In the name of human rights: the problematics of EU ethical foreign policy in Africa and elsewhere
This doctoral research project explores avenues to research ethically defined foreign policy differ ently, i.e. in ways that more systematically account for its counterproductive elements. Building on the specific case of the European Union’s foreign policy in sub-Saharan Africa, embodied by the 2000 Cotonou Agreement and the 2007 Joint Africa-EU Strategy, through four papers and one books review, the study firstly develops the Ethical Intervener Europe analytical framework to account for the embedded problematics in the EU’s ethical foreign policy. Secondly, through an eclectic theoretical approach, the study seeks to theoretically pin-point some alternatives to think about ethical foreign policy and finally, looks to concretize it through its application on the case of rela tive autonomous peace- and state-building in Somaliland. This research report briefly introduces the different findings and addresses the need for further research in view of a decolonial approach to the study of ethical foreign policy in a context of structural inequality.
The Post-Colonial Politics of Development
Recent years have seen a retreat from the relativist and/or romantic excesses of some branches of post-development theory, and a real effort to reconstruct as well as deconstruct the concept of development. Whether or not this is possible without falling back into a Eurocentric frame of analysis is a contentious point, and one taken up in Kapoor’s engaging work. Drawing on the work of Homi Bhabha, but also engaging with various critical theorists such as Habermas and post-Marxists such as Laclau and Mouffe, Kappor’s work does a very useful job in uniting social (and cultural) theory with development. Crucially, this involves the study of both micro and macro approaches to development. The former involves a critical engagement with development practice and different understandings of what is sometimes referred to as the participatory paradigm. The latter involves an engagement with the global political economy of development, and in particular the pros and cons of the theory (or concept) of dependency. This is done through an impressive critical interrogation of some of the key issues in the study of development (and indeed, international politics) today, such as governance, human rights and participation. Kapoor convincingly shows how much of the discourse of mainstream development is complicit with a neo-colonialism based on knowledge and power. All this is done well, even if the arguments are not entirely novel. But what separates this book from so much of the literature on post-colonial and postdevelopment approaches is the attempt to move the debate forward. Here Kapoor’s focus is on the promotion of a radical ‘self-reflexivity’ which does not silence the subaltern. This involves a critical engagement with the work of Spivak, but one that possibly fails to resolve some difficult (irresolvable?) issues. It may well be the case (as the most radical postdevelopment theorists remind us) that all forms of development do involve some tendency to speak for ‘the other’. But the same problem applies to those that reject development too, as some critics have pointed out (see Cowen and Shenton 1996, for example). Indeed, at their worst, such approaches endorse romantic populism or simply celebrate resistance. This can lead to an approach that starts by politicising the concept of development (by regarding it as a Eurocentric discourse) but ends by de-politicising so-called alternatives to it (by simply celebrating local cultures or what is regarded as resistance to the discourse of development). It is far from clear that all social movements do indeed reject development, and in any case it is also problematic to homogenise the idea of development in this way. These appear to be the issues that Kapoor attempts to steer us through, and he is to be commended on this basis. However, I think there are two issues which are not sufficiently clearly addressed: first, the inescapability of representation, of trusteeship, of speaking for others; second, an appreciation of the wider context in which resistance takes place. In the case of the former, one can fully accept this inescapability without falling into a relativist trap. Indeed, without some form of closure or representation, politics is an impossibility. But equally, there is a need to be sensitive to the different forms of closure, and this can inform development practice at a micro-level, but also the question of resistance by social movements to certain practices of closure, even as the very existence of such movements entails some commitments to closure (feminist movements would reject sexist ideologies for example, on the grounds that the closure involved in feminism is far less violent and exclusionary than the Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 45, No. 10, 1768–1773, November 2009
Coronial Practice, Indigeneity and Suicide
All available data suggest that, like many other Indigenous peoples, Australian Aborigines are significantly more likely to kill themselves than are non-Aboriginal Australians. This statistical disparity is normally positioned an objective, ontological and undeniable social fact, a fact best explained as a function of endemic community disadvantage and disenfranchisement. This research explores the possibility that higher-than-normal Aboriginal suicide rates may also be a function of coronial decision-making practices. Based upon in-depth interviews with 32 coroners from across Australia, the following conclusions emerged from the data. First, coroners have differing perceptions of Indigenous capacity, and are less likely to have concerns about intent when the suicide is committed by an Indigenous person. Second, coroners have identified divergent scripts of Indigenous suicide, particularly its spontaneity and public location, and this supports rather than challenges, a finding of suicide. Third, the coronial perception of Indigenous life is a factor which influences a suicide determination for Indigenous deaths. Finally, the low level of Indigenous engagement with the coronial system, and the unlikelihood of a challenge to the finding of suicide by Indigenous families, means that a coronial determination of suicide is more likely.