Author: Farid Kahhat / Publishing Institution: Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas

Author:: Farid Kahhat
Publication Date:: 09-2004
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:: Statesmen address security concerns based on their understanding of the issues at stake. Such a truism becomes problematic, though, once we realize that no fact or event does inherently pose a threat to a state's security. Threats can only be identified by silhouetting them against the background of an interpretive framework: only after we know what could count as a security threat can we recognize certain facts or events as particular instances of that general phenomena. Therefore, different frameworks of interpretation will elicit different meanings from the same facts and events, and suggest different courses of action in response to them.
Topic:: Security, Foreign Policy, Development, and Government

Author:: Farid Kahhat
Publication Date:: 12-2003
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:: The purpose of this paper is to assess the merits of two contending theories (balance of power and democratic peace) on the relationship between regime type (e.g., democratic or authoritarian) and foreign policy orientation (i.e., relative proneness towards conflict and cooperation) for the case of South America's Southern Cone between 1970 and 1995. I will argue that a balance of power perspective does not provide a persuasive explanation of changing patterns of inter-state conflict and cooperation within this region during the period under scrutiny. In turn, I will suggest that many attempts to test democratic peace theory beyond the industrialized democracies in the post-war era may be conceptually flawed.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Democratization, Government, and Peace Studies
Political Geography:: South America

Author:: Farid Kahhat
Publication Date:: 09-2003
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:: The purpose of this paper is to compare a neorealist perspective on security issues with new perspectives on the subject that have gained ground since the end of the Cold War. The neorealist perspective privileges the state as the object of reference of security policies, while guaranteeing its political survival is seen as their ultimate aim (which implies, at the very least, to preserve an institutional control over a given territory). In turn, the main threats to the survival of the state are essentially foreign military threats, represented by the regular armies of neighboring states. Therefore, military arsenals provide the most effective means to cope with those threats.
Topic:: Security, Foreign Policy, Cold War, and War

Author:: Farid Kahhat
Publication Date:: 02-2003
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:: The overall topic of this paper is the relationship between regime type (e g, democratic or authoritarian) and foreign policy orientation (i.e., relative proneness towards conflict and cooperation) for South America's Southern Cone from the 1970s into the 1990s. its specific purpose is to offer an explanation of the relationship between regime type and foreign policy orientation in the 1970s. I will argue that, unlike what we would expect from a balance of power perspective, political regime is indeed crucial to understanding foreign policy orientation in the case under scrutiny. But I will suggest that changes in foreign policy orientation within the region in the last decade or so might owe more to the vanishing of authoritarian regimes than to the return of democratically elected leaders. However, I will not make universal claims about authoritarian regimes. I suggest, rather, that the pervasive influence that a geopolitically driven discourse of international politics had over the military establishments within the region is crucial to understand the relative conflict proneness of the authoritarian regimes that prevailed during the 1970's.
Topic:: International Relations, Government, and Politics
Political Geography:: Africa and South America

Author:: Farid Kahhat
Publication Date:: 02-2003
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:: This article presents in a relatively brief but comprehensive way the constitutive elements of an interpretive approach towards social sciences. It explains why interpretive frameworks constitute unavoidable screens that sift our cognitive appropriation of the world, and how metaphors (understood as a distinctive way of achieving insight) can provide their ordering principles. It further explains in what sense social intercourse is a meaning creating process, and why the interpretation of those meanings should be the main purpose of social sciences.
Topic:: Civil Society, Development, and Education

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