Lament as Transitional Justice

Works of human rights literature help to ground the formal rights system in an informal rights ethos. Writers have developed four major modes of human rights literature as follows: protest, testimony, lament, and laughter. Through interpretations of poetry in Carolyn Forché’s anthology, Against Forgetting, and novels from Rwanda, the US, and Bosnia, I focus on the mode of lament, the literature of mourning. Lament is a social and ritualized form, the purposes of which are congruent with the aims of transitional justice institutions. Both laments and truth commissions employ grieving narratives to help survivors of human rights trauma bequeath to the ghosts of the past the justice of a monument while renewing the survivors’ capacity for rebuilding civil society in the future. Human rights scholars need a broader, extrajuridical meaning for “transitional justice” if we hope to capture its power.     

Where Federalism Didn't Fail

The governmental response to Hurricane Katrina was not the unalloyed failure that is often portrayed. The response was a mixture of success and failure. Successes occurred when a foundation had been laid for intergovernmental cooperation, as with the largely successful pre-landfall evacuation of Greater New Orleans, the multistate mobilization of the National Guard, and the search and rescue operations of the U.S. Coast Guard and the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. Postmortems should draw lessons from such successes rather than concentrate entirely on the numerous failures.

It is now clear that a challenge on this scale requires greater federal authority and a broader role for the armed forces—the institution of our government most capable of massive logistical operations on a moment's notice.
—President George W. Bush, September 15, 2005
I can say with certainty that federalizing emergency response to catastrophic events would be a disaster as bad as Hurricane Katrina. The current system works when everyone understands, accepts, and is willing to fulfill their responsibilities…. the bottom-up approach yields the best results.
—Florida governor Jeb Bush, October 19, 2005

     

Collaborative Networking,Environmental Shocks,and Organizational Performance: Evidence From Hurricane Rita

An organization's external environment, such as an environmental shock, is of great concern to public management scholars because it influences the behavior and ability of public managers to improve organizational performance. In this study, we examine how collaborative networking with the purpose of preparing for a natural disaster moderates the negative impact of Hurricane Rita on school performance in Texas. Our data consists of survey responses from Texas superintendents who were surveyed shortly after Hurricane Rita about their pre-hurricane disaster preparedness including collaborative networking behavior. Using this dataset, we use a collaborative networking measure that incorporates both the frequency of contact with various groups and the intensity of those interactions. Findings reveal that collaborative networking to prepare for natural disasters moderates the negative impact of a natural disaster on organizational performance.     

Who will vote quadratically? Voter turnout and votes cast under quadratic voting

Who will vote quadratically in large-N elections under quadratic voting (QV)? First, who will vote? Although the core QV literature assumes that everyone votes, turnout is endogenous. Drawing on other work, we consider the representativeness of endogenously determined turnout under QV. Second, who will vote quadratically? Conditional on turning out, we examine reasons that, in large-N elections, the number of votes that an individual casts may deviate substantially from that under pure, rational QV equilibrium play. Because turnout itself is driven by other factors, the same determinants may influence how voters who do turn out choose the quantity of votes to cast. Independently, the number of votes actually cast may deviate dramatically from pure QV predictions because of the complex and refined nature of equilibrium play. Most plausibly, voting behavior and outcomes would be determined predominately by social and psychological forces, would exhibit few of the features emphasized in the analysis of hyper-rational equilibrium play, and would have consequential properties that require a different research agenda to bring into focus. Some of our analysis also has implications for voting behavior under other procedures, including one person, one vote.     

On a Governmentality Analytics of the ‘Deliberative Turn’: Material Conditions,Rationalities and the Deliberating Subject

Amongst social and political researchers, as well as diverse policy actors, debate has of late grown around the role deliberation can and could play in addressing contemporary social, political and environmental issues. Substantial conceptual and empirical concerns remain about this ‘deliberative turn’, including the strictures of achieving ‘true deliberation’ and a lack of focus to date on the contexts and ‘material conditions’ of deliberative events and spaces. In response, this paper argues that the recent growth of research utilising Foucault's governmentality thesis can provide a fruitful analytics to explore aspects of the deliberative turn, in particular the rationalities and subjectivities that undergird it. This argument draws on recent debates in both deliberative politics and governmentality studies, as well as examples of past and on-going deliberative research.     

Accounting for Natural Disasters: The Impact of Earthquake Risk on California Municipal Bond Pricing

While Katrina has raised awareness of the potential impact of hurricanes on municipalities along the Gulf Coast, it remains unclear if the municipal bond market considers other types of natural disaster risk in other areas. We attempt to fill this gap by conducting an analysis to determine if underlying geologic earthquake risk affects interest costs for municipal bond issuers in California. We find that earthquake risk does matter in determining the interest costs for municipalities issuing debt, but not universally—only for municipal bonds issued after Hurricane Katrina and only in relation to underlying geologic earthquake risk.     

Business "Not" as Usual: The National Incident Management System, Federalism, and Leadership

Federal, state, and local governments did not work well together to provide an effective response to Hurricane Katrina. Some of this failure can be attributed to the power struggle between the federal and state governments. The National Incident Management System (NIMS) was designed to foster collaboration among governments and their departments and agencies. However, this system largely failed. To overcome this failure, many have proposed centralizing disaster response in the federal government. Centralized control would damage the basic federal structure of our government as the national government appeals to the ever-present dangers of terrorism and natural disaster to gain permanent primacy in the relationship. The current federal system actually can work better than centralization if leadership and organizational transformation are stressed. The National Incident Management System has many elements in place that can make the federal system of disaster response work if the proper stress on organizational transformation and leadership is applied.

If we ignore the systemic issues and simply replace people or re-assign responsibilities, we may simply fail again in the not too distant future with a different cast of characters.
John R. Harrald, director of the Institute for Crisis, Disaster, and Risk Management,
       George Washington University
U.S. House Committee on Government Reform hearing, September 15, 2005

     

LOCAL GOVERNMENT'S PROBLEM WITH DISASTER MANAGEMENT: A LITERATURE REVIEW AND STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS1

In response to the recent attention given the disaster management responsibilities of local governments, this study asks two questions: how have local governments managed the demands associated with major natural disasters, and what explanation have been offered for the perfor- mance patterns observed? In the first part of the paper the social science disaster literature is reviewed to ascertain performance across four disaster stages (predisaster planning, emergency, early recovery, and long-term recovery). Among the explanations offered for the performance patterns, it was surprising to find little attention devoted to underlying structural factors. In the second part of the paper, “the disaster management problem” is stipulated and a structural analysis of it is undertaken, focusing on the role of local government within both the intergovernmental system and the local power structure. The conclusion is that the disaster management problem has roots deep within American society and culture, and any attempts to redress the problem will require attention to limiting struc- tural realities.     

Interrogating “Urban Citizenship” vis-à-vis Undocumented Migration

This article critically interrogates the emerging literature on cities and citizenship, with specific reference to undocumented, “illegal”, or irregular migrant status. It first identifies and discusses three major approaches in the cities and citizenship literature, namely: normative, rescaling, and agency-centered approaches. It then interrogates this literature through the lens of migrant legal status and entertains a normative vision of urban citizenship in which a person would become a “citizen” not by explicit consent of fellow citizens, but merely by presence and residence in a place. While the immediate possibilities for such an unbounded, “grounded” citizenship are small, the article takes lessons from this model and discusses a fourth approach to cities and citizenship which explores the contemporary creation of urban “citizenship” policies for undocumented migrants in the United States. It concludes by discussing four brief examples of these local policies: (1) the contemporary struggle to reinstate local noncitizen voting, (2) the increasing acceptance of matrículas consulares as a valid form of identification for undocumented Mexican residents, and the debates over whether or not states should (3) issue driver licenses to undocumented migrants and (4) allow undocumented students to pay in-state tuition for public colleges and universities.

Global cities are spaces where the very meaning, content and extent of citizenship are being made and transformed. (Isin, 2000 Isin, E. 2000. Democracy, Citizenship and the Global City, New York: Routledge.  [Google Scholar], p. 6)

… It's ridiculous that becoming a citizen in the US is a problem. I've been here for 17 years! This is my home. You need to make a difference where you live! (Undocumented resident of Los Angeles1 ^?1 I interviewed this individual as part of my research on undocumented migrants and residents in Los Angeles who, somewhat paradoxically, have been participating in campaign politics and “get out the vote” drives run by their labor unions. For a thorough discussion and analysis of this field work, see Varsanyi (2005 Varsanyi. 2005. The paradox of contemporary immigrant political mobilization: organized labor, undocumented migrants, and electoral participation in Los Angeles. Antipode, 37(4): 775–795. [Crossref] [Google Scholar]). Quotation translated from Spanish. View all notes)     

Popular mobilization and disaster management in Cuba

Cuba has effectively implemented a system of popular mobilization and education to prepare people for such natural disasters as hurricanes. Compliance with evacuation orders is impressive. Top priority is attached to saving lives. The country's acclaimed programme accounts for the limited toll of Hurricane Michelle in November 2001, which was the most powerful storm since 1944. Five Cubans died in the storm, which wreaked havoc in Jamaica, Honduras, and Nicaragua. This article reviews recent Cuban experience in disaster preparedness, which was achieved despite material scarcity. Since the prestigious Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns of increased susceptibility to disasters in future, Cuba's record deserves wide attention. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Managing Disasters: The Role of Local Government

In major disasters, local communities are often on their own for several hours or days. Local governments can play a key role in taking the initiative to protect their citizens. This essay compares the experience of New Orleans before, during, and after the catastrophe of Hurricane Katrina with the performance of Qinglong County, China, during the Tangshan earthquake of 1976. Qinglong County exemplifies local government taking initiative in risk assessment, decision making, operations, information sharing, and communications.     

Can service providing NGOs build democracy? Five contingent features

This article studies the role of service providing NGOs in the Middle East in promoting democracy. Challenging the assumption that service providing NGOs are apolitical, the authors argue that service providing NGOs play important roles in promoting democracy. They do so by serving as public arenas, or spaces in which members and beneficiaries practice democratic habits such as discussion and debate, collective problem solving, free expression, rights claiming, and the like—all of which contribute to the cultivation of a participatory form of democracy. Drawing upon existing literature, interviews, and participant observation of NGOs in Egypt, Lebanon, and Palestine, the authors argue that five features shape the role of service providing NGOs in promoting democracy. These include: (1) organizational readiness, or the organization's embeddedness in its beneficiary community and its organizational capacity; (2) organizational governance, or organization's commitment to participatory representation and transparency; (3) the nature of service an organization provides; (4) an NGOs' collaboration with other NGOs and the government; and (5) donor risk tolerance. The article's analysis contributes to our understanding of the varied, and often overlooked, roles of service providing NGOs, advancing the literature on NGO-state relations, NGO-donor relations, and democracy promotion.     

The Hyper-Hermeneutic Gesture of a Subtle Revolution

Abstract

I argue that Shakespeare's Timon of Athens exemplifies the concept of mourning play that Walter Benjamin had in mind when he wrote The Origin of German Tragic Drama. While others have interpreted the play in various ways, no one has attempted to understand Timon in a Benjaminesque manner that seeks to show the emergence of baroque tragedy as a new aesthetic form at odds with, and liberated from, classical tragedy's mythical foundation and instead premised on historical time and progress. In my discussion, I question the view that Timon possesses inheritable or transmissible human social bonds that can be the subject of annihilation as is the case in Shakespeare's other tragedies. Rather, Benjamin sees in allegory, as illustrated by Timon of Athens, the social condition of modernity replete with suffering, chaos, and violence, but devoid of real human bonds; indeed, it is without human meaning.     

You Say You Want a Revolution: the Arab Spring,Norm Diffusion,and the Human Rights Regime

We discuss how the Arab Spring is a reflection of the resiliency of the human rights regime. In order to accomplish this, we explore the extent to which the Arab Spring represents norm diffusion among Middle East and North Africa (MENA) states. Specifically, we examine the cases of Tunisia, Egypt, and Bahrain and consider how economic and demographic changes created space for human rights discourse in these countries. We find that, in the case of MENA states, the Arab Spring represents significant pressure from below. Access to new forms of social media allowed civil society to organize, publicize, and protest relatively efficiently. Social media expanded the potential role of individuals and created newly empowered latent human rights activists who emerged as leaders of the norm diffusion process. The resulting diffusion of human rights norms in the Arab region represents one of the most significant expansions of the human rights regime since the regime’s inception.     

A Tale of Two Disasters

The report to the U.S. president entitled The Federal Responseto Hurricane Katrina concludes that in the event of catastrophicdisasters the traditional intergovernmental response to disastershould give way to a more dominant role of the national government.This article considers whether it is possible to respond effectivelyto disaster in the traditional, intergovernmental mode by comparingthe response to Katrina with the response, which was widelyconsidered to be successful, to another disaster, in Grand Forks,North Dakota. The research suggests that an intergovernmentalresponse can be successful if those who respond to the disasterinteract in a collaborative network. The article considers whethersuch collaborative networks can be created and evaluates someof the recommendations from The Federal Response to HurricaneKatrina as potentially helping to create collaborative networks.     

Why do corporations contribute to the Nature Conservancy?

Treating corporate contributions as purchases of valuable inputs, we hypothesize that firms for which genetic diversity, advertizing, and reputations of environmental responsibility are more valuable and firms for which the cost of contributing is less will be more likely contributors to the Nature Conservancy. These hypotheses are supported by logit estimations which find firms in industries where biological inputs are important, firms with high advertizing expenditures, firms in industries with high costs of meeting environmental regulations, and large firms are more likely to contribute and so become Corporate Associates of the Nature Conservancy.     

FEMA, Federalism, Hugo, and 'Frisco

This article examines intergovernmental performance during naturaldisasters. The United States has an ongoing response systemwhich requires the cooperation of national, state, and localgovernments. This system was severely tested during the fallof 1989 by four major crises: Hurricane Hugo in the Caribbean,South Carolina, and North Carolina, and the Loma Prieta earthquakein San Francisco. The intergovernmental response functionedvery differently in the four situations. Three patterns emergeto describe the intergovernmental dynamics of disaster relief.The article discusses the causes and consequences of these differentpatterns.     

Particularizing the Universal: Dave Eggers Writes Human Rights

This article examines the ways in which two literary texts by the American author Dave Eggers, his novel You Shall Know Our Velocity (2002) EGGERS, Dave. (2002) You Shall Know Our Velocity (San Francisco, CA: McSweeney's). [Google Scholar] and his short story “Up the Mountain Coming Down Slowly,” interrogate the abstract humanism that underlies universalist rights and explore the reasons for their ineptitude at effecting their promise of universalism when faced with the particularity of individual cultures. Thematically, Eggers's stories test the limits of promoting rights on the basis of an innate shared humanity by exposing how such a basis easily slides into other universalist practices such as those of neocolonialism and neoimperialism. At the character level, these narratives consider the possibilities for meaningful cross-cultural relationships within the context of these discourses, revealing the ease with which they in turn can slip into hierarchical relations that reaffirm existing divisions. In doing so, they also engage and challenge the conclusions of cosmopolitan thinkers such as Kwame Anthony Appiah or Jürgen Habermas who have influentially proposed cross-cultural dialogues as a means of overcoming the tension between universalism and particularity. Interestingly, then, even as interdisciplinary research on literature and human rights has begun to etch out the coalescence of the two, Eggers provides an important example of how literary texts can also critique human rights discourses and can explore questions pertaining to their global reach.     

Social capital, lobbying and community-based interest groups

Recent discussions of social capital within the public choice literature have tended to focus on its role in solving collective action problems and promoting political accountability. Consequently, two areas of inquiry remain underexplored: (1) the role social capital plays in facilitating lobbying and rent seeking, and (2) the possibility that the availability of government resources can cause community-based groups to re-orient their stocks of social capital away from mutual assistance and toward lobbying and rent seeking. This article examines the relationship between social capital and lobbying in New Orleans??s post-Katrina recovery.