Browsing by Author "Kothari, R.K."

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Approaches to the study of environmental security
(Faculty of Humanities, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Kothari, R.K.
Since the emergence of the nation state system, international security has been understood and practiced with reference to the needs and interests of states. The concept of security however took a different shape during the twentieth century when critical voices were raised for the protection of human beings and the global environment. Thus an alternative approach to security emerged that gave priority to individual and societal dimensions. In the process, the scope of security was broadened and a multi-sectoral approach was suggested to study the same. Environmental sector was one of the primary areas of multi-sectoral approaches. As a result, environmental security became high on the agenda at the national and global levels. By the twentieth century, environmental issues had been on the international agenda for a whole generation of political leaders, governmental officials, scientists and concerned citizens. The major theoretical perspectives for understanding global politics have shed light on international environmental cooperation, even though it is fairly a new area in world politics. In looking at the prospects for environmental cooperation, realism expects cooperation among sovereign states would be very difficult because international agreements reflect interests of the most powerful states strongly. Liberals, in contrast, remain inclined to believe the reality of ecological interdependence. According to them, environmental problems could only be resolved through new and far reaching mechanism of cooperation. The Marxists on the other hand blamed Capitalism as the main factor for environmental degradation. The feminist thinkers drew parallels between male control over nature and men’s control over women as connected. This apart, Green Political Thinkers provide a useful base for Green ideas about international relations. In this backdrop, this paper attempts to study the concept of environmental security through the prisms of various approaches cited above.
Global Justice: A Conceptual Framework
(Research Centre for Social Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Kothari, R.K.
Global justice has entered the mainframe of global intellectual discourse. In fact, the intellectual stage for theories of imperialist exploitation was set forth early in the twentieth century by Rosa Luxemburg and Lenin. These theories were rediscovered and reinvented in the 1970s when scholars belonging to the dependency school took on the modernization theorists. The dependency theorists argued that countries of the developing world could neither replicate the path taken by the west, nor compete with the advanced capitalist world, because of their shared experience of colonialism. Though formally colonialism had ended by 1960s, the experience had succeeded in casting a rather long shadow. In fact, political philosophers in the twentieth century had largely focused their theorizing about justice almost exclusively within the jurisdiction of sovereign state; though recent years have witnessed a marked extension to the global sphere. The present global order comprises treaty and conventions, regulating territorial sovereignty, security, trade, human rights and environment. Politically the UN Charter codifies the most significant rules governing this system. Economically, the Bretton Woods institutions – IMF, World Bank, WTO – form a network intended to prevent war and foster worldwide betterment. The moot point is that there does not have any compatible institution like the sovereign state at the internationnal level that could ensure global justice. International system is not sovereign; whereas, global justice requires global sovereignty. In other words, the absence of sovereignty over the states makes it practically infeasible to pursue global justice. The present paper attempts to focus on the evolving debates centered around the concept of global justice during the twentieth century and beyond.