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381. Putin-3

Author:
Leon Aron
Publication Date:
01-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
In the past nine years, Russian foreign policy has been examined several times in these pages. At no other time, however, has its direction been as troubling as it is today. To understand the causes of this disturbing evolution and to gauge its future course, the changes have to be examined in the context of the regime's ideological and political transformation since 2000, when Vladimir Putin was elected president.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, International Relations, Security, and Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Asia

382. Putinism

Author:
Leon Aron
Publication Date:
05-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
Throughout Russia's history, the weakness of institutions and laws has ensured that the successor regimes rarely, if ever, turn out as intended by the previous ruler. Instead of continuity, the national tradition of highly personalized government often produces a very different political organism ostensibly from the same institutional framework. Yet with former president Vladimir Putin's staying on as a kind of regent–prime minister to the dauphin-president Dmitri Medvedev, at least for the next few years, the ideology, priorities, and policies of the Putin Kremlin—what might be called Putinism—are almost certain to inform and guide the Medvedev administration. Part I of this Outlook discusses the components of the new Russian authoritarianism, and parts II and III examine the elements of “Russia, Inc.”—the corporatist state that Putin has built—and the factors that may affect Russia's economic performance, stability, and foreign policy in the future.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and International Political Economy
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Asia

383. Turkey's Turning Point: Could There Be an Islamic Revolution in Turkey?

Author:
Michael Rubin
Publication Date:
04-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
The name Fethullah Gülen is virtually unknown in the United States. Self-exiled here for more than a decade, this prominent Turkish theological and political thinker is the leader of a movement estimated conservatively to have more than a million followers in Turkey. The movement controls a business empire of charities, real estate, companies, and schools. Thousands of Gülen's followers populate Turkey's bureaucracies. AEI's Michael Rubin believes that, just as many people remained clueless or belittled concerns about Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's intentions in Iran thirty years ago, many may be making the same mistake today about Gülen, who professes to want to weld Islam with tolerance and a pro-European outlook. Rubin introduces us to a man who could play a prominent role in Turkey's future at a time when Turkey's "secular order and constitutionalism have never been so shaky."
Topic:
Foreign Policy and Democratization
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, Turkey, and Middle East

384. EC Visa Facilitation and Readmission Agreements: Implementing a New EU Security Approach in the Neighbourhood

Author:
Imke Kruse and Florian Trauner
Publication Date:
04-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
With the Eastern Enlargement successfully completed, the EU is searching for a proper balance between internal security and external stabilisation that is acceptable to all sides. This paper focuses on an EU foreign policy instrument that is a case in point for this struggle: EC visa facilitation and readmission agreements. By looking at the EU's strategy on visa facilitation and readmission, this paper aims to offer a first systematic analysis of the objectives, substance and political implications of these agreements. The analysis considers the instrument of EC visa facilitation and readmission agreements as a means to implement a new EU security approach in the neighbourhood. In offering more relaxed travel conditions in exchange for the signing of an EC readmission agreement and reforming domestic justice and home affairs, the EU has found a new way to press for reforms in neighbouring countries while addressing a major source of discontent in these countries. The analysis concludes with the broader implications of these agreements and argues that even if the facilitated travel opportunities are beneficial for the citizens of the target countries, the positive achievements are undermined by the Schengen enlargement, which makes the new member states tie up their borders to those of their neighbours.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, International Political Economy, and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Europe and Eastern Europe

385. The United States:A normative power?

Author:
Daniel S. Hamilton
Publication Date:
05-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
To what degree may the US be considered a normative power? The US foreign policy mainstream tends to reflect a varying blend of normative and hegemonic approaches. The US has been and continues to be simultaneously a guardian of international norms; a norm entrepreneur challenging prevailing norms as insufficient; a norm externaliser when it tries to advance norms for others that it is reluctant to apply to itself; and a norm blocker when it comes to issues that may threaten its position, or that exacerbate divisions among conflicting currents of American domestic thought. On balance (and despite exceptions), the US has sought to manage this normative-hegemonic interplay by accepting some limits on its power in exchange for greater legitimacy and acceptance of its leadership by others. The unresolved question today is whether the US and other key players are prepared to stick with this bargain. Closer examination of the US case also raises a considerable number of questions about the notion of the EU as a 'normative power'.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, International Law, International Organization, and International Political Economy
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, and Europe

386. The European External Action Service: Roadmap for Success

Author:
Brian Crowe
Publication Date:
05-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
Even the largest EU member states are no longer in a position on their own to shape international events or the world we all live in. Acting together in the EU they have shaped the international trade agenda. They have been much less successful in foreign policy for a combination of reasons, largely lack of will and poor arrangements. The Lisbon Treaty sets out to remedy the second of these, perhaps helping also to remedy the first in a world in which that becomes increasingly vital for European interests.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Government, and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
Europe and Lisbon

387. The European Union and the Promotion of Good Governance in its Near Abroad. One Size Fits All?

Author:
Tanja Anita Börzel, Yasemin Pamuk, and Andreas Stahn
Publication Date:
12-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Collaborative Research Center (SFB) 700
Abstract:
With the end of the Cold War, states and international organisations have systematically mainstreamed good governance in their development strategies for third countries. The European Union is no exception. The promotion of good governance ranks particularly high in the EU's “near abroad”, which has become a focal point for EU foreign policy making since the 2004/2006 enlargement rounds. This paper seeks to systematically compare the EU's approach to promoting good governance in the Southern Caucasus. Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia are equally marked by bad governance. Arbitrary rule and pervasive corruption are common in all three countries. Nonetheless, they significantly vary with regard to the degree of statehood, and the quality of the political regime. Our aim is to explore to what extent these variations have affected the EU's strategy of promoting good governance. Looking at the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), a rather recent policy framework, we seek to give some answers to the question whether the EU sticks to a “one-size-fits-all” approach, or whether it has started to practice some differential treatment.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Development, and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
America and Europe

388. Not a Zero-Sum Game: Atlanticism and Europeanism in Italian Foreign Policy

Author:
Osvaldo Croci
Publication Date:
12-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The International Spectator
Institution:
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:
In Italy, Atlanticism and Europeanism should not be seen as two alternative and therefore mutually exclusive policies. Strengthening Atlanticism, for instance, does not necessarily correspond to an equal weakening of Europeanism, as implicitly assumed by those who expect a tilt one way or the other each time a centre-right government replaces a centre-left one or vice versa. Rather, the two policies are hierarchical and constitute a "nested game", with Europeanism nested, as it were, in Atlanticism. Italy's foreign policy choices thus result from a double constraint, one of which, Atlanticism, is more important than the other, Europeanism. More precisely, Italian foreign policymakers have traditionally regarded Europeanism as a policy aimed at reinforcing Atlanticism.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and Government
Political Geography:
Europe

389. European Foreign Policy Without Legal Personality?

Author:
Carmen Campo Fanlo and Miguel Medina Abellan
Publication Date:
12-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The International Spectator
Institution:
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:
The European Union was not explicitly granted legal personality by its founding Treaty. As a result, the matter has been the subject of debate ever since. Is there a relationship between legal personality and the EU's foreign policy? Are there legal obstacles to the articulation of an EU foreign policy worthy of the name? The external representation and treaty-making power of the EU are often said to suffer from the lack of explicitly conferred legal personality. Nevertheless, it can hardly be blamed for the EU's record in international affairs. In the end, conferring legal personality will be just one more step on the road towards a unitary system of EU foreign policymaking.
Topic:
Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
Europe

390. Making Sense of Euro-Mediterranean Relations

Author:
Nathalie Tocci
Publication Date:
12-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The International Spectator
Institution:
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:
Review of: European foreign policy making toward the Mediterranean, Federica Bicchi, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007
Topic:
Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
Europe