Journal of Global Faultlines

Publisher:: Pluto Journals
Publication date:: 2023-03-02

ISBN:: 2054-2089

Description:

The Journal of Global Faultlines is a double-blind, peer-reviewed, academic journal, currently published twice a year. The journal is based in Keele University.

Issue Number

Latest documents

Vaccine nationalism: Competition, EU parochialism, and COVID-19
This paper considers the forms of vaccine nationalism specific to responses to SARS-CoV-2. First, it considers the initial vaccine responses to SARS-CoV-2 and how the competition unfolded in a broader, global sense. The second part considers the way the European Union adopted its own type of nationalism, despite claiming to distinguish itself as more humanitarian and equitable in approaching COVID-19 vaccine production, supply, and distribution. The creation of the export control mechanism, and the threat of its use, was itself an expression of Euro-nationalism in action. The need to do so was largely a product of the EU’s own making, given its own contractual relationships with the pharmaceutical companies. Finally, this paper contends that the advocacy for vaccine passports, championed by the EU, served to cause parochial ruptures in the bloc for commercial reasons.
Table of Contents
The sheep’s revolution: Paradox of democratic consolidation and environmental regulations in post-transition Nigeria
Over the last 20 years of uninterrupted democratic dispensation in Nigeria, the military regime has left the post-transition era with certain characteristics such as a low level of participation away from the center. While many have blamed the central authorities for the constantly increasing environmental threats, this study argues that the dwindling impact of civil society organizations (CSOs) on environmental regulation policies remains the missing link between policy formulation and implementation in Nigeria. This paper investigated the involvement of environmental CSOs within our democratic space, reflecting on the level of compliance with environmental regulation laws and the implications of this for environmental sustainability. This paper adopts both primary and secondary sources of information, and data were analyzed using a descriptive survey. The study reveals that the Nigerian government sees the CSOs as partners in ensuring environmental sustainability rather than deploying the CSOs as delivery agents to enforce environmental regulations and sustainability within the extractive and non-extractive contexts. This study concludes that, to tackle environmental degradation in Nigeria, much attention should be placed on environmental securitization advocacies through independent and effective environmental CSOs.
Ethnic faultline in the farmer–pastoralist conflict (FPC) – when does ethnicity matter to the FPCs? A case study of Adani-Nimbo area in South-Eastern Nigeria
The farmer–pastoralist conflict (FPC) has been discussed and given ethnic and religious appellations in some countries of West Africa, such as Ghana and Nigeria. In Nigeria, such a reading of the conflict is rampant in the media and dominant in national political discourse. However, these ethno-religious insinuations have not received serious scholarly treatment in Nigeria or been downplayed. In this paper, I examine the context in which ethnicity becomes vital to the FPCs, based on fieldwork in the Nimbo-Adani area of Uzo-Uwani municipal council of Enugu State affected most by the conflict in South-Eastern Nigeria. This area is an essential hot spot of the FPCs that has not been explored in analyzing the FPCs in Nigeria. The study is based on field observations and semi-structured in-depth interviews. The paper draws on the FPCs literature regarding the influence of ethnic identities on the conflict. It shows that the difference in ethnicity between pastoralists and farming communities is not the primary root of the conflict. At the first outbreak of violence, the difference in ethnicity was not the cause of the conflict. Ethnic identity only gets cited after the first brutal fighting between the nomads and the farming community. Non-violent conflicts often occur because of cattle destruction of farm crops and pollution of water sources. Although the herders are accused of various atrocities, such as rape and kidnapping, the first outbreak of violence was caused by retaliation for killing a herder in one of the villages. Heightening ethnic identity amplifies the construction of the herders’ identity and social status as non-indigenous and non-belonging in the villages. Thus, the villages seek the eviction of the herders based on their social status as non-indigenes. The paper argues that ethnic faultlines matter to the FPCs but only after other factors have initiated the conflict. Therefore, we should pay attention to the primary root of conflicts and how they get the basis for social exclusion activated.
Journal of Global Faultlines
America’s longest war was founded on false pretences
The war in Afghanistan ended as it had started, with total ambiguity of its objectives as well as what it achieved. The official Western narrative in 2001 was that “everything changed” on the day four airliners were hijacked and nearly 5,000 people murdered. The US intervention in Afghanistan, by this account, was hastily improvised in less than a month. However, the decisions shaping the US military campaign in Afghanistan in 2001 show a remarkable continuity based on an ongoing pre-September 11 evolution in the US foreign policy. As a matter of fact, the US operations in Afghanistan did not begin 20 years ago. But in 1979, during the presidency of Jimmy Carter.
State legitimacy and Third World conflicts
Dealing with the post-World War II security issues, in this article I outline an approach that takes into account the context of the weak states in Third World environments. In this respect, first of all I make a case that domestic politics should be factored in the security concerns of states. Especially in the Third World context domestic political and social dissentions become key factors in defining foreign policy behavior of such states. Secondly, I highlight regional context, especially unstable regional conditions, regional hierarchies, and other factors that contribute to conflict propensities of states situated in the Third World environments. Finally, I make a case that, compared to democracy, legitimacy is a better variable to explain the link between domestic politics and foreign policy behavior of the Third World states. Legitimacy is not only value-neutral variable, but can also be applied across time and place.
Russia’s Eurasian union dream: A way forward towards multipolar world order
Since the disintegration of USSR Eurasia has gained a new geopolitical and strategic significance. Fifteen countries emerged as result of disintegration, among which only Russian Federation was the successor state. The post-soviet era, especially the era of 1990s, was a political and economic trauma for the Russian Federation and the post-soviet space. But Eurasianists were well aware of American unilateralism and the American “Grand Chessboard strategy” that was solely aimed at encircling Russian geography. With these concerns, the Eurasianists advised the Russian political and military elites to initiate the Eurasian Union Project. This paper briefly sketches Russian historical Eurasian dream, which is deeply rooted in Russian imperial history, and discusses the importance of Eurasian philosophy for the political and economic stability of Russia-Eurasia. The paper also illustrates the challenges and opportunities for the Eurasian integration and for the establishment of a multipolar world order. The paper also briefly outlines the geopolitical rationale behind the Eurasian project as a key objective of the contemporary Russian foreign policy and geopolitics.
Foreign space activities in Argentina: Geopolitical imaginaries on the role of China and Europe in the national press (2007–2016)
This article endeavors to understand the construction of a geopolitical imaginary over the People’s Republic of China deep space station on Bajada del Agrio, Province of Neuquén, from the perspective of geopolitics. This paper introduces a comparative perspective: the Chinese space facilities are not a unique case within the borders of this sovereign state: there is a similar space installation called Deep Space Antenna under European Union flag in Malargüe, Province of Mendoza. In order to track the construction of such geopolitical imagination, this article analyzes the discourses offered in newspapers of national circulation in the South American country: Clarín, La Nación, and Página/12 from 2007 to 2016. This work also describes and analyzes domestic and foreign political discourses, and the sources of information the media selects to explain the issues the facilities raise. Argentina is a state of the Global South with an autonomous track of space development. Acquiring technology from a rising power could be disruptive, generating tensions with the core states, which were former exclusive partners and clients.
A historical narrative on pandemic Patterns of behavior and belief
Given the fractured reality of pandemic, the people’s history needs to be written and understood. This paper provides a historical narrative on pandemics based on a literature review and makes inferences from the past and present. This narrative also reflects the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in the world and India. The narratives provide a novel perspective to understand public health practices in a global context. It suggests the need for a more synchronized health response in pandemics while highlighting the uncertainties and challenges of using historical diseases as comparisons for the COVID-19 pandemic. The emphasis is on learning from historical evidence and ascertaining how these retrospective diagnoses help make arguments about health and illness in our present moment.