Suchergebnisse

A review essay on a book by Heikki Patomaki, The Political Economy of Global Security: War, Future Crises and Changes in Global Governance (London & New York: Routledge, 2008).

This book, first published in 1983, examines the role that arms control has to play, alongside defence and deterrence, in stabilising East-West relations and reducing tensions during the Cold War. Arms control agreements were designed in the attempt to achieve parity between the nuclear forces of the superpowers, without making war more likely. A danger of confrontation between the USSR and the USA came from their involvement in Third World conflicts, and this arena is also discussed. The diplomatic approaches of the Soviet Union, the Third World and the West, and their aims in arms control, are also analysed.

Introduction -- Futility of nuclear risk management in a consensual regime -- Security council mandate of universal standards -- Elements of an effecitve counterproliferation architecture The new grand bargain in counter-proliferation architecture -- Compliance -- Political will -- Conclusion.

This book identifies the critical factors that shaped and influenced New Zealand's defence acquisition decision-making processes from the election of the Fourth Labour Government in 1984 and the subsequent ANZUS crisis, through to the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States and the following 'war on terror'. It explores and analyses decision-making processes in relation to the ANZAC frigates, the military sealift ship HMNZS Charles Upham, the F-16 strike aircraft, the P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft upgrade, and the LAV IIIs.

In recent decades, the discipline of International Relations (IR) has experienced both dramatic institutional growth and unprecedented intellectual enrichment. And yet, unlike neighbouring disciplines such as Geography, Sociology, History and Comparative Literature, it has still not generated any 'big ideas' that have impacted across the human sciences. Why is this? And what can be done about it? This article provides an answer in three steps. First, it traces the problem to IR's enduring definition as a subfield of Political Science. Second, it argues that IR should be re-grounded in its own disciplinary problematique: the consequences of (societal) multiplicity. And finally, it shows how this re-grounding unlocks the transdisciplinary potential of IR. Specifically, 'uneven and combined development' provides an example of an IR 'big idea' that could travel to other disciplines: for by operationalizing the consequences of multiplicity, it reveals the causal and constitutive significance of 'the international' for the social world as a whole.

The paper analyses the determinants of ratification of international treaties concerning arms control. It theorizes that the ratification of an arms control treaty serves as a signal of a country's intention to avoid arms races and wars. I argue that fast growing countries have a special incentive to send that signal in order to avoid aggression from declining powers. Also, democracies are hypothesised to support the underlying humanitarian norms of arms control treaties and therefore ratify arms control agreements more often. The theory is tested by panel ordered logit regression of the number of treaties ratified by a country and with panel logit estimation of treaty ratification. The data cover 186 countries over the period of 1975-2010. Results support the theory and suggest that especially treaties where compliance can be considered as cheap are ratified more often.

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Abbreviations -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Theory and Methodology -- 3. The "Cognitive Prior" and the European Challenge -- 4. The Indonesian Government and the ASEAN Charter -- 5. Non-Governmental Organizations and the ASEAN Charter -- 6. The Legislature and the ASEAN Charter -- 7. The Charter and the Academe -- 8. The Press and the ASEAN Charter -- 9. Business and the ASEAN Charter -- 10. Indonesian Visions of Regionalism: From Yudhoyono to Jokowi -- 11. Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- Index