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1. The Cosmopolitan Epics of 2004: A Case Study

Author:
Saverio Saverio Giovacchini
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Rest: Journal of Politics and Development
Institution:
Centre for Strategic Research and Analysis (CESRAN)
Abstract:
In 2004 Hollywood produced three purportedly blockbuster epic films: Troy, King Arthur and Alexander. Many critics suggested a direct link between the 1950s “sword and sandal” epic and this new crop of movies. Similarities between the two cycles certainly exist but in this essay I want to emphasize a crucial difference between the contemporary, cosmopolitan, epic and the previous, more nation-bound, 1950s cycle. Rather than being in tune with key elements of American foreign policy, the new cycle of “sword and sandal” films offers a somber assessment of American imperial adventures. I shall contend, in fact, that the new crop of epic films had to choose between two generic conventions that are, at present, not compatible. On the one hand, epic films had traditionally been the bearers of the foreign policy vision of the country that produced them. On the other, their inflated budgets made them dependent on an international market. Deeply aware of a globalized and rising opposition to US foreign policy and of the fact that foreign box office now exceeds the domestic take of a blockbuster, it may be no wonder that the makers of these films chose to craft them into citizens of the world.
Topic:
Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
United States and America

2. Is Aid the Capital Component Making Countries Efficient? A Non-Parametric Production Theory Approach

Author:
Ann Veiderpass and Per-Åke Andersson
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Rest: Journal of Politics and Development
Institution:
Centre for Strategic Research and Analysis (CESRAN)
Abstract:
Cross country regressions on aid effectiveness have failed to provide substantial evidence on the effects of foreign aid. This study focuses on country performance in a production theory context. By means of the non-parametric DEA method, we study 60 individual low and middle income countries over a six year period. Is there a systematic correlation between resource intensity and country efficiency? We find indications of a positive relation between capital intensity and country efficiency. We then investigate whether aid is the conclusive part of capital providing this correlation, but when linking country efficiency development to aid such a pattern is not to be found.
Topic:
Cold War

3. Women's Empowerment through Self-help Groups and its Impact on Health Issues: Empirical Evidence

Author:
Sudipta De and Debnarayan Sarker
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Rest: Journal of Politics and Development
Institution:
Centre for Strategic Research and Analysis (CESRAN)
Abstract:
Based on an empirical study in West Bengal, this paper attempts to examine whether women's involvement in the microcredit programme through SHGs makes any positive change on women's empowerment. From the assessment of various criteria of empowerment(power, autonomy and self-reliance, entitlement, participation and awareness and capacity-building), the study suggests that if women participating in the microcredit programme through SHGs sustain for some longer period (eight years or more), such programme might contribute to higher level of women's empowerment than women's empowerment under all types of control group. This paper also finds that women's earnings from saving and credit have positive and significant effect on nutritional status of the children of women members of SHGs and on the protein-intake for their household compared with that of among control groups.

4. Integration in the Global South: What Role for IBSA Dialogue Forum?

Author:
Mehmet Özkan
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Rest: Journal of Politics and Development
Institution:
Centre for Strategic Research and Analysis (CESRAN)
Abstract:
Recently we have seen that the middle-sized states are coming together in several forums. The WTO meetings and India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) dialogue forum are among those to be cited. Such groupings are mainly economy oriented and whether they will have political output needs to be seen, however, in the future if globalization goes in a similar way as today, we might see more groupings. Those groupings should be seen as reactions to unjust and exclusive globalization. The IBSA Dialogue Forum members have enhanced their relations economically by signing bilateral trade agreements and acting together on economic issues in global forums. If they can hold together, they are creating a market more than ¼ of global population and, if successful, it has a chance to be the engine of growth in the South. Moreover if they can create the biggest market in the South, they would also be influential in the being of the voice of the South. In that sense, this paper addresses the possible ways to develop relations between the IBSA members and economic development in the South, furthermore, implication of the IBSA on global governance and development can be as critical as its contribution to economic development, since the global governing bodies have legitimacy crisis.
Topic:
Cold War and Economics
Political Geography:
India, South Africa, and Brazil

5. Adeed Dawisha Iraq: A Political History from Independence to Occupation

Author:
Paolo Chiocchetti
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Rest: Journal of Politics and Development
Institution:
Centre for Strategic Research and Analysis (CESRAN)
Abstract:
The historical trajectory of the Iraqi nation-state has been profoundly marked by its role as a political-institutional laboratory of grand imperial projects. Its first master, United Kingdom, first forged Iraq from the three former Mesopotamian provinces of the Ottoman Empire (1918) and then experimented different forms of governance, from direct rule (1918-1920 and 1941-1945) to indirect rule as a Mandate power alongside of the Hashemite monarchy (1921-1932) to informal influence on an independent state (1932-1941 and 1945-1958). Its second master, the United States, treaded down the same path from direct rule through the CPA of Paul Bremer (2003-2004) to indirect rule alongside democratically elected governments (2004-2010) to Obama's envisioned informal rule after the alleged departure of all combat troops (from 2010). The commonality between the two cases cannot be limited to the attempt to exert a political/economic control over the Iraqi territory; in both cases the foreign powers endeavoured to create a self-sustainable nation-state which could serve as a model to all other countries in the region and in the global South: autonomous, yet pro-Western and liberal-democratic.
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, and United Kingdom

6. William Mallinson Cyprus: Diplomatic History and the Clash of Theory in International Relations

Author:
Alexandros Nafpliotis
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Rest: Journal of Politics and Development
Institution:
Centre for Strategic Research and Analysis (CESRAN)
Abstract:
The Cyprus issue has dominated a substantial part of the literature on the Eastern Mediterranean, as regards both international relations and history, in the last 35 years. There has been a multitude of works on the history of the island and its 1974 troubles (see, for example, other books published recently by I.B. Tauris, including Dimitrakis' Military Intelligence in Cyprus: From the Great War to Middle East Crises; Asmussen's Cyprus at War: Diplomacy and Conflict During the 1974 Crisis, and Mallinson's own Cyprus: a modern history). Where the present study differs considerably from other texts on the subject is its unique approach. Mallinson (a former diplomat and a lecturer at the Ionian University of Greece) uses his experience as an international relations historian, theorist and practitioner to shed light on the causes of conflict over Cyprus.
Topic:
International Relations and War
Political Geography:
Middle East, Greece, and Cyprus

7. Tara McCormack Critique, Security and Power: The Political Limits to Emancipatory approaches

Author:
Hüsrev Tabak
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Rest: Journal of Politics and Development
Institution:
Centre for Strategic Research and Analysis (CESRAN)
Abstract:
Security conceptualization and comprehension in International Relations has tremendously changed with the demise of the Cold War. In the new era, statecentric understanding of the policy-making has been replaced mainly by the critical perspectives. Whilst the critical security theorists are championing the more human focused understanding of (international) security, they are criticized for highlighting just a small part of the picture (power relations) and ignoring the political rest (the use of force). McCormack's work of Critique, Security and Power: The political limits to emancipatory approaches should be regarded as one of those which raises challenging scientific critiques to and unearth theoretical and political lacks of the post-Cold War critical security theory.
Topic:
Security and Cold War

8. The Process of Politics in Europe: The Rise of European Elites and Supranational Institutions

Author:
Hatice Yazgan
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Rest: Journal of Politics and Development
Institution:
Centre for Strategic Research and Analysis (CESRAN)
Abstract:
The book is an original example of displaying the first initiatives of European bureaucracy and the roots of European administrative culture. Recruitment processes, (in)formal rules in distributing the posts, original working methods and practical challenges to overcome within the institutions are explained in detail to give inside information from the early years of institutionalism of today's EU.
Political Geography:
Europe

9. (Dis) Integration and the Emergence of the State System in the Middle East

Author:
Imad El-Anis
Publication Date:
07-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Rest: Journal of Politics and Development
Institution:
Centre for Strategic Research and Analysis (CESRAN)
Abstract:
The fall of the Ottoman Empire during World War One and the emergence of the modern state system in the Middle East have received significant attention in academic literature. However, the impacts that the proliferation of state borders in the 19th and 20th centuries have had on political and economic integration within the Middle East is often ignored. This study argues that between the mid-19th and mid- 20th centuries the region underwent significant structural changes. Furthermore, these changes were driven by external intervention and internal decline. A number of theoretical assumptions are posited concerning the importance on integration and cooperation of the following: the increase in borders and claims to sovereignty and the separation of peoples/markets. The conclusions drawn are that the change from a system characterised by large political actors and integrated markets to one which is characterised by smaller states and separated markets led to the disintegration of the region's internal relations.
Topic:
Economics and War
Political Geography:
Middle East

10. China's Naval Policy off the Coast of Somalia: International Participation, the Preservation of Strategic Interests, or Security?

Author:
Dr. Jean-Paul Gagnon
Publication Date:
07-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Rest: Journal of Politics and Development
Institution:
Centre for Strategic Research and Analysis (CESRAN)
Abstract:
This work will try to analyse China's naval policy off the Somali coast. The main contribution this work will attempt to make is to offer evidence concerning whether China's anti-pirating policies in the Gulf of Aden are more for the benefit of the international community, China's own strategic interest (a political economy outlook), or diplomatic growth. This work may be important as it could contribute to our understanding of China's current foreign policy to a slightly better degree. This will be attempted in the first instance by analysing the literature concerning China's humanitarian policies in Africa to establish a sense of the literature on this subject. In the second instance, we will examine the official foreign policy stance provided to the international community by the current administration in China. And finally, in the third instance, we will comparatively analyse if the policy statement is logically compatible with the extant literature. The analytical structure used to do so is Charmaz's (2006) grounded theory methodology. This study shows that China's foreign naval policy off the coast of Somalia is probably a mix of humanitarian, economic, and international diplomatic goals.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
China and Somalia

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