Public War, Private Soldiers
On September 16, 2007, the issue of private military firms exploded out of the dry confines of academic debate and into the public consciousness as bright, bloody pictures blanketed the newspapers and television networks that had long ignored the subject. Seventeen Iraqis had been violently killed and more than twenty others wounded while they went about their business in Nisour Square, in the heart of Baghdad’s once fashionable Mansour District.
Does the ILO Problematize the Governance-Resistance Dichotomy?
Within the study of world politics, one of the ways in which theorists have transcended state-centric analysis has been to couch it in terms of the ‘politics of Governance’ and the ‘politics of Resistance’. The logic of politics within this context is the competition and conflict between these two ‘blocs’. However, the case of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) challenges this dichotomy.
Only Trees have Roots; But Men have Legs: Nationalism’s ‘Exclusionary’ Effects and the Overcoming of Common Misconceptions
The question of what nationalism is, is as essential as what it is not. Nationalism is a multisided phenomenon, not an ideology which is always dangerously exclusionary.
When and Why did Opinion Shift Decisively from Favoring the Bretton Woods System to Floating Exchange Rates?
Shifts in opinion from favoring the fixed regime to favoring the floating regime illustrated that something fundamental changed in the 1960s and early 1970s. The fundamental change was that the international post-war economic system was on the verge of collapse.
OBAMA ALMOST MAKES THE RIGHT DECISION
A recent report indicated that President Obama had finally made a security policy related decision—not on his Afghanistan strategy which is yet to be announced– but rather on whether or not his administration would seek to have the US sign the treaty banning the production and use of anti-personnel land mines, a treaty that 156 other nations have already signed.
‘Conflict Management Sows the Seeds of Future Conflict’ A Case Study of the Kashmir Conflict
India and Pakistan have come no closer to resolving their disagreements than what was attempted in 1949 because they are firmly grounded in a solution that is zero-sum, state centric and plagued by internal domestic political pressure.
Transnational Crime and Canadian Criminal Intelligence
Crime in the 21st century poses a major asymmetric threat to Canadian society, demanding enforcement that is flexible, responsive, and grounded in defensible strategic goals. This will require solutions beyond standard bureaucratic shifts, necessitating a broad change in organizational mindsets, shifting the emphasis of enforcement from a “statistics-based policing” model to a more strategic, long-term approach.
The story of cap and trade
The ongoing negotiations in Copenhagen, which are slated to end Friday, are apparently at a “critical juncture” according to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The United States inched closer to the views of its European allies today.
Is Security “Civilising”, as Argued by Loader and Walker?
Loader and Walker reveal a very interesting dynamic, in which they put citizens in a position to somehow educate the state, to secure themselves and avoid the state developing as a threat to them. However, I would say that they do not develop this notion far enough, and are subsequently unable to overcome the concept of the state as the main actor of security.
Why Did the Soviet Union Invade Afghanistan?
The Soviet intervention in Afghanistan was a costly and, ultimately, pointless war. However, exactly why the Red Army wound up in direct military conflict, embroiled in a bitter and complicated civil war—some 3,000 kilometres away from Moscow—is a point of historiographical uncertainty. Little known and appreciated for its significance, the Soviet-Afghan War was one of the turning points of the late Cold War.
