The article opens with the position that Jerusalem had not yet been able to fully take up its position as nexus of the three major world religions due to armed conflict. The article continues with a discussion on the pivotal role Jerusalem plays in Middle Eastern politics & with the state of Israel itself. The article gives a brief historical account of the laws that govern political ownership of Jerusalem & the international diplomatic interventions that have attempted to create peace in the Middle East through political play with Jerusalem. The author gives an account of the recent events at Camp David & the more open negotiations that occurred there. E. Miller
Starting from the origins of the Liberal tradition of political thought, this article traces the roots of the link between trade & democracy. They are to be found in the idea of "economic commerce" from the writings of Montesquieu & Olson's political economy work on the nexus between regime representativeness & fiscal policy choices to the most recent empirical literature on the "democratic difference." The assumption that, for causes of both fiscal optimization & policy constraints exerted by a protectionist legislative branch on the executive, democracies are more prone to engage in free trade than nondemocracies. This study proves that domestic political regimes have an impact on the level of bilateral trade among great powers, while also endowing with robust empirical evidence the proposition according to which pairs of democratic states tend to trade more with each other than do mixed pairs (eg, pairs composed of a democracy & an autocracy). Further, this research stands as the first empirical test of the relevance of the difference for trade made by democracy after the end of the Cold War & the democratization of Russia. 2 Tables, 1 Appendix, 48 References. Adapted from the source document.
Redefining territoriality is a crucial aspect of the changing nature of public policies in a multi-level, 'post-national' polity. New forms of territoriality in spatial development policies can be thus seen as a key analytical dimension of change in the state's role & rationales in defining public policies. The article addresses emergent practices of territorial governance in a perspective of inquiry on state change, with particular reference to western European countries. The changing nexus between territoriality & the state is addressed according to a 'governance approach' that privileges a policy-driven interpretation of change, & builds on a theoretical framework largely alternative to traditional 'state-centered' approaches. Reference goes to new conceptualizations of socio-spatial structuration processes in the social sciences & to critical reassessments of related geographical concepts in political economy & geography. Particular attention goes to the notion of 'scale', & to 'rescaling' -- i.e. the redefinition of the geographical scales of state regulation & governance -- as a key dimension of state restructuring processes. In this perspective, state-theoretical regulationist approaches are discussed that emphasize the scalar dimension of state restructuring as a key response to the changing position of the state as a site of regulation in a context of inter- & trans-nationalization. References. Adapted from the source document.