Suchergebnisse

The close relationship between state identity & foreign policy in Israel is investigated. Overviews of the notions of identity, narrative, frames, & institutions are provided; it is asserted that the formation of Israeli state identity has been attempted in a specific historical narrative. The Yitzhak Rabin administration's attempt to implement a liberalist-Zionist Israeli national identity & its connection to the peace movement are discussed. It is contended that Israeli national identity actually became more fragmented under the Benjamin Netanyahu administration; his ambiguous stance on the issue of territorial withdrawal & accretion of power to the Palestinians & the poor electoral performance of the Labor & Likud Parties in the 1996 parliamentary elections accelerated the fragmentation. It is concluded that the Netanyahu administration deepened divisions between religious & secular groups & that the emergence of identity politics in Israeli's parliament during the late 1990s further problematized the peace process. J. W. Parker

This article examines the global forces that are responsible for the transformation of the meaning and practice of UNHCR's humanitarianism, and asks whether a transformation that enables the organization to become more deeply involved in the internal affairs of states is welcome or worrisome. I open by reviewing the changing relationship between multilateralism, sovereignty, and humanitarianism, and link that conceptual discussion to the international refugee regime. I then argue that the combination of state pressures and the normative principle of popular sovereignty enabled a more political and pragmatic UNHCR to widen its activities under the humanitarian banner and to become more deeply involved in the circumstances in the refugee-producing country. This expanding humanitarian umbrella, I suggest, might be a stealth agent for a policy of containment and a threat to refugee rights. This possibility is suggested by recent debates over the category of internally displaced peoples; the decided preference for repatriation; and UNHCR's involvement in reintegration activities. These developments generate the worrisome possibility that a more pragmatic UNHCR is potentially (though unwittingly) implicated in a system of containment. I conclude by reflecting on UNHCR's role in global politics and the dangers of a sovereignty-led humanitarianism.