« Previous |
51 - 57 of 57
|
Next »
Number of results to display per page
Search Results
52. Democratization in Tunisia and Elite Theory
- Author:
- M. Hüseyin Mercan and M. Tahir Kilavuz
- Publication Date:
- 10-2017
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Uluslararasi Iliskiler
- Institution:
- International Relations Council of Turkey (UİK-IRCT)
- Abstract:
- This study focuses on democratization process in Tunisia since January 14th, 2011, the date President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali left the country. The article examines democratization and normalization process of Tunisia as a starting point of the Arab Uprisings through the conceptual framework of elite choice theory. The theory postulates that if softliner regime and opposition elites cooperate, democratization process succeeds. Based upon this assumption, this paper seeks to answer how it was possible for Tunisia to follow a more successful transition path when compared to the other countries in the region through the steps and policies implemented by the representatives of the leading softliner actors in the Tunisian regime and opposition.
- Topic:
- Democratization, Politics, Arab Spring, Transition, and Elites
- Political Geography:
- Middle East, North Africa, and Tunisia
53. Sustaining Peace and peace Operations Mandates: The Liberia Transition
- Author:
- Gizem Sucuoglu
- Publication Date:
- 02-2017
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Global Peace Operations Review
- Abstract:
- On 14 December 2016, NYU’s Center on International Cooperation (CIC), the Dag Hammarskjold Foundation (DHF) and the International Peace Institute (IPI) organized the first in a series of workshops in support of efforts to better understand and implement sustaining peace. At this first workshop, participants discussed practical ways to improve the peacebuilding implications of peace operation mandates, drawing on the upcoming Liberia transition as a prime case, under the Chatham House rule. Participants included member states active in the Security Council and/or the Peacebuilding Commission; experts from different parts of the UN system including the Peacebuilding Support Office; the Department of Peacekeeping Operations; the Department of Political Affairs; the UN Development Program; and representatives from CIC, IPI, DHF, the Institute for Security Studies, and the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The discussion took place against the backdrop of the transition from the UNMIL mandate, voted on 21 December 2016 at the Security Council.
- Topic:
- International Cooperation, United Nations, Peace, and Transition
- Political Geography:
- Africa and Liberia
54. Selected Essays on the Transition to a New Nuclear Order
- Author:
- Judith Reppy and Catherine M. Kelleher
- Publication Date:
- 07-2016
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies
- Abstract:
- What conditions are needed for a stable transition to a new nuclear order, one in which the total number of nuclear weapons would be reduced to very low numbers, perhaps even zero? We have addressed the myriad issues raised by this question with funding from a grant on “Creating Conditions for a Stable Transition to a New Nuclear Order,” co-directed by Catherine Kelleher and Judith Reppy, from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to the Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies at Cornell University. The essays collected here are a sample of the work supported by the grant. The goals of our project are three-fold: to take a fresh look at the theoretical underpinnings of the arguments about strategic security and nuclear doctrines; to encourage members of the younger generation (NextGen) scholars working on nuclear security issues to see themselves as part of a network that stretches from scholars in the field to active participants in the policy process; and to disseminate the products of the project to the policy community, in Washington and elsewhere. We have convened four workshops—in Berlin (December 2014); Ithaca, NY (November 2015); Monterey, CA (February 2016); and Washington, DC (May 2016)—and held several discussion dinners in Washington, DC. We received very welcome assistance in organizing these events from the German Marshall Fund, which hosted our Berlin workshop, and Bill Potter and Jeffrey Lewis at the Middlebury Institute for International Studies in Monterey. Elaine Scott and Sandra Kisner at Cornell provided invaluable support throughout, as did Ari Kattan, Jessica Gottesman, and Debak Das.A number of themes have emerged from these meetings, which we outline below. First, however, it is worth discussing the broader context in which the project has unfolded. In a very real sense, the seeds of our project were sown by the “Gang of Four” op-ed in the Wall Street Journal in January 2007 calling for worldwide nuclear disarmament. This call, coming from four highly respected individuals in the policy world, re-invigorated the debate over the usefulness and dangers of nuclear weapons around the world, and spurred a number of similar calls from diplomats and politicians in other countries. In April 2009, President Obama gave an important speech in Prague, in which he stated that the United States was committed “to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.”2 The shift in the political discussion encouraged scholars to return to the topics of strategic security and nuclear deterrence, topics that had fallen into neglect following the end of the Cold War. One such effort was a series of meetings organized by Catherine Kelleher under a grant from the Carnegie Corporation, which resulted in our co-edited book, Getting to Zero. In that volume the question of what a transition to nuclear zero would look like was broached, but not analyzed in detail. The current project is intended as a step toward filling that gap. The dangers that nuclear weapons pose—from accidents, miscalculation in times of crisis, or their acquisition by non-state actors—have persuaded many people that a nuclear-weapons free world is desirable. The optimism that nuclear disarmament might be feasible was based in large part on the success of European countries following World War II in building a zone of peace across the European continent, historically the site of so many bloody wars, and on the peaceful dissolution of the Soviet Union. The Russian annexation of Crimea in spring 2014, however, ushered in a period of conflict in Ukraine and threw the validity of the European model into question. In Asia, stability has been threatened by North Korea’s detonation of nuclear devices and a more assertive international policy on the part of China. These shifts in the international situation have made it clear that a new nuclear order will have to be robust enough to weather unexpected political shocks, as well as the challenges arising from technological changes that can undercut strategic balances and other changes that we cannot foresee. As Harald Müller has cogently argued, global nuclear disarmament will not happen in a world that looks like the world of today, minus nuclear weapons. Instead, it will be the result of a step-by-step process of changing ideas, building new modes of cooperation and trust among states, and finding ways to respect regional differences within a global order. The essays in this Occasional Paper offer ideas for this process. We have selected them from the larger number of commissioned papers and commentaries produced by the participants in the project. We have confined our choices to papers by NextGen participants and included examples from each of the four workshops. The issues discussed include new ways to frame deterrence logics, important both for understanding the history of the Cold War and current questions of nuclear learning (Harrington; Akhtar). Security perspectives both within and between regions are analyzed (Zhao; Martin), and the importance of cooperative approaches to security addressed (Kühn; Gheorghe).
- Topic:
- National Security, Nuclear Power, Denuclearization, and Transition
- Political Geography:
- Russia, United States, China, Europe, Asia, and North America
55. The Making of a State: Transition in Montenegro
- Author:
- Igor Lukšic and Milorad Katnic
- Publication Date:
- 10-2016
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Cato Journal
- Institution:
- The Cato Institute
- Abstract:
- The first Montenegrin state started to take shape in the 8th century with the arrival of the Slavs and their mingling with the local population. Originally it was called Doclea, whose ruler received a royal insignia by the Pope Gregory VII in 1078 (Andrijaševi ´c and Rastoder 2006). Montenegro fell under the Ottomans in the late 15th century, but acted as a de facto independent state until formal recognition came at the Berlin Congress in 1878. Despite being on the victors’ side in the Balkan Wars and in World War I, it was annexed by Serbia and lost its sovereignty in 1918. After the Second World War it became a part of socialist Yugoslavia, where it remained until 1992. Montenegro’s political transition started in earnest after the Belgrade Agreement signed in March 2002. Montenegro held an independence referendum in 2006 and was subsequently admitted to the United Nations and other international organizations. Today Montenegro is engaged in accession talks with the European Union (EU).
- Topic:
- History, Elections, State, and Transition
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Montenegro
56. Facilitating a Political Transition in Syria
- Author:
- Omar Sheira
- Publication Date:
- 03-2016
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Global Political Trends Center
- Abstract:
- The Arab Spring shook the fragile foundation of Syria, effectively highlighting the pre-existing sentiments of conflict and separatism along sectarian, ethnic and tribal lines. Refusing to respond to the calls of nationwide protests, President Bashar al-Assad responded with unrestricted force, effectively plunging the country into a fully-fledged civil war, very similar to what Hobbes described as the state of nature. Five years later, the war has all but damaged Syria's security, political, economic and social domains, causing more than $200 billion of losses (Abdul Razzaq, 2015) and spilling over to cost nearby countries an estimated $35 billion (World Bank, 2016). In terms of human suffering, it has claimed the lives of 250,000-470,000, injured over 1-2 million Syrians, and forcefully displaced 54% of the pre-war population, including 4.6 million people who fled the country and 6.6 million others who were internally displaced by violence (UNOCHA, 2016). The intensifying conflict, coupled with the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), has transformed Syria into an international stage for the proxy confrontation between local, regional and international powers, including the United States, Russia, Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Lebanon, as each of them supports various Syrian players in the conflict. This has led to the inability of any party to achieve an absolute military victory and prolonged the conflict, risking the expansion of its military dimensions and political consequences.
- Topic:
- Syrian War, Crisis Management, Proxy War, and Transition
- Political Geography:
- Middle East and Syria
57. To Shoot or not to Shoot? Southeast Asian and Middle Eastern Militaries Respond Differently
- Author:
- James M Dorsey and Teresita Cruz-del Rosario
- Publication Date:
- 12-2015
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies (NTS)
- Abstract:
- An analysis of the Middle Eastern and North African militaries has produced a laundry list of literature, much of which was either valid for a specific post-World War II period or highlighted one of more aspects of military interest in the status quo or attitudes towards political change. Leaving aside the geopolitical differences between Southeast Asia and the Middle East and North Africa, a comparison of the transition in both regions brings into focus the building blocks that are needed for an armed force to embrace change. Southeast Asian nations succeeded whereas the countries in Middle East and North Africa, with the exception of Tunisia, have failed for several reasons.
- Topic:
- Politics, Military Strategy, Military Affairs, and Transition
- Political Geography:
- Africa, Middle East, Asia, North Africa, and Southeast Asia