Suchergebnisse

Reports on the panel debate, "What is Genocide?", that was a response to Alejandro Bendana's keynote address at the November 2007 Genocide Dialogue Conference in Voksenasen, Oslo. Themes developed by panel members included the tendency for memories to be selective; genocide as a process; the impact of political values on positions about genocide; the need to broaden the definition of genocide; the current situation in Zimbabwe; & genocide across historical periods. Comments from the floor & the panel's response to them are included. Adapted from the source document

The effect of regime type on inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI) remains a matter of controversy. While some studies report a positive influence of democracy on FDI, others show a negative influence. This study reexamines this discrepancy rising pooled panel data during the past 20 years & contributes to the existing literature in three ways. First, it refines the causal mechanisms underlying the democracy-related arguments of veto players, audience costs, & democratic hindrance with respect to foreign investment. Second, it introduces three accurate measures to capture each of those three causal arguments. Third, it briefly demonstrates how different measurements of the dependent variable can produce statistically spurious results. The empirical results reveal that democratic institutions are, at best, weakly associated with increases in FDI inflows (measured by FDI/GDP ratios). While multiple veto players (&, counterintuitively, democratic hindrance) may be positively associated with increases in FDI, audience costs are not linked to FDI activities. These findings have important policy implications given that developing democratic countries are trying to attract more FDI in order to achieve their economic growth & development targets. Tables, Figures, Appendixes, References. Adapted from the source document.

An exploration of genocide from a South perspective focuses on selectivity in remembering & labeling to argue that it is racist for the US government to loudly condemn the loss of a million lives in Darfur but barely whimper about the 5 million deaths since 1994 in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). It is pointed out that US corporate interests benefit from the slaughter in the DRC but the anti-Arab conflict in Darfur is compatible with American pro-Israel & right-wing Christian lobbies, suggesting that the definition & practice of genocide depends on who is doing the killing. The situation in Ethiopia is also explored to contend that a South perspective includes the political dimension of the subject & the "politics of naming." It cannot be only the North that has the right to name the genocide, protect its victims, & do the judging. Other issues discussed include the crime of colonial expansion; genocide as a process as well as an event; corporate control of journalism; structural violence; & the question of reparations. References. J. Lindroth

An examination of the Third Reich & Hitler's war against Poland & the USSR from the perspective of the history of colonialism systematically describes Nazi expansion & occupation policy in the East as colonial in nature. Historians have wrongly concluded that Hitler was not interested in a colonial empire & structural similarities between colonialism & the Third Reich have been largely ignored. The United Nations Convention on Genocide definition of genocide is drawn upon to illustrate equivalences between concepts of space & race common to European colonialism & those at the heart of Nazi policies. The focus is on structural similarities apparent in the formulation & function of concepts of race & space as well as likenesses & differences in the conditions of genocide in both cases. Although Nazi policy of expansion & annihilation was firmly in the tradition of European colonialism, it is pointed out that colonial genocides were less organized & centralized, as well as far less dependent on state bureaucracy. References. J. Lindroth