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Professor Dr. Karl-Otto Apel, Emeritus für Philosophie an der Goethe-Universität, ist am 15. Mai 2017 im Alter von 95 Jahren an seinem Wohnort in Niedernhausen im Taunus gestorben. Er war einer der wichtigsten Philosophen seiner Zeit und hat die Philosophie in Deutschland und weit darüber hinaus nachhaltig geprägt.
Am Donnerstag, dem 26.01.17, beschloss der Deutsche Bundestag, wie schon im letzten Jahr, eine Ausweitung des Bundeswehreinsatzes im Rahmen der UN-Mission MINUSMA in Mali. Die maximale Anzahl der in und um Gao im Norden Malis eingesetzten Soldatinnen und Soldaten wird von bisher 650 auf 1000 erhöht, da Deutschland zukünftig auch die Bereitstellung von Kampf- und Rettungshubschraubern für MINUSMA übernimmt. Damit wird der Einsatz in Mali zum Größten der Bundeswehr. Der Befehlshaber des Einsatzführungskommandos hat das Gefährdungspotenzial schon im vergangenen Jahr mit der ISAF-Mission in Afghanistan verglichen und in keinem anderen UN-Einsatz sind im letzten Jahr mehr Soldaten getötet worden.
Die Entsendung weiterer Soldatinnen und Soldaten vom Deutschen Bundestag in einen Einsatz, in dem sie erheblichen Gefahren für Leib und Leben ausgesetzt sind, erfordert eine umfangreiche Begründung durch die politisch Verantwortlichen und eine kritische Würdigung durch die Zivilgesellschaft.
Vor einem Monat haben sich mehr als zwei Millionen Katalanen für die Unabhängigkeit der Region von Spanien ausgesprochen. Auch wenn das Referendum für illegal erklärt wurde und weniger als die Hälfte der Katalanen teilnahmen, verraten uns die Ergebnisse einiges über die Stärke der Unabhängigkeitsbewegung. Dieser Beitrag untersucht, wie ein mögliches legales Referendum mit höherer Wahlbeteiligung ausgehen könnte. Auch wenn die rechtlichen Rahmenbedingungen ein solches Referendum nicht vorsehen, unterstützen laut aktueller Umfragen auch eine Mehrheit der Spanier diesen Weg der Konfliktlösung.
Am Ende ging es dann doch recht fix. Hatte der Islamische Staat (IS) noch im März 2017 fast die Hälfte des Territoriums in Syrien unter seiner Kontrolle, ist das Möchtegern-Kalifat mittlerweile so gut wie von der Landkarte getilgt. Das heißt zwar nicht, dass er als Terrororganisation keine Rolle in dem Land mehr spielen wird. Doch als maßgeblicher Bürgerkriegsakteur mit territorialer Basis dürfte der IS weitestgehend aus dem Spiel genommen sein. Das macht diesen verworrenen Bürgerkrieg zunächst einmal ein wenig übersichtlicher. Andererseits wird damit aber auch der Vorhang für das nächste Kapitel geöffnet, das neue Wirrungen verspricht. Denn schließlich waren wegen des Kampfes gegen den IS einige Konfliktlinien erkaltet. Diese könnten nun wieder heiß werden. Allerdings lässt sich aufgrund der vielschichtigen Konstellationen nur schwer einschätzen, welche Dynamiken daraus erwachsen dürften. Der folgende Beitrag soll daher einen Überblick über die vergangenen und neuesten Entwicklungen im Syrischen Bürgerkrieg geben, um zumindest den Ist-Stand ermessen zu können. Die Anfertigung eines solchen Panoramas ist jedoch, zugegeben, eine kleine Herausforderung. Denn aufgrund der zahlreichen Konfliktparteien und multiplen Fronten sind die Entwicklungen derart konfus, dass sie sich nicht so einfach chronologisch zusammenfassen lassen. Der Beitrag stellt daher die jeweiligen Akteursgruppen und Allianzen dar und versucht, deren (ambivalenten) Verhältnisse untereinander zu sortieren und aufzuschlüsseln.
This is a brief in the bEUcitizen policy brief series. The bEUcitizen project - funded by the European Union - set out to identify, investigate, discuss, and ameliorate the barriers to the active use of rights (and knowledge of duties, the concomitant to rights, in so far as there are any) by European citizens. The project aimed to provide a comparative overview and classification of the various barriers to the exercise of the rights and obligations of European Union citizens in the member states. Simultaneously, the project analysed whether and how such barriers can be overcome and the future opportunities and challenges the European Union and its member states face to further develop the idea and reality of European Union citizenship.
Drawing on research conducted during the project, this policy brief discusses the problems preventing European Union citizens from becoming active political citizens. European citizenship as active political citizenship has been underdeveloped from the start and is currently under strong pressure. Over time, European Union citizens seem to have lost enthusiasm for the European political process: Voter turnout in European Parliament elections decreased from 61,99% in 1979 to 42,61% in 2014. Attempts to transform elections for the European Parliament into a meaningful decision about the policies and the personnel of European institutions have been ineffective so far in two ways: On the one hand, they did not raise more interest in European affairs; on the other hand, and even more problematically, the "Spitzenkandidaten"-experiment was overshadowed by the power struggle between national leaders and the European Parliament.
Although similar tendencies towards decreasing voter turnout can be observed in national elections, the trend of fading popular support is particularly alarming at the European Union level. It threatens to undermine the legitimacy and functionality of the European Union, thus jeopardizing the entire integration process. Institutions without support cannot last. The European Union provokes a rather negative political reaction among its citizens and populist activism is challenging its policies and the integration process more broadly. The Brexit decision expresses this problem in an ideal-typical form: Europe-friendly citizens do not use their right to vote while anti-European activism brings citizens to the ballot box. Concerned with this passivity as well as with the activism mobilised by anti-European populism, Europe-friendly observers and actors see a major opportunity for the European Union to strengthen the European Parliament as the core institution of a European representative democracy.
In recent years, Ontological Security Theory (OST) has been established as a new theory in the field of International Relations. The theory seeks to explain state behavior, and offers a new perspective on the security dilemma and the persistence of conflicts. It has proven itself helpful in explaining seemingly irrational state behavior such as an aggressive foreign policy by weak states or the provision of humanitarian aid by powerful nations. OST further allows scholars to analyze norm-violating behavior of states, for instance the use of torture at the hands of Americans in the War on Terror. If you have not engaged with the theory before, you might want to learn about its core arguments as well as its potential and limitations in the following. For those who know the theory well, let me show you how the theory was key to gaining new insights in my research.
Warum werden Frauen Terroristinnen? Wider eine stereotype Betrachtung des weiblichen Terrorismus
(2017)
Punk-Band Frontfrau, Ex-Katholikin, Kosmetikverkäuferin – für die meisten klingt das nicht nach der Biographie einer der aktivsten Anhängerinnen des sogenannten Islamischen Staates (IS). Und doch: Bis Sally Jones jüngst bei einem US-Drohnenangriff ums Leben gekommen ist, war die Britin für mehr als vier Jahre das weibliche Gesicht des IS. Die Geschichte von Jones wirft eine grundlegende Frage auf: Wieso werden Frauen Terroristinnen? Ein Blick auf das breite Spektrum und die Geschichte des weiblichen Terrorismus zeigt, dass Terroristinnen weder neu noch selten, weder vor allem Opfer noch rein persönlich motiviert sind. Wenn an solchen Stereotypen festgehalten wird, steht dies nicht nur einer umfassenden Analyse der Gründe, sondern auch der Prävention von weiblichem Terrorismus im Wege.
Sally Jones Tod im Juni wurde erst vor Kurzem bekannt, und eine letztgültige Bestätigung steht noch aus – genauso wie die Antwort auf die Frage, ob der Drohnenangriff legal war, da angeblich auch ihr 12-jähriger Sohn getötet wurde. So wie Sally Jones möglicherweise posthum als erstes explizit weibliches Ziel eines solchen Angriffs Prominenz erlangen könnte, gibt ihre Person der regelmäßig wiederkehrenden öffentlichen wie wissenschaftlichen Diskussion über die Gründe für weiblichen Terrorismus neue Nahrung. In dieser Debatte sind Antworten auf die Frage, ob Frauen „auch“ Terroristinnen sein können, inzwischen zu einem Dickicht aus Stereotypen und Fantasien mutiert. Wird Religion – vulgo Islam – dieser Mischung hinzugefügt, begibt sich die Diskussion oft vollends auf Abwege. Von den vielen Argumenten, die dabei angeführt werden, halten sich drei mit besonderer Vehemenz: Weiblicher Terrorismus sei erstens ein neues und seltenes Phänomen; Frauen seien zweitens in der Regel Opfer; und drittens hätten Terroristinnen – im Gegensatz zu ihren männlichen Counterparts – in der Regel persönliche Motive. Die beiden ersten Argumente sind schlicht falsch und das dritte greift entschieden zu kurz. Es lohnt also, ein paar Breschen in das Dickicht zu schlagen...
Not unlike the recent report Filling the ranks on the recruitment problems of the British Army shows for the UK, the German armed forces (Bundeswehr) struggle badly to meet their recruitment goals and to fulfill the “Trendwende Personal” (the turnaround in the personnel strength) as proclaimed by the German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen. Last year the recruitment department of the Bundeswehr tried a new way of targeting especially young people on YouTube. With a series of 59 episodes called Die Rekruten (The Recruits) YouTube users followed a couple of German Navy recruits through their basic training at the German Navy Technical School.
The series was widely criticised for not showing the serious implications of military service. Two weeks ago, the new series MALI on the deployment of German forces with the United Nations mission MINUSMA in Mali started as a sequel. But does the new series give a realistic impression of the challenges and risks of being a German soldier today and why should this be a requirement for a YouTube series?
In the Global South, private corporations and development aid programs are widely implementing information and communication technology (ICT). Stakeholders export infrastructure (including satellites, drones, and white spaces technology) as well as mobile and internet services (mobile money services, zero-rating), following the proclaimed goal to close the global digital divide. They particularly target under-connected regions in Africa, as Africa shows the lowest levels of internet connectivity (cf. International Telecommunications Union 2017). According to companies and development aid programs, these digitalization efforts in the Global South are key to development and security. However, an ethical perspective points to concerns about the practice of digitalization in the Global South. One central concern is that certain values are inscribed in ICT, and that they may be indirectly implemented through technology in the importing countries. Thus, the export of ICT by Western companies and development aid programs to the Global South may have a "neo-colonial" character. This raises ethical questions about global justice...
"Es scheint normal, dass Frauen Opfer und Männer Täter sind" (Schwithal 2004:1). Permanent wird der akute Schutzbedarf von Frauen breitflächig thematisiert. Die Medien liefern täglich erschütterndes Material von Frauen, die Gewalt erfahren. In diesem Fall sind Hilfs- und Beratungsangebote leicht zu finden, Frauenhäuser sind in der breiten Masse der Bevölkerung bekannt und sensible Handlungsleitfäden für Betroffene und Angehörige liegen in Arztpraxen oder Supermärkten aus. Gegenstand ist überwiegend häusliche Gewalt1 - die Gewalt welche hinter verschlossenen Türen und von der Öffentlichkeit abgeschnitten geschieht und der Frauen hilflos ausgeliefert sind. TV-Spots, die Opfer dazu aufrufen nicht länger in der missbräuchlichen Situation zu verharren, richten sich ausschließlich an Frauen. Der quälende, schreiende und schmerzverursachende Mann – oft nur als dunkler Schatten, geballte Faust oder bedrohliche Stimme dargestellt – verharrt in der Täterrolle. ...
On the 28th of July, a 26 year old man, Ahmad A. launched a knife attack in a supermarket in the Barmbek area of Hamburg, wounding four people and killing one. He fled the scene of the attack before being forcefully apprehended by some bystanders. The attacker, a rejected asylum seeker, was understood by the police to have been recently religiously radicalised. Hamburg’s Interior Minister Andy Grote explained that he was known to the police as an “Islamist but not a jihadist” and was suspected of having psychological problems. Prosecutors have asserted that he had no known connections with any organized radical network or group and that he had planned on dying as a martyr...
Atheism remains one of the most extreme taboos in Saudi Arabia. It is a red line that no one can cross. Atheists in Saudi Arabia have been suffering from imprisonment, maginalisation, slander, ostracisation and even execution. Indeed, atheists in Saudi are considered terrorists. Efforts for normalisation between those who believe and those who don’t remain bleak in the kingdom.
Despite constant warnings of Saudi religious authorities of “the danger of atheism”, which is, according to them, “equal to disbelieving in God”, many citizens in the kingdom are turning their back on Islam. Perhaps inter alia the Saudi dehumanising strict laws in the name of Islam, easy access to information and mass communication are the primary driving forces pushing Saudis to leave religion. Unfortunately, those who explicitly do, find themselves harshly punished or forced to live dual lives.
Ransomware wie WannaCry und Petya/NotPetya versetzten weltweit Unternehmen in Sorge und verursachen erheblichen Schaden. Dabei sind sie nur der sichtbare Teil einer unzureichenden Sicherheitskultur, die dringend ein Update benötigt.
Ransomware, auch Kryptotrojaner genannt, sind kein neues Phänomen, sondern die zunehmend sichtbare Begleiterscheinung kollektiver IT-Unsicherheit. Die Ransomware WannaCry infizierte Mitte Mai weltweit mindestens 220.000 Windows Rechner. Dabei verschaffte sich der Trojaner Zugang zu den Dateien der Computer und verschlüsseln diese um eine Lösegeldzahlung zu erpressen. Dies war möglich über die als EternalBlue bekannte Lücke, die seit dem Betriebssystem Windwos XP auftrat und erst in diesem Jahr im Februar durch Microsoft geschlossen wurde. EternalBlue war für eine unbekannte Zeit in den Händen der NSA bis sie Anfang dieses Jahres durch eine Hackergruppe namens Shadow Brokers von der NSA „gestohlen“ und veröffentlicht wurde. Und obwohl Microsoft eiligst einen Patch veröffentlichte, offenbarten die bisher folgenreichsten bekannte Kryptowurm das Dilemma, in dem sich die Cyber-Sicherheitskultur aktuell befindet: Es ist eine Kultur des Schweigens, die dazu führt, dass das Sammeln und der Missbrauch von Sicherheitslücken gefördert statt verhindert wird....
Digitale Technologien und ihre vielfältige Nutzung verändern normative Ordnungen auf politischer, rechtlicher und gesellschaftlicher Ebene. Das Internet bietet neue gesellschaftliche Räume, die soziale Interaktion strukturieren. Diese sind jedoch nur halb-öffentliche Räume, in denen die Dienstleistungsanbieter mit Verweis auf ihre AGBs die Möglichkeit haben, etwa politische Äußerungen zu zensieren oder gar zu löschen. Darüber hinaus kooperieren manche private Unternehmen auch mit Staaten in der Strafverfolgung, und treffen Entscheidungen darüber welche Daten sie weitergeben. Welche Normen stoßen im Rahmen der Digitalisierung aufeinander und inwieweit sollten und könnten diese per Gesetz reguliert werden? Können die Grundrechte der Nutzer/innen noch umfassend gewährleistet werden? Mit diesen hochaktuellen Fragen befasste sich am 06. und 07. Juli die interdisziplinäre Konferenz “Normative Orders of the Digital“ am Exzellenzcluster Normative Ordnungen der Goethe-Universität Frankfurt.
Threat perceptions is a popular topic among scholars of international relations, yet the focus is oftentimes how two states perceive and misperceive threats (Robert Jervis, David Singer among others). Threats are generally understood as potential harm directed against the territorial integrity or the political regime of the states in question or both. Wandering on the borders of the mainstream realist theory and the rational choice theory – popular since when behavioralism entered into IR literature in the 1960s – and the constructivism of the reflectivist era (Wendt), the topic has been made a subject of study through such several different conceptual lenses but mostly on an international/state level of analysis a la Waltz...
This paper analyses economic power, state power and ideological power in the age of Donald Trump with the help of critical theory. It applies the critical theory approaches of thinkers such as Franz Neumann, Theodor W. Adorno and Erich Fromm. It analyses changes of US capitalism that have together with political anxiety and demagoguery brought about the rise of Donald Trump. This article draws attention to the importance of state theory for understanding Trump and the changes of politics that his rule may bring about. It is in this context important to see the complexity of the state, including the dynamic relationship between the state and the economy, the state and citizens, intra-state relations, inter-state relations, semiotic representations of and by the state, and ideology. Trumpism and its potential impacts are theorised along these dimensions. The ideology of Trump (Trumpology) has played an important role not just in his business and brand strategies, but also in his political rise. The (pseudo-)critical mainstream media have helped making Trump and Trumpology by providing platforms for populist spectacles that sell as news and attract audiences. By Trump making news in the media, the media make Trump. An empirical analysis of Trump’s rhetoric and the elimination discourses in his NBC show The Apprentice underpins the analysis of Trumpology. The combination of Trump’s actual power and Trump as spectacle, showman and brand makes his government’s concrete policies fairly unpredictable. An important question that arises is what social scientists’ role should be in the conjuncture that the world is experiencing.
"European" interventions
(2017)
The paper will outline a research project – its goals and methods – that focuses on what 1) makes humans flee from their home, land and country, at the risk of losing their lives, 2) seek refuge in another place, 3) what individual assessments they made before, during and after flight, and 4) how they assess the question of return to their countries/places of origin when the original causes of their flight – e.g. civil unrest, civil strife or civil war – are not any more directly present in the country or place from which they fled...
nvestor-state-dispute-settlement (ISDS) is an arbitration mechanism to settle disputes between foreign investors and host-states. Seemingly a technical issue in private international law, ISDS procedures have recently become a matter of public concern and the target of political resistance, due to the power they grant to foreign investors in matters of public policies in the countries they invest in. This article examines the practice of ISDS through the lenses of liberal-statist theories of international justice, which value self-determination. It argues that the investor-state arbitration system illustrates how liberal-statist theories of international distributive justice ought to care about relative socioeconomic disadvantage, contra the sufficiency principle that they typically defend. The sufficiency principle draws on a questionable conception of the freedom that self-determination consists in.
Donald Trump’s foreign policy agenda has been characterized as unpredictable, unprecedented and – after a telling neologism of the president himself – unpresidented. In this blog post I will argue that the constituent parts of Trump’s foreign policy are all but new. What is new is their combination. Moreover, while Trump’s Jeffersonianism-Jacksonianism stands in stark contrast to the Wilsonianism-Hamiltonianism that Hillary Clinton embraced during her election campaign, it is only a partial departure from Barack Obama’s Jeffersonianism-Hamiltonianism.
Rezension inside islam
(2017)
Women’s protection has been largely discussed in conflict and gender scholarship and promoted as a key priority for governments, NGOs and international community. However, when critically analysed, the meaning of protection in conflict settings and the understanding of who should provide protection in emergencies, conflict and complex humanitarian crisis remain ambiguous. In long-term conflict settings for example, it is unclear whose role it is to protect civilians...
Die Wahl des US Präsidenten Donald Trump im November 2016 brachte der Welt politische sowie wirtschaftliche Unsicherheiten. Diese wurden durch seine Ankündigung verstärkt, eine Regierung mit der Zielsetzung "America First" zu formen und radikale Veränderungen in der US Innen- und Außenpolitik durchzusetzen.
Der populistische und isolationistische Ansatz des US Präsidenten Trump (speziell während seines Wahlkampfs) führte auf beiden Seiten des Atlantiks zu politischen Schlussfolgerungen und Kommentaren von Experten, dass die Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika ihre Position an der Spitze der globalen Politik aufgeben würden. Dieselben Experten fanden in Deutschland das Land, welches nach Ihrer Meinung, die Voraussetzung mit sich bringt und, nicht minder wichtig, sich auch dazu bereit erklärt, die industrielle und liberaldemokratische Welt in das 21. Jahrhundert zu führen.
Deutschland und seine Kanzlerin Merkel stellen sich dieser neuen Rolle enthusiastisch gegenüber. Auf einer Wahlveranstaltung in München am 28. Mai diesen Jahres erklärte Merkel: "Die Zeiten, in denen wir uns auf andere völlig verlassen konnten, die sind ein Stück vorbei." Zu Zeiten des Brexits und der Wahl Trumps zum US Präsidenten sagt sie: "Wir Europäer müssen unser Schicksal wirklich in unsere eigene Hand nehmen." Aus ihrer Sicht können Europa und der Rest der Welt nicht mehr auf die USA oder Großbritannien zählen wie sie es vor der Trump- und Brexit-Ära taten. Die transatlantischen Bündnisse, um gemeinsamen Wohlstand und Sicherheit zu gewährleisten, sieht Merkel nicht mehr als zuverlässig an...
The paper assesses current rising reparations claims for the Maafa/ Maangamizi (‘African holocaust,’ comprising transatlantic slavery, colonialism and neo-colonialism) from two angles. First, it explores the connectivity of reparations and global justice, peace and security. Second, it discusses how the claim is justified in international law. The concept of reparations in international law is also explored, revealing that reparations cannot be limited to financial compensation due to the nature of the damage and international law prescriptions. Comprehensive reparations based in international law require the removal of structures built on centuries of illegal acts and aggression, in the forms of transatlantic slavery, colonialism and neo-colonialism. Reparations must also lead to the restitution of sovereignty to African and indigenous peoples globally. They are indispensable to halt the destruction of the earth as human habitat, caused by the violent European cultural, political, socio-economic system known as apitalism that is rooted in transatlantic slavery.
From reparations for slavery to international racial justice: a critical republican perspective
(2017)
This paper focuses on demands for reparations for colonial slavery and their public reception in France. It argues that this bottom-up, context-sensitive approach to theorising reparations enables us to formulate a critical republican theory of international racial justice. It contrasts the critical republican perspective on reparations with a nation-state centred approach in which reparations activists are accused of threatening the French republic’s sense of homogeneity and unity, thus undermining the national narrative on the French identity. It also rejects the liberal egalitarian perspective, which itself rejects reparations in favour of focusing on present disadvantages. In so doing, this paper illustrates how the notion of non-domination offers a superior way of conceptualising global racial injustices compared to more traditional distributive outlooks.
If Third World women form ‘the bedrock of a certain kind of global exploitation of labour,’ as Chandra Mohanty argues, how can our theoretical definitions of exploitation account for this? This paper argues that liberal theories of exploitation are insufficiently structural and that Marxian accounts are structural but are insufficiently intersectional. What we need is a structural and intersectional definition of exploitation in order to correctly identify global structural exploitation. Drawing on feminist, critical race/post-colonial and post-Fordist critiques of the Marxist definition and the intersectional accounts of Maria Mies and Iris Marion Young, this paper offers the following definition of structural exploitation: structural exploitation refers to the forced transfer of the productive powers of groups positioned as socially inferior to the advantage of groups positioned as socially superior. Global structural exploitation is a form of global injustice because it is a form of oppression.
Many theories of global distributive justice are based on the assumption that all humans hold common ownership of the earth. As the earth is finite and our actions interconnect, we need a system of justice that regulates the potential appropriation of the common earth to ensure fairness. According to these theories, imposing limits and distributive obligations on private and public property arrangements may be the best mechanism for governing common ownership. We present a critique of the assumption that this issue can be solved within the private–public property regime, arguing that the boundaries of this regime should not be taken for granted and that the growing literature on the democratic commons movement suggests how this can be accomplished. We consider that, if the earth is defined as a common, the private– public property paradigm must be open to questioning, and democratic commoners’ activities should be considered.
All cosmopolitan approaches to global distributive justice are premised on the idea that humans are the primary units of moral concern. In this paper, I argue that neither relational nor non-relational cosmopolitans can unquestioningly assume the moral primacy of humans. Furthermore, I argue that, by their own lights, cosmopolitans must extend the scope of justice to most, if not all, nonhuman animals. To demonstrate that cosmopolitans cannot simply ‘add nonhuman animals and stir,’ I examine the cosmopolitan position developed by Martha Nussbaum in Frontiers of Justice. I argue that while Nussbaum explicitly includes nonhuman animals within the scope of justice, her account is marked by an unjustifiable anthropocentric bias. I ultimately conclude that we must radically reconceptualise the primary unit of cosmopolitan moral concern to encompass most, if not all, sentient animals.
A growing number of defense-industrial 3D printing fairs, print-a-thons and the amount of defense dollars, particularly in the US, going into the technology of 3D printing speak to the fact that the defense industry and some countries’ armed forces recognize the great potential of the technology. 3D printing indeed allows the quicker, cheaper, and easier development of weapons, and even entirely new weapon designs. This applies to the full range of weapons categories: Small arms and light weapons (e.g. guns, guns, guns and grenade launchers), conventional weapon systems (drones, tanks, missiles, hypersonic scramjets) – and possibly even weapons of mass destruction.
Online reading behavior can be regarded as a "new" form of cultural capital in today’s digital world. However, it is unclear whether "traditional" mechanisms of cultural and social reproduction are also found in this domain, and whether they manifest uniformly across countries at different stages of development. This article analyzes whether the early home literacy environment has an impact on informational online reading behavior among adolescents and whether this association varies between countries with different levels of digitalization and educational expansion. Data from the 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) were used for the empirical analyses. The results of regression models with country-fixed effects indicate a positive association between literacy activities in early childhood and informational online reading at age 15. This association was quite stable across countries. These findings are discussed in light of cultural and social reproduction theory and digital divide research.
How do coalition governments affect the risk of civil war onset in ethnically divided societies? Existing research argues that power-sharing coalitions decrease the risk of civil war because they redress grievances. Building on a formal model of coalition formation, we predict that ethnic elites are most likely to form oversized rather than minimum-winning coalitions in anticipation of future challenges to the regime. Put differently, we expect most power-sharing to occur where the risk of regime-threatening civil war is highest...
This year’s conference of the AFK (German Association for Peace and Conflict Studies) and the European Peace Research Association (EuPRA) is on "Peace and Conflict Studies from the Margins to the Centre; Rethinking Europe in an Unequal World" (16 – 18 March 2017 in Schwerte (nearby Dortmund), Germany).
The virtual realm of the internet is often seen as an egalitarian world where differences such as those between young and established researchers do not seem so significant. While we do not fully agree with this thesis, we want to use this blog to make a model attempt at providing a platform in which those participating in the conference and others can enter discussion with young students, established researchers, and peace activists.
To make this possible, we started a project in cooperation with the Bretterblog – a young team of researchers who established this blog some years ago. Here we will discuss the topics of the conference and will inform a broader audience about the newest results in peace and conflict research from different countries.
Das Yin und Yang des Terrors
(2017)
Man stelle sich folgendes Szenario vor: Björn Höcke und Abū Bakr al-Baġdādī diskutieren bei Sandra Maischberger darüber, welche Konsequenzen Deutschland aus dem islamistischen Terrorismus ziehen sollte – und sie sind sich dabei einig.
Die Fiktion mag hanebüchen klingen. Nicht nur, weil der Möchtegern-Kalif des „Islamischen Staats“ (IS) unter keinen Umständen als Gast einer deutschen Talkshow in Erscheinung treten könnte – oder auch nur wollte. Sondern auch, weil der Möchtegern-Goebbels aus Thüringen sich stets als ritterlicher Gegner der Islamisten präsentiert, deren Denken und Handeln völlig unvereinbar sei mit dem Willen des hiesigen Volkes, den die Rechtspopulisten zu repräsentieren meinen. Gleicht man allerdings die (migrations-)politischen Willensbekundungen, die AFD und Co. als Antwort auf den islamistischen Terror bieten, ab mit den politischen Reaktionen, die sich der IS von Anschlägen in Europa erhofft, fällt es schwer, hier einen Widerspruch zu sehen. Vielmehr lässt ein solcher Abgleich die deutschen – und auch europäischen – Rechtspopulisten, für die Höcke hier stellvertretend steht, fast schon als heimliche Partner des IS erscheinen, deren Absichten sich bestens mit den Vorstellungen der IS-Strategen ergänzen.
Damit ist ein dialektisches Problem angesprochen, das dem Umgang mit dem Terrorismus stets inhärent ist. Immerhin gehört es zu den Binsenweisheiten der Konfliktforschung, dass terroristische Akteure Reaktionen provozieren wollen, die ihnen neue Handlungsmöglichkeiten eröffnen. Und dies wiederum verweist darauf, dass Politiker und Sicherheitsbehörden, aber auch die Medien dabei (ungewollt) zu Erfüllungsgehilfen werden können, wenn deren Reflexe dem terroristischen Kalkül entsprechen. Die Dynamik des Terrors speist sich eben nicht nur aus den Aktionen der Terroristen, sondern auch aus dem Verhalten ihrer Antagonisten und der Öffentlichkeit. Um jene Dynamik zu verstehen, reicht daher der Blick auf terroristische Strategien keineswegs aus. Vielmehr ist deren Effekt von den Reaktionen relationaler Akteure abhängig. Wer also dem Terrorismus das Wasser abgraben will, der muss – so paradox das klingt – auch Vorsicht gegenüber denen walten lassen, die Anstoß an ihm nehmen.
Diese Prämisse eröffnet eine kritische Perspektive auf Formen des Anti-Terrorismus. Denn demnach können Versuche, dem Terror die Stirn zu bieten, unbeabsichtigte (Neben-)Folgen mit sich bringen, welche die Dynamik des Terrors verstärken. Derartige backfire mechanisms sind es, die in diesem Beitrag problematisiert werden. Jedoch widmet er sich nicht der staatlichen Antiterrorpolitik, sondern erörtert, inwiefern das Zusammenspiel von Medien und Rechtspopulismus zur aktuellen Dynamik des islamistischen Terrorismus beiträgt. Diese Frage stellt sich vor dem Hintergrund, dass die jüngsten Anschläge in Europa eine virtuelle Form des Terrorismus darstellen, wo häufig Einzelpersonen im Namen des IS agieren, aber kaum bis gar nicht im Kontakt mit der Organisation standen. Es scheint daher die Vermutung nicht abwegig, dass co-konstitutive Faktoren – wie die Berichterstattung über den Terror und anti-muslimische Diskurse – eine nicht unbedeutende Rolle bei deren Radikalisierung und Aktivierung spielen.
The paper introduces the socio-anthropological concept of international representations to examine the relationship between a civilizational rhetoric, the West European and the international politics of otherization and containment of Southeast Europe, and an essentialist and timeless bias in international relations theory, including both radical and constructivist trends...
Much of today’s conflicts and challenges, globally and locally, can be in part attributed to or are influenced by the hegemony of Western over non-Western cultures and politics. Long-standing and still reproduced Western dominance and power are directed at the protection of own interests, thereby re-creating power imbalances, inequalities and practices of exclusion...
The study I would like to present concerns ethnically mixed borderland communities caught in a trap of competing national narratives spread from the surrounding states. I conduct an ethnographic research on a rare contemporary case of peaceful co-living of Armenian and Azerbaijani communities, which takes place in rural areas of Georgia’s southern borderland...
The overall aim of my work is to contribute to a future theory of epistemic violence – thereby enabling us to gain a better understanding of the various forms of direct, physical violence which are usually analysed within peace studies, IR, political theory and related fields. My perspective starts from transdisciplinary peace studies, is concerned with the sociology of knowledge, and informed by post- and de-colonial theory as well as by feminist critique and political theory...
AFK-EUPRA – 13 : feminist interventionism, postcolonial critique and non-western feminist approaches
(2017)
For feminists, reflexivity has always meant more than a methodological tool...
When is a crisis a crisis?
(2017)
Consensus modality : accommodating parties and containing overt violence in Nepal’s peace process
(2017)
Throughout this decade, most of the literatures in social sciences on Nepal contain Maoist Armed Conflict (1996-2006) in its introduction part. The country is in constant political turmoil even after the Comprehensive Peace Accord of 2006 between Government of Nepal and then rebel force. Since the peace agreement, Nepalese society has observed diverse socio-political tensions in different forms and become fragile society. Nepal is exerting a growing concern on international politics because of the complication in the peace process of ensuring sustainable peace, stability and economic progress. The implications for peace, stability and economic development in fragile countries present a challenge to the international community (In Grävingholt et al, 2013). Political culture and social structure are empirically related to political stability (Lijphart, 1969: 208). So we cannot separate our social and cultural context with the idea of stability...
International mediation has traditionally been understood as an instrument aimed at getting political representatives to agree on a negotiated settlement. However, in cases where referendums were required for ratification, peace agreements have been rejected bythe people. This paper uncovers how mediators can help political leaders reach agreementsthat are supported by the people they represent by comparing the Annan Plan and Good Friday Agreement (GFA) mediations and referendums in Cyprus and Northern Ireland, respectively...
Who is Ângkar? The nature of authority and responsibility under the Khmer Rouge Forme cadres of the Khmer Rouge today still speak of Ângkar, the organisation of the Khmer Rouge, with the utmost respect and subservience. Unlike in other genocidal regimes in which state actors played an important role, such as the NSDAP and SS in the Holocaust or Ittihad in the Ottoman genocide of the Armenians, Ângkar cannot be reduced merely to the name of the party organisation of the Khmer Rouge. Although Ângkar is a concept known to all in Cambodia and remains synonymous with absolute authority and the necessity for unwavering obedience, there is a broad variety of perspectives when trying to state who or what Ângkar actually is...
The critical debates of liberal peace are grounded in a "paradox of liberalism" (Sabaratnam 2013): Western liberalism is criticized as oppressive, colonial and bellicose, but also implicitly relied on as the source of emancipation. This has not rejected in a rejection of liberal interventionism, but rather in demands for more cultural sensitivity, more local participation or an efficient control to save the idea of liberal peace...
When Donald Trump arrived to power, many experts were concerned regarding his ideas on U.S. nuclear weapons. Particular attention was paid to his tweet about strengthening the U.S. nuclear arsenal after 25 years of the consistent WMD-disarmament under "The Cooperative Threat Reduction Program" (aka "Nunn-Lugar Program" an array of START treaties). In that preiod, U.S. and Russia removed more than 8,000 warheads and elements of the nuclear triad – submarines, ICBMs and long-range bombers. Now, experts worry that Trump’s aspirations will bury the U.S.-Russian nuclear cooperation aimed at global security...
Security, arms control, disarmament and confidence building measures in the Baltic sea region
(2017)
Taking into consideration the stalemete of all disarmament negotiations as well as the worsening situation in the Baltic Sea region, I would like to present another paper as well, discussing the security trends in the Baltic Sea region and the potential of confidence building measures in this region as well as to discuss in this context the prospects of arms control and disarmament in general as well as specifically in Europeparticularly in the Baltic Sea region...
Die Wahlen über den Verbleib Großbritanniens in der EU haben die europäische Ordnung erschüttert. Der Vortrag/Die Präsentation soll nicht nur die Hintergründe beleuchten, sondern auch zeigen, welche Chancen die neue Situation eröffnet, Chancen, die es vorher so nicht gegeben hat...
The post-liberal debate on peacebuilding and reconciliation seems to have advanced. We observe efforts “bringing the local back in” (Debiel/Rink 2016) by enhancing local ownership, relational sensitivity, contextualization, culturalization, hybridity and last but not least resilience. Concepts furthermore try to integrate transnational dynamics, international power shifts and trends of regionalization. However, many questions remain: for scholars, for practitioners and last but not least for the local population...
The refugee and migration crisis has contributed to promote and consolidate new practices. The NGOs’ SAR Operations represent a new aspect of the humanitarian new normal phenomenon which is here analysed to deepen the existing knowledge about the response of the state, the citizens and the organised civil society to the crisis. The paper, which is based on an expert survey research conducted by researchers of the University of Catania, contends that Europeans overwhelmingly perceive irregular migrants as a threat...
Exodus Eritrea
(2017)