Suchergebnisse

This article examines the conceptualisation of peace and its preconditions manifested in the critical turn in peace theory: bottom-up approaches which begin with particular contexts and postulate diverse local actors as integral to the process of peace-building. This article argues that a turn is at an impasse and is unable to address the crucial charge that its conceptualization of peace is inconsistent. To explain the persistence of inconsistency and to move us forward, the article analyses, evaluates and responds to the turn through the lens of Nicholas Rengger's work on the anti-Pelagian imagination in political theory. This is defined as a tendency to begin theorising from non-utopian, anti-perfectionist and sceptical assumptions. Through this examination the article argues that the critical turn is anti-Pelagian but not consistently so because it often gives way to perfectionism, adopts naïve readings of institutions and postulates demanding conceptions of political agency and practice. This inconsistency with its own philosophical premises makes the turn's conceptualisation of peace and its preconditions incoherent. Finally, the article sketches an alternative account of peace which draws upon a number of anti-Pelagian scholars and mobilises Rengger's particular defense of anti-Pelagianism. The suggested alternative, the article argues, provides us with a more coherent position and a way out of existing dead ends.

This article examines the conceptualisations of peace and its preconditions manifested in the critical turn in peace theory: bottom-up approaches which begin with particular contexts and postulate diverse local actors as integral to the process of peace-building. This article argues that the turn is at an impasse and is unable to address the crucial charge that its conceptualisation of peace is inconsistent. To explain the persistence of inconsistency and to move us forward, the article analyses, evaluates and responds to the turn through the lens of Nicholas Rengger's work on the anti-Pelagian imagination in political theory. This is defined as a tendency to begin theorising from non-utopian, anti-perfectionist and sceptical assumptions. Through this examination the article argues that the critical turn is anti-Pelagian but not consistently so because it often gives way to perfectionism, adopts naïve readings of institutions and postulates demanding conceptions of political agency and practice. This inconsistency with its own philosophical premises makes the turn's conceptualisation of peace and its preconditions incoherent. Finally, the article sketches an alternative account of peace which draws upon a number of anti-Pelagian scholars and mobilises Rengger's particular defense of anti-Pelagianism. The suggested alternative, the article argues, provides us with a more coherent theory of peace and a way out of existing dead ends.

The critique of silence in International Relations theory has been long-standing and sustained. However, despite the lasting popularity of the term, little effort has been made to unpack the implications of existing definitions and their uses, and of attempts to rid the worlds of theory and practice of silences. This article seeks to fill this vacuum by conducting a twofold exercise: a review and revision of the conceptualisation of silence current in the literature; and a review of the implications of attempts to eliminate silence from the worlds of theory and practice. Through the discussion, the article suggests that we deepen and broaden our understanding of silence while simultaneously accepting that a degree of silence will be a permanent feature of theory and practice in international politics. Finally, the conclusion illustrates the possibilities for analysis and theory opened by these arguments through an exploration of how they may be used to interpret and address recent events in Yemen.

The failed state thesis has been a matter for discussion in the international relations academy for more than two decades. However, the soundness of this analytic framework has been questioned. This article critically engages this debate by examining the ability of the thesis to provide insight into the practice of statecraft in the case of Yemen. It argues that as a result of its rigid and Eurocentric approach, the failed state thesis is unable to recognise the strategies employed by states like Yemen to ensure their survival, which include the purposeful production of chaos. Adapted from the source document.

The failed state thesis has been a matter for discussion in the international relations academy for more than two decades. However, the soundness of this analytic framework has been questioned. This article critically engages this debate by examining the ability of the thesis to provide insight into the practice of statecraft in the case of Yemen. It argues that as a result of its rigid and Eurocentric approach, the failed state thesis is unable to recognise the strategies employed by states like Yemen to ensure their survival, which include the purposeful production of chaos.

This article argues that the Aden Insurgency was a pivotal moment in the history of British counter-insurgency. We argue that it was in Aden where the newfound strength of human rights discourse, embodied in Amnesty International, and of anti-colonial sentiment, expressed by the UN General Assembly, forced the British government to pay attention to public perceptions of colonial brutality. Using archival sources, we foreground three episodes in the history of the insurgency to support our argument and to illustrate that the changes witnessed were not the result of 'learning' but of a fundamental shift in the international environment.

Noise, data, silence, privacy / Thomas N. Cooke -- The global politics of silence and sound : from metaphor to metonymy / Noè Cornago -- Silence, exit and the politics of piety : challenging logocentrism in political theory / Sophia Dingli and Sameera Khalfey -- Silence is golden : commemorating the past in two minutes / Faye Donnelly -- Silence as doing / Xavier Guillaume and Elisabeth Schweiger -- A deliberate silence : the politics of aural materialism / Adam T. Kingsmith -- Agency without voice? : a political ecology of vegetal silence / Karl Petschke -- Silence as relation in music : two political applications in early modern times / Frédéric Ramel -- Transgressive silence : ecology, religion and the power of humility in the practice of diplomacy / David J. Wellman -- Residual silence : toward a radical activist politics of association / Robert Latham