Nuclear diplomacy as niche diplomacy: South Africa's post-apartheid relations with the International Atomic Energy Agency

Since the termination of its nuclear weapons programme, commenced in 1989 and verified by the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) in 1993, successive South African governments have consistently advocated the country's commitment to nuclear non-proliferation. South Africa has secured a niche role through norm construction and state identity for itself through its nuclear diplomacy with the IAEA. The article explores aspects of South Africa's nuclear diplomacy with the IAEA as an example of niche diplomacy. Therefore, it traces South Africa's diplomatic relations with the IAEA, starting with the IAEA's verification process and the implementation of a Safeguards Agreement (1989–1994) through the conversion of South Africa's research nuclear reactor (1991–2005); South Africa's position on greater representation for developing countries on the IAEA's Board of Governors; its ambition to be elected to the position of IAEA Director General (2008–2009); and its refusal to support the establishment of a nuclear fuel bank in Russia under the IAEA's auspices (2009–2010).     

Violence and Silencing: A Philosophical Investigation of Apartheid

Abstract

With reference to examples of violence during Apartheid, I argue that the socio-political contexts in which violence occurs significantly shape agents' ideas about and responses to violence. As such, philosophers can only make sense of why perpetrators and bystanders alike may have judged violent acts morally justifiable or failed to challenge instances of violence against the backdrop of the particular characteristics of the socio-political context in which it occurs.     

Fanon

Abstract

I argue that Franz Fanon can usefully be situated in the tradition of German Idealism in the sense that he takes from Kant and especially Hegel the conception of agency as something to be achieved through struggle for the ideal of humanity as self-determining. Fanon sees the suffering cased by colonial rule in Africa and elsewhere as deriving from the systematic deprivation of agency by the colonial power. Using the work of Hegel, Fanon seeks to reconstruct the emancipatory project of the black man in close analogy to Hegel’s master-slave dialectic. The violence which Fanon sees as unavoidable in such a struggle is not violence for the sake of violence but, following Hegel, the violence that constitutes the subject in the first place.     

AID EFFECTIVENESS AND THE PARIS DECLARATION: A MISMATCH BETWEEN OWNERSHIP AND RESULTS‐BASED MANAGEMENT?

Although recent years have witnessed substantial changes in the global aid architecture, less effort has been devoted to investigating the process of implementing those changes. By using the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) as an illustrative and critical case, this article shows how a donor development priority—gender—travels from Stockholm and headquarters to a Paris Declaration‐infused aid practice in three cases with different aid modalities: Tanzania, Zanzibar, and Cambodia. More specifically, the qualitative empirical investigation conducted here shows that the implementation of the new aid architecture puts severe and competing demands on development practitioners. At the core of this tension is the fact that although all donors are supposed to promote partner country ownership, harmonize their efforts with other donors, and align themselves with partner country priorities, results‐based management simultaneously implies not only a focus on continuously measuring and reporting results but also stricter prioritizations on behalf of donor governments. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

USAID,Population Control,and NGO-Led Democratization in Egypt: The Fate of the ICPD Programme of Action

Critics of US democracy-promotion strategies of the last 20 years ask: what kind of democracy is promoted by US public agencies and associated nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), how is it promoted, and for what purpose(s)? This paper draws on interviews with NGO, USAID, and UN representatives, gathered in Egypt in 2001, to describe the fate of Egyptian women's advocacy NGOs seeking to implement the pro-democracy platform of action of the 1994 UN International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD). It offers some support for critics' contentions both that external (here USAID) pro-democracy interventions may actually obstruct democratization, and that the instrumental nature of US democracy promotion may mean that such activities are quickly eliminated or downgraded when they conflict with more primary US policy goals.     

Ambient Intelligence, Criminal Liability and Democracy

In this contribution we will explore some of the implications of the vision of Ambient Intelligence (AmI) for law and legal philosophy. AmI creates an environment that monitors and anticipates human behaviour with the aim of customised adaptation of the environment to a person’s inferred preferences. Such an environment depends on distributed human and non-human intelligence that raises a host of unsettling questions around causality, subjectivity, agency and (criminal) liability. After discussing the vision of AmI we will present relevant research in the field of philosophy of technology, inspired by the post-phenomenological position taken by Don Ihde and the constructivist realism of Bruno Latour. We will posit the need to conceptualise technological normativity in comparison with legal normativity, claiming that this is necessary to develop democratic accountability for the implications of emerging technologies like AmI. Lastly we will investigate to what extent technological devices and infrastructures can and should be used to achieve compliance with the criminal law, and we will discuss some of the implications of non-human distributed intelligence for criminal liability.

我国环境警察机构设置探析

环境警察的机构设置是建立环境警察制度的起点,其设置是否科学合理是环境警察能否高效执法和健康发展的关键。世界各国和我国多地的环境警察机构设置模式都有一定的不同之处,对环境警察的执法实践也产生了不同的影响。环境警察的机构设置应遵循因地制宜、注重实际需要,明晰职责、注重资源整合,适应实战、注重执法实效,讲究专业、注重人员素质等原则,在设置环境警察机构时要进行充分的论证和精心的构思,以便建立起符合各地地情和环境问题实情、符合环境执法实际需要的环境警察机构。     

关于新形势下执法规范化建设的探讨与思考

按照公安部的部署,执法规范化建设在全国各级公安机关中如火如荼地广泛开展,但其间"上热下冷"的现象暴露出当前执法规范化建设中存在着一些亟待解决的问题.公安机关有必要深刻认识导致执法不规范问题的根源,从"人"和"制度"两方面入手,让民警对自己从事的执法工作的流程、工作标准及工作结果了然于心,减少执法标准的不确定性,增加其执...     

Populist possibilities and political constraints in Mexico

This article defines populism (in Latin American context) as a form of politics that is based mainly upon a personalist appeal, attracts significant popular support and, if successful, significantly redesigns social or political institutions. Neopopulism is defined as a form of populism which begins outside the state as opposed to classic populism which originates within the state. The main theoretical argument is that the study of populism can be made significant for comparative politics if we emphasise the issue of institutional redesign and then conceptualise it in structure vs agency terms. The comparative question then becomes whether a particular set of political institutions is robust enough to withstand the challenge of a charismatic individual. The empirical background is that Latin America has seen a significant number of populist movements that have indeed fundamentally altered institutional structures. By the same token, there have been an even larger number of populist attempts which ultimately failed. Having made this point, the discussion then focuses on Mexico. It seeks to understand the different sets of conditions which allowed Lázaro Cárdenas to succeed as classic populist in the 1930s, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas to come close to success as a neopopulist in the 1980s and which greatly reduce the likelihood of successful neopopulism in the near future.     

我国公共部门人力资源管理变迁的趋向分析

现代人力资源管理理论的引入,促进了我国传统的人事管理开始逐步向现代公共部门人力资源管理转变。在这一转换过程中,公共部门人力资源管理呈现出新的发展趋向:在管理理念上实现以事为主到以人为本的转变;在管理模式上,实现从“管”人到再造人的转换;在管理手段上,实现从资历管理到绩效管理的转变;在管理制度上,实现从档案管理到人事代理的转变。