Victims’ Rights and Distributive Justice: In Search of Actors

The aim of this article is to discuss the role that victim groups and organizations may have in framing and supporting an accountability agenda, as well as their potential for endorsing a distributive justice agenda. The article explores two empirical cases where victims' rights have been introduced and applied by victim organizations to promote accountability—Colombia and Peru. It will be argued that if transitional justice in general and victim reparations in particular are to embark in a quest for distributive justice, it cannot do so without considering victims as political actors, and putting forward demands in terms of victims’ rights.     

Thailand’s unrest: a test for democracy

There is no obvious or easy way out of the long-running confrontation that lies at the heart of Thailand’s politics. And in the absence of decisive intervention by either the monarch or the army, there is good reason to believe that the current unrest will continue.     

Building China’s Soft Power for a Peaceful Rise

With its rapid economic growth and deepening integration into the global system, Chinese leaders see the first 20 years of the 21st century as an ‘important period of strategic opportunity’ for China. China under Hu Jintao’s leadership has chosen a new path of peaceful rise. To facilitate such a peaceful rise, Chinese Communist Party has gradually adopted a soft power strategy. We see building soft power as a means as well as the end of China’s peaceful rise. We argue China has a genuine desire for peace in her rise and China’s peaceful rise may not be impossible. Based on existing literature, we expand the sources of soft power to six pillars: cultural attractiveness, political values, development model, international institutions, international image, and economic temptation. We also identify three channels for wielding soft power: formal, economic, and cultural diplomacies. Putting all the basics together, we have proposed an integrative model of soft power. Accordingly, we analyze the sources and limits of China’s soft power and suggest how to improve it in these six areas.     

Challenges confronting nonprofit housing organizations’ self‐sufficiency programs

Abstract

In recent years, interest has grown at the federal level in strategies to combine subsidized housing with programs promoting household self‐sufficiency. This article explores how nonprofit housing organizations conceptualize their self‐sufficiency programs for their residents. A broad definition of self‐sufficiency is presented—one that is not exclusively focused on the individual and, instead, also includes program strategies that are focused on changing the context in which individuals live and work.

The paper then analyzes the relationship between the self‐sufficiency strategies being implemented in the nonprofit housing world and how these organizations will be affected by welfare reform, the shrinking and restructuring of federally subsidized housing, the emergence of block grant job training and workforce development programs, and the general devolution of government programs into ever more fungible pots at state and local levels. These transformations in the domestic policy agenda will present challenges to nonprofit housing organizations and to the goal of promoting self‐sufficiency.     

‘Bumps in the Road Ahead’: How External Actors Defuse Power-Sharing Crises

ABSTRACT

Power-sharing is a governance approach favoured by external actors for building state capacity and legitimacy in post-conflict societies. Yet it can be unstable and crisis-prone, compelling external actors to guide cross-community cooperation. Why and how do external actors seek to maintain power-sharing and prevent its collapse when operational difficulties emerge? We explore the distinction between ‘light touch’ and ‘heavy hand’ techniques and the motivations of external actors in defusing power-sharing crises. We find a trade-off between the short-term value of crisis management (‘putting out fires’) and the long-term objectives of sustainable local arrangements and external exit (local actors ‘going it alone’).     

If You’re a Critical Theorist,How Come You Work for a University?

How can we deal with the apparent contradiction between the normative ideals of critical theory and the practice of the current university system? To answer this question, I consult three classical criticisms of the university system: At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the French educator Joseph Jacotot formulated a pedagogical critique of the disciplinary effects of the educational system; at the beginning of the twentieth century, German historian Franz Rosenzweig articulated an ethical critique of the hegemonic educational system’s distance from life; and at the beginning of the twentyfirst century, British feminist Sara Ahmed proposed a political critique of the oppressing functions of academic institutions. Taken together, these critiques can serve as an orientation for critical intellectual practice even within the academic system. Finally, I try to describe the relation between critical theory and the university thus evolving by utilising Stefano Harney’s and Fred Moten’s concept of the “undercommons”.     

‘Flexicurity’ as a policy strategy: the implications for gender equality

Abstract

The ‘flexicurity’ strategy reached the top of the European Union's policy agenda in the mid-2000s. The strategy assumes an adult worker model family and aims to promote better, as well as more, jobs and to ensure that policies should further both flexibility in the labour market and security for workers. The article explores, first, the meaning of internal and external flexibility, and of employment-based security and the different implications for men and women. While the policy documents assume that flexicurity will increase gender equality, the mechanisms have not been specified. In fact, as the article shows, women are often more ‘flexible’ workers than men, particularly regarding their contractual arrangements and hours of employment. However, they tend not to be economically autonomous and, we argue, the supply-side policies advocated on the security side of the flexicurity matrix are insufficient to improve their position, which is strongly related to the gendered divisions of paid and unpaid work.     

Militarizing civilians in Singapore: preparing for ‘Crisis’ within a calibrated nationalism1

The Singaporean polity has created the ‘militarized civilian’. This policy phenomenon beckons the question: How is this cross-fertilization carried out in Singapore's civil–military relations? Militarization is in the first sense meant to inculcate a calibrated dual personality within the civilian whereby being an effective soldier requires indulging in simulated military suffering as a badge of pride; at the same time, the citizen soldier has to believe that military and civilian values are perfectly interchangeable and contribute equally to the maintenance of peace. In a second sense, militarization is equally about permanently ritualizing sacrifices for a communitarian defence. We argue that while mostly successful, militarization also produces the tension arising from the need to appear pugnaciously vigilant while avoiding the casualties that must logically arise from heightened simulated combat. This tension is explained through two dimensions of ongoing crises: the parameters of a politically dramatized National Service ritual; and the constant propaganda of geopolitical dangers threatening the Republic.     

Afraid of a ‘Kosovo Scenario’: A Disquieting Precedent for International Conflict Management

The UN Security Council Resolution 1244 (1999) represented an interim settlement that permitted conflict de-escalation while postponing the search for a lasting political solution. The final settlement should have been reached through negotiations between Belgrade and the Kosovo Albanians, and then endorsed by the UN Security Council, in accordance with the UN Resolution 1244 (1999). However, citing the ambiguity of the interim agreement and a deadlock in the negotiations, the United States and its allies recognized Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence in February 2008, thereby allowing the Kosovo Albanians to defect from the peace process. Therefore, instead of an internationally endorsed negotiated outcome, there has been an attempt at a unilaterally enforced political settlement, in disregard for the authority of the UN Security Council, which had placed Kosovo under international administration. The subsequent involvement of the International Court of Justice has failed to resolve the contentious issues between Belgrade and Prishtina or bridge the international divide over Kosovo. Besides creating a troublesome legal precedent, the recognition of Kosovo represents a bad model for international conflict management. The issues of concern are the viability of future interim settlements, good faith negotiations and the legitimacy and guarantees provided by the international involvement, including the authority of the UN Security Council. Some parallels are drawn between Kosovo and other territorial disputes, particularly in the Caucasus, indicating how the Kosovo case could influence other conflicts.     

In search of the ‘Other’ in Asia: Russia–China relations revisited

This paper argues that Russia and China are partners of consequence and that the neglect of the normative dimension of the Sino-Russian relationship has led its impact on global governance to be undervalued and misunderstood. Following a constructivist approach, the paper examines the shared norms underlying an ever closer Sino-Russian partnership, despite divergent interests in a number of areas. A first section examines how shared norms lead Russia and China to define their identity similarly, facilitate joint actions, and constrain their individual policy choices. For Russia, elaborating its own unique identity is crucial to its claim to global status, though complicated by interactions with multiple ‘Others.’ Russia's effort to engage Asian partners is often viewed as hedging against China, but as second section argues that Russian engagement in Asia is better understood in terms of Russia's effort to define an Asian identity. A third section highlights the securitization/desecuritization dynamic in Sino-Russian economic relations. Xi Jinping's efforts to redefine China's global role reinforces its tendency to desecuritize the vulnerabilities that lead China to seek economic cooperation with Russia. Russia, fearing becoming a ‘resource appendage’ of China, then securitizes economic relations with China.     

What’s in a poll? Incentives for truthful reporting in pre-election opinion surveys

We examine the ability of pre-election polls to aggregate information about voter preferences. We show that if the electorate is small and voting costs are negligible, then an equilibrium exists in which citizens report their true political preferences. If the electorate is large or voting costs are significant, however, then no such equilibrium exists because poll respondents possess incentives to influence the voting behavior of others by misreporting their true preferences. We find that when a truthful equilibrium does exist, a poll can raise expected welfare by discouraging turnout among members of the minority.     

The self‐in‐reading

At play are not the signifiers we are the ones who are playing. (Goelz 1997: 243)

Writing only remains in control at the expense of our ability to read. (Goelz 1997: 117.)     

Family self‐sufficiency and housing

Abstract

Since the early 1980s, an increasing number of initiatives have been introduced to link housing programs and policies with efforts designed to promote family economic self‐sufficiency. This article reviews a set of programs that have worked to manipulate various components of the housing bundle to improve the economic well‐being of acutely poor families. They include programs that modify the characteristics and services available in the local community, alter families’ residential location, provide incentives and opportunities for homeownership, and link the provision of housing subsidies to increasing local capacity for service delivery.

This article suggests that the centrality of housing in fostering or impeding economic mobility makes it a key element in dealing with acute poverty and part of a creative strategy for intervening in the dynamics of poverty. Several important areas need to be taken into account when evaluating current policy; and multiyear evaluations will be necessary to determine the success of these programs.     

Macron’s strategic vision for Europe

President Emmanuel Macron’s February 2020 speech at the École Militaire, ostensibly about French nuclear policy, was also a major strategic statement about France’s role in Europe and the world. His primary message, directed towards Berlin in particular, advocates for an ‘awakening’ of Europe as an autonomous actor in the defence and possibly nuclear realms.