CIAO DATE: 06/06

International Affairs

March 2006

HIV/AIDS - Special Issue

 

• Introduction

• 25 years of living with HIV/AIDS: challenges and prospects NANA K. POKU, ALAN WHITESIDE

• Taboos and denial in government responses DENNIS ALTMAN

• Syncretism and subversion in AIDS governance: how locals cope with global demands ANN SWIDLER

  This article raises a set of theoretical questions about culture and governance in organizational responses to AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. It draws on material from two visits to sub-Saharan Africa (Botswana in July 2003 and Malawi in June and July of 2004): interviews with government officials, international organization representatives and staff from AIDS NGOs across a variety of settings in sub-Saharan governance. The article examines the relation of AIDS governance to existing patterns of African governance and argues that while 'institutional isomorphism' can be imposed by international funders, such efforts often produce paradoxical outcomes on the ground. It seeks to understand why the intersection between the organizational models proffered by AIDS NGOs and existing patterns of authority and cooperation produce either syncretism, subversion, or simply a standoff.

• A long-wave event. HIV/AIDS, politics, governance and 'security': sundering the intergenerational bond? TONY BARNETT

  There is a disharmonious resonance between the lifecycle of the human immunodeficiency virus and that of its human host. In heavily affected countries, many people live long enough to reproduce and then die, leaving behind numerous orphans. This process has implications that we do not understand. While some foresee social disorder arising from legions of poorly socialized and unruly children grown to adulthood, the evidence is far from clear. These arguments and the evidence are reviewed in this article, particularly in relation to the links between premature death and electoral processes in southern Africa.

• HIV/AIDS and security COLIN MCINNES

  The UN and its associated agencies have been among the most important players in increasing global AIDS awareness. But the intervention of the Security Council has been critical in securitizing HIV/AIDS. Moreover, the claims made by the Security Council have set the agenda for the subsequent debate on HIV/AIDS as a security issue. This article examines these claims—that HIV/AIDS poses a risk to internal stability, national security and peacekeepers, and that conflict is a vector for the spread of the disease. It argues that the evidence is less clear cut, more complex and case sensitive than the original claims suggested. Moreover, the causal links between HIV/AIDS and insecurity appear less robust. It concludes that the case made by the Security Council was somewhat speculative, while the snowballing of subsequent pessimistic thinking led these concerns to a position of orthodoxy that now appears less assured. HIV/AIDS remains a tragedy and a human security issue; whether it is a national security issue is more problematic.

• HIV/AIDS and development: failures of vision and imagination ALAN WHITESIDE

  As early as the mid-1990s the US Bureau of the Census was making dire predictions as to the effect of AIDS on life expectancy, infant and child mortality and population size and structure in a number of AIDS affected countries. Despite this it was not until 1997 that the United Nations began to consider HIV/AIDS as a development issue. This article looks at how the international community (still) fails to take HIV/AIDS into account in setting development goals. The article argues that this myopic view means that in 2015, when we assess the development goals, we are certain to have 'failed' in a number of countries and, therefore, that a new realism in target setting is imperative. There is a need to understand better the impact of the disease by taking into account that it is a long-wave event with a complex current and future impact. Sustained equitable development will be essential in dealing with this impact.

• HIV/AIDS financing: a case for improving the quality and quantity of aid NANA K. POKU

  There is no doubt that increasing amounts of funding are needed to provide a full package of HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and mitigation interventions to Africa. However, even the existing funding flows are posing considerable challenges at a national level. In the quest for rapid results, donors have too often chosen to alleviate the lack of local capacity by bringing in foreign technical assistance or building parallel systems for delivering commodities such as drugs that may not be sustainable over the long term once external assistance stops. Even when such interventions may be relevant, they do not address the biggest challenge, namely how to build up the capacity and the systems needed for large-scale implementation of the AIDS response. This article argues that to attain the needed efficacy in HIV/AIDS mitigation programmes, further sustainable increase in external financing is certainly required (particularly for treatment programmes), but even more important is the need to implement them.

• HIV/AIDS and security: fact, fiction and evidence—a report to UNAIDS TONY BARNETT, GWYN PRINS

  The link between HIV/AIDS and 'security' is said by many to be well understood, particularly that between the movement and activities of uniformed services and the epidemic. There are strong opinions widely asserted. But recent research undertaken for UNAIDS by LSEAIDS (which brings together leading social scientists at the LSE to confront the social and economic implications of HIV/AIDS), reveals that this is not at all the case. The evidence base is patchy—strikingly so. It has been over-interpreted and even misinterpreted in the rush to respond to a perceived threat by asserting generalizations that do not stand up. In this article the arguments and some of the evidence are reviewed, as are the forces advocating a precipitate response based on poor evidence. The article describes the principles that should underlie an empirically more robust approach.

Book Reviews

International Relations theory

• The political philosophy of cosmopolitanism. Edited by Gillian Brock and Harry Brighouse
• Justice beyond borders: a global political theory. By Simon Caney
• Challenging America's global preeminence: Russia's quest for multipolarity. By Thomas Ambrosio
• Martin Wight: four seminal thinkers in international thought, Machiavelli, Grotius, Kant and Mazzini. Edited by Gabriele Wight and Brian Porter

Human rights and ethics

• The democracy makers: human rights and the politics of global order. By Nicolas Guilhot

International law and organization

• American exceptionalism and human rights. Edited by Michael Ignatieff
• International organizations and their exercise of sovereign powers. By Danesh Sarooshi

Conflict, security and armed forces

• My year in Iraq: the struggle to build a future of hope. By L. Paul Bremer III, with Malcolm McConnell
• The far enemy: why jihad went global. By Fawaz Gerges
• The norms of war: cultural beliefs and modern conflict. By Theo Farrell
• The West's last chance: will we win the clash of civilizations? By Tony Blankley
• The killing trap: genocide in the twentieth century. By Manus I. Midlarsky

Politics, democracy and social affairs

• Politik der Götter: Europa und der neue Fundamentalismus. By Gret Haller

Ethnicity and cultural politics

• The dark side of democracy: explaining ethnic cleansing. By Michael Mann
• Understanding anti-Americanism: its origins and impact at home and abroad. Edited by Paul Hollander
• Multiculturalism in Asia. Edited by Will Kymlicka and Baogang He

Political economy, economics and development

• Capitalism: as if the world matters. By Jonathon Porritt
• World development report 2006: equity and development. By the World Bank
• The rise of Spanish multinationals: European business in the global economy. By Mauro F. Guillén
• Globalizing international political economy. Edited by Nicola Phillips

History

• US internal security assistance to South Vietnam: insurgency, subversion and public order. By William Rosenau

Europe

• Alcide De Gasperi: un percorso europeo. Edited by Eckart Conze, Gustavo Corni and Paolo Pombeni
• Making the world autonomous: a global role for the European Union. By Anthony Clunies-Ross
• Universities and the Europe of knowledge: ideas, institutions and policy entrepreneurship in European Union higher education policy. By Anne Corbett
• The dynamics of European integration: why and when EU institutions matter. By Derek Beach
• Constructing the path to eastern enlargement: the uneven policy impact of EU identity. By Ulrich Sedelmeier
• The geopolitics of Euro-Atlantic integration. Edited by Hans Mouritzen and Anders Wivel

Russia and Eurasia

• Central Asia's second chance. By Martha Brill Olcott
• Democracy derailed in Russia: the failure of open politics. By M. Steven Fish

Middle East and North Africa

• Iran's strategic weapons programmes: a net assessment. Edited by Gary Samore
• Israeli democracy at the crossroads. Edited by Raphael Cohen-Almagor
• Israeli institutions at the crossroads. Edited by Raphael Cohen-Almagor

Sub-Saharan Africa

• Kupilikula: governance and the invisible realm in Mozambique. By Harry G. West
• Apartheid South Africa and African states: from pariah to middle power, 1961–1994. By Roger Pfister
• Politics in southern Africa: state and society in transition. By Gretchen Bauer and Scott D. Taylor
• Central Africa: crises, reform and reconstruction. Edited by E. S. D. Formin and John W. Forje

Asia and Pacific

• Untying the knot: making peace in the Taiwan Strait. By Richard C. Bush
• Dangerous Strait: the US-Taiwan-China crisis. Edited by Nancy Bernkopf Tucker
• The Thaksinization of Thailand. By Duncan McCargo and Ukrist Pathmanand

North America

• The 50% American: immigration and national identity in an age of terror. By Stanley A. Renshon
• The American era: power and strategy for the 21st century. By Robert J. Lieber

Latin America and Caribbean

• Democracy in Latin America: political change in comparative perspective
• Gendered paradoxes: women's movements, state restructuring and global development in Ecuador. By Amy Lind
• Cuba, the United States, and the post-Cold War world: the international dimensions of the Washington-Havana relationship. Edited by Morris Morley and Chris McGillion
• Rethinking development in Latin America. Edited by Charles H. Wood and Bryan R. Roberts

Other books received

Index of books reviewed