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Begin New Search Topic Regional Cooperation Author Alyson J. K. Bailes

1. Iceland and Europe: Drifting further apart?

Author:
Baldur Thorhallsso and Alyson J. K. Bailes
Publication Date:
09-2013
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
Iceland applied for EU membership in 2009 at the height of the economic crisis. Four years later, a new government has put the application on hold: the majority of Icelanders are opposed to entry, but want to continue the accession process and put the results to a vote. Iceland's longer-standing problems with European integration stem from the issue of sovereignty in general, and maintaining control over fisheries and agriculture in particular. Since 2009, anti-European feelings have been stoked by the 'Icesave' dispute, while the prospective benefits of entry (including use of the euro) have been tarnished by witnessing the fate of other small states during the euro crisis. The new government proposes remaining a member of the EEA and developing relations with other world powers. But the US commitment to Iceland has weakened over the years, and 'rising' powers like China are unable, as yet, to solve the country's core problems. In terms of both its security and its standing within the global economy, Iceland is becoming more rather than less dependent on Europe over time. The question raised by the latest political turn is whether it will have to maintain that relationship from a distance, with limited control and with no guaranteed goodwill.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, Political Economy, Regional Cooperation, Treaties and Agreements, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

2. Death of an Institution. The end for Western European Union, a future for European defence?

Author:
Graham Messervy-Whiting and Alyson J. K. Bailes
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
EGMONT - The Royal Institute for International Relations
Abstract:
On 31 March 2010 the ten Member States of Western European Union (WEU) announced that the last organs, staffs and activities of that institution would be laid to rest by 30 June 2011. Having resiled from the Modified Brussels Treaty (MBT) of 1954 which created WEU as a successor to the Western Union of 1948, these nations are now working to dispose of the staff, premises and archives at WEU's Brussels offices and its Parliamentary Assembly in Paris. Little public interest has been shown in these moves, perhaps because WEU's operational and political work had already been taken over by the European Union (EU), in the frame of its new European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP), at the end of 1999.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Regional Cooperation, and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
Europe

3. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization

Author:
Pan Guang, Mikhail Troitskiy, Pál Dunay, and Alyson J. K. Bailes
Publication Date:
05-2007
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
Abstract:
Established in 2001 with China, the Russian Federation, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as members, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) has remained one of the world's least-known and least-analysed multilateral groups. It makes little effort itself for transparency and is only patchily institutionalized in any case. Such useful research materials as are available on it are often in Chinese or Russian. Outside its participant countries, the SCO has attracted mainly sceptical and negative comment: some questioning whether it has anything more than symbolic substance, others criticizing the lack of democratic credentials of its members and questioning the legitimacy of their various policies. These points have been made especially strongly by commentators in the United States following the inclusion of Iran—along with India, Pakistan and Mongolia—as an SCO observer state and hints that it may attain full membership.
Topic:
International Cooperation and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Russia, China, Shanghai, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan

4. Regionalism in South Asian Diplomacy

Author:
John Gooneratne, Mavara Inayat, Jamshed Ayaz Khan, Swaran Singh, and Alyson J. K. Bailes
Publication Date:
02-2007
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
Abstract:
In any survey of present-day regional cooperation, South Asia is liable to be cited as one of the problem cases. The dominant strategic feature of the region is the tension and rivalry between India and Pakistan, two powers that have more than once gone to war or to the verge of war and that now have nuclear weapons. Unlike the East–West confrontation of cold war times, this confrontation has not (yet) led to more than a few fragmentary elements of a larger structure of confidence building and conflict avoidance. Even this major challenge is only one of the difficulties in the way of a non-zero-sum multilateral security order for the region. The discrepancy of size and power between India, a nation of over 1 billion people, and all its neighbours leads to natural concerns among the latter about India's dominance in the region and potential interference in their affairs. At different times this has been a significant strand in the policy thinking of states such as Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka and has led them to seek security assistance first and foremost from outside South Asia when they need it.
Topic:
International Relations, International Cooperation, and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Bangladesh, South Asia, India, Sri Lanka, and Nepal