Structural injustice and the legitimacy of the state-centric system

ABSTRACT

Catherine Lu’s seminal Justice and Reconciliation in World Politics is right to stress the enduring nature of some colonialist structural indignities. It is less clear, however, if structural injustices justify Lu’s demand for revolutionary changes of the global order. Before transforming the pluralist state-centric system, we need transparent criteria that help us agree on the severity of structural injustices. Considering Lu’s strong focus on the colonialist origins of contemporary injustices, one would also like to know if and how their historical background affects their present moral status. The essay concludes that, in a multicultural global society with diverse moral values, we should focus on tackling the most glaring injustices and on rectifying those where accountabilities are least controversial.     

The subversive potential of Leo Tolstoy’s ‘defamiliarisation’: a case study in drawing on the imagination to denounce violence

ABSTRACT

In his later years, Leo Tolstoy wrote numerous books, essays and pamphlets expounding his newly-articulated denunciations of all political violence, whether by dissidents or ostensibly legitimate states. If these writings have inspired many later pacifists and anarchists, it is partly thanks to his masterful deployment of the literary technique of ‘defamiliarisation’ – or looking at the familiar as if new – to shake readers into recognising the absurdity of common justifications of violence, admitting their implicit complicity in it, and noticing the process which numbed them into accepting such complicity. This paper discusses Tolstoy’s use of the imagination to defamiliarise and denounce violence, first by citing several typical examples, then by reflecting on four of its subversive characteristics: its disruption of automated perception, its implicit concession of some recognition, its corrosion of conventional respect for traditional hierarchies, and its encouragement of empathy.     

Fighting terrorism with nonviolence: an ideological perspective

ABSTRACT

This article explores the potential of using nonviolence as a counter-ideology against terrorism. I analyse the current scholarship on nonviolence and terrorism, highlighting that terrorist ideology is crucial but is not directly addressed by nonviolent scholars. I outline a different approach to nonviolence, one which interprets the latter as an ideology of praxis centred on the interrelatedness of life, freedom and plurality. This ideology shares with terrorist ideologies the emphasis on action and conflict to overcome a grievance, but it offers a completely different path centred on diverse citizenship, building alternative social mechanisms (going beyond the focus on institutions), and omnicracy.     

Analizando la violencia después del conflicto: el caso de Guatemala en un estudio sub-nacional

This article conceptualizes post-conflict violence by developing its definition, analyzing the factors which can explain it and constructing a typology of eight forms of violence. A central concern of this analysis is that there are different degrees of relation between the violence of conflicts and post-conflict violence given that some forms are fully related, while others are only partially related, and still others are completely independent of armed conflict. While general conditions of peace define post-conflict violence in a weak sense, direct legacies of war define post-conflict violence in a strong sense. The Guatemalan case study allows to identify patterns related to each form of violence at a sub-national level of analysis.     

女性以暴抗暴犯罪适用社区矫正的可行性分析

社区矫正是一种非监禁刑罚执行活动，在我国试点和推广已近十年。受虐女性以暴抗暴犯罪，是一种特殊的犯罪。对此类罪犯适用社区矫正，从人道主义的角度而言，具有正当性。它不仅可以节约司法资源、解决现实的社会问题，对女犯的再社会化也是有益的。建议从专业性、规范性上完善现有制度，消除适用条件的制度壁垒，建构具有针对性的社区矫正制度，从而保障女性的权益。     

Unworthy of Grief: Enduring Urban Violence in Northeast Brazil

Pervasive urban violence has taken its toll on daily life in the northern part of Recife. Taking an ethnographic approach, and tracing recent developments of violent crime and homicide in Recife, this article explores the implications of the normalisation of violence. By thinking through how residents tried to protect themselves and endure the violence in practical and moral terms, the article seeks to elucidate why some members of the community – victims of violent crime and their mothers – were not deemed worthy of grief.     

New Event Data in Conflict Research

This paper first presents an overview of data on 390 international crises, which incorporate 826 foreign policy crises, from the end of 1918 to the end of 1988.

A set of crisis profiles is then constructed for the two superpowers of the post‐World War II era, and for three regional systems, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. The data on international crises are presented in terms of a common format for the regional profiles, with slight modifications for the superpowers, in order to facilitate comparisons: time and space; duration; onset; threat; behavior; severity of violence; US/USSR activity; global organization involvement; and outcome. Within these categories, distributions are noted for each of the polarity structures—multipolarity (1918–39), bipolarity (1945–62), and polycentrism (1963–1988). Thereafter, comparisons are made between US and USSR crises (after World War II), and among the three regional profiles.

The central thrust of the findings from these profiles is clear: they focus attention on the dual characteristics of twentieth century crises, their pervasiveness and diversity. These traits, in turn, make much more difficult the task of constructing a theory that provides a systematic explanation of interstate crisis from onset to termination. Complex reality imposes an intolerable burden on the search for necessary and sufficient conditions of crisis. In positive terms, it leads to a shift in focus, from ‘necessary and sufficient’ to the “most likely” conditions as the most credible path to theory.     

征地拆迁中的利益博弈与法律秩序

在加快经济发展过程中,土地资源溢价带来了暴利,利益重组中强者势力失控、弱者利益保护不足。利益争夺以法权模糊化为掩盖,政府角色错位为分利一方,商业利益披上公共利益的外衣,住户暴利心理绑架了生存利益,国家所有权吞没了其他物权,正式程序游戏化运用。政府与开发商结盟,开发商滥用私暴力,住户回归自力救济,各方利益行动选择共同虚置了法律制度。只有回归法治理性,明晰利益关系,完善制度规则,才能重建法律秩序。     

校园暴力与学校社会工作

校园暴力的发生原因可从学生个人特质、家庭背景和学校有关教育缺失等几个因素去寻找。而在诸多应对校园暴力问题的思路中,学校社会工作有着不可替代的专业优势。因此,学校社会工作应该积极介入学生、家庭和学校,以缓解校园暴力。     

美国反家庭暴力立法的三波浪潮及其可能走向

女权主义理论在美国的反家庭暴力立法过程中一直发挥着推波助澜的作用。第一次女权主义运动揭露了妇女保护的不足,第二次女权主义运动后,美国通过消除立法歧视,加强公权力干预和民事权利救济,以及拓展社会服务,建立起一套相对成熟的防治家庭暴力的理论和制度。但随着立法的发展以及后现代女权主义对现有制度的质疑,反家庭暴力立法存在的问题也渐渐凸显。只有坚持反家庭暴力的国际人权标准,消除性别歧视以达致社会性别结构的平等,才能拔除家庭暴力的根源。