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4181. From the Editor

Author:
Rashid I. Khalidi
Publication Date:
01-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
Once again, Gaza dominates the news coming out of Palestine, where the aftershocks of Hamas's 2007 takeover continue to reverberate. With Hamas insisting on launching its rockets from the Strip, Israel's response has been predictable but brutal: almost daily armed incursions and one major operation. Of the more than 130 Palestinians killed this quarter (against four Israelis), the vast majority were Gazans, including many civilians. Meanwhile, the impact of the tightening siege and closure—the subject of growing international humanitarian concern—is taking its toll, slowly but surely driving the population to the breaking point. The centerpiece of the current JPS is also Gaza, but from a very different vantage point: Gaza's archeological wealth, and more particularly an unprecedentedly ambitious multi-stage archeological project launched with European and UNESCO backing. Astonishingly, few people in the United States—or for that matter the West Bank, underscoring the extent of separation between the two territories—have even heard of the project, despite the fact that it was inaugurated with a major exhibition showcasing Gaza's rich archaeological heritage that just closed at Geneva's Museum of Art and Archaeology. Thanks to Fareed Armaly, the exhibition's guest artist, JPS is the first to run his four fascinating interviews with the project's leading players. As Armaly himself notes, the importance of the interviews goes beyond Gaza, for they raise controversial issues confronting archaeology everywhere in the third world: development needs versus preserving the past, private interests versus public patrimony, methods of archaeological extraction, the role of poverty, pressures of urbanization, and so on. Also in this issue is an article addressing the economic dilemmas of a key segment of the Palestinian people: the 1.2 million who remain in Israel as citizens of the state. Economist Raja Khalidi, surveying the community after 60 years of failed integration, demonstrates how the Palestinian economies in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza are all part of a single Israeli-dominated economic regime. Starting from this position, he calls for a new economic paradigm capable of charting a course for Palestinian development based on restructuring relations between the two unequal economies along lines laid out in the economic annex to the 1947 partition plan. The issue also includes a review essay on Israel's other main disadvantaged (though far less so) community—the Mizrahim, or Jews of Middle Eastern origin—by Moshe Behar. Turning to less current subjects, anthropologist Sandy Sufian takes an unusual approach to history in her article analyzing political cartoons in Arabic and Hebrew newspapers during the great Palestinian Revolt of 1936–39 to show the use of body images to convey stereotypes of the adversary. Finally, returning to the archeological theme from a historical perspective, JPS is reprinting as a special document an article that appeared in Ha'Aretz on the destruction in 1948 by the Israeli army of sites important to Palestine's archaeology and history. These are casualties of war that often go overlooked.
Political Geography:
Geneva, United States, Europe, Israel, Palestine, and Gaza

4182. Kosovo Independence: An Albanian Perspective

Author:
Enika Abazi
Publication Date:
04-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
Kosovo's independence has revealed shifting strategic landscapes, security concerns and domestic developments in regional and international politics with significant implications for all actors in the region. Russia calculated to restore its lost 'superpower' status and control Serbia's strategic oil industries. Turkey's prompt recognition of independence increased its impact and prevented a stronger Greek-Serb- Russian axis in the region, while strengthening its Western identity. Kosovo's independence will be a test case for keeping peace and stability in the Balkans within the new dynamics of regional and international politics.
Topic:
International Relations and Diplomacy
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Turkey, Middle East, Asia, Kosovo, Balkans, and Albania

4183. The AK Party Closure Case: Domestic Situation and International Reactions

Author:
Hasan Kösebalaban
Publication Date:
04-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
The closure case against AK Party heralds a new era in Turkish politics marked by the increased intervention of the judiciary in politics. Inasmuch as the governing party enjoys support of half of the Turkish electorate, the case has harmed the image of Turkish democracy and consequently risks jeopardizing Turkey's quest for full membership in the EU. The overall reaction of the West to the case indicates that the Western political and intellectual elites avoid the conventional Islamist secularist dichatomy in interpreting Turkish politics. To-level EU bureaucrats have emphasized that closure would seriously jeopardize the process of membership. AK Party needs to accelerate the democratization process by focusing on the rest of the constitutional reforms required for EU membership.
Topic:
Politics
Political Geography:
Europe, Turkey, and Middle East

4184. Trade-offs in European energy policy: On choice, losses, gains, and how to have a go on both the swings and the roundabouts

Author:
Svend Aage Christensen
Publication Date:
01-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
In the spring of 2007, a trio of researchers put forward five proposals for optimising the EU's energy policy. The European Commission had published its framework for an energy policy in January 2007, and now, in the autumn of 2007, the European Commission has been presenting its proposals in more detail. The stage is set for heated discussions. The research trio believe, amongst other things, that existing policies for the internal market and competition regulations provide an immediately accessible framework for an energy market on a European scale, and should be implemented in full. In other words, they are opposed to the trends towards re-nationalisation and protectionism that characterise parts of the debate.
Topic:
Energy Policy, Environment, and Markets
Political Geography:
Europe

4185. The Decision-Making Process behind Launching an ESDP Crisis Management Operation

Author:
Annika Björkdahl and Maria Strömvik
Publication Date:
04-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
Overall, the development of the European security and defence policy (ESDP) and the deployment of ESDP operations have been nothing less than impressive. At the time of writing the EU has, within a five-year period, initiated twenty-one ESDP operations, on three continents, of which about a dozen are presently ongoing. The rapid growth of this completely new field of activities for the EU has placed new demands on the whole system of ESDP decision-making. Contrary to most EU policy areas, decision-making concerning ESDP operations involves all member states at all times and with a right to veto the process at any time (with the partial exception of Denmark). This examination of the European Union's decision-making process for launching EU-led peace support operations captures and describes the dynamics of the process and investigates the working methods of ESDP decision-making. It reveals that the intergovernmental character of this process is more fluid and involves fewer formalised steps than one would imagine at a first glance. At times the processes preceding the launch of an ESDP operation can also be surprisingly quick, although at other times it displays bottlenecks for instance in the force generation process constraining efficiency and rapidity of decision-making. One of the biggest challenges facing the EU today relates to capacity – in terms of planning, funding and availability of civilian and military personnel and equipment for ESDP operations.
Topic:
Defense Policy
Political Geography:
Europe

4186. The refugee, the sovereign and the sea : EU interdiction policies in the Mediterranean

Author:
Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen
Publication Date:
03-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
This paper starts from the encounter between a European navy vessel and a dinghy carrying boat refugees and other desperate migrants across the Mediterranean or West African Sea towards Europe. It explores the growing trend in the EU of enacting migration control at the high seas or international waters – so-called interdiction. It is argued that these forms of extraterritorial migration control aim at reconquering the efficiency of the sovereign function to control migration, by trying to either deconstruct or shift correlate obligations vis-à-vis refugees and other persecuted persons to third States. In both instances, European States are entering into a sovereignty game, in which creative strategies are developed in order to reassert sovereign power unconstrained by national and international obligations.
Topic:
Human Welfare, International Law, Migration, and Sovereignty
Political Geography:
Europe and West Africa

4187. The europeanization of Europe : the transfer of norms to Europe, in Europe and from Europe

Author:
Trine Flockhart
Publication Date:
03-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
Europeanization is a concept predominantly concerned with the domestic impact of the EU whilst less concerned with its historical foundations and wider geographical reach. By forwarding a Historical Sociological conceptualization of Europeanization it is revealed that the concept suffers from fundamental problems relating to historical and geographical scope, to uncertainty about which causal relationships to explain, and that it is based on implicit but unsustainable assumptions. This article challenges the assumption that Europeanization is based on ideas endogenous to Europe and is an activity preserved for Europeans. It suggests that 'Europeanization' can be conceptualized as several social processes involving different agents, structures, processes and conceptions of 'self' and 'other', and that Europeans have been more on the receiving end of ideational diffusion than promoters of a European norm set. By employing a Historical Sociological perspective it is revealed that before Europeans could 'Europeanize' either in or from Europe, they not only had to develop a European identity through a process of ideational diffusion to Europe, but the idea set which is today regarded as 'European' was diffused from the United States and stands in complete contrast to ideas previously also regarded as European.
Topic:
Civil Society and International Political Economy
Political Geography:
Europe

4188. Studying violent radicalization in Europe I : the potential contribution of social movement theory

Author:
Anja Dalgaard-Nielsen
Publication Date:
03-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
Why do some apparently well-integrated youth in Europe become attracted to Islamist militancy? Why and when do people cross from violent talk to violent action? What prevents others, exposed to the same political, ideological, and socioeconomic influences, from crossing? When and how might people de-radicalize and draw back from violent action? What policy initiatives would be called for to limit the spread of radical ideas, counter the factors that spur violent radicalization, and strengthen those, which pull in the other direction? In sum: When, why, and how do people living in a democracy become radicalized to the point of being willing to use or directly support the use of terrorist violence against civilians, and what can be done about it?
Topic:
Political Violence, Civil Society, Islam, and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe

4189. Studying violent radicalization in Europe II: The potential contribution of socio-psychological and psychological approaches

Author:
Anja Dalgaard-Nielsen
Publication Date:
03-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
Why do some apparently well-integrated youth in Europe become attracted to Islamist militancy? Why and when do people cross from violent talk to violent action? What prevents others, exposed to the same political, ideological, and socioeconomic influences, from crossing? When and how might people de-radicalize and draw back from violent action? What policy initiatives would be called for to limit the spread of radical ideas, counter the factors that spur violent radicalization, and strengthen those, which pull in the other direction? In sum: When, why, and how do people living in a democracy become radicalized to the point of being willing to use or directly support the use of terrorist violence against civilians, and what can be done about it?
Topic:
Political Violence, Civil Society, Islam, and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe

4190. Chechnya Weekly: KBR Interior Minister: Republic's Militants Well-Organized and Trained

Publication Date:
02-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
Bomb disposal experts with the Interior Ministry for the Southern Federal District's counterterrorist Center 'T' defused a large bomb in a wooded area three kilometers outside the village of Babugent in the Cherkesk district of the Kabardino-Balkaria Republic (KBR), Kavkazky Uzel reported on February 28. "The explosive device was located in a hiding place," a source in the KBR Interior Ministry told the website. "It consisted of a gas-cylinder with a capacity of 27 liters, four bags with a mixture of ammonium nitrate and aluminum powder, a five-liter plastic canister of kerosene and a demolition cord." KBR Interior Minister Yury Tomchak told a meeting of the ministry's public council on February 26 that 53 members of "illegal armed formations" are wanted by the republican authorities, Interfax reported. "Until recently the law-enforcement bodies were searching for 42 NFV [illegal armed formation] members, 14 of whom are on the federal wanted list and 10 who are on the international wanted list," Tomchak said. He added that the republic's Interior Ministry, with the assistance of the republican branch of the Federal Security Service (FSB) and the Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor General's Office, have put another 11 members of "illegal armed formations" on the republic's wanted list over the last two weeks.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Security, and Development
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Asia