Normative Dilemmas Research Articles

European Union ‘Normative Power’ and the Security Challenge

In this discussion of security and democracy in the European Union two interrelated arguments are put forward about the use of normative power to address the security challenge. The article starts by discussing the European (security) Union within the context of over 15 years of European human security debates, and then reflects on the current conduct of the total war on terror as led by the USA. The author argues for the need to be normative in the EU's security policies and concludes by considering the normative security dilemmas that the EU and its member states face over security and democracy, war and peace. He reiterates the argument that the EU should and must apply its own normative principles to the security challenge if we are ever to move beyond total war and towards sustainable peace.

Cosmopolitanizing and decosmopolitanizing globalization: Metaphorical re-description and transformations of political community

Focusing on the seminal work of David Held, this essay attempts to denaturalize the assumed link between ‘cosmopolitan’ and ‘global’ in two ways. First, I demonstrate that cosmopolitanism is a particular metaphor of globalization and not an objective reflection of globalization's ‘inherent’ tendencies or potentials and so adds justificatory force to cosmopolitan groundings of global political community through certain interpretations about what the challenge of globalization is. Second, insofar as Held interprets globalization's challenge as a compromise of territoriality, the normative motivation behind his interpretation ironically replicates and reinforces territoriality. I try to demonstrate that the interpretation of globalization renders possible political projects, but also that these normative assumptions limit how a ‘global’ space is shaped and structured politically. The transformation of political community is therefore not simply the product of exogenous globalizing processes, but how such processes are understood to generate normative dilemmas and solutions. To highlight the shortcomings of this metaphor, I examine two alternative metaphors of globalized political community with Zygmunt Bauman's Tourists and Vagabonds and Naomi Klein's Fences and Windows. This metaphorical redescription of cosmopolitan global political community disrupts the assumed link between cosmopolitan and global, opening a critical space for creative dialogue about alternative horizons and possibilities for globalized political community beyond cosmopolitanism.

Should HIV/AIDS Be Securitized? The Ethical Dilemmas of Linking HIV/AIDS and Security

Should the global AIDS pandemic be framed as an international security issue? Drawing on securitization theory, this article argues that there is a complex normative dilemma at the heart of recent attempts to formulate the global response to HIV/AIDS in the language of international security. Although “securitizing” the AIDS pandemic could bolster international AIDS initiatives by raising awareness and resources, the language of security simultaneously pushes responses to the disease away from civil society toward military and intelligence organizations with the power to override the civil liberties of persons living with HIV/AIDS. The security framework, moreover, brings into play a “threat-defense” logic that could undermine international efforts to address the pandemic because it makes such efforts a function of narrow national interest rather than of altruism, because it allows states to prioritize AIDS funding for their elites and armed forces who play a crucial role in maintaining security, and because portraying the illness as an overwhelming “threat” works against ongoing efforts to normalize social perceptions regarding HIV/AIDS. These overlooked dangers give rise to a profound ethical dilemma as to whether or not the global AIDS pandemic should be portrayed as a security issue. The article concludes that securitization theory cannot resolve this complex dilemma, but that raising awareness of its presence does allow policy makers, activists, and scholars to begin drawing the links between HIV/AIDS and security in ways that at least minimize some of these dangers.

Gender and Exceptionality in North-South Interventions: Reflecting on Relations

In this article I share my reflections on a normative research dilemma that has led to my journeying towards greater awareness of the ways in which white, feminist subjects participate in the perpetuation of racial domination on a global scale. To this end, I offer a reflection within a reflection, beginning with a choice that arose regarding undertaking part of my doctoral research in Africa. Drawing on my earlier experiences in a Women’s Programme in Zambia over a period of several years, I examine the origins of assumptions underlying both my more recent research dilemma and my previous engagement with gender issues in Africa. These are: a sense of entitlement on my part, and presumed availability on the part of African people in respect to my interventions. I then consider whether a more nuanced, situated feminism as articulated in Gender and Development theory would have changed these assumptions. In conclusion, I propose that, while feminism does not offer a ‘passport’ through the imperial relations of the North—South binary, a focus on interlocking systems of oppression may produce a more transformative effect than seems possible through Gender and Development approaches.

State-Based Logic versus EU-based Logic towards Immigrants: Evidences and Dilemmas

Since the Treaty on European Union in 1992, there have been two contrasting conceptions of how one should approach the EU political union. From the EU standpoint, this process is a gain, but from the States' point of view it is a loss. There is a third logic that makes up the EU: that of third-country immigrants residing in the Member States ( Euro-immigrants). For this population the process is neither a gain nor a loss, but simply something that is being discussed and carried out without taking them into consideration. This lack of attention shows that at present the treatment of Euro-immigrants is following a state fundamentalist logic and not a multicultural logic as would be historically appropriate for the EU. In the interest of fostering discussion, this paper presents relevant considerations in four sections. The first section presents the theoretical framework for the discussion; the second section discusses state fundamentalism, with a brief historical review of how the European States have treated immigrants politically; the third section sums up how the EU dealt with immigration from the Trevi Group of 1975 until the Amsterdam Treaty of 1997; and the fourth and final section, concludes with a discussion on the normative dilemmas and institutional challenges deriving from the relationship between the EU and the Euro-immigrants. I argue that the EU can only be politically constructed if it takes the presence of immigrant residents into account.

Talcott Parsons today: his theory and legacy in contemporary sociology

Chapter 1 Foreword Chapter 2 Introduction: the Theory and Legacy of Talcott Parsons Chapter 3 Parsons and Simmel at Harvard: Scientific Paradigms and Organizational Culture Chapter 4 The Place of Max Weber in the Post-Structure Writings of Talcott Parsons Chapter 5 Elias and Parsons: Two Transformations of the Problem-Historical Method Chapter 6 Parson's Second Project: The Social System - Sources, Development and Limitations Chapter 7 Social Systems and Complexity Theory Chapter 8 Can Functionalism Be Saved? Chapter 9 Networks and Systems Chapter 10 Language and the Family or Generalized Symbolic Media Chapter 11 Parsons's Analysis of the Societal Community Chapter 12 Empirical Sociological Theory and the Resolution of Normative Dilemmas Chapter 13 Index

Defining Social Constructivism in Security Studies: The Normative Dilemma of Writing Security

Explains security formation as it relates to social interpretations from a social constructivist perspective. Consequences of approaching identity questions from a security perspective; Interpretation of security problems in the societal area without the risk of repeating the securitization of the area; Sociological understanding of the governing work of the security information; Mobilization of security formation from a sociological angle.

Reinventing What for Whom? President and Congress in the Making of Foreign Policy

Strengthening the presidency in foreign policy usually means weakening others who may be a president's competitors. Before pursuing such a path it is important to know what problems are present and whether we wish to invest more power in the president to deal with them. An inventory of these problems suggests the following: (1) Congress traditionally has had and continues to exercise influence over the financing of international commitments, (2) the Senate recently has been more actively resisting presidential nominees for extraneous reasons and typically doing so through dilatory and minority obstructing tactics rather than through floor votes, yet (3) presidential willingness to embark unilaterally on foreign policy and defense commitments is rarely successfully resisted. It is dubious that structural reinvention will resolve matters that arise from strong political difference, nor is it the case that presidents, under the present system, find themselves paralyzed from acting.

Personal and Social Education: Curriculum Innovation and School Bureaucracies in Malta

Abstract The rationale behind a personal and social education (PSE) initiative coordinated by the author in Malta1 is critically reviewed. The social context for the emergence of PSE in a number of countries is compared and contrasted, linking this ‘new’ development with issues of legitimation on the one hand, and problems posed by bureaucratic school structures on the other. Some of the normative dilemmas with PSE are explored, notably its tendency to reduce ‘education’ to a technocratic focus on the development and learning of skills. It is suggested that there is a danger that PSE could become yet another compensatory divide which reinforces the social-control function of schools, but that this can be averted if there is a creative rapprochement between two disparate educational perspectives, namely humanistic education and critical theory/pedagogy. The convergence of the two approaches would ensure that both the personal and the political goals of a true education would be achieved.

The Normative Dilemma: Will and Consent in International Law-Making

The Normative Dilemma: Will and Consent in International Law-Making

Dual-Career Couples' Career Transitions and Normative Dilemmas

A review of the literature indicates few concepts to assess dual-career couples during counseling. Limitations of past definitions and theories of career development are discussed in the context of the complexity of the dual-career life-style. New definitions are proposed to increase knowledge about the dual-career couple as a special group in career development. A preliminary assessment model is presented focusing on the normative dilemmas of dual-career couples. Develop-mental areas and normative dilemmas in careers, gender roles, and marriage-family are discussed in the context of 23 career transitions. Normative themes related to dual-career couple dilemmas are then enumerated. The assessment model promotes greater understanding of how career events affect interpersonal-family relationships as well as how these relationships affect a couple's career development. Implications of the assessment model for counseling dual-career couples and conducting future research are discussed.

Ethical Dilemmas in Government: Designing an Organizational Response

This chapter focuses on conceptual clarification and organizational reform as the building blocks which must underlie efforts to improve the tenor of organizational life. It discusses the difficulties inherent in trying to make policy choices, in developing personal standards of conduct, and in making difficult moral decisions in the face of likely organizational reprisals. Correcting the normative dilemmas of organizational behavior needs more than a new or a revised Code of Ethics. Kenneth Boulding establishes ethics as a major organizational component. The chapter identifies three areas for the ethical reform of organizations—conceptual clarification, protection for dissenters, and a program of normative enrichment. In the analysis, the most realistic solutions to the problems of morality and ethics may lie in redesigning the organizational structures that constitute our public agencies. Another element of organizational redesign which can have a positive effect on the tenor of government is an improved system of personnel evaluation.