Over the course of the past century, conflicts are increasingly resolved through negotiated agreements. There are movements pushing for more inclusive security, or the inclusion of more than just the warring parties at the negotiations, such as the inclusion of women or civil society organizations. Inclusive security claims to improve the durability of agreements. Women in particular are excluded from negotiations. There has been significant research documenting the positive influence of the inclusion of civil society on durability. Moreover, there is a substantial body of literature theorizing that women’s inclusion in peace negotiations contributes to the durability of the agreement. However, because of the extreme rarity of cases of women’s inclusion, there is little documentation of this theory in practice. My research seeks to demonstrate the effect of women’s inclusion in the negotiations of the Northern Ireland Good Friday Agreement on its durability. A careful exploration of the negotiations provides insights to the effect of women’s inclusion on durability. While a single case study is not very generalizable, the potential positive effect of women’s inclusion in the negotiations could support the inclusion of women in future peace processes and highlight some of the obstacles women face in getting to the table.
RPP 3
Gorski’s assertion that social science can offer genuine insights into human well-being is upsetting to the traditional order of separation between morality, ethics, and other normative worldviews, and the cold, clear, empirical methods of science. I agree with his arguments, particularly about fact-laden values and value-laden facts—Gorski essentially implies that “facts” as we commonly refer to them do not really exist. Because we cannot separate our values from our perception of the world, what we “know” as factual is inherently affected by our values. Moreover, our values are inherently founded in and “open to empirical investigation.” I think that Gorski brings to light something that is dangerously ignored by the majority of Western Civilization, which is our intrinsic attachment to our values and the level to which they influence our perceptions, and consequently our worldviews. While the progression of positivism as a reaction to the highly theological and mythical schools of thought that came before is understandable, it has developed into a willful refusal to acknowledge the role our humanity has to play in understanding and categorizing the world.
Sam Harris picks up the thread from Gorski, and touches on similar things. Both argue that the social sciences can be used normatively, but he also suggests that relativism is the confusing result of the separation between positivity and normativity. Harris uses the example of women who are forced to wear a burka, claiming that it does not contribute to human well-being. Harris acknowledges that the burka is only negative when it is forced on women, but I think that in some of his analysis, and perhaps in his choice for an example, that Harris commits the same error of blindness that so frustrates Gorski. In other words, Harris isn’t fully recognizing the values he brings to his analysis of the facts. This is where Comte comes in and argues for complete and total separation between facts and values, to the point that “no rational mind now doubts that the revolution” will inevitably continue. My pushback, in line with Harris, is that humans are inherently irrational, and that reality cannot be escaped.
I absolutely believe my research lends itself to normativity—it is entirely based on my assumption that durable peace agreements are desirable, that they should be as inclusive as possible, and that the international community should not stop working until there is complete inclusion of women in peace processes. I intend for my research to be useful to this effort by identifying the situations in which women’s inclusion in peace processes are successful, and I made the majority of my methodological choices on that intention. My research is oriented this way because I think it can help, and I hold the belief that if one can help, one ought to.
RPP 2
Plato and Tocqueville, though millennia apart, both critique democracy, and especially its tenet of equality. Plato claims that in a democracy, people go “along day by day, gratifying the desire that occurs to [them],” without any real sense of obligation. The goal of life is to enjoy the freedom afforded by equality. This carefree attitude helps to create a more diverse society because each individual is allowed to pursue their own varied interests, but it also allows for the development of a somewhat lazy relativism. The members of the society, because they (usually) only pursue their own pleasures, are not forced to make normative or ethical evaluations very often. In this way Plato outlines the danger posed by democratic government—without normative judgements, the potential to pursue ends that humanity should avoid rises.
Tocqueville makes a similar argument, although his is focused very specifically on his observations of American culture. Although he was researching in the early 19th century, much of what he says is eerily still applicable. He describes Americans as “taking their judgement only from themselves” and refusing to acknowledge external judgements. Furthermore, because of the social equality we experience, he argues, every idea is likewise judged to be equal. This contributes to the general avoidance of normative evaluations he observes in Americans; questioning the ‘ends’ humanity ought to pursue involves normative and ethical questions, and therefore is not a very large part of American culture. It would inevitably lead to valuing some ideas over others, which violates the tenet of equality members of a democracy are so partial to.
I believe that both Tocqueville and Plato touch on significant tendencies of democracies to avoid making normative or ethical arguments, but I would argue that they are really just tendencies. This predisposition against normativity was not very present in my own childhood or youth, because the schools that I attended and the general ‘activist’ culture of my hometown (Portland, OR) pushed me, and my peers, to consider ethical questions. We were taught to think critically and question the status quo, rather than accept what we were told about the world around us. My high school in particular encouraged its students to come up with our own ethical standards, but it was also an all-girls, Catholic, college-prep environment, which is not the typical setting of democracy that Plato and Tocqueville discuss. Ultimately, I would say they are right in that democratic societies are predisposed to avoid normative evaluations, but that it is not inevitable.