scholarly journals The Vital Center Reborn: Redefining Liberalism between 9/11 and the Iraq War

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Joseph Stieb
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Iraq War ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
The Political ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Policy Paradigm ◽  
Political Left ◽  
Universal Values

Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a set of liberal intellectuals promoted a vision of liberal renewal at home and abroad, hoping to create a new political and foreign policy paradigm. They sought to revive a form of early Cold War “Vital Center” liberalism by supporting democratization and human rights, designing a liberal version of patriotism, and supporting confrontations with illiberal autocracies and radical Islamists. They hoped to reverse decades of liberal decline in domestic politics, to distance themselves from the political left, and to critique President George Bush's response to 9/11, which they viewed as unilateralist, militaristic, and intellectually vapid. This revival of optimistic, universalist liberalism represents the peak of liberals’ post–Cold War belief in the ability of U.S. power to spread presumably universal values. The failure of the Iraq War, which many of these thinkers supported, undermined this brief project and returned liberals to a more cautious, defensive mindset.

The Clinton Administration and Africa: A View from Nairobi, Kenya

1998 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 70-74
Author(s):  
Korwa G. Adar
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Driving Force ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
Clinton Administration ◽  
African Continent ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Human Rights Movement

There is nothing more fundamental to Africans who are concerned with the future of the African continent than the issues of democracy, human rights, good governance, and the rule of law. These basic human liberties, among other concerns, constitute the central driving force behind what is often referred to as Africa’s “second liberation.” The primary purpose of this article is to assess the Clinton administration’s role in this second liberation, particularly in terms of its involvement in issues of democracy and human rights. This assessment is offered from the perspective of an individual who has been directly involved in the prodemocracy and human rights movement in Kenya. This article focuses on whether the Clinton administration’s policies are still heavily influenced by classic U.S. conceptions of realpolitik, or if enlightened leadership more in line with a neo-Wilsonian idealpolitik—as official rhetoric suggests—has permitted a fundamental departure in favor of a more coherent and tangible democracy and human rights foreign policy stance in the post-Cold War era.

HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE ORIGIN OF MYTHS OF POST-APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICAN FOREIGN POLICY

2020 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pablo De Rezende Saturnino Braga
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
South African ◽  
World Order ◽  
African National Congress ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Iconic Image

The foreign policy narrative of South Africa is strongly grounded in human rights issues, beginning with the transition from a racial segregation regime to a democracy. The worldwide notoriety of the apartheid South Africa case was one factor that overestimated the expectations of the role the country would play in the world after apartheid. Global circumstances also fostered this perception, due to the optimistic scenario of the post-Cold War world order. The release of Nelson Mandela and the collapse of apartheid became the perfect illustration of the victory of liberal ideas, democracy, and human rights. More than 20 years after the victory of Mandela and the first South African democratic elections, the criticism to the country's foreign policy on human rights is eminently informed by those origin myths, and it generates a variety of analytical distortions. The weight of expectations, coupled with the historical background that led the African National Congress (ANC) to power in South Africa, underestimated the traditional tensions of the relationship between sovereignty and human rights. Post-apartheid South Africa presented an iconic image of a new bastion for the defence of human rights in the post-Cold War world. The legacy of the miraculous transition in South Africa, though, seems to have a deeper influence on the role of the country as a mediator in African crises rather than in a liberal-oriented human rights approach. This is more evident in cases where the African agenda clashes with liberal conceptions of human rights, especially due to the politicisation of the international human rights regime. 

Politics and Populists

2021 ◽  
pp. 94-122
Author(s):  
Jussi M. Hanhimäki
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
Political Space ◽  
Third Way ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
New Era ◽  
Illiberal Democracy ◽  
The Past ◽  
Left And Right

Chapter 4 examines the transatlantic political space, with special attention to the rise of populism. Particularly since 2016, analysts have been obsessed with the dawn of a new era of post-truth politics and illiberal democracy. Refusing such pessimism, the chapter asserts that the rise of transatlantic populism is part and parcel of the reshuffling of democratic politics after 1989, when labels like “left” and “right” no longer carried the meaning they once had. Moreover, the transatlantic nature of populism—like the rise of the so-called Third Way in the 1990s—speaks volumes of the degree of interconnectivity between Europe and America in the post–Cold War world. While each country’s domestic politics can be idiosyncratic, the “macro” trends have grown increasingly similar in the past three decades. There is, the chapter contends, a transatlantic political space in which ideas resonate and “travel” at increasing speed.

“Bridges of Reconciliation”

2019 ◽  
pp. 96-127
Author(s):  
Petra Goedde
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Internal State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Universal Code ◽  
Peace Activism ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Politically Active ◽  
Political Realm

A host of religious individuals and groups became politically active on behalf of world peace at the height of the Cold War. Those groups tried to add a religious dimension to the debates about Cold War international relations, while at the same time pushing the religious conceptualization of peace into the political realm. The Cold War turned religious groups and individuals into political activists. These activists still promulgated peace as an internal state of spiritual harmony, common to many of the world’s largest religions, including Christianity, Judaism, and Hinduism. But they added a new dimension that stressed its communal, political, and global aspirations. They merged the ideals of peace activism and ecumenism in the postwar world by relying on the universal code enshrined in the global human rights agenda, doing so a decade before the secular human rights revolution erupted in the 1970s.

Botching the Balkans: Germany's Recognition of Slovenia and Croatia

1998 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carl Cavanagh Hodge
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Federal Republic ◽  
European History ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
Armed Violence

On December 23, 1991, the Federal Republic of Germany announced its intention to proceed with unilateral diplomatic recognition of the secessionist Yugoslav states of Croatia and Slovenia, unquestionably one of the most precipitous acts in post-Cold War Europe. With it the Bonn government in effect renounced the legitimacy of the existing Yugoslav state and pressured other European governments to do the same. Within weeks the Yugoslav federation came apart at every seam, while its civil affairs degenerated into an anarchy of armed violence as convoluted in many respects as the Thirty Years' War.In Germany's defense, it should be conceded at the outset that an alternative approach to recognition would not necessarily have produced a fundamentally more peaceful transformation of Yugoslavia. In light of the deepening political and economic cleavages with which the multinational state had been wrestling since the 1970s, the reasonable question is not whether the serial wars of the Yugoslav succession could have been avoided altogether, but whether Germany's action offered Yugoslavia and its populace the best chance for a more peaceful course of change given the circumstances. Did Bonn apply the best of its diplomatic and political brains to the issues of sovereignty, self-determination, and human rights? Were its actions morally responsible with regard to Balkan, German, and European history?

Measuring the impact of punishment and forgiveness: a framework for evaluating transitional justice

2006 ◽  
Vol 88 (861) ◽  
pp. 19-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierre Hazan
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Community ◽  
Truth Commissions ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
International Criminal Tribunals ◽  
The Impact

Truth commissions, international criminal tribunals, reparations, public apologies and other mechanisms of transitional justice are the new mantras of the post-cold-war era. Their purpose is to foster reconciliation in societies that have experienced widespread human-rights violations and to promote reform and democracy, the ultimate aim being to defuse tension. But to what degree are these mechanisms, which are financially and politically supported by the international community and NGOs, truly effective? Very little, in fact, is known about their impact. By examining the underlying hypotheses and workings of transitional justice and proposing a series of indicators to evaluate its results, this article helps to fill the gap.

The Military and Human Rights in a Post-Cold War Africa

1994 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Earl Conteh-Morgan
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
The Military
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