Suchergebnisse

Although the important role of emotions in decision-making has been highlighted in the psychology, neural science, and decision research literatures, this conclusion has not been widely adopted in foreign policy analysis and International Relations (IR). Of the work that has been done, much of it has been focused on public perceptions and the impact on foreign policy, but not on elites and the actual decisions of foreign policy. This article seeks to address this imbalance by examining the role of one element of emotion — affect — on key foreign policy decision-makers. It argues that the greater the emotional attachment a leader has to an object, the less flexible she is in foreign policy toward that object. The model is used to explain a critical puzzle in IR: Israel's decision to pursue and sign the 1993 Oslo Accords.

Why do national identities usually endure but sometimes radically change? Much of the time, identity socializes or constrains leaders to act in patterned ways. Occasionally, however, leaders are able to dramatically alter those self-images. This article offers a general argument for varying identity plasticity. It brings together organizational theory and social theory to demonstrate how ideas about means to goals can in certain circumstances change how states see themselves. I examine the plausibility of this explanation in cases of continuity and change in Japan's identity in the 19th century and the Soviet Union's identity in the 20th century — in both instances challenging the common wisdom that identity was a direct product of international pressures. The argument suggests the importance of synthetic explanations — i.e. concrete generalizable propositions on how ideas and power interact in specific ways to influence the evolution of national identity.

A typical adage of the globalization literature is that foreign economic liberalization undermines the social fabric of developing countries. This article examines this claim for the sub-Saharan African countries and thus the continent that experienced both low economic growth and a high incidence of armed conflict during the 1990s. Our results yield support for the assertion that economic openness durably pacifies countries once the restructuring of the economy is over. We can, however, not reject the possibility that the distributional consequences of foreign economic liberalization increase the risk of civil war during the implementation of the reform measures. We contrast this 'distributional' model with alternative explanations such as the role of the International Monetary Fund and the level of democracy. A comparative case study on Guinea and Guinea-Bissau lends some illustrative evidence to the claim that compensating the losers of globalization can pacify intrastate relations.

The aim of this article is to demonstrate how a relational concept of power can benefit Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA). It begins by drawing attention to the fact that Japan's foreign policy has been portrayed rather enigmatically in terms of power, and by arguing that such an enigma stems from the fact that FPA has borrowed the concept of power of much International Relations (IR) theory, i.e. one that puts power on a par with capability. With a point of departure in Steven Lukes' relational concept of power, the article then conceptualizes an alternative perspective. By applying the ensuing 'relational power analysis' to two 'significant' issues in Japan's China policy, namely the negotiations for bilateral investment protection and interaction over the disputed Pinnacle ( Senkaku or Diaoyu) Islands, the article demonstrates that Japan's foreign policy can be portrayed more intelligibly in terms of power, and thereby also how power could be treated in FPA in the first place.

All wars—and the current war on terrorism is no exception—provide serious tests for the rule of law. The demands of armed conflict, with its instantaneous decisions of life and death, do not lend themselves easily to legal constraint. It is thus not surprising that the United States, which has been outspoken historically on matters of human rights, would become less attentive to those concerns after coming under deadly attack. For Human Rights Watch (HRW) and other human rights organizations, the primary concern since September 11 has been to demonstrate that upholding fundamental rights, whether on the battlefields of Afghanistan or in the detention facilities at Guantánamo Bay, is not only consistent with fighting international terrorism, but is, in essence, what the war is all about. The unwillingness of the Bush administration to embrace this idea bodes ill for the protection of rights as the war on terrorism reaches across the globe.

Although retribution for past human rights violations has its place in post-conflict processes of transition and reconciliation, there are many present and foreseeable circumstances in which the case for immunity, amnesty, or sheer forbearance is significantly stronger than Juan E. Méndez' approach to this question can admit.Disagreement about justice is an ineradicable part of political life and a leading cause of violent conflict. Reconciliation cannot always presuppose or await a shared moral understanding; frequently enough, it requires an agreement to disagree, even about fundamental principles – at least with respect to their retrospective application. Where the parties to violent conflict have seen fit to set aside issues of retrospective justice in the service of peace and reconciliation, outsiders, who do not bear the costs of conflict and instability, should second-guess that decision only with the greatest reluctance. They should not look to international human rights standards and mechanisms for a universal solution.

This article provides a critical examination of recent attempts by International Relations theorists to apply the security dilemma concept to the intra-state level to explain the outbreak of ethnic violence and war. It critiques the work of Barry Posen, Stuart Kaufman and Erik Melander. In doing so, the central claim of the article is that a specifically Butterfieldian interpretation of the concept is required if the security dilemma is to manifest its greatest explanatory value; where conflict between the parties involved is directly the product of misperception. It demonstrates how in failing to employ such a conception, Posen, Melander and Kaufman's work either completely neglects or fails to address satisfactorily what is arguably the essence of the security dilemma; what Butterfield came to describe as a `tragedy'. The article thus concludes that the application of the concept in terms of the former Yugoslavia is for the most part untenable.

In this article I attempt to reshape the agent-structure debate in International Relations which has become increasingly confused and fruitless. I do so by first rejecting two things — (1) the agent-structure dichotomy, presupposed in the debate, in favour of the age-old classification of causative factors into mechanistic, volitional and coincidental ones; and (2) the explanation-understanding dichotomy, prevalent in the debate, in favour of the idea of `narrative intelligibilifying'. I also draw attention to narrative as a factor constitutive of agents and structures, and offer a modified version of structurationism, while rejecting a version of scientific realism sometimes associated with it. As to how one form of social structure moves towards another, I suggest that, at its most ambitious, this is a world-historical question, and that how the three causative factors are combined in addressing this question is as fascinating as it is vital for our self-understanding as human beings.

Two explanations have been advanced for the `democratic peace'; one is built on shared values and norms of democratic political systems, the other focuses on the constraints under which democratic political leaders make decisions or hold office. Constraints theory implies that democracies should be generally more peaceful, while previous analyses indicate they are as warlike as other states, except in their dealings with each other. However, constraints theory cannot be dismissed on this basis because extant empirical research has not distinguished between (1) various levels of war participation and (2) the different latitudes of choice available to leaders. An empirical analysis of international wars in the period 1816-1974 supports the expectations and strengthens the argument about the effects of institutional constraints in relation to expected losses in war. The article concludes with the suggestion that the shared values and norms explanation might be weakened if analysis was extended to include colonial wars.

Recent interventions by non-Islamic states into conflicts involving Islamic nations have shifted the focus of debates within the Muslim community from the conflicts themselves to whether non-Muslim states have the moral right to intervene into Muslim matters at all. Hashmi delivers an overview of fundamental issues Western leaders ignored when evaluating their power of intervention in the Persian Gulf, Bosnia, Somalia, and Afghanistan. In Islamic law (sharia), for example,national sovereigntycarries an explicitly separate and less clearly defined meaning than in Western philosophy. Lack of consensus within the international community on the definition and criteria of intervention exacerbates even further the flaw of not incorporating non-Western thought into the decision-making process of intervention. In the aftermath of the Cold War, Hashmi proposes this as a long overdue moment for reassessing the UN chapter on intervention, reappraising the value of human rights and justice, and most important, including Islamic thought into the new system.

Respecting and Ensuring Respect for International Humanitarian
Law
The Assembly,
Commending NATO's decision to intervene to stop massive human rights
violations in Kosovo;
Appreciating the contribution of the countries in the region of
South-Eastern Europe — members of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council — to
this intervention;
Stressing that the use of force has long been subject to restraints
under international humanitarian law (IHL), and praising the Government of
the Netherlands for its role in the adoption of the pioneering Hague
Conventions on the laws of war in 1899 and 1907;

Au moment où l'on va célébrer le centenaire de la Croix-Rouge, il n'est pas inutile de rappeler le rôle que plusieurs des membres ou hauts fonctionnaires du Comité international de la Croix-Rouge ont joué dans la rédaction et la proclamation des Droits de l'Enfant. Cette déclaration, dite Déclaration de Genève, fut promulguée il y a quarante ans par le Conseil général de l'Union Internationale de Secours aux Enfants (UISE), et c'est le 17 mai 1923 que la rédaction définitive, en cinq formules brèves, fut adoptée.