The Time That Was Broken, the Home That Was Razed: Deconstructing Slavenka Drakulic's Storytelling About Yugoslav War Crimes

¹In this article, I analyze the conceptualization of transitionaljustice underwriting Slavenka Drakuli's book, They Would NeverHurt a Fly, on the trials at the International Criminal Tribunalfor the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague. I adopt a criticaland deconstructive strategy of interpretation that reveals Drakuli'sidea of ‘justice for the Balkans’ as not only internallyincoherent and fractured but also politically problematic. Iintroduce two concepts as central to Drakuli's storytellingabout transitional justice in the former Yugoslavia: (i) theidea of a ‘broken time’ and (ii) the idea of a ‘razedhome.’ I conclude that Drakuli's narratives of justiceare aimed at repairing broken time and rebuilding the razedhome in a way that reveals the author's redemptive, rather thanpolitical, thinking about transitional justice.     

Protest: tradition and change

Analyses of political development in colonial Africa have largely concentrated on the role of the educated elite in the emergence of nationalist movements. In recent years some attempt has been made to fill out this one-dimensional view through the study of early and more broadly based protest movements in various colonial territories. This paper takes as its subject matter the records of riots which occurred on the Gold Coast between 1890 and 1920. These disturbances are taken as an index of non-elite protest while an analysis of case-studies indicates their significance for political developments leading to the emergence of nationalist parties.     

Protest and Decision-making in a Society of Blame

The modern 'globalised' society takes for granted that future and development can be planned and controlled. Economical and political decision-making processes propose goals and intentions; protest movements show how this can be dangerous, but do not have realistic alternatives. Adopting the instruments of systems theory the paper focuses on two topics that are the very social condition of modernity and globalisation. First, decision-making can only affect variables on the level of formal organisations, but not on the level of society as a whole. Second, the results of planning are never those expected by the decision-makers. Society is a result of evolution, not of (good or bad) intentions. Protest in the society against the society is then the reaction of society to itself, once that which is possible to do is a consequence (positive or negative) of a future without shape and the only available resource is uncertainty.     

Protest voting in plurality elections: a theory of voter signaling

This paper develops a model of protest voting in which unsatisfied voters may abandon their most-preferred candidate even though he or she has a good chance of winning, in the hope that this signal of disaffection will lead to downstream improvements in that candidate??s performance. We use a spatial model to identify voters whose ideological profile makes protest voting an option, and an expected utility model to identify the conditions under which potential protest voters will in fact use their vote as a signaling device. Aggregate-level data provide suggestive evidence in the argument??s favor.     

Protest by candlelight: A comparative analysis of candlelight vigils in South Korea

ABSTRACT

Protest activist leaders must make a series of decisions about the strategies they use; one such decision is the choice of tactic or performance, often informed by their cultural historic contentious repertoire. In South Korea's contentious repertoire, the use of candlelight vigils has become an increasingly prevalent form of protest tactic. Candlelight vigils have become an increasingly prominent tactic in South Korea’s repertoire over the last two decades, as evidenced by major candlelight vigils in 2002, 2008, and 2016-2017. In this study, we explore the ways in which candlelight vigils as a protest tactic have evolved over time in South Korea. We notably find that vigils emerged as a left-wing protest tactic in 2002, but right-wing protesters began adopting the tactic during the counter-protests opposing President Park Geun-Hye’s impeachment in 2016–2017 (Taegeukgi Giphoei). Additionally, we find that candlelight vigils drew participants from an increasingly wide swath of society over time and average citizens assumed greater organizational roles. This research not only contributes to the literature on South Korean social movements and civil society, but to understanding candlelight vigils as a distinct form of protest and how contentious repertoires evolve over time more broadly.     

“Tell It Like It Is”: Decision Making,Groupthink, and Decisiveness among U.S. Federal Subcabinet Executives

In addition to difficulties gathering and evaluating complete information, cognitive limitations and biases preclude individuals from making fully value‐maximizing choices when making decisions. It has been suggested that, done properly, involving advisors can compensate for individual‐level limitations. However, the “groupthink” tradition has highlighted ways group‐aided decision making can fail to live up to its potential. Out of this literature has emerged a paradigm Janis calls “vigilant problem‐solving.” For this article, we interviewed 20 heads of subcabinet‐level organizations in the U.S. federal government, asking questions about how they made important decisions. Ten were nominated by “good‐government” experts, 10 chosen at random. We wanted to see whether there were differences in how members of those two groups made decisions, specifically, to what extent executives in the two categories used a “vigilant” process. We found, however, that similarities between the two groups overwhelmed differences: As best as we were able to measure, decision making by U.S. subcabinet executives tracks vigilant decision making recommendations fairly closely. The similarity reflects a common style of senior‐level decision making, which we theorize grows out of government bureaucracy's methodical culture. We did, however, develop evidence for a difference between outstanding executives and others on another dimension of decision making style. Outstanding executives valued decision making decisiveness—“bias for action”—more than the comparison group. Perhaps, then, what distinguishes outstanding executives from others is not vigilance but decisiveness. Contrary to the implications of the groupthink literature, the danger in government may be “paralysis by analysis” as much or more than groupthink.     

Large‐Scale Social Protest: A Business Risk and a Bureaucratic Opportunity

The public versus private nature of organizations influences their goals, processes, and employee values. However, existing studies have not analyzed whether and how the public nature of organizations shapes their responses to concrete social pressures. This article takes a first step toward addressing this gap by comparing the communication strategies of public organizations and businesses in response to large‐scale social protests. Specifically, we conceptualize, theorize, and empirically analyze the communication strategies of 100 organizations in response to large‐scale social protests that took place in Israel during 2011. We find that in response to these protests, public organizations tended to employ a “positive‐visibility” strategy, whereas businesses were inclined to keep a “low public profile.” We associate these different communication strategies with the relatively benign consequences of large‐scale social protests for public organizations compared with their high costs for businesses.     

Protest,citizenship and democratic renewal: the student movement in Chile

What is the significance of upsurge of protest and claims-making for how we understand citizenship in relatively new democracies? In Chile, some 20 years after a paradigmatically successful democratisation, student protests for a more equitable education system have re-politicised and transformed debates about what democracy and citizenship should mean. Claims are being staked not only for educational reform but also for a new model of citizenship based on rights and welfare, in contrast to neoliberal models of citizenship as individualisation and consumption. In raising consciousness as regards the costs of neoliberal democracy, the student protests are reviving the country's radical traditions and past practices of an engaged, political active youth movement.