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?

scholarly journals Double Betrayal

1996 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 405-408
Author(s):  
Suroosh Irfani
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Entire Population ◽  
Cumulative Number ◽  
Jammu And Kashmir ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
The Past ◽  
Freedom Movement ◽  
Western Media

Since 1989, more Kasluniris have died in the struggle against Indianrule than the cumulative number of Bosnian casualties of Serb attacks inSarajevo and of Palestinians during the intifada. Even so, not many peopleare aware of the mass freedom movement that has gripped the northernHimalayan state of Jammu and Kashmir for the past six years. Reasons forsuch apathy are not hard to gauge: Western stakes in Kashmir are of a differentkind than those in the Balkans or the oil-rich Middle- EastConsequently, the uprising in Kashmir and the massive human rights vio­lations there have been relegated to the fringe of the Western media. Overburdenedby its post-cold war concerns, the Western conscience seems tobe on recess in Kashmir. A corollary to the lack of international concern over Kashmir is thevirtual absence of literature on contemporary Kashmiri reality. The studyby Paula Newberg, a senior associate at the Camegie Endowment whohas visited Kashmir several times, is an apt response to this doubledeficit. Academically unpretentious and refreshingly free of prescriptivesolutions, Double Betrayal (available from The Brooking Institution inWashington, DC) etches a disturbing image of mass resistance and insularmass repression in this land-locked Indian-administered state. Thebook encapsulates the nature of the Kashmiri insurgency, Indian repression,and the agony of an entire population whose suffering the worldrefuses to fathom ...

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.

The Clinton Administration and Ethnic Conflict Management: Limits of Intervention in a Partially Autonomous Africa

1998 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 41-46
Author(s):  
Donald S. Rothchild
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Conflict Management ◽  
Clinton Administration ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Communal Identity ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Management Objectives ◽  
Difficult Time ◽  
Foreign Policies ◽  
The Impact

The Clinton administration and its predecessors have had a difficult time assessing the impact of ethnicity and nationalism on international conflict. They are inclined to focus on state power and individual rights considerations, downplaying the importance of the ties of communal identity and the emotive appeals of ethnic self-determination. Then, when ethnic groups do gain political significance, U.S. officials often give the communal concerns a prominence out of proportion with reality. The primary challenge for the Clinton administration is that U.S. liberalism classically has involved commitments that preclude flexibility on communally based demands for self-determination and group rights. Such perspectives can at times complicate the formulation of effective foreign policies for a region only partially integrated into the global capitalist economy, and therefore autonomous for some purposes from U.S. manipulation. What is needed is an involved but pragmatic liberalism that links U.S. conflict management objectives with what Thomas Friedman describes as a “coherent post–Cold War strategic framework.” Without that framework, he writes, “the Americans look like naive do-gooders trying to break up a street brawl.”

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. 

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