Faculty Publications

Books

Alan Dowty, Israel/Palestine.
Hot Spots in Global Politics Series (Cambridge, England: Polity Press, June 2005). What explains the peculiar intensity and evident intractability of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Among all the “hot spots” on today’s globe, the apparently endless clash between Jews and Arabs in the Middle East seems unique in its longevity and resistance to resolution. Is this conflict really different from other ethnic and nationalist confrontations, and if so, in what way? Dowty demystifies the conflict by putting it in broad historical perspective, identifying its roots, and tracing its evolution up to the current impasse. His account offers an analytic framework for understanding transformations over time. In doing so, he punctures the myths of an “age-old” conflict with an unbridgeable gap between the two sides. Rather than simply reciting historical detail, this book presents an overview that serves as a road map through the thicket of conflicting claims. The author expresses the concerns, hopes, fears, and passions of both sides, making it clear why this conflict is waged with such vehemence — and why there are some grounds for optimism.

Richard B. Pierce, Polite Protest: The Political Economy of Race in Indianapolis, 1920-1970 (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, April 2005). Pierce’s history of the black community of Indianapolis in the 20th century focuses on methods of political action — protracted negotiations, interracial coalitions, petition, and legal challenge — employed to secure their civil rights. The author looks at how the black community worked to alter the political and social culture of the city. As local leaders became concerned with the city's image, black leaders found it possible to achieve gains by working with whites inside the existing power structure, while continuing to press for further reform and advancement. Pierce describes how Indianapolis differed from its Northern cousins such as Milwaukee, Chicago, and Detroit. Here, the city’s people, black and white, created their own patterns and platforms of racial relations in the public and cultural spheres. Chapters

John Darby, “Peace Processes,” in Pieces of the Puzzle, Charles Villa-Vicencio and Erik Doxtader, eds. (Cape Town: Institute for Justice and Reconciliation and Oneworldbooks, 2005), pp. 17-24. The book examines keywords in reconciliation and transitional justice. This chapter, which was a keynote address at the 2004 UNHCR conference on Prevention, Resolution, Reconciliation in Barcelona, is an appraisal of the state of research on peace processes and of changing patterns in peacemaking. It presents six propositions as a guide for negotiators.

John Darby, “The Effects of Violence on the Irish Peace Process,” in A Farewell to Arms: From ‘long war’ to long peace in Northern Ireland, Michael Cox, Adrian Guelke and Fiona Stephen, eds. (Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, second edition, 2005), pp. 263-274. This chapter applies the general framework Darby developed for his book The Effect of Violence on Peace Processes (United States Institute of Peace, 2001) to the specific case of Northern Ireland. It presents a chronicle and an analysis based on paramilitary violence, state violence and violence in the community, before examining the new violence-related issues that arise during peace processes. It also explores the potential of violence as a catalyst for peace.

Patrick D. Gaffney, “Conforming at a Distance: The Diffusion of Islamic Bureaucracy in Upper Egypt,” in Upper Egypt: Identity and Change, Nicholas Hopkins and Reem Saad, eds. (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2004), pp. 119-139. While Islamic institutions in Egypt and elsewhere have long been administered by central authorities of various kinds, it has only been after the establishment of modern independent nation-states that direct control of these facilities has been achieved by an explicitly secular government bureaucracy. Government attention to the management of Islamic institutions, especially mosques, has increased dramatically as ideological appeals to Islam have attracted militant followers who have advocated reforms and challenged the legitimacy of the state. Gaffney’s chapter examines the recent patterns of the assertion of central government control over the mosques in Upper Egypt.

Articles

Scott Appleby, “Questions of Conscience,” Notre Dame Magazine, vol. 33, no. 3 (Autumn 2004): 36-40. Do politicians really expect you to believe that they will compartmentalize their own values and convictions? Do they think you want or expect them to leave their soul, heart and mind behind when they serve in public office? Appleby explores those questions in this article, which he writes in the question-and-answer form of a radio talk show. The interviewee is a fictional presidential candidate who, inspired by Catholic principles, offers a radical view of the common good.

David Cortright and George A. Lopez, “Bombs, Carrots and Sticks: The Use of Incentives and Sanctions,” Arms Control Today, vol. 35, no. 2 (March 2005): 19-24. Both positive incentives and economic sanctions have their virtues in offering alternatives short of war. Rather than choosing one tool or the other, Cortright and Lopez argue, a well-crafted nonproliferation policy would apply both tools consistently as part of an overall policy designed to enhance international cooperation. They note that this kind of carrot-and-stick approach proved successful in Libya’s decision to abandon its nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and long-range missile programs.

Fred Dallmayr, “Empire or Cosmopolis? Civilization at the Crossoads,” Globalizations, vol. 2, no. 1 (May 2005): 14-30. This paper asks where contemporary civilization is heading: toward imperial domination or cosmopolis? Globalization has brought into view the contours of an empire of unprecedented dimensions (often labeled “pax Americana”). The paper traces the formation of this imperial structure, accentuating its conflicting relations with both domestic democracy and the prospect of a broader “cosmopolitan” democracy. Dallmayr sorts out the arguments advanced in support of, or opposition to, empire. He compares the arguments with those surrounding the early-modern Spanish Empire. The most prominent justification used by defenders is the claim of civilizational benevolence (“white man’s burden”) backed up by the need to control backward peoples, if necessary by military means. What differentiates the contemporary situation from the Spanish example are the immense advances in technological and military sophistication; in addition, new theoretical resources have become available (drawn often from Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Nietzsche). After recounting the chief arguments of empire’s opponents (from Las Casas to Enrique Dussel) the paper ends with a plea for a more interdependent global commonwealth or a democratic cosmopolis.

Denis Goulet, “Is Sustainable Development Possible in a Globalized World?” Humanomics, vol. 20, no. 1 (2004): 3-16. Because development debates have shifted emphasis away from a dominant concern for mere economic growth towards sustainability, one useful way to make an ethical assessment of globalization is to ask whether it favors or impedes sustainable development. Goulet contends that ethically sound development aims at achieving sustainability in five domains: economic, environmental, political, social, and cultural. Champions of present globalization argue that sustainability is possible if appropriate policies and technological applications are chosen. Critics, including Goulet, denounce present globalization as elitist in its decision-making procedures, generative of inequalities and unemployment, and economically reductionist. They favor “another globalization” and “another development” with the opposite attributes: participatory decision-making, generative of greater equality and employment, and not economically reductionist. They conclude that present globalization impedes sustainable development.

Denis Goulet, “Développement Durable et Obsession de la Croissance,” Foi et Développement, no. 331 (février-mars 2005): 1-8. For the World Bank the “achievement of sustained and equitable development remains the greatest challenge facing the human race.” Economist Paul Ekins considers that “the dominant trajectory of economic development since the industrial revolution has been patently unsustainable.” Goulet argues that environmental sustainability requires the maintenance of abundant diversity of life-forms and bio-systems, a restorative mode of resource use, and disposal of wastes within nature’s absorptive limits. An economic system that takes competition over resources as its organizing principle cannot achieve environmentally sustainable or equitable development, he writes. Mannheim long ago argued that economic competition must be used as a social mechanism at the service of objectives and values dictated by the society at large within which economics operates as a sub-system, not the system. The author points out that widening globalization has dramatized anew many priorities advocated by earlier protagonists of human development: Lebret, Galbraith, Fromm.

James Sterba, “Why the U.S. Must Immediately Withdraw From Iraq,” International Journal of Applied Philosophy, vol. 19, no.1 (Spring 2005): 1-9. Sterba argues that the United States and its coalition partners should announce that they intend to completely redraw from Iraq within six months or less. And if this announcement did bring a suspension or reduction of hostilities against them, then, the author contends, they should leave even sooner. His view is based, in large part, on the lack of a justification for going to war against Iraq in the first place. But part of the grounds for an immediate withdrawal, he writes, turns on what has transpired since the U.S. and its coalition partners invaded Iraq.

Top of Page

Home > Publications > Peace Colloquy > Issue 8, Summer 2005 > Publications