Risk and Hierarchy Within International Society: Liberal Interventionism in the Post-Cold War Era

Several recent works have emphasised contemporary hierarchical trends within international society. These trends have been most readily demonstrated by the willingness of dominant states, such as the United States, to conduct interventions in support of the promotion of liberal values and political institutions. Yet while many scholars have identified new relations of hierarchy within international society, few have explored what they suggest regarding international society’s normative constitution or what factors have given rise to these new hierarchies. The end of colonialism in the 1960’s resulted in a fundamental reconstitution of international society. The result of decolonisation was that pluralism, the notion that all states have the equal freedom to constitute their internal socio-political and economic institutions as they see fit, was entrenched as the central constitutive principle of the post-colonial international society. Contemporary hierarchical trends suggest a transition away from this pluralist constitution, with resultant changes in the processes of inclusion and exclusion and modes of interaction between different members of international society. This thesis aims to explore these processes of reconstitution within international society in the post-Cold War era and explain why Western societies have felt compelled to intervene in particular territories in order to promote liberal values. Utilising sociological theories of risk, particularly the work of Ulrich Beck, this thesis suggests that a new ‘liberal social logic of risk’ underpins the emergence of new forms of hierarchy and contemporary constitutional transition within international society. New forms of temporally and spatially de-bounded security risks (such as terrorism), and Western attempts at managing these risks through intervention and the imposition of liberal values in so-called ‘risky zones’, has altered the constitution of international society in a way that gives rise to various hierarchical and anti-pluralist trends

Decolonising Politics and International Relations Classrooms: Reflections from the “Field”

International Relations (IR) is a discipline founded upon and shaped by colonialism and Eurocentrism. Its Eurocentric tropes and myths distort the discipline's historiography and its perceptions of why and how it was founded, and for what purpose, such that race and colonialism are eliminated from mainstream discussions of disciplinary history and IR's main themes, concepts, and theories. This is reproduced in both the teaching and research of IR. Focusing on the former, this paper reflects on my experiences as the convenor of a course on colonialism. This is a second year, core course in the Politics and IR program at UNSW Sydney. The explicit purpose of the course is to contribute to decolonising UNSW's Politics and IR curriculum by centring Indigenous perspectives of colonialism and IR, critically interrogating the racism and Eurocentricity of Politics and IR, and exploring how colonialism shaped the world we live in and continues to inform our world and our lived, everyday experiences. This paper explores the concepts and theory informing the pedagogical praxis employed in the course, this praxis itself, and critically reflects on the achievements, challenges, and pitfalls of actively attempting to contribute to decolonising the IR classroom within Australia's settler colonial context

Programming the machine: Gender, race, sexuality, AI, and the construction of credibility and deceit at the border

There is increasing recognition of the significance of the political, social, economic, and strategic effects of artificial intelligence (AI). This raises important ethical questions regarding the programming, use, and regulation of AI. This paper argues that both the programming and application of AI are inherently (cis)gendered, sexualised and racialised. AI is, after all, programmed by humans and the issue of who trains AI, teaches it to learn, and the ethics of doing so are therefore critical to avoiding the reproduction of (cis)gendered and racist stereotypes. The paper's empirical focus is the EU-funded project iBorderCtrl, designed to manage security risks and enhance the speed of border crossings for third country nationals via the implementation of several AI-based technologies, including facial recognition and deception detection. By drawing together literature from 1) risk and security 2) AI and ethics/migration/asylum and 3) race, gender, (in)security, and AI, this paper explores the implications of lie detection for both regular border crossings and refugee protection with a conceptual focus on the intersections of gender, sexuality, and race. We argue here that AI border technologies such as iBorderCtrl pose a significant risk of both further marginalising and discriminating against LGBT persons, persons of colour, and asylum seekers and reinforcing existing non entree practices and policies

Pluralism, decolonization and international society

The classical narrative of the historical evolution of a pluralist international society emphasises its European origins, emerging in Europe and then progressively expanding worldwide via European colonialism. It is a narrative that is based on particular dualities, such as those of international system and society and sovereignty/anarchy and hierarchy. These dualities create a dichotomy within the classical narrative between an ostensibly pluralist, European international society and the world beyond it, largely insulating its depictions of the evolution of the norms and institutions of the former from the hierarchies and empires of the latter. This article advances a different narrative of the evolution of pluralism within international society, suggesting that pluralism has only been reflected in the practices of the society of states since decolonisation. Even after decolonisation, there have been continued exceptions and violations to pluralist norms, signifying a contemporary international society that is both pluralist and hierarchical

Os acordes de Yes we can do vídeo da campanha presidencial de Barak Obama The Yes we can chords

Estudo sobre o loop de quatro acordes &#9553;: Sol Maior - Si Maior - Mi Menor - Dó Maior :&#9553; na canção Yes we can [Sim, nós podemos] do vídeo de Will.i.am (ADAMS, 2008) lançado durante a campanha presidencial de Barack Obama nos Estados Unidos. A partir da identificação de IOCMs (Materiais Interobjetivos de Comparação) e PMFCs (Campos Paramusicais Conotativos) da análise musemática (TAGG, 2009), compara-se Yes we can com materiais harmônicos, melódicos, rítmicos, de instrumentação e de letras de canções populares da tradição afro-britânico-americana, levando-se também em consideração as atitudes de relevantes compositores e intérpretes populares social e politicamente engajados.<br>Study of the four-chord loop &#9553;: G - B - Em - C :&#9553; in the song Yes We Can from the video by Will.i.am (ADAMS, 2008) released during the 2008 US presidential campaign of Barack Obama. Departing from IOCM and PMFC identification of the musematic analysis (TAGG, 2009), Yes We Can is compared to harmony, melody, rhythm, instrumentation and lyrics found in iconic popular songs of the Afro-Bristish-American tradition, also taking into consideration the attitudes of relevant composers and performers engaged in social and political issues