United States Agency for International Development
Abstract:
ALL POST-SOVIET STATES underwent difficult political and economic transitions in the years after the breakup of the Soviet Union, but Georgia's was especially traumatic. Ethnic conflict broke out in Georgia virtually as soon as the Soviet Union collapsed. By 1992, Georgia's central authority had been diminished to near anarchy, the economy was in complete disarray, and the country had plunged into civil war that tore its fabric.
Topic:
Civil Society, Economics, Education, Gender Issues, and Migration
Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University
Abstract:
Economists long have understood that the advance of technology, knowhow is a more inclusive term, has been the central driving force behind the improvements in standards of living that have been achieved over the last two centuries. It has been less well recognized that the advance of knowhow has been extremely uneven, dramatic in areas like communication and computation technologies and some areas of medicine, very limited in fields like housing construction and education. This essay is a preliminary investigation of the factors that might lie behind these differences. The search very quickly leads into exploration of why different fields of science have progressed so unevenly.
Topic:
Civil Society, Education, and Science and Technology
Carnivals are a type of rite of renewal where mask and laughter spur the invention of highly symbolic modes of expression. They offer opportunities for the study of social representations and, since they are both recurring and changing, they constitute a ground where not only social change can be assessed, but where the meanings of social change can be best understood. The first part of this paper reviews and discusses theories of carnival, in particular those related to its relationship to power and social hierarchies. The second part proposes a few methodological suggestions for the study of carnival from a political perspective, emphasizing semiotic analysis and surveys using non-directive methods.
Topic:
Civil Society, Development, Government, and Politics
This essay analyzes the life and work of one of the most distinguished American sociologists of the twentieth century, Seymour Martin Lipset. The essay evaluates two fundamental themes in Lipset's work, his analysis of democracy and anti-democracy and his thoughts on American exceptionalism. The paper concludes with some lessons derived from Lipset's work and life for Mexico and Mexican academics.
The classical model of the liberal-democratic nation-state is on the decline in the West as a result of globalization, regionalization, multiculturalism, the institutionalization of universal minority rights and the rise of minority ethnonationalism. While western countries are decoupling the nation-state and slowly shifting toward multicultural democracy, some other countries are consolidating an alternative form of a democratic state that is identified with and subservient to a single ethnic nation. This type of political regime, "ethnic democracy," combines the extension of civil and political rights for all permanent residents with an institutionalized ethnic ascendancy of the majority group. The core ethnic nation controls the state and uses it to further its national interests and to grant its members a favored status. The non-core groups are accorded individual and collective rights and allowed to conduct a struggle for change, but treated as second-class citizens and placed under control.
Topic:
Civil Society, Democratization, and Ethnic Conflict
The prevalence of collective violence and the agony of mass atrocity may prove to be the twentieth century's most distressing and enduring legacies. From Germany to Uganda, from Cambodia to Sierra Leone, from the Former Yugoslavia to Rwanda, the past hundred years are replete with examples of terrifying violations of human rights and humanitarian law committed against diverse groups of people. Limited attempts to unveil the truth about past horrors, to hold individuals responsible, and to deter future offenses have repeatedly proven inadequate. A dearth of satisfactory moral and legal responses to these crimes often left victims suffering without any sense of reconciliation, while perpetrators routinely enjoyed impunity rather than facing justice.
Topic:
Civil Society, Democratization, Ethnic Conflict, Human Rights, and Humanitarian Aid
Political Geography:
Uganda, Eastern Europe, Yugoslavia, Germany, Cambodia, Sierra Leone, and Rwanda
On Saturday, 15 December 2001, over 30 people gathered in Sarajevo to discuss the policy development and challenges of implementation related to Annex 8 of the General Framework Agreement for Peace (GFAP). The participants came from a broad range of relevant backgrounds, including the museum, culture, preservation, history, archaeology, architecture, civil society, and academic, governmental, and diplomatic fields. While full representation of the relevant government officials from the Federation of BiH (FbiH), Republika Srpska (RS), and Brcko District was expected, on the day before the workshop the representatives from the RS cancelled, and the representatives from Brcko failed to appear the day of the meeting.
Topic:
Civil Society, International Law, and Regional Cooperation
The ECMI Civil Society Project in Bosnia and Herzegovina aims to assist local actors in assuming responsibility for democratic governance in Bosnia and Herzegovina. They are being involved, with the assistance of international experts, in a process of reviewing existing policy on practical issues of concern to all communities in Bosnia and Herzegovina and of developing specific policy recommendations to further governance and civil society development within the framework set out by the Dayton Peace Accords (DPA).
Topic:
Civil Society, Peace Studies, and Regional Cooperation
The Standing Technical Working Group was established in March 2001 to address important issues of public policy in Kosovo/a at a technical level. It is composed of experts from Kosovo/a NGOs, from the parties and other civil society representatives. Its membership is fully interethnic and it prides itself on being able to conduct substantive debates about Kosovo/a in an interethnic way. In addition to reviewing technical aspects of policy, the group also formulates proposals and critical questions in relation to them. It then seeks to engage the international and Kosovo/a authorities on these issues. As the 5th and 6th session of the group were devoted to one common theme, it was found convenient to present the proceedings in one report.
The ECMI project “Montenegro Negotiation and Capacity Building” was launched with the aim to establish a Track II informal negotiation process providing a forum for interethnic dialogue between the Serbian and Montenegrin communities, which includes minority communities from the Sandzak border region. Through a series of workshops, the project aims to help promote dialogue, identify issues of common concern and assist in delivering concrete benefits as well as building confidence between the communities involved. By focusing the debate on the concrete needs of these communities, the project seeks to facilitate thinking about future interethnic relations in a less charged atmosphere, irrespective of the deeper political questions on the future constitutional arrangements of the two republics.
Topic:
Civil Society, Development, and Regional Cooperation