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Begin New Search Topic Regional Cooperation Publication Year within 25 Years

951. An India-Pakistan Detente: What It Could Mean for Sustainable Development in South Asia and Beyond

Author:
Toufiq A. Siddiqi
Publication Date:
08-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
India and Pakistan have had volatile relations ever since they became independent of Britain in 1947. Frequent hostility has stifled cooperation between the two countries and inhibited development in the region. Recently, however, tensions show signs of easing. In March 2004, India's then prime minister visited Pakistan to attend a South Asian regional summit. Flights, bus service, and cricket matches between the two countries have resumed; India's newly elected government continues to support the process. Peace could bring a wide range of benefits not only to India and Pakistan but to the wider region as well. For example, it could enable cooperation on importing energy via a natural-gas pipeline, which would support environmentally sound development. The improved road and rail system that would necessarily accompany a pipeline would also support the goal of building an Asian highway network and the resurgence of cross-border trade, another likely consequence of détente. These benefits could spread far beyond India and Pakistan into the wider west, central, and south Asian region.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Pakistan, South Asia, and India

952. Identity Crisis: Israel and Its Arab Citizens

Publication Date:
03-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
For much of its history, Israel has focused on the neighbouring Arab states and Palestinians living in the occupied territories. Too often overlooked has been the status of those Israeli citizens who are Arab. They have attracted national attention only at times of heightened crisis, and even then in a highly reactive fashion. Unless systemic inequities facing Arab Israelis are addressed and an inclusive process is launched to define the state's long-term attitude towards this segment of its citizenry, prospects for internal strife and instability will remain high.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Ethnic Conflict, Politics, and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Israel and Arabia

953. Taiwan Strait IV: How an Ultimate Political Settlement Might Look

Publication Date:
02-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Each side's most preferred solution for resolving the continuing Taiwan Strait issue – in the case of Taipei, widely recognised de jure independence; and in the case of Beijing, reunification of China on the same 'one country, two systems' basis as Hong Kong – are both non-starters. Neither society is likely to accommodate the other or change to the degree necessary to make either option realistically achievable, even ten or fifteen years down the road. If the risk of conflict across the Taiwan Strait – too serious to be accepted with equanimity, as the tensions of the last few months have shown – is to be reduced, then there has to be new thinking about what an ultimate political settlement might look like, and how to get there.
Topic:
Government, Politics, and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
China, Israel, Taiwan, Beijing, East Asia, and Hong Kong

954. Marginality or Provinciality: Pskov and Ivangorod at the Intersection of Russia's Transborder Relations

Author:
Andrey Makarychev
Publication Date:
10-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
My intention in this paper is to analyze the state of trans-border relationship between Russia, on the one hand, and Latvia and Estonia, on the other, in terms of interplay between central and non-central actors. Two basic concepts–that ones of marginality and provinciality–will be used as points of departure and compared with each other. Each of these concepts develops its own narrative and a discursive strategy. In some instances, these narratives may smoothly complement each other; and yet in other occurrences, they conflict in a manner that fuels "a battle of the story".
Topic:
International Relations and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Russia, Eastern Europe, Estonia, and Latvia

955. Future of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and China

Author:
Selçuk Çolakoglu
Publication Date:
03-2004
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Institution:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Abstract:
Sino-Russian bilateral relations have steadily developed during the 1990s. With the help of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which was established in 1996, China and Russia had the chance to balance the hegemony of the US in the world and to prevent the interfering of other great powers to central Eurasian issues. Central Asian countries, which have been historically and strategically squeezed between Russia and China, have also taken part in the SCO. With the US military operation of Afghanistan after September 11th terrorist attacks in 2001, the new era has started in Central Asia and the SCO has been affected negatively within this process. The attitude of Russia and China is very important for the future of the SCO as an organization. The SCO will be able to protect its entity and continue to develop, as long as the cooperation between China and Russia carries on depending on mutual interests.
Topic:
Regional Cooperation and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, China, Central Asia, and Asia

956. Trade Policy Issues for the Euro-Med Partnership

Author:
Paul Brenton and Miriam Manchin
Publication Date:
05-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
The economic prospects of the Mediterranean countries are currently constrained by the lack of ambition in their relationships with each other and with their major export market, the EU. These economic relationships are limited by a lack of coverage (agriculture and services are effectively excluded), by a lack of depth (substantial technical barriers to trade remain due to differences in regulatory requirements and the need to duplicate testing and conformity assessment when selling in overseas markets), and they are limited by rules (restrictive rules of origin and lack of cumulation limit effective market access). In addition, the rest of Europe, including Turkey, is integrating at a faster pace to create a Wider European Economic Space. If nothing is done to invigorate the integration process in the Mediterranean, then the region will fall (further) behind relative to other regions on the periphery of the EU, such as the Balkans and Russia and the Ukraine.
Topic:
International Trade and Finance and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Turkey, Ukraine, Middle East, and Balkans

957. The Euro-Mediterranean Partnership: Unique Features, First Results and Future Challenges

Author:
Eric Philippart
Publication Date:
04-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
Many things have changed since the launch of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP). Despite the virtual collapse of the Middle East Peace Process (MEPP), the Partnership has survived, has slowly moved forward on many fronts and seems to be gathering pace on the economic side. This working paper aims at presenting the new contours of the Partnership, as well as evaluating its scope of action, logic of intervention, organisational setting and policy output from 1995-2003. A brief mid-term outlook is offered by way of conclusion.
Topic:
International Trade and Finance and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Europe and Middle East

958. Mapping Israel's Policy Options regarding its Future Institutionalised Relations with the European Union

Author:
Alfred Tovias
Publication Date:
01-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
The nature of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership will change with the Enlargement of the EU to include 13 additional members since all Mediterranean non-Arab countries will be in the EU but Israel. Israel will be obliged to revise its relations with the EU. The paper explores some possible policy options open to Israel. After discarding a continuation of Israel's present status in the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, a second policy option gauges advantages and disadvantages for Israel of obtaining membership in the European Economic Area, i.e. full economic integration without political integration in the EU. Taking into consideration quantum political changes which have taken place in and around the EU, as well as in the Middle East, a third Israeli policy option postulates EU membership, so as not to be left behind and which would bring a "new vision" for Israel, once peace with its neighbours is in the offing, allowing for a complete change of the present terms of reference.
Topic:
International Trade and Finance and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Europe, Middle East, and Israel

959. Institutionalising the Wider Europe

Author:
Michael Emerson
Publication Date:
10-2003
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
The Wider Europe has become a prominent feature in European foreign policy discourse. The EU's first policy documents on this subject, however, have been thin in substance, mainly seeking to develop more active bilateral relations with countries such as Ukraine and Moldova. At the same time, however, the EU is discussing bilaterally just with Russia a set of common European policy spaces that should be at the heart of a Wider Europe policy. This paper argues that the EU should adopt a systematic approach to defining a complete set of seven common European policy spaces, with multilateral institutional developments to match, thus bringing together the bilateral and multilateral approaches. The overarching institutional mechanism should be through transforming the present very weak 'European Conference' into a seriously structured 'Pan-European Conference', led by a Coordinating Group consisting of the EU, Russia and a few other rotating places for non-EU states, with institutionalised linkages to the Council of Europe and other European multilateral organisations for the specific common policy spaces.
Topic:
International Organization and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Europe and Eastern Europe

960. Voluntary associations and region building. A post-national perspective on Baltic history

Author:
Jörg Hackmann
Publication Date:
08-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Voluntary associations are a major topic of historical research on nation building and civil society in Europe. This paper focuses on the associational sphere in the Baltic provinces of Tsarist Russia and tries to outline the impact of associations on modern societies in this region. The first section addresses the legal and social frameworks of voluntary associations, followed by a sketch of developmental trends in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The next sections discuss the role of voluntary associations within the concepts of civil society and cultural nation building. Slightly different from conventional functionalist national discourses, it is argued here that, in the perspective of cultural history, voluntary associations contributed considerably to the emergence of the region of North Eastern Europe, a region shaped by close cultural contacts and inter-ethnic relations within the Baltic Sea region as well as by the strivings of the small nations to integrate with larger European structures.
Topic:
Civil Society and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Asia