International Criminal Law and Constitutionalisation: On Hegemonic Narratives in Progress

As we move towards constructing narratives regarding the future outlook of global governance, constitutionalisation among them, the hope is that whatever shape this world order takes it will, somehow, forestall or hinder the possibility of a hegemonic order. This article tries to deconstruct the notion of hegemony and claims that as it currently stands it is useless in doing its critical work since every successful narrative will end up being hegemonic because it will employ the ‘hegemonic technique’ of presenting a particular value (or value system), a particular viewpoint, as universal or at least applying to those who do not share it. The only way for a narrative in this discourse not to be hegemonic would be for it to be either truly universal and find a perspective that stems from nowhere and everywhere – a divine perspective – or purely descriptive; the first being an impossibility for fallible beings and the other not worth engaging with since it has nothing to say about how things should be structured or decided in a specific situation

'Une fleur que ses yeux éteints ne peuvent plus contempler': women's sculpture for the dead

From the moment that women sculptors emerged, they have been creating sculptures for the dead, in multiple forms. Many of them specialized in the art of portraying, which was in high demand for wax figures, statues and funeral monuments. The fact that those, along with war memorials, often played on the area of emotions –which was traditionally viewed as ‘female’– apparently made the choice for a woman sculptor even more acceptable. The commissions for funeral monuments and war memorials more often came through unofficial rather than official channels, creating better opportunities for female artists

An Overhaul of a Doctrine: Has Inflation Targeting Opened a New Era in Developing-country Peggers?

The aim of this paper is to empirically examine the effect of a regime switch, from exchange-rate targeting (fixed exchange rate) to inflation targeting, on monetary policy in developing economies, hence adding to evidence on whether inflation targeting along with a managed float provides a better monetary policy compared to exchange-rate targeting. For this purpose, a group of developing countries that have historically experienced such a switch is analysed. This is done by an augmented interest-rate rule a-la Taylor (1993; 2001). Two methodological approaches are used: switching regression and Markov-switching method. Although both approaches have different drawbacks which compensate, still both lead to the conclusion that inflation targeting represented a real switch in developing countries. The period of inflation targeting was characterized by: a more stable economic environment; by more independent monetary-policy conduct; and by strict focus on inflation. Estimates suggest that the switch to a new monetary regime explains these results.inflation targeting, exchange-rate targeting, monetary regime switch, developing economies

Poverty persistence among Belgian elderly in the transition from work to retirement : an empirical analysis

On the basis of a longitudinal administrative dataset (1991-2002) merged with the Census of 2001 and the National Register, the majority of the poor elderly in Belgium appear to be persistently poor. The question arises why this might be so. To the extent that individual characteristics such as low abilities persist over time, they may also be the reason that individuals persist in poverty over time. In that case, one expects that once individual characteristics are controlled for, duration dependence in poverty becomes spurious. The alternative possibility is that poverty experience has a causal impact on future poverty. This may be because of a poverty trap : people may be given an incentive not to work while at the same time they slip into poverty. Or this may be due to depreciation of human capital or loss of motivation. The reasons for dependence would suggest to focus on stigma and adverse work incentives while spurious dependence would suggest to change individual’s characteristics. The simultaneous estimation of a multiple-spell discrete-time hazard model of transitions in and out of poverty, that allows for unobserved effects and a significant initial condition problem, lends strong empirical support for true duration dependence in poverty. This suggestion sounds reasonable since in Belgium elderly unemployed are exempted from the search for a job and thus easily exposed to depreciation of human capital and employers are reluctant to invest in the human capital of older workers. In addition in Belgium both employers and the government design retirement pathways that give elderly strong incentives to leave the labour market as soon as possible.poverty dynamics; poverty persistence; early retirement; work disincentives; multiple spell discrete-time hazard model