(published by Zed Books, 2011)
Video of the London book launch of A Liberal Peace? The Problems and Practices of Peacebuilding, with co-editors David Chandler and Meera Sabaratnam, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Westminster, 14 February 2012.
"A Liberal Peace? is an invaluable addition to the scholarship on the liberal peace debate, peace operations and intervention." - Craig Snyder, review, Australian Journal of Political Science, Vol. 47, No. 2, June 2012, pp.323-5
(Published by Routledge, PRIO New Security Studies series, paperback out February 2012)
(published by Pluto Press, July 2009)
Other Publications
'Development as Freedom?: From Colonialism to Countering Climate Change', Development Dialogue, No. 58, April 2012, pp.115-129. Special Issue: 'The End of the Development-Security Nexus: The Rise of Global Disaster Management'. ISSN 0345-2328
'Le Point de Vue de David Chandler', Politique Africain, No. 125, March 2012, pp.219-223 (discussion forum on Mark Duffield's Development, Security and Unending War, English version of my contribution available here). Published forum: 'Autour d'un livre. Development, Security and Unending War: Governing the World of Peoples, de Mark Duffield, commenté par David Ambrosetti, David Chandler et Vincent Foucher'.
'Human Security and Post-Intervention: The Case of Libya', P@X Online Bulletin, Human-Centred Approaches and International Security, Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra, No.19, March 2012, pp.2-4. (Also available in the same issue, Sarah da Mota, 'David Chandler and the Thinking on the Human Subject')
'Steinchen auf Steinchen', The European Magazine, 13 March 2012. Erwartungsmanagement gehört zu den Primärtugenden in der Politik. Das gilt auch für den Wiederaufbau unseres fiktiven Landes Post-Revolutien. 20 Jahre autokratischer Regierungsführung haben Spuren hinterlassen, die man nur mithilfe internationaler Zusammenarbeit und offener Kommunikation beseitigen kann. Unerfüllbare Versprechen helfen dabei niemandem.
'From Cosmopolitan Democracy to Post-Humanism', Lecture Two, (Youtube video) lecture delivered for the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Westminster, 9 March 2012.
'Resilience and Human Security: The Post-Interventionist Paradigm', Security Dialogue, Vol. 43, No. 3, pp.213-229. ISSN 0967-0106
Abstract: In current discussions, many commentators fear that 'broad' human security approaches are being sidelined by the rise of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and the 'narrow' focus on military intervention. An alternative reading is sketched out here, which suggests that debates over 'narrow' or 'broad' human security frameworks have under theorised the discursive paradigm at the heart of human security. This paradigm is drawn out in terms of the juxtaposition of preventive human security practices of resilience, working upon the empowerment of the vulnerable, and the interventionist security practices of liberal internationalism, working upon the protection of victims. It is suggested that human security can be conceptually analysed in terms of post-intervention, as a shift away from liberal internationalist claims of Western securing or sovereign agency and towards a concern with facilitating or developing the self-securing agency – resilience - of those held to be the most vulnerable. This approach takes us beyond the focus on the technical means of intervention - whether coercive force is deployed or not – and allows us to see how international intervention, including under the R2P, increasingly operates under the paradigm of resilience and human security, thereby evading many of the problems confronted by liberal framings of intervention.
'The Three Hurdles of Democratic Transition', op-ed, The European Magazine, 8 March 2012. In the fictional country of Postrevolutia, change is in the air. In order to ensure the peaceful transition from an authoritarian past towards a democratic future, expectations must be managed carefully. Debate on 'The Long Aftermath of Revolution' with Rosa Brooks, Georgetown University and Robert Rotberg, Harvard University.
'From Cosmopolitan Democracy to Post-Humanism', Lecture One, (Youtube video) lecture delivered for the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Westminster, 2 March 2012.
'Critiques of Liberal Peace', (video) presentation at the book launch of A Liberal Peace? The Problems and Practices of Peacebuilding, with co-editor Meera Sabaratnam, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Westminster, 14 February 2012.
'Tolerance and Moral Independence', (Youtube video) in discussion with Professor Frank Furedi, on his latest book, On Tolerance, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Westminster, 2 February 2012.
'Comment le state-building affaiblit les Etats', Alternatives Sud, (Re-)construire les États, nouvelle frontière de l'ingérence, Vol. 19, No. 1, (2012). pp.23-36.
'Promoting Democratic Norms? Social Constructivism and the "Subjective" Limits to Liberalism', Democratization, Vol. 19, 2012. (published online 24 February)
Abstract: This paper argues that, since the end of the cold war, the understanding of democratic norm promotion has shifted through three conceptually distinct and chronologically distinguishable stages: the early 1990s view that democratic norms would be universalized with the cold war victory of liberal ideals and the spread of new global norms of good governance; the mid- to late-1990s view that barriers to the promotion of democratic norms could be understood as the product of state or elite self-interests; and the perspective dominant since the 2000s, that the promotion of democratic norms necessarily involves much deeper and more extensive external intervention in order to transform social institutions and societal practices. Through charting the shifts in the understanding of democratic norm promotion, this paper seeks to highlight the problems inherent in norm promotion discourses that emphasize the importance of subjective agency, normative choices and cultural and ideational frameworks of understanding. A key problem being that, in the downplaying of social and economic context, agency-based understandings tend to degrade the rational capacities of - and to exoticize and problematize - the non-Western subject. The social constructivist approach, which presupposes a closed or endogenous framework of societal reproduction, has thereby been a crucial paradigm through which Western democracy promotion discourses have shifted to emphasizing the subjective policy barrier posed by the allegedly 'non-liberal' mind-set of the non-Western subject.
'Old wine in a new bottle? Democratisation lessons from Afghanistan and Iraq in the Arab Spring's Libya', panel with Iwan Morgan (Professor of United States Studies, ISA), Adam Quinn (Lecturer in International Studies, Department of Political Science and International Studies, Birmingham University) and Matthew Alan Hill (Postdoctoral Research Fellow, ISA), Institute for the Study of the Americas, School of Advanced Study, University of London, 19 January 2012. (My presentation is at 38 - 55 minutes)
'Republika Srpska: Fundamental Pillar of the Bosnian State', short version of interview with Danijela Dzeletovic, Republika Srpksa News Agency (SRNA), 17 January 2012. Serbian version available here (pages 5-6).
'Human Rights and International Law Ten Years after Guantanamo', with Rob Freer, Amnesty International, Anthony Dworkin, European Council on Foreign Relations and Alexander Ngorny in Moscow, chaired by James Reinl, Voice of Russia radio, broadcast 10 January 2012. Available on YouTube: part 1 and part 2.
'The New Paternalism' (review article), Radical Philosophy, No. 171, (January/February 2012), pp.42-44. ISSN 0300 211X
2011
'Introduction' (with Susanna Campbell and Meera Sabaratnam) and 'The Uncritical Critique of Liberal Peace' in Susanna Campbell, David Chandler and Meera Sabaratnam (eds) A Liberal Peace? The Problems and Practices of Peacebuilding (London: Zed Books, 2011), pp.1-9; pp.174-190. ISBN 978-1780320021
Book synopsis: Moving beyond the binary argument between those who buy into the aims of creating liberal democratic states grounded in free markets and rule of law, and those who critique and oppose them, this timely and much-needed critical volume takes a fresh look at the liberal peace debate. In doing so, it examines the validity of this critique in contemporary peacebuilding and statebuilding practice through a multitude of case studies - from Afghanistan to Somalia, Sri Lanka to Kosovo. Going further, it investigates the underlying theoretical assumptions of liberal peacebuilding and statebuilding, as well as providing new theoretical propositions for understanding current interventions. Written by some of the most prominent scholars in the field, alongside several new scholars making cutting edge contributions, this is an essential contribution to a rapidly growing interdisciplinary area of study.
Contents: Introduction: The Politics of Liberal Peace - Susanna Campbell,
David Chandler and Meera Sabaratnam Part I: Introducing the Debate 1. A Brief Intellectual History of International Conflict Management, 1990-2010 - Meera Sabaratnam 2. Critiques of Liberal Peace - Roland Paris Part II: Not Such a 'Liberal' Peace? Rethinking Intervention 3. Why Peacebuilding is Toothless: Sovereignty, Patrimonialism and Power - Ole Jacob Sending 4. The Liberal Peace - A Tough Sell? - Christoph Zuercher 5. Routine Learning? How Peacebuilding Organizations Prevent Liberal Peace - Susanna Campbell 6. Promoting Women's Rights in Afghanistan: The Ambiguous Footprint of the West - Torunn Wimpelmann Chaudhary, Orzala Ashraf and Astri Suhrke 7. Neither Liberal nor Peaceful? Practices of 'Global Justice' by the ICC - Adam Branch 8. Civil Society Beyond the Liberal Peace and its Critique - Thania Paffenholz Part III: Rethinking the Critique: What Next? 9. Alternatives to Liberal Peace? - Roland Paris 10. The Uncritical Critique of Liberal Peace - David Chandler 11. Reality Check: The Critique of the Liberal Peace Meets the Politics of State-Building - Shahar Hameiri 12. Hybrid Peace: How does hybrid peace come about? - Roger Mac Ginty 13. Resistance and the Post-Liberal Peace - Oliver P. Richmond 14. Situated Critiques of Intervention: the Diverse Politics of Response - Meera Sabaratnam.
'"Governance" statt "Government"? Die Grenzen des post-liberalen Peacebuilding am Beispiel Bosnien', Wissenschaft & Frieden, No. 2 (2011), pp.43-46. Issue available online here.
'David Chandler: The High Representative: Irresponsible Ruler who does not want to go', Glas Serpske, (Bosnia), 19-21 November 2011, pp. 4-5. Hard copy PDFs: front page, page 4; page 5.
'Libya: The End of Intervention', e-International Relations editorial, 17 November 2011. Without Western responsibility for the outcome of the intervention in Libya and without any transformative promise, Western powers were strengthened morally and politically through their actions, whereas in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq, they were humbled and often humiliated.
Reprinted in 'The Responsibility to Protect: Challenges & opportunities in light of the Libyan intervention', E-International Relations, 21 November 2011, edited by Alex Stark. With contributions from many of the world's most respected R2P experts and practitioners, this compendium of pieces from e-IR attempts to draw attention to the major points of contention that have been highlighted by the Libyan intervention. Available as PDF here.
'High Representative to be Removed First', News Agency of BiH/Republika Srpska (SRNA), 14 November 2011. For Serbian version click here.
'Building Global Civil Society "From Below"?' and 'Rhetoric Without Responsibility: The Attraction of Ethical Foreign Policy'in Mervyn Frost (ed.) International Ethics, Volumes Two and Three (London: Sage, 2011). ISBN 978-1412947206
Book synopsis: The SAGE Library of International Relations brings together the most influential and field-defining articles, both classical and contemporary, in a number of key areas of research and inquiry in International Relations. Each multi-volume set represents a collection of the essential published works collated from the foremost publications in the field by an editor or editorial team of renowned international stature. They also include a full introduction, presenting a rationale for the selection and mapping out the discipline's past, present and likely future. 
This series is designed to be a 'gold standard' for university libraries throughout the world with an interest in International Relations. Actors in international politics need to navigate a host of ethical challenges when deciding how to act in a certain context. They are confronted by the question: "What, from an ethical point of view, ought I to do?" with regard to a wide range of issues including the conduct of war, the just distribution of aid and trade, human rights, the care of the global environment, the rights of asylum seekers and refugees, genocide, money laundering, global terror and many others. This collection looks at classical and seminal research in the field with the broad framework of the moral standing of states; the moral standing of non-state actors; and the ethics of international relations. Volume One: The Society of States Volume Two: Global Civil Society: Non-State Actors in World Politics Volume Three: The Changing Constitution of Global Politics Volume Four: Ethics and Foreign Policy.
'The Citizen and Social Equality', (video), presentation for roundtable discussion on 'New Trends in Democratic Theory', University of Westminster, Politics and International Relations Residential Weekend, Caer Llan, Monmouthshire, 5 Nobember 2011.
'Dominion and the Contested Idea of Development', (video), debate, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Westminster, 13 October 2011.
'The EU and Southeastern Europe: The Rise of Post-Liberal Governance' in Jovan Babic, Petar Bojanic and Gazela Pudor (eds) Europe in the Emerging World Order: Searching for a New Paragdigm (Belgrade: Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade), pp.152-179. ISBN 978-8682417309
'Understanding the Gap between the Promise and the Reality of “The Responsibility to Protect”' in Phillip Cunliffe (ed.) Critical Perspectives on the Responsibility to Protect: Interrogating Theory and Practice (London: Routledge, 2011), pp.19-34. ISBN 978-0415586238
Book synopsis: This edited volume critically examines the widely supported doctrine of the 'Responsibility to Protect', and investigates the claim that it embodies progressive values in international politics. Since the United Nations World Summit of 2005, a remarkable consensus has emerged in support of the doctrine of the 'responsibility to protect' (R2P) – the idea that states and the international community bear a joint duty to protect peoples around the world from mass atrocities. While there has been plenty of discussion over how this doctrine can best be implemented, there has been no systematic criticism of the principles underlying R2P. This volume is the first critically to interrogate both the theoretical principles and the policy consequences of this doctrine. The authors in this collection argue that the doctrine of R2P does not in fact embody progressive values, and they explore the possibility that the R2P may undermine political accountability within states and international peace between them. This volume not only advances a novel set of arguments, but will also spur debate by offering views that are seldom heard in discussions of R2P. The aim of the volume is to bring a range of criticisms to bear from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, including international law, political science, IR theory and security studies. This book will be of much interest to students of the Responsibility to Protect, humanitarian intervention, human security, critical security studies and IR in general.
Contents: Introduction Philip Cunliffe Part 1: The Responsibility to Protect:
History and Politics 2. The Skeleton in the Closet: The Responsibility to Protect in History Noam Chomsky 3. Understanding the Gap between the Promise and Reality of the Responsibility to Protect David Chandler 4. The Responsibility to Protect and the End of the Western Century Tara McCormack Part 2: The Responsibility to Protect: International Law and Order 5. A Dangerous Duty: Power, Paternalism and the Global 'Duty of Care' Philip Cunliffe 6. Responsibility to Peace: A Critique of R2P Mary Ellen O'Connell 7. The Responsibility to Protect and International Law Aidan Hehir Part 3: The Responsibility to Protect in Africa 8. The Irresponsibility of the Responsibility to Protect in Africa Adam Branch 9. Responsibility to Protect or Right to Punish? Mahmood Mamdani.
'Assessing the Impact of 9/11: Ten Years on', (Youtube video), roundtable, Department of Politics and International Relatons, University of Westminster, 6 October 2011.
'9/11 and the Reconstitution of Order and Meaning', Westminster's International Relations Blog, posted 1 October 2011. (Reposted University of St. Andrews, Plato's Cave blog, 6 October 2011).
Interview comments in Jason Walsh, 'Why the ICC likely won't charge pope over Catholic Church sex abuses', The Christian Science Monitor, 15 September 2011.
'Critiquing Global Democracy' in Joe Hoover, Meera Sabaratnam and Laust Schouenborg (eds) Interrogating Democracy in World Politics (London: Routledge, 2011), pp.130-149. ISBN 978-0415595315
Book synopsis: It is often assumed that democracy is both desirable and possible in global politics. Interrogating Democracy in World Politics provides an important counter-argument to this assumption by questioning the history, meaning and concepts of democracy in contemporary international and global politics. Combining viewpoints from the fields of international relations, political theory and history, the book includes: Critical examinations of the concept of democracy as a political order and ethical ideal Assessment of the role and function of democracy in how contemporary political events are understood and evaluated Analysis of the relationship of democracy to international stability, liberalism and the emergence of capitalist economies The book focuses on the move from the concept of 'international politics' to 'world politics', recognising the equal importance of understanding democratic interaction both within and between states. It reviews current scholarly thinking in the field before providing a complex theoretical re-engagement with the meaning of democracy in contemporary world politics. Interrogating Democracy in World Politics will be of interest to students and scholars of politics and international relations, democratization studies and globalization.
Contents: 1. Introduction: Interrogating Democracy in World Politcs Joe Hoover, Meera Sabaratnam and Laust Schouenborg Part 1: Historical Interrogations 2. Democracy in America and Democracy in the World Today Nicholas Onuf and Peter Onuf 3. Democracy in International Society: Promotion or Exclusion? Ian Clark 4. Power to the People: Nationally-Embedded Development and Mass Armies in the Making of Democracy Sandra Halperin 5. Escaping the Liberal Straitjacket: Re-Examining Democracy's History Christopher Hobson 6. The Active Making of Two Foundationally Unequal Subjects: Liberal Democracy's Achilles Heel? Saskia Sassen Part 2: Conceptual Interrogations 7. Restructuring Global Governance: Cosmopolitanism, Democracy and the Global Order David Held 8. Democracy in a Multipolar World Chantal Mouffe 9. Critiquing Global Democracy David Chandler 10. Mobilising (Global) Democracy: A Political Reading of Mobility between Universal Rights and the Mob Claudia Aradau and Jef Huysmans 11. Pragmatic Cosmopolitanism and the Role of Leadership in Transnational Democracy Daniel Bray 12. Conclusion James Bohman.
‘The Liberal Peace – Statebuilding, Democracy and Local Ownership’ in Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh (ed.) Rethinking the Liberal Peace: External Models and Local Alternatives (London: Routledge, 2011), pp.77-88. ISBN 978-0415600552
Book synopsis: This book presents a critical analysis of the liberal peace project and offers possible alternatives and models. In the past decade, the model used for reconstructing societies after conflicts has been based on liberal assumptions about the pacifiying effects of 'open markets' and 'open societies'. Yet, despite the vast resources invested in helping establish the precepts of this liberal peace, outcomes have left much to be desired. The book argues that failures in the liberal peace project are not only due to efficiency problems related to its adaptation in adverse local environments, but mostly due to problems of legitimacy of turning an ideal into a doctrine for action.? The aim of the book is to scrutinize assumptions about the value of democratization and marketization and realities on the ground by combining theoretical discussions with empirical evidence from key post-conflict settings such as Iraq and Afghanistan. These?show the disparities that exist between the ideals and the reality of the liberal peace project, as seen by external peacebuilders and domestic actors. The book then proposes?various alternatives and modifications to better accommodate local perspectives, values and agency in attempts to forge a new consensus. This book will be of great interest to students of peacebuilding/peacekeeping, statebuilding, war and conflict studies, international security and IR.
Contents: Introduction: Liberal Peace in Dispute Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh Part 1: Theory and Critics of the Liberal Peace 1. Open Societies, Open Markets: Assumptions and Illusions Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh 2. Becoming Liberal, Unbecoming Liberalism: Liberal-Local Hybridity via the Everyday as a Response to the Paradoxes of Liberal Peacebuilding Oliver P. Richmond 3. Peace, Self-Governance and International Engagement: From Neo-Colonial to Postcolonial Peacebuilding Kristoffer Lidén Part 2: Liberal Democracy 4. The Liberal Peace: Statebuilding, Democracy and Local Ownership David Chandler 5. Democracy and Security: A Shotgun Marriage? Robin Luckham 6. What's Law got to do with it? The Role of Law in Post-Conflict Democratization and its (Flawed) Assumptions Michael Schoiswohl 7. No Such Thing as Cosmopolitanism: Field-dependent Consequences in International Administrative Governance and Criminal Justice Nicholas Dorn Part 3: Market Liberalism 8. Curing Strangeness in the Political Economy of Peacebuilding: Traces of Liberalism and Resistance Michael Pugh 9. Economic Dimensions of the Liberal Peace and its Implications for Conflict in Developing Countries Syed Mansoob Murshed Part 4: Case Studies 10. Reconstructing Post-2006 Lebanon: A Distorted Market Christine Sylva Hamieh and Roger Mac Ginty 11. Is Liberal Democracy Possible in Iraq? Amal Shlash and Patrick Tom 12. Liberal Peace and the Dialogue of the Deaf in Afghanistan Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh Conclusion: Typologies and Modifications Proposed by Critical Approaches Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh and Oliver P. Richmond.
'Responses to the England Riots', interview for 'People in the Know', China Radio International, 16 August 2011. The weblink is available here.
'Debating Democracy', Iconoclasts, BBC Radio 4, 10 August 2011 (repeated 13 August 2011). Chaired by Edward Stourton, panellist with Gordon Graham, Professor of Philosophy and the Arts at Princeton Theological Seminary, Edward Lucas (European Editor of The Economist), Professor Robert Hazell (Director of the Constitution Unit at University College London), 10 August 2011.
'Should we Intervene?: Debate about Sri Lanka and Libya', studio discussion with George Grant (Henry Jackson Society), chaired by Khrishnum Guru-Murthy, Channel 4 News, 20 April 2011. Henry Jackson Society have placed the video on YouTube
'Why the Bombing of Libya cannot Herald a Return to the 1990s Era of Humanitarian Intervention', reproduced on Monthly Review MRZine, 19 April 2011. On 4 April 2011, when David Chandler's essay below was first published in e-IR, French and UN forces intervened in Ivory Coast on behalf of Alassane Ouattara and his forces, eventually deposing President Laurent Gbagbo on 11 April 2011. Humanitarian pretexts were offered for that intervention, but rather perfunctorily, almost as an afterthought to the dominant theme of good governance. Both the material basis and ideology of sovereignty may have withered to the point that imperialists no longer require any moral crusade against it. Today it may be said that sovereignty is an exception, not the norm, ideologically defended by few nations (usually only in defense of themselves), materially exercised by fewer still. -- Ed.
'There's Nothing "Good" about the War in Libya', Spiked-Online, 19 April 2011. An international relations expert says there's no going back to the so-called 'good interventions' of the 1990s.
'JISB Interview: Albin Kurti: Kosova in Dependence: From Stability of Crisis to Crisis of Stability', Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, Vol. 5, No.1 (2011).
'Why the Bombing of Libya cannot Herald a Return to the 1990s Era of Humanitarian Intervention', e-International Relations, editorial, 4 April 2011.
'The Problematic of Control in a 'Global' World', (podcast) presentation at 'Control and the Global' panel at the 'Taking Control' conference, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 12 March 2011.
'Resilience: Friend or Foe?', (video) presentation at a Round Table featuring leading scholars in the field debating the pitfalls and opportunities of resilience as a governance strategy today, University of Westminster, 24 February 2011.
'The Ontology of Danger: Recasting the Human Subject in Discourses of Vulnerability and Reslience', (powerpoint) conference paper for the panel 'Ontologisations of Danger' at the 'Problematising Danger' workshop, King's
College London, 21-22 February 2011. Podcast available here.
2010
Book review: Oliver P. Richmond and Jason Franks, Liberal Peace Transitions: Between Statebuilding and Peacebuilding (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009), International Affairs, Vol. 86, No.6 (2010).
'Neither International nor Global: Rethinking the Problematic Subject of Security', Journal of Critical Globalisation Studies, No.3 (2010), pp.89-101. Issue available online here.
Abstract: This paper argues that the problematic of the international and the global has been a barrier to understanding the transformation of security discourse over the last decade. Academic treatments of security within the discipline of international relations have been structured by the traditional liberal binaries, which conceive of political communities capable of constituting securing subjects at either the level of the state or the global. Today's dominant framing of the security problematic seems to evade easy articulation within this structure and in some readings is seen to presage a transitory stage from the international to the global. An alternative reading is sketched out here, that of the post- liberal, which suggests that the apparent shift towards the global can not be captured from within the liberal problematic and highlights that rather than traditional disagreements over the nature of the subject of security – the constitution of the securing actor – we are witnessing the disappearance of securing agency itself.
* 'Race, Culture and Civil Society: Peacebuilding Discourse and the Understanding of Difference', Security Dialogue, Vol. 41, No.4 (2010), pp.369-390. ISSN 0967-0106
Abstract: This article seeks to draw out an understanding of the role of narra- tives and discourses of race, culture and civil society within interna- tional peacebuilding, through the location of the discourse of culture as a transitional stage between interventionist and regulatory dis- courses of race and civil society. It particularly seeks to highlight that the discourse of culture is key to understanding the peacebuilding discourses of intervention and regulation that have developed in the last decade. This is all the more important as the discourse of culture has in many respects been displaced by the discourse of civil society. In drawing out the links between the framings of race, culture and civil society, the article seeks to explain how the discourse of civil soci- ety intervention has been reinvented on the basis of the moral divide established and made coherent through the discourse of culture, and how the discourse of civil society contains a strong apologetic content, capable of legitimizing and explaining the persistence of social and economic problems or political fragmentation while simultaneously offering potential policy programmes on the basis of highly ambitious goals of social transformation.
'Tašna Hilari Klinton: Uterivanje dijaloga', comments on Hillary Clinton's visit to Belgrade and Pristina, NIN (Belgrade), 14 October 2010, pp.10-13. Cyrillic version here.
'Medunarodna Zajednica Bez Vizije Za Bi' interview with Danka Savic in Slobodna Bosna (Sarajevo), 14 October 2010, pp.38-40. Available here in three files: p.38, p.39 and p.40.
'Evading the Challenge: The Limits of Global Activism' in Thomas Olesen (ed.) Power and Transnational Activism (London: Routledge, 2010), pp.34-50. ISBN 978-0415553698
Reviews: One of the most appreciated virtues of civil society is its ability to frame old or neglected issues in innovative ways. Olesen's edited volume provides an important contribution to this debate on transnational activism. Contrasting civil society capacity to frame new discursive opportunity structures at the international level to the resilient ability of the state to exert restraining power at the national level, the book opens up new avenues to understand the power of civil society actors together with its limits - Raffaele Marchetti, Lecturer of International Relations, Department of Political Science, LUISS and University of Naples L'Orientale
Here is a valuable collection in which top-rate thinkers offer diverse assessments of the place of transnational counter-publics in contemporary politics. It is an important question, and the book offers novel and interesting answers - Jan Aart Scholte, University of Warwick
Book Synopsis: This book focuses on global activism and uses a power perspective to provide an in-depth and coherent analysis of both the possibilities and limitations of global activism. Bringing together scholars from IR, sociology, and political science, this book offers new and critical insights on global activism and power. It features case studies on the following social and political issues: China and Tibet, HIV/AIDS, climate change, child labour, the WTO, women and the UN, the global public sphere, regional integration, national power, world social forums, policing, media power and global civil society. It will be of interest to students and scholars of globalization, global sociology and international politics.
Homepage photo illustrates Zoe Corbyn's feature 'All about me, dot com' on academic's personal websites, Times Higher Education, 19 August 2010, pp.37-39.
Book review: Aidan Hehir, Humanitarian Intervention after Kosovo: Iraq, Darfur and the Record of Global Civil Society (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2008), Millennium: Journal of International Studies, Vol. 38, No. 3 (2010), pp.843-845.
'Promovohet libri "Ngritja e qeverisjes postliberale"', Bota Sot (Pristina), 2 September 2010, p.27. Review of book launch of International Statebuilding: The Rise of Post-Liberal Governance at the National Library Auditorium, Pristina.
'Introduction’ (with Nik Hynek) and ‘Rethinking Global Discourses of Security’ in David Chandler and Nik Hynek (eds) Critical Approaches to Human Security: Rethinking Discourses of Emancipation and Power in International Relations(London: Routledge, 2010), pp. 1-10 and pp.114-128. ISBN 978-0415567343
Book Synopsis: This new book presents critical approaches towards Human Security, which has become one of the key areas for policy and academic debate within Security Studies and IR. The Human Security paradigm has had considerable significance for academics, policy-makers and practitioners. Under the rubric of Human Security, security policy practices seem to have transformed their goals and approaches, re-prioritising economic and social welfare issues?that were marginal to the state-based geo-political rivalries of the Cold War era. Human Security has reflected and reinforced the reconceptualisation of international security, both broadening and deepening it, and, in so doing, it has helped extend and shape the space within which security concerns inform international policy practices. However, in its wider use, Human Security has become an amorphous and unclear political concept, seen by some?as progressive and radical and by others as?tainted by association with the imposition of neo-liberal practices and values on non-Western spaces?or as legitimizing attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan. This book is concerned with critical perspectives towards Human Security, highlighting some of the tensions which can emerge between critical perspectives which discursively radicalise Human Security within frameworks of emancipatory possibility and those which attempt to deconstruct Human Security within the framework of an externally imposed attempt to regulate and order the globe on behalf of hegemonic power. The chapters gathered in this edited collection represent a range of critical approaches which bring together alternative understandings of human security. This book will be of great interest to students of human security studies and critical security studies, war and conflict studies and international relations.
Comments in Bruno Waterfield, 'Baroness Ashton moves to take control in Bosnia', Daily Telegraph, 27 July 2010.
'Flouting International Law: International pressure on Serbia not to start a new debate about the status of Kosovo and the possible diplomatic strategy of Serbia after the ICJ decision’ (interview in Serbian), NIN (Belgrade), 1 July 2010.
(with Giorgio Shani) 'Introduction: Assessing the Impact of Foucault on International Relations', International Political Sociology, Vol. 4, No. 2 (2010), pp.196-197. ISSN 1749-5687
* 'Forget Foucault, Forget Foucault, Forget Foucault...', International Political Sociology, Vol. 4, No. 2 (2010), pp.205-207. ISSN 1749-5687.
Abstract: It is a mantra, doomed to be repeated. It is not a plea. It is not an injunction. We cannot ‘forget’ Foucault in the same way as, in another era, Marx could only repeat his distance from ‘Marxists’ and the defeats of that other era turned Marxism into a dogma. In our era, the transformation of Foucault into the dogmas of ‘Foucaultians’ and ‘post-Foucaultians’ cannot be ended by the work of academics, it is not an academic problem. In the same way, the bloating of the discipline of IR, and the boom of dogmatic Foucaultianism within this, have nothing to do with academia per se, but how the world impinges upon and is reflected within disciplines, overdetermining the transformation of both what we call ‘IR’ and what we call ‘political theory’ and their inter-relationship.
'Globalizing Foucault: From Critique to Apologia - Reply to Kiersey and Rosenow', Global Society, Vol. 24, No. 2 (2010), pp.135-142. To read 'Response to Chandler' from Kiersey, Wiedner and Rosenow, click here.
Abstract: A special issue of Global Society generated from recent discussions on Foucauldian approaches to IR, some of which I co-convened, with Hiroyuki Tosa at BISA 2008 and Giorgio Shani at ISA 2009, is to be welcomed. For readers of the issue it may have seemed that some of the articles were overly defensive in relation to the criti- cisms of Foucauldian approaches, which would appear to be limited to a few dis- parate articles, which I am not sure really constitute putting "the concepts and methods of Michel Foucault (again) on trial".1 In fact, as far as I am aware, the few critical voices in the discussion have a great deal of sympathy for Foucault's "concepts and methods". The point which they have in common, and which I am keen to highlight here, is a questioning approach to the academic and critical value of some of the work of self-proclaimed Foucauldians developing critiques of the global operation of power relations. In this short response, I would like to draw out what might be politically at stake in the discussion of the "globalising" of Foucault and to highlight that the discussion of the relevance of Foucault's methods or of whether or not it is legitimate to apply Foucault to IR is somewhat of a red herring.
* 'Risk and the Biopolitics of Global Insecurity' (review article), Journal of Conflict, Security and Development, Vol. 10, No. 2 (2010), pp.287-297.
Abstract: Review of Michael Dillon and Julian Reid, The Liberal Way of War: Killing to Make Life Live (London: Routledge, 2009) and Christopher Coker, War in an Age of Risk (Cambridge: Polity, 2009).
'Liberal War and Foucaultian Metaphysics' (review article), Journal of International Cooperation Studies, Vol. 18, No.1 (2010), pp.85-94.
'The Paradox of the Responsibility to Protect' (review article), Cooperation and Conflict, Vol. 45, No. 1 (2010), pp.128-134.
'R2P or Not R2P? More Statebuilding, Less Responsibility', Global Responsibility to Protect, Vol. 2, Nos. 1-2 (2010), pp.161-166.
Abstract: In 2001, in the aftermath of the war in Kosovo, when the concept of ‘the responsibility to protect’ was first articulated, it appeared that the growing demand for a right of humanitarian intervention might fatally undermine the authority and structures of the United Nations. Firstly, it was argued that the UN Security Council was unsuitable as the final arbiter of whether military force was lawfully used, with suggestions of independent criteria for judging the ‘legitimacy’ of force. Secondly, it was argued that the concept of sovereign equality, the bulwark of the UN international legal order, no longer seemed to be adequate when some states abused their sovereign rights to claim impunity for mass atrocities and human rights abuses. In 2009, it appears that the UN has successfully weathered the challenge of demands for humanitarian intervention. This short contribution to the discussion of the Secretary General’s Report seeks to highlight how the concept of ‘the responsibility to protect’ has been transformed from constituting a powerful normative challenge to the UN’s status to one which it hopes will enforce its international authority.
Comments in Rebecca Attwood and Sarah Cunnane, ‘#loveHE: A big step into the grown-up world’, Times Higher Education Supplement, 11 March 2010, pp.34-41.
'No Communicating Left', Radical Philosophy, No. 160 (March/April 2010), pp.53-55. Review of Jodi Dean, Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies: Communicative Capitalism and Left Politics (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009).
'Fragile States and the International Community', panel discussion from Chatham House conference 'Fragile States and the International Community', for BBC Radio 4, The World Tonight programme, with Robin Lustig, Francesc Vendrell, former UN and EU Special Representative in Afghanistan and Ginny Hill who runs the Yemen Forum at Chatham House. BBC Radio 4, The World Tonight, 22 February 2010. Also available as audio file here.
'The EU and Southeastern Europe: The Rise of Post-Liberal Governance', Third World Quarterly, Vol. 31, No. 1 (2010), pp. 69-85.
Abstract: This article suggests that EU governance in Southeastern Europe reproduces a discourse in which the failures and problems which have emerged, especially in relation to the pace of integration and the sustainability of peace in candidate member states such as Bosnia-Herzegovina, have merely reinforced the EU’s external governance agenda. On the one hand, the limitations of reform have reinforced the EU’s projection of its power as a civilising mission into what is perceived to be a dangerous vacuum in the region. On the other hand, through the discourse of post-liberal governance, the EU seeks to avoid the direct political responsibilities associated with this power. Rather than legitimise policy-making on the basis of representative legitimacy, post-liberal frameworks of governance problematise autonomy and self-government, inverting the liberal paradigm through establishing administrative and regulative frameworks as prior to democratic choices. This process tends to distance policy-making from representative accountability weakening the legitimacy of governing institutions in Southeastern European states which have international legal sovereignty but lack genuine mechanisms for politically integrating society.
2009
* 'The Global Ideology: Rethinking the Politics of the "Global Turn" in IR', International Relations, Vol. 23, No. 4 (2009), pp. 530-547.
Abstract: Many commentators appear to take for granted that fact that the sphere of political power and contestation has shifted from the national level to the global level. This article seeks to question the assumptions made about politics at the global level, highlighting the elision of ‘global politics’ with the globalisation of the political. It will be suggested that major changes have taken place in terms of political subjectivity and how we view political community, blurring the lines of distinction between the domestic and international realms. The understanding of these changes in primarily spatial terms – from the level of the nation state to the global – mystifies the qualitative shift in political consciousness, political engagement and political instrumentality involved. In fact, the relationship between political subjectivity and the external world is inversed. The Global Ideology posits material changes at the global level as the explanatory factor for the breakdown of state-based forms of political identification and collective engagement, understanding these changes as marking the birth of global politics. In relocating this shift in consciousness in the attenuation of political engagement and collective identification it is possible to explain the shift in political subjectivity in terms of the globalisation of the political – as the result of our more individuated relationship to our external world.
'Crisis - What Crisis? Launching What is Radical Politics Today', panel discussion with Doreen Massey and Saskia Sassen followed by interview with Catherine Fieschi, Director of British Council think tank Counterpoint, 25 November 2009. All audio and video material available from Counterpoint here.
'Global Civil Society', in G. Honor Fagan and Ronaldo Munck (eds) Globalization and Security An Encyclopedia, Vol. 2, Social and Cultural Aspects (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2009), pp. 177-194.
'"Good Governance" and the Limits to Statebuilding in Bosnia', World Politics Review, Features section: 'The Practices and Policies of Nationbuilding', 8 December 2009.
'Unravelling the Paradox of ‘The Responsibility to Protect’, Irish Studies in International Affairs, Vol. 20 (2009), pp.27-39. Full issue available here.
Abstract: This paper explains that the desire to evade Western responsibility is at the heart of the paradox of ‘the responsibility to protect’ (R2P) doctrine and enables us to understand the gap between the rhetorical promise of ‘never again’ and the reality of a lack of ‘political will’ to intervene in situations where mass atrocities are ongoing. It traces the shifting discourse away from the 1990s ‘right to intervene’, through the 2001 ICISS report’s reposing of military intervention in the vague terms of ‘the responsibility to protect’, to the 2005 World Summit and 2009 follow up document which delink military intervention from R2P, focusing instead upon non-Western state and regional ‘responsibilities’. Through the reworking of the ‘responsibility to protect’, questions of military intervention, which threatened to undermine the UN framework, have been transposed into technical and administrative problems, serving to strengthen and extend UN institutional structures.
Comments in Nick Collins, 'Karadzic appeals for trial delay', The Telegraph, 30 September 2009.
'Conflito Ético: Escândalo britânico reabre a polêmica sobre os parâmetros morais das relações entre países', interview in O Globo (Brazil daily), 13 September 2009.
* 'Forget Foucault, Forget Foucault, Forget Foucault...', draft paper prepared for ‘The Uses and Limits of Critical Foucaultian Perspectives in IR’, seminar sponsored by the Japanese International Studies Association, Kwansei Gakuin University, Osaka, Japan, 27 June 2009.
* 'War without End(s): Grounding Global War’, Security Dialogue, Vol. 40, No. 3 (2009).
Abstract: This article seeks to explain the limits of critical discourses of ‘global war’ and biopolitical framings of ‘global conflict’, which have arisen in response to the globalisation of security discourses in the post-Cold War era. The central theoretical insight offered is that ‘global war’ should not be understood in the framework of contested struggles to reproduce and extend the power of regulatory control. ‘Global war’ appears ‘unlimited’ and unconstrained precisely because it lacks the instrumental, strategic framework of ‘war’ understood as a political-military technique. For this reason, critical analytical framings of global conflict, which tend to rely on the ‘scaling up’ of Michel Foucault’s critique of biopolitics and upon Carl Schmitt’s critique of universal claims to protect the ‘human’, elide the specificity of the international today. Today’s ‘wars of choice’, fought under the banner of the ‘values’ of humanitarian intervention or of the global war on terror are distinguished precisely by the fact that they cannot be grasped as strategically-framed political conflicts.
Book Review, 'The Contradictions of R2P'. Gareth Evans, The Responsibility to Protect: Ending Mass Atrocity Crimes Once and For All (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 2008), International Peacekeeping, Vol. 16, No.3, (2009), pp.439-441.
'A Dialogue on International Interventions: when are they a Right or an Obligation?' (with Daniele Archibugi'), Ethics & Global Politics, Vol. 2, No. 2 (2009). ISSN 1654-4951 Full issue available here.
'The Politics of the Environment and the 'Radicalisation' of State Institutions', Radical Politics Today, May 2009.
* 'This matters greatly to our public opinion’, Spiked-Online, 6 April 2009.
Widespread opposition to a proposed Afghan law is less about liberating women than shoring up Western authority.
'Great Power Responsibility and "Failed States": Strengthening Sovereignty?' in Julia Raue and Patrick Sutter (eds) Facets and Practices of State Building (Amsterdam: Brill/Martinus Nijhoff, 2009), pp.15-30. ISBN 978-90-04-17430-0
Book Synopsis: Drawing on a mix of international academic and field expert work, this book presents and analyses contemporary state-building efforts. It offers studies on the theoretical and practical foundations and causes of state-building, identifies the role and responsibilities of key actors and points to vital issues which merit specific attention in state-building undertakings. The book offers lessons for the future of state-building relevant to both practitioners and the academic community.
Abstract: The fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq was the occasion for practically every commentator, apart from George W. Bush, to declare that the war in Iraq has resulted in a defeat for the West. While the consensus is clear, what is not so clear is the meaning of this discourse of defeat. One could be forgiven for thinking that, for many commentators, the declaration of the defeat of the intervening powers in Iraq was seen to be a cause, if not of celebration, then at least of a certain vicarious satisfaction. This short discussion piece seeks to locate the meaning and importance of defeat and to explore the implicitly ethical or critical connotation behind the discourse of defeat. It concludes that defeat seems to be based less on the military, strategic, or political defeat of the US and UK than in a wider sense of loss expressed by the blurring of a critique of the Iraq war with a more general disillusionment with political engagement.
'Blaming Karzai for the West’s failures’, Spiked-Online, 25 March 2009. It is not the Afghan PM’s corruption that has wrecked Afghanistan, but the disarray of the invading powers.
* 'Critiquing Liberal Cosmopolitanism?: The Limits of the Biopolitical Approach', International Political Sociology, Vol. 3, No. 1 (March 2009), pp.53-70.
Abstract: Today there is a widespread recognition of the erosion of political community on the territorial basis of the nation state. Instead, alternative framings of ‘being’ political or of engaging in politics have argued for a more radical post-territorial space of political possibilities, of what it means to be political, and of how we envision political community. Through focusing on the two dominant articulations of post-territorial political community, liberal cosmopolitan and radical poststructuralist approaches, this paper seeks to analyse the possibilities and limitations inherent in the search for political community beyond the boundaries of the nation state. The aspiration to engage in, construct, or recognise the existence of a post-territorial political community, a community of broader humanity, has been articulated in liberal terms as cosmopolitanism driven by global civil society and in poststructuralist terms as ‘political cosmopolitanism’, ‘cosmopolitanism-to-come’ or the ‘solidarity of the governed’ given its force by the creativity of the resistance to liberal universalism of the ‘multitude’. This paper seeks to draw out the similarities between these two contrasting approaches, ostensibly based upon either the extension of or the critique of liberal political ontologies.
Book Synopsis: Human Rights: Politics and Practice is the first comprehensive textbook for politics students. It offers an unparalleled breadth and depth of coverage, with 20 chapters written by international experts. Seven chapters introduce the main theoretical issues and challenges in the study of human rights as a political phenomenon, addressing normative foundations, international law, measurement, international relations, comparative politics, sociological and anthropological approaches, and the ideological (mis)use of human rights. Thirteen thematic chapters then offer detailed analysis and case studies of key issues in the politics and practice of human rights, such as economic globalization, genocide, the environment, and humanitarian intervention. These chapters allow students to deepen their theoretical understanding while learning about important contemporary developments. The book is accompanied by an extensive Online Resource Centre, enhancing student learning and providing valuable support for lecturers. For Students: Monthly updates Links to key documents Web links Flashcard glossary For Lecturers: Test Bank PowerPoint slides
'The Global Ideology: Rethinking the Politics of the "Global Turn" in IR', draft paper for University of Westminster, Department of Politics and International Relations, Residential Weekend, ‘Democracy and the International’, Austwick, Yorkshire Dales, 16-18 January 2009.
Abstract: Many commentators appear to take for granted the fact that the sphere of political power and contestation has shifted from the national level to the global level. This paper seeks to question the assumptions made about politics at the global level, highlighting the elision of ‘global politics’ with the globalisation of the political. It will be suggested that major changes have taken place in terms of political subjectivity and how we view political community, blurring the lines of distinction between the domestic and international realms. The understanding of these changes in primarily spatial terms – from the level of the nation state to the global – mystifies the qualitative shift in political consciousness, political engagement and political instrumentality involved. In fact, the relationship between political subjectivity and the external world is inversed. The Global Ideology posits material changes at the global level as the explanatory factor for the breakdown of state-based forms of political identification and collective engagement, understanding these changes as marking the birth of global politics. In relocating this shift in consciousness in the attenuation of political engagement and collective identification it is possible to explain the shift in political subjectivity in terms of the globalisation of the political – as the result of our more individuated relationship to our external world.
'Between the Headlines', Press TV, 16 January 2009. Discussion on major newspaper's headlines with Alyssa McDonald, New Statesman, and Joseph Harker, Guardian.
'Introduction: Beyond Managing Contradictions' in David Chandler (ed.) Statebuilding and Intervention: Policies, Practices and Paradigms (London: Routledge, 2009), pp.1-14. ISBN 978-0-415-45204-5 View draft
Book Synopsis: This edited book sets out and engages with some of the key policies, practices and paradigms of external intervention in the case of state support and reconstruction. Many assumptions about statebuilding have been reconsidered in the wake of Iraq, and ongoing problems in other states such as Afghanistan, Bosnia and Kosovo. Rather than being a regional survey or a policy-orientated ‘lessons learned’ book, this collection explores the broader framing of policy goals, statebuilding practices and the consensus on the need for Western states and international institutions to be engaged in this policy area. The volume is divided into three parts: the first engages with some of the key policy frameworks and conceptual issues raised by recent statebuilding interventions; the second considers core statebuilding practices; and the third reconsiders statebuilding paradigms more broadly. The essays open up debate and critical discussion in the field at a time when many advocates of extending statebuilding intervention suggest that the complex nature of the problems of non-Western states and societies mean that it will inevitably be contradictory and limited in its results.
‘Bosnian War Crimes Chamber may fail to encourage postwar reconciliation’, Jurist, 12 January 2009.
2008
* 'Textual and Critical Approaches to Reading Schmitt: Rejoinder to Odysseos and Petito', Millennium: Journal of International Studies, Vol. 37, No. 2 (2008), pp.477-481. ISSN 0305-8298
Abstract: Odysseos and Petito forward a highly problematic approach to textual interpretation, one which explicitly seeks to take theorists, in this case Schmitt, out of their historical and political context. The consequences of taking Schmitt out of context are a degraded or superficial treatment of his work on the development of international legal order, a lack of attention to the historical differences between our context and Schmitt’s, and a downplaying of the importance of his masterpiece of international political theory,
'Post-Conflict Statebuilding: Governance without Government', in Michael Pugh, Neil Cooper and Mandy Turner (eds) Whose Peace? Critical Perspectives on the Political Economy of Peacebuilding (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2008), pp.337-355. ISBN 978-0-230-57335-2 View draft
Book Synopsis: This book examines the much-neglected question of what constitutes a political economy of peace after civil conflicts and who controls it.The advent of the UN's Peacebuilding Commission signals a growing international interest in reconstruction during and after conflict. It is original in that it tackles the question of what constitutes a political economy of peace. Currently, how it might be constructed is either assumed to be self-evident and unproblematic or simply ignored. It examines key cross-cutting issues, themes and cases that will provide a more holistic and comprehensive approach to peacebuilding. It provides critical perspectives on peacebuilding that reach beyond the technicist approach of international financial institutions and the liberal peace formulae of cadres of international capital.The book provides critical perspectives that reach beyond the technical approaches of international financial institutions and proponents of the liberal peace formula. It investigates political economies characterized by the legacies of disruption to production and exchange, by population displacement, poverty, and by 'criminality'.
'British forces: a token army of occupation’, Spiked-Online, 14 October 2008. The Iraqi PM’s attack on Britain’s lack of commitment in Basra has shot a hole in the government’s ‘Iraq Story’.
* 'Normative Power and the Liberal Peace: A Rejoinder to John O’Brennan', Global Society, Vol. 22, No. 4 (2008), pp.519-529. ISSN 1360-0826
Abstract: This rejoinder to John O’Brennan reasserts the case that the EU enlargement process has a depoliticising effect, which weakens the connections between Western Balkan states and their societies. It suggests that O’Brennan’s response is more apologia than analysis; evading issues raised by asymmetrical relations of power between the EU and Western Balkans states. Here the EU is idealised, with the ascribed status of a ‘normative actor’ projecting power merely through ‘soft power’ mechanisms. The points raised in response seek to clarify that the more ‘muscular’ use of conditionality and direct management of policy reforms inevitably limit the possibilities for public and political debate and consensus-making and distance political elites from their societies. In particular, the use of political conditionality is highlighted, to demonstrate that whether ‘hard’ powers of imposition or ‘soft’ powers of conditionality are used matters less to those on the receiving end of external imposition than to the EU itself, which has attempted to distance itself from its use of executive powers in the region.
* 'The Revival of Carl Schmitt in International Relations: The Last Refuge of Critical Theorists?', Millennium: Journal of International Studies, Vol. 37, No. 1 (2008), pp.27-48. ISSN 0305-8298
Abstract: This paper seeks to question the ‘critical’ readings of Carl Schmitt's understanding of international law and the use of force in international relations, particularly the approaches taken by many critical cosmopolitan theorists and many post-structuralists who have used Schmitt to distance themselves from, and to critique, American foreign policy, especially under the Bush administrations. I suggest that these critical theorists engage in a highly idealised understanding of Schmitt, focusing on his contingent political conclusions, using his work descriptively rather than analytically. It is argued that the idealist approach to Schmitt stems from these commentators’ concerns to describe their work as critical rather than from any attempt to use Schmitt’s underlying ontological framing of the relationship between law, ethics and the use of force to develop analytical insights into the practice and jurisprudence of the international sphere today. The revival of Schmitt in International Relations therefore tells us more about the crisis of critical theorising than the relevance of Schmitt’s analysis to today’s world.
'The "Bosnian model" is no model for Georgia', Spiked-Online, 15 September 2008. Turning sections of the Caucasus into international protectorates will not deliver anything like democracy.
'Georgia: Russia’s first "Western-style" war', Spiked-Online, 28 August 2008. Far from the Russian Bear reasserting its Great Power, its foreign policy, like Britain and America’s, is uncertain and erratic.
'Human Security: The Dog that Didn't Bark', Security Dialogue, Vol. 39, No. 4 (August 2008), pp.427-438. ISSN 0967-0106
Abstract: This review article, suggests that thirteen years after human security was first taken up by the United Nations, its integration into the policy-making and policy-practices of leading Western states and international institutions, has revealed that talk of two different ‘paradigms’ - the radical counter-position of ‘individual’ and ‘state-based’ approaches, or between ‘critical theory’ and ‘problem-solving’ frameworks – has been much exaggerated.
* 'Human Security II: Waiting for the Tail to Wag the Dog: Rejoinder to Ambrosetti, Owen and Wibben', Security Dialogue, Vol. 39, No. 4 (August 2008), pp.463-469. ISSN 0967-0106
Abstract: In my original review article, ‘Human Security: The Dog that Didn’t Bark’ (2008), I sought to highlight the dangers of idealism, inherent in advocacy (by academics and policymakers) of human security frameworks, which were held to empower the vulnerable and marginalised. The three respondents suggest that human security frameworks could play a more useful radical and critical role than I allow and wished to investigate the potential of human security frameworks to critique and challenge power relations. In this rejoinder, I wish to explain why this is the wrong starting point for a critical appraisal of human security theorising. In posing the questions of what human security can achieve, these critical advocates of human security argue that the tail of human security can wag the dog of international policy practice. They fall into the idealist trap of seeing allegedly critical speech acts and radical academic theories as having agency and doing the work of transforming the world.
'"Svet" ne može da se nadoknadi globalizacijom', Plave Strane, Danas (Belgrade), 12-13 July 2008. Kostas Duzinas i Dejvid Čendler o "svetskoj vlasti", EU, Balkanu, vanzemaljcima.
‘G8 summit: a global displacement activity’, Spiked-Online, 8 July 2008. Western governments’ desire to globalise big issues - from poverty to climate change - is an attempt to escape real responsibility for policymaking.
Comments in Michał Potocki, 'Serbia o krok od Europy', Dziennik (Poland), 13 May 2008.
Review article: 'From Security to Insecurity: Kaldor, Duffield and Furedi’, Journal of Conflict, Security and Development, Vol. 8, No. 2, pp.265-276. ISSN 1467-8802.
'The Rise and Limits of Biopolitical Critiques of Human Rights Regimes' draft paper for the international conference, 'The International Human Rights Regime Since 9/11: Transatlantic Perspectives', University of Pittsburgh, 17-19 April 2008.
'Iraq and the Problematic Discourse of Defeat', draft presentation for the Roundtable 'Globalization, Statebuilding and the Occupation of Iraq II', 49th International Studies Association Annual Convention, San Francisco, 28 March 2008.
'Humanising Haditha', Spiked-Online, 18 March 2008. By showing all sides as victims of war, Nick Broomfield’s Battle for Haditha can only find ‘common humanity’ in our ability to suffer.
* 'IA Forum Interview: Professor David Chandler', International Affairs Forum, Centre for International Relations, Washington D.C., 17 March 2008. IA-Forum speaks with Professor Chandler about Western interventions in the name of democracy promotion. By Katharine Slocombe.
'The Human Security Paradox: How Nation States Grew to Love Cosmopolitan Ethics', keynote at the international conference, 'Globalization, Difference, and Human Securities', Graduate School of Human Sciences, Osaka University, Japan, 12 March 2008.
'What's Next for Kosovo and Serbia?', studio interview (view programme), CNN, 22 February 2008.
'After the Serbian elections', studio interview (view programme), Four Corners, Press TV, 4 February 2008.
'After the Serbian elections', interview with Radio Netherlands Worldwide, 4 February 2008. Interview comments in Perro de Jong, 'Serbs vote for Europe', Radio Netherlands Worldwide, 4 February 2008.
'Why Karzai was right to reject Ashdown', Spiked-Online, 29 January 2008. He relished his role as colonial overlord in Bosnia, so it's not surprising the Afghans don’t want Paternalistic Paddy anywhere near their country.
‘Avrupa Birliği Ulus İnşaasi: Liberal Barişi Ab Genişlemesiyle Güven Altina Alma’, Stratejik Öngörü Dergisi (Journal of Strategic Insight), TASAM (Turkish Asian Centre for Strategic Studies), Vol. 5, No. 12, 2008, pp.13-20. ISSN 1304-768S
'Keeping humanity secure?', Spiked Review of Books, Issue No.9, January 2008. The new focus on ‘human security’ in the debate about international relations suggests there should be an even more meddlesome form of policing of other states’ affairs. No thanks.
'The EU’s Promotion of Democracy in the Balkans', in Zaki Laïdi (ed.) EU Foreign Policy in a Globalized World: Normative Power and Social Preferences (London: Routledge, 2008), pp.68-82. ISBN 978-0-415-43363-1
Book Synopsis:
Written by leading experts in the field, this volume identifies European collective preferences and analyzes to what extent these preferences inform and shape EU foreign policy and are shared by other actors in the international system. While studies of the EU's foreign policy are not new, this book takes a very different tack from previous research. Specifically it leaves aside the institutional and bureaucratic dimensions of the European Union's behaviour as an international actor in order to concentrate on the meanings and outcomes of its foreign policy taken in the broadest sense. Two outcomes are possible: Either Europe succeeds in imposing a norms-based international system and thus, in this case, its soft power capacity will not only have been demonstrated but will be enhanced Or, on the contrary, it does not succeed and the global system will become one where realpolitik reigns; especially once China, India and Russia attain a preponderant influence on the international scene. "EU Foreign Policy in a Globalized World" will be of interest to students and scholars of European Union politics, foreign policy and politics and international relations in general.
'Is the UN a Waste of Time?', panel debate, hosted by Andrew Gilligan (view programme), with Hazel Smith, programme advisor to the UN World Food Programme (North Korea) and professor in international relations at Warwick University and Sarah Lesniewski, senior project officer for the Women's Budget Group and member of the Fawcett Society. Forum, Press TV, 20 January 2008.
'Kosovo’s Declaration of Dependence', Spiked-Online, 15 January 2008. Hashim Thaci, one-time guerrilla turned PM of Kosovo, has promised to break away from Serbia. It's independence, Jim, but not as we know it.
'Britain’s key weapon in Afghanistan: the bribe', Spiked-Online, 3 January 2008.
In allegedly trying to buy off a local Taliban leader, British officials have shown a haughty and colonial disregard for the Afghan government.
2007
'The EU’s Promotion of Democracy in the Balkans: The Power of Simulation and the Simulation of Power'. Draft paper prepared for the British International Studies Association Annual Conference,
Cambridge, 17-19 December 2007.
Abstract: This paper seeks to investigate the EU’s democracy promotion and statebuilding policies in the Balkans through the use of Jean Baudrillard’s conceptions of ‘simulation’ and ‘hyperreality’ as a response to the crisis of representation. It does this to suggest that the assertion of the power of the EU in the Balkans cannot be fully understood in traditional terms of imperial hegemony. Rather, it is suggested that the EU seeks to simulate its own position of power through the use of foreign policy issues, particularly that of ‘member state-building’ in the Balkans. It further argues that, in the process, the EU exports forms of non-representative governance - the simulation of government - in the states that are being externally built and integrated into the European Union. This framework is also used to raise some broader questions over Baudrillard’s view of ‘simulation’ as blurring the distinction between ‘reality’ and ‘fantasy’ – Does it make any difference to the people of Bosnia whether the EU’s semi-protectorate regime is a product of simulation or of representation?
* 'The Security-Development Nexus and the Rise of "Anti-Foreign Policy"', Journal of International Relations and Development, Vol.10, No.4, (2007), pp.362-386. ISSN 1408-6980.
Abstract: Current debates and discussions of the emerging security-development nexus tend to portray this as signifying the increased importance of the problems of non-Western states to Western policy-makers. This paper seeks to challenge this perspective and analyses how the policy ‘nexus’ reflects a retreat from strategic policy-making and a more inward-looking approach to foreign policy, more concerned with self-image than the policy consequences in the areas concerned. Rather than demonstrating a new seriousness of approach to tackling the security and development problems of the non-Western world, the discussions around this framework betray the separation between policy rhetoric and policy-planning. This reflects the rise of anti-foreign policy: attempts to use the international sphere as an arena for self-referential statements of political mission and purpose, decoupled from their subject matter, resulting in ad hoc and arbitrary foreign policy-making.
