Millennium - Journal of International Studies current issue

'Sorry for the Genocide': How Public Apologies Can Help Promote National Reconciliation

Andrieu, K. — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 06:23:42 PDT

The aim of this article is to defend the politics of official apologies as part of a liberal conception of state and society. To acknowledge this is to defend a subjective conception of state legitimacy, not solely based on its objective efficiency but also on the meaning that citizens give to it and their belief in its legitimacy. I will argue that official apologies for past wrongs can be an essential component of this belief, and help building or rebuilding civic trust in the aftermath of mass atrocity. The acknowledgment of a wrongdoing, the acceptance of one's responsibility, and the expression of sorrow and regret for it can therefore appear as a reliable way to promote national reconciliation. I will show that in order to understand how pure words can provoke such an important shift, we need to `unfold' the meaning of an apology and to review our conception of reconciliation itself. Only if we consider reconciliation as the achievement of trust can apologies become part of the reconstruction process of post-conflict societies. I will draw upon a Habermassian conception of discursive solidarity to show that, rightly understood and formulated, apologies, as a form of dialogue, could become an essential norm-affirming and community-binding measure in the aftermath of mass atrocities, one compatible with a liberal project of transitional justice.

'A Fresh Crop of Human Misery': Representations of Bosnian 'War Babies' in the Global Print Media, 1991--2006

Carpenter, R. C. — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 06:23:42 PDT

During the war in the former Yugoslavia, women of all ethnic backgrounds were raped and many gave birth to children as a result of this violence. Although numerous journalists wrote about the pregnancies and the babies during the war, almost no attention has been paid to these children as such by human rights organisations during or since. Given the purported agenda-setting role of the global media in drawing attention to new human rights problems, this case represents an interesting puzzle and a site for exploring the interrelationship between gendered, nationalist and rights-based frames in the global media's representations of atrocity. This article explores how these representations both figured in gendered constructions of genocide and negatively affected the prospects of human rights attention to the children in their own right.

Capacity and its Fallacies: International State Building as State Transformation

Hameiri, S. — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 06:23:42 PDT

Considerable effort in recent years has gone into rebuilding fragile states. However, the debates over the effectiveness of such state-building exercises have tended to neglect that capacity building and the associated good governance programmes which comprise contemporary state building are essentially about transforming the state — meaning the ways in which political power is produced and reproduced. State capacity is now often presented as the missing link required for generating positive development outcomes and security. However, rather than being an objective and technical measure, capacity building constitutes a political and ideological mechanism for operationalising projects of state transnationalisation. The need to question prevailing notions of state capacity has become apparent in light of the failure of many state-building programmes. Such programmes have proven difficult to implement, and implementation has rarely achieved the expected development turnarounds or alleviation of violent conflict in those countries. In this article it is argued that, to identify the potential trajectories of such interventions, we must understand the role state building currently plays in domestic politics, and in particular, the ways in which processes of state transformation affect the development of different and often conflicting power bases within the state. This argument is examined using examples from the Australian-led Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands.

Sovereign-less Subject and the Possibility of Resistance

Zevnik, A. — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 06:23:42 PDT

This article explores exclusionary practices of contemporary politics and alternative forms of resistance. It starts off explaining how Giorgio Agamben's theory can be understood in the context of resistance. In so doing, it turns to the arguments put forward by Edkins and Pin-Fat. In their article `Through the Wire', they identify two forms of resistance. Drawing on Agamben's thought: refusal and the assumption of bare life. This article argues that these two forms are not sufficient for thinking resistance. This is so because of a gap in Agamben's thought and the way Edkins and Pin-Fat read him. In order to explore resistance in a more fruitful way, the article critiques Edkins and Pin-Fat's conclusions on the understanding bare life as a form of resistance; it amends Agamben's account by explaining the move from bare life to whatever being, and ultimately, the article finds whatever being as a fruitful way of understanding resistance on the example of Tiananmen. At the end I conclude that the Tiananmen protest successfully challenged the sovereign power from the position of in-between.

Still on the Long Road to Theory

Little, R. — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 06:23:42 PDT

This review endeavours to identify the essential features of Lebow's attempt in A Cultural Theory of International Relations to provide a new grand theory of international relations. Lebow's starting point is that all existing grand theories in the field are fundamentally flawed because they operate on the basis of one-dimensional and oversimplified views of human motivation. He is particularly critical of interest-based theories of international relations, and his aim is to establish a conception of the human psyche that will allow him to introduce a cultural or social dimension to human motivation, and it is on this basis that he then endeavours to generate a cultural theory of international relations.

A Fanonian Critique of Lebow's A Cultural Theory of International Relations

Shilliam, R. — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 06:23:42 PDT

Ned Lebow's new project is not so much a cultural theory of international relations as an affective praxis of modernity. Lebow seeks to elucidate the psychical drivers of intersubjective identity formation that dynamically constitute status hierarchies in societies. And through this understanding Lebow holds that present-day possibilities of structural transformations in international relations might be clearly guided by practical reason. In what follows I mount a sympathetic critique of Lebow's affective praxis based upon its effective circumscription of psychical life to elite European men. Lebow pays hardly any attention to the psychic drivers of colonisation and decolonisation as felt by the colonised. Using the work of Frantz Fanon, I shall suggest that shifting the focus to the colonial and post-colonial world brings to light a set of considerations on the psychic sources of affect in modernity that remain obfuscated when the European elite man is conflated as the modern subject.

Culture, Change and the Meaning of History: Reflections on Richard Lebow's New Theory of International Relations

Osiander, A. — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 06:23:42 PDT

In my critique of Richard Lebow's new A Cultural Theory of International Relations I highlight a lack of sensitivity to the problem of structural change. Contrary to Lebow's claim to be more attuned to change than existing IR theory, I contend that his exclusive focus on the recurrence of certain behavioural patterns in the course of history is insufficient as a foundation for a new grand theory. Interesting as it may be, this focus is restrictive even with regard to the concept of culture on which it is based. Thus, religion and ideology, which surely must be classified as cultural phenomena, are virtually ignored. Last but not least, I fault the book for its cavalier, indeed often cartoonish, treatment of the historical record. The book falls far short of the `sympathetic reliving' of the past that it promises; the argument is, moreover, seriously impaired by the myriad factual mistakes that the book contains.

Culture and International Relations: The Culture of International Relations

Lebow, R. N. — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 06:23:42 PDT

In a response to my critics I further elaborate some of the concepts central to A Cultural Theory of International Relations. I explain why it is a cultural theory, as distinct from a theory of culture; the different levels of reason conceptualised by the Greeks and their utility in moving our thinking beyond the exclusive focus on instrumental rationality of modern social science; and Aristotle's concept of anger and its implications for the behaviour of the weak and the powerful. I justify my case selection and its Western bias, but defend the universality of my theory and its non-hegemonic application to the study of other cultures.

List of Books Reviewed

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 06:23:42 PDT

Book Review: General International Relations: Jean-Marc Coicaud and Nicholas J. Wheeler (eds), National Interest and International Solidarity: Particular and Universal Ethics in International Life (Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 2008, 317 pp., US$36.00 pbk)

Betti, A. — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 06:23:42 PDT

Book Review: Richard J. Samuels, Securing Japan: Tokyo's Grand Strategy and the Future of East Asia (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2007, 296 pp., US $29.95/{pound}14.95 hbk)

Manicom, J. — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 06:23:42 PDT

Book Review: Bahar Rumelili, Constructing Regional Community and Order in Europe and Southeast Asia (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007, 192 pp., {pound}45 hbk)

Guillaume, X. — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 06:23:42 PDT

Book Review: Robert Dover, Europeanization of British Defence Policy (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007, 190 pp., {pound}55.00 hbk)

McCourt, D. M. — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 06:23:42 PDT

Book Review: Simon Chesterman and Chia Lehnardt (eds), From Mercenaries to Markets: The Rise and Regulation of Private Military Companies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007, 287 pp., {pound}61.75 hbk)

Dinev Ivanov, I. — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 06:23:42 PDT

Book Review: Madeleine Fagan, Ludovic Glorieux, Indira Hasimbegovic and Marie Suetsugu (eds), Derrida: Negotiating the Legacy (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007, 246 pp., {pound}18.99 pbk, {pound}55.00 hbk)

Halas, M. — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 06:23:42 PDT

Book Review: William E. Connolly, Democracy, Pluralism and Political Theory edited by Samuel A. Chambers and Terrell Carver (Oxon: Routledge, 2008, 335 pp., {pound}21.99, pbk): Elizabeth Deeds Ermarth (ed.), Rewriting Democracy: Cultural Politics in Postmodernity (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007, 148 pp., {pound}55.00 hbk)

Mallick, S. — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 06:23:42 PDT

Book Review: Conflict and Peace Studies: Saleem H. Ali (ed.), Peace Parks: Conservation and Conflict Resolution (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2007, 406 pp., {pound}18.95 pbk)

Glaesel Frontani, H. — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 06:23:42 PDT

Book Review: Ruth Deyermond, Security and Sovereignty in the Former Soviet Union (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2008, 234 pp., US$55.00 hbk)

Kavalski, E. — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 06:23:42 PDT

Book Review: David Keen, Complex Emergencies (Cambridge: Polity, 2008, 221 pp., {pound}15.99 pbk)

Kirby, P. — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 06:23:42 PDT

Book Review: Gender and Human Rights: Jane L. Parpart and Marysia Zalewski (eds), Rethinking the Man Question: Sex, Gender and Violence in International Relations (London: Zed Books, 2008, 211 pp., {pound}18.99 pbk). Shirin M. Rai and Georgina Waylen (eds), Global Governance: Feminist Perspectives (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, 308 pp., {pound}20.99 pbk)

Manjikian, M. — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 06:23:42 PDT

Book Review: Governments and Theories of Governance: Markus Kornprobst, Vincent Pouliot, Nisha Shah and Ruben Zaiotti (eds), Metaphors in Globalization. Mirrors, Magicians and Mutinies (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, 304 pp., {pound}52.25 hbk)

Helmig, J. — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 06:23:42 PDT

Book Review: Anisseh Van Engeland and Rachael M. Rudolph, From Terrorism to Politics (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008, 230 pp., {pound}55.00 hbk)

Burke, F. — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 06:23:42 PDT

Book Review: Raffaele Marchetti, Global Democracy: For and Against. Ethical Theory, Institutional Design and Social Struggles (London and New York: Routledge, 2008, 212 pp, {pound}65.00 hbk)

Patomaki, H. — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 06:23:42 PDT

Book Review: James Bohman, Democracy Across Borders: From Demos to Demoi (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2007, 219 pp., {pound}21.95 hbk)

Shisheva, M. — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 06:23:42 PDT

Book Review: William E. DeMars, NGOs and Transnational Networks: Wild Cards in World Politics (London and Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto Press, 2005, 250 pp., {pound}24.00 pbk, {pound}75.00 hbk)

Gotz, N. — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 06:23:42 PDT

Book Review: Volker Heins, Nongovernmental Organizations in International Society: Struggles over Recognition (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, 211 pp, {pound}42.50 hbk)

Greenhill, B. — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 06:23:42 PDT

Book Review: International History: Leigh A. Payne, Unsettling Accounts: Neither Truth nor Reconciliation in Confessions of State Violence (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008, 374 pp., {pound}13.99 pbk). Maja Zehfuss, Wounds of Memory: The Politics of War in Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007, 294 pp., {pound}50.00 hbk)

Hutchison, E. — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 06:23:42 PDT

Book Review: International Political Economy: David A. Deese, World Trade Politics. Power, Principles and Leadership (Oxon and New York: Routledge, 2008, 224 pp., {pound}21.99 pbk)

Erhard Wehner, L. — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 06:23:42 PDT

Book Review: Religion and Politics: Angel Rabasa, Cheryl Benard, Lowell H. Schwartz and Peter Sickle, Building Moderate Muslim Networks (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2007, 216 pp., US$30.00 pbk)

Bryn Roberts, D. — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 06:23:42 PDT