Search

Modern liberal citizenship is a failing design, and this is nowhere more apparent than in the contemporary US. Currently there is a frenzy around US citizenship â€" who has it but shouldn’t have it, who should have it but doesn’t have it, who had it but renounced it. The sheer volume of ideas, images, and events and their mass circulation makes it almost impossible not to notice how unsettled and unsettling contemporary US citizenship has become. If, as designer Bruce Mau suggests, the success of a design is its invisibility, then it seems that the design of contemporary US citizenship is anything but a success (Mau, 2004:1). Taking seriously the claim that modern liberal citizenship is a failing design, I focus on how citizenship is designed and redesigned through history. My central research question is â€" What are the design principles of modern liberal citizenship, and how are they experienced in the contemporary US? Noting that modern liberal citizenship emerged from state security debates and that security concerns preoccupy those in the contemporary US, I investigate not only how citizenship is designed but how safe citizenship is designed. As such, I am less concerned with the legal definition of citizenship than with the practical packaging of citizenship as part of a design for safe living. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers an overview of the evolution of IR theory as an essentially Western, especially American social science. It highlights the historical and philosophical underpinnings of IRT, its close nexus with the Western state-system and Western political thought. It then looks at the marginal place of Asians political experience and philosophical traditions in IR theory and examines the reasons for this. Finally the paper explores the different ways in which greater integration of Asian into IRT can be accomplished. It addresses much the same issues as are outlined in the panel proposal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Part 1: The paper discusses the transformation of liberalism after September 11 and the development of practices of liberalism inside European societies. It proposes an alternative view to the vision of unilateralism or of Empire that most analysts are exploring. It aims to show the role of the different transnational networks of security professionals, their impact on politicians and the consequences of the shift of technologies of surveillance regarding civil liberties by proposing to combine Agamben and Foucault works with the notion of Ban Opticon. Part 2: The paper will analyze the changing relationship between new security challenges and the way new technologies transform the practice of war. The history and emerging relationship between practices of security and the principles of the democratic public sphere will also be explored. An analysis will be developed of the means and methods of threat assessment and the vulnerability of critical infrastructures, most notably the specific cases of telecommunication networks, water systems, nuclear plants, cyberspace and knowledge-based experts networks, the commercial privatisation of technologies of surveillance and control. To explore the security policies and warfare strategies that result from the security environment of a globalised world, which make Western, societies ‘risk societies’. Part 3: The tragic terrorist attacks of September 11 seem to have made all political actors aware that each home security policy is ensured at the global level, or that it was not ensured at all. The natural democratic solidarity against terrorism becomes a rhetoric common place. Not a question. Why and how the question of democracy have been bent to new times rather than questioned? Our main objective in this paper is to underline how the question of terrorism going beyond the national borders which requires mutual assistance and mutual co-operation is a symbolic, political and identity issue. The core of our intention will be thus to show how the antiterrorist fight in Europe is initially dominated by the problems of the recognition of each other Member State as an inter pares member of this whole Europe of democracies. Under this angle, the co-operation understood as a hyperbolic discourse of always more, never enough, structured on the official history of an initial deficit of the European security is then the point of conversion of the national characteristics into a common identity. In other words, the progressive installation of ad hoc European institutions envisaged according to the principle of coordination of the police and legal efforts produced a network of exchanges which ensures the circulation of significance and strong collective identity representations. Even if the fight against terrorism and by extension against organized crime is carried out by a large number of police, intelligence and judicial actors, they all are involved in the same global (re)definition of the European identity. In fact, it is because there is a complex web of different national cultures, practices in order to fight against terrorism, that according each other around a single discourse is a real political opportunity. But does this political identity construction is really stable? The different national positions after the 9.11 events seem to have turned the historical European collective identity process upside down and the democratic solidarity is everything but an embattled narrative between an us and them distinction process. In other words, by dismounting these official processes of historicization which make of the European co-operation a reality born of the dialogue around a necessary solidarity of the European States vis-à-vis to the terrorist threat, and to deal with the different discourses after the 9.11 attacks, it is rather a question of showing how the co-operation is a requirement for a political and diplomatic legibility between countries and actors of Europe. A Europe which offers the insurance of a collective common and reassuring identity: the democracy for everyone. Regarding the democratic European and national discourses after 9.11, we will answer to the question of the (re)definition of the democratic European identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the question how the application of the ICC's ordering principles of complementarity and moral accountability will impact the composition of what Rawls has called ´decent hierarchical societies´. In answering this question, I propose that Rawls's minimalist threshold of justice explains the social obstacles of (state) cooperation regarding the ICC and establishes an important starting point for evaluating its evolving dynamics. Rawls's "Law of Peoples" thus moves us beyond a strictly realpolitik interpretation of the ICC - which reflects the pessimism underlying the ICC's enforcement powers or its future efficacy. It does so by offering us an important means of balancing the ICC's universal morality against state politics and the challenges posed by the lack of a reliable (global) enforcement mechanism. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Criticizing US neglect of Latin America has become a popular exercise in US journals and newspapers. Indeed, when reviewing the recent political crises throughout the region as well as the ‘turn to the left’ that has taken place at least in South America, US actions and reactions may seem erratic or entirely ignorant. By analyzing the US role during recent political turbulences in South America, the paper takes issue with this attempt to explain US behavior by simply pointing towards some general stance of neglect. In contrast, it is argued that the complex processes of crisis, continuity and change in South America imply contradictory incentives and limits to a US government that frames its activities as guided by the democratic ideal and yet cannot renounce its specific national preferences in the name of democracy’s intrinsic value. The frame constituted by democratic rhetoric appears as, at the same time, constraining and enabling US policies towards South America: While the dual goal ‘democracy promotion and protection’ clearly constrains the range of justifiable (re-) actions, its normative indecisiveness opens important margins for the pursuit of particularistic prefer-ences. When taking into account the concrete settings in the different ‘target’ countries, US actions, reactions and inactions can be explained quite well without assuming some general inattention that proves overly simplifying. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Realist IR scholars have become increasingly committed to the canons of positivist social science. Contemporary realist theorizing largely presupposes a strict separation of subject and object, emphasizing ?theory testing? and ?prediction? as touchstones of social science. For example, Stephen Walt noted with satisfaction that security studies (which ?fits comfortably within the realist paradigm?) ?adopted the norms and objectives of social science,? including the development of theories and ?the testing [of} their predictions against a scientifically selected body of evidence.? And John Mearsheimer urged scholars to ?use their theories to make predictions about the future . . . The world can be used as a laboratory to decide which theories best explain international politics.? If the world is a laboratory, it is incumbent upon realist theorists to detach themselves from the political events anticipated by their theories in the same manner that, say, a chemist avoids intervening in the experimental processes underway in his lab. In practice, however, realist IR scholars often intervene in political reality. They consult national security agencies, whisper in the ears of decision makers, write op-ed pieces, give interviews, and sign petitions in an attempt to influence policy and shape political events. For example, in recent months realists of all stripes have engaged in an overt political campaign against U.S. policy in Iraq. In their actual practices, then, realist scholars attempt to construct and re-construct political reality without realizing that the very act of their political intervention subverts the neat subject-object separation presupposed by their theories. By abandoning positivist presuppositions and drawing instead on constructivist approaches that regard purpose and analysis as ?part and parcel of a single process? (E. H. Carr), realists could greatly reduce the dissonance between their epistemological principles and their actual practices. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]