Misunderstanding Executive Representation: Causes and Consequences

Prevailing beliefs about executive representation tend to rely on implicit assumptions that are not carefully examined. I argue that there is confusion regarding both the type of representative role adopted by presidents, and the legitimacy of the representative role of the executive. Presidents are often associated with the "virtual" form of representation, which is consistent with the symbolic role of the president, but the fact that the president, as an elected official, satisfies the requirements of an actual representative is overlooked. Identifying and distinguishing the representative roles in the executive demonstrates the conflict between the two. The institution links the executive with a very large, heterogeneous constituency, requiring presidents to address individual interests, while at the same time endowing the office with national leadership qualities that call for attention to a broader, national interest. An examination of executive representation demonstrates the structural nature of both representative roles, which, while not easily reconciled, are fundamental institutional characteristics.     

Democratisation and Ethnic Conflict: The Kin Connection

Abstract. This article posits that individuation is a determining factor in making democratisation efforts workable or, where it is absent, ethnic conflict likely. Somalia serves as a case study. Since the Somali state has not been able to secure individuals' social welfare or their futures, citizens use genealogies, which chart trustworthiness, to construct social welfare safety-nets. There is also a moral dimension to genealogy. This is quite different from what occurs in the democratic West, where the state has guaranteed individuals a significant measure of social welfare security over time, and where identity can be considered situational. I argue that under conditions of uncertainty, such as have existed in Somalia, identity is not at all situational, but is fixed and fixes individuals in ethnic groups. The push to democratise can then lead to armed ethnic conflict.     

The Process of Famine: Causes and Consequences in Sudan

In the Sudan, where 200,000 children can die from diseases like diarrhoea and measles in a ‘normal’ year, the toll jumped to somewhere between 350,000 and 700,000 [in 1984]; in the next twelve months one million more could die — out of a total child population of only 6 million. UNICEF estimates that over six million sub-Saharan infants and children are endangered by famine.     

Explaining Third‐Party Intervention in Ethnic Conflict: Theory and Evidence

Abstract. One of the most challenging developments for students of international relations is the resurgence of ethnic strife, including secessionism and irredentism. Basic questions are only beginning to be addressed in the post‐Cold War era. Why are some states more likely than others to intervene in ethnic conflicts? How can international norms about third‐party intervention in ethnic conflicts be evaded or ignored by some states but respected by others? Why are some states inclined to use force rather than mediation to resolve ethnic strife? In short, what accounts for the emergence of adventurous and belligerent foreign policies with respect to internal ethnic conflicts? These questions are of increasing importance to students of international politics, yet the dynamics and internationalisation of ethnic conflict are far from fully understood. This study focuses on the dynamics of third‐party intervention in ethnic strife and implications for peaceful resolution. The first section presents a model that identifies the general conditions under which ethnic strife is most likely to lead to intervention by third‐party states. The second uses four cases to illustrate, within the context of the model, different processes with respect to internationalisation of ethnic conflict. The third and final stage identifies implications for policy and theory, along with directions for future research.     

Rethinking Overdetermination, Structural Power, and Social Change: A Critique of Gibson-Graham, Resnick, and Wolff

Working in the wake of theoretical tendencies that became prominent within geography during the 1980s, many studies of resistance have either bracketed or ignored structural power, with some versions of poststructuralism simply denying that structural power is a useful concept in a world where power is putatively highly fluid and dispersed. These sorts of approaches, exemplified by the recent works of J K Gibson-Graham, Stephen A Resnick, and Richard D Wolff (GGRW), limit the ability of studies of resistance to articulate the conditions under which political and social struggles might transcend resistance and succeed in liberating groups of humans from the oppressive conditions against which they struggle. In this paper, I discuss issues surrounding analysis of structural power in the wake of poststructuralist critiques of "structural Marxism," presenting an alternative to GGRW's interpretation of Louis Althusser's concept of "overdetermination." Overdetermination is a crucial concept, because it is rightly seen as the key to a noneconomistic Marxism and has been championed as such by GGRW. I re-examine the roots of Althusser's concept in the writings of Lenin and Mao, arguing for a way of reading overdetermination that is both noneconomistic and compatible with a notion of structural power.