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131. E.U.—RUSSIA RELATIONS: Interests and Value—A European Perspective

Author:
Rolf Schuette
Publication Date:
12-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
Russia easily comes first in the time and energy that the E.U. has devoted to developing relations with outside partners, both in the economic field and regarding the political dialogue within the context of the E.U.'s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP). Russia has been the subject of many fundamental policy documents, policy implementation instruments, and internal discussions during the past decade. The density and frequency of the bilateral dialogue between Russia and the E.U. are unique.
Topic:
Democratization and Politics
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Asia

132. President Bush's Muddled Policy on Taiwan

Author:
Ted Galen Carpenter
Publication Date:
03-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
The Bush administration has gone from one extreme to the other with regard to U.S. policy on Taiwan. During the early months of his administration, the president gave a seemingly unconditional pledge to defend Taiwan from attack by mainland China—going significantly further than his predecessors had. He followed that assurance by approving the largest arms sales package to Taiwan in nearly a decade. In marked contrast to the Clinton years, high-profile visits by Taiwanese leaders to the United States have been encouraged, despite Beijing's protests.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Development, and Politics
Political Geography:
United States, China, and Asia

133. Challenges for a Post-Election Philippines

Author:
Catherine E. Dalpino
Publication Date:
05-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
The outcome of national elections in the Philippines on May 10 is still to be determined. For the past three years, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has governed as an appointed head of state in the wake of President Joseph Estrada's forced resignation on corruption charges. Her administration inherited a country in crisis, and it began the critical process of economic stabilization and growth. Economic indicators in the past two years have shown modest progress. In this interim period, the Philippines has been a steadfast ally of the United States in the war against terrorism. These fragile gains could be imperiled if the Philippines does not complete the electoral process in an expeditious and credible manner. Whatever the outcome of the polls, the winner will have little time to lose in addressing a number of short- and long-term problems in the Philippines.
Topic:
Economics, Emerging Markets, and Politics
Political Geography:
United States, Asia, Philippines, and Southeast Asia

134. CERI: Political Opposition, Nationalism and Islam among the Uygurs in Xinjiang Abstract

Author:
Rémi Castets
Publication Date:
10-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales
Abstract:
With a substantial Uyghur population, Xinjiang (East Turkistan) is, after Uzbekistan, the second largest Muslim Turkic-speaking area of settlement area in Central Asia. Annexed by China fairly late, this territory has a tumultuous history punctuated by foreign interference and separatist insurrections. Through strict control of the regional political system and a massive influx of Han settlers, the communist regime has managed to integrate this strategic region and its large oil deposits into the rest of China.
Topic:
Nationalism, Politics, and Religion
Political Geography:
China, Central Asia, Asia, and Uzbekistan

135. CERI: The socio-political effects of forced migrations linked tomajor hydraulic projects in China. The example of the Three Gorges dam.

Author:
Florence Padovani
Publication Date:
04-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales
Abstract:
The study of the population movements caused by the major Chinese hydraulic projects reveals the true extent of the change which has come about in relations between the State and society in China. The construction of the Three Gorges dam-which led to considerable controversy both within China and beyond - is a prime case in point.
Topic:
Civil Society, Development, and Politics
Political Geography:
China and Asia

136. Chechnya Weekly: No Evidence Required: Chechens Blamed For Subway Bombing

Author:
Lawrence Uzzell
Publication Date:
02-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
Last week's terrorist atrocity on the Moscow subway system, in addition to killing dozens of unsuspecting civilians, underlined an ugly reality of Russian politics. The Putin administration has now created, or at least thinks it has created, an emotional atmosphere such that it can blame terrorist acts on Chechens even when there is no specific evidence or claim of responsibility.
Topic:
Security, Ethnic Conflict, and Politics
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Asia, Chechnya, and Moscow

137. Toward a Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific

Author:
C. Fred Bergsten
Publication Date:
11-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
The APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC) has proposed that the APEC Leaders at Santiago on November 20-21 “agree to further examine the feasibility and potential scope and features of a Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP).” President Ricardo Lagos of Chile, the host of the APEC summit, has endorsed the concept. I believe that APEC should actively pursue the FTAAP idea. It offers the best prospects of any available strategy for catalyzing a successful outcome of the Doha Round and thus revitalizing the World Trade Organization (WTO). By forging a new transpacific initiative, it can counter the very real risk of disintegration of the Asia-Pacific region that is evident in the progress of Asia-only cooperation on one side of the ocean and a Free Trade Area of the Americas on the other side. It is the best possible device to reenergize APEC's progress toward its own signature trade liberalization goals and thus those of APEC as an institution. It offers a unique win-win-win opportunity that should be seized, beginning at Santiago and then at Pusan a year from now.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, Politics, and World Trade Organization
Political Geography:
America and Asia

138. Vernacular Security: Governmentality, Traditionality and ontological (In)Security in Indonesia

Author:
Nils Ole Bubandt
Publication Date:
12-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
Tracing the political history of the global concept of 'security' through a variety of national and regional inflections in Indonesia, this paper argues for the analytical usefulness of the concept of 'vernacular security'. Entailed in this is a proposal to treat the concept of security as a socially situated and discursively defined category that needs a politically contextualised explication rather than as an analytical category that needs refined definition and consistent use.
Topic:
Security, Globalization, and Politics
Political Geography:
Indonesia and Asia

139. Russian Conservatism in the Putin Presidency

Author:
Sergei Prozorov
Publication Date:
10-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
The article seeks to map the emergent discursive field of conservatism in Russian politics in the context of the reshapement of the political space in the Putin presidency. In the course of Putin's first presidential term 'conservatism' became a privileged mode of political selfidentification in the Russian discourse, functioning as the nodal point of the hegemonic project of the Presidency. Yet, in accordance with the Foucauldian understanding of discourse as a system of dispersion, the article demonstrates the way the conservative discourse is internally fractured into two antagonistic strands, identified by their practitioners as liberal and left conservatisms. While the liberal-conservative orientation supports and sustains the depoliticising project of the Putin presidency, which orders and stabilises the effects of the anti-communist revolution, left conservatism functions in the modality of radical opposition to the Putinian hegemony, thereby contributing to the pluralisation of political space in contemporary Russia. In the present Russian political constellation 'conservatism' is therefore less a name for a stable hegemonic configuration than a designator of the field of political struggle over the very identity of postcommunist Russia. The article concludes with a critical discussion of the relation the two strands of Russian conservatism establish to the period of the 1990s as the 'moment of the political' in the Russian postcommunist transformation.
Topic:
Democratization, Government, and Politics
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Asia

140. The Russian Northwestern Federal District and EU's Northern Dimension

Author:
Sergei Prozorov
Publication Date:
07-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
The Northwestern Federal District of the Russian Federation has been particularly active in asserting itself as a macro-regional political subject, transcending the administrative borders of the subjects of the Russian Federation. This affirmation of the Northwest as a macro-region is also characterised by the explicit location of the Federal District within the international regional context and the linkage of the newly elaborated strategic development plans with EU policies in the region, particularly the Northern Dimension. This strategic policy discourse is grounded in the problematisation of the existing format of EU-Russian cooperation on the regional level as marked by the passivity of Russian regions vis-à-vis EU policies. The district-level strategies proceed, on the contrary, from the need to assume a more active and assertive position towards the EU that would allow to integrate the policies of the Northern Dimension with the domestic reform vision in Russia. The paper seeks to analyse the international dimensions of the strategic discourse of the Northwestern 'macro-region', elucidate the conflict episodes and conflict issues that are articulated in this discourse and address the wider implications of the emergence of the Northwestern Federal District for the EU-Russian regional cooperation in the border regions.
Topic:
Politics and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Asia