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6081. The Francis Effect

Author:
Daniel H. Levine
Publication Date:
05-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Americas Quarterly
Institution:
Council of the Americas
Abstract:
The election of Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio as Pope Francis aroused enthusiasm—and expectations—in Latin America. As the first pope of non-European origin in nearly 1,300 years, and the first ever from Latin America, he embodies both hopes and concerns for the future of the Catholic Church in this part of the world.
Political Geography:
Europe, Argentina, and Latin America

6082. Just the Numbers: World's Highest Paid Athletes

Author:
Wilda Escarfuller
Publication Date:
05-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Americas Quarterly
Institution:
Council of the Americas
Abstract:
Our hemisphere produces some of the best (and best paid) athletes in the world. Unfortunately, many of our soccer (futbol) players go on to play in Europe, where the contracts and endorsements are better. For the same reason, two of those who top the list of baseball player salaries from Venezuela—Cabrera and Santana—playing in U.S. instead of their home country.
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, and Venezuela

6083. The Failed-State Paradigm and Implications for Politics and Practices of International Security

Author:
Mohamed Omar Hashi
Publication Date:
05-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Bildhaan: An International Journal of Somali Studies
Institution:
Macalester College
Abstract:
From the 1940s to the 1970s, the world witnessed considerable and tumultuous change. This change was, on the one hand, based on the independence realized by the territories that European empires had controlled during the colonial era. On the other hand, just as the struggle against colonial rule ended, new conflicts erupted in many of these newly independent nations. In contrast to the colonial era, after the culmination of the Cold War, which reshaped the world order, the number of newly independent states unable to fulfill their obligations to their citizens increased. Such failures became apparent as states failed to provide a certain level of functions that would ensure both the security and the well-being of their respective populations. Although such crises of statehood are often depicted as mainly internal in nature, their roots and ramifications transcend the intrastate and are often ignored in the literature. While there was an increase in violence, some scholars attempted to identify the reasons underlying the failure of such states to perform key functions. In doing so, the debate was joined by a body of literature that offered the common assumption that these conflicts usually come under a state's failure. The “failed state” notion became prominent among people in diplomatic, political, and academic circles, as it gradually became rooted in the literature. While in the beginning it concentrated on states within Africa, the label was embraced as an international concern in the aftermath of the “9/11” terror attacks on Mohamed Omar Hashi 79 the twin towers in New York City. As a result, failed states were seen as a threat to international security since such states could potentially offer a safe haven to terrorist organizations. Although virtually no one disagrees that the majority of supposed failed states suffer many severe political, security, and socioeconomic challenges, the failed-state thesis has come up short in sufficiently elucidating the development of such obstacles. Furthermore, there is a lack of clarity and much disagreement, often governed by subjective interpretations, in the academic and policy discourse over how to define the concept and when and how it should be used. This brief essay acts as a beginning critique of the failed-states discourse and thought. The intention is to highlight the problems associated with the current debates. It is not the aim here to present a new approach. The essay will begin with a quick analysis of the theoretical- cum-policy debates underpinning state failure. Thereafter, observation will be made on the apparent growing international security and political interest in the state-failure thesis, with particular reference to the recently emerging pathology of terrorism and its implications for those countries labelled as failed.
Political Geography:
New York and Europe

6084. Nationalized Incumbents and Regional Challengers: Opposition-and Incumbent-Party Nationalization in Africa

Author:
Michael Wahman
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
The African party literature, especially research prescribing to the long‐dominant ethnic voting thesis, has asserted that African party systems exhibit low levels of party nationalization. However, systematic research on nationalization across parties and party systems is still lacking. This study argues that the prospects for building nationalized parties vary substantially between incumbent and opposition parties. Incumbent parties, with their access to state resources, have been successful in creating nationwide operations, even in countries where geographical factors have been unfavorable and ethnic fractionalization is high. The analysis utilizes a new data set of disaggregate election results for 26 African countries to calculate nationalization scores for 77 parties and study the correlates of party nationalization. The results show that factors like ethnic fractionalization, the size of the geographical area, and urbanization affect party nationalization, but only in the case of opposition parties. Incumbent parties, on the other hand, generally remain nationalized despite unfavorable structural conditions.
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
Africa and Europe

6085. More Women – But Which Women? The Rule and the Politics of Gender Balance at the European Court of Human Rights

Author:
Stéphanie Hennette Vauchez
Publication Date:
05-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
Building on the heightened attention that the optic of judicial selection receives in the world of international courts, this article focuses its attention on one particular criterion that is gaining in importance in that respect: gender. By choosing the European Court of Human Rights as a case in point, the article provides a unique analysis of the history of the 2004 Resolution of the Council of Europe's parliamentary assembly that formulated a rule of gender balance on the list of candidates presented by states for the post of judge at the Court. It first unearths the dynamics that allowed the adoption of the rule as well as all of the fierce opposition it triggered as well as the ways in which counter-mobilization eventually prevailed and watered down the initial rule, with the help of states, the Committee of Ministers and the Court itself (which delivered its first advisory opinion on the topic in 2008). It then looks beyond the static analysis of the rule as a mere constraint and addresses in a more dynamic fashion the multiple interpretations, strategies and, ultimately, politics it opens up. By providing a unique qualitative, comparative and exhaustive analysis of the curriculum vitae of all the 120-odd women who were ever listed as candidates to the Strasbourg judicial bench (1959–2012), the article delivers original data and analyses both the features that women candidates put forth when listed for the job and the strategies of states with regard to the gender criterion. It concludes that while there is a strong proportion of candidates that support the notion that states do not differentiate according to gender or require different qualities from men and women candidates, there is a comparable proposition that contrarily indicates that the world of international judicial appointments is far from gender neutral.
Topic:
Human Rights and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe

6086. More Women – But Which Women? A Reply to Stéphanie Hennette Vauchez

Author:
Françoise Tulkens
Publication Date:
05-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
Having spent almost 14 years as a judge at the European Court of Human Rights, the author responds to and shares the critical view expressed by Hennette Vauchez in her article on the presence of women judges at the European Court of Human Rights. Some steps forward have admittedly been made through the voluntary action of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly, but there has also been resistance in the implementation of these new rules. The gains are fragile and there are risks of regression. This situation confirms Kenney's analysis: women's progress is not natural, inevitable nor irreversible. A reaction is all the more necessary and urgent since, in the coming months of 2015 and subsequently, many elections of judges to the Court will take place, due in particular to the non-renewable nine-year term of office of judges introduced by Protocol No. 14 to the European Convention on Human Rights.
Topic:
Human Rights
Political Geography:
Europe

6087. More Women – But Which Women? A Reply to Stéphanie Hennette Vauchez

Author:
Fionnuala Ní Aoláin
Publication Date:
05-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
This article responds to a thoughtful intervention by Stéphanie Hennette Vauchez documenting the selection process for women seeking judicial appointment to the European Court of Human Rights. Written in the context of the author's experience as candidate for appointment to the Court, the analysis concentrates on the gendered dimensions of international institutional cultures, habits and practices that frame selection to judicial office as much as any formally applicable rules. I explore the ways in which ostensible access to international judicial bodies conceals the manifold ways in which Courts are coded masculine, and how female candidacy requires careful deliberation on performance, presentation and identity. Drawing on 'new institutionalism' theory, I underscore that female presence alone rarely undoes embedded institutional practices. Rather, transforming institutional practices and values must parallel female presence, thereby redefining the institution and the forms of power it exercises. The article concludes by reflecting on the importance of feminist judging, and argues that it is precisely the transformative political and legal changes sought by self-defined feminists that may stand the best chance of undoing the structures, habits and practices that continue to exclude women from being appointed and from engaging on terms of full equality when they arrive.
Topic:
Human Rights
Political Geography:
Europe

6088. Holocaust Denial before the European Court of Human Rights: Evolution of an Exceptional Regime

Author:
Paolo Lobba
Publication Date:
05-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
Litigation concerning domestic restrictions on Holocaust denial has produced a 30-year-long jurisprudence of the European Court and European Commission of Human Rights. In spite of solemnly declared principles on free speech, the Strasbourg organs have progressively developed an exceptional regime in this regard based on the 'abuse clause' envisaged under Article 17. Had this detrimental treatment remained confined to its original sphere, it could have perhaps been considered as a negligible issue. However, the scope of the abuse clause was extended to encompass a growing class of utterances, including the denial of historical facts other than the Nazi genocide. This piece begins by examining the Strasbourg case law on Holocaust denial, with a view to enucleating the effects, scope and conditions of applicability of the special regime based upon Article 17. Once the shortcomings implied by this detrimental discipline have been exposed, it shall be argued that all expressions should be dealt with under the ordinary necessity test, in which the abuse clause ought to operate as an interpretative principle. In the alternative, and as a minimum, the Court should pay due regard to the political and social context of the country where restrictions on free speech were enforced, setting aside the uniquely harsh treatment reserved for Holocaust denial.
Topic:
Genocide and Human Rights
Political Geography:
Europe

6089. A Year After Euromaidan: Pro-European Forces Wins the New Parliament

Author:
Olexiy Haran and Maria Zolkina
Publication Date:
05-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
Mass protests in Maidan, the central square of Kyiv, during the bitter cold winter of 2013-2014, known as 'Euromaidan' or 'Revolution of Dignity' were non-violent for more than two months. The demonstrations began when, under Russian pressure, former President Viktor Yanukovych abruptly resisted in signing the long promised Association Agreement with the EU. However, when President Yanukovych, reputed for his corruption and authoritarian style, responded to the peaceful protests by violent repression, Euromaidan quickly moved beyond its initial slogans and demanded the president's resignation. In February 2014, after security forces started to shoot protesters, Ukraine became one of the only countries in the world where a hundred people died “under the EU flags” defending democracy and the European choice. In this context, according to the agreement signed on February 21, 2014, between the opposition and President Yanukovych, the parliament returned to the 2004 constitutional reform and, consequently, combined a parliamentary-presidential form of government. The 2004 constitutional reform had previously been unconstitutionally abolished by President Yanukovych in 2010 and its restoration was among the main demands of the Euromaidan.
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
Europe and Ukraine

6090. Guests And Hosts: European Retirees In Coastal Turkey

Author:
Canan Balkir and İlkay Südaş
Publication Date:
05-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
As a country in transition from emigration to immigration, Turkey hosts many diverse migrant groups, creating a very dynamic research field to explore. Amongst them, European retirees have settled in the coastal Turkish Riviera. This paper tries to understand the perspectives of both retired EU migrants and local hosts on migration and settlement processes. After briefly describing the geographical distribution of EU citizens in Turkey, the paper focuses on the demographic characteristics and socio-economic integration of retired migrants in Antalya, the most popular destination in Turkey.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
Europe and Turkey