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3361. European Energy Security: Reducing Volatility of Ukraine-Russia Natural Gas Pricing Disputes

Author:
Michael Kofman and Richard B. Andres
Publication Date:
02-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
On January 7, 2009, the existing energy relationship among Europe, Russia, and Ukraine broke down over a natural gas dispute, just as it had done 3 years earlier. Amid subzero temperatures in many parts of Europe, Russia turned off its gas supply to Ukraine, causing shortages in more than 20 European countries. Thousands across the continent were left in the dark, and government services were closed. While the flow of gas was eventually restored, Russian gas disputes with Ukraine continue, and the prospect of another Gazprom shutoff has become an annual event for European consumers. Despite earlier indications that another breakdown in negotiations would lead to blackouts in Europe early in 2010, the potential crisis was averted via a Russia-Ukraine deal that restructured earlier payment and pricing arrangements. However, it is doubtful that Ukraine can continue timely payments for its domestic gas consumption and maintain its own pipeline infrastructure. Fundamental changes to Russia-Ukraine energy transport agreements are coming.
Topic:
Security and Energy Policy
Political Geography:
Russia and Europe

3362. Tribunes versus experts: an analysis of the Romanian questions

Author:
Mihail Chiru and Valentina Dimulescu
Publication Date:
02-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Central European University Political Science Journal
Institution:
Central European University
Abstract:
The article proposes an original framework for analyzing all the questions addressed to the European Council and Commission by the thirty-three Romanian Members of the European Parliament (EP) in the first year of their European mandate. We rely on a complex dataset that includes the parliamentarians' age, gender, previous experience in the European legislature, position on the party list, when elected and the party national status (in opposition or government). The nearly 400 interpellations are content-analyzed and then multivariate statistical techniques are applied in order to explain first, the questions' frequency and second, their connections to topics related either to Romania or to the MEPs' committee work. Our results reflect the Romanian MEPs' adaptation to the major patterns of interpellation in the EP, while at the same time emphasizing the importance of re-election seeking motivations, as well as a rather novel gender-related difference in parliamentary behaviour.
Political Geography:
Europe

3363. Aynsley Kellow and Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen (eds.), The International Politics of Climate Change (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2010).

Author:
Emilian Kavalski
Publication Date:
02-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Central European University Political Science Journal
Institution:
Central European University
Abstract:
The problems associated with climate change and their unintended consequences have challenged the capacities for comprehension. At the same time, the issues provoked by environmental degradation tend to evince the fickleness of established models for their management. Equally significantly, the dynamics associated with climate change have come to indicate the pervasive uncertainty of the post-Cold War climate of international interactions and the unpredictability of the emerging global patterns. While not new in themselves, the cumulative effects of intensifying environmental threats have drawn the attention of international relations theory to the complex challenges posed by climate change.
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
Europe and Romania

3364. Finland, Sweden, and NATO: From "Virtual" to Formal Allies?

Author:
Leo G. Michel
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
The "Open Door" policy of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has been an article of faith for Allies and aspirants alike for more than a decade. Its most recent formulation, approved at the November 2010 Lisbon Summit, states: "The door to NATO membership remains fully open to all European democracies which share the values of our Alliance, which are willing and able to assume the responsibilities and obligations of membership, and whose inclusion can contribute to common security and stability."
Topic:
NATO and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
Europe, Finland, and Sweden

3365. Linking an EU emission reduction target beyond 20 % to energy security in Central and Eastern Europe

Author:
Anna Korppoo, Thomas Spencer, Kai-Olaf Lang, and Martin Kremer
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
The Central and Eastern European Member States are expected to play a key role in the debate around future EU climate policy, including the potential move beyond a 20% greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction target by 2020. Hungary and Poland hold the rotating EU Presidency in 2011, and energy security has been placed as a priority issue on both Presidency agendas. At the same time, energy security is a key issue in climate policy, particularly for the Central and Eastern European (CEE) Member States. Hungary's ambassador for Energy Security, Mihaly Bayer, made the link explicit, saying “if we can settle energy security then we can deal with climate change more calmly”. It is important to gain an understanding of the actual underpinnings of the energy security debate in CEE, and of the impact of a more stringent 2020 reduction target for this region.
Topic:
Climate Change and Energy Policy
Political Geography:
Europe, Poland, and Hungary

3366. A climate of consensus: The UNFCCC faces challenges of legitimacy and effectiveness

Author:
Antto Vihma
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
The Cancún climate meeting adopted a package of decisions to numerous standing ovations. However, it did so against loud and formal protests from Bolivia, stretching the concept of “consensus” more than ever before within the UN climate regime. The Cancún meeting also brought to everyone's attention the inconvenient truth that decision-making in the UNFCCC exists in a legal vacuum. The Conference of the Parties has never agreed its Rules of Procedure, and has during its 17-year history operated with draft Rules of Procedure without voting rules, under a general agreement that decisions are taken by “consensus”. In the light of the dramatic events in the recent Copenhagen and Cancún meetings, as well as the daunting prospects of achieving a ratifiable legal instrument for post-2012, it is clear that the relationship between consent and authority has become too flimsy to provide an unproblematic basis of legitimacy for the UNFCCC's decision-making. The 2000s led to the erosion of UNFCCC's legitimacy as a decision-making arena, especially in the subjective views of Northern governments as well as considerable parts of the expert community and the public in general. This trend led to an outburst of UN scepticism after the Copenhagen meeting, declaring the UN climate regime to be a “multilateral zombie”. While the Cancún meeting has been criticised with arguments based on process and legitimacy, from a broader perspective it seems likely that achieving decisions with some substance is actually the primary need in securing the legitimacy of the UN process. Had the Cancún agreement been negotiated outside the UN, it would very likely have been weaker on several fronts. Also, it is important to keep the longer term option for a legally binding treaty open; the only institutional possibility for this lies within the UNFCCC.
Topic:
Climate Change, Energy Policy, and International Cooperation
Political Geography:
Europe and United Nations

3367. Instituto Culinario de México

Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Americas Quarterly
Institution:
Council of the Americas
Abstract:
No abstract is available.
Political Geography:
Europe, Latin America, and Mexico

3368. The Post-Washington Consensus: Development after the Crisis

Author:
Francis Fukuyama and Nancy Birdsall
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
A clear shift in the development agenda is underway. Traditionally, an agenda generated in the developed world was implemented in—and, indeed, often imposed on—the developing world. The United States, Europe, and Japan will continue to be significant sources of economic resources and ideas, but the emerging markets will become significant players. Countries such as Brazil, China, India, and South Africa will be both donors and recipients of resources for development and of best practices for how to use them. In fact, development has never been something that the rich bestowed on the poor but rather something the poor achieved for themselves. It appears that the Western powers are finally waking up to this truth in light of a financial crisis that, for them, is by no means over.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Emerging Markets, Poverty, and Foreign Aid
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, China, Europe, India, South Africa, and Brazil

3369. "Ahmad Urabi, Delegate of the People: Social Mobilization in Egypt on the Eve of Colonial Rule"

Author:
Sean Lyngaas
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
al Nakhlah
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
On June 11, 1882, the port of Alexandria lay smoldering in rubble. At the urging of the Egyptian viceroy, Tawfiq (r. 1879-1892), the British had bombarded the city in an effort to extinguish an insurrectionist government headed by Ahmad Urabi. Beneath the billows of smoke were the charred remains of a once-proud city. Alexandria had embodied much of what brought Egypt to the fore in the nineteenth century: openness to foreigners and commerce against the backdrop of a modernizing infrastructure. Now this noble concept was in flames, and with it went the vision of participatory government that had coalesced in the years prior to Alexandria's immolation. The Urabi Revolt (1881-1882) saw the Egyptian military capitalize on societal discontent, which had been brewing for decades, to usurp the Ottoman khedive. State repression of political freedoms, crippling taxes, discrimination in the Turco-Circassian bureaucracy, and a khedive, Tawfiq, who ultimately sided with Europeans over Egyptians, were all part of the brew that came to boil in the opening months of 1881.
Political Geography:
Europe and Egypt

3370. Establishing Regional Integration: The African Union and the European Union

Author:
Sougrynoma Z. Sore
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Macalester International
Institution:
Macalester College
Abstract:
Whether they are world travelers, global citizens, slum dwellers, or farmers in remote villages, people all across the world have, in one way or the other, been exposed to the forces of globalization. Globalization has infiltrated all aspects of life, and as such, is now one of the ―catch‖ terms that has entered the daily jargon. Globalization seems to be everywhere, continuously influencing and affecting the individual. In international relations, these global forces have also shaped state behavior and the way states interact on the international scene. The rise of global capitalism and the emergence of non-state actors as influential borderless entities have distributed power to the most economically advanced of the world. Furthermore, the increasing interconnectedness of the world has progressively undermined borders, making them more and more illusory. Space has become trans-local. We now live in a world where the interests of small and big nations are ever more intertwined. Ulrich Beck describes globalization as ―the process through which sovereign national states are criss-crossed and undermined by transnational actors with varying prospects of power, orientations, identities and networks.‖1 In the history of state and empire formation, such international power dynamics have triggered desires to build coalitions and create strong ties that would grant more leverage in the global arena. This gave rise to regionalism.
Political Geography:
Africa and Europe