Racial Capitalism, Islamophobia, and Austerity

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadya Ali ◽  
Ben Whitham
Keyword(s):  
Security Policy ◽  
Public Services ◽  
The United States ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
Global War On Terror ◽  
Welfare Benefits ◽  
Racial Capitalism ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Global War ◽  
Groupe De Discussion

Abstract Explorations of Islamophobia or anti-Muslim racism predominantly focus on issues of security policy and media representations, set against the backdrop of the global “War on Terror.” This scholarship explores the racialization of Muslim populations across different global contexts, including the UK, Europe, the United States, and China. However, Islamophobia has also been articulated through concerns about the economy, jobs, public services, and national debt in times of austerity. Narratives have emerged around Muslim families in the UK receiving “excessive” welfare benefits, preferential access to social housing, and pressuring public services through “breeding.” This article offers a new way of thinking about the links between Islamophobia and austerity through an engagement with the literature on racial capitalism. The article shows how constructions of Muslim populations as the “undeserving poor” are central to the intersectional racialized and gendered disentitlements of austerity. The analysis draws on the findings from twelve interviews and a six-person focus group with Muslim subjects based in London to illustrate the political economy of austerity Islamophobia. Les explorations de l'islamophobie ou du racisme anti-musulman se concentrent principalement sur des questions de politique de sécurité et de représentation médiatique, avec pour toile de fond la « guerre mondiale contre le terrorisme ». Cette étude explore la racialisation des populations musulmanes dans différents contextes mondiaux, notamment au Royaume-Uni, en Europe, aux États-Unis et en Chine. Toutefois, l'islamophobie a aussi été articulée par des préoccupations liées à l’économie, aux emplois, aux services publics et à la dette nationale en temps d'austérité. Des propos concernant des familles musulmanes du Royaume-Uni qui auraient bénéficié de prestations sociales « excessives », d'un accès privilégié aux logements sociaux et fait pression sur les services publics par leur « reproduction » ont fait leur apparition. Cet article propose une nouvelle manière de penser les liens entre islamophobie et Austérité en impliquant la littérature portant sur le capitalisme racial. Il montre la manière dont les constitutions de populations musulmanes en tant que « pauvres non méritants » sont au centre de l'entrecroisement des désavantages racialisés et sexospécifiques liés à l'austérité. L'analyse s'appuie sur les résultats de douze entretiens et d'un groupe de discussion de six musulmans de Londres pour illustrer l’économie politique de l'islamophobie d'austérité. Las exploraciones de la islamofobia o el racismo antimusulmán se centran predominantemente en cuestiones de política de seguridad y en las representaciones de los medios de comunicación, con el trasfondo de la “guerra contra el terrorismo” mundial. Este estudio explora la racialización de las poblaciones musulmanas a través de diferentes contextos globales, que incluyen el Reino Unido, Europa, Estados Unidos y China. No obstante, la islamofobia también se ha articulado a través de cuestiones sobre la economía, el empleo, los servicios públicos y la deuda nacional en tiempos de austeridad. Han surgido relatos sobre familias musulmanas del Reino Unido que reciben asistencia social “excesiva” y acceso preferencial a la vivienda social, y presionan a los servicios públicos mediante la “reproducción.” Este artículo ofrece una nueva manera de pensar sobre los vínculos entre la islamofobia y la austeridad a través de un compromiso con la literatura sobre el capitalismo racial. El artículo muestra cómo la construcción de las poblaciones musulmanas como “pobres no merecedores” es fundamental para la revocación intersectorial de derechos raciales y de género de la austeridad. El análisis se basa en las conclusiones de doce entrevistas y un grupo de debate de seis personas que tratan temas musulmanes con sede en Londres a fin de ilustrar la economía política de la austeridad islamofóbica.

scholarly journals How Norms Die: Torture and Assassination in American Security Policy

2014 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 425-449 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Kutz
Keyword(s):  
Security Policy ◽  
Chief Executive ◽  
The United States ◽  
State Behavior ◽  
President Obama ◽  
Term Survival ◽  
Global War On Terror ◽  
Normative Order ◽  
Humanitarian Values ◽  
Global War

A large and impressive literature has arisen over the past fifteen years concerning the emergence, transfer, and sustenance of political norms in international life. The presumption of this literature has been, for the most part, that the winds of normative change blow in a progressive direction, toward greater or more stringent normative control of individual or state behavior. Constructivist accounts detail a spiral of mutual normative reinforcement as actors and institutions discover the advantages of normative self- and other evaluation. There is also now much interesting research focused on the question of how to predict the emergence of future norms.I focus, however, on a different issue here: the death of norms that had once seemed well internalized and institutionalized. The issue arises in relation to one of the most dramatic features in the defense policy of the United States since 2001: the crumbling of highly restrictive normative regimes prohibiting interrogatory torture and assassination as part of the “global war on terror.” My aim here is to sketch what I take to be the central features of cases in which even norms that are clearly defined and apparently well internalized in a democracy nonetheless lose their grip on policy. The ultimate lesson, however, is an unappealing irony: While democracies surely do better than authoritarian regimes in adopting and internalizing certain kinds of constraints, in part because of a greater sensitivity to public mobilization around normative questions, that same sensitivity makes the long-term survival of these norms precarious. In particular, I suggest that force-constraining norms are most effectively internalized by coherent and relatively insulated professional cadres who see themselves as needing to act consistently over time. But in a democracy the values and arguments of those cadres are susceptible to being undermined by a combination of public panic and the invocation by policymakers of a public interest that can override the claims both of law and pragmatic restraint. Democracy, hence, can be at the same time both fertile and toxic: fertile as a source of humanitarian values and institutions, but toxic to the very institutions it cultivates.The model I will describe may be of predictive use in helping us to see the special vulnerability of normative orders in democracies. But my hope is that it is also constructive in showing us how states and institutions committed to maintaining a certain normative order, especially democratic states, might best try to entrench those norms. While my argument is conceptual and philosophical, it draws on this recent history. I also add two qualifications to this article's title. First, I am not addressingallnorms, but specific norms concerning the state use of force in national security policy. I therefore do not make claims about the generalizability of the conflict I describe to other norms, for example, norms of racial, sexual, or religious orthodoxy or hierarchy, or norms of reciprocal interaction. Second, reports of a norm's death are frequently exaggerated, since norms can be latent, then resurrected. Arguably, the anti-torture norm was resuscitated by President Obama in 2009 when, as one of his first official acts as chief executive, he moved to prohibit cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of detainees. I write here about the path of decay, whether or not that path is unidirectional, and why previously salient norms no longer seem to govern policy choice among political decision-makers.

‘WARS ON TERROR’ AND VICARIOUS HEGEMONS: THE UK, INTERNATIONAL LAW, AND THE NORTHERN IRELAND CONFLICT

2005 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 321-356 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colm Campbell
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Foreign Minister ◽  
The United States ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
Global War On Terror ◽  
Northern Ireland Conflict ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Global War ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Military

The hegemonic position of the United States, and its implication for international law, are rapidly emerging as sites of intense scholarly interest.1It is a truism that the fall of the Berlin wall has been followed by a period of unprecedented American predominance in the military, economic, and political spheres. Replacing the bi-polar certainties of the Cold War is a world in flux, dominated, to a significant extent, by one remaining superpower, or, in the words of the former French Foreign Minister, Hubert Vedrine, by a ‘hyperpower’.2Some though, have emphasised the continuing importance of other loci of (lesser) power in a ‘uni-multipolar’ world.3That this domination posed critical questions for international law was obvious well before the 9/11 atrocities, as the debate over NATO's use of force in Kosovo illustrated. Since the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and with the global ‘war on terror’ reaching into ever-increasing spheres, the debate has intensified significantly.

scholarly journals Organizacyjne i personalne ramy „globalnej wojny z terroryzmem” w świetle orzecznictwa sądów amerykańskich

Poliarchia ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (9) ◽  
pp. 51-95
Author(s):  
Dariusz Stolicki
Keyword(s):  
Use Of Force ◽  
The United States ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Military Operations ◽  
Global War On Terror ◽  
Global War ◽  
The Impact

The Organizational and Personal Framework of the “Global War on Terror” in the Light of the Decisions of the United States Courts The article analyses the law of military detention applicable to the ongoing conflict with Al‑Qaeda and associated forces, to the extent that that law emerges from the jurisprudence of U.S. federal courts, and particularly of the D.C. Circuit. It discusses four major issues: the types of organizations against which military force can be used in accordance with the Congressional authorization, the range of persons subject to military detention in connection with such use of force (in terms of both legal categories and factual predicates), the scope of the battlefield on which the use of force is authorized, and the extent to which American citizens or foreigners lawfully present in the U.S. territory enjoy special immunity from military detention. The article concludes that the impact of the D.C. Circuit decisions on those questions extends beyond the issue of military detention, and provides the general legal framework applicable to other military operations directed against terrorist organizations in the Middle East, such as target strikes or the campagin against the self‑styled Islamic State.

Unholy Wars: Media Representations of the First Bali Bombings and Their Aftermath

2007 ◽  
Vol 122 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeff Lewis ◽  
Sonya de Masi
Keyword(s):  
Us Foreign Policy ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
Cultural Hegemony ◽  
Land Bridge ◽  
Global War On Terror ◽  
News Reporting ◽  
The Past ◽  
National Imaginary ◽  
Global War ◽  
Good And Evil

Over the past three decades, the Indonesian tourist island of Bali has been appropriated into the Australian national imaginary. For Australians, Bali has become a neighbourhood playground and psycho-cultural land-bridge to Indonesia and the Asian region. With the emergence of a global ‘war on terror’, Bali has also become a primary battleground, dividing the symbolic claims of the Islamist militants against the Western economic and hedonistic empire. This divide becomes crystallised in the Australian news reporting of the Islamist attacks in Bali of 2002 and 2005. Our research has found a common frame of reference in the reporting of the attacks, most particularly as Australian journalists’ reference to a sense of national history, the ‘9/11 wars’ and Australia's adherence to US foreign policy and cultural hegemony. News reporting tended to subsume the details of ‘Islam’ and Islamic grievance within a more xenophobic rendering of Australian identity and an apocalyptic vision of good and evil.

19. Religion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee Marsden
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Affairs ◽  
Us Foreign Policy ◽  
Emergency Plan ◽  
Global War On Terror ◽  
Christian Zionism ◽  
Global Affairs ◽  
Global War ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter examines the influence of religion on US foreign policy. It first considers how religion affected American policy during the Cold War, from the time of Harry S. Truman to George H. W. Bush, before discussing the bilateral relationship between Israel and the United States. It then looks at the rise of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a US-based interest group, and how its work has been complemented by conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists who ascribe to Christian Zionism. It also explores the ways in which religion has intersected with the global war on terror and US foreign policy, how the US resorted to faith-based diplomacy, the issue of religious freedom, and George W. Bush’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) in Africa. The chapter concludes with an analysis of the Office of Religion and Global Affairs (ORGA), created by Barack Obama.

Work and Welfare Benefits: Social Security, Employment and Unemployment in the 1990s

1991 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 485-508 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eithne McLaughlin
Keyword(s):  
Social Security ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Social Security Systems ◽  
Security Systems ◽  
Welfare Benefits ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Social Security Policy

ABSTRACTThis paper considers social security policy and structures in relation to the labour market of the late 1980s and 1990s. The paper begins by describing the labour market of the late 1980s and summarising projective descriptions of labour demand in the 1990s. The second section of the paper reports on recent research examining the labour supply behaviour of long term unemployed people, drawing out the role of social security policy and structures therein. The third section of the paper concludes that the role of social security policy is at present essentially reactive rather than proactive; that it does little to address the likely need for labour of certain kinds in the 1990s; and that efforts to address the problem of long term unemployment through social security policy have been largely misdirected. The final section of the paper briefly considers some of the ways in which social security systems can be more proactive and suggests a number of both short term and longer term policy changes which research indicates would be of benefit in the UK.

Autonomy and Foreign Policy: the Brazilian Case on the Fight Against Terrorism in the Lula administration

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophia Luiza Zaia
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
War On Terror ◽  
The United States ◽  
Global War On Terror ◽  
Realist Approach ◽  
Global War ◽  
Brazilian Case

This paper examines Brazilian Foreign Policy during Lula’s administration and how the concept of autonomy has shaped Brazil’s stance on alleged terrorist activities within its borders. By using the Neoclassical Realist approach, this article explores how autonomy has allowed for Brazil to oppose the pressures of the United States’ led Global War on Terror between 2003-2010. Autonomy has worked as an intervening variable that allowed for Brazilian Foreign Policy, to some extent, to take its own direction in matters of security. 

Philippines-US Relations

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricio N. Abinales
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Special Relationship ◽  
National Interests ◽  
Global War On Terror ◽  
Military Alliance ◽  
Global War ◽  
The Military

An enduring resilience characterizes Philippine–American relationship for several reasons. For one, there is an unusual colonial relationship wherein the United States took control of the Philippines from the Spanish and then shared power with an emergent Filipino elite, introduced suffrage, implemented public education, and promised eventual national independence. A shared experience fighting the Japanese in World War II and defeating a postwar communist rebellion further cemented the “special relationship” between the two countries. The United States took advantage of this partnership to compel the Philippines to sign an economic and military treaty that favored American businesses and the military, respectively. Filipino leaders not only accepted the realities of this strategic game and exploited every opening to assert national interests but also benefitted from American largesse. Under the dictatorship of President Ferdinand Marcos, this mutual cadging was at its most brazen. As a result, the military alliance suffered when the Philippines terminated the agreement, and the United States considerably reduced its support to the country. But the estrangement did not last long, and both countries rekindled the “special relationship” in response to the U.S. “Global War on Terror” and, of late, Chinese military aggression in the West Philippine Sea.

Safeguarding Democratic Capitalism

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melvyn P Leffler
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
World War I ◽  
National Security ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
National Security Policy ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Global War

This book gathers together decades of writing by the author, to address important questions about U.S. national security policy from the end of World War I to the global war on terror. Why did the United States withdraw strategically from Europe after World War I and not after World War II? How did World War II reshape Americans' understanding of their vital interests? What caused the United States to achieve victory in the long Cold War? To what extent did 9/11 transform U.S. national security policy? Is budgetary austerity a fundamental threat to U.S. national interests? The wide-ranging chapters explain how foreign policy evolved into national security policy. The book stresses the competing priorities that forced policymakers to make agonizing trade-offs and illuminates the travails of the policymaking process itself. While assessing the course of U.S. national security policy, the author also interrogates the evolution of his own scholarship. Over time, slowly and almost unconsciously, the author's work has married elements of revisionism with realism to form a unique synthesis that uses threat perception as a lens to understand how and why policymakers reconcile the pressures emanating from external dangers and internal priorities.

Germ Wars

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melanie Armstrong
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
United States Government ◽  
Global War On Terror ◽  
Modern Age ◽  
History Of ◽  
Changing Practices ◽  
Microscopic World ◽  
Global War ◽  
And Control ◽  
Work Done

The United States government has spent billions of dollars this century to prepare the nation for bioterrorism, despite the extremely rare occurrence of biological attacks in modern American history. Germ Wars argues that bioterrorism has emerged as a prominent fear in the modern age through the production of new forms of microbial nature and changing practices of warfare. Revolutions in biological science have made visible a vast microscopic world in the last century, and in this same era we have watched the rise of a global war on terror. Though these movements appear to emerge separately, this book argues that they are deeply entwined. New scientific knowledge of microbes makes possible new mechanisms of war. The history of the work done to harness and control germs, whether to create weapons or to eliminate disease, is an important site for investigating how biological natures shape modern life. Germ Wars aims to convince students and scholars as well as policymakers and activists that the ways in which bioterrorism has been produced have consequences in how people live in this world of unspecifiable risks.

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