Securitisation in World Politics: The Conflict on the Self-Determination of East Timor at the United Nations

With the Indonesian invasion in late 1975, the self-determination conflict in East Timor gained international attention. Against all attempts on the part of Indonesia to silence international debate on its incorporation of East Timor, the Timorese resistance, with the support of selected states, continued to draw attention to its thwarted efforts at self-determination until the 1990s. Conflicts on self-determination are often analysed either as part of the larger picture of inter-national conflicts or as local territorial conflicts. Instead, we suggest a systems theoretical per-spective and understand conflict as a social system, which is based on repeated communication at various levels at the same time. Our analysis shows how the self-determination conflict in East Timor was successfully constructed as a matter of world politics by both the securitising and desecuritising speech acts of the conflict actors. These strategic speech acts from this early phase of the conflict in world politics, on the lack of self-determination of the Timorese people and the unlawful occupation, would prove to be important for the conflict system and renewed critical reaction to the Indonesian occupation in the early 1990s at the UN, ultimately leading to its resolution

Postnationale Konflikte und der Wandel des Politischen: ein Beitrag zur Soziologie der internationalen Beziehungen

Der Verfasser behandelt postnationale Konflikte aus makrosoziologischer Sicht. Zunächst werden postmoderne Konzepte des Politischen diskutiert (Lefort, Laclau), die den Wandel der Weltgesellschaft und die Rolle neuer Konflikte in diesem Wandel verstehen helfen. Das Konzept des Politischen beschreibt, wie Gesellschaften ihre Identität in Symbole fassen. Das klassische Konzept ist hier der Nationalstaat und die territoriale Konstruktion der politischen Gemeinschaft. Die Demontage des politischen Systems der Weltgesellschaft fällt zusammen mit der Erosion des auf dem Nationalstaat basierenden Modells des Politischen. Zwei Konsequenzen lassen sich formulieren: (1) Die Evolution der Weltgesellschaft geht mit einer Pluralisierung der Politikmodelle einher - global, national und regional. (2) Die Weltgesellschaft ist heute durch Konflikte zwischen diese Konzepten des Politischen charakterisiert. (ICEÜbers)"The article offers a macro-sociological view on the evolution of postnational conflicts. It starts with a discussion of the concept of the political, developed by postmodern theorists like Lefort and Laclau, and argues that this concept could help us to understand both the changes within world society and the role new conflicts play within these changes. The concept of the political describes how societies symbolise their identity. The classical concept here is the nation state and the territorial construction of political community. The dismantling of world society's political system is associated with the erosion of this nation state based model of the political. Two consequences could be drawn from here: First, the evolution of world society goes along with a pluralisation of models of the political, e.g. a global, a national and a sub national one. And second, world society today is characterized by conflicts between these concepts of the political." (author's abstract

Postnationale Konflikte und der Wandel des Politischen. Ein Beitrag zur Soziologie der internationalen Beziehungen

The article offers a macro-sociological view on the evolution of postnational conflicts. It starts with a discussion of the concept of the political, developed by postmodern theorists like Lefort and Laclau, and argues that this concept could help us to understand both the changes within world society and the role new conflicts play within these changes. The concept of the political describes how societies symbolise their identity. The classical concept here is the nation state and the territorial construction of political community. The dismantling of world society’s political system is associated with the erosion of this nation state based model of the political. Two consequences could be drawn from here: First, the evolution of world society goes along with a pluralisation of models of the political, e.g. a global, a national and a sub national one. And second, world society today is characterized by conflicts between these concepts of the political

Introduction: Transitions from Violence. Analysing the Effects of Transitional Justice

Transitional justice refers to processes of dealing with the aftermath of violent conflicts and human rights abuses in order to provide for a peaceful future. It makes use of a number of instruments and mechanisms – including tribunals, truth commissions, memory work, and reparations – which aim at uncovering the truth about past crimes, putting past wrongs right, holding perpetrators accountable, vindicating the dignity of victim-survivors, and contributing to reconciliation. The objective of this focus section is to critically assess the potential of transitional justice, its achievements thus far, any conflicting goals, and the inherent or external obstacles that limit its influence and reach. Through empirical case studies from across the globe it paints a multi-faceted picture of the strengths and weaknesses of the approach

Deconstructive Aporias: Quasi-Transcendental and Normative

This paper argues that Derrida’s aporetic conclusions regarding moral and political concepts, from hospitality to democracy, can only be understood and accepted if the notion of différance and similar infrastructures are taken into account. This is because it is the infrastructures that expose and commit moral and political practices to a double and conflictual (thus aporetic) future: the conditional future that projects horizonal limits and conditions upon the relation to others, and the unconditional future without horizons of anticipation. The argument thus turns against two kinds of interpretation: the first accepts normative unconditionality in ethics but misses its support by the infrastructures. The second rejects unconditionality as a normative commitment precisely because the infrastructural support for unconditionality seems to rule out that it is normatively required. In conclusion, the article thus reconsiders the relation between a quasi-transcendental argument and its normative implications, suggesting that Derrida avoids the naturalistic fallacy