Volume 5, 2004-2005

Permanent URI for this collection

https://prism.ucalgary.ca/handle/1880/112824

Browse

Browsing Volume 5, 2004-2005 by Author "Singh, Anita"

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Composite Diplomacy: Canadian Innovation Amidst Global Uncertainty
    (2004) Barrett, Robert S.; Fitzsimmons, Scott; Singh, Anita
    This condensed paper is the culmination of a one-year research effort – an investigation addressing two issue areas: the first being the West’s apparent and disturbing inability to address and ameliorate emerging forms of global intrastate war, and second, Canada’s dire need to resurrect its foreign policy in order to actively participate on the world stage. In answering both of these problems, the paper proposes that Canada adopt, as a policy focus, a newly formed diplomatic strategy termed Composite Diplomacy.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Feminist IR and the Case of the ‘Black Widows’: Reproducing Gendered Divisions
    (2004) West, Jessica; Fitzsimmons, Scott; Singh, Anita
    Feminism has been a marginal approach to International Relations (IR) since its inception following the Cold War, however in an effort to reinvigorate its analytical power, Charlotte Hooper demonstrated how the practice of IR actively reproduces as well as reflects gender identities in the form of hegemonic masculinity. The purpose of the following study is to challenge and extend Hooper’s argument by investigating whether or not the practice of international relations also produces a hegemonic femininity. By examining the popular portrayal of Chechen women terrorists commonly referred to as the ‘Black Widows,’ I argue that our interpretations of international events do indeed produce a hegemonic femininity that places women in the familial world of emotion and victimhood. In effect, a feminine niche is created for women who partake in traditionally masculine activities. This analysis speaks to two additional controversies in feminist literature: the effect of adding women to andocentric categories and whether or not women’s violence should be represented in feminist theories. The difficulties that feminist encounter with each of these issues is demonstrative of the need to eschew rather than clamour for a position within the strictures of mainstream IR. Instead, feminists should embrace their position on the margins of IR and the opportunity that it provides to destabilizing the hierarchies, exclusions and violence upon which it is based.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Innovations: A Journal of Politics Call for Papers
    (2004) Fitzsimmons, Scott; Singh, Anita
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Innovations: A Journal of Politics Index, Forward, Notes on Contributors
    (2004) Fitzsimmons, Scott; Singh, Anita
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Mexican Labour Politics at a Critical Juncture
    (2004) Hilgers, Tina; Fitzsimmons, Scott; Singh, Anita
    This article reviews the current political situation of Mexican organized labour and the academic debate regarding unions’ relevance to Mexican democracy, drawing attention to the importance of Federal Labour Law reform. With the 1997 parliamentary elections, Mexico entered a critical juncture of regime change. Civil society’s – particularly labour’s – participation in policy-making is crucial to the establishment of inclusive political structures beyond the electoral arena, to stabilize this fledgling democracy. Given labour’s political weakness leading up to, and potential representational importance at, this critical juncture, I suggest that the participation of both official and independent labour in the mesa working to craft Federal Labour Code reform provides an important reference point for studies of the quality of Mexican democracy.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Political Friendship and the Second Self in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics
    (2004) Vander Valk, Francis; Fitzsimmons, Scott; Singh, Anita
    The difficulty that academics have faced in resolving the tensions between competing interpretations of Aristotelian political friendship can be traced to a lack of attention paid to Aristotle’s understanding of the self. The friend, Aristotle tells us, is a 'second self,' but it is not clear what he means by this phrase. One group of contemporary commentators (to whom I give the name Strong Integrationists) suggests that Aristotle calls for an intimate connection between moral and political forms of friendship. Strong Integrationists, in making their arguments, tacitly assume a more-or-less Cartesian understanding of the self. I suggest that this assumption is in error. The Aristotelian self is generally unstable, fractured, and only rarely capable of the sustained virtue that characterizes the highest form of friendship. By reexamining the nature of the Aristotelian self I hope to provide a reading of political friendship that is more faithful to Aristotle’s text, and more in line with his own philosophical assumptions.