BY SUSAN BENESCH Once unimaginable, prosecutions for state-sponsored atrocities are multiplying rapidly. They continue to deliver new milestones, both by expanding transnationally and by reaching previously untouchable defendants. Some trials astonish even their own proponents, as this symposium illustrated: Peru’s conviction of its former head of state Alberto Fujimori in April left Ronald Gamarra Herrera [...]
BY LEHN BENJAMIN In January 2006 a group of nonprofit directors in Cape Town wrapped up a two year commitment to a peer learning cooperative. This initiative was intended to strengthen the capacity of black women leaders and improve the sustainability and effectiveness of the nonprofits they directed. These women all had significant organizational experience [...]
BY JOHN N. PADEN Religious affiliation is one of many identities that may be mobilized for political purposes. Succession to leadership in democratic systems is always a political process, and symbol management is an integral part of this process. In pluralistic societies, the ability to balance the ticket, or to convince a multi-ethnic constituency that [...]
BY JULIE MOSTOV In the midst of domestic arguments for fortifying the United States’ borders, I argue for soft borders and thin social bonds. I have been thinking about borders with respect to Southeastern Europe, but my arguments are meaningful in a larger context. While boundaries are regularly and easily traversed by capital, electronic information, [...]
BY DANIELE ARCHIBUGI The two main wars that opened the third millennium, those in Afghanistan and Iraq, have been justified by the United States (US) and its allies with a mixture of arguments. The first, and perhaps foremost, has been self-defense: to eradicate the terrorist roots in Afghanistan and destroy the alleged weapons of mass [...]
BY JO-MARIE BURT One of the most contentious issues facing transitional democracies is the problem of gross human rights violations committed during the previous regime. How should fragile democracies address the question of accountability, given the known deficiencies of their judicial systems; the ongoing power of the torturers themselves and/or those who benefited from their [...]
BY DAVID DAVIS The coalition intervention in Iraq of the spring of 2003 was carried out to depose a cruel and heinous dictator, Saddam Hussein. There has been much press and conjecture about other reasons for the intervention. What is little debated however, is that the Iraq that the coalition found was in great need. [...]
BY RICHARD E. RUBENSTEIN There has been some debate, but not nearly as intense or as enlightening as one might have hoped, about the current U.S. administration’s declared policy to promote the spread of democracy around the world. Objections to the program of “exporting democracy” are generally of two sorts. One group—call it the “native [...]
BY MARK N. KATZ Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, is clearly not a democrat. He has closed down independent television as well as other media outlets that have criticized him. He has not only waged a brutal campaign against separatists in Chechnya but has also rigged elections there. He has stripped away the assets of several [...]