Bordering solidarities: migrant activism and the politics of movement and camps at Calais

The proliferation of more restrictive border controls governing global mobility provides important sites of crystallization through which differentiated and stratified rights to movement are produced, negotiated, and reimagined. One such form, the detention of migrants, is often understood through a logic of exception as the exclusion of unwanted migrants from the borders of the political community. Critical scholarship on detention informed by an autonomous migration perspective suggests a more nuanced reading of detention as the differential inclusion of migrants through positions of precariousness, transformations of legal statuses and subjectivities, and control over the direction and temporality of migratory flows. Building on this trajectory, this paper argues that the very meaning of the camp also needs to be brought into the analysis of a politics of migration and of control. For spaces of detention are sites of contestation that can be used by migrants (and those in solidarity with them) as resources to navigate border controls, reimagine political community and subjectivities and through which migrants engage in practices of citizenship. Reflecting on the destruction of the migrant camps in and around Calais, the paper examines three different images of the camp space known as ‘the jungle’ and draws attention to camp spaces as social and political spaces, in which the struggles to define them are an integral part of what is at stake in the struggle between a politics of control and a politics of migration.     

Corporate governance on stakeholder issues: shareholder activism as a guiding force

Publicly traded corporations are under increasing amounts of pressure from society at large to redirect resources toward maximizing the value that accrues to non‐shareholding stakeholders of the organization. Building on the management and public relations literature, this study proposes a shareholder–stakeholder engagement model on corporate social responsibility (CSR)—the totality of corporate actions to meet societal norms and expectations. The study argues that shareholder activist–corporate engagements on CSR issues can enhance the corporation's sensitivity to stakeholder issues through improvements in the stakeholder governance mechanisms—institutions that safeguard stakeholder interests and maximize stakeholder welfare—within the corporations. Social shareholder activists, a special type of stakeholders, can be a viable source of pressure in influencing corporations to improve weaknesses in stakeholder governance mechanisms. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Watching the Race: Where You Sit Affects What You See

States do seem to compete in making welfare policy. This competition,however, does not drive states inexorably toward a race to thebottom. Instead, this competition is a political rivalry ofthe kind that leads to unpredictable and unstable outcomes.This rivalry entails interstate learning and results in adaptation,but it stems from its political utility in appealing to votersand gaining personal recognition in the political arena     

Fighting to close the School of the Americas: Unintended consequences of successful activism

This article examines the structural and institutional changes that have occurred since the controversial United States School of the Americas (SOA) closed and its successor, the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), opened in 2001. Placing these changes within a constructivist framework, the article uses the school as a case study to argue that human rights norm diffusion has both increased the amount of human rights in the curriculum and put the school in a much stronger institutional position than it had been. Human rights activists had successfully prompted change, but did not achieve their goal of closing the school. This article contributes to the literature by demonstrating how ideas about human rights can have important and lasting effects, but not always in ways that are either predictable or desirable for the political activists who spark them.     

Choosing to be political: some reflections on youth activism in the US

This article explores youth activism in the US, not through the lens of collective action, but as the product of personal choices. By drawing on existentialism, and particularly on the work of Jean-Paul Sartre, this article proposes to shift the focus of the debate from youths’ collective action to the self – a conscious self that observes, perceives and makes sense of the surrounding world through personal experience. It is this conscious self that decides how, and whether, to intervene against the ‘wrong’ that the self experiences. In this perspective, it is not only the acts (of citizenship) that matter, but the conscious process through which the self chooses to become political. Such an understanding will ultimately help uncover not only how the undocumented act and how to conceptualise their acts but also how they perceive and experience their current status and who they want to become.     

The age of apology: evidence from the Israeli public discourse

At the time of its presentation, Derrida's 'Force of law' represented deconstruction's perhaps most direct statement on the possibility of justice and its most explicit engagement with law. The ensuing responses to that paper have typically focused on deconstruction's position regarding the force and authority of law, and especially on what is taken as Derrida's theory of justice. As such, 'Force of law' is often discussed in isolation to mainstream legal philosophy or is otherwise understood to represent a radical counter to that tradition. It is possible to take a different direction, however, by considering the event of that paper's presentation and reception in relation not only to the existing disciplines of legal studies, but also to the problematic of discipline itself. Re-reading some of the work of contemporary legal philosophy in the light of that problematic may thus enable a certain questioning of the disciplinary divisions whose very institution underscores the 'radical' nature of deconstruction's 'critique' of traditional understandings of law. Such a re-reading may even allow a speculation upon a certain (trans)disciplinarity of deconstruction, reconsidering the latter's relation to traditions.     

The construction of urgency discourse around mega-projects: the Israeli case

Various studies have pointed to urgency in decision-making as a major catalyst for policy change. Urgency evokes a crisis frame in which emotions and cognitive and institutional biases are more likely to be mobilised in support of the policy preferences of powerful actors. As a result, decision-makers tend to be driven by emotions and opportunity, often with detrimental results for the quality of the planning process. Although urgency has such a profound influence on the quality of decision-making, little is known about how, when and by whom urgency is constructed in the planning process of public infrastructure. By means of a discourse analysis, this study traces the timing, motives and ways actors discursively construct a sense of urgency in decision-making on the building of terminals for the reception and treatment of the natural gas that was recently found off the coast of Israel. The results of this study indicate that government regulators, but also private sector actors, deliberately constructed an urgency discourse at critical moments during the planning process. By evoking terms that resonated with the target audience, regulators employed urgency as an instrument to legitimise unorthodox planning practices whilst precluding the consideration of alternative planning solutions. Thus, urgency framing is a means of controlling both the discourse and the agenda—and is therefore an exercise in power maintenance—by entrenched interest groups.     

Ambiguities of Witnessing: Law and Literature in the Time of a Truth Commission, Mark Sanders

As a contribution to the burgeoning literature on transitionaljustice and the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission(TRC), Ambiguities of Witnessing is an idiosyncratic production.The uninitiated reader should not be put off by the deconstructionisttheoretical indulgences of the opening chapters, as perseveranceis rewarded with perceptive interpretations of such key issuesas the TRC's discourse of forgiveness and its unresolved problematicof reparations. Mark     

Flexible responsiveness and military strategy: The case of the Israeli army

The mode of operation and military strategy of the Israeli army provide an example of an effective utilization of the potential military advantage of a relatively modernized society over a less modernized rival. The Israeli command communication and control system is characterized by a built in operational flexibility in attaining its objectives.Each component formation has the capacity for on the spot utilization of feedbacks in responding to emergent situations while coordination is ensured by optional headquarters control. The effect of superior flexible responsiveness is maximized by the adoption of military strategies which are likely to result in increasing the complexity and uncertainty of battlefield conditions such as blitzkrieg and indirect approach. The rationalle of such a strategic approach lies in the assumption that, given the approximately zero sum characteristics of warfare, the more flexible of two rival military command systems is likely to benefit from an extra pressure put on both.     

Opaque transparency: an analysis of the Israeli lobbying regulatory regime of 2008

After some failed attempts to regulate the lobbying, the Israeli Parliament—the Knesset—passed the Lobbyist Law on April 2nd 2008. Although lobbying is a common and legitimate part of the democratic process, it raises issues of trust, equality of access, and transparency. What motivated the MKs to regulate lobbying—public interest, private interest, or symbolic politics? The MKs claimed that the law was needed for improving transparency whereas MK Yechimovich declared that it balances the strength of the rich, represented by lobbyists and the wide public. Assessing the achieved transparency in the comparative framework of other lobbying regulatory regimes, we see that the law confers tangible benefits on powerful interest groups, while providing only symbolic gestures to the public. Lack of information available for MKs creates a need for lobbyists for political intelligence and MKs need to identify the interests in play to guarantee for themselves the necessary legislative subsidy. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Civic activism and Korean democracy: the impact of blacklisting campaigns in the 2000 and 2004 general elections

Abstract

For the general elections in 2000 and 2004, civic groups in South Korea joined forces to stage the so-called ‘blacklisting campaign’ or ‘defeat campaign’ against allegedly corrupt, incompetent or anti-reform politicians. The campaigns not only played a significant role in thwarting many politicians from getting nominated or elected but also heralded a new era in Korean politics: civic groups have now emerged as a major political force, capable not only of challenging party policies and pending legislation but also taking on an agenda-setting prominence in a wide array of policy areas. In analyzing the success of NGO political activities in the 2000 and 2004 general elections, this paper draws on resource mobilization theory to show how the civic groups effectively utilized various resources, including leadership skills, communications and office facilities, and access to the mass media, to achieve their objective rather than relying simply on the spontaneous participation of voters. In comparing the efforts of civic groups in the two elections, the paper also explains the factors that made their endeavors relatively less successful in 2004 (e.g. a splintering of alliances among the civic groups). On the whole, the paper argues that the greater political involvement by civic groups is likely to lead to a more pluralistic, open and competitive form of democracy, and that the vibrant civic activism in Korea is an indication not only of maturing democracy but also a more secure entrenchment of civil society.     

Military Intelligence and Controversial Political Issues: The Unique Case of the Israeli Military Intelligence

Contrary to intelligence services in other democracies worldwide, the activity of the Israeli Directorate of Military Intelligence, AMAN, is not merely centered around collection and research regarding military intelligence matters. Instead, AMAN covers the majority of intelligence activity arenas, including intelligence regarding state-related issues. This field of activity presents a situation where AMAN's officers, and predominantly, its research division, are compelled to deal with sensitive issues embedded well within Israeli political and public controversy. This is commonly illustrated in the field of ‘Intelligence for Peace’ in general and more specifically in the Palestinian arena. Intelligence research surrounding the question of Palestinian commitment to peace throughout the Oslo Process and following the onset of the al Aqsa Intifada – activity classified as ‘Intelligence on Intentions’ – placed AMAM at the heart of political debate in Israel and resulted in bitter internal disagreements in AMAN as well as tensions between the intelligence service and the political leadership. Throughout the years, numerous recommendations have been repeatedly voiced to end AMAN's monopoly over Israel's national intelligence assessment (including aspects of intelligence regarding state-related issues). These recommendations were based predominantly on hindsight evaluations, such as AMAN's repeated failures in intelligence assessments. This paper calls for gradual termination of AMAN's activity of intelligence regarding state-related issues, in light of its contradiction with the appropriate military–political separation in a democratic society. Moreover, it places AMAN at the heart of the political debate dividing Israeli society.