Democracy through War?

This article brings together three strands of democracy research which have thus far seldom been informed by one another: the empirical research associated with the ‘democratic peace’ thesis, the juridical-normative questions of legality, and moral-philosophical reasoning about just war. Linking the statistical analysis of the democratic peace to the findings of comparative research on democratization and to the normative debates occurring in law and philosophy on just and legitimized wars, there is an inescapable conclusion that: jus ad bellum and jus post bellum criteria must be closely tied. The protection of people threatened by mass murder and brutal violations of human rights requires not only a short-term military intervention, but also the intensive support to establish sustainable rule of law and democracy. External actors intervening for humanitarian reasons equally have a duty to contribute to long-term sustainable state- and democracy-building. Forced regime change and an international trusteeship protectorate can become legitimate and necessary means to guarantee justice after war and to reconcile jus ad bellum principles with duties post bellum. A premature withdrawal of intervening forces, for example in Afghanistan or in Iraq, would amount to a flagrant violation of external actors' post-war duties.     

Capitalizing on Contention: Issue Agendas in U.S. Senate Campaigns

This abstract addresses the divergent views that political scientists and members of Congress have about the role of issues in congressional campaigns. The scholarly perspective is based on the assumption that issues and policy are relatively unimportant in the relationship between members and their constituents. In contrast, the political parties in Congress devote a substantial amount of time and attention to developing an effective issue agenda for the campaign season. The research presented in this article is a systematic study of U.S. Senate candidates' campaign messages that assesses the impact of the parties' agenda setting efforts during the election year session. The parties' efforts are compared with mass media, major legislative accomplishments, and party issue ownership as alternative sources of agenda setting in campaigns. The results of this study indicate that Senate candidates do emphasize certain issues in their campaigns and that the contentious election year issues associated with party strategy along with major legislative accomplishments are the issues that the candidates are likely to discuss.     

De-terrorising the Palestinian national struggle: the roadmap to peace

This article follows the representation of Palestinian nationalism as a history of terrorism. This representation was produced in the Israeli media and academia, and broadcast by the state's political elite in international arenas. In the West, this image was accepted in many circles and affected the chances of the Palestinians having a fair hearing in the peace negotiations which began after the 1967 war. The article follows the construction of the equation of Palestinian nationalism with terrorism, assesses its impact on the peace process, and suggests the deconstruction of this narrative as the best way forward in future negotiations.     

The impact of orthodox terrorism discourses on the liberal peace: internalisation,resistance, or hybridisation?

This article examines the relationship between orthodox terrorism discourses and liberal peacebuilding, particularly where states are being reconstituted after a conflict. Drawing upon fieldwork in Sri Lanka, Palestine, Kashmir, Nepal, and Northern Ireland, our findings suggest that conflicts in which orthodox terrorism theory is deployed to explain violence are those in which there is little interest (by all parties) in dealing with root causes or achieving mutual compromise. This is so even though the liberal peace is commonly a claimed aspiration for most parties, apart from the most radical of non-state actors or authoritarian of states. They effectively reify both terrorism and state securitisation. The aspired to internalisation of the liberal peace framework has instead been supplanted by the politics of state securitisation and violent resistance. Liberal peacebuilding has become a nominal exercise in constructing virtually liberal states in which the security and integrity of core groups are partially maintained by orthodox terrorism praxis. To counter these dynamics, critical positions need to engage with agendas beyond liberal or cosmopolitan frameworks.     

Holding power in sequential games 1

Holding power is simply the ability of a player to stay at one position longer than his opponent, thereby forcing the opponent to make the next move in a sequential game. In this paper, we illustrate the real world relevance of this concept by examining the Berlin crisis of 1948 and showing that only a holding power interpretation provides a satisfying explanation of the eventual resolution. We define holding power formally and find that, when one player has holding power, the outcome of the conflict is determined. We develop a simple procedure for identifying the holding power outcome in every strict ordinal 2×2 game, and draw several interesting conclusions about the nature of this power. We find that a horizon of six moves or less always ensures that the eventual holding power outcome is reached. We also find that holding power outcomes are always Pareto‐superior, except in a Prisoners’ Dilemma game when the initial position of the player without holding power is associated with the noncooperative Nash equilibrium. Finally, we determine that the holding power outcome depends on which player has this power in just 15 of the 78 distinct 2×2 ordinal games. In 9 of these games, holding power is effective in the sense that a player does better when he has holding power. In the remaining 6 cases, though, the possession of holding power is actually a disadvantage—a player prefers that his opponent have holding power rather than himself. We provide an explanation for this occasional phenomenon.     

Language choice and national development: A typology for Africa

The choice of an official language of politics and administration for African states is a good focal point from which to view other aspects of politics. A typology of language choice, based on whether the polity is linguistically homogeneous or heterogeneous; and on whether an indigenous or a non‐indigenous language is official, discriminates among four different language structures. Vignettes of language policy in Tanzania, Kenya, Senegal and Ethiopia elucidate each language structure.

Data is presented to show that different political tasks are associated with different language choices, and that the differential ramifications of language situation, for limiting group demands, inducing social mobilization and managing international dependency are, depending on language situation, important.     

Cantankerous Cooperation: Democracies,Authoritarian Regimes,and the Prisoner's Dilemma

One of the most important debates in the field of international relations is over the effect of regime type on militarized conflict. This debate, however, has rarely extended to how regime type influences other aspects of foreign policy. Using a computer simulated intergroup prisoner's dilemma, we investigate whether democratic decisionmaking groups are more cooperative than authoritarian decisionmaking groups. We argue that differences between cooperation tendencies of groups can be explained by the structure of the decision process. Repeated simulations show that democracies tend to be more consistent in their decisions in comparison to authoritarian groups. Implications for international relations theory and policy are discussed.     

The development of an inter‐nation tensiometer

The military expenditure (M.E.) of a nation depends partly on its wealth as measured by its Gross National Product (GNP), partly on geography, and partly on its presence in an alliance. The authors describe a method for calculating the M.E. value if it depended solely on the GNP; the value of the M.E. so obtained is termed the theoretical M.E. (M.E._Th.). Dividing the actual M.E. by the M.E._Th. (and multiplying by 100) yields a pure number, the tension ratio (T.R.). We regard tension as a function of geography (thus having a hostile neighbor increases tension and having a friendly neighbor decreases tension) and of membership in an alliance (which should cause a relaxation of tension). Tension ratios were calculated for 63 countries. Of the 13 nations engaged in a war, 76.9 percent had T.R. values greater than 155. Of the 43 nations not engaged in a war, only 26 percent had T.R. values greater than 155. Application of the chi square tests and the Kolmogorov‐Smimov test showed the association of high T.R.s concurrent with wars and antecedent to wars to be significant at the 95 percent probability level. Threshold T.R. values can pinpoint critical, potentially violent situations. Membership in an alliance does not seem as important as the effect of geography (the geographic factor includes the perception of hostility or friendliness in a neighboring country).     

居安思危之急需强基固本之部署--关于加强党的执政能力建设问题的若干思考

居安思危,必须充分认识加强党的执政能力建设的重要性和紧迫性;求真务实,必须从实际出发、从理论和实践的结合上加强党的执政能力建设;任重道远,必须坚持不懈地探索党的执政能力建设,完善党的执政机制,提高党的执政能力.     

论WTO体系下农业补贴的特殊安排及未来展望

与WTO《补贴协定》及GATT1994相比,在总体规范方法、概念、规则结构、救济等方面,《农业协定》采取了一套独特的规制方式,但在WTO农业补贴争端中,《补贴协定》、GATT1994与《农业协定》常被共同适用于农业补贴。此举强化了对农业补贴的规制,但农业补贴是否,以及在多大程度上继续享有特殊地位和待遇,最终应由成员谈判确定。在未来一段时期内,特殊的农业补贴规则将继续存在,我国在参与WTO农业谈判、诉讼,调整国内农业政策时,应给予充分重视。