Live-Tweeting DG Conference

I’m live-tweeting the Dictators and Demonstrators Conference.  Follow the feed by searching for hashtag #DG or follow @GeorgetownDG

New Post at D&S.com

I’ve been managing D&S.com since the beginning of the semester, but I finally wrote a post for it.  Comments are welcome, but be gentle; it’s my first time.

Kosovo as a model for Afghanistan?

R2P Networks

I’ve been reading a lot about transnational activist networks for my paper on the failure of R2P to be established as an effective international norm.  There are several requirements for the creation of a successful norm, which break down into three central categories: framing, structure, and mobilization.  Further complicating the success of a transnational movement is the interconnectedness of each of the three aspects: mobilization requires effective framing, which can be determined by the structure of the system.

My original hypothesis about the failure of R2P focused primarily on problems of framing.  As my research progresses, I am also beginning to wonder if the advent of the internet and other forms of technology isn’t in fact hindering the mobilization of activists, and/or that the structure of the movement (somewhat more centralized than others) isn’t hindering the effective use of technology.  This isn’t the question that I want to discuss here, but I would welcome any ideas or suggestions.

Thursday Cartoons Did Their Civic Duty

Did you?  Good for you if you did!  Unless you voted like this guy:

 

Remember, Remember, the 5th of November

Today is Guy Fawkes Day, which I’m ok with ignoring, since he was 1. British and 2. possibly a terrorist.  But it did remind me of an entry I wrote for a blog I had before this one, We Are Publius.  I started it back while I was still involved in Citizens for Global Solutions because I wanted to write, because I specifically wanted to read the Federalist Papers and chronicle them, and because I thought it would be interesting to discuss federalism from a more… liberal perspective than the Federalist Society.  It was a pretty successful blog, at least in terms of my commitment to it, but it ended up being too narrow for my purposes, and I eventually switched to the EI.  Still, the work I did there, and with CGS, helped push me towards the work I’m doing now at Georgetown, and with D&S.com.  Maybe someday I’ll get back to it.

In the meantime, here’s the Guy Fawkes post.

Election Day, Nov. 3, 2009

It’s the first Tuesday in November, and over 30 states are having elections, which means that a lot of people need to vote.  If you have already, congratulations!  If you haven’t, find your election center at Rock the Vote’s site.  Vote!  Participate in the great polity we call the United States of America.

CCT 754 Blog Post: R2P and International Norms

There are many kinds of institutions – networks of relationships – today.  There are networks of both domestic and international activists, some with cross-cutting ties between the two levels.  There are the networks of state relationships – trade, security, law, culture, through institutions such as the WTO, NATO, the UN, countless formal bilateral agreements, as well as bonds of friendship and statesmanship between leaders.  On the one hand, these institutions may be said to be very effective, as they have allowed us to go 60+ years without a World War, have allowed us to respond to countless emergencies and horrors, from September 11, 2001 to tsunamis in South-East Asia.  On the other hand, these institutions have failed to enact new international norms, including environmental standards (Kyoto), common agreement over the management of oceans (Law of the Sea), or the forceful condemnation of the targeting of civilians in violent conflicts, whether with a genocidal purpose or simply to inflict mass casualties (R2P).  Furthermore, norms that once stood solidly, such as the Geneva Conventions, are now at risk as more and more states openly torture, led by the US.