Search results

The concept of public diplomacy is one of the trending approaches in modern international relations and diplomacy. Communicating and engaging effectively with the foreign public in a particular nation by a government to achieve its foreign policy objective is every government's goal. The field of public diplomacy as an academic discipline in Ghana in particular and Africa has not received much attention compared to the Western World. This article attempts to bridge this gap by opening Ghana's public diplomacy to academic scrutiny that has, as yet, been underdeveloped. This paper's principal objective is to bring to light the public diplomacy instruments used by the indefatigable first president of Ghana, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, to propagate his pan-Africanism foreign policy in the 1960s against capitalism and communism after Ghana's independence. It also looks briefly at Nkrumah's general foreign policy agenda through the lens of public diplomacy. Methodologically, it uses content analysis of documents to explore how Nkrumah adopted the public diplomacy tactics during his presidency to sell his foreign policy. The article explores the topic under the theoretical framework of Golan's Integrated Public Diplomacy model. It concludes that public diplomacy under Kwame Nkrumah should be the foundation and ignite its incorporation into Ghana's tertiary education and current foreign policy strategies.

All jurisdictions supply corporations with legal tools to prevent or punish asset diversion by those, whether managers or dominant shareholders, who are in control. As previous research has shown, these rules, doctrines and remedies are far from uniform across jurisdictions, possibly leading to significant differences in the degree of investor protection they provide. Comparative research in this field is wrought with difficulty. It is tempting to compare corporate laws by taking one benchmark jurisdiction, typically the US, and to assess the quality of other corporate law systems depending on how much they replicate some prominent features. We take a different perspective and describe how three major continental European countries (France, Germany, and Italy) regulate dominant shareholders' self-dealing by looking at all the possible rules, doctrines and remedies available there. While the doctrines and remedies reviewed in this article are familiar enough to corporate lawyers and legal scholars from the respective countries, this is less true for many participants in the international discussion, which remains dominated by Anglophone legal scholars and economists. We suggest that some of these doctrines and remedies, namely the German prohibition against concealed distributions, the role of minority shareholders in the prosecution of abus de biens sociaux in France, and nullification suits in all three countries and especially in Germany and Italy, have not received the attention they deserve.

Der Beitrag zu den grundlegenden Problemfeldern der neueren Entwicklung in Lateinamerika betrachtet die außenpolitischen Konzepte von Kanada und Mexiko mit Blick auf die jeweiligen nationalen Identitäten und die außenpolitischen Opportunitätsstrukturen beider Länder. Dabei gilt es zu berücksichtigen, dass mit dem Inkrafttreten des NAFTA-Abkommens 1994 ein zusätzlicher politikfeldspezifischer Handlungsraum geschaffen wurde, über dessen prägende Kraft für außenpolitisches Verhalten der beteiligten Partner kurz im Eingangskapitel diskutiert wird. Sodann werden die Entwicklung bzw. die Grundzüge der Außenpolitik Kanadas und Mexikos dargestellt, wobei den Ausführungen das Konzept der Mittelmacht zugrunde liegt. Die Erfahrungen Kanadas gliedern sich in die Außenpolitik (1) in der Nachkriegszeit bis 1968, (2) unter Premierminister Trudeau 1968 bis 1984, (3) unter Mulroney 1984 bis 1993 sowie (4) unter der Regierung Chrétien 1993 bis 2003. Die Außenpolitik Mexikos umfasst die außenpolitischen Phasen unter (1) Echeverria 1970 bis 1976, (2) López Portillo 1976 bis 1982, (3) De la Madrid 1982 bis 1988, (4) Salinas/Zedillo 1988 bis 2000 sowie (5) Vincente Fox 2000 bis 2006. In diesem Zusammenhang wird insbesondere die neue Strategie der Außenpolitik unter der Regierung Fox beleuchtet, die sich durch folgende Aspekte auszeichnet: (1) ein neuer Aktivismus durch größere Präsenz in multilateralen Foren, (2) die Vertiefung der strategischen Beziehungen mit den USA, (3) eine Diversifizierungspolitik in den Außenbeziehungen sowie (4) die Rückkehr zum traditionellen Schema des ökonomischen Realismus. Mit der Veränderung der internationalen Sicherheitsagenda und der Auflösung multilateraler Regimebildung als anerkanntes ordnungspolitisches Muster seitens der USA sind auch die Identitäten beider Länder einem umfassenden Prozess der Neubestimmung unterworfen. Zudem hat die Veränderung der innenpolitischen Situation ihr außenpolitisches Handeln in neue Begründungs- und Bedingtheitskontexte geführt, so dass beide Länder vor der Notwendigkeit einer Neubestimmung des Kurses stehen. So zeigt ein Blick auf die Mittelmachtsoptionen, dass Kanada auf der Suche nach einer neuen außenpolitischen Identität ist. Bei Mexiko sind folgende Optionen auszumachen: (1) die Wiederentdeckung des regional-subregionalen Raumes als unmittelbarer Bereich der Außenpolitik, (2) die Demokratisierung der Außenpolitik durch die Beteiligung von Akteuren der Zivilgesellschaft, (3) die Ausgestaltung der Entwicklungspolitik für andere Länder sowie (4) die Herstellung einer realen politischen Artikulation mit Brasilien. (ICG2)

China's rapidly expanding demand for crude oil in the 1990s has brought about debates about the potential impact of the energy challenges facing China. Within the country, energy as a security issue has seized the attention of its leaders. Outside China, international strategic thinkers have been arguing among themselves over how China's thirst for oil would impact on regional peace and stability. This paper sets out to examine the following questions: How and why has the basic need for crude oil been perceived as a security question in China? How does China enhance its oil security? Is the option to engage Russia and Central Asia viable and why? What are the possible impacts of China's oil diplomacy on regional security and stability? It concludes that the oil diplomacy with Kazakhstan and Russia is far from promising. In the short run, China has to rely on the oil in the Middle East and to exploit the resource in its offshore areas in the medium to long term. This may lead to festering relations with Russia, the US, Japan, India and the Southeast Asian nations. The growing presence of China in the Persian Gulf and East and South China Sea gives cause for concern to the US, Japan, India and the Southeast Asian states. (Pac Rev/DÜI)

The universe of actors involved in international cybersecurity includes both state actors and semi- and non-state actors, including technology companies, state-sponsored hackers, and cybercriminals. Among these are semi-state actors - actors in a close relationship with one state who sometimes advance this state's interests, but are not organizationally integrated into state functions. In Semi-State Actors in Cybersecurity, Florian J. Egloff argues that political relations in cyberspace fundamentally involve concurrent collaboration and competition between states and semi-state actors. To understand the complex interplay of cooperation and competition and the power relations that exist between these actors in international relations, Egloff looks to a historical analogy: that of mercantile companies, privateers, and pirates. Pirates, privateers, and mercantile companies were integral to maritime security between the 16th and 19th centuries. In fact, privateers and mercantile companies, like today's tech companies and private cyber contractors, had a particular relationship to the state in that they conducted state-sanctioned private attacks against foreign vessels. Pirates, like independent hackers, were sometimes useful allies, and other times enemies. These actors traded, explored, plundered, and controlled sea-lanes and territories across the world's oceans - with state navies lagging behind, often burdened by hierarchy. Today, as cyberspace is woven into the fabric of all aspects of society, the provision and undermining of security in digital spaces has become a new arena for digital pirates, privateers, and mercantile companies. In making the analogy to piracy and privateering, Egloff provides a new understanding of how attackers and defenders use their proximity to the state politically and offers lessons for understanding how actors exercise power in cyberspace. Drawing on historical archival sources, Egloff identifies the parallels between today's cyber in-security and the historical quest for gold and glory on the high seas. The book explains what the presence of semi-state actors means for national and international security, and how semi-state actors are historically and contemporarily linked to understandings of statehood, sovereignty, and the legitimacy of the state.