Diplomacy is in trouble. With globalization come global problems. While we live in a twenty-first-century world of interdependence, we face seventeenth-century Westphalian political institutions with defined boundaries and separated responsibilities of nation-states. When we think of diplomacy, we are thinking of state-to-state relations; however, with sovereign obligation and national interest obsession, state-to-state negotiations often fall into “gridlocks”; international policy-making also suffers from “democratic deficits”. David Held offered cosmopolitan democracy as the answer, but his “world government” thesis provides no realistic policy implications.
In very recent years, city-to-city (“trans-municipal”) networks have received significant international recognition as cities are able to cooperate, with concrete actions, on a range of global issues. Surprisingly, scholars of international relations have largely neglected the role of cities in global governance. This paper argues for city diplomacy and “glocal” governance to fill the theoretical gap. It has two purposes: (1) to break the “conceptual jail” of regarding nation-states as the legitimate subject to manage world affairs, and open the door for cities and (2) to revisit the condition of cosmopolitan democracy, and offer a realistic model to revitalize the concept while bypassing the infeasibility of world government. In Part I, as I revisit Confucian philosophy da-tong (great unity), Rosenau's “sovereignty-free” actors and Athenian democracy, I argue that cities are our best hope to transcend nationality for the common well-being of humanity, connect local citizens to global public policy, and move towards cosmopolitan democracy. In Part II, drawing on Dahl's democratic criteria and DeBúrca's “democratic-striving approach”, I will develop two “building blocks” of democracy at the global level – —equal participation and popular control. In Part III, with reference to the “building blocks”, I will conduct a qualitative analysis to evaluate the cosmopolitan characteristics of C40 and develop political justifications for “trans-municipal networks”. 相似文献
The current work presents exploratory research findings related to the effectiveness of Let the Circle Be Unbroken, an African-centered “rites of passage” training program, to promote health and well-being in a sample of high-risk, African American males. An abbreviated version of the ADPRC-TADPOLE questionnaire was administered to 39 African American boys, between the ages of 8 and 16 years, who were participating in a community-based “rites of passage” training program. Findings suggest that the Let the Circle Be Unbroken training program is a viable program for improving self-esteem among young African American males. The implications of this research are relevant to the reduction of some health disparities observed among underrepresented populations, especially African American males. 相似文献
In the spring of 2013 a British feminist campaign sought to have men’s magazines, such as Zoo, Nuts, and Loaded, removed from the shelves of major retailers, arguing that they are sexist and objectify women. The campaign—known as Lose the Lads’ Mags (LTLM)—received extensive media coverage and was the topic of considerable public debate. Working with a data corpus comprising 5,140 reader comments posted on news websites in response to reporting of LTLM, this paper explores the repeated focus on men and masculinity as “attacked,” “under threat,” “victimised,” or “demonised” in what is depicted as a sinister new gender order. Drawing on a poststructuralist feminist discursive analysis, we show how these broad claims are underpinned by four interpretative repertoires that centre around: (i) gendered double standards; (ii) male (hetero)sexuality under threat; (iii) the war on the “normal bloke”; and (iv) the notion of feminism as unconcerned with equality but rather “out to get men.” This paper contributes to an understanding of (online) popular misogyny and changing modes of sexism. 相似文献