Political Goals and Social Ideals: Dewey, Democracy, and the Emergence of the Turkish Republic

Most historical scholarship on John Dewey’s 1924 educational mission to Turkey has focused on the degree to which the educator and philosopher’s recommendations were actually implemented. By bringing the disciplinary lenses of history and philosophy to bear on Dewey’s mission, this collaborative study differs from previous work by illuminating the disjuncture between Dewey’s conception of democratic localism as essential to an educational system in a vibrant democracy (a social ideal) and Turkish officials’ view of centralized, formal education as a means to promulgate a homogeneous, modern, secular and democratic identity for their new nation-state (a political goal).

Reflections on the Mass Atrocity Response Operations Project

As we become evermore aware of the costs and consequences of genocide and various other human rights abuses, the recognition of the need for more effective prevention and intervention strategies also becomes evermore clear. All too often when outbreaks of violence have occurred, the international community has appeared powerless to prevent it and absolutely ineffective when taking steps to stop the violence and the killing. Perhaps the worst contemporary example of this impotence comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Rooted in the destabilizing effects of the 1994 genocide in neighboring Rwanda, the Eastern Congo has been the setting for mass rapes, massacres, and other atrocities since 1995 as various factions and groups have struggled for power and/or resources or have capitalized on the chaos and brutality. Some estimates suggest that more than 5 million people have been killed since the outbreak of hostilities in the mid-1990s.1 This has been the reality there, even though the Congo is the site of one of the longest-standing and largest United Nations peacekeeping missions in existence. Begun in 1999, the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC, renamed MONUSCO in April 2010) has gone from a contingent of about 5,000 troops and 500 military observers to over 20,0000 troops, 700 military observers, 1,000 police personnel, and several thousand assorted other civilian personnel in early 2010.2 Despite this significant international presence, the violence has continued to the present day. In fact, some of the more recent mass rapes and massacres have occurred in close proximity to contingents of the UN peacekeeping forces, which have been unwilling or unable to intervene in these atrocities.3 Keep in mind that these are not always hit-and-run attacks that occur too quickly for a peacekeeping response. In some cases, the assaults lasted for days. Clearly, MONUSCO has not been very effective in preventing the victimization of innocents. Unfortunately, this has often been more the norm than the exception in locations across the globe. The United Nations and the International Community have usually been unable to prevent and unsuccessful in intervening to stop atrocities. Because of this apparent lack of prophylactic ability, we have seen the creation of a number of reports, such as the Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, better known as Responsibility to Protect or R2P4 and the Albright-Cohen Report, Preventing Genocide.5 The purpose of these documents has been to chart a path forward so that the all too frequent mistakes of the past will not be repeated. Both have been produced with a tremendous amount of fanfare and high expectations for their implementation, although their impact to date has been negligible and their long-term prospects unclear. Nevertheless, these well-intentioned projects have been important first steps in conceptualizing and

Editor's Introduction: MARO: Mass Atrocity Response Operations; A Military Planning Handbook: <i>Selling the Mission and/or Protecting Human Rights?</i>

MARO as the Partial Operationalization of R2P

The authors of MARO: Mass Atrocity Response Operations; A Military Planning Handbook, Sarah Sewall, Dwight Raymond, and Sally Chin, emphasize more than once in their proposed manual that while MARO is not currently US military doctrine ‘‘ it should be.’’ Clearly favoring the idea that the US military should be prepared to carry out missions other than traditional warfare and counter-terrorism, MARO ’s authors give us a reasonably solid first crack at how military force might be profitably used to deter and stop genocide and other atrocities. Although the authors contend, correctly, that the MARO project is different from many elements of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine, the rationale for and content of the handbook are in fact grounded firmly in R2P’s overarching principle of protecting populations at risk of serious harm. It is more accurate to say that MARO, while not the operationalization of all of the R2P doctrine, is the operationalization of one specific aspect of R2P: the responsibility to react through military intervention. While the step from principle to planning is an important and worthwhile exercise, we should not assume that this step will necessarily lead to effective intervention when the world is confronted with mass atrocities in the future. Instead, MARO simply offers a preliminary blueprint for how the United States and other would-be coalition forces could carry out different kinds of humanitarian missions to stop or deter atrocity crimes should they be asked to do so by their political masters. And the latter, of course, is the rub. Without the political will to live up to their international responsibility to protect, the United States and other governments will not assign to their armed forces the mission of saving lives in distant places, thus leaving the prospects for effective intervention and prevention as uncertain as ever. In the most optimistic but unlikely scenario, the adoption of the MARO project or something like it into US military doctrine might serve to embolden political leaders to sanction humanitarian military missions. With a plan in the drawer, so to speak, political leaders might feel more confident that they can use military force to protect vulnerable populations since they would have a set of options for how to use that force effectively available to them from the start. Having this capability may in turn reduce the fear of failure or of being drawn into a humanitarian quagmire. Whether or not MARO will become US military doctrine or serve to deter and stop atrocities, the handbook is worthy of serious consideration. The present commentary will begin by briefly suggesting that MARO is the operationalization of some of the principles underpinning military intervention formulated in the R2P doctrine and then discuss the degree to which Sewall, Raymond, and Chin have succeeded in this task. On the positive side, they have produced a nuanced document that takes into consideration many of the complexities of mass atrocity crises includ-

Minority Rights: A Major Misconception?

This article explores the difficulties inherent in the conceptualization, legal definition, and use of the term "minorities," framing these issues in the context of global efforts toward human rights realization. It argues that the critical concern is not majority or minority status as such, but rather the construction of dominant positions based upon collectively exclusive elements and the actual abuse of such positions. After delineating the limited role that law can and does play in the actual protection of non-dominant collectivities on the global and national planes, this article urges laying aside the term "minority" as both a label and a concept and reconceptualizing the mission in terms of collective human dignity protection, with this concept's deep roots in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). This might well be linked to the urgently needed operationalization of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P).

Correctional Service of Canada Prison Libraries from 1980 to 2010

The last three decades have seen many developments in Canadian prison libraries. This article follows the history of the libraries in federal Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) from the 1980s to the present, concentrating on the libraries in the Pacific Region. A chronological overview of the major legislative changes, reports, and events of the last thirty years highlights the increased profile of prison libraries and their role in supporting Correctional Service of Canada's Mission and Goals. Some of these changes include the adoption in 1992 of the Corrections and Condition Release Act (CCRA) and Regulations, modifications to Commissioner's Directive 720 (2007a; under which libraries fall), and the adoption in the Pacific Region of Library Policy Guidelines. In addition to legislative and policy changes, Canadian society itself has also changed during this thirty-year period. As the face of Canada has become more diverse in age and ethnicity, as well as in social and technological expectations, so has the face of the prison population. These changes have, of course, also impacted on prison libraries. This article examines how prison libraries have met the challenges created by these societal and technological changes.

Helping People to Manage and Share Their Digital Information: A Role for Public Libraries

As a cultural institution, the public library is charged with providing resources and services that fit the needs of a particular community and, if space and budgets allow, of serving as a resource and repository of the community's past. To fulfill its mission to the public, the library must attract that public by offering materials and providing opportunities for them to pursue their unique and varied interests and discover new things. By engaging individuals in the identification and preservation of their own personal, digital objects, it may be possible to increase awareness in, and commitment to, community repositories that reflect a community's diversity and that will serve all. A user education program that focuses on the importance of identifying and preserving the information and artifacts that are important, that addresses the technical aspects of preservation, and that creates awareness of the benefits and challenges associated with sharing personal information can result in a community repository that ultimately has more value for both the individual and the community.

The Lettered Paul: Remnant and Mission in Hannah More, Walter Scott, and Critical Theory

Performance of the GLAS Space Lidar Receiver through its Seven-Year Space Mission

We report the receiver performance and key components' characteristics of the Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS) on ICESat after seven years in space as monitored during the mission and tests at the end of mission.

NASA's Future HyspIRI Mission and the EO-1 Hyperion Collections