Suchergebnisse

This paper examines how stances and understandings pertaining to whether home education is civically legitimate within liberal democratic contexts can depend on how one conceives normative roles of the secular state and the religious neutrality that is commonly associated with it. For the purposes of this paper, home education is understood as a manifestation of an educational philosophy ideologically based on a given conception of the good. Two polar conceptions of secularism, republican and liberal-pluralist, are explored. Republican secularists declare that religious expressions do not belong in the public sphere and justify this exclusion by promoting religious neutrality as an end in itself. But liberal-pluralists claim that religious neutrality is only the means to ensure protection of freedom of conscience and religion, which are moral principles. Each conception is associated with its own stance on whether exemptions or accommodations on account of religious beliefs have special legal standing and thereby warranted. The indeterminate nature of religion and allegedly biased exclusion of secular beliefs, cited by some when denying religious exemptions, can be overcome by understanding all religious and conscientious beliefs as having equal standing as conceptions of the good. Analysis of court documents from the Uwe Romeike et al asylum case are guided by these understandings, and relationships among themes are explored. In summary, any stance regarding home education may depend on one's view of secularism, particularly in relation to whether one views religious neutrality as a means to ensure protection of freedom of conscience or an end in itself.

The article intends to examine Nelson Mandela's individual style and rhetoric in his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom (1994) and in the volume of his collected speeches, Nelson Mandela in His Own Words. From Freedom to the Future (2003). The personality of Nelson Mandela, the first non-white South African president, was moulded by the native tradition of his Xhosa tribe, by the complex English culture which he interiorized in his adult life, and by the profound knowledge of Afrikaans language, history and politics which he acquired during his 27 years in prison. The repercussions of this varied cultural background may be found in Mandela's use of proverbs, proverbial sayings, slogans, self-coined maxims and aphorisms, allusions to English and American literature, to antiquity and the Bible. On the whole, Nelson Mandela distrusted the 'rhetoric' of the former representatives of the Apartheid system. Instead, in his own political speeches in the light of 'nation building' he applied structural devices and figures of speech from ancient rhetoric. Moreover, a rich imagery and well-chosen phraseological units add to Nelson Mandela's linguistic/stylistic portrait.

Report from four public seminars on the conflict in Somalia, held during October and November 2007 in Stockholm, Sweden with Nuruddin Farah, Somali Novelist, Roland Marchal, Senior Research Fellow at the Centre d'Études et de Recherches Internationales, Paris, Asha Hagi, member of the Somalia Transitional Federal Parliament and civil society activist, Jens Odlander, Swedish Ambassador for the Somali Peace Process, Shane Quinn, Programme officer at the Life and Peace Institute, Sweden, and Sahra Bargadle and Hayan Ismail from the swedish-somali Diaspora. Marika Fahlén, Special Advisor for the Horn of Africa at the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs acted as moderator for the panel discussion.The seminars were jointly organized by the Life and Peace Institute, The Nordic Africa Institute and ABF Stockholm. ; CONTENTS -- Foreword -- Introduction -- Map of Somalia -- Seminar 1: "To Whom Does Somalia Belong?" A Novelist's Account of the Somali Conflict. Nuruddin Farah -- Seeminar 2: The Role of Religion in the Somali Conflict and External Ways to Deal with. Roland Marchal -- Seminar 3: Women's Contribution to Peace in Somalia. Asha Hagi -- Seminar 4: Panel Discussion: Somalia – Prospects for Peace? -- Bibliography

"This book focuses on the indicators of fragility and the resilience of state-led interventions to address them in sub-Saharan Africa. It analyses the 'figure' of fragile states as a unit of analysis and situates the study of fragility, governance and political adaptation within contemporary global and local political, economic, and socio-cultural contexts. The chapters offer an indispensable, econometrically informed guide to better understanding issues which have an impact on fragility in governance and nation-building and affect policy-making and program design targeting institutions in various circumstances. These issues, as they relate to the indicators of fragility, are the contexts and correlates of armed conflicts on statehood and state fragility, the poverty-trap, pandemics and household food insecurity, child labor, and household income inequality. Case studies from across 46 sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries are assessed to offer clear, broad and multidisciplinary views of what the future holds for them and the international donor communities at large. Regarding state-led interventions, the authors utilise insightful statistical methods and epistemologies to explain the correlates of behavioural language frames and conflict de-escalation on battle-related deaths across the conflict zones within the sub-region, the regional and country-level interventions to end child labor, the institutional frameworks and interventions in the advancement of food security and health, the relationships between financial access, ICT, and female economic participation. This book will be of interest to scholars of economics, development, politics in developing countries, Area and African Studies, peace, conflict, and security studies"--

Angaben zur beteiligten Person Ramírez-Barat: Dr Clara Ramírez-Barat is the Director of the Educational Policies Program of the Auschwitz Institute for Peace and Reconciliation. Previously, she was a Fulbright Postdoctoral Fellow and Senior Research Associate at the International Centre for Transitional Justice.

Foreign aid plays a crucial role in the process of building fragile states, so it is vital to understand its effects. Afghanistan provides a prime case study. Following the removal of the Taliban regime by the US-led military intervention in late 2001, it has received unprecedented amounts in aid donations, with the US alone, after adjusting for inflation, appropriating $109 billion to reconstruct the country. This book examines how foreign aid has affected Afghanistan's weak state since the US intervention in late 2001 until the end of President Karzai's first term in 2009. It argues that the relationship between aid and state building is highly complex and that the effects of aid on weak states depends on donors' interests, aid modality and the recipient's pre-existing institutional and socio-political conditions. In the case of Afghanistan, the book claims that it inherited conditions that were not favourable for effective state building. Although some of the problems that emerged in the post-2001 state building process were predictable, the types of intervention that occurred--including the aid architecture which largely bypassed the state, the subordination of state building to the war on terror, and donors and domestic policy choices--decreased the effectiveness of the use of aid and thus contributed to maintaining a weak state. The book also explores how aid dependency and aid distribution outside the government budget affected the interactions between the state and society. Unprecedented attempts of state building and the massive flow of aid in post-9/11 Afghanistan makes an in-depth study of this country crucial for understanding the effects of aid on building fragile states.

"Since the end of the Cold War, considerable scholarly debates have been devoted to the nature and scope of international state-building interventions in 'fragile', post-colonial states and their effectiveness in instituting democratic rule. By examining the construction of political institutions in East Timor, this book highlights the relationship between the social and political realms during these processes. Focusing on the roles of East Timorese leaders and civil society organisations during the independence movement, it analyses the effectiveness of democracy building in East Timor. It examines the processes of drafting the new constitution, establishing key political institutions (such as the electoral system), and articulating a new vision of citizenship and social justice. The book argues that East Timor offers a relatively successful case of democratic transition, enabled by a consistent set of goals and aspirations, grassroots political legitimacy and participation, and the development of a democratic civil nation. Offering a coherent argument for why democracy has been successful in East Timor and the roles of political leaders and civil society during democratic transition, this book will be of interest to those studying Southeast Asian politics, international politics, and democracy"--

"This work seeks to examine the nature and dynamics of authoritarianism in Africa and to suggest ways in which the states covered in the book can be democratically reconstituted"--

This book provides a unique and intriguing insight into current debates concerning the relationship between nation and state as well as the political management of international image in today's Europe through an examination of debates on nation branding and the Eurovision Song Contest. Europe is a contested construct and its boundaries are subject to redefinition. This work aims to advance critical thinking about contemporary nation branding and its relationship to, and influence on, nation building. In particular it focusses on key identity debates that the Eurovision Song Contest engendered in Estonia in the run-up to EU accession. The Eurovision Song Contest is an event which is often dismissed as musically and culturally inferior. However, this work demonstrates that it has the capacity to shed light on key identity debates and illuminate wider socio-political issues. Using a series of in-depth interviews with political elites, media professionals and opinion leaders, this book is a valuable contribution to the growing field of research on nation branding and the Eurovision Song Contest.