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4091. Russian Border Policies and Border Regions

Author:
Vasiliy N. Valuev
Publication Date:
12-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
This paper is about a partnership, the aim of which is to create a Europe without divides. A partnership where the vision is to transcend the divide between membership and non-membership and to create co-operation in trade, in stability and security, and in democracy on all levels. The paper examines the implementation of the EU-Russia partnership and its strategy not only on the rhetorical level but also in a micro-perspective seen from a border region (mostly from the EU-side), from a space where the divides whether economic, social or of any other kind are most clearly manifested. As borders manifest social conflict a study of the implementation of the partnership agreement on this micro-level will make visible not only the taken-for-granted assumptions and practices but also new and emerging divides. As a concrete case the creation of a European information society is studied. Will the partners be united in virtual space without divides? Conclusions are drawn on the nature of the partnership, the relationship between the partners and the perspective of a Europe without divides.
Topic:
Security and Migration
Political Geography:
Europe and France

4092. The Implication of the Concept of the French State-Nation and 'Patrie' for French Discourses on (Algerian) Immigration

Author:
Ulla Holm
Publication Date:
12-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
The purpose of the article is to explore how the 'exceptionality' of the concept of the French political state-nation together with the concept of 'patrie' (country) frames what can be said and not said in the discourses on (Maghrebi) immigration. The question is therefore how the building blocks of the definition of the French state-nation and 'patrie' frame the discursive struggle between the dominant and marginalized discourses. Furthermore I will investigate to which extend the discourses on immigration succeed in 'securitizing' the immigrant.
Topic:
Security and Migration
Political Geography:
Europe and France

4093. Rethinking The Nature of Security: The U.S. Northern Europe Initiative

Author:
Edward Rhodes
Publication Date:
06-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
That U.S. policy toward the Baltic region should merit discussion is in itself an indicator of how much has changed in the last decade. That U.S. policy toward the Baltic should have come to embody an intellectual revolution is nothing less than extraordinary. Nonetheless, this is in fact the case.
Topic:
Security and NATO
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

4094. Competing or Complementary Policies? Understanding the Relationship between the NEI and NDI

Author:
Christopher S. Browning
Publication Date:
06-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
In recent years the relationship between the European Union and the United States has become increasingly contentious. The principal European critique laments what many Europeans see as America's blatant disregard of global norms and what Chris Patten, the EU's External Affairs Commissioner, has labelled America's "neuralgic hostility to any external authority over its own affairs". In its rejection of the Kyoto Protocol and the establishment of an International Criminal Court, its reluctance to pay its dues to the United Nations, and its eagerness to scrap the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, Europeans often see America as lurching towards a unilateralist stance based on America's military preponderance, whilst multilateral organisations, legal conventions and international norms are pushed aside.
Topic:
Security, NATO, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

4095. Human Rights and Foreign Policy Discourse in Today's Russia: Romantic Realism and Securitisation of Identity

Author:
Viatcheslav Morozov
Publication Date:
06-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
Most people writing on the subject recognise that within the Russian discourse, the concept of human rights is used somewhat differently compared to Western Europe or the United States. However, the nature of these differences is yet to be properly studied. It is not enough just to say that 'the Western notions of human rights undergo certain transformations when transplanted to the Russian soil. At a superficial glance, the post-Soviet notions of human rights are identical [to the Western ones], but upon a more curious consideration their content turns out to be somewhat different' (Chugrov 2001:3). The essentialist concept of 'the Russian soil' as different from the Western one is of little help since it takes cultural differences as given, and thus all the researcher has to do is to register the differences in political practice, while the explanations are known in advance. More sophisticated essentialist approaches do no more than provide labels for the cultural features (e.g. 'nominalism' of the Western culture and 'collectivism' of the East –see Panarin 1999), but are unable to account for the interaction of these two fundamental principles in the Russian political process. As far as foreign policy studies are concerned, there is also the handy realist option of reducing the differences to an assumed national interest, which, of course, in itself is a social construct that is to be studied, and not a conceptual tool for research of other matters.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Human Rights, and Nationalism
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Asia

4096. The Discourses of St. Petersburg and the Shaping of a Wider Europe: Territory, Space and Post-Sovereign Politics

Author:
Viatcheslav Morozov
Publication Date:
03-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
St. Petersburg enjoys the image of being the most European of Russia's cities. The stories about the past and the present of Russia's northern capital resonate with such concepts as 'the new Hansa', the Baltic Rim or the Northern Dimension of the EU. However, the image of St. Petersburg – the capital of imperial Russia – might also be conducive to processes preserving or (re)creating dividing lines in the Baltic Sea region and in Europe as a whole. The present-day St. Petersburg certainly finds itself in search of new discursive departures that could show the way out of the present situation, which is generally regarded as unsatisfactory. This search is developing along various paths, some of which remain embedded in 'traditional' discourses, whilst others dare to step into the unknown.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, and NATO
Political Geography:
Europe

4097. Conditional Legitimacy, Reinterpreted Monopolies: Globalisation and the Evolving State Monopoly on Legitimate Violence

Author:
Anna Leander
Publication Date:
03-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
The article argues that globalisation is altering the nature and meaning of the state monopoly on legitimate violence. It is accentuating the tensions around the meaning of “legitimacy”. The relativism implied in the idea that states can define which use of violence is “legitimate” (and which is not) is increasingly contested both by the international society of states and in a world society of transnational actors. At the same time a profound redefinition of what it means to have a “monopoly” of violence is going on. Increasing the private ownership and allocation of the means of coercion are blurring the responsibility of states beyond their own borders and, for some states, even within them. As a consequence the differentiation among states is growing, private actors are central to war and peace, and the system of national states might be undergoing a fundamental change.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Globalization, Peace Studies, and War

4098. Can Europe Be Told From The North? Tapping Into the EU's Northern Dimension

Author:
Pertti Joenniemi
Publication Date:
03-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
The European Union has been furnished with a Northern Dimension (ND). The initiative, taken originally by Finland in 1997, has landed on the Union's agenda yielding policy documents, high-level conferences and some projects pertaining to Europe's North. It outlines, in terms of the spatial markers used, a sphere that reaches far beyond the northernmost North. The initiative aims, in one of its aspects, at turning northernness into a representational frame and regime that nurtures communality and influences the relations between the Union, its northern member states, some accession countries and Russia as well as Norway as non-applicants. The neo-North embedded in the move offers a joint arena for those already 'in', actors on their way 'in' and the ones that remain 'out'. In essence, it mediates in their relations, and contributes to what Christiansen, Petito and Tonra have called the "fuzziness" of the European Union by blurring established divisions.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, and NATO
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Norway

4099. "Realisms at war": Robert Gilpin's political economy of hegemonic war as a critique of Waltz's neorealism

Author:
Stefano Guzzini
Publication Date:
03-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
There are two main ways to approach the general topic “International Political Economy and war”. One consists in adding a list of items to a definition of war already known. This usually includes a longer list of strategically important economic resources for which countries might go to conflict or they might need in a conflict. Some of this comes now often under the grandiose name of “geo-economics”. Another approach, however, would look what a different understanding of human motivation and the international system makes to our very understanding of war.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Economics, International Organization, and War
Political Geography:
Europe

4100. "Power" in International Relations: concept formation between conceptual analysis and conceptual history

Author:
Stefano Guzzini
Publication Date:
03-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
This paper will try to take the reader on a journey from conceptual analysis, used as a means for variable construction, to concept formation as conceptual history through a series of stops which will add different contextual layers to the analysis. This step by step introduction is meant to show the basic connectedness, and indeed crucial importance, of all this layers for constructivism-inspired scholarship where concept formation is not simply a means but an important end in our knowledge. Throughout the journey, references will be made to the concept of power which, in this indirect way – so I hope – will be shown as variable, as core concept in a social theory, as well as a performative speech act, embedded in a certain historical and cultural context, with the effect of "politicising" issues.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, and Government