Search results for " relations"
showing 10 items of 6439 documents
Miracles in Dark Times: Hannah Arendt and Refugees as ‘Vanguard’
2019
AbstractThe radical uncertainty that refugees face because of war, flight and exile often dramatically shapes their participation in society. Violent conflict and human rights abuses are not just disproportionately experienced by, but can also create, political subjects. Such life events can transform the motivations, sense of responsibility and political actions of individuals with refugee backgrounds. In this article, we explore the links between civil–political engagement and the life stories of such individuals, analysing our empirical data through themes in the work of Hannah Arendt. We make three central points. First, we highlight the possibility of refugees as ‘vanguard’, playing a …
The Challenge of Coexistence in Socially Vulnerable Schools
2017
Abstract Society in general and schools in particular continue to express their concerns with regard to the many challenges posed nowadays by living in a globalized world, where learning to coexist involves knowing oneself and those around us. Therefore, the professionals from the education sector and specially from the most vulnerable contexts demand the necessity to know strategies and initiatives which enable them to build a democratic school, where learning to coexist is the key to educate engaged citizens living in an increasingly intercultural, changing world. The study presented here has been conducted in two differentiated, but complementary, phases. During the first phase a documen…
The Impact of Regionalism on Democracy Building: An Examination of the Southern African Development Community (SADC)
2017
Since the early 1990s, the world has witnessed a new wave of regionalism and a mushrooming of regional integration organizations, particularly in the global South. Focusing on Africa, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) ranks among the most promising examples of regionalism on the continent. The SADC explicitly aims at building and advancing democracy in the region and its member states as part of its broader agenda on regional development. From a political science perspective, there is general agreement that regional integration and parallel institution building can be useful measures to promote and strengthen democratic rule, since an appropriate institutional “lock-in” impl…
Russia-Ukraine balance of military power
2017
The Russia-Ukraine conflict is the most serious test of European security in the 21st century and the forgone conclusion is that Russia can easily prevail in the conflict, but this has not been the case. This article uses balance of military power analysis to report findings on the plausible outcome of a war between Ukraine and Russia. I report findings based on realist theoretical perspectives that indicate Russian victory is unlikely because of relative balance of power where Russia has to face multiple threats diverting its military power while Ukraine can concentrate its military power for a single purpose. The findings suggest implication for policy in Russia, Ukraine, EU and the Unite…
From Neo-Functional Peace to a Logic of Spillover in EU External Policy: A Response to Visoka and Doyle
2017
In their recently published JCMS article, Gezim Visoka and John Doyle have proposed the concept of ‘neofunctional peace’ as a means to conceptualize the EU's peacemaking practices in the case of the EU-facilitated Belgrade-Pristina dialogue. This article challenges the ‘neo-functional peace’ on conceptual and empirical grounds. We critically discuss Visoka and Doyle's (2016) reading of neofunctionalism and question parts of their empirical evidence given for the existence of a ‘neo-functional peace’. Going beyond a mere critique of the article by Visoka and Doyle and arguing that the authors may not have fully exploited neofunctionalism's potential for theorizing EU external policy, we stip…
Making sense of crises: the implications of information asymmetries for resilience and social justice in disaster-ridden communities
2017
New information and communication technologies (ICT) have enabled communities to collect and share information and tap into a network of peers in unprecedented ways. For more than a decade, informa...
How women are imagined through conceptual metaphors in United Nations Security Council Resolutions on women, peace and security
2017
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 is a landmark pronouncement on the Women, Peace and Security Agenda. Not only does this resolution highlight the important role of the involvement of women in peace processes, but it also stresses the importance of their equal participation in all efforts for the maintenance and promotion of peace. Furthermore, it also triggers the approval of some other resolutions, which are all further elaborations on that first document. The aim of this paper is to analyse, from a cognitive linguistic perspective, the way in which women are actually narrated in these pronouncements by means of the two conceptual metaphors that are most often repeated: WOME…
The role of social perception in disaster risk reduction: Beliefs, perception, and attitudes regarding flood disasters in communities along the Volta…
2017
Abstract People's perceptions of natural, spiritual, and social phenomena are socially constructed. Social perception is important because it helps people to make sense of the physical and social world and therein interact with it. Earlier research specializing in the study of human behaviour has emphasized a linkage between people's perceptions and their behaviour. In this article, the authors employ a similar theory with the intent of proposing a theoretical framework that examines the factors that influence people's perception and attitude (mitigation and response) towards the hazards they face. This discussion is done on the premise of “culture”, “experiences” and “disaster risk reducti…
The 2015 Spanish election: the times they are a’ changing
2016
ABSTRACTThe Spanish legislative election of 2015 speaks of change. This is the end of the traditional two-party system and the beginning of a new political era marked by institutional renewal. The Socialist Party and the Partido Popular have both lost significant parliamentary force, whereas two new parties (Podemos, and Ciudadanos) are now crucial to ensure stable government majorities. This new parliamentary scenario seems to better mirror the political pluralism of a changing society which has already demonstrated for change in striking events such as the 15-M Movement. However, political parties are far from showing conciliatory aspirations, possibly because a new election is suddenly a…
When Peace Leads to Divorce: The Splintering of Rebel Groups in Powersharing Agreements
2017
While research has already focused on power-sharing agreements by assessing specific effects of political, economic, territorial and military provisions, some provisions might be more important tha...