In 1997, the Assembly of the Poor (AOP) successfully organised a 99-day protest, which was widely hailed as ‘a historical moment’ for people's politics in Thailand. However, following the creation of the first Thai Rak Thai government... more
In 1997, the Assembly of the Poor (AOP) successfully organised a 99-day protest, which was widely hailed as ‘a historical moment’ for people's politics in Thailand. However, following the creation of the first Thai Rak Thai government in 2001, the AOP's political role has gradually declined. This thesis aims to investigate the factors behind the AOP's decline between 2001 and 2010. It argues that, because of inherent internal weaknesses and the recent political changes, the development of AOP in the 2000s has increasingly been influenced, if not determined, by external factors. First, the thesis re-examines the movement's internal elements in a more critical view, which evidently contrasts with early writings on the AOP. It argues that some of the AOP's key features, such as its loose structure, are partially to blame for the movement's decline. NGO activists’ roles in the movement are also critically reassessed. More importantly, the thesis also systematical...
"Through a focus on electoral competition between the Conservative and Labour parties at general elections from 1997-2010, this article seeks to investigate the idea, becoming increasingly prevalent in British politics, that British... more
"Through a focus on electoral competition between the Conservative and Labour parties at general elections from 1997-2010, this article seeks to investigate the idea, becoming increasingly prevalent in British politics, that British political parties are moving towards a point of convergence at the centre ground. The theoretical basis to party convergence is first established through an analysis of Downs’s ‘median voter theorem’, which is also contrasted with Giddens’s ‘third way’. Target audience, policy, valence and ideology are then assessed as signifiers of party positioning at each election. The article concludes that ideology continues to play a significant role in party position, and that between the period of 1997-2010, the two major British political parties remained distinct within a smaller and less varied political space situated at the centre-ground of the left-right political spectrum.
""
The atrocities inside Syria have caused a refugee crisis outside that state. Aside from dead bodies, refugees are perhaps the most obvious manifestation of atrocity crimes. People protect themselves by fleeing persecution and violence.... more
The atrocities inside Syria have caused a refugee crisis outside that state. Aside from dead bodies, refugees are perhaps the most obvious manifestation of atrocity crimes. People protect themselves by fleeing persecution and violence. Because the responsibility to protect (R2P) tells us the international community has a responsibility to assist these people and to protect them it surely implies guaranteeing a form of asylum. Again, this predates R2P. The 1951 Refugee Convention has long since articulated a responsibility to those with a ‘well-founded fear of persecution’. But if the R2P norm is about creating the political will so that states fulfil their responsibilities as a matter of course, then R2P (both the scholarly articulation of it and state practice) is not fully-fledged.
This article explains why R2P failed to motivate action to protect vulnerable Syrians in the first two years of the crisis. We focus on the United States and argue that official discourse ‘localised’ the meaning R2P by grafting it on to... more
This article explains why R2P failed to motivate action to protect vulnerable Syrians in the first two years of the crisis. We focus on the United States and argue that official discourse ‘localised’ the meaning R2P by grafting it on to preconceived ideas of America’s role in supporting democratic revolutions, which is how the situation was understood. American ‘exemplarism’ demanded the US support democracy by calling on Assad to go while not corrupting the ‘homegrown’ revolution through foreign intervention. The call for political and criminal accountability aligned exemplarist democracy promotion to R2P, but it did nothing to protect vulnerable populations from the conflict that ensued. This refraction of the norm complicated the United Nations sponsored peace process, which provided an alternative means of protecting the Syrian population. We address a gap in the literature by examining Western localisation and draw policy lessons, namely the importance of examining national predispositions when implementing R2P.
The International Criminal Court can be seen as a cosmopolitan response to the problems of global democracy. This article demonstrates how opponents of the Court use a concern for international order to disguise a policy motivated by a... more
The International Criminal Court can be seen as a cosmopolitan response to the problems of global democracy. This article demonstrates how opponents of the Court use a concern for international order to disguise a policy motivated by a narrow conception of the national interest. US opposition reveals the extent to which it fears being held accountable for the way America uses the great power veto on the UN Security Council. America's opposition to the Court has also succeeded in bringing to the surface the extent to which American foreign policy is driven by communitarian conceptions of democracy and international society. Despite promising to hold power accountable for egregious human rights violations, the Court is considered a threat to American sovereignty and dismissed as undemocratic. The article argues that this communitarian understanding of democracy promotion will be increasingly problematic as the processes of globalization undermine the capacity of states to guarante...
In this paper I examine what constructivist approaches to IR tell us about how states should act when confronted by atrocity crimes in the context of a politically pluralist international society. Building on the work of theorists who... more
In this paper I examine what constructivist approaches to IR tell us about how states should act when confronted by atrocity crimes in the context of a politically pluralist international society. Building on the work of theorists who responded to Richard Price and Christian Reus-Smit's call to substantiate the constructivist's claim to explain “moral progress,” and to better inform normative assessments, I claim that the constructivist emphasis on historical and social contingency does not rule out ethical standpoints, suggesting instead a “pragmatic” ethic. Norms are hypotheses rather than absolute values. The task of the pragmatic constructivist is not to establish beyond doubt the normativity of a norm—the task is to test the norm for how well its “meaning-in-use” supports action that ameliorates lived social problems. Pragmatic constructivists can commit to the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) as an idea that might reconcile various communities of normative practice and ...
This article investigates the complex relationship between atrocity prevention and other related – yet distinct – norms of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) norm cluster. It analyses how this cluster operates to help states, and other... more
This article investigates the complex relationship between atrocity prevention and other related – yet distinct – norms of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) norm cluster. It analyses how this cluster operates to help states, and other actors, properly discharge their responsibility. Central to the analysis is the realisation that abstractly aligned norms can clash in practice. Based on an extensive analysis of the 67 European Union (EU) documents and statements referring to R2P, and drawing on elite interviews with EU diplomats, we find that atrocity prevention has been ‘grafted’ onto the EU’s other normative commitments – including conflict resolution and democracy promotion – without sufficient acknowledgement of the cluster’s complexity and the need to prioritise atrocity prevention vis-à-vis these other linked norms. We ask whether this framing not only filtered but also diluted the normative power of atrocity prevention, leading to policies that manifestly failed to prevent t...
