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In this essay, Iaddress some preliminary considerations surrounding different notions of “peace” and peacebuilding and the appropriate methodologies to study the same.I place emphasis on the adoption of a moral epistemology that is overtly value-oriented and normatively ambitious without being oblivious to the structural characteristics of collective political behavior that tend to privilege the self at the expense of the other, such as that used by the World Order Models Project (WOMP). Rather than relying on one standard definition of “cosmopolitanism,” I advocate for a pluralistic conception that acknowledges different cosmopolitanisms. I provide a framework for peacebuilding assessment that frames inquiry around different “horizons” of aspirations (feasibility, necessity, desperation, desire), and I lay out my version of cosmopolitanism, which centers on the importance of peacebuilding objectives that are necessary and desirable. In so doing, I compare my perspective toother paradigmatic perspectives, concluding that cosmopolitanismis concerned with reconciling unity with difference, through mutual understanding of otherness.
We are living in an anguishing historical period. From one direction come dire warnings about humans’ future if the challenges posed by climate change and ecological instability are not addressed within a rather tiny window of less than twelve years. From another direction come depressing indications that peoples around the world are choosing by their own free will, extremist autocrats, even demagogues, who are extinguishing fires of freedom, building walls to keep the unwanted out and stigmatizing the stranger. In such an atmosphere, human rights are in retreat, empathy for the suffering of others is repudiated, international law is all but forgotten in the annals of diplomacy and the United Nations is often reduced to the bickering of irresponsible governments seeking nothing grander than maximum national advantage, and in the process, let the common public good of humanity be damned. Facing such reality with eyes wide open is a challenge that few acknowledge, and even fewer have the stamina, insight, compassion, wisdom and imagination needed to discern a brighter alternative future for humanity.
Stuart Rees is such an exception. His Cruelty or Humanity has the courage to portray reality in all its degrading ugliness without taking refuge in some specious bromide. His book addresses the range of cruelties that befall those most vulnerable among us in myriad specific circumstances. With an astonishing command over the global and historical landscapes of cruelty, Rees leads us through the wilderness of the most evil happenings, which have been enacted individually and collectively. And yet, through it all he manages to guide us toward the light of hope without indulging sentimentality or embracing false optimism.
What gives this perilous journey its defining originality is the degree to which Rees brings to bear the knowledge and timeless wisdom of poets both to depict the intensities of the darkness but also to instruct readers that the disciplined and lyrical insight of a poet can better than the rest of us find shafts of light that illuminate paths leading to empowerment, transcendence and liberation.
Chapter 2 argues that given the residual power of national elites protecting the status quo and the ideological agenda of the international state-based order a ‘liberal transition’ – transition without transformation – currently constitutes the ‘outer limit of feasibility.’ To reach this conclusion highlighting world order constraints on transformative change the chapter draws on historical examples (the Marshall Plan, Iran) as well as more contemporary case studies (the Arab Spring, Palestine/Israel). The author argues that the pre-conditions for transformative justice rarely exist in contemporary transitions – these include state capture or building, external support, a strong ideological vision, and top down leadership. The chapter introduces concepts to illuminate this argument, including contrasting transformation-from-without and transformation-from-within.
Forty years after the defeat of the United States in Vietnam, the central lessons of that war remain unlearned. Even worse, the mistakes made and crimes committed in Vietnam have been repeated at great human, material, and strategic cost in a variety of subsequent national settings. The central unlearned lesson in Vietnam is that the collapse of the European colonial order fundamentally changed the effective balance of power in a variety of North/South conflict situations that reduce the agency of military superiority in a variety of ways.
What makes this change elusive is that it reflected developments that fall outside the policy parameters influential in the leadership circles of most governments for a cluster of reasons. Most fundamentally, governmental geopolitical calculations relating to world order continue to be based on attributing a decisive causal influence to relative military capabilities, an understanding at the core of “realist” thinking and behavior. Within this paradigm, military superiority is regarded as the main driver of conflict resolution, and the winners in wars are thought to reflect the advantages of hard-power differentials. The efficiency and rewards of military conquest in the colonial era vindicated this kind of realist thinking. Europe with its dominant military technology was able to control the political life and exploit the resources of populous countries throughout Asia, Africa, and Latin America with a minimum of expenditure and casualties, encountering manageable resistance, while reaping the rewards of empire. The outcomes of World War I and II further vindicated the wider orbit of the realist way of thinking and acting, with military superiority based on technological innovation, quantitative measures, and doctrinal adaptation to new circumstances of conflict receiving most of the credit for achieving political victories.
The Vietnam War was a dramatic and radical challenge to the realist consensus on how the world works, continuing a pattern already evident in nationalist victories in several earlier colonial wars, which were won – against expectations – by anti-colonial forces. Despite these illuminating results of colonial wars after World War II, the American defeat in Vietnam came as a shock. The candid acknowledgment of this defeat has been twisted out of recognition to this day by the interpretive spins placed upon the Vietnam experience by the American political establishment.
Leaf surface morphology and physical characteristics of herbicide deposits on leaf surfaces can influence herbicide performance. Leaf surface topography, the degree and type of epicuticular wax formation, and the presence, type, and distribution of trichomes all influence the distribution of a given herbicide formulation sprayed onto a leaf surface. Depressions above anticlinal cell walls accumulate herbicide, thus lessening uniform distribution. As the amount of particulate wax increases, the size of individual spray drop deposits on the leaf decreases, thus resulting in reduced coverage. In many instances the presence of trichomes reduces optimal epidermal coverage by intercepting spray drops before they reach the epidermal surface. Adjuvants reduce the adverse influence of leaf topography, epicuticular wax, and trichomes on herbicide distribution, but their use usually does not yield an even coating over the entire leaf surface. Many herbicides, in pure form, are solids (i.e., crystals) rather than liquids. For most applications, herbicides are dissolved, dispersed, or emulsified in a water-based spray solution. After spraying, water and any solvents evaporate from the leaf surface and herbicides often return to their solid crystalline form. In the few cases that have been studied, less herbicide is absorbed when present on the leaf surface as a solid rather than as a liquid. In many instances, greater effectiveness of a postemergence herbicide may be obtained if attention is given to optimizing the distribution and physical form on sprayed leaf surfaces.
The leaves of tall morningglory, giant duckweed, and common purslane were treated with nine surfactants at a concentration of 0.1% and examined after 24 hr using cryo-scanning electron microscopy for phytotoxicity as evidenced by tissue damage and epicuticular wax morphology changes. In some instances, tissue damage could be discerned; however, the effects of a particular surfactant were not uniform across the three species. Morphological alteration of epicuticular waxes was not observed. Gas chromatographic analyses of the epicuticular waxes of the species used in the study reveal component differences and may, in part, explain the lack of uniform response across species for a particular surfactant.
An accurate knowledge of the thermal properties of firn and ice within a glacier is essential for any reliable mathematical model of heat transfer. This paper considers the problem of determining the thermal properties of firn at Dome C, Antarctica, for use in such a model.
First, the difficulties in accurately determining thermal properties are discussed. Then a physical experiment which can be performed under field conditions, but which will yield a well-posed mathematical problem for determining the unknown properties, is presented. Next, two different numerical techniques for solving the mathematical problem are discussed. Finally, some numerical approximations and error estimates are presented for the results of applying our numerical procedure to data from Dome C. Although insufficient data were obtained to test our methods fully, we have established a measurement procedure and a method of analysis which appear to be promising.
The aim of this paper is to give a simple, introductory presentation of the extension of the Virtual Element Method to the discretization of H(div)-conforming vector fields (or, more generally, of (n − 1) − Cochains). As we shall see, the methods presented here can be seen as extensions of the so-called BDM family to deal with more general element geometries (such as polygons with an almost arbitrary geometry). For the sake of simplicity, we limit ourselves to the 2-dimensional case, with the aim of making the basic philosophy clear. However, we consider an arbitrary degree of accuracy k (the Virtual Element analogue of dealing with polynomials of arbitrary order in the Finite Element Framework).
New constitutionalism is the complex framework that systemizes the norms, prevailing practices and institutional procedures designed to produce order favoured and generated by dominant economic and political elites, whether presiding over governmental structures or administering a range of non-state actors, especially those that are market based. Stephen Gill articulates this innovative and prescriptive orientation towards constitutionalism with a primary reference to the operational logic of the world economy in this era of neo-liberal globalization (1998b, 2008: 161–76). Here I propose extending the scope of new constitutionalism to encompass security, criminal accountability and environment, especially as policy and behaviour of others are impacted by the global domination project of the United States in the early twenty-first century. I regard these issue areas to be organically linked, as an extension of global economic disciplinary policies, procedures and institutional arrangements designed to liberalize trade, facilitate investment, encourage resource exploitation and take advantage of commodity markets. These initiatives would have a secondary objective of diverting public attention from environmental deterioration, and containing mounting opposition to political moves that diminish prospects for profitability and capital accumulation.
Indeed, new constitutionalism depends heavily on the selective application of global norms and procedures and the adaptation of the institutional arrangements set up after the Second World War under the sway of the old constitutionalism, e.g. as associated with the UN Charter. New constitutionalism operates on the basis of double standards that exempt geopolitical actors from many mechanisms of accountability for wrongful and criminal acts. As such, world order structures combine states, markets and the geopolitical control mechanisms with a pervasive bias toward privatization to underpin the new constitutionalism. Nonetheless, these top-heavy features of globalization are being challenged mainly from below by rising popular forces dedicated to a more equitable distribution of the benefits of economic development, a more or less regulated world order in relation to political violence, and a visionary endorsement of global democracy as necessary and attainable.
A deepening global crisis centers on efforts of Western countries led by the United States and spearheaded by Israel to thwart Iran’s alleged efforts to acquire nuclear weaponry. On the one side is Iran’s insistence that its nuclear program is devoted to exercising its rights under international law to develop and acquire the means to produce nuclear energy, coupled with assurances that it has no intention to develop nuclear weapons. On the other side are most influential governments, backed by United Nations sanctions and International Atomic Energy Agency suspicions, that contend that steps must be taken to dissuade Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons by all necessary means and with a sense of urgency. Israel quite openly announces its intention and capabilities to mount an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities in the event that Iran does not provide convincing reassurance of the non-military character of its nuclear program. Israel’s threat is made against the background of its 1981 attack on the Iraqi reactor at Osirak that supposedly succeeded in derailing Saddam Hussein’s plans to become a nuclear weapons state. The United States has used a more subtle language than Israel, but with a similar resonance, leading the effort to stiffen sanctions, repeatedly indicating its refusal “to take the military option off the table,” and backing up its warning with threatening naval deployments. It is intriguing and revealing that all of the international discussion so far has been focused on how to meet this emerging Iranian threat, and almost no attention has been given to the legality and propriety of the military threats directed at Iran, a sovereign state that is a member of the United Nations and entitled to the protection of international law.
Two requirements have governed my thinking about an appropriate response to the attacks of September 11: the urgent need for action that would greatly reduce the threat of future mega-terrorist incidents, and the necessity of recognizing the appropriate legal, moral, and political limits to waging a defensive war.