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18111. Adam Dinham, Faiths, Public Policy and Civil Society: Problems, Policies, Controversies (Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2009).

Author:
Stephen Pimpare
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Central European University Political Science Journal
Institution:
Central European University
Abstract:
There may be no simple answer to why governments increasingly promote the participation of faiths in the design and implementation of public policies. For Adam Dinham, the “imperatives driving an interest in faith” are threefold: governments see faiths as a repository of resources (“buildings, staff, volunteers and relationships”), as a potential means of fostering “community cohesion,” and as part of a broader “extension of new forms of participative governance” (p. 5-6). The focus in Faith, Public Policy and Civil Society is on such matters in the UK over the past decade or so, and the attention he periodically pays to the US and Canadian cases is usually not much more than passing reference. They are useful and generally insightful references, typically helping to elucidate one aspect or another of the issue under consideration, but readers needing a thorough-going and systematic comparative study will need to turn elsewhere. But that's not to suggest that those with interests outside the UK will not find much to value in this volume, and it should surely be required reading for those invested in “faithbased” service provision and political participation in the UK.
Political Geography:
United States

18112. Bryan Mabee, The Globalization of Security: State Power, Security Provision and Legitimacy (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).

Author:
Yuliya Zabyelina
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Central European University Political Science Journal
Institution:
Central European University
Abstract:
In his recent book The Globalization of Security: State Power, Security Provision and Legitimacy Mabee rethinks the impact of globalization on the traditional ability of states to provide security. Representing a new generation of scholars who argue in favor of the expanded interpretation of security, the author acknowledges that threats to the state in the era of transnationalism are critical. Security in this new age is more than just an object of national strategy but a matter of global vulnerability and interdependence. The central question of his book then is to explore the ways and the means states employ to react to globalizing threats. Do states hold the capacity to resist or adapt to transnational threats? Is the state legitimacy infringed when states lack the mechanisms to provide security and exercise a sovereign hold on matters of global concern?
Topic:
Security

18113. Daniel Heller-Roazen, The Enemy of All: Piracy and The Law of Nations (New York: Zone Books, 2009).

Author:
Zoltán Glück
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Central European University Political Science Journal
Institution:
Central European University
Abstract:
Perhaps the most misleading platitude that one hears all too often in discussions of the contemporary rise of piracy off the Horn of Africa is that piracy has been around since the beginning of recorded history. On the surface, the statement is of course true. But this truth comes at the tremendous price of conceptually flattening differences between diverse social and historical situations into a one dimensional legal category, thereby obfuscating the genealogy of a concept and a figure that has been formative to the history of nations. It is precisely this complex genealogy that Professor Heller-Roazen assails and reconstructs with tremendous acumen and subtlety in his latest work The Enemy of All: Piracy and the Law of Nations.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
Germany and North Africa

18114. From Watch-Dogs to Nation-Builders: The Dilemmas of Diaspora Engagement in Post-Conflict Burundi

Author:
Simon Turner and Birgitte Mossin Brønden
Publication Date:
06-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
This working paper explores the changing roles of Diasporas in post-conflict Burundi in terms of contributing to development, reconciliation and peace building. Burundi is in a state of post-conflict recovery after decades of civil war and widespread ethnic violence. Due to repressive regimes and to extensive violence, a large proportion of the country's Hutu population left the country to take refuge in neighbouring countries or in Europe and North America where they involved themselves in political activities. The evolving new situation with better security has led to a diversification of Diaspora engagements. First, it is now possible for members of the Diaspora to invest in the country, either with the prospect of returning in the future or simply to make a profit. Second, the Diaspora is increasingly involved in development projects. A third area of Diaspora engagement after conflict is the return or circulation of 'brains'.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution
Political Geography:
Burundi

18115. Justice Beyond The Hague: Supporting the Prosecution of International Crimes in National Courts

Author:
David A. Kaye
Publication Date:
06-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
For nearly two decades, the United Nations has created international criminal tribunals to punish those responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Since the early 1990s the United States has strongly supported the UN tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia and hybrid UN/national courts for Sierra Leone and Cambodia. The era of court-building culminated in the 1998 adoption, over U.S. objections, of a treaty to establish a permanent International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. These international courts have brought dozens of perpetrators to justice, and the UN Security Council's requests that the ICC investigate the situations in Sudan (2005) and Libya (2011) show that policymakers across the spectrum, in the United States and abroad, believe that accountability-that is, bringing individuals to justice for committing atrocities-can be an important tool to combat war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Yet as important as these courts are, atrocities occur in places beyond their reach, and even where international courts investigate and prosecute, they lack the capacity to try all but a handful of the thousands of perpetrators of the worst international crimes.
Topic:
Crime, Genocide, International Cooperation, and International Law
Political Geography:
United States, Sudan, Libya, Yugoslavia, and Cambodia

18116. Bin Ladin's Killing and its Effect on Al-Qa'ida: What Comes Next?

Author:
Bruce Hoffman
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
CTC Sentinel
Institution:
The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
Abstract:
Confronted with the sudden death of a leader, terrorist groups become cornered animals. When wounded, they lash out. Not only in hopes of surviving, but also to demonstrate their remaining power and continued relevance. Al-Qa`ida is no different. As its statement issued on May 6, 2011 confirming Usama bin Ladin's death declared, “The soldiers of Islam, groups and individuals, will continue planning without tiredness or boredom, and without despair or surrender, and without weakness or stagnancy, until they cause the disaster that makes children look like the elderly!”
Topic:
Islam
Political Geography:
Pakistan and America

18117. External versus Domestic Debt in the Euro Crisis

Author:
Daniel Gros
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
As EU leaders muddle through the eurozone crisis, the debate about its root causes continues. CEPS Director Daniel Gros argues in this Policy Brief that the debate is important if we are to understand how to prevent future crises. In his view, external debt is the key to the turmoil in European economies and that the focus on total public debt is therefore misleading.
Topic:
Debt, Economics, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
Europe

18118. A New Framework for Euro-Med Cooperation on Micro, Small and Medium-Sized Enterprise Support: The Role of the Union for the Mediterranean

Author:
Rym Ayadi and Antonio Fanelli
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for European Security Studies
Abstract:
Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) are the driving force behind economic development in the Mediterranean. They perform an essential role as providers of employment and innovation opportunities and act as key players for regional and local development and social cohesion.
Topic:
Industrial Policy, International Trade and Finance, and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Europe

18119. Lobbying the European Parliament: A necessary evil

Author:
Maja Kluger Rasmussen
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
Despite the growth of lobbying in the EU over the past two decades, the EU has taken a rather laissezfaire approach to regulating lobbying activity. While the European Parliament (EP) is in many ways more transparent and more accessible than many of the EU's national parliaments, the code of conduct for lobbyists and the Parliament's own rules of procedure are rather vague. As a result of the 'cash for laws' scandal, the EP President, Jerzy Buzek, has established a working group to draw up a new set of rules to govern the access and behaviour of lobbyists and to formulate a code of conduct for Members of the European Parliament (MEPs). The working group is currently considering seven proposals put forward by Jerzy Buzek, including a mandatory lobbying register for all EU institutions; a strengthening of MEPs' declarations of financial interests, with more frequent updates; a code of conduct for MEPs; a 'legislative footprint' for rapporteurs and tougher sanctions for non-compliance with these rules. While the reform proposal, as it stands now, offers a significant improvement of the Parliament's current rules, it does not go far enough, however.
Topic:
Regional Cooperation and Governance
Political Geography:
Europe

18120. Labour Immigration Policy in the EU: A Renewed Agenda for Europe 2020

Author:
Sergio Carrera, Elspeth Guild, Anaïs Faure Atger, and Dora Kostakopoulou
Publication Date:
04-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
The EU's capacity for a legitimate, coherent and migrants' rights compliant policy on labour immigration is now more than ever at a test in light of the political priorities set in the EU's 2020 Strategy and the effects of the revolutions and war in North African states during the last four months. This Policy Brief examines the incoherencies characterising the current generation of EU's labour immigration policies and the challenges towards ensuring a global rights-based approach to migration. The analysis carried out in this paper is accompanied by a synthesis of the main policy recommendations discussed at the Workshop on “The Next Phase of EU Labour Immigration Policy: Enhancing Policy Coherence and Advancing a Rights-Based Approach” organised in the context of the Conference “State of the Union: Brussels Think Tank Dialogue 2011” in January 2011.
Topic:
Labor Issues and Immigration
Political Geography:
Africa and Europe