Responsibility to Protect and Theorising Normative Change in International Organisations: From Weber to the Sociology of Professions

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Karlsrud
Keyword(s):  
International System ◽  
Think Tanks ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
International Organisations ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Sociology Of Professions ◽  
The Core ◽  
Organisational Sociology ◽  
Normative Change ◽  
Donor States

How does normative change occur in international organisations (IOs)? The literature has theorised IO behaviour as being a consequence of the interest of powerful states, or has applied concepts borrowed from organisational sociology related to bureaucratic dysfunction, such as ‘dysfunctional behaviour’, ‘pathologies’, or ‘organised hypocrisy’. This article argues that using the sociology of professions can augment constructivist theorising of IO behaviour and offer a better understanding of normative change in IOs. The evolving norm of ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P) has a significant impact on how the UN supports and intervenes in member states, and on the core principle of sovereignty in the international system. By examining the R2P concept and process, this article shows how key donor states, think tanks, and academic institutions have, together with the UN, pushed for R2P, effectively driving normative change in the international system. Such change is seen not solely as a top–down function of state interests, but as also a bottom–up process driven by advocacy and support from key donor states, think tanks, and academic circles. Further, for grasping how norms develop, a constructivist framework influenced by the sociology of professions appears better suited than existing constructivist frameworks.

The Bridging Capacity of Realist Constructivism: The Normative Evolution of Human Security and the Responsibility to Protect

2020 ◽  
pp. 171-192
Author(s):  
Andreea Iancu
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Security ◽  
International System ◽  
Human Security ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
The Core ◽  
Security Discourse ◽  
Core Practices

This chapter is an inquiry into the evolution and implementation of the controversial norm of responsibility to protect in the international community, with respect to the effects it produces in international customary law. It looks into the changes in the security discourse induced by the norms that emphasize human rights, which impact the core practices of the international system, as reasons for intervention, international security, and state sovereignty. It traces the normative evolution of human-centered principles, by identifying their commonalities, their institutional markers, and their presence in the discourse of international actors. The chapter scrutinizes the international community’s internalization of the normative frameworks of human security and the responsibility to protect by testing them on two hard cases; the conflicts in Libya and Syria.

Analysis (Hans Morgenthau) to the concept of power and applied to the units of the international system

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 138
Author(s):  
Saif Nasrat Tawfiq Al - Haramazi
Keyword(s):  
Applied Sciences ◽  
International System ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Sciences ◽  
Basic Requirement ◽  
The Core ◽  
Hans Morgenthau

The theoretical curriculum in all disciplines is a basic requirement that nourishes the minds of the intellectual and cognitive recipients in the various scientific and cognitive stages. This is the framework that distinguishes the academic understanding of the anarchic, which is one of the most important and important keys in thinking and success in that jurisdiction or field, , Because it is unreasonable and logical to get into the core of any subject without searching and searching for its intellectual and historical bases to find out the reasons and reasons that surrounded this idea which was later recognized as an important contribution to the field of human sciences. Applied Sciences and other from the other side.

scholarly journals The future of SIMS: Who embodies which smile and when?

2010 ◽  
Vol 33 (6) ◽  
pp. 464-480 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paula M. Niedenthal ◽  
Martial Mermillod ◽  
Marcus Maringer ◽  
Ursula Hess
Keyword(s):  
Facial Expression ◽  
Eye Contact ◽  
Initial Position ◽  
Top Down ◽  
The Core ◽  
Facial Expression Of Emotion ◽  
Expression Of Emotion ◽  
Target Article ◽  
The Future

AbstractThe set of 30 stimulating commentaries on our target article helps to define the areas of our initial position that should be reiterated or else made clearer and, more importantly, the ways in which moderators of and extensions to the SIMS can be imagined. In our response, we divide the areas of discussion into (1) a clarification of our meaning of “functional,” (2) a consideration of our proposed categories of smiles, (3) a reminder about the role of top-down processes in the interpretation of smile meaning in SIMS, (4) an evaluation of the role of eye contact in the interpretation of facial expression of emotion, and (5) an assessment of the possible moderators of the core SIMS model. We end with an appreciation of the proposed extensions to the model, and note that the future of research on the problem of the smile appears to us to be assured.

scholarly journals Punching above Weight: How the African Union Commission Exercises Agency in Politics

2021 ◽  
pp. 000203972199039
Author(s):  
Thomas Kwasi Tieku
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Policy Development ◽  
International System ◽  
African Union ◽  
African Continent ◽  
International Organisations ◽  
The World ◽  
International Issues ◽  
Decision Making Rule

Conventional narratives suggest that the African Union Commission (AUC), like most international public administrations and international organisations (IOs) housed in the less materially endowed regions of the world, exercises no meaningful agency on international issues. This article however seeks to show that the AUC is neither a glorified messenger and docile follower of orders of governments nor is it an empty vessel that timidly goes where the wind of governments blows. Rather, the AUC exercises significant agency on issues that affect not just the African continent but also the broader international system. The AUC is often at the heart of international agenda-setting, norm development, decision-making, rule creation, policy development, and it sometimes offer strategic leadership. The article demonstrates six pathways through which the AUC acts like a tail wagging a dog.

scholarly journals Switching perception of musical meters by listening to different acoustic cues of biphasic sound stimulus.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sotaro Kondoh ◽  
Kazuo Okanoya ◽  
Ryosuke O Tachibana
Keyword(s):  
Music Perception ◽  
Sound Stimulus ◽  
Acoustic Cues ◽  
Point Scale ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
The Core ◽  
Entire Structure ◽  
Core Features

Meter is one of the core features of music perception. It is the cognitive grouping of regular sound sequences, typically for every 2, 3, or 4 beats. Previous studies have suggested that one can not only passively perceive the meter from acoustic cues such as loudness, pitch, and duration of sound elements, but also actively perceive it by paying attention to isochronous sound events without any acoustic cues. Studying the interaction of top-down and bottom-up processing in meter perception leads to understanding the cognitive system’s ability to perceive the entire structure of music. The present study aimed to demonstrate that meter perception requires the top-down process (which maintains and switches attention between cues) as well as the bottom-up process for discriminating acoustic cues. We created a “biphasic” sound stimulus, which consists of successive tone sequences designed to provide cues for both the triple and quadruple meters in different sound attributes, frequency, and duration, and measured how participants perceived meters from the stimulus in a five-point scale (ranged from “strongly triple” to “strongly quadruple”). Participants were asked to focus on differences in frequency and duration. We found that well-trained participants perceived different meters by switching their attention to specific cues, while untrained participants did not. This result provides evidence for the idea that meter perception involves the interaction between top-down and bottom-up processes, which training can facilitate.

scholarly journals Switching perception of musical meters by listening to different acoustic cues of biphasic sound stimulus

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (8) ◽  
pp. e0256712
Author(s):  
Sotaro Kondoh ◽  
Kazuo Okanoya ◽  
Ryosuke O. Tachibana
Keyword(s):  
Music Perception ◽  
Sound Stimulus ◽  
Acoustic Cues ◽  
Point Scale ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
The Core ◽  
Entire Structure ◽  
Core Features

Meter is one of the core features of music perception. It is the cognitive grouping of regular sound sequences, typically for every 2, 3, or 4 beats. Previous studies have suggested that one can not only passively perceive the meter from acoustic cues such as loudness, pitch, and duration of sound elements, but also actively perceive it by paying attention to isochronous sound events without any acoustic cues. Studying the interaction of top-down and bottom-up processing in meter perception leads to understanding the cognitive system’s ability to perceive the entire structure of music. The present study aimed to demonstrate that meter perception requires the top-down process (which maintains and switches attention between cues) as well as the bottom-up process for discriminating acoustic cues. We created a “biphasic” sound stimulus, which consists of successive tone sequences designed to provide cues for both the triple and quadruple meters in different sound attributes, frequency, and duration. Participants were asked to focus on either frequency or duration of the stimulus, and to answer how they perceived meters on a five-point scale (ranged from “strongly triple” to “strongly quadruple”). As a result, we found that participants perceived different meters by switching their attention to specific cues. This result adds evidence to the idea that meter perception involves the interaction between top-down and bottom-up processes.

scholarly journals ‘The Very Foundations of Any System of Criminal Justice’: Criminal Responsibility in the Australian Model Criminal Code

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 8-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arlie Loughnan
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Criminal Responsibility ◽  
Criminal Code ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
Reform Process ◽  
Conceptual Level ◽  
Top Down ◽  
The Core ◽  
Reform Project

The Model Criminal Code (MCC) was intended to be a Code for all Australian jurisdictions. It represents a high point of faith in the value and possibility of systematising, rationalising and modernising criminal law. The core of the MCC is Chapter 2, the ‘general principles of criminal responsibility’, which outlines the ‘physical’ and ‘fault’ elements of criminal offences, and defines concepts such as recklessness. This paper assesses the MCC as a criminal law reform project and explores questions of how the MCC came into being, and why it took shape in certain ways at a particular point in time. The paper tackles these questions from two different perspectives—‘external’ and ‘internal’ (looking at the MCC from the ‘outside’ and the ‘inside’). I make two main arguments. First, I argue that, driven by a ‘top down’ law reform process, the MCC came into being at a time when changes in crime and criminal justice were occurring, and that it may be understood as an attempt to achieve stability in a time of change. Second, I argue that the significance of the principles of criminal responsibility, which formed the central pivot of the MCC, lies on the conceptual level—in relation to the language through which the criminal law is thought about, organised and reformed.

Local Infrastructures for Peace

2021 ◽  
pp. 626-640
Author(s):  
Andries Odendaal
Keyword(s):  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Local Agency ◽  
The Core ◽  
Past Experiences ◽  
The Way

The way “the local” had been interpreted led to contrasting top-down or bottom-up understandings of local infrastructures for peace. This chapter presents a reinterpretation of the relevance of infrastructures for peace from a practitioner’s perspective, considering past experiences and current theoretical debates. It argues for an appreciation of the complex, interlinked nature of global, national, and local conflicts and the necessity of flexible yet sustained and productive dialogue platforms at the points of frictional interactions at and between all these levels. The capacity to initiate and support such dialogue platforms where, crucially, local agency is respected is at the core of the approach that became known as “infrastructures for peace.”

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