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and internal splits and ultimately have proven easiest to counter with
traditional security measures. Lacking financial support, they have often been
forced to engage in criminal activity to fund their operations and this in turn
exposes them to capture. E.g. left wing extremists November 17 in Greece or
GRAPO in Spain have only been able to inflict limited damage on their
enemies). Close ties (more dangerous. Broader communities share the
aspirations of the terrorist groups even if they dont always approve of their
means of achieving these objectives. A terrorist group can thrive in this kind
of complicit society. Broader population provides passive support. When
authorities come looking, these terrorists are absorbed into the community.
Community provides willing new recruits to the movement. Groups that have
a strong base of support within the community can last indefinitely (e.g. many
ethno nationalist groups).
Methodological Foundations:
Scientists disagree on many fundamental issues
- How do we understand the nature of the world we study?
- Is there only one type of scientific knowledge?
- What is the overall objective of scientific study?
- How should we assess which methods, data and evidence are appropriate?
- How do we assess competing claims?
- How do we know who is right?
- How do we know?
Must answer these questions by first simplifying
- Do this by suggesting that most methodological work can be grouped
under 2 methodological rubrics
The most significant differences & major disagreements in social science can
be traced back to these methodological differences
Waltz: Students too concerned with methods and little concerned with the
logic of their use
Methods as tools, methodologies as well-equipped toolboxes
- Methods: Problem-specific techniques
- Different occupations provide specialization, while complementing one
another
Too many scientists rely on only one method
No technique or method of investigating is self-validating; its status a as a
research instrument is dependent on epistemological justifications
Ontology The study of being; asks What is the world really made of?
Epistemology The philosophical study of knowledge; asks What is
knowledge?
Methodology Refers to the ways in which we acquire knowledge; asks How
do we know?
- It is the study of which methods are appropriate to produce reliable
knowledge
Method research techniques
Methodology An investigation of the concepts, theories and basic principles
of reasoning on a subject
Naturalism:
This view first articulated in the natural sciences field
Assumes that there is a Real World independent of our experience of it
- Believes we can gain access to this World by thinking, observing, and
recording our experiences
- This process helps reveal patterns in nature that are often obscured by
complexities of life
Thus naturalism seeks to discover and explain patterns that are assumed to
exist in nature
Also known as positivism, empiricism and behavioralism
Rely on knowledge generated by sensual perception
- Observation, direct experience
Something is true when someone has seen it to be true
Also use logic and reason if backed by experience
Naturalisms approach embraces the following features:
- Observational and experiential statements can be tested empirically
according to a falsification principle and a correspondence theory of truth
- Possible to distinguish b/t value laden and factual statements
- Facts are, in principle, theoretically independent
- The scientific project should be aimed at the general (nomothetic) at the
expense of the particular (idiographic)
- Human knowledge is both singular and cumulative
Edward Wilsons Consilience: Believes all knowledge is intrinsically
unified/interlocked by a small number of natural laws
- He aims to unify all of the major branches of knowledge under the banner
of natural science
Constructivism:
Many patterns of interest to naturalists are seen as ephemeral and contingent
on human agency
Patterns of interest are a product of our own making
Everyone sees different things; what we see is determined by complicated mix
of social and contextual influences/presuppositions
Also known as interpretivism or Gadamers hermeneutics
Recognize that people are intelligent, reflective and willful, and that these
characteristics matter for how we understand the world
Our perceptions are channeled through the human mind in often elusive ways
If our investigation is opened up to perceptions of the world, we open the
possibility of multiple experiences
Individual and social characteristics can facilitate or obscure a given world
perception
Once a social law is known to humans, they exploit it in ways that can
undermine its law-like features
Human agency creates things that have a different ontological status than the
objects studied by natural scientists
- This gives rise to a class of facts that dont exist in the physical object
world:
Social facts (money, property rights or sovereignty) depend on human
agreement and require human institutions for their very existence
Tend to draw on more diverse sources and on different types of evidence
- Find utility in empathy, authority, myths, etc.
Overall objective of constructivist science is very different from naturalism
Constructivists try to understand action in circular and hermeneutic terms as a
meaningful item w/in a wider context of conventions and assumptions
Constructivists seek to capture and understand the meaning of a social action
for the agent performing it
Truth lies in the eyes of the observer and in the constellation of power and
force that supports the truth
Hold little hope in securing an absolute truth
Some qualities of constructivist research:
- The world includes social facts
- Observations and experience depend on the perspective of the investigator
- Observational statements can contain bias and can be understood in
different ways
- Even factual statements are value-laden
- Knowledge gained by idiographic study is embraced in its own right
- There is value in understanding, and there can be more than one way to
understand
Flyvbjergs book Making Social Science Matter: Values practical, applied
knowledge over general, nomothetic, knowledge
- He promotes phronetic social science in order to connect knowledge to
power and contribute to practical reason
Scientific realism:
They blend features of both naturalism and constructivism
It is a fully metaphysical position
A relatively new approach
Ontologically, it comes closest to naturalism
- Recognize a Real World independent of our experience
- Also realize that there are layers to the reality they study
How far does the Real World extend into our social experience?
Believe the best way to uncover truths is through scientific (naturalist)
approaches
Conclusion:
Naturalists have developed a clear hierarchy of methods
- The experimental method; has ability to control and order causal and
temporal relationships
- Statistical approaches
- Small-N comparative approaches
- Case studies, interviews and historical approaches (only use these when
faced w/ a paucity of data or relative comparisons)
For constructivists, the objective of social study is to interpret and understand,
NOT TO PREDICT
- Thus, they can draw from a much larger epistemological table
Constructivists have little faith in the naturalists hierarchy of methods
Constructivist hierarchy done in terms of the popularity of the given
approach/methods
- Discourse analysis, process tracing
- Use comparisons to develop associations
Questions about Chapter
This chapter aimed to explain the root causes of the disagreements over
knowledge claims in the social sciences by introducing different methodologies and
showing how these affect the methods we choose to study social science. Researchers
have their own implicit understanding of the world and how it should be studied
underlying their research design and methods. Much of contemporary social science
is driven by a researchers familiarity with particular methods. The problem is that
this often is done with little reflection on how a given method corresponds to a
researchers underlying methodology. Methodology involves an investigation of the
concepts, theories and basic principles of reasoning on a subject, while a method is a
research technique. Methods and methodologies should change in accordance with the
ontological and epistemological status of the question under study. Thus, researchers
should master several methods and methodologies and be able to consciously choose
between them. The book focuses on how methods and methodologies relate to one
1) Doesnt focusing only on women who have been marginalized only reinforce
those stereotypes?
2) Are there methodological approaches or methods that are more susceptible to
gender difference than others?
3) Do non-Western approaches suffer from the same fixed binary oppositions
that legitimize our understandings of the masculine and feminine?
Whats the use of IR?
This article discusses the controversies over the relation between the academic
discipline of IR and policy. IR consists of a set of Lakatosian Research Programs
ranging from the abstract to the policy-relevant. The purpose of doing international
relations is to influence people. IR is justified by the usefulness of what we have to
say. Influence is not just about advising policymakers. IR is practiced by a group of
people who need not do all the same thing and should not be. It is a proper function
for an academic to be an advisor but doesnt mean EVERYONE should. Academics
cant work at both the policy end and the theoretical end of the spectrum without a
limit. We need to aim for evidence-based IR, not prejudice-based. People will only
act on new ideas if what is suggested fits into the general presuppositions held by the
decision-maker anyway. Two broad influences on policymakers are selfishness and
orthodoxy. Policy requires some degree of prediction. We need to know when the
social world is vulnerable to some change in input & when it is so stable that nothing
much can alter it. We also need some agreement on how we see the social world.
Without intersubjective agreement, we cannot make meaningful social choices. Some
insight into other peoples view of the world is necessary! Even though positivism
deals w/ analysis, this doesnt mean that it isnt seeking CHANGE in the system! We
can only know what is and isnt possible by looking at what is the case and seeing
how it can be re-arranged.
1) Is there a compromise that can be made between theoretical and policy driven
research?
2) Should we just accept that if the social world is stable, we cant do anything to
change it?
3) Why do you think it is that highly specialized academics in the field of IR are
not called upon more for the expertise?
Whats the use of International Relations? By Michael Nicholson
Discusses the controversies over the relation b/t the academic discipline of IR
and policy
IR consists of a set of Lakatosian Research Programs ranging from the
abstract to the policy-relevant
Problems of persuasion:
Need to have good/justifiable ideas and persuade others of their
truth/relevance
People will only act on new ideas if what is suggested fits into the general
presuppositions held by the decision-maker anyway
Two broad influences on policymakers:
- Selfishness
- Orthodoxy
Selfishness:
People dont want to lost power or wealth
Those who control vast resources will want to continue to do so
Game of Power: Distributing the benefits of power now, while retaining
power for the future
People slow to save the environment if they are profiting from the status quo
How do we speak truth to power?
- Can persuade them to adopt a longer-time perspective
- Provide profitable alternatives to the current activity
Have to persuade power to act against its self-interest!
- This is usually done by arranging countervailing power
All this hampered by fact that govts are becoming less able to do things
- Globalization, international markets lead govts to believe they cant do
much
- But governments need not be so powerless
Orthodoxy:
People often trapped w/in the orthodoxy of the time
Power doesnt want to listen to uncomfortable truths
Keynes tried to convince Churchill that returning to the Gold Standard, but his
heterodoxy and free-thinking reduced his influence
Keynes ideas were important in defining future orthodoxy in the 25 yrs after
WW2
We may be more influential than we think just that the terms of debate dont
get addressed for a while
Non-rational factors are important in persuasion, esp over issues of violence
Often we play to the psychological susceptibilities of the person in power
Implying one course of action is weak and the other strong is a good way
of pushing people
Opposition to nuclear weapons is seen as wimpish
The rational content of the persuasive act is only partial
What does the social world need to look like for policy to be possible?
Some necessary conditions
Positivism:
Misunderstandings about positivism
Positivism never dominated the British IR community
Positivism is no more dominant than any other school
The cult of the tenured victim:
Hegemons are other people
All academics suffer from paranoia
Misunderstandings about positivism:
Many believe in social sciences that analysis and prescription should be
separate
Popper: Demarcation principle b/t scientific and other statements is useful
Conceptual distinction b/t analysis and prescription
Richardson: While knowledge is neutral, its applications are not
Moral dilemma for academics arises when publishing truths they believe to be
absolute can be taken up and used for evil purposes
Supposed positivist hegemony in IR meant that moral argument ceased
- This isnt true; moral argument was going on since WW2
- A great deal of it was about the moral problems of nuclear deterrence
The idea that there was no normative theory or that it was cast out to the
periphery is FALSE
Many were deeply moved by moral concerns but believed value-free science
could provide this
Even though positivism deals w/ analysis, this doesnt mean that it isnt
seeking CHANGE in the system!
Can only know what is and isnt possible by looking at what is the case and
seeing how it can be re-arranged
Chapter 3, Climate Change and the Politics of the Global Environment, Neil
Carter in Beeson, Bisley. Issues in 21st Century World Politics
o
o
o
o
cost
3. A Clean Development Mechanism permitting developed countries to
finance emissions reduction projects in developing countries and receive
credit for doing so.
Kyoto established institutional mechanisms for future negotiations and
regime strengthening.
Critics: even if overall Kyoto abatement target achieved, will only scratch
the surface of problem.
o Compromises made to secure Kyoto mean targets too timid.
o 2 key tensions: refusal of USA to ratify it and absence of
requirements for developing countries to reduce emissions,
Vast inequalities between rich and poor in their use of the Earths resources
and their ecological footprint
Before globalization, environmental concerns:
o Pollution doesnt respect international boundaries and actions to
reduce it require cooperative effects
o Conservation of natural resources (e.g. attempt to regulate exploitation
of maritime resources such as International Whaling Commission
(IWC)).
Precautionary principle gaining increasing prominence. Where there is a
likelihood of environmental damage, banning an activity shouldnt require full
and definitive scientific proof.
Other norms of acceptable behaviour include prior informed consent and
polluter pays.
Disseminating scientific information on an international basis makes sense but
it needs funding from governments because, except in areas like
pharmaceutical research, the private sector has not incentive to do the work.
Global commons areas and resources not under sovereign jurisdiction, they
are not owned by anyone. E.g. high seas and deep ocean floor (beyond 200
miles exclusive economic zone) and Antarctica and outer space.
o Tragedy of the commons: the degradation of the global commons. E.g.
depletion of fish and whale stocks of the high seas, pollution of the
ocean environment, degradation of global atmosphere.
o When there is unrestricted access to a resource owned by no one there
will be an incentive for individuals to grab as much as they can and if
the resource is finite, there will come a time when it is ruined by overexploitation as the short term interests of individual users overwhelm
the longer-run collective interest in sustaining the resource.
o Difficult to govern the commons because physically and politically
impossible to enclose them and there is no central world government to
regulate their use.
Global commons are new territories in the sense that political rule and
sovereignty have historically been limited to habitable land and
maritime zones.
High level of political and legal protection has been sought for the
commons in response to their potential use as areas of military
confrontation and arms-racing (Cold War).
o E.g. outer space treaty bans placing nuclear weapons in outer
space and Seabed treaty bans putting nuclear weapons on the
seabed.
Incentive to manage global commons is that they have huge economic
potential, which increases pressure to ensure responsible and
sustainable management. If global commons are a common
commodity, then there is the argument than any economic benefits of
their development are also a common commodity. which can be used
to finance global development and environment protection.
Antarctica:
o Antarctic Treaty (1961)
o Aim to de-territorialize, de-militarize and promote scientific
research not commercial exploitation.
Outer Space
o Outer space treaty (1967)
o Both USA and USSR keen to manage cold war confrontation
and prevent escalation of hostilities into outer space.
Law of the Sea
o United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea
o Extended national sovereignty as a dominant principle than to
secure a measure of international administration for the oceans.
o More protracted and disputed negotiations (1970 1982)
because oceans have been explored and used.
Ozone Layer
o Vienna Convention (1985) and Montreal Protocol (1987),
superseded the res nullius status of the ozone layer with a
vigorous assertion of a common heritage of humankind
approach taking collective responsibility for the vital
environmental good.
Ecology, Environment and IR
Consumption
-
Sustainable development:
- Environmental expression: how can further environmental degradation and
pollution be prevented?
- Policy integration: How can social, economic and environmental needs be
accommodated without being counter-productive.
Challenges to sustainability:
- Environmental degradation can be traced to excessive consumption of natural
resources.
- The current neoliberal economic climate accelerates this process
- Consumption also involves the use of natural resource sinks such as landfill
sites and ocean.
- Natural resources are not factored properly into economic calculations
- Uneven consumption patterns suggests a global inequity and a global
economy of waste
- Solutions are hampered by an inherent detachment/alienation between the
consumer and the product.
Equity
-
The environment issue highlights like no other the inherent limitations and
weaknesses of the current international political and economical system.
Imber, M. (2008)
Defining the global commons:
-
5 global commons:
o The high seas
o The deep ocean floor
o Outer space
o The uninhabited continent of Antarctica
o The climate system
Outer Space
- The Outer Space Treaty 1967
- Shares key characteristics with the Antarctic Treaty.
- Both USA and USSR wanted to prevent escalation of hostilities into outer
space.
o Fear of nuclear weapons being placed in earth orbit, giving an
enormous and threatening advantage to the country able to achieve this
first.
The Law of the Sea
- The Law of the Sea Convention negotiations extended from 1970 to 1982
- Unlike the other treaties, UNCLOS encountered numerous problems
o Compared to the other global commons the oceans have been explored
and used, competitively and in some small part controlled by national
and international laws for centuries.
- Costal states have claimed, and tried to exercise sovereignty over their so
called territorial waters for many centuries
- Issues:
o The temptation for costal states of maximizing their claims and to
create new maritime boundary disputes.
o Scientific speculations on the possible recovery of significant
quantities of metals and minerals from the deep ocean floor.
o The existence of nodules of manganese, copper and other land-mines
metals.
- The coastal states not only wanted to enlarge their territorial waters, but also
to create an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ)
Allowing them to complete title and control over the fisheries and
sea-bed, whilst allowing traditional high-seas-style navigation rights
to other states on the surface
- Outcomes;
o Created the largest gains for coastal states with new rights to a 12-mile
territorial sea and 200-mile EEZ.
o The common heritage of mankind rules were limited to the seabed beyond
the 200 mile EEZ.
o The 200-mile EEZ has protected some fisheries whilst raising pressure on
high seas stocks, especially migratory fish stocks.
The Ozone Layer:
- The discovery that the ozone layer was under attack and losing its protective
qualities.
Week 6
The Social Construction of International Society by Tim Dunne
Bull and Wight: The social practices which make up the ID/difference in the
society of states are deeply embedded in the intl system
- They cannot be reconstructed thru self-reflection, as Wendt thinks
- Bull: Any attempt to reconstruct the rules of the game would risk
undermining the intersubjective consensus which enabled multiple IDs to
coexist
Wendt: Regards the internationalization of political authority as generally
progressive
Liberals focus on array of rules that over time have shaped many forms of
interaction at the intl level
Liberal claims that we are moving towards a world where war will be
eliminated are not equivalent to claims that war is socially constructed
A claim that war is socially constructed suggests that human nature is NOT
CONSTANT cannot generalize it as good or bad
What is the process by which war is constructed as a social artifact?
Some have stayed w/in the positivist tradition but question the distinction
b/t an empirical reality and a normative one
The distinction b/t fact and value is @ the core of the scientific project
- But this is increasingly being challenged
- Welch: Leaders often motivated by normative concerns that lead to
behavior that may be inconsistent w/ material self-interest; JUSTICE often
an important reason for going to war
Does moving toward the causal power of normative concerns upset the
empirical-normative distinction? And threaten the entire edifice?
Constitution
End of Cold War = scholars skeptical of positivism
- IDs of the major players did not seem constant
- Existing theories couldnt explain the change like the end of the CW
Analysts looked for more constitutive models for understanding change
Constitutive approach: Emphasizes how IDs and outcomes are generated out
of interactions b/t difft actors
- Change may involve transformation of the units or their interaction
Actors always have a choice in social constructivism
- Wendts Alter and Ego
- Anarchy can generate difft logics; depends on the specific choices states
make vis a vis others
- If there is a choice, then ID is not fixed but changeable
Wendt criticized for assuming the centrality of the state
Intl actors dont start w/ clean slate like Alter and Ego; they are already
embedded in a context of meaning
- This constrains their room for maneuver
Logic of constitution: Assumes that an actors ID is shaped by historical
context
- An abductive logic: When actors, in engaging w/ the other, test or try
out difft logics in an attempt to figure out who the other is and respond to
them accordingly
Abductive logic of constitution rests on a 2-stage process:
- First stage: Tending toward an Other as if they are of one type, as a form
of testing the validity of the attribution
- If the Other responds in kind, the two begin to converge on a common
game
- If they respond on the basis of another typification, this is a falsification of
the original hypothesis & a realignment on a difft game
- In this process, it isnt the scientists who hypothesizes and tests theory, but
the actors
Causal analysis of why war broke out in former Yugoslavia:
- Point to the insecurity generated by the death of Tito
- Tito no longer around to mediate disputes b/t nationalities, so ancient tribal
hatreds created a spiral of insecurity
- Yet given high level of inter-marriage across these ID lines and habit of
living in peace for decades, many question this view
Constitutive analysis of why war broke out in former Yugoslavia
- Looked at how leaders like Slobodan Milosevic mobilized Serb fears
Conclusion:
Realism, a theory, and constructivism, a methodology, are juxtaposed in
relation to the two claims on war (that it is pervasive vs that it is a social
artifact)
Central point of Chapter 2: War and diplomacy as social artifacts
Social artifacts: Rule-governed practices that have taken difft shapes and
forms in historically specific circumstances
Recognizing war as a social construction opens up a space for greater
reflexivity
Reflexivity: Being able to stand back from the world and to see how ones
actions are shaped and influenced by what is assumed about the world or by
past conditioning
This doesnt necessarily eliminate war but it increases space w/in which
actors can make choices rather than acting as if war is the only option
Diplomatic Interventions book by Fierke Chapter 2
Chapter 2: War and Diplomacy
Walzer: The social & historical conditions that modify war arent accidental
or external to war itself
French Rev: War no longer focused on the glory of the king; it was the
business of citizens
- War in defense of the NATION was the basis for a call for arms
- Idea of a nation as a popular social formation based on shared culture and
language b/t groups emerged @ this time
- Napoleon mobilized masses for war w/ aim to propagate ideas of liberty,
equality, and fraternity thruout Europe
Second was industrial revolution in Britain
- Napoleonic wars strengthened this revolution
- Rapid advancement of technology
- New means of mass production -> rapid growth in size of business, new
products introduced for mass consumer market
- Construction of huge factories required many workers and caused
massive movement from country to city
- This led to rapid urbanization, urban squalor, and poor working conditions
- New wave of expansion abroad in search of markets for surplus goods and
raw materials
Imperialism was a search for the earths natural resources & markets
- Harbors, warehouses, plantations, railroads built in countries outside
Europe
- Production there was organized according to European needs
- The expansion was articulated in terms of historical progress
- Europeans there to bring their values, Christianity, education, wealth
- Greater wealth of Europeans was seen as proof of their superiority & right
to rule
- By 1914, European powers had annexed 9/10ths of Africa & a large part
of Asia
The political & industrial revolutions of this era expanded the involvement of
the masses
- Development of mass education, the extension of the vote, emergence of a
class of wage laborers, & armies of citizens
- Shift away from an emphasis on war as a means to expand the state fought
by armies loyal to the king, to war fought by & on behalf of the nation
- These developments coincided w/ the expansion of empire
Jean Jacques Rousseau: War is a SOCIAL ACTIVITY & a product of
civilization
- It is the citizen who becomes a soldier
- He argued that war was the job of a nations citizens
- Just war wasnt fought by pro soldiers in the pay of kings but by citizens
of a republic
- Rousseau was targeting Hobbes and Grotius argued their theories could
be used in the service of imperial powers
- Huge Grotius theory endorsed principles of private war, conquest, &
slavery
- In Principles du droit de la guerre, Rousseau argued that war arises from
unjust institutions
- Humans acted not by reason alone, but sentiments as well
- They are driven by the want to lay the basis for a just society
Republican virtues provided the basis for a call to mass mobilization
- The Napoleonic Wars were peoples wars
Total war
By end of 18th century war a highly organized activity based on many
distinctions
- State as the legitimate wielder of violence, the soldier the legitimate bearer
of arms
- Combatants were distinguished from non-combatants & criminals
These forms of warfare arent NEW, but have come to occupy a more
prominent place in the intl realm
- Ex: Terrorism a feature of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict during CW; post9/11 it is now a defining feature of world politics
But the meaning given by the observers or the perpetrators of violence to acts
of violence is at stake
These new forms of warfare are unique b/c they focus on the relationship b/t
states and non-state actors
Conclusion
War distinguished from other forms of conflict or violence by its dependence
on organization & a system of rules
War may be fought b/t any range of identities
Diplomatic Interventions Fierke Book Chapter 9
That they are often in conflict is more a function of the way these have
emerged historically in relation to e/o
- Human rights were tacked onto sovereignty rather than thinking thru the
relationship b/t the two concepts
2) The tension often manifests itself in the relationship b/t state and non-state
actors
- Both dependent on a spatial division b/t state and non-state, even while
these practices erode the sovereignty of the former
3) Historical changes in policy suggest the key issue is one of the unintended
consequences of political choices rather than an absence of choice
- Ex: The acceleration of arms trade during the CW & creation of a weapons
surplus set stage for present concerns about the proliferation of WMD and
subsequent policies relating to economic sanctions & pre-emption
Ludwig Wittgenstein: Language is like an ancient city
- The geography of the intl landscape is much the same: It juxtaposes the
old and new, sometimes in tension w/ e/o, yet each a by-product of
historical meaning & practice
There is no single foundational explanation for war
The world in which we act, is the point of departure for greater reflexivity, for
rethinking interventionary policies
Theory and practice
Robert Cox: Theory is always FOR someone and FOR some purpose
Problem-solving theory: Takes the world as it is & attempts to solve problems
w/in it
Critical theory: Exposes the power relationships that underpin what is as
well as theories that represent it
Work of Waltz has been the most consistent object of criticism by all critical
theorists
Waltz uses metaphor of a model plane to illustrate how theory works
- A model can be used in 2 main ways: To represent a theory or to picture
reality by simplifying it, thru omission or reduction of scale
- The model has explanatory power b/c it moves away from reality rather
than staying close to it
- SIMPLICITY is most important; capturing the object in a parsimonious
manner
Waltzs model is based on a mechanical view of the universe
- It assumes balance to be the natural state
- The model IDs states as the central feature of this system
- IDs the balance of power as the fundamental dynamic by which
equilibrium is maintained
- RE-establishing the balance is an automatic process for Waltz
- Model provides an explanation for the conformity of states to the
requirements of anarchy (for their lack of choice)
- This desire to explain comes from a desire to control, or at least to know if
control is possible
- From perspective of critical theory, that desire for control cannot be
separated out from politics
-
-
A focus on the 2nd level necessary condition for an agency that goes
BEYOND the yes/no choice
Greater reflexivity would contribute to more deliberate acts of worldmaking and agency
Images of torture transformed the meaning of the war from one in defense
of HRs and democracy into a war against the Iraqis
- The explicit sexual humiliation of prisoners reinforced perception in the
Islamic world that the war was about the destruction of Islam rather than
the construction of democracy
The intervention in Iraq was also lacking in consent
- It went ahead w/out approval from the UNSC and divided NATO
- Those who did consent in Parliament or Congress thought war was based
on elimination of WMDs
- When no such weapons were found, the just cause became the removal of
a tyrant from power, but this was NOT the act for which consent was
granted!
- The invasion came to be seen by Iraqis not as a liberation but an
occupation
- The intervention & war that followed had neither the consent of the intl
community, the populations of the intervening states, nor the Iraqi people
Unequivocal moral rejection of war is more problematic than that of torture or
of slavery
- B/c war rests on a calculation of the ratio b/t consent to physical injury and
the fight for or surrender of belief
- Waging war requires that the physical loss be viewed as an acceptable
sacrifice
- Consent may be withdrawn as perception changes on this ratio
- Both nuclear weapons and aerial bombardment create a greater distance b/t
those deciding and executing war or intervention & those who suffer the
injury
- Terrorists also appropriate the right to engage in violence w/out consent of
a pop
- Proliferation of highly sophisticated weapons & the increasing role of
terrorism are potentially related
- Widespread proliferation of WMD a byproduct of the CW
- These weapons reflect the distancing of war from human participation in it
- They move toward the deconstructive end of the spectrum
- Interventions that move toward the constructive end place more human
practices of making meaning and construction of social artifacts at the core
Approached reflexively , talk is a form of life that exists at the civilizing and
constructive end of the spectrum
- It is an essential part of building a global culture and not merely
transferring a Western one
- It is essential part of a culture where democratic debate determines
outcomes rather than force
- It is at the heart of more deliberate acts of world-making
Michael Moore in Bowling for Columbine argued that Canada is less violent
than the US b/c they have a difft culture of dealing w/ conflict thru
negotiation rather than force
Language a necessary condition for est. the rules of war
Critical theorists see dialogue as a path toward est. universal consent
Effective dialogue assumes listening as well as talk
Listening must be made a part of the liberal governance model
The hierarchies of power must be the object of intervention
The choice
Torture is a one-way relationship b/t the torturer and tortured
- Where victims voice becomes a vehicle of self-betrayal
Dialogue is the opposite of torture
- Consent and participation key
Traditional warfare located mid-way on the spectrum, sharing both positive
and negative attributes
The two ends are distinguished by the extent to which language and choice
have meaning and the extent to which agents are empowered to make their
social world
The choice is b/t civilization (the possibility of language, agency, and choice)
and the violence of the state of nature
Omer Bartov: The brute reality of the two World Wars and the Holocaust went
hand in hand w/ the search for ideal solutions that were part of the modern
quest to make and unmake humanity
- Origins of the Holocaust cannot be grasped w/out understanding the
origins of Europes first attempts to draw lessons from the butchery of
WW1
- Experience of total war gave rise to idealist and utopian visions of
transcending the brute reality
- This distinction of real and ideal contributes to the construction of intl
politics
The book emphasizes 2 difft approaches to reality:
1) Reality as something out there to which humans merely respond
2) Choices made in historically specific circumstances contribute to the
making and re-making of the world around us
- From this perspective, the real/ideal distinction is part of the problem!
. Week 7 STRUCTURAL VIOLENCE AND GLOBAL POVERTY How useful is
Galtung's conceptualisation of violence and peace for International
Relations? Cultural and structural violence - the relationship between the
two. Systemic inequality implications for long term sustainable peace.
This ideology of a nation-state combined with chosen people is a recipe for disaster
(Israel (Yahweh); Iran (Allah); South Africa (dutch
God); the US (Judeo-Christian Yahweh God) are examples.
Language:
Languages with an Italian base make women invisible by using the male gender for
the entire species.
Subtle aspects- space and time rigidities imposed by Indo-European languages- strong
inferences and opinions on the logical structure and the resulting logical explanation.
Art:
The understanding of Europe as the negation of the non-European environment
carries us much; oriental despotism. Especially the Arab semicircle.
Empirical Science:
neoclassical economic doctrine; system prescribed by its own doctrine there empirical
realities will be true. Comparative advantage- specialization of labour+capital=
vertical division of labour for everyone. Therefore, structural violence everywhere.
Immediate gains for those who own land therefore there is a structurally intolerable
status quo.
Formal Science:
T- theorem and its negation. Both cant be valid. However there is no 3rd possibility
(law of excluded middle). Black and white thinking about math.
Cosmology:
The cosmology concept is designed to harbor that substratum about what is natural
and normal. At this level the whole occidental culturl starts to appear violen.
Gandhi and Cultural Violence:
Alternatives to direct and structural violence:
two axioms: unity of life and unity of means; no life can be used as a means to the end.
If the end if livelihood then the means has to be life enhancing.
Sacredness of all life (vegetarianism) enhancing all life not just human life. Instead of
creating a dichotomy everything is given equal importance culturally; thought speech
and action are at the same level of priority (as with the Buddhist wheel versus the
Christian pyramid (faith vs deeds).
Conclusion.(Finalmente):
Violence can start at any corner in the direct-structural and cultural violence triangle
and it can be transmitted to other corners. The inclusion of cultural violence broadens
the scope for peace studies considerably. If culture is relevant to vilence and peace
only the dogmatic will exclude it from consideration.
the science of human culture has a difference as some civilizations are seens as higher
and others as lower civilizations.
An Anthropology of Structural Violence Paul Farmer:
How structural violence comes to feature in anthropological work; there is
institutionalized violence. Structural violence is violence exrted systematicallyindirectly by everyone who belongs to certain social order; therefore there it is harder
to pinpoint the effects of praise or blame on individual actors. There is research on the
weapons of the weak and resistance to dominant social order. Suffering is muted or
elided altogether.
Creating Deserts, Erasing History:
1) They created history and called it peace Tacitu; erasing history because the victors
always write history.
2) arguing that xyz didnt happen is neither a peruasive nor an effective tool, however
biologically people tend to forget.
3) Those who look only to the past miss webs of living power that enmesh witnessed
misery.
4) Those who look to the present only will miss the inbuilt structures of violence.
5) media fixes : Islam made it to it The lash of cultures inevitable.
Modern Haiti:
1) Mintz Haiti is a sort of living lab for the study of affliction, no matter how it is
defined
2) The French had to be paid a debt for losing the worlds most profitable slave
colony.
3) There was a reparation of 150 million franc in reparations to slave owners.
4) the response by the US and other white dominant states was to isolate haiti
(Alienation)
5) Neoliberalism is promoted by the victors of struggles mentioned above.
6)Haiti has abundant reasons to be wary of neoliberalism as they are living grounds
for understanding inequality.
7) grassroot development, foreign aid and microcredit wont benefit these people as
the poorest have no scope of occupation.
8) There is a collapse of public sector healthcare in Haiti as Haiti desperately required
foreign aid. There are 1.2 doctors, 1.3 nurses and 0.04 dentist per 10,000 Haitians.
40% of the popn is without basic access to healthcare.
9) Haiti hasnt received loans, since the 2000 elections the US have claimed that thee
wasnt a proper counting system which lead the Inter-American Bank to without
already approved loans to healthcare. Therefore healthcare was frozen, however there
was a similar freezing of funding to Pakistan when Musharaff took over the country
via a military coup, but 9/11 change that around. Haiti has also had to pay for
commission for loans it has not received.
10) Haiti proverb: hunger is misery, a full belly means trouble.
11) The Worlds poor are the chief victims of structural violence the poor are not
only more likely to suffer they are less likely to have their suffering noticed.
All modes lead to home: Assessing the state of the remittance art by Emanuel
Yujuico:
Remittances are now important because of:
1) their sheer size; remittance flows to developing countries $251 billion.
2) helping several developing countries meet their BOP
3) having accounted for a larger nominal flow to countries than Official development
aid.
4) representing a predictable and steady source of LDC inflows at a global aggregate
level.
5) no future outflows unlike debt securities which pay interest.
6) Increases in inflows to receivers when there are adverse effects like weather
distrubances.
7) low remittance costs will give more to the receiver, greater development. CSR.
8) Higher skilled labourers tend to send fewer remittances back home as they tend to
settle in country of destination. Countries, which send a larger number of low-skilled
workers, tend to receive more remittances per capita.
9) Economic factors cannot solely drive down remittance costs.
10) technical superiority doesnt guarantee lower cost options will supersede more
expensive ones.
11) Marketing is important in the mode of remittance adopted, apart from price and
technology of sending remittances, promotion channels are important. For a user, the
receiver must receive the maximum possible sent by the sender.
12) Concerns about money laundering: 9/11
Characteristics of remittance innovation:
1) Two types of costs: specific fees on intervals (0-100,100-500 etc.); conversion to
local currency (FX costs)
2) Door-to-door delivery increases costs.
3) geographical accessibility: first mile- senders, last mile- beneficiaries.
4) Beneficiaries maybe unbanked(no bank account) or underbanked(limited access to
financial resources)
5) Remittances technology allows money to be gift or need based: PayPal has a
request money feature.
6) Being able to transact at banks assumes literacy and numeracy.
7) 20% of remittances to India-internet based. India highest number of highly skilled
expatriates origin country.
8) triability- ease with using new technology and observability- observe others using
remittance technology.
9) Remittances usually piggybank on existing ICTs.
Communication Channels:
Mass media communication is more effective in creating knowledge about an
innovation, inter-personal communication is more effective in persuading people to
use it.
Time:
Time based: knowledge, persuasion, decision, implementation and confirmation
a)Knowledge: socioeconomic background, communication behavior and personality
of senders and receivers.
b) persuasion: +or- attitude towards innovation. Characteristics of innovation:
advantage, compatibility, complexity et.
c) decision: accept or reject a remittance innovation (traibility and observability)
d) implementation: using technology
e) confirmation: validation of adoption of technology
Social system:
1) Involves both senders and beneficiaries.
2) Interplay of family relations determine how many recipients or times remittances is
sent.
3) Three types of decision: decision independent of others; consensus b/w senders and
beneficiaries; authority decisions
A comparison of remittance modes:
4 Ps of Marketing: price, product place promotion
Informal remittance systems:
1) under the radar of international monitoring:
a) bringing cash back home.
b) legality (black or gray markets); IRS fail to meet domestic compliance or aret
recorded in BOP
c) value transfer instead of money transfer- hundi, hawala.
d) no paper trail in these transactional; though they are legitimate their informal
unrecorded means are questioned to funding money laundering and terrorist finance.
e) hundi illegal in India cause of politicians illegally laundering money.
f) IRS is useful as large population of receivers are unbanked. (80% in Phiilippines).
Also, speedier, less costly, anonymous and cultural compatibility.
Money transfer operators (MTOS)
1) led by Western Union and Money Gram.
2) Use economies of scale.
3) they are more geographically accessible than competitors
4) near monopoly status- higher fees. (WTO)
Bank based remittances:
1) financial deepening: provision to larger popn of people to provide access to credits.
2) constrained by limited availability of bank branches.
3)ICICI India offer free transfers abroad if there is a minuimum balance.
4) There is cross-selling(complementary financial services) and up-selling(providing
Turning the tide? Why development will not stop migration? Hein de Haas
Introduction:
1) West- problem needs control; burden to state, perceived as a burden to the state;
cultural threat.
2) Irregular immigration and human trafficking becoming increasing important to
social groups- publicially accepting need to stem these flows.
3) Tension b/w US-Mexico; EU neighbours.
4) EU link aid to countries where migrants are coming from.
5) South-North migration unforeseen persistence; militarization of border patrols not
decreased migration (Rio Grande, Strait of Gibraltar)
6) Mexico & Morocco countries of transition.
7) Failure of solutions have led to smart solutions: promoting growth and
development in poor countries. fight its root causes President EC.(European
Comission)
8) African Union head says walls and prisons wont solve problems; called to open
markets.
9) Receiving countries boost development and investment by returning migrants.
10) Aid will reduce migration relies on two assumptions: migration is bad; however
migration is a universal feature of humanity. Secondly, development will reduce
migration, this is based on inaccurate anaylsis (aid given to the poorest of the poor not
migrant origin countries).
Deflating the migration boom:
Feckless Pluralism
Clear
Independent
Independent
Free
Citizen enthusiasm
Opposition Party
State Poor Performing
Stability
State of equilbrium
Non-existent
Possibility of ruling
Disorganized unstable
nature of state
Stable
Dysfunctional equilibrium,
moving back and forth of
parties
Non-existent
Outsiders
Bureaucracy large scale
corruption
Stable
Static- ruling party
constant
dangerous), what were once factions became parties, sovereign governs itself for itself.
Universal suffrage did not include women, women gained sufferage in 1920 in NZ
and Aussieland however some first world countries, Belgium etc women could only
work after WWII.
4) Resurgence of Athenian democracy.
The factor of size:
1) democratic country: Why country? All factors for democracy not necessary for
smaller bodies
2) Committees do not always require factions
Are political institutions of polyarchal democracy (six functions of democracy make it
polyarchal) necessary for a country? If so why?
2) A huge disparity b/t the rights accorded to all human beings thru the intl
human rights regime and the massive and continual violation of those
rights
With human rights violations, one can easily isolate the violators
Structural violence looks at inequality thru social, economic, and political
factors
Applying theory of structural violence to the human rights discourse
illuminates the often neglected category of social and economic rights
The right to development = a single right that fully integrates both sets of
rights, civil and political as well as social, economic and cultural rights
The paper considers alternatives to the structural violence approach by looking
at realist and culturalist models of human rights violations
Structuralism
Structuralist view of the world: Structures and institutions are central to
analysis
Landman: Structuralism focuses on the holistic aspects of society
Structures manifest themselves in a variety of forms at both the domestic and
intl levels
Politically and economically, structures include:
- Class and class conditions
- Institutions including: Business orgs, political parties and global
institutions like the UN, WTO, and the GATT
Social structures include sexism and racism, as well as class-based structures
Asserts that individuals and institutions do NOT make decisions solely on the
basis of rational choice
- Individuals are embedded in relational structures that affect their IDs,
interests, and interactions
The extent to which these structures constrain agency is highly contested
To what extent to intl institutions constrain the choices made by states?
How do these structures, coupled with domestic institutions, constrain
individual choices?
And how does constraint of these individual choices constitute a violation of
human rights?
Structural Violence
Johan Galtung concerns were first and foremost related to peace research
Important aspect of his definition of structural violence is that it is avoidable
- When the potential is higher than the actual it is by definition avoidable
and when it is avoidable, then violence is present
Under this definition, injustices incurred by the oppressive Burmese military
junta and the violence suffered by women in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in
the US both constitute violence
Galtung constructs typology of violence based on 3 categories: personal,
structural, and cultural
For Galtung, Burmese military junta = personal or direct violence where the
actors and objects of violence are readily identifiable
He asserts that unlike direct violence, structural violence is indirect b/c there
may not be any single actor who directly harms another; rather, the violence is
built INTO the structure and shows up as unequal power and subsequently as
unequal life chances
The question is: Why do African American women suffer greater risk of
HIV/AIDS than Caucasian women? Why is it harder for them to access
medical care or treatment?
- These questions at the heart of structural violations of human rights
- Racial inequality = an institutionalized social structure that lowers the
level of actual fulfillment of ones fundamental needs below the potential
- Here, potential is defined by the availability and access that other
American citizens enjoy
- Thus, racial inequality is an example of structural violence
- Inequality itself is constitutive in the definition of avoidability and
potential:
- Inequality betrays the fact that an unrealized fundamental human need is
avoidable, and;
- Inequality establishes a certain level of what constitutes the potential by
comparing it to what others can achieve
Structural violence exposes a clear logic behind the systematic nature of how
violence is distributed
- Problem is that the power to decide over the distribution of resources is
unevenly distributed
- Structural violence has exploitation as the centerpiece: topdogs get much
more out of the structure than the underdogs
- Structural violence originates in the unequal distribution of power among
actors
- And can further trace its origins to human agency
Farmer connects the historically established structures as constraints on
individual agency
Structural violence theory aims to give a nuanced structuralist analysis of the
relationship b/t structures and agency
When agency is constrained to the extent that fundamental human rights
cannot be attained, structural violence = a violation of human rights
Essay examines the structural causes of severe global poverty and the impacts
of poverty on agency
Farmer: The worlds poor are the chief victims of structural violence
- They are the least likely to have their suffering NOTICED
Human rights violations in this case are the result of power differentials as
exercised thru global economic and social structures
-
-
Covenants Article 2.1 recognizes need for intl cooperation and assistance
Formulation of the right to development further engages the responsibility
of the intl community
Galtung: Human rights declarations often personal more than structural
- Human rights as usually conceived of are compatible w/ paternalism
whereby power-holders distribute anything but ultimate power over the
distribution
- In this way, equalization w/out any change in the power structure is
obtained
- He made this observation in 1969 in Violence, Peace, Peace Research
before the formulation of the right to development
- In 1986 the Declaration on the Right to Development addresses what
Galtung called a deficiency: It imposes a duty on developed nations to
address global inequality
- Arjun Sengupta: Noted the integral nature of intl cooperation to this right;
but agrees that resource transfer isnt enough
Goal 8 of the Millennium Development Goals of 2000:
- Operationalizes this right and insists that developed states provide intl
assistance
- Calls for tariff and quota-free access for their exports, enhanced debt relief,
cancellation of official bilateral debt, more generous development
assistance!
- Right to development does not make a claim to a minimum core
requirement; this right is a process that expands the capabilities or freedom
of individuals
Sengupta: Right to development a vector that consists of each of the human
rights
- Its value is also dependent on economic growth
- The value of the vector rests on the increase in enjoyment of the other
without the deterioration of any of these rights
Maastricht Guidelines attribute violations of HRs committed by non-state
actors and intl orgs to states
- But it is unclear how the right to development attributes responsibility
- No legal practices to hold non-state actors responsible if they violate a HR
thru their practices
- Chapmans violations approach only works for state parties to the
Covenant
Alternative Conceptions
Ones that focus on individuals whoa re responsible rather than the structures
- Neil Mitchells principle-agent model
- Bejamin Valentinos strategic logic of mass killings theory
- Both take a realist perspective of the world
- Small groups of elites make rational decisions to conduct atrocities
- They do concede the importance of structural causes to HRs violations
- But the types of violations studied in this paper are INVISIBLE using this
individual rational approach!
Also culturalist explanations
-
-
-
Need an honest account of who wins, who loses, and the weapons used
The materiality of the social: Social life in general and structural violence in
particular cant be understood w/out a deeply materialist approach to whatever
comes to light
- Any social project requires construction materials, while the building
process itself is inevitably social and thus cultural
- The adverse outcomes associated with structural violence death, injury,
illness, subjugation, stigmatization, etc. come to have their final
common pathway in the material
- Structural violence is embodied as adverse events in this case, those
events include epidemic disease, violations of HRs, and genocide
Alfred Kroeber: Underlined anthropology as a biological and social science
Erosion of social awareness most evident in the social sciences
- The integration of history, political economy, and biology remains lacking
in contemporary anthropology and sociology
Need to look at how the erasure of history and of biology comes to hobble an
honest assessment of social life
Comments:
Philippe Bourgois and Nancy Scheper-Hughes
We need a carnal ethnography
Propose conceptualizing violence as operating on a continuum from direct
physical assault to symbolic violence and routinized everyday violence,
including chronic structural violence
Violence goes beyond physicality to include assaults on self-respect and
personhood
Social and cultural dimensions of violence give it its force and meaning
One can represent the inscription of the past in 2 distinct ways:
1) It refers to the social condition of individuals or groups and the sort of
interactions it underlies
2) It refers to the historical experience, whether singular or collective, and the
narratives thru which it can be reached
Inequality is the language of the social condition
Resentment is the keyword for historical experience
Hartogs idea of presentism we need to resist it and account for lived
reality
Nguyen and Peschard: In modern society, inequality becomes embodied
biologically
Ethnography a key research strategy for connected policy and everyday life
Franz Fanon: Treating individual patients must go hand in hand with treating
the socio-economic/cultural-political contexts the societies in which
people live
Stanley Diamond: The anthropological consciousness grew from a sense of
alienation from the direction in which modern society was growing
Erasure of social memory is not desocialization but is the exact sort of
socialization that serves consumer capitalism
Reply by Farmer
To meet the latest demands of the IDB, Haiti has had to pay ever-expanding
arrears
- July 2003: Haiti sent to DC nearly 90% of its foreign reserves to pay these
arrears; but the aid still never came
Need to develop an anthropology of affliction that can move from the local to
the large-scale
Women as Arm-Bearers: Gendered Caste-Violence and the Indian State by Suruchi
Thapar-Bjorkert
Introduction
Increased caste violence against Dalit men and women in Indian states like
Bihar, Uttar-Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil-Nadu
In India, the state is an everyday presence in the lives of poor & vulnerable;
like lower-caste, Dalit, and tribal women
For historical reasons, state still looms large in the perception of millions of
people
People trust the state above all else to fulfill their basic needs, physical
security, and conditions of dignified living
When state doesnt respond adequately, these social groups are made more
vulnerable & their social and political relationships break down
- One consequence of this breakdown: People taking recourse to extra-legal
violence as self-protection
Explores rise in Dalit female militancy in rural Bihar, Northern India
Dalit peoples excluded from material structures of economic development &
political processes of governance
Lack of law & order and protection from the state
Led to situation where Dalit women take up arms to protect their violation
with violence
- Dalit women have made a framework of resistance to upper castes and
new middle castes, foregrounding their ID as Dalits
- They resist/retaliate as Dalits and challenge the privileged position and
power that the upper castes uphold thru caste violence
- In aligning w/ armed Dalit women, they expose the vulnerability and
helplessness of their own men in protecting them from sexual and physical
violation
State-led Post-independence Legislation and Land Reforms
1947: Congress Party takes over, expected to turn colonial subjects into
citizens
March 1950: The National Planning Commission established by first Prime
Minister
- Assigned the task of drawing up and implementing 5 year plans
- Aim of plans: Execute planned industrialization and material
redistribution in the industrial and agricultural sectors of the economy
- Thus, post-colonial state promised to improve the economic conditions of
the poor and work on social justice
In assuming role of protector and provider, the state reflected the ideals of
Keynesian welfarism and socialism of the Soviet model
Chandoke: Belief that state is central to the lives of its people the outcome of 2
factors:
1) The global political environment
2) The historical particularities of the Indian freedom movement
Post-colonial state created conditions in 2 ways to ensure equalitarian
society:
1) Made provision for the protective discrimination for socially vulnerable
groups
Caste Wars
Limbs cut off, eyes gorged out, or forced witnessing of gang rapes of women
of their households all violence Darits have been subjected to
Definition
Culture = the symbolic sphere of our existence
- Ex: Stars, crosses and crescents; flags, anthems and military parades; the
ubiquitous portrait of the Leader; inflammatory speeches and posters are
all aspects of culture
Cultures could be imagined and encountered with not only 1 but a set of
aspects so violent, extensive and diverse, spanning all cultural domains, that
one may need to talk about not just cases of cultural violence but violent
cultures
- For this, a systematic research process is needed this article is part of that
process
Opposite of cultural violence would be cultural peace
- Aspects of a culture that serve to justify and legitimize direct peace and
structural peace
- If many and diverse aspects of the kind are found in a culture, we may call
it a peace culture
Major task of peace research is the never-ending search for a peace culture
- Problematic b/c of the temptation to institutionalize that culture, making it
obligatory w/ the hope of internalizing it everywhere
- And that would already be direct violence, imposing a culture
Violence studies are about 2 problems: the use of violence and the
legitimation of the use of violence
- The psychological mechanism would be internalization
Study of cultural violence highlights the way in which the act of direct
violence and the fact of structural violence are legitimized and thus rendered
acceptable in society
One way cultural violence works:
- By changing the moral color of an act from red/wrong to green/right or at
least to yellow/acceptable
- Ex: Murder on behalf of the country as right, on behalf of oneself wrong
Another way cultural violence works:
- Making reality opaque, so that we dont see the violent act or fact, or at
least not as violent
- Ex: Abortus provocatus
- This is more easily done with some forms of violence than with others
A Typology of Direct and Structural Violence
Violence = avoidable insults to basic human needs, and more generally to life
- It lowers the real level of need satisfaction below what is potentially
possible
- Threats of violence are also violence
Four classes of basic needs:
- Survival needs (negation: death, mortality)
- Well-being needs (negation: misery, morbidity)
- Identity, meaning needs (negation: alienation)
- Freedom needs (negation: repression)
Combining these four classes of basic needs with the distinction b/t direct and
structural violence gives a typology of 8 types of violence with some subtypes
- Easily IDed for direct violence but more complex for structural violence
The typology is anthropo-centric; a column for Nature could be added
- A need would be ecological balance; if this isnt satisfied, the result is
ecological degradation, breakdown, imbalance
- Eco-balance corresponds to survival + well-being + freedom + identity for
human; if not satisfied, the result is human degradation
- Violence defined as insults would focus on biota in terms of ecology
Direct violence affects the four basic needs in the following ways:
- Survival needs: Killing (extermination, holocaust, genocide)
- Well-being needs: Maiming, siege, sanctions, misery (silent holocaust)
- ID needs: Desocialization (spiritual death), resocialization, secondary
citizen
- Freedom needs: Repression, detention, expulsion
- The world has experienced ALL of these things over the last 50 years
alone!!
Structural violence affects the four basic needs in the following ways:
- Survival needs: Exploitation A
- Well-being needs: Exploitation B
- ID needs: Penetration, segmentation
- Freedom needs: Marginalization, fragmentation
Killing and maiming constitute casualties, used in assessing the magnitude
of a war
- But war only one particular form of orchestrated violence
- Very narrow to see peace as the opposite of war
Included under maiming is the insult to human needs brought about by
siege/blockade and sanctions
- This is slow and intentional killing thru malnutrition and lack of medical
attention
- Making causal chain longer means actor can avoid facing the violence
directly
- Even gives the victim a chance to submit means loss of freedom and
identity instead of life and limbs
- Ex: The Gandhian type of economic boycott combined refusal to buy
British textiles w/ the collecting of funds for the merchants, in order not to
confuse the issue by threatening their livelihood
Category of alienation defined in terms of socialization: the internalization
of a culture
- Double aspect: To be socialized away from ones own culture and to be
resocialized into another culture
- They often come together in the form of second class citizenship:
subjected group forced to express dominant culture and not its own
- Any socialization of a child is forced & gives the child no choice
- Conclusion: Non-violent socialization is to give the child a choice, e.g. by
offering him/her more than 1 cultural idiom
Category of repression has double definition: the freedom from and
freedom to of the Intl Bill of Human Rights
- 2 categories have been added explicitly b/c of their significance as
concomitants of other types of violence: detention and expulsion
-
-
Ideology
Political ideologies as successors to religion
Successors to God in the form of the modern state
Basic idea of sharp, value-loaded dichotomies remains intact
Chosen and Unchosen replaced by Self and Other
Archetype: nationalism
Gradient inflates, exalts the value of the Self; deflates, even debases, the value
of Other
Structural violence then starts operating
- People become debased by being exploited, and they are exploited b/c they
are seen as debased & dehumanized
When Other is converted into an it, deprived of humanhood, direct violence
can take over
- This is then blamed on the victim, reinforced by the category of the
dangerous it, the vermin or bacteria; the class enemy; the mad dog
etc.
- Extermination becomes a psychologically possible duty
Certain nations are seen as modern/carriers of civilization and the historical
process more than others
Certain tenets of belief in modernization, development, and progress are seen
as apodictic; not to believe in them reflects badly on the non-believer, not on
the belief
All of these ideas are still strong in Western culture
Assumptions based on ascribed distinctions, gender, race and nation already
given at birth are hard to maintain in an achievement-oriented society
- But in a meritocracy, denying power and privilege to those on top is to
deny merit itself
The ideology of nationalism should be seen in conjunction with the ideology
of the state, statism
Origins of the states right of belligerence
- Feudal: State as an organization needed by the Prince to exact enough
taxes to pay for armies and navies; state est. to maintain the military, NOT
vice versa
- Religious: State as the successor to God, inheriting the right to destroy life
(execution) and control the creation of life in some cases
Nationalism + statism = the ugly ideology of the nation-state
- Killing in war done in the name of the nation
- The priority for choice rather than life in abortion another form of cultural
violence based on denial of fetal life as human
Language
Languages w/ a Latin base (Italian, French, Spanish, modern English) make
women invisible by using the same word for the male gender as for the entire
human species
- Not the case with Germanic languages like German and Norwegian
Movement for non-sexist writing an example of deliberate cultural
transformation away from cultural violence
Space and time rigidities imposed by Indo-European languages
- Corresponding w/ a rigidity in the logistical structure w/ strong emphasis
on the possibility of arriving at valid inferences ; tendency to distinguish
linguistically b/t essence and apparition, leaving room for the immortality
of the essence and the destruction of what is apparition
- This is deep culture and the lower levels of the violence triangle stratum
Art
Empirical Science
Ex of cultural violence: Neoclassical economic doctrine
- Studies the system prescribed by its own doctrines; finds its self-fulfilling
prophecies confirmed
- Trade theory: Based on comparative advantages by Ricardo;
consequences of this doctrine in the form of todays vertical division of
labor in the world are visible as structural violence
Doctrine of comparative advantage as a justification for a rough division of
the world in terms of the degree of processing which countries impart to their
exports
- This is roughly proportionate to the amount of challenge countries receive
in the production process
Formal Science
Mathematics as a formal game with one basic rule:
- That a theorem T and its negation T cannot both be valid
- Bivalent logic draws strict line b/t valid and invalid
This means that math disciplines us into a particular mode of thought
compatible with black-white thinking and polarization in personal, social, and
world spaces
The either-or character of mathematical thought is dangerous
Cosmology
Return to the problem of the transition from cultural violence to violent
culture
Can explore the substratum of the culture for its deep culture(s)
- Looking at the cultural genetic code that generates cultural elements and
reproduces itself thru them
Cosmology concept: Designed to harbor that substratum of deeper
assumptions about reality that defines what is normal and natural
- It is at this level that occidental culture shows so many of its violent
features that the whole culture starts looking violent
Examples:
- Strong center-periphery gradients
- The urgency precluding the slow, patient building of structural and direct
peace
- Atomistic, dichotomous thought with deductive chains counteracting the
unity-of-life
- Tendency to individualize and rank humans, breaking up the unity-of-man
The whole culture possesses a great potential for cultural violence that can
justify the unjustifiable
Gandhi and Cultural Violence
Two axioms summarize Gandhism:
1) Unity-of-life
2) Unity of means and ends
The first follows from the second if it is assumed that no life can be used as a
means to an end
Unity is understood in terms of closeness, against separation
- All forms of life should enjoy closeness, shouldnt be kept apart by SelfOther gradients
Unity-of-means-and-ends
- Brings together mental elements, such as acts, and facts brought about by
acts, close together
- They shouldnt be kept separate by long causal chains that drive wedges in
social time
Rousseau argued that higher levels of violence and human misery resulted
from the transition from the state of nature to civil society.
Kant believed human beings could reduce harm over centuries of progress in
which they come to see themselves as dual citizens: as members of their
respective states and participants in a wider community of humankind.
Radical cosmopolitan approach: world government is the only solution to the
problem of harm.
Neo-liberal and neo-Grotian positions: most states respect international moral
and legal conventions that pace constraints on the use of force. The debate
between these approaches is an argument about how far cosmopolitan harm
conventions can be developed in a world of states
Realists and their critics reach different conclusions about the prospects for
such conventions in world politics, but they also understand harm in different
ways and disagree about the forms of harm that deserve most attentions.
Critics of humanitarian war have argued that intervention may cause more
harm than good, especially when the intervening states are major powers with
an established history of selective intervention to punish non-compliant
regimes.
All societies have harm conventions but what makes a harm convention
cosmopolitan is the fact that it does not privilege the interest of insiders over
outsiders.
o Related is the moral conviction that noncombatants should be spared
unnecessary injury in war because they themselves do no harm and
POWs are entitled to lead as decent a life as possible during their
confinement. In these cases, cosmopolitanism does not mean the
absence of national attachments or suggest that loyalty to the whole of
humankind should come before duties to particular communities. All
it requires is friendship towards the rest of the human race.
CHCs are rooted in the idea that differences between insiders and outsiders
are not always relevant reasons for treating outsiders less well that insiders.
CHCs are necessary when societies come into contact with each other and
cannot always predict how their behaviour will cause harm. E.g. relations
between colonial and aboriginal Australia are a reminder that globalization or
the greater interconnectedness of humankind creates new opportunities for
transnational harm.
War has been the main impetus behind the development of CHCs over last
200 years and is also one of the main threats to its survival.
Nuclear Proliferation:
Why do States build nuclear Weapons?
Scott Sagan
Why do states build nuclear weapons?
This unexamined question exists because US policy makers and IR scholars belive
states will seek to develop nuclear weapons when they face a significant military
threat to their security that cannot be met through alternative means; if they do not
face such threats they willingly remain non-nuclear states.
Sagan challenges conventional wisdom on proliferation.
Three models to answer:
1) Security model: national security against foreign threats, esp nuke threats.
2) domestic politics model: parochial domestic and bureaucratic interests that will be
enhanced domestically.
3) the norms model: normative symbol of states modernity and identity.
Nuclear proliferation will be a critical problem in international security for a
foreseeable future.
Member states can remove themselves from NPT under supreme national interest
57 states are conducting nuclear research or building reactors. 37 countries have been
estimated to have sufficient capability to test nuclear weapons on a crash basis. 0
NPT encourages this addition of states to the NS list because it only encourages that
inspection of these states are permitted. This recognizes that rogue states (Libya, N
Korea etc) should not possess nuclear capabilities. However, this doesnt ensure that
states that have the potential to become nuclear remain non-nuclear. Difference
between political demand and threat of nuclear weapons and the supply of nuclear
weapons spreading uncontrollably. (one of the requisites of deterrence that it doesnt
spread)
Any demand-side non proliferation strategy versus a supply side strategy will be
inherently contradictory. Traditional realist view of securitization needs for nuclear
weapons.
Theories provide non-empirically backed research and contradictory results, therefore
a multifold of possible outcomes.
The Security Model:
Anarchy- self-help system to protect sovereignty and security.
Destructive power of nukes leads states unarmed to need nukes.
Two outcomes: strong states internally balance and produce nukes, weak states ally
with weak states as extended deterrence. (the credibility of extended deterrence is
challenged).
Proliferation begets proliferation George Shultz
strategic chain reaction:
After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Soviet Union was greatly threatened. Stalin
provide the bomb- it will remove a great danger from us
London+Paris built it as a response to the Soviet Union and the reduction in the US
extended deterrence.
China because of the US threat at the end of the Korean war then the Soviet threat
following 1960s.
India did because of China, India unambiguously had nuclear capacity and research
but didnt test it in order to refrain neighbours from following suit. Testing made
Pakistan follow suit.
Explain Nuclear Restraint:
Why a state would give up having nuclear weapons?
External threat change or reevaluated.
South Africa was threatened between mid 1970s early 1980s and the removal of
these threats by the late 1980s led to denuclearization of South Africa. Its strategy
was to scare the Soviet Union that it feared would attack it, and blackmail the US into
intervening in the event that the Soviet Union attack South Africa. BY 1989, the
external threat was disbanded with the fall of the Soviet Union, a cease-fire with
Angola (previously filled with Cuban forces) and a tripartite agreement granted
independence to Namibia in 1988.
Argentina and Brazil refused to join the Latin America nuclear free weapons zone
(NFWZ) and began active programs in the 1980s but when the recognized that both
neighbours hadnt gone to war since 1828 it was of no use to be nuclear armed.
Ukraine Kazaksthan and Belarus gave up their arsenals because of close ties with
Russia and US extended deterrence.
Policy Implications:
Us backing is crucial otherwise states perceiving threats need to arm themselves.
Confidence building measures or negative security assurances that nuclear states will
not use their weapons against non-nuclear states.
NPT poses as a solution to the collective action problem. Each state would prefer to
be the only nuclear power however due to the chain reaction that isnt possible. The
treaty enables states to be certain that neighbours will exercise restraint or at least
inform other states if they plan to break away from the treat.
According to Realists, US nonproliferation policy only slows down doesnt contain
the spread of nukes. Efforts to slow down the spread are large but countered by the
lack of reliability of US extended deterrence in a multipolar world. Stratetigic
incentives for neigbbours to follow suit.
Problems of this model?
realist history depends on: 1) statements by key decision makers who will say that
they are serving national interest. 2)correlation in time b/w threats and nuclear
weapon adoption. Thereby scholars find nuclear weapon adoption and move
backwards in history to find a threat that must have caused the decision. Similarly,
the decision not to have nuclear weapons must be due to changes in the
international system. This is a very narrow view of how governments make decisions.
Domestic Politics Model:
Domestic actors encouraging or discouraging, serves narrow bureaucratic interests of
individual actors within a state. (Principal Agent Problem)/
3 important actors:
1) states nuclear energy establishment (government and civilian officials)
2)Military (usually airforce and navy)
3) Politicians.
When these actors form coalitions they can create a nuclear weapons programme.
There is no domestic political theory that states the conditions in which nukes are
created. Its based on literature within the US and Soviet Union during the Cold War.
Actors encouraged the perception of foreign threat and actively lobbied for defense
spending. Ideas developed in a lab, then made national security issues. favourable to
the military and then demonstrated to be effective to gain political support.
Realists argue that these domestic interests are marginal against national security
issues. Regardless of numbers states build weapons as a response to adversaries.
Domestic politics: weapons are not inevitable solutions to security problems but are a
solution looking for a problem to attach themselves to. Threats are manipulated by
bureaucratic actors to be perceived as threats.
India puzzle:
Indias nuclear weapons experience fits most aptly into the DP model.
No official consensus that nuclear deterrence to counter Chinas nuclear weapons.
According to realist logic, if threat was enormous a crash weapons program would
have been initiated which didnt occur. Leaders would have appealed for extended
deterrence from the Soviet Union or US. This would have conflicted with the nonaligned status of India at the time and publicly questioned whether such guarentees
were credible.
Battle fought between the elite in India:
Shastry: excessive costs
Homi Bhabba head of the atomic energy commission lobbied for the development by
calculating different costs.
Sarabhai, shastrys successor cancelled the program all together. Gandhi reversed this,
Gandhi approved of plans withan elite circle and didnt tell the military till 10 days
before the planned May18th explosion.
1) This pattern suggests that security was of secondary importance.
2) Canada revoking their extended deterrence and the unprepared response by India
shows that this decision was made in haste.
3) Domestic support for the Gandhi government had fallen to a low, armed with
nuclear weapons the government gained support.
South Africa:
South Africa was internal restraint rather than changes within the domestic system.
President De Klerk decided to abandon the nuclear reactors before the Cold war was
over. There was also a surprising burning of documents for the IAEAs inspection of
the country.
Policy Implications:
Domestic focused Non-proliferation, international financial institutions demand that
there are cuts in military expenditure.
US support of research etc.
The impact of NS on non-NS is important in this model, as non-NS decide to arm
themselves depending on proliferators.
Norms Model:
Shapes states identity; norms about what is acceptable in the international system.
Actors have interests but these interests are shaped by the role that they have to play
as social actors. (loss making national airlines example).
Similar global phenomena, anti-colonialism, abolition of slave trade and piracy in the
sea.
Political ideas not only spread by norm but also by coercion and force.
the transition from the 60s where it was a privilege to be in the nuclear club,
however now it is deemed necessary to join the NPT treaty.
French Grandeur:
according to Security theory: French built nukes to the threat of the soviet union in the
50s. The US extended deterrence wasnt guaranteed.
as the curtain had drawn on colonialism, states had t find prestige through other
sources.Michel Martin
only with the atomic armament can our defense and foreign policy be independent
which we prize over everything else. - De Gaulle to Eisenhower.
Ukraine similarly contrast with the need to adopt the NPT as a fair player in the
global system.
Conclusions:
Security model though inadequate would respond to criticism that it can be
empirically back by China US soviet Israel and Pakistan and the rogue states.
But different historical models are better at explaining specific cases.
U.S. policy makers should theoretically not produce containment models (test the