Las aeronaves remotamente tripuladas han tenido una incidencia creciente en los conflictos armados contemporáneos, y es esperable que ésta no haga sino aumentar en el futuro cercano. A menudo han sido presentados como “revolucionarios” y tanto resistidos como defendidos a ultranza en la literatura especializada. Este artículo procura analizar cómo los drones nos obligan a repensar el marco normativo en virtud del cual consideramos el uso de la fuerza permisible. En particular, examina cómo algunos de sus principales rasgos inciden no (...) solamente en la aplicación de los principios de necesidad y proporcionalidad, sino también en su precisión conceptual, y argumenta que las probabilidades de éxito forman parte sustancial de una concepción plausible del principio de proporcionalidad. El artículo cierra considerando el argumento de Walzer según el cual, dado que el daño causado es finalmente responsabilidad de quienes usan a civiles inocentes como escudos humanos, y no de quienes operan los drones, el hecho de que puedan causar una cantidad desproporcionada de daño es irrelevante a la hora de evaluar su permisibilidad. (shrink)

I n Citizenshi p an d Migration : Globalizatio n an d th e Politic s o f Belongin g publishe d in 2000 , Alastai r Davidso n an d I showe d tha t globalisatio n an d migratio n thro w u p serious challenge s fo r citizenship . Thi s articl e goe s further , b y examinin g change s resultin g from th e emergenc e o f a ne w constellatio n (...) o f internationa l politics , whic h I refe r t o a s the hierarchica l nation-stat e syste m . Th e bipola r syste m o f th e Col d Wa r i s bein g superseded b y a ne w dichotom y betwee n Nort h an d South , bu t wit h a singl e super-powe r dominating both . Fo r th e firs t tim e i n history , mos t o f th e world ’ s peopl e hav e th e lega l statu s of citizenshi p an d liv e i n politie s wit h th e lega l for m o f democrati c nation-states . Althoug h all nation-state s ar e formall y equa l i n status , ther e i s i n realit y a hierarch y wit h regar d t o such factor s a s internationa l law , rule s o n trade , monopol y o f th e mean s o f mas s destructio n and influenc e o n globa l governance . Thi s make s i t necessar y t o mov e fro m th e notio n of differentiated and contradictory citizenship tha t w e outline d i n 200 0 t o a notio n o f hierarchical citizenship, base d o n shar p difference s i n th e degre e o f empowermen t an d right s tha t citizenship o f variou s type s o f state s confers . Hierarchica l citizenshi p help s t o shap e th e right s and life-chanc e o f differen t group s a t bot h th e nationa l an d internationa l levels . I t i s closely linke d t o discourse s o n th e naturalnes s o f violenc e an d chao s i n th e South , whic h help s to legitimat e Norther n dominance. (shrink)

The Nordic countries have been major contributors to peacekeeping, often seen as particularly well suited due to their lack of ties to colonialism and supposedly peaceful nature. The article critically addresses this idea in relation to how gender equality has been conceptualized in peacekeeping taking as an example Icelandic peacekeeping. Iceland’s recent engagement in peacekeeping has strongly emphasized gender issues but has lacked an engagement with issues of power and domination and thus reflects a particular idea of ‘Nordic exceptionalism’. The (...) authors emphasize in their discussion the need to maintain critical feminist perspectives that take diverse relations of power into account. (shrink)

The concept of the national is often perceived, both in public and academic discourse as the central obstacle for the realization of cosmopolitan orientations. Consequently, debates about the nation tend to revolve around its persistence or its demise. We depart from this either-or perspective by investigating the formation of the ‘cosmopolitan nation’ as a facet of world risk society. Modern collectivities are increasingly preoccupied with debating, preventing and managing risks. However, unlike earlier manifestations of risk characterized by daring actions or (...) predictability models, global risks can no longer be calculated or forecast. Accordingly, more influence accrues to the perception of risk, largely constructed by media representations. Cosmopolitanized risk collectivities are engendered through the anticipation of endangered futures which are, for the most part, communicated through an increasingly global media scape. While global media events produce shared exposure, risk conceptions retain distinctive political-cultural features as their respective meanings are prefigured by path-dependent pasts. Nevertheless, the promulgation of risk societies, we argue, results in a reimagination of nationhood which takes place in the context of: global norms (e.g. human rights); globalized markets; transnational migrations; global generations and their embeddedness in civil society movements; and the local interpenetration of world religions to name but a few of the global backdrops shaping new associational intersections. We develop our argument in four interrelated steps. Contrary to essentialized notions of nationalism or universal versions of cosmopolitanism, we address the cosmopolitan reconfiguration of nationhood by differentiating between presumptions of thick belonging and the actual proliferation of cosmopolitan affiliations. In a second step we overcome the territorial fixation of the social sciences by shifting our attention to temporal dimensions, with a particular focus on competing conceptions of the future. In a third step we demonstrate how these cosmopolitan transformations of nationhood are taking place in the context of a world risk society regime that marshals a set of cosmopolitan imperatives situating the global other in our midst. In a fourth step we illustrate these developments by exploring how the mediatization of risk, and concomitant notions of the future, contribute to the reimagination of cosmopolitan risk collectivities. (shrink)

At stake for this essay is the distinction between politics and war and the extent to which politics can survive war. Gender analysis reveals how high these stakes are by revealing the complexity of militarism. It also reveals the impossibility of gender identity as foundation for a more robust politics with respect to war. Instead, a non-ideal normative differentiation among kinds of violence is affirmed as that which politically cannot not be wanted.

This paper combines reflections on the current “state of war” in the Middle East with an epistemological discussion of the meaning and implications of the category “war” itself, in order to dissipate the confusions arising from the idea of a “War on Terror.” The first part illustrates the insufficiency of the ideal type involved in dichotomies which are implicit in the naming and classifications of wars. They point nevertheless to a deeper problem which concerns the antinomic character of a collective (...) institution of violence. The second part discusses the extent to which, in spite of the historical transformations in the means and political objectives of wars, the contemporary confrontation still obeys the rules of warfare described by Clausewitz, particularly with respect to temporality (“friction”). The third part discusses “non‐clausewitzian” aspects of the “new wars” defined by Martin Van Creveld and Mary Kaldor, while suggesting that they have left aside the most salient contradiction illustrated by the US interventions, which results from the combination of a claim to universal sovereignty and a reduction of war to generalized police operations. (shrink)

This article presents a new understanding of the problem of cosmopolitan motivation in war, comparing it to the motivational critique of social justice cosmopolitanism. The problem of cosmopolitanism’s “motivational gap” is best interpreted as a political one, not a meta-ethical or ethical one. That is, the salient issue is not whether an individual soldier is able to be motivated by cosmopolitan concerns, nor is it whether being motivated by cosmopolitanism would be too demanding. Rather, given considerations of legitimacy in the (...) use of political power, a democratic army has to be able to motivate its soldiers to take on the necessary risks without relying on coercion alone. Patriotic identification offers a way to achieve this in wars of national defense, but less so in armed humanitarian interventions (AHIs). Two potential implications are that either AHIs should be privatized or that national armies should be transformed to become more cosmopolitan. (shrink)

Rawls saw need for non-ideal theory also within society but never developed that project. In this chapter, Card suggests that the non-ideal part of Rawls’ Law of Peoples can be a resource for thinking about responding to evils when the subject is not state-centered. It is plausible that defense against great evils other than those of aggressive states should be governed by analogues of scruples that Rawlsian well-ordered societies observe in defending themselves against outlaw states. This essay explores those hypotheses (...) in relation to women’s self-defense and mutual defense against evils of misogyny, the term feminists apply to the most deeply hostile environments of and attitudes toward women and girls and to the cruelest wrongs to them/us, regardless whether perpetrators harbor feelings of hatred. It extrapolates and adapts to this case values, concepts, and methods from Rawls’s life’s work, especially his writing on war. (shrink)

International law codifies the principle of non-combatant immunity, which traces its origins to a religiously supported moral imperative. The principle of non-combatant immunity has evolved to become a crucial underpinning of just war theory. Western societal norms have complicated our understanding and application of the principle of non-combatant immunity by depicting combatancy in terms of innocence and guilt: those viewed as innocent deserve legal protection. Child soldiers and female suicide bombers exemplify today's complex and expanding parameters of combat. Consequently, in (...) practice, authorities in conflict zones cannot rely on existing legal distinctions; instead, they are forced to make subjective judgements when deciding whom to protect. This article calls for a critical evaluation of: existing legal definitions concerning non-combatants; how conceptions of combatancy are applied in protective policy and humanitarian evacuation; and the resulting consequences and policy implications. (shrink)

What proper role should considerations of risk, particularly to research subjects, play when it comes to conducting research on human enhancement in the military context? We introduce the currently visible military enhancement techniques (1) and the standard discussion of risk for these (2), in particular what we refer to as the ‘Assumption’, which states that the demands for risk-avoidance are higher for enhancement than for therapy. We challenge the Assumption through the introduction of three categories of enhancements (3): therapeutic, preventive, (...) and pure enhancements. This demands a revision of the Assumption (4), alongside which we propose some further general principles bearing on how to balance risks and benefits in the context of military enhancement research. We identify a particular type of therapeutic enhancements as providing a more responsible path to human trials of the relevant interventions than pure enhancement applications. Finally, we discuss some possible objections to our line of thought (5). While acknowledging their potential insights, we ultimately find them to be unpersuasive, at least provided that our proposal is understood as fully non-coercive towards the candidates for such therapeutic enhancement trials. (shrink)

This is the Introduction to a collected volume.

Not long after the completion of Michael Mann’s “quadrilogy” on The Sources of Social Power (1986–2012), social scientists began to interrogate the meaning of his concepts of “despotic” and “infrastructural” power. While we know that the former is the most evident sign of danger in times of war, less well understood is the role of infrastructural power in state/civil society relations. Most important is the ambiguous relationship between the two types of power and the possibility that—especially in times of war—infrastructural (...) power can become the vehicle for despotic ends. But infrastructural power is also reciprocal, offering firms and civil society groups channels with which to contest the state’s projects. In this article, I first explicate the different meanings that Mann gave to his concept of infrastructural power. In the second section, I turn to how the concept has been “received” in political science and historical sociology. In the third part, I argue that the main danger to American democracy in wartime lies not in its becoming a despotic state, but in the use of the state’s infrastructural channels for the exercise of despotic ends. The fourth part illustrates the complexities of infrastructural power in business/government/civil society relations in cybersecurity, which Mann—for understandable reasons—did not examine in his encompassing work. (shrink)

The article is devoted to the phenomenon of interstate confrontation known as “hybrid war.” It attempts to consider this phenomenon in relation to pankration, the ancient Greek martial art with minimum limitations. The paper defines the philosophical and historical preconditions for hybrid war, its epistemological and ideological aspects. The author assesses the statement declaring Russia guilty of waging this type of war. Analysis of relevant sources allows us to answer the question of the theoretical prerequisites for the formation of the (...) concept of hybrid wars and to name the authors who first expressed ideas of the transformation of war into a new type of military confrontation. An attempt is made to perform a comparative analysis of various interpretations of the concept of “hybrid war.” The place of this concept among others that are related to the so-called “new wars” is considered. The author questions a negative connotation to the concept of hybrid war and the legitimacy of attempts by Western countries to attribute the conduct of this type of military action exclusively to Russia. A number of countries attempt to use Russia as a “scapegoat,” and this complex has been described by the French philosopher R. Girard. A broader interpretation of this mechanism leads to sacralization of collective aggression, but not in relation to an individual but in relation to a participant in international relations. Comprehension of the essential features of hybrid war, of its tendencies towards eliminating restrictions and regulating forms and methods of achieving military and political goals makes it possible to identify the possibilities of resisting aggressive aspirations of some countries trying to impose their scenarios for resolving international contradictions on other states. (shrink)

Cosmopolitans call for the creation of a global legal order based around the principle of universal human rights. It is, therefore, somewhat surprising that cosmopolitans have not adequately addressed the issue of how such a global order would be policed. The emergence of stable legal systems has generally coincided with the development of formal and informal methods of policing that function to enforce legal entitlements and maintain societal order. This suggests that the issue of policing should be addressed if cosmopolitanism (...) is to be defended as a desirable and realistic project for reforming the global order. This paper proposes that policing within a cosmopolitan legal order should be conceptualized as a form of societal peacekeeping, which functions to maintain the conditions necessary for the enjoyment of human rights. It rejects the idea of a unitary global police force modelled on the professional agencies established by the modern state, in favour of a plural approach that calls for cosmopolita.. (shrink)

The article proceeds from the argument that war is a social institution and not a historical inevitability of human interaction, that is, war can be “unlearned.” This process involves deconstructing/dismantling war as an institution in society. An important step in this process is to understand the philosophical and cultural bases on which technology is employed as “tools” of war. The article focuses on such questions as, Is technology just viewed as instruments in the hand of its human masters in war? (...) Does technology take on an autonomous role in war? How should we assess the impact of context (political, economic, and cultural) of technology when employed in war? By exploring these points, the article hopes to provide input into the discussion on the control of war technologies and ultimately the dismantling of war as an institution in society. (shrink)

This paper draws on the ‘new wars’ literature and global political economy research to explore how feminists and other critical analysts might investigate linkages between, and the gendering of, licit and illicit informal activities in relation to transnational financing of new wars. The paper considers the interdependence (co-constitution) of reproductive, productive and virtual economies, and aims to illuminate the intersection of race, gender, and economic inequalities (within and among states) as structural features of neoliberal globalization. Finally, the paper develops an (...) analytical framing of coping, combat and criminal informal economies, which overlap and interact but entail distinctive sets of actors, motivations, and activities. A brief description of each economy is followed by suggesting how it is gendered and how this might inform feminist theory/practice in relation to war. (shrink)

Since its earliest incarnations, just war theory has included the requirement that war must be initiated and waged by a legitimate authority. However, while recent years have witnessed a remarkable resurgence in interest in just war theory, the authority criterion is largely absent from contemporary discussions. In this paper I aim to show that this is an oversight worth rectifying, by arguing that the authority criterion plays a much more important role within just war theorising than is commonly supposed. As (...) standardly understood, the authority criterion provides a necessary condition for the justification of the resort to war, but has no bearing on the question of permissible conduct in war. In opposition, I argue for an alternative interpretation of the criterion, which attributes to it a fundamental role in assessing this latter question. With this revised interpretation in place, I then demonstrate its advantages by applying it to the practical issue of armed conflicts that are initiated and fought by non-traditional belligerents. While several theorists have recognised that this common feature of modern armed conflict poses a challenge to mainstream just war theory in general—and to the authority criterion in particular—I argue that existing discussions frequently misconstrue the nature of the challenge, since they assume the standard interpretation of the authority requirement and its role within the theory. I then show that the revised interpretation provides a clearer account of both the challenge posed by non-traditional belligerency and the kind of response that it requires. (shrink)

At stake for this essay is the distinction between politics and war and the extent to which politics can survive war. Gender analysis reveals how high these stakes are by revealing the complexity of militarism. It also reveals the impossibility of gender identity as foundation for a more robust politics with respect to war. Instead, a non-ideal normative differentiation among kinds of violence is affirmed as that which politically cannot not be wanted.

This article develops a feminist perspective on militarism in Africa, drawing examples from the Nigerian, Sierra Leonean and Liberian civil wars spanning several decades to examine women's participation in the conflict, their survival and livelihood strategies, and their activism. We argue that postcolonial conflicts epitomise some of the worst excesses of militarism in the era of neoliberal globalisation, and that the economic, organisational and ideological features of militarism undermine the prospects for democratisation, social justice and genuine security, especially for women, (...) in post-war societies. Theorisations of ‘new wars’ and the war economy are taken as entry points to a discussion of the conceptual and policy challenges posed by the enduring and systemic cultural and material aspects of militarism. These include the contradictory ways in which women are affected by the complex relationship between gendered capitalist processes and militarism, and the manner in which women negotiate their lives through both. Finally, we highlight the potential of transnational feminist theorising and activism for strengthening intellectual and political solidarities and argue that the globalised military security system can be our ‘common context for struggle'1 as contemporary feminist activist scholars. 1Mohanty, 2003. (shrink)

This paper explores how providing the inferential basis to argue for a range of equally plausible interpretations features as a way of managing issues of accountability in talk about armed confrontation. We examine conversation produced in open-ended interviews with diplomatic representatives of the United States and Great Britain in discussion about those countries'' involvement in the Persian Gulf conflict of 1990–91. By providing the inferential basis upon which to argue for a range of equally plausible interpretative scenarios, speakers attend to (...) the potential for any one account to be privileged over another. Further, in speculating upon the relationship between interpretative particulars and the inferential outcome to be drawn for some specific version of events in question, speakers work to establish the parameters of an admissible narrative trajectory with which to account for those events. In so doing, they manage the implications that excluded versions would otherwise make relevant. (shrink)

Theorizing of forced migration and refugees has been paralyzed by excessive reliance on migration theory. This article suggests the need to transfer conceptualizations of forced migration to sociological theories of violence. To that end, a preliminary step is argued to be indispensable: the affirmation of the force factor as a vital concept for meaningful theorization of refugee phenomena. Conceptual and empirical reasons are offered to resurrect the force factor’s centrality. First, I suggest the need to resolve the conceptual residuality of (...) “forced migration” in sociological theory, proposing manageable terminology for the task at hand. Second, I sketch conceptual and empirical reasons that the force factor is a viable and urgent candidate for our theoretical toolkit. Finally, I assess in depth the shortcomings of three prominent relativization conditions: (1) unwitting severity; (2) processual dilution; and (3) political-economic indeterminacy. By overcoming onerous relativization habits, we open horizons for coercion-centric theoretical insights on forced migration. (shrink)

For over 150 years liberal optimism has dominated theories of war and violence. It has been repeatedly argued that war and violence either are declining or will shortly decline. There have been exceptions, especially in Germany and more generally in the first half of the twentieth century, but there has been a recent revival of such optimism, especially in the work of Azar Gat, John Mueller, Joshua Goldstein, and Steven Pinker who all perceive a long-term decline in war and violence (...) through history, speeding up in the post-1945 period. Critiquing Pinker’s statistics on war fatalities, I show that the overall pattern is not a decline in war, but substantial variation between periods and places. War has not declined and current trends are slightly in the opposite direction. The conventional view is that civil wars in the global South have largely replaced inter-state wars in the North, but this is misleading since there is major involvement in most civil wars by outside powers, including those of the North. There is more support for their view that homicide has declined in the long-term, at least in the North of the world (with the United States lagging somewhat). This is reinforced by technological improvements in long-distance weaponry and the two transformations have shifted war, especially in the North, from being “ferocious” to “callous” in character. This renders war less visible and less central to Northern culture, which has the deceptive appearance of being rather pacific. Viewed from the South the view has been bleaker both in the colonial period and today. Globally war and violence are not declining, but they are being transformed. (shrink)

Most commentators agree that the study of war and collective violence remains the Achilles heel of sociology. However, this apparent neglect is often wrongly attributed to the classics of social thought. This article contests such a view by arguing: (1) that many classics were preoccupied with the study of war and violence and have devised complex concepts and models to detect and analyse its social manifestations; and (2) most of the classical social thought was in fact sympathetic to the ‘militarist’ (...) understanding of social life. In many respects, classical social thought shared the analytical, epistemological and even moral universe that understood war and violence as the key mechanisms of social change. The structural neglect of this rich and versatile theoretical tradition is linked to the hegemony of the normative ‘pacifist’ re-interpretation of the classics in the aftermath of two total wars of the twentieth century. The author argues that the contemporary sociology of war and violence can gain much by revisiting the key concepts and ideas of the classics. (shrink)

The article considers the modern meaning of Kant’s doctrine of war. The author examines the context and content of the key provisions of Kant’s concept of perpetual peace. The author also reviews the ideological affinity between Kant and previous authors who proposed to build alliances of states as a means of preventing wars. It is noted that the French revolution and the wars caused by it, the peace treaty between France and Prussia served as the historical background for the conceptualization (...) of Kant’s project. In the second half of the 20th century, there is a growing attention to Kant’s ethical and political philosophy. Theorists of a wide variety of political and ethical schools, pay attention to Kant’s legacy and relate their own concepts to it. Kant’s idea of war is reconsidered by Michael Doyle, Jürgen Habermas, Ulrich Beck, Mary Kaldor, Brian Orend. Thus, Doyle tracks democratic peace theory back to Kant’s idea of the spread of republicanism. According to democratic peace theory, liberal democracies do not solve conflict among themselves by non-military methods. Habermas, Beck, Kaldor appreciate Kant as a key proponent of cosmopolitanism. For them, Kant’s project is important due to notion of supranational forms of cooperation. They share an understanding that peace will be promoted by an allied authority, which will be “governing without government” and will take responsibility for the functioning of the principles of pacification of international relations. Orend’s proves that Kant should be considered as a proponent of the just war theory. In addition, Orend develops a new area in just war theory – the concept of ius post bellum – and justifies regime change as the goal of just war. (shrink)

Following Milward and Moravcsik’s injunction that the analysis of European integration requires evidence-based empirical observation, this article focuses on one area of state activity - the armed forces - to illustrate the current trajectory of state transformation in Europe. The article argues that European armed forces are becoming ‘transnational’. They are undergoing a process of concentration and transnationalization. Budgets and resources are focusing on specialist military units, organized into joint rapid reaction forces, which are co-operating at an increasingly lower level (...) with other similarly concentrated units in other states. The article concludes by suggesting that the transnationalization of the armed forces reflects the wider transformation of states; across a range of activities, states are contracting to concentrate on their core functions and co-operating ever more closely with each other to fulfil them. (shrink)

In this conceptual paper, we aim to develop a much needed ethical research agenda for international Human Resource Management (HRM), given that the changing geopolitical dynamics interrogate the political role of multinational companies and the ethical stance they take in their HRM practices. To theoretically ground this agenda, we turn to cosmopolitanism and distinguish three main perspectives—political, cultural, and social—each of which implies a different understanding of the self–other relation in the context of the global world. We translate the core (...) and ethical stance of each perspective to the field of international HRM, presenting three different foci of an ethical research agenda in terms of the ethical implications for multinational companies, research focus, methodological suggestions, and inherent limitations. (shrink)

Heightened interest in business-conflict linkages has materialized with the advent of globalization and the rise of multinational corporations (MNCs). We examine business-conflict linkages in this article both theoretically and empirically. Theoretically, we examine three streams of the relevant academic literature: the academic business and society literature, the practitioner business and society literature, and the international business political behavior literature and argue that there is room and indeed need for their cross fertilization and integration in research on business-conflict linkages. We then (...) consolidate the three streams into a matrix that reconciles relevant dimen- sions and which can serve as a typology of intervention strategies of business firms in conflict zones. Empirically, the article makes use of the integrative matrix in the context of an interpretive research methodology to examine the perceptions and behavioral orientations of a sample of MNCs in Lebanon in an actual conflict context. (shrink)

The strategic use of disease and poison in warfare has been subject to a longstanding and cross-cultural taboo that condemns the hostile exploitation of poisons and disease as the act of a pariah. In short, biological and chemical weapons are simply not fair game. The normative opprobrium is, however, not fixed, but context dependent and, as a social phenomenon, remains subject to erosion by social (or more specifically, antisocial) actors. The cross cultural understanding that fighting with poisons and disease is (...) reprehensible, that they are taboo, is codified through a web of interconnected measures, principal amongst these are the 1925 Geneva Protocol; the Biological Weapons Convention; and the Chemical Weapons Convention. Whilst these treaties have weathered the storm of international events reasonably well, their continued health is premised on their being ‘tended to’ in the face of contextual changes, particularly facing changes in science and technology, as well as the changed nature and character of conflict. This article looks at the potential for normative erosion of the norm against chemical and biological weapons in the face of these contextual changes and the creeping legitimization of chemical and biological weapons. (shrink)

This paper explores the common and different cultural globalization experience of the public's everyday lifestyles in seven societies in Asia-Pacific, focusing on the following aspects: connectivity with the world through personal encounters and digital media, English language capacity, support for the forces of globalization, global thinking and concern, the Internet's influences on sociopolitical opinions, appreciation of international food, and national vs. transnational identity. An analysis of survey data is used to contrast public experience of global thinking, global exposure, global diet, (...) and global feelings in two separate developmental states with higher and lower HDI measures in seven Asia-Pacific societies. We demonstrate that individual globalization manifested in everyday life should be understood under a comparative societal perspective as citizens' global experiences are not only a simple matter of personal choice, but are also more a reflection of complex societal conditions. (shrink)

This paper attempts to articulate the common ground that could unite the different normative intuitions operative in the Green movement in Germany. The paper argues that only an extended conception of justice, one that would encompass references to nature, culture and the future, will be able to build a bridge between these different intuitions. However, caution must be exercised in the application of this extended conception of justice so that the worst-off are in each case the first targeted by it.

Recent scholarship has given increasing attention to studying women’s involvement in conflict and mass violence. However, there is comparatively less discussion of the experiences of women as actors and perpetrators in conflict, and limited discussion of women as defendants in international criminal tribunals. This article explores this under-researched area. By analysing legal materials from the cases of six female defendants, this article investigates the extent to which legal discourses are shaped by stereotypes regarding femininity, conflict and peace. It identifies three (...) gender narratives—mothers, monsters and wives—used in relation to female defendants, which highlight the incompatibility of femininity with violence, and deny women’s agency in political and military contexts. Thus, this article concludes that female defendants in international criminal tribunals are viewed through gendered lenses, and discussed in accordance with gendered themes. This gendered justice is problematic, as it reinforces patriarchal gender stereotypes, and may hinder attempts to facilitate gender justice. (shrink)

ABSTRACTSome suggest that the duty of humanitarian intervention should be discharged by states that are historically responsible for the occurrence of violence. A fundamental problem with this suggestion is that historically responsible states might be ill-suited to intervene because they are unlikely to enjoy support from the local population. Cécile Fabre has suggested a way around that problem, arguing that responsible states ought to pay for humanitarian interventions even though they ought not to take part in the military operations. We (...) claim that Fabre’s idea is subject to two concerns. First, the duty to perform might not be appropriately transferrable from the historically responsible state to another state because it would allow the primary duty bearer to escape the worst costs of intervention. Second, an intervention might be as unlikely to generate local support when a historically responsible state pays for an intervention as when it performs it. These problems are enough to cast doubt on Fabr... (shrink)

The epistemic terrain of humanitarian morality hasundergone a profound paradigmatic transformationin recent years. The turn towards “resilience” as a structuring principle in aid programmes has produced new modes of governance that challenge what I call the moral exceptionalism of humanitarianism’s mandate. This article traces the trajectory of moralism in humanitarian studies, exploring how the productive tension between contrapuntal readings of humanitarianism as moral intent or biopolitical care is transcended by the resilience paradigm’s ontological vision of an intrinsically fragileand vulnerable world. (...) Contrary to theoretical critiques of resilience as an extension of neoliberal tenets to global governance, I draw on the context of the Syrian refugee crisis in Jordan to argue that resilience humanitarianism has in fact prompted a return to state welfare as the final guarantor of refugee rights. (shrink)

If women are not yet accorded the full rights of citizenship internationally and especially in the military context, a feminist position on just war may have to be provisional. Drawing on Virginia Woolf's argument referenced in the title, Eide suggests in this essay that feminist theory develop its principles from women's exclusion from national privileges and argues that jus post bellum or justice after war be central to feminist theories of just war.

During the Middle Ages, the principle of legitimate or right authority constituted a central part of the just war tradition. The question of which actors had the authority to declare war was so cen...

This essay addresses the new phenomenon of network warfare as a realisation of modernity's inner potential and surprising capacities rather than its failure. A feature of the complex capillaries of global governance, network warfare has been endemic for some time in many border regions of the world and reflects an increasing conflation of development and security.

Organized rape has been an integral aspect of warfare for a long time even though classics on warfare have predominantly focused on theorizing ‘regular’ warfare, that is, the situations in which one army encounters another in a battle to conquer or defend a territory. Recently, however, much attention has been paid to asymmetric warfare and, accordingly, to phenomena such as guerrilla tactics, terrorism, hostage taking and a range of identity-related aspects of war such as religious fundamentalism, holy war, ethnic cleansing (...) and war rape. In fact, war rape can be taken as a perfect example of an asymmetric strategy. In war rape the soldier attacks a civilian (not a fellow combatant) and a woman (not another male soldier), and does this only indirectly with the aim of holding or taking a territory. The primary target here is to inflict trauma and through this to destroy family ties and group solidarity within the enemy camp. This article understands war rape as a fundamental way of abandoning subjects: rape is the mark of sovereignty stamped directly on the body, that is, it is essentially a bio-political strategy using (or better, abusing) the distinction between the self and the body. Through an analysis of the way rape was carried out by the predominantly paramilitary Serbian forces on Bosnian soil, this article theorizes a two-fold practice of abjection: through war rape an abject is introduced within the woman’s body (sperm or forced pregnancy), transforming her into an abject-self rejected by the family, excluded by the community and quite often also the object of a self-hate, sometimes to the point of suicide. This understanding of war rape is developed in the article through a synthesis of the literature on abandonment (Agamben, Schmitt) and abjection (Bataille, Douglas, Kristeva) and concomitantly it is argued that the penetration of the woman’s body works as a metaphor for the penetration of enemy lines. In addition it is argued that this bio-political strategy, like other forms of sovereignty, operates through the creation of an ‘inclusive exclusion’. The woman and the community in question are inscribed within the enemy realm of power as those excluded. (shrink)

Abstract:- Human civilization has been a witness to several instances of trauma, resulting from war, natural calamities, poverty, and many other heart wrenching episodes of human suffering. Political instability, inter-faith skirmishes, and state sponsored attacks by dictators are a few to mention, that made the society to drive its progress backwards and made the mankind suffer a lot, since ever. Apart from the human lead disasters, nature has also had its say on this, resulting in even extinction of some of (...) the most powerful species of flora and fauna from the universe. Floods, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, droughts, meteorite strikes, and flash-floods are a few to be blamed for causing a lot of trauma and suffering. It is, however possible for mankind to reconcile the trauma caused by the natural disasters, but a man-made disaster now, in the form of a nuclear war, would prove non-negotiable for human survival, and would be a potential catastrophe. Economic, political, religious, and corporate fronts at the global level could pave way to potential physical, as well as mental trauma, that could spread to every nook and corner of the globe, if not contained beforehand. (shrink)

Post-war reconstruction and development are no longer viewed as separate conceptual or practical domains. This evolving concept is underpinned by a series of assumptions that assert the necessary links between democratization, economic reform and sustainable peace. This article builds on critiques of these assumptions by applying Chantal Mouffe’s political philosophy. In particular, the article will focus on democratization and the way in which Mouffe’s theoretical work leads us to consider a broader space for politics, the constructive role of conflict and (...) the possibility of a more nuanced approach to the nature of post-war societies and processes of sustainable peace. (shrink)