scholarly journals The geopolitics of militarism and humanitarianism

2021 ◽  
pp. 030913252110322
Author(s):  
Killian McCormack ◽  
Emily Gilbert
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
Military Intervention ◽  
Military Deployment ◽  
Humanitarian Crises ◽  
Geographical Perspective ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Way

In this article, we trace the interconnections between humanitarianism and militarism. We highlight the significance of a geographical perspective in emphasizing the spatial and multiscalar dimensions of this changing relationship, particularly in Western states. In doing so, we reveal the violent geographies produced through militarized humanitarianism and demonstrate the ways political violence can be obscured through invocations of humanitarianism. We look at five overlapping lines of enquiry: the way humanitarianism is used to modulate war; the rationalization of military intervention as humanitarian; military deployment in response to humanitarian crises; the military take-up of humanitarian-style practices; and weapons development and humanitarianism.

Wreck/Conciliation? The Politics of Truth Commissions in Thailand

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 377-404 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duncan McCargo ◽  
Naruemon Thabchumpon
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
Truth Commissions ◽  
Security Forces ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Way

More than ninety people died in political violence linked to the March–May 2010 “redshirt” protests in Bangkok. The work of the government-appointed Truth for Reconciliation Commission of Thailand (TRCT) illustrates the potential shortcomings of seeing quasi-judicial commissions as a catch-all solution for societies struggling to deal with the truth about their recent pasts. The 2012 TRCT report was widely criticized for blaming too much of the violence on the actions of rogue elements of the demonstrators and failing to focus tightly on the obvious legal transgressions of the security forces. By failing strongly to criticize the role of the military in most of the fatal shootings, the TRCT arguably helped pave the way for the 2014 coup. Truth commissions that are unable to produce convincing explanations of the facts they examine may actually prove counterproductive. Following Quinn and Wilson, we argue in this article that weak truth commissions are prone to politicization and are likely to produce disappointing outcomes, which may even be counterproductive.

scholarly journals El Diario de Francisca: Representaciones infantiles sobre la violencia política en la vida cotidiana durante los 70 / Francisca’s private diary: Childhood representations of political violence in everyday life during the 70s

2018 ◽  
pp. 16-26
Author(s):  
Daniela Jara
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Cultural Practice ◽  
La Niña ◽  
Military Coup ◽  
La Nina ◽  
Sociedad Civil ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Way ◽  
Violencia Politica

En este artículo se propone una lectura del Diario de Francisca, un registro autobiográfico escrito en plenos días de la Unidad Popular y el golpe de Estado por una niña de 11 años, miembro de una familia urbana de clase media alta. Luego de situar brevemente al diario íntimo o de vida como una práctica cultural propia de la modernidad, se analiza la manera en que el texto ilumina las operaciones a través de las cuales la niña va habitando el mundo, entramadas en dinámicas socio-afectivas mediadas, interrumpidas o potenciadas por la clase. Se sugiere que las representaciones infantiles articuladas en la escritura del diario íntimo muestran diversos aspectos de la producción y transmisión de la memoria de la violencia política, y de la relación con los contextos de su producción. El Diario describe una escena de la violencia política en que ésta, lejos de producirse de manera intempestiva, ya estaba instalada en las formas de la vida cotidiana de la Unidad Popular (UP).  Así, la voz de la niña nos permite ver cómo la violencia política está en parte instalada y cómo va instalándose en la sociedad civil durante la UP, ya no sólo entre víctimas y perpetradores, sino también entre los niños, quienes participan de ésta, la negocian y recrean o reproducen. Palabras claves: diario íntimo, violencia política, representaciones infantiles AbstractThis article focuses on Francisca's Diary, an autobiographical record written during the Unidad Popular (UP) period, more specifically in 1973. Francisca, an 11 year old girl, member of an urban middle-class family, witnesses the military coup and produces an intimate account of the events. After briefly situating the personal diary as a cultural practice typical of modernity, I will reflect on the way in which the text illuminates the operations through which the girl inhabits the world, embedded in socio-affective dynamics, interrupted or enhanced by social class. I suggest that Francisca’s Diary sheds light on various aspects of the production and transmission of the memory of political violence, the role of children representations and their relationship with the contexts in which they are produced. Also, I suggest that the Diary portraits a scene in which political violence was already embodied in the everyday life during the UP, no longer as a monopoly of victim and perpetrator agents. Rather I draw attention to the way in which the child negotiates, reproduces, represents and resists violence.Keywords: private diary, political violence, childhood representations

Arte ConTexto

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 29-52
Author(s):  
Antonio Bellisario ◽  
Leslie Prock
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Pictorial Representation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Political Dimension ◽  
Political Views ◽  
Socialist Government ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Military

The article examines Chilean muralism, looking at its role in articulating political struggles in urban public space through a visual political culture perspective that emphasizes its sociological and ideological context. The analysis characterizes the main themes and functions of left-wing brigade muralism and outlines four subpolitical phases: (i) Chilean mural painting’s beginnings in 1940–1950, especially following the influence of Mexican muralism, (ii) the development of brigade muralism for political persuasion under the context of revolutionary sociopolitical upheaval during the 1960s and in the socialist government of Allende from 1970 to 1973, (iii) the characteristics of muralism during the Pinochet dictatorship in the 1980s as a form of popular protest, and (iv) muralism to express broader social discontent during the return to democracy in the 1990s. How did the progressive popular culture movement represent, through murals, the political hopes during Allende’s government and then the political violence suffered under the military dictatorship? Several online repositories of photographs of left-wing brigade murals provide data for the analysis, which suggests that brigade muralism used murals mostly for political expression and for popular education. Visual art’s inherent political dimension is enmeshed in a field of power constituted by hegemony and confrontation. The muralist brigades executed murals to express their political views and offer them to all spectators because the street wall was within everyone's reach. These murals also suggested ideas that went beyond pictorial representation; thus, muralism was a process of education that invited the audience to decipher its polysemic elements.

Humanitarian Intervention

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Caplan
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Security Council ◽  
Future Development ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
Real Effect ◽  
General Decline ◽  
Humanitarian Crises ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
The Way

States – Western ones, at least – have given increased weight to human rights and humanitarian norms as matters of international concern, with the authorization of legally binding enforcement measures to tackle humanitarian crises under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. These concerns were also developed outside the UN Security Council framework, following Tony Blair’s Chicago speech and the contemporaneous NATO action over Kosovo. This gave rise to international commissions and resulted, among other things, in the emergence of the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P) doctrine. The adoption of this doctrine coincided with a period in which there appeared to be a general decline in mass atrocities. Yet R2P had little real effect – it cannot be shown to have caused the fall in mass atrocities, only to have echoed it. Thus, the promise of R2P and an age of humanitarianism failed to emerge, even if the way was paved for future development.

The ‘disappeared’ in Argentina 1976–1980

1980 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 41-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Malcolm Coad
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Buenos Aires ◽  
Military Coup ◽  
Daily Newspaper ◽  
Security Forces ◽  
Robert Cox ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Disappeared ◽  
The Way

We publish below a list of writers and journalists abducted by the security forces and numbered among the ‘disappeared’ in Argentina since 24 March 1976, the date of the military coup that installed General Jorge Rafael Videla in power. Two eye-witness accounts illustrate the way in which such abductions usually take place. Finally, Robert Cox, editor-in-exile of the daily newspaper Buenos Aires Herald, describes how independent-minded journalists and the families of los desaparecidos ( ‘the disappeared’) have been affected. The material is introduced by Index on Censorship's researcher on Latin America, Malcolm Coad.

The Politics of Instability in Ecuador: The Overthrow of the President, 1961

1975 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Pyne
Keyword(s):  
Military Intervention ◽  
Political History ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Military ◽  
Coups D'etat ◽  
Apparent Stability ◽  
Jose Maria Velasco Ibarra

On 7 November 1961, a crucial date in modern Ecuadorian political history, Dr José María Velasco Ibarra, constitutional President of the Republic of Ecuador, was deposed from his high office and sought refuge in the Mexican Embassy. The apparent stability that had characterized the country's political life since 1948 was shattered. The pattern of politics since November 1961 is similar in many respects to that which occurred in the decades between the two World Wars. Coups d'état, dictatorships and military juntas are political phenomena common to both periods. The military intervention which to Velasco's dewnfall in 1961 re-established a convention which had been dormant since 1947.

The history of a “primary source”: The making of Tûghî's chronicle on the regicide of Osman II

2009 ◽  
Vol 72 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-62
Author(s):  
Baki Tezcan
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
Collective Responsibility ◽  
Careful Examination ◽  
Political Sophistication ◽  
History Of ◽  
Initial Attitude ◽  
Historical Developments ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Way

AbstractA short chronicle by a former janissary called Tûghî on the regicide of the Ottoman Sultan Osman II in 1622 had a definitive impact on seventeenth-century Ottoman historiography in terms of the way in which this regicide was recounted. This study examines the formation of Tûghî's chronicle and shows how within the course of the year following the regicide, Tûghî's initial attitude, which recognized the collective responsibility of the military caste (kul) in the murder of Osman, evolved into a claim of their innocence. The chronicle of Tûghî is extant in successive editions of his own. A careful examination of these editions makes it possible to follow the evolution of Tûghî's narrative on the regicide in response to the historical developments in its immediate aftermath and thus witness both the evolution of a “primary source” and the gradual political sophistication of a janissary.

The Law of Martial Rule

1928 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 591-616
Author(s):  
Charles Fairman
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Martial Law ◽  
General Belief ◽  
Military Tribunal ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Way

It is not in the least unusual, in newspaper accounts of a strike, riot, flood, or fire, to read that the governor has proclaimed martial law and summoned the militia to the threatened zone. However exaggerated such reports may be, they are evidence of a general belief that there exists some mysterious “martial law” which, when proclaimed, augments the powers of soldiers and paves the way for heroic measures. Nor are these notions wholly fanciful. For such a proclamation may indeed be followed by an extraordinary régime in which the military authority will issue regulations for the conduct of the civil population, troops may be called upon to take life, and perhaps the individuals accused of fomenting trouble will be held without authority of a court, or in some cases may even be tried by a military tribunal. Quite likely these severe measures will receive the approval of public opinion. Yet it is surprising that a people ordinarily rather legalistic should have evinced so little disposition to inquire what rules of law, if any, govern the exercise of these military powers. To answering that unasked query the present study is addressed.

scholarly journals Labels on the maps of the Third Military Survey of Austria-Hungary and on the survey maps of the Military Geographical Institute (Wojskowy Instytut Geograficzny) in Warsaw in the light of survey manuals

2015 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wojciech Włoskowicz
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Standard Map ◽  
The Third ◽  
Last Stage ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Military ◽  
Topographic Surveys ◽  
The Way

Abstract Materials from topographic surveys had a serious impact on the labels on the maps that were based on these surveys. Collecting toponyms and information that were to be placed as labels on a final map, was an additional duty the survey officers were tasked with. Regulations concerning labels were included in survey manuals issued by the Austro-Hungarian Militärgeographisches Institut in Vienna and the Polish Wojskowy Instytut Geograficzny in Warsaw. The analyzed Austro-Hungarian regulations date from the years 1875, 1887, 1894, 1903 (2nd ed.). The oldest manual was issued during the Third Military Survey of Austria-Hungary (1:25,000) and regulated the way it was conducted (it is to be supposed that the issued manual was mainly a collection of regulations issued prior to the survey launch). The Third Survey was the basis for the 1:75,000 Spezialkarte map. The other manuals regulated the field revisions of the survey. The analyzed Polish manuals date from the years 1925, 1936, and 1937. The properties of the labels resulted from the military purpose of the maps. The geographical names’ function was to facilitate land navigation whereas other labels were meant to provide a military map user with information that could not be otherwise transmitted with standard map symbols. A concern for not overloading the maps with labels is to be observed in the manuals: a survey officer was supposed to conduct a preliminary generalization of geographical names. During a survey both an Austro-Hungarian and a Polish survey officer marked labels on a separate “label sheet”. The most important difference between the procedures in the two institutes was that in the last stage of work an Austro-Hungarian officer transferred the labels (that were to be placed on a printed map) from the “label sheet” to the hand-drawn survey map, which made a cartographer not responsible for placing them in the right places. In the case of the Polish institute the labels remained only on the “label sheets”.

China’s Military Reform: In Search of Centrality and Joint Capability

2016 ◽  
Vol 08 (03) ◽  
pp. 68-77
Author(s):  
Bojian LIU ◽  
Gang CHEN
Keyword(s):  
New Wave ◽  
Military Reform ◽  
Operational Capability ◽  
Weapon Systems ◽  
People’S Liberation Army ◽  
Military Control ◽  
The Military ◽  
Party State ◽  
Party Congress ◽  
The Way

In a new wave of reform, China’s Central Military Commission remains a party-state organ of the highest military control. Politically, the reorganisation enhances intra-People’s Liberation Army (PLA) supervision and inter-section checks, and paves the way for the personnel reshuffle before the 19th Party Congress scheduled in 2017. Strategically, the military reshuffle is to advance the PLA’s joint operational capability, facilitate modernisation of weapon systems, accelerate China’s transition towards maritime power and improve the PLA’s systemic commanding efficiency.

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