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741. North Korea and the Politics of Visual Representation

Author:
Dirk Nabers and David Shim
Publication Date:
04-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Within international discourses on security, North Korea is often associated with risk and danger, emanating paradoxically from what can be called its strengths—particularly military strength, as embodied by its missile and nuclear programs—and its weaknesses—such as its ever-present political, economic, and food crises—which are considered to be imminent threats to international peace and stability. We argue that images play an important role in these representations, and suggest that one should take into account the role of visual imagery in the way particular issues, actions, and events related to North Korea are approached and understood. Reflecting on the politics of visual representation means to examine the functions and effects of images, that is what they do and how they are put to work by allowing only particular kinds of seeing. After addressing theoretical and methodological questions, we discuss individual (and serial) photographs depicting what we think are typical examples of how North Korea is portrayed in the Western media and imagined in international politics.
Topic:
Security, Nuclear Weapons, Politics, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Israel and North Korea

742. Are Electoral Coalitions Harmful for Democratic Consolidation in Africa?

Author:
Danielle Resnick
Publication Date:
02-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Electoral coalitions are becoming increasingly popular among opposition parties in Africa because they offer many advantages with respect to reducing party fragmentation and increasing incumbent turnovers. At the same time, however, they are often comprised of parties that are defined predominantly by their leaders' personalities and exhibit little differentiation in terms of their policy orientation. Based on a dataset spanning all opposition coalitions since 2000 in Africa's electoral democracies, this paper demonstrates not only that coalitions rarely defeat incumbents but also that they are only competitive when major opposition parties are involved. More significantly, the paper highlights that in many countries, a sizeable share of total electoral volatility is due to fluctuations in voting for opposition parties that have belonged to coalitions. The paper argues that such volatility reflects the inability of coalition members to build loyal constituency bases over time, which is critical for party development and broader consolidation.
Topic:
Democratization, Development, and Politics
Political Geography:
Africa

743. Selecting Heritage: The Interplay of Art, Politics and Identity

Author:
Lucas Lixinski
Publication Date:
02-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
This article discusses the international protection of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) by a UNESCO-based regime created by the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. This Convention has experienced very fast ratification (127 states parties less than seven years after its approval), but this is in no small part attributable to a certain lack of 'legal bite' of the instrument. There are several layers of state sovereignty imbued in the instrument, as well as weak mechanisms for community participation. These are reflected by a state prerogative in determining what the intangible heritage within their territories is for international safeguarding purposes, therefore having the chance to stifle internal dissent by ignoring minority cultures or even appropriating them and depriving them of political meanings. The early practice under the Convention, including the first nominations, puts these structural shortcomings in further evidence. However, recent reforms to the operational directives for the implementation of the Convention have already taken decisive steps towards increasing community participation, even when this means eroding state privileges with regard to the Convention.
Topic:
Politics

744. Filippo Fontanelli, Giuseppe Martinico Paolo Carrozza (eds). Shaping Rule of Law Through Dialogue. International and Supranational Experiences

Author:
Luis Castellvi Laukamp
Publication Date:
02-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
Dialogue, this noble art, which, like many other things, was invented by the Greeks, is always a sort of collaboration, a way of trying to attain the truth. Perhaps this is why Plato used it as a literary vehicle when he wrote his Socratic dialogues, a corpus of pieces in which he laid the foundations of Western philosophy. Deeply impressed by the death of his mentor Socrates, Plato wrote some of the most brilliant and insightful works of all time, perhaps in order to keep on debating with his master after his death. In all likelihood, no-one since has ever had the same great ability to create such architectures of thought. His enjoyable and entertaining dialogues deal with essential topics such as the nature of time, politics, love, and death. Not only is his style concise and meticulous, with a proverbial ability to pose the right questions, but also didactic and kind. His dialogues enable all participants to engage in an inquiry which, despite not always being successful in reaching the desired goal, has at least proved to be a fundamental tool in the development of all expressions of human thought. The book under review is inspired, mutatis mutandis, by this very same philosophy regarding dialogue. As its editors (Filippo Fontanelli, Giuseppe Martinico, and Paolo Carrozza) point out in their introduction, '[t]he process of fragmentation of the international legal order and the absence of constitutional devices governing the connections between the various legal regimes can be reduced to a rational picture only through the activity of the judges' (at 23). This is why judges play a key role in creating and developing links between the different legal systems which constitute our multi-level judicial environment. The increasingly complex nature of the interaction between national and international judges has often been
Topic:
Development, Government, Politics, and Law
Political Geography:
Greece

745. Special issue: Friendship in international relations

Author:
Andrea Oelsner and Antoine Vion
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
From Aristotle to Kant, Schmitt and Derrida, philosophers have explored the links between friendship and politics. In 2007, Critical Review of Social and Political Philosophy published a Special Issue on 'Friendship in Politics' discussing friendship as a specific dimension of both domestic and international politics (Smith and King, 2007).
Topic:
International Relations and Politics

746. Friendship and the world of states

Author:
Graham M. Smith
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
What contribution can a theorization of friendship offer to the understanding of the world of states? It is argued here that the contemporary view of friendship eclipses a longer and broader appreciation. As such, the view of friendship that identifies it as affective, private and particular (here termed the contemporary-affective view) is one instance of a much wider cluster of ideas sharing overlapping characteristics. So conceptualized, 'friendship' is the concern with what binds person-to-person. It is a concern with the nature and fabric of the political. Seen from this vantage point, friendship highlights what an analysis through the state tends to overshadow: the enduring affinities, identifications and bonds that permeate the dynamics of the world of states. Thus, friendship need not remain the preserve of the premodern (Aristotle), nor be usurped as an adjunct to sovereignty and power (Schmitt), but investigated as an ongoing site of analysis for phenomena within, between and beyond states.
Topic:
Politics

747. Fraternity and a global difference principle: A feminist critique of Rawls and Pogge

Author:
Sibyl A Schwarzenbach
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
Despite recent cracks in the dominant Hobbesian world picture of international relations (IR) - as the resurgence of neo-Kantianism in the area of 'global justice' bears witness - a discussion of friendship still remains absent. This article focusses on the important debate concerning the possibility of a global 'difference principle': that principle which John Rawls in A Theory of Justice considers an 'expression of fraternity' between citizens. Although in his later work Rawls explicitly denies that his difference principle applies worldwide and between 'people', others (most famously Charles Beitz and Thomas Pogge) defend a global version of it nonetheless. Yet, there is no talk of fraternity by these latter thinkers. I argue that both these positions are mistaken. Not only is an analysis of friendship necessary for any adequate account of justice - whether domestic or global - but the form this political friendship takes emerges as critical to the substantive debate.
Topic:
International Relations and Politics

748. A history of the language of friendship in international treaties

Author:
Heather Devere, Simon Mark, and Jane Verbitsky
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
While the concept of friendship has been largely invisible within Western political debate, in the international political domain, 'friendship' and the language of friends have been prominent in treaties and alliances between nations. Database searches on the topic of 'politics and friendship' locate predominantly references concerning relationships between states. However, it has been war and enmity rather than friendship that has dominated analysis in international relations literature. In this article we provide a history of international treaties, focusing in particular on those named as friendship treaties. We will discuss the use of concepts and terminology related to friendship and the nomenclature associated with international alliances. It will be argued that friendship is more a tool of public relations and spin, rather than diplomacy and peace-building, and the cynical use of friendship does not sit easily with the Nehruvian concept of friendship as an important method of diplomacy that can act as a path to peace, goodwill and understanding between states and nations.
Topic:
Diplomacy and Politics

749. Friendship of the enemies: Twentieth century treaties of the United Kingdom and the USSR

Author:
Evgeny Roschchin
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
This article focuses on the use of the concept of friendship in the treaties of friendship concluded by the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union in the twentieth century. The range of reference of friendship and its usage by these two political rivals display a number of commonalities, which indicate a key role this concept plays in maintaining the existing order of interstate relations. The concept is conventionally used in the treaties marking the changes in the global or regional political settings. In the texts of these treaties appeals to friendship are made together with the expression of respect for state sovereignty, independence, borders and so on. It also appears as an exclusive and contractual relationship. These conventions in diplomatic rhetoric, meant to reassert and legitimize the particularistic sovereign order, pose a challenge to the attempts to conceive of international relations in terms of friendship as an ethical, universal and benevolent phenomenon.
Topic:
Politics
Political Geography:
United Kingdom and Soviet Union

750. Eco-imperialism: governance, resistance, hierarchy

Author:
Hugh Dyer
Publication Date:
04-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of International Relations and Development
Institution:
Central and East European International Studies Association
Abstract:
The global environmental agenda, alongside the broad neoliberal agenda, may be viewed by developing states and societies as a neo-imperialist adventure to be resisted. This paper argues that while the idea of 'eco-imperialism' reflects the uncertain location of politics, the ambivalent role of states, and unchallenged state-centred assumptions about world politics, it also introduces conceptual confusion. It is an unusual case of imperialism, in so far as it involves diverse actors who may not be pursuing the same objectives. It appears that eco-imperialism may be both hegemonic force and anti-capitalist movement. In order to explain this apparent contradiction, we must note the contradictions in globalisation, but also how the mix of underlying political orientations create strange bed-fellows of, for example, developing country activists and oil company executives. In doing so, a nuanced view of the dynamics of global environmental policy and the prospects for matching these to particular political contexts may be discerned. While the exploitative and dominating aspects of global environmental policy deserve to be challenged and studied, these may have less bearing on global governance per se than on the globalised world in which it occurs. In recognising the intent of the critique, one must also note the mutual constitution of governance and resistance, local-global reverberations, and the prospects for bottom-up support identified by 'environmentality'. Hence, any signs of eco-imperialism imply 'participatory empire' at worst, which should inform rather than obstruct global environmental governance.
Topic:
Globalization and Politics