Dear colleagues,

This is just a reminder that the ICU Social Science Research Institute symposium on "Political Violence, Human Security and the Civilizing Process" with keynote speaker Professor Andrew Linklater, the Woodrow Wilson Chair of International Politics at the University of Aberystwyth (UK), will be held tomorrow at the International Conference Room at Dialogue House.
For more details see: http://subsite.icu.ac.jp/ssri/

Directions to ICU and a campus map can be found here:

http://www.icu.ac.jp/en/access.html
http://www.icu.ac.jp/en/info/facilities.html

Title: "Political Violence, Human Security and the Civilizing Process"
Date and Time: February 22 (Sat), 2014,
13:00–16:00

Location: International Conference Room, 2nd floor, Kiyoshi Togasaki Memorial Dialogue House, ICU.

Main sponsors: Social Science Research Institute (SSRI, ICU).
Language: English
Speakers and Presentations:
Prof. Andrew Linklater (University of Aberystwyth, UK) "Standards of Self-Restraint in World Politics"

This paper is part of a longer work that discusses the relationship between violence and civilization in the Western states-systems. The longer work ad dresses a tension within the writings of Martin Wight and Norbert Elias, spe cifically whether 'civilised' restraints on violence are stronger in the m ost recent phase of the modern states-system than in earlier epochs or wheth er the modern states-system is not substantially different from its predeces sors. The paper discusses some respects in which the relationship between vi olence and civilization is unique in the contemporary period.
It offers a p reliminary explanation of its uniqueness by drawing on the particular streng ths of process sociology and the English School study of international socie ty

Dr. Giorgio Shani (Director, SSRI)
"Civilizing Process or Civilizing Mission? Toward a Post-Western Understanding of Human Security"

This paper seeks to critically interrogate the view that Human Security can be seen as a manifestation of what Norbert Elias aptly termed the civilizing process. Despite its recent adoption by the United Nations General Assembly in September 2012 and its institutionalization through the United Nations s ystem, Human Security may be viewed –not only in its'narrow' but als o its 'broad' guises—as the latest instantiation of the 'civilizing mission'
facilitating the continued intervention of the western-dominated 'international community' in previously colonized areas of the world. Crit ically reworked, however, Human Security has the potential to constitute a p owerful 'global ethic' by distancing itself from its western 'secular' o rigins and recognizing the multiple religio-cultural contexts in which human dignity is embedded.

Biographies:

Professor Andrew LINKLATER is Woodrow Wilson Professor of International Politics, University of Aberystwyth, UK. Professor Linklater has been one of the most innovative thinkers in International Relations, introducing critical and ethical elements into the discipline which has forced it to rethink many of its basic assumptions. Educated at Aberdeen, Oxford and the London School of Economics (LSE), he joined the Department of International Politics at Aberystwyth as the 10th Woodrow Wilson Professor in January 2000.
Author of numerous books and journal articles on International Relations, Professor Linklater is probably best known for the following works: Men and Citizens in the Theory of International Relations (Macmillan 1982); Beyond Realism and Marxism: Critical Theory and International Relations (1990); The Transformation of Political
Community: Ethical Foundations of the Post-Westphalian Era, (Polity Press 1998); and Critical Theory and World
Politics: Sovereignty, Citizenship and Humanity (Routledge 2007). In 2006, he also jointly authored, with Hidemi Suganami, The English School of International Relations: A Contemporary Reassessment (Cambridge University Press). He is currently completing a three volume series on the problem of harm in world politics.
The first volume, The Problem of Harm in World
Politics: Theoretical Investigations was published by Cambridge University Press in 2011 and the second Harm in World History will be out soon.

Dr. Giorgio SHANI is Director of the Social Science Research Institute and Senior Associate Professor of Politics and International Relations at International Christian University, Tokyo, Japan. He is author of Sikh Nationalism and Identity in a Global Age (Routledge 2007) and co-editor of Protecting Human Security in a Post 9/11 World (Palgrave 2007).
Recently, he served as Chair of the Global Development Section of the International Studies Association (ISA) and has just finished a book on Religion, Identity and Human Security (Routledge April 2014) which forms the basis of this presentation.

Best wishes,

Giorgio Shani

Dr. Giorgio Shani
Director, Social Science Research Institute, Associate Director of Rotary Peace Center, International Christian University,
3-10-2 Osawa, Mitaka, Tokyo 181-8585, Japan
Tel: +81 (0)422-33-3708, Fax: +81 (0)422-33-3229
E-mail: gshani@icu.ac.jp

http://researchers.icu.ac.jp/Profiles/6/0000527/prof_e.html