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21. Foucauldian Panopticon: A Model for U.S. Cyber Surveillance

Author:
Nida Sheikh and Muhammad Usman Askari
Publication Date:
07-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Political Studies
Institution:
Department of Political Science, University of the Punjab
Abstract:
Unlike the conventional means of surveillance in the past, cyber surveillance has become a great security tactic due to being technologically advanced, ungoverned and holistic in scope. In context of contemporary international relations, China, Russia, Iran and North Korea are using the components of information warfare to serve their strategic interests. The internationally competitive trends of information technology and surveillance make U.S. more concerned about its national security and defeating the information warfare threat. Being a global leader, U.S. is constantly developing its cyber capabilities to contain the rise of China.On account of persistent threat perception of cyber intrusions from China, U.S. has been using cyber surveillance as a counter measure. U.S has integrated its cyber capabilities with military operations in the form of aerial, land and naval surveillance to ensure its national security. The present research aims to explore that how cyber surveillance has become an indispensable component of U.S. defense strategy? Michel Foucault’s surveillance theory has been used as a foundation of the study to analyze the implication of surveillance and power in context of U.S. defense policy. The study used qualitative content analysis and furthermore, directed approach has been used. The research is mainly bifold; initially it endeavors to analyze U.S. national strategies within the timeframe of 2015-2020 and subsequently discusses U.S. cyber surveillance capabilities, using the lens of Foucauldian panopticon.
Topic:
National Security, Infrastructure, Surveillance, Cyberspace, Michel Foucault, Power, Panopticon, and Threat Perception
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

22. On Alawization in Syria

Author:
Gabriela Santos da Silva and Silvia Regina Ferabolli
Publication Date:
10-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Conjuntura Austral: Journal of the Global South
Institution:
Conjuntura Austral: Journal of the Global South
Abstract:
This paper employs the term ‘Alawization’ to define the prominence of members of the Alawi community in positions of power across Syria, a process that has already been noticed by some scholars, but that has not been named until now. We intend to answer the following questions: is there a process that can be called Alawization happening in Syria? How could Alawization have become a political process in the country? How could this have evolved over time? And how is it perceived among practitioners of international relations? Essentially, the circumstances that could allow for this process to take place are embedded in Syria’s colonial period and its evolution is closely related to the rise of Hafiz al-Assad to power – launching an “Assad dynasty”, that continues ruling the country. Perception of this ongoing process was based, methodologically, on historical representations and was investigate d through semi-structured interviews with diplomats based at the UN working with Middle Eastern issues and/or that have already been assigned to posts in Syria. It concludes by suggesting that, albeit there’s recognition of this process, there is still disagreement on how it occurs and how widespread it is internally.
Topic:
Minorities, Syrian War, Alawites, Power, and Perception
Political Geography:
Middle East and Syria

23. Arctic Stress Test: Great power competition and Euro-Atlantic defence in the High North

Author:
Simona R. Soare
Publication Date:
04-2020
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
European Union Institute for Security Studies
Abstract:
The Arctic is again becoming a region of strategic focus. For three decades after the Cold War, when the region was at the centre of great power competition, successful cooperation transformed the Arctic into a ‘low tension’ zone and consolidated the perception of ‘Arctic exceptionalism’, the sense that the region is uniquely cooperative and immune from broader geopolitical tensions. For the eight Arctic states that comprise the Arctic Council – Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Russia and the US – there has been hope that regional dynamics can be insulated from global geopolitical shifts. However, two phenomena are challenging the notion of Arctic exceptionalism and testing the limits of regional governance. First, climate change is accelerating the melting of polar ice at a historically unprecedented pace. Ever larger swathes of the Arctic are becoming accessible, and with them the region’s untapped natural resources, raising the prospect of increased human activity. Second, great power competition between the US, Russia and China in and for the Arctic is intensifying, changing regional power dynamics and exposing the region to ‘spillover’ effects from competition in Europe and the Indo-Pacific. These changes are accentuated by the erosion of the rules-based international order which underpins Arctic governance, the dismantling of the arms control regime, and the rapid proliferation of advanced military capabilities. Physical presence and ownership of infrastructure are becoming vectors of influence, as evidenced by President Trump’s offer to ‘buy Greenland.’ Meanwhile, Russian bombers regularly approach European and North American airspace and Russian submarines are increasingly present in the Norwegian and North Seas, constantly probing the agility of Euro-Atlantic defences. The growing Chinese presence in the region creates economic and financial dependencies. Consequently, what happens in the Arctic affects more than just regional actors. What does great power competition for access to and control of the Arctic mean for Euro-Atlantic security? In answering this question, this Brief argues that the Arctic will be a strategic stress test for European defence and for the transatlantic bond. The paper is structured in three parts. The first part outlines the security challenges and the drivers of geopolitical change in the Arctic. The second part examines the features of great power competition in this region and the implications for European and transatlantic defence. The final section of the Brief offers policy considerations for European and transatlantic decision-makers on how to mitigate the negative consequences of these regional dynamics.
Topic:
European Union, Geopolitics, Strategic Competition, and Power
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Arctic, and United States of America

24. Gender and Power in the Middle East

Author:
Shereen Abouelnaga
Publication Date:
02-2020
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Center for Security, Race and Rights (CSRR), Rutgers University School of Law
Abstract:
Shereen Abouelnaga is a Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Cairo University and is a feminist literary critic. She has published books (Arabic & English) and critical literary articles in scholarly journals, with a focus on gender.
Topic:
Women, Feminism, Power, and Gender
Political Geography:
Middle East and Egypt

25. Who Wants to Be a Great Power?

Author:
Lawrence D. Freedman
Publication Date:
06-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
PRISM
Institution:
Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
Abstract:
Strategic competition is back in vogue. After years of worrying about ethnic conflict and humanitarian intervention, civil wars and counterinsurgency, there is a renewed focus among policymakers, think-tankers, and academics on traditional strategic concerns and in particular great power confrontation. For many students of international relations this appears as no more than recognizing a feature of the system that never went away.
Topic:
Military Strategy, Hegemony, Strategic Competition, and Power
Political Geography:
Global Focus

26. 2020 Country Brief: Russia

Author:
Third Way
Publication Date:
09-2020
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Third Way
Abstract:
Under Vladimir Putin, Russia is our adversary. The goals of Vladimir Putin are simple and dangerous: 1) reassert Russian global “great power” status; 2) have supremacy over the territory of the former Soviet Union; and 3) create a sphere of influence in the international system to achieve dominance. To do so, the Kremlin seeks to weaken America and its allies by sowing domestic discord, discrediting the institutions of democracy, and destroying US alliances and partnerships. Under Donald Trump, they are winning.
Topic:
Diplomacy, Military Strategy, Hegemony, Conflict, and Power
Political Geography:
Russia and Europe

27. Who Owes? Class Struggle, Inequality and the Political Economy of Leverage as Power in the 21st Century

Author:
Stefano Sgambati
Publication Date:
08-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
City Political Economy Research Centre (CITYPERC), University of London
Abstract:
The prevalent consensus in critical social sciences is that finance articulates the world economy as a global hierarchy of creditor-debtor relations that reproduce and further aggravate existing income and wealth inequalities. Class struggle is conformingly understood as a conflict between elite creditors, members of the global top 1 percent of wealth holders, and mass debtors burdened by growing costs of servicing public and private debts. The article offers an alternative understanding of how debt, inequality and class relate to one another. At its basis is the recognition that over the past four decades finance has empowered upper class borrowers, including the top 1 percent, as it has magnified their capacity to generate capital gains and capture greater wealth and income shares via levered-up investments and other forms of ‘positioning’ in financial and property markets. The article thus provides a political economy of leverage as power and shows how contemporary global finance has not given shape to a distributional conflict between creditors and debtors as two distinct classes, but has set debtors against debtors, and namely the greater borrowers versus the lesser ones.
Topic:
Debt, Political Economy, Inequality, Finance, Class, Power, and Leverage
Political Geography:
Global Focus

28. The Competitive-Cooperative Triangles in International Relations: A Theoretical Contribution of Power from the Case Study of Internal and External Political Forces in South America

Author:
Bernardo Salgado Rodrigues
Publication Date:
07-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
AUSTRAL: Brazilian Journal of Strategy International Relations
Institution:
Postgraduate Program in International Strategic Studies, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul
Abstract:
In the 21st century, power projects in South America constitute disputes that comprise a dialectical correlation between Internal and External Political Forces. In this sense, this article aims to conduct an innovative debate based on the theoretical formulation called Competitive-Cooperative Triangles of Power, taking the South American region as a case study. From a realist view of international relations and by using an empirical-deductive methodology, the objective is to achieve an epistemological construction regarding power in the international system, explaining the challenges and possibilities of the South American Internal Political Forces.
Topic:
Regional Cooperation, Innovation, Regionalism, and Power
Political Geography:
South America

29. Fall 2020 edition of Contemporary Eurasia

Author:
Vahram Ter–Matevosyan
Publication Date:
09-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Contemporary Eurasia
Institution:
Institute of Oriental Studies, National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia
Abstract:
CONTENTS HERMINE HOVHANNISYAN RAPPROCHEMENT BETWEEN SAUDI ARABIA AND ISRAEL IN THE FRAMEWORK OF THE BALANCE OF POWER THEORY ..................... AVETIK HARUTYUNYAN FOREIGN POLICY DECISION-MAKING ACTORS IN THE REPUBLIC OF TURKEY: A LEGAL ANALYSIS ......................................................................... ELYA AGHAJANYAN CONFLICT MANAGEMENT VS. CONFLICT RESOLUTION IN THE NAGORNO-KARABAKH PEACE PROCESS: UNDERSTANDING THE AZERBAIJANI APPROACH ................................................................................. TATUL MANASERYAN CONTEMPORARY ISSUES RELATED TO ENVIRONMENTAL SECURITY IN THE EURASIAN ECONOMIC UNION ........................................................... AUTHORS LIST ........................................................................................ ANNEX .......................................................................................................
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Environment, International Security, Crisis Management, Peace, Economic Cooperation, Decision-Making, and Power
Political Geography:
Eurasia, Turkey, Israel, Armenia, and Saudi Arabia

30. DIPLOMATIC NARRATIVES ON SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION: POWER, COOPERATION AND PERSPECTIVES FROM BRAZIL AS A DEVELOPING COUNTRY

Author:
Iara Costa Leite, Júlia Mascarello, and Nicole Aguilar Gayard
Publication Date:
04-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Conjuntura Austral: Journal of the Global South
Institution:
Conjuntura Austral: Journal of the Global South
Abstract:
This article adopts a different stance towards materials on science diplomacy produced by its practitioners, broadly understood here as those individuals or organizations involved in the practice of science diplomacy (including, for instance, scientists and diplomats): it sees such materials as composed by narratives, rather than scientific categories that describe and analyze social phenomena.6 Our focus is on frames and causal perceptions related to STI and international relations as elaborated by diplomats in Brazil, where the authors are based. Together with China, India, Russia and the United States, Brazil has become a central stage for competition between developed countries' science diplomacy initiatives (FLINK; SCHREITERER, 2010). Our aim is to map and systematize narratives on STI authored by Brazilian diplomats and their connections with international relations. We understand narratives broadly, related to how diplomats perceive STI and associate it with power, development, competition and cooperation in multiple geometries (bilateral, multilateral, North-South, South-South) and sectors (nuclear, economic, environmental etc.).
Topic:
Diplomacy, Science and Technology, Power, and Cooperation
Political Geography:
Brazil and South America