The Falklands/Malvinas islands, final words
A
TERRITORIAL DISPUTE, in simple terms, is a disagreement about “who owns a
territory.” In international relations, this means in principle there is a
disagreement between at least two parties in relation to whom the sovereign is
over a piece of land.
The Falklands/Malvinas are a TERRITORIAL DISPUTE that
include Argentina, the United Kingdom and the Falkland/Malvinas islands. The
previous posts introduced a brief historical chronology, mentioned some key
domestic and international reasons behind this case, included references to
other regional and international agents that have played (and in some cases,
still do) a central role, and explored an ideal solution called EGALITARIAN
SHARED SOVEREIGNTY.
This
last post about the Falkland/Malvinas islands as a TERRITORIAL DISPUTE centers
the attention on why this difference is still ongoing. The answer is as simple
as complex. The combination of domestic, regional and international elements
make this dispute a stalemate. Although in principle a stalemate may seem
negative, the status quo in the Falklands/Malvinas serves some. Huth explains
the dynamics clearly:
“[…] very often political leaders are not willing to
take risks and undertake diplomatic initiatives that will break a long-standing
stalemate in negotiations. Furthermore, leaders themselves are socialized into
viewing the target as an adversary and, as a result, they are not predisposed
to view concessions as a legitimate option. Furthermore, […] a history of
military conflict with the target can be used by the military to justify larger
budgets […]. The combined effect, then, is that the idea of offering
concessions and proposing a unilateral initiative to break the stalemate is a
policy option quite difficult to get on the policy agenda of political leaders
within the challenger. Few voices are advocating such policies within the
challenger, and the prevailing climate of opinion (both mass and elite) is
opposed to such a change in policy.”
Huth
mentions some examples, amongst them the treaty signed between Argentina and
Chile about the Beagle Channel. In that occasion, Alfonsin pushed for a
settlement against opposition by means of a referendum that legitimized the
decision.
“[…] leaders were typically constrained by domestic
political forces to be very cautious in moving toward a compromise settlement,
since popular and elite opinion, and often the military, was opposed to such a
policy. [...] In most situations the leader’s position of domestic power and
authority was better served by continuing confrontation […]”
Huth, Paul K. 2001. Standing Your Ground.
Territorial Disputes and International Conflict. The University of Michigan
Press.
In
a study published in 2017 by Globe: A Journal of Language, Culture and
Communication, Leung offers an insight of how British and Argentineans websites
refer to each other when they discuss the Falkland/Malvinas islands. In both
cased, the views are extremely biased and polarised. The abstract and the link
to the complete academic journal article below. A phrase summarises it all
“positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation."
ABSTRACT
“Considering
"discursive positioning" to be a form of "placement," this
study examines how the Falkland Islands or las Islas Malvinas, a place which
has long been politically controversial, are discursively positioned on British
and Argentinian websites.”
“For instance, in the British corpus, Argentina is
construed as an invader (as suggested by the collocates "invasion"
and "1982") whereas in the Argentinian corpus, Britain is given this
demonized role (via the collocates "militar"
[military] and "británica"
[British (feminine singular)]). Such findings add strength to van Dijk's (2011)
discussion of "positive self-presentation and negative
other-presentation." As an example of corpus-assisted discourse studies
(CADS), the current research also offers solid evidence on the social
phenomenon of "classification" proposed by Bourdieu (1990)—i.e.,
"a vision of the world is a division of the world."
To conclude the posts about the Falkland/Malvinas
islands, a simple question: has anything changed since 1982 dialectic? Both
Argentina and the United Kingdom were (and are) going through deep crisis. It
was very convenient for both of them at that time (is it the same now?) for
domestic agendas. Ms Margaret Thatcher and the Military Junta; Mr David Cameron
and Ms Cristina Fernández de Kirchner; Ms May and Mr Macri: the characters seem
different. Yet the play is the same. We all have the option to center the
attention on war and revenge. Hence, more deaths. There is another option: to think about how to solve this dispute.
This series TERRITORIAL DISPUTES intends to offer a platform for discussion.
With all this in mind, I introduced the
overall idea I call EGALITARIAN SHARED SOVEREIGNTY. I develop this approach in
full in Núñez 2017. Briefly, all parties share sovereignty in
equal ideal terms. To get to that, these parties go into negotiations
themselves (not UN or any other party alien to the conflict).
NOTE:
This post is based on Jorge Emilio Núñez, “Territorial Disputes and State
Sovereignty: International Law and Politics,” London and New York: Routledge,
Taylor and Francis Group, 2020 (forthcoming)
Previous
published research monograph about territorial disputes and sovereignty by the
author, Jorge Emilio Núñez, “Sovereignty Conflicts and International Law and
Politics: A Distributive Justice Issue,” London and New York: Routledge, Taylor
and Francis Group, 2017.
NEXT
POST: Gibraltar (available on Monday 4th November)
Friday 25th October 2019
Dr Jorge Emilio Núñez
Twitter: @London1701
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