Articles by Emile Badarin
Middle East Critique, 2024
This article examines the recent wave of recognition of Palestine by two distinct groups of state... more This article examines the recent wave of recognition of Palestine by two distinct groups of states: Caribbean nations (Bahamas, Barbados, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago) and Western European countries (Ireland, Norway, and Spain). It makes theoret- ical and empirical contributions, highlighting the role of perform- ance and presentation in state recognition politics. It emphasizes the creative aspect of recognition by examining how the manner of performing, narrating and presenting recognition to the world influences other states, encouraging them to adopt similar recog- nition policies. The analysis reveals a predominant focus on polit- ical, security and geopolitical considerations, underscoring the inherently political nature of state recognition. The article high- lights the significance of the performance and presentation of recognition to the broader public, generating added value to induce other states to follow suit. The article emphasizes the cru- cial role of contextual factors in informing the decision-making process of recognizing new states. It identifies two interconnected aspects driving the justification for recognizing Palestine: the for- eign policy ambitions of the recognizing states and the impera- tive of maintaining consistency in their diplomatic stances. Recognition remains a symbolic act whose power and effect are deeply contingent and uncertain in the absence of the recognized entity’s facts of sovereignty.
Territory, Politics, Governance , 2023
This article examines international politics of recognition in the increasingly multipolar global... more This article examines international politics of recognition in the increasingly multipolar global environment, with a specific focus on recognition events in Kosovo, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Crimea, the Occupied Golan Heights, Jerusalem, Western Sahara, Luhansk and Donetsk. It reveals that the recent surge in recognition is propelled by geopolitical and geographical motivations, which undermine the normative significance of territorial integrity, non-recognition and self-determination in recognition politics. The article proposes a thesis that situates recognition within the context of geopolitics, spatial management and power dynamics that expand our understanding of the broader impacts of recognition beyond the traditional emphasis on statehood emergence and prevention. Recognition has become entangled in geopolitical contestations between influential global players seeking to normatively legitimise and normalise conquest, occupation and colonisation. In this context, geopolitical considerations have overridden the normative and legal weight of the well-institutionalised norms of territorial recognition. This underscores the gap between recognition norms and practices and demonstrates the explanatory power of geopolitics.
Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (Institute for Foreign Relations), 2021
The essay reflects on the cultural dimensions of the imperial invasions of Afghanistan in the wa... more The essay reflects on the cultural dimensions of the imperial invasions of Afghanistan in the wake of the US retreat from the country in 2021. It argues that Afghanistan can be added to the list of failed liberal peace and statebuilding interventions undertaken since the 1990s, and this further underlines the need to critically scrutinise the whole neo-colonial practice of exporting the supposedly ‘universal’ values of the ‘superior' culture to discipline the unruly periphery. Because Afghans remain loyal to their traditions, they appear to outsiders to be culturally stagnant and lacking the ability to change. And when this flawed reading is enmeshed into foreign policy imaginaries, it provides the perfect rhetorical ammunition for imperialist civilising missions and interventions that take on the guise of freedom and humanitarianism. Culture and values are not used to champion co-existence and productive exchange, but to serve power and hegemony.
Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen, 2022
Middle East Eye édition française, 2022
Ces mêmes gouvernements qui ont sollicité la Cour pénale internationale vis-à-vis de l’Ukraine us... more Ces mêmes gouvernements qui ont sollicité la Cour pénale internationale vis-à-vis de l’Ukraine usent délibérément de tactiques judiciaires et politiques pour retarder et entraver une enquête similaire en Palestine
Middle East Eye, 2022
The same governments that solicited the ICC in Ukraine have been deliberately using legal and pol... more The same governments that solicited the ICC in Ukraine have been deliberately using legal and political tactics to delay and obstruct a similar investigation in Palestine.
Comparative Southeast European Studies , 2022
This article examines current energy-related disputes in the Eastern Mediterranean. It does so by... more This article examines current energy-related disputes in the Eastern Mediterranean. It does so by situating them in the context of the Middle East's broader geopolitical landscape and by showing how global powers' interests and involvement have become contingent on the international and regional political environments. The latter augmented the intensity of the contestation and helped move identifiable and tangible factors, such as Exclusive Economic Zones, into the imaginative realms of geopolitics. They also provided the concerned actors with opportunities to balance out their adversaries and, by implication, diminished their willingness to compromise. Although the global powers' interest in Eastern Mediterranean energy resources is limited, the European Union does have interests in these reserves and related aspects. The fact that the monetisation of these resources is highly dependent on the EU market provides the EU with an immense amount of "buyer power" to stabilise the region and potentially balance the fears of both Greece and Turkey.
Critical Sociology , 2021
This article cross-examines the external and internal dimensions of settler-colonial politics of ... more This article cross-examines the external and internal dimensions of settler-colonial politics of recognition. In settler-colonialism, recognition represents another medium for the elimination of the natives, whose existence is considered as a source of threat, uncertainty and curtailed settler sovereignty. Settler sovereign statehood is contingent on the reengineering of the land-population relationship in the conquered territory. The settler-colonial politics of recognition seeks to institutionalise particular patterns of values that ultimately embody the logic of elimination at the normative level in an attempt to disrupt the natives' relationship with their land. This article critically interrogates Israel's politics of recognition and demonstrates how this politics is applied to establish internal and external normative scaffolding to normalise and legitimise the settler desire for sovereignty and invulnerability. Israel's recognition politics dovetails with sources of sovereignty-territory and population-and evokes previous vulnerabilities and victimhood to elicit a sense of urgency and moral validation.
British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 2021
This article critically examines the association between resilience and local concepts in the dis... more This article critically examines the association between resilience and local concepts in the discourse of hegemonic international actors and shows how it operates and for what purposes. It reveals the general practice of co-optation of locally-resonant practices and notions as a medium for conceptual transfer. By interrogating the interplay between the Palestinian concept of sumud (steadfastness) and resilience, this article argues that projections of exogenous notions seek to graft dominant understandings onto local concepts, tropes and practices, and, in so doing, facilitate the internalisation of the dominant rationality. This interplay creates a simulacrum that casts a local, and even national semblance over resilience interventions, facilitating the acceptance of its externally defined registers without much resistance. As such, this discursive process is integral to the performativity of resilience-building. Further, the article argues that viewing steadfastness to colonialism from the same prism of resilience engenders intuitive evocations whereby colonialism and its invoked crises and destruction may be considered as learning opportunities for survival and development. And when this perspective is extended further, the status quo of colonial domination in Palestine can be construed as a positive catalyst that inspires economic, political and social adaptation.
Third World Quarterly, 2021
This article recalls the recognition-colonialism conjuncture to examine how prior normative right... more This article recalls the recognition-colonialism conjuncture to examine how prior normative rights to self-determination, independence and decolonisation influence current recognition practice, and asks how they compete with contingent factors. The interrogation of this inter-pretive process provides insights into how recognition of states operates. This reveals how state recognition in current colonial conflicts is qualified based on an assessment of contingent factors such as the international consensus and level of involvement. For this purpose, Sweden's recognition practice towards Palestine and Western Sahara present apposite empirical cases. This article argues that the practice of recognition is a hermeneutic and evolving process, which is contingent on the interpretation of different situational and political aspects. This has far-reaching implications for international recognition and order, as colonised/occupied peoples' prior normative right to self-determination and independence ends up being qualified, contested and adjudicated in connection with contingent political factors. Link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01436597.2021.1884064
Mediterranean Politics, 2020
This essay examines the implications of the continued spread of Covid-19 on the political, econom... more This essay examines the implications of the continued spread of Covid-19 on the political, economic and security challenges that confront Jordan. It argues that the country's response to the pandemic constitutes a signi cant juncture in the counter-revolt and counter-reform in the region. The reactions of the Jordanian government unfolded as a process of power consolidation in the o ce of the appointed prime minister while weakening the democratic institutions , organized socio-political dissent and civil society. Through this policy, the Government has sought to preempt popular demands for political reforms and participation in a context where the rentier social contract has become unsus-tainable. The deferred Israeli plan to formally annexe parts of the West Bank represents serious threats to the tenuous balance in the country and its century-long security strategy. Although the survival of the Hashemite Kingdom has been at stake many times throughout its history, the post-Covid-19 con uence of challenges is unique. The country's reliance on a conventional security-driven approach may not just fail to address the problem but could increase the risks.
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European Security, 2020
This article examines empirical resilience interventions to demonstrate how resilience-building i... more This article examines empirical resilience interventions to demonstrate how resilience-building is utilised to govern in non-liberal settings and how its political and economic positionality shapes concrete resilience projects, processes of inclusion and exclusion and the hierarchies between them. It argues that the politics and economy that undergird resilience, coupled with the lack of freedom, render empirical resilience less fit for the purpose of governmentality in non-liberal and authoritarian conditions. In these circumstances, resilience-building governs through discipline. Resilience is structurally oriented towards pinpointed interventions directed at specific targets, subjects and fields. It unfolds as a hierarchal and top-down process, which positions local actors and concerns at the bottom. The inclusion or exclusion of subjects, objects and goals and the hierarchies that underpin empirical resilience are not inherent to specific resilience thinking, but rather derive from unfixed and contingent foreign policy rationalities and instruments. This contingency highlights the indeterminate nature of resilience, which opens space for contestation and decoupling. Resilience's meaning and content are dependent on the dynamics of the foreign policy instruments. The policy-driven nature of resilience intervention renders its theorisation as a difficult challenge.
Foreign Policy Analysis, 2019
This article examines politics of states recognition. Despite the signifi- cance of the concept o... more This article examines politics of states recognition. Despite the signifi- cance of the concept of recognition to international politics, only recently has international relations (IR) scholarship begun to appreciate its analyti- cal value. How states employ their prerogatives to grant or withhold recog- nition has received less attention in IR. The article extends this discussion by shedding light on politics of recognition in contexts of contested states and territorial conflicts. It does so by scrutinizing Sweden’s recognition of the Palestinian statehood in October 2014. The findings underline the im- portance of foreign policy and recognition narratives for explaining and critically evaluating recognition in such contexts; therefore, the analysis of foreign policy needs to be integrated more consistently into the study and theorization of the problem of contested states’ recognition.
المسألة الطائفية و صناعة الأقليات في الوطن العربي, 2017
Umran: Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, 2015
حول فرص بناء أفق سياسي تعددي في دول الثورات العربية
Revolutionary Instability: An Opportunity ... more حول فرص بناء أفق سياسي تعددي في دول الثورات العربية
Revolutionary Instability: An Opportunity to Construct a Pluralist Political Horizon’, Umran: Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, 11 no.3: 119–137. Arabic.
Conflict and Society: Advances in Research , 2017
Th is article explores the theoretical bases of the Israel-Palestine peace process to see how tha... more Th is article explores the theoretical bases of the Israel-Palestine peace process to see how that impacts peacebuilding and everyday life in Palestine. It begins by examining the lens through which classical and contemporary realist and liberal thought approaches peace, nonpeace, war, and peacebuilding. Second, it examines how knowledge production on peacebuilding has been applied in the Israel-Palestine peace process based on selected confi dential documents from the negotiations' record that was made available in the so-called Palestine Papers published by the Al Jazeera Transparency Unit in 2011. My analysis of this source reveals how an embedded security and market metaphor regulated the Israel-Palestine peace negotiations. I argue that in an ambiguous context of decades-long negotiations, the results are in eff ect a " buyout " in which security is understood in exclusionary terms by the powerful side.
Settler Colonial Studies, 2015
In the pursuit of ethnically based settlements, Israel continues to illegally confiscate Palestin... more In the pursuit of ethnically based settlements, Israel continues to illegally confiscate Palestinian land and populate it with settlers. A system of spatial control was devised to maintain the pace of settler spatial expansion. It is an ad hoc and elastic system that is continuously revised and upgraded, while new elements are added to it. This paper studies the entrance/exit element that was added to the control infrastructure after the second Intifada. The entrance/exit construct is an added detail in a spatial order that seeks to process the ‘entrance into’ and ‘exit from’ Palestinian urban areas, enclaves or reservations. This order aims to constrain the Palestinians into an increasingly shrinking space within the accumulative settler-colonialist process of land expropriation. Furthermore, this structure provides reference nodes that offer a perspective from above over the native space and movement. Consequently, these elements should be seen as physical structures that modulate both humans and space.
Books by Emile Badarin
Routledge, 2016
Palestinian Political Discourse presents an in-depth examination of Palestin- ian political disco... more Palestinian Political Discourse presents an in-depth examination of Palestin- ian political discourse since an-Nakba (the Catastrophe) in 1948 and stitches together the underlying mechanisms and rules that have shaped Palestinian pol- itics, in turn synthesizing, interpreting, and scrutinizing these rules. Studying the question of Palestine discursively offers new ways to rethink political agency, structures, identity, institutions, and power relations while interpreting Palestin- ian actions. This book adds new understanding to Palestinian political agency by explaining how political actions were constructed. Discourse analysis methodol- ogy underlies the critical examination of the genealogy of concepts and frames that have oriented Palestinian political thought. Contrary to established views that ascribe shifts in Palestinian politics primarily to external factors and inter- national changes, this book demonstrates how transformation has been a continuing inbuilt feature within the discursive regime and that dramatic shifts were only effects of much deeper, slowly evolving changes.
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Book Chapters by Emile Badarin
The state-bound conception of diplomatic practices is deficient. It fails to account for the dive... more The state-bound conception of diplomatic practices is deficient. It fails to account for the diversity of international actors who do not fit the nation-state geopolitical ordering. Unrecognised and subaltern subjects have constantly contested this structuring. Although excluded from orthodox praxis of diplomacy, self-determination and anti-colonial movements are always already involved in diplomatic practices as a means to resist their elimination from the world’s map. Diplomacy literature has increasingly become attentive to the diplomatic conduct of unsovereign actors and provided instructive conceptual contributions to interpret this phenomenon. This chapter explores the less considered diplomacy of liberation movements that have a priori right for self-determination and self-representation, and does this by examining official diplomatic interactions between Palestine and the European Union (EU).
in Badarin, E. Palestinian Political Discourse: Between Exile and Occupation, 2016
This chapter analyzes the representation of the material and ideational existence of Palestine in... more This chapter analyzes the representation of the material and ideational existence of Palestine in Palestinian political discourse. It demonstrates how logics of division and market, embedded in peace rituals, helped to dismantle the imagined totality of Palestine. The fragmented territorial and ideational framing is projected onto Palestinians as an imagined political community. The cause of Palestine is therefore spatially and demographically subdivided. I then explore the market-like operations and a mathematico-judicial schema of ratios and referentiality that regulate discursive flow. The metaphor- ical market, in conjunction with the mathematico-judicial formula, modulated key aspects of the conflict and correlated them with the ideal of peace. This logic objectified land, the human body, and language.
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Articles by Emile Badarin
Available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/2WNIRKX5RJAIHXDCANTN/full?target=10.1080/13629395.2020.1850624
Revolutionary Instability: An Opportunity to Construct a Pluralist Political Horizon’, Umran: Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, 11 no.3: 119–137. Arabic.
Books by Emile Badarin
Read a review of the book: http://journals.equinoxpub.com/index.php/JLD/article/viewFile/33842/pdf
Book Chapters by Emile Badarin
Available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/2WNIRKX5RJAIHXDCANTN/full?target=10.1080/13629395.2020.1850624
Revolutionary Instability: An Opportunity to Construct a Pluralist Political Horizon’, Umran: Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, 11 no.3: 119–137. Arabic.
Read a review of the book: http://journals.equinoxpub.com/index.php/JLD/article/viewFile/33842/pdf
In contrast to previous Euro-settler-colonial genocides, the unfolding genocide in Gaza is being livestreamed and witnessed by everyone. Therefore, in addition to intent and military capabilities, genocide requires protective diplomatic and media/propaganda cover.
The EU, along with the US, has been providing this cover.
To truly understand this moral meltdown, it is essential to place this collective western response within a broader context.
The western world is grappling with a significant "mental breakdown" in the wake of the ongoing global redistribution of power, which is shifting away from the Euro-American sphere. This response is quite understandable because relinquishing centuries-old colonial privileges and licence to dominate non-European nations and the world is undeniably challenging.
Today, the western establishment and its mainstream media have returned to the Euro-colonial and racist foundations which underpinned the licence to invade, settle, and commit genocide in the Americas and elsewhere in the world since 1492.
Les dirigeants, les politiciens, les experts et les personnalités médiatiques de l’ensemble de l’échiquier politique, qu’il s’agisse de la droite, des conservateurs, des libéraux, du centre et de la gauche, ont tous apporté leur soutien au régime d’apartheid et colonial israélien.
On this occasion, Jewish Israelis also celebrate their independence. Europe has both a direct and an indirect role in the dispossession of Palestinians and the founding of Israel, so it is not surprising that many European officials join in celebrating this settler-colonial project.
In trying to have the Arab people talk to Israel, journalists have sought popular recognition that would bestow normative legitimacy on Israeli apartheid and injustice. To refuse to speak is an act of resistance. It is paradoxically speaking truth to the power of Arab regimes, Israel and the rest of the world.
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To be sure, it is not the responsibility of the EU to enforce democracy and respect for human rights in Egypt or elsewhere. This is up to the Egyptian people. But the EU is responsible for its actions, which contribute to the normalisation of totalitarianism. The vestiges of stability in Egypt derive from repression, and in this regard, the EU’s stability-first approach perpetuates the cycle of oppression. For this, the EU must be held accountable.