Eyal Weizman’s comprehensive account of the techniques of expansion and oppression deployed by the Israeli forces in the Occupied Territories provides a thorough and graphic exposé of a whole range of colonizing methods. In this essay I attempt to highlight a selection of Weizman’s observations and relate them to the arguments of Yiftachel and an updated understanding of Foucauldian population geography by Legg.
In order to guide democracy development efforts in the Middle East, Western policymakers must be guided by a realistic and nuanced view of the region. Militancy and terrorism, especially, have traditionally been viewed in terms of simple dichotomies and broad generalizations. This paper attempts to address this issue by offering a framework for the evaluation of Islamist political parties and their participation in democratic systems.
Following a provision of the Doha agreement, signed by Lebanese political leaders to put an end to the May 2008 crisis, the Lebanese parliament discussed the country’s Parliamentary Electoral Draft Law and voted for reform on September 29th, 2008. But many of the proposals made by the National Commission were rejected, leading Minister of the Interior Ziyad Baroud to qualify it as “a cup half full”. But is this too optimistic?
The EU is generally not regarded as a ‘global power’: its internal division over the US-led intervenion in Iraq and its lack of a coherence towards the wars in the Balkans are cited as prominent examples of its weak standing in global politics. It is only in recent years that an increasing number of academics have emphasized the unique tools it holds to influence international relations.
Over the past century the U.S. has risen to be the undisputed world power, with its tentacles of influence sprawled across the globe, leaving almost no state untouched. However, does this significant power and influence construct qualify the United States for imperial status? Does its lack of territorial dominions, vassals, or a greater U.S. controlled commonwealth disqualify it from being an imperial power?
The way policy makers define poverty dictates the types of strategies that they use for alleviation, and their success. In Latin America numerous definitions have been employed, the current favourite being the profiling approach. This essay examines the various definitions of poverty on offer to Latin America, and the problems associated with each of them.
To consider the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s role in fostering peace in the post socialist area, this essay will examine the conflicts in Moldova and Chechnya. It will argue that the OSCE has not yet been successful, but that this is largely because there has been no established peace to foster. Any progress is going to take time due to the complexities involved.
Sceptics of soft power proclaim that as long as the United States is strong enough, it can do what it wishes and thus “the world’s only superpower does not need permanent allies.” Nevertheless in light of the difficulties in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the decline in the American economy following the fall of the loan market and “fewer genuine friends surrounding it”, one has to ask the question of whether or not US power is in decline.
American aversion to counterinsurgency is deeply ingrained in the American way of warfare. Since the 1940s the US Army has trained, equipped, and organised for large-scale conventional operations against like adversaries. They have traditionally employed conventional military operations even against irregular enemies. I hope to show that America’s conventional supremacy and in particular their approach to war may prove to be counterproductive in this new century of small wars.
In looking at the cases of Angola, Indonesia and Zaire it can be clearly demonstrated that though minerals are of significance they are only so because of political decisions. The discussion begins with an evaluation of the ‘resource curse’ argument looking closely at its empirical grounding and two main explanatory models: rent seeking and the rentier state. The robustness of this analysis is then questioned and the relationship of mineral resources and politics to the root of violent conflict is assessed through the use of detailed case studies.
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