The production of scientific instruments in America was neither a postwar phenomenon nor dramatically different from that of several other developed countries. It did, however, undergo a step-change in direction, size and style during and after the war. The American scientific instrument industry after 1945 was intimately dependent on, and shaped by, prior American and European experience. This was true of the specific genres of instrument produced commercially; to links between industry and science; and, just as importantly, to manufacturing (...) practices and cultures. I will argue that, despite the new types of instrument commercialized after the war, this historical continuity of links with science and scientists guided and constrained the design and manufacture of these products. Nevertheless, new designers, manufacturers and customers gradually transformed the culture of scientific instruments in the second half of the century. -/- This chapter deals with a subset of the American instrument industry, namely the measuring and monitoring instruments manufactured for scientific use. Even with the specification of ‘scientific’ instruments, however, these borders are rather artificial and unclear: instrument making from the seventeenth through the twentieth century has generally involved the fabrication of both standard products and custom-made devices for scientific use.2 In this context of sales quantities, ‘scientific’ instruments have often been defined as low-volume, special-order or custom devices. In a similar vein, ‘scientific’ instruments were commonly distinguished from ‘production’ instruments by context of usage, namely their very absence from – and indeed irrelevance to – production environments. This demarcation according to customer and environment was mirrored in at least one furth er respect: the training of their users. The classification into ‘scientific’ and ‘engineering’ applications was as fluid as the relationship between American universities and technical industries themselves.Despite these complementary definitions, the notion of the ‘scientific instrument’ was beginning to prove inadequate even at the turn of the twentieth century, and dramatically so when discussing the post-Second World War period. Definitions altered qualitatively after the Second World War in at least three further ways: (a) new genres of device altered the scope of the scientific instrument; (b) the contribution of State and military sponsorship of new forms of instrument became significant; and, (c) the postwar demand for specialist instruments increased rapidly, owing to wartime innovation, new applications and new customers. I will explore the evolution of instrument manufacturing in this changing context of new technology, funding, development and markets. (shrink)

The article analyzes the work of Hanno Kesting, Reinhart Koselleck, Roman Schnur, and Nicolaus Sombart—four young followers of Carl Schmitt in postwar Germany. Their “intellectual Schmittianism” was less than a full commitment to Schmitt’s political positions, yet had more than an arbitrary similarity with them: it pertained to assumptions, categories, and modes of thought. Drawing on Pocock’s terminology, I identify a particular “language” of intellectual Schmittianism, introduce its key components, and analyze their interaction. I focus on six categories derived (...) from Schmitt’s narrative of European political modernity: discrimination, historical parallels, secularization, global civil war, open/latent civil war, and category blurs. The analysis shows that these categories were interlinked argumentative devices rather than mere rhetoric and that they systematically upheld the postwar scholars’ arguments. While the Schmittian language enabled the young scholars to express their political skepticis... (shrink)

It seems so obvious today to identify Judaism as a “religion” that it comes as a surprise to learn that it is only since the Second World War that Judaism has been widely considered a "religion" by most non-Jewish Americans. The consensus among American Christians before then was that Judaism was a race. This changed with the war. Into this historical narrative about the dramatic transformations of post-WWII American Judaism, Postwar Stories brings the cultural achievements of two strands of (...) midcentury middlebrow literature: anti-antisemitism novels of the 1940s and Introduction to Judaism literature of the 1940s and 1950s. While middlebrow literature did not cause societal change on its own, the books and magazine articles analyzed in Postwar Stories furnished an arena for articulating and questioning explanations of postwar American Jews and Judaism. For Jewish readers, depictions of Jews in anti-antisemitism and Introduction to Judaism literature were capable of providing reassurance or harm, depending on the associations and emotions they evoked. For young people coming of age in the late 1940s, reading a popular novel about antisemitism that became an Academy Award-winning film, or encountering a Life magazine story about Judaism could make a strong impression on their understanding of the significance of antisemitism and Judaism in American culture. Popular culture matters when studying American attitudes, because books, magazine articles, and films provide an intimacy to otherwise foreign subjects, making them personally meaningful to readers and viewers. (shrink)

Conventional wisdom maintains that without government intervention, capitalism is prone to collapse, as it did during the 1930s, and that only Keynesian policies have stabilized post‐World War II capitalism. But recent research suggests that postwar economic stabilization is largely a statistical artifact, the result of poor prewar data, and that the Great Depression was caused, not by the inherent instability of capitalism, but by policy errors made by government agencies. Thus, we should not be so quick to credit the (...) economic successes of the last 70 years to enlightened intervention. (shrink)

In the 1940s, children in war-torn Japan would hear warning sirens and look skyward with dread, fearing a firebomb attack from enemy aircraft. But for young Jiro Horikoshi in The Wind Rises, airplanes mean ‘beautiful dreams’ and self-actualisation. Animation films like The Wind Rises (The Wind, 2013), In this Corner of the World (This Corner, 2016), The Boy and the Heron (The Boy, 2023) and Grave of the Fireflies (1988) focus on children’s agency in confronting Japan’s conflicts regarding memory, national (...) identity, and pacifism. The Wind explores Japan’s historical paradoxes, juxtaposing pride in innovation with a pacifist critique of militaristic nationalism. This Corner emphasises the plight of quotidian existence during wartime, highlighting collective memory and trauma. The Boy examines grief and healing through fantastical allegories, underscoring the significance of imagination in coping with trauma. This paper applies Igarashi’s theory of ‘absence presence,’ – referring to Japan’s self-protective absence of exploring the war’s haunting memories – Andrew Hoskins’s ecology of memories, and Michael Rothberg’s ‘multidirectional memory’ to contemplate the intricacies of nationalism in Japan. The paper explores these films within the context of national and international reactions to how Japan confronts its wartime past in the context of its postwar pacifist identity. (shrink)

This book argues against the widely celebrated utopia of -transparency- by showing, across a panorama of postwar French thought, how attempts to show the perils of transparency in politics, ethics, and knowledge led to major conceptual inventions, many of which we now take for granted.

Music and Postwar Transitions in the 19th and 20th Centuries is the first book to highlight the significance of the idea of 'postwar transition' in the field of music and to demonstrate how the contribution of musicians, composers, and their publics have influenced contemporary understandings of war. At the intersection of four domains including: the relationship between music and war culture, commemorative and consolatory dimensions of music, migration and exile, and the links between music, cultural diplomacy, and propaganda, (...) leading historians, political scientists, psychologists, and musicologists explore disruptions and connections to music through the backdrop of war. In turn, this volume sheds new light on what has been a blind spot in a growing historiography. (shrink)

The “war” in question is World War II. Beauvoir's two major travelogues, America Day by Day and The Long March, chronicle her first visit to the United States, for four months in 1947, and her 1955 trip to China. Their juxtapositions reveal Beauvoir's keen perceptive powers, her feminist proclivities, and her commitment to a philosophy of freedom. While much, though not all, of her description of the United States would be quite recognizable today, the Communist China of those early years (...) is in many important respects unrecognizable (which may make The Long March all the more interesting). This chapter summarizes some key points from each book and, as an incidental but significant reflection of the climate, particularly the racial, political, and intellectual climate of the times, points out some notable omissions from the first published English translation of Beauvoir's account of “her” America. (shrink)

This paper is an attempt at exploring the phenomenon of creation of strangers and estrangement as post-war trauma effects. It starts with an observation that post-war is a mental state manifesting itself in individuals as estrangement from themselves, environment, other people, and from the very meaning of life. The post-war trauma triggers a tendency for recovery and normalization of life, which, however, never ends. The paper focuses mainly on four aspects. Firstly, critical moments of the evolution of post-war periods in (...) Europe are discussed, starting with the end of war until now. Secondly, the evolution of change in mental moral grammar in specific post-war periods is looked upon. Thirdly, paths to recovery and normalization through the creation of strangers and estrangement in consecutive, critical post-war periods are indicated. Lastly, this paper tries to present the paradoxes of all the periods of the post-war syndrome. (shrink)

This unparalleled collection focuses on American post war critical theory with special reference to Social Theory, Sociology and Politics. It identifies the central themes and provides a comprehensive survey of the outstanding contributions in the field.

Revisiting the history of postwar LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) research illuminates how the work of a chemist at the Rockefeller Institute contributed to the development of a biochemical paradigm for mental functioning. Dilworth Wayne Woolley proposed one of the first theories of the biochemistry of mental illness based on empirical evidence. His research with LSD and serotonin had wide-ranging repercussions for pharmacology and fit neatly into the emerging medicalization of mental illness. Reevaluating Woolley’s ideas and the fruits of psychopharmacology (...) leads to possible new approaches toward mental health and illness when considered alongside lessons learned from past research with psychedelic substances, and exemplifies a broader paradigm shift in cultural studies toward a biopsychosocial model that acknowledges the intersections between biology and culture. (shrink)

The author of the article studies the activities of the Executive Committee of the Leningrad City Council on the development of the city and its infrastructure in the first half of the 50s of the 20th century. Particular attention is paid to prevention of attempts made by various departments to violate the existing layout of the city and cause damage to monuments of historical and cultural heritage. By the beginning of the 1950s, the tasks of restoring the municipal economy in (...) Leningrad and liquidating the damage caused by the war and the enemy blockade of the city were basically solved. In these years, the most acute task for Leningrad was to ensure a steady increase in the volume of housing construction and to reconstruct ‘under-repaired‘ residential buildings. In addition, it was necessary to build and start up the first stage of the subway, i.e. to fulfill the task set in the Fourth Five-Year Plan. To ensure the solution of these problems, the General Plan for the Development of Leningrad in 1951-1960 was developed. The most important part of the plan was the implementation of new housing construction along with the restoration and renovation of existing houses and buildings. Particular attention was paid to the development of social infrastructure. The plan provided for the construction of schools, hospitals, and other public facilities. The Executive Committee of the Leningrad City Council constantly kept under control the problems that arose with land allocation for organizations and enterprises located in the city. Sometimes the solution of these issues acquired the all-Union character, and the city’s leadership protected the interests of the residents and preserved the architectural and historical integrity of the city territories. Thanks to the principled and uncompromising position of the Leningrad City Council, it was possible to save many monuments of culture and architecture of the city, to ensure its development in strict accordance with the General Plan. (shrink)

_Crucible Bodies: Postwar Japanese Performance from Brecht to the New Millennium_ is a collection of essays covering a wide range of historical and theoretical topics, from Brecht in Japan to 'children's' bodies in postmodern Japanese performances, from the notion of beauty in contemporary cultural theory to practical and theoretical readings of more recent intercultural performances, involving not only Japanese but also other Asian theatre practitioners. It is one of the first full-length studies of Japanese performance culture written in English (...) by a Japanese native. This work is an important contribution to the developing academic arena of Performance Studies. (shrink)

_Crucible Bodies: Postwar Japanese Performance from Brecht to the New Millennium_ is a collection of essays covering a wide range of historical and theoretical topics, from Brecht in Japan to 'children's' bodies in postmodern Japanese performances, from the notion of beauty in contemporary cultural theory to practical and theoretical readings of more recent intercultural performances, involving not only Japanese but also other Asian theatre practitioners. It is one of the first full-length studies of Japanese performance culture written in English (...) by a Japanese native. This work is an important contribution to the developing academic arena of Performance Studies. (shrink)

In this first-ever history of contemporary liberal theory, Forrester shows how liberal egalitarianism--a set of ideas about justice, equality, obligation, and the state--became dominant, and traces its emergence from the political and ideological context of the postwar United States and Britain.d Britain.

Review of: Feminism and Art in Postwar Italy: The Legacy of Carla Lonzi, Francesco Ventrella and Giovanna Zapperi (eds) (2020) London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 296 pp., ISBN 978-1-78453-732-6, h/bk, £95.00.

The paper aims to understand the various legacies of eugenics in the postwar period to recognize both the continuities and discontinuities of eugenics with an approach which is both conceptually sound and historically correct. Building on earlier work of Lene Koch, the paper endeavours to chart the historical trajectory of eugenics by examining how its definition and those of its related or oppositional concepts have evolved within selected lexicon entries across various stages of the century. The inclusion and publication (...) of a concept within a lexicon indicate its significance, linguistic vitality, and prevalence in public discourse. These entries serve as a window into the contemporary understanding and application of concepts over an entire century, offering insights into the practices of eugenics as interpreted by the authoritative scholars of the era. Additionally, these lexicon entries offer more than just a mirror to the past’s prevailing attitudes. The very act of articulating a concept may be viewed as a pivotal element in social struggles, influencing the course of eugenic practices and their interpretations. Both conceptual history and discourse analysis share common ground in their perception of concepts, considering the use of language as a social activity endowed with performative capabilities. They recognize that language does not merely reflect reality but can actively shape it, playing a significant role in societal dynamics and power relations. The Hungarian lexicon entries on eugenics reveal notable disparities in the identified content, the periodization, and the evolution of changes when compared to Lene Koch’s earlier study on Scandinavian eugenics. In Hungary, the concept of eugenics underwent significant changes over four successive periods. The history and interpretation of eugenics can vary significantly from one country to another. Different nations have had their unique experiences and trajectories with the eugenics movement, which have been shaped by their specific cultural, political, and social contexts. These variations emphasize the importance of considering the localized and historical perspectives when examining the concept of eugenics. (shrink)

The article examines the two forms of Confucianism in postwar Taiwan: the state ideology presented in elementary and secondary textbooks, which emphasizes governmental authority; and the intellectual tradition, with a particular emphasis on meeting the challenge of modern Western values.

From his return to Europe in 1949 to his death in 1969, Adorno was one of the most prominent public voices in West Germany. As a professor and institute director, a frequently heard expert on radio, a prolific cultural critic, and even a sort of public counselor, he helped shape the self‐image of German postwar society. The very term “postwar society” is partly an achievement: Adorno approached Germany sociologically, as a configuration of organizations and groups, as opposed to (...) a community of blood, race, and fate, and he sought to encourage an earnest postwar and post‐genocide reckoning with the crimes committed under National Socialism, against widespread tendencies of evasiveness and disavowal. More insistently and effectively than most, Adorno reminded Germans that they lived “after Auschwitz.”. (shrink)

Differences in the work philosophy does and the work art does need not be slighted if it turns out that they cross paths, even to some extent share paths—for example, where they contest the ground on which the life of another is to be examined, call it the ground of therapy.The battlefields of war are often described as a separate world, planet, or universe, far removed from ordinary life. Literary examples of this perception can be seen in several modern works (...) of postwar writing: Kurt Vonnegut calling post-bombing Dresden in Slaughterhouse Five as being "like the moon,"2 while Louis-Ferdinand Céline describes war as "the apocalypse."3 As James Winn comments, war is a "world apart, a very ancient world, which... (shrink)

This book argues that nationalist violence in developed countries is the product of unresponsive political elites and nationalists blocked from attracting supporters through legal channels. Political elites are prone to ignoring a regional polity when their clout in that region is negligible and they do not rely on the region's support to maintain their positions of power. Conversely, when nationalists cannot make inroads through legal channels, incentives for violence are ripe. Thus, when nationalists in postwar Europe found elites unresponsive, (...) it was state repression that helped radicals build a new group of support around militant action. The larger this new constituency legitimizing violence grew, the longer the conflict lasted. The book elucidates this complex dynamic through a deft combination of theoretical modeling, statistical methods and comparative case studies from the Basque Country, Catalonia, Corsica, Northern Ireland, Sardinia and Wales. (shrink)

In the fall of 1945, Secretary of Commerce Henry Wallace handpicked Edward Condon, a respected theoretical physicist, to become director of the National Bureau of Standards. Already regarded by many academic and industrial scientists as a second‐rate research institution, the Bureau had deteriorated further during the Great Depression. An ardent New Dealer who favored government action to prevent anticompetitive behavior in the marketplace, Wallace claimed that giant corporations leveraged their extensive patent holdings and research capabilities to manipulate markets and restrict (...) competition at the expense of smaller firms without similar resources. Through a revitalized Bureau of Standards, Wallace intended to mitigate monopolistic behavior among large companies by transforming the Department of Commerce into an effective clearinghouse for scientific research that would stimulate technological innovation in small businesses. The Bureau’s postwar expansion, however, foundered on congressional efforts to dismantle the legacies of the New Deal, Condon’s lack of commitment to the technical requirements of the small business community, and the intense competition for resources within an institutionally pluralist federal research establishment dominated by the exigencies of the Cold War. Without sufficient financial support from congressional appropriations committees, Condon turned to the military to fund new research programs at the Bureau of Standards. These programs, however, owed their institutional growth to the demands of the national security state, not to the fading influence of Henry Wallace’s New Deal liberalism. (shrink)

This paper focuses on a specific aspect of a Japanese rite of passage called Shichigosan. Although its origins go back to premodern Japan, its contemporary pattern truly reflects the modern living conditions of the Japanese. Today the ritual is one of the most popular family celebrations. Commercialization has significantly influenced the pattern of celebration in the postwar period and as a result, consumption practices have become inherent parts of the ritual. The paper examines this development from a historical perspective. (...) Furthermore, it discusses the process through which consumption practices contribute to the event’s significance, not diminishing but rather enhancing its importance in the observers’ eyes. Conspicuous consumption thus becomes a creative two-directional process, one which is sustained by families’ aspirations and desires, and one which is informed by forces emanating from the commercial sector and from the media. (shrink)

Serious intellectuals in Japan have been concerned with problems of tradition and modernization not only in the postwar period but at least as far back as the Meiji Restoration, although it is true that in each period the problems were viewed in different ways. The issue of tradition and modernization is not peculiar to Japan. However, there are sufficient reasons for the fact that this issue has been and is being conspicuously argued among the Japanese.

Fredric Jameson introduces the major themes of French theory: existentialism, structuralism, poststructuralism, semiotics, feminism, psychoanalysis, and Marxism. In a series of accessible lectures, he places this effervescent period of thought in the context of its most significant political conjunctures, including the Liberation of Paris, the Algerian War, the uprisings of May '68, and the creation of the EU.

Bajo la sombra del uniforme es una novela testimonial escrita por Marvin Reyes, alias Siniestro, un actor sociopolítico de la posguerra salvadoreña. Este testimonio de un ex integrante de la Policía Nacional Civil permite explorar la secuelas criminales, institucionales y subjetivas de la Guerra Civil. Desde un enfoque biográfico, este artículo pone en diálogo al texto y a la voz de Reyes con categorías analíticas vinculadas a la memoria, la posguerra y la violencia policial. El análisis testimonial incluye la discusión (...) de dos dimensiones clave en la obra: el ser y hacer de la policía. Tal análisis de contenido permite indagar el fracaso del proyecto civilista de la función policial en los primeros años de la violenta posguerra. (shrink)

German scholars of Jewish origin who were students of Martin Heidegger in the 1920s and 1930s are frequently criticized for their supposed postwar refusal to ‘disavow earlier liaisons with Heidegger.’ These scholars are thus indicted for being fundamentally anti-liberal or apolitical, and for those reasons dangerous disciples of Heidegger. By examining the works of Karl Löwith and Hans Jonas, two of Heidegger's influential former students, the following paper presents a more nuanced reading of the relationship between master and disciples, (...) namely that Jonas and Löwith operate with Heidegger's philosophical grammar in order to turn against Heidegger, philosophically and politically. Within this framework, the article fleshes out the crucial importance of theology to the understanding of Jonas’ and Löwith's philosophical critique of Heidegger's thought. Following this theological turn, the paper demonstrates the complexity of Jonas’ and Löwith's postwar approach, that is an anti-Heideggerian ethical and political quest which is anchored nonetheless in Heidegger's philosophy. As such, Jonas’ and Löwith's political projects demonstrate the manner in which Heideggerian categories are not exhausted by Heidegger's own political interpretation; they grippingly denotes the aptitude to steer Heideggerian philosophy towards new ethical and political shores. (shrink)

This article discusses the connection between Western socialist parties and technological development during the 1950s. The cases of the British Labour Party (LP), the German Social Democracy (SPD), and the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) let us to examine socialist perspectives in managing technological progress and in conceiving programmes and purposes on scientific research. This choice allows to understand two different aspects: on the one hand, the new pragmatism of socialist and social democratic parties, which was a typical trait of (...) class='Hi'>Postwar's socialist revisionism; on the other hand, the predominance assumed by domestic affairs in socialists’ vision, instead international topics. A very specific choice concerns the article's main focus. A large historiographical dispute has started to trace about Postwar Social Democracy's revisionism. Given such historiographical debate, this article firstly explores the behaviour and politics of the LP, the SPD, and the PSI about the the so-called modernization, a process which concerned the entire Postwar Europe. It also discusses programmes or ideas circulations about the 1950s ‘technological revolution’ and the agendas settled by socialist and social democratic parties to govern such global phenomena. (shrink)

Overture -- Jacques Lacan -- Georges Canguilhem and Jean Cavaillès -- Jean-Paul Sartre -- Jean Hyppolite -- Louis Althusser -- Jean-François Lyotard -- Gilles Deleuze -- Michel Foucault -- Jacques Derrida -- Jean Borreil -- Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe -- Gilles Châtelet -- Françoise Proust -- A note on the texts.

ABSTRACT This article examines the prominent Japanese postwar thinker Maruyama Masao’s critical engagement with his contemporary German legal theorist Carl Schmitt. Maruyama engaged with Schmitt’s decisionistic notion of “the political” and sovereignty since he found it useful in addressing the pathological elements of Japanese political culture, namely, the widespread political passivity and fatalistic ethos of the Japanese public. In his view, such a “decision-avoiding” political culture, which had contributed to the rise of fascism in interwar and wartime Japan, posed (...) a fundamental threat to the viability of Japan’s postwar democracy. Although Maruyama objected to Schmitt’s authoritarian theory of political leadership, he nevertheless believed Schmitt provided important insights into the key concepts of modern politics, such as political agency and the constituent power of the people. In his efforts to foster political subjectivity and liberal individuality in postwar Japan, Maruyama attempted to strike a balance between two extremes: Schmittian normless decisionism, on the one hand, and a politically naïve liberal constitutionalism, on the other. I conclude by suggesting that the hitherto overlooked intellectual affinity between Maruyama and one of the leading Weimar-era constitutional theorists—Hermann Heller—can enrich our understanding of Maruyama’s unceasing effort to formulate and insist on the imperative role of political subjectivity and liberal individuality in consolidating liberal democracy in postwar Japan. (shrink)

Throughout the twentieth century, German writers, philosophers, theologians, and historians turned to Gnosticism to make sense of the modern condition. While some saw this ancient Christian heresy as a way to rethink modernity, most German intellectuals questioned Gnosticism's return in a contemporary setting. In No Spiritual Investment in the World, Willem Styfhals explores the Gnostic worldview's enigmatic place in these discourses on modernity, presenting a comprehensive intellectual history of Gnosticism's role in postwar German thought. Establishing the German-Jewish philosopher Jacob (...) Taubes at the nexus of the debate, Styfhals traces how such figures as Hans Blumenberg, Hans Jonas, Eric Voegelin, Odo Marquard, and Gershom Scholem contended with Gnosticism and its tenets on evil and divine absence as metaphorical detours to address issues of cultural crisis, nihilism, and the legitimacy of the modern world. These concerns, he argues, centered on the difficulty of spiritual engagement in a world from which the divine has withdrawn. Reading Gnosticism against the backdrop of postwar German debates about secularization, political theology, and post-secularism, No Spiritual Investment in the World sheds new light on the historical contours of postwar German philosophy. (shrink)

It is commonly assumed that Gramsci's influence on British Marxism became significant only after the 1970s, particularly in how his work transcended the traditional zero-sum conception of ideological struggle by emphasizing the dynamic interplay between ruling-class and popular ideologies—a perspective that later informed cultural studies. However, this view, often retrospectively constructed from the standpoint of cultural studies, overlooks the broader trajectory of postwar British Marxism. The engagement between Gramscian theory and British Marxism was in fact a process of mutual (...) attraction, beginning no later than the 1960s, as exemplified by E. P. Thompson's work. Building on his reading of Gramsci's class theory, Thompson sought to move beyond economistic narratives of class by foregrounding class subjectivity. Yet, due to his inattention to Marxist theories of the state, this anti-economistic turn led to a misreading of Gramsci and ultimately reinforced the tendency within British Marxism to privilege superstructural analysis. (shrink)

This article seeks to reconcile a fundamental normative tension that underlies most international reconstruction efforts in war-torn societies: on the one hand, substantial outside interference in the domestic affairs of such societies may seem desirable to secure political stability, set up inclusive governance structures, and protect basic human rights; on the other hand, such interference is inherently paternalistic—and thus problematic—since it limits the policy options and broader freedom of maneuver of domestic political actors. I argue that for paternalistic interference in (...) foreign countries to be justified, it needs to be strictly proportional to domestic impediments to self-government and basic rights protection. Based on this claim, I model different degrees of interference that are admissible at particular stages of the postwar reconstruction process. Extrapolating from John Rawls'sLaw of Peoples, I suggest that full-scale international trusteeship can be justified only so long as conditions on the ground remain “outlaw”—that is, so long as security remains volatile and basic rights, including the right to life, are systematically threatened. Once basic security has been reestablished, a lower degree of interference continues to be justified, until new domestic governance structures become entirely self-sustaining. During this second phase of postwar reconstruction, external actors ideally ought toshare responsibilityfor law-enforcement and administration with domestic authorities, which implies in practice that domestic and international officials should jointly approve all major decisions. I discuss various approximations of such shared responsibility in recent international peace operations and speculate about how best to ensure a timely transition toward full domestic ownership. (shrink)

In December 1995, the guns fell silent on Bosnia-Herzegovina and so did much dialogue. Silence is omnipresent in this postwar society: People conceal their suffering; they remain silent about their potential responsibility and guilt and—in interethnic encounters—the violent past is often wholly screened out. Drawing on a literature analysis as well as own interviews and ethnographic observations conducted in Bosnia-Herzegovina since 2007, the article focuses on the interplay between silence and the constitution of ethnic boundaries. In accordance with the (...) literature, it argues that silencing in-group atrocities reinforces the boundaries between former enemies by strengthening ethnically biased collective memories. However, existing research also suggest that not speaking about war in interethnic encounters most likely contributes to the integration of Bosnian society because it enables members of different ethnic communities to interact ‘peacefully’ in everyday life, thereby creating ‘new’ realities within which ethnic boundaries become less important. This conclusion assumes that silencing necessarily leads to forgetting. The following paper challenges this perception and argues that silence about war and the avoidance of conflict in interethnic communication can, in fact, also promote a further consolidation of ethnic boundaries. When conversations about past realities only take place between like-minded people, the likely result is that their pre-existing shared perspective on this reality will become solidified. In other words, silencing war in interethnic encounters impedes any potential revision or restructuring of interethnic relations and therefore stabilises the boundaries between ethnic groups. (shrink)