International Relations Commons^™

Dictablanda: Politics, Work And Culture In Mexico, 1938–1968, Maria S. Arbeláez

International Dialogue

Dictablanda is a volume of essays examining three main forms of power in post-revolutionary Mexico: political, cultural, and material power. That is, the scope of powers that rose-up and matured between 1938 and 1968. The study is located at mid-twentieth century when the revolutionary effervescence fizzled out and conservative-reactionary politics matured. These thirty years are considered the heyday of the authoritarian rule of the one party regime led by the Partido Revolucionario Institutional (PRI). In the following review, I only cover some of the chapters of the compilation. An all-inclusive assessment would have been too extensive and would have left …

The Crisis Of The European Union: A Response, Barry Stocker

International Dialogue

A Crisis of the European Union contains the essay “The Crisis of the European Union in Light of a Constitutionalisation of International Law—An Essay on the Constitution for Europe,” the second essay “The Concept of Human Dignity and the Realistic Utopia of Human Rights,” and an appendix “The Europe of the Federal Republic.” The first essay is itself divided into three sections: “Why Europe is Now More than Ever a Constitutional Project”; “The European Union Must Decide between Transnational Democracy and Post-Democratic Executive Federalism,” and “From the International to the Cosmopolitan Community.” The second of these sections is itself divided …

Making Human Rights A Reality, Debra L. Delaet

International Dialogue

Emilie Hafner-Burton’s Making Human Rights a Reality offers an accessible and informed analysis of the significant gap between the normative universalism of international human rights law and its limited effects in practice. The book’s primary purpose is to offer a pragmatic, strategic alternative to global legalism for promoting the progressive realization of fundamental human rights. In Hafner-Burton’s view, the cause of human rights promotion would be better-served by relying on states with strong human rights records (both in terms of respecting rights at home and commitment to promoting them abroad) to use foreign policy as a tool for changing the …

Africa In World Politics: Engaging A Changing Global Order, Manfred Wogugu

International Dialogue

The issue of central concern for the editors and contributing authors of this book is whether Africa’s emergence on the world political scene will usher in the enabling environment for sustainable broad-spectrum development in the political, socio-economic, cultural and environmental spheres. The authors also make an attempt to address the issue of economic growth for the region. The underlying assumption is that the spread of economic growth to all countries in the continent, if it prevails, will reduce poverty and inequality and ultimately improve the quality of life for Africans. Against the backdrop of the global economic and political order …

The Effects Of Globalization In Latin America, Africa, And Asia: A Global South Perspective, Clark Capshaw

International Dialogue

Kema Irogbe’s study of the effects of globalization on Latin America, Africa, and Asia, is an informative and interesting read, but, unfortunately, it also suffers from many flaws, most of which derive from information and arguments outside the scope of the subject of globalization and its effects.

Living In Denial: Climate Change, Emotions, And Everyday Life, Eloise Harding

International Dialogue

The “denial” which is Norgaard’s focus is not the climate change denial (which may be more accurately described as scepticism) which we hear from right-wing politicians: in particular, her participants have no interest in deceiving others, but many motivations to deceive themselves. The residents of “Bygdaby,” a pseudonym for a real Norwegian community, are at the front line of climate change—many of their local industries depend on snow and ice, of which the supply has steadily declined—and they are aware of its impact. However, while registering the effect on activities such as skiing and ice fishing, these residents effect not …

Jewsandwords, Leonard J. Greenspoon

International Dialogue

Can you tell much about a book from its cover? The design of the cover to this volume would lead any attentive reader to an affirmative response. Look at the title, JewsandWords. These letters, without any space separating them into words, recall ancient manuscripts, where the niceties of word division were often sacrificed to allow more writing per (expensive) page. Admittedly, ancient Hebrew manuscripts also dismissed with written vowels, but there’s only so much we modern readers can do without. And then there’s “Jews,” not “Judaism.” For the authors, Jews, flesh-and-blood people, preceded Judaism as a concept and remain the …

Figures In History, Antonia Von Schöning

International Dialogue

The latest publication by the much discussed and broadly received French philosopher Jacques Rancière is actually not that new. Figures of History compiles two essays, “The Unforgettable” and “Senses and Figures of History,” which were written on the occasion of the exhibition Face à l’histoire at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris in 1996. The first text discusses several documentary films that were shown in a program accompanying the exhibition. The second part is an account on history painting in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries written as a catalogue piece. In both essays, Rancière introduces the idea of an age …

Nationalism And The Rule Of Law: Lessons From The Balkans And Beyond, Joseph L. Derdzinski

International Dialogue

The “classic” debate in contemporary comparative politics is over what matters more in shaping political behavior: culture or institutions. The clear answer is that both are important, it’s just that their relative import depends to a large degree on contextual, temporal factors. Iavor Rangelov seeks to straddle—or bridge?—the two theoretical orientations, demonstrating the iterative lives between institutions and society. Rangelov addresses the eternal (or, at least, for the past couple of decades) question: do institutions really matter in emerging democracies? Or, do other intrinsic factors determine democracy’s course? Privileging the rule of law, Rangelov, through three cases from the Balkans, …

Islamism And Islam, Dale Stover

International Dialogue

This book offers a concerted effort to provide a comprehensive and unmistakable definition for Islamism, whereas the other term in the title, Islam, is simply what is traditional or classical or taken for granted since little attention is given to defining it. The author lays out six features he considers to be characteristic elements of those contemporary Muslim movements associated with extremist beliefs and behaviors. A separate chapter is devoted to each of these six features of Islamism. They are described by the author in the preface as “its deeply reactionary vision of the world political order, its embrace of …

Comradely Greetings: The Prison Letters Of Nadya And Slavoj, David S. Moon

International Dialogue

In October 2012, Nadezhda (Nadya) Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina, both members of the punk-protest group Pussy Riot, were sent to separate Russian penal colonies, charged in relation to an anti-Putin performance in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour the previous February. During her time in the Mordovian Penal Colony No. 14— and briefly afterwards—Tolokonnikova engaged in the exchange of letters with philosopher Slavoj Žižek collected in Comradely Greetings, alongside Tolokonnikova’s open letter that details her harrowing experience in the camp and announced her hunger strike, just under a year into her sentence. The richness of Žižek and Tolokonnikova’s correspondences—and the …

Policing Democracy: Overcoming Obstacles To Citizen Security In Latin America, Pablo Policzer

International Dialogue

Latin America is more democratic today than in the recent past, yet in places also far more violent. Parts of the region suffer the world’s highest crime rates, and a widespread sense of insecurity fuels calls for tougher policing. Understanding the origins of this problem, and suggesting ways out of it, is Mark Ungar’s aim in this ambitious and insightful book.

Global Gender Issues In The New Millennium, Mary Ann Powell

International Dialogue

Global Gender Issues in the New Millennium is a valuable resource for understanding how gender and gendered processes are broadly influential in our global world. Runyan and Peterson provide clear explanations of terminology needed to participate in meaningful conversations about gender, and they make a strong case for examining the world through a gendered-lens.

International Labour Organization (Ilo) And Broader Civil Society: An Uneasy Relationship?, Piyasiri Wickramasekara

PIYASIRI WICKRAMASEKARA

This powerpoint presentation discusses the interactions between the International Labour Organization (ILO) and broader civil society. There is integration of non-governmental social partners in the identity of the Organization itself – Employers’ and Workers’ Organizations in view of ILO’s focus on labour. However, ILO maintains that … “... employers’ and workers’ organizations are distinct from other civil society groups in that they represent the actors of the “real economy” and draw their legitimacy from their membership” This leads to reduced scope for ILO interaction with broader civil society described as non-governmental organizations or civil society organizations. While there is provision …

The Battle For Jerusalem: Marcel Dubois' Challenge To Roman Catholics, Israeli Jews, And Christian Zionists, Curtis Hutt

International Dialogue

For several decades, the face of Christian Zionism in Jerusalem was not the International Christian Embassy or John Hagee’s Christians United for Israel but a French/Israeli Professor of Philosophy at the Hebrew University—the Dominican priest, Fr. Marcel-Jacques Dubois. In this paper, Dubois’ once influential form of Christian Zionism is discussed. While few today outside of Israel and Rome are familiar with his brand of non-premillenial dispensationalist Christian Zionism, I will lay out the persuasive relevance and challenge of his work for those making claims on Jerusalem today.

Democratic Statecraft: Political Realism And Popular Power, John R. Wallach

International Dialogue

This book presents itself as a critique of the idealist strand of democratic theory, via a theory of “democratic statecraft” that relies on “realism,” “pragmatism,” and “skepticism,” rather than “idealism, “moralism,” or “utopianism” for first principles. In order to make his case, the author generates a “composite portrait” of this concept, drawing interesting and idiosyncratically on relatively unknown political thinkers, movies, and selective readings of major figures in the history of Western political thought, theory, and events—for example, Athenian democracy and Aristotle, Bartholomew’s Day, Machiavelli, Traiano Boccalini, Herbert Traubeneck, James Weaver, and The Mission.

Absolute Recoil: Towards A New Foundation Of Dialectical Materialism, Robert Sinnerbrink

International Dialogue

Slavoj Žižek continues his idiosyncratic critique of global capitalism, democratic culture, and neoliberal ideology in his latest 400+ page tome, Absolute Recoil: Towards a New Foundation of dialectical Materialism, which promises to provide, much like his Less than Nothing: Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism (Verso, 2012), a resolutely idealist “new foundation” for dialectical materialism. This is a promise that Žižek has made for some years now, since what we might call his “system” turn became manifest in the publication of a series of major books (In Defense of Lost Causes [Verso, 2008]; Living in the End Times, Less …

Taking Sino-Singapore Ties To A New Level, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

With China’s President Xi Jinping’s first State visit to Singapore last weekend, there is no doubt that the establishment of an “all round partnership” is catalytic in taking Sino-Singapore bilateral ties to a new level.

The Un, Regional Sanctions And Africa, Andrea Charron, Clara Portela

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Africa is the continent most targeted by sanctions. During the Cold War, when the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) was all but paralysed, the only sanctions regimes that the UN imposed were directed at countries located on the African continent: Southern Rhodesia and South Africa, penalized for their apartheid regimes. In the post-Cold War era, Africa has continued to register the highest frequency of sanctions, applied not only by the UN but by other organizations as well. Africa’s own regional bodies, such as the African Union (AU) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), are active in wielding …

Mechanisms And Policies Of Global Technology Transfer For Clean-Energy, Kyle S. Herman

Dr. Kyle S. Herman