Two Focuses Affect the Situation as a Whole

Lu:As international anti-terrorism goes deeper in 2003,U.S.-I-raq relations and U.S.-Korea relations will become two focuses of con-tradictions.In comparison,contradiction between the United Statesand Iraq is sharper than that between the United States and Korea.Butwhen America-Iraq contradiction is settled either by war or by peacefulmeans,will U.S.-Korea contradiction be transformed from the sec-     

Editors’ introduction: neoliberalism and/as terror

The articles in this special issue are drawn from papers presented at a conference entitled “Neoliberalism and/as Terror”, held at the Nottingham Conference Centre at Nottingham Trent University by the Critical Terrorism Studies BISA Working Group (CSTWG) on 15–16 September 2014. The conference was supported by both a BISA workshop grant and supplementary funds from Nottingham Trent University’s Politics and International Relations Department and the Critical Studies on Terrorism journal. Papers presented at the conference aimed to extend research into the diverse linkages between neoliberalism and terrorism, including but extending beyond the contextualisation of pre-emptive counterterrorism technologies and privatised securities within relevant economic and ideological contexts. Thus, the conference sought also to stimulate research into the ways that neoliberalism could itself be understood as terrorism, asking – amongst other questions – whether populations are themselves terrorised by neoliberal policy. The articles presented in this special issue reflect the conference aims in bringing together research on the neoliberalisation of counterterrorism and on the terror of neoliberalism.     

Overcoming ‘Gnosticism’? Realism as political theology

This paper takes issue with approaches that relate realist political theology exclusively back to its Schmittian and neo-orthodox roots. While not entirely denying those influences, it argues that realist thought is more accurately described as rooted in the tensions characterizing Augustine's anti-heretic diatribes rather than taking inspiration from Schmittian political theology or the ‘Gnostic’ tendencies in Protestant neo-orthodox theology. Augustine's refutation of both the Manichaean Gnostic and the Pelagian solutions to the problem of evil gave rise to a complex understanding of the relationship between human free will and original sin based on a combination of ontological monism and ethical dualism. Building on this heritage, realists can be read as rehearsing Augustine's ambiguous gesture of overcoming Gnosticism with equally uncertain success. In responding to the modern ‘Gnostic’ challenge in terms that recognized the dialectical tension between ontological monism and ethical dualism, realists such as Morgenthau and Niebuhr should rather be seen as direct heirs of Augustine's ambivalent orthodoxy rather than Schmitt's unorthodox, semi-‘Gnostic’ Catholicism. This intellectual legacy may, then, explain their abhorrence of purist positions in politics—be they quietism, pacifism or, their opposite, political messianism—and adherence to an anti-‘Gnostic’ pragmatism grounded in the tensions of Augustinian theology.     

Mr. Li Chengren Serves as the Executive Vice-President of CAFIU

Chinese Association for International Understanding would like to kindly inform you that approved by the Council of CAFIU, Mr. Li Chengren will serve as Executive Vice-President of CAFIU.Many thanks for your support in the past, and hope our friendly cooperation will be strengthened in future.Mr. Li Chengren Serves as the Executive Vice-President of CAFIU…     

How legislatures work – and should work – as public space

In a democracy, legislatures are not only stages for performances by elected representatives; they are also stages for performances by other players in the public sphere. This article argues that while many legislatures are designed and built as spaces for the public to engage with politics, and while democratic norms require some degree of access, increasingly what are termed “purposive publics” are being superseded by groups who are only publics in an aggregative, accidental sense. The article begins with a conceptual analysis of the ways in which legislatures can be thought of as public spaces, and the in-principle access requirements that follow from them. It then draws on interviews and observational fieldwork in eleven capital cities to discover whether the theoretical requirements are met in practice, revealing further tensions. The conclusions are that accessibility is important; is being downgraded in important ways; but also that access norms stand in tension with the requirement that legislatures function as working buildings if they are to retain their symbolic value. The article ends with two “modest proposals”, one concerning the design of the plazas in front of legislatures, the other concerning a role for the wider public in legislative procedure.     

The EU as a Global Actor? EU Policy Towards Iran

Abstract

This paper explores EU policy towards Iran to challenge the common implicit or explicit notion that the EU's ‘actorness’ in the international system rests primarily, or solely, on its Pillar I external relations. Utilising criteria developed to examine the ‘actorness’ of the EU, the article explores this policy area to demonstrate that the EU's ‘actorness’ resulted not only from the ‘Community’ aspects of foreign policy, but also from its Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP).     

China as a ‘net donor’: tracking dollars and sense

The article examines China's emergence over the past decade as a net donor, and the implications of this status in global development. The analysis begins by outlining China's rise as a net donor, drawing comparisons in two-way aid flows with the other rising states, specifically Brazil, South Africa and India, and then turns to the implications of China's rise as an aid sender. The central argument is that conceptualizing China's rise as a ‘net donor’ is crucial for understanding the hybrid position that China has come to occupy in the global aid system, and the consequences of this positioning. Although China has achieved remarkable success with its own development, rather than join the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's Development Assistance Committee (DAC) regime of traditional donors, the Chinese Communist Party and government leadership has chosen instead to continue to self-identify with the countries of the South, and to construct ties of South–South cooperation outside of DAC arrangements. The Chinese leadership is trying to stake out an unprecedented position in the global aid system, traversing the North–South divide, despite the fact that China has already joined the ranks of world economic powers.     

Risky business: Covering slow‐onset hazards as rapidly developing news

The emerging field of risk communication has yet to thoroughly grapple with how the mass media report risk. Through a content analysis of five newspapers noted for their science reporting, newspaper coverage of four environmental hazards is compared to media coverage of more traditional risky events. In general, these slow‐to‐develop stories are reported in much the same way as more traditional disaster stories. News accounts emphasized an event orientation, framed risks in terms of human activity rather than social and political contexts, described risk in terms of harms and benefits, and relied on traditional sources. The authors then explore how this version of mass‐mediated risk might change current definitions of risk communication and how a mediated construction of risk may influence public perception of the political choices these issues raise.     

Terrorism as treated by the Christian science monitor, 1977–1987

Standing uniquely apart from journalistic sensationalism in its reportage of terrorism, the Christian Science Monitor (CSM/“The Monitor”) has taken a stance of trying to keep perspective on what individual events mean in terms of a wider framework.

It is perhaps critical to state at the outset that this researcher is not of the Christian Science faith, but has been a faithful reader of the Monitor for 15 years. When approached several years ago by The Terrorism and the News Media Research Project to contribute to that scholarship, an immediate response was that her primary newspaper would be inadequate to the task. A preliminary check into the Christian Science Monitor Index confirmed that fact: there were no entries under the heading of “terrorism” for 1975, 1976, 1977, and for 1978 it directed the researcher to see “violence”.

But then some dramatic changes took place in the mid‐1980s. The newspaper was undergoing major transitions internally, and terrorism was becoming an increasingly hot topic internationally.

This paper discusses terrorism as treated by the Christian Science Monitor, 1977–1987 both quantitatively and qualitatively. The approach is to delineate some of the underpinning philosophy of the newspaper, to discuss its chronological treatment of terrorism, and then to draw some implications from the study.     

Javanese culture as the source of legitimacy for Soeharto’s government

Since its independence on the 17th of August 1945, Indonesia has been governed consecutively by five presidents. Among them, Retired Army Great General Soeharto managed to be president for more than 32 years. There were many factors making him succeed in reaching, promoting, as well as maintaining power for these years. Despite his ability to place the military forces and police, the civilian bureaucracy, the Functional Group called Golkar, as well as the conglomerates under his own tight control, he also managed to manipulate Javanese cultural values as the source of legitimacy for his decisions and policies. As a puritan Javanese, Soeharto believed that a number of traditional Javanese thoughts in the forms of guidance and prohibitions, when practiced, would not only make individuals but also the Indonesian people in general have a noble and generous mind, or ber budi bawa leksana, that is: the ones who are really good as the essence of goodness, or becik sajatining becik. He claimed that it would not be difficult for the Indonesian people to improve their consciousness as the nation of Indonesia in their state, government and social life on the basis of Pancasila, if they understood Javanese cultural values properly (Rukmana 1993:xi). Based on this belief, Soeharto then tried to convince people that his all decisions and policies were socially just and philosophically correct because they had been based on very high Javanese philosophical values. As for example, when he treated his enemy or rival, such as ex-President Soekarno, or when he responded the critiques launched by his rivals or enemies, like Sawito Kartowibowo, Jailani Naro, Soeryadi, Megawati Soekarnoputri, Abdurahman Wahid, Permadi, Sri Bintang Pamungkas, and Amien Rais, challenging his position as the President or asking questions about presidential succession, Soeharto knew how to manipulate Javanese cultural values in order to justify or even legitimize his decisions and policies.

---

Expatriates as voters? The new dynamics of external voting in Sub-Saharan Africa

Expatriate voting has gained in importance over the last decade in Sub-Saharan Africa. This article gives an empirical overview of existing regulations in all independent states of the continent and examines some explanatory approaches in the African context. One approach claims that expatriate enfranchisement is a functional response to the increasing importance of migrants and their remittances. A second explanation refers to the role of domestic political structures and regime types. A third cluster of explanatory factors links external voting to the interests of political parties. Both in the broader comparative analysis and by looking more specifically at the cases of Ghana, South Africa, Cape Verde and Nigeria, all three approaches specifically contribute to understanding variation of external voting rights in Sub-Saharan Africa.     

Digital Fit as a Leg-Up for Nongovernmental Organizations’ Media and Political Success

Two important and understudied dimensions of the interaction between politics and the digital revolution are the impact of digital technology on the ability of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to win more media coverage and to successfully influence the political processes. This original quantitative comparison of 50 Israeli NGOs examined two main issues: the impact of technology on the ability of organizations to achieve mass media and political success and whether some groups are better positioned than others to exploit technology to their advantage. A theoretical concept labeled digital fit was introduced and put to a statistical test using data from a survey of 50 NGO leaders and a survey of 15 key politicians who were asked to rank the political impact of organizations they are familiar with from relevant parliamentary committees they are members of. Digital fit is defined as a cluster of digitally related variables that puts political actors in a better position to harness digital technology to self-produce and self-distribute multimedia messages for the purpose of advocating their cause to mass media outlets and politicians. A prospective dimension of digital fit is its potential to stimulate power shifts between the old guard of successful political-communication actors and a new breed of successful challengers. Results showed that digital fit had a strong positive direct effect on mass media success and a mediated influence on political success. There are positive signs that conventional models are shifting in a way that empowers new political actors.     

Do Democracies Attract Portfolio Investment? Transnational Portfolio Investments Modeled as Dynamic Network

For many, transnational capital is an important driving force of economic globalization. However, we know little about the political determinants for cross-border portfolio investments. Recent economic literature focuses upon information asymmetries. We move beyond this and introduce an explicitly political element into the study of international asset flows. Democratic institutions attract portfolio investments because they reduce the chances of government predatory practices. Applying a dynamic latent space model on the bilateral portfolio investment data from 2001 to 2005, we empirically examine the effects of important country-level characteristics of both exporters and importers of portfolio investments. The empirical findings suggest that democracies are often associated with higher levels of inward portfolio investments. Interestingly, we also find that portfolio investments are associated with business communities’ subjective estimate of property rights protection, but not with more comprehensive, index-based aggregate measures from international think tanks.     

The reform-security dilemma in democratic transitions: the Turkish experience as model?

In considering the future of budding Middle Eastern democracies, past experience and scholarship show that a possible outcome for even the most “successful” ones is some form of imperfect democracy. Based within the literature on democratic transitions and hybrid regimes, this article explores possible factors leading to such outcomes. It focuses in particular on reform/security dilemmas, and the resulting evolution of dual state structures, in which an unelected and often authoritarian state establishment coexists with democratic institutions and practices, for example, in countries like Russia, Iran, or Pakistan. Much of the literature views such duality as an impasse, and thus considers these countries as trapped within this “hybridness” – discouraging news both for currently defined “hybrid regimes” and for countries like Egypt and Tunisia, which are now launching democratization processes. To better understand the nature and evolution of such regimes, this article looks at the case of Turkey, first tracing the rise and consolidation of the Turkish inner state, generally equated with the Turkish armed forces. It then looks at the apparent diminishing and integration of the inner state through pacts and coalitions among both civilian and military elements, and calls into question whether the pessimistic view of permanent illiberalness is inevitable.     

Cultural Studies as ‘Psycho-babble’. Post-LitCrit,methodology and dynamic justice

ABSTRACT

Methodology, policy and the turn to post-LitCrit, are both strengths and weaknesses in cultural studies. As strengths, they have freed the field from the tyranny of quantitative methods and a deterministic positivism; but they are simultaneously weaknesses, in that cultural studies now exhibits an ambiguous relation to the ‘material’ – to contexts. Texts are disarticulated from contexts in the post-LitCrit ‘tradition’. The consequences of inapplicable appropriations of cultural studies are now seen in regressive applications supposedly couched within the democratising imperative that was once the raison d'etre of the field. This study examines the consequences of the loss of the ‘material’ from certain inflections of cultural studies. Reports of the South African Human Rights Commission into Racism and the Media constitutes my case study. Using the concept of dynamic justice, I propose a return to context based on evaluative criteria rooted in the human condition. Instead of ‘Texts’, or even ‘class consciousness’, I argue that the principal contextual criteria for cultural studies research could be based on the socio-political value ideas of Freedom and Life Chances.

[T]ensions and contradictions abound; sophistry has replaced rigour in many an instance and dilettantism parades as expertise and informed judgement.

John Williams (1999) on intellectuals in the ‘new’

South Africa.

I'm not racist, I only hate whites, not blacks

Ma Maloi, rejecting her daughter-in-law's allegations about her racism against their white neighbours. Going Up, sitcom, Episode 24, South African Broadcasting

Corporation.

Though cultural studies emerged from an impeccable lineage of both theoretical critique and empirical immersion, some post-1990 variants reflect an ambiguous relationship with empirical methodology, factual accuracy and the material. Media studies exhibits an often strained relationship with content analysis and numerical methods (Ruddock 1998). Cultural policy studies tend to forget the dialectic which keeps critique alive in its delicate relationship with state and funding agencies (Tomaselli and Shepperson 1996). Originally concerned with the study of power relations and democratisation, cultural studies has been on occasion over the past decade definitionally reduced merely to a form of ‘writerly expression’ (Willoughby 1991). Conversely, it has been accused of becoming a discourse of pseudo-liberation (McChesney 1996), and, during the struggle against apartheid, of being the vanguard of new fascisms (Edgecomb 1984). For some, cultural studies is the central disorganising principal in journalism education (Windschuttle 1998). The relationship between cultural studies, which emphasises the ‘popular’, and the propositions of human rights movements, is also unclear.     

Why do some Arab citizens see democracy as unsuitable for their country?

Why do some Arab citizens regard democracy favourably but see it as unsuitable for their country? Modernization theory contends that economic development creates modern citizens who demand democracy. Cultural theories see Islam and democracy as incompatible. Government performance theories argue that citizens who perceive the current authoritarian government as acting in a transparent manner will demand greater democracy. I argue that attitudes toward democracy are shaped by beliefs about its political, economic, and religious consequences, including those related to sectarianism. I test this consequence-based theory using Arab Barometer data from six nations. Sixty percent hold favourable views of democracy generally and for their country, while 7% reject democracy. Twenty-seven percent support democracy generally but see it as unsuitable for their country. Beliefs that democracy will have negative consequences and perceptions of poor government performance are the most important predictors of democracy's unsuitability. Modernization theory receives support, but Islamic identity and beliefs do not consistently predict attitudes in the expected direction. These findings offer a more nuanced understanding of Arab public opinion and suggest that concerns about the consequences of free elections affect support for democracy as much as assessments of the political and economic performance of the current authoritarian regime.     

Journalism as “Prostitution”: Understanding Russia's Reactions to Anna Politkovskaya's Murder

When the Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya was gunned down in her apartment building in Moscow in October 2006, heads of Western governments and nongovernmental organizations hurried to make strong statements condemning the murder, and public rallies in Politkovskaya's honor were held in front of Russian embassies across the world. In contrast to this swift and unequivocal response, the reaction of Russian officials, journalists, and the public at large was delayed, lukewarm, or nonexistent, much to the incomprehension of Western observers. To understand why the majority of Russian citizens were unmoved by Politkovskaya's murder, this article will contend, we need to understand the specific history of media-political transformation in Russia over the past decade and a half. This includes (a) approaching Soviet journalism as a unique nexus of ethics and politics, (b) studying the centrifugal forces unleashed during Russia's media privatization in the 1990s, and (c) understanding how those forces (in tension with the centering pull under Putin) have been shaping the practices and meaning of journalism in post-Soviet Russia over the past decade and a half. Such context-sensitive and historically contingent exploration will, in turn, suggest new theoretical tools for thinking about journalistic action, or agency, in political contexts short of classical liberalism more broadly.     

International Relations as Juridical Life: Rethinking ‘the International’ in International Theory

This article advances an account of “the international” in which “juridical life” is taken as the dominant ethic and ultimately the force of “the international” within the discipline of international relations. It evaluates the foundational myths of international politics in terms of its capacity to exercise juridical power, in the service of the state as a geopolitical entity. It examines the ethics of doing “the international” and how rationalities of the international are contained within legalist rationalities of international politics. Drawing upon the ideas of Giorgio Agamben, it proposes an alternative conceptualisation of international life in which the juridical is dispossessed of its political rationality. Such an outlook allows for the reframing of international politics at a critical distance from geopolitical orthodoxies within international theory and opens up new possibilities for ethics in international politics.     

Democracies only: When do IMF agreements serve as a seal of approval?

Conditional lending by the IMF is predicated, in part, on the belief that IMF programs are associated with increased capital inflows to participating countries. This belief is generally consistent with theoretical arguments in the academic literature (e.g., Bird and Rowlands 1997; Bordo et al. 2004) but the empirical literature often finds otherwise (e.g., Jensen 2004). This paper argues that the effect of IMF agreements on a country’s access to foreign direct investment (FDI) depends on its domestic institutions. Access to FDI depends on a country’s ability to credibly commit to implementation, and this ability varies systematically across regime type. The theory is empirically tested using a treatment effects model with a Markov transition in the treatment equation in a dataset covering 142 countries from 1976 to 2006. We find that in democracies IMF program participation has a strong positive effect on FDI inflows and in autocracies participation has a weak negative effect.