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351. A Matter of Degree: The Role of Journalists as Activists in Journalism Business and Policy

Author:
Neil Shister
Publication Date:
04-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Aspen Institute
Abstract:
The prevailing view of journalism today draws on strands from a diverse portfolio of political, legal, and commercial theories. Some of the propositions underlying the way we regard the practice of the craft date back to the 18th-century “age of reason;” others are as current as yesterday's Wall Street media deal. “Journalism” is a historical hybrid— more an evolving social construct than a fixed point of reference. As such, it conveys contradictory associations: on one hand a band of swashbuckling iconoclasts daring to “speak truth to power;” on the other hand considerably more temperate, disinterested professionals gathering content to distribute through the “information division” of giant corporations. Each image is exaggerated; neither is wholly wrong
Topic:
Economics, Government, and Politics
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

352. European and American Approaches to Antitrust Remedies and the Institutional Design of Regulation in Telecommunications

Author:
J. Gregory Sidak and Damien Geradin
Publication Date:
01-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
In the United States and the European Union, the topic of remedies in network industries cuts across antitrust law and sector-specific regulation, including telecommunications. The legal and economic understandings of a “remedy” are not always synonymous. In both legal systems, a remedy is the corrective measure that a court or an administrative agency orders following a finding that one or several companies had either engaged in an illegal abuse of market power (monopolization in the US and abuse of dominance in the EC) or are about to create market power (in the case of mergers). With the exception of merger control where remedies seek to prevent a situation from occurring, legal remedies are retrospective in their orientation. They seek to right some past wrong. They may do so through the payment of money (whether that is characterized as the payment of damages, fines, or something else). Or they may seek to do so through a mandated change in market structure (“structural” remedies), as in the case of divestiture, or in the imposition of affirmative or negative duties (“behavioral” remedies). United States v. Microsoft Corp (U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, 2001). presented the tradeoff between these various remedial alternatives.
Topic:
Government and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

353. Russian Conservatism in the Putin Presidency

Author:
Sergei Prozorov
Publication Date:
10-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)
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

354. Greenland, Denmark and the Debate on Missile Defense: A Window of Opportunity for Increased Autonomy

Author:
Kristian Søby Kristensen
Publication Date:
09-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)
Abstract:
This paper investigates the debate leading up to the joint Danish-Greenlandic decision to allow the US to upgrade its radar at Thule Air Base, ensuring its integration in the American missile defense. By analyzing how this debate is structured in the Danish Realm, the paper argues that the contentious history of the Air Base strengthens the moral position of the Greenlanders and provides them with valuable argumentative assets in the debate. This debate, the paper concludes, presents the Greenlanders with a window of opportunity facilitating negotiations with the Danish Government, the effect of which is further Greenlandic independence and increasing Greenlandic influence on security policy.
Topic:
Security and Government
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, Denmark, and Greenland

355. Reinvigorating European Elections: The Implications of Electing the European Commission

Author:
Julie Smith
Publication Date:
05-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
Europe's voters go to the polls in mid-June to elect 732 Members of the European Parliament. In the past European Parliament (EP) elections have been characterized by low turnout, with an emphasis on national rather than European issues. The evidence suggests that this year's elections will be little different despite the enlargement of the Union on 1 May.
Topic:
Civil Society, Government, Political Economy, and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe

356. Informal International Consultative Meeting in the Area of Minority Issues

Author:
Colleen French
Publication Date:
10-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI)
Abstract:
In September 2002, senior representatives of intergovernmental and major nongovernmental institutions addressing minority issues gathered in Flensburg for a consultative meeting which sought to facilitate an informal exchange between the different organizations on emerging issues and strategies. As a follow up measure, the European Centre of Minority Issues (ECMI) held a second 'Informal International Consultative Meeting of Major Actors in the Area of Minority Issues', at ECMI Headquarters, Flensburg, Germany on 17 and 18 September 2004.
Topic:
International Relations, Government, and Human Rights
Political Geography:
Europe

357. Ukrainian Democratic Development and Euro-Atlantic Integration: A Natural Convergence, But A Difficult Path

Author:
James Green
Publication Date:
03-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance (DCAF)
Abstract:
For over a thousand years, Ukraine\'s national strength and independence has been linked to democratic self-governance. In the Kyiv Rus, popular assemblies called \'vetches\' elected representatives and provided popular input into governmental policy. In the 15th and 16th centuries, Cossack hetman and foremen were elected by the Cossack Radas, which also debated and approved government policies. Beginning in the 14th century and lasting until the early 19th century, many Ukrainian towns and cities – Lviv, Kyiv, Vinnitsa, Zhytomyr, Chernigiv, Glukhov, Lubny, Poltava – flourished under the political and economic self-government provided by Magdeburg Law, which offered liberation from feudal duties, the election of city authorities, and rule of law. This link continues to the present; the modern Ukrainian state was born out of the convergence of movements for national independence and democracy that brought down the Soviet Union. Although neither of these attributes is yet fully consolidated in the young Ukrainian state, the country\'s best hope for success lies in its democratic elements: a system, albeit imperfect, of electing government officials and legislators, elements within the judiciary willing to uphold human rights and the rule of law, journalists and editors willing to take risks to report the truth, non-governmental organizations that provide a means for citizens to mobilize in order to advance their common interests.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, and Government
Political Geography:
Europe, Ukraine, and Soviet Union

358. Civil Society, Democracy and the Law

Author:
Ian Leigh
Publication Date:
01-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance (DCAF)
Abstract:
This paper first discusses the meaning of civil society and, in particular, its strengths and limitations. The second section considers what civil society can add to the representative democratic process. In the remaining sections, I discuss how civil society interacts with the law in a democratic state. There are two distinct aspects to this. Firstly, there are the legal and constitutional pre-conditions that allow civil society to flourish. These include issues about group autonomy, freedom of the press and of protest, including the place of civil disobedience. Secondly, there are the specific ways in which civil society can use the legal process to further its ends.
Topic:
Security, Civil Society, Democratization, and Government
Political Geography:
Europe

359. "A house isn't a home without a gun" - SALW Survey of Montenegro

Publication Date:
07-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
South Eastern Europe Clearinghouse for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons
Abstract:
The SALW Survey of the Republic of Montenegro was conducted by a team of researchers from the Small Arms Survey during September to December 2003. It was funded by SEESAC for two reasons: 1) to establish management information for the design of future SALW control intervention projects within the Republic of Montenegro; and 2) to field test the recently drafted SALW Survey protocols and draft Regional Micro-Disarmament Standard (RMDS) 05.80 - SALW Survey. As such, it is the first SALW Survey to be officially conducted in accordance with the SALW Survey protocols, although previous SALW surveys and 'needs assessments' have utilised similar methodologies.
Topic:
Arms Control and Proliferation, Civil Society, and Government
Political Geography:
Europe

360. Bi-Annual Report: 01 January - 30 June 2004

Publication Date:
06-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
South Eastern Europe Clearinghouse for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons
Abstract:
In November 2001 the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe adopted a Regional Implementation Plan on Combating the Proliferation of Small Arms and Light Weapons in South Eastern Europe, which provides a framework of approaches and measures to tackle SALW issues that can be adopted by the countries of the region and supported by international organisations and bi-lateral donors. The Implementation Plan included provision for the establishment of a regional clearinghouse to support its implementation, and on the basis of this mandate SEESAC was officially launched in Belgrade on the 08 May 2002 as a joint UNDP and Stability Pact initiative.
Topic:
Arms Control and Proliferation, Civil Society, and Government
Political Geography:
Europe