scholarly journals Seceding but not Succeeding: African International Relations and Somaliland’s lacking international recognition

2013 ◽  
Vol 19 (68) ◽  
pp. 73-105
Author(s):  
Nikola Pijović

Abstract Somaliland, the northern region of Somalia, declared independence in 1991 and has for the past two decades functioned as an independent political entity with important state-like structures. However, notwithstanding its relatively high accomplishment (especially as compared to Somalia) in state-building, it remains without any international political recognition. This article attempts to expose the politics behind Somaliland’s (non) recognition by analysing key African players and their roles in Somaliland’s international recognition game. The main arguments made are that some continental African states and Somaliland’s neighbours seem to be content keeping the status quo, and Somaliland’s international recognition is not a pressing issue for anyone but Somaliland. The fact that no African country seems to be ready to be the first to recognize Somaliland (while many are happy to be the second) may yet prove the most considerable obstacle for Somaliland’s recognition in the foreseeable future.

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (13) ◽  
pp. 3716 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yingling Shi ◽  
Xinping Liu

Since the 21st century, the concept of green building has been gradually popularized and implemented in more countries, which has become a popular direction in the area of sustainability in the building industry. Over the past few decades, many scholars and experts have done extensive research on green building. The purpose of this paper is to systematically analyze and visualize the status quo of green building. Therefore, based on Web of Science (WoS), this paper analyzed the existing knowledge system of green building using CiteSpace, identified keywords related to green building and their frequency of occurrence using the function of keyword co-occurrence analysis, recognized five clusters using the function of cluster analysis, and explored the knowledge evolution pattern of green building using citation bursts analysis in order to reveal how research related to green building has evolved over time. On the basis of aforementioned keywords, clusters, and citation bursts analysis, this paper has built a knowledge graph for green building. This paper can help readers to better understand the status quo and development trend of green building and to easier recognize the shortcomings in the development of green building, so as to provide a promising direction for future research.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-150
Author(s):  
Ahmed M. Abozaid

This study articulates that most of the critical theorists are still strikingly neglecting the study of the Arab Uprising(s) adequately. After almost a decade of the eruption of the so-called Arab Uprisings, the study claims that the volume of scholarly engaging of dominate Western International Relations (IR) theories with such unprecedented events is still substantially unpretentious. Likewise, and most importantly, the study also indicates that most of these theories, including the critical theory of IR (both Frankfurt and Habermasian versions), have discussed, engaged, analysed, and interpreted the Arab Spring (a term usually perceived to be orientalist, troubling, totally inappropriate and passive phenomenon) indicate a strong and durable egoistic Western perspective that emphasis on the preservation of the status quo and ensure the interests of Western and neoliberal elites, and the robustness of counter-revolutionary regimes. On the other hand, the writings and scholarships that reflexively engaged and represent the authentic Arab views, interests, and prospects were clearly demonstrating a strong and durable scarce, if not entirely missing. Keywords: International Relations, Critical Theory, Postcolonial, Arab Uprising(s), Middle East, Revolutions.


Author(s):  
Faith Mabera ◽  
Yolanda Spies

R2P invokes the power-morality nexus in international relations and interrogates the rules of engagement that anchor international society. Conceptualization of R2P as a liberal Western construct can therefore be divisive, especially when operationalization of the norm—as happened during the 2011 intervention in Libya—feeds into a West-against-the-Rest narrative. This is unfortunate because the R2P doctrine has deep roots in the non-Western world—Africa in particular—and Global South perspectives continue to strengthen its conceptual development. Emerging powers challenge the status quo of structural power and their rhetoric on R2P often invokes mistrust of Western altruism in international politics. Their actions, on the other hand, prove that they are no less prone to realpolitik in the normative domain. State actors in the normative middle of international politics, including developed as well as developing countries, are well placed to bridge the West-versus-the-Rest schism and to provide leadership in the R2P discourse.


2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-159
Author(s):  
Jan Adriaan Schlebusch

Abstract In his strategic political positioning and engagement in the nineteenth century, Groen van Prinsterer looked towards both the past and the future. Rhetorically, he appealed to the past as a vindication of the truth and practicality of his anti-revolutionary position. He also expressed optimism for the success of his convictions and political goals in the future. This optimism was reflected in the confidence with which he engaged politically, despite experiencing numerous setbacks in his career. Relying on the phenomenological-narrative approach of David Carr, I highlight the motives and strategies behind Groen’s political activity, and reveal that the past and the future in Groen’s narrative provide the strategic framework for his rhetoric, and the basis for his activism. I accentuate how the emphasis of his narrative shifts away from the status quo and thus enables a type of political engagement that proved historically significant for the early consolidation of the Dutch constitutional democracy.


2021 ◽  
pp. 355-372
Author(s):  
Anne Holper ◽  
Lars Kirchhoff

This chapter comments on the changes experienced in the field of peace mediation as a result of the increased professionalisation and regulation of the field in the past decade. These processes deeply affect the practice of peace mediation, and yet it is as yet unclear whether and how professionalisation and regulation affect the outcomes of mediated negotiations. The chapter examines the ways in which the major paradigm shift from a traditional reliance on individualised, non-transferable skills to nuanced mediation expertise has changed, or not, the field of peace mediation. It argues that professionalisation has tested the field and its ability to co-operatively improve its own practices, and suggests a model for ‘sorting out’ the status quo and readjusting mediation as a form of conflict resolution.


2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 560
Author(s):  
Qian Liu

In the past decade, language functions have attracted increasing attention of Chinese secondary school English teachers. However, students seem not to have explicit knowledge in this aspect. This study investigated Chinese students’ awareness of functions and explored the causes of the status quo. Based on the results achieved through a questionnaire survey, textbooks analyses and teaching analyses, suggestions are put forward for the building of students’ awareness of functions in the teaching of speaking.


2014 ◽  
pp. 64-66
Author(s):  
Maurice Alford

I’ve been teaching since 1973, some in area schools, some in intermediates, but mostly in secondary schools. Throughout my career I have enjoyed studying part-time, and in 2004 I was privileged to spend the year as an e-Fellow. I’m still studying, still reflecting on education in general and teaching in particular, and still very interested in what it means to be working in this space, what it means to be a teacher. In this piece I am therefore writing primarily with my colleagues in mind—I am writing for the classroom practitioners of today who are the teachers of the future. The ideas of connectedness and collaboration that I discuss here are based on what I have learned from my own practice. Built on a firm theoretical foundation, they represent my synthesis of education wisdom and philosophy. They are intended to challenge the status quo and to provoke change, just as the future challenges us to learn from the past but move from the present.


Slavic Review ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 905-913
Author(s):  
Marko Pavlyshyn

Liberalized cultural discussion in the Soviet Union after the Twenty-seventh Party Congress in 1985 was concerned in part with the nature of a literature that would be appropriate to the new ideals of openness and restructuring. In Ukraine, as elsewhere, the debate brought forth a list of imperatives that, without challenging the socialist realist principle that literature must serve overarching social and political goals, amounted to a formula for a new kind of literary engagement. Literature must “boldly intrude into contemporary reality,” it must defend the historical, cultural, linguistic, and ecological heritage and must unmask the crimes and abuses of the past and present. It must no longer be bland and inoffensive and must not avoid controversial issues or praise the status quo as a matter of course.


2017 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 139-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fiona McConnell ◽  
Jason Dittmer

This paper examines diplomatic processes that compose our geopolitical world as dynamic and yet also seemingly affirm the status quo. It turns attention to the entrepreneurial creativity of individual diplomats, the transformations occurring at threshold moments, spaces and practices, and the materiality of diplomacy that exceeds human agency. The paper does so by forging an innovative dialogue between assemblage theory and the notion of liminality as developed in cultural anthropology, and by focusing on a hitherto overlooked set of diplomatic actors: British Overseas Territories. Three vignettes of Overseas Territory diplomacy are traced: an account of the liminal subjectivity of London-based Overseas Territory representatives, the 1982 Argentinian invasion that tipped the Falkland Islands into a state of greater autonomy, and the geophysical ‘tipping point’ of the 1997 volcanic eruption on Montserrat that made the island dependent for the foreseeable future. The paper concludes by noting potential avenues of future research that the synergy between liminality and assemblage may open up in the fields of Science and Technology Studies, anthropology, and geography.


1990 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-56
Author(s):  
K. Edward Renner ◽  
Ronald J. Skibbens

Similar to the 1960s, higher education is once again in a period of rapid social chance in which new demands and expectations are being made on colleges and universities. This time, however, new money is not available for the transition to be achieved though additional growth. In this paper, the methodology of Position Description Analysis is presented using Dalhousie University as a case study. Position Description Analysis is a tool for assessing the discrepancy between the status quo and the specializations needed for colleges and universities to meet the new demands and expectations which are being made of them. It is concluded that there is a need for dramatic realignement of fields of specialization in order to shift from the emphases of the past to those of the future. However, because the faculty higher in the 1960s are now tenure, but no due to retire until after the year 2000, higher education must find internal strategies for chance or face externally imposed solution to their current lack of flexibility.


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