Citizenship, Insurrection, And Recognition: European Critical Theory Before The Biopolitical Threshold: Citizenship; Violence And Civility: On The Limits Of Political Philosophy; Recognition Or Disagreement: A Critical Encounter On The Politics Of Freedom, Equality, And Identify, Miguel Vatter

International Dialogue

Étienne Balibar, Jacques Rancière and Axel Honneth are representative figures of a generation of political theorists who stand under the shooting star of May 1968, the high season of insurrectionary politics in the last half century. The books under review offer a welcome opportunity to consider the lessons they draw from this event and its aftermath at the twilight of their careers. However, taken as a whole these books also reveal the limits of this style of radical democratic theory that only in a very approximate way has registered the passing of the baton, which occurred roughly during the same …

The Iranian Metaphysicals, Elise K. Burton

International Dialogue

Anthropologist Alireza Doostdar’s first book, The Iranian Metaphysicals, is a well-written and theoretically sophisticated contribution to scholarship on modern Iranian history and society. Combining vividly portrayed ethnography with archival research and textual analysis, he offers an unprecedented account of Iranians’ experiences with and beliefs about the supernatural. The term ‘metaphysical’ emerges directly from his Iranian interlocutors, who use the Persian equivalents metafiziki or mavara’i to describe paranormal practices and phenomena ranging from sorcery and traditional occult sciences, to spirit possession and séances, to clairvoyance and teleportation. Although many elite Iranians, secularist and orthodox Shi‘i alike, have condemned interest in the …

Hate Speech Law: A Philosophical Examination, Eric A. Heinze

International Dialogue

Alexander Brown writes as an inter-disciplinary scholar at the intersections of law, ethics, philosophy, and politics. With Hate Speech Law: A Philosophical Examination he justly claims to have explored “numerous principled arguments for and against hate speech law by articulating a collection of key normative principles” (316). This ambitious book identifies and organizes conflicting values within the hate speech controversies. It aims to synthesize deeper questions about core concepts of liberalism, democracy, personhood, dignity, and tolerance with policy concerns about pragmatics and effectiveness. The most seasoned free speech scholars will find points and angles they had not previously considered.

Humanity Without Dignity: Moral Equality, Respect, And Human Rights, David Jason Karp

International Dialogue

This book aims to reject theoretical approaches that ground human rights in a notion of dignity, understood in terms of an equal rank, transcendental/spiritual quality and/or human capacity for rational agency. It argues instead that the idea of human rights should be grounded in a fundamental moral right of each person not to be treated as inferior. It defends this argument with reference to a substantive account of what it means to be treated as inferior in the relevant sense—dehumanization, instrumentalization, infantilization, objectification and stigmatization—combined with an account of when and why these are wrong. The book says that they …

Heat, Greed And Human Need: Climate Change, Capitalism And Sustainable Wellbeing, Gillian Brock

International Dialogue

In this wonderful book, Ian Gough shows how we can deal with climate change sensibly, by developing eco-social policy that promotes human wellbeing. The result is a tour de force. Demonstrating sophisticated knowledge of several relevant fields, Gough combines important multidisciplinary insights with his previous groundbreaking research on human needs. The result is a coherent, usable framework that has considerable value in guiding policy discussions. This impressive work is bound to become essential reading for anyone working on policy, climate change and sustainable human well-being.

Famine, Affluence And Morality, Owen G. Mordaunt

International Dialogue

The foreword of this text is significant because Bill and Melinda Gates, co-chairs of The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, make reference to the fact that in more than forty years the world has seen much improvement in curbing poverty. Less than half the world’s population lives in poverty and the proportion of children who die before the age of five has dropped even more. By 1990, it was around 10%, and now it is closer to 5%, even though 5% is still too many when you consider 6.3 million child deaths per year. Most of the deaths, however, are …

The Color Of Modernity: São Paulo And The Making Of Race And Nation In Brazil, Maria S. Arbeláez

International Dialogue

This The Color of Modernity is an outstanding examination of the role of race, regional, and nationalistic ideologies in the creation of modern-day Brazil. Barbara Weinstein focuses on the rise of the mainly white elite of the State of São Paulo as the prominent economic, political, and intellectual leader of the region and the country. The analysis articulates methodical theoretical approaches of cultural studies, discourse analysis, and politics of identity. It investigates the intricacies of how the coffee barons and intellectual Paulistanos managed to construct an image of modernity, entrepreneurship, and success as the paradigm of a new Brazil.What appears …

Heidegger And Jewish Thought: Difficult Others, David A. White

International Dialogue

This work is an anthology of fourteen articles on various aspects of Heidegger’s relation to the Jews and, more abstractly, what it means to be Jewish. The essays are arranged under three headings—Heidegger Thinks the Jews, Heidegger and Jewish Thinkers, Heidegger and Jewish Thought. The work also includes an introduction by Elad Lapidot and, as an appendix, Thomas Sheehan’s bibliography of Heidegger’s works (including English translations as of 2017). Lapidot’s introduction highlights the stimulus for the anthology, the publication of Heidegger’s “so-called Black Notebooks,” notes for the years 1931 to 1948. For Lapidot, “about a dozen passages” contain “strong anti-Jewish …

Notes From The Editor, Rory J. Conces

International Dialogue

Notes from International Dialogue's Editor-in-Chief, Rory J. Conces for Volume 8.

The Life Of The Law In Palestine: The Abc Of The Opt: A Legal Lexicon Of The Israeli Control Over The Occupied Palestinian Territory Orna Ben-Naftali,, John Reynolds

International Dialogue

Through an accumulation of laws rather than by military means, a particular misery is intensified and entrenched. This slow violence, this cold violence, no less than the other kind, ought to be looked at and understood. (Cole 2015: 19) In September 2018, Israel’s Supreme Court confirmed that the planned eviction and demolition of the small West Bank village of Khan al-Ahmar, originally authorized by the Court earlier in the year, should go ahead. The residents of that village are Palestinian Bedouin who had been expelled by the Israeli state in 1952 from their original lands in the

Naqab desert. Six …

Not Enough: Human Rights In An Unequal World, Andrew Fagan

International Dialogue

These are troubling times, in which we appear to be facing an ever-expanding litany of harms and injustices entirely of our own making. Our awareness of these pathological conditions is expressed through various critical perspectives and platforms, which together reinforce a pervasive sense of crisis. We all contribute to the making of our world in a variety of ways. Few of us can claim to possess entirely clean hands when it comes to accounting for how the world could have become so disenchanted and so unpleasant for so many. However, some may wish to claim that the very purity of …

Table Of Contents, Rory J. Conces

International Dialogue

Table of Contents for Volume 8

Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (And Why We Don’T Talk About It), Uğur Aytaç

International Dialogue

The demise of organized labor, the internationalization of capital movements, and technological changes are often believed to contribute to the decline in the bargaining power of employees vis-à-vis their bosses in the age of globalization. According to many, these radical socio-economic transformations are one of the explanatory factors behind the expanding income and wealth inequalities across societies. The emergence of these vast economic inequalities led social scientists to study the nature of these trends and search for possible institutional solutions. Similarly, the normative-philosophical discussions on the contemporary labor-capital relations have predominantly focused on the inequalities of economic resources such as …

Evidence For Hope: Making Human Rights Work In The 21st Century, Brett J. Kyle

International Dialogue

In Evidence for Hope: Making Human Rights Work in the 21st Century, Kathryn Sikkink delivers a timely defense of the promise and progress of human rights movements, ideas, and institutions. Amid a seemingly ever-growing body of scholarship on the shortcomings of human rights, Sikkink contends that the human rights movement has helped to improve the human condition over the long term. As the title promises, there is much we should regard as progress in human rights and reason to be hopeful for the future. Sikkink was motivated to write this book for human rights activists “who say they have lost …

The 2018 Mid-Term Election: Estimated Voter Participation Rates By Race And Age In Arizona, Florida, Georgia And Texas, Laird W. Bergad

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction: The razor thin margins separating the Democratic and Republican candidates for senator and governor in Florida; in the Georgia governor’s race; in the senatorial election in Arizona; and the strong showing by Beto O’Rourke in the senatorial race in Texas, mask the extraordinary problems faced by the Democratic Party as it turns to the presidential election scheduled for November 2020.

Methods: This study highlights these problems by examining the turnout rates by race/ethnicity and age in Arizona, Florida, Georgia and Texas using 2017 IPUMS data with The New York Times and CNN Exit polls for each state.

Results: In …

Has Patronage Lost Its Punch In Malaysia?, Sebastian Carl Dettman, Meredith L. Weiss

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The personalistic linkages that generally define Malaysian politics come into sharp relief when candidates confront the imperative of winning office. Malaysia’s 14th general election (GE14), as other previous iterations, saw politicians emphasize their ‘personal touch’ and offer a barrage of targeted promises. Yet these relationships are not confined to elections and reflect deep connections between voters and politicians – not only for politicians in the long-dominant Barisan Nasional coalition, but also for the newly victorious Pakatan Harapan parties. The authors of this article draw on original survey data to show the embeddedness of these relationships beyond elections. In GE14, the …

All Eyes Will Be On How Heng And His 4g Team Lead Singapore, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In a commentary, SMU Associate Professor of Law Eugene Tan said the choice of Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat as the People’s Action Party’s first assistant secretary-general should not come as a surprise as he was the only fourth-generation (4G) leader to be made a full Minister upon winning his maiden election in 2011, helming the Education Ministry between 2011 and 2015. He opined that Mr Heng’s 4G team will have to stamp their distinctive collective identity and leadership ethos as governance becomes increasingly complex.

Who Is In The “We”? Interrogating The African Union’S Agenda 2063 And Youth Political Participation., Job Shipululo Amupanda J.S

International Journal of African Development

Most analyses of the African Union (AU) focus on the politics of the state and presidents. There are very few analyses that focus on aspects such as youth development. This article departs from that tradition. It argues that although the youth were always part of important historical developments in Africa, they have remained on the periphery. In recent times, particularly since the transformation of the Organization of African Unity into the AU in the 2000s, the youth development agenda has begun to receive attention at the policy level. In 2015, the AU through Agenda 2063 went a step further by …

Indigenous Knowledge And The Development Debate In Africa, Fidelis Ewane, Samson Ajagbe

International Journal of African Development

This research employs Bourdieu’s theory of habitus to explain the disposition of the donor community to integrate indigenous knowledge systems and practices into development projects. The theory’s objectivist perspective specifies the mechanism that links structural conditioning to social practice and regularities. It holds that power is culturally and symbolically created, and it is constantly re-legitimized through the interplay of agency and structure. This facilitates an analysis of the development field as social space characterized by indigenous and donor power relations. It argues that the reinforcement of indigenous knowledge as the main channel for development will generate transferable local capacities and …

Mackinder And The Arctic's Emerging Geopolitics: Recommendations For The U.S. And Its Nato Allies, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

This presentation shows how Halford Mackinder (1861-1947) described Canada and the Arctic region in his geopolitical writings. It goes on to stress how the Arctic is becoming increasingly important in international geopolitical policymaking due to its significant oil and natural gas resources, how warming temperatures are increasing international access to its waters, and the how countries as diverse as Canada, China, Russia, and the U.S. see the Arctic region in their strategic policymaking. It concludes by stressing that the Arctic can no longer be viewed as a region immune from international conflict and presents recommendations for the U.S. and its …

Foreign Aid And Political Stability In Post-Colonial Africa: A Case Study Analysis, Justine Biettron

LSU Master's Theses

Is foreign aid helpful or harmful in African countries? Even though scholars have tried to answer this question for decades, it is still unclear if foreign aid has efficiently helped the African continent to overcome the challenges that arose with the end of Colonization. A priority for the African countries was to reorganize the institutions in order to reestablish autonomous and stable system of governance. An important amount of help for this reconstruction has come from external actors, that have been referred to in the literature as foreign aid. In this paper, I seek to test the relationship between the …

Determinants Of Usaid Spending, Austin J. Moser

Student Research – Stevenson Center

This paper examines the determinants of USAID’s foreign aid disbursements from 2002-2016. Three noteworthy findings emerge. First, USAID foreign aid is based more on political considerations rather than the policies of recipient countries. Second, foreign aid is determined by location and political history. Third, this pattern emerges across all categories of USAID disbursements.

A Nordic Anomaly: Examining The Establishment Of An Anti-Immigrant Party In Sweden, Louise R. Paulsen

Claremont-UC Undergraduate Research Conference on the European Union

This thesis examines the establishment of an anti-immigrant party (AIP) in Sweden. Until recently, Sweden was known as the Nordic anomaly with no AIP in spite of high levels of immigration and high rates of right-wing violence. This has now changed, and the AIP, Sweden Democrats, are rising to popularity in high speed. I examine the causes given for the anomaly up until 2006 and show that a change in these has since created a favorable environment for an AIP to become successful. First, socio-economic cleavages have become less salient through decreasing party loyalty and increasing numbers of party switchers. …

Table Of Contents

Claremont-UC Undergraduate Research Conference on the European Union

No abstract provided.

Foreword, Corey Tazzara

Claremont-UC Undergraduate Research Conference on the European Union

No abstract provided.

Restrictions On Expression As A Counter-Terror Policy In The United States And France: Divergence By Design Or Curious Convergence?, Filip G. Bozinovic

Claremont-UC Undergraduate Research Conference on the European Union

This paper explores how restrictions on expression – a dimension of US and French counterterror policy – are realized given the socio-political and legal-procedural differences between the two countries. Theoretically, the US – with its strong constitutional free speech protections and its tradition of limited government – should respond less aggressively than France, which has a more flexible constitution and a statist tradition. This paper contends that while France restricts terror-related expression to a greater degree than the US, the US possesses more tools to counter terror-related expression than its constitution suggests. The primary explanation for less forceful US action …

Historical Resistance Movements And Modern Euroscepticism, Kamil D. Lungu

Claremont-UC Undergraduate Research Conference on the European Union

This study explores the relationship between historical resistance and their relationship to modern-day Euroscepticism. It can be seen that within the European Union, the political orientation of Eurosceptic parties differs, with some political orientations being more popular in some parts of the continent compared to others—Eastern European states tend to have right-wing parties, while many Southern European states having left-wing parties. The author suggests that this is a result of the orientation of the resistance movements to the state’s historic authoritarian regime. Case studies were conducted on Spain and Poland—two EU with similar sized area, population, and economies—looking at their …

Brexit: The Causes And The Consequences, Hannah E. Day

Claremont-UC Undergraduate Research Conference on the European Union

This argumentative paper addresses the question, why did the British public vote to leave the European Union in the June 2016 referendum? “Brexit” captivated the attention of countless scholars, journalists and political leaders, as most of the world was shocked that the “Leave” campaign, spearheaded by the UK Independence Party, ultimately won out over the “Remain” campaign. Since the Brexit vote, debates have arisen, as perplexed outsiders attempt to discern the factors that contributed to 51.9% of referendum participants voting to leave the EU. I examine two dominant causes of the Brexit vote: first, the pervasiveness of anti-immigration rhetoric and …

“Tribal Trenches”: A Qualitative Critique Of Consociational Design In Northern Ireland, Sarah Hollmann

Claremont-UC Undergraduate Research Conference on the European Union

How does consociational power sharing impact ethnic divisions in Northern Ireland? Though those in the consociationalist school would claim that the lack of active political violence in Northern Ireland is a powerful argument in favor of consociationalism; I argue that active violence has been replaced by increasing political polarization and ethno-national tensions. Using data gathered from twenty-four semi-structured interviews in Northern Ireland, this project critiques the hypothesis that ethnic divisions lose their salience after the implementation of consociational power-sharing agreements after ethno-nationalist conflict. Despite the growing literature on the long-term effects of consociationalism, scholars have largely focused on quantitative methods, …

Paradoxes Of Gender Equality Policies And Domestic Working Conditions In Madrid, Zabdi J. Salazar

Claremont-UC Undergraduate Research Conference on the European Union

Madrid has experienced a significant integration of Latin American immigrant women in its domestic service labor market since 2005. The general sentiment among Madrileños is that the phenomenon benefits both Spanish working mothers and immigrant women. We explored the Spanish government’s goals of gender equality and some of the realities of domestic working conditions. Subsequently, we asked the question: Do gender equality policies of Madrid’s local government exclude and marginalize Latin American immigrant women in the domestic service sector or to what extent do they benefit such women? Through survey data, personal interviews with Latin American women in the domestic …