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.

David Waldner's book is a rigorously argued and impressively sustained account of the relationship between state-building and economic growth in four late-developing countries: South Korea, Syria, Taiwan, and Turkey. By systematically and crisply using a comparative method to bring a unified story to these different histories, Waldner demonstrates in a masterly way the benefits of genuine comparative inquiry; contributes to our understanding of the painful results of economic development in the Middle East; and uses Middle Eastern cases to advance our understanding of the complicated and mediated linkage between state formation and economic development. This ambitious book deserves a wide audience.

What forces within Israel made possible its embrace of the Oslo Accords? I argue that a defining feature of Rabin's practices and policies was to create, however temporarily, a cultural space in Israeli politics in which a withdrawal from the territories became desirable and legitimate. To understand this outcome requires a blend of constructivist and institutionalist claims — the normative structure that constitutes and constrains actors also provides the wellspring for social practices and allows for strategic action; such strategizing occurs in a normative and an institutional context; and strategic action can be designed to rewrite the cultural landscape in order to legitimate foreign policy change. I employ the trinity of concepts of identity, narratives and frames as they are created and animated within an institutional context, and apply this conceptual architecture to understand Israel's road to Oslo.

Discusses the UNHCR's change in view on repatriation as representing an organizational cultural shift from a legalistic approach toward a more pragmatic approach & offers several reasons to explain this shift, mainly based on ethical claims & pressure from receiving states. The concern is that this view might undermine refugees' voices in the repatriation process.