Genocide in Kosovo

Conclusion That Kosovo exploded with genocidal violence in 1999 and ultimately prompted outside intervention surprised few—it was a long-festering hotspot but one that fell low on the world politics priority lists, despite the brutal “wars of Yugoslav” succession that engulfed Serbia, Bosnia, and Croatia. But for a relatively small scale conflict in a rather unknown corner of the world, Kosovo’s crisis of 1998–1999 brought with it a host of complex issues that challenge the international community to this day. As with any issue or case in the area of genocide studies, attention and understanding must first go to the dramatic human suffering inflicted upon one group by another. The macro-level political, legal, and ethical discussion and debates swirling about Kosovo should not and must not obscure the powerful and provocative human element at play. First and foremost, the Kosovo issue revolves around how best to save lives following an explosion of genocidal violence. Simultaneously, however, Kosovo in 1999 exploded with ramifications for the future of state sovereignty, the United Nations, and understanding the causes of genocide, nation building, and humanitarianism in the twenty-first century.     

Stories from No Land: The Women of Srebrenica Speak Out

It is argued that the stories of the survivors of the Srebrenica massacre in 1995 have been neglected by the memorial culture of Bosnia and by the various national reports that investigated how the massacre could have taken place. The author argues that a satisfactory history of the genocide has to include the voices of the survivors, in this case, the women. These are stories of trauma that are hard to listen to. She compares listening to them to the difficulty historians experience in listening to the stories of other genocides like the Shoah/Holocaust, they are stories based on silence about what cannot be told. The argument relies on the oral history literature on listening to trauma as personal and subjective accounts of survival. They are not straightforward referential narratives. One narrative, the narrative of Sabaheta who lost her child and husband, is central to the piece. She is one of the women interviewed by the author. The interview expresses sorrow about loss and rage about the international community; these stories are interwoven. The narrative also describes through the eyes of the victim what she felt happened. The author is Dutch, so is part of the one nation – more than any other – that is accused of “doing nothing.” It was the Dutch army that was supposed to protect the civilian population of Srebrenica. The government of The Netherlands has halted any negotiation on financial support for the research as “the project does not help to overcome trauma.” She argues that giving a voice to the victim is a necessary step toward closure.     

Conceptual blockages and definitional dilemmas in the 'racial century': genocides of indigenous peoples and the Holocaust

Moses argues that the study of indigenous genocides and the Holocaust is marred by dogmatically held positions of rival scholarly communities, reflecting the genocidal traumas of the ethnic groups with which they are closely associated. In particular, those who study genocides of indigenous peoples in colonial contexts (and many others) object to the thesis of the Holocaust's 'uniqueness' or 'singularity' on the grounds that it overshadows 'lesser' or 'incomplete' indigenous genocides-if indeed they are considered genocides at all-that are considered marginal or even 'primitive', thereby reinforcing hegemonic Eurocentrism. They claim that the moral caché of indigenous survivors of colonialism is consequently diminished in comparison to that of Jews. Such scholars counter that genocide lies at the core of western civilization, and some extend its meaning to cover a wide variety of phenomena, thereby raising the issue of definition. These positions are reflected in the two schools of thought regarding genocide: liberals who emphasize intentionality and agency, and post-liberals who highlight impersonal structures and processes. The question almost raises itself: should the victim's point of view be authoritative in this regard, when different victim groups make incommensurable, indeed competing, claims? If we are to move beyond this unproductive intellectual and moral stalemate, rehearsing the now familiar arguments is insufficient. A critical perspective that transcends that of victims and perpetrators and their descendants is clearly necessary. Moses argues that laying bare the group traumas that block conceptual development and mutual recognition can aid in their being worked through, as well as in stimulating the critical reflection needed to rethink the relationship between the Holocaust and the indigenous genocides that preceded it. Such a perspective can transcend liberal and post-liberal positions if it links the colonial genocides of the 'racial century' (1850-1950) and the Holocaust to a single modernization process of accelerating violence related to nation-building that commenced in the European colonial periphery and culminated in the Holocaust.     

The United Nations and genocide: Prevention,intervention, and prosecution

Conclusion The UN has to date not been effective in preventing genocide, and has had only a slightly better record in stopping it. There have been occasions when its interventions has occurred only after a genocide has taken place, and even then its major focus has been on facilitating the provision of aid by non-governmental agencies rather than on the task of tracking down the perpetrators and bringing them to justice. The exceptions of the ICTY and the ICTR are so stark, in this regard, that they only serve to throw light on the many other genocidal events where the UN has not initiated measures against those responsible for carrying them out. In short, as a body the UN has no—until very recently—even approached the fulfillment of its mandate as articulated in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, and only rarely invoked Chapter VII of the UN Charter in order to intervene physically for the purpose of countering threats to peace or stopping conflict. Its strengths, so far as there have been any, have focused on balancing great power interests with demands to intervene more forcefully. While in the years up to 1989 this could be seen as a way of maintaining the peace (albeit over the broken bodies of victims of genocide in places such as Biafra, Cambodia, and East Timor), since then the UN has been required to act with greater resolve and purpose. The failures of Bosnia, Rwanda, and Kosovo must thus be seen as having been brought on by a transition from one international regime to another; from a Cold War regime in which the UN—s main role was one of preventing a third (and possibly nuclear) World War from breaking out, to a post-Cold War regime which appears increasingly to be characterized by the UN searching for a new role in which humanitarian issues are to assume a higher priority than they once did. Whether or not this will continue, of course, will depend on an extremely wide variety of circumstances—and at this time it is likely that only a few of these can accurately be anticipated.     

The Physical Basis of Voluntary Trade

The article discusses the conditions under which can we say that people enter the economic system voluntarily. “The Need for an Exit Option” briefly explains the philosophical argument that voluntary interaction requires an exit option—a reasonable alternative to participation in the projects of others. “The Treatment of Effective Forced Labor in Economic and Political Theory” considers the treatment of effectively forced interaction in economic and political theory. “Human Need” discusses theories of human need to determine the capabilities a person requires to have an acceptable exit option. “Capability in Cash, Kind, or Raw Resources” considers what form access to that level of capability should take—in cash, kind, or raw resources, concluding that a basic income guarantee is the most effective method to ensure an exit option in a modern, industrial economy.     

The China Code

China is evolving—it is becoming modern and international—but its trajectory will never intersect with the West’s. Fortunes have waxed and waned over thousands of years, but Chinese civilization has remained apart. Enduring fundamentals—morality rooted in stability, anti-individualism and a micro-analytic, balance-obsessed worldview—both fuel contemporary growth and preclude China’s ascendance as a superpower capable of projecting values abroad. A unifying “Confucian Conflict” between trenchant ambition and diffused anxiety also explains the actions and attitudes of ordinary Chinese people. This “street level” article articulates an “insecure or safe” continuum of twelve quintessentially behavioral characteristics that are observed in all realms of contemporary life including diplomacy, business, consumer behavior and social structure. They are: Ritualistic Observation, Robotic Depersonalization, Hierarchical Regimentation, Anxious Self-protection, Trust Facilitation, Pragmatic Elasticity, Incremental Progression, Released Repression, Confidence Projection, Epic Ambition, Scaled Mobilization and Joyful Celebration.     

Whose knowledge? What values? The comparative politics of patenting life forms in the United States and Europe

Over the past few decades, a variety of groups have begun to argue that the US and European patent systems do not adequately represent the public interest in their decision making and that they need to undergo fundamental changes to their structure and orientation. These challengers have adopted similar strategies—in terms of the venues chosen and the arguments, evidence, and rhetoric used—in each context. However, they have experienced more success in Europe than in the United States. This paper begins to explain this difference by arguing that the US and European patent policy domains have different “expertise barriers”—formal and informal rules that make it difficult for those without the knowledge that is recognized as relevant and legitimate in that domain to engage as equals.     

What was all the shouting about?: Strategic bargaining and protest at the WTO Third Ministerial Meeting

This article challenges key aspects of theories on norms evolution, transnational advocacy, and social movements. It demonstrates that the “emergence” phase of the “norms life cycle” model (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998) is more internally contested than currently interpreted. It develops two alternatives to the “boomerang” model of transnational advocacy (Keck and Sikkink 1998). It highlights and explains differences—rather than similarities—in the framing strategies of actors involved in globalized protests. It explores the influence of several key “microsociological factors” (Giugni 2002) on the evolution of those stragegies. Empirically the article focuses on the World Trade Organization's Third Ministerial meeting at Seattle in 1999. It analyzes why and how social movement actors framed different interpretations of the human rights at stake in the context of international trade. Framing innovations may have had short-term strategic value at Seattle, but did not lead to a unified understanding of human rights, either among activists themselves or among the government and corporate actors they sought to influence through protest.     

The Global and the Local in Our Contemporary Sports Cultures

The sports that billions follow in the world were largely creations of the “first globalization” under the aegis of 19th century Britain and — to a lesser extent — the United States and Canada. While their cultural dominance in their spaces of hegemonic existence have not abated, the current process of what has been termed the “second globalization” in the paper creates new realities that challenge the dominance of these established sports. Global stars are major agents in this re-structuration who, by dint of their amazing achievements on the global playing fields and courts, and sports’ inherently meritocratic nature tied to the salience of winning, foster a climate of cosmopolitanism.     

The chameleon of mens rea and the shifting guises of culture-specific genocidal intent in international criminal proceedings

This article examines the significance of the mens rea-related evidence present in the specific language and discourse identified in the records of the International Military Tribunal, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. The author argues that international proceedings have seen the emergence of a new type of evidence: a cognitive, linguistic, culturally determined plural of genocidal mens rea. As a result, the mental element of genocidal intent can neither be interpreted nor understood without an advanced forensic approach to the language used by the network of génocidaires. Based on a combination of cognitive and social science research with the humanities, the article applies a hybrid method of analysis to some of the genocide cases in international criminal justice and demonstrates how and why this approach ought to be introduced into the process of identification of the guilty minds of the architects of genocide.     

Are the powers of traditional leaders in South Africa compatible with women’s equal rights?: Three conceptual arguments

This paper is about conflicts of rights, and the particularly difficult challenges that such conflicts present when they entail women’s equality and claims of cultural recognition. South Africa since 1994 has presented a series of challenging—but by no means unique—circumstances many of which entail conflicting claims of rights. The central aim of this paper is, to make sense of the idea that the institution of traditional leadership can be sustained—and indeed given new, more concrete powers—in a democracy; and to explore the implications that this has for women’s equality and equal human rights. This is a particularly pertinent question in the South African context, and I think it is worth reiterating from the outset that there is a distinct impression that women’s equality is always “up for grabs” when other, perhaps more powerful interests, come into play, in a way that would be unacceptable for other aspects of identity, and therefore signifiers of equality. It would be inconceivable, for example, to countenance a claim for a hierarchical racial arrangement in a given community, no matter how deeply culturally entrenched that arrangement was, and regardless of how much support it (ostensibly) had from the community concerned. I think therefore that we are obliged to ask difficult questions about the new legislation on traditional leadership, and to put it under the microscope of political theory in assessing the claim that this is one way of recognizing people’s rights and freedoms in a new democracy. The Traditional Leadership and Governance Framework Act 2003, omits reference to the “powers” of traditional leaders, but rather refers to “functions and roles” which was regarded as something of a victory for women’s rights groups. However, the Commission on Gender Equality (CGE) and others point out that this victory has been all but nullified by the Communal Land Rights Act, 2004, which allocates powers of land administration to traditional councils, which are headed by traditional leaders. In any event, the “functions and roles” that traditional leaders are allocated in terms of the 2003 Act are sufficiently extensive that they may be seen to allocate “power” with the reference to lesser competence appearing to be a mere semantic device for the sake of compromise.     

The ethos of sovereignty: A critical appraisal

Taking as its starting point the commonly held claim about the obscurity of the concept of sovereignty, the article first identifies a fundamental paradox between the classical Westphalian notion of state sovereignty and human rights. In the rhetoric of international politics, attempts to establish the responsibility of states to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms within their jurisdictions are often countered with claims referring to the “sovereign equality” of all states and the subsequent principle of non-intervention. The article suggests that in a more contemporary understanding of sovereignty the responsibility of a state to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms is seen as a constituent ingredient of the state itself. The chapter continues to elaborate how this change has come about. The classical notion of sovereignty is illustrated through a reading of Bodin’s Six Books of the Commonwealth (1576). In Bodin’s world, sovereignty is a constitutive element of the state, and the possibility of a multitude of sovereign entities in a global world logically denying the possibility of any “supra-national” normative framework is still a minor consideration. This possibility is only worked out with the emergence of international law. In both classics such as Emmerich de Vattel’s The Law of Nations (1758) and more contemporary treatises such as Lassa Oppenheim’s International Law (1905), state sovereignty has become conditional to recognition by other sovereign states and a subsequent membership in the “family of nations.” The conditional membership in the “family of nations” involves a contradiction: a sovereign state must act in a “dignified” manner, it must use its sovereignty with “restraint” by respecting the human rights and fundamental freedoms of its citizens, i.e., it must employ its sovereignty in a non-sovereign way. This restriction of sovereignty, addressed as “ethical sovereignty,” becomes a constitutive element in a post-Westphalian state and a central ingredient in the contemporary doctrine of humanitarian intervention. The article further criticizes the various uses (and abuses) of “ethical sovereignty” in the regulation of “failing” and “rogue” states and concludes by identifying its general political dangers. Finally, with reference to Jacques Derrida’s Rogues (2003), the article suggests a more radical reappraisal of the concept of sovereignty. It is a fact that sovereignty is a term used without any well-recognised meaning except that of supreme authority. Under these circumstances those who do not want to interfere in a mere scholastic controversy must cling to the facts of life and the practical, though abnormal and illogical, condition of affairs.¹ —Lassa Oppenheim But to invoke the concept of national sovereignty as in itself a decisional factor is to fall back on a word which has an emotive quality lacking meaningful specific content. It is to substitute pride for reason.² —Eli Lauterpacht     

Stages in the Evolution of Holocaust Studies: From the Nuremberg Trials to the Present

Measuring genocide is an effort to treat the Holocaust within the framework of the history of ideas, specifically, how an event of enormous magnitude in terms of life and death issues as such embodied within a political system called National Socialism has an intellectual afterlife of some consequence. The article attempts to develop a four-stage post-Holocaust accounting of events that took place between 1933 and 1945. The first stage is biographical and autobiographical, followed by a second stage of ethnographies of survivors and victimizers. The third stage is dominated by historians and social scientific efforts to examine the “logic” of mass murder. The fourth and current stage is microanalysis, in which sharp and clear distinctions are made between differential treatment of victims in a variety of regions, states, nations, and even concentration camps. It should be understood that these four stages do not negate one another but co-exist in the lasting if uneasy effort to understand the Holocaust.     

The global promotion of gender equality—A propaganda approach

This paper proposes a new way of measuring progress in international politics, an approach that focuses on the symbolic and ideological work of international organizations. Although such a strategy is not entirely new to the study of International Relations, it has not been a common, accessible way of assessing how well international organizations work to effect change. The more famous methods have been legalistic—investigations of how international organizations have created new international law in the issue-areas under investigation¹—and bureaucratic—studies of how international organizations create machinery to deal with the problems². But in a world where domestic and international discourse is more mediated than ever before by television, radio, the Internet, newspapers, and other means of mass communication, the argument here is that propaganda is a third arena that must be taken into account when exploring the work of international organizations. The international organization in question here is the United Nations, and the issue-area examined is gender equality, a topic that is also variously described as “women's rights,” “women's issues”, or the “women's movement”. The paper explains first why the topic of the UN and women's rights is important, I then examine the propaganda role of the UN in the struggle for gender equality, and the paper concludes with a critical analysis of the UN's propaganda work in relation to this issue.     

Britain’s holocaust memorial day: A case of post-cold war wish-fulfillment, or brazen hypocristy?

This article considers why institutionalized commemoration of the Holocaust in the United Kingdom developed in the 1990s. It finds that the answer may have less to do with Jewish lobbies, or the influence of a “Holocaust Industry” and much, more to do with state political objectives in the ebb of the Cold War. It argues that by repackaging and ritualizing the Holocaust into a “sacred” event in which Western states themselves were absolved of responsibility but also sought to come to Jewish rescue, it became an invaluable prop with which to promulgate Western values while at the same time acting as a moral alibi for interventions against anti-Western regimes. By focusing on the example of specifically British relations with Iraq, it is demonstrated that the moral high ground which Western states have attempted to milk from a Holocaust association is meretricious cant. Appalling and inhuman acts of genocide changed the course of history in the twentieth century. Millions of people perished or had their lives hideously damaged. This is an opportunity for us to recognize and act upon the lessons of the past. Our aim in the twenty-first century must be to work towards a tolerant and diverse, society which is based upon the notions of universal dignity and equal rights and responsibilities for all citizens. The Holocaust Memorial Day is a symbol of this. I would like to thank Prof. Dave Cesarani and two other unknown readers for extremely assiduous and helpful comments on the original draft of this article.     

In the footsteps of russel lee

He used videotape to conduct an ethnogrpahic study of western coal miners. “Out of the Depths—The Miners’ Story” was broadcast as an episode of the Public Broadcasting System seriesA Walk Through the 20th Century will Bill Moyers.     

Reports from “Backstage” in Entertainment News

While “serious” news outlets struggle financially in the United States, evidence suggests that entertainment news coverage is thriving. By expanding upon Erving Goffman’s performance perspective and performance theory, this article seeks to illuminate representations of celebrities in the news media, with attention to the recent news stories regarding Tiger Woods and Sandra Bullock. The analysis also explores the off-screen performance of celebrities—developed and presented in news stories, interviews and photographs—and the repercussions when reports of a celebrity’s unmanaged backstage performance exposes the front stage performance as a pretense.     

Governing under advanced liberalism: sport policy and the social investment state

Since the election in 1997 of a New Labour Government in the United Kingdom, a growing number of analyses have provided insights into, and critiques of, what has been termed the “social investment state”. To date, these analyses have interrogated particular developments and distinct issues in a number of key social welfare policy-related sectors, including education, citizenship, the family, and poverty/employment. Notable by its absence, however, is the contribution that policies for sport and physical activity are now playing in the realisation of New Labour’s social investment strategies. This article therefore interrogates and registers the growing salience of sport policy interventions for the construction of a social investment state within the broader political context of governing under “advanced liberal” rationalities. The “active citizen”, and children and young people, in particular, are valorised and appear centre-stage as the focus for these interventions. This child-centred focus is problematised, as is the argument that, under prevailing political rationalities of advanced liberalism, government “steers” rather than “rows” and “enables” rather than “commands”. Under these conditions, while children are deemed deserving of investment, there may be other groups who are deemed less deserving, for example, older people who, unlike children and young people have little currency in a future-oriented world.

Symposium: Part I: Public Intellectuals Then and Now

The French political thinker Raymond Aron (1905–1983) provides the imitable model of the political philosopher as civic educator. Writing in an age of extreme ideological polarization, he aimed at a truly balanced approach to historical and political understanding. In a series of writings from the late 1930’s onward, Aron defended a principled middle way between Machiavellian cynicism and the “abstract moralism” so evident in the public engagement of modern intellectuals. Aron argued for the renewal of liberalism on the foundation of a broad-based “democratic conservatism” and displayed remarkable lucidity regarding the totalitarian temptation. This paper explores this distinctive notion of “democratic conservatism”—equally distant from revolutionary romanticism and reactionary nostalgia—that guided Aron’s public engagement over a fifty-year period and that was central to his idea of the political responsibility of intellectuals.

A Computational Model of the Citizen as Motivated Reasoner: Modeling the Dynamics of the 2000 Presidential Election

A computational model of political attitudes and beliefs is developed that incorporates contemporary psychological theory with well-documented findings from electoral behavior. We compare this model, John Q. Public (JQP), to a Bayesian learning model via computer simulations of observed changes in candidate evaluations over the 2000 presidential campaign. In these simulations, JQP reproduces responsiveness, persistence, and polarization of political attitudes, while the Bayesian learning model has difficulty accounting for persistence and polarization. We conclude that “motivated reasoning”—the discounting of information that challenges priors along with the uncritical acceptance of attitude-consistent information—is the reason our model can better account for persistence and polarization in candidate evaluations.