Emotions and voting behavior in self-determination referendums: the case of New Caledonia in 2018

In this article we examine the impact of emotions in an independence referendum. New Caledonia – a French Pacific territory with 270,000 inhabitants – held a self-determination referendum in November 2018, in which 56% of the voters opted to remain a part of France. We conducted a post-referendum survey with 1496 respondents that included a specific battery to measure emotions as well as control variables. We find that experiencing anger with the national status of the territory increases the probability of voting for independence, while experiencing pride reduces it. These results remain after controlling for partisan, ethnic and national identification, expected effects of independence as well as sociodemographic factors. Moreover, emotions and identity interact and increase the effect of (the lack of) national identification. Beyond the effects of the traditional control variables, the results suggest that knowledge about voting behavior in independence referendums is transferable to decolonization in Pacific Islands.     

Memory Frictions: Localizing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Sierra Leone

This paper concerns the frictions of engagement when transitionaljustice mechanisms are implemented in local contexts. My focusis the practice of truth-telling as part of a global paradigmof redemptive memory. I first trace the genealogy of this paradigm,examining how it came to appear ‘natural’ and ‘universal.’Second, I explore struggles over memory that ensued when SierraLeone's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) assertivelypromoted this paradigm in a region in which alternative memorytechniques reflected popular priorities in an unstable contextof ‘no peace, no war.’ These struggles were rootednot only in the contested content of memories, but also in aperceived incommensurability between contrasting memory projectsbelieved to have divergent implications for processes of reconstruction.Finally, I examine the significance of reparations both forlocal practices of post-war memory and for the local effectivenessof the TRC.     

Global equality of opportunity and self-determination in the context of immigration

David Miller’s political philosophy of immigration employs two complementary argumentative strategies to challenge open border theories. The first strategy is to defeat the principled case for open borders, such as the global equality of opportunity argument for more lax immigration control. The second strategy is to establish the democratic community’s prima facie right to determine the shape of its future, including membership and the right to exclude. First, I argue that Miller’s conception of global equality of opportunity is overly narrow and that his objections to the principle, to the metric and to what counts as feasible political action misfire against other, more plausible, accounts. Second, I argue that his democratic interpretation of collective self-determination does not solve the pressing question concerning the morally justified scope and content of self-determination and the moral limits of the right to exclude. I conclude by questioning Miller’s general strategy: whether theories of immigration should be engaged in an exercise of shifting the burden of proof between open and closed borders. By contrast, I argue that a more desirable task for the political philosophy of immigration is to find ways in which the joint requirement of global equality of opportunity and collective self-determination can be coherently upheld.     

The future of self-determination and territorial integrity in the Asian Century

Abstract

The twentieth century saw the rise of two important and interrelated norms. The first is the norm of self-determination, which advances the right of stateless nations to govern themselves. The second is the norm of territorial integrity, which upholds the principle that political borders should be respected. A consequence of these norms has been an increase in secessionism, a decline in conquest, and a proliferation of states. This paper will examine the development of these norms, their interrelationship, and their prospects for the future. Attention will be given to three important questions: (1) Under what conditions does a norm endure beyond a power transition? (2) How likely is an ascendant China or India to support the norms? (3) What does a power transition and the corresponding support of these norms augur for the future of secession, conquest, and the number of sovereign states?     

The Ambiguities of Reconciliation and Responsibility in South Africa

This paper traces the ways in which the language of reconciliation promotes and detracts from responsibility. What it means to be responsible and to take responsibility is explored through a reading of J. M. Coetzee's novel, Disgrace . Coetzee provokes a nuanced examination of the nature of reconciliation and responsibility in post-apartheid South Africa, particularly how deep a moral transformation is needed and of whom it should be expected. The tensions between pro forma acknowledgement and deep moral transformation are examined with respect to the competing narratives of reconciliation and responsibility that took place during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and afterwards in South African civil society. The paper concludes with a warning about the delicate balance between responsibility and vilification, reconciliation and denial.     

Reconciliation of income and consumption data in poverty measurement

A recent series of papers has renewed interest in the question of whether consumption data are superior to income data for poverty measurement. Although the Census Bureau has provided researchers with an experimental series of variables that can produce a comprehensive income measure, this resource has not been fully exploited in previous analyses. When poverty is measured by a comprehensive income measure, income poverty rates and trends are similar to consumption poverty rates. Arguments that income is measured with more error than consumption at the bottom of the distribution are shown to be based upon inferior income data. © 2008 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

The Haunting of Alice: Local Approaches to Justice and Reconciliation in Northern Uganda

Through the story of a former rebel fighter, this article examinessome of the justice and reconciliation challenges in northernUganda today. While talks between the Lord's Resistance Army(LRA) and Government of Uganda have generated the best chancefor peace in the 20-year conflict, the International CriminalCourt's indictment of rebel leaders threatens this process.The rebels refuse to disarm if indicted; the Chief Prosecutorrefuses to withdraw indictments as he believes withdrawal willfoster impunity. To resolve this dilemma, local cultural andreligious leaders advocate adapting local justice and reconciliationmechanisms to the situation, arguing that these will both holdrebels accountable and achieve peace. However, little is knownabout local justice processes or their potential to foster reconciliationin war-torn northern Uganda. On the basis of participatory research(2004–2006) with war-affected persons, the article seeksto address this gap, illustrating the potential and limitationsof such locally relevant mechanisms.     

Justice,Human Rights,and Reconciliation in Postconflict Cambodia

Retribution? Restitution? Reconciliation? “Justice” comes in many forms as witnessed by the spike in war crimes tribunals, Truth &; Reconciliation Commissions, hybrid tribunals and genocide trials. Which, if any form is appropriate should be influenced by the culture of the people affected. It took Cambodia over three decades to finally address the ghosts of its Khmer Rouge past with the creation of a hybrid Khmer Rouge Tribunal. But how meaningful is justice to the majority of survivors of the Khmer Rouge auto-genocide when only a handful of top officials are tried? Further, given the persistent abuse of political and economic rights in post-conflict Cambodia, we are skeptical that justice or reconciliation is presently possible.     

Transgression and (sexual) citizenship: the political struggle for self-determination within BDSM communities

There has been – and continues to be – a tension within the political strategies of sexual minority communities claiming citizenship. Whilst attempting to forge a political self-determination based on being (dissident) sexual subjects, members of sexually diverse communities have frequently engaged in political practices that normalize their diversity to accord with wider socio-cultural conventions. In this article, we address this issue in relation to the political strategies of one of the most marginalized sexual identities/practices: BDSM. By drawing on the work of Foucault, Rose, Rabinow and Bahktin, we advance a case for how it may be possible for dissident sexual communities to resist the normalizing effects of citizenship whilst still making claims for legal recognition and wider social acknowledgment. Key to the argument is the theorization of a position wherein carnival transgression operates within a dialectical integration of ideology and utopia as a mode of citizenship.     

Australian Federalism: Developments and Prospects

This article discusses the principal recent developments in,and future prospects for, constitutional change, judicial review,fiscal arrangements, local government, public policy, and intergovernmentalrelations since the 1977 Publius issue on Australian federalism,taking into account the arguments presented in the other contributionsto this volume. It highlights the continuing vertical imbalanceof Australian fiscal federalism, and the Hawke Labor government'srecent initiative for a closer working partnership with thestates for reforming intergovernmental arrangements. It arguesthat while there is scope for the latter, there is greater needfor the former. Nevertheless, the 1980s was significant as adecade of predominantly Labor governments working with the federalConstitution, while the 1990s promises to be a decade of celebratingthe centenary of the Australian Constitution and working towardimproving the functioning of its federal system.     

Nonalienation among peoples: Symposium on Catherine Lu’s Justice and Reconciliation in World Politics

ABSTRACT

This contribution gives an appreciation of Catherine Lu’s book Justice and Reconciliation in World Politics and introduces some concepts and motifs, themes and arguments that play a role in the discussion by the three commentators Reinhard Wolf, Alasia Nuti, and Kimberly Hutchings in this book symposium. The discussion adds to the development of the categories of structural injustice, alienation, and reconciliation, and especially of the systematic relations among them. I conclude that the notion of nonalienation as reconciliation in world order will be worth investigating even independently of questions of historical injustice.     

Teaching the Violent Past: History Education and Reconciliation, Elizabeth A. Cole

Elizabeth A. Cole has edited a comprehensive collection of casestudies of educational reform efforts following some of the20th century's most searing episodes of violence and human rightsabuse. The collection begins with an essay on the role of educationalreform in reconciliation. Cole