HIV/AIDS and security

The UN and its associated agencies have been among the most important players in increasing global AIDS awareness. But the intervention of the Security Council has been critical in securitizing HIV/AIDS. Moreover, the claims made by the Security Council have set the agenda for the subsequent debate on HIV/AIDS as a security issue. This article examines these claims—that HIV/AIDS poses a risk to internal stability, national security and peacekeepers, and that conflict is a vector for the spread of the disease. It argues that the evidence is less clear cut, more complex and case sensitive than the original claims suggested. Moreover, the causal links between HIV/AIDS and insecurity appear less robust. It concludes that the case made by the Security Council was somewhat speculative, while the snowballing of subsequent pessimistic thinking led these concerns to a position of orthodoxy that now appears less assured. HIV/AIDS remains a tragedy and a human security issue; whether it is a national security issue is more problematic.     

HIV,AIDS and security: where are we now?

HIV/AIDS is one of the greatest single causes of death and suffering on the planet. Over the last decade the societal impact of HIV/AIDS has been widely discussed in terms of national and international security. This article assesses the securitizing move and suggests that HIV/AIDS was only partially securitized at best and both the political consensus and strength of evidence were overestimated. It argues for greater nuance in our understanding of the link between HIV/AIDS and security, and the effects of its securitization, suggesting that neither is straightforward, and both are subject to case sensitivities.     

Securitising HIV/AIDS in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region

For the People's Republic of China, the localised HIV/AIDS epidemics in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region are emerging as threats to those persons affected by the disease, but also to the stability of Xinjiang. This article examines the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Xinjiang and considers the impacts it may have on human and political security. The authors argue that due to its remote location and the religious, cultural and ethnic diversity of its population, and current political situation, Xinjiang poses difficult obstacles to effective programs in tackling HIV/AIDS, and the pandemic has disproportionately affected the minority nationalities in the region compared to their Han counterparts. If the HIV/AIDS pandemic among minority nationalities in Xinjiang continues to grow, it has the potential to further weaken social cohesion there, as well as Uyghur human security. Therefore, a HIV/AIDS pandemic in Xinjiang could tip the balance in terms of ethnic and regional stability.     

More than a storm in a teacup: the defence and security implications of Scottish independence

In September 2014 the people of Scotland will vote on whether to become an independent nation, with the defence and security of Scotland proving to be one of the more vociferous areas of debate. This article argues that defence and security implications of this referendum are far more fundamental than either the ‘yes’ or ‘no’ campaigns have admitted. It makes four points. First, it suggests that the Scottish government's plans for defence and security in NATO and the EU are at odds with its proposed armed forces and that Scotland may well find itself having to make far greater commitments to defence to assure its allies. Second, it argues that a vote for independence will represent a game‐changing event for the remainder of the United Kingdom's defence and security, which will have significant consequences for the United Kingdom's partners and allies in NATO, the European Union and elsewhere. Third, the article contends that even a vote against independence will have a long‐term impact, in that the ‘West Lothian question’ and Scottish support for nuclear disarmament influence the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review. Finally, the article highlights how this issue has revealed weaknesses in the think‐tank and academic communities, particularly in Scotland. The independence vote does, therefore, represent ‘more than a storm in a tea cup’ and thus there needs to be far greater engagement with these issues within the United Kingdom and elsewhere.     

UNDERPOPULATION, TELEVISION ECONOMIES, AND THE POWER OF THE GEOGRAPHICAL IMAGINATION

This article addresses the power of popular geographical ‘imaginations’ and ‘knowledges’ to foreclose public debate and, in the process, to reinforce often contentious policies or practices. It argues that historically, a prominent example of such a powerful geographical knowledge has been that of ‘ overpopulation’. The concept of ‘underpopulation’, meanwhile, has been much less discussed, but in this article I argue that it, too, needs to be queried in much the same way that critics have examined claims of overpopulation. I make this case first at a generic level, describing some of the main situations in which notions of underpopulation are popularly invoked, before substantiating it in much greater detail in one specific context: that of the television economy in New Zealand, a country, it is frequently said, with ‘too few people’ to support a publicly funded broadcaster. I show that in this particular instance the underpopulation thesis is backed by flawed arguments, but that none the less it is widely accepted and seldom countered, hence serving to protect its protagonists from disclosing in public debate the real reasons for the television policies they pursue and which the idea of underpopulation actively allows.     

The Debate on Globalization, Poverty and Inequality: Why Measurement Matters

In the last year or so, markedly different claims have been heard within the development community about just how much progress is being made against poverty and inequality in the current period of 'globalization'. This article provides a non-technical overview of the conceptual and methodological issues underlying these conflicting claims. It argues that the dramatically different positions taken in this debate often stem from differences in the concepts and definitions used and differences in data sources and measurement assumptions. These differences are often hidden from view in the debate, but they need to be considered carefully if one is properly to interpret the evidence. The article argues that the best available evidence suggests that, if the rate of progress against absolute poverty in the developing world in the 1990s is maintained, then the Millennium Development Goal of halving the 1990 aggregate poverty rate by 2015 will be achieved on time in the aggregate, though not in all regions. The article concludes with some observations on the implications for policy-oriented debates on globalization and pro-poor growth.     

Northeast Asian Resource Security Strategies and International Resource Politics in Asia

Soaring prices for minerals and energy are posing a major threat to the resource security of economies in Asia. As a result, many regional governments have launched new resource security strategies in the last few years. Most recent attention to resource security in Asia has focused on debating whether the Chinese government’s resource policies are mercantilist or liberal. This China-focused debate is too narrow to fully capture the nature of resource politics in Northeast Asia, since the governments of Japan and Korea have also recently launched their own resource security strategies. This paper considers regional-level trends in Asian resource politics by examining the causes, content and implications of the resource security strategies deployed by the consumer governments in Northeast Asia. It argues that growing resource security concerns, combined with a process of competitive policy emulation, have seen the Chinese, Japanese and Korean governments each adopt mercantilist resource security strategies over the last decade. Furthermore, the competitive nature of these mercantilist strategies is acting to intensify political and economic competition for resources between the Asian region’s three main economic powers.     

Poverty, debt and Africa's HIV/AIDS crisis

As Africa enters its third decade of structural adjustment pressures, the promised advantages of economic restructuring—as hailed by the various lending bodies— have not been forthcoming. The indelible picture emanating from the continent is one of a people relegated to a position of extreme poverty as state managers and the international community either fail to, or seem unable to, pursue policies that will secure the basic needs of its citizens. To compound matters, HIV and AIDS are threatening to erode the continent's already fragile development capacity. Predicated on the continent's limited economic capabilities, this article charts the relationship between poverty, debt relief and the politics of effective response to HIV/AIDS in Africa. The article begins with an assessment of the societal causes and consequences of the epidemic, moving on to contextualize the case for debts cancellation. It concludes by examining the crucial relationship between debt relief and the successful implementation of effective strategies against the pandemic in Africa.     

Of Sodomy and Cannibalism: Dehumanisation,Embodiment and the Rhetorics of Same‐Sex and Cross‐Species Contagion

This article explores ideas of the ‘human’ in discourses surrounding the AIDS epidemic, from the 1980s to the present. It compares two sequential lines of thought: first, the notion of AIDS as the result of ‘unnatural’ gender behaviours and queer sexualities; and second, the notion of AIDS and other zoonotics (cross‐species diseases) as the result of non‐western dietary practices and social mores. In the first case, the early years of the AIDS crisis are traced through the languages of sexual perversity utilised by the popular press and the Christian right. In the second case, the later years of the epidemic are traced, once the ‘roots’ of the virus became tied to Africa, and carriers became bestialised in narratives that located HIV as a consequence of unnatural, or inhuman, interactions with the animal world. The article argues that we have witnessed a paradigm shift in the didactics of the epidemic, from a narrative of sexual impropriety to one that also includes a narrative of dietary impropriety, each of which consistently relies upon a clear dichotomy between the human and the inhuman.     

From Normative Debates to Comparative Methodology: The Three Waves of Post-Charter Supreme Court Scholarship in Canada

This article surveys the literature on the Supreme Court of Canada following the 1982 introduction of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and argues it has taken place in three distinct “waves.” The first involved tentative, prospective, and normative arguments about the impact of the Charter on national unity and Canada’s political institutions. The second was characterized by the legitimacy debate, the dialogue debate, and qualitative examination of how other political actors responded to Supreme Court decisions. By contrast, the third wave, initiated by American scholars drawing from American research, has been less normative, more comparative, and methodologically rigorous. While this comparative shift has been beneficial, the retreat from normative questions contributes to a misplaced sense that important debates are now settled. We urge scholars to engage in intellectual cross-fertilization by drawing from third-wave contributions to address normative questions about the Supreme Court’s increasingly important role in Canadian politics.     

Myths, Motivations and 'Misunderestimations': the Bush Administration and Iraq

This article explores the myths and motivations behind US foreign policy towards Iraq in America's 'war on terrorism'. It argues that the foreign policy of the Bush administration is widely misunderstood and that much of the debate about Iraq policy that has taken place has been conducted at an unhelpful level of analysis. It addresses arguments that the Bush administration is motivated by oil, revenge or hubris as well as the more mainstream arguments that an attack on Iraq would provoke instability through the entire Middle East, as well as encouraging further acts of and support for murderous terrorism; that there is no urgency to act against Iraq as containment and deterrence remain adequate means to manage this threat; and that Iraq should be a lower priority than dealing with North Korea. It does this by analysing the development of American foreign policy thinking on the war on terrorism, what motivates it, and why it rejects the arguments of its critics. The article explains the intellectual process by which the US decided upon this course of action and how Europe's failure to understand this process added to its incomprehension of American policy. It does not argue that European's opposition would have been swept aside had they better understood the Bush administration, the central disagreement about the necessity and prudence of military action versus containment remains, but that such an understanding would have allowed for a better and more focused level of debate than the one which has got us to this point. Nor does it argue that the Bush administration approach is necessarily persuasive or justified, merely that its case is reasoned and explicable in terms of America's foreign policy traditions.     

A Berlin for Historians

On his death in 1997 Isaiah Berlin was widely hailed as a leading philosopher of political liberalism. This article takes the position that Berlin's philosophical views, particularly those on freedom and cultural pluralism, can also be construed as a valuable guide for historians working in the present, "postmodernist" climate of debate. It further argues that Berlin's character and career, the subjects already of considerable critical inquiry, lend added authority to these views. The focus is on three lengthy essays on history written by Berlin in the 1950s, one of which was first published in the first issue of this journal. The article concludes, following Berlin, that it is the responsibility of historians, as historians, to recognize the often incommensurate plurality of ultimate values to which their fellow human beings historically have subscribed and to judge, as judge they sometimes must, with that recognition fully in mind. If the result of these as well as the other choices that they make is a plurality of histories, of contending subjects, approaches, methods, and outcomes, that is only to be expected, indeed welcomed. It is freedom in practice, and infinitely preferable as such to any known alternative.     

Human security and development in Africa

There has been a recent rise in optimism about Africa's prospects: increased economic growth; renewed regional and national political commitments to good governance; and fewer conflicts. Yet, given current trends and with less than eight years until 2015, Africa is likely to fail to meet every single one of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Home to almost one‐third of the world's poor, Africa's challenges remain as daunting as ever. Despite highly publicized increased growth in some economies, the combined economies of Africa have, on average, actually shrunk and are far from meeting the required 7 per cent growth needed to tackle extreme poverty. A similar picture emerges from the analysis of Africa's performance on the other MDGs. In a world where security and development are inextricably connected in complex and multifaceted ways, Africans are, as a result, among the most insecure. By reviewing a select number of political, security and socio‐economic indicators for the continent, this analysis evaluates the reasons underlying Africa's continuing predicament. It identifies four critical issues: ensuring peace and security; fostering good governance; fighting HIV/ AIDS; and managing the debt crisis. In assessing these developmental security challenges, the article recalls that the MDGs are more than time bound, quantified targets for poverty alleviation–they also represent a commitment by all members of the international community, underwritten by principles of co‐responsibility and partnership, to an enlarged notion of development based on the recognition that human development is key to sustaining social and economic progress. In recent years, and often following failures, especially in Africa, to protect civilian populations from the violence and predation of civil wars, a series of high‐level commissions and expert groups have conducted strategic reviews of the UN system and its function in global politics. The debate has also developed at the theoretical level involving both a recon‐ceptualization of security, from state centred norms to what is referred to as the globalization of security around the human security norm. There has also been a reconceptualization of peacekeeping, where the peacekeeping force has enough robustness to use force not only to protect populations under the emergent responsibility to protect norm, but also enough conflict resolution capacity to facilitate operations across the conflict–development–peacebuilding continuum. This article opens up a discussion of how these ideas might be relevant to security regime building and conflict resolution in African contexts, and suggests how initiatives in Africa might begin to make a contribution to the theory and practice of cosmopolitan peacekeeping.     

The paradigm shift: 11 September and Australia's strategic reformation

This article argues that the perceptual shock of 11 September transformed the mental picture which shapes the Australian government's approach to national security. The expansive and transformationalist range of strategic concepts introduced post-11 September by key government ministers and the prime minister in their public commentary, and formally expressed in a variety of post-11 September policy releases, have been substantial enough to conclude that the central geostrategic narrative underpinning Australia's pre-11 September strategic posture has been diluted sufficiently to render it ‘one of many’ shapers of Australia's post-11 September strategic orientation. It is this article's finding that the perceptual shock of 11 September has been sufficiently consequential to produce a paradigm shift in Australian strategy.     

La cohabitation de longue durée: Studying the 1997-2002 experience

This article examines the politics of what the French call 'cohabitation' in the period 1997-2002. It identifies two different ways in which cohabitation is studied. The first assumes that each of the three periods of cohabitation has occurred under a unique set of political circumstances. The second argues that there have been institutional similarities between each of the three periods of cohabitation and that fundamentally the political situation during each has been the same. The article provides evidence that supports both approaches, and concludes by suggesting that the second approach is the more useful.     

Rational economics and the public sphere: An essay in retrieval

This article considers the current debate about economic rationalism in Australia which has in large part been generated by the work of Michael Pusey. It draws on contemporary political philosophy and argues for a more encompassing approach. It argues, first, the merits of preferring discourses of prudent deliberation over discourses of rationality; second, it criticises Pusey's grounding in the thought of Habermas; third, it considers the relevance of contemporary reassessments of Machiavelli's thought; and fourth, it concludes that wise government requires a public space for lively and prudent deliberation of many policy alternatives for dealing with the endless contingencies of political life.     

"Ready to shoot and do shoot": black working-class self-defense and community politics in Harlem, New York, during the 1920s

Throughout the first three decades of the twentieth century, black people in New York City encountered white violence, especially police brutality in Manhattan. The black community used various strategies to curtail white mob violence and police brutality, one of which was self-defense. This article examines blacks’ response to violence, specifically the debate concerning police brutality and self-defense in Harlem during the 1920s. While historians have examined race riots, blacks’ everyday encounters with police violence in the North have received inadequate treatment. By approaching everyday violence and black responses—self-defense, legal redress, and journalists’ remonstrations—as a process of political development, this article argues that the systematic violence perpetrated by the police both mobilized and politicized blacks individually and collectively to defend their community, but also contributed to a community consciousness that established police brutality as a legitimate issue for black protest.     

Killing Kith and Kin: The Viability of British Military Intervention in Rhodesia, 1964-5

This article uses correspondence from former members of theRhodesian security services, recent oral testimony from Britishpoliticians and civil servants, and newly available documentaryevidence from archives around the world, to re-examine the viabilityof British military intervention in Rhodesia during 1964 and1965. It argues that the military and political obstacles tothe use of force cited at the time and since have been grosslyexaggerated. This article argues that with sufficient resolve,the Labour government led by Harold Wilson could have used forcein an attempt to prevent or end Rhodesia's Unilateral Declarationof Independence of 11 November 1965. This might have offereda possible solution to one of the most protracted and embarrassinginternational problems that confronted successive British governmentsduring disengagement from Empire.     

The 100 billion dollar brain: central intelligence machinery in the UK and the US

The ‘Five Eyes’ alliance, led by the United States, spends close to 100 billion dollars a year on intelligence. This review article argues that western countries are distinguished by their sophisticated approach to the making of intelligence‐led national security policy. Political leaders and policy‐makers who access this sensitive material are often involved in elaborate systems that constitute part of the core executive and which seek to task and improve the intelligence leviathan. Western intelligence therefore has a ‘central brain’ that devotes considerable energy to both analysis and management. By contrast, in the majority of other states around the world, the orientation of intelligence has often been inward facing, with a high priority given to regime security. Some would suggest that intelligence has been an important component of western power projection, while others would argue that this process has been over‐expensive and has under‐delivered, not least in the last decade. Either way, the debates about development of the central intelligence machinery that supports western security policies are of the first importance and fortunately this discussion has been advanced by the appearance of several valuable new studies: these are discussed in this review article.     

Missile defence and the transatlantic security relationship

This article examines the re-emergence of ballistic missile defence (BMD) as a contentious issue in US-European security relations since 1999. It begins by outlining three phases in the recent evolution of US missile defence policy from 1995 to mid-2001. The article then examines five key factors that have dominated European views and concerns in relation to BMD: a divergence between European and American assessments of the emerging ballistic missile threat; concern over the implications for nuclear arms control stemming from Russian and Chinese opposition to BMD; the impact of missile defence on deterrence and the Atlantic alliance; scepticism about the technological feasibility of BMD; and the potential opportunity costs associated with resource allocation to missile defence. It is shown that European anxieties have been exacerbated by a perception of a growing unilateralism in American security policy in recent years. The article proceeds by arguing that the US-European debate over BMD looks set to evolve in one of two directions. The more likely and most desirable scenario would involve the US reaching an understanding with its European allies on the way forward. The less desirable scenario would involve key European countries, such as France and Germany, deciding ultimately to withhold their political support for BMD, which would have the potential of causing significant rifts in both transatlantic and intra-European security relations. In both cases, it is argued that the BMD debate will be defined by the interaction of several key variables. These include the extent to which the Bush administration engages in meaningful consultations with the Europeans; the administration's ability or otherwise to reach an agreement with Russia on the way ahead; the architecture options of a future allied or global BMD system; the related issues of technological feasibility and financial cost; and the evolving missile threat.