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1. Building a Multi-Directional Transnational Solidarity Movement

Author:
Jeff Bachman
Publication Date:
02-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Abstract:
Transnational solidarity movements have typically flowed from a central point located in the West, particularly in the United States, to the East and the Global South. Shadi Mokhtari describes this phenomenon as the “traditional West-to-East flow of human rights mobilizations and discourses.” Viewed individually, this phenomenon is not problematic in all cases. However, as Mokhtari argues, this one-directional flow of human rights politics precludes non-Western non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from weighing in on human rights violations committed in the United States. Human rights violations in the United States are typically experienced by marginalized communities, from the mass incarceration and disenfranchisement of African-Americans to the detention and ill-treatment of immigrants, migrants, and refugees. For a truly global human rights movement to emerge—one that is not grounded in Western paternalism and perceived moral superiority—this must change.
Topic:
Development, Human Rights, Post Colonialism, Immigration, Refugees, NGOs, and transnationalism
Political Geography:
Global Focus and United States of America

2. The Philippine Revolution constructs ‘Asia’ and Civilization from the periphery

Author:
Nicole CuUnjieng Aboitiz
Publication Date:
06-2020
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
The Toynbee Prize Foundation
Abstract:
Filipinos, on the whole, are famously pro-American. In 2014, the Philippines topped the Global Attitudes Survey with regard to global public approval of the United States, coming in with a ninety two percent favorability rating. In 2013, a higher percentage of surveyed Filipinos held America favorably and had confidence in the US President, including the former president George W. Bush, than Americans themselves held and had. The entrenched, orthodox Philippine narrative of the Second World War presents the Japanese occupation of the islands as a Dark Age shattering the golden period of American colonial peace, prosperity, and tutelage toward independence. Reynaldo C. Ileto wrote that Pres. Sergio Osmeña “spoke of Douglas MacArthur’s return as a repetition of his father Arthur’s arrival in 1898 to free the Philippines from Spain,” and that Pres. Elpidio Quirino asked Filipinos “[w]hat was the ‘Death March’. . . if not the common pasyon or Christ-like suffering and death, of Filipinos and Americans?” Yet not all Filipinos viewed Douglas MacArthur’s fulfilled promise in 1945 as the redemptive return of their liberating savior. Though they were a minority, it is nevertheless worth exploring those narratives—and asking how they came to be a minority.
Topic:
Imperialism, Post Colonialism, Colonialism, Empire, and Independence
Political Geography:
Philippines and Southeast Asia

3. Epistemic hegemony: the Western straitjacket and post-colonial scars in academic publishing

Author:
Orion Noda
Publication Date:
12-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional (RBPI)
Institution:
Brazilian Center for International Relations (CEBRI)
Abstract:
The field of International Relations (IR) is barely ‘international’. Scholars have voiced their concerns and as a result, we have witnessed calls for diversity and inclusion in IR, be it in publication or in syllabi. Notwithstanding, the misrepresentation of non-Western scholars in the production of knowledge is significant. This article sheds light on the dynamics of publishing from a non-Western perspective and reinforces Post-Colonial epistemological critiques in IR. Based on the latest dataset from the International Studies Association (ISA)’s journals, this article argues that the current setting of IR journals is not suited for and receptive of non-Western scholars and epistemologies.
Topic:
International Relations, Post Colonialism, Academia, and Publishing
Political Geography:
Global Focus

4. Representations of Power in Mayombe: “Men Will Be Prisoners of the Structures They Will Have Created”

Author:
Carolina Bezerra Machado
Publication Date:
06-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Brazilian Journal of African Studies
Institution:
Brazilian Journal of African Studies
Abstract:
The novel Mayombe, in which the character “Milagre” assumes the first person of the narrative, is fundamental to rethink the process of creating the state in Angola, based on the internal political disputes that still occurred during the colonial period and that extended into post-independence. The controversies about Angolan nationalism and identity were woven from different interests among the groups that disputed political power, which in their way, supported on the disqualification of others, proclaimed themselves as genuinely Angolan. The policy of favoritism, based on privileges for the closest ones, cases of corruption, ideological differences, and regional disputes that will characterize post-independence in Angola, were also already present in the anti-colonial struggle, despite of there seeming to be plenty of time available to fix them and maintain the dream of a more egalitarian and democratic society. Written during the guerrilla war, but published only in 1980, a period in which there was a political discourse of national mobilization, from the defense of the construction of a “New Man”, the book also brings an enriching debate about the ethnic and racial fissures that existed within the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA, in portuguese), as well as in Angolan society. As the proposal here is to address the power relations and micro-powers that have been built between the state and the Angolan society in the post-independence through the reading of Mayombe, it is valid to return to these issues. It is noted how much ethnic and racial tensions remained in the political arena after the country’s independence and contributed, in a significant way, to the political structuring of Angola, guided by the MPLA, which sought to detach itself from these debates, diminishing them and treating them on the margins. After all, the tension surrounding this discourse contributed to the political escalation among nationalist movements and to the mobilization for civil war, which is inseparable from the process of formation of the post-colonial Angolan state.
Topic:
Nationalism, Post Colonialism, Emerging States, and Literature
Political Geography:
Africa, Brazil, and Angola

5. The Dominance of Terrorism: Aspects of the Socio-Political Challenges in Post-Independence West AfricA: Nigeria, Burkina Faso and Mali

Author:
Osiomheyalo O. Idaewor
Publication Date:
06-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Brazilian Journal of African Studies
Institution:
Brazilian Journal of African Studies
Abstract:
The West African countries, namely, Nigeria, Burkina Faso and Mali, all gained independence in 1960. Since the attainment of independence, these countries have continued to witness peculiar socio-political and economic challenges. These include the contemporary menace of terrorist groups such as the Boko Haram, ISWAP (Islamic State West Africa Province), and their local and international affiliates. These challenges had been precipitated by both local and external socio-political and economic dynamics in the sub-region. Apparently, the challenge of terrorism has intensified in a way that it has overshadowed and compounded existing challenges in West Africa in the contemporary period. [...] Placed in perspectives, this paper gives an overview of the linkage between the post-colonial and post-independence periods, thereby under-scoring the contemporary intensification of terrorism. It further examines the contributions of the UN, ECOWAS, MINUSMA, G5-Sahel and other interventionists’ initiatives towards the development of the sub-region. It concludes by proffering some prospects for development.
Topic:
Security, Political Economy, Post Colonialism, Terrorism, Counter-terrorism, and Conflict
Political Geography:
Africa, West Africa, Nigeria, Mali, and Burkina Faso

6. Armenia’s Colourless Revolution

Author:
Jan Cingel
Publication Date:
10-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Development and International Relations (IRMO)
Abstract:
Armenia is a landlocked country situated in the South Caucasus region. History of the region was shaped by the clash of three major empires: Ottoman, Persian and Russian trying to win control over it. The modern history of Armenia began in 1991, when the country seceded from the crumbling Soviet Union. Those were difficult years as the fledgling country was in ongoing war with its new post-USSR neighbour – Azerbaijan. The war was waged over “Nagorno- Karabakh”, a region that was mostly populated by ethnic Armenians, however was formally part of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic within the USSR. In the international arena, Armenia joined the UN in 1991, the Russia-led defence pact called the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) in 1994, and also in that year, NATO’s Partnership for Peace (PfP). Armenia became part of the EU’s Eastern Partnership (EaP) in 2009 and until September 2013 had been negotiating the EU’s Association Agreement (AA), which included a free trade agreement. Two months before the intended completion of negotiations, and after a visit of then President Serzh Sargsyan to Moscow, Armenia announced that it would cancel negotiations with the EU on the AA and that it was going to join the emerging Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) instead. Armenia joined the EAEU in 2014.
Topic:
NATO, Post Colonialism, United Nations, and Revolution
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Europe, Soviet Union, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Ottoman Empire

7. Differences between Third World Security Approaches and Postcolonial Security Approaches: State, Culture and Modernity

Author:
Neslihan Dikmen-Alsancak
Publication Date:
09-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Institution:
International Relations Council of Turkey (UİK-IRCT)
Abstract:
The aim of this article is to discuss the differences between the theoretical outlooks of the Third World security approaches and the postcolonial security approaches to security studies. This article is composed of four parts. In the first part, the article investigates what the Third World security approaches and the postcolonial security approaches understand of the concepts of the Third World and postcolonialism. Subsequent three parts discuss differences between the critiques of these two approaches to security studies with respect to three concepts of state, culture, and modernity. Thus, this article compares the critiques of these approaches to security studies and their contributions to critical approaches to security.
Topic:
Security, Post Colonialism, and Third World
Political Geography:
Turkey and Global Focus

8. Problematising the Ultimate Other of Modernity: the Crystallisation of Coloniality in International Politics

Author:
Ramon Blanco and Ana Carolina Teixeira Delgado
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Contexto Internacional
Institution:
Institute of International Relations, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro
Abstract:
This article examines a key element of the power relations underpinning international politics, namely coloniality. It delineates the coloniality of international politics, and elucidates the fundamental aspects of its operationalisation on the one hand, and its crystallisation into international politics on the other. The article is structured into three sections. First, it explores the meaning of coloniality, and outlines its fundamental characteristics. Next, it delineates a crucial operative element of coloniality, the idea of race, and the double movement through which coloniality is rendered operational – the colonisation of time and space. Finally, the article analyses two structuring problematisations that were fundamental to the crystallisation of coloniality in international politics – the work of Francisco de Vitoria, and the Valladolid Debate. It argues that the way in which these problematisations framed the relationship between the European Self and the ultimate Other of Western modernity – the indigenous peoples in the Americas – crystallised the pervasive role of coloniality in international politics.
Topic:
Post Colonialism, Race, International Affairs, Colonialism, and Indigenous
Political Geography:
Europe, Latin America, and Global Focus

9. The Political Import of Deconstruction—Derrida’s Limits?: A Forum on Jacques Derrida’s Specters of Marx after 25 Years, Part I

Author:
Maja Zehfuss, Antonio Y. Vázquez-Arroyo, Dan Bulley, and Bal Sokhi-Bulley
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Contexto Internacional
Institution:
Institute of International Relations, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro
Abstract:
Jacques Derrida delivered the basis of The Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning, & the New International as a plenary address at the conference ‘Whither Marxism?’ hosted by the University of California, Riverside, in 1993. The longer book version was published in French the same year and appeared in English and Portuguese the following year. In the decade after the publication of Specters, Derrida’s analyses provoked a large critical literature and invited both consternation and celebration by figures such as Antonio Negri, Wendy Brown and Frederic Jameson. This forum seeks to stimulate new reflections on Derrida, deconstruction and Specters of Marx by considering how the futures past announced by the book have fared after an eventful quarter century. Maja Zehfuss, Antonio Vázquez-Arroyo and Dan Bulley and Bal Sokhi-Bulley offer sharp, occasionally exasperated, meditations on the political import of deconstruction and the limits of Derrida’s diagnoses in Specters of Marx but also identify possible paths forward for a global politics taking inspiration in Derrida’s work of the 1990s.
Topic:
Post Colonialism, Political Theory, Philosophy, Decolonization, and Deconstruction
Political Geography:
Global Focus

10. Kashmir: A Case for Self-Determination

Author:
Hafsa Kanjwal
Publication Date:
09-2019
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Brown Journal of World Affairs
Abstract:
On 5 August 2019, the Indian government unilaterally changed the legal status of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, undermining its own constitutional process and completely annexing a territory that remains disputed in the international arena. In a statement to the Indian parliament, the Indian Home Minister announced the abrogation of Kashmir’s special status enshrined in Article 370 of the Indian constitution, as well as the bifurcation of the state into two Union Territories to be directly governed by the central government. Since then, the government has placed Indian-occupied Kashmir on lockdown. Despite restrictions on the movement of reporters and human rights observers and a clampdown on communication infrastructure (including the internet and some phone services), there have been reports of widespread human rights abuses including extrajudicial detentions (including of minors), torture, sexual violence, and lack of access to basic medical and healthcare services.
Topic:
Post Colonialism, Territorial Disputes, Self Determination, Colonialism, and Empire
Political Geography:
India, East Asia, and Kashmir