Collaboration for Relief and Recovery in Afghanistan
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Originally Posted by
M-A Lagrange
We have to understand why deconstructing the State and bad governance are so appealing for the new rulers once they are in power.
Merci Marc. Meet Nancy Roberts, one of the smartest people that I know, and one of my personal mentors. She was brought in by the UN (1998?) to try and facilitate the International Community to work with the Taliban at the end of the civil war. She wrote this paper in 2000.
WICKED PROBLEMS AND NETWORK APPROACHES TO RESOLUTION
by Nancy Roberts
Collaboration for Relief and Recovery in Afghanistan
http://www.idt.unisg.ch/org/idt/ipmr.nsf/0/1f3bcad88f16e7c6c1256c76004be2c4/$FILE/IPMR_1_1_WICKED.pdf
International Public Management Review · electronic Journal at http://www.ipmr.net
Volume 1 · Issue 1 · 2000 · © International Public Management Network
international R2P: not a reponsability but a need
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In satisfying this new responsibility (new because the "social contract theory" is between a people to establish a government for their own protection; nothing is said about protection of outsiders to the contract), a State will invariably seek regime change. While this may certainly be required under the circumstances, the substitute regime will habitually be made in the same mold as the country conducting the R2P intervention, whether culture dictates it or not. Thus, the intervention morphs into a bellicose chauvinism wherein the populous of the country in which the R2P operation is conducted are "conquered into liberty" (see book of same title by Eliot A. Cohen) whether they desire our version of liberty or not. This brings about the nation-building that Mike correctly points out we are not particularly good at doing.
I might be wrong but the social contract theory is just about the agreement of power sharing between the rulers and the one who are ruled. THere is nothing there about protecting the people.
By extension this can be interpreted as the contract between the people on how they protect themselves but it is basically only focussed on the legitimacy of the use of violence. (Cf Webber). The excellent book rebel rulers (Zachariah Cherian Mampilly, Cornell University Press) shows very well how insurgents government success or fail to go further than this.
R2P comes with the idea of the Just War: the just use of violence by a government. And, its roots can be found deep in history as the roots of most of the regimes. There are, in fact, very few regime (DRC, North Corea and few others) which openly say: we are here to enjoy power and not protect you. Even the initial social contract of feodality is based on the principle of sharing the responsability to protect (I, noble, protect you and you, peasant, feed me). The R2P is just the formalisation of the moral roots of that contract which has been biased into the only legitimate user of violence are the formal State institutions.
The question, at international level, is not do we have to impose R2P to others but rather: government based on R2P (and respecting and implementing it) are the sole form of acceptable government in this world. As we see the world as a global village, there is a need (and not a responsability) for all to have only neigbours that respect R2P to ensure that all mankind lives in a friendly and respectfull environment. This is a need for all as it participates in building a peacefull global environment which improves each and every country home security. Nothing much altruist in that. (If my neigbours are all nice and friendly, then my personnalsecurity is improved).
Somehow, rejection of R2P makes me think of the rejection of democracy by the European Kingdomes in the 18th century when USA and France made their revolutions.
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While there may certainly be instances in which regime change and nation-building are within our national interest (although I know of none currently), not every situation requires COIN-style rebuilding on our part. The realist in me believes we should do only that which serves our interests. R2P imposes burdens that may or may not do that, so we must resist it.
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Like "COIN", "governance" (as seen by me) is an indigenous project. Note that both of these must involve the "political struggle" - which by its very nature must be indigenous.
I agree with those both statements as Regime change and Nation building are just tools to achieve the establishment of a government based on R2P. Their use is limited to the formal form of the State not the moral contract that supports and roots the institutions.
Such change, as Mike rightfully spoted it, is indigeneous and can be only indigeneous. Saying that, it does not mean that others do not have a need/interrest in promoting the emergence of such government in its neighbours by making a clear choice among the forces of those indigeneous political struggles.
And it is true that none on this earth is really good at using violence to build.:D
Internationalist and Human Rights
The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History
by Samuel Moyn
Lawfare
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Only after the end of the Cold War in 1990 did the human rights movement affirmatively embrace internationalism as the preferred vehicle for its own utopian vision, alongside an ever more expansive and progressive substantive human rights corpus as international law, including all manner of group, social, and economic rights. International law of human rights joins with international organizations gradually to overtake the nation-state as the source of legitimate authority, at least over questions of rights – which is to say, more or less, over everything. The extent to which the institutions of internationalism—created with the consent and power of national governments but often rooted in intellectual and historical underpinnings vastly different from those of the human rights movement—will actually serve as witting champions for the human rights movement is, however, much less certain.
Ok, this is a little too much…
But what else could you expect from UNSG
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“I am also acutely aware of the need to preserve my own diplomatic space for the crucial moment when the UN’s good offices may be needed.
“Such is the nature of the Responsibility to Protect. It can be a minefield of nuance, political calculation and competing national interests. The result too often is hesitation or inaction. This we can not afford.”
He said that, in a short period of time, the world has embraced the Responsibility to Protect – not because it is easy, but because it is right.
“We therefore have a moral responsibility to push ahead,” he stated. “Together, let us work... with optimism and determination... to make the Responsibility to Protect a living reality for the peoples of the world.”
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.as...to+protect&Cr1
U.S. Urged to Adopt Policy Justifying Intervention (R2P)
U.S. Urged to Adopt Policy Justifying Intervention (R2P)
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Demolition 4 a R2P advocate
In a very direct 'rejoinder' Patrick Porter, a UK-based Australian academic, responds to Ann-Marie Slaughter's recent NYT column. He starts with:
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Anne-Marie Slaughter
argues that America should enter the fighting in Syria and Iraq. In doing so, she argues that there is little distinction between strategic interests and humanitarian impulses. I’m personally, fearfully, sympathetic towards some assistance to the Iraq state in denying ISIS control of whole cities. But Slaughter’s cosmology is truly startling.
In an article that begins in self-pity, and ends in glib counter-factuals, she makes it all sound so simple.
Link:http://offshorebalancer.wordpress.co...rie-slaughter/
The “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) in Iraq Shouldn’t Just Be About Military Interv
The Cost of Doing Nothing’ A British report
Very curious timing for this report by Policy Exchange, often seen as a "neo-con" think tank in London and they explain:
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In a report for Policy Exchange, Alison McGovern, the Labour MP for Wirral South and Tom Tugendhat, the Conservative MP for Tonbridge and Malling, say that “the rise of knee jerk isolationism, unthinking pacifism and anti-interventionism in Britain have dangerous implications for national security and the safety of civilians around the world”.
Going onto to add for the UK:
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The report examines the history of British intervention – militarily and from a humanitarian perspective – arguing that it has been an irreducible part of British foreign and national security policy for over two hundred years. It says that while the recent lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan must be learned, a retreat from playing a proactive role in world affairs heightens the risk of further global instability.
Link:https://policyexchange.org.uk/public...ss-atrocities/
This could have been added to the atrocity thread, but it sits here too.
