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17271. In Defense of Smart Sanctions: A Response to Joy Gordon

Author:
George A. Lopez
Publication Date:
04-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
In her recent article in this journal, Joy Gordon provides an astute history and critique of the evolution and application of smart sanctions within the United Nations system since the mid-1990s. Her analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the discrete types of smart sanctions is part of a growing discussion among both academics and practitioners about the future and the utility of these measures. As always, her continued skepticism about the effectiveness and ethical dimensions of economic sanctions deserves serious consideration and evaluation. In particular, Gordon raises three central concerns: (1) smart sanctions are no more successful than traditional trade sanctions; (2) each type of targeted mechanism has serious flaws; and (3) targeted sanctions did not end the humanitarian damage or the related ethical dilemmas that are embedded into sanctions design and implementation.
Topic:
Disaster Relief and Humanitarian Aid
Political Geography:
United Nations

17272. Morality and War: Can War Be Just in the Twenty-First Century?

Author:
Michael L. Gross
Publication Date:
04-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
Morality and War is a timely addition to contemporary just war literature. While advocating the use of just war principles to evaluate modern armed conflict, Fisher takes the innovative step of introducing virtue theory into these debates. Largely neglected by just war theorists, virtue theory has, for example, invigorated bioethics by providing an antidote to the rigidity of principled moral thinking while also offering a useful and versatile educational tool. Fisher uses it to do both as he combines virtue ethics with consequentialism into what he terms "virtuous consequentialism."
Topic:
War

17273. Terror, Religion, and Liberal Thought

Author:
Andrew F. March
Publication Date:
04-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
Addressing a set of normative questions surrounding the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Richard B. Miller takes as his starting point the claim that “9/11 raises moral questions about human rights, respect for persons, and the limits of toleration with vivid clarity . . . [and] puts in stark relief questions about the moral challenges of coexistence in an increasingly pluralistic public culture, questions concerning religious authorizations of violence, human rights, and the basis and limits of tolerating the intolerant” . Further, he tells us that “at stake are two related concerns: first, whether we may evaluate actions justified on terms that invoke religious warrants; second, how and on what terms those aggrieved by Islamic and other forms of terrorism may justifiably feel indignation”
Topic:
Human Rights and Terrorism

17274. The Offensive Internet: Speech, Privacy, and Reputation

Author:
Anita L. Allen
Publication Date:
04-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
In this new volume, two distinguished University of Chicago law professors have joined forces to edit a provocatively titled collection of essays about the Internet. As they observe in their coauthored introduction, the Internet “has succeeded in remaking us as inhabitants of a small village”. However, there is little romance in this cozy trope that Levmore and Nussbaum deploy to frame their project. We are indeed close-knit now. The Internet has stitched together geographically, politically, and culturally distant men, women, and children into an intensively interactive community. But it is a Hobbesean village, bereft of decorum and solidarity. Moreover, when one calls to mind the extraordinary stories of Amy Boyer and Tyler Clementi, whose murder and suicide, respectively, were closely tied to commercial and social abuses of the Internet, one quickly understands that Internet communication can be not only offensive but also flat-out dangerous.
Political Geography:
Chicago

17275. Dilemmas and Connections: Selected Essays

Author:
William Schweiker
Publication Date:
04-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
The publication of these essays by the philosopher Charles Taylor in a single volume gives readers access to his understanding of late-modern societies. Like his Gifford Lectures, collected in A Secular Age, these essays—addressing social, political, and ethical questions—challenge various theories of modernity made famous by Max Weber and others. In Taylor's terms, the “subtraction theory”—that is, the theory that defines modernity as a form of life with the religious subtracted from it—is a misunderstanding of the current situation. Taylor here provides a compelling response to that account of modernity grouped under three headings: “Allies and Interlocutors,” “Social Theory,” and “Themes from A Secular Age.” Given the range of topics, thinkers, and problems that the book engages, it is impossible to review it as a single argument. That said, the book does present interlocking sub-arguments that are the focus of this review.

17276. Outreach, Impact, Collaboration: Why Academics Should Join to Stand Against Poverty

Author:
Luis Cabrera and Thomas Pogge
Publication Date:
07-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
It is a typical late afternoon in the Timarpur neighborhood, lying just across the Mahatma Gandhi Marg ring road from the University of Delhi North Campus. Families gather outside one- and two-room brick living quarters, many of which have only a single draped cloth serving as the front wall. Other homes are made of found materials: cloth or plastic bound over slim wooden poles; a mishmash of blankets, boards, and corrugated metal for walls; metal or blue plastic tarpaulins weighted against the wind with stones and bricks for roofs. A boy of perhaps four fills a bucket at the single communal tap serving a dozen families and wobbles up a set of stairs, sloshing out water with each step. Another child, younger, plays quietly beside a woman sleeping on the pavement under a shelter of plastic and burlap bags
Topic:
Poverty
Political Geography:
New Delhi

17277. Global Poverty and the Limits of Academic Expertise

Author:
Onora O'Neill
Publication Date:
07-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
Academics are not a natural kind. They have varied expertise and aims, and most have no expertise that is particularly relevant to problems of poverty and development. This presumably is why the essay in this issue by Thomas Pogge and Louis Cabrera-a virtual "manifesto" of the newly formed Academics Stand Against Poverty (ASAP)-shifts to and fro between addressing "academics" and addressing "poverty-focused academics." Even those academics whose work touches on poverty and development-a quite small minority-are mostly expert in some but not in other aspects of these topics. Some are expert in international law, but not in economics; others know about international trade, but not about aid; some study corruption, but know nothing about nutrition-and so on. A few know a lot about normative argument, but their credentials are sketchy when it comes to empirical evidence. Many more are interested in empirical evidence, usually of a specific sort, but are uncritical of or confused about normative argument. (I suspect that many suffer from a lingering positivist hangover, which suggests that there is no intellectually respectable way to support normative claims, and indeed that this fear may lie behind the appeals to the importance of academic neutrality that Pogge and Cabrera discuss.)
Topic:
Development and Poverty

17278. Addressing Poverty and Climate Change: The Varieties of Social Engagement

Author:
Simon Caney
Publication Date:
07-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
The world is marked by very great poverty and inequality. The lives of many of our fellow inhabitants of this planet are blighted by malnutrition, disease, and destitution. Yet mass suffering is often met by casual indifference or acceptance, and sometimes even by active support of the status quo. While tragedies occur elsewhere in the world, the vast majority of us continue in our daily tasks and, in the words of W. H. Auden, turn away " quite leisurely from the disaster. " It is in response to this reality that Academics Stand Against Poverty (ASAP) asks: What, in light of mass poverty, are the responsibilities of academics?
Topic:
Climate Change, Development, and Poverty
Political Geography:
Africa

17279. Navigating Between Extremes: Academics Helping to Eradicate Global Poverty

Author:
Roger C. Riddell
Publication Date:
07-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
Academics have been involved in development and poverty issues in poor countries since at least the 1940s. Most academics and practitioners who work professionally in the world of development engage in the ! eld not as dispassionate observers but with the explicit intention of trying to rid the world of extreme poverty. But we are now witnessing something new. For a number of years, a small band of academics from other fields, perhaps most notably from the disciplines of ethics and political and moral philosophy, have been interested in and have tried to promote a wider interest in " development ethics. " More recently, their numbers have been swelled by an ever-larger group of academics from these disciplines who are convinced of the moral obligation to respond to the problem of world poverty and are driven by the need to do more. The engagement of any individual or group concerned with quickening the end of extreme poverty is clearly both welcome and encouraging. However, before moving too quickly to promote new attempts to eradicate poverty, it is necessary to examine carefully the work that academics and development professionals have done and are currently doing in this area, the way that this work has been and is being used by policy-makers, and how these same academics understand and analyze the impact of their work, including their understanding of why they have not been more successful. The purpose of this article is to contribute to the debate and discussion about how concerned academics and individuals might add particular value to the work already being done.
Topic:
Poverty
Political Geography:
South Asia

17280. Beyond Charity: Helping NGOs Lead a Transformative New Public Discourse on Global Poverty and Social Justice

Author:
Martin Kirk
Publication Date:
07-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
This article looks at the role that Northern nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) can play in engaging domestic publics in efforts to eradicate mass global poverty. In doing so, it makes two assumptions about this relationship that are important to outline. First, it is assumed that what the public in Northern countries think or understand about mass global poverty is a relevant factor in alleviating or overcoming it. In other words, it is important that people in Ohio or the Scottish Highlands understand why, for example, a billion people live in absolute poverty in a world that has the physical resources to provide for all of humanity's basic needs. As long as Northern states dominate the G7, the G8, and the Bretton Woods institutions; dictate many of the terms of international trade; and consume far more than an equitable share of global resources, the social norms of these countries will directly inform global efforts against mass poverty. Further, the idea that the fight against mass global poverty is the job only of politicians and business leaders, and that the attitudes of the general public are not at all instrumental in or relevant to their decision-making, is clearly untenable. Indeed, public support for the policies that would bring transformational change is essential. As Paul Collier writes in The Bottom Billion , "Without an informed electorate, politicians will continue to use the bottom billion merely for photo opportunities, rather than promoting real transformation"
Topic:
Poverty
Political Geography:
Africa