Search

Begin New Search Political Geography Europe

4701. A Friendlier Schengen Visa System as a Tool of 'Soft Power': The Experience of Turkey

Author:
Kemal Kirisci
Publication Date:
03-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Institution:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Abstract:
In this paper, it is argued that Turkey's geographical location, accompanied by the extensive commercial, cultural and social relations that have developed since the end of the Cold War between Turkey and its immediate neighbourhood, provides an opportunity for the EU to consider formulating a more flexible Schengen visa policy that can also be in harmony with efforts to develop the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP). Such a policy can also ease the economic and political costs of Turkey's integration into the EU. This need not necessarily lead to compromising security and border control. The advocates of Turkish membership often stress the potential of Turkey in assisting a process of bridge building between Europe and the world beyond Europe. A modified and better calibrated Turkish visa regime and a Schengen visa system that is able to adjust itself to the lessons of the Turkish experience could become a pillar of that bridge building effort and hence of the ENP too.
Topic:
Cold War
Political Geography:
Europe and Turkey

4702. How to Capture Non-Western Forms of Governance: In Favour of an Equivalence Functionalist Observation of Governance in Areas of Limited Statehood

Author:
Draude Anke
Publication Date:
01-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Collaborative Research Center (SFB) 700
Abstract:
This article problematises the idea of the Western concept of governance being applied to areas outside the OECD world. The aim of this article is to develop a research approach which is appropriate for these areas. To this end the article first of all casts light on Eurocentric premises of the concept of governance. It deals with the central dichotomy between state and private actors. The omnipresence of this differentiation is then explained with the help of Foucault's, Luhmann's and Derrida's (de-)constructivist theories. Assuming that Eurocentrism is inevitable, but that it has a varying degree of influence on the observer, the author then outlines an equivalence functionalist approach to governance research, which poses questions about the nature of a task performed, about the “way” in which it is performed and by “whom”. In this way, European dichotomies with regard to actors and modes of action in governance can be avoided.
Topic:
Democratization, Development, International Cooperation, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
Europe

4703. Chechnya Weekly: Observers differ over how many rebels took amnesty offer...

Publication Date:
01-2007
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
The Russian government's amnesty for rebels in Chechnya and elsewhere in the North Caucasus, announced last July by Federal Security Service (FSB) Director Nikolai Patrushev acting in his capacity as head of the National Anti-Terrorist Committee (NAK), expired on January 15.
Topic:
Security and Ethnic Conflict
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Asia

4704. Chechnya Weekly: More violence and unrest in dagestan

Publication Date:
01-2007
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
No abstract is available.
Topic:
Security and Ethnic Conflict
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Asia

4705. A Contemporary Challenge to State Sovereignty: Gangs and Other Illicit Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs) in Central America, El Salvador, Mexico, Jamaica, and Brazil

Author:
Max G. Manwaring
Publication Date:
12-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:
Another kind of war within the context of a “clash of civilizations” is being waged in various parts of the Americas, Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and elsewhere around the world. Some of the main protagonists are those who have come to be designated as first-, second-, and third-generation street gangs, as well as their various possible allies such as traditional Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs). In this new type of war, national security and sovereignty of affected countries is being impinged every day, and gangs' illicit commercial motives are, in fact, becoming an ominous political agenda.
Topic:
International Relations
Political Geography:
Europe, Middle East, Asia, Latin America, and Mexico

4706. Russian Security Strategy under Vladimir Putin: Russian and American Perspectives

Author:
Craig Nation
Publication Date:
11-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:
Increasingly, the armed forces and a vision of security as emphasizing hard rather than soft security have come to the fore in Moscow's national security policy process. Due to this institutionally-driven vision, Russia sees itself facing increasing military-political and strategic threats all along its frontiers. Recent Russian policies reflect that perception and Moscow's adaptation to it. We may think this threat perception to be misguided, even bizarrely misconceived, given our own beliefs about what American policy is and what its goals are. Nevertheless, the strongest forces in the Russian policy community have bought into that vision and have made policy accordingly.
Topic:
Security and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Moscow

4707. East Asian Security: Two Views

Author:
Gilbert Rozman and Chu Shulong
Publication Date:
11-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:
In the post-Cold War era and in the early 21st century, the region of Northeast Asia remains one of the most unstable areas in Asia and in the world compared with other regions of Southeast Asia, Central Asia, Southern Asia, Middle East, Eastern Europe, Africa, and Latin America. And it could become a harsh strategic confrontational area between major powers in Asia and in the world in the future, if those major powers like the United States, China, Japan, and Russia do not manage their relationships well. It can also become a place of hot war or new Cold War in the Korean Peninsula and the Taiwan Strait, if the two Koreas and two sides of the Taiwan Strait problem cannot manage the unresolved issues in their relations. Northeast Asia is also on track to become another center of the global economy, science and technology, military, and international politics. Opportunities as well as challenges to Asia and the world come from the “rising” China and Asia.
Topic:
Security, Globalization, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, America, Europe, Middle East, and Asia

4708. Political Trends in the New Eastern Europe: Ukraine and Belarus

Author:
Vitali Silitski
Publication Date:
07-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:
For most of its existence as a newly-independent state in Eastern Europe, Belarus enjoyed a dubious reputation of being the continent's last dictatorship. The regime established by the country's president, Alyaksandr Lukashenka, has a solid domestic base. Nevertheless, the continuous political, economic, and diplomatic support provided to Lukashenka's Belarus by its Eastern neighbor, the Russian Federation, greatly contributed to the overall stability and smoothness with which the Belarus leader accumulated power, institutionalized his autocratic rule, and fended off both internal and external challenges.
Topic:
Security, Democratization, and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe

4709. Ukraine's Military Between East and West

Author:
Marybeth Peterson Ulrich
Publication Date:
05-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:
Ukraine's geopolitical location positioning it firmly between North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies to the west and Russia to the east has demanded that its foreign and security policy take into account its interests in the east and the west. The pro-reform forces in power since the Orange Revolution would like to move Ukraine squarely into the Euro-Atlantic community with only limited deference to Russia in matters where Ukrainian dependency remains unavoidable. Political forces favoring a more neutral stance between east and west or openly in favor of leaning eastward remain formidable. Russia's astute deployment of its national instruments of power in support of these forces will loom large into the indefinite future.
Topic:
Security, Democratization, and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe and Ukraine

4710. Beyond international trusteeship: EU peacebuilding in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Author:
Stefano Recchia
Publication Date:
02-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
European Union Institute for Security Studies
Abstract:
The Dayton Peace Agreement on Bosnia successfully ended the war in late 1995. However, the price for peace was an extremely weak and dysfunctional postwar state that would probably not have survived without substantial international support over the following decade. This paper argues that things have begun to visibly change on the ground in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) only with the emergence of the EU as the main international peacebuilding actor in more recent years, and notably since 2003. The EU's increased peacebuilding role in BiH, carried out within the framework of the European Security Strategy, has allowed for critical progress towards making Bosnia's common state institutions increasingly self-sustaining. There is no doubt that the potential does now exist to turn postwar Bosnia into a sustainable multi-ethnic democracy.
Topic:
Development and Peace Studies
Political Geography:
Europe, Bosnia, and Herzegovina