Search

Begin New Search Publishing Institution The New School Graduate Program in International Affairs

31. A Postcolonial-Feminist Alternative to Neoliberal Self/Other Relations

Author:
L.H.M. Ling
Publication Date:
03-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The New School Graduate Program in International Affairs
Abstract:
The neoliberal 'good life' demands one, unequivocal condition: convert or be disciplined. Conversion requires wholesale integration of the neoliberal Self's policies, practices, and institutions at all sites of public policy-making for the Other, regardless of local histories, cultures, or desires. Discipline comes through economic, political, and sometimes military 'conditionalities' from the Self to the 'non-compliant' Other. That both conversion and discipline mean a kind of annihilation for the Other is, for the neoliberal Self, a necessary risk. This includes the rise of rival camps of hypermasculinity that lead, invariably, to perpetual cycles of competition and conflict. A 'borderlands' approach offers an alternative. Similar to 'traveling' theory from feminists of color, this notion of 'borderlands' also draws from pre-colonial experiences such as the ancient Silk Roads where peoples, societies, languages, religions, and ways of life mixed, merged, and moved. 'Borderlands', in short, exemplifies a multiple worlds ontology to world politics. Three cases illustrate the pitfalls of neoliberal Self/Other relations and why we need to move to the 'borderlands': (1) the Asian financial crisis (1997-1998), (2) US corporate corruption (2001-2002), and (3) the 9/11 Commission Report (2004).
Topic:
International Relations, Gender Issues, Political Economy, Post Colonialism, and Political Theory
Political Geography:
United States

32. "The Kitsch of War: Misappropriating Sun Tzu for an American Imperial Hypermasculinity

Author:
L.H.M. Ling and Ching-Chane Hwang
Publication Date:
04-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The New School Graduate Program in International Affairs
Abstract:
Sun Tzu seems more popular than ever. The Bush Administration attributes its successful invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq to tactics in The Art of War such as “shock and awe” and “decapitation.” However, neither exists in Sun Tzu's manual. More seriously, this misappropriation reinforces an imperial hypermasculinity in US foreign policy given its neoliberal logic of “conversion or discipline” for Self/Other relations. Rival camps of imperial hypermasculinity arise in reaction, thereby rationalizing the US Self's resort to such in the first place. Locking the world into ceaseless rounds of hostility between opposed enemies, we argue, contradicts Sun Tzu's purpose. The Art of War sought to transform, not annihilate, the enemy as mandated by the cosmo-moral, dialectical world order that governed Sun Tzu's time. In misappropriating Sun Tzu, then, the Bush Administration turns The Art of War into mere kitsch.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, War, and Political Theory
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, United States, and Iraq

33. Time for Change in Global Trade and Financial Governance

Author:
Barry Herman
Publication Date:
04-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The New School Graduate Program in International Affairs
Abstract:
The governance structures of the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and World Trade Organization are distinct, although the meetings of the leaders of the Group of 7 industrial countries (G8 including Russia on political matters) provide an opportunity to forge coherence at least with the interests of those countries. Sometimes heads of other countries are invited to meet on the fringes of the summits, but these consultations are hardly negotiating forums. This paper argues why this is no longer tenable, if it ever was, and how to go about building a more representative structure of global trade and financial governance.
Topic:
Globalization, Government, International Organization, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Russia

34. Are Internationally Agreed Development Goals (IADGs) being implemented in national development strategies and aid programmes? A review of Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) and development cooperation policy statements

Author:
Sakiko Fukuda-Parr
Publication Date:
07-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The New School Graduate Program in International Affairs
Abstract:
Never before has there existed a stronger global consensus on a global development agenda, defined in the Internationally Agreed Development Goals (IADGs) that include specific, quantitative and time bound targets and incorporate the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Yet it is often noted that the IADG endorsements have lacked action due to inadequate 'ownership'. This paper explores this issue empirically by analyzing Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers of 22 developing countries and policy frameworks of 21 bilateral programs. The paper finds that there is a high degree of commitment to IADGs/MDGs as overall policy objectives but that action programs are selective. These policy instruments prioritize narrowed down MDG agenda of economic growth for reducing income poverty, social investments and good governance such as the rule of law, but many neglect the broader agenda of equity, pro-poor growth, employment, hunger, democratic governance and human rights principles. Links with national and donor policy processes can be strengthened by use in programming and evaluation processes. Security is not an MDG but a clear donor priority. Establishing quantitative targets for these goals, especially equity, democratic governance and security should be considered.
Topic:
Security, Development, Humanitarian Aid, Poverty, and Foreign Aid

35. A Fairy Tale of Science: Playing with Hayward Alker

Author:
L.H.M. Ling
Publication Date:
07-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The New School Graduate Program in International Affairs
Abstract:
This paper, presented at the Memorial Conference in Honor of Hayward R. Alker, Jr., combines three of Alker's abiding interests in modeling world politics: dialogics as method, world civilizations as substance, and dramaturgy as form. In the form of a play, the paper explores a central theme in Alker's scholarship: e.g., how do we understand and communicate with each other when civilizations have such different understandings of what the world is and how we relate to it?
Topic:
International Relations, Globalization, International Cooperation, and Political Theory

36. Genocide by Attrition

Author:
Everita Silina
Publication Date:
11-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The New School Graduate Program in International Affairs
Abstract:
Human rights observers have a tendency to look at humanitarian crises as if they were frozen in time. Many unfolding genocides have gone unrecognized and unprevented because each death, each massacre, was treated as if it were a photograph, a snapshot to be compared in that instance against the definition of genocide. Genocide, however, is not an event. This paper will argue that genocide can be waged with a wide array of methods beyond direct and violent murder. In fact, there are more protracted, more ambiguously lethal means of extermination than machetes, guns or gas chambers. Many victims of historical genocides die from slower indirect and less immediately deadly methods of annihilation than outright murder. Genocide is a process that can unfold over several years, even decades. This paper proposes a notion of genocide by attrition that takes the usual linear (causal) accounts of mass death as its starting point and expands on them to suggest a more complex picture of genocidal processes. More specifically, this study aims to illuminate the concept of genocide by attrition in its proper legal and historical contexts, and identify indicators thereof through the lens of existing international human rights laws and obligations so as to assist legal, humanitarian and political actors in the difficult task of genocide identification and prevention. The paper will draw on empirical evidence from various cases of genocide by attrition to identify a set of attributes that allow a fresh rethinking of the process of genocide.
Topic:
International Relations, Political Violence, Genocide, Human Rights, War, and Non State Actors

37. Manage Radical Disputes: Public Reason, The American Dream, and the Case of Same-Sex Marriage

Author:
Keith J. Bybee and Cyril Ghosh
Publication Date:
12-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The New School Graduate Program in International Affairs
Abstract:
This paper proposes that ambiguous arguments play a crucial role in the management of radical disputes in democratic deliberation. Lofty though it might be, "public reason" is an impoverished ideal, and its celebrated role in democratic deliberation is vastly overrated, particularly among liberal theorists. In the courts of law and in the larger world, radical disputes unfold as messy, incomplete, ambiguous arguments are proposed by parties. This does not mean that all communication between parties must break down because parties do not abide by the "rules" of argumentation and evidentiary reasoning. It only implies that the language of ambiguity offers possibilities for democratic deliberation that are different from those presented in the discourse on "public reason." Ordinary people have strong opinions but their arguments are, more often than not, incompletely theorized – a fact that by no means indicates that such arguments are failures. We illustrate our argument by examining the ambiguous, fragmented use of American Dream talk in the debate over same-sex marriage.
Topic:
Civil Society, Democratization, Political Theory, and Sociology
Political Geography:
America

38. Lust/Caution in IR: Democratising World Politics from Postcolonial Asia

Author:
L.H.M. Ling, Ching-Chane Hwang, and Boyu Chen
Publication Date:
12-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The New School Graduate Program in International Affairs
Abstract:
International Relations (IR) needs democratising. Currently, IR theorising remains under the hegemony of a singular worldview ('warre of all against all') with a singular logic ('conversion or discipline') for all actors and activities. This top-down, state-centric, and exclusivist approach is fundamentally anti-democratic for a field of inquiry and practice crowded with multiple worlds. The Humanities, we propose, will help to mitigate these totalitarian tendencies by expressing and examining what hegemonic IR cannot but must: that is, a richness of being in global life. We present Ang Lee's 'Lust/Caution' (2007) as an example. If seen as an allegory for Taiwan-China relations, this film shifts attention from the national security state, a defining concern for hegemonic IR, to the trans-national solidarities that bind peoples and societies despite inter-state conflicts, thereby offering a way out of the statist impasse that incarcerates the region. This approach extends beyond recent calls for a 'linguistic' or 'artistic' turn in IR. Culture, we argue, can serve as a method.
Topic:
Democratization, Post Colonialism, International Affairs, and Political Theory
Political Geography:
China, Taiwan, and Asia

39. 9/11 and the Paradox of American Power

Author:
Carl Conetta
Publication Date:
12-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The New School Graduate Program in International Affairs
Abstract:
The September 2001 attacks on the United States facilitated the formation of an effective domestic consensus on post-Cold War US globalism – a goal that had eluded the Clinton administration. The centerpiece of that consensus is the "war on terrorism." This puts US global engagement in a "war-fighting" framework, which has strong institutional, cultural, and ideological resonances in the American polity. And it admits both neo-conservative and neo-liberal varieties. However, the attendant surge in US military activism has proved both fabulously expensive and largely counter-productive. Moreover, it has helped undermine America's already-troubled hegemonic position within the Western and allied camp.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, Imperialism, Terrorism, and War
Political Geography:
United States and America

40. Fighting the 'Good Fight': An Assessment of Democratic Proposals For a New National Security Strategy

Author:
William D. Hartung
Publication Date:
12-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The New School Graduate Program in International Affairs
Abstract:
Many Democratic Party security policy proposals have been developed in response to the Bush Administration's actions. Ranging from Peter Beinart's The Good Fight to the Democratic Leadership Council's Progressive Policy Institution book to left-leaning think tank proposals, this material contains positives, negatives, and “sins of omission” that need to be fully addressed. The first priority is to broaden the definition of security to include protection from threats to human life, with the military as one of many tools available. Strength should not be equated with spending, but with the application of the right tools to the right problems.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, and Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
United States