Digital Commons Network^™

Why Orientalism Still Matters: Reading ‘Casual Forgetting’ And ‘Active Remembering’ As Neoliberal Forms Of Contestation In International Politics, Shiera S. Malik

Shiera S el-Malik

Waiting For Giorgio, Ananya Vajpeyi

Ananya Vajpeyi

No abstract provided.

Constructing A Shared Identity In Deeply Divided Societies, John M. Nagle

John M Nagle

In order to bolster sustainable peacebuilding in violently divided societies, a normative suggestion is that efforts should be made to construct a shared public identity that overarches ethnic divisions. A number of different centripetal/transformationist processes are identified as engendering a shared identity in comparison to consociational arrangements, which are accused of institutionalizing ethnic differences and perpetuating conflict. These transformationist approaches essentially rest on the premise that since ethnicity is constructed it can be reconstructed into new shared forms. Looking at Northern Ireland, we argue there are limits to the extent that ethnicity can be reconstructed into shared identities. By analysing …

The Myth Of The White Minority, Andrew Pierce

Andrew J. Pierce

In recent years, and especially in the wake of Barack Obama’s reelection, projections that whites will soon become a minority have proliferated. In this essay, I will argue that such predictions are misleading at best, as they rest on questionable philosophical presuppositions, including the presupposition that racial concepts like ‘whiteness’ are static and unchanging rather than fluid and continually being reconstructed. If I am right about these fundamental inaccuracies, one must wonder why the myth of the white minority persists. I will argue that by re-envisioning whites as a minority culture struggling against a hostile dominant group, and by promoting …

Capacity Building And The Afghan National Police Views From The Frontline, Gordon Marnoch, Gavin Boyd

Gordon Marnoch

The article reports on a study of an intelligence management capacity building programme involving former Police Service of Northern Ireland officers mentoring members of the Afghan National Police. The study contributes to the formative evaluation of a policy transfer based on principles and practices developed in Northern Ireland. A short discussion of Afghanistan, policing, intelligence management and policy transfer is provided, before attention is given to the capacity building programme. The study is context rich drawing on qualitative data. Analysis draws on face to face interviews conducted with mentors working with the ANP during 2010-2012. Interview questions were broad in …

Rattling The Binary: Symbolic Power, Gender, And Embodied Colonial Legacies, Shiera S. Malik

Shiera S el-Malik

In 2009, the 18-year-old South African runner Caster Semenya was accused of being male and forced to undergo gender testing. After much obfuscation and misreporting, Semenya was cleared to compete as a woman. Semenya’s experience exposes the problematic ways in which masculinity and femininity are harnessed to the categories of male and female as well as the ways in which they are embodied by men and women. This paper contemplates how binaries are mobilized and boundaries maintained – as is contemporarily evident in responses to Semenya’s gender troubles. It reads Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of symbolic power against an example of …

Intercultural Conflict And Dialogue In Transnational Digital Networks - Migration And Gender, Athina Karatzogianni, Nelli Kambouri, Nicos Trimikliniotis, Oksana Morgunova, Olga Lafazani, Grigoris Ioannou

Athina Karatzogianni

The three case studies involve intercultural conflict between migrants and the host society, but also conflicts between migrants of different origin or culture, and intra-communal conflict. These conflicts occur in digital networks and are influencing and are influenced by what is called here by the different research teams interchangeably as ‘real’, ‘offline’, ‘material’ or ‘physical’. Nevertheless, the intention of the research design and philosophical standpoint is to integrate virtuality and materiality as far as this is possible in the analysis. In Cyprus, urban spaces are contested by migrant and anti-migrant groups and played on-line and off-line in an interplay that …

Reconstructing Race: A Discourse-Theoretical Approach To A Normative Politics Of Identity, Andrew Pierce

Andrew J. Pierce

This paper aims to get clear on the normative implications of the idea that race is a “social construction,” not just for political practice in non-ideal societies where racial oppression remains, but in “ideal” (presumably non-racist) societies as well. That is, I pursue the question of whether race and/or racial identity would have any legitimate place in an ideally just society, or to state it another way, whether the concept of race can be extricated from the history of racial oppression from which it arose. The position I defend is a version of what has come to be called a …

How The British Gun Control Program Precipitated The American Revolution, David B. Kopel

David B Kopel

Abstract: This Article chronologically reviews the British gun control which precipitated the American Revolution: the 1774 import ban on firearms and gun powder; the 1774-75 confiscations of firearms and gun powder, from individuals and from local governments; and the use of violence to effectuate the confiscations. It was these events which changed a situation of rising political tension into a shooting war. Each of these British abuses provides insights into the scope of the modern Second Amendment.

From the events of 1774-75, we can discern that import restrictions or bans on firearms or ammunition are constitutionally suspect — at least …

201003 Obiter Dicta: Mid-January 2010, Steven Alan Samson

Steven Alan Samson

No abstract provided.

The Role Of International Law Firms And Multijural Legal Human Capital In The Harmonization Of Legal Regimes, Gillian K. Hadfield

Gillian K Hadfield

The problem of harmonizing legal rules across multiple overlapping legal orders is, in part, a problem of knowledge. If the public goal of harmonization is to promote value in transactions and dispute resolution, a legal regime needs institutions that facilitate the production of multijural human capital: expertise about how legal rules interact with each other and with the environment in which economic actors design transactions and dispute processing mechanisms. Because much of this expertise is embedded with the actors involved in transactions and disputes, the production of expertise has to be supported by adequate incentives for private actors to invest …

Ontology, Epistemology, Axiology: Bases For A Comprehensive Theory Of Law, Eric A. Engle

Eric A. Engle

This article presents a comprehensive theory of law founded on correct ontological, epistemological and axiological bases and proposes that monism materialism and holism will have greater explanatory and predictive power than dualist, atomist and realist International Relations (IR) theory have had. The theory, though focussed on IR theory, is applicable to domestic law as well. Western thought has long been predicated on either an ontological materialism (matter determines mind) or an ontological idealism (eidetic realism: mind determines matter). Normally, the materialist view is also monist (reality is fundamentally unitary), whereas the idealist view is generally presented as dualist (reality is …

200909 Obiter Dicta: Early Advent 2009, Steven Alan Samson

Steven Alan Samson

No abstract provided.

Introduction: Theorising Politics, Cillian Mcbride

Cillian McBride

No abstract provided.

Introduction: Theorising Politics, Cillian Mcbride, Jurgen De Wispelaere, Shane O'Neill

Jurgen De Wispelaere

This is the introduction to a special issue of Irish Political Studies on "Recognition, Equality, Democracy", to appear in December 2007 as a journal and sometime in 2008 as an edited collection published by Taylor & Francis.

Identity, Unity, And The Limits Of Democracy, Cillian Mcbride

Cillian McBride

Can the demos be uncoupled from the ethnos? Can there be a democratic politics of state-boundaries, or are borders a condition of the possibility of democratic politics rather than a possible subject for those politics? The author argues for the decoupling strategy and affirms the possibility of a democratic politics about borders, anchoring the discussion in the politics of Northern Ireland. The argument turns on the analysis of public reasoning. It is argued first that culturalist accounts of self-determination are misconceived and that political institutions, and not cultural identity, make collective self-determination possible. Secondly, that the demos is constituted by …

Liberal Islam And 'Islam And Human Rights': A Sceptic's View, Anthony Chase

Anthony Chase

Liberal Islam has become increasingly prominent in academic discourse with its argument that Islam is the necessary foundation to human rights in the Muslim world. This article argues that this theoretical premise is misguided. Instead of whether or not the rights regime makes sense given political, economic, and social context in Muslim-majority states, in a liberal Islam paradigm the question becomes whether or not there are convincing doctrinal arguments regarding the place of human rights in Islamic law. This accepts, in essence, the need for literalist religious justifications for human rights, making an argument for rights a dispute over religious …

The Childhood Of Human Rights: The Kodak On The Congo, Sharon Sliwinski

Sharon Sliwinski

Boys And Girls "Doing Science" And "Doing Gender", Cleti Cervoni

Cleti Cervoni

An International Law Institution In Crisis: Rethinking Permanent Neutrality, Brian Havel

Brian Havel

No abstract provided.

Jeremy Bentham And Daniel O’Connell: Their Correspondence And Radical Alliance, 1828–31, James E. Crimmins

James E Crimmins

No abstract provided.