Norm dynamics and international organisations: South Africa in the African Union and International Criminal Court

Over the past two decades, South Africa has sought to perform several roles on the world stage, such as the economic dynamo of Southern Africa, a diplomatic heavyweight representing the African continent, and a norm leader on the world stage as a so-called ‘middle-power’. Although South Africa's evolution and rise as an important player in global affairs has generated a welcome body of critical scholarly literature, comparatively little analysis has been allocated to understanding how norm dynamics and the country's ever-evolving international identities have enabled it to construct and reconstruct its ‘interests’. Social constructivism is best suited for such an analysis because it can operationalise norms, commitments, identities, and interests, and it provides the epistemological tools to map the increasingly multilateral connections between global, regional, and domestic forums. By employing a rationalist approach to constructivism, this paper remedies the aforementioned gap in the literature by illustrating how South Africa constructs and reconstructs its identities and interests in relation to membership in international organisations (IOs). To that end, the paper examines the evolution of South Africa's participation in the African Union (especially ‘peacekeeping’ contributions) and the International Criminal Court. The paper concludes by assessing the theoretical implications and practical ramifications of the norm dynamics involved in South Africa's commitment to these two IOs.     

Communicating South Africa’s soft power: Agents,instruments and recipients

New scholarly literature that focuses on the currency of soft power is emerging in the analysis of South Africa’s foreign policy. This nascent strand of discourse seeks to capture the nexus between the ideational value of soft power and Pretoria’s foreign policy. Despite pockets of literature in this regard, there has been little analysis of the communicative settings and adaptations of soft power in the South African context. Within this analytical context, this article aims to contribute to existing discourse on South Africa’s soft power by probing the agents, sources and subjects involved in its cultivation and unpacking the links between these communicative environments. These issues are critical, given the recent emphasis on the role and utility of soft power for achieving South Africa’s foreign policy ambitions. The article stresses that, in the long term, the deepening of South Africa’s soft power capability and influence will depend largely on the extent of the strategic calibration between the communicative realms of actors, instruments and recipients.     

中马关系及其前景：建构主义视角下的思考

西方国际关系理论中的建构主义强调国家之间在“认知—实践”上的差异,认为国家的身份认定影响着其利益和行为,而国家的身份则是由国际社会建构而成的。据此而看,由于在冷战前后中国与马来西亚两国在各自或相互身份的认同上的变迁就导致了两国关系的巨大变化。目前,中马关系已经发展到前所未有的好时期且前景广阔,但由于双方在身份及其认同上仍存在着差异,故在发展关系时还有一些变数需要特别注意。     

建构主义观下的数学教学论

本从建构主义基本思想出发,重新认识数学本质和数学教学,认为无论是数学创建和数学学习都是个人建构与社会建构相统一的过程,数学、个人、社会三在教学中的关系应当是双向性的,并提出以“在做数学中学数学”作为数学教学设计的基本思想。     

The “Somalinisation” of terrorism and counterterrorism in Kenya: the case of refoulement

Kenya’s state discourse on terrorism and counterterrorism securitises Somali refugees and refugee camps. Using the securitisation theory, a perspective of social constructivism as a theoretical framework, the article attempts to establish the relationship between the securitisation of Somali refugees and refugee camps and refoulement as a measure to counter the securitisation. The arguments raised are the speech acts of Kenya’s securitising actors expressed in the terrorism discourse present Somali refugees and refugee camps as existential threats to peace and security in the country. Consequently, their speech acts expressed in the counterterrorism discourse present non-refoulement of the refugees as an existential threat to national security so as to justify, to the targeted audience, the adoption of refoulement, a norm-violating measure, to counter the fear of the threat of terrorism from Somali refugees and refugee camps. Terrorism and counterterrorism in Kenya have, therefore, been “Somalinised”. The conclusion offers ways of preventing the “Somalinisation” of terrorism and counterterrorism in Kenya.     

The framing of radicalisation in the Belgian societal debate: a contagious threat or youthful naivety?

ABSTRACT

Following the terrorist attacks of 13 November 2015 in Paris and 22 March 2016 in Brussels, radicalisation has become the topic of lively debate in Belgium. However, little research has been done on the different perspectives which people use to communicate about radicalisation in Belgium. Therefore, an inductive framing analysis of 2,271 excerpts, taken from various newspaper articles, policy documents and social media, was performed to precisely reconstruct all the frames and counter-frames that are used to define the issue. The results were validated through seven interviews and two workshops with a variety of stakeholders (imams, youth workers, academics, journalists). This resulted in the reconstruction of four problematising frames and eight deproblematising counter-frames. In addition to presenting and illustrating these frames, this paper discusses how the framing analysis can help gain insight into the social construction of radicalisation in the wake of the 2015 and 2016 terrorist attacks.     

Child marriage,human rights and international norms: the case of legislative reform in Trinidad and Tobago

Abstract

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child entered into force in 1990. It condemns child marriage, violence and discrimination against children and enjoins tutelage for their education and health. Implementing such principles in national legislation sometimes conflicts with local norms relating to respect for cultural and religious traditions. This was the case of Trinidad and Tobago, a multicultural and multi-religious society that legally sanctioned child marriage until 2017. The paper makes two unique contributions to the literature. First, using the literature on child marriage and the obligations under international conventions, the paper creates a child marriage conceptual framework with the main normative positions on child marriage. Second, using the framework, it explores the normative motivations underlying the domestic legal reform debates held in parliament between 2015–2017. The paper uses the conceptual framework to explain the transformations in the traditional positions of local religious and ethnic groups, provides evidence of norm penetration from the international to a local multicultural setting and furthers the literature on international human rights norm penetration and contestation.     

社会建构论视角的心理学方法论问题探索

心理学方法论的扩展,关涉到心理科学的发展方向、科学观、理论和方法论的建构。社会建构论立场的心理学方法论将心理视为语言的社会建构,语言的建构使心理学从实证主义范式向建构主义范式转换、个体主义向集体主义转换、价值无涉向价值涉入转换、主客二分思维向主客超越转换。对心理学研究对象的解构与重构,也使社会建构论立场的心理学有可能消解科学主义心理学和人文主义心理学的矛盾和对立。     

Disentangling Actors from Their Environment? Pitfalls and Added-Value of the Strategic-Choice Approach

ABSTRACT

This article argues that the Strategic-Choice Approach (SCA) put forward by Lake and Powell (1999b) can be further developed in two directions. First, the article highlights the challenge posed by the interdependence between actors and their environment. From this it draws two conclusions. A) The SCA approach is most fruitful for synchronic analysis but more challenging to implement in a diachronic research design. B) The interdependence between actors and their environment can be lessened by distinguishing between three types of actor preferences: meta, ranked, and pragmatic-preferences. Second, it argues that the SCA is an ideal framework to combine qualitative and quantitative research designs.     

国际关系的语言转向与建构主义理论发展研究:以语言游戏为例

19世纪末20世纪初发生的西方哲学的语言转向对西方思想文化的很多领域都产生过并仍在产生着重大影响,这次语言转向使人们更加意识到语言具有一定的本体地位,具有行事功能和社会功能,同时产生意义的主体间性。另一方面,语言在国际关系的很多理论中被简约掉,国际关系的语言转向研究也相对比较迟缓,主要集中在建构主义和后结构主义。本文主要以语言游戏为例,从规则的建立、遵守和转变来分析语言转向对建构主义理论的影响,主要体现在语言建构规则,规则塑造语境,语境决定意义、意义限制行为,而语言在整个过程中起了重要作用。