Suchergebnisse

"Basic income is an innovative, powerful egalitarian response to widening global inequalities and poverty experiences in society, one that runs counter to the neoliberal transformations of modern welfare states, social security, and labor market programs. This book is the first collective volume of its kind to ask whether a basic income offers a viable solution to the income support systems in Australia and New Zealand. Though often neglected in discussions of basic income, both countries are advanced liberal democracies dominated by neoliberal transformations of the welfare state, and therefore have great potential to advance debates on the topic. The contributors' essays and case studies explore the historical basis on which a basic income program might stand in these two countries, the ideological nuances and complexities of implementing such a policy, and ideas for future development that might allow the program to be put into practice regionally and applied internationally"--

Chester Cooper was the noted author of The Lost Crusade: The United States in Vietnam (1970), but his role as a Vietnam policymaker has been unduly overlooked. Working for the CIA and for the National Security Council under Kennedy and Johnson, he grew disenchanted with American policy and sought to inhibit the US military role in Vietnam. He then joined the State Department to seek a negotiated peace. In exploring Cooper's involvement in the Vietnam War, the article fills a gap in the literature and addresses questions of military strategy, decision-making, the prospects of a negotiated peace, and internal dissent. Adapted from the source document.

Asserts that the rhetoric for US military spending to protect against rogue states is just an excuse to funnel large amounts of money to certain corporations. In particular, the article shows that the $50 billion missile defense system is unnecessary, because rogue states such as North Korea, Iran, & Iraq are incapable of staging a missile attack against the US. The article also points out that the US does not protest aggression if it fits in with American interests; eg, the Bush administration did not protest Saddam Hussein's using mustard gas on his own Kurdish population in the early 1990s. Altogether, US foreign policy has not been driven by lofty ideals but by national self-interest defined by multinational corporations. R. Larsen

Debate on the 'securitization' of aid and international development since 9/11 has been anchored in two key claims: that the phenomenon has been driven and imposed by western governments and that this is wholly unwelcome and deleterious for those in Africa and elsewhere in the developing world. This article challenges both of these assumptions by demonstrating how a range of African regimes have not only benefited from this dispensation but have also actively encouraged and shaped it, even incorporating it into their own militarized state-building projects. Drawing on the cases of Chad, Ethiopia, Uganda and Rwanda-four semi-authoritarian polities which have been sustained by the securitization trend-we argue that these developments have not been an accidental by-product of the global 'war on terror'. Instead, we contend, they have been the result of a deliberate set of choices and policy decisions by these African governments as part of a broader 'illiberal state-building' agenda. In delineating this argument we outline four major strategies employed by these regimes in this regard: 'playing the proxy'; simultaneous 'socialization' of development policy and 'privatization' of security affairs; making donors complicit in de facto regional security arrangements; and constructing regime 'enemies' as broader, international threats. (International Affairs (Oxford) / SWP)

This Working Paper provides a dual historisation of 'securitisation', i.e. of the origins of the Copenhagen School in terms of its direct world historical context and of the historical origins of the specific bias in our political discourse which is prompted by security discourses. Born almost as a rationalisation of German Ostpolitik, and hence with desecuritisation, the Copenhagen School understood the speech act less as a kind of conspiratorial or elite manipulation than as the manifold processes that give prominence to the discourse of security (the reversal of Clausewitz) in public debate or diminish it, as in the processes of desecuritisation. This means that I see 'securitisation' not in the 'act' of those 'speaking' security, but in the possibly unintended and unconscious de-/mobilisation of the inherent logic, or grammar, of the discourse of security. This begs the question, however, of where the discourse of security would have gained its inherent logic from. It is here where a second necessary historicisation has to take place, not about the context of the theory itself, but about the content of its central concept. The Copenhagen School has been criticised for being basically still too conventional or realist in its reading of security, being connected to exceptional measures, done by foreign-policy elites, etc. But just as the increasing number of security sectors indicates, this is not to be understood as the 'essence' of security, but rather as the effect of a historical development in which certain actors have traditionally come to be authorised to talk and effect war and peace in a 'realist' way. This implies that, by reifying a historical moment into a general framework of analysis, securitisation theory may indeed help to reproduce such an understanding, although it does not need to. In return, it implies, however, that if a different understanding of security (beyond the raison d'État) appears and becomes shared, the Copenhagen School will also have to adapt. Its conceptualisation is historically bound. The Working Paper is the English version of a book chapter in Portuguese, published as: Stefano Guzzini, "A história dual da securitização", in André Barrinha and Maria Raquel Freire, eds, Segurança, Liberdade e Política: Pensar a Escola de Copenhaga em Português, Lisboa: Imprensa de Ciências Sociais, 2015, pp. 15-32.

The problematic nature of certain policies and approaches to preventing and countering violent extremism has been robustly demonstrated; it is clear that rethinking the prevention of violent extremism requires concerted attention. One response to critiques of security-driven approaches has been the adoption of the language of resilience building. However, the turn to resilience has not been matched by a fundamental rethinking of approach, and may often mask troubling approaches in the language of objectivity and positivity. In rethinking the question of prevention, examining the concept of resilience is important not only to address a current trend in policy discourse, but also to benefit from the rich literature on resilience from which valuable lessons may be drawn. A critically informed concept of resilience has the potential to provide a framework of response that recognises individuals and communities as political actors who, rather than being shielded from ideologies, require the resources and channels to challenge violence, discrimination, and injustice, be it state or non-state driven. This article, through examining the current use of "resilience" in PVE policies, makes a modest attempt to draw on lessons from applying resilience in other contexts to articulate possible features of a critically informed approach to preventing violent extremism.

ONE OF THE MOST URGENT PRIORITIES FOR PROMOTING PEACE AND SECURITY IN THE MEDITERRANEAN IS THE SETTLEMENT OF ITS MULTIPLE REGIONAL CONFLICTS. THE SITUATION IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND PERSIAN GULF HAS, FOR SEVERAL DECADES, BEEN OF PRIME CONCERN FOR SOVIET POLICYMAKERS. THE LATEST EVENTS IN THE PERSIAN GULF HAVE FURTHER AGGRAVATED THE ALREADY GRAVE SITUATION AND CREATED A KIND OF DEADLOCK IN THE SEARCH FOR PEACE THERE. THIS ARTICLE SEEKS TO UNDERSTAND THE INDIGENOUS CAUSES FOR THE CONTINUING CONFLICTS, AND ALSO REASSESSES THE REGIONAL POLICY OF EXTERNAL POWERS, INCLUDING THAT OF THE SOVIET UNION. PERESTROKA IN FOREIGN POLICY GIVES HOPE THAT NEW APPROACHES CAN BE WORKED OUT WITH THE WESTERN POWERS AND REGIONAL PARTIES TO DIMINISH THE DANGER OF CONFLICTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST.

Der britische Premierminister Boris Johnson ist vom 11. bis 13. Juni Gastgeber der Staats- und Regierungschefs sechs anderer führender Industrieländer (Deutschland, Frankreich, Italien, Japan, Kanada, die USA). Brisanz hat dieser G7-Gipfel im eng­lischen Cornwall insofern, als Johnson die Frage der künftigen Zusammenarbeit mit China zu einem der Kernthemen gemacht hat. Die Schwerpunktsetzung zeigt sich schon an der Liste der zusätzlich eingeladenen Länder: Australien, Indien, Südkorea und Südafrika. Die Bildung einer breiten Allianz gegen das zunehmend aggressiv auf­tretende China gewinnt mit dem G7-Gipfel an Dynamik. Die deutsche Außenpolitik hat in dessen Vorfeld mehrfach auf die wirtschaftliche Bedeutung Chinas hingewiesen und gerät zusehends in die Rolle eines Außenseiters, der aus ökonomischen Inter­essen an der Zusammenarbeit mit einem totalitären Staat festhält. (Autorenreferat)

Der Beitrag beleuchtet aus der Perspektive der Friedens- und Konfliktforschung den möglichen Verlauf der Abrüstung von Kernwaffen im Nahen Osten. In das Thema einführend werden zunächst die außen- und innenpolitischen Gründe für das Konzept der Kernwaffenfreien Zone Naher Osten (KWFZNO) beschrieben. In einem zweiten Schritt folgt ein Überblick über die Entwicklung dieses Vorhabens in Theorie und Praxis. So steht im Juli 1974 der Vorschlag einer nuklearfreien Zone im Nahen Osten auf iranische Initiative erstmals auf der Tagesordnung der Generalversammlung der Vereinten Nationen. Nach anfänglichen Erfolgen der Annäherung zwischen den arabischen Ländern und Israel kommt es in den 1980er Jahren zu Rückschlägen, die durch Militärgewalt geprägt sind. Die Hoffnung, dass ein Naher Osten ohne Nuklearwaffen mehr als ein Traum sein könnte, erhält im Zuge der globalen und regionalen Veränderungen seit dem Ende des Golf-Kriegs neuen Auftrieb. Im Anschluss gilt das Hauptaugenmerk den grundsätzlichen Positionen und Motiven der Streitparteien. Dabei werden kontroverse Punkte diskutiert, für die Lösungen gefunden werden müssen, um das Konzept fruchtbar zu machen. Insbesondere wird auf die zahlreichen Verknüpfungen zwischen einzelnen Fragen hingewiesen, die solche Lösungswege ausgesprochen kompliziert machen. Dazu gehören die folgenden Aspekte: (1) Kernwaffen, Terror und Frieden, (2) die Verknüpfung mit anderen Rüstungskontrollfragen, (3) Verifikation und Transparenz sowie (4) Probleme und Optionen der Vertragseinhaltung und -durchsetzung. Nach einer Aufdeckung der wesentlichen Streitfragen werden abschließend die Erfolgsbedingungen herausgearbeitet und mögliche 'Handlungskorridore' definiert, um einer Lösung näher zu kommen. Hierbei konzentrieren sich die Ausführungen auf die gegenseitige Anerkennung, den Kampf gegen Terrorismus und den Abbau von Feindbildern sowie die Rolle externer Akteure. (ICG2)

Die Haltung Präsident Bushs in der Frage der von Israel unter der Regierung Shamir beantragten Kreditgarantien zur Eingliederung jüdischer Einwanderer hat neben der heftigen Diskussion über das Für und Wider einer Übernahme der Garantien zwei grundsätzlichere Fragen, die beide zu verneinen sind, provoziert: Hat die Bush-Administration wesentlich andere Positionen gegenüber Israel und den arabischen Ländern als ihre Vorgänger eingenommen und ist ein fundamentaler Wandel in der US-amerikanischen öffentlichen Meinung zuungunsten Israels eingetreten? (DÜI-Hns)