Globalization

""The philosopher Paul Virilio has said that ‘speed is the unknown side of politics’. If the international presence in Haiti is a kind of governance – providing both security (in the form of UN peacekeeping troops) and ‘social security’ (in the form of aid) – it is an expeditionary governance, at speed and at a distance. The United Nations 'LogBase' literally placed a barrier between ordinary Haitians outside the fence and the international workers who governed the flows of food, water, cash, troops and social services. Airborne meetings removed aid workers above Haitian territory, accelerating quickly away, giving new meaning to the term ‘The Humanitarian Movement.’ Now, as international attention toward Haiti wanes, drawn to other crises, NGOs are cutting staff or even packing up altogether. The complex of NGOs, UN agencies and foreign militaries that governed Haiti in the aftermath of the earthquake was not bound by a firm social contract, but rather a fleeting social liaison, a humanitarian one-night-stand, here one day, gone the next. Within this context, human security was not a set of rights and entitlements claimed by citizens, but rather windfalls available briefly for ‘beneficiaries.’ If governance is globalized and fragmented across thousands of public and private entities, the commitment to provide human security becomes informal, resisting codification, backing away, step-by-step, to the ‘Exit Strategy.’

In this chapter, I examine the international aid system in post-earthquake Haiti as a form of governance, considering the implications of its structural shorttermism on human security. First, I will provide a theoretical framework by exploring the implications of Zygmunt Bauman’s concepts of ‘Liquid Modernity’ for the global post-modern social contract. Second, I will explain the international aid effort in Haiti and its implications for human security. Then, I will look at several examples of ways ‘structural short-termism’ has played out in housing, education, water and sanitation, technology and volunteerism in Haiti. Finally, I will conclude with reflections on how the liquification and informalization of the social contract eroded human security in Haiti.""

"O artigo revisita o “Incidente do Santa Catarina”, o famoso episódio da primeira embarcação portuguesa capturada pelos holandeses nos mares asiáticos, inserindoo no contexto mais vasto da rivalidade luso-holandesa no mundo malaio, mais concretamente nos estreitos de Singapura e Malaca. Através de uma cuidadosa análise de fontes europeias efectua uma avaliação completa das maiores consequências deste evento e das suas subsequentes implicações internacionais. Depois de 1603, não só se consciencializaram os dirigentes da Companhia Holandesa das Índias Orientais e os governantes da República Holandesa de como poderia ser lucrativa a política de pirataria e de pilhagem do inimigo, como também as autoridades portuguesas do Estado da Índia se tornaram progressivamente mais cientes das suas vulnerabilidades devidas às condicionantes geográficas. Dedica ainda alguma atenção à defesa legal dos interesses holandeses orientada por Hugo Grotius, o jurisconsulto holandês por muitos considerado o “pai do moderno direito internacional”. Deste artigo resulta igualmente muito evidente a importância efectiva dos mercadores macaenses para o Estado da Índia, a profunda expansão das suas redes mercantis para o Sudeste Asiático bem como, não obstante o facto de terem sofrido alguns reveses em consequência da pirataria da Companhia Holandesa das Índias Orientais, o modo como conseguiram recuperar desses abalos, com extraordinária agilidade e perseverança.

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Scholars have devoted considerable attention to the concept of national identity. In a globalizing world, however, identity is increasingly shaped not only by one's own nation but also by foreign nations. With this in mind, this study theorizes international identity as a communicative process. We propose four features of international identity—that it is distinct, relational, contextual, and stratified—and examine these features in one crucial context: the modern American presidency. Our content analysis of every mention of a foreign entity in 74 years worth of presidential discourse—2480 mentions in all—supports our conception of international identity and begins to identify the parameters of this construct in American political communication.