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12. Security Policies of India, Brazil and South Africa – Regional Security Contexts as Constraints for a Common Agenda
- Author:
- Daniel Flemes and Alcides Costa Vaz
- Publication Date:
- 02-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- German Institute of Global and Area Studies
- Abstract:
- In the course of the last decade, the IBSA states (India, Brazil, South Africa) have increased their weight in the shifting global order, particularly in economic affairs. Can the same be said about the IBSA states' position in the international security hierarchy? After locating the IBSA coalition in the shifting world order, we analyze its member states' willingness and capacity to coordinate their security policies and build a common global security agenda. In addition, we explore the state of and perspectives on bi- and trilateral collaboration initiatives on defense and armaments between India, Brazil and South Africa. A key reason for the mostly modest results of global security agenda coordination and cross-regional defense collaboration is that the prevailing security concerns of each country are located at the regional level. Therefore, the starting point of an assessment of the prospects of IBSA's security cooperation and its potential impact on the strategic global landscape has to be a comparative evaluation of the regional security environments, focusing on overlaps and potential synergies between the national security policies of the three state actors.
- Topic:
- Security, Defense Policy, and Economics
- Political Geography:
- Africa, India, and Brazil
13. Regionale Ordnungen in politischen Räumen. Ein Beitrag zur Theorie regionaler Ordnungen
- Author:
- Nadine Godehardt and Oliver W. Lembcke
- Publication Date:
- 02-2010
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- German Institute of Global and Area Studies
- Abstract:
- Seit einiger Zeit stehen Regionen (wieder) auf der Agenda der Theoriediskussionen in den Internationalen Beziehungen. Es ist u.a. von einer „emerging regional architecture of world politics“ die Rede und von der Zukunft eines „multiregional system of international relations“ oder sogar einer „world of regions“. In dieser Perspektive geht es gegenwärtig nicht mehr allein um die Frage, welche Strukturvorgaben des internationalen Systems für eine neue Weltpolitik zu berücksichtigen sind. Vielmehr ist mit Blick auf die regionalen Ordnungen erforderlich zu fragen, wann und unter welchen Umständen die Strukturen und Akteurskonstellationen für regionale Kontexte überhaupt Bedeutung haben. Allerdings ist der politiktheoretische Status der Regionen in den Internationalen Beziehungen alles andere als klar. Mit diesem Beitrag werden zwei Ziele verfolgt: Einerseits wird die bisherige Diskussion mithilfe von drei Schlüsselkonzepten – Kooperation, Regionale Sicherheitskomplexe und Externalitäten – strukturiert; andererseits wird das konzeptionelle Verhältnis von Regionen, politischen Räumen und regionalen Ordnungen diskutiert. Dabei werden Kriterien – geografische Lage, politische Entscheidungen, Drittwirkungen dieser Entscheidungen – vorgestellt, die eine weiterführende Analyse verschiedener Typen regionaler Ordnungen ermöglichen.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Security, Regional Cooperation, and Political Theory
14. Private Security in Guatemala:The Pathway to Its Proliferation
- Author:
- Otto Argueta
- Publication Date:
- 09-2010
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- German Institute of Global and Area Studies
- Abstract:
- It has become commonplace to explain the proliferation of private security services as causally determined by crime rates and institutional weakness. By contrast, this paper argues that another explanatory factor needs to be emphasized, especially for post-war societies: continuity and change of social control mechanisms. The paper first presents the current situation with commercial and noncommercial private security services in Guatemala (private security companies, as well as neighborhood security committees). Against this background, it reconstructs mechanisms and critical junctures by which the Guatemalan state sourced out policing functions to the private sector during the war, and traces the reinforcement of these mechanisms in the post-war society. It argues that the proliferation of private security services is an outcome of the overlapping of different political processes and sequences. The continuity of social control mechanisms thereby emerges as a stronger explanatory factor for this proliferation, rather than the common justification of high crime rates.
- Topic:
- Security, Political Violence, Crime, and Development
- Political Geography:
- Latin America and Guatemala
15. Representaciones de la violencia en la literatura centroamericana
- Author:
- Nadine Haas
- Publication Date:
- 10-2010
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- German Institute of Global and Area Studies
- Abstract:
- This paper examines the representations of violence in Guatemalan and El Salvadoran lite-rature against the backdrop of persistently high levels of violence and crime following the civil wars in both countries. It adopts an interdisciplinary approach settled within cultural studies and uses two examples-De fronteras (2007) by Claudia Hernández and Días amarillos (2009) by Javier Payeras-to analyze the narrative strategies applied in the process of recounting violence. The results of the literary analysis enable the author to draw conclusions concerning the way in which both societies deal with urban post-war violence. The texts refer to the ubiquity of violence and the hopelessness of the situation, as well as to the responsibility of the mass media for reproducing violence and a general turning away from the public domain towards the private life.
- Topic:
- Security, Political Violence, and War
- Political Geography:
- Latin America
16. Measuring Geopolitical Power in India: A Review of the National Security Index (NSI)
- Author:
- Karl Hwang
- Publication Date:
- 05-2010
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- German Institute of Global and Area Studies
- Abstract:
- This review examines how India perceives its own rise to power by undertaking a detailed analysis of the Indian National Security Index (NSI) for the period from 2003 to 2008. Like other power formulas, the NSI includes various indicators of power, though it is uniquely Indian in that it initially emphasized human development and later included ecology based on a holistic human‐security paradigm. The analysis demonstrates that this holistic approach has now been abandoned in favor of a more conventional one, and that the technical formulas and theoretical concepts of the NSI exhibit various inconsistencies and problems. In particular, one can recognize the absolute need for a unified standard for handling variables in the construction of composite indexes in general.
- Topic:
- Security, Emerging Markets, Human Welfare, and Power Politics
- Political Geography:
- South Asia and India
17. Handel, Hierarchien und Kooperation in der Globalisierung
- Author:
- Robert Kappel and Juliane Brach
- Publication Date:
- 02-2009
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- German Institute of Global and Area Studies
- Abstract:
- In the course of globalization, the intensity of global interactions between nations, firms, and civil society actors has increased significantly and has led to the creation of transnational norm-building networks. These have an essential, but little-known influence on all aspects of life (business and work relationships, environment, security, law, trust, etc.). Their influence expands to nation-state and market relationships that are also subject to constant reorganization. Transnational networks are leading to a global civil society that is more and more independent of the nation-state. With this relative erosion of state domination, the standard economic perspective, which primarily focused on the nation-state, is eroding as well.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Security, Civil Society, Environment, Globalization, International Trade and Finance, and Markets
18. Realpolitik Dynamics and Image Construction in the Russia-China Relationship: Forging a Strategic Partnership?
- Author:
- Maria Raquel Freire and Carmen Amado Mendes
- Publication Date:
- 09-2009
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Institution:
- German Institute of Global and Area Studies
- Abstract:
- Russia and China are two big players in the international system, both of which share interests and concerns and compete for preponderance and affirmation at the regional level. As a framework for political-military cooperation, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) frames this relationship in an institutional setting that might be understood as a tool for rapprochement between Moscow and Beijing or as a strategic manoeuvre for balancing an unbalanced international order. Thus the following question arises: is Russian-Chinese cooperation discourse mere political rhetoric or does it imply the intentional forging of a goal-orientated partnership? The relationship between Russia and China in political and security terms reveals identifiable common concerns, such as counter-terrorism or the fight against organised crime, while simultaneously masking the underpinning drivers, based on realpolitik dynamics and image construction on both sides (power projection, regional affirmation). This means that the strategic partnership dialogue between Moscow and Beijing is still far from being real. Realpolitik considerations rise above institutional goals, showing the lines of (dis)continuity in discourse and practice in this bilateral relationship.
- Topic:
- Security
- Political Geography:
- Russia, China, Beijing, and Moscow
19. Chinese Perceptions of Russian Foreign Policy During the Putin Administration: U.S.-Russia Relations and "Strategic Triangle" Considerations
- Author:
- Joseph Yu-shek Cheng
- Publication Date:
- 09-2009
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Institution:
- German Institute of Global and Area Studies
- Abstract:
- This article examines the Chinese perception of Russian foreign policy during the Putin administration by analysing Beijing's assessment of Russia's foreign policy objectives and its policy towards the U.S., as reflected in the official media and the authoritative publications of China's major security and foreign policy think tanks. Promoting multipolarity and checks and balances against U.S. unilateralism has been a very significant consideration on the part of the Chinese leadership. Using the concept of the "strategic triangle", the article demonstrates how changes in U.S.-Russian relations have probably become the most important variable in this push for multipolarity. In the past decade and a half, Sino-Russian relations have improved when Russia has become disappointed with the support it received from the U.S. There have also been periods of time when Russia has anticipated closer relations with the U.S. and thus neglected China's vital interests. The Chinese leadership, however, has exercised restraint at such times. There has been greater optimism in Beijing concerning Sino-Russian relations in recent years because of the expanding economic ties, Russia's increasing oil wealth and Putin's authoritarian orientation.
- Topic:
- Security and Foreign Policy
- Political Geography:
- Russia, United States, and China
20. The Production of Insecurity by African Security Forces: Insights from Liberia and the Central African Republic
- Author:
- Andreas Mehler
- Publication Date:
- 11-2009
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- German Institute of Global and Area Studies
- Abstract:
- Little attention has been paid to the factual effect of the state's security forces on the security of African citizens. Reports about security forces' contribution to widespread insecurity are frequent: the protectors become violators and their appearance causes fear, not security. In many African crisis countries the realization of better security forces appears to be an elusive goal, either because violent conflicts are not definitively settled and therefore do not allow for decent reform or because a lack of capacity as a result of material constraints is not easy to remedy. The self‐help mechanisms used to compensate for the lack of state‐sponsored security need more attention. However, it has to be acknowledged that the ideal of a neutral and effective force loyal to the state is shared by a great majority of the population. This contribution compares the experiences of Liberia and the Central African Republic, two extreme cases of strong and weak international involvement, respectively, in post‐conflict security‐sector reform.
- Topic:
- Security
- Political Geography:
- Africa and Liberia
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