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262. Central Asia Between Competition and Cooperation
- Author:
- Yu Bin
- Publication Date:
- 12-2006
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Foreign Policy In Focus
- Abstract:
- Great power competition in Central Asia ebbs and flows in a timeless and tireless fashion. Unlike in Europe and East Asia during the Cold War and after, the fault line for the current jockeying for position in Central Asia between Washington and Beijing is not easily discernible. Instead, fluidity, uncertainty, and even outright reversal of fortunes among the major players have been the norm.
- Topic:
- Cold War, Diplomacy, Economics, and International Cooperation
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Washington, Central Asia, and East Asia
263. Anti-Americanism and the Rise of Civic Diplomacy
- Author:
- Nancy Snow
- Publication Date:
- 12-2006
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Foreign Policy In Focus
- Abstract:
- Anti-Americanism has emerged as a term that, like “fascism” and “communism” in George Orwell's lexicon, has little meaning beyond “something not desirable.” However it is defined, anti-Americanism has clearly mushroomed over the last six years, as charted in a number of polls. This phenomenon is, everyone agrees, intimately tied to the exercise of U.S. power and perceptions around the world of U.S. actions.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Diplomacy, Government, and Terrorism
- Political Geography:
- United States and Europe
264. French foreign policy and the limits of Europeanisation. The changing French position on EU enlargement
- Author:
- Pernille Rieker
- Publication Date:
- 01-2006
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
- Abstract:
- This article looks at the relationship between European integration and national foreign and security policy - specifically, how and to what extent the development of a specifically European (EU) foreign and security policy leads to adaptation and change in national foreign and security policy. The theoretical point of departure is an interest in national changes in response to EU norms. It will be argued that national approaches tend to adapt to norms defined by a community to which they are closely linked; that this adaptation takes place over time, through a socialisation process; and that it may also, in the end, lead to changes in national identity. This argument challenges the common assumption of IR theory that national identities and/or interests are fixed and independent of structural factors like international norms and values. The empirical focus is on changes in French foreign and security policy since the early 1990s. How and to what extent has the dominant French national discourse on foreign and security policy changed since the early 1990s? And if so, how are these changes related to the European integration process in general, and to the development of a European foreign and security dimension in particular?
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy and Diplomacy
- Political Geography:
- Europe and France
265. Southern Serbia: In Kosovo's Shadow
- Publication Date:
- 06-2006
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- International Crisis Group
- Abstract:
- Southern Serbia's Albanian-majority Presevo Valley is a still incomplete Balkan success story. Since international and Serbian government diplomacy resolved an ethnic Albanian insurgency in 2001, donors and Belgrade have invested significant resources to undo a legacy of human rights violations and improve the economy. Tensions are much decreased, major human rights violations have ended, the army and police are more sensitive to Albanian concerns and there is progress, though hesitant, in other areas, such as a multi-ethnic police force, gradual integration of the judiciary, and Albanian language textbooks. Ethnic Albanians appear increasingly intent on developing their own political identity inside Serbia and finding a way to cohabit with Serbs, something that should be encouraged and supported. Nevertheless, the Kosovo status process threatens to disrupt the Presevo Valley's calm.
- Topic:
- Conflict Resolution, International Relations, and Diplomacy
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Kosovo, Balkans, Albania, and Southern Serbia
266. Integration without Joining? Neighbourhood Relations at the Finnish-Russian Border
- Author:
- Anaïs Marin
- Publication Date:
- 03-2006
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Danish Institute for International Studies
- Abstract:
- The Finnish-Russian border is one of the oldest dividing lines on the European continent, but also the most stable and peaceful new border the EU has been sharing with Russia since 1995. After the fall of the Iron Curtain, it became bot h a site and an instrument of increased cross- border interaction and institutional innovation, as illustrated by the establishment of Euregio Karelia in 2000. The paper recalls the historic al background of good-neighbourhood in the Finnish-Russian/Soviet borderlands and calls on constructivist IR theory to elaborate a model for analysing the factors, actors and mechanisms that contributed to the partial integration of this frontier. With Russian regions adjacent to the EU/Finnish border participating in the Northern Dimension, cross-border cooperation contributed to the growing regionalisation of the EU-Russia “strategic partnership”. The pa per addresses the challenging conceptual and political issues posed by this trend towards an “integration without joining” at the EU's external border.
- Topic:
- International Relations and Diplomacy
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Europe, and Asia
267. A Spreading Danger: Time for a New Policy Toward Chechnya
- Author:
- Anatol Lieven, Fiona Hill, and Thomas de Waal
- Publication Date:
- 03-2005
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
- Abstract:
- The ongoing conflict in and around Chechnya is helping to feed the wider international jihadi movement, and is endangering the West as well as Russia. The next “soft target” of North Caucasian terrorism could be a Western one. Mutual recriminations over the conflict have badly damaged relations between Russia and the West. While most of the blame for this lies with Russian policies, the Western approach to the issue has often been unhelpful and irresponsible. Denunciations of Russian behavior have not been matched by a real understanding of the Chechen conflict or a real commitment to help.
- Topic:
- Diplomacy and Peace Studies
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia, and North Caucasus
268. Iran Is Not an Island: A Strategy to Mobilize the Neighbors
- Author:
- George Perkovich
- Publication Date:
- 02-2005
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
- Abstract:
- With luck, Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons could be delayed through a combination of Iranian technical difficulties, U.S. military action, and European diplomacy. However, neither delay nor regime change would remove the causes of proliferation pressures in Iran. Iran needs to be assured that the U.S. will respect its autonomy if it ceases nuclear weapons development, while Iran's neighbors need to be reassured that Tehran will respect their interests. Arab governments are reluctant to join in a regional security dialogue in part because of Washington's double standard regarding Israel's nuclear arsenal and treatment of Palestinians. To mobilize all of the international actors opposing Iranian nuclear development, the U.S. must recognize that Iranian proliferation, Persian Gulf security, the U.S. role in the Middle East, Israel's nuclear status, and Palestinian-Israeli relations are all linked and cannot be resolved without a more balanced U.S. stance.
- Topic:
- Diplomacy and Peace Studies
- Political Geography:
- United States, Europe, Iran, Middle East, Israel, Tehran, Palestine, and Persia
269. CERI: Les analyses de l'engagement associatif en Russie
- Author:
- François Dauceé
- Publication Date:
- 06-2005
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales
- Abstract:
- Collective mobilizations in post-Soviet Russia constitute an enigma for Western political sociology due to their numerical weakness and their incapacity to strengthen democratic practices in the country. This perplexity can be explained by the unsuitability of the research tools used for their study. Academic research on social mobilization has long been based primarily on postulates concerning the modernization of social movements in a economically and politically liberal context. Western and Russian leaders involved in the transition process demonstrated a will to foster the constitution of organizations independent from the State and the creation of a civil society as an opposition force. In the early 90s, the practices of voluntary organizations in Russia became closer to Western ones. Notions such as "associative entrepreneurship", "professionalization" or "frustration" were shared by Russian movements. However, later evolutions showed the unsuitability of these concepts to understanding the full complexity of these movements. That is why this issue of "Research in question" aims to suggest new theoretical perspectives for studying associations in Russia. These are at the crossroads of various grammars, where civic and liberal principles are combined with domestic and patriotic preoccupations. This complexity, which resists a purely liberal vision of social organizations, draws convergent criticisms against their action. In order to investigate this complexity of practices as well as criticisms, the tools produced by a pragmatic and multiculturalist sociology are useful to show the diversity of social and political bonds that link militants in contemporary Russia.
- Topic:
- Diplomacy, Government, and Politics
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Europe, and Asia
270. The U.S. and Transatlantic Relations: On the Difference between Dominance and Hegemony
- Author:
- David P. Forsythe
- Publication Date:
- 06-2005
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Danish Institute for International Studies
- Abstract:
- It is important to distinguish hegemony from dominance, as various authors like Machiavelli, Gramsci, and Nye have argued. This distinction allows one to appreciate that the first Bush Administration attempted to be a dominant power rather than a hegemonic one. A long list of assertions of essentially unilateral dominant power projections is actually buttressed by two pillars: primary of hard power but also American exceptionalism. By comparison to Europe, the George W. Bush version of American exceptionalism emphasizes traditional and absolute U.S. state sovereignty, a corresponding depreciation of international law and organization, parochialism, and non-muscular multilateralism. Because of all this the U.S. is largely responsible for the crisis in Atlanticism. The Europeans, however, have made their own contributions to this crisis. The crisis needs to be resolved, as the management of various international problems requires trans-Atlantic cooperation. Fortunately there are signs of movement toward this cooperation, although the signals are mixed on the U.S. side.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Diplomacy, and Sovereignty
- Political Geography:
- United States and Europe