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522. The European Union and the Middle East Peace Process
- Author:
- Gerald M. Steinberg
- Publication Date:
- 11-1999
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
- Abstract:
- Europe, both in terms of the individual states and collectively through the 15-member European Union, seeks to play an active role in the Middle East peace process. There are many reasons for this - substantive, political, and symbolic.
- Topic:
- Conflict Resolution, International Relations, Security, and Peace Studies
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Middle East
523. Barak's Complex Foreign Policy Agenda
- Author:
- Gerald M. Steinberg
- Publication Date:
- 07-1999
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
- Abstract:
- Prime Minister Ehud Barak will not get a period of grace or a post-election honeymoon. Immediately upon taking office, he faces a number of pressing issues. Many of these are domestic - including religious-secular relations and economic concerns.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Security, and Foreign Policy
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Europe, Middle East, and Asia
524. Israel's Relations with the Vatican
- Author:
- Aharon Lopez
- Publication Date:
- 03-1999
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
- Abstract:
- During the ceremony of the presentation of my credentials as the Ambassador of Israel to the Holy See on April 10, 1997, I told His Holiness that, actually, this was not my first connection with the Vatican. In fact, when I served as Ambassador of Israel to the Republic of Cyprus, in one of the ceremonies there, I was approached by the non-resident Ambassador of Outer Mongolia, who asked me whether I represented the Holy See in Cyprus. Of course I answered that I represented the State of Israel. Then, looking at my head, he remarked: "Oh, you are right, sir; now I can see the difference in the color!" Of course, he was referring to my skullcap.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Diplomacy, and Religion
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Middle East, Israel, and Vatican city
525. The Nonproliferation Regime under Siege
- Author:
- George Bunn
- Publication Date:
- 09-1999
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for International Security and Cooperation
- Abstract:
- The nuclear nonproliferation regime was challenged in 1998 by nuclear-weapon tests in India and Pakistan, by medium-range missile tests in those countries and in Iran and North Korea, by Iraq's defiance of UN Security Council resolutions requiring it to complete its disclosure of efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction, and by the combination of “loose nukes” and economic collapse in Russia. Additional threats to the regime's vitality came in 1999 from the erosion of American relations with both China and Russia that resulted from NATO's 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia—with additional harm to relations with China resulting from U.S. accusations of Chinese nuclear espionage and Taiwan's announcement that it was a state separate from China despite its earlier acceptance of a U.S.-Chinese “one China” agreement. Major threats to the regime also came from the continued stalemate on arms-control treaties in the Russian Duma and the U.S. Senate, from a change in U.S. policy to favor building a national defense against missile attack, and from a Russian decision to develop a new generation of small tactical nuclear weapons for defense against conventional attack.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Arms Control and Proliferation, Economics, Government, and Nuclear Weapons
- Political Geography:
- Pakistan, Russia, United States, China, Europe, Iran, South Asia, Middle East, Israel, East Asia, Asia, and Korea
526. Will the EU use Northern Dimension to solve its Kaliningrad dilemma?
- Author:
- Lyndelle Fairlie
- Publication Date:
- 08-1999
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Danish Institute for International Studies
- Abstract:
- A Northern Dimension for the European Union is now taking shape. Originally a Finnish initiative, it tries to take a regional view of the Baltic area which includes member states, EU applicants such as Poland and the Baltic states and Russia. The Northern Dimension specifically mentions the Russian oblast of Kaliningrad. There is very little time left to develop an Action Plan which the EU Council can adopt at the December Helsinki summit. This essay addresses the question of whether or not the EU will use Northern Dimension to solve its Kaliningrad dilemma.
- Topic:
- International Relations, International Organization, and Sovereignty
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Europe, Eastern Europe, and Asia
527. A New Statecraft? Supranational Entrepreneurs and International Cooperation
- Author:
- Andrew Moravcsik
- Publication Date:
- 08-1998
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- Studies of international regimes, law, and negotiation, as well as regional integration, near universally conclude that political entrepreneurship by high officials of international organizations—“supranational entrepreneurship”—decisively influences the outcomes of multilateral negotiations. Studies of the European Community (EC) have long stressed their informal agenda-setting, mediation, and mobilization. Yet the studies underlying this interdisciplinary consensus tend to be anecdotal, atheoretical, and uncontrolled. The study reported here derives and tests explicit hypotheses from general theories of political entrepreneurship and tests them across multiple cases (the five most important EC negotiations) while controlling for the actions of national governments. Two findings emerge: First, supranational entrepreneurship is generally redundant or futile; governments can almost always efficiently act as their own entrepreneurs. Second, rare cases of entrepreneurial success arise not when officials intervene to help overcome interstate collective action problems, as current theories presume, but when they help overcome domestic(or transnational) collective action problems. This suggests fundamental refinements in the core assumptions about transaction costs underlying general theories of international regimes, law, and negotiation.
- Topic:
- International Relations and International Cooperation
- Political Geography:
- Europe
528. Focal Points and International Financial Markets: The Maastricht Convergence Criteria
- Author:
- Layna Mosley
- Publication Date:
- 03-1998
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- A central research problem in comparative and international political economy concerns the implications of economic globalization - and more specifically, of international capital mobility - for national economic policy choice. A large body of recent literature suggests that governments are, at least to some extent, constrained by relatively high levels of international capital mobility (Garrett, 1998; O'Brien, 1992). At the very least, the asset allocation decisions of financial market participants affect interest rate levels, and, therefore, the cost of borrowing for governments and private actors.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Economics, and International Organization
- Political Geography:
- Europe
529. Environmental Protectionism and Comparative Observations in West Europe
- Author:
- Imtiaz Hussain
- Publication Date:
- 01-1998
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
- Abstract:
- Environmental concerns were seen by some as "a welcome guest in the free trade party" when they were first taken seriously in the early 1990s. Although they have since mushroomed in size and significance, the debate rages if policy measures are responding to demand. Trading behavior, for example, has not altered appreciably owing to the mounting pressures, but agreements increasingly acknowledge the need for safeguards. On the one hand is the problem of public pressure, very often of grassroots origins, upon policy-makers at all levels—multilaterally, internationally, regionally, nationally, and locally. On the other is the inquiry if policy impact is evolving differently, not only at various policy-making levels, but also in various parts of the world. How, indeed, have concerns and policy measures meshed? My broad response elaborates why environmental protectionism is chosen as a topic first, then explains the selection of cases for comparison, before turning to theoretical considerations, the empirical study itself, and finally drawing conclusions and implications, all in that order.
- Topic:
- International Relations and Environment
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Maryland
530. Theoretical Explanations of Trade Competitiveness and a North American Application
- Author:
- Imtiaz Hussain
- Publication Date:
- 01-1998
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
- Abstract:
- How do we reconcile economic competitiveness with trade regionalism? This exploratory investigation first takes stock of how competitiveness has been defined by both economists and political scientists, then extracts an inclusive model from the different literatures, and finally broadly assesses business transactions and trends across North America using that model. Beginning with the Ricardo-Viner and Hecksher-Olin explanations, various types of competitiveness articulated by Michael Porter, Mancur Olson, and David Mares are subsequently brought in. preliminary findings presented as hypotheses for future testing, suggest that: that evaporation of hegemony has resulted in multiple claims to competitiveness across North America, policy convergences are more widespread and common than ever before, regional-level cooperation provides an efficient means for all three countries to offset global competitiveness, and domestic interests, though still a potential veto force, are slowly embracing, rather than opposing, supranational efforts.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Economics, and International Trade and Finance
- Political Geography:
- Europe and North America