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352. Counter Terrorist Trends and Analysis: Volume 6, Issue 5
- Author:
- Abdul Basit
- Publication Date:
- 06-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Counter Terrorist Trends and Analysis
- Institution:
- Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
- Abstract:
- The Pakistan government's peace negotiations with the TTP appear to be an exercise in futility as the group and its allies are anti-democratic, fighting to overthrow the system. This is further complicated by the government's confusing and over-simplistic approach and the disconnect between the government and the military leadership.
- Topic:
- Bilateral Relations
- Political Geography:
- Pakistan
353. Counter Terrorist Trends and Analysis: Volume 6, Issue 6
- Author:
- Franck Emmanuel Marre
- Publication Date:
- 07-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Counter Terrorist Trends and Analysis
- Institution:
- Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
- Abstract:
- Colombia has witnessed an unprecedented turn of events since 2012; never has the government gone so far in peace talks with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia), better known as FARC. Yet, never have the Colombian public been so sceptical about these ongoing negotiations.
- Topic:
- Bilateral Relations
- Political Geography:
- Colombia
354. Counter Terrorist Trends and Analysis
- Author:
- Prem Mahadevan
- Publication Date:
- 08-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Counter Terrorist Trends and Analysis
- Institution:
- Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
- Abstract:
- The 2013 hostage sieges in Kenya and Algeria indicate that African jihadist groups are cooperating with one another even as their leaderships wage internal power struggles. Recent events in Iraq are likely to accentuate this trend, by prompting younger commanders to carry out glory-seeking operations in defiance of their chain of command.
- Topic:
- Bilateral Relations
- Political Geography:
- Kenya, Canada, and Algeria
355. Neoclassical realism and international climate change politics: moral imperative and political constraint in international climate finance
- Author:
- Mark Purdon
- Publication Date:
- 07-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- In this article, I present a neoclassical realist theory of climate change politics that challenges the idea that cooperation on climate change is compelled alone by shared norms and interests emanating from the international level and questions if instead material factors also play a significant constraining role. Relative-gains concerns incited by the international resource transfers implicit in climate change policy may compel some states to be prudent in their international climate change efforts and conserve resources domestically for future contingencies, including their own adaptation and resiliency. Neoclassical realism recognises such systemic constraints while also identifying international and domestic factors—a 'two-level game'—that explain variation in state sensitivity to relative gains. As a preliminary test of this theory, I compare the latest data on the magnitude, distribution and financial 'additionality' of climate funds and carbon markets. Climate funds are found to be more vulnerable to systemic forces identified by neoclassical realism because they are largely drawn from existing official development assistance budgets despite international commitments that funds are 'new and additional'. Carbon markets engage a relatively broader number of states and, contrary to moral hazard concerns, have been used to a greater degree by states reducing emissions domestically. While there are concerns about whether carbon credits represent genuine emission reductions, the effectiveness of climate funds is equally, if not more, dubious. I conclude that, while imperfect, carbon markets have too often been unfairly compared with an ideal climate finance mechanism that assumes few political constraints on international resource transfers for climate change.
- Topic:
- Security, Foreign Policy, International Security, Political Theory, and Bilateral Relations
- Political Geography:
- Europe
356. European integration and the problem of the state: universality, particularity, and exemplarity in the crafting of the European Union
- Author:
- Stefan Borg
- Publication Date:
- 07-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- The European Union is often presented as an entity that has 'moved beyond' the model of organising political life along the way of the modern sovereign state. This paper questions this understanding by engaging a set of texts that could be understood as exemplary of the EU's official discourse of Europe: EU's failed Constitutional Treaty and Javier Solana's collected speeches. A paradox is herein identified: the values that are said to sustain Europe's identity and upon which Europe is founded are simultaneously presented as distinctly European and universal. It is suggested that Europe is being crafted in a pendular oscillation between particularising and universalising the values upon which Europe allegedly rests. By drawing on critical International Relations theory, the paper suggests that this very contradictory oscillation between particularising and universalising Europe's values to an important extent mirrors modern statecraft. One should therefore think twice before announcing the construction of the European Union as something qualitatively different from, or 'gentler' than, modern statecraft.
- Topic:
- Security, Foreign Policy, Political Theory, and Bilateral Relations
- Political Geography:
- Europe
357. The West: a securitising community?
- Author:
- Gunther Hellmann, Gabi Schlag, Benjamin Herborth, and Christian Weber
- Publication Date:
- 07-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- The primary objective of this article is to theorise transformations of Western order in a manner that does not presuppose a fixed understanding of 'the West' as a pre-constituted political space, ready-made and waiting for social scientific enquiry. We argue that the Copenhagen School's understanding of securitisation dynamics provides an adequate methodological starting point for such an endeavour. Rather than taking for granted the existence of a Western 'security community', we thus focus on the performative effects of a security semantics in which 'the West' figures as the threatened, yet notoriously vague referent object that has to be defended against alleged challenges. The empirical part of the article reconstructs such securitisation dynamics in three different fields: the implications of representing China's rise as a challenge to Western order, the effects of the transformation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) towards a global security actor, and the consequences of extraordinary renditions and practices of torture for the normative infrastructure of 'the West'. We conclude that Western securitisation dynamics can be understood as a discursive shift away from a legally enshrined culture of restraint and towards more assertive forms of self-authorisation.
- Topic:
- Security, Foreign Policy, Political Theory, and Bilateral Relations
- Political Geography:
- Europe
358. 'Moral power' as objectification of the 'civilian'/'normative' 'EUlogy': the European Union as a conflict-dealer in the South Caucasus
- Author:
- Syuzanna Vasilyan
- Publication Date:
- 07-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- This article develops a new conceptual framework of 'moral power' by arguing that the 'civilian'/'normative' power Europe paradigms are insufficient for understanding the essence of the conflict resolution policy of the European Union (EU) in the South Caucasus. Analysing the conflicts of Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorno-Karabakh, the study reveals that until the August 2008 war, the EU was an incoherent actor in terms of the interplay among its institutions and member-states. The EU's policy has been devoid of a long-term peace-focused strategy, making it inconsequential; as a result, the EU has merely dealt with, rather than managed, the conflicts. Its rhetoric has been inconsistent with practice. Often the EU has subordinated its values to material and power-related interests. Moreover, the EU has hardly been normatively stable in its approach to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Bypassing inclusiveness until the launch of the Geneva talks pertaining to the Abkhazian and South Ossetian conflicts, the EU has not enjoyed much legitimacy by the de facto states. Whereas the EU has largely failed to resolve the South Caucasian conflicts, it has achieved partial success by putting a halt to the 2008 hostilities between Russia and Georgia. Overall, having faltered as a 'civilian'/'normative' power it still has to fare as a 'moral power'.
- Topic:
- Security, Foreign Policy, Political Theory, and Bilateral Relations
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Europe, Georgia, South Caucasus, South Ossetia, and Abkhazia
359. Looking back: communist melancholia and post-socialist pains
- Author:
- Anca Pusca
- Publication Date:
- 07-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- Remembering communism in Central and Eastern Europe is a tricky business, as memories are increasingly put on display through practices of museumisation, collective and personal biographies and official investigations. Everything — from former factories to architecture, monuments and statues, to secret service files and other material reminders — is carefully reshaped into politically convenient, or in some cases inconvenient, discourses.
- Topic:
- Security, Foreign Policy, Political Theory, and Bilateral Relations
- Political Geography:
- Europe
360. United States-Gulf Cooperation Council Security Coopeeration in a Multipolar World
- Author:
- Mohammed El-Katiri
- Publication Date:
- 10-2014
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
- Abstract:
- For the United States, the Arabian Gulf region remains one of the most geostrategically important locations in the world. Home to over half of the world's oil reserves and nearly a third of its natural gas, the Gulf states continue to supply world markets with an important share of their energy supplies. Continuing to be one of the world's largest regional suppliers of energy and holding much of the world's spare capacity in crude oil production makes the region central to the stability of the global oil market.
- Topic:
- Security, Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Treaties and Agreements, and Bilateral Relations
- Political Geography:
- United States, Middle East, and Arabia