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In some contrast to the traditional and ongoing normative discussions about the desirability of a world state, new and more explicitly geo-historical questions about world political integration are being posed, especially (i) whether elements of world statehood are in existence already, (ii) whether a world state is in some sense inevitable, and (iii) whether, and under what conditions, a world state would be sustainable? For instance, the existing and emerging structures of global governance, of a global public sphere and global constitutionalism can be argued to converge to form at least nascent forms of world statehood. Building on and complementing such diagnoses of existing forms of world statehood, the question arises about whether there are possible and likely, or even inevitable, futures in which the emergence of more 'thick' forms of a world state, understood as a more tightly and substantially integrated expression of political community, could evolve. This possibility raises further questions about the legitimacy, viability and sustainability of such a state form. After a brief overview of these issues, the Introduction provides a preview of the following contributions of this special issue as well as the distinction between the 'global' and the 'world' as one possible future research trajectory in the present context.

The article contains an analysis of the current state of trade and economic relations between Russia and African countries, as well as the prospects for their development after the first Russia-Africa Summit and the Economic Forum in Sochi in October 2019. The author notes a large surplus in Russia's trade with Africa and explains the reasons for the dominance of the countries of North Africa, and especially Egypt, in its geographical structure. The main product groups are listed, through which Russia can increase exports to Africa; Russia's main competitors in trade with the continent as well as state support measures for exporters are described. However, the main contribution to the development of Russian-African economic ties in the future will be made not by foreign trade, but by economic cooperation. Its flagships are now three major projects worth more than $1 billion each, all of which are carried out in Egypt. Among Russian companies investing in the economies of African countries, mining ones are currently dominant. Of these, Rosneft made the biggest investments. This company develops the largest gas field in Egypt – Zohr, and implements projects also in Mozambique. Exploration, finance and the IT technology sector are also of particular interest to Russian companies in Africa. The author indicates the most promising areas for the development of Russian- African industrial cooperation and the transfer of Russian technologies to this continent. In addition, in recent years, Russia and African countries have increasingly regarded security as an important area of bilateral relations. The article reveals the main threats to the security of African countries, the ability of Russian companies to strengthen it and Russia's contribution to UN peacekeeping operations in Africa, in comparison with contributions of the other permanent members of the Security Council. It describes a number of measures that can contribute to the development of Russian-African partnership in the context of the Sochi consensus.

The Chinese Government traditionally has believed that the voices of adversaries, whether foreign or domestic, should not be heard. The Preamble to the Chinese Constitution states that, "The Chinese people must fight against those forces and elements, both at home and abroad, that are hostile to China's socialist system and try to undermine it."' The beachhead which has been regarded as most critical for the Communist Party of China ("CPC") to defend is China's mass media—the CPC's mouthpiece for its ideological rhetoric. Conventionally, the best way to keep a beachhead is to repel the enemy from its shores. Historically, China has successfully protected its culture, and specifically its media, from foreign "invasion." For a long time, private and foreign investors, viewed as hostile forces and elements, were not allowed to invest or engage in the mass media business. Because "the exploiting classes as such have been eliminated in [China]", and class struggles between capitalism and socialism are no longer regarded as a primary social conflict, the CPC adopted the "Reform and Open Door" policy and introduced private economic reforms. The CPC's policies have become more pragmatic and economic in their focus. They are also less ideologically inspired, as they were during the Mao era. Under these reforms and policy changes, parts of the mass media, such as films and television programs, were opened to both foreign and private investment. The newspapers, radio and television station sectors remained closed to such investment. In 1995, the Chinese government allowed foreign investment in the television program industry under the Administrative Regulation of Sino-foreign Cooperatives Producing Television Programs (Videos) promulgated on September 1, 1995 ("Old Regulation"). The Regulation on Sino-foreign Cooperation in Making Television Programs ("New Regulation") was promulgated on September 21, 2004, to replace the Old Regulation. The New Regulation is significantly less restrictive than the old one. For example, ...

Experimental Economics has experienced a steadily growing interest by economists during the last decade. This may not surprise since laboratory and field experiments obviously provide a further valuable source of empirical evidence of economic behavior besides statistics, econometrics, polls, interviews and simulations. In an overview of the recent developments in Experimental Economics, the present book concentrates on three central themes standing in the actual research focus: bargaining, cooperation and election markets. For each one of these topics the volume presents several state-of-the-art survey articles by experts in the field, accompanied by detailed comments. While the experimental approach sheds new light on the microeconomic standard topics of bargaining and cooperation, the election market approach as a new field may provide better forecasts for political elections - and for soccer World Championships

The Kyoto Protocol as the Framework Convention on Climate Change is a milestone in the formation and development of the climate change regime that is aimed at controlling global warming by the international community. But besides that this international agreement also became a factor that created new circumstances and opportunities for international cooperation. These circumstances were created for all the participants of the regime: the states, the non-governmental organizations on behalf of the societies and the business organizations as well as the corporations. The Kyoto Protocol became a catalyst for international cooperation between these international relations' actors at all stages of its existence: the negotiation process, the ratifi cation of it and its implementation, leading to the establishment of new political, social and especially economic ties.

View linking drug trafficking to communist political objectives. Narco-terrorism and narco-guerrillas in Latin America, chiefly.

Scholars and policymakers generally assume that multilateral cooperation is a necessary condition for economic sanctions to be of any use. However, previous statistical tests of this assumption have shown that sanctions are more successful with lower levels of cooperation. This puzzle calls into question established theories of economic statecraft as well as theories of international cooperation. In this article I test possible explanations for the ineffectiveness of multilateral cooperation on sanctions events using James Fearon's (1998) breakdown of cooperation into bargaining and enforcement phases as a framework for discussion The empirical results show that when multilateral economic sanctions fail, their failure is due to enforcement, not bargaining problems Without the support of an international organization, cooperating states backslide from promises of cooperation Backsliding occurs because of domestic political pressures and uncertainty about the intentions of the other sanctioning countries; backsliding causes an initial burst of cooperative behavior to decay over time. Without institutional support, cooperation is worse than useless—it is counterproductive. This result suggests that international cooperation is a more fragile equilibrium than previously thought but undercuts realist arguments that international organizations are unimportant.