Political Impasse Research Articles

What Will It Take? Terrorism, Mass Murder, Gang Violence, and Suicides: The American Way, Or Do We Strive for a Better Way?

The assertion that access to firearms makes us safe, rather than increases the likelihood that oneself or a family member will die, is contradicted by a large body of evidence. Gunshots kill more than 30,000 Americans each year. Homicide accounts for approximately one-third of these deaths, with the remainder involving suicides and accidental gun discharges. In fact, firearms put us at greater risk of death than participating in war; in four months, as many Americans were shot dead in the United States as have died fighting in Iraq for an entire decade. Given these grim statistics, it would be reasonable to expect swift legislative action. Living in a nation plagued by the highest gun death rate in the world should trigger public and political outrage. Yet, the country is in a state of political impasse. Despite public demand for reform, federal legislators have been unable to enact laws that would protect, at least in part, the public from gun violence. Partly to blame for this political standoff may be the public’s misperception that there are rigorous gun control laws at the federal and state levels, all of which in actuality are riddled with loopholes. State and federal legislators could significantly tighten gun control laws without infringing on the Second Amendment right to bear arms but repeatedly fail to do so. When proposed reforms are viewed cumulatively, it is clear that they would almost certainly prevent many firearm injuries and deaths, even if no reform can eliminate gun violence altogether.

A Study on Japanese Fiscal Sustainability and Fiscal Discipline

A Study on Japanese Fiscal Sustainability and Fiscal Discipline

WENDY MEE and JOEL S. KAHN, eds. Questioning Modernity in Indonesia and Malaysia. Singapore and Kyoto: NUS Press in association with Kyoto University Press, 2012, vi+257 p.

Questioning Modernity in Indonesia and Malaysia WENDY MEE and JOEL S. KAHN, eds. Singapore and Kyoto: NUS Press in association with Kyoto University Press, 2012, vi+257 p.In Asia, there is a lot of emphasis on the progress. In this light, the term is one that is very much bantered about by national leaders and the society in general, but perhaps little understood. The book Questioning Modernity in Indonesia and Malaysia engages readers less in a theoretical discussion of the concept of as in its application to two significant countries in the region. The contributors problematize a simplistic East versus West discussion in the study of modernity, contending that the form found in Indonesia and Malaysia cannot be viewed as merely derivative of a European/Western modernity (p. 1). The work of Joel S. Kahn, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at La Trobe University, which argues for what historian John S. Smail called an autonomous understanding of in Southeast Asia, is drawn upon in the book. Kahn's work calls for an ethnographic understanding of that is rooted in cultural and historical context, an approach that has been well-executed by the volume's contributors in their examination of (p. 3).The editors rightly include the caveat that the volume does not pretend to be comprehensive in its thematic and geographic (p. 1). Rather than aiming for even distribution of case studies for both countries, the contributors saw value in a wide-ranging distribution of themes. The thematic scope in the examination of is one of the book's strong points. Issues as diverse as capitalism in the border areas and technology in Indonesia and Malaysia are raised in the book.The first section of the book examines transnational and border-zone identities. Kahn studies manifestations of in marginal communities in his chapter on Islam and capitalism. He argues that modernizing processes are able to come about irrespective of state leadership and criticizes the assumption that is linked to any particular civilization (p. 38). Kenneth Young and Yekti Maunati discussed ethnic identities in Malaysia and Indonesia respectively in separate chapters. Both acknowledge that cultural identity is a construction shaped by the push and pull of historical development (pp. 60, 91). Drawing on Kahn, both highlighted the intercultural foundation of the societies in both countries. Young also questions the adequacy of Western social theory in explaining the modern concept of social imaginary in Indonesia (p. 81).The second section discusses the topic of nation-states and citizenships. While, as argued above, a multiplicity of civilizations form the foundations of contemporary life in general, the chapters by Goh Beng Lan and Thung Ju-lan reinforce Kahn's observation of the equally dark aspect of exclusion and oppression of fringe groups. As Thung pointed out, the nation-state is imbued with the power to exclude (p. 161). Goh tries to remedy this, looking not at a modern universal expression of entitlement to values such as human rights, but to examples from a country's own past for a different way a detente (p. 128) in resolving the political impasse that resulted from the exclusion. Both acknowledge, however, that the resolution for religious and ethnic minorities in Indonesia and Malaysia will be long in coming and there are no easy answers to the problems of (p. 162).The final part of the book studies cultural and orientations of in Malaysia. Modernity, usually seen as a linear progress towards a certain utopia, ironically fears the inability to continue towards the ideal future. For example, in the case of Malaysia, Maila Stivens observed that the state's response towards its new generation is one of moral panic (p. 172), fearing the subsequent generation's inability to carry the successes of the present towards the future. …

In Croatia’s slipstream or on an alternative road? Assessing the objective case for the remaining Western Balkan states acceding into the EU

Since the ‘mega-enlargement’ of the European Union into the erstwhile communist territories of Eastern Central Europe and the Baltics in 2004/2007, the prospect for further EU enlargement(s) has seriously dissipated. Terms such as ‘enlargement fatigue’ and ‘absorption capacity’ have become en vogue in the post-2007 enlargement setting where older EU member states have developed negative attitudes towards future enlargements. However, the accession of Croatia into the EU in 2013 has inevitably raised questions of which states or regions could be next. This paper contends that due to a multitude of issues surrounding Turkey, particularly the political impasse within the EU towards Turkish accession coupled with its sheer size, only the smaller states of the Western Balkans represent viable candidates (Iceland’s accession prospects have stalled significantly due to internal pressures). This paper argues that the limits of EU eastern enlargement are set by both prevailing (subjectively defined) political attitudes founded on various grounds in the leading EU member states and by the rationally defined objective capacity of the EU’s institutions to absorb potential new member states. It is through the latter, and in comparison to the three most recent accession states - Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia – which this paper attempts to assess the objective potential of the remaining Western Balkan states to accede into the EU in the near future.

Can Egypt Actually Avoid a Civil War? Lessons Learnt from Algeria

In the light of the military intervention to depose the first democratically elected president in Egypt, Muhammad Morsi on July 2, 2013, there had been immediate calls to avoid a downfall to civil war. The analogy of the military coup in Egypt and the Algerian scenario of 1992 has haunted all intellectual and political circles ever since. The fears of an escalation of violence against the army and its supporters from secularists and the Mubarak regime loyalists emerged right away. The recent upsurges of violence are reminiscent of the Algerian Civil War that engulfed the country for a whole decade following the cancellation of the electoral process of 1992. The Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) engaged in a wave of guerrilla warfare that plagued the country in what was dubbed “The Red Decade”. The political impasse in Egypt will certainly lead to the insurgency of the Muslim Brotherhood members and fundamentalist Muslims to restore their highjacked legitimacy. The question is whether Egypt will fall prey to radicalism and be involved in a “dirty war” or it will be able to avoid such a calamity.

Unjamming the Insurrectionary Imagination: Rescuing Détournement from the Liberal Complacencies of Culture Jamming

1. FORMATIVE IMPASSES AND IMPULSES: POSTMODERN THEORYOr better: one is always located at a post through which various kinds of messages pass. No one, not even the least privileged among us, is ever entirely powerless over the messages that traverse and position him at the post of sender, addressee, or referent.1I begin with three premises: First, the cultural and political impasses that make culture jamming make sense as a viable form of activism were first diagnosed by French and German philosophers in the decades after World War Π. The cultural and political analyses of critical and postmodern theory set the stage for culture jamming. Second, the necessity of a politics of culture jamming was revealed by postmodern theorists as the only practicable modality of intervention given the impasses of the era. Thus, culture jamming is best defined, explained, and justified within the context of postmodern theory, indeed, as a postmodern politics. Third, the ideal articulation of the logic of culture jamming, theorized by Guy Debord in the 1950s, is the version we most urgently need to recover. This last premise contains a normative claim. So, I am not mainly interested in correcting the historical account of culture jamming by way of telling an origins story about where it really comes from. Rather, I set out to rescue the insurrectionary logic of culture jamming from the liberal complacencies that obscure it today. This requires bearing out the premises above.Marxist and post-Marxist philosophers came to some dreadful epiphanies in the decades after World War Π. The 20th century almost totally convinced generations of revolutionaries of the poverty and failure of their own grand narratives about the radical transformation of the world. The anti-Stalinist and anti-statist Left could not find any good reason to continue to place their faith in political parties and classical conceptions of revolution, nor could they find any guarantee on the horizon of an emergent revolutionary movement to resuscitate their optimism. The negativity of Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer's landmark study, Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944), would be recast in so many ways, but not easily overcome. The Nazis and Nuremberg revealed the dangers of manipulable masses, bolstering the political significance of the insights of Sigmund Freud and Wilhelm Reich. Diminishing numbers of radicals kept faith that a real challenge to capitalism was emerging anywhere in the atmosphere of the Cold War. A pervasive sense of the poverty and failure of revolution characterized a new impasse facing disaffected radicals everywhere. It is within this context of defeatism and disillusionment that the formative logic of culture jamming was best articulated. The grand idea of a world-historical revolution appeared to be a corpse from the past. But wasn't there still a space for meaningful revolt, and could such a space ever be totally foreclosed? It is within this context that the possibility for negating the negativity of the Left resided. Kindling these embers for a new radical optimism was necessary to the task of rehabilitating a disillusioned Left. This essay critically considers culture jamming as a means for such a task.Clearly then, I shall challenge popular genealogies that trace culture jamming to its coinage in the 1980s and 1990s. I argue for expanding beyond its narrow conceptualization as a tactic of media savvy activists. As media activism or pranking, culture jamming risks becoming a liberal fantasy that gives good news to capitalism: Is this all the Left has left? An insurrectionary logic of culture jamming was articulated in 1956 in Guy Debord's theory of detournement. Detournement means political plagiarism, distortion, hijacking, or otherwise rerouting something against itself. For Debord, detournement was part of a revolutionary project undertaken within the present conditions of oppression, in order to destroy those conditions, and he insisted that [a]n avant-garde cultural movement, even one with revolutionary sympathies, cannot accomplish this. …

Environment and Citizenship in Latin America: Natures, Subjects and Struggles

List of Tables and Photos Acknowledgements Introduction Chapter 1. Citizens, Society and Nature: Sites of Inquiry, Points of Departure Alex Latta and Hannah Wittman Section One: Assembling Nature's Citizens Chapter 2. Environmental Citizenship and Climate Security: Contextualizing Violence and Citizenship in Amazonian Peru Andrew Baldwin and Judy Meltzer Chapter 3. Multi-Scale Environmental Citizenship: Traditional Populations and Protected Areas in Brazil Fabio de Castro Chapter 4. Sin Maiz No Hay Pais: Citizenship and Environment in Mexico's Food Sovereignty Movement Analiese Richard Chapter 5. Social Participation and the Politics of Climate in Northeast Brazil Renzo Taddei Section Two: Environmental Marginality and the Struggle for Justice Chapter 6. Negotiating Citizenship in the Maya Biosphere Reserve, Guatemala Juanita Sundberg Chapter 7. Peru's Amazonian Imaginary: Marginality, Territory and National Integration Maria Teresa Grillo and Tucker Sharon Chapter 8. Citizenship regimes and post-neoliberal environments in Bolivia Jason Tockman Chapter 9. Chile is Timber Country: Citizenship, Justice and Scale in the Chilean Native Forest Market Campaign Adam Henne and Teena Gabrielson Section Three: Citizens, Environmental Governance and the State Chapter 10. Access Denied: Urban Highways, Deliberate Improvisation and Political Impasse in Santiago, Chile Enrique R. Silva Chapter 11. Environmental Collective Action, Justice and Institutional Change in Argentina Maria Gabriela Merlinsky and Alex Latta Chapter 12. Environmentalism as an Arena for Political Participation in Northern Argentina Brian Ferrero Chapter 13. Legislating Rights for Nature in Ecuador: The Mediated Social Construction of Human/Nature Dualisms Juliet Pinto List of Acronyms List of Contributors Index

Prophetic Myth in Selected Fiction of Ben Okri

Summary Africa's intelligentsia, whether creative or critical, have always been yoked with the task of finding a framework that would provide some tranquillity to this troubled region. Since the narcissism of negritude to the aestheticism of postcolonialism, the perennial issues about identity, the brain drain, political impasse, war and starvation still loom large. This article contends that, whilst debates continue to rage, it is pertinent to point out that with myth-making certain ideals and contradictions about the future of Africa can be foreseen. Economic failure, terrorism, kidnapping and religious crises are on the increase because leaders and followers are not taking cognisance of certain recurring patterns which forewarn of forthcoming events. Ben Okri, a renowned Nigerian novelist, is adept in using myths suggestively to foretell the future because he sees certain repetitive trends that are common to Africa's corporate existence. When viewed in mythical terms, these patterns could be predictive of crises, could serve as warnings, or could be suggestive of possible antidotes. Okri's Astonishing the Gods and In Arcadia, using the Journey Archetype, foreground the use of myth as prophecy because they present symbolic plots which offer imaginative insights into the things to come.

What Does Lauren Berlant Teach Us about X?

This essay considers method and style in the work of Lauren Berlant, with particular attention to questions of evidence, scale, and exemplarity. Berlant has explored these issues through her analysis of the genre of the case study, with its competing demands of singularity and representativeness. The essay tracks her concern with “the becoming general of singular things” from her analysis of queer and cultural studies methodology to the obese body as a case. I argue that, rather than resolving the contradictions of the case-study form, Berlant exacerbates them in order to make visible the political impasse of the present.

Explaining Change and Stability in Cross-Strait Relations: a punctuated equilibrium model

Relations across the Taiwan Strait have experienced several cycles over the last 60 years. Tension and crisis seem to come and go, followed by periods of peace and stability. What explains the cyclical pattern of change and stability? How can we explain the sources of change and stability in the relationship? This article examines the last 60 years of cross-Strait relations in light of an interpretative framework of ‘punctuated equilibrium’. Cross-Strait relations are complex, consisting of actors at the domestic, cross-Strait, and international levels. With a high degree of economic interaction, the cross-Strait relationship can be characterized as economic integration cum political impasse. This article analyzes the cyclical changes through three causal factors: (a) the role of issue cycles in cross-Strait relations; (b) the impulsive drivers for change; and (c) the structural constraints dampening change.

The Devil in the Deal: Trade Embedded Emissions and the Durban Platform

Several commentators have expressed concern that the Durban Platform does not include more specific language about the need for equitable mitigation efforts. Meanwhile, other commentators have argued that the differentiated approach adopted by the Kyoto Protocol set up an opposition between the developed and developing nations; resulting in an impasse which has prevented the achievement of adequately ambitious, agreeable and binding mitigation commitments. In this commentary I propose that the political impasse is not due to the equity track per se, but rather to the territorial and production-based accounting system upon which it was built. Under the UNFCCC, parties are required to provide inventories of GHG emissions within their national borders. There are several problems with this method, but most important given the argument here, is that the production-approach has resulted in a significant misrepresentation of the total climate impact of developed nations. Because GHG emissions are not confined by geopolitical borders, it is important to understand the climate impact of contemporary consumption and trade, regardless of where emissions are produced. I argue that supplementing production-based accounting with a consideration of the emissions embedded in trade has the potential to provide a more agreeable and politically viable path for closing the ambition gap and ensuring equity.

D'une conjoncture l'autre : Guattari et Deleuze après-coup

This text addresses some difficulties encountered reading Deleuze and Guattari “in situation”, in order to suggest a “symptomal reading” of their historico-conceptual moment. It first reexamines the distinction between a “history of revolutions” and “revolutionary-becoming”, in order to explain the meaning of the latter in connection with the Deleuzian concept of event and in the context of the historical sequence which demanded this new concept. The concept of event involves a foreclosed reference to the problem of the revolutionary situation in Marxism; it acknowledges the theoretical difficulties of elaborating a materialist notion of revolutionary situation, but also the political impasses which, in the post-war decades, had brought about a crisis in the representation of the revolutionary subject which Marxism believed it could guarantee. In the light of this double crisis, theoretical and political, the article concludes with an examination of the contemporary reflections of Althusser and Guattari concerning the connection between revolutionary circumstances and political subjectivation.

Papua

Papua Muridan S. Widjojo (bio) The year 2011 in the provinces of Papua and West Papua was politically noisy. Papua occupied the headlines of a number of national electronic and print media sources more often than in the previous year. First, the cycle of violence conducted by both the state apparatus and non-state armed groups predominated. On one side, the management of politics and security in the provinces was still colored by state repression and alleged human rights violations. Impunity was maintained and laws could not be enforced, as law enforcers often failed to indicate the perpetrators' identity, calling them "unknown actors." When perpetrators who are members of state security institutions have been identified and known publicly, the court has tended to punish them with light sentences. On the other side, the non-state armed groups became more aggressive. The year saw more members of the police and military becoming victims of attacks by the Free Papua Movement (Organisasi Papua Merdeka [OPM])- National Liberation Army (Tentara Pembebasan Nasiona [TPN]). Second, the political impasse caused by mutual mistrust between the government and the pro-independence Papuans continued. The special autonomy law implemented in 2001 has failed to restore trust. The impasse is mainly due to independence demands being approached from the perspective of a security framework (securitization). Most of the government's recent policies were also influenced by the securitization policy, which further undermined the spirit of reconciliation embedded in the special autonomy law. Third, industrial relations conflicts between workers and the Freeport Indonesia mine intensified. The root of the conflict is wages, which are considered the lowest in relation to other Freeport companies outside Indonesia. A phenomenal strike of the workers' association lasted roughly six months, and the company was forced to halt its operations for about one month. The strike began in July, and negotiations for a new wage structure were concluded at the end of December 2011. The strike ended and the workers enjoyed a wage increase of 37 percent. It was a Christmas gift for both sides. Fourth, the political will of the government to employ peaceful means of solving the Papua conflict appeared more clearly at the end of the year. On 9 November 2011, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono stated that the government was prepared to hold open dialogue with Papuan leaders. This statement confirmed the previous policy in which the president appointed special envoys [End Page 398] for Papua and a special unit under the president to handle the political and economic problems of Papua. Overall the new approach has not yet had a positive impact on the political situation in Papua, primarily because the old approaches have not been terminated. The Papua People's Assembly (Majelis Rakyat Papua [MRP]) also remained a protracted problem in Papua. The official term of MRP members should have ended in 2010, but the selection of new members for the 2011-2016 term did not start until April 2011. To make matters worse, the central government intervened by rejecting the appointments of Agus Alua and Hana Hikoyabi who had already been selected as members of MRP by the provincial committee. Alua and Hikoyabi were labeled "separatist" by Jakarta. As a matter of fact, these two Papuan leaders had an important role in facilitating the demonstration "returning" the special autonomy law to the central government in 2010. As a result of this, the inauguration was delayed. On 7 April, Agus Alua passed away after a long illness. On 12 April, 73 members of MRP (40 Papua and 33 West Papua) were inaugurated by the Minister of Home Affairs Gamawan Fauzi in Jayapura. On 30 May, members of the MRP agreed to maintain only one MRP for both provinces. However, on 6-7 June the members of West Papua MRP, led by Vitalis Yumte, Z Abidin Bay, and Anike Sabami, decided to establish a separate MRP for West Papua province. Surprisingly this separate body was supported by all members of West Papuan origin. Despite the refusal of Papuan members of Parliament in Jakarta, the separation was encouraged by Jakarta as well as by the governor of West Papua. The newly established West Papua People's Assembly was re-inaugurated...

‘When we launched the government's agenda…’: aid agencies and local politics in urban Africa

ABSTRACTPolitical realities in the capital cities of impoverished countries emerging from violent conflict illustrate how local actors can be hindered in conducting political affairs independently from the interests and influence of national governments as well as international agencies. This experience problematises the argument that the main cause of political impasse in African cities governed by opposition parties is incomplete decentralisation, whereby a devolution of responsibilities is not matched by a downward reallocation of resources. Although resulting competition constrains local governments' opportunities to deliver basic services, we need to look beyond the national scale to uncover the drivers of institutional change and gauge the promise of donor-driven local political empowerment. Urban politics in Africa continues to be shaped by global aid discourses, which are translated into local policy frameworks through interest convergence between international and national actors. The case of Freetown, Sierra Leone provides an illustration of such macro-level alignment and resulting local frictions. At the same time, it also demonstrates how local politics have challenged the technocratic, apolitical reinvention of urban governance in the global South perpetuated by the international aid industry.

Accountability and justice in post-conflict Liberia

Within the human rights sector, suggestions are made that one way in which a post-conflict society can build durable peace is by making sure that ‘those who bear the greatest responsibility’ are held to account. This perspective is more forcefully captured within the ‘transitional justice’ paradigm, which though a relatively new sub-set is a dominant trend in prevailing human rights discourse. Another new industry along this trajectory is the peacebuilding and development paradigm which posits that building a culture of peace can only be entrenched once issues related to the material improvement in the lived conditions of the broader population are taken aboard and addressed adequately. This article will seek to examine the post-conflict accountability and justice mechanisms in Liberia through transitional justice, peacebuilding and development frameworks. Also, the article will capture Liberia's history, especially the conduct of the war years, contemporary Liberian politics, and the upcoming Presidential and Legislative Elections in an effort to tease out the challenges and prospects in ‘holding those who bear the greatest responsibility’ for human rights abuses and the economic collapse of the country. Of particular concern as well is to examine the role of the international community as embodied by the Bretton Woods Institutions and international non-governmental organisations in respect of the policy options that are ‘imposed’ upon national actors active within a post-conflict society. In the main, the article will attempt to examine how Liberia can rebuild itself while at the same time ensure that principles of accountability and justice, especially in regards to war crimes and crimes against humanity, including genocide, are addressed. After almost eight years of peace in the country, it is important to open the debates about the way forward in Liberia in respect of human rights, peace and economic development. The urgency for such a discourse is made even more compelling by the situation in La Cote d'Ivoire, where a political impasse has resulted in violence and has led to civil war. La Cote d'Ivoire borders Liberia and the country played a major role in the Liberian civil war that was started in 1989 and ended in 2003. The conduct, the form, the manner and the content of the conflict in La Cote d'Ivoire will have significant impact on how Liberia entrenches a culture of peace, human rights, political and ethnic tolerance as well as economic development.

Seeing Like the WTO: Numbers, Frames and Trade Law

A stark contrast exists between the popular image of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) as a uniquely powerful international organisation (IO) and its actual capacity to monitor national policies and to enforce compliance with WTO rules among its member states. Rather than overseeing policy implementation itself like the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank, the WTO relies much more heavily than other high-profile IOs on a legalist method of surveillance. This article suggests that the notion of a ‘member-driven legalism’ is central to how the WTO ‘sees’ the world. In particular, the WTO's processes reflect a strong institutional belief that neo-liberal policies can be implemented by a consensus- and member-driven legalistic WTO system. To illustrate the importance of understanding how the ways in which the WTO ‘sees’ the world of trade both enable and constrain its influence over trade relations, the article examines how the WTO constructs and classifies the world economy into enforceable trade issues, despite political impasse in the Doha Round. Examining the cases of trade in biofuels and trade in electronic ‘cultural products’, the article puts forward the argument that the WTO exercises cognitive authority in the world economy via the organisation's distinctive classification and framing activities.

Art of resistance: negation, Ojaide and the remaking of the Niger delta

This paper is focused on Tanure Ojaide's poetry as ecocritical art for negating ecological imperialism, which he envisions is one of the major causes of political impasse, ecological malaise and socio-economic dissonance in the Niger delta of Nigeria as well as a fundamental obstacle to its remaking. In order to remake this region for environmental and developmental sustainability, Ojaide's poetics advances the possibility of this through art of resistance, a kind of dissidence poetry couched in ecocriticism that negates ecological imperialism, a capitalist practice that destroys the Niger delta environment. Ecocriticism is a type of aesthetics or artistic representation that considers the nature of the relationship existing between literature and the natural environment. The central idea of this paper is that Ojaide's ecocritical poetry is premised on questioning as well as negating imperialist operations in the Niger delta, where the activities of the multinationals in partnership with Nigeria's political class have left a ledger of destruction, deprivation and violence. Thus, in Ojaide's contention, since art is a refraction of realities in human world, it could be a potent instrument in remaking Nigeria for sustainable development through the insights and possibilities that it offers.

Mapping the role of official bioethics advice in the governance of biotechnologies in the EU: The European Group on Ethics' Opinion on commercial cord blood banking

In the early 1990s, the EU's proposed bioeconomic agenda provoked ethical concerns among its citizenry. In response to the political impasse between economic and ethical imperatives, as well as the perceived lack of democratic legitimacy, the EU established an expert bioethics advisory body, known as the European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies (EGE). Situated at the boundary between law, bioethics and economic policy, the EGE plays an ambiguous role in the governance of biotechnologies in the EU. To elucidate the nature of its role and influence, this paper considers the EGE as an integral element of a broader web of governance spanning EU and Member State institutions. Using as a case study the emerging controversy surrounding commercial cord blood banking, we explore whether the EGE and its ethical opinions on this matter have contributed to the democratic legitimacy of the EU.

Europeanisation Process of Bosnia and Herzegovina : Responsibility of the European Union ?

Since early 1990s there have been a lot of scholarly works in which the European Union member states are challenged and criticized regarding a problem of their national division on global issues and not speaking “with a single voice” with regards to the EU’s common foreign policy. Thus, national interests prevent the EU to become more credible, reliable and powerful actor on global scene. In a similar fashion, in this article I thoroughly explored approach and strategy that the European Union has applied towards Bosnia and Herzegovina within the framework of all-embracing Europeanization process of BiH from the perspective of the EU’s capacity and capability to influence domestic policy-making level. The article ends with the conclusion that the European Union member states are indeed divided, ambiguous, and weak in terms of its Europeanizing politics in Bosnia and Herzegovina thus further pushing the country into serious and deep political impasse and social tensions. As a result, such a strategy that the EU has utilised has proved that to a significant extent the EU itself is responsible for a decade-long status quo in the country since it is today having a role of international player from which Bosnian ordinary citizens have quite high expectations. Most importantly, that is about to result in a deep credibility gap for the EU since it could not assert and prove itself as an attractive, reliable, and powerful actor that is capable of resolving deep and harsh Bosnian paralysis.

Just interactions in value conflicts: The Adversary Argumentation Principle

This article discusses a procedural, minimalist approach to justice in terms of fair hearing applicable to value conflicts at impasse in politics. This approach may be summarized in the Adversary Argumentation Principle (AAP): the idea that each side in a conflict should be heard. I engage with Stuart Hampshire’s efforts to justify the AAP and argue that those efforts have failed to provide normatively cogent foundations for it. I suggest deriving such foundations from a basic idea of procedural equality (all parties in a conflict should be granted an equal chance to have a say) which all conflicting parties could be thought to endorse. But what happens once all parties have been heard if no agreement is reached? Borrowing a distinction well known to scholars of peace studies, but surprisingly neglected by justice-driven political philosophers, I claim that although the AAP might be inconclusive with regard to resolving a conflict, it is a promising principle for managing value conflicts justly. The AAP is thus considered anew through the lens of conflict management: as a principle of justice to characterize normatively the way conflicting parties should interact for their interaction to be morally justifiable to such parties with a view to changing antagonistic conflict dynamics into cooperative ones.