The Prosecutor v. Vojislav Šešelj: A Symptom of the Fragmented International Criminalisation of Hate and Fear Propaganda

In 2016, the icty Trial Chamber found one of the greatest hate and fear propagandists of the Yugoslav wars, Dr Vojislav Šešelj, not guilty on all counts of the indictment. A full comprehension of the role the propaganda played was lost and the partial reversal of the judgment at the Appeals Chamber provided little improvement in this regard. Yet the blame does not solely rest with the Chambers but also with the Prosecution and an utterly fragmented law applicable to hate and fear propaganda. This article looks in depth at the Šešelj case in order to highlight the many hurdles to effective prosecution, some specific to the case and others symptomatic generally of propaganda trials. It then takes a multi-disciplinary approach in presenting the nature of hate and fear propaganda to suggest a broader way of looking at causality as well as to argue for reform of the current applicable law

From sanctions to summits: Belarus after the Ukraine crisis

Belarus is concerned by Russian actions in Ukraine and is trying to distance itself from Russia, including by not recognising the annexation of Crimea and calling for a peacekeeping mission. It is also suffering the effects of Russia’s economic downturn. President Lukashenka has taken steps to promote the Belarusian language and identity to counter Russian influence. But he is not moving towards greater engagement with the political opposition. The Ukraine crisis has reinforced the risk-averse instincts of the Belarusian people and reduced the likelihood of protests tied to elections scheduled for this year. Minsk is not likely to shift from its broadly proRussian orientation, but it has made tentative diplomatic overtures to the EU. The EU’s pro-democracy sanctions policy toward Belarus has failed to promote political reform and arguably pushed Belarus closer to Russia. Now the EU has to focus not just on fostering democracy but on strengthening Belarusian society, which will help European interests in the long term. The EU should aim to help Belarus with a modernised form of nation building, engaging with civil society, offering assistance on economic reform, lowering the visa barrier, promoting knowledge of the EU and countering Russian propaganda

Propaganda Powers Social Reform: The Visual Rhetoric of Lewis Hine, Dorothea Lange, and Norman Rockwell

This thesis is a study of the visual rhetoric of Lewis Hine, Dorothea Lange, and Norman Rockwell. The claim is Hine, Lange, and Rockwell’s artwork is propaganda because it is posed, contrived, and emotionally manipulative. The three artists used their propaganda art to bring awareness to the plight of exploited children, impoverished migrant workers, and racial segregation. The thesis concludes that Hine, Lange, and Rockwell were advocates for social reform, and their art instigated change for various enclaves of the American populace. The initial chapter reviews the theoretical components of propaganda, visual rhetoric, and advocacy, and explains how these overlap to create a framework to examine the photographs of Hine and Lange, and the paintings of Rockwell. Subsequent chapters delve into the individual lives, motives, and art of the artists, placing each artist in an historical context. Selected pieces of art that are exemplary of both propaganda and advocacy are chosen for close reading

1. Prelude to Reform

The more immediate background for the Age of Reformation includes factors which precede Luther by a Century and more. While the reformers themselves felt that these factors had roots in first century Christian history and literature, more directly relevant to the movement were political, social, and economic changes which produced severe tensions in the late medieval world. Some of these contributed significantly to the Protestant upheaval. Still more important, however, were diverse streams of religious ferment, such as late medieval scholasticism, mysticism, humanism, heretical propaganda , and anti-clericalism, which flowed toward a junction in the Reformation. While it must be insisted that it took dynamic personalities to trigger this movement, we must remember that these great figures were influenced by the ideas of their environment. These earlier streams of ferment may properly be called the prelude to reform. [excerpt

Manufacturing “Culture”: The Promotion of Intellectual Property Rights in China

This research examines China’s persistent effort to promote intellectual property rights (IPR) since the 1980s. Laws of intellectual property were among the first batch of legislations in China’s market reform. Since the mid-1980s, the state propaganda apparatus launched nationwide campaigns in five-year cycles to “educate” Chinese people on the Party’s new market-oriented law and policy, including laws of IPR. When intellectual property became core state policy in the 2000s, new initiatives emerged under law promotion campaigns to “raise awareness” of intellectual property. Starting the late 2000s, the promotion of IPR became stand-alone endeavors devoted to an innovation-friendly “culture” of intellectual property that facilitated compliance with the law and promoted industrial growth in cultural and media sectors. The notion of “IPR culture” played a key role in governmental promotion endeavors after China developed its national IPR strategy in the mid-2000s. In official discourse, “IPR culture” is instrumental and serves to shape mind-sets and regulate behaviors. It seeks to extensively use the Leninist media system to impose top-down pre-packaged understanding of intellectual property. While engaging actively with Western theories and corporate practices, IPR propaganda in China marginalizes and represses bottom-up challenges to the official stance in protection of private cultural property. China’s intellectual property propaganda campaigns are part of the state’s efforts to legitimate and facilitate the market-oriented reform. Since the late 1970s, the market reform proceeded side-by-side with ruthless repression of bottom-up resistance. IPR stood out in the state’s reform scheme at a time when China’s (re)insertion into global capitalist political economy took place concurrently with communication industries playing a key role to propel growth and IPR systems serving as the cornerstone for the market. The state-led campaign to engineer a pro-market IPR culture manifests China’s adoption of the logic of the global IPR regime, which will only subject China to the hegemonic power of Western IPR discourse and distance the state’s cultural project from grassroots dynamics of meaning making

Transitional Libyan media: free at last?

Muammar Qaddafi kept a firm grip on Libya’s media sector and used it as a propaganda tool for his regime. After the dictator’s fall in 2011, the media sector was opened up, but reconstruction efforts lacked vision and have fallen prey to the tumultuous situation on the ground. A completely unbiased and free media industry remains an illusion. The rebirth of Libya’s media sector requires a comprehensive approach that involves regulatory reform and builds up the skills of journalists

Walk the line : conflict, state capacity and the political dynamics of reform

This paper develops a dynamic framework to analyze the political sustainability of economic reforms in developing countries. First, we demonstrate that economic reforms that are proceeding successfully may run into a political impasse, with the reform’s initial success having a negative impact on its political sustainability. Second, we demonstrate that greater state capacity to make compensatory transfers to those adversely affected by reform, need not always help the political sustainability of reform, but can also hinder it. Finally, we argue that in ethnically divided societies, economic reform may be completed not despite ethnic conflict, but because of it

Mussolini\u27s Gladius: The Double-Edged Sword of Antiquity in Fascist Italy

Mussolini and the Fascist Party used a plethora of propaganda techniques in order to suggest the renewal of the old Roman Empire with the rise of the Italian Fascist Party. Through the use of ideology, race issues, religion, educational control, posters, theatre, architecture, and archeology, the Fascists used the Roman past to glorify modern Italy and the Fascist party. The Fascists’ use of these Roman allusions made their own deficiencies more apparent and led to a general failure of their propaganda program in terms of creating a new Italian identity focused upon the Ancient Roman past

Regimes of Temporality: China, Tibet and the Politics of Time in the Post-2008 Era

While the politics of time are an important dimension of Chinese state discourse about Tibet, it remains insufficiently explored in theoretical and practical terms. This article examines the written and visual discourses of Tibetan temporality across Chinese state media in the post-2008 era. It analyses how these media discourses attempt to construct a ‘regime of temporality’ in order to manage public opinion about Tibet and consolidate Chinese rule over the region. While the expansion of online technologies has allowed the state to consolidate its discourses about Tibet’s place within the People’s Republic of China (PRC), they have also provided Tibetans a limited but valuable space to challenge these official representations through counter readings of Tibet’s past, present and future. In doing so, this article contributes new insights on the production of state power over Tibet, online media practices in China, and the disruptive potential of social media as sites of Tibetan counter discourses