Nowadays, the term “liberal peace” is used to picture the comprehensive set of policies characterizing the peacebuilding and state-building practices “[…] based on a perception of peace in which good governance, the promotion of human rights, the encouragement of civil society and a free market economy, and the advancement of the rule of law, and a viable and functioning state are crucial” (van Leeuwen et al., 2012: 298). The idea underlying the liberal peace is the Kantian formulation of perpetual peace: democratic states do not go to war with one another. This approach has been dominant and applied in conflicts affected states since the end of the cold war, however it was already applied in the 1970s and 1980s by the International Financial …show more content…
Local is linked to decentralisation to different levels of government, which better represents people at the grassroots; (ii) local agency promoted through grassroots movements, political parties and civil society, focusing on the empowerment of indigenous population; (iii) finally, the local is defined as something that changes in time and space, something fluid (Schierenbeck, 2015). The local is understood as the “everyday”. In other words, focusing on the local helps to shift the discourse of liberal peace from the rights to the needs, overcoming the inherent idea that imposing from above the former leads inevitably to the latter (Richmond, 2009). Following the case of Bolivia, it can be noticed that the local is understood in all the above-mentioned meanings: the central government was the promoter of the reforms, at the same time Morales itself and other government and parliament members were part of civil society organisations and indigenous groups; grassroots movements, civil society and indigenous organizations lobbied the government in order to influence the policy-making process; members of the old elites and latifundia fought back, not to see their private rights eroded. The boundaries between the groups were blurred, and the groups themselves were heterogeneous both socially and ethnically (Arditi, 2008; Bastidas, 2017; Wolff, 2012, 2013, …show more content…
Apart from the distinction between indigenous and non-indigenous, in Bolivia, these groups are fragmented within them. There are various indigenous groups, with different customs but also with different economic and social interests; non-indigenous are divided along similar lines. What is advocated as indigenous or local, is not neither always good nor bad, but it needs to pass a mediation between its different manifestations. While the local can be used as a tool to reach a more effective peacebuilding and to include the voices from below, if it is romanticised it could lead to perverse outcomes (Mac Ginty, 2008, 2015; Richmond, 2009,
A Separate Peace, written by John Knowles is a flashback of the main character, Gene Forrester’s schooling at the Devon School in New England. During this flashback Gene remembers his best friend Finny, who was really athletic and outgoing. Gene and Finny’s friendship was a relationship of jealousy. Gene was jealous of Finny’s talent in athletics, and Finny was envious of Gene’s talent in school. In the end, Gene’s jealousy of Finny takes over and causes him to shake the tree branch that makes Finny fall and break his leg. The break was bad, but it was not until Finny fell down the stairs and broke his leg again, that he had to have surgery. The surgery that Finny would undergo would cause more complications and heartbreaking news for Gene. During the surgery Finny would lose his life due to some bone marrow that escaped into his blood stream and stopped his heart from beating. “As I was moving the bone some of the marrow must have escaped into his blood stream and gone directly to his heart and stopped it” (Knowles 193). Although people do not normally think about bone marrow as being a huge part of the human body, it can cause some major issues if it has to be replaced or escapes into the blood stream.
The literary analysis essay for A Separate Peace entitled Chapter 7: After the Fall notes that Gene’s brawl with Cliff Quackenbush occurs for two reasons: the first reason being that Gene was fighting to defend Finny, and the second reason being that Quackenbush is the antithesis of Finny. Cliff Quackenbush calls Gene a “maimed son-of-a-bitch”, since Gene holds a position on the team that is usually reserved for physically disabled students, and Gene reacts by hitting him in the face (Knowles, 79). At first, Gene remarks that he didn’t know why he reacted this way, then he says, “it was almost as though I were maimed. Then the realization that there was someone who was flashed over me”, referring to Finny (Knowles, 79). Quackenbush is “the adult world of punitive authority personified”, his voice mature, his convictions militaristic (Chapter, 76). Quackenbush reminds Gene of the adult world and all of the things that Finny and Devon protected him from, such as war.
"Peacekeeping and Peacemaking." Reading and Remembrance . N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Jan. 2014. . (tags: none | edit tags)
The Andes had a legacy of resistance that was unseen in other Spanish occupied place during the colonial period. There were rebellions of various kinds as a continued resistance to conquest. In the “Letters of Insurrection”, an anthology of letters written amongst the indigenous Andean people, between January and March 1781 in what is now known as Bolivia, a statement is made about the power of community-based rebellion. The Letters of Insurrection displays effects of colonization and how the “lesser-known” revolutionaries that lived in reducción towns played a role in weakening colonial powers and creating a place of identification for indigenous people.
John Knowles’ novel, A Separate Peace, reveals the many dangers and hardships of adolescence. The main characters, Gene, and Finny, spend their summer together at a boarding school called Devon. The two boys, do everything together, until Gene, the main character, develops a resentful hatred toward his friend Finny. Gene becomes extremely jealous and envious of Finny, which fuels this resentment, and eventually turns deadly. Knowles presents a look at the darker side of adolescence, showing jealousy’s disastrous effects. Gene’s envious thoughts and jealous nature, create an internal enemy, that he must fight. A liberal humanistic critique reveals that Knowles’ novel, A Separate Peace, has a self contained meaning, expresses the enhancement of life, and reveals that human nature does not change.
“Our Word Is Our Weapon,” by Subcomandante Marcos discusses how Mexican Capitalism and neoliberalism is destroying the values and traditions of the indigenous people of Chiapas. Throughout this text, Marcos cites many examples about how the government and business owners take many useful resources from Chiapas in order to export them to other countries to benefit the elitists. Marcos elaborates that this Capitalist approach severely damages the community of Chiapas by taking these resources away from the people living there, or making them too expensive for them to afford with their very low wages (EXAMPLE). With a background as a militant, Marcos has a passion for inspiring indigenous people to fight back against the repressive ways of the
1. Explaining Indigenous and Afro-Latino Disparities in Collective Rights. Hooker explores countries of indigenous resistance and ability to organize and speculates on why Afro-Latinos are not as successful in organized and becoming recognized by their government. She suggests why formal multicultural recognition is important and what has been gained for successful groups. She claims Afro-Latinos are much less likely to gain formal recognition as only seven the fifteen Latin American countries to implement multicultural reform give collective rights to Afro-Latinos and only three give Afro-Latinos the same rights as indigenous groups.
On January 1, 2004, over one thousand people in the mountain hamlet of Oventic, Chiapas, celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) rebellion with song and dance. Thus, it seems a fitting time to take stock of the successes and failures of the Zapatista movement in the context of its original goals. While the EZLN has been able to establish thirty eight autonomous indigenous communities in Chiapas, it has failed to weaken the Mexican government's commitment to neo-liberal economic policies. In the following pages, we will explore those factors which enabled the Zapatistas to establish regions of autonomy and extrapolate from Theotonio Dos Santos' understanding of the effects of reliance on foreign capital and Nora Hamilton's analysis of the 'limits to state autonomy' to rationalize the failure of the Zapatista's broader vision of social justice.
The Water War (December 1999- April 2000) in Cochabamba, Bolivia transcended beyond a simple fight for accessible clean water. It was instead a war against increasingly invasive neocolonial powers and a growing governmental neoliberalist push. Taking its roots from the nation's native culture, the citizen-organized campaign rose above social class and racial background distinction as for the period of the war, all supporters proudly identified as indigenous. Thus, the campaign not only succeeded in stopping private neocolonial encroachment but gave birth to a powerful people's movement centered around ethnic pride that has since secured the voice of the indigenous population which despite its historical majority, had gone unheard until the
Liberalism assumes that the war and can be policed by the institutional reforms that empower the international organizations and law.
In his essay on perpetual peace, Kant presents his own view on perpetual peace, which could be realized only if a few “Do’s” and “Don’ts” are met. He calls these Do’s and Don’ts “preliminary articles” and “definitive articles”, respectively. In this essay I would analyze what Kant means by “preliminary articles” and “definitive articles” and argue that contemporary globalization is not undermining the nation-state, which is consistent with the views of several other experts.
It is because of the intricacy behind establishing global peace that discussions about peace seem to be perpetual. German Philosopher, Immanuel Kant presents an interesting approach to perpetual peace. Surely, considering the era in which Perpetual Peace was written, Kant’s ideas were progressive and innovative. Kant’s ideas have helped shaped and modeled some polities that we see in the world today. Unfortunately for Kant’s methodology, the world is in a hegemonic state that is ruled by powerful states.
People’s ideas and assumptions about world politics shape and construct the theories that help explain world conflicts and events. These assumptions can be classified into various known theoretical perspectives; the most dominant is political realism. Political realism is the most common theoretical approach when it is in means of foreign policy and international issues. It is known as “realpolitik” and emphasis that the most important actor in global politics is the state, which pursues self-interests, security, and growing power (Ray and Kaarbo 3). Realists generally suggest that interstate cooperation is severely limited by each state’s need to guarantee its own security in a global condition of anarchy. Political realist view international politics as a struggle for power dominated by organized violence, “All history shows that nations active in international politics are continuously preparing for, actively involved in, or recovering from organized violence in the form of war” (Kegley 94). The downside of the political realist perspective is that their emphasis on power and self-interest is their skepticism regarding the relevance of ethical norms to relations among states.
The democratic peace theory was not always seen as the substantial argument and significant contribution to the field of International Relations that it is today. Prior to the 1970’s, it was the realist and non-realist thought that took preeminence in political theoretical thinking. Though the democratic peace theory was first criticized for being inaccurate in its claim that democracy promotes peace and as such democracies do not conflict with each other, trends, statistical data, reports have suggested and proved that the democratic peace theory is in fact valid in its claim. Over the years having been refined, developed and amended, it is now most significant in explaining modern politics and it is easy to accept that there is indeed a lot of truth in the stance that democracy encourages peace. The democratic peace theory is a concept that largely influenced by the likes of Immanuel Kant, Wilson Woodrow and Thomas Paine.
While it is impossible to implement the principles of liberalism on a universal level, there are several practical steps countries can take to prevent the outbreak of war, the first being to avoid imperialism. The practice of imperialism causes not only war, but also resentment between countries. Unmitigated war occurs when two or more counties are fighting over a territory. While France and Britain did not go to war over Fashoda, the race to this part of Africa exemplifies that both countries were willing to fight for the region, even though it had no known value (Ferraro, 20 Feb 2014). Resentment is created when a dominant country takes over a weake...