52 research outputs found
Imagining the Homeland from Afar: Community and Peoplehood in the Age of the Diaspora
Diasporas--understood as groups of individuals or communities who carry an image of a homeland that is separate from the host land in which they reside--have always been with us. As long as there have been large movements of people across boundaries, be it voluntary or involuntary, there have been diasporas. The image of the homeland that diasporas carry could be real (an existing country) or imagined (a future country). In whatever way diasporas imagine the homeland, they have often attempted to act as if they belong to we the people of the homeland. They imagine themselves to be outside the state but inside the people. Homeland governments have often welcomed (or encouraged) diasporas\u27 interventions in homeland affairs, but not always. Whether diasporas are indeed inside the people although outside the state becomes an issue both when the interests of diasporas and governments of the homelands converge and when they diverge. This Article explores how and for what purpose diasporas could be considered to be part of the people of the homeland and when not. This requires a theory of peoplehood that this Article develops and defends. Using the notion of community of stakeholders, the Article indicates when and how those who are outside the state and yet consider themselves to be inside the people can participate in the life of the homeland. The Article also advances and defends the claim that the relationship between diasporas and homelands enables bridging the claims of cosmopolitans and unreconstructed territorialists, for the version of community that is worked out of the relationship between diasporas and homelands mediates the two aspects of people\u27s existence in this globalized world-national attachment and cosmopolitan sentiment. The homeland-diaspora relationship offers a point of departure for understanding how communities are formed and transformed; how legal obligations and allegiances develop and are altered; and generally, how a people constitutes itself both within and across territorial boundaries
International Propaganda and Developing Countries
This Article will use the term propaganda in its negative sense and explore its impact on developing nations\u27 capacity for self-determination. Following a brief suggestion about a workable definition in Part II, Part III isolates the particular threat that propaganda poses for developing nations. Part IV then surveys the fractured history of international propaganda regulation. Part V examines the relationship between self-determination and propaganda, with specific reference to disinformation and what will be termed structural propaganda. Individual state responses to propaganda are outlined in Part VI. Part VII explores the same issue on the international level and suggests the creation of an international right of correction as well as a mass media council. Part VIII explicitly links the right of correction and mass media council with the current international movement (primarily constituted by developing countries) for access to the international media. Indeed, this section argues that these two institutions--the right of correction and mass media council--must provide an integral part of the institutional framework through which developing countries may gain access to the international media. Finally, Part IX concludes that international solutions are available and should be adopted if developing nations are to escape the deleterious impact of propaganda
The Thin State in Thick Globalism: Sovereignty in the Information Age
Looking at the astonishing technological developments in mass communication over the past several decades, Professor Addis explores whether and how the resulting communication revolution has undermined the notion of territorial sovereignty. Specifically, he argues that (1) although the territorial state has faced serious challenges from the communication revolution, the question is not whether state sovereignty will survive, but how thick or thin that sovereignty will (or should) be; (2) even if it were true that the territorial state is giving way to other institutional arrangements, those arrangements may not be a decentralized system of governance in that the communication revolution is leading to institutional arrangements that are increasingly more centralized and distant from the individuals whose lives they affect; and finally that (3) the various institutional and conceptual responses that have been offered to deal with the challenges of the communication revolution--the statist, the proceduralist, and the liberal internationalist responses--misapprehend the nature of the communication revolution and consequently fail to suggest institutional structures that fully address the tension between the technological reality of routine transborder information flows and the institutional claims of the territorial state.
Drawing from the works of prominent political philosophers and communication theorists, Professor Addis sketches an outline of thin statism as a more defensible response to the communication revolution. Organized by two principles (the notion of plurality (internal pluralism) and the idea of subsidiarity (external pluralism)), thin statism will allow us to reconcile the reality of transborder communication with the need for a version of a state system as a check on thick globalism. This thin state will also accommodate two commitments that are generally viewed as incompatible: universalism and the pursuit of the politics of difference. Just like any other boundaries, territorial boundaries both foster and inhibit freedom. The institutional arrangements suggested by the notion of the thin state understand and respond to this ambiguity
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