UN Peace Operations and Conflicting Legitimacies

ABSTRACT

Analyses of United Nations (UN) peacekeeping increasingly consider legitimacy a key factor for success, conceiving of it as a resource that operations should seek and use in the pursuit of their goals. However, these analyses rarely break down legitimacy by source. Because the UN is an organization with multiple identities and duties however, different legitimacy sources – in particular output and procedural legitimacy – and the UN’s corresponding legitimation practices come into conflict in the context of peacekeeping. Drawing on a range of examples and the specific case of the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC), this article argues that looking at different legitimacy sources and linking them to the institutional identity of the UN is thus critical, and it shows how the UN’s contradictory legitimation practices can reduce overall legitimacy perceptions.     

Generalized Social Trust and International Dispute Settlement

What determines the success of a peaceful settlement attempt of a border dispute? In order to fully understand why decision makers choose to put an end to an ongoing conflict, it is necessary to consider the social trust levels of the general populations in both states. International conflict settlement requires public support at the domestic level. If a state’s general population perceives the potential dangers of a settlement as too severe, the conclusion of a peace agreement will be difficult. We argue that high levels of social trust allow citizens (1) to favor more conciliatory foreign policies and (2) to be more optimistic about the future behavior of other states. In democratic settings, these public attitudes serve as powerful constraints for decision makers. As a result, high aggregate levels of social trust should be directly related to concession-granting behavior by democracies as well as effective dispute settlement among jointly democratic dyads. We test these expectations with a new aggregate-level measure of social trust and find mixed support for our hypotheses: While trust does not influence the behavior of challenger states, it does have strong effects on democratic target states and jointly democratic dyads.     

The Protective Role of Parental Media Monitoring Style from Early to Late Adolescence

The goal of the current study was to examine the protective role that maternal media monitoring might have for adolescents. This was done by considering whether styles of media monitoring either directly reduced media use, or whether they buffered the associations between aggressive media use and adolescents’ prosocial behavior, aggression, and delinquency. Participants were 681 adolescents from two cities in the United States (51% female; 73% white), and their mothers, who provided data at two different time points, 2 years apart (when adolescents were roughly ages 13 and 15). Mixture modeling results revealed that mothers used four different styles of media monitoring made up of combinations of active and restrictive monitoring as well as forms of co-use. Styles that included active monitoring and connective co-use (i.e., engaging in media with the intent to connect with children) were directly associated with less media use, and moderated links between adolescents’ media use and behavioral outcomes concurrently but not longitudinally. The discussion was focused on the strength of considering multiple strategies of media monitoring together, and how this approach can inform future research in the area of parental media monitoring.     

“It Was Like I Lost Everything”: The Harmful Impacts of Homeless-Targeted Policies

In response to housing crises across the country, many localities are implementing homeless-targeted policies that attempt to regulate public space by prohibiting sitting, lying, sleeping, and storing property in public places such as parks and sidewalks. We term these sociospatial control policies. Our research investigates the direct impacts of such policies in the city of Honolulu, which had become notorious for legal measures targeting homeless residents. We interviewed members of 70 households living in temporary shelters in public spaces, all of whom had experienced enforcement of city ordinances, such as receiving citations or being forcibly moved by city agents. Our data revealed three interconnected ways that enforcements of sit–lie and nuisance policies harmed homeless households. (a) Our respondents described feeling dehumanized and treated unfairly by city agents. We therefore argue that enforcement catalyzed both civic and social exclusion. (b) Second, the city’s confiscation of property spurred material hardship and posed obstacles to work, education, and access to services. And, finally, (c) respondents’ narratives revealed that enforcements provoked lasting worry, fear, anxiety, and despair.     

This is your afterlife: gender,slavery, and televisual subjection

In 1957 Arries Ann Ward, who was formerly enslaved, appeared on the classic television interview-entertainment program, This Is Your Life. Despite Ward’s practices of refusal, the rare interview enacts an idealization of black female servitude and indebted obligation through performances of affection and racial benevolence. Ward’s appearance effectively works to resolve national crisis produced by widespread images of civil-rights protest and counterinsurgent violence, reifying discourses of American exceptionalism in Cold War context.     

Arbeitnehmerfreizügigkeit und Diskriminierung auf dem deutschen Arbeitsmarkt – Europäische Politik,transnationaler Mobilitätsraum und nationales Feld

The paper deals with the interaction of horizontal and vertical European integration. It asks whether the principle of free movement of labour does not only legally but also de facto prevent discrimination of non-nationals in EU Member States. Theoretically, the analysis is framed by distinguishing three interrelated types of social fields: a supranational political field of free movement of labour, national labour market fields and an intermediary transnational space of mobility. Focusing on the German labour market and drawing on comprehensive administrative data the article shows that wage differences are to a large extend caused by differences in relevant labour market characteristics such as age or education. However, for the vast majority of EU non-nationals in Germany is also observed discrimination in payment. Strikingly, positive discrimination is more pronounced than negative discrimination. These differences are understood as hinting at the increasing importance of comparisons between national labour markets in the EU.     

The land of no taboo: agrarian politics of neglect and care in Madagascar

ABSTRACT

In considering the complex relationships between taboo, culture and landscapes, it is productive to examine not only how people bestow taboos onto places, but also how they take them away. In this contribution, I use as a case study a 35-hectare parcel of agricultural land in Madagascar, where members of an extended family are debating whether or not to continue to follow their ancestral taboos while farming. Analyzing the debate, alternative historical, cultural and political narratives of land relationships emerge, including a fraught colonial history, ongoing battles over land tenure, shifting community demographics, and intergenerational conflicts. Overall, this stretch of land illustrates that agricultural landscapes may be rendered without taboo not because they lack meaning, but because they contain an excess of overlapping – and highly contentious – meanings.     

Food security or commercial business? Gulf State investments in Australian agriculture

Worldwide investments in agricultural land have gained much attention in recent years, resulting in renewed awareness of land as being a scarce and finite resource. This paper investigates a case of South-to-North land deals, namely investments from the Arab Gulf targeting agricultural land in Australia. For the Arab Gulf States that highly depend on external food supplies, investment abroad is one strategy to guarantee future food security. At the same time, leading Australian political and economic representatives have been eager to attract investments from the Gulf. Increasing foreign investment in Australian land has, however, provoked a vivid public debate in Australia. Concepts of foreign direct investment and its role are currently renegotiated on the federal level with regard to Australia's own food security, the ‘national interest’ and the redefinition of ‘Australian agricultural land’. While these concerns also play out on the local level, investments have to be seen within the wider context of Australian ruralities. The paper reveals how food security and commercial and financial interests intersect and become blurred within current transformations of the global agri-food system.