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This seminar explores the economic, political, and social aspects of globalization and their implications for public policy making in the twenty-first century. Focus on issues of governance, particularly international cooperation, the design of international organizations, and the role of international NGOs. Policy areas include international trade and finance, environment, security, human rights, media and communications, and international development.
The relationship between international politics and international law; how international institutions operate and affect social practices, and how legalization of institutions changes the manner of interpretation of legal texts. The nature of legal and political discourse over issues subject to international law such as human rights; issues of compliance with rules, the connections between international relations and domestic law, and the overall effects of international law and institutions on world politics; cross-national differences in attitudes toward issues such as environmental regulation, trade liberalization, and military intervention on behalf of human rights. Prerequisite: Political Science 93 or equivalent
If - as Carl von Clausewitz famously put it - war is "a continuation of political intercourse, carried on with other means," then the targeting and killing of civilians in war is often "a continuation of war by other means." Noncombatants historically have comprised half of all war deaths, a proportion that is increasing rather than decreasing in recent times: more civilians were killed in 20th century armed conflicts than in any previous century, and the proportion of total war deaths accounted for by noncombatants reached 90 percent in the 1990s. What explains this carnage? Why do states and rebel groups put civilians in the cross-hairs in some wars but not others? What norms and laws protect civilians from harm, and why are they so rarely observed? What are some of the major cases of violence against civilians in the last 100 years and why did they occur?
This course aims to answer some of these questions by examining the normative, ethical, and legal prohibitions on harming noncombatants and how they arose; the major social science theories for explaining large-scale violence against civilians in wartime; and a close study of several prominent cases of wartime violence against noncombatants. The course begins by examining the origins of the principle of noncombatant immunity and how it eventually became codified as an international norm and the subject of increasingly specific international law. We will also examine the just war tradition, which stipulates a set of criteria that must be met for resort to war to be judged as just (jus ad bellum), and establishes the principles of discrimination and proportionality to protect noncombatants (jus in bello). The second section of the course turns to theories of large-scale violence against noncombatants, examining a number of independent variables that have at times overwhelmed normative and legal prohibitions: regime type, barbaric images of the enemy as sub-human or outside of the boundaries of civilization, the effect of organizational or bureaucratic cultures, guerrilla warfare, the need to reduce one's own casualties, desperation to achieve victory, and the building of nation-states. Finally, we analyze several cases of civilian victimization in detail in order to ascertain which factors led to the targeting of noncombatants. Although we begin with siege warfare and the practice of devastation in ancient, medieval, and early modern times, most of the cases are from the 20th century, spanning colonial/imperial wars, the two World Wars, wars of decolonization, as well as recent counterinsurgency campaigns and ethnic killings.
Although more than 50 ethnically-based civil wars have broken out since 1945, this course will concentrate on five paradigmatic cases: Turkish genocide in World War I, Nazi Germany, the Balkans (with a focus on Kosovo), Stalin's planned famines, and Rwanda - Burundi - Congo. As historical background we will investigate Anglo and Hispanic colonialists' assaults on native populations in North and South America. Besides chronicling the histories of devastating wars, we will explore social scientific interpretations of aggression and ethnic hatred and also examine the role of modern media in creating ancient memories of victim-hood in order to incite violence against the weak and helpless. In addition to traditional reading material, we will use web sites to gather information about human rights violations and ethnic hate groups. Due to the subject matter, some of the materials we will read, view and discuss are of a violent or graphic nature.
Nazi Germany is often depicted as a state in which brainwashed citizens succumbed to state terror. In this course, we will emphasize the persuasive techniques that attracted Germans (and, after 1938, other Europeans) to Nazi rule - provided, of course they did not fall into "unwanted" categories. We will also ask how victims responded to growing danger. For the first third of the semester, we will concentrate on the transformation of a tolerant democracy into a racist dictatorship. In the second third, we will survey the great differences in the implementation of the "Final Solution" in the various states of Nazi-occupied Europe. During the final third of the semester, we will compare the different ways the Holocaust has been remembered in Israel, the USA, Germany, and France. Throughout the course, we will discuss required texts, view segments of films, listen to interviews on the web, follow current debates about racism and neo-Nazism via podcasts, read victims' memoirs and historical studies of perpetrators. Lectures and a textbook will provide continuity.
This course will serve as a very broad introduction to the subjects of "global health" and "human rights," and the way that - through the work of the WHO and the public appeals of Paul Farmer and others - we have become increasingly familiar with looking at global health through the lens of human rights. This lens allows us to see the "health problems" in front of us not only as matters of dangerous microbes and damaged bodies, but also as matters of embedded structural violence, of unequal access to resources, and of a complex interaction of many actors, including corporate interests. We will explore the basic policies and specific issues at the heart of these subjects through focused case-studies of vulnerable populations (such as women and children, older persons, the poor, etc.) and specific population health threats (such as HIV/AIDS, access and barriers to pharmaceuticals and health care, violence).
However, as we approach these topics, our focus will not only be on what the problem is and what is being done about it, but also on how we (the American public) come to understand this problem and how its story is told to us. We will work from the premise that the images and representations we encounter - whether through journalism, film or fiction - significantly shape the ways we understand what is at stake in the problem, who/what is to blame, what can be done about it, and just what merits consideration as a "global health" or a "human rights" issue in the first place. For example, how does watching an episode of ER filmed in Sudan's Darfur region impact the way we understand the genocide that has happened there, what needs to be done about, and why we should care about it? Popular representations also juxtapose U.S. health concerns to more global concerns in interesting ways; just how do we measure the relative suffering and structural factors behind America's "obesity epidemic" in comparison with epidemic malaria in Sub-Saharan Africa? How does a film like John Q impact our thinking about the debates around nationalized health care, and how does this story (or how does it not) lead us to think about global inequalities in access to health care?
Our course "texts" will include a wide range of non-fiction, fiction, film, television and print media. Along with a primary text on Health and Human Rights, our readings will include selections from Paul Farmer (Pathologies of Power and Infections and Inequalities), such possible films as The Constant Gardener (2005), John Q (2002), Philadelphia (1993), Hotel Rwanda (2004), and Dirty Pretty Things (2002), such possible fiction as Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation (2001), Philip Gourevitch's We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda (1998), Randy Shilts' And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic (1988) and Richard Preston's The Hot Zone (1994), possible television episodes of ER and House, and a selection of print journalism.
This class examines how law and culture are integral aspects of international development policy and practice. We will review the history of ways in which policy makers, practitioners and activists have thought about the role of culture and the role of law in development. We will consider how law and culture are being factored into contemporary development policy and programs. In addition to development planning in formal institutions, the class will consider how social movements have been active in promoting alternative visions and practices of development. Case studies will consider contemporary debates in international development concerning global health, human rights, gender inequity, free trade, environment, democracy promotion, participatory assessment and management, intellectual property and access to medicines, global security, and the role of international institutions. Students will assess what anthropological approaches to studying law, culture and development have to offer policy-makers, practitioners, advocates and activists in the enactment of development approaches that are sustainable and equitable.
Is there an ethics to what one knows, and how one comes to know things? Insofar as knowledge involves a disposition towards the world based on what one knows, there is a case to be made that "yes," knowledge involves ethics. This is especially the case when our attitudes toward the world affect our relations with others. And yet we typically separate what philosophers call epistemology and ethics, the study of how we know things and the study of moral behavior. Taking a distinctly interdisciplinary approach, this seminar will challenge participants to reexamine the ethics of knowledge governing our own society and the ethical stakes of how we live our own lives as knowledgeable citizens and advocates.
The class will consider the ethics of knowledge by examining relationships between science and democracy, the two privileged models in our society for arriving at sound knowledge and sound government. By adopting a cultural perspective, we will consider how the specific ideas and relationships that lead to democratic and scientific outcomes are themselves highly determined by the communities that espouse those models and their contexts. We will identify the implied ethics of scientific and democratic cultures, and thus become more aware of our own ethical positions. We will survey a variety of approaches that have been used to manage the relations between knowledge and social order on the one hand, and the ethics of knowledgeable social actors on the other. We will grapple with case studies from high stakes public policy debates in areas such as climate change, human rights, intellectual property and healthcare. And we will learn from each other's different backgrounds and commitments in becoming more savvy analysts, citizens and advocates.
This class combines academic study with experiential learning. Service-learning placements will help students think about course texts and discussion in reference to an ongoing collaboration with community actors who are using knowledge to try and improve the world according to their values.
Readings will draw from a variety of disciplines, including cultural anthropology, philosophy, science and technology studies, political science, economics, sociology, literature and public policy.
Robin Kirk, Director, Duke Human Rights Center
This course will introduce students to the concepts, history and practice of human rights, using as its lens Latin America and the activists who have developed and promoted rights in the region. Students will begin with the basic texts that human rights activists use to ground and coordinate their efforts to promote human rights. Through the work of activists, we will examine human rights theory and legal grounding, the development of human rights as a practice, the history of human rights, and the future of human rights as a political, cultural and social force. The course is designed to impart some of the skills activists use to further their cause, including public speaking and writing. Due to the subject matter, some of the materials we will read, view and discuss are of a violent or graphic nature.
Duke Human Rights Center - rights@duke.edu
234 Ernestine Friedl Building (Old Art Museum), East Campus
Box 90091, Duke University
Durham, NC 27708
Voice: 1-919-668-6511 Fax: 1-919-681-8483
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