“BITE ME” GOT IT RIGHT
“Bite me” is the dismissive nickname that General McChrystal’s staff officers gave Vice President Joseph Biden, admittedly a frequent subject of mockery in the US because of his many gaffs and his desperate attempts to regain a long lost youthful appearance via hair plugs, facelifts and the like.
The untidy dystopias of anti-terrorism: Italian State Secrets, CIA Covert Operations, and the Criminal law in the Abu Omar Judgment
Glimpses of post-9/11 anti-terrorism machinery are not particularly edifying, whatever one’s views. The real solution to terrorism is more rule of law, not less.
Secularism and Religion in Modern Democracies
I want to draw attention to a key point that is frequently overlooked—that, in the context of modern pluralism, we must now regard secularism as one of those worldviews that plays a quite significant role in the direction and nature of the modern state. And, further, once we do this, our whole understanding of the role of religion in the modern state is transformed as well.
What the End of Civil War Means for Sri Lanka, and Why it Should Matter to the Rest of the World
Five years before Hezbollah, ten years before Al Qaeda and Hamas, and 15 years before the Taliban, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam was founded in northern Sri Lanka in 1976, beginning life as one of many militias fighting for Tamil independence from the predominantly Sinhalese Sri Lanka
The ICJ and Kosovo’s Declaration of Independence: Anything Resolved?
I always tell my students, when sitting an exam, that they have to answer the question that has been set rather than one that they feel comfortable with. No analogy is ever perfect, but this one sums up pretty neatly the outcome of the deliberations by the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
Capitalism 4.0
The recent financial crisis marked the fourth systemic transformation of the global capitalist system, comparable to the upheavals that followed the great inflation of the 1970s, the great depression of the 1930s and the period of geopolitical turmoil that culminated with Wellington’s victory over Napoleon in 1815. The new politico-economic system emerging from the crisis can therefore be described as the fourth distinctive version of capitalism: Capitalism 4.0.
Global Governance and Geoengineering
The potential “experiments” imagined in the geoengineering literature will be overtly designed to alter the climate. By contrast, the carbon buildup experienced this past century was the unintended byproduct of energy production. Obviously, very difficult (but interesting) global politics problems are associated with both pathways.
John Gray and the idea of progress
The political thought of John Gray offers an unflinching vision of the world, a world divided by refractory ways of life, stressed by the looming conflicts over natural resources and scorched by irreversible patterns of global warming. Gray’s vision of the world is none too cheerful, and prescribed throughout his numerous analyses of today’s most pressing problems is a sobering dose of realism. Gray has repeatedly emphasized that many of our greatest problems are incurable and that the best we can hope to achieve is to minimise their symptoms
The advocacy politics of NGOs: shaping society to respond to climate change
In his seminal article The Tragedy of the Commons, Garret Hardin described a dilemma whereby individuals, acting independently and in rational pursuit of their own self-interest, will ultimately destroy shared, limited resources, even when it is accepted that this is not in anyone’s long-term interests. Today, climate campaigners see this unfolding before their eyes. But what does it mean for the study of advocacy politics?
Framing climate change
At my home institution, I’m involved in a project to reduce carbon emissions via individual behavioral changes. A relatively small group of scholars and administrators have been looking at some interesting theoretical and empirical social science research to bolster our efforts.
