Some blame the violence and unrest in the Muslim world on Islam itself, arguing that the religion and its history is inherently bloody. Others blame the United States, arguing that American attempts ...to spread democracy by force have destabilized the region, and that these efforts are somehow radical or unique. Challenging these views, The Clash of Ideas in World Politics reveals how the Muslim world is in the throes of an ideological struggle that extends far beyond the Middle East, and how struggles like it have been a recurring feature of international relations since the dawn of the modern European state.
"One of the most important political books of 2018."-Rod Dreher,American ConservativeOf the three dominant ideologies of the twentieth century-fascism, communism, and liberalism-only the last ...remains. This has created a peculiar situation in which liberalism's proponents tend to forget that itisan ideology and not the natural end-state of human political evolution. As Patrick Deneen argues in this provocative book, liberalism is built on a foundation of contradictions: it trumpets equal rights while fostering incomparable material inequality; its legitimacy rests on consent, yet it discourages civic commitments in favor of privatism; and in its pursuit of individual autonomy, it has given rise to the most far-reaching, comprehensive state system in human history. Here, Deneen offers an astringent warning that the centripetal forces now at work on our political culture are not superficial flaws but inherent features of a system whose success is generating its own failure.
The Great Recession, institutional dysfunction, a growing divide between urban and rural prospects, and failed efforts to effectively address immigration have paved the way for a populist backlash ...that disrupts the postwar bargain between political elites and citizens. Whether today's populism represents a corrective to unfair and obsolete policies or a threat to liberal democracy itself remains up for debate. Yet this much is clear: these challenges indict the triumphalism that accompanied liberal democratic consolidation after the collapse of the Soviet Union. To respond to today's crisis, good leaders must strive for inclusive economic growth while addressing fraught social and cultural issues, including demographic anxiety, with frank attention. Although reforms may stem the populist tide, liberal democratic life will always leave some citizens unsatisfied. This is a permanent source of vulnerability, but liberal democracy will endure so long as citizens believe it is worth fighting for.
In 2002 the International Institute of Environment and Development published the landmark report Breaking New Ground: Mining, Minerals and Sustainable Development (MMSD). The report portrayed an ...industry distrusted by stakeholders and under threat from opposition groups. When read closely, the MMSD report reveals an inextricable link between industry's ‘survival’ instincts and the notion of a social licence. Within the context of a growing divergence around the expectations of minerals-led development, social licence has emerged as an industry response to opposition and a mechanism to ensure the viability of the sector. The objective of this article is to reinvigorate discussion and debate over how best to frame the industry's social and environmental obligations and how these obligations can be met by the sector. Where social licence has contributed to raising the profile of social issues within a predominantly industrial discourse, a primary failure is its inability to articulate a collaborative developmental agenda for the sector or a pathway forward in restoring the lost confidence of impacted communities, stakeholders, and pressure groups. We argue that a necessary first step in this process is for industry to reconcile its internal risk-orientation with external expectations which requires a less defensive and more constructive approach to stakeholder engagement and collaboration.
► Social licence provides limited utility where sensitivity to CSR and mining is considered low. ► Social licence as currently applied at odds with the objectives of sustainable development. ► Social licence de-prioritises company led engagement on core development issues.
Abstract
If it continues, deglobalization may lead not to atomization but two overlapping international orders: a liberal one (LIO) led by the United States, and an authoritarian–capitalist one ...(ACIO) led by China. This equilibrium could emerge because a central purpose of international orders is to preserve the domestic regimes of their Great Power sponsors. The United States and China have markedly different domestic regimes, and so as China continues to grow in power and influence, tension over the content of international order should continue to grow. I borrow from Darwinian evolution the notion of ‘niche construction’: just as organisms alter phenotype selection by manipulating their natural environments, states can alter the ‘selection’ of domestic regimes by shaping their international environments. Modes of international niche construction include foreign regime promotion, interdependence, transnational interaction and multilateral institutions. The liberal democratic niche constructed by the United States and its allies after the Second World War preserved democracy for many decades. Today, China is attempting through various means to build a niche that will eliminate the liberal bias in international institutions and safeguard its own Market-Leninist regime. The resulting ACIO would select for autocracy and hence be partially separate from the LIO, which selects for liberal democracy.
This review article offers a critique of the social license concept, and of the debate surrounding it. In order to best understand what is meant by “social license”, one must look beyond its ...constituent terminology and instead examine the core drivers of contemporary mining practice. The working assumption inside the industry is that if disapproval becomes too intense there is a chance that members of the community will interrupt mining activities. This is what I refer to as ‘the fear of Mineras Interruptus’. If there is any meaning to attribute to the term ‘social license to operate’ – it is to be found in the fear of losing access – because other factors relating to social performance or benefits are considered peripheral. The author argues that the mining industry’s adoption and application of the concept should be viewed critically and not promoted on face value.
Abstract
Environmental, social and governance pressures should feature in future scenario planning about the transition to a low carbon future. As low-carbon energy technologies advance, markets are ...driving demand for energy transition metals. Increased extraction rates will augment the stress placed on people and the environment in extractive locations. To quantify this stress, we develop a set of global composite environmental, social and governance indicators, and examine mining projects across 20 metal commodities to identify the co-occurrence of environmental, social and governance risk factors. Our findings show that 84% of platinum resources and 70% of cobalt resources are located in high-risk contexts. Reflecting heightened demand, major metals like iron and copper are set to disturb more land. Jurisdictions extracting energy transition metals in low-risk contexts are positioned to develop and maintain safeguards against mining-related social and environmental risk factors.
Any functional utility gained through corporate social responsibility (CSR) depends on “responsibility” as the governing principle between “corporate” and “social” interests. We argue that Porter and ...Kramer’s highly popularised notion of “shared value” has been pivotal to the erosion of responsibility as a moderating concept in CSR. Under this approach, “strategic” CSR becomes an instrument to leverage corporate advantage, rather than fulfil social responsibilities and address business-related harms. In mining, this approach has supported shallow, derivative ideas including the wellknown CSR artefact: “social license to operate” (SLTO). We argue that CSR, and the related concept corporate social irresponsibility (CSI), suffer from the single actor problem, where the corporation too easily becomes the exclusive focus of analysis. We advocate for a reinvigorated debate about mining and social responsibility in which the corporation is but one actor in the (ir)responsibility landscape.
•Critical review of strategic and responsive approaches to CSR.•Challenges the single actor problem in CSR debates.•Illustrates the incongruence between social license and responsive CSR.•Advocates a multi-actor approach to analysing responsibility outcomes in mining and CSR.
Physical displacement, relocation and resettlement are widely acknowledged as posing enormous social risk. For over four decades, scholars, campaigners and project-affected people have sought to ...highlight the effects of development-induced displacement and resettlement (DIDR). Increasingly, the generic set of international standards that are used to manage cases of DIDR are being tested by the unique challenges posed by mining-induced displacement and resettlement (MIDR). In this article the authors provide a critical appraisal of current thinking and practice relating to MIDR. Findings indicate that MIDR is largely characterised by factors that occur in 'brownfield' project scenarios; even when the initial displacement commences in otherwise 'new' mining developments. The article identifies five critical and distinguishing factors associated with MIDR. These factors are explored in light of contemporary policy debates surrounding the mining industry, including 'consent', 'negotiated agreements' and overall effectiveness of existing social safeguards in regulating industry practice.
Grievance landscapes form in rapidly industrialising contexts where social and environmental impacts are inevitable. This paper focuses on the complex operational and organisational settings in which ...grievances arise and the industrial pathologies that form around resource development projects. The arguments draw on classic and contemporary literature on “grievance”, “right” and “entitlement”, and the authors’ own sustained engagement with global mining companies and local communities. Our contention is that the grievance landscape is far more critical to understanding environmental, human rights, and mining interactions than the managerial systems that companies construct to signal compliance with voluntary international norms. These managerial systems, or operational-level grievance mechanisms, map the procedural contours of how a local grievance would travel once it is made visible to the company. In practice, however, it is fiction, illegibility and invisibility that dominate. Across the pathologies, the common denominator is the corporate propensity to avoid recognising the legitimacy of a local grievance and the source of its cause.
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