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491. Balance of Power, Democracy and Foreign Policy in South America's Southern Cone

Author:
Farid Kahhat
Publication Date:
12-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:
The purpose of this paper is to assess the merits of two contending theories (balance of power and democratic peace) on the relationship between regime type (e.g., democratic or authoritarian) and foreign policy orientation (i.e., relative proneness towards conflict and cooperation) for the case of South America's Southern Cone between 1970 and 1995. I will argue that a balance of power perspective does not provide a persuasive explanation of changing patterns of inter-state conflict and cooperation within this region during the period under scrutiny. In turn, I will suggest that many attempts to test democratic peace theory beyond the industrialized democracies in the post-war era may be conceptually flawed.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Democratization, Government, and Peace Studies
Political Geography:
South America

492. Gender and Genocide in Ruanda

Author:
Adam Jones
Publication Date:
02-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:
The gender dimension of the holocaust in Rwanda is perhaps more intricate and multifaceted than any genocide in history. This article explored the relevance of the gender variable to an understanding of the 1994 events. It argues the gender is vital to understanding the social crisis in Rwanda prior to the genocide; the appeals of the genocide's perpetrators to the Hutu population and their mobilization of that population for mass killing; the prominence of women as planners and perpetrators of the genocide; the evolution of the genocide itself between April and July 1994; the massive demographic disproportion between men and women after the holocaust; and the actions and strategies of the Rwandan Patriotic Front rebels who eventually succeeded in ending the genocide. The final section of the article seeks to place the Rwanda experience in comparative perspective, suggests some lessons for the future, and argues that the study of ender and genocide must be gender-inclusive (addressing the experiences of both women and men) in order to more fully explore the workings of this important variable.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Genocide, and Peace Studies
Political Geography:
Africa

493. Conflict and Peace-building in Africa: The Regional Dimensions

Author:
Timothy Shaw
Publication Date:
02-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Contemporary Africa reveals a range of causes, consequences and responses to conflicts which are increasingly interrelated as well as regional in character, as around the Great Lakes/Horn. Their economic and non-state features are undeniable, leading to some promising possibilities in terms of 'track-two' diplomacy both on and off the continent, such as the 'Kimberley Process' around 'blood' diamonds. Development corridors and trans-frontier peace-parks may also constitute innovative ways to moderate and contain conflict. As often, changeable African cases challenge established assumptions, analyses and policies, such as those around civil society, governance, regional and security studies.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Development, Peace Studies, and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Africa

494. The Commodification of Violence, Private Military Companies, and African States

Author:
Anna Leander
Publication Date:
06-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
This article argues first that there is an increasing commodification of the use of force in many African states and it takes the example of the increased role of private military companies (PMCs) on the continent as epitomizing this development. Moreover, it points out that this commodification is widely accepted as both African and foreign governments, international organisations, NGOs, and private firms are relying on private firms. The article proceeds to spell out how this commodification affects state authority. It argues that the commodification of force poses problems for state authority both by undermining the direct control of states over the use of force and by undermining the basis of its authority. The article does not claim that state authority and the use of public force in Africa are unproblematic, nor that PMCs are the sole responsible for a situation they invariably worsen. Its aim is to underscore that it is a chimera to believe that reliance on PMCs is unproblematic for state authority and to clarify some of the mechanisms by which public authority is undermined by processes privatizing the use of force. Ultimately, the particularity of African states is likely to be reinforced rather than reduced by the commodification of the use of force on the continent.
Topic:
Defense Policy and Peace Studies
Political Geography:
Africa

495. Disenchanted Conscription: A Military Recruitment System in Need of Justification

Author:
Anna Leander
Publication Date:
06-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
The Economist's point of view is a widely shared one. It also seems warranted by current trends in policy-making in developed democracies. The US, the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Spain, and Portugal have abolished or are phasing out conscription. Even France, mother of citizens armies through the revolutionary levée en masse, just saw (literally as the event was broadcasted as a main feature of the evening television news) its last conscript leave the armed forces. The Nordic countries and Germany have not abolished conscription, but conscripts make up a shrinking share of the armed forces, which governments plan to shrink even further. For many observers this confirms that they simply lag behind. They will soon be brought to reason and abolish conscription. But this is a simplistic understanding of what determines the fate of conscription.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Government, and Peace Studies
Political Geography:
United States, United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, and Portugal

496. Indeterminate and Inhuman: Georgette Leblanc in L'Inhumaine (1924)

Author:
Maureen Shanahan
Publication Date:
05-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for European Studies at Cornell University
Abstract:
This essay argues that L'Inhumaine, directed by Marcel L'Herbier, succeeded as a display of avant-gardism but failed as a heterosexual romance due to misquotation of heterosexual paradigms and its citation of gay, lesbian, and queer signs of the era. Georgette Leblanc, who was the film's lead actress and a principal financial contributor, signified as too “authoritative” both to collaborators and critics, yet her role in shaping the narrative has not been acknowledged. Leblanc scripted the principal character, the singer Claire Lescaut, as an “inhuman woman” who refuses marriage, fails to mourn her suicided male suitor, and is reviled by other women, suggesting post-war women who persisted in their careers and failed to mourn male losses from the Great War. In one scene, when a theater audience breaks into partisan factions rioting over Lescaut's “inhumanity,” two garçonnes or mannish women appear to take Lescaut's side against others in the audience, a scene staged in part by Leblanc's lover Margaret Anderson, co-editor of the Little Review. The presence of the garçonne couple suggests Leblanc and Anderson's desire to connote a lesbian meaning to the “inhuman woman” and to address a lesbian spectator. In addition, Leblanc's age, on-screen persona, and her partnership with a younger male actor disturbed the contemporary ideological ordre familial in post-war France. Instead, both Leblanc and Jaque Catelain, the male lead, resembled other public queer figures, such as Sarah Bernhardt and Jean Börlin, the lead dancer for the Ballets Suédois. In its emphasis on theatrical performance, audience relations, masking and deflected emotions, L'Inhumaine produces a slippage between the visible and invisible and permits multiple spectatorial positions.
Topic:
Gender Issues and Peace Studies
Political Geography:
Europe and France

497. The European Union and the crisis in the Middle East

Author:
Martin Ortega
Publication Date:
07-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
European Union Institute for Security Studies
Abstract:
In summer 2000 the negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians hosted by President Clinton at Camp David raised the prospect of a peaceful resolution of the most sensitive aspects of their controversy, after almost nine years of difficult but promising exchanges following on from the Madrid Conference of November 1991. Nevertheless, Yasser Arafat's refusal to accept the terms negotiated at Camp David and the outbreak of a second intifada on 28 September 2000 led to a spiral of violence that dashed hopes for peace, leading instead to low-intensity war. Nor did the election of Ariel Sharon as Prime Minister in February 2001 make a return to the negotiating table any easier. The two parties considered that they would have more to gain from acts of violence than from negotiations and agreements. Therefore, violence in the Middle East was the continuation of diplomacy by other means. The external actors did not want, or were unable, to break this vicious circle. The most bitter regional conflict since the Second World War was thus rekindled following a phase of pacification that had appeared to be permanent. The European Union and its member states, but also the European public, viewed this negative development with great concern, because the breakdown of the peace process symbolised the end of a decade of optimism that the international community could promote peace not only in the Middle East but also in many other regions, such as southern Africa, Central America, the Balkans or South-East Asia.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution and Peace Studies
Political Geography:
Europe, Middle East, South Africa, Balkans, Central America, and Southeast Asia

498. Truth, Justice and Reconciliation in a Post-Conflict Context

Author:
Eirin Mobekk
Publication Date:
11-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance (DCAF)
Abstract:
When the Indonesian government agreed to hold the ballot of independence in East Timor in August 1999, it led to a cascade of violence throughout the pre-ballot period by pro-integration militias and Indonesian security forces. The violence that was perpetrated in East Timor in 1999 has been defined as crimes against humanity. It included murder, rape, torture and inhuman and degrading treatment. After the result of the ballot was announced the violence accelerated out of control. The number of dead is estimated to be between 1,300 and 1,500, most of the population was displaced and 70% of the infrastructure destroyed. Re-construction, re-building and reconciliation were now on the agenda.
Topic:
Security, Human Welfare, and Peace Studies
Political Geography:
Asia

499. Disarmament and Reintegration in Afghanistan

Publication Date:
09-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
The domination of Afghanistan's political landscape by armed parties and individual commanders is still the principal obstacle to implementation of the political process that was agreed at the Bonn conference in late 2001. Without a credible process of disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration of former commanders and fighters into society (DR), it is inconceivable that any of the key elements of that political process - including the adoption of a new constitution, judicial reform, and elections - can be meaningfully implemented. More international engagement across the country - in the form of both security contributions and economic assistance - remains the essential ingredient.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Development, Economics, and Peace Studies
Political Geography:
Afghanistan and Central Asia

500. Peacebuilding in Afghanistan

Publication Date:
09-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Tackling conflict and providing security in Afghanistan requires a greater effort to deal with local disputes that frequently flare into violence and lead to wider problems. Although these attract less attention than the threat from the resurgent Taliban, they are important as they produce an environment of insecurity which destroys all quality of life for ordinary civilians and undermines the legitimacy of the Afghan Transitional Administration in Kabul. Local commanders often exploit these disputes to consolidate their positions, further weakening the authority of the central government.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Development, Government, and Peace Studies
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Central Asia, and Kabul