Social insurance and other arrangements for funding health-care benefits often establish long-term relationships, effectively providing insurance against lasting changes in an individual's health status, engaging in burden-smoothing over the life cycle, and entailing additional elements of redistribution. International portability regarding this type of cover is, therefore, difficult to establish, but at the same time rather important both for the individuals affected and for the health funds involved in any instance of an international change in work place or residence. In this paper, full portability of health-cost cover is taken to mean that mobile individuals can, at a minimum, find comparable continuation of coverage under a different system and that this does not impose external costs or benefits on other members of the systems in the source and destination countries. Both of these aspects needs to be addressed in a meaningful portability framework for health systems, as lacking or incomplete portability may not only lead to significant losses in coverage for an individual who considers becoming mobile which may impede mobility that is otherwise likely to be beneficial. It may also lead to financial losses, or windfall gains, for sources of health-cost funding which can ultimately lead to a detrimental process of risk segmentation across national health systems. Against this background, even the most advanced sets of existing portability rules, such as those agreed upon multilaterally at the EU-level or laid down in bilateral agreements on social protection, appear to be untargeted, inconsistent and therefore potentially harmful, either for migrants or for health funds operated at both ends of the migration process, and hence for other individuals who are covered there.
The rapid urbanization in many developing countries over the past half century seems to have been accompanied by excessively high levels of concentration of the urban population in very large cities. Some degree of urban concentration may be desirable initially to reduce inter- and intraregional infrastructure expenditures. But in a mature system of cities, economic activity is more spread out. Standardized manufacturing production tends to be de-concentrated into smaller and medium-size metropolitan areas, whereas production in large metropolitan areas focuses on services, research and development, and non-standardized manufacturing. The costs of excessive concentration (traffic accidents, health costs from exposure to high levels of air and water pollution, and time lost to long commutes) stem from the large size of megacities and underdeveloped institutions and human resources for urban planning and management. Alleviating excessively high urban concentration requires investments in interregional transport and telecommunications to facilitate de-concentration of industry. It also requires fiscal de-concentration, so that interior cities can raise the fiscal resources and provide the services needed to compete with primate cities for industry and population.
A 2018 report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in partnership with computer security company McAfee, estimated that cybercrime costs the world almost $600 billion or .8% of the global Gross Domestic Product (CSIS, 2018, p. 4). In response to this booming element of transnational crime, states, private sector entities, non-governmental organizations, and individual citizens have sought to implement systems for the investigation, prosecution, and restitution of these crimes. One such solution is the development and enactment of international law. On December 27, 2019, the General Assembly of the United Nations passed Russia-led resolution A/74/401, entitled "Countering the use of information and communications technologies for criminal purposes (United Nations, 2019, Countering the use)." Vehemently opposed by Western states such as the United States, the resolution approved the establishment of a committee of experts to evaluate the potential for an international cybercrime treaty (United Nations). While international cooperation of this kind is commendable, Western states and human rights groups have professed concerns that the vague language of the resolution has the potential to erode the human rights protections afforded to citizens under international law (Hakmeh & Peters, 2020). The purpose of this paper is to identify the human rights concerns of Russia's proposed United Nations resolution and analyze the obligations the international community has to uphold relevant human rights protections while balancing international cooperation necessitated by international law and legal norms. The first section of this paper provides historical background on the relationship between cyber issues like cybercrime and international law. ; Winner of the 2020 Friends of the Kreitzberg Library Award for Outstanding Research in the College of Graduate and Continuing Studies Graduate category. ; Running head: INTERNATIONAL LAW & THE CYBER DOMAIN 1 International Law & the Cyber Domain: Assessing the Human Rights Concerns of Cyber Legislation GD520 International Law and the International System Dr. John Becker Norwich University College of Graduate and Continuing Studies Kathryn R. Lamphere 23 May 2020 Running head: INTERNATIONAL LAW & THE CYBER DOMAIN 2 Introduction A 2018 report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in partnership with computer security company McAfee, estimated that cybercrime costs the world almost $600 billion or .8% of the global Gross Domestic Product (CSIS, 2018, p. 4). In response to this booming element of transnational crime, states, private sector entities, non-governmental organizations, and individual citizens have sought to implement systems for the investigation, prosecution, and restitution of these crimes. One such solution is the development and enactment of international law. On December 27, 2019, the General Assembly of the United Nations passed Russia-led resolution A/74/401, entitled "Countering the use of information and communications technologies for criminal purposes (United Nations, 2019, Countering the use)." Vehemently opposed by Western states such as the United States, the resolution approved the establishment of a committee of experts to evaluate the potential for an international cybercrime treaty (United Nations). While international cooperation of this kind is commendable, Western states and human rights groups have professed concerns that the vague language of the resolution has the potential to erode the human rights protections afforded to citizens under international law (Hakmeh & Peters, 2020). The purpose of this paper is to identify the human rights concerns of Russia's proposed United Nations resolution and analyze the obligations the international community has to uphold relevant human rights protections while balancing international cooperation necessitated by international law and legal norms. The first section of this paper provides historical background on the relationship between cyber issues like cybercrime and international law. International Cyber Law Background The cyber domain is often presented as another realm, a world that exists outside of the mostly tidy borders the international community has used to separate themselves. Aligning with Running head: INTERNATIONAL LAW & THE CYBER DOMAIN 3 this view is the notion that cyberspace cannot be regulated because it expands beyond the traditional idea of territorial sovereignty (Kanuck, 2010, p. 1573). These ideas raise two concerns over the identification and prosecution of cybercrime. The first concern is the conflict between "cybercrime, which is global in scale, and police activities that are confined to national borders (Cangemi, 2004, p. 166)." The conflict arises in the very structure of the Internet, which "can be characterized as a multitude of individual, but interconnected, electronic communications networks (Zekos, 2008, p. 30)." This interconnectedness has created a grey area within the legal system, where no one entity has regulatory control over what happens in that area. The second concern is far more technical and highlights the transient nature of information and data (Cangemi, 2004, p. 166). The source of information can be easily masked to hide its actual location, and data "may be amended, moved, or altered in a few seconds (p. 166)." The speed in which data travels presents a significant hurdle to the legal and law enforcement mechanisms typically used to investigate crimes. As Cangemi notes, this creates "an appreciable risk that the evidence of cyber-offences will disappear" long before implementing the required resources (p. 166). Nevertheless, despite these concerns, "nation-states do strive to exercise their sovereignty over cyberspace (Kanuck, 2010, p. 1573)." The physical elements of cybercrime, such as the location of the people perpetrating the crimes or the location of the hardware used to execute the crimes, are used as a connecting link to allow governments "to address cyber conflicts involving both state and nonstate actors as matters to be resolved by sovereign powers under their respective legal systems (p. 1573)." When evidence moves beyond territorial borders, states seek to invoke bilateral or international action to further pursue the crime. This model follows the same formula that society developed over time, whether it be in stopping crimes such as international drug trafficking or heinous acts of terrorism. The international community is well-Running head: INTERNATIONAL LAW & THE CYBER DOMAIN 4 versed in this cycle, and the "nature of the international legal system affords this sovereign-centric approach primacy under the United Nations (U.N.) Charter regime (p. 1573)." If the international community is content in continuing to use this cycle, then "international legislation and action are essential to combat the phenomenon" of cybercrime (Pocar, 2004, 27). The essential requirement of international involvement and negotiation has rung true in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, as the international community takes steps to evolve international law to include cyber issues, specifically cybercrime. The 1980s introduced international consultation on cybercrime by multiple organizations. In 1983, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) commissioned a two-year study focusing "on the possibility of harmonizing and internationalizing national cybercrime laws (Brenner, 2012, p. 133)." OECD later published a report in 1986 summarizing the results of the study and recommending countries criminalize certain cybercrimes. In 1985, the Council of Europe convened its own study, which involved a four-year focus on "the legal issues raised by cybercrime (p. 133)." In 1997, the Council of Europe convened another study tasked with "the drafting of a cybercrime treaty that would harmonize national laws dealing with cybercrime offenses and investigations (p. 133). In 2001, the study's efforts came to fruition in the creation of the Convention of Cybercrime. Also referred to as the Budapest Convention, the international treaty entered into law in July 2004 with the principle objective of "pursuing a common criminal policy aimed at the protection of society against cybercrime, especially by adopting appropriate legislation and fostering international co-operation (Council of Europe, 2001, Preamble)." As of 2018, 29 states have ratified the treaty, but the rapid development of technology has resulted in the convention becoming outdated, leaving governments and organizations calling for a new treaty (Murphy, 2018, p. 549) (Shackelford, 2014, p. 312). Russia's 2019 United Nations resolution is the latest attempt to modernize international cyber Running head: INTERNATIONAL LAW & THE CYBER DOMAIN 5 law and has received much adulation despite its vague, concerning language and human rights implications. The next section of this paper addresses human rights and provides an overview of states' obligations to this arena as members of the international community. Human Rights & the International Community Modern international human rights law begins with the first article of the Charter of the United Nations (UN), which dictates that one of the purposes of the UN is to "achieve international cooperation…in promoting and encouraging "respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion (Buergenthal, 2006, p. 785)." While the Charter provided minimal specificity as to what "respect for human rights" entailed, this provision and others within the Charter catalyzed a new international perspective on human rights. In joining the United Nations, members inherently accepted "the proposition that the Charter had internationalized the concept of human rights (p. 787)." Furthermore, the Charter insinuated that "states were deemed to have assumed some international obligations relating to human rights (p. 787)." Articles 55 and 56 of the Charter cemented the beginnings of these obligations, requiring member states to "take joint and separate action in co-operation with the Organization for the achievement of purposes" such as promoting "universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all (United Nations, 1945, Article 55, 56)." The specificity of human rights became more overt when the United Nations devoted the UN Commission on Human Rights to the task of drafting non-legally-binding human rights instrument. In December 1948, the UN General Assembly unanimously adopted the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (Murphy, 2018, p. 402). Composed of thirty articles, the declaration instituted vital human rights and eventually "served as a template for numerous subsequent treaties on human rights (p. 404)." As a result, the Running head: INTERNATIONAL LAW & THE CYBER DOMAIN 6 Universal Declaration on Human Rights "has come to be accepted as a normative instrument in its own right (Buergenthal, 2006, p. 787)." Both documents uphold two pedestals of traditional international law as it pertains to human rights. The first pedestal retains responsibility for "the treatment by one state of another's nationals, an area known as state responsibility for injury to aliens (p. 389)." Although addressed at the state level, this notion asserts that individuals are afforded certain protections when in another state. The second pedestal, advanced by scholars such as Hugo Grotius, focuses on "the protection of persons against the acts of their own governments (p. 389)." It is this pedestal that introduces what is now known as humanitarian intervention, or the "idea of state intervening to protect the other state's nationals (p. 389)." Together, both the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration are "considered to spell out the general human rights obligations of all UN member states," of which there are now 193 (Buergenthal, 2006, p. 787) (Murphy, 2018, p. 59). Each international legal instrument has lent itself to the creation of international institutions dedicated to monitoring "compliance by the states parties with the obligations imposed by these instruments (Buergenthal, 2006, p. 788)." Such institutions include entities like the UN Human Rights Council and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (p. 788). Together, the instruments and institutions "laid the normative foundation of the contemporary international human rights revolution" and "influenced, in part at least, the contents of the legal norms under which international criminal tribunals operate today (p. 791)." The criticality of these elements to the international system, particularly as it pertains to international law, is justification for using each as measuring tools with which to judge the new UN cyber-focused resolution objectively. The third section of this paper will assess the purpose of the resolution and explain the supporting argument for its contents. Supporting Arguments & Analysis of A/74/401 Running head: INTERNATIONAL LAW & THE CYBER DOMAIN 7 In order to truly understand the intent of international laws, it is crucial to develop an understanding of the stances actors take concerning the specific issues at hand. This understanding is of particular importance when discussing Resolution A/74/401 and the underlying views of cyberspace. Two opposing perspectives lie at the heart of debates surrounding the cyber domain and Internet governance and center around the notion of sovereignty. The first perspective is that "many governments are attempting to exert sovereignty in cyberspace in the same way as they do in physical domains (Nocetti, 2015, p. 111)." For these governments, the dominance of private sector institutions within cyberspace and "the unfettered internet access of their fellow citizens" are causes of concerns (p. 111). This sentiment is particularly true within the Russian government. Under its traditional views of governance, Russia "conceives of cyberspace as a territory with virtual borders corresponding to physical state borders, and wishes to see the remit of international laws extended to the internet space (p. 112)." Furthermore, Russia's domestic fears of an open Internet fuel its international concerns. Russia sees the Internet as "politically disruptive because it enables citizens to circumvent government-controlled 'traditional media (p. 113).'" It aligns this perspective "with the inherently authoritarian nature of the Russian regime (p. 114)." Russia's negative perception of the Internet as it is today ultimately lends itself to Russia's ideal mechanism of perpetuating its belief that "global internet governance is envisioned as an issue of high politics in which states - and the interstate balance of power-play – play an essential role (p. 116, 117)." Under this mechanism, it is little wonder that Russia has led international legal initiatives to refine control over the Internet since the Council of Europe's enactment of its Convention on Cybercrime. In a Ministry of Foreign Affairs press release following the General Assembly's adoption of Resolution A/74/401, Russia proclaimed that the "resolution shows that the world community urgently needs to develop a universal, comprehensive, and open-ended convention Running head: INTERNATIONAL LAW & THE CYBER DOMAIN 8 on countering cybercrime (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2019)." The adopted resolution's language appears to align with this projected intent from Russia. The resolution stresses "the need to enhance coordination and cooperation among States in combating the use of information and communications technologies for criminal purposes" and notes "the importance of the international and regional instruments in the fight against cybercrime (United Nations, 2019, Countering the Use)." In order to fulfill these objectives, the resolution establishes an "intergovernmental committee of experts, representative of all regions" that will "elaborate a comprehensive international convention on countering the use of information and communications technologies for criminal purposes (United Nations, 2019)." Remarks of supporting nations support this appearance of cohesion. The representative from Nicaragua indicated the resolution would address cybercrime "in a more representative, democratic and transparent manner, taking into account the individual circumstances of developing and developed countries (Third Committee, 2019, Meetings Coverage)." China echoed this support, stating the resolution "is conducive to filling legal gaps in international cooperation (Third Committee)." At the same time, Belarus declared that "international cooperation is vital in investigating and combating cybercrime (Third Committee)." At face value, the resolution is a gesture of goodwill, a written contract to pursue options to disrupt cybercrime that will benefit all states. However, Russia's press release takes these notions a step further, realigning its message to its traditional view of international politics. It notes, "the resolution proposed by Russia essentially enhances states' digital sovereignty over their information space and ushers in a new page in the history of global efforts to counter cybercrime (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2019)." Furthermore, the press release dictates that the "convention must be based on the principles of respecting state sovereignty and non-interference in internal affairs (2019)." There are two Running head: INTERNATIONAL LAW & THE CYBER DOMAIN 9 essential points within this statement that require further analysis. The first is the reassertion of the authoritarian construct with which Russia chooses to view cyberspace. In a press release initially dedicated to lauding the necessity of international cooperation, Russia simultaneously defaults to its traditional views of the international community and advocates for a "digital Westphalia (Nocetti, 2015, p. 117)." In recognizing sovereignty, Russia insinuates that the international community will successfully legislate mechanisms that will reduce cybercrime. A quick review of the supporting states in favor of the resolution upholds Russia's authoritarian views (United Nations, 2019, Countering the Use). In addition to China, Nicaragua, and Belarus, countries like Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea are only some of the 88 Member States of the General Assembly who voted to adopt the resolution. Unsurprisingly, these states also abide by similar authoritarian perspectives on international law and sovereignty. China, for example, maintains a "comprehensive, multidimensional system that governs Internet infrastructure, commercial and social use as well as legal domains (Liang & Lu, 2010, p. 105)." This system supports "Internet censorship" and "China's single-party political system and its heavy intervention in Internet development (p. 105)." Given the nature and history of these states' political systems and methods of governance, the sudden focus on international cooperation generates questions of the underlying goals that may hide behind the official demands of the resolution. The second point requiring acknowledgment is the additional re-emphasis of sovereignty while also emphasizing non-interventionist beliefs in discussing non-interference in internal affairs. The resolution itself makes no mention of sovereignty or internal affairs beyond assisting countries with improving "national legislation and frameworks and build the capacity of national authorities" to deal with cybercrime (United Nations, 2019, Countering the Use). Despite the lack of language on this topic, the leading state on this initiative, Russia, felt the need Running head: INTERNATIONAL LAW & THE CYBER DOMAIN 10 to emphasize its sovereignty in a press release about the resolution (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2019). Once again, Russia gives the impression that there may be a hidden desire layered within the words of the resolution. Additionally, the concept of non-interference within the international system is not without exceptions. The most critical exception being suspicion of human rights violations. As previously stated, humanitarian intervention and protecting citizens from their own government is a staple of international human rights law (Murphy, 2018, p. 389). Therefore, while non-interference in domestic matters is undoubtedly an essential tenet of international law, the resolution cannot call for international cooperation to combat cybercrime and simultaneously ignore the international cooperation required to maintain peace and security (United Nations, 1945, Charter of the United Nations). The next section of this paper will address these obligations to cooperation as it pertains to human rights while also highlighting the opposing arguments against Resolution A/74/401. Opposing Arguments for A/74/401 & Analysis of Human Rights Concerns The first perspective at the heart of the cyber domain debates, as described previously, is modeled after authoritarian beliefs and government control. The second perspective, modeled after a more Western approach to governance, is the belief of a free and open Internet that should remain decentralized and that "the best regulatory system is one that develops organically (Shackelford, 2013, p. 53)." A free Internet is more firmly the belief of the United States. This idea introduces the initial context necessary to understand the United States' opposition to the Russian-led cybercrime resolution. Even before the rapid development of the Internet, American foreign policy internalized the notion of "free flow of information internationally as an important element of national security (McCarthy, 2011, p. 92)." Former Secretary of State George Schultz argued that the free flow of information "undermined the Soviet Union and authoritarianism (p. 92, 93)." At its earliest beginnings, the Internet was a product of American ingenuity and, as a Running head: INTERNATIONAL LAW & THE CYBER DOMAIN 11 result, built with a bias for "American libertarianism (p. 93)." In the present, the West has developed this concept in the "context of freedom expression, protection of intellectual property rights, and national security (Powers & Jablonski, 2015, p. 3)." As former Secretary of State Clinton asserted, the United States and other Western nations support the "freedom to connect" in opposition to efforts by states such as China, Iran, and Russia to create state-level information infrastructures designed for censorship (p. 3). The historical rivalry and disagreement between the two states on information, particularly as it pertains to cyberspace, only further roots the United States' opposition to the new United Nations cybercrime resolution. In its statement to the United Nations during the 49th & 50th meetings of the Third Committee, the United States expressed disappointment "with the decisions of the sponsors of this resolution to bring it to the Third Committee (United States Mission to the United Nations, 2019)." Contrary to the resolution's focus on cooperation, the United States' proclaimed the resolution would "drive a wedge between Member States and undermine international cooperation to combat cybercrime at a time when enhanced coordination is essential (United States Mission to the United Nations)." Furthermore, the United States asserted Russia's actions in introducing the resolution essentially bypass the "expert-driven, consensus-based process and therefore is not in line with their precedent (United States Mission to the United Nations)." Other Western states appear to agree with the United States assertions, as states such as the United Kingdom, Australia, France, Republic of Korea, and Germany composed part of the 58 Member States who opposed the adoption of the resolution (United Nations, 2019, Countering the Use). In a manner similar to the states in favor of the adoption, some opposed states made remarks in agreement with those of the United States during the Third Committee. Finland, on behalf of the European Union, remarked that "there is no consensus on the need for a new international instrument to fight cybercrime" and that the draft "represents a duplication of resources (Third Running head: INTERNATIONAL LAW & THE CYBER DOMAIN 12 Committee, 2019, Meetings Coverage). Canada and Australia presented similar sentiments, remarking that "the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime is an important baseline for international cooperation" and that the new resolution "seeks to undercut consensus and will diminish existing global efforts that are already delivering results (Third Committee, 2019)." There is one remaining argument against the new cybercrime resolution: the potential that the document's vague language will create an environment where human rights will be more easily violated if left unchecked (Hakmeh & Peters, 2020). In a letter to the United Nations General Assembly, 37 organizations and six individuals expressed their concern for human rights protections as they pertain to the cybercrime resolution (Association for Progressive Communications (APC), 2019, Open Letter, p. 4). The first concern is a lack of clarity surrounding the scope of the "use of information and communications technologies for criminal purposes (APC, p. 1)." If left undefined, the language in the resolution arguably "opens the door to criminalising ordinary online behaviour that is protected under international human rights law (APC, p. 1)." If steps to do so were taken as a result of the new resolution, they would be in direct violation of the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights; who stated in 2011 that "human rights are equally valid online as offline (Shackelford, 2019, p. 168)." The second concern offered by non-government entities is the increasing trend in "criminalising ordinary online activities of individuals and organisations through the application of cybercrime laws (APC, 2019, Open Letter, p. 1, 2)." The letter even goes so far as to quote the UN Special Rapporteur over these concerns, that the "surge in legislation and policies aimed at combating cybercrime has also opened the door to punishing and surveilling activists and protestors in many countries around the world (APC, p. 2)." If used in such a manner, these initiatives, in addition to the UN cybercrime resolution, are in direct violation of the Charter of United Nations and the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. Within the Charter of the United Nations, efforts to Running head: INTERNATIONAL LAW & THE CYBER DOMAIN 13 restrict or punish opposition elements such as activists or protestors violates Articles 55 and 56, which requires states to cooperate with the UN in achieving the organizations' purposes such as promoting human rights (United Nations, 1945, Article 55, 56). The Universal Declaration on Human Rights provides more specific language with which to attribute potential violations. The open letter notes that legislation of this kind is used to "criminalise legitimate forms of online expression, association and assembly through vague and ill-defined terms that allow for arbitrary or discretionary application (APC, 2019, Open Letter, p. 2)." Immediately, legislation that allows for criminalization of these elements is in direct violation of Articles 18, 19, and 20, which declare "all persons have a right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion, and assembly (Murphy, 2018, p. 402)." Furthermore, violations such as these also violate article two, which guarantees people "the right to life, liberty, and security" and dictates that "these rights are to be held without discrimination of any kind (Murphy, p. 402, 403)." Upholding these rights within cyberspace continues to fall in line with the Western perspective on the Internet. As McCarthy quotes, "the Internet is arguably the greatest facilitator for freedom of expression and innovation in the world today (McCarthy, 2011, p. 94)." The status of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights as "legitimate norms within the international system" permits this interpretation and application of international law to future resolutions (p. 94). If states are signatories to the declaration, any future adoption of any resolution must adhere to the principles and freedoms guaranteed by it. Resolution A/74/401 does refer to human rights protections, "reaffirming the importance of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms in the use of information and communication technologies (United Nations, 2019, Countering the Use)." However, the resolution's open language is in direct contradiction to this promise, if not clarified. As the open letter indicates, "simply reaffirming the importance of respect for human rights" is "insufficient to safeguard human rights while Running head: INTERNATIONAL LAW & THE CYBER DOMAIN 14 countering cybercrime (APC, 2019, Open Letter, p. 2)." The final section of this paper recommends additional actions that may further unify opposing entities on this resolution while simultaneously addressing all human rights concerns. Recommendations The Russian-led supporters of the resolution and the United States-led opposition are unified in one common element, at least in writing. The element is that consensus and international cooperation are vital in addressing cybercrime (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2019) (United States Mission to the United Nations, 2019). This notion is in concert with the Council of Europe, who remains the only entity to successfully orchestrate an international cybercrime treaty (Council of Europe, 2004, Convention on Cybercrime). In 2001, the Council of Europe postulated that "solutions to the problems posed must be addressed by international law, necessitating the adoption of adequate international legal instruments" that can "ensure the necessary efficiency" required to combat cybercrime (Pocar, 2004, p. 28). If the international community determines that another cybercrime treaty is required within the intergovernmental committee of experts authorized by Resolution A/74/401, then the new treaty should consider the aims of the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime (United Nations, 2019, Countering the Use). In doing so, the United Nations should strive to create a "basic framework for the establishment by contracting states of domestic substantive and procedural laws" in a manner that allows states to "cooperate expeditiously with one another (Pocar, 2004, p. 30)." If successful, the United Nations will be able to "establish procedures for relevant international relations" and provide "forms of cooperation between national judicial authorities as many interact with each other both swiftly and efficiently (p. 31)." Furthermore, the necessity of these requirements is supported by the very nature of the "the world-wide dimension of the Internet," Running head: INTERNATIONAL LAW & THE CYBER DOMAIN 15 which "implies that its illegal use and related offenses must prompt responses and concerted efforts from all relevant domestic and international authorities (p. 34)." The non-governmental organizations' open letter to the United Nations supports the need for cooperation but takes it one step further than the states themselves. In its current structure, the Internet is a public-private endeavor, with private entities dominating cyberspace (Nocetti, 2015, p. 111). The present language of the United Nations cybercrime resolution allows for an intergovernmental committee of experts. However, it does not expand on the actual composition of the committee (United Nations, 2019, Countering the Use). Noting that Russia and other authoritarian regimes prefer non-government entities to use the government as a proxy for communication, it can be inferred that a Russia-led resolution intends the committee to be comprised of only government entities (p. 117). The open letter rightly points out that collaboration on cyber issues must expand beyond state cooperation. Addressing cybercrime is "necessarily a multi-stakeholder endeavour" that "requires government officials and experts, members of the technical community, civil society, the private sector, and scientific and research institutions (APC, 2019, Open Letter, p. 4)." An assessment of this viewpoint reveals that a committee dedicated to combatting cybercrime cannot rely on government expertise alone. In order to accurately reflect the composition and requirements of a private-public Internet, all discussions surrounding this resolution should involve both private and public entities. Therefore, the committee should be reformed to more accurately reflect the Internet's users. In doing so, the United Nations breaches the divide between authoritarian and more democratic governments, further increasing cooperation on this resolution. However, increased cooperation through a broader, inclusive committee and implementation of lessons learned from the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime will not ensure that the future convention successfully resolves the resolution's weaknesses. In Running head: INTERNATIONAL LAW & THE CYBER DOMAIN 16 modern-day, the international system emphasizes international human rights more than ever before, as "this branch of international law has experienced phenomenal growth over the past one hundred years (Buergenthal, 2006, p. 807)." This growth has contributed to the "growing political impact of human rights on the conduct of international relations and the behavior of governments (p. 807)." If real success is desired within international governance, then the committee established under the "Countering the use of information and communications technologies for criminal purposes" resolution must account for human rights protections when determining the requirements of the "comprehensive international convention (United Nations, 2019, Countering the Use)." As the representative from Costa Rica during the 49th and 50th meetings of the Third Committee, "the international community must protect and observe fundamental freedoms, including the right to privacy (Third Committee, 2019, Meeting Coverage)." Until there is consensus on "sensitive topics such as…State responsibility to prioritize and protect human rights," the future proposed convention will fall short of its goal of achieving complete international ratification (Third Committee). Conclusion As cyberspace expands in conjunction with the rapid advancement of technology, the fear of the unknown drives further division between already opposing states in the international system. Resolution A/74/401 is the latest testament to the evolution of politicization within Internet governance. In addressing a topic that impacts every Internet-accessible region of the world, the resolution simultaneously magnifies the opposing perspectives of states as it pertains to sovereignty within the cyber domain. Furthermore, it reignites the protracted debate over whether or not human rights obligations addressed in such documents as the Charter of the United Nations or Universal Declaration on Human Rights are legally binding. Preventing further polarization requires both an acknowledgment of a fracturing international system of Running head: INTERNATIONAL LAW & THE CYBER DOMAIN 17 governance and a proposed solution to address the issue. While state-centric governance provides legitimacy and the potential for a higher allocation of resources dedicated to protecting the Internet, increased sovereignty also "risks sacrificing innovation, complicates the regulatory environment of cyberspace, and may threaten a positive vision of cyber peace (Shackelford, 2013, p. 50)." These risks are why an alternative method to an intergovernmental committee must develop in response to the resolution. This method should integrate a multi-stakeholder construct to more fully recognize the competing impacts of cybercrime and fairly address the allegations of human rights infringement. One such method is polycentric governance, a system composed of "diverse organizations and governments working at multiple levels" in order to "increase levels of voluntary cooperation or increase compliance with rules established by governmental authorities (p. 330)." Individually, each organization or type of government faces its own unique hurdles. Together, they "contribute to a governance regime that is multi-level, multi-purpose, multi-type, and multi-sectoral in scope that could complement the top-down governance model increasingly favored" by states such as Russia or China (p. 331). Implementing polycentric governance to more equitably debate the appropriate response to international cybercrime will create an international community willing to consider the developing convention. In doing so, the environment will be better suited to determining whether or not the international system can leverage international law to investigate and prosecute cybercrime. Running head: INTERNATIONAL LAW & THE CYBER DOMAIN 18 References Association for Progressive Communications (APC). (2019). Open Letter to UN General Assembly: Proposed international convention on cybercrime poses a threat to human rights online. Retrieved from https://www.apc.org/sites/default/files/Open_letter_re_UNGA_cybercrime_resolution_0.pdf Brenner, S. (2012). Cybercrime and the Law: Challenges, Issues, and Outcomes. Northeastern University Press. Retrieved from https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/norwich/reader.action?docID=1085118&ppg=124 Buergenthal, T. (2006). The Evolving International Human Rights System. The American Journal of International Law, 100(4), 783-807. Retrieved from https://www-jstor-org.library.norwich.edu/stable/pdf/4126317.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3Ae4ea9f31648cbd83f8f97bc7dae8e67a Cangemi, D. (2004). Procedural Law Provisions of the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime. International Review of Law Computers & Technology, 18(2), 165-171. Retrieved from https://norwich.on.worldcat.org/oclc/5272830680 Center for Strategic & International Studies & McAfee. (2018). Economic Impact of Cybercrime – No Slowing Down. Retrieved from https://www.csis.org/analysis/economic-impact-cybercrime Council of Europe. (2004). Convention on Cybercrime. Retrieved from https://www.coe.int/en/web/conventions/full-list/-/conventions/treaty/185 Hakmeh, J. & Peters, A. (2020). A New UN Cybercrime Treaty? The Way Forward for Supporters of an Open, Free, and Secure Internet. Council on Foreign Relations. Retrieved from https://www.cfr.org/blog/new-un-cybercrime-treaty-way-forward-supporters-open-free-and-secure-internet Kanuck, S. (2010). Sovereign Discourse on Cyber Conflict Under International Law. Texas Law Review, 88, 1571-1597. Retrieved from https://www.law.upenn.edu/institutes/cerl/conferences/cyberwar/papers/reading/Kanuck.pdf Running head: INTERNATIONAL LAW & THE CYBER DOMAIN 19 Liang, B., & Lu, H. (2010). Internet Development, Censorship, and Cyber Crimes in China. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 26(1), 103–120. Retrieved from https://norwich.on.worldcat.org/oclc/5322181473 McCarthy, D. (2011). Open Networks and the Open Door: American Foreign Policy and the Narration of the Internet. Foreign Policy Analysis, 7(1), 89-111. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. (2019, December). Press Release on the UN General Assembly Vote on the Russian Draft Resolution on Countering Cybercrime. Retrieved from https://www.mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/-/asset_publisher/cKNonkJE02Bw/content/id/3988579 Murphy, S. (2018). Principles of international law (3rd edition). West Academic Publishing. Nocetti, J. (2015). Contest and Conquest: Russia and Global Internet Governance. International Affairs, 91(1), 111-130. Retrieved from https://norwich.on.worldcat.org/oclc/5721220595 Pocar, F. (2004). New Challenges for International Rules Against Cyber-Crime. European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research, 10(1), 27-37. Retrieved from https://norwich.on.worldcat.org/oclc/5649374698 Powers, S. & Jablonski, M. (2015). The Real Cyber War: The Political Economy of Internet Freedom. University of Illinois Press. Retrieved from https://norwich.on.worldcat.org/oclc/903245891 Shackelford, S. J. (2013). Managing Cyber Attacks in International Law, Business, and Relations: In Search of Cyber Peace: Vol. Revised Edition. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved from https://norwich.on.worldcat.org/oclc/882104883 Shackelford, S. (2019). Should Cybersecurity Be a Human Right? Exploring the "Shared Responsibility" of Cyber Peace. Stanford Journal of International Law, 55(2), 155–184. Retrieved from https://norwich.on.worldcat.org/oclc/8185136062 United Nations General Assembly. (1945). Charter of the United Nations. Retrieved from https://www.un.org/en/charter-united-nations/index.html United Nations General Assembly. (2019). Countering the use of information and communications technologies for criminal purposes. Retrieved from https://www.undocs.org/A/74/401 United Nations Third Committee. (2019, November). Meetings Coverage Seventy-Fourth Session, 49th & 50th Meetings. Retrieved from https://www.un.org/press/en/2019/gashc4284.doc.htm United States Mission to the United Nations. (2019, November). Statement on Agenda Item 107 'Countering the use of information and communications technologies for criminal purposes.' Retrieved from https://usun.usmission.gov/statement-on-agenda-item-107-countering-the-use-of-information-and-communications-technologies-for-criminal-purposes/ Running head: INTERNATIONAL LAW & THE CYBER DOMAIN 20 Zekos, G. (2008). Electronic State Sovereignty. The Icfai University Journal of Cyber Law, 7(4), 30-60.
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Alexander Dugin on Eurasianism, the Geopolitics of Land and Sea, and a Russian Theory of Multipolarity
IR has long been regarded as an Anglo-American social science. Recently, the discipline has started to look beyond America and England, to China (Theory Talk #51, Theory Talk #45), India (Theory Talk #63, Theory Talk #42), Africa (Theory Talk #57, Theory Talk #10) and elsewhere for non-Western perspectives on international affairs and IR theory. However, IR theorists have paid little attention to Russian perspectives on the discipline and practice of international relations. We offer an exciting peek into Russian geopolitical theory through an interview with the controversial Russian geopolitical thinker Alexander Dugin, founder of the International Eurasian Movement and allegedly an important influence on Putin's foreign policy. In this Talk, Dugin—among others—discusses his Theory of a Multipolar World, offers a staunch critique of western and liberal IR, and lays out Russia's unique contribution to the landscape of IR theory.
Print version of this Talk (pdf) Russian version
What, according to you, is the central challenge or principle debate within IR and what would be your position within this debate or towards that challenge?
The field of IR is extremely interesting and multidimensional. In general, the discipline is much more promising than many think. I think that there is a stereometry today in IR, in which we can distinguish a few axes right away.
The first, most traditional axis is realism – the English school – liberalism.
If the debates here are exhausted on an academic level, then on the level of politicians, the media, and journalists, all the arguments and methods appear new and unprecedented each time. Today, liberalism in IR dominates mass consciousness, and realist arguments, already partially forgotten on the level of mass discourse, could seem rather novel. On the other hand, the nuanced English school, researched thoroughly in academic circles, might look like a "revelation" to the general public. But for this to happen, a broad illumination of the symmetry between liberals and realists is needed for the English school to acquire significance and disclose its full potential. This is impossible under the radical domination of liberalism in IR. For that reason, I predict a new wave of realists and neorealists in this sphere, who, being pretty much forgotten and almost marginalized, can full well make themselves and their agenda known. This would, it seems to me, produce a vitalizing effect and diversify the palette of mass and social debates, which are today becoming monotone and auto-referential.
The second axis is bourgeois versions of IR (realism, the English school, and liberalism all together) vs. Marxism in IR. In popular and even academic discourse, this theme is entirely discarded, although the popularity of Wallerstein (Theory Talk #13) and other versions of world-systems theory shows a degree of interest in this critical version of classical, positivistic IR theories.
The third axis is post-positivism in all its varieties vs. positivism in all its varieties (including Marxism). IR scholars might have gotten the impression that postmodern attacks came to an end, having been successfully repelled by 'critical realism', but in my opinion it is not at all so. From moderate constructivism and normativism to extreme post-structuralism, post-positivistic theories carry a colossal deconstructive and correspondingly scientific potential, which has not yet even begun to be understood. It seemed to some that postmodernism is a cheerful game. It isn't. It is a new post-ontology, and it fundamentally affects the entire epistemological structure of IR. In my opinion, this axis remains very important and fundamental.
The fourth axis is the challenge of the sociology of international relations, which we can call 'Hobson's challenge'. In my opinion, in his critique of euro-centrism in IR, John M. Hobson laid the foundation for an entirely new approach to the whole problematic by proposing to consider the structural significance of the "euro-centric" factor as dominant and clarifying its racist element. Once we make euro-centrism a variable and move away from the universalistic racism of the West, on which all systems of IR are built, including the majority of post-positivistic systems (after all, postmodernity is an exclusively Western phenomenon!), we get, theoretically for now, an entirely different discipline—and not just one, it seems. If we take into account differences among cultures, there can be as many systems of IR as there are cultures. I consider this axis extremely important.
The fifth axis, outlined in less detail than the previous one, is the Theory of a Multipolar World vs. everything else. The Theory of a Multipolar World was developed in Russia, a country that no one ever took seriously during the entire establishment of IR as a discipline—hence the fully explainable skepticism toward the Theory of a Multipolar World.
The sixth axis is IR vs. geopolitics. Geopolitics is usually regarded as secondary in the context of IR. But gradually, the epistemological potential of geopolitics is becoming more and more obvious, despite or perhaps partially because of the criticism against it. We have only to ask ourselves about the structure of any geopolitical concept to discover the huge potential contained in its methodology, which takes us to the very complex and semantically saturated theme of the philosophy and ontology of space.
If we now superimpose these axes onto one another, we get an extremely complex and highly interesting theoretical field. At the same time, only one axis, the first one, is considered normative among the public, and that with the almost total and uni-dimensional dominance of IR liberalism. All the wealth, 'scientific democracy', and gnoseological pluralism of the other axes are inaccessible to the broad public, robbing and partly deceiving it. I call this domination of liberalism among the public the 'third totalitarianism', but that is a separate issue.
How did you arrive at where you currently are in your thinking about IR?
I began with Eurasianism, from which I came to geopolitics (the Eurasianist Petr Savitskii quoted the British geopolitician Halford Mackinder) and remained for a long time in that framework, developing the theme of the dualism of Land and Sea and applying it to the actual situation That is how the Eurasian school of geopolitics arose, which became not simply the dominant, but the only school in contemporary Russia. As a professor at Moscow State University, for six years I was head of the department of the Sociology of International Relations, which forced me to become professionally familiar with the classical theories of IR, the main authors, approaches, and schools. Because I have long been interested in postmodernism in philosophy (I wrote the book Post-philosophy on the subject), I paid special attention to post-positivism in IR. That is how I came to IR critical theory, neo-Gramscianism, and the sociology of IR (John Hobson, Steve Hobden, etc.). I came to the Theory of a Multipolar World, which I eventually developed myself, precisely through superimposing geopolitical dualism, Carl Schmitt's theory of the Grossraum, and John Hobson's critique of Western racism and the euro-centrism of IR.
In your opinion, what would a student need in order to become a specialist in IR?
In our interdisciplinary time, I think that what is most important is familiarity with philosophy and sociology, led by a paradigmatic method: the analysis of the types of societies, cultures, and structures of thought along the line Pre-Modernity – Modernity – Post-Modernity. If one learns to trace semantic shifts in these three epistemological and ontological domains, it will help one to become familiar with any popular theories of IR today. Barry Buzan's (Theory Talk #35) theory of international systems is an example of such a generalizing and very useful schematization. Today an IR specialist must certainly be familiar with deconstruction and use it at least in its elementary form. Otherwise, there is a great danger of overlooking what is most important.
Another very important competence is history and political science. Political science provides generalizing, simplifying material, and history puts schemas in their context. I would only put competence in the domain of economics and political economy in third place, although today no problem in IR can be considered without reference to the economic significance of processes and interactions. Finally, I would earnestly recommend to students of IR to become familiar, as a priority, with geopolitics and its methods. These methods are much simpler than theories of IR, but their significance is much deeper. At first, geopolitical simplifications produce an instantaneous effect: complex and entangled processes of world politics are rendered transparent and comprehensible in the blink of an eye. But to sort out how this effect is achieved, a long and serious study of geopolitics is required, exceeding by far the superficiality that limits critical geopolitics (Ó Tuathail et. al.): they stand at the beginning of the decipherment of geopolitics and its full-fledged deconstruction, but they regard themselves as its champions. They do so prematurely.
What does it entail to think of global power relations through a spatial lens ('Myslit prostranstvom')?
This is the most important thing. The entire philosophical theme of Modernity is built on the dominance of time. Kant already puts time on the side of the subject (and space on the side of the body, continuing the ideas of Descartes and even Plato), while Husserl and Heidegger identify the subject with time altogether. Modernity thinks with time, with becoming. But since the past and future are rejected as ontological entities, thought of time is transformed into thought of the instant, of that which is here and now. This is the basis for the ephemeral understanding of being. To think spatially means to locate Being outside the present, to arrange it in space, to give space an ontological status. Whatever was impressed in space is preserved in it. Whatever will ripen in space is already contained in it. This is the basis for the political geography of Friedrich Ratzel and subsequent geopoliticians. Wagner's Parsifal ends with the words of Gurnemanz: 'now time has become space'. This is a proclamation of the triumph of geopolitics. To think spatially means to think in an entirely different way [topika]. I think that postmodernity has already partly arrived at this perspective, but has stopped at the threshold, whereas to cross the line it is necessary to break radically with the entire axiomatic of Modernity, to really step over Modernity, and not to imitate this passage while remaining in Modernity and its tempolatry. Russian people are spaces [Russkie lyudi prostranstva], which is why we have so much of it. The secret of Russian identity is concealed in space. To think spatially means to think 'Russian-ly', in Russian.
Geopolitics is argued to be very popular in Russia nowadays. Is geopolitics a new thing, from the post-Cold War period, or not? And if not, how does current geopolitical thinking differ from earlier Soviet (or even pre-soviet) geopolitics?
It is an entirely new form of political thought. I introduced geopolitics to Russia at the end of the 80s, and since then it has become extremely popular. I tried to find some traces of geopolitics in Russian history, but besides Vandam, Semyonov-Tyan-Shansky, and a few short articles by Savitskii, there was nothing. In the USSR, any allusion to geopolitics was punished in the harshest way (see the 'affair of the geopoliticians' of the economic geographer Vladimir Eduardovich Den and his group). At the start of the 90s, my efforts and the efforts of my followers and associates in geopolitics (=Eurasianism) filled the worldview vacuum that formed after the end of Soviet ideology. At first, this was adopted without reserve by the military (The Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia), especially under Igor Rodionov. Then, geopolitics began to penetrate into all social strata. Today, this discipline is taught in the majority of Russian universities. So, there was no Soviet or pre-Soviet geopolitics. There is only the contemporary Eurasian school, which took shape at the end of the 80s. Foundations of Geopolitics was the first programmatic text of this school, although I had published most of texts in that book earlier, and some of them were circulated as texts in government circles. Recently, in 2012, I released two new textbooks: Geopolitics and The Geopolitics of Russia, which together with The War of Continents are the results of work in this field, along four axes.
In your book International Relations, not yet published in English, you set out your Theory of a Multipolar World as a distinct IR theory. What are the basic components of the Theory of a Multipolar World—and how is it different from classical realism?
In order to be understood and not get into the details, I can say that the Theory of a Multipolar World seriously and axiomatically adopts Samuel Huntington's thesis about the plurality of civilizations. Russia has its own author, who claimed the same thing more than a hundred years ago: Nikolay Danilevsky, and then the Eurasianists. However, everything starts from precisely this point: civilization is not one, but many. Western civilization's pretension to universalism is a form of the will to domination and an authoritarian discourse. It can be taken into account but not believed. It is nothing other than a strategy of suppression and hegemony. The following point follows: we must move from thinking in terms of one civilization (the racism of euro-centric versions of IR) to a pluralism of subjects. However, unlike realists, who take as the subject of their theory nation-states, which are themselves products of the European, bourgeois, modern understanding of the Political, the Theory of a Multipolar World proposes to take civilizations as subjects. Not states, but civilizations. I call them 'large politeiai', or civilizations, corresponding to Carl Schmitt's 'large spaces'. As soon as we take these civilizations—'large politeiai'—as subjects, we can then apply to them the full system of premises of realism: anarchy in the international system, sovereignty, the rationality of egoistic behavior, etc. But within these 'politeiai', by contrast, a principle more resembling liberalism, with its pacifism and integration, operates, only with the difference that here we are not talking about a 'planetary' or 'global' world, but about an intra-civilizational one; not about global integration, but about regional integration, strictly within the context of civilizational borders. Post-positivism, in turn, helps here for the deconstruction of the authoritarian discourse of the West, which masks its private interests by 'universal values', and also for the reconstruction of civilizational identity, including with the help of technological means: civilizational elites, civilizational media, civilizational economic algorithms and corporations, etc. That is the general picture.
Your theory of multipolarity is directed against the intellectual, political, and social hegemony of the West. At the same time, while drawing on the tools of neo-Marxist analysis and critical theory, it does not oppose Western hegemony 'from the left', as those approaches do, but on the basis of traditionalism (Rene Guenon, Julius Evola), cultural anthropology, and Heideggerian phenomenology, or 'from the right'. Do you think that such an approach can appeal to Anglo-American IR practitioners, or is it designed to appeal mainly to non-Western theorists and practitioners? In short, what can IR theorists in the West learn from the theory of multipolarity?
According to Hobson's entirely correct analysis, the West is based on a fundamental sort of racism. There is no difference between Lewis Morgan's evolutionistic racism (with his model of savagery, barbarism, civilization) and Hitler's biological racism. Today the same racism is asserted without a link to race, but on the basis of the technological modes and degrees of modernization and progress of societies (as always, the criterion "like in the West" is the general measure). Western man is a complete racist down to his bones, generalizing his ethnocentrism to megalomaniacal proportions. Something tells me that he is impossible to change. Even radical critiques of Western hegemony are themselves deeply infected by the racist virus of universalism, as Edward Said showed with the example of 'orientalism', proving that the anticolonial struggle is a form of that very colonialism and euro-centrism. So the Theory of a Multipolar World will hardly find adherents in the Western world, unless perhaps among those scholars who are seriously able to carry out a deconstruction of Western identity, and such deconstruction assumes the rejection of both Right (nationalistic) and Left (universalistic and progressivist) clichés. The racism of the West always acquires diverse forms. Today its main form is liberalism, and anti-liberal theories (most on the Left) are plagued by the same universalism, while Right anti-liberalisms have been discredited. That is why I appeal not to the first political theory (liberalism), nor the second (communism, socialism), nor to the third (fascism, Nazism), but to something I call the Fourth Political Theory (or 4PT), based on a radical deconstruction of the subject of Modernity and the application of Martin Heidegger's existential analytic method.
Traditionalists are brought in for the profound critique of Western Modernity, for establishing the plurality of civilizations, and for rehabilitating non-Western (pre-modern) cultures. In Russia and Asian countries, the Theory of a Multipolar World is grasped easily and naturally; in the West, it encounters a fully understandable and fully expected hostility, an unwillingness to study it carefully, and coarse slander. But there are always exceptions.
What is the Fourth Political Theory (4PT) and how is it related to the Theory of a Multipolar World and to your criticism of the prevailing theoretical approaches in the field of IR?
I spoke a little about this in the response to the previous question. The Fourth Political Theory is important for getting away from the strict dominance of modernity in the sphere of the Political, for the relativization of the West and its re-regionalization. The West measures the entire history of Modernity in terms of the struggle of three political ideologies for supremacy (liberalism, socialism, and nationalism). But since the West does not even for a moment call into question the fact that it thinks for all humanity, it evaluates other cultures and civilizations in the same way, without considering that in the best case the parallels to these three ideologies are pure simulacra, while most often there simply are no parallels. If liberalism won the competition of the three ideologies in the West at the end of the 20th century, that does not yet mean that this ideology is really universal on a world scale. It isn't at all. This episode of the Western political history of modernity may be the fate of the West, but not the fate of the world. So other principles of the political are needed, beyond liberalism, which claims global domination (=the third totalitarianism), and its failed alternatives (communism and fascism), which are historically just as Western and modern as liberalism. This explains the necessity of introducing a Fourth Political Theory as a political frame for the correct basis of a Theory of a Multipolar World. The Fourth Political Theory is the direct and necessary correlate of the Theory of a Multipolar World in the domain of political theory.
Is IR an American social science? Is Russian IR as an academic field a reproduction of IR as an American academic field? If not, how is IR in Russia specifically Russian?
IR is a Western scientific discipline, and as such it has a prescriptive, normative vector. It not only studies the West's dominance, it also produces, secures, defends, and propagandizes it. IR is undoubtedly an imperious authoritarian discourse of Western civilization, in relation to itself and all other areas of the planet. Today the US is the core of the West, so naturally in the 20th century IR became more and more American as the US moved toward that status (it began as an English science). It is the same with geopolitics, which migrated from London to Washington and New York together with the function of a global naval Empire. As with all other sciences, IR is a form of imperious violence, embodying the will to power in the will to knowledge (as Michel Foucault explained). IR in Russia remains purely Western, with one detail: in the USSR, IR as such was not studied. Marxism in IR did not correspond to Soviet reality, where after Stalin a practical form of realism (not grounded theoretically and never acknowledged) played a big role—only external observers, like the classical realist E.H. Carr, understood the realist essence of Stalinism in IR. So IR was altogether blocked. The first textbooks started to appear only in the 90s and in the fashion of the day they were all liberal. That is how it has remained until now. The peculiarity of IR in Russia today lies in the fact that there is no longer anything Russian there; liberalism dominates entirely, a correct account of realism is lacking, and post-positivism is almost entirely disregarded. The result is a truncated, aggressively liberal and extremely antiquated version of IR as a discipline. I try to fight that. I recently released an IR textbook with balanced (I hope) proportions, but it is too early to judge the result.
Stephen Walt argued in a September article in Foreign Policy that Russia 'is nowhere near as threatening as the old Soviet Union', in part because Russia 'no longer boasts an ideology that can rally supporters worldwide'. Do you agree with Walt's assessment?
There is something to that. Today, Russia thinks of itself as a nation-state. Putin is a realist; nothing more. Walt is right about that. But the Theory of a Multipolar World and the Fourth Political Theory, as well as Eurasianism, are outlines of a much broader and large-scale ideology, directed against Western hegemony and challenging liberalism, globalization, and American strategic dominance. Of course, Russia as a nation-state is no competition for the West. But as the bridgehead of the Theory of a Multipolar World and the Fourth Political Theory, it changes its significance. Russian policies in the post-Soviet space and Russia's courage in forming non-Western alliances are indicators. For now, Putin is testing this conceptual potential very gingerly. But the toughening of relations with the West and most likely the internal crises of globalization will at some point force a more careful and serious turn toward the creation of global alternative alliances. Nevertheless, we already observe such unions: The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, BRICS, the Eurasian Union—and they require a new ideology. Not one like Marxism, any universalism is excluded, but also not simple realist maneuvers of regional hegemons. Liberalism is a global challenge. The response to it should also be global. Does Putin understand this? Honestly, I don't know. Sometimes it seems he does, and sometimes it seems he doesn't.
Vladimir Putin recently characterized the contemporary world order as follows: 'We have entered a period of differing interpretations and deliberate silences in world politics. International law has been forced to retreat over and over by the onslaught of legal nihilism. Objectivity and justice have been sacrificed on the altar of political expediency. Arbitrary interpretations and biased assessments have replaced legal norms. At the same time, total control of the global mass media has made it possible when desired to portray white as black and black as white'. Do you agree with this assessment? If so, what is required as a response to this international situation?
These are true, but rather naïve words. Putin is just indignant that the West establishes rules in its own interests, changes them when necessary, and interprets allegedly 'universal norms' in its own favor. But the issue is that this is the structure of the will to power and the very organization of logo-phallo-phono-centric discourse. Objectivity and justice are not possible so long as speech is a monologue. The West does not know and does not recognize the other. But this means that everything will continue until this other wins back the right to recognition. And that is a long road. The point of the Theory of a Multipolar World is that there are no rules established by some one player. Rules must be established by centers of real power. The state today is too small for that; hence the conclusion that civilizations should be these centers. Let there be an Atlantic objectivity and Western justice. A Eurasian objectivity and Russian justice will counter them. And the Chinese world or Pax Sinica [world/peace: same word in Russian] will look different than the Islamic one. Black and white are not objective evaluations. They depend on the structure of the world order: what is black and what is white is determined by one who has enough power to determine it.
How does your approach help us understand Russia's actions on the world stage better than other IR approaches do? What are IR analyses of Russia missing that do not operate with the conceptual apparatus of multipolarity?
Interesting question. Russia's behavior internationally is determined today by the following factors:
First, historical inertia, accumulating the power of precedents (the Theory of a Multipolar World thinks that the past exists as a structure; consequently, this factor is taken into account from many sides and in detail, while the 'tempocentrism' (Steve Hobden, John Hobson) of classical IR theories drops this from sight. We have to pay attention to this especially taking into consideration the fact that Russia is in many ways still a traditional society and belongs to the 'imperial system' of IR.) There are, besides, Soviet inertia and stable motives ('Stalinism in IR');
Second, the projective logic of opposition to the West, stemming from the most practical, pragmatic, and realist motivations (in the spirit of Caesarism, analyzed by neo-Gramscians) will necessarily lead Russia (even despite the will of its leaders) to a systemic confrontation with American hegemony and globalization, and then the Theory of a Multipolar World will really be needed (classical IR models, paying no attention to the Theory of a Multipolar World, drop from sight the possible future; i.e., they rob themselves of predictive potential because of purely ideological prejudices and self-imposed fears).
But if an opponent underestimates you, you have more chances to land an unexpected blow. So I am not too disturbed by the underestimation of the Theory of a Multipolar World among IR theorists.
In the western world, the divide between academia and policy is often either lamented ('ivory tower') or, in light of the ideal of academic independence, deemed absent. This concerns a broader debate regarding the relations between power, knowledge and geopolitics. How are academic-policy relations in Russia with regards to IR and is this the ideal picture according to you?
I think that in our case both positions have been taken to their extreme. On one hand, today's authorities in Russia do not pay the slightest attention to scholars, dispatching them to an airless and sterile space. On the other hand, Soviet habits became the basis for servility and conformism, preserved in a situation when the authorities for the first time demand nothing from intellectuals, except for one thing: that they not meddle in socio-political processes. So the situation with science is both comical and sorrowful. Conformist scholars follow the authorities, but the authorities don't need this, since they do not so much go anywhere in particular as react to facts that carry themselves out.
If your IR theory isn't based on politically and philosophically liberal principles, and if it criticizes those principles not from the left but from the right, using the language of large spaces or Grossraum, is it a fascist theory of international relations? Are scholars who characterize your thought as 'neo-fascism', like Andreas Umland and Anton Shekhovstov, partially correct? If not, why is that characterization misleading?
Accusations of fascism are simply a figure of speech in the coarse political propaganda peculiar to contemporary liberalism as the third totalitarianism. Karl Popper laid the basis for this in his book The Open Society and its Enemies, where he reduced the critique of liberalism from the right to fascism, Hitler, and Auschwitz, and the criticism of liberalism from the left to Stalin and the GULAG. The reality is somewhat more complex, but George Soros, who finances Umland and Shekhovstov and is an ardent follower of Popper, is content with reduced versions of politics. If I were a fascist, I would say so. But I am a representative of Eurasianism and the author of the Fourth Political Theory. At the same time, I am a consistent and radical anti-racist and opponent of the nation-state project (i.e. an anti-nationalist). Eurasianism has no relation to fascism. And the Fourth Political Theory emphasizes that while it is anti-liberal, it is simultaneously anti-communist and anti-fascist. I think it isn't possible to be clearer, but the propaganda army of the 'third totalitarianism' disagrees and no arguments will convince it. 1984 should be sought today not where many think: not in the USSR, not in the Third Reich, but in the Soros Fund and the 'Brave New World'. Incidentally, Huxley proved to be more correct than Orwell. I cannot forbid others from calling me a fascist, although I am not one, though ultimately this reflects badly not so much on me as on the accusers themselves: fighting an imaginary threat, the accuser misses a real one. The more stupid, mendacious, and straightforward a liberal is, the simpler it is to fight with him.
Does technological change in warfare and in civil government challenge the geopolitical premises of classical divisions between spaces (Mackinder's view or Spykman's) heartland-rimland-offshore continents)? And, more broadly perhaps, does history have a linear or a cyclical pattern, according to you?
Technological development does not at all abolish the principles of classical geopolitics, simply because Land and Sea are not substances, but concepts. Land is a centripetal model of order, with a clearly expressed and constant axis. Sea is a field, without a hard center, of processuality, atomism, and the possibility of numerous bifurcations. In a certain sense, air (and hence also aviation) is aeronautics. And even the word astronaut contains in itself the root 'nautos', from the Greek word for ship. Water, air, outer space—these are all versions of increasingly diffused Sea. Land in this situation remains unchanged. Sea strategy is diversified; land strategy remains on the whole constant. It is possible that this is the reason for the victory of Land over Sea in the last decade; after all, capitalism and technical progress are typical attributes of Sea. But taking into consideration the fundamental character of the balance between Leviathan and Behemoth, the proportions can switch at any moment; the soaring Titan can be thrown down into the abyss, like Atlantis, while the reason for the victory of thalassocracy becomes the source of its downfall. Land remains unchanged as the geographic axis of history. There is Land and Sea even on the internet and in the virtual world: they are axes and algorithms of thematization, association and separation, groupings of resources and protocols. The Chinese internet is terrestrial; the Western one, nautical.
You have translated a great number of foreign philosophical and geopolitical works into Russian. How important is knowledge transaction for the formation of your ideas?
I recently completed the first release of my book Noomachy, which is entirely devoted precisely to the Logoi of various civilizations, and hence to the circulation of ideas. I am convinced that each civilization has its own particular Logos. To grasp it and to find parallels, analogies, and dissonances in one's own Logos is utterly fascinating and interesting. That is why I am sincerely interested in the most varied cultures, from North American to Australian, Arabic to Latin American, Polynesian to Scandinavian. All the Logoi are different and it is not possible to establish a hierarchy among them. So it remains for us only to become familiar with them. Henry Corbin, the French philosopher and Protestant who studied Iranian Shiism his entire life, said of himself 'We are Shiites'. He wasn't a Shiite in the religious sense, but without feeling himself a Shiite, he would not be able to penetrate into the depths of the Iranian Logos. That is how I felt, working on Noomachy or translating philosophical texts or poetry from other languages: in particular, while learning Pierce and James, Emerson and Thoreau, Poe and Pound I experienced myself as 'we are Americans'. And in the volume devoted to China and Japan, as 'we are Buddhists'. That is the greatest wealth of the Logos of various cultures: both those like ours and those entirely unlike ours. And these Logoi are at war; hence, Noomachy, the war of the intellect. It is not linear and not primitive. It is a great war. It creates that which we call the 'human', the entire depth and complexity of which we most often underestimate.
Final question. You call yourself the 'last philosopher of empire'. What is Eurasanism and how does it relate to the global pivot of power distributions?
Eurasianism is a developed worldview, to which I dedicated a few books and a countless number of articles and interviews. In principle, it lies at the basis of the Theory of a Multipolar World and the Fourth Political Theory, combined with geopolitics, and it resonates with Traditionalism. Eurasianism's main thought is plural anthropology, the rejection of universalism. The meaning of Empire for me is that there exists not one Empire, but at minimum two, and even more. In the same way, civilization is never singular; there is always some other civilization that determines its borders. Schmitt called this the Pluriverse and considered it the main characteristic of the Political. The Eurasian Empire is the political and strategic unification of Turan, a geographic axis of history in opposition to the civilization of the Sea or the Atlanticist Empire. Today, the USA is this Atlanticist Empire. Kenneth Waltz, in the context of neorealism in IR, conceptualized the balance of two poles. The analysis is very accurate, although he erred about the stability of a bipolar world and the duration of the USSR. But on the whole he is right: there is a global balance of Empires in the world, not nation-States, the majority of which cannot claim sovereignty, which remains nominal (Stephen Krasner's (Theory Talk #21) 'global hypocrisy'). For precisely that reason, I am a philosopher of Empire, as is almost every American intellectual, whether he knows it or not. The difference is only that he thinks of himself as a philosopher of the only Empire, while I think of myself as the philosopher of one of the Empires, the Eurasian one. I am more humble and more democratic. That is the whole difference.
Alexander Dugin is a Russian philosopher, the author of over thirty books on topics including the sociology of the imagination, structural sociology, ethnosociology, geopolitical theory, international relations theory, and political theory, including four books on the German philosopher Martin Heidegger. His most recent books, only available in Russian at the moment, are Ukraine: My War and the multi-volume Noomachia: Wars of the Intellect. Books translated into English include The Fourth Political Theory, Putin vs. Putin: Vladimir Putin Viewed From the Right, and Martin Heidegger: The Philosophy of Another Beginning.
Related links
Who is Alexander Dugin? Interview with Theory Talks editor Michael Millerman (YouTube) TheFourth Political Theory website (English): Evrazia.tv (Russian) Evrazia.tv (English) Geopolitics.ru (English version) InternationalEurasian Movement (English version) Centerfor Conservative Studies (Russian)
This guide accompanies the following article: Christine V. Wood, 'The Sociologies of Knowledge, Science, and Intellectuals: Distinctive Traditions and Overlapping Perspectives', Sociology Compass 4/10 (2010): 909–923, 10.1111/j.1751‐9020.2010.00328.x.It offers a list of texts that one could use in developing a course in the sociology of scientific knowledge, in the sociology of knowledge in general, or in a more specialized course on the field of scholarly production, experts and intellectuals, and the social organization of the academic profession and research sciences.Author's introductionFew review and teaching materials exist that collect the diverse research exploring the social and institutional context in which scholarly and scientific ideas are generated, legitimated, and diffused. By zeroing in on the social 'field' or 'arena' of scholarly production, which may include the sciences, humanities, and social sciences, sociologists are better able to delineate the distinct analytic traditions that have emerged in studying various orderings of certified knowledge – whether philosophical, humanistic, social scientific, or scientific – and their producers. Despite obvious overlaps, the sociologies of knowledge, science, and intellectuals owe their origins as sociological sub‐fields to distinctive theoretical and even methodological traditions. Considering intellectuals and experts as social groups working in specific social contexts, institutions, and making different kinds of claims to knowledge is different from studying the gestation of ideas and their content, whether these ideas are values, beliefs, assumptions, or scientific and academic theories. Within the sociology of knowledge, studies of the production of academic knowledge is a separate body of literature from studies of social cognition, collective memory, or the internalization of norms and values, and so some distinctions are necessary. In some sense, the sociology of knowledge as a grand project that could subsume the study of scientific knowledge and the study of intellectuals as a social class or group and of the academic professions. But many scholars draw boundaries between the sociologies of knowledge and science, owing to the empirical distinctions between an area of inquiry that subsumes the study of broad orderings of knowledge and a field that focuses on the distinct status and situation of natural and hard science in modern life – its content, institutional contexts, organization, normative structures, political conflicts, and applications. Depending on their research interests, scholars have drawn boundaries within the sub‐fields of science studies, for instance by delineating between the 'political' sociology of science and the 'historical' sociology of science, or by focusing on the interactions between political and social movements and science and academia. Depending on the interests of the professor and the degree of specialization of a course, this guide offers a list of texts that one could use in developing a course in the sociology of scientific knowledge, in the sociology of knowledge in general, or in a more specialized course on the field of scholarly production, experts and intellectuals, and the social organization of the academic profession and research sciences.Author recommendsFollowing a chronology of sociological work on knowledge, science, and intellectuals, from the classical, 19th‐Century theory of Karl Marx and Max Weber through the early and mid‐20th‐Century is to trace a neat trajectory of sociological theory in its various incarnations – foundational, functionalist, structural, institutional, political, historical, and cultural. Many classical essays in the sociology of knowledge and science are dispersed among larger texts devoted to the essays of key sociological thinkers. Within the sociology of knowledge or science, numerous volumes exist that detail foundational and specialized approaches in the field.For a primer in the modern sociologist's treatment of science as a social institution, an excellent collection is Robert Merton's The Sociology of Science: Theoretical and Empirical Investigations, a compendium of essays from the thinker on science in modern societies, with attention paid to scientific institutions as they developed from the 17th‐Century through the 20th‐Centuries. What is most remarkable about Merton's collection of essays is that it sets the framework for many core themes that would later be elaborated by sociologists on questions of science, including the relationship of science to other institutions and conflicts among scientists over the prioritization of some programs of research and discovery over others. In a thesis that explored the 'interdependence' of science and other institutional spheres in seventeenth century England, where modern science was just beginning, Merton explored the 'interdependence' of science and other institutional spheres, occupational, religious, economic, and militaristic. Aside from this essentially 'macro' view of science, Merton also wrote on the 'Normative Structures of Science', where he discussed a conflict between the governing ethos of science and the attitudes of others across institutional and social spheres. He wrote that a tenet in science is that all scientists should in their research ignore all considerations other than the advance of knowledge, the justification being that consideration of the practical or social uses of the knowledge increases the possibility for bias and error. Merton claimed that this attitude had furnished a basis of revolt against science – once the applications of the science are discovered, those authorities or groups who disapprove of that application will turn their antipathy toward the science itself. Finally, in an essay on 'Priorities in Scientific Discovery', Merton laid the groundwork for the 'functionalist' perspective of science. He argued that science operates with governing norms of priority and originality, which places pressure on scientists to assert their claims as original. When science as an institution is working efficiently, those who have best fulfilled their roles as scientists will have made genuinely original contributions to the common stock of knowledge, and are afforded rightful esteem and recognition. The focus on the judgment of originality and credibility in science has sparked a wave of new scholarship, which I outline in the course syllabus and essay.Given the status of 'science and technology studies' as an ever expanding interdisciplinary field, several recent volumes collect contemporary essays in the social studies of science. A notable volume that contains diverse theoretical and methodological writings in the social studies of science is the Handbook of Science and Technology Studies, edited by Edward J. Hackett, Olga Amsterdamska, Michael Lynch, and Judy Wajcman (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007). Emphases on the political dimensions of scientific knowledge production are currently receiving a great deal of attention, with diverse research exploring the politics of nuclear proliferation, environmental justice movements, and the politics of gender and sexual difference in scientific and medical research. The New Political Sociology of Science: Institutions, Networks, and Power, edited by Scott Frickel and Kelly Moore, provides a good introduction (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006). Other edited volumes are useful as introductory texts to core essays and readings in the sociology of knowledge. A nice volume that contains overlapping research in the sociologies of knowledge and science is Society & Knowledge: Contemporary Perspectives in the Sociology of Knowledge & Science, edited by Volker Meja and Nico Stehr (Transaction Publishers, 2005).Sample syllabusSince the sociologies of knowledge and science are such broad areas of research, the sample syllabus takes into account analysis of knowledge production in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities as well as the study of intellectuals as a group. For those that find the focus broad, recommended readings allow those with more interest in science and technology studies or in the study of expert communities to zero‐in on specific bodies of literature. This course could be framed broadly as a course on the social contexts of knowledge production – science, knowledge, and modern research and academic vocations. A basic goal of the class is to encourage students to think more reflexively about science and about their own work as social scientists, while also to promote ongoing research on the ever changing social contexts of the academic professions and knowledge production in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities.This 10 week outline introduces theoretical texts and some exemplary case studies.Week 1: Introduction:This session is an introduction to the sociological study of knowledge production, science, and intellectuals as a group. The class should discuss short pieces as foundational texts, which may include Gramsci's essay writing on intellectuals in Selections from the Prison Notebooks (New York: International Publishers, 1971); excerpts from Karl Mannheim's Ideology and Utopia: An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985), particularly those portions that deal with the social function of the intellectual and the 'classless intellectual'; Max Weber's essay 'Science as a Vocation' (Pp. 129–156 in From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, edited by H. Gerth and C. W. Mills, New York: Oxford University Press, 1958); and some more contemporary piece, perhaps Merton's essay 'Paradigm for the Sociology of Knowledge', a clarifying, comprehensive essay on the myriad topics that could be subsumed under the sociology of knowledge (in The Sociology of Science: Theoretical and Empirical Investigations, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973). Given the breadth of Merton's essay, which does not deal exclusively with scholarly and scientific knowledge, class discussion should devote attention to the distinctions among approaches that deal with intellectuals as a group, the social contexts of science, and the content of ideas.Week 2: Classical foundations:The second week should involve a more detailed emphasis on theoretical foundations in the sociology of knowledge and science. Though Weber's essay on 'Science as a Vocation' has been introduced in the first week, the discussion should center more intensely on how the classical scholars handled questions about knowledge and intellectuals. Using Merton's essay to frame the classical theorists' take on science and knowledge, a comparison of the perspectives of Marx and Weber on knowledge and intellectuals should make for a lively discussion. Excerpts from Marx's The German Ideology provide a good introduction to Marx's views on the way the content of ideas are linked to material life. In Marx's critique of the writings in political economy of his day, he argues that the content, form, and method of the writing on utilitarianism from the prominent bourgeois thinkers of the day were linked to concrete social and economic developments in Europe. To contrast Marx's take that the content of political and economic writing reflected social and economic developments, Weber provides a more nuanced analysis of how the class interests of intellectuals influences the content of their ideas in his writing on how certain types of intellectuals influenced the ideological and ethical doctrines of major world religions, by advocating ideas that conformed to but were not directly influenced by their occupational class interests. Important to this discussion is to compare and contrast Marx and Weber and the extent to which each sees social class as shaping ideas.Weeks 3–4: Social structure, function, and institutions:The next several sessions deal with the various approaches to science and technology, knowledge, and intellectuals to emerge in the middle of the 20th‐Century. The first set of discussions should be on social structure and function – essentially, in discussion how sociologists' have understood the influence of social structure on knowledge production and how scholars have theorized on the function or 'role' of scientists and intellectuals in the promotion of the social order. Again, Robert Merton provides a touchstone example of a 'functionalist' perspective on science, and a good example is his essay on 'Priorities of Scientific Discovery' (The Sociology of Science: Theoretical and Empirical Investigations, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973). An exemplary text and enjoyable read is Florian Znaniecki's Social Role of the Man of Knowledge (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, [1940] 1986). C. Wright Mills's Sociology and Pragmatism: The Higher Learning in America is an exemplary and oft‐overlooked text on the growth of pragmatism and modern American sociology, a model of research design and a prescient analysis of how occupational and economic conditions, the changing demographic of the American university, and the content and function of elective curricula influenced the development of new areas of research in philosophy and the growth of modern sociology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1969). This text could also be used to discuss the importance of institutional conditions in shaping academic disciplines and knowledge production. Key texts on the importance of institutions as portals and venues of intellectual activity and the social importance of scientists and intellectuals as institutional and bureaucratic actors include Lewis Coser's Men of Ideas: A Sociologist's View (New York: Free Press, 1965) and Edward Shils's (1972) collection of essays, The Intellectuals and the Powers, and Other Essays (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).Weeks 5–6: Politics and reflexivity:Alvin W. Gouldner's The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology is a good introduction to a reflexive approach to knowledge production in the social sciences (New York: Avon, 1970). Gouldner analyzed the 'presuppositions' of two generations of social theorists, comparing the early 20th‐Century sociological preoccupations with social order with the more conflict‐laden approaches of the New Left generation. The book makes a rather convincing case about how scholars' relations to resources and politics form the subtext of social theory. Other examples of the 'politics' of knowledge production and the social situation of the observer or abound, particularly in feminist theory, beginning with Dorothy Smith's now‐dated essay 'Women's Perspective as a Radical Critique of Sociology' (Pp. 21–34 in The Feminist Standpoint Theory Reader: Intellectual and Political Controversies, edited by S. Harding, New York: Routledge, 2004). A good way to trace the intellectual trajectory of feminist critiques of science and knowledge is by assigning selections from The Feminist Standpoint Theory Reader. These texts will provide something of an antidote or contrast to the social structural or 'functional' perspectives. Also fitting for these discussion are a couple of texts that revived the analyses of the influence of intellectuals' social class position on the content of ideas. Erik Olin Wright (1978) focused on intellectuals in late capitalism and György Konrad and Ivan Szelenyi (1979) analyzed the social position of intellectuals under Eastern European state socialism, in both cases melding political sociology with the sociology of knowledge. Discussions of the texts featured in these 2 weeks should provoke students to discuss whether the main imperative of the sociology of knowledge – the analysis of the social and material, or at least contextual, backdrop to knowledge claims – is in itself reflexive.Weeks 7–8: Fields, new institutional analysis, social movements, and networks:Among the most popular recent approaches in the sociology of knowledge are field analysis, network analysis, and new institutional approaches. Each of these could be said to be in some sense 'macro' as the focus is on how broader contexts and relationships influence the content and flow of ideas. Bourdieu's Homo Academicus is a study of the relationships of status among French university professors and includes rigorous analyses of scholars' career and family backgrounds as well as the relationships of academic disciplines to authorities in the university and the state (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988). Examples of how institutional conditions shape the development, structure, and composition of academic disciplines and departments have emerged in recent years, the most notable examples being Charles Camic's essay (published in 1995 in Social Research) on how local institutional conditions and interdisciplinary interaction influenced the development of distinct analytic traditions in three early sociology departments and Mario Small's essay (published in 1999 in Theory and Society) on how local institutional factors influenced differences in the content and structure of new African‐American studies programs. Excellent examples of the influence that social movements and collective action have on the formation of new academic disciplines include Fabio Rojas's From Black Power to Black Studies: How a Radical Social Movement Became an Academic Discipline (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007) and Scott Frickel's Chemical Consequences: Environmental Mutagens, Scientist Activism, and the Rise of Genetic Toxicology (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2004). Finally, Randall Collins's mammoth The Sociology of Philosophies: A Global Theory of Intellectual Change outlines a vast network analysis of philosophical production across historical periods (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000). The book is big, and an idea is to have students read the theoretical sections that explain the logic of a network analysis of philosophical production, and then to have students select individual chapters to read and present to the class.Week 9: Culture and micro‐sociological analysis:With the rise in importance of the sociology of culture in recent years, interested scholars have applied some of the research techniques developed in culture studies to analyze knowledge production. An exemplary study in this area is Karin Knorr‐Cetina's Epistemic Culture: How the Sciences Make Knowledge, which is a micro‐sociological account of how scientists in high‐energy particle physics and molecular biology labs conduct their research (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999). If students are interested in the contexts of scientific knowledge production and laboratory life, students might compare Knorr‐Cetina's analysis with earlier studies of the interactions of actors and artifacts in science labs, beginning with the work of Bruno Latour, perhaps starting with Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987).Week 10: Using approaches in the sociology of science to analyze other kinds of knowledge production:At the 'cutting edge' of research in the sociology of knowledge are attempts by scholars to adapt, or utilize, the theories and methods developed in science studies to analyze knowledge production in the social sciences and humanities. A good essay that draws on the work of Knorr‐Cetina is Gregoire Mallard's 'Interpreters of the Literary Canon and their Technical Instruments: The Case of Balzac Criticism', published in the American Sociological Review in 2005. A more recent example examines how social science and humanities professors evaluate knowledge, borrowing from research in the social studies of science on consensus, evaluation, and credibility: Michele Lamont's How Professors Think: Inside the Curious World of Academic Judgment (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009). Students should assess how convincingly a research area that originated in social studies of science, like studies of how knowledge is prioritized and judged as 'original' or the use of technical instruments in the humanities, applies to knowledge contexts outside of the hard sciences.Focus questions
In what ways can the methods and theories of the sociology of science be adapted to analyze knowledge production in other areas, including the humanities and the social sciences? What sorts of processes and knowledge claims are specific to science? What makes an analysis reflexive? Is analyzing the material or institutional conditions that shape ideas or scientific production inherently critical or reflexive? Among the more recently popularized theoretical and methodological approaches to intellectual life, like Bourdieu's 'field' analysis of the French university and Collins's network analysis of philosophy, which is likely to be most transposable across diverse scientific and academic settings?
Introduction: After the Second World War, the political and economical block that today we call European Union started when six countries sought to ensure the peace among them. Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxemburg and the Netherlands put their heavy industries under a common management, with the Coal and Steel Treaty, so no one could build weapons or develop its war industry without the others knowing it. This experience led to the Treaty of Rome in 1957 and 50 years later the ideas of people, goods and service freedoms continue spreading around, and the European Union has become one of the best examples of economical, political and cultural integration, and a reference around the world to encourage other regions to group. Therefore, among others, the Latin America Free Trade Association (LAFTA) appeared in 1960, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), in 1967; the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA), in 1991; and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) in 1993. In the case of South America , in spite of their good intentions, the huge asymmetries between LAFTA members caused the apparition of sub-regional blocs: the Andeans Community (CAN) founded in 1969, and now grouping Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru; and the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR) founded in 1991, between Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. Nowadays, after more than 40 years of integration processes, there are still strong problems inside both sub-regional blocs. CAN Member States have several diplomatic discussions regarding their political models; and Peru, Ecuador and Colombia have or are negotiating independent Free Trade Agreements with external blocs, including USA and the EU. In the other side, MERCOSUR's main players -Argentina and Brazil- have commercial disputes at the World Trade Organization, surrounding their own sub-regional bodies . Nevertheless, these two sub-regional associations were the basis for the South American Community of Nations (CSN on Spanish) in 2004, and from that point, the present attempt to unify South-America: the South American Union of Nations (UNASUR, 2008), with the participation of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Surinam, Uruguay and Venezuela. The integration levels in political and economical affairs in this latter group are expected to change the way international relations will be conduit in the future of South-America. This new regional bloc has an extension of 17 658 Km² and 383 million inhabitants (2007) . With a general GDP of $2348 953 (2007) and a GDP per capita of $6126 (2007), it is one of the regions with more perspectives of development, but it is also one of the regions with the highest degrees of economic asymmetry. While in 2007 Chile, Venezuela and Brazil had a GDP per capita (2007) of $9865, $8601 and $6819, there were other countries like Paraguay and Bolivia, with a GDP per capita (2007) of $1669 and $1342. These asymmetries have leaded to strong disagreements between South American countries during previous integration process. An example that just pooling economies is not the whole solution for development is the case of Paraguay, in the middle of MERCOSUR and with barely a quarter of the MERCOSUR's GDP $6642 (2007). 'Integration' will not always mean international governmental organizations where Member States have decided to transfer competitions and empowerment of supranational institutions; in this Master Thesis, the South American integration processes will be defined as '(...)the creation and maintenance of intense and diverse patrons of interaction between previously autonomous units.' Furthermore, 'Integration' in the context of the South American reality included two concepts: 'Regionalism' and 'Regionalization'. The first is related to the wave of thinking, the interaction projects and the political initiatives (the processes) and the second, to the institutions or the agreements that represent the integration (the result). This Master Thesis tries to be oriented to describe the processes more than the institutions or the agreements; nevertheless, it is not possible to present the first without the second and vice versa. What kind of integration can be expected in South America? What kind of goals, challenges and success can South-American Nations find in their way to a social, political and economical integration? Whereas the EU is -since its very beginning- a supranational initiative, South American regional and sub-regional blocs are characterised for being mostly, the result of intergovernmental agreements. Will this difference be determinant in the integration processes? In this thesis of Master in European Studies, the South American integration -processes and institutions- will be review under the framework of six dimensions that give the EU its character of integrated regional bloc and are advocated to deep the South America Integration. Three of them related to structural bodies: executive, judicial and legislative; and the other three related to the policies that defines a Union: Monetary Policy, Foreign and Security Policy; and, Social and Development Policy. In order to do not miss the main emphasis, the description and analysis of the executive supranational body will be deeper than the corresponding to judicial and legislative bodies and the three common policies. In addition, two cases of the South American Integration will be modeled, to present the best possible scenarios to foster the integration. By the comparison of the structures and policies, and by the scenario modeling; this Master Thesis attempts to demonstrate that the lack of supranational authority and law enforcement power will play a determinant role in the success or failure in the South American integration process. The analysis in this thesis can be divided in two sections, the descriptive part and the analysis of Case Study. The information for the descriptive part is mostly from published books, research papers, journals and case studies, the information for the Case Study comes mostly from News and Newspaper articles. The technique used in the analysis of the Case Studies is the Theory Game: a shared-decision model with two players that have different priorities for the same decision. The methodology for that is described more widely in section 4.1 Fundamentals of Game Theory. This Master Thesis presents the South American integration as a whole, and the UNASUR as the present meeting point of the Andean Community and MERCOSUR. Therefore, wherever South American Integration is mentioned, it is not limited to UNASUR, CAN or MERCOSUR analysis, because they coexist and overlap each other at the same time. Instead, time framework and integration approaches are considerations that need to be undeniably included. To write about the integration processes in South America is to review almost 40 years of history and political agreements and disagreements of twelve countries and the influence that they received from external factors, like Central-, North America and Europe. Nowadays, the remaining sub-regional blocs face the opportunity to pool agreements in a new attempt, together with the risk of breaking-off of the Treaties, by the influence of external agreements of Member States with third parties around the world. For reasons of space, and to focus in the present regional integration process, those external agreements, like the NAFTA or the negotiations between the CAN and the EU, and their influence in the South American regional integration process are not going to be covered in this Master Thesis. That does not mean that their influence is negligible, rather than that, in some cases, like the Free Trade Agreements between the USA and Colombia, or Peru, it means the risk of the end of the CAN as a sub-regional economic bloc. In addition, a commercial developments analysis of the South American integration process requires a separate review of each commercial category and each bilateral agreement and therefore, a deeper description of those topics is not included. Other issues that are not going to be covered in this Master Thesis are those integration processes or commercial agreements that are not part or do not lead to the South American Union of Nations, like the 'Bolivarian Alternative for Our Americas' (on Spanish ALBA) or the 'Commercial Agreement of the Peoples' (on Spanish TCP). Their own dynamic and priorities are quite interesting; nevertheless going deeper in these issues could mean to reduce attention in the main topics of this Master Thesis. This Master Thesis uses study cases to describe two facets of the South American Integration process under the Two-Person Model of the Game Theory. The model used in this Master Thesis is characterised for the intersection of two players with mutual influence and different priorities. Game Theory is a useful analysis tool with many applications in mathematics, economics and political fields; nevertheless, as a model, it is a simplification of the reality and therefore, some details like the simplicity of its initial assumptions, the deep of the analysis, outsider players and feedback, are limited, further details of these limitations are presented in section 4.2. The analysis of a play of a Game, under the Game Theory can also be made by a mathematical approach. That mathematical approach is not going to be considered in this Master Thesis in order to keep the focus in the integration process.Inhaltsverzeichnis:Table of Content: Dedicatory and Acknowledgementsii Abstractiii List of Contentsiv List of Tablesv List of Figuresvi List of Acronymsvii I.INTRODUCTION1 1.1Introduction2 1.2Methodology4 1.3Remarks4 II.SOUTH AMERICAN INTEGRATION FRAMEWORK DEVELOPMENT6 2.1Political Framework Development towards the South-American Union of Nations7 III.SOUTH AMERICAN INTEGRATION UNDER THE EU FRAMEWORK26 3.1'New Regionalism' and the functional approach of South American integration.27 3.2South American- and EU- Integration Structures and Policies34 3.2.1A Supranational Executive Body37 3.2.2Supranational judicial functions41 3.2.3Supranational legislative functions43 3.2.4Common Currency and Supranational Monetary Institution46 3.2.5A Common Foreign and Security Policy47 3.2.6A Common Social and Development Policy48 IV.GAME THEORY AND SOUTH AMERICAN INTEGRATION CASE STUDIES50 4.1Game Theory51 4.1.1Fundamentals of Game Theory51 4.1.2Limitations of Game Theory54 4.2Case Studies55 4.2.1Case Study 1: Political Integration, the creation of the South American Energy Council (2007)55 4.2.2Case 2: Economical Integration, the Ecuadorian safeguards settlement (2009)62 V.CONCLUSIONS AND FINAL COMMENTS67 REFERENCES71 APPENDIXES Appendix A: South American figures78 Appendix B: Game Theory Glossary82 Appendix C: Combined priorities84 DISCLAIM89Textprobe:Text Sample: Chapter 3.2.1, A Supranational Executive Body: Regarding the legal order, Supranationalism means that sovereign states agree to abide by norms which are adopted at a higher level of organization. In the case of the European Union, Supranationalism is not referred to the transfer of sovereignty; it is only the transfer of the power to exercise that sovereignty. Together with that, the supremacy of the Community law and the principle of direct effect present that the legal system of the Community has a federal nature. Thence, a Supranational Institution has competences to exercise powers that belong to sovereign States. In addition, the exercise of this power should be in line with the principles of proportionality, i.e. No action shall go beyond that it is necessary; and subsidiarity, i.e. In competences that Supranational Institution shares with Member States, it does intervene only if the objective of the action cannot be achieved by the Member State. The interaction between national governments and EU Institutions, together with the freedom to act according to those competences, is the basis for the adoption of the EU rules. Beyond the legal order, Supranationalism may be employed in decision-making, monitoring and enforcement. Supranationalism can also be divided in decisional (pooling sovereignty) and normative (delegation of power). Decisional Supranationalism is referred to those decisions taken by voting procedures other than unanimity, and when governments decided to act either jointly or not at all. Normative Supranationalism refers to the delegation of power to autonomous institutions that are created by the Member States. Therefore, a Supranational Executive Body will be an Institution with the right to adopt normative decisions directly based on the Treaties, with the autonomy to execute those decisions, and without the need of approval by the Member States. Supranational actors contribute to the integration by different means and reasons. Moravscik presented that pooling or delegation in the EU, are means to assure that other governments will accept agreed legislation or enforcement in issue-areas, where joint gains are high and distributional conflicts are moderate, and where there is uncertainty about future decisions. Other contribution of supranational bodies to integration process is that they might reduce the transaction costs by institutionalizing the integrative dynamic and negotiating procedure; and, it may assist national governments in issues area in which there are reasonably clear added benefits working according to the rules, but with predictable temptations to chat in response to short-term pressures. In addition, supranational institutions bring mutual confidence; smaller countries, which want their interests taken in account, especially in multinational scenarios where there is not veto power, can relay in the impartiality of supranational actors, instead of intergovernmental decision-making procedures, where the most powerful Member States shape the process. Probably the best example of the contribution of a Supranational Executive Body to Regional Integration is in Competition Policy: The Commission received decision powers in the sphere of state aid, based on the EEC Treaty provisions, due to the necessity of an impartial and independent body to apply agreed rules to face national pressures. One of the earliest Community Regulations fixed the modalities by which the Commission would exercise that power directly to ensure that undertakings respected antitrust rules. A supranational executive body can also shape the process and foster the integration. An example is the development of the European Monetary Union (EMU). Monetary union was neither the uncontested solution to economic problems, nor an easily obtainable response to German reunification. Nevertheless, Commission officials successfully disseminated the notion that EMU altogether provided a coherent solution to the problems created by financial globalization and the end of the Cold War; furthermore, they were leading actors in the sudden proliferation of governmental initiatives in France, Italy and German in favour of the EMU. By doing that, they fostered solid political momentum behind an originally lukewarm and unfocused demand for monetary integration. There are several reasons and examples of the benefits of a Supranational Executive Body; nevertheless, South American Nations still working with Intergovernmental Structures. During the negotiations for the UNASUR Constitutive Treaty, its former General Secretary, Rodrigo Borja, presented a proposal for the authority and competences of UNASUR. In that document, member states, '(...) in exchange of the economical, political and geopolitical advantages that a common order can offer; agreed in the limitation of some of their sovereign faculties and will form the Union with common decision and executive multinational bodies'. The proposal was not accepted and finally, was part of the reasons of Borja's resignation. While in the case of the EU, the presence of a Supranational Executive Body is one of the strongest driving forces of the integration process, in the South American context, there is not yet a political will to pool sovereignty. Solón, pro-tempore General Secretary of UNASUR from 2006 to 2008, affirms 'Nobody doubts that in the future it will be necessary to move to supranational authorities (...) but today they want an agreement where everybody shall count with the other to have a meeting point'. Behind that attitude, the reasons that can be drawn are the political will of member states, driven by governments or national monopolies, which do not want to lose control over the process and the stagnation of the over-institutionalism in the past (Central America Common Market and the CAN). The stagnation of over-institutionalism drives member states to appeal to external bodies in the dispute settlement, continuing the weakening of the idea of a supranational body; the political will of member states, or its absence, could be explained for the existence of strong national political elites, allowed for the late trade liberalizations of national monopolies. Rajagopal refers to studies of how MERCOSUR member states have been primarily driven by domestic political considerations when they have furthered the integration process. This it could lead to conclude that they are not likely to develop the kind of supranational governance institutions present in the European Union; as policy elites in MERCOSUR, member states desire to maintain a great deal of domestic policy autonomy. In addition of its intergovernmental character, the faculties of the UNASUR Secretariat as Executive body are restricted by its small budget of 3 million US$/year, much more limited than the 5,4 million US$/year of the CAN General Secretariat ; and by the denial of the proposal of pooling the executive bodies of CAN and MERCOSUR. Another issue to consider is that the feasibility for South American countries to pool sovereignty or to delegate power varies from one Member State to another, according to their own constitutive and legal framework. In some cases, Constitutional texts are quite clear in stimulating regional integration and stressing the prevalence of regional law, like the Venezuelan Constitution that allows to 'confer on supranational organisations (...) the exercise of the powers necessary to carry out these integration processes (...)'(Art. 153, Venezuelan Constitution 1999). The Colombian external relations 'are based on national sovereignty (...) and on recognition of the principles of international law accepted by Colombia' and 'The State shall promote economic, social and political integration with other nations(…)', (Art. 19 and Art. 227, Colombian Constitution 1991). There are, however, other Member States whit Constitutions that needs amendment to pool sovereignty; like the Bolivian Constitutions which states 'The public authorities may not delegate the powers conferred on them by this Constitution, or confer on the executive branch powers other than those expressly conferred on them by it' (Art. 30, Bolivian Constitution). Therefore, the creation of a supranational executive body could not be totally accepted until the totality of the national Constitutions were in line with it. In addition to the considerations presented above, Chapter IV presents two Case Study based on the Game Theory to demonstrate the strong influence of an executive body with supranational competences in the integration process. Nevertheless, it is likely to expect that present integration structures will remain tied to intergovernmental political intentions, and the integration process will loose the benefits of a Supranational Executive Body.
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This article was co-published with The New Arab.Close watchers of Israel's war in Gaza have faced a question in recent months: If the U.S. is rushing weapons to Israel, then why hasn't the public heard of any arms sales besides two relatively small transfers late last year?The Washington Post delivered an answer last week. Reporter John Hudson revealed that the Biden administration has approved over 100 smaller weapons packages for Israel since Oct. 7 that fell under the $25 million threshold for formally notifying Congress — and thus the public — about the transfers. In total, these mini sales could add up to more than $1 billion worth of U.S. military aid.The decision to deliver U.S. aid in smaller packages is far from unusual. The U.S. government has done so in the past for practical and nefarious purposes alike; only about 2% of weapons transfers occur above the threshold to notify Congress, according to former officials. But what is abnormal is the fact that many of those weapons were likely pre-positioned on Israeli territory before the war. Unlike other countries, Israel has a stockpile of American weapons on its soil to which it has privileged access. When a U.S.-made bomb slams into Gaza, there's a real chance that it started the day in an American facility, managed by American soldiers and governed by American law."It's clear that it's been a major source of arms for Israel," said Josh Paul, a former State Department official who resigned in protest of U.S. support for Israel's war. Unfortunately, Paul added, "it's an opaque process, so it's hard to say exactly what weapons they're getting" from the stockpile.This cache of arms is just a small piece of the puzzle. Taken as a whole, U.S. efforts to shield Israel from human rights restrictions and guarantee its access to continued military aid go further than for any other country, according to experts and former senior U.S. officials. These advantages include modified human rights vetting, special access to U.S. weapons, and a veto on American arms sales to Israel's neighbors. Up to this point, the State Department hasn't carried out a formal assessment of Israel's compliance with the law in its Gaza war.Experts claim these arms transfer cutouts have continued or, in some areas, been expanded since Israel launched its campaign in Gaza, which has left over 31,000 Palestinians dead and much of the strip's population in famine or famine-like conditions. Even last month, as war crime accusations mounted, the U.S. reportedly gave Israel at least 1,000 precision-guided munitions and artillery shells."The bottom line is that either you have human rights standards and legal standards or you don't," Paul said. When U.S. officials fail to hold Israel accountable for alleged abuses, "it not only creates an exception for Israel, but it also undermines your diplomacy with other countries," he told Responsible Statecraft/ The New Arab."I have serious concerns that the continued transfer of weapons to Israel is facilitating indiscriminate bombing that may violate international humanitarian law," Rep. Joaquin Castro told Responsible Statecraft/ The New Arab in a statement. "Congress needs to push the Biden administration to hold Benjamin Netanyahu accountable for any use of U.S. security assistance that violates international law."State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told Responsible Statecraft/ The New Arab that all transfers to Israel since Oct. 7 have followed U.S. law and policy, including notifications to Congress. "We have followed the procedures Congress itself has specified to keep members well-informed and regularly brief members even when formal notification is not a legal requirement," Miller said in a statement, adding that claims that the U.S. has cut up weapons packages in order to avoid public scrutiny are "unequivocally false."The White House did not respond to a request for comment.Exceptions make the rulesWhen a Middle Eastern country asks the U.S. for weapons, American officials' minds go straight to Israel. Would Tel Aviv approve of the transfer? Could new fighter jets give Egypt an edge over Israel on the battlefield if their peace deal fell apart? Would Israeli officials come around if we offer them better weapons to sweeten the pot?This line of reasoning doesn't have anything to do with the personal opinions of U.S. officials. In fact, U.S. law explicitly states that the U.S. must give Israel a "qualitative military edge" over its neighbors to counter a threat from "any individual state or possible coalition of states or [...] non-state actors."U.S. partners are starkly aware of — and unhappy about — this reality, according to a former senior U.S. military official in Cairo who requested anonymity to speak freely about his experience. Egyptian officials would sometimes request high-tech weapons just to "watch us squirm and come up with some way to say 'no' without saying the Israelis won't approve it," the former official recalled."This is another place where it's very explicit that Israel has a special status that no other country enjoys," said John Ramming-Chappell of the Center for Civilians in Conflict.This qualitative advantage is enforced by the quantitative side. Since World War II, Israel is far and away the largest recipient of U.S. military aid. Washington's funding for the Israeli military, which now totals $3.8 billion per year, makes up about 16% of its total budget, according to the Congressional Research Service. Israel, which can spend part of its U.S. aid on Israeli weapons, gets this cash in an interest-bearing account in New York, making it one of only two states that get a multimillion-dollar tip on top of baseline U.S. support.When it comes to human rights, Israel also gets special protections. Take the Leahy law, a statute that prevents specific units of foreign militaries from receiving U.S. aid if American officials have evidence they've committed "gross violations of human rights." For most countries, Leahy vetting happens before aid is disbursed. Israel gets the equipment first, and the ensuing vetting process looks different than for other countries. Lower-level State Department officials have found multiple cases in which Israeli units should lose access to American weapons under U.S. law, but those cases are consistently blocked by higher-ups in government who usually don't weigh in on such cases for other countries, according to Paul.The result is that, unlike Egypt and other U.S. partners in the Middle East, no Israeli unit has ever been sanctioned under the Leahy law despite numerous credible allegations of human rights abuses, a fact that the statute's namesake has loudly railed against. The State Department has previously justified this disparity by pointing to Israel's judicial system, which U.S. officials believe is capable of handling human rights violations internally.In recent weeks, congressional attention has focused on whether Israel is violating a U.S. law that prevents countries from receiving American weapons if they block U.S. humanitarian aid in whole or in part. While the statute has rarely been enforced, the Biden administration promised to hold states accountable to the law in a recent memorandum.At this point, many experts and lawmakers believe Israel is in clear violation of this law given how little aid now enters Gaza. Yet the White House has still not offered a reason — or a formal waiver — to justify its failure to enforce its own commitment."I really haven't heard a good response to the question of why we should not apply existing U.S. law [...] to ensure that U.S. military assistance is used in accordance with our values," said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md."Given the evidence that Israel is intentionally blocking the passage of humanitarian aid to Gaza, the Biden administration has an obligation to enforce Humanitarian Aid Corridor Act and move towards limitations on further offensive aid to Israel as long as the aid blockade continues," Rep. Castro said.'As supportive as possible'When the White House moved to expedite weapons transfers to Israel after Oct. 7, it faced an unusual problem. The president already had more than enough authority to make this happen, but officials wanted to signal that they were being "as supportive as possible." The solution was to further loosen laws around U.S. arms transfers, according to Paul, who still worked in government at the time. "It's not that those were things that we'd been previously thinking about," Paul said. "The previous position within government had been [that] Israel already has more than you could possibly want in terms of authorities and funding." Now, the Senate's supplemental spending package for Israel has provisions that would dramatically expand the secretive U.S. stockpile on Israeli soil while loosening public reporting requirements about transfers from it. A bill with similar changes passed the House as well, signaling broad support for the proposal in Congress. Alongside already existing loopholes, these new restrictions weaken America's case that it is committed to protecting human rights on the world stage, according to Ramming-Chappell. "The exceptional status that Israel enjoys in U.S. arms transfer policy and law, when taken in conjunction with the devastating effects of Israel's current campaign in Gaza, really undermines U.S. leadership and claims to moral authority in the international sphere," he said.
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The Iraqi army captain who assassinated King Faisal II and his family in 1958 claimed, "All I did was remember Palestine, and the trigger on the machine-gun just set itself off." Although Iraqi historians refute this assertion and maintain the officer was a delusional madman, in the days leading up to the massacre of the royal family, the Iraqi opposition had been emboldened by growing anti-Israel sentiment and a perception that the Iraqi monarchy leaned too heavily toward Western nations which enabled Israeli aggression toward Arab states. Six decades later, the Palestinian question still enrages the "Arab Street." The war in Gaza raises concerns of violent regional spillover and Iraq would not be not immune from the consequences. Unlike the Houthis in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon, however, it is unlikely that armed conflict will come to Iraq as sympathy for the Palestinians will not trump war fatigue. Yet, there are reasons to fear the indirect costs of war. Chief among those concerns revolve around neighboring Iran being involved in a wider conflict, but no less significant could be the effects on the internal politics of Iraq, its economy, and its international relations. Much will depend on the skills of Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani to balance the pressure from his political opponents and the armed militias.Internal politicsAll politics are local, and in Iraq they are often armed. Unlike the dictatorships, dynasties, and monarchies surrounding it, Iraq remains a parliamentary democracy, generally responsive to public sentiment but also coercion from armed militias outside of government control.Iraq's recent history shows the best and worst of democracy, free speech, and the right to assemble. In October 2019, widespread street protests over corruption, unemployment, inadequate services, and poor living conditions brought down the government of Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi. The Tishreen ("October") protesters demanded the resignation of Abdul-Mahdi, commitments to reform, and early elections. While authorities responded with a relatively heavy hand, the government fell within two months. Abdul-Mahdi's replacement, Mustafa al Kadhimi, enjoyed a full term in office but the process of replacing him with the current prime minister, Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani came after Iraq went through the longest period without a formal government in its modern history. Among other factors, his appointment was fiercely opposed by the powerful rabble-rousing Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr when Sadr was unable to form a government. Sadr's party resigned en masse from Parliament but not before his followers stormed the Council of Representatives in July 2022 twice, and occupied the Presidential Palace the following month. The departure of the Sadrists from the palace led to a deadly firefight in the Green Zone which soon spread to Iraq's southern provinces. Against this backdrop of violence and turmoil, the Sudani government came to power in October 2022 fully understanding the need to remain sensitive to public opinion and well armed political opponents. The Sudani government also remains under pressure from militias, a delicate balancing act for a country beholden to the accomplishments of these groups in the fight against Daesh, or ISIS. These militias enjoy quasi-political influence on the Iraqi body politic and are closely tied to Iran. Sudani's political opponents have been closely watching for a misstep (common to all opposition parties worldwide), not least Sadr, who has already called on his supporters to join "peaceful" demonstrations in protest of Israel's war on Gaza. Rarely are Sadrist demonstrations peaceful as shown by the sit-ins in 2021 and the violent attacks into the protected Green Zone in 2022.Against this backdrop, Sudani maintains a careful reading of internal politics. While he may not be ousted by demonstrations like Abdul-Mahdi or fend off assassination attempts as did Khadimi, participating in internal politics remains a risky business in Iraq; so is international diplomacy.External relations While Prime Minister Sudani has demonstrated strong skills in managing Iraq's internal politics, external relations with Iran and the United States could provide the missteps his opponents seek. Despite strong condemnation of the attacks into Gaza, Iran-backed militias have significantly ramped up their drone and rocket attacks on U.S. military bases in Iraq and Syria.In response, a parade of U.S. officials from CIA Director William Burns to Secretary of State Antony Blinken (adorned in body armor) have visited Iraq since October 7 persuading, cajoling, and warning Sudani of the consequences of continued attacks on U.S. personnel. Sudani issued stern warnings that Iraqi territory should not be used as a proxy battlefield, and that continued attacks by these groups may provoke U.S. action against Iran even in the absence of proof that these attacks were "explicitly ordered" by Tehran. Arresting a small number of suspects in the attacks has, for the moment, kept the diplomatic situation somewhat calm. Sudani seems to have found a way to acquiesce to Washington's demands while placating Iran and the militias. Keen on maintaining positive relations with both Iran and the U.S., while remaining attentive and in tune to sentiments on the street, Sudani cannot risk being perceived as cowering to Western pressures at a time when public opinion is overwhelmingly in support of Gaza. But that balancing act will require continued statesmanship to uphold Iraq's sovereignty without being labeled by detractors as a puppet of any hegemon, whether Iran or the U.S. A tipping point, however, may be if the war in Gaza continues. The recent outcry against the December 25 airstrikes by the U.S. military in response to a rocket attack which seriously injured an American soldier is the most recent example. Not only did Sudani call the rocket attack an act of terrorism, but also condemned the American strike as a serious violation of Iraqi sovereignty and announced that "the Iraqi government is heading towards ending the presence of international coalition forces."Economic effectsWhile Iraq's economy has shown some signs of recovery in recent months — 25 percent of Iraqis reportedly live below the poverty line — unemployment is forecasted to reach 40 percent, and climate change has contributed to water scarcity. There is little appetite for yet another war in Iraq when average Iraqis are battling to get by.In the event the Gaza conflict expands, Iraqis could be affected by events such as the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea. Blocking maritime traffic through the Suez Canal and rerouting traffic around the Cape of Good Hope in Africa could affect the relatively modest inflation rate in Iraq at a time when the Iraqi dinar has also gone through a significant depreciation. While the economic situation in Iraq is far better than regional neighbors such as Iran, Turkey, and Egypt, expectations from consumers used to relatively stable prices are high and even a small amount of economic turbulence on top of anger at the situation in Gaza could challenge the Sudani government. As former Iraqi Energy Minister Luay Al Khateeb puts it, "If the Gaza war engulfs Iran, this will lead to major consequences on Iraq's political and economic stability. The ramifications will force Iran to prioritize its needs to meet local demand on power sector and gas supplies and cut natural gas electricity exports to Iraq."Iraq currently imports electricity and gas from Iran that total close to 40 percent of its power supply. "Iran's force majeure cuts will compromise Iraq's national grid to disable 50 percent of Iraq's service sectors and investment projects, affecting the country's revenue; [it will have a] negative impact on GDP and will most certainly ignite unprecedented populous protests against the government and the political system at large," says Al Khateeb. "For Iraq to avoid such a situation, a quick short term resolution will come at a major cost to compensate for the losses by importing expensive diesel and securing more financial allocation for power generation maintenance that will eventually increase the budget deficit beyond control."Iraq's former Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Dr Ali Allawi concurs."A war certainly would lead to Iranian cutbacks of gas supplied to Iraq," he says, adding, "It would also be used to pressure Iraq to drop its public neutrality between the U.S. and Iran. The Iraqi public is decidedly in favor of Palestine, and the Gaza war has made the Iranian connection less contentious than before."While international actors seek to contain the violence inside of Israel and Gaza, regional actors seem intent on expanding the war well beyond those borders. Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and Iran-backed militias seem hell-bent on spreading the flames. The United States blames Iran as the source of regional provocations and even if inaccurate, the U.S. has put its forces on war footing, sending aircraft carriers and increased intelligence and other combat capabilities into the region, ostensibly to deter and contain the conflict — moves that inadvertently increase the dangers.of that very conflagration either by mistake, miscalculation, or misstep. The recent American-led maritime mission, Operation Prosperity Guardian, will increase the number of international warships in the Red Sea and should a Houthi missile sink a commercial tanker or a U.S. warship, the responses and counter-responses may make the war in Gaza seem minor.The Middle East has not seen this level of instability in decades and Iraq is not immune from that instability. Even if, to date, it has not been directly affected by the Gaza war or a wider regional conflict, Iraq it is already feeling its indirect effects through increased tensions between the U.S. and Iran, large scale street protests in support of Palestine, Iranian -backed militias attacking U.S. personnel, domestic political opponents, and impacts on the Iraqi economy. While Prime Minister Sudani has deftly managed those challenges to date, it remains problematic whether he, or Iraq, can weather the storms blowing in from Gaza for much longer.
Since 2014 Sweden has had a Feminist Foreign Policy (PEF in Spanish). This concept has been widely used in academic and political circles, without enough progress in its proper definition and delimitation. Scarce theoretical formulations, almost all of them coming from American and/or European academics, fail to provide the improvement of the concept and are limited to a series of minimal characteristics, which are influenced by a liberal and ethnocentric reading of feminism. It allows the notion of PEF to be used to refer to many diverse situations, and to establish, at least symbolically, a sign of equality between cases that have little elements in common; for instance, the foreign policies of Sweden, Canada, and Mexico. This situation is not insignificant, since, on the one hand, it reduces the importance and impact of the proposals that feminism has been developing for decades in the field of international relations theory; and on the other hand, it allows government officials and some intellectuals to appropriate and make superficial use of principles established in the intense struggles that women and other feminized sectors have been involved in for a long time. Faced with this panorama there is a need to conceptualize. It recovers the most transformative elements of the feminist tradition. To this end, we will problematize some theoretical definitions of PEF, and the self-denominated Feminist Foreign Policies currently in existence, showing the notable weaknesses and contradictions that cross them. We then proceed to the elaboration of a definition of PEF that incorporates elements coming from multiple feminisms (radical, decolonial black, indigenous), and that above all adopts explicitly a geographical, cultural, subalternate and counterhegemonic perspective. Likewise, we propose a gradual categorization of those foreign policies that begin to abandon androcentric and cisheteropatriarchal positioning, from the concepts of Foreign Policy with a Gender Perspective (PEPG in Spanish), and Foreign Policy with a Gender Perspective and Feminist Agenda (PEGAF in Spanish), and whose meanings we shall develop. Although the concept of PEF could be used for naming a foreign policy that gives a complete and uncontradicted account of the postulates upheld by feminism, we believe that it is more appropriate to use other, less comprehensive concepts. In general terms, the PEF corresponds to a liberal and institutional feminist approach, which underestimates other social actors as legitimate interlocutors. Their strategies are based on a gender mainstreaming approach, perfected in international organizations and replicated by various state entities; as such they ignore the ethnic, cultural, religious and socioeconomic particularities of the populations in which they are applied. In them, divergences between the multiple governmental spheres are not unusual. Moreover, even within the Ministries of Foreign Affairs it is possible to identify notorious incongruities between sectors that are, or are not, crossed by the gender perspective. Secondly, we suggest the use of the concept of Foreign Policy with a Gender Perspective and Feminist Agenda. Considering that the levels are cumulative, to the previous characterization, we add the importance of substantive representation; the identification and sanctioning of the different forms of violence within and outside national borders; and the need to at least begin to question the heteropatriarchal structures of oppression from a discursive point of view, for which the field of diplomacy is fundamental. This gradually problematizes the meanings and stereotypes disseminated by institutions, understanding that the dispute over women's rights and other sex gender identities must also take place at the symbolic level. In the Swedish case, we understand that it corresponds to what we have called PEGAF. Indeed, Sweden has done important work concerning development assistance, and the financing of international institutions related to the protection of rights and the empowerment of women. Likewise, of all the cases considered, Sweden is the one in which there is the greatest congruence between its foreign policy and its domestic policy, as well as the work that the Nordic country has been carrying out within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to consolidate a gender approach. Even from a discursive point of view, the Swedish authorities have questioned certain characteristics of the international system, and have had diplomatic disputes with some countries based on issues related to the violation of human rights. However, none of the above has been sustained over time, and the back and forth has been constant. There have been notable discrepancies in the commitment to a feminist agenda among the different ministries, and in some areas, such as defense, the transformations have been insignificant. In addition, on many occasions, Sweden has abandoned its commitment to the defense of feminist postulates, when obstacles or risks have arisen in relation to the national interest- as defined in androcentric terms. The conservative turn in immigration matters, or the government's refusal to confront the strategic sector of the arms industry, are evidence of this. Based on the analysis carried out on the case of Canada, we consider that this country can be framed within Foreign Policies with Gender Perspectives (PEPG), since it presents domestic and international antecedents in the work on women's issues. However, the fact that it defines its foreign policy only in one area, such as development assistance, and focuses its empirical work mainly on economic issues, means that it does not achieve the necessary comprehensiveness to place it at the highest level. Likewise, Canada does not make progress in criticizing or questioning, even discursively, the hegemonic global dynamics and institutions, nor does it question its place in the international structure. Finally, evaluating the Mexican case, we ask ourselves: How can we think of a feminist foreign policy when at the domestic level the drug cartels and human trafficking networks continue to exercise their power and violence with total impunity, and in conjunction with broad sectors of politics, justice and the police? How could the Mexican PEF make sense in a country where people continue to "disappear" or become victims of extrajudicial executions within the framework of democracy, most of the time with representatives of the security forces as the ones responsible? In which part of the gender equality plan can we frame the femicides and transfemicides that place Mexico as one of the most dangerous countries to be a woman or dissident of the heteronorma? Regrettably, we consider that the country is not even in a position to aspire to the lowest level described here –that is,the PEPG- since all its current actions (and those of the last decades) are detrimental to the values and principles that the feminist stance upholds. The criticisms raised in the three case studies addressed has sought to identify their weaknesses and to construct more appropriate concepts that would point to the different types of external policies that are currently oriented towards women. Moreover, this would make it possible to define them with an appropriate term that is in line with their real actions and not mere rhetoric. Our work, of course, is not limited to a conceptual correction; but, above all, it tries to generate a concrete contribution for the generation of tools and the definition of public policies that have a positive impact on the life of the communities represented. ; Desde finales del 2014, tras el anuncio de Suecia de embarcarse en una Política Exterior Feminista (PEF), dicho concepto ha sido utilizado de forma amplia en ámbitos académicos y políticos, sin que se haya avanzado en la deconstrucción y delimitación del mismo, desde una mirada plural y crítica del feminismo. Las formulaciones teóricas existentes, provenientes casi todas de académicas/os estadounidenses y/o europeas/os, se limitan a registrar una serie de características mínimas y ambiguas, influenciadas por una lectura liberal y etnocéntrica de los feminismos. Esto permite que se utilice la noción de PEF para nombrar situaciones diversas, y que se establezca, al menos desde lo simbólico, un signo de igualdad entre casos que poco tienen en común; como pueden ser las políticas exteriores de Suecia, Canadá y México. Esta situación no resulta neutral, ya que, por un lado, le quita trascendencia y contundencia a las propuestas que desde hace décadas los feminismos vienen elaborando en materia de teoría de las Relaciones Internacionales; y por el otro, le permite a funcionarios/as, intelectuales y comunicadores/as, apropiarse y hacer un uso superficial de postulados feministas forjados al calor de las intensas luchas que las mujeres, y otros sectores feminizados, vienen llevando a cabo históricamente. Frente a este panorama, resulta necesaria una disputa por el sentido que recupere los elementos más trasformadores de la tradición feminista. El abordaje utilizado en este trabajo es desde las perspectivas feministas críticas en Relaciones Internacionales. Primero, problematizamos algunas definiciones de política exterior feministas que circulan, y analizamos críticamente las autodenominadas políticas exteriores feministas de Suecia, Canadá y México, señalando falencias y contradicciones que las atraviesan. En una segunda instancia, procedemos a la elaboración de una definición de PEF que incorpora elementos provenientes de múltiples feminismos (decolonial, autónomo, negro, indígena), y que se asume explícitamente situada desde una perspectiva geográfica y cultural, subalternizada y contrahegemónica. Finalmente, proponemos una gradualidad en la categorización de aquellas políticas exteriores que empiezan a abandonar posicionamientos androcentristas y cisheteropatriarcales, a partir de la construcción de los conceptos de "Politica Exterior con Perspectiva de Género" (PEPG), y "Politica Exterior con Perspectiva de Género y Agenda Feminista" (PEGAF), cuyos significados y diferencias desarrollamos.
At the end of 2012 the Republic of Croatia adopted a new legal framework for awarding concessions, based on the Draft Directive on the award of concession contracts from 2011. The Concession Contract Directive 2014/23EU on the award of concession contracts was adopted in February 2014, with an implementation period of two years for all Member States. Until the Concessions Directive the award of works concessions was subject to a limited number of secondary law provisions, while service concessions were covered only by the general principles of the Treaty of the functioning of the EU (TFEU). Concessions Directive defines both works and services, and relies on CJEU case law, which is analysed in this thesis. EU countries had to transpose this directive into their national legislation by 2016. Also, public procurement is guided by doctrines developed by the CJEU, which try to combine the basic principles of public procurement regulation with the basic principles established by the EU Treaties. EU procurement law is set out in principal directives, namely the 2014 Concession Contracts Directive 2014/23/EU, the 2014 Public Sector Directive 2014/24/EU, the 2014 Utilities Contracts Directive 2014/25/EU, (together known as 'the 2014 Procurement Directives'). New directives have been adopted due to the fact that 2004 Public Procurement Directives only partially covered concessions and the absence of clear EU rules led to legal uncertainty and obstacles to free provision of services. It also caused distortions to the functioning of the internal market, such as the direct award of contracts without transparency or competition which risked national favouritism, fraud and corruption. Therefore, it was inevitable for the EU to bring the new Directives. Viewed from multiple sides, concessions are a successful way of entrusting public services, entrusting public works to private persons, and attracting foreign capital in the EU countries. Concession regimes allow the involvement of private investors and their financial resources to achieve public benefits, accelerate the construction of public infrastructure facilities, liberate the state and local and regional government units, exposing them to the lower financial risks, and by giving them the right to oversee objects of public interest. This thesis analyses the legal status of the airport concession model in the Republic of Croatia, presents existing regulations in detail, lists all the advantages and disadvantages of current regulations and proposes amendments and solutions de lege ferenda. First chapter, Introduction, gives an overview of concessions in the Republic of Croatia and the situation at the level of EU Member States, and learns about complex legal issues in the process of awarding concessions. Second chapter, Analysis of Current Events Prior to Directive 2014/23, provides detailed review of all Croatian Acts concerning concession regimes until today, and refers to the example of Zagreb International airport and gives an overview of the concession contract awarded for the period of 30 years. The Third chapter, The Current Status of Concession Regimes in the Republic of Croatia and the EU, refers to different kinds of concessions according to the Croatian Concessions Act and as a legal institute in the EU Directives, it also provides examples of positive and negative elements of the Croatian legal system. Fourth chapter, Case Law – from the view of the European Court of Justice, analyses the most influential cases in concessions, PPPs and public procurement. Also, it provides insight into CJEU practice, showing that in most of the rulings of the CJEU it is evident that contracting authorities were advised to make decisions based upon the award criteria. Fifth chapter, Analysis of the Future Law – The Lege Ferenda, gives an overview of the importance of parallel development of all three roles of the airport (traffic, industrial and commercial), in order for the airport to develop not only one-way but also economically and raise the importance of the entire region. Sixth chapter, Comparative Analysis on Models of Airports in Terms of Geographical and other Functional Differences, widely explains different types of management, describes the three different airports in Europe and compares it to the only Croatian example. The Seventh chapter, The Aviation Industry and Coronavirus, gives insight into the current situation of the aviation industry and the consequences occurred after the appearance of COVID-19 virus. Moreover, how much it affected the aviation sector, the decrease in passenger transport and the further development of the aviation industry. Also, the chapter provides proposals for actions in case of force majeure and the concession provider's ability to act under the concession contract for the construction and management of "Franjo Tudjman" Airport. Eighth chapter, Research Results - De Lege Ferenda, learns about the need to amend the Concessions Act, the Airports Act, the Air Traffic Act, by-laws such as Spatial Plans of local governments in order to free the concession provider from the operational risk that would have to be transferred to the concessionaire by signing the concession agreement and binding the concessionaire to develop all airport roles, and not just transport role through the development of passenger transport. Ninth chapter, Conclusion, provides a summary of all major points in this thesis and emphasizes the importance of airport development through the concession model, as an important element for the regional development of the Republic of Croatia. ; Republika Hrvaška je konec leta 2012 sprejela nov zakonski okvir za podeljevanje koncesij na podlagi osnutka direktive o podeljevanju koncesijskih pogodb iz leta 2011. Direktiva 2014/23/EU o podeljevanju koncesijskih pogodb je bila sprejeta februarja 2014 za obdobje izvajanja dveh let za vse države članice. Pred direktivo o koncesijah so podelitev koncesij za gradnje urejale nekatere določbe sekundarne zakonodaje, koncesije za storitve pa samo splošna načela Pogodbe o delovanju Evropske unije (PDEU). Direktiva o koncesijah opredeljuje tako gradnje kot storitve in se opira na sodno prakso Sodišča Evropske unije, ki je analizirana v tej disertaciji. Države članice EU so morale omenjeno direktivo prenesti v svojo nacionalno zakonodajo do leta 2016. Poleg tega javno naročanje vodijo doktrine, ki jih je razvilo Sodišče Evropske unije in skušajo združiti osnovna načela ureditve javnega naročanja in osnovna načela, ustanovljena s pogodbami EU. Zakonodajo EU o javnih naročilih določajo glavne direktive, in sicer Direktiva 2014/23/EU o podeljevanju koncesijskih pogodb iz leta 2014, Direktiva 2014/24/EU o javnem naročanju iz leta 2014 in direktiva 2014/25/EU o gospodarskih javnih službah iz leta 2014 (skupaj poznane kot direktive o javnem naročanju iz leta 2014). Nove direktive so bile sprejete, ker so direktive o javnem naročanju iz leta 2004 le delno urejale koncesije in je zaradi nejasnih pravil na ravni EU prihajalo do pravne negotovosti in ovir pri svobodi opravljanja storitev. Prihajalo je tudi do izkrivljanja delovanja notranjega trga, kot je neposredna podelitev pogodb brez preglednosti ali konkurence, pri čemer je obstajalo tveganje za favoriziranje, goljufije in korupcijo na nacionalni ravni. Zato je bilo sprejetje novih direktiv za EU neizogibno. Z veliko vidikov so koncesije uspešen način za zaupanje javnih storitev in javnih gradenj posameznikom in privabljanje tujega kapitala v države EU. Ureditve koncesij omogočajo udeležbo zasebnih vlagateljev in njihovih finančnih virov za doseganje javnih koristi, pospeševanje izgradnje javne infrastrukture, sprostitev državnih ter lokalnih in regionalnih upravnih enot, zaradi česar so izpostavljene manjšemu finančnemu tveganju in imajo pravico do nadzora nad objekti v javnem interesu. V disertaciji analiziram pravno stanje modela koncesije letališča v Republiki Hrvaški, podrobno predstavim obstoječe predpise, naštejem vse prednosti in slabosti trenutnih predpisov ter predlagam spremembe in rešitve de lege ferenda. V prvem poglavju (Uvod) je na voljo pregled koncesij v Republiki Hrvaški in stanja na ravni držav članic EU ter opis kompleksnih pravnih vprašanj pri podeljevanju koncesij. Drugo poglavje (Analiza aktualnih razmer pred Direktivo 2014/23/EU) vključuje podrobno obravnavo vseh hrvaških zakonov v zvezi z ureditvijo koncesij do danes in primer zagrebškega mednarodnega letališča ter pregled podeljenih koncesijskih pogodb za obdobje 30 let. V tretjem poglavju (Trenutno stanje ureditve koncesij v Republiki Hrvaški in EU) obravnavam različne vrste koncesij v skladu s hrvaškim zakonom o koncesijah in kot pravni institut v direktivah EU, sledi pa tudi predstavitev primerov pozitivnih in negativnih elementov v hrvaškem pravnem sistemu. V četrtem poglavju (Sodna praksa – z vidika Sodišča Evropske unije) analiziram najvplivnejše primere na področju koncesij, javno-zasebnih partnerstev in javnega naročanja. Podam tudi vpogled v prakso Sodišča Evropske unije, ki pokaže, da je v večini odločitev Sodišča razvidno, da to naročnikom svetuje, naj se odločajo na podlagi meril za dodelitev. V petem poglavju (Analiza prihodnje zakonodaje – The Lege Ferenda) sledi pregled pomembnosti vzporednega razvoja vseh treh vlog letališča (na področju prometa, industrije in gospodarstva), da se letališče ne bi razvijalo le enosmerno, ampak tudi v gospodarskem smislu, obenem pa bi prispevalo k pomembnosti celotne regije. V šestem poglavju (Komparativna analiza modelov letališč glede na geografske in druge funkcijske razlike) obširneje pojasnim različne vrste vodenja, opišem tri različna letališča v Evropi in jih primerjam z edinim hrvaškim primerom. Sedmo poglavje (Letalska industrija in koronavirus) daje vpogled v trenutno stanje letalske industrije in posledice zaradi pojava virusa COVID-19. Poleg tega opišem, v kolikšni meri je virus vplival na letalski sektor, upad potniškega prometa in nadaljnji razvoj letalske industrije. V sedmem poglavju podam tudi predloge za ukrepe v primeru višje sile in zmožnost dajalca koncesije za ukrepanje v skladu s koncesijsko pogodbo za gradnjo in upravljanje Letališča Franjo Tuđman. Osmo poglavje (Rezultati raziskave – De Lege Ferenda) se osredotoča na potrebo po spremembi zakona o koncesijah, zakona o letališčih, zakona o zračnem prometu ter lokalnih predpisov kot npr. prostorskih načrtov lokalnih uprav, da bi dajalca koncesije razbremenili operativnega tveganja, ki bi se moralo prenesti na koncesionarja s podpisom koncesijske pogodbe, ki bi koncesionarja zavezovala, da razvija vse vloge letališča, ne le prometne vloge z razvojem potniškega prometa. V devetem poglavju (Zaključek) povzamem vse bistvene točke disertacije in opozorim na pomembnost razvoja letališča s pomočjo modela koncesije kot pomembnega elementa za regionalni razvoj Republike Hrvaške.
Abstract The Government of Vietnam has invested efforts to increase the forest cover, and to conserve biodiversity through different forest development projects and programs. Losing natural forests and landscapes in the context of the "exhaust" of ecosystem services has been seen as burden in many mountainous areas. The Decision No.16 on ecosystem restoration, which was adopted by the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) at the 11th meeting (December 5th, 2012) stated that ecosystem restoration requires the application of suitable technologies and the fully-effective participation of local entities. This serves to identify obstacles while attempting to restore, regenerate ecosystem services and biodiversity, which have been degraded and lost in the recent decades. Furthermore, Vietnam's National Forest Development Strategy targeted to achieve a forest area of 16.2 million hectares by the year 2020. Local people living adjacent to forests depend on the forest ecosystem services supplied from various natural forest landscapes in the area. This holds true especially for the people of Central Vietnam where the terrestrial area is narrow due to the country shape. In this area, agriculture practices play an essential role although the agricultural land is very limited due to the topographic conditions. The distinct land-uses reflect the natural distribution of plant and animal species as well as human interventions. In Vietnam, the forest ecosystems have been classified into three categories according to their main functions: special-use forest for nature conservation; protection forest for the watershed and protective measures; and production forest for commercial operations. This study was conducted in the A Luoi District, Thua Thien Hue Province. Ground truth samples were inventoried in three forest types from 150 m to 1162 m above sea level (a.s.l.) and steep slopes from 5 to 48 degrees. The elevation range was divided into the lower elevation level H1 ranging from 150 m – 699 m and into the higher elevation level H2 from 700 m-1162 m a.s.l. The slopes were stratified into level S1 from 5-20 degrees, and into S2 from 21-48 degrees. The forest cover was classified into the types: undisturbed forest (UF), low disturbed forest (LF), and heavily disturbed forest (DF). To strengthen the classification of forest types, a t-test of extracted vegetation indices between ground truth plots and training sample plots was done. Up to date, no remote sensing-based work on ecological stratification of the natural forest landscapes has been conducted. Finding the tree species distribution, species diversity, and species composition over the sub-stratification of the elevations, slopes, and the forest types - by applying remote sensing - are necessary to classify the land-use types and to map out the availability of natural resources, especially the ecosystem services supply and demand of local people. Land-use and forest type classification may contribute remarkably to long-term planning, which has been assigned to local authorities, and which should include local communities. The entire study consists of four main parts. The first part aimed at evaluating the influence of topography on tree species diversity, distribution, and composition of the forests in Central Vietnam. A significant difference of species richness and species diversity was found in shallower and steeper slopes (p < 0.05) and a relatively high correlation of the species distribution, the number of stems, and the number of tree families with the elevation factor was found. The lower elevation and shallower slope showed higher species richness (p < 0.05) but not a significant difference between the number of families and the evenness. The dominance and the abundance of tree species among the topographic attributes were significantly different (p < 0.05). Lower elevation and shallower slope showed higher species richness and species diversity than the higher elevation and steeper slope. The most dominant and abundant tree families from different elevations and slopes included the Myrtaceae, Dipterocarpaceae, Burseraceae, Fagaceae, Moraceae, Cornaceae, Apocynaceae, Sapindaceae, Cannabaceae, Juglandaceae, Lauraceae, Myristicaeae, Annonaceae, Ebenaceae, Meliaceae, Rubiaceae, and the Rosaceae. The second part aimed at assessing the soil qualities, which belong to the most essential elements for land-use planning and agricultural production. 155 soil samples from different land-use types and topographic aspects were collected in order to compare information on soil organic carbon (SOC), soil total nitrogen (STN), and soil acidity (pH) at two soil depths. The SOC of arable land and forest plantation land was found to be higher than those of grassland and of natural forests (p < 0.05). The total nitrogen in the natural forests was significantly less, compared to the other land-use types. No significant differences in the total nitrogen content (p < 0.05) were found among arable land, plantation forest, and grassland. The soil organic carbon and the total nitrogen were high in the upper soil and less downwards, within all land-use types. The soil pH in the plantation forest and the arable land-use types showed no significant change among soil depth categories. Significant differences were not found in topographic aspects and the soil organic carbon content; however, differing trends of soil organic carbon and land-use types and aspects were found. The impact of the slope, elevation, farming system and soil texture accounted for the main differences of soil indicators under varying land-use types in the A Luoi District. The third part of this study was designed to apply remote sensing data from Landsat-8 and Sentinel-2 sources in order to classify land-cover and land-use classes (including three forest types UF, LF, and DF) in the study area by using machine learning algorithms. Further, vegetation indices were applied to find possible correlations and regressions of both, vertical and horizontal structures of the dominant forest tree species within different forest types. It was found that the vegetation indices between the ground-truth plots and the training sample plots were significantly different (p<0.05). The most dominant and abundant tree families in the context of the vertical structure were the Dipterocaparceae, Combretaceae, Moraceae, Leguminosae, Burseraceae, and the Polygalaceae. These, in the context of the horizontal structure were the Fagaceae, Lauraceae, Leguminosae, Dipterocaparceae, Myrtaceae, Myristicaceae, Euphorbiaceae, and the Clusiaceae. The results of the land cover and the land-use classification of Sentinel-2 were found to be more precise than those of Landsat-8 with the Random Forest algorithm: (Sentinel-2 with out-of-bag error of 14.3%, overall accuracy of 85.7%, kappa of 83% and Landsat-8 with out-of-bag error 31.6%, overall accuracy of 68%, kappa of 67.5%). The study found relationships (from 43% up to 66%) between four (out of ten) vegetation indices within horizontal and vertical structures of the forest stands: the Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), the Difference Vegetation Index (DVI), the Perpendicular Vegetation Index (PVI), and the Transformed Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (TNDVI). The fourth part evaluated potential provisioning services of the current natural forests - apart from wood and timber supply. It (i) assessed and compared the amount of non-timber forest tree species (NTFP species) in the different investigated forest types and elevations as potential resources; explored (ii) the respective demands of local people and (iii) their personal views concerning the importance of natural forests and the satisfaction with their provisioning services; and finally (iv) gathered their awareness of limited consequences of former forest development and requirements for forest landscape restoration. Thirty-nine NTFP tree species were found for various uses such as food, medicine, and resin or oil. Random on-site interviews of 120 out of 627 local households were conducted in a commune with high dependency on local natural forest products. Their importance and satisfaction ranking of natural forests - considering different target groups with respect to gender, income, age-class, and education - was commenced. Multiple methods were used to assess an array of gathering information, which are related to (a) the forest resources importance and (b) the local people satisfaction. These were set into context with the involvement of non-timber forest goods extraction, landslides, goods declination, and the perception for natural forest landscapes restoration, in order to clarify perspectives on forest provisioning services. The results revealed remarkable differences among target groups, adjustment, perceptions. The insufficient supply of NTFPs, particularly profitable natural medicine provision, urges for adapted silvicultural measures. The results imply that NTFPs from natural forests are not only very important to the local communities, but also contribute to the enrichment of biodiversity. The participation of local people in practical forest management and forest improvement should be considered in the decision-making process for natural forest landscape restoration of remote mountainous areas. The findings of this study can support sustainable forest management; natural forest landscape restoration with the involvement of local communities; conservation practices of biodiversity, based on topographic conditions; land-use planning; identification of dominant tree species using vegetation indices' values, and land cover and land-use classification using open source satellite images. This final component will be aided by application of machine learning algorithms in the current study area and in the central mountainous area of Vietnam. ; 2021-07-29
Puerto Rico and Newfoundland are located at two extremes of the Atlantic Ocean, the former in the Caribbean Sea and the latter in the North Sea of the American continent. Both formations—former colonies from Spain and Great Britain—have been linked through the production and consumption of salted fish (that is, cod and other members of the Gadidae family) from the 16th to the 20th century. Spain transferred to the Caribbean colonies its "addiction" to cod, a cheap source of protein for peasants and laborers in the Peninsula, and a foodstuff that became the source of protein for slaves, peasants, and rural workers in the Caribbean.The British also used that alimentary strategy in their Caribbean colonies, which became importers of salted fish from New England, Labrador, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland, a territory that dominated the production and processing (culling and salting) of cod. The plantation system required a cheap protein source for the slave labor force that the American codfish market provided. By the end of the 19th century, the supply of New England cod waned (due to a number of reasons), and that opened up an opportunity for Newfoundland to become the most important supplier of fish, a commodity mediated at first through the British authorities, and later by the merchants of the Dominion. The expansion of the productive frontier—from the 19th to the 20th century—required the investment of capital in larger boats and an increase in effort through the use of nets and long liners in waters distant from the inshore areas.This paper presents an anthropological and historical analysis of the relationship between Puerto Rico and the producers of salted fish in the North Sea, namely, New England and Newfoundland, through the use of a number of historical and ethnographical studies and, most importantly, through the analysis of primary sources from the General Archive of Puerto Rico, the National Records and Archives Administration in the United States, and the Provincial Archive of Labrador and Newfoundland. This research started, originally, with an interest in understanding the relationship between both markets in their complex export-import relationship, and with a special focus on the 20th century due to the availability of the primary sources. However, this effort led me to the search for other historical and ethnographic sources that documented the social, economic, and political processes that shaped the production of salted fish and the circulation of that commodity in the Atlantic Ocean, with emphasis on the Caribbean.In that context, the work of Jason Moore proved to be pertinent as a theoretical model to analyze the role of producers and consumers of cheap foodstuffs on a global scale. The World-Ecology model, and the concepts of production frontiers, commodity frontiers, and ecological surplus are extremely useful in understanding how Newfoundland expanded the productive frontier, both horizontally and vertically, by moving the effort from the inshore areas to the offshore banks, which required fishing in deeper waters. In order to provide a cheap commodity to the laborers of the plantation system of the Caribbean, the Newfoundland merchants exploited the unpaid labor of the women and children of the outports (coastal communities) in the processing phase (culling and salting), while forcing the men to look for cash in other subsidiary activities. Low wages and poor working conditions in the curing of fish discouraged laborers to do high-quality work, and therefore, the curing was not always of the required standard for the markets. However, the low-quality fish, the Labrador cure, found its way to the Puerto Rican market. The United States, in the defense of its vested interests in sugarcane cultivation and sugar production, imposed low prices for the importation of salted fish from Newfoundland, and therefore regulated the price per pound at the local markets.The work of Jason Moore matches the theoretical model developed by Daniel Pauly, a scientist devoted to the study of the global fisheries, and particularly those of the North Sea. For Pauly, the fate of the world fisheries has been in the hands of a threefold expansion (dubbed as the "toxic triad") led by the development in fisheries technologies over the past four hundred years, and accelerated in the 19th and 20th centuries. Those are the geographical expansion, the bathymetric expansion and the taxonomic expansion. That is, global fisheries expanded their productive activities to new geographical frontiers hitherto explored or utilized, including depths. It also expanded the number of species caught, a process that impacted the food chain. Industrialization, and the use of trawler nets in the 20th century, depleted the North Sea fish stocks and destroyed benthic habitats, which contributed to the collapse of 1992. An "undercurrent" flowing in this paper consists of the argument that there is a strong correspondence between the theoretical thinking of Jason Moore and that of the most progressive fishery scientists, exemplified by Pauly.Over the last thirty years, I have been involved in research and applied work related to fisheries management and the conservation of habitats and fish populations and stocks. In understanding the relationship between Puerto Rico and Newfoundland, I became interested in the history of fisheries management and conservation, and the economic and political forces that contributed to the collapse of the stocks and populations of cod (Gadus morhua) and other Gadidae that forced the 1992 closure and the demise of one of the most important fisheries in our hemisphere. Data and interpretations from a number of studies suggest that, for a long period of time, the 1992 closure reflected the cumulative effect of centuries of the intensification of production, due to the demand for cod from different parts of the world. This paper suggests that Puerto Rico played a critical role in that process, due to the importance of imports from Newfoundland. Throughout the 20th century, Puerto Rico was one of the most important buyers of salted fish, importing as much as all the Caribbean islands at different points in time. That is a line of research that I will continue to pursue, and this paper is a first step in that direction.Newfoundland tried to maintain the salt fish market of the Caribbean until the 1960s, when Puerto Rico was in the midst of an industrialization and modernization process that reshaped the taste and consumption patterns of the population. By then, cod ceased to be a gastronomic addiction, despite the efforts of two merchant classes, one in St. John's and the other in San Juan.The article is divided into eight sections that broadly cover the following topics: the history of salted fish consumption and production in the North Sea, Spain, and New England; the British and Newfoundland market in Puerto Rico; cod consumption in Puerto Rico during the 19th century; the relations of production (ecological surplus) that made possible cheap cod; 20th century transformations in Puerto Rico, and a final reflection on the role of Puerto Rico and Newfoundland in the World-Ecology. ; Este artículo explora, por medio del examen y análisis de estudios antropológicos, históricos y de las fuentes documentales de varios archivos, la relación entre Puerto Rico y Terranova, como consumidores y productores de pescado salado, respectivamente. El bacalao fue un alimento barato usado para sostener a la fuerza de trabajo esclavizada y libre en la larga duración caribeña y trasatlántica. El desarrollo del capitalismo, según Jason Moore, ha dependido de la expansión de las fronteras productivas (zonas de explotación de mano de obra y recursos) y de la extracción y consumo de insumos baratos. Para ello, ha dependido de la extracción de un excedente ecológico basado, en este caso, en la apropiación del trabajo no remunerado de mujeres y niños. El bacalao se produjo en unas condiciones de explotación y trabajo no remunerado de hombres, mujeres y niños en Terranova, para alimentar a familias pobres en Puerto Rico. El objetivo principal de este trabajo consiste aplicar esos planteamientos teóricos de Moore, en el análisis de esas dos formaciones sociales, que han sido colonias de poderes imperiales; ambas vinculadas en una Ecología-Mundo basada en la producción y el consumo del bacalao; un proceso mediado por las clases mercantiles de ambos territorios. Las islas caribeñas estuvieron vinculadas a ese comercio trasatlántico (que incluía esclavos, melaza, rones y maderas) a través de intercambios con Terranova y Nueva Inglaterra, desde el siglo XVI. Los siglos XIX y XX, con el auge de la producción azucarera en Puerto Rico, fueron determinantes en establecer ese patrón de consumo y Terranova fue uno de los principales productores y suplidores de ese producto a Puerto Rico y el Caribe, manteniendo una estrategia de expansión de la frontera productiva, saliendo de la pesca costera para pescar en los grandes bancos, mediante un proceso sistemático de acumulación e inversión de capital, articulado por innovaciones en las artes de pesca y las embarcaciones. Este artículo sugiere que la suma de las importaciones por los países del Caribe contribuyó al eventual colapso de los abastos pesqueros de Terranova. Este trabajo es un primer paso en el análisis de la profunda relación entre el capital y la naturaleza y un paso en la exploración de como esas relaciones trasatlánticas fueron configurando el trabajo y la naturaleza en dos extremos del océano. Cuando se escriba la historia de las poblaciones de peces y los abastos pesqueros de Terranova, habrá que contar con la participación de Puerto Rico, y su rol en el proceso de intensificación de la producción, es decir, de la expansión de la frontera vertical y de la horizontal de la producción.
En la segunda sección del evento Economía de la Informalidad Conferencia 2020, se presento el Keynote Speaker: Comercio e informalidad en presencia de las fricciones y regulaciones del mercado laboral a cargo de Costas Meghir (Profesor de Economía, Yale University) quien nos habló sobre las regulaciones del mercado en tiempos de Covid-19. Durante su charla, Costas se centró en la explicación y ampliación de sus paper, en el que trabajó en coautoría con Rafael Dix-Carneiro, Pinelopi Goldberg y Gabriel Ulyssea. Y con el que busca comprender los efectos del comercio sobre el mercado laboral y el bienestar, en un mercado laboral con un sector informal grande, muy regulado, pero con poca capacidad de hacer cumplir las normas. Dicho esto, según Meghir, a la informalidad se le puede definir para los trabajadores, como aquellos que no tienen un empleo permanente y estable, con contrato, y no tienen afiliación ni beneficios a salud y seguridad social; y, para las firmas, como aquellas que no son visibles para las autoridades tributarias y el gobierno, y evaden ilegalmente las regulaciones del mercado laboral. Es preciso mencionar que, las implicaciones de la existencia de informalidad son perniciosas principalmente por dos razones: en primer lugar, una importante evasión fiscal que obstaculiza la capacidad fiscal y el suministro de bienes públicos; en segundo lugar, podría implicar una asignación sustancialmente incorrecta de recursos y obstaculizar el crecimiento, ya que las empresas no productivas pueden sobrevivir evadiendo impuestos y evitando el cumplimiento de las regulaciones del mercado laboral. Adicionalmente, los empleados informales no tienen estabilidad laboral, seguro al desempleo, ni reciben contribuciones a la seguridad de parte de sus empleadores. Brasil, donde se experimentó un episodio de liberalización comercial relativamente rápido e intenso a principios de la década de 1990, pese a que sigue siendo una economía relativamente cerrada, constituye un caso de estudio relevante por varias razones. Primero, tiene regulaciones laborales estrictas y onerosas que se aplican de manera imperfecta y un gran sector informal: casi dos tercios de las empresas, el 40% del PIB y el 48% de los empleados son informales. En segundo lugar, el caso brasileño es típico de los países en desarrollo, especialmente en América Latina, donde la fuerza laboral urbana empleada informalmente promedia más del 50%, esta cifra varía del 35% en Chile al 80% en Perú. En tercer lugar, tiene una disponibilidad y calidad de datos únicas, lo que permite la observación directa de la informalidad para los trabajadores y las empresas. Las principales conclusiones de los experimentos hipotéticos que se llevaron a cabo fueron: 1). Los aranceles a las importaciones tienen efectos insignificantes sobre el bienestar y la informalidad. Aranceles por encima del 50% reducen el ingreso per capita, incrementan la informalidad principalmente en manufactura, e incrementan el desempleo. 2). En general, los efectos (relativos) de la liberalización del comercio sobre el bienestar y los resultados del mercado laboral no son muy diferentes en una economía con un gran sector informal en comparación con una economía sin un sector informal. Lo más interesante es que la erradicación de la informalidad tiene efectos positivos en la productividad, pero reduce el ingreso per capita dad la reducción que se presenta en las variedades. Pequeñas reducciones en la informalidad también reducen el desempleo. 3). Los efectos de eliminar la informalidad dependen de otras regulaciones como la del salario mínimo. Su eliminación podría incrementar el desempleo. 4). El incremento del salario mínimo incrementa el desempleo y la informalidad. 5). El sector informal funciona como un amortiguador cuando la economía se ve afectada por shocks negativos. Los efectos de un impacto negativo de la productividad agregada sobre el desempleo y el bienestar son mayores en una economía sin un sector informal. Sin embargo, las ganancias en bienestar derivadas de la erradicación de la informalidad son tan grandes que es difícil justificar la indulgencia hacia el sector informal sobre la base de que funciona como un amortiguador en tiempos económicos difíciles. 6).Un choque de productividad positivo no conduce a una menor informalidad. Los resultados sugieren lo contrario, ya que el progreso tecnológico aumenta los ingresos agregados, conduce a una reducción del umbral de productividad de entrada al sector informal. 7). El aumento de la apertura comercial, unas políticas más laxas en el mercado laboral y el crecimiento económico no son suficientes (por sí mismos) para compensar la mala asignación causada por una pobre supervisión de la regulación de las normas del mercado laboral. Por lo tanto, el artículo recomienda que los gobiernos se esfuercen por lograr una mejor vigilancia que force a los actores del mercado a cumplir con la normatividad que rige al mercado laboral, para por esa vía lograr reducir la informalidad. La forma en que los gobiernos deberían implementar este aumento en la aplicación es un tema interesante para futuras investigaciones. ; In the second section of the Economics of Informality Conference 2020 event, the Keynote Speaker: Trade and informality in the presence of labor market frictions and regulations was presented by Costas Meghir (Professor of Economics, Yale University) who spoke to us about the market regulations in times of Covid-19. During his talk, Costas focused on the explanation and expansion of his papers, in which he co-authored with Rafael Dix-Carneiro, Pinelopi Goldberg and Gabriel Ulyssea. And with the one that seeks to understand the effects of trade on the labor market and well-being, in a labor market with a large informal sector, highly regulated, but with little capacity to enforce the rules. That said, according to Meghir, informality can be defined for workers, as those who do not have a permanent and stable job, with a contract, and do not have affiliation or benefits to health and social security; and, for firms, such as those that are not visible to tax authorities and the government, and illegally evade labor market regulations. It should be mentioned that the implications of the existence of informality are pernicious mainly for two reasons: first, significant tax evasion that hinders fiscal capacity and the supply of public goods; second, it could involve a substantially misallocation of resources and hamper growth, as non-productive firms can survive by evading taxes and avoiding compliance with labor market regulations. Additionally, informal employees do not have job stability, unemployment insurance, nor do they receive security contributions from their employers. Brazil, where a relatively rapid and intense episode of trade liberalization was experienced in the early 1990s, despite still being a relatively closed economy, is a relevant case study for several reasons. First, it has strict and onerous labor regulations that are imperfectly enforced and a large informal sector: nearly two-thirds of companies, 40% of GDP, and 48% of employees are informal. Second, the Brazilian case is typical of developing countries, especially in Latin America, where the urban labor force employed informally averages more than 50%, this figure ranges from 35% in Chile to 80% in Peru. Third, it has unique data availability and quality, allowing direct observation of informality for workers and businesses. The main conclusions of the hypothetical experiments that were carried out were: 1). Import tariffs have negligible effects on welfare and informality. Tariffs above 50% reduce per capita income, increase informality, mainly in manufacturing, and increase unemployment. 2). In general, the (relative) effects of trade liberalization on welfare and labor market outcomes are not very different in an economy with a large informal sector compared to an economy without an informal sector. The most interesting thing is that the eradication of informality has positive effects on productivity, but reduces per capita income the reduction that occurs in varieties. Small reductions in informality also reduce unemployment. 3). The effects of eliminating informality depend on other regulations such as the minimum wage. Its elimination could increase unemployment. 4). Increasing the minimum wage increases unemployment and informality. 5). The informal sector functions as a buffer when the economy is hit by negative shocks. The effects of a negative impact of aggregate productivity on unemployment and welfare are greater in an economy without an informal sector. However, the welfare gains from the eradication of informality are so great that indulgence towards the informal sector is difficult to justify on the grounds that it functions as a buffer in difficult economic times. 6) A positive productivity shock does not lead to less informality. The results suggest the opposite, since technological progress increases aggregate income, leading to a reduction in the productivity threshold for entering the informal sector. 7). Increased trade openness, looser labor market policies, and economic growth are not enough (by themselves) to compensate for the misallocation caused by poor oversight of labor market regulations. Therefore, the article recommends that governments strive to achieve better surveillance that forces market actors to comply with the regulations that govern the labor market, in order to reduce informality. How governments should implement this increased enforcement is an interesting topic for future research.
This thesis explores and theorizes practices for generating knowledge and experience of possible futures in the present. Often, our unreflected everyday actions are clearly focused on the future. We plan future events into calendars, buy insurances, follow weather forecasts, and practice for performances of various kinds, all to reduce the uncertainties that the future brings. Various societal areas have developed specialized and systematic ways of generating knowledge in order for people to prepare for possible future events. A particular and extensive area is that involving societal security and preparedness for extraordinary events. The thesis explores various aspects of futures-making practices in the overall field of societal security, with a special focus on recent measures to strengthen the public's emergency preparedness. The overall aim is to deepen knowledge about the contemporary use of futures-making practices (such as imagination and enactment) and related techniques (such as scenario writing and simulations). Societal security and emergency preparedness have recently come to be recognized nationally and globally in ways that we have not experienced since the Cold War era. The empirical backdrop of the thesis tells about some major events that occurred during the first five years of the new millennium. During this period, a number of terrorist attacks and natural disasters occurred which greatly affected futures-making practices in areas related to societal security and preparedness. Following the 9/11 attacks in 2001, many actors in the security business began to implement new, or revived, ways of relating to the future. From previously focusing mainly on plausible events, interest now turned to possible and unexpected events. Following the criticized management of hurricane Katrina in 2005, a visionary work was initiated with the aim of creating an inclusive and all-encompassing culture of preparedness, a culture that would involve all sectors and actors of society, including the public. The examples may by from a unilateral American context, however the events can also be perceived as part of a global trend with local variations. A trend that includes new ideas about public participation in societal preparedness, as well as new ways in which we create preliminary representations of possible futures in order to prepare for them. In order to clarify different ways in which we relate to the future, I apply cultural geographer Ben Anderson's (2010) classification of anticipatory practices. Anderson highlights three principal practices: imagination, calculation, and performance. The thesis explores how futures are imagined and enacted through the techniques of scenario writing and simulation, in four separate studies (articles I-IV). Studies I and II examine how imaginations of future emergencies are articulated in interviews with local safety coordinators and volunteers in Sweden, as well as in institutional exercise scenarios in the US. The first study shows how collaboration between the public and professionals is perceived as an ideal for managing societal stress and, furthermore, how various forms for organizing the voluntary public may facilitate for or interfere with fruitful collaboration. The second study investigates how governmental authorities has popularized emergency preparedness through a campaign aiming to prepare people for a possible zombie invasion. The study shows how the campaign makes use of a dynamic interplay between reality and fiction, realism and irrealism, and affirmation and distancing. Studies III and IV examine the meanings of spatiality, materiality, and affect in large-scale disaster simulations for the public. The studies are based on documents and observations collected and conducted in Japan and Turkey in 2014 and 2015. With the third study, I wish to contribute to existing debates on experience design and affective atmospheres in disaster simulation, while in the fourth study I explore enactment-based exercises and experience design through a lens of Foucauldian governmentality and spatial rationality. The four articles are given a common theoretical framework consisting of sociological perspectives on time and temporality, which highlight how the conditions for futures-making practices has evolved through changes in people's relation to the future. The overall results in the thesis indicate that possibilities for the public to participate in enactment-based exercises are currently limited. However, when made publicly available, exercises are most often designed as entertaining, sensory, and affective learning experiences. Present imaginaries and enactments of negative futures are thus enmeshed with considerations regarding what is possible and probable, real and unreal, near and distant. Furthermore, facilities for public exercises are part of a complex apparatus involving political, economic, and educational perspectives, as well as aspects of entertainment, urban planning, educational technology, and public space. ; I den här avhandlingen utforskas praktiker för att generera kunskap om och erfarenhet av möjliga framtider i samtiden. Många av våra ofta oreflekterade vardagshandlingar är tydligt inriktade mot framtiden. Vi planerar in kommande händelser i kalendrar, köper försäkringar, följer väderprognoser, och övar inför uppträdanden av olika slag, allt för att minska de osäkerheter som framtiden innebär. Inom olika samhälleliga verksamhetsområden har det utvecklats specialiserade och systematiska sätt att generera kunskap för att människor ska kunna förbereda sig på eventuella kommande händelser. Ett omfattande område är det som inbegriper samhällelig säkerhet och beredskap inför extraordinära händelser. Avhandlingen utforskar olika aspekter av framtidsskapande praktiker inom det övergripande området samhällssäkerhet, med ett särskilt fokus på åtgärder för att stärka allmänhetens krisberedskap. Det övergripande syftet är att fördjupa kunskapen om den samtida användningen av framtidsskapande praktiker (såsom föreställning, fantasi och iscensättning) och tillhörande tekniker (såsom scenarioskrivande och simuleringar). Samhällssäkerhet och krisberedskap har på senare tid kommit att uppmärksammas nationellt och globalt på sätt som vi inte sett någon motsvarighet till sedan kalla krigets dagar. Avhandlingen tar avstamp i några större händelser som inträffade under det nya millenniets första fem år. Under denna period inträffade ett antal terrorattentat och naturkatastrofer, vilka kom att påverka framtidsskapande praktiker inom verksamheter kopplade till samhällssäkerhet och beredskap. Till avhandlingens bakgrund hör även det faktum att man sedan det kalla krigets slut i början av 1990-talet på många håll i världen minskat uppmärksamheten på nationell säkerhet för att i stället fokusera på samhällssäkerhet, det vill säga att beredskapen inför yttre hot mot nationella gränser under en period prioriterats ned till förmån för beredskap inför hot som kommer inifrån samhällen själva. Som en följd av attentaten den 11 september 2001 började man inom olika säkerhetsområden implementera nya sätt att förhålla sig till framtiden. Från att ha fokuserat huvudsakligen på troliga händelser började man i allt högre grad ta hänsyn till möjliga och mer oväntade händelser och utvecklingslinjer. Som en följd av hanteringen av orkanen Katrina 2005 initierades ett visionsarbete med syfte att skapa en allomfattande beredskapskultur, en kultur som skulle involvera alla samhällets sektorer och aktörer, även den enskilda individen. Exemplen är visserligen hämtade från en amerikansk kontext, men händelserna går också att uppfatta som upprinnelser till, eller delar av, en övergripande global trend med lokala varianter. Med andra ord, en trend som innefattar nya idéer kring allmänhetens deltagande i den samhälleliga krisberedskapen, liksom nya sätt genom vilka vi skapar preliminära representationer av möjliga framtider i syfte att förbereda oss på dem. För att tydliggöra olika sätt på vilka vi förhåller oss till framtiden tillämpar jag i avhandlingen kulturgeografen Ben Andersons klassificering av anticipatoriska praktiker. Anderson lyfter fram tre huvudsakliga praktiker: föreställning (imagination), beräkning (calculation), och iscensättning (performance). I avhandlingen utforskas föreställning och iscensättning av möjliga framtider utifrån teknikerna scenarioskrivning och simulering genom fyra delstudier (artikel I-IV). Delstudierna I och II undersöker hur föreställningar om framtida kriser artikuleras i intervjuer med kommunala säkerhetssamordnare och volontärer i Sverige, liksom i övningsscenarion för institutionell beredskap i USA. Delstudie I visar hur samverkan mellan allmänheten och professionella framhålls som ett ideal för hanteringen av samhälleliga påfrestningar, samt hur olika former av frivilligorganisering kan underlätta eller försvåra för samverkan. Delstudie II undersöker hur myndigheter försökt popularisera krisberedskap genom en kampanj för beredskap inför en möjlig stundande zombie-invasion. Studien visar hur kampanjen använder sig av ett dynamiskt växelspel mellan verklighet och fiktion, realism och irrealism, bejakande och avståndstagande. Delstudierna III och IV undersöker betydelser av rumslighet, materialitet, och affekt i storskaliga katastrofsimuleringar för allmänheten. Delstudierna baseras på dokument och observationer, insamlade och genomförda i Japan och Turkiet 2014 och 2015. Med delstudie III vill jag bidra till pågående diskussioner om upplevelsedesign och affekt i storskalig realistisk simulering, medan jag i delstudie IV utforskar iscensättning och upplevelsedesign utifrån ett Foucauldianskt styrningsperspektiv. De fyra delstudierna inramas av teori utifrån ett tidssociologiskt perspektiv, som belyser hur förutsättningarna för framtidsskapande praktiker vuxit fram genom förändringar i människans förhållningssätt till framtiden. På ett övergripande plan visar avhandlingen att möjligheterna är begränsade för den oorganiserade allmänheten att delta i avancerade simuleringsövningar. Men när sådana möjligheter väl skapas, designas övningarna i huvudsak som underhållande, sensoriska och affektiva upplevelser. Samtida föreställningar och iscensättningar av negativa framtider förutsätter överväganden kring vad som kan betraktas som troligt eller möjligt, realistiskt eller orealistiskt, avlägset eller nära. Vidare, anläggningar för simuleringsövningar med allmänheten som målgrupp är del i en komplex apparat som involverar politiska, ekonomiska och utbildningsmässiga mål, och som ska balansera aspekter av underhållning, utbildning, stadsplanering, och tillgången till offentliga rum. ; Seminariet kommer att hållas på svenska och engelska. Vid tidpunkten för disputationen var följande delarbete opublicerat: delarbete 4 inskickat At the time of the doctoral defence the following paper was unpublished: paper 4 submitted
