Suchergebnisse

Post–Cold War Europe witnessed the resurgence of different forms of nationalism and also the re-establishment of a minority rights regime. At the surface level, rights of national minorities seem to undermine nationalism as a political organization principle, but on a closer investigation the relationship between the two is more complex. This article uses insights from the English school's theorizing on primary and secondary institutions to investigate the relationship between the primary institution of nationalism and secondary institution of minority rights regime. After a brief discussion of nationalism as a primary institution and its influence on the implementation of universal human rights, this article presents a detailed study of the minority rights regime analysing how it challenges, transforms and reproduces nationalism as a primary institution of contemporary European society of states.

This article shows how we can use the securitization framework to study extreme history politics.Securitizationrefers to a speech act or discursive process in which an actor makes a claim that some referent object, deemed worthy of survival, is existentially threatened. If successful, securitization justifies the use of extraordinary measures to counter the threat. After introducing the concept of securitization in detail, the article presents three ways in which history and securitization can be connected: history can serve as a facilitating condition of securitization; history can be explicitly used to strengthen a securitizing move; or history, or a particular interpretation of it, can be the referent object of securitization. The second half of the article is devoted to a discussion on the role of history in the securitization of national identities. Historical myths are the standard building blocks of national identities; challenging these myths can be presented as threats to the survival of the nation. The article also discusses potential forms of resistance against securitization of history/national identities. Illustrative examples from the political use of WWII history in Finland will be used to show the practical consequences of various conceptual choices.

This article uses the logic of explanatory emancipation to criticize post-Cold War minority politics. The main argument is that the ideational background of the double standards of minority protection originates from a contested dichotomy of nationalism that divides nationalisms into Eastern ethnic/malignant nationalism and Western civic/benign nationalism. After presenting the theoretical tradition of the 'Kohn dichotomy', the article traces its use in post-Cold War academic and official policy papers. Through intertextual analysis, this article shows how the old theoretical tradition was recycled into a new context to dispel post-Cold War confusion. This article presents a Critical Realist view on how ideas and theories can be treated as parts of the causal analysis of social practices. With explicitly causal language, identifying possible forms for emancipatory action is easier than with constitutive analyses.

The article discusses Paul Roe's argument that minority rights are always problems of (societal) security. According to Roe, a Huysmanstype deconstructivist strategy, which can be used in desecuritization of migration, is not possible in minority situations, because maintenance of a collective identity is central for minorities; therefore, the desecuritization of minority rights may be 'logically impossible' in certain cases. The present article focuses on Roe's arguments and attempts to find ways to avoid his determinism. It introduces a reconstructivist strategy for the desecuritization of minority rights, based on the process and discursive aspects of identity. It is possible for the stories of ethnically defined collective identities to be told in such a way that they do not exclude other such identities from the territory of a state. With this strategy, the author tries to show that desecuritization of minority rights is always logically possible, though in some cases it might be practically impossible in the foreseeable future.

In this article we write a narrative of the emergence and decline of Peace Research (PR), reflecting especially on its relationship to neighbouring disciplines. In writing this narrative we play critically with medical metaphors, which are often used in PR. We begin with an analysis of the development of PR as it has been practised in the two main journals, Journal of Conflict Resolution and Journal of Peace Research, and show how the initial critical and creative spirit of PR has turned into a `normal science' that does not reflect on its basic categories or its role in society. Then we show how PR could learn from the critical research agendas developed in Security Studies. In the last section we move beyond the academic critical research to a more reflexive and participatory agenda. The article concludes with an idea of Critical Peace Research as an epistemic community that can house a variety of approaches with a shared understanding of the importance of critical reflection, dialogue and creativity.

In this article we write a narrative of the emergence & decline of Peace Research (PR), reflecting especially on its relationship to neighboring disciplines. In writing this narrative we play critically with medical metaphors, which are often used in PR. We begin with an analysis of the development of PR as it has been practiced in the two main journals, Journal of Conflict Resolution & Journal of Peace Research, & show how the initial critical & creative spirit of PR has turned into a 'normal science' that does not reflect on its basic categories or its role in society. Then we show how PR could learn from the critical research agendas developed in Security Studies. In the last section we move beyond the academic critical research to a more reflexive & participatory agenda. The article concludes with an idea of Critical Peace Research as an epistemic community that can house a variety of approaches with a shared understanding of the importance of critical reflection, dialogue & creativity. Adapted from the source document.