Upon taking office in January 2009, President Barack Obama inherited a democracy promotion policy badly damaged from its prior association with the war in Iraq and with forcible regime change more generally. The Bush years had also seen a decline in America's reputation as a global symbol of democracy and human rights as well as rising fears of a broader democratic recession in the world.
The need for international co-operation has never been greater, yet global governance is inadequate. Whether one looks at the Doha round of trade liberalisation, the climate change talks led by the United Nations, the G20's efforts to co-ordinate economic and financial policies, or efforts to reform the UN Security Council (UNSC), not much is being achieved. 'Multilateralism'–the system of international institutions and rules intended to promote the common good–appears to be weakening. At the same time, the growing influence of China, Russia and other non-Western powers is pushing the international order towards 'multipolarity'.
For more than two decades, cyber defenders, intelligence analysts, and policymakers have struggled to determine the source of the most damaging attacks. This "attribution problem" will only become more critical as we move into a new era of cyber conflict with even more attacks ignored, encouraged, supported, or conducted by national governments.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Science and Technology, Terrorism, International Security, and Reform
NATO's central missions of collective defense and cooperative security must be as effective in cyberspace as in the other domains of air, land, sea, and space.
Topic:
Defense Policy, International Cooperation, Science and Technology, and Reform
Since the Internet makes us all neighbors, more nations are likely to be affected by conflicts in cyberspace than in the air, land, or sea. Nations are increasingly looking to limit potential cyber conflicts using the same devices that have limited more traditional wars: treaties, conventions, and norms.
Topic:
Defense Policy, International Cooperation, Science and Technology, and Reform
All eyes are on the ballot box as Egypt prepares for the second round of the first post-Mubarak presidential election on June 16-17, a controversial run-off between the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP, the party founded by the Muslim Brotherhood) candidate Mohamed Morsi and Hosni Mubarak's former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafik, two of the most polarizing candidates in the race who together won only 49 percent of the votes cast in the first stage of polling on May 23-24. Egyptians are now faced with a choice between Islamists—who already hold a parliamentary majority and now stand to gain control of two out of the three branches of government—and a symbol of the former regime and military establishment.
Vive la différence! or Plus ça change, plus c'est la môme chose? Which French expression best describes François Hollande and his socialist majority, elected in May and June to govern France for the next five years? The correct answer is: both.
Topic:
Economics, Bilateral Relations, Governance, and Reform
On October 28, 2012, Ukraine will hold parliamentary elections—the country's sixth since gaining independence in 1991 and first since presidential and local elections that took place in January-February and October 2010, respectively.
Since October 2011, the National Constituent Assembly of Tunisia has been negotiating and drafting the republic's new constitution, which is intended to institutionalize a new democratic system in the aftermath of the revolution that toppled the dictatorship in January. While the Assembly is still several months away from completing its work and some major issues, notably the system of government, have yet to be resolved, some important lessons have nonetheless emerged that might prove useful for other constitution-making processes worldwide, especially in neighboring Libya.
In this issue of the Journal of Current Chinese Affairs, we invite our readers to join us on a journey focusing on global flows with Chinese characteristics. These flows are literally spanning the globe and consist of capital, goods, people and ideas. Concentrating on people and ideas in this issue, these global flows have become ever more diverse and are affecting not only China but also countries all over the world. Though China had been mainly on the receiving end of both capital and ideas for almost two decades starting with the beginning of the reform period and has – once again – become a leading sending region of people sojourning to destinations all over the world, Chinese capital and ideas, now reaching ever more of the world's regions, are late additions to this process. In this topical issue of the Journal of Current Chinese Affairs, four authors discuss some of the repercussions of these flows, which are not restricted to implications for the regions receiving Chinese investments and/ or people but are also affecting China and its society more and more. The proverbial “other” has become increasingly present, diverse and influential in China, be it in the form of representations of destination regions for Chinese sojourners and migrants or in the form of personal experiences, given the growing numbers and higher concentrations of foreigners from around the world who have chosen to settle and/ or conduct business in Chinese cities.