Search

Begin New Search Topic Regional Cooperation Publication Year within 25 Years

941. War Economies in a Regional Context: Overcoming the Challenges of Transformation

Author:
Kaysie Studdard
Publication Date:
03-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Peace Institute
Abstract:
This policy report distills key findings from research commissioned by the International Peace Academy's program on Economic Agendas in Civil Wars (EACW) on the regional dimensions of war economies and the challenges they pose for peacemaking and peacebuilding. Drawing from analytical research as well as case studies of Afghanistan in Central Asia, Sierra Leone in West Africa, and Bosnia and Herzegovina in Southeast Europe, a number of key issues concerning the political economy of regional war economies and lessons for more effective peacebuilding were identified: The notion that internal conflicts have economic "spill over" or "spill into" effects on neighboring states needs to be extended and deepened. Policymakers should work to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the interstate impacts of civil conflict that gives greater weight to systemic cross-border networks and less to potentially 'one-off' transborder phenomena.
Topic:
Economics, Peace Studies, Regional Cooperation, and War
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Europe, Central Asia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, and West Africa

942. Uniform or Different Policies

Author:
Bård Harstad
Publication Date:
03-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
I analyse the negotiation between two countries, or regions, that are trying to make an agreement in order to internalize externalities. Local preferences are local information, but reluctance to participate in the agreement is signaled by delay. Conditions are derived for when it is efficient to restrict the attention to policies that are uniform across regions – with and without side payments – and when it is optimal to forbid side payments in the negotiations. While policy differentiation and side payments let the policy be tailed to local conditions, they create conflicts between the regions and thus delay. If political centralization implies uniformity, as is frequently assumed in the federalism literature, the results describe when centralization outperforms decentralized cooperation. But the results also provide a foundation for this uniformity assumption and characterize when it is likely to hold.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Politics, and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Europe

943. Allons enfants de *quelle* patrie: Breton Nationalism and the French Impressionist Aesthetic

Author:
Paul-André Bempéchat
Publication Date:
01-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Since its annexation by France in 1532, preserving Brittany's cultural identity has been dependent upon the fluidity of its political relationship with France. As the French Republic came into existence, laws were enacted to suppress minority languages across the Hexagon in favour of French. After the Revolution of 1789, the only language to be used officially, universally and exclusively in matters of education and civic administration became French, at a time when less than half the territory we recognize as France indeed spoke the language. Repressive, violent retaliatory measures were taken whenever linguistic resurgence arose, and such tactics only fueled the flames of nationalism. It was in 1839, at the height of European Celtomania, that the vibrancy of Brittany's ancient culture gained in both stature and appreciation. This revival had been generated by the publication and enormous international success of La Villemarqué's Barzaz Breiz ("Songs and Ballads of Brittany"), the cornerstone of Brittany's cultural renaissance. When France fell to the Germans in 1870, a wounded Republic felt even more artistically vulnerable to the onslaught of German Romanticism that had beset the nation since Wagner's operatic successes of the 1840s. A "national nationalism" came into the fore as Camille Saint-Saëns founded the Société Nationale de Musique, whose mandate became the "de-Germanization" of French music, and a rediscovery of all that was musically French. France's cultural vulnerability opened a window for Breton literati and musical illuminati towards greater artistic expression. Refusing the wave of nationalism to pass them by, Breton composers began to assert their cultural identity by reviving ancient, modal Church canticles, folk melodies and traditionally Celtic instruments. As the tonal matrices of French post- Romanticism congealed into Impressionism, Breton musical Romanticism and Impressionism also entered the foreground of French musical life. By 1910, l'Association des compositeurs bretons was founded by Les Huit (Louis Aubert, Charles-Augustin Collin, Maurice Duhamel, Paul Ladmirault, Paul Le Flem, Paul Martineau, Joseph-Guy Ropartz, and Louis Vuillemin). Affectionately nicknamed La Cohorte bretonne ("The Invading Breton Troop") by critic René Dumesnil, the Association commissioned and launched Breton and Breton-inspired compositions in the national capital until the outbreak of World War I. After the Great War, Paris' greatest fear for the security of the Republic was the festering autonomist movement in Alsace, just regained after the Armistice. In extenso, Breton autonomist movements also presented a threat, and this led to further, violently repressive measures outlawing the speaking of the Breton language and the holding of Mass in Breton. Fearing that the impetus provided the cultural faction of Le Mouvement breton would wane, and coinciding with Maurice Duhamel's political address to the Bretons at the Congrès breton of 1929, Paul Ladmirault composed his own cultural epistle to Breton artists, L'Exemple des Cinq Russes in 1928. Ladmirault heralded the province's cultural originality and independence and aligned her struggles for recognition with those of the Russian musical nationalists, The Mighty Five (Mili Balakirev, Alexander Borodin, César Cui, Modeste Moussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov), a generation earlier. Seeing that this movement had, after a half century, finally earned its rightful place within the musical Pantheon, Breton composers finally found the requisite impetus to develop their own, distinct cultural patrimony.
Topic:
Nationalism and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Europe, Paris, France, and Germany

944. Narrating Oneself Through Another: Medieval Christians and Their Images of the Saracen

Author:
Paul T. Levin
Publication Date:
11-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Studies, University of Southern California
Abstract:
It was Turkish membership in the European Union that the Viennese social worker quoted in the Guardian was against. As the Commission of the European Union has recently delivered a report that suggests the opening up of EU accession negotiations with Turkey, old fears seem to be awakening on the continent; “Turcophobia”, as the Guardian calls it. The liberal Viennese news weekly Profil the same week described the prospect of Turkish membership as “not so much a risk as a danger” in an editorial titled “The Turks at the Gates of Vienna.” But not only Turks are experiencing a resurrection of animosities that many thought were long since buried. In the aftermath of the attacks on September 11, anti-Arab sentiments surged along with verbal and physical attacks on Muslims in both Europe and the U.S. Perhaps the secretly held view of too many in Europe and the “West” is that of Britain's Robert Kilroy-Silk. According to his column in the Sunday Express on September 25 of this year, Arabs are no more than "suicide bombers, limb-amputators, women repressors". This essay digs deep to find the historical roots of today's images of Turks, Arabs, and Muslims.
Topic:
International Relations, International Organization, Regional Cooperation, and Religion
Political Geography:
Britain, United States, Europe, Turkey, and Arabia

945. CERI: Regional integration in Asia since China's entry into the WTO

Author:
Diana Hochraich
Publication Date:
07-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales
Abstract:
Since their economic development got under way, the ASEAN countries - which essentially manufacture labour-intensive products - have been marked by strong regional integration brought about by the segmentation of the production process engaged in by Japanese companies. In these countries, successive relocations resulted in de facto economic integration at a time when various political groupings intent on blocking the development of communism were also emerging. Since joining the WTO, China - the world's workshop - has become the hub for trade with the developed countries. In the face of such competition, the ASEAN countries will have to show their capacity to maintain their position in the value chain represented by the production of all of the Asian countries.
Topic:
Economics and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
China and Asia

946. The Euro-Mediterranean Partnership: Regional and Transatlantic Challenges

Author:
Roberto Aliboni
Publication Date:
01-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Transatlantic Relations
Abstract:
The Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP) held their annual meeting in Naples on December 2-3, 2003. The Naples conference was the sixth in the series of such meetings since the founding conference of the partnership, which took place in Barcelona in November 1995. With an annual budget of €1 billion, the EMP is a process of “multi-bilateral” cooperation in the political and security; economic and financial; and social and cultural areas. It involves the European Union (EU), and Cyprus, Israel, Malta, Turkey, as well as seven Mediterranean Arab countries (Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria, and Tunisia) and the Palestinian National Authority. In Naples, the Ministers delivered only general declarations regarding contentious issues such as the situation in Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian road map, and international terrorism. Predictable and incremental as it was, progress was nevertheless achieved on three main “baskets” of the partnership agenda.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, Middle East, Israel, Palestine, Egypt, and Cyprus

947. Networking Symposium on Security Sector Governance in Asia

Author:
Riefqi Muna and Shiam Vidurupola
Publication Date:
09-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Global Facilitation Network for Security Sector Reform
Abstract:
The Global Facilitation Network (GFN) for Security Sector Reform (SSR) facilitated a symposium in Bangkok from 21-22 September 2004. The purpose of the symposium was to carry out an assessment of the potential of existing and future networks for the promotion and support of Security Sector Reform agendas in Asia. The symposium aimed to encourage a wider debate on SSR by exploring and promoting existing regional networks. Participants attended from a range of many South and South East Asian countries including Bangladesh, East Timor, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam. International experts from Germany, the UK, Switzerland Ghana, and Nigeria also attended, in order to encourage a south-south dialogue and to share experiences from other continents. This diversity of knowledge resulted in enriched debate at a regional level. Experiences were shared and analysed by more than fifty participants from senior positions in academia, politics, military, police, civil society, donor organisations, and the media.
Topic:
Security, Regional Cooperation, and Governance
Political Geography:
Pakistan, South Asia, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Asia, Nepal, Ghana, and Southeast Asia

948. Networking the Networks: Supporting Regional Peace and Security Agendas in Africa

Author:
Ann M. Fitz-Gerald and Anicia Lala
Publication Date:
07-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Global Facilitation Network for Security Sector Reform
Abstract:
The Mozambique Security Network Symposium was held in Maputo on 30 June-1 July 2003. The meeting gathered approximately sixty participants from government, regional and sub-regional organisations and civil society. The event was made possible through the support of the UK Government's African Conflict Prevention Pool and was facilitated by the Global Facilitation Network for Security Sector Reform (GFN-SSR), a project funded by the United Kingdom that seeks to unite all actors and agencies in this field of study. Through the generous support of the United Nations Foundation, a number of representatives from Latin American countries also attended the meeting to draw on lessons learned and shared experiences from another southern region.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Security, and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Africa, United Kingdom, United Nations, and Latin America

949. The Political Economy of Regionalism: Current Theorizing and Preliminary Observations on the G-3 FTA

Author:
Antonio Ortiz Mena López Negrete
Publication Date:
12-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:
This working paper provides and overview of current theorizing on the political economy of regional integration. Specifically, it assesses several theories that attempt to explain the causes behind the resurgence or regionalism in the late 1980's and early 1990's with special emphasis on Milner's demand-driven theory based on demands for regionalism by firms with internal increasing returns to scale. After reviewing the main propositions of the theories in light of the G-3 Free Trade Agreement, it finds that no single theory adequately accounts for the causes behind the establishment of the agreement, that Milner's model is better at specifying preferences than outcomes, and that greater attention should be paid to the institutional forms of regional integration agreements.
Topic:
Economics, Industrial Policy, Political Economy, and Regional Cooperation

950. Reforma estructural e integración regional en las Américas.

Author:
Jorge A. Schiavon and Ninfa Fuentes
Publication Date:
05-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:
The structural reform and regional integration programs contribute to the economic development of the countries of the Western Hemisphere. In the last decade, several efforts of regional integration have taken place in the region. However, their success or failure is related, to a great extent, to the degree of structural reform implemented, due to the fact that the latter provides a common ground to launch the regional integration process. Thus, the central question of this research is: what is the impact of the structural reform process in the implementation of regional integration in the Americas?
Topic:
Development and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
South America and Central America