Becoming Red and White: The Legacy of New Order Nationalism on Interfaith Relations in Ambon

Thesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2016-06

ISIS Success in Iraq: A Movement 40 Years in the Making

Thesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2016-06

Humanitarian responsibilities and interventionist claims in international society

This article calls for a widening of the debate about humanitarian intervention to incorporate insights from constructivism, 'Welsh School' Critical Security Studies, and critical approaches to Third World International Relations. After identifying a series of problems with the contemporary debate, which is dominated by the English School, it calls for a broadening of the concept of intervention and suggests a need to rethink the meaning of humanitarianism and terms such as the 'supreme humanitarian emergency'.

Australia's relationship with the United States: The case for greater independence

A number of recent events-especially attempts to negotiate a bilateral trade agreement and Australia's participation in the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq(1)-have thrown Australia's relationship with the United States into sharp relief. While this relationship has historically enjoyed strong bilateral endorsement, such uncritical support is beginning to unravel. At the very least, the relationship is being subjected to a renewed, more critical scrutiny. This paper argues that a dispassionate analysis of the relationship is appropriate and overdue. Not only are the benefits that accrue to 'Australia' from the relationship debateable, even when judged within the limited calculus of the 'national interest', but Australia's uncritical support for US foreign policy is also helping to entrench potentially damaging aspects of American foreign policy and somewhat ironically-undermining the legitimacy of its pre-eminent 'hegemonic' position.

Globalisation, security and international order after 11 September

This article advances the discussion of the contentious question of links between global inequalities of power and violent responses, focussing on globalisation and non-inclusive forms of governance. Drawing on international political economy, the article criticises the nationstate-centrism in much political discourse, suggesting that both authority and security need to be reconsidered - to account for less plausible national borders and controls. It suggests that human security (including issues of development and equality) ought to replace national security as the primary focus of public policy. It draws attention to the intractability of difference, insisting that the terrorism of 2001 has complex transnational antecedents. Realist approaches to international order have become part of a problem to be overcome through further intellectual debate.

Reconciliation through communication in intercultural encounters: potential or peril?

As we reflect on the events of September 11th and their aftermath, there is strong motivation in many places to improve intercultural and international relations through communication. This laudable aim implicates the long history of research into intercultural encounters, which has always bad this goal. To achieve it, researchers and trainers must go beyond conceptualizing intercultural encounters as like interpersonal ones, except that participants have different and sometimes conflicting cultural rules and values. We must develop programs to train metaskills in analyzing miscommunication and its negative consequences. This requires the recognition that, in many interethnic and intercultural contexts, participants are not. motivated to communicate well. In such cases, the larger sociopolitical situation must be addressed, or skills training may even exacerbate the conflict. It is also crucial to understand intercultural communication as simultaneously intergroup and interpersonal, to incorporate both aspects into interventions, and to advocate for such training to improve intercultural relations.

Identity, difference, and the dilemmas of inter-Korean relations: Insights from northern defectors and the German precedent

Questions of identity have become increasingly central to the study of foreign policy and security, particularly in constructivist debates. But very few of the resulting insights have been applied to the Korean situation, where discussions about security and inter-Korean relations remain dominated by strategic and geopolitical issues. The main task of this article is to address this shortcoming by examining the experience of North Korean defectors in South Korea and the precedent of German unification. Both of these domains of inquiry reveal that identity differences between North and South persist far beyond the ideological and political structures that created them in the first place. Born out of death, fear, and longing for revenge, these identity patterns lie at the heart of Korea's security dilemmas. Unless taken seriously by scholars and decision makers, the respective tensions between identity and difference will continue to cause major political problems. (Key words: Inter-Korean relations, North Korean defectors, German unification)

Ethics and intervention: The 'humanitarian exception' and the problem of abuse in the case of Iraq

This article investigates the ethics of intervention and explores the decision to invade Iraq. It begins by arguing that while positive international law provides an important framework for understanding and debating the legitimacy of war, it does not cover the full spectrum of moral reasoning on issues of war and peace. To that end, after briefly discussing the two primary legal justifications for war (implied UN authorization and pre-emptive self-defence), and finding them wanting, it asks whether there is a moral 'humanitarian exceptions to this rule grounded in the 'just war' tradition. The article argues that two aspects of the broad tradition could be used to make a humanitarian case for war: the 'holy war' tradition and classical just war thinking based on natural law. The former it finds problematic, while the latter it argues provides a moral space to justify the use of force to halt gross breaches of natural law. Although such an approach may provide a moral justification for war, it also opens the door to abuse. It was this very problem that legal positivism from Vattel onwards was designed to address. As a result, the article argues that natural law and legal positivist arguments should be understood as complementary sets of ideas whose sometimes competing claims must be balanced in relation to particular cases. Therefore, although natural law may open a space for justifying the invasion of Iraq on humanitarian terms, legal positivism strictly limits that right. Ignoring this latter fact, as happened in the Iraq case, opens the door to abuse.

Securing international society: Towards an English School discourse of security

English School approaches to international politics, which focus on the idea of an international society of states bound together by shared rules and norms, have not paid significant explicit attention to the study of security in international relations. This is curious given the centrality of security to the study of world politics and the recent resurgence of English School scholarship in general. This article attempts to redress this gap by locating and explicating an English School discourse of security. We argue here that there is indeed an English School discourse of security, although an important internal distinction exists here between pluralist and solidarist accounts, which focus on questions of order and justice in international society respectively. In making this argument, we also seek to explore the extent to which emerging solidarist accounts of security serve to redress the insecurity of security in international relations: the tendency of traditional security praxes to privilege the state in ways that renders individuals insecure.

Women, violence and nonviolent resistance in east Timor

A growing literature in peace and conflict studies assesses the relationship between women and nonviolence. Numerous national liberation fronts and academic critiques assess how women participate in nonviolent resistance from Tibet and West Papua to Palestine and Eritrea. However, many liberation struggles that include female nonviolent resistance remain undocumented, and this article aims to delve into one case study in particular. The article examines the nonviolent roles adopted by women in the East Timorese liberation struggle, a national liberation movement in which the participation of female combatants was low but nonviolent participation by women in the resistance movement overall was high. However, the consequences for such women was, and remains, shaped by the overarching patriarchal structures of both the Indonesian occupiers and East Timorese society itself Female nonviolent resistance was met with highly violent responses from Indonesian troops, especially in the form of rape and sexual exploitation. Yet, this study also found that women acting under religious auspices faced less violent responses overall. Interviews with East Timorese women are used to reveal some of the sexual dynamics of nonviolent action and reprisal. This material is placed in the context of theoretical work on gender, violence and nonviolence.

The Society of States under siege? An English School perspective on the emergence of global civil society

In this article I critically examine the theoretical and empirical relationship between world society, whereby global civil society is taken to be its physical or empirical counterpart, and the society of states. This relationship is typically portrayed as contradictory or confrontational, and I contend that this mainstream perspective is reliant on a superficial analysis of the relationship. If one examines the deeper dynamics, viewed in their contemporary international normative context, then one can identify the more constructive and permissive aspects of the relationship. Rather than being wholly incompatible I argue that world society and international society are mutually constitutive and mutually dependent regimes, whose relationship is more often marked by cooperation than by conflict. English School theory provides the conceptual framework for this analysis. The relationship between international and world society presents a core ontological tension within this theory, and again they tend to occupy polarised positions. A synthesis of four international theories - pluralist international society theory, solidarist international society theory, critical international theory, and the discourse of global civil society - informs the hypothesis that the relationship can be normatively and empirically reconciled. In order to empirically support this explanation I analyse two phenomena in world politics - transnational advocacy networks and humanitarian intervention - where there is an apparent tension between international and world society.