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57721. Political Identities

Author:
Charles Tilly
Publication Date:
05-1995
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Studies of Social Change
Abstract:
Observation of state-military relations in Israel reveals an apparent paradox: Within a period of about seventy years, the more the militarization of Israeli society and politics gradually increased, the more politicians were successful in institutionalizing effective control over the Israel Defence Forces (IDF, and the pre-state organizations). Militarization passed through three main stages: (1) accepting the use of force as a legitimate political instrument during the pre-state period (1920-1948), subsequent to confrontation between pacifism and activism; (2) giving this instrument priority over political-diplomatic means in the state's first years up to the point in which (3) military discursive patterns gradually dominated political discourse after the 1967 War. At the same time, political control over the IDF was tightened, going from the inculcation of the principle of the armed forces' subordination to the political level during the pre-state period to the construction of arrangements working to restrain the military leverage for autonomous action.
Topic:
Education, Industrial Policy, and Politics
Political Geography:
United Kingdom, Europe, and Israel

57722. What is Agency?

Author:
Mustafa Emirbayer and Ann Miscbe
Publication Date:
01-1995
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Studies of Social Change
Abstract:
The concept of agency has become a source of increasing strain and confusion in social thought. Variants of action theory, normative theory, and political-institutional analysis have defended, attacked, buried, and resuscitated the concept in often contradictory and overlapping ways. At the center of the debate, the term "agency" itself has maintained an elusive, albeit resonant, vagueness; it has given rise to a long list of associated (and often equally vague) terms, such as selthood, motivation, will, purposiveness, intentionality, choice, initiative, freedom, and creativity. Yet despite the growing numbers of recent theorists -- ranging from Jeffrey Alexander, Anthony Giddens, and Pierre Bourdieu to Jurgen Habermas and James Coleman -- who have addressed the so-called "structure and agency problem," the concept of agency itself has been surprisingly neglected. In the struggle to demonstrate the interpenetration of agency and structure, most theorists have failed to distinguish agency as an analytical category in its own right -- with distinctive theoretical dimensions and temporally variable social manifestations. The result has been a flat and impoverished conception that, when it escapes the abstract voluntarism of rational choice theory, tends to remain so tightly bound to structure that one loses sight of the different ways in which agency actually shapes social action.
Topic:
Government, Politics, and Science and Technology

57723. National Laws, NAFTA Panels and Multilateral Provisions: Sovereignty or Supranational Rules at Bay

Author:
Imtiaz Hussain
Publication Date:
03-1995
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:
Extending a previous investigation of farm dispute settlement under the Canadian-U.S. Free Trade Agreement of 1989 to include the North American Free Trade Agreement of 1994, this study inquires if regionalism in this part of the world threatens the sovereignty of national trade laws and multilateral provisions. The adjudication process, spelled out by Chapter 19 of the two free trade agreements, is singled out and disaggregated into four stages for analysis. This, in turn, allows for (a) a reassessment of the sovereignty-supranational theoretical debate; and (b) undertaking a comparative study of the national trade relief laws in Canada, Mexico, and the United States. Whereas extant works, almost exclusively of disputes under G.A.T.T., find that supranational rules influence outcomes more than the pursuit of sovereign interests by states, the preliminary findings of this study suggest that both forces are equally strong in North America. By and large, they suggest that reciprocal relations between states, regional entities, and multilateral organizations are necessary for the viable operation of each; yet this necessity may, in the long-term, constrain the multilateral organization more than the regional. This interpenetrating relationship is unique, and the source of institutional innovations of relevance to the pursuit of both state sovereignty and supranationalism.
Topic:
International Trade and Finance and Sovereignty
Political Geography:
United States, Canada, South America, North America, and Mexico

57724. 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

57725. The Historical Roots of Environmental Conflict in Estonia

Author:
Matthew Auer
Publication Date:
01-1995
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Security Studies at Yale University
Abstract:
"Estonia's environment and nature are special," the Estonian scholar observed, as we sipped coffee in a dingy cafe in Tallinn. "But to them," he said, lowering his voice, and nodding slightly toward a table of Russian-speakers, "it means nothing. To a Russian, the environment is a 100-meter square area around him and his home. He does not care...no, it's more simple—he is not aware of my country's environment."
Topic:
Conflict Resolution and Environment
Political Geography:
Russia and Eastern Europe

57726. Is Pandora's Box Half-Empty or Half-Full? The Limited Virulence of Secessionism and the Domestic Sources of Disintegration

Author:
Stephen M. Saideman
Publication Date:
11-1995
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC)
Abstract:
Is secession contagious? If so, can it be contained or quarantined to limit its spread? These two questions must be addressed to understand the challenges posed by ethnic divisions within and between states today. The end of ideological competition between the United States and the Soviet Union has not ushered in an era of global peace, but instead a period characterized by ethnic conflicts within many states. The coincidence of the disintegrations of the Soviet, Yugoslav, and Czechoslovak federations suggests that secession does spread with potentially nasty consequences.
Topic:
Security, Ethnic Conflict, Nationalism, Politics, and Sovereignty
Political Geography:
United States and Eastern Europe

57727. Maritime Jurisdiction in the Three China Seas

Author:
Ju Guoxing
Publication Date:
10-1995
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC)
Abstract:
The three China Seas (the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea, and the South China Sea) are all enclosed or semi-enclosed and studded with so many offshore and mid-ocean islands that nowhere does the distance from one headland or island to another approach 400 nautical miles. With the extension of national jurisdiction over maritime resources, no seabed in the area is left unclaimed.
Topic:
International Law and Sovereignty
Political Geography:
China, Israel, and Southeast Asia

57728. Humanitarian Action and Security in Liberia, 1989-1994

Author:
Larry Minear, Thomas G. Weiss, and Colin Scott
Publication Date:
01-1995
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
Abstract:
The Liberian civil war has severely tested the ability of the international community to maintain humanitarian operations while promoting peace and security. Against the backdrop of fluctuating international interest, Liberia's multifactional conflict, based as much on material gain as on political objectives, has thwarted peace efforts and frustrated the best efforts of humanitarian agencies.
Topic:
Humanitarian Aid
Political Geography:
Liberia

57729. Mexico: The Artist Is A Woman

Author:
Lucreita Giese, Carmen Boullosa, Marjorie Agosín, Sandra Berler, Elena Gascón-Vera, Laura Riesco, and Margo Glantz
Publication Date:
01-1995
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
Abstract:
The present volume includes essays presented March 4, 1994 at the symposium “Mexico: The Artist Is a Woman” at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. The event commemorated the work of Latin American women in film, photography, and literature. The contributions of these artists in their respective fields reveal the originality and diversity of contemporary Mexican art. Each of the participants has an outstanding artistic career.
Political Geography:
Latin America and Mexico

57730. Global Cooperation in Science, Engineering, and Medicine

Author:
Kenneth Prewitt, Susan Raymond, Young Gul Kim, Rodney Nichols, Jorge Allende, Arima Akito, Jesse Ausubel, Edward Ayensu, D. Allan Bromley, Praveen Chaudhari, Umberto Colombo, Yuri Gleba, Mark Horn, Coe Ishimoto, Geraldine Kenney-Wallace, Jan Nilsson, Geoffrey Oldham, R. K. Pachauri, Heinz Riesenhuber, Zehev Tadmor, Greg Tegart, Raimundo Villegas, Guillermo Cardoza, Diana Wolff-Albers, and William Padolina
Publication Date:
11-1995
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
New York Academy of Sciences
Abstract:
In the fall of 1995, with assistance from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the New York Academy of Sciences organized a meeting on international collaboration in science, engineering, and medicine. The meeting was held at the Rockefeller Foundation's conference center in Bellagio, Italy from October 30 through November 2, 1995. The Academy gathered together a group of experienced international leaders to examine changes in the context and con– tent of global research cooperation and the efficacy of existing institutional mechanisms to facilitate future scientific activities. The meeting resulted in a summary report presenting the consensual views of the participants, and the New York Academy of Sciences is currently exploring a range of follow–up options with its institutional partners. Copies of the report can be obtained by contacting the Academy at the address listed below. The critical question under review at Bellagio was to assess current disparities among research opportunities, needs, and institutions and to determine the need for a more extensive international review. Discussions were based in part on extensive preparation. Prior to the meeting, all participants prepared personal statements summarizing their views of future directions for scientific collaboration, key lessons from past experience, and fundamental characteristics of successful collaborative mechanisms. These statements together with a summary issues paper produced by the New York Academy of Sciences, the meeting agenda, and biographical information on participants are collected here. The statements appear as originally distributed; none have been revised in light of the meeting's discussion. With 25 different perspectives it is to be expected that a diversity of views are represented here. However, the commentaries fall broadly along four lines of inquiry.
Topic:
Government, International Cooperation, International Political Economy, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
New York