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111. Sierra Leone a Year After Elections: Still in the Balance

Author:
Tom Cargill
Publication Date:
09-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
The UN mission that led Sierra Leone out of bloody civil war in 2002 ends on 30 September 2008. Despite significant advances, and landmark elections last year that saw the opposition win power, the country remains amongst the poorest in the world. It is vulnerable to crime, corruption, and the growing power of South American drugs cartels. The UK has been Sierra Leone's major donor since its military intervention in 2000 - the last successful military intervention before the Iraq war. However, slow progress and uncertain prospects for the country mean that the UK is keen to broaden the responsibility for supporting Sierra Leone. There are good signs that the government of Sierra Leone is serious about reform. But if it is to cement stability and growth, it will need to find new international partners, continue its reform efforts, and deter drug-traffickers from establishing themselves in the country. Most importantly, it will need to show greater leadership, confidence and direction to both voters and donors to ensure that widespread goodwill is not eroded by uncertainty and drift.
Topic:
Political Violence, Democratization, Post Colonialism, Poverty, and United Nations
Political Geography:
Africa

112. Toward Resolving Chad's Interlocking Conflicts

Author:
Kelly Campbell and Sarah Bessell
Publication Date:
12-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
The fragility of the Chadian government, as well as the fragmentation among Chadian civil society, political parties, and rebel movements, poses significant challenges that Chadian civil society, regional governments, African institutions and the international community must address with a coordinated strategy.
Topic:
International Relations, Political Violence, Civil Society, Post Colonialism, and Poverty
Political Geography:
Africa

113. The Williamsburg Conference

Publication Date:
04-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Asia Society
Abstract:
Coming in the midst of a very heated U.S. presidential election campaign, where the U.S. is faced with numerous foreign policy challenges in the Asia-Pacific region and at a critical juncture in Islam's relationship with the rest of the world, the Asia Society convened over 50 Asian and American leaders at a very opportune time in Bali, Indonesia from April 3-6, 2008. Delegates discussed the characteristics of Islam in Asian countries with multiethnic or multireligious populations like India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. They also suggested ways of tackling radicalism and extremism by alleviating poverty, improving education, and reforming prisons and rehabilitation Centres, to name a few. During the second half of the conference, delegates engaged in a conversation about the evolving U.S. role in Asia. Contemporary affairs like the protests in Myanmar and Tibet, engagement with North Korea, and the impact of the Iraq war on U.S. foreign policy towards Asia were analyzed in light of the coming presidential election. Asian leaders were invited to give advice to the new U.S. president. Finally, young leaders from the Asia Pacific region shared their thoughts on what kinds of leadership and values are needed in the future.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, International Trade and Finance, Islam, Post Colonialism, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
United States, South Asia, Indonesia, India, Israel, Asia, and Southeast Asia

114. Fragile States

Author:
Mark McGillivray, Wim Naudé, and Amelia U. Santos-Paulino
Publication Date:
03-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Many of the world's poorest countries can be described as “fragile states” wherein governments cannot or will not provide an environment for households to reduce, mitigate or cope with poverty and other risks to well-being. Many of these states are in conflict or just emerging from conflict. The UNU-WIDER project “Fragility and Development” explored state fragility and its relationship to household vulnerability, noting that there is a lack of research on the economic dimensions of conflict, aid and development in fragile states. This research brief provides a summary of the various contributions made by this project, including case studies on Iraq, Kosovo, Palestine and Somalia. It also addresses a number of pertinent questions. When are states fragile? What are the costs that fragile states impose on their people and the international community? Should the sovereignty of fragile states be reconsidered? And how can aid flows to fragile states be made more effective?
Topic:
Government, Politics, Post Colonialism, and Political Theory
Political Geography:
Iraq, Palestine, Kosovo, and Somalia

115. Vulnerability in Developing Countries

Author:
Mark McGillivray, Wim Naudé, and Amelia U. Santos-Paulino
Publication Date:
02-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
The first Millennium Development Goal aims to halve the number of people in the world living in extreme poverty. In this research brief, emanating from the UNU-WIDER project on “Fragility and Development”, the premise is that we should also be concerned about households which are vulnerable to poverty. This includes those who have little likelihood of escaping from poverty and those who are at risk of falling into poverty in the future. Household vulnerability to poverty is affected by, and affects, vulnerability in other dimensions and levels, such as the vulnerability of a country or region to natural hazards and macro-economic shocks. To address household vulnerability in developing countries requires an understanding of the concept and nature of vulnerability, its measurement and its application. Therefore, this research brief asks what is vulnerability? How can vulnerability be measured? How should households, governments and development agencies respond to vulnerability?
Topic:
Development, Political Economy, Post Colonialism, Poverty, and Third World

116. Politiques du moment colonial.Historicités indigènes et rapports vernaculaires au politique en « situation coloniale »

Author:
Romain Bertrand
Publication Date:
10-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales
Abstract:
The field of colonial studies has gone through tremendous theoretical upheavals in the past three decades. Yet something is still too often missing in the study of 17th, 18th and 19th century situations of colonial or imperial "encounter", namely this vernacular domain of thought and actions that was kept out of reach of the colonizer's power and knowledge tools, and that was not geared toward the (whether coerced or not) commercial, political or military interaction with the Europeans. Nevertheless, it is only by focusing on this vernacular (rather than "native" or "indigenous") hors-champ of the colonial situation that one can achieve a better understanding of the multi-layered historicity of extraeuropean societies. This perspective indeed allows us to make sense of the "colonial moment" of these societies with regards not only to their encounter with Europe, but also to their own long-term ideological and political trajectories (trajectories that began long before the arrival of the Europeans and that never can be wholly equated with the effects and consequences of the latter). This research agenda moreover helps us to get back to a more nuanced and historically accurate view of the initial precariousness and "leopard-skin" style dissemination of European colonial power. Lastly, it enables us to get beyond the now dominant paradigm of the "indigenous appropriation of colonial/European modernity" and its old-fashioned utilitarian language of "native agency" by investigating the local, vernacular visions of the self and of history that were put to use in the tactical engagement with, or avoidance of, colonial rule.
Topic:
Post Colonialism
Political Geography:
Europe

117. Omens and Threats in the Doha Round: The Decline of Multilaterialism?

Author:
Daniel Drache and Marc D. Froese
Publication Date:
05-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition, McMaster University
Abstract:
Faced with the lengthening shadow of the Doha Round of trade negotiations, scholars often point to the seven years it took negotiators to conclude the Uruguay Round. This paper argues that the negotiating deadlock in the Doha Round represents a transformative shift on the part of Member nations away from the current model of multi-platform, single-undertaking multilateralism and towards smaller negotiating platforms. We examine two dynamics that mark this round as qualitatively different from the Uruguay Round. First, new, highly vocal global trading powers such as India, China and Brazil have begun to use their market power to push for a trade deal that directly benefits the Global South. Second, the new rules for trade that were agreed to in the Uruguay Round had promised a reduction in non-tariff protectionism, but the continuing popularity of protectionist industrial policies has shown the developing world that greater access to northern markets might not be delivered at the World Trade Organization. The paper concludes with a discussion of trade multilateralism in historical context. This is not the first time the world has been faced with systemic changes in international economic relations. In the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries, global trade broke down – first with the end of the British free trade system, and shortly thereafter with the catastrophic collapse of the interwar trading order. Nevertheless, this qualitative shift in the negotiating strategies of states need not be seen as a return to protectionism. The explosion of preferential regional agreements offers a number of new ways to address the social and political dimensions of economic integration.
Topic:
Agriculture, Globalization, International Organization, International Trade and Finance, Post Colonialism, Sovereignty, Treaties and Agreements, and World Trade Organization
Political Geography:
China and Brazil

118. Exploring Universal Rights: A Symposium

Author:
Jamie Mayerfeld, Henry Shue, Jack Donnelly, Kok-Chor Tan, Charles Beitz, and Brooke A. Ackerly
Publication Date:
01-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Human Rights and Human Welfare - Review Essays
Institution:
Josef Korbel Graduate School of International Studies, University of Denver
Abstract:
The struggle for human rights has been shadowed by philosophical doubt. Can we assert universal human rights without engaging in moral imperialism? Can we have confidence in the moral beliefs that underlie human rights claims? Can we justify human rights to those who do not believe in the intrinsic value of autonomy? Which Rights Should Be Universal?, the first of two projected volumes on human rights, is a significant contribution to this literature. In a series of original and mind-opening arguments, William Talbott, a professor of philosophy at the University of Washington, lifts us over one philosophical impasse after another. Admirers of Which Rights Should Be Universal? will find their thinking about human rights enlarged and enhanced by a wealth of new concepts; critics will be kept busy in answering the book's copious arguments. From any perspective, Professor Talbott's book moves the conversation about human rights onto a new plane.
Topic:
Civil Society, Development, Gender Issues, Human Rights, Political Economy, and Post Colonialism
Political Geography:
Global Focus

119. Venetian Colonialism in the Aegean: Sifnos in the Thirteenth Century

Author:
Eleni Mahaira-Odoni
Publication Date:
01-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
This paper explores the little-known beginning of Venetian rule of Sifnos, one of the Greek Aegean islands presumably apportioned to Venice following the Fourth Crusade in 1204. Whereas historians have traced the non-Venetian dynasts that ruled Sifnos after around 1310, no one has attempted to investigate the presumably preceding rulers: the Venetian "Soranzos of Sifnos," cursorily mentioned by a couple of scholars. Relying on sources as well as local fieldwork, this paper proposes that, before becoming doge of Venice in 1312, Giovanni Soranzo may indeed have been the first Venetian lord of Sifnos, between c. 1285 and 1310. The exploration of his career, the tragic life story of his daughter Soranza Soranzo and his son-in-law Niccolò Querini, point to Sifnos as a most likely location for the couple's refuge and exile following Querini's involvement in the 1310 seditious acts against the Republic of Venice. This conclusion is informed by a brief examination of apposite coats of arms, proper names and local toponyms.
Topic:
Post Colonialism
Political Geography:
Greece

120. Justice and Developing Country Debt

Author:
Barry Herman
Publication Date:
02-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The New School Graduate Program in International Affairs
Abstract:
This paper draws on recent discussions by lawyers, theologians, philosophers and economists to reach some conclusions about the just international treatment of the government over-indebtedness and insolvencies that have occurred and recurred many times in many developing countries. It asks what should be considered “fair” expectations in the relationship of government borrowers and their lenders. It also considers some proposed reforms in the international treatment of sovereign borrowing and debt that are prompted by the ethical analyses.
Topic:
International Relations, Debt, Development, and Post Colonialism