Introduction

The far-reaching scope of peacekeeping mandates and the multitude of actors deployed in contemporary peace operations render the application of peace operations as human rights mechanism, much more difficult compared to traditional UN human rights mechanisms. An often overlooked but significant challenge for peace operations acting in such capacity is the establishment of mutual understanding and agreement on human rights between civilian and military peace actors, and the impact of such an agreement – or absence thereof – on the success of peace operations. This aspect involves issues as diverse as inter-agency cooperation, cultural differences between military and civilian actors and how international human rights law is accepted, embraced and ‘operationalized’ in such complex multicultural and politicized settings. Above all, it addresses the issue of how and under which conditions human rights standards and norms are best advocated by peace actors.

The aim of this article is to examine how UN peace operations may enhance their potential of promoting human rights by analysing how peace actors communicate and reach agreement on human rights. The underlying presumption is that effective human rights promotion and protection is contingent on the existence of a common understanding of human rights among different components of a peace operation. Such examination will be undertaken by analysing data collected in the field in the light of discourse theories of human rights, drawing primarily on Jürgen Habermas' theory of communicative action.

Introduction

During the last few decades, the nature of peace and development in the international system has shifted considerably so has the measures applied in support of those values. Whereas ‘war’ has structurally shifted from being interstate concern to becoming intrastate in nature, ‘development’ has moved from one of typically defining national development strategies to one of tapping into a neo-liberal global order in the most efficient way possible. As such, the values and processes of, and measures to support, peace and development have, to a large extent, conflated. Moreover, internal war is typically founded in a particular political economy further feeding – or even being the origin of – conflicts; adaptation to the neo-liberal globalization has, on the other hand, turned ‘development’ into a conflict prone process, marginalizing large number of people. Globalization which – for good and bad – is driving the processes described above will not fade within the foreseeable future, but rather it is likely that the trend will increase in the decades to come. While undeniably, this shift in ‘order’ has brought some positive values, globally the problems may be even more severe, including the creation of social and internal conflicts, ethnic strife, political instability (often related to democratization), pauperization, forced migration and rampant natural resource extraction with severe livelihood losses for millions, just to mention a few of the far too prevalent problems.

Introduction

In research on armed conflict, a debate is emerging over the influence of diasporas on civil wars in their homelands. Many prominent scholars claim that diasporas are especially prone to political extremism and the use of violence to resolve political disputes. In their view, remaining in the homeland and experiencing the atrociousness of war sobers previously idealistic goals of gaining territorial sovereignty or state power and tempers rather than exacerbates tensions between groups. Those who migrate during civil conflicts however avoid the moderating costs of war. While abroad, diasporas are empowered by economic upliftment, and by the freedom to pursue extremist agendas unobstructed by homeland government oversight. Other scholars have challenged these views, offering evidence that diasporas are actively involved in peacebuilding and conflict resolution in their homelands. In this chapter we provide an examination of the arguments offered in support of these opposing claims. In the process, the debate is situated within the broader context of globalization and the challenges and opportunities it presents for building peace. By way of conclusion, we present some of our own reflections on the arguments for viewing diasporas as extremists and/or moderates, and point out some possible directions for future research that would help to bring forward the debate over diasporas and their roles in conflict and peace in the homeland.

Civil War and the Challenge of Building Peace

Armed conflict peaked in the early 1990s as the cold war came to an end in Europe and new states were formed in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia.

Introduction

Mainstream View

The ‘mainstream’, ‘neo-classical view of the competitive process believes that the perfectly competitive model best describes the essence of capitalist competition. Departures from it are viewed as exceptional. In this view, there are limitless opportunities for firms from developing countries to ‘catch-up’; if they are forced into competition on the free market of the ‘global level playing field’. At the heart of the mainstream view is the self-equilibrating mechanism of market competition. It is believed that the basic driver of the capitalist process, competition, ensures that if any firm enjoys super-normal profits rivals will soon enter to bid away those profits and undermine any temporary market dominance that the incumbent enjoys. The neo-classical approach emphasises the importance of competition among small firms as the explanation for the prosperity of the advanced economies. Milton Friedman, for example, believes that there is ‘a general bias and tendency to overemphasize the importance of the big versus the small’ (Friedman, 1962: 120–3).

Mainstream economists argue that managerial diseconomies of scale set in after firms reach a certain size. The classic expression of this view was contained in Marshall's Principles of Economics (1920: 315-6), in which he likens the competitive process to the ‘trees in the forest’. The forest canopy never grows above a certain height. Large trees eventually lose their vigour and are replaced by newcomers: ‘[I]n almost every trade there is a constant rise and fall of large businesses, at any one moment some firm being in the ascending phase and others in the descending.

Introduction

The role that big businesses perform in the national economy has triggered numerous theoretical interests, which can be broadly categorised into two schools. The mainstream school prefers small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to big businesses because the former in a perfect competition is believed to bring about allocative efficiency, whereas the latter is believed to be more often than not associated with monopoly or oligopoly, and to deviate from allocative efficiency. Big businesses in the form of monopolistic and oligopolistic firms are believed to hinder free competition. According to Marshallians, big businesses will lose their dominant positions in the long run (Marshall, 1920: 315-6).

In contrast, the non-mainstream approach argues that big businesses (often monopoly or oligopoly) could benefit the economy in the long run. The Schumpeterian theorem demonstrates through a process of creative destruction, monopolies or oligopolies are more conducive to growth than perfect competition (Schumpeter, 1976). Scherer (1996) points out that monopolistic or oligopolistic competition exists in a wide array of industries in the United States. Whether or not oligopolies and monopolies cause lower welfare depends on individual industries. Nolan et al. (2002) demonstrate that in the era of the global big business revolution, the number of players in industry after industry has fallen dramatically and global competition among oligopolistic firms has been vastly intensifying. In terms of a giant firm's limit, Edith Penrose (1995) suggests that a firm's size has no theoretical limits because a firm can always expand with the aid of managerial resources and research capabilities.

The articles in this book were written over a period of more than a decade and a half. They cover a variety of topics relating to China's deepening integration with the global system of political economy. None of the articles has been altered in the light of subsequent events.

Chapter 1 was written in the months immediately following the June 4th events. It was presented at seminars and lectures in numerous locations. Extracts from it were published in various places. The response to the ideas expressed in the article was almost uniformly hostile. Most people in the West believed then that the Chinese Communist Party could not last long, perhaps only a few months. Nor did they believe that it deserved to last long or that it could preside over a successful market economy. They considered that the Soviet Union's path of comprehensive political transformation and high-speed economic liberalisation was the correct path of system reform in communist countries. In fact, the Chinese Communist Party has survived and prospered. The collapse of the Soviet political and economic system destroyed the credibility of large-scale high-speed political and economic reform in China. It paved the way for cautious, experimental economic reform within the framework of stable communist party rule. The most dynamic part of the global market economy is now presided over by the 60 million members of the Chinese Communist Party.

Introduction

Between them, China and the Muslim world contain over 2.5 billion people, over two-fifths of the world's population. China's population is around 1.3 billion. They mostly live in a single country. China's rise is a central fact of political economy in the twenty-first century. At the start of the twenty-first century there were 1.3 billion Muslims in the world, roughly the same number as Chinese people. Unlike the Chinese, the Muslims are spread much more evenly across the world's territory. There are around 900 million in fifty-seven independent Muslim states and 400 million in over 100 communities in the rest of the world (Ahmad, 2003: 190).

Although they are dispersed across many countries, they have common beliefs that give them a united voice on some key issues.