Communitarianism

This article presents 'Communitarianism' in political theory as a 'Blind Alley'. This is on the grounds that it is difficult to find a political theorist who is willing to be called a communitarian, because the literature lacks any well delineated concept of community, and because a number of awkward theoretical questions, notably about power, arise which are not clearly addressed within the literature. Furthermore, communitarianism has been a blind alley for feminists. Although feminism and so-called communitarianism share an opposition to some other varieties of social and political theory, the apparent affinities between feminism and communitarianism mask significant differences.     

A Positive,Communitarian Right to Security in the Age of Super-Terrorism

Post-9/11, and especially with the dramatic rise of Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the author advocates a collective right to security. Plotting a course through state absolutism and liberalism, one finds communitarianism as a philosophy to support this right to security. The communitarian right to security is based on an interpretation of European human rights law, particularly positive duties of the state, to protect the rights to life of individuals from violations by non-state actors such as suspected terrorists. But for reasons of practical enforcement, limitations to the exercise of the right are also articulated.     

Etzioni's Communitarianism: Old (Communion) Wine in New Bottles

The renewed interest in civic duty, morals, and family values in British politics owes much to the publicity accorded to Etzioni's communitarian ideas. His political philosophy has not however received much critical scrutiny outside the media and there is little consensus on where to locate his ideas in relation to other traditions of political thought. This paper suggests that Etzioni's particular variant of communitarianism exhibits striking parallels with Catholic social teaching and corresponds to the moral and ideological principles that underpin Christian Democracy. Consequently, some of the short-comings of Catholic social teaching are replicated by Etzioni.     

Communitarian Bioethics: Three Case Studies

In recent years, communitarianism has turned bioethics away from an overwhelming emphasis on liberal individualism. Growing emphasis on the common good has created no few dilemmas for medical practitioners used to weighing the interests of their patients above all else. Three cases exemplify the conflict between community and individual interests. The first is the Israel Patient Rights Act (IPRA), a first of its kind statute that allows hospital ethics committees to impose lifesaving treatment on competent patients who refuse medical care. The second case investigates the medical treatment of wounded soldiers and suggests that community based obligations may, in some circumstances, allow physicians to give priority to treating compatriots over non-compatriots. The last case discusses force feeding political detainees. While many physicians are resolved to preserve a hunger striker’s right to refuse food, many state governments are equally resolved to feed them. Hunger striking sets the stage for a classic battle between respect for autonomy and concerns about the public welfare that communitarian principles can help resolve.     

Against Humanitarian Impunity: Rethinking Responsibility for Displacement and Disaster in Northern Uganda

Abstract

Given that humanitarian organizations can often be responsible for enabling, prolonging or intensifying violence and conflict through their interventions into war zones, it is important that these organizations, despite their presumed neutrality and beneficence, be held accountable for the deleterious consequences of their actions. The case of northern Uganda will be used to demonstrate how humanitarian agencies have made possible the government's counterinsurgency, including its policy of mass forced displacement and internment, which has led to a vast humanitarian crisis. The Ugandan government policy will be assessed as a war crime, making aid agencies accessories to this crime. This case study is used as an example to highlight that processes which demand the post-conflict accountability of those responsible for violence may be dramatically incomplete, and unjust, if they do not include the humanitarian agencies. In conclusion it will be suggested that if humanitarian organizations built popular accountability mechanisms into their daily operations this might prevent them from being complicit with egregious violence in the first place.     

Interventionism by Design or Failure: The Coalition and Humanitarian Intervention

The Coalition took office in 2010 in what seemed to be a relatively benign foreign policy environment. Since then, the international environment has become far more treacherous and the government has considered war on humanitarian grounds on three occasions. In light of the silence of early Coalition documents on humanitarian intervention, together with the two parties’ different positions on the issue, this article assesses the extent to which the Coalition has adopted a distinctive approach to humanitarian intervention. In so doing, it evaluates the relative importance of Conservative and Liberal Democrat traditions in determining the direction of Coalition foreign policy. The article also considers whether there are other, more pertinent factors driving foreign policy, and offers an explanation for its relative isolation from coalition tensions. It concludes by reflecting on the likely future of humanitarian intervention after the May 2015 general election.     

What liberals should tolerate internationally

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this paper is to shed light on what liberal states should tolerate outside their borders. This requires definitions of `liberalism,´ `toleration,´ and `state.´ In the first section of this paper, I briefly indicate how I use those and other terms necessary to the discussion and introduce the normative principle I take liberals to be committed to. In the second section, I continue clearing the path for the rest of my discussion. In the rest of the paper, I draw conclusions about what liberals should tolerate outside their state that I believe follow from the proffered definitions and principles. I limit myself to interference aimed at providing humanitarian aid, but do so in a way that is meant to provide resources for thinking about other sorts of interventions. In the third section, I consider humanitarian interventions done with the permission of the other state and will point toward a toleration-based view; here we are really talking about non-toleration of suffering. In the fourth section, I consider humanitarian interventions done without the permission of the other state; here we are talking about non-toleration of a state that harms its residents. I consider an objection in section five.     

Humanitarian Crises and the International Politics of Selectivity

How has the international community responded to humanitarian crises after the end of the Cold War? While optimistic ideational perspectives on global governance stress the importance of humanitarian norms and argue that humanitarian crises have been increasingly addressed, more skeptical realist accounts point to material interests and maintain that these responses have remained highly selective. In empirical terms, however, we know very little about the actual extent of selectivity since, so far, the international community’s reaction to humanitarian crises has not been systematically examined. This article addresses this gap by empirically examining the extent and the nature of the selectivity of humanitarian crises. To do so, the most severe humanitarian crises in the post-Cold War era are identified and examined for whether and how the international community responded. This study considers different modes of crisis response (ranging from inaction to military intervention) and different actors (including states, international institutions, and nonstate actors), yielding a more precise picture of the alleged “selectivity gap” and a number of theoretical implications for contemporary global security governance.     

The war novel and human rights

The war novel, a distinct genre of fiction, has typically been read as a type of humanitarian narrative. This article explains how the war novel participates in humanitarian discourse but also has another role to play that addresses human rights more specifically. In the effort to identify accountability, war novels explore complex historical events and offer us important insights on the challenges of historical narration more broadly. Furthermore, in offering explanations for “who?” and “why?,” war novels model how we can approach the complex history of conflict for human rights. To illustrate how accountability is a central theme of war fiction, the essay turns to examples of novels about the Vietnam War.     

Learning to live with irregular migration: towards a more ambitious debate on the politics of ‘the problem’

What might be gained by learning to live with ‘the problem’ of irregular migration, rather than attempting to solve it? This article engages two senses of ‘the problem’ at stake: first, the ongoing nature of displacement and migration and second, the contested justice claims that sit behind different policy perspectives. The second sense of the problem (its political dimension) is rarely addressed explicitly in public debate. Yet direct engagement with the political dimension offers the potential to unlock debate from a polarised impasse. To make this argument, I first diagnose debate on irregular migration in terms of three archetypal positions and examine their implicit justice claims. I then argue for a more ambitious debate that pushes contending justice claims to their logical extensions. Debate of this kind requires a more coherent defence of justice claims, whether they are based in communitarian, cosmopolitan, anti-capitalist or hybrid values with respect to citizenship and political community. The article concludes with an illustration of how this approach can generate momentum for less circular, more sustainable and politically achievable policy responses. The argument is made with reference to illustrative examples from Australia and Europe but holds for a variety of contexts where ‘the problem’ is framed in similar ways.     

Communitarian Antidotes to Populism

Populism is rising in the United States, and this has ramifications for its democratic institutions. The rise is attributable in part to the alienation many Americans feel in their own country, which in turn stems from a combination of various sociological challenges. This article uses a liberal communitarian approach to examine these issues, and calls for the nurturing of communities as a way to reduce violence and xenophobia. It discusses cultural changes brought about by free trade, immigration, and the extension of individual rights and offers moderate policy solutions that encourage communities to flourish by facilitating cultural adjustments while also weighing the concerns of all members of society.     

Feminism in the Humanitarian Machine. Introduction to the Special Section on ‘The Politics of Intervention Against (Conflict-Related) Sexual and Gender-based Violence’

ABSTRACT

The prevention and mitigation of sexual and gender-based violence in (post-) conflict societies has become an important humanitarian activity. This introductory article examines the analytical discourses on these interventions, the institutionalization of SGBV expertise in international politics, and the emancipatory potential of anti-SGBV practices. It argues that the confluence of feminist professional activism and militarized humanitarian interventionism produced specific international activities against SGBV. As part of the institutionalization of gender themes in international politics, feminist emancipatory claims have been taken up by humanitarian organizations. The normal operating state of the humanitarian machine, however, undercuts its potential contribution to social transformation towards larger gender equality in (post-) conflict societies.     

The Communitarian Foreign Policy of Amitai Etzioni

Amitai Etzioni’s communitarian perspective offers a comprehensive approach to international affairs in addition to offering guidance for domestic policy. His argument that a focus on traditional “realist” concerns for a nation’s security and interests (“security first”), combined with a dialogue over competing moral imperatives, is more likely to lead to the emergence of an idealist end state--a sustainable international community. His emphasis on gradualism--of breaking apart complex policy goals into small, discrete steps--comes from his assessment that this is a better way of promoting lasting change in the international system. His perspective does not fit neatly into any of the dominant U.S. foreign policy approaches, but his ideas have formed part of the foreign policy debate for the last fifty years.     

A Responsibility to Profit? Social Impact Bonds as a Form of “Humanitarian Finance”

ABSTRACT

Recent years have seen the emergence of social impact bonds (SIBs), geared toward funding social interventions while earning financial returns. The article proposes to conceive of SIBs as a practice of contemporary humanitarianism. In an effort to trace the politics of such humanitarian finance, the article analyzes a SIB that sought to improve outcomes for homeless persons in London. It argues that, instead of relying on sentimental stories, the project was animated by a results-oriented, technocratic culture geared at solving social problems (rather than just alleviating suffering). Its mode of reasoning, however, directed attention to highly vulnerable individuals – and away from the structural conditions that perpetuate poverty. But at the same time, the scheme reworked exclusionary constellations “from within.” Thus, such humanitarian finance simultaneously performs a relation of inequality and a relation of assistance. The article makes the case for an ongoing engagement with both dynamics.     

Civil Society Perspectives on Humanitarian Intervention

This article explores the multiple roles played by civil society actors in relation to policy debates relating to whether to advocate or oppose humanitarian intervention under a variety of specific circumstances or in general. There is no consistent civil society viewpoint, but rather a range of disagreements relating to whether there exists a genuine imminent threat of humanitarian catastrophe, whether the political will exists to intervene in a manner that protects a threatened population, and whether a reliance on force for humanitarian ends should ever be supported in the absence of a mandate from the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Most civil society voices prefer to assess each case on its own rather than to be for or against humanitarian intervention as a general proposition. A consensus would look favourably upon humanitarian intervention endorsed by the UNSC. The problems arise where such an endorsement is not obtainable. The NATO War of 1999 to safeguard the endangered Albanian population of Kosovo illustrates the positive case for humanitarian intervention as there appeared to be an imminent threat and there existed a sufficient political will to make it seem likely that an intervention could attain its goals. The absence of support from the UNSC in this instance was offset by the participation by the UN after the fact in the work of economic and political reconstruction, although the precedent set by this use of non-defensive force has kept the Kosovo undertaking controversial. In contrast to Kosovo, civil society actors throughout the world generally rejected the claimed humanitarian justifications for the Iraq War. At this time civil society is split on the question as to whether ever to encourage humanitarian intervention undertaken absent a green light in advance from the UN.     

The Iraq War and the Responsibility to Protect: Uses,Abuses and Consequences for the Future of Humanitarian Intervention

Before the 2003 Iraq war, the political leadership of the United States and United Kingdom had to sell the case for war to their people and the world. This was attempted through a number of speeches that employed rhetorical justifications for the war. Two prominent justifications used during this period involved the employment of security and humanitarian narratives. The security narrative focused on claims regarding Iraq's undermining of international law, possession of weapons of mass destruction and threat to the world. The humanitarian narrative revolved around claims about human suffering in Iraq and the need to liberate its people. While it is widely assumed that security is the dominant casus belli in the post-9/11 world, there is much evidence to suggest that the humanitarian justifications that played a critical role in the military interventions of the 1990s were still important after 9/11. The use of humanitarian justifications for the Iraq war clearly has implications for the ‘responsibility to protect (R2P)’ movement, which has gained prominence since the December 2001 publication of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) report. Based on an extensive content analysis of speeches by the US and UK political leadership before the war, this article will quantify the relative importance of each narrative and analyse what the findings mean for the ongoing debates within the ‘responsibility to protect (R2P)’ movement.     

Authority and the study of French politics: A response to Duclaud‐Williams

This article reconsiders the value of French authority attitudes for the understanding of French politics in the light of Duclaud‐Williams’ recent critique of the works of Michel Crozier. It is argued that the criticisms made by Duclaud‐Williams do not amount to a refutation of Crozier's thesis or of the type of approach it represents, and that advances in this area are more likely to come from further attempts at identifying empirically the nature and role of French authority norms, such as that of Schonfeld, which is discussed and evaluated here.     

Negative Liberty and the Common Good: Assessing William Lund’s Criticisms of Amitai Etzioni

Amitai Etzioni, who is dissatisfied with the liberal and individualist paradigm, has proposed a kind of responsive communitarianism which aims to achieve a carefully crafted equilibrium between the liberal and conservative paradigms, that is, an equilibrium between autonomy and order. His philosophy and policy suggestions have drawn fire from some liberals. For example, William Lund accuses Etzioni of not providing adequate protection of negative liberty. In this essay, I would like to reply to Lund’s criticisms of Etzioni’s communitarianism.     

Civilian victimization and international military intervention in civil wars

Civil wars are particularly destructive and asymmetric in nature. As a result, humanitarian crises and episodes of one-sided violence against civilians are likely to emerge. In the post-Cold War era, human rights norms have been strengthened by a global commitment stating that nations have a responsibility to protect people against war crimes. Although the doctrine does not require military responses, as episodes of one-sided violence increase dramatically in the midst of civil conflict, we would expect those cases to experience relatively swift foreign response, including military intervention; a growing trend of at least purportedly humanitarian interventions should be observable. Expectations relating to the responsibility to protect are tested on all civil conflicts occurring between 1989 and 2006. Findings indicate that there is little evidence that one-sided violence leads to military intervention, suggesting that the internationally community does not use its most powerful tool to protect civilians in trouble.     

Communitarianism as a Blind Alley? A Reply to Lacey and Frazer

This article seeks to challenge the interpretation of communitarianism offered by Lacey and Frazer (Politics, Vol. 14 No.2). By developing a theory of community it is possible to overcome the problems which they highlight, and to demonstrate that communitarianism, properly understood, is a philosophy which can frame much useful debate in political theory.