threats posed to the State's sovereignty by the Northern Ireland conflict and Britain's membership in the European Community. This study explores the implications of these four issues, and examines what influences Labour's attitude toward the State and how the Labour Party has adapted to the State's institutions.

The Beagle Channel: Confrontation and Negotiation in the Southern Cone

Abstract: At the Vatican, on 2 May 1985, representatives of Chile and Argentina signed a treaty to end the Beagle Channel dispute, the last major territorial conflict between the two nations. The treaty was a tribute to the professionalism of the negotiators of both countries as well as of the Vatican mediators, and it represented a major foreign policy triumph for President Raul Alfonsin, head of Argentina's democratically-elected civilian government. Alfonsin's position on key issues, such as sovereignty over the islands within the channel, contrasted sharply with those of his military predecessors. According to Vatican officials, it was Alfonsin's flexibility that laid the groundwork for resolution of the issue (New York Times, 1984a). Chilean willingness to accede to fundamental Argentine demands was also crucial to resolution.

Ideals and Things: International Legal Scholarship and the Prison-House of Language

Abstract: This chapter lists some of the main inquiries that are subsumed under the positivist and naturalist theories about the source of law. It shows how the reification involved in the way the question was posed has limited, warped and frustrated both sets of theoretical efforts. Positivism is, or was until recently, the dominant school of jurisprudential thought in international law. The main "opposition" to positivist international legal scholarship has always come from the proponents of natural law. Positivists asserted that the normative force of international law came from the fact that the sovereign had consented to it. The chapter also shows how Western "analytic" or "formal" juris-prudes produced exactly the same kind of arguments as the contemporary "ideological" theorists they have excoriated for being partisan. The strange thing about complex and contradictory yearnings is that the very language in which they are expressed tends both to exacerbate them and to deny us the possibility of ever dealing with them.

From Sovereignty to Process: The Jurisprudence of Federalism after Garcia

Abstract: On February 19, 1985, the Supreme Court, in Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority,' overruled its 1976 decision in National League of Cities v. Usery.2 Although the continued vitality of National League of Cities had been in question in recent years,3 the Court's abrupt repudiation of the very principle announced in that case4 is an event of considerable significance, beyond showing, one more time, that the rule of stare decisis has a limited application in the Court's modern constitutional adjudication.5 Garcia's impor-

The State and Public Bureaucracies: A Comparative and Historical Perspective

Abstract: In its conventional Weberian version, “the state” is used to refer to human associations that successfully claim the monopoly of legitimate use of physical force within a given territory. In this conception, the state is presumed to have final authority, i.e., sovereignty as first formulated by Jean Bodin. As elaborated by David Easton, such a state is a neutral “transformatory structure” that would be “captured” by elected regimes, and used as an instrument for their own specific political purposes.

Keeping India in the Commonwealth: British Political and Military Aims, 1947-49:

Abstract: On 27 April 1949, the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference in London accepted India's request to allow her to remain in the Commonwealth as a republic. The Indian republic would not owe allegiance to the British Crown, which was the keystone of the Commonwealth, and the King would have no place in the government of India. This settlement marked a break with the Statute of Westminster of 1931, which had declared Commonwealth members to be united by 'a common allegiance to the Crown'. Republicanism, in the past synonymous with secession, was now accepted as compatible with full membership. The resolution passed by the constituent assembly on 22 January 1947 had declared that India would become a sovereign, independent republic. However, in order to facilitate a smooth transfer of power, India agreed to temporary dominion status in August 1947, although no final decision about continuing membership in the Commonwealth was then taken. It was in December 1948 that the Congress passed a resolution expressing the desire of a republican India for continued association with the Commonwealth.' India's reasons for wishing to stay in the Commonwealth as a republic have already been analysed by historians.2 Why the British acceded to India's request has not been detailed so far. Two main questions will therefore be raised in this paper, which is based largely on official British sources made available to scholars only recently under the third year rule. First, how did the British conceive the Commonwealth in the post-1945 era; second, why did they wish to keep India in it? Partly by accident, partly by deliberation, the Commonwealth had seldom been defined. Lord Rosebery is first said to have used the term in 1884, while assuring an Australian audience that the 'fact of your being a nation need not imply any separation from the Empire... There is no need for any nation, however great, leaving the Empire, because the Empire is a commonwealth of nations.' English socialists apparently liked the idea of a Commonwealth of communities flying the British flag. That ideologue of the Commonwealth, Lionel Curtis, considered

Decolonisation and Local Government in Namibia: the Neo-Apartheid Plan, 1977–83

Abstract: Namibia is distinctive in Africa for at least three significant reasons. First of all, it remains the continent's last colony in defiance of world opinion and the United Nations. Secondly, it has experienced Africa's longest armed liberation struggle apart from South Africa, with no end yet in sight. Thirdly, and most importantly, that conflict is not being waged against some distant metropolitan power, but Namibia's dominant and pariah neighbour. Just as this geographical contiguity has facilitated South African attempts to retain control over Namibia, it seems certain to impose severe constraints on the scope for pursuing independent policies once Namibian sovereignty is finally achieved.

National Growth and International Conflict: A Reevaluation of Choucri and North's Thesis

Abstract: Choucri and North's thesis that major powers characterized by a growing population, technology, and military capability but with limited access to scarce resources will acquire sovereignty over resource-producing states and in the process become more conflict oriented is reinvestigated. It was found that the territorially expanding and conflict-oriented powers of the 1870-1913 period (the era investigated by Choucri and North) either produced in sufficient amounts the resources most important to their needs (e.g., coal, petroleum, iron ore) or had access to these resources from sovereign, industrially developing nations. Consequently, the Choucri-North framework, with its emphasis on resource shortages being the catalyst of major power international expansion and conflict, does not appear to provide an effective direction for scholarship.

An Appraisal of the Early- Warning Indicators of Sovereign Loan Default in Country Risk Evaluation Systems

Abstract: Relative to domestic lending, international banks exercise less control over the aggregate process of sovereign loan and debt management, experience greater difficulty in assessing the creditworthiness of sovereign borrowers, and experience default on loans for political motives. For these reasons, practitioners of country risk analysis face a daunting task in their selection of variables and evaluation systems to represent and interpret the economic and socio-political phenomena which impinge upon and provoke debt repudiation. Despite analytical difficulties, there has been a growth in interest in recent years among private and official lending institutions in the systematic evaluation of country risk. This interest has been encouraged by a surge in the volume of sovereign loans (a high proportion of which is concentrated in a small number of countries), persistent depression, falling oil and commodity prices, and a fear of catastrophic bank failures.

Hobbes & the Two Kingdoms of God

Abstract: There was once, under Moses and his successors, a kingdom of God and there will be another after the second coming of Christ. But no such kingdom can exist in the present, and therefore rebellion against the sovereign, here and now, cannot be justified in its name. Going beyond this generally well-understood purpose of Hobbes's theology, Professor Schwartz argues here that the distinction between the Jewish and Christian Kingdoms of God, as Hobbes presents it, informs his discussion of a well-ordered commonwealth in Leviathan. This commonwealth avoids the defects of the Jewish kingdom-instability and confusion resulting from incorrect notions of sovereignty, liberty, and human nature-and its subjects, like those of the future Christian kingdom, are obedient to sovereign authority.

Self-Defence, International Law, and the Six Day War

Abstract: “As long as war is regarded as wicked,it will always have its fascination.”Oscar WildeAccording to the textbooks, the unfettered right of a state to go to war was, until modern times, regarded as one of the essential trappings of statehood, an indispensable aspect of sovereignty. Such a broad assertion does however require qualification, as ever since the time of Saint Augustine, scholars have attempted to set limits to the extent of the state's discretion to go to war. The task has not been an easy one, and it may indeed aptly be remarked that “Warfare has been as difficult to justify satisfactorily in theory as it has been endemic in practice”.

The Indians in American Society

Abstract: Today, perhaps more than at any other time, questions about the rights and sovereignty of American Indians are of vital public interest. Yet to understand the present status of the Indians in American society one must know the two centuries of United States history that lie behind it. In brief and elegant essays Prucha rejects popular approaches that see the history of Indian-white relations in terms of ruthless white aggression and proposes alternative themes of white paternalism, benevolent in its intentions, and its counterpart, Indian dependency. $15.95

The Problems of Extraterritorial Jurisdiction: Economic Sovereignty and the Search for a Solution

Abstract: IN this article it will be argued that none of the current approaches to "the problem of extraterritorial jurisdiction" is satisfactory, and that the complexity of the problem is such that a satisfactory solution based upon the development of case law or agreed allocations of jurisdiction is impracticable. The "problem" is in truth a bundle of closely related problems, each giving rise to distinct issues of law and policy. However, by acknowledging that the right to control certain elements of economic activity is an essential component of sovereignty, it may be possible to identify a legal principle-"'economic sovereignty"-to guide the resolution of jurisdictional disputes. This article tentatively outlines some possible ways in which attempts to identify the content of economic sovereignty might proceed. The article has three main sections: (1) an introduction to the problem; (2) an examination of some of the characteristics which distinguish different kinds of problem concerning extraterritorial jurisidiction; and (3) a sketch of the concept of economic sovereignty and of the role which it might play in resolving these conflicts. Most of the discussion is placed in the context of competition laws which have been the major, but not the only, source of jurisdictional disputes.

Federalism and Caudillismo in the Mexican Revolution: The Genesis of the Oaxaca Sovereignty Movement (1915–20)

Abstract: On 3 June 1915 the state legislature of Oaxaca in southern Mexico issued a decree which proclaimed that the 'free and sovereign state of Oaxaca reassumes its sovereignty until such time as constitutional order is restored in the republic' (i.e. in accordance with the Constitution of I857). Governor Jose Ines Davila therefore declared that the executive and legislative branches of the state government would assume control and responsibility over the federal agencies and services within the state. The justification for this dramatic course of action, taken at the height of a period of intense civil war in Mexico, was the decree issued by Venustiano Carranza in December 1914, which had suspended the Constitution in favour of a 'temporary' period of pre-constitutional government over which he was personally to retain strict executive control as First Chief of the Constitutionalist Army thus effectively dissolving the constitutional base of the federation.1 The immediate casus belli was the occupation of the town of Pochutla on Oaxaca's Pacific coast on I May by a detachment of Constitutionalist troops, in what Governor Ines Davila described as 'a preconceived plan of attack on the sovereignty of the state'.2 For the next five years a broad, uncoordinated, and often deeply divided coalition of all sectors of provincial oaxaquego society strove under the banner of the Oaxaca Sovereignty Movement to undermine the effectiveness and legitimacy of pre-Constitutionalist administration within the state. The raison d'etre of the Sovereignty Movement was the protection of the constitutional sovereignty of Oaxaca within the federation, under threat

The Other Air Battle: The American Pursuit of Post-War Civil Aviation Rights

Abstract: A.J. P. Taylor's view that wartime civil aviation discussions should remain in archival limbo has only been tentatively violated. For example Betsy Gidwitz's book,2 which provides an excellent picture of civil aviation politics, only dips into the intricacies of wartime diplomacy. Of course, complexity does not necessarily warrant research, but when one also notes that the I944 Chicago civil aviation conference occasioned the testiest exchanges of the war between Churchill and Roosevelt, one might be persuaded that the other air battle deserves some attention. By I939, flying by the seat of one's pants was no longer an accurate description of what went on in the air. However, technical developments were not complemented by international agreements. The I9I9 Paris and I928 Havana conventions and the international air traffic association all had very limited goals i.e. national air sovereignty and technical standardisation, and were far from universal in scope: the only U.S. carrier to join I.A.T.A. before its demise in I939 was Pan America. The paucity of international accord obliged countries to negotiate bilaterally. Consequently,

Without Justice For All: The Constitutional Rights of Aliens

Abstract: Elizabeth Hull examines the way American law and public policy affect America's non-citizens--permanent resident aliens, temporary vistors, undocumented aliens, and refugees fleeing persecution. The character and treatment of these noncitizens and their impact on the demography, culture, and quality of life in the United States are examined in detail. Also discussed are broader philosophical implications such as the roles and meanings of citizenship and national sovereignty, the role of the Supreme Court, the criteria for admission employed by policymakers, and the framework within which United States citizens weigh conflicting values.

The Politics of Constitutional Change in Industrial Nations: Redesigning the State

Abstract: During the last two decades serious attempts to alter basic constitutional structures have taken place in many industrial nations, even in those often thought to have highly stable political institutions. In some cases, such as Belgium and Spain, far-reaching constitutional changes have been put in place; in others advocates of reform have achieved only partial victories or have been entirely frustrated. In all cases, controversy over the constitution has been intense, involving basic conceptions of legitimacy, representation, sovereignty and the purposes of the state. Constitutional politics often reveals much about political life of modern societies that is obscured in day-to-day events. The results of constitutional changes can significantly affect the distribution of power, the ability to manage conflict and the outcomes of policy debates. This book explores the dynamics of constitutional politics through case studies of Spain, Belgium, Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, West Germany and Eastern Europe, including Poland, prepared by leading students of these countries. Other chapters draw out the more general patterns of constitutional politics, highlighting the pressures which lead to change, and the formidable obstacles confronting them.

Toward a reformulation of international refugee law

Abstract: This article examines the humanitarian premise on which refugee law rests and finds it tragically inadequate for our time. It observes that contemporary refugee law is primarily human rights law and was designed to relieve victims of defunct regimes. Today, however, the persecutors are existing governments, able to insist on the prerogatives of sovereignty while creating or helping to generate refugee crises, and likely to castigate as politically motivated the human rights claims made against them. Censuring these governments as persecutors often exacerbates a refugee crisis because it diminishes the opportunity to gain their necessary cooperation.This article promotes the more traditional concept of international law (as dealing with inter-state rights and obligations) as a key to the problem of the refugee. Its thesis is that the humanitarian premise of refugee law seriously limits, and even undermines, constructive response to the problem of the refugee, and that the problem becomes more manageable the more it is treated as a problem of relations and obligations among states. This article calls for a new foundation for refugee law built upon the fundamental principle of international law that every state is obligated to respect the territorial integrity and rights of other states. Territorial sovereignty includes both a state's right to exercise exclusive jurisdiction over its own territory and its legal obligation to prevent its subjects from committing acts which violate another state's sovereignty. Mass expulsions clearly run against the principle of territorial sovereignty because of the burden cast on receiving states. This article's new formulation of refugee law is designed to take advantage of the politics of sovereignty and articulates inter-state obligation as the basic foundation for international refugee protection and relief, replacing human rights principles at center stage. The goal is not to eliminate the humanitarian aspect, but to identify mass exodus as a matter of international legal responsibility, not just a violation of human rights ideals that states can denigrate on the basis of national sovereignty. This approach would avoid the moral judgments of humanitarianism and preserve and advance opportunity for negotiated resolution.

Global Problems: A Challenge to Cooperation Between States of Different Social Systems

Abstract: Human civilization is confronted with problems of a new and global character, increasingly influencing international relations and contributing to shaping the perspec tives of the state. States and systems of states require new methods to ease and gradually solve these problems. They necessitate constructive and realistic international cooperation between states based on equality of rights and sovereignty. To this end, a number of political and legal precedents are in place. These must be maintained and developed.

The Imperial Coronation of 1819: Awadh, the British and the Mughals

Abstract: The interaction among the expanding British, the regional rulers of the Gangetic plain, and Mughal Emperors stands central to Indian history during the first half of the nineteenth century. Each of these three groups determined to advance its own political and cultural values in the face of the conflicting expectations and assumptions of the other two. The English East India Company regarded itself as under the authority of the British Parliament and the sovereignty of the British crown. At the same time, the Company continued nominally to acknowledge the sovereignty of the Mughal Emperor, at least in India. The various regional rulers of north India, most prominently the rulers of the province of Awadh, acted and apparently perceived themselves as de facto independent of the Mughals while also symbolically submitted to Mughal sovereignty. The Mughal Emperors, whose power to command armies had faded to nothingness during the last half of the eighteenth century, continued to pretend to absolute sovereignty over virtually all of India until 1858. Each of these three groups wished to see the 1819 imperial coronation by the Awadh ruler as an overt proof of their own cultural values and of their understanding of their relationships to the others.