Sir Michael Aaronson addressed the Plenary lecture of the annual Political Studies Association, in London on the 21st of April. Further details about the PSA 2011 Conference can be found on their website: http://www.psa.ac.uk/2011/ In this lecture I want to explore how it was that the UK became committed so quickly to military intervention in Libya following […]
Read more
Why does my heart sink when I hear the current UN-mandated action in Libya described as “humanitarian intervention”? After all, over the last 20 years the term has acquired currency — not only among Western politicians but also academics — as a description of coercive, usually military, intervention ostensibly for humanitarian purposes. When I was […]
Read more
NATO is at war in the skies above Libya. Or is it? It is striking that there are two distinctly opposed narratives describing the current international intervention: the first that NATO is acting impartially to protect civilians under UNSCR 1973, and the second that it is supporting the rebels in a civilian conflict against Col […]
Read more
2