Suchergebnisse

AbstractThis article seeks to solve the puzzle of what explains Irish peace policy norm consistency for over three centuries and the recent reversal of these norms. The methodology analyses values and identities in Irish leaders' foreign policy discourses and practices, producing evidence that Irish peace policy norms are consistently: independence and neutrality for Ireland in the cause of peace and security; self‐determination; anti‐imperialism; third world solidarity; and resistance to famine and slavery. In the early 1900s, after Ireland gained statehood, the addition of: institutional cooperation; a constitutional commitment to peaceful resolution of disputes; armed neutrality; UN peacekeeping; and an explicit subordination of material interests for moral, justice‐based norms, made this small postcolonial state an historically‐driven Natural Born Peacemaker. Elite‐led norm reversals consolidated in the 2000s suggests a vital explanatory relationship with elite corruption and associated specific personality characteristics, and the need to revise elite socialisation theory to incorporate these variables.

Successful peace policy that enshrines human rights allows individuals to thrive economically, politically, and socially with minimal conflict. Building from literature on crimes of globalization, genocide, and human rights, the current research investigates the concept of a criminogenic policy that at its core is antithetical to peace policy. Using case study analysis, North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is found to be both criminal and criminogenic in violation of international law for two primary reasons. First, the NAFTA negotiation process was criminal and criminogenic for three interrelated reasons: (1) powerful elites heavily influenced the outcome, (2) it was undemocratic, and (3) the opposition was often repressed. Second, the NAFTA policy itself was criminal and criminogenic for two reasons: (1) NAFTA as a policy ignored all of the critical voices that predicted negative outcomes and (2) the written text of NAFTA is criminal for failing to include human rights protections while offering a litany of rights to protect business investment.