Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 4 of 4
Full-Text Articles in International Relations
The Right Side Of The Coin: Focus On The Human Rights Of People, Not The Failure Of States, Brooke Ackerly
The Right Side Of The Coin: Focus On The Human Rights Of People, Not The Failure Of States, Brooke Ackerly
Human Rights & Human Welfare
US policy toward failed states should focus on strengthening civil society and social movements so that people are better able to hold their leaders accountable.
The language of “failed states” disassociates foreign policy from international dialogue about human rights. Instead, “failed states” is a contemporary sound bite that connotes a lack of sovereignty, suggesting that intervention would not violate national sovereignty because in a failed state, there is none. Of course, we could have a similar cynicism about the use of human rights concerns to justify invasion. Certainly, states have tried to choose when to reference international human rights norms …
August Roundtable: Re-Thinking State Failure And Human Rights, Introduction, Claudia Fuentes
August Roundtable: Re-Thinking State Failure And Human Rights, Introduction, Claudia Fuentes
Human Rights & Human Welfare
An annotation of:
“Think Again, Failed States ”. By James Traub. Foreign Policy. July/August 2011.
More Questions, Few Answers On State Failure And Human Rights, Edzia Carvalho
More Questions, Few Answers On State Failure And Human Rights, Edzia Carvalho
Human Rights & Human Welfare
The Foreign Policy article under review brings us back to the issues addressed in April's Roundtable, which looked at humanitarian intervention in light of widespread political violence in the Ivory Coast. Much of that discussion centered on the factors that lead states to adopt policies aimed at stopping egregious human rights abuses from being committed in other jurisdictions, either by state agents or non-state actors. This month's Roundtable discussion highlights the myths attached to the concept of “state failure,” which increases the likelihood of such violations occurring. The author of this month's centerpiece, James Traub, comments on a number of …
Immobilizing Conceptual Debates, Jonas Claes
Immobilizing Conceptual Debates, Jonas Claes
Human Rights & Human Welfare
In “Think Again: Failed States,” James Traub argues that “state failure” is a failed concept. Prioritizing efforts to prevent or address state fragility, weakness, or failure may seem impractical given the conceptual breadth of this systemic challenge. Like globalization, human security, or climate change, state failure contains so many aspects that it becomes analytically useless. But the need to rethink this garbage-can concept—everything can be thrown in—does not keep us from addressing the litany of well-understood challenges subsumed within.