Pub Date : 2023-07-14DOI: 10.1177/03043754231182476
F. Müller
Access to land and to adequate housing—a constitutionally granted right in Brazil—is currently under attack by non-state armed actors, the so-called militias, in Rio de Janeiro. In their attempts to widen territorial control, “militias” weaponize urban development. To understand such form of militarization, I argue that we need to add a geographical perspective to literatures on criminal governance: Terrain and its political materiality is the basis and not only the outcome of spatial claims to power. To sustain this contribution, I turn to local scales and add insights from ethnographic studies on how paramilitary groups affect the lives of residents. I trace the paramilitary influence along their terrain-shaping and urban development activities. The empirical basis of my argument is drawn from the northern periphery of Rio de Janeiro, looking at how “militias”—emerging as armed developers out of a past as Death Squads—expand their influence by investing in urban development. In this paper, “militia” is conceived as a floating signifier. As such, the meaning of militia is contested, as it encompasses a wide range of practices including civil construction, laying infrastructure, and landscaping. This way, the term “militia” becomes a cornerstone of a militarized urban development discourse and practice. “Militia,” as the encompassing center of a narrative cluster, bolsters bellicose forms of governing urban expansion, thereby further militarizing the everyday life of a large part of the marginalized urban society.
{"title":"Weaponizing Urban Development: Critical Geographies of Militarism in Rio de Janeiro","authors":"F. Müller","doi":"10.1177/03043754231182476","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03043754231182476","url":null,"abstract":"Access to land and to adequate housing—a constitutionally granted right in Brazil—is currently under attack by non-state armed actors, the so-called militias, in Rio de Janeiro. In their attempts to widen territorial control, “militias” weaponize urban development. To understand such form of militarization, I argue that we need to add a geographical perspective to literatures on criminal governance: Terrain and its political materiality is the basis and not only the outcome of spatial claims to power. To sustain this contribution, I turn to local scales and add insights from ethnographic studies on how paramilitary groups affect the lives of residents. I trace the paramilitary influence along their terrain-shaping and urban development activities. The empirical basis of my argument is drawn from the northern periphery of Rio de Janeiro, looking at how “militias”—emerging as armed developers out of a past as Death Squads—expand their influence by investing in urban development. In this paper, “militia” is conceived as a floating signifier. As such, the meaning of militia is contested, as it encompasses a wide range of practices including civil construction, laying infrastructure, and landscaping. This way, the term “militia” becomes a cornerstone of a militarized urban development discourse and practice. “Militia,” as the encompassing center of a narrative cluster, bolsters bellicose forms of governing urban expansion, thereby further militarizing the everyday life of a large part of the marginalized urban society.","PeriodicalId":46677,"journal":{"name":"Alternatives","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-07-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46140266","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-11DOI: 10.1177/03043754231183561
Jose Enrique Coutiño Trejo, Alejandro Madrazo
This article presents a case study—that of militarized high schools in Mexico—as an example of how the militarization of government functions can pave the way to militarism. Over the past few years, the Mexican Ministry of Defense has proposed to state governments the creation of militarized public high schools. This case illustrates how Mexico is moving from militarization—understood as the assumption of government functions by the military—to militarism—understood as the promotion of military interests and values—in Mexico’s security crisis, over the last three administrations. This article offers a public policy analysis to address the implications of militarized high schools. The central argument is that the implementation of militarized high schools has been possible through the normalization and institutionalization of militarization as a public policy response to some of the country’s central problems, enhancing the Armed Forces’ role as a de facto political actor. The analysis contributes to the “militarization and militarism” literature by exploring how the policy-making process plays a role in bridging between the two. The case study presents how policy of promoting a militarized model of education is directly proposed to state governments by Mexico’s Ministry of Defense, thus visibilizing their role as a cuasi independent political actor and positioning their own agenda and values in areas traditionally reserved to civilian authorities. By accepting the Ministry of Defense’s proposals on this matter, state governments are contributing to deepening the country’s constitutional crisis and the undermining of its democratic institutions.
{"title":"Militarized High Schools in Mexico: From Militarization to Militarism in a Context of Violence (2006–2022)","authors":"Jose Enrique Coutiño Trejo, Alejandro Madrazo","doi":"10.1177/03043754231183561","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03043754231183561","url":null,"abstract":"This article presents a case study—that of militarized high schools in Mexico—as an example of how the militarization of government functions can pave the way to militarism. Over the past few years, the Mexican Ministry of Defense has proposed to state governments the creation of militarized public high schools. This case illustrates how Mexico is moving from militarization—understood as the assumption of government functions by the military—to militarism—understood as the promotion of military interests and values—in Mexico’s security crisis, over the last three administrations. This article offers a public policy analysis to address the implications of militarized high schools. The central argument is that the implementation of militarized high schools has been possible through the normalization and institutionalization of militarization as a public policy response to some of the country’s central problems, enhancing the Armed Forces’ role as a de facto political actor. The analysis contributes to the “militarization and militarism” literature by exploring how the policy-making process plays a role in bridging between the two. The case study presents how policy of promoting a militarized model of education is directly proposed to state governments by Mexico’s Ministry of Defense, thus visibilizing their role as a cuasi independent political actor and positioning their own agenda and values in areas traditionally reserved to civilian authorities. By accepting the Ministry of Defense’s proposals on this matter, state governments are contributing to deepening the country’s constitutional crisis and the undermining of its democratic institutions.","PeriodicalId":46677,"journal":{"name":"Alternatives","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-07-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46650950","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-04DOI: 10.1177/03043754231181743
Roland Bleiker
Writing in the context of the call for greater diversity, this short commentary makes a dual argument about the need to ‘un-discipline’ the discipline of International Relations. First: I return to an argument I made many years ago: the need to ‘Forget IR Theory’ and to explore the key issues in global politics without being constraint by the boundaries of existing debates. Key political problems, from climate change and pandemics, are far too complex to be understood as uniquely international phenomena and through the lenses of disciplinary debates. Second: to un-discipline is not to abandon the study of international relations. Quite the contrary, forgetting the constraining boundaries of academic disciplines can involve engaging back with the discipline of International Relations but, crucially, not on its own terms and not through the debates that have pre-set the boundaries of what is and is not thinkable. Un-disciplining is a process that entails convincing disciplinary scholars of the need to see key dilemmas in global politics in new and creative ways.
{"title":"Un-Disciplining the International","authors":"Roland Bleiker","doi":"10.1177/03043754231181743","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03043754231181743","url":null,"abstract":"Writing in the context of the call for greater diversity, this short commentary makes a dual argument about the need to ‘un-discipline’ the discipline of International Relations. First: I return to an argument I made many years ago: the need to ‘Forget IR Theory’ and to explore the key issues in global politics without being constraint by the boundaries of existing debates. Key political problems, from climate change and pandemics, are far too complex to be understood as uniquely international phenomena and through the lenses of disciplinary debates. Second: to un-discipline is not to abandon the study of international relations. Quite the contrary, forgetting the constraining boundaries of academic disciplines can involve engaging back with the discipline of International Relations but, crucially, not on its own terms and not through the debates that have pre-set the boundaries of what is and is not thinkable. Un-disciplining is a process that entails convincing disciplinary scholars of the need to see key dilemmas in global politics in new and creative ways.","PeriodicalId":46677,"journal":{"name":"Alternatives","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44657509","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-28DOI: 10.1177/03043754231182760
Jamie J. Hagen, Anupama M Ranawana
With this forum we aim to contribute to the debate within International Relations (IR) scholarship about the space that has opened up since the inter-paradigmatic debate 30 years ago and the challenges still experienced by those of us coming from the “margin” yet committed to the “globalization” of the discipline. That is to say, to building a pluriverse of IR. In the first contribution Anupama Ranawana begins by considering the practical difficulties for Southern research and knowledge creation in IR, detailing a snapshot of how current funding structures continue to relegate academics and researchers in the Global South to a relationship of dependency on their counterparts in the Global North. The next two contributions to the discussion reflect on how these problematic bounds of the disciple are then embodied by those of us working in more marginal spaces in IR. First, Ahmed Rizky Mardhatilla Umar writes of the policing of IR within the Indonesian University which continues to leave most critical work as outside of IR. Another point of embodied experience in what for many continues to be marginal or even outside of the discipline is considered by Jamie J. Hagen and Alex Edney-Browne who write about queer IR and specifically the experience of being a part of a community of LGBTQA (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and allies) in IR scholars. In conclusion Roland Bleiker reflects and evaluates “the potential and limits of International Relations as an academic discipline” even as the discipline continues to call for greater diversity. As such, each contributor speaks separately to a jointly articulated provocation regarding what counts and is centered as “real” International Relations scholarship, based on their own encounters with being told explicitly (i.e., through rejections, lack of institutional support) or implicitly (i.e., through what we are taught) that our work is not International Relations.
{"title":"Our Work is International Relations: On Exclusion, Negotiation, and Engagement Against Disciplinary Boundaries","authors":"Jamie J. Hagen, Anupama M Ranawana","doi":"10.1177/03043754231182760","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03043754231182760","url":null,"abstract":"With this forum we aim to contribute to the debate within International Relations (IR) scholarship about the space that has opened up since the inter-paradigmatic debate 30 years ago and the challenges still experienced by those of us coming from the “margin” yet committed to the “globalization” of the discipline. That is to say, to building a pluriverse of IR. In the first contribution Anupama Ranawana begins by considering the practical difficulties for Southern research and knowledge creation in IR, detailing a snapshot of how current funding structures continue to relegate academics and researchers in the Global South to a relationship of dependency on their counterparts in the Global North. The next two contributions to the discussion reflect on how these problematic bounds of the disciple are then embodied by those of us working in more marginal spaces in IR. First, Ahmed Rizky Mardhatilla Umar writes of the policing of IR within the Indonesian University which continues to leave most critical work as outside of IR. Another point of embodied experience in what for many continues to be marginal or even outside of the discipline is considered by Jamie J. Hagen and Alex Edney-Browne who write about queer IR and specifically the experience of being a part of a community of LGBTQA (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and allies) in IR scholars. In conclusion Roland Bleiker reflects and evaluates “the potential and limits of International Relations as an academic discipline” even as the discipline continues to call for greater diversity. As such, each contributor speaks separately to a jointly articulated provocation regarding what counts and is centered as “real” International Relations scholarship, based on their own encounters with being told explicitly (i.e., through rejections, lack of institutional support) or implicitly (i.e., through what we are taught) that our work is not International Relations.","PeriodicalId":46677,"journal":{"name":"Alternatives","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-06-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48050775","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-23DOI: 10.1177/03043754231185205
A. Balazs
Since 2010, with Viktor Orbán’s return to power, Hungary has progressively turned into an antidemocratic regime through a well-thought process of state and democracy capture. This slide has come along with chimeric narratives about national identity. Consecutive narratives about the nation and the country’s sense of belonging have given the impression that Hungary is moving on the map, as the Orbán regime has been locating itself more and more explicitly against the West. During the migration crisis, ‘Central Europe’ was at the centre of Orbán’s cultural map, as he extrapolated his ideology to the East-Central European macro-region, hoping to turn it into a region against the European establishment. Budapest’s tactical moves in the Western Balkans have gained importance as Orbán is increasingly isolated in the EU community. On the global scale, the regime has mixed trade and diplomacy with tying political alliances in Central Asia and beyond. These narratives do not result in a system. However, there is a common denominator in Orbán’s consecutive discourses on Hungary’s geopolitical place and role: anti-Western and anti-EU convictions flow through the opportunistic contradictions of national propaganda. In a contradictory way, only an EU member state could proceed to state and democracy capture and become famous for it, giving the impression that the small, peripherical Eastern European state is more important than it is. It is an EU member that has fallen into Russia’s arms to propagate pro-Kremlin narratives in and outside the EU. In this paper, I will examine the geopolitical narratives used by the Orbán regime and show how Budapest’s very sense of scale has got lost in the process. Indeed, it is Hungary’s precarious location on the map that the regime seems to have forgotten about and has reached this point at the time of renewed Russian aggression in Hungary’s direct neighbourhood.
{"title":"The Missing Scale: Eastern Europe in Hungary’s Geostrategic Representations","authors":"A. Balazs","doi":"10.1177/03043754231185205","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03043754231185205","url":null,"abstract":"Since 2010, with Viktor Orbán’s return to power, Hungary has progressively turned into an antidemocratic regime through a well-thought process of state and democracy capture. This slide has come along with chimeric narratives about national identity. Consecutive narratives about the nation and the country’s sense of belonging have given the impression that Hungary is moving on the map, as the Orbán regime has been locating itself more and more explicitly against the West. During the migration crisis, ‘Central Europe’ was at the centre of Orbán’s cultural map, as he extrapolated his ideology to the East-Central European macro-region, hoping to turn it into a region against the European establishment. Budapest’s tactical moves in the Western Balkans have gained importance as Orbán is increasingly isolated in the EU community. On the global scale, the regime has mixed trade and diplomacy with tying political alliances in Central Asia and beyond. These narratives do not result in a system. However, there is a common denominator in Orbán’s consecutive discourses on Hungary’s geopolitical place and role: anti-Western and anti-EU convictions flow through the opportunistic contradictions of national propaganda. In a contradictory way, only an EU member state could proceed to state and democracy capture and become famous for it, giving the impression that the small, peripherical Eastern European state is more important than it is. It is an EU member that has fallen into Russia’s arms to propagate pro-Kremlin narratives in and outside the EU. In this paper, I will examine the geopolitical narratives used by the Orbán regime and show how Budapest’s very sense of scale has got lost in the process. Indeed, it is Hungary’s precarious location on the map that the regime seems to have forgotten about and has reached this point at the time of renewed Russian aggression in Hungary’s direct neighbourhood.","PeriodicalId":46677,"journal":{"name":"Alternatives","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49483385","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-23DOI: 10.1177/03043754231185650
Danijela Čanji
This article examines the effects of the outbreak of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine in February 2022 on the reconstruction of the notion of ‘Eastern Europe’ in Slovak political discourse and the subsequent re-definition of Slovakia’s political subjectivity vis-à-vis the contested notion of the ‘East’. It aims to advance the application of ontological liminality concept in international relations integrating it with post-structuralist and post-colonial insights on identity formation. I seek to shed light on how Slovakia negotiates its liminal position of being ‘the East of the Western Europe’ under the new geopolitical and discursive realities. Drawing on the concept of ontological liminality and post-colonial notion of master, my principal argument suggests that Slovakia aspired to demonstrate its capability to define the normative meaning of EUrope as one of its ‘core’ members positioning itself as a superior European state, a ‘master’ in relation to Ukraine. Although, on Slovakia’s mental map, the notion of ‘East’ assumes a far-away position it escaped long time ago, at the same time ‘East’ with the tinge of orientalism has been constructed as an indispensable subject position that the future newcomers to EUrope carry when they are pursuing their transition to the West. Based on hierarchically underpinned discursive self-positioning of Slovakia, ‘East’ is thus made a pre-liminal attribute which post-communist countries let go when beginning their transition to/through the Central Europe that ultimately emerges as an intermediary post-colonial spatial and discursive setting where liminals undergo the ritual of becoming genuinely EUropean.
{"title":"Transiting From the East to the ‘Core’ West of Europe: Slovakia’s Ontological Liminality After the Outbreak of 2022 Russia’s War on Ukraine","authors":"Danijela Čanji","doi":"10.1177/03043754231185650","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03043754231185650","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines the effects of the outbreak of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine in February 2022 on the reconstruction of the notion of ‘Eastern Europe’ in Slovak political discourse and the subsequent re-definition of Slovakia’s political subjectivity vis-à-vis the contested notion of the ‘East’. It aims to advance the application of ontological liminality concept in international relations integrating it with post-structuralist and post-colonial insights on identity formation. I seek to shed light on how Slovakia negotiates its liminal position of being ‘the East of the Western Europe’ under the new geopolitical and discursive realities. Drawing on the concept of ontological liminality and post-colonial notion of master, my principal argument suggests that Slovakia aspired to demonstrate its capability to define the normative meaning of EUrope as one of its ‘core’ members positioning itself as a superior European state, a ‘master’ in relation to Ukraine. Although, on Slovakia’s mental map, the notion of ‘East’ assumes a far-away position it escaped long time ago, at the same time ‘East’ with the tinge of orientalism has been constructed as an indispensable subject position that the future newcomers to EUrope carry when they are pursuing their transition to the West. Based on hierarchically underpinned discursive self-positioning of Slovakia, ‘East’ is thus made a pre-liminal attribute which post-communist countries let go when beginning their transition to/through the Central Europe that ultimately emerges as an intermediary post-colonial spatial and discursive setting where liminals undergo the ritual of becoming genuinely EUropean.","PeriodicalId":46677,"journal":{"name":"Alternatives","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46219466","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-22DOI: 10.1177/03043754231185927
Dong Jin Kim, David Mitchell
One of the capacities of civil society in peace processes is the promotion of peace-oriented attitudes among citizens through peace education. This article investigates how civil society peace education may be enhanced through collaboration with counterparts in another conflict arena. The article begins by discussing the potential and pitfalls of the comparison of peace/conflict contexts. The empirical findings are based on interviews and focus groups with peace educators in Northern Ireland and South Korea who have engaged in dialogue and partnerships with each other, and they indicate perceived benefits and impact of both the comparative learning to the personnel and the partnership to the organisations. The discussion sets out an ideal model of the peace educative impacts of comparative learning and encounter. Overall, the findings show how local-to-local engagements between peace processes can support the civil society contribution to peacebuilding.
{"title":"‘You Realise We’re Not the Only Ones Stuck Living Like This’: Comparative Learning, International Partnerships and Civil Society Peace Education in Conflict-Affected Societies","authors":"Dong Jin Kim, David Mitchell","doi":"10.1177/03043754231185927","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03043754231185927","url":null,"abstract":"One of the capacities of civil society in peace processes is the promotion of peace-oriented attitudes among citizens through peace education. This article investigates how civil society peace education may be enhanced through collaboration with counterparts in another conflict arena. The article begins by discussing the potential and pitfalls of the comparison of peace/conflict contexts. The empirical findings are based on interviews and focus groups with peace educators in Northern Ireland and South Korea who have engaged in dialogue and partnerships with each other, and they indicate perceived benefits and impact of both the comparative learning to the personnel and the partnership to the organisations. The discussion sets out an ideal model of the peace educative impacts of comparative learning and encounter. Overall, the findings show how local-to-local engagements between peace processes can support the civil society contribution to peacebuilding.","PeriodicalId":46677,"journal":{"name":"Alternatives","volume":"48 1","pages":"283 - 297"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"65104449","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-15DOI: 10.1177/03043754231181741
J. Corredor-Garcia, Fernando López Vega
The renewed global efforts to contain climate change have meant a gateway for some Latin American countries to declare new military actions. The “war on deforestation,” announced in 2021 by Iván Duque, the former president of Colombia, is a paradigmatic example. Through Operation Artemis ( Operación Artemisa), the Colombian armed forces were assigned to protect the forests against threats from armed non-state actors (ANSAs) predominantly located in the country’s Amazon rainforests. We argue that this war was a rhetorical and political model of the Duque government that sought, based on the re-elaboration of the counterinsurgent categories shared with the United States for half a century, to implement in the Amazon the first state military strategy to reach global agreements against climate change. Why does a state wage war in the name of protecting forests? We argue that in this novel rhetorical, military, and criminal framework, the war on deforestation encouraged the renewal of the war on drugs and the transformation of the internal enemy. Drawing on analyses of presidential policies passed since 1970 and, more recently, green crime law, this article showcases a new chapter on the state’s goal of achieving territorial control through green militarization.
{"title":"The Logic of “War on Deforestation”: A Military Response to Climate Change in the Colombian Amazon","authors":"J. Corredor-Garcia, Fernando López Vega","doi":"10.1177/03043754231181741","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03043754231181741","url":null,"abstract":"The renewed global efforts to contain climate change have meant a gateway for some Latin American countries to declare new military actions. The “war on deforestation,” announced in 2021 by Iván Duque, the former president of Colombia, is a paradigmatic example. Through Operation Artemis ( Operación Artemisa), the Colombian armed forces were assigned to protect the forests against threats from armed non-state actors (ANSAs) predominantly located in the country’s Amazon rainforests. We argue that this war was a rhetorical and political model of the Duque government that sought, based on the re-elaboration of the counterinsurgent categories shared with the United States for half a century, to implement in the Amazon the first state military strategy to reach global agreements against climate change. Why does a state wage war in the name of protecting forests? We argue that in this novel rhetorical, military, and criminal framework, the war on deforestation encouraged the renewal of the war on drugs and the transformation of the internal enemy. Drawing on analyses of presidential policies passed since 1970 and, more recently, green crime law, this article showcases a new chapter on the state’s goal of achieving territorial control through green militarization.","PeriodicalId":46677,"journal":{"name":"Alternatives","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-06-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41861604","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-08DOI: 10.1177/03043754231182187
A. Makarychev
This contribution to the Forum intends to shed light on the most recent changes in Estonia’s policies towards Russia, Belarus and Ukraine after February 24, 2022. I intend to show how the Russian–Ukrainian war transformed Estonia’s relations with its eastern neighbors. I start the analysis with a general account of spatiality and bordering in Estonia’s foreign policy thinking, with the ensuing distinction between its geopolitical and biopolitical aspects particularly boosted by Russia’s military interference in Ukraine. I discuss both the hegemonic and the counter-hegemonic discourses on re-bordering with Russia and de-bordering with Ukraine, and finalize the essay with research-based conclusions largely pertaining to the deconstruction of Eastern Europe in Estonian regionalist imagery.
{"title":"Reactive Re-Bordering, Geopolitics and Biopolitics: Estonia at Europe’s Eastern Flank","authors":"A. Makarychev","doi":"10.1177/03043754231182187","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03043754231182187","url":null,"abstract":"This contribution to the Forum intends to shed light on the most recent changes in Estonia’s policies towards Russia, Belarus and Ukraine after February 24, 2022. I intend to show how the Russian–Ukrainian war transformed Estonia’s relations with its eastern neighbors. I start the analysis with a general account of spatiality and bordering in Estonia’s foreign policy thinking, with the ensuing distinction between its geopolitical and biopolitical aspects particularly boosted by Russia’s military interference in Ukraine. I discuss both the hegemonic and the counter-hegemonic discourses on re-bordering with Russia and de-bordering with Ukraine, and finalize the essay with research-based conclusions largely pertaining to the deconstruction of Eastern Europe in Estonian regionalist imagery.","PeriodicalId":46677,"journal":{"name":"Alternatives","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-06-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42827668","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-06DOI: 10.1177/03043754231181021
Javier Pérez Sandoval, Daniel Barker Flores
This review examines Votes, Drugs, and Violence, Authoritarian Police in Democracy, Resisting Extortion, as well as Democracy and Security in Latin America to outline the latest scholarly developments on how the region has dealt with the challenges posed by violent, militarized state and non-state actors. Leveraging distinct cases and methods, these four recently published books discuss the political rationale behind the military and institutional responses that have shaped public security in Latin America over the last three decades. Beyond unpacking their contributions, common themes, tensions, and shortcomings, we argue that by focusing on the political dynamics behind state interventions, these volumes highlight the persistence of a democratic paradox: rather than curtailing militarism and violence, or facilitating their containment via reforms, electoral dynamics and partisan incentives—part and parcel of democratic politics—have enabled the endurance of state and non-state militarization and violence. Relatedly, as Eduardo Moncada’s new title underscores, ordinary Latin American citizens have had to adopt civilian militarization as a bottom-up resistance strategy to navigate the uncertainty this worrying paradox presents. By examining work by scholars including Guillermo Trejo, Sandra Ley, Brian Fonseca, and Yanilda María González this review helps to delineate future research as well as policy interventions.
本综述考察了拉丁美洲的投票、毒品与暴力、民主中的专制警察、抵制勒索以及民主与安全，概述了该地区如何应对暴力、军事化国家和非国家行为体带来的挑战的最新学术进展。利用不同的案例和方法，这四本最近出版的书讨论了过去三十年来影响拉丁美洲公共安全的军事和机构反应背后的政治理由。除了揭示他们的贡献、共同主题、紧张关系和缺点之外，我们认为，通过关注国家干预背后的政治动态，这些书强调了民主悖论的持久性:而不是削减军国主义和暴力，或通过改革促进它们的遏制，选举动态和党派激励——民主政治的重要组成部分——使国家和非国家军事化和暴力得以持续。与此相关，正如爱德华多·蒙卡达的新标题所强调的那样，拉丁美洲的普通公民不得不采用民间军事化作为自下而上的抵抗策略，以应对这种令人担忧的悖论所带来的不确定性。通过研究包括Guillermo Trejo、Sandra Ley、Brian Fonseca和Yanilda María González在内的学者的工作，本综述有助于描绘未来的研究以及政策干预。
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