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Begin New Search Topic Democratization Content Type Working Paper

901. Accountability for Past Abuses

Author:
Juan E. Méndez
Publication Date:
09-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
The transitions to democracy in the 1980s have yielded a wealth of experience regarding the way societies reckon with a recent past of massive human rights violations. This paper looks at the most influential literature produced contemporaneously with those experiences and analyzes its current validity in the light of new contexts in which the issue arises. The author places emphasis first and foremost on the duties that the State owes to the victims of human rights violations and to society and then looks at the objective limitations that most transitions place on governments' ability to satisfy demands for truth and justice. These duties are part of an emerging rule of international law that demands that certain crimes should not go unpunished. But the obligations of the State to the victims and to society are varied and not dependent on each other; even if prosecution and punishment are rendered legally or politically impossible, the duties to disclose all that can be established about each violation, to offer reparations, and to dismiss the culprits from the armed and security forces remain fully in force.
Topic:
Democratization, Human Rights, Social Movement, Democracy, and Public Policy
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, South America, Central America, and Caribbean

902. Ethnicity and Identity in the Caribbean: Decentering a Myth

Author:
Ralph R. Premdas
Publication Date:
12-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
This discussion of a Caribbean identity begins by embarking on a discourse about where and what is the Caribbean, followed by some brief remarks about the need for identity. The author presents an analytic scheme for understanding the construction of Caribbean identities. In the larger body of the paper that follows next, he examines individually the constituent elements that have featured in the formation of claims to a Caribbean identity at all levels of its expression and shows how difficult it is to maintain the arguments that are made for them. Finally, the paper offers a topology of identities that best describe the Caribbean situation.
Topic:
Democratization, Social Movement, Ethnicity, and Identity
Political Geography:
Central America and Caribbean

903. Disintegration and Consolidation: National Separatism and the Evolution of Center-Periphery Relations in the Russian Federation

Author:
John W. Slocum
Publication Date:
07-1995
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies
Abstract:
Practitioners of the late lamented science of Sovietology have been roundly criticized for failing to predict one of the most momentous events of the twentieth century—the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Anxious to avoid a repetition of past mistakes, post-Sovietologists have in turn devoted a good deal of attention to the question of whether the USSR's largest successor state, the Russian Federation, is itself in danger of breaking apart. Like the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation is a multinational state with ethnically-defined territorial subunits; political elites in these subunits, faced with massive political, economic and social uncertainty, may be attracted by the idea of political independence. During the first half of the 1990s, post-Soviet Russia has indeed experienced more than one crisis of center-periphery relations. The present study, however, suggests that the likelihood of a general disintegration of the Russian Federation peaked in the early 1990s and is now decreasing. In view of this analysis, the war in Chechnya is an exception to an overall trend toward consolidation, rather than an indicator of a general breakdown in center-periphery relations.
Topic:
Democratization, Government, and Nationalism
Political Geography:
Russia, Soviet Union, and Chechnya

904. Report of the Commission on Radio and Television Policy: Volume 6, Number 2

Publication Date:
09-1994
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Carter Center
Abstract:
In September 1994, the Commission on Radio and Television Policy, bringing together the New Independent States, Poland, the Czech Republic, and the United States, met in St. Petersburg, Russia, to discuss the most important policy issue of the electronic media: how to strengthen the independence of radio and television. The members of the Commission represented several different approaches and types of government, but, in the end, there was unanimous agreement on a communiqué urging all parties to defend and extend autonomy of the media.
Topic:
Democratization and International Cooperation
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Europe, and Asia

905. Elections in Mexico: Third Report

Publication Date:
08-1994
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Carter Center
Abstract:
The national elections on August 21, 1994 will be an important milestone in Mexico's political opening. During the last four years, the Mexican Congress approved a number of important reforms to the electoral process. Yet the Mexican population remains highly skeptical about the integrity of the elections. Opinion polls show that nearly one-half of respondents expect fraud, and more than one half expect post-electoral violence.
Topic:
Democratization and Government
Political Geography:
Latin America, North America, and Mexico

906. The Democratic Challenge in Africa

Author:
Richard Joseph
Publication Date:
05-1994
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Carter Center
Abstract:
On May 13-14, 1994, a group of 32 scholars and practitioners took part in a seminar on Democratization in Africa at The Carter Center. This consultation was a sequel to two similar meetings held in February 1989 and March 1990. Discussion papers from those seminars have been published under the titles, Beyond Autocracy in Africa and African Governance in the 1990s. During the period 1990-94, the African Governance Program of The Carter Center moved from discussions and reflections to active involvement in the complex processes of renewed democratization in several African countries. These developments throughout Africa were also monitored and assessed in the publication, Africa Demos.
Topic:
Democratization, Government, and International Cooperation
Political Geography:
Africa and North America

907. The International Observation of the U.S. Elections

Publication Date:
11-1992
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Carter Center
Abstract:
Robert Pastor, Director of the Latin American and Caribbean Program at The Carter Center and Executive Secretary of the Council, opened the conference with a reference to Mexican Nobel Laureate Octavio Paz who once said, "A nation without free elections is a nation without a voice, without eyes, and without ears." Pastor noted that the right to free and fair elections is a universal right enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations and the Charter of the Organization of American States. In the spirit of honoring that right, the Council was formed in 1986 to lend support and assistance to the democratization movement in the Americas.
Topic:
Democratization, Government, and Politics
Political Geography:
United States, United Nations, and Latin America

908. Investigating Abuses and Introducing Safeguards in the Democratization Process

Author:
The Conference Center
Publication Date:
07-1992
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Carter Center
Abstract:
In the two years that have elapsed since The Carter Center hosted "Investigating Abuses and Introducing Human Rights Safeguards in the Democratization Process," the issues we discussed then have become even more pivotal as our views of governance and the rights of individuals and of state sovereignty itself are being fundamentally transformed. It was our view that, although the Center did not previously publish the seminar proceedings, making them available at this time would serve to further inform those who are working in this field by providing insightful observations by many human rights activists, journalists, and academicians who were involved directly in political transitions in their own countries and by others who studied these events from the outside.
Topic:
Democratization, Government, Human Rights, and International Cooperation

909. Observing Nicaragua's Elections, 1989-1990

Publication Date:
05-1990
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Carter Center
Abstract:
During the entire electoral process, the political system in Nicaragua gradually opened so that by election day, the major political parties acknowledged that they had an adequate opportunity to explain their positions to the Nicaraguan people. The Council of Freely-Elected Heads of Government shared the conclusion of the parties: the Nicaraguan people were free to vote their preferences in a fair election, and the official results reflected the collective will of the nation.
Topic:
Security, Democratization, Government, Peace Studies, and Politics
Political Geography:
Latin America and Central America

910. Perestroika without Glasnost in Africa

Publication Date:
02-1989
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Carter Center
Abstract:
The aim of the inaugural seminar of the Governance in Africa Program (G.A.P.) was to bring together a diverse group of scholars to reflect on some of the central issues which confront the continent. The program takes its acronym from the increasing gap between the democratic and developmental aspirations expressed during the anti-colonial struggle and the monopolization of power and the deepening economic predicament today.
Topic:
Democratization, Government, and International Cooperation
Political Geography:
Africa