North-South Conflict Research Articles

Geopolitics and the Sight of the Nation: Elizabeth Bowen's The Last September

Geopolitics and the Sight of the Nation: Elizabeth Bowen's The Last September

Re-viewing Le Morte Darthur: Texts and Contexts, Characters and Themes (review)

Reviewed by: Re-viewing Le Morte Darthur: Texts and Contexts, Characters and Themes Cheryl Taylor Whetter, K. S. and Raluca L. Radulescu , eds, Re-viewing Le Morte Darthur: Texts and Contexts, Characters and Themes ( Arthurian Studies, 60), Cambridge, D. S. Brewer, 2005; cloth; pp. xi, 165; 6 b/w plates; RRP £40; ISBN 1843480359. This book's conventional title acknowledges its comparatively late arrival in the field of medieval Arthurian studies. However readers who persist will be rewarded with significant new facts and challenges to received notions, as the 're-viewing' advances the Malory debate in several areas. P. J. C. Field's introduction elucidates the book's subtitles by noting that the first three essays focus on text, the next three on geography and politics, and the last four on theme and genre. Since Walter Oakeshott's momentous discovery of the Winchester manuscript in 1934, textual study of the Morte has produced equal measures of agony and ecstasy. The exhilarating discoveries arrived at through minute textual observations in the two essays that open this collection clearly belong in the latter category. Takato Kato's analysis of 'Corrected Mistakes in the Winchester Manuscript' concludes that the archetype of the manuscript and of Caxton's print cannot have been Malory's holograph; that at least one intermediate copy intervened between the archetype and Winchester; and that the Winchester scribes were not the unthinking mechanical copyists postulated in Eugène Vinaver's first manuscript edition. D. Thomas Hanks' essay, 'Textual Harassment', demonstrates [End Page 236] the 'omnipresent' and 'radical' bibliographical and lexical changes that Caxton and Wynkyn de Worde introduced in negotiating the transition from manuscript to print. Hanks' pictorial reconstruction of Malory in the act of composition is a model of engaging scholarly writing. He further defends the importance of the bibliographical text by contending that modern editing 'eliminates much of the Middle Ages from medieval works' including features of presentation chosen by the author as part of the message (p. 45). The third textual essay, by Thomas H. Crofts, bases a consideration of fifteenth-century historiography on an analysis of Caxton's preface. Crofts argues that after ingeniously constructing a provisional historicity for Arthur as an English Worthy, Caxton edits the Morte Darthur as a series of exempla for readers' moral upliftment. Meg Roland's sketching of the geographical-textual world view that Caxton imported into his edition forms a bridge to the collection's political studies. Roland suggests that divergences from Winchester in Caxton's text mediate an intensification in East-West polarization following the fall of Constantinople in 1453. More limited in geographical scope is Robert Kelly's application to the Morte Darthur of Paul Strohm's notion of the 'structuring idea' to be drawn from a text's 'larger environment'. Under this theory, Malory's Arthurian world can be recognized as incorporating such contemporary realities as the king's failure to control border regions and the intense North-South conflict featured in the Wars of the Roses. The third essay in this group, by Dhira B. Mahoney, begins by summarising the binary values attached in medieval aristocratic life to public, open, masculine spaces as opposed to private, enclosed, feminine spaces. This provides a foundation for persuasive, culturally-informed interpretations of climactic episodes in the Morte that involve penetration of Guenevere's chamber or curtained bed. In the final group, essays by Lisa Robeson and Raluca L. Radulescu confirm that analysis of repeated words or phrases, as modelled in publications by Field and R. T. Davies, is a fruitful approach to Malory, who creates his most powerful effects by manipulating surfaces. Robeson's survey of the word 'worship' concludes that the Morte Darthur understands men's and women's worship in parallel terms, and that the sexes depend on each other for maintaining their worship. She is thus able to challenge the judgment that Malory presents women purely as objects or commodities. Radulescu traces escalating occurrences of the phrase 'oute of mesure' through 'The Tale of Sir Trystram' and the last two Tales, in order to understand the part played by excess – of anger, love and grief – in the tragedy that overtakes the civilized Arthurian world. [End Page...

Les fonctions internes de la détente dans les systèmes politiques du triangle euro-arabo-africain : l’image oubliée de l’interdépendance Nord-Sud

This study deals with two increasingly important aspects of international relations : first, the interpretation of the North-South dynamic of the international System and second, the significance of détente in the Euro-Arabo-African mini-triangle. In his discussion of the first problematic, the author suggests it would be useful to take an interdependence approach towards the analysis of North-South relations, implying that the international system is hexagonal as regards both structure and process and that non-alignment is becoming a sixth pole of influence in the system. More specifically, and taking as a starting point the « depolarization » of the détente process, the author argues that the security objectives of the West European, Arab and African political Systems are in fact interdependent. This interdependence is to be found above all in their interest in diluting the East-West conflict and instituting a policy of détente, the purpose of which is all the more significant for being internal - i.e. the stabilization, legitimization and integration of these political Systems. Since the effects of such a policy will be felt only gradually, these countries find they have a common interest in a complementary strategy whereby the East-West conflict is segmented and intersected by the North-South conflict (intra-alliance, even). The aim of the study is to show that, in the theory of international relations, greater attention should be paid to the motivations and strategies of actors in the South and their impact on the international system in the economic problem areas as well as the political and strategic ones. Because the properties of political reality differ from those of physical reality, the properties of political regularities also differ from those of physical regularises. The regularities we discover are soft. They are soft because they are outcomes of processes that exhibit plastic rather than cast-iron control. They are imbedded in history and involve recurrent « passings-through » of large numbers of human memories, learning processes, human goal seeking impulses, and choices among alternatives. They decay quickly because of the memory, creative searching, and learning that underlie them. Indeed social science itself may contribute to this decay, since learning increasingly include not only learning from experience, but from scientific research itself. Gabriel A. ALMOND et Stephan J. GENCO, « Clouds, Clocks, and the Study of Politics », World Politics, vol. XXIX, n° 4, juillet 1977, pp. 493-494. Ithas become a platitude that the whole world is now interdependent... Yet what a tremendous platitude it is /... If this platitude is unalterably true, its implications must profoundly affect the conditions of human life for the future ; it must transform all our thinking about social organization ; it must modify all our programmes and policies. Clearly we ought to be thinking seriously about it, and asking ourselves what it involves. A. MuiR, The Interdependent World and lts Problems, Boston, Houghton, Mifflin, 1973, p. 1.

The Root Causes of Sudan's Civil Wars

The Root Causes of Sudan's Civil Wars. By Douglas H. Johnson. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003. Pp. 256. $54.95 cloth, $24.95 paper. This is one of most sober books about Sudan conflict I have ever read. Unlike most scholars study civil war in that country as a revolting occurrence, Douglas Johnson accepts it as a matter of fact and history, referencing American Civil War, the war of ten thousand nasty incidents (p. xx). To level field for this cool-headed approach, author takes issue with representations of war by media, humanist lobbies, and academicians. Journalists cover war in atavistic terms spelling a return Heart of Darkness (p. xiv). Humanitarian pressure groups are romantic and imbued with ideal of justice both abstract and absolute. Academics continue write history of country vantage point and perspective of central institutions of Muslim North, relegating rest of country to exotic (pp. xv-xvi). The first victim of this reassessment of North-South conflict in Sudan is popular, almost revered, conception that Sudan civil war stems from an age-old confrontation between 'cultures' defined by blood lines ('Arabs' v. 'Africans') (p. xiii). Instead Johnson suggests that root cause of conflict is better looked for in country's traditions of governance, particularly a tradition of governance he calls state. First installed by Turkish conquerors in 1821, this state has reproduced itself irrespective of identity of rulers, be they foreigner or Sudanese. This exploitative state in North impoverished its Muslim subjects, who passed on their losses non-Muslims on (p. 5). In Nimeiri years this state invested in mechanized farming in Kordofan and Darfur, hastening economic and social dislocation of herders and farmers. Those dislocated fought with periphery people of South and Nuba Mountains over resources. According Johnson, IMF and UNDP are also implicated in working of Sudanic state; they bought foundational politics of state as plans for developing rural areas. Even recurrence of slavery in context of civil war is attributed impoverished Baggara, passed their own losses onto Southern Sudanese. By taking Southern captives, Baggara add labor their own households and increase their incomes through trade and exchange of slaves (p. 157). Johnson puts governance rather than identity politics at center of any meaningful analysis of Southern Sudan predicament. …

World Economic Growth, Northern Antagonism, and North-south Conflict

The distribution of wealth in the world is manifested by the polarization of a rich North and a poor South. Is the North-South conflict increasing or decreasing, and does it depend on such variables as major power conflict, intra-Northern conflict, and world prosperity, as some schools of thought maintain? Focusing on these questions from a leadership-long cycle perspective suggests several hypotheses about the interrelationships between global economic growth, Northern antagonism, and North-South conflict. The effect of conflict on growth is also examined. Generating data on world economic growth and major power conflict, intra-Northern conflict, and North-South conflict for the period from 1870 to 1992, vector auto-regression analysis is used to test new hypotheses. Results provide considerable support for the new hypotheses, provide mixed support for the previous arguments, and show that the relationship between world economic growth and conflict is not the same before and after World War II.

The Rising Tide of Green Unilateralism in World Trade Law. Options for Reconciling the Emerging North–South Conflict

In recent years, tensions between environment and trade policies have significantly increased, fuelled by a host of trade disputes over issues as diverse as tuna, shrimps, automobiles, furs, or meat of cattle treated with certain growth hormones.1 In these and many other cases, some States wanted to ban the import on environmental grounds, while exporting States invoked their rights of non-discrimination in trade granted under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)2 and other agreements under the World Trade Organization (WTO).3 A central issue in this conflict is the legitimacy of unilateral action and national decision-making under WTO law, as opposed to multilateral decision-making. A second line of conflict— often indistinguishable from the first—runs between the governments of the large developed markets in the North, with their strong environmentalist movements, and the smaller trading nations, in particular in the developing world. Many industrialised countries want to place the environment and trade nexus on the agenda of future WTO negotiations, with the intention of bringing environmental standards into the WTO legal framework or of opening up additional avenues for unilateral action.4 In contrast, many governments and non-governmental organisations

Sudan's Predicament: Civil War, Displacement and Ecological Degradation

Introduction - Sudan's predicament, Girma Kebbede Sudan - the North-South conflict in historical perspectives, Girma Kebbede South Sudan - a war-torn and divided region, Girma Kebbede war, social transition and illness conception - the case of tuberculosis, Jok M. Jok civil war in Sudan - the impact of ecological degradation, Mohamed Suliman losing ground - land impoverishment in Sudan, Girma Kebbede the challenges of peace, Girma Kebbede.

Taking Off the Cold War Lens: Visions of North-South Conflict during the Algerian War for Independence

EVEN BEFORE EDWARD SAID'S APPEARED SOME TWENTY YEARS AGO, Arab, French, and American scholars had begun to jostle keystone connecting knowledge and power in imperial edifice. Indeed, Anouar Abdel-Malek declared Orientalism in Crisis in 1963, as triumph of national liberation movements like Algeria's shook confidence of social scientists on both sides of Atlantic. In succeeding years, nowhere more than in scholarship on North Africa, sociologists, anthropologists, and historians criticized their predecessors for legitimizing colonial authority by depicting Muslims as an underdeveloped other. They recognized that orientalism could both reflect and reinforce inequality, ultimately serving as a coercive arm of state.' Since then, many more scholars have taken the historic turn, becoming increasingly critical of their disciplinary histories.2 At same time, new field of postcolonial studies has continued pursuit of orientalism, ranging ever further from institutions officially charged with preserving imperial power. Recoiling from elitism of official history, it would instead seek out voice of subaltern, or at least interrogate discourses that keep them silent. Following Said's lead in literary criticism, postcolonial scholars today catalog cultures of empire in novels and travel writing, museums and expositions, paintings and postcards-everywhere, it seems, but archives and personal papers of European and U.S. policymakers. Consequently, diplomats and high officials are becoming exotic other of postcolonial studies-passively receiving all

Taking Off the Cold War Lens: Visions of North-South Conflict during the Algerian War for Independence

Taking Off the Cold War Lens: Visions of North-South Conflict during the Algerian War for Independence

Clashes in the Assembly

I apply nominate scaling to analyze a database of Cold War and post–Cold War roll call votes in the United Nations General Assembly. I investigate the dimensionality and stability of global conflict as well as the substantive content of the voting alignments that have replaced the Cold War East-West dimension. I find that post–Cold War conflict in the UN General Assembly is mostly one-dimensional. This single dimension positions countries on a continuum that runs from a group of Western countries at one extreme to a “counterhegemonic” bloc of countries that frequently clashes with the West, and the United States in particular. Levels of democracy and wealth are important independent determinants of the voting behavior of states. The positions of countries along the single dimension are remarkably stable across time, issue area, and issue importance. Except for the Eastern European countries switching sides, they are very similar to the positions on the Cold War East-West dimension. Contrary to expectations, post–Cold War conflict shows little resemblance to Cold War North-South conflict.

Reforming the United Nations: New Initiatives and past Efforts

Volume 1: Part 1 Reforming the United Nations: initial reform efforts in the context of the Cold War focus on development and the North-South conflict new visions and the critics end of the Cold War and rediscovery of the United Nations reassessment of the role and purpose of the United Nations ongoing reform agenda. Part 2 Resolutions, decisions and statements. Part 3 Documentation: review of the activities and organization of the Secretariat examination of the administrative and budgetary procedures of the United Nations examination of the finances of the United Nations and the specialized agencies partners in development a study of the capacity of the United Nations development system a new United Nations structure for global economic cooperation restructuring of the economic and social sectors of the United Nations proposals for United Nations reform North-South - a programme for survival common security - a programme for disarmament. Volume 2: the world without a United Nations - what would happen if the United Nations shut down the future of the United Nations system - some questions on the occasion of an anniversary some reflections on the reform of the United Nations the United Nations - it problems and what to do about them efficiency of the administrative and financial functioning of the United Nations our common future reality and safeguards for a secure world a successor vision - the United Nations of tomorrow in-depth study of the United Nations intergovernmental structure and functions in the economic and social fields the challenge to the South a world in need of leadership - tomorrow's United Nations strengthening the United Nations for the 1990s the United Nations - structure and leadership for a new era the United Nations in development - reform issues in the economic and social fields common responsibility in the 1990s five major areas of reform towards a more effective United Nations responsibility of the security council in the maintenance of international peace and security an agenda for peace enhancing international cooperation for development - the role of the United Nations system enhancing international cooperation for development - the role of the United Nations the United Nations at a critical crossroads - time for the South to act. Volume 3: empowering the United Nations financing an effective United Nations cooperation for peace defining purpose - the United Nations and the health of nations an agenda for development renewing the United Nations system Canadian priorities for United Nations reform open-ended and broad-based consultations on an agenda for development. (Part contents)

North—South: Trade Policy, Regionalism andCaudillismoin Post-Independence Peru

The thesis of this article, following that venerable geopolitical theory of Montesquieu, is deceptively simple. In post-independence Peru, the fundamental faultline of regional conflict was a north–south one, that of thelimeñonorth versus thearequipeñosouthern coast. The sources of north–south differentiation were many: distinctive institutional legacies of colonialism, the centrifugal force of 1820s balkanisation, contrasting new forms of overseas penetration, the dichotomous pull of Pacific and Atlantic basin economies, overarching patterns of regional rise and decline, and rival visions for integrating the new country of Peru. By the 1830s, however, the north–south conflict had crystallised and polarised around one central issue: commercial policy or, to put it at its simplest, the north's ‘protectionism’ versus the south's ‘free trade’.

Finlandization: Paradoxes of External and Internal Dynamics

THE POLITICAL AND IDEOLOGICAL MAP OF EUROPE CHANGED dramatically during 1989 and 1990. Recent developments have totally demolished the old rules and beliefs that have guided relations between nations. Although some scholars have even argued about the final victory of liberalism, contemporary international relations are nevertheless far from unproblematic. The internal development of former European socialist societies is not yet complete and the North-South conflict seems to be intensifying. Relations between small and big nations still often threaten stability in the contemporary world.

Review Essay:Power and the Third World: Toward a Realist Political Economy of North-South Relations

By introducing questions of power into the study of North-South relations, the recent books by Jeffrey Hart and Stephen Krasner fundamentally challenge the prevailing orthodoxy of dependency and world systems theory. Power and bargaining, these two authors tell us, matter both analytically and practically. Yet, in each study the origin, nature, and role of power is problematic. If Realism is to provide an effective alternative to economistic approaches to international political economy it must derive specific interests from the concepts of power and the international distribution of power. I also argue that the New International Economic Order is part of a larger class of mercantilist strategies employed by various countries at particular moments in history to redress politically important economic imbalances. What is unique about the present North-South conflict is its multilateral character.

Book Reviews : Cataclysm: The North-South Conflict of 1987, by William Clark, Sidgwick & Jackson, London, 1984, £10.95

Book Reviews : Cataclysm: The North-South Conflict of 1987, by William Clark, Sidgwick & Jackson, London, 1984, £10.95

Why There Can Be No North-South Bargain

No resolution of the ongoing North-South conflict is in sight. Third World governments prefer to debate the conflict instead of trying to resolve it through reciprocal bargaining. Professor Murphy finds that debate since 1974 has indeed led to a certain mellowing of the Northern position. But he sees a serious impediment to any real progress in that the United States government cannot constructively participate in the debate the South wants without disrupting a long-standing American political consensus. Moreover, the United States does not have the institutional means to legitimate exceptions to internal economic liberalism that would have to be made in any North-South bargain.

Interstate Conflict Behavior and Regional Potential for Conflict in Latin America

The growing importance of third world countries in the international system brings their potential for conflict and cooperation to the forefront. Given the fact that the East-West conflict tends to intensify the North-South conflict, a general tendency toward more warlike antagonisms is becoming evident within the Third World. In view of this trend, Latin America as a region becomes particularly interesting; conditions here have always led to conflict situations between the various countries, but specific historical factors seem to have kept these conflicts from erupting to the same extent that they have in other regions of the Third World.Conflicts between two states do not suddenly occur. Their virulence rather gradually develops from a mixture of border conflicts, historical animosities, economic disputes, differences in political systems, arms races, and certainly, the influence of the big powers.

The perspectives of the North-South Dialogue

During the 1970s the North-South Dialogue, which will shortly be continued at the summit in Mexico, was characterized by a gross disproportion between monstrous expenditure—with many losses due to friction —and negligible results. Symptoms of fatigue with regard to the Dialogue are spreading not only among governments, but also among the public in the North. The disillusionment and disappointment are proportionally greater in the South. As no one would presumably like to risk a failure of the Dialogue, which would probably result in a severe aggravation of the North-South conflict, a reorientation of the Dialogue now suggests itself.

THE RISE AND FALL OF SEPARATISM IN SOUTHERN SUDAN

CHARACTERISTICALLY, Southern separatism vacillated between demands for local self-rule and the extreme of outright secession. In general, however, the call had been for some form of loosening of the political and legal bonds that united the South with the North. Needless to say, the response of the Centre (in this case the core-area of the North) had invariably been the hardening of attitudes towards regional demands. It is not my intention to go into the details of the history of the North-South conflict, but rather to attempt to highlight the process by which the South moved from a variety of positions to the claim for a separate identity or existence. The line of enquiry suggested here is likely to yield valuable information with regard to the nature and character of the most articulate elements of Southern separatism. It is one thesis of this article that the perceptions and expectations of this layer or layers of the Southern community had largely been responsible for the shaping of Southern demands. An appreciation of this fact makes possible the attempt to explain how it was that General Numeiry managed to strike off Southern separatism from the political agenda. On this same premise, too, rests the purely conjectural issue of whether or not the existing political and constitutional arrangements designed specifically to contain separatist sentiments in the South will continue to hold in the foreseeable future. There is, doubtless, a sense in which every case or instance of separatism is unique. But-and I can only put it tentatively-Southern Sudanese separatism does seem to be significantly different from all the cases seen so far.

Arabism and Pan-Arabism in Sudanese Politics

The greatest achievement of Arabism in the Sudan has been the unquestioned acceptance by the whole world that this is an Arab state, in spite of the fact that only about 40 per cent of the population is Arab. Indeed, the predominance of the Arab Sudanese in the country's culture, politics, administration, commerce, and industry makes it de facto an Arab state. The ascendancy and assertiveness of the Arabs caused the North–South conflict to be almost intractable, while their economic and political domination led even the Northern Muslims to begin to assert themselves, although they had traditionally looked with favour upon assimilation into Arab culture.