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62. The Union of South American Nations: Mapping Multilateralism in Transition
- Author:
- Sandra Borda
- Publication Date:
- 05-2014
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- International Peace Institute
- Abstract:
- Regional politics in Latin America today are defined by a variety of trends: Brazil continues to grow, but its leadership in the region has substantially decreased during the administration of Dilma Rousseff, which began in 2011; several countries-including Argentina, Bolivia, and Venezuela-have chosen to "Latin-Americanize" their foreign policy, discarding their former alignments with the United States; left-leaning governments, clearly critical of US power in the region, have tried to consolidate organizations such as the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) to increase their autonomy vis-à-vis the United States; right and right-center governments have responded by deepening their commercial links with the United States and the European Union (EU) and by organizing the Pacific Alliance, a traditional arrangement for free-trade and freedom-of-movement; and, finally, many countries in the region are adopting-independently of their ideological and political orientations-increasingly diversified foreign policies. At the same time, the presence of extra-regional actors has become increasingly visible.
- Topic:
- International Cooperation, Regional Cooperation, Sovereignty, Bilateral Relations, and Governance
- Political Geography:
- United States, Europe, Brazil, South America, and Latin America
63. Management of Irregular Migration in the Context of EU-Turkey Relations
- Author:
- Fulya Memişoğlu
- Publication Date:
- 01-2014
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV)
- Abstract:
- Turkey, at the crossroads of Europe, Middle East and Asia, has confronted with the mounting pressure of mixed migration flows in recent decades. Among these, management of irregular migration flows is an issue of particular concern due to the complex interplay between its security, humanitarian and economic dimensions. In broad terms, irregular migration is the movement that takes place outside of the regulatory norms of the sending, transit and receiving countries. Because irregular migrants do not have the necessary authorization to enter, reside or work; the destination country treats their status as illegal. Triandafyllidou clarifies the distinction between illegality and irregularity by defining irregular migrant as ‘a migrant who at some point in his migration contravened the rules of entry or residence’ whereas illegal migration is ‘the act of entering in violation to national law and is confined to illegal border crossing (but not overstaying the terms of visas or residence) referring only a flow and not to stock of persons’.
- Topic:
- Human Rights, Migration, Bilateral Relations, and European Union
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Turkey, and Middle East
64. Companions in Competitiveness: How France and the United States Can Help Each Other Succeed in the Twenty-first Century
- Author:
- Nicholas Dungan
- Publication Date:
- 01-2014
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Atlantic Council
- Abstract:
- Competitiveness encompasses all the factors that will serve to make a society, an economy, and a country successful in the globalized world of the twenty-first century. France and the United States rank among the most competitive countries overall, but both have seen their position decline in recent years in key attributes of competitiveness.
- Topic:
- Economics, International Cooperation, and Bilateral Relations
- Political Geography:
- United States, Europe, and France
65. The China-EU BIT: The emerging "Global BIT 2.0"?
- Author:
- Wenhua Shan and Lu Wang
- Publication Date:
- 08-2014
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
- Abstract:
- Since China and the European Union (EU) announced their decision to negotiate a bilateral investment treaty (BIT) at the 14th China-EU Summit in February 2012, the two sides have engaged in two rounds of negotiations. If successful, it will be the first standalone EU BIT, a BIT between the world's largest developed economy and the world's largest developing economy, and will occupy a unique place in the history of BIT negotiations.
- Topic:
- Economics, International Trade and Finance, Bilateral Relations, and Foreign Direct Investment
- Political Geography:
- China, Europe, and Asia
66. Neoclassical realism and international climate change politics: moral imperative and political constraint in international climate finance
- Author:
- Mark Purdon
- Publication Date:
- 07-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- In this article, I present a neoclassical realist theory of climate change politics that challenges the idea that cooperation on climate change is compelled alone by shared norms and interests emanating from the international level and questions if instead material factors also play a significant constraining role. Relative-gains concerns incited by the international resource transfers implicit in climate change policy may compel some states to be prudent in their international climate change efforts and conserve resources domestically for future contingencies, including their own adaptation and resiliency. Neoclassical realism recognises such systemic constraints while also identifying international and domestic factors—a 'two-level game'—that explain variation in state sensitivity to relative gains. As a preliminary test of this theory, I compare the latest data on the magnitude, distribution and financial 'additionality' of climate funds and carbon markets. Climate funds are found to be more vulnerable to systemic forces identified by neoclassical realism because they are largely drawn from existing official development assistance budgets despite international commitments that funds are 'new and additional'. Carbon markets engage a relatively broader number of states and, contrary to moral hazard concerns, have been used to a greater degree by states reducing emissions domestically. While there are concerns about whether carbon credits represent genuine emission reductions, the effectiveness of climate funds is equally, if not more, dubious. I conclude that, while imperfect, carbon markets have too often been unfairly compared with an ideal climate finance mechanism that assumes few political constraints on international resource transfers for climate change.
- Topic:
- Security, Foreign Policy, International Security, Political Theory, and Bilateral Relations
- Political Geography:
- Europe
67. European integration and the problem of the state: universality, particularity, and exemplarity in the crafting of the European Union
- Author:
- Stefan Borg
- Publication Date:
- 07-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- The European Union is often presented as an entity that has 'moved beyond' the model of organising political life along the way of the modern sovereign state. This paper questions this understanding by engaging a set of texts that could be understood as exemplary of the EU's official discourse of Europe: EU's failed Constitutional Treaty and Javier Solana's collected speeches. A paradox is herein identified: the values that are said to sustain Europe's identity and upon which Europe is founded are simultaneously presented as distinctly European and universal. It is suggested that Europe is being crafted in a pendular oscillation between particularising and universalising the values upon which Europe allegedly rests. By drawing on critical International Relations theory, the paper suggests that this very contradictory oscillation between particularising and universalising Europe's values to an important extent mirrors modern statecraft. One should therefore think twice before announcing the construction of the European Union as something qualitatively different from, or 'gentler' than, modern statecraft.
- Topic:
- Security, Foreign Policy, Political Theory, and Bilateral Relations
- Political Geography:
- Europe
68. The West: a securitising community?
- Author:
- Gunther Hellmann, Gabi Schlag, Benjamin Herborth, and Christian Weber
- Publication Date:
- 07-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- The primary objective of this article is to theorise transformations of Western order in a manner that does not presuppose a fixed understanding of 'the West' as a pre-constituted political space, ready-made and waiting for social scientific enquiry. We argue that the Copenhagen School's understanding of securitisation dynamics provides an adequate methodological starting point for such an endeavour. Rather than taking for granted the existence of a Western 'security community', we thus focus on the performative effects of a security semantics in which 'the West' figures as the threatened, yet notoriously vague referent object that has to be defended against alleged challenges. The empirical part of the article reconstructs such securitisation dynamics in three different fields: the implications of representing China's rise as a challenge to Western order, the effects of the transformation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) towards a global security actor, and the consequences of extraordinary renditions and practices of torture for the normative infrastructure of 'the West'. We conclude that Western securitisation dynamics can be understood as a discursive shift away from a legally enshrined culture of restraint and towards more assertive forms of self-authorisation.
- Topic:
- Security, Foreign Policy, Political Theory, and Bilateral Relations
- Political Geography:
- Europe
69. 'Moral power' as objectification of the 'civilian'/'normative' 'EUlogy': the European Union as a conflict-dealer in the South Caucasus
- Author:
- Syuzanna Vasilyan
- Publication Date:
- 07-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- This article develops a new conceptual framework of 'moral power' by arguing that the 'civilian'/'normative' power Europe paradigms are insufficient for understanding the essence of the conflict resolution policy of the European Union (EU) in the South Caucasus. Analysing the conflicts of Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorno-Karabakh, the study reveals that until the August 2008 war, the EU was an incoherent actor in terms of the interplay among its institutions and member-states. The EU's policy has been devoid of a long-term peace-focused strategy, making it inconsequential; as a result, the EU has merely dealt with, rather than managed, the conflicts. Its rhetoric has been inconsistent with practice. Often the EU has subordinated its values to material and power-related interests. Moreover, the EU has hardly been normatively stable in its approach to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Bypassing inclusiveness until the launch of the Geneva talks pertaining to the Abkhazian and South Ossetian conflicts, the EU has not enjoyed much legitimacy by the de facto states. Whereas the EU has largely failed to resolve the South Caucasian conflicts, it has achieved partial success by putting a halt to the 2008 hostilities between Russia and Georgia. Overall, having faltered as a 'civilian'/'normative' power it still has to fare as a 'moral power'.
- Topic:
- Security, Foreign Policy, Political Theory, and Bilateral Relations
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Europe, Georgia, South Caucasus, South Ossetia, and Abkhazia
70. Looking back: communist melancholia and post-socialist pains
- Author:
- Anca Pusca
- Publication Date:
- 07-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- Remembering communism in Central and Eastern Europe is a tricky business, as memories are increasingly put on display through practices of museumisation, collective and personal biographies and official investigations. Everything — from former factories to architecture, monuments and statues, to secret service files and other material reminders — is carefully reshaped into politically convenient, or in some cases inconvenient, discourses.
- Topic:
- Security, Foreign Policy, Political Theory, and Bilateral Relations
- Political Geography:
- Europe