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Robert W. Cox's contribution to International Relations theory places the discipline in a transformational framework. Building on Gramsci's ideas and a variety of other sources eclectically, his theory goes beyond the neorealist statecentric framework and brings out the connections between material conditions, ideas and institutions in what he terms the formation of 'world orders'. How people organize themselves in the sphere of production not only determines their own life but also that of their states and the world order. In saying that change can come from any one of the spheres (material conditions, ideas and institutions), he denies and goes beyond the base–superstructure thesis of Marxism. Cox identifies creation of a vibrant civil society, emergence of organic intellectuals representing the marginalized, development of community-level solidarity, participatory democracy, non-violent methods of conflict resolution, pluralism and multilateralism as key elements of his transformational agenda. This essay explores Cox's main ideas relating to transformational international relations and the strategies envisaged for transformation.

Textes préparatoires des ateliers des journées d'études Savoirs " citoyens " et démocratie participative dans la question urbaine ; International audience ; Sur le plan théorique, la mise en résonnance d'un état de l'art ciblé au sein des sciences de l'ingénieur et au sein des sciences politiques, permet de formuler une approche originale des pratiques urbaines, définies dans le sens de savoir-faire et compétences spécifiques appliqués aux territoires. En effet, dans le domaine du génie des systèmes industriels, la littérature montre que les entreprises, intégrant au plus tôt l'utilisateur dans leurs processus de conceptions, bénéficient d'une expérience pratique et d'un savoir-faire d'usage précieux. La prise en compte des informations collectées lors du travail avec les usagers favorise l'acceptation finale des produits sur le marché. Dans un autre domaine, les politistes et les sociologues montrent que les théories de la démocratie participative se sont diffusées aux différents niveaux des processus de gouvernance, du national au local, sous l'impulsion de dispositifs législatifs ou de démarches citoyennes. Ces dispositifs participatifs sollicitent les citoyens sur la question urbaine, souvent de manière parallèle et déconnectée du processus global de conception des projets, surtout lorsqu'il s'agit de répondre aux exigences de la loi ou de céder à un effet de mode.

El objetivo de este artículo es contribuir a hacer comprender los orígenes y las primeras transformaciones organizativas de la Unión del Pueblo Navarro (UPN). Este trabajo pretende establecer si el modelo de partido que caracteriza a la UPN está más cerca de los partidos profesionales electorales que surgen en Europa con la tercera ola democratizadora o del modelo de partido de masas que históricamente ha caracterizado a los partidos regionalistas en Europa. Las conclusiones señalan como el importante papel del liderazgo, el rápido acceso a las instituciones o la debilidad organizativa inicial sitúan a la UPN mucho más cerca del partido profesional electoral (o catch-all) que de los partidos de masas u otros modelos intermedios. ; The main purpose of this article is to contribute to the understanding of the origins and the first organizational changes made by the Unión del Pueblo Navarro (UPN). In this sense, the article tries to establish whether the UPN is closer to the electoral-professional party model emerged in Europe's third wave of democratization, or to the mass party model that traditionally has characterized most regionalist parties. The conclusions shows how the important role of party leadership, the quick access to the institutions and the fragile party strength during the firsts years set the UPN closer to the electoral-professional party model.

Textes préparatoires des ateliers des journées d'études Savoirs " citoyens " et démocratie participative dans la question urbaine ; International audience ; Sur le plan théorique, la mise en résonnance d'un état de l'art ciblé au sein des sciences de l'ingénieur et au sein des sciences politiques, permet de formuler une approche originale des pratiques urbaines, définies dans le sens de savoir-faire et compétences spécifiques appliqués aux territoires. En effet, dans le domaine du génie des systèmes industriels, la littérature montre que les entreprises, intégrant au plus tôt l'utilisateur dans leurs processus de conceptions, bénéficient d'une expérience pratique et d'un savoir-faire d'usage précieux. La prise en compte des informations collectées lors du travail avec les usagers favorise l'acceptation finale des produits sur le marché. Dans un autre domaine, les politistes et les sociologues montrent que les théories de la démocratie participative se sont diffusées aux différents niveaux des processus de gouvernance, du national au local, sous l'impulsion de dispositifs législatifs ou de démarches citoyennes. Ces dispositifs participatifs sollicitent les citoyens sur la question urbaine, souvent de manière parallèle et déconnectée du processus global de conception des projets, surtout lorsqu'il s'agit de répondre aux exigences de la loi ou de céder à un effet de mode.

En la década de los 80, America Central fue uno de los escenarios de la guerra fría que se tradujo en Guatemala, El Salvador y Nicaragua por guerras civiles, represiones militares y altos niveles de violencia política. Pero en ambos casos, la situación bélica fue resuelta por procesos negociados que establecieron, por una parte, el final de los enfrentamientos armados, la desmovilización de las guerrillas y la reducción de los ejércitos, y, por la otra, reformas institucionales que permitieron al conjunto de los actores políticos participar en las contiendas electorales. El balance que se puede hacer de estos procesos es bastante contrastado: del punto de vista militar e institucional, los tres países viven hoy en día en una situación de paz y de respecto de la pluralidad política, con incluso posibilidades de alternancias a nivel local y nacional. Los asesinatos políticos han sido limitados, y a pesar de fuertes resistencias y de una implementación postergada de ciertos aspectos de los Acuerdos de paz, éstos han sido en general aceptados y respetados. Pero en un contexto de crecimiento económico estancado, los niveles de violencia "cotidiana" – es decir no relacionada a la existencia de una guerra o de una movilización política - se han disparado a tal punto de ser considerados como el principal problema de dichos países, y de producir más homicidios que en los años de la guerra civil. Las políticas implementadas por los gobiernos y la aceptación por parte de la sociedad de medidas ultra-represivas, que suspenden garantías y libertades constitucionales, muestran hasta que punto un alto nivel de violencia "cotidiana" puede amenazar las bases de democracias recientemente asentadas.

The Role of The UN in Conflict Mediation The UN, through its General Secretary and the Security Council in particular, have a long experience of conflict mediation. The growth of peace-keeping operations obviously supported this trend. We should however raise some paradoxes: Since the 1993 "peak" (year when the number of "blue helmets" reaches a historical maximum), more and more operations are conducted by regional organizations (NATO, EU, AU), which engage, to different degrees, in mediation; The UN reinforces and seeks to reinforce its capacities (creation of the UN Peacebuilding Commission, flanked of a Support Office, which programs are funded by a Fund), but many mediations are carried out by personalities mandated and financed by States. The conflict of Cyprus is one of the rare ones where, besides the mission of interposition, the UN carried out quasi alone the mission of mediation, and this since 1964. In spite of successive failures (for example "the Set of Ideas" en1994 and the "Annan Plan" in 2004), the UN remains the most credible mediator. Which lessons the UN has learned and could learned from its Cypriot experience? Did it apply to Cyprus methods and lessons learned from other conflicts? Which use could it make in its other attempts of mediation? ; L'ONU, à travers son Secrétariat général et le Conseil de sécurité notamment, a une longue expérience de la médiation dans les conflits. La croissance des opérations de maintien de la paix a évidemment favorisé ce mouvement. Il nous faut cependant relever quelques paradoxes : depuis le « pic » de 1993 (année où le nombre de « casques bleus » atteint un maximum historique), de plus en plus d'opérations son conduites par des organisations régionales (OTAN, UE, UA), lesquelles s'engagent alors, à des degrés divers, dans la médiation ; l'ONU renforce et cherche à renforcer ses capacités (création de la Commission pour la consolidation de la paix, flanqué d'un Bureau d'appui, dont les programmes sont financés par un Fonds), mais de nombreuses médiations ...

An aspect of civil rights litigation receiving scant scholarly attention is the response of state supreme courts to racial discrimination claims in the early twentieth century. While scholarship on general social context suggests claims would find more support in non‐southern courts and in the later years of the period, this has not been systematically investigated. Furthermore, while the literature on the U.S. Supreme Court establishes variance patterns by discrimination type, they cannot necessarily be extrapolated to state outcomes. I show that since the predictive utility of frameworks "borrowed" from other studies is dubious in this context, these state cases demand their own unique investigation and understanding. The assessment of two key clusters of cases offered here suggests distinct patterns in southern jury discrimination and northern public accommodations decisions. In the former, claims were routinely denied, with U.S. Supreme Court precedent occasionally used to overturn a conviction. In the latter, plaintiffs relying on state civil rights statutes were mostly successful.Un aspecto del litigio por los derechos civiles que recibe escasa atención académica es la respuesta de la Suprema Corte estatal a los reclamos por discriminación racial a principios del siglo XX. Aunque los estudios del contexto social general sugieren que los reclamos encontrarían mayor apoyo en cortes no‐sureñas, en los años posteriores a dicho periodo, esto no ha sido sistemáticamente investigado. Además, aunque la literatura sobre la Suprema Corte de Justicia establece diferentes patrones por tipo de discriminación, estos no pueden ser necesariamente extrapolados al nivel de resultados estatales. Demuestro que dado que la utilidad predictiva de esquemas "prestados" de otros estudios es discutible en este contexto, estos casos estatales requieren su propia investigación e interpretación. La evaluación de dos grupos claves de casos propuestos aquí sugiere patrones distintivos en la discriminación de los jurados sureños y las decisiones de "public accommodations" norteñas. En el primero, los reclamos fueron rutinariamente rechazados, ocasionalmente invocando precedente de la Suprema Corte de Justicia para darle vuelta a la condena. En el segundo grupo, los demandantes que descansaron su caso en los estatutos estatales sobre los derechos civiles en su mayoría tuvieron éxito.

For the authorities in Beijing, Rebiya Kadeer is a "terrorist," an "enemy," a "dangerous separatist." But for her Uyghur compatriots, this energetic 60ish businesswoman is one of their only rays of hope. The Uyghurs, a Muslim, Turkic-speaking people from Central Asia, were incorporated into the People's Republic of China in 1949. Since then, they have seen the arrival of millions of Han Chinese in their region of Xinjiang, taking the best jobs, replacing Uyghurs in positions of responsibility, & conducting a Sino-ization policy that Rebiya Kadeer compares to a "cultural genocide." This remarkable woman has been head of the World Uyghur Congress since 2006. After making a fortune in China in the 1990s, her activism on behalf of her people drew the ire of Beijing, resulting in six years in prison, then exile in the United States. In this interview she discusses in detail the sad fate of her people & calls on the international community to defend the Uyghurs -- but will she be heard? Adapted from the source document.

This paper provides evidence for an aspect of trade often disregarded in international trade research: countries' sectoral export diversification. The results of our semiparametric empirical analysis show that, on average, countries do not specialize; on the contrary, they diversify. Our results are robust for different statistical indices used to measure trade specialization, for the level of sectoral aggregation, and for the level of smoothing in the nonparametric term associated with per capita income. Using a generalized additive model (GAM) with country-specific fixed effects it can be shown that, controlling for countries' heterogeneity, sectoral export diversification increases with income.

Regional trade agreements (RTAs) are usually classified according to their form into four broad categories: preferential arrangements, free trade agreements, customs unions and common markets. This paper investigates whether the form/ depth of RTAs matters concerning their effect on trade. I use a proper specification of the gravity model with panel data on the 1960–2000 period, which specifically control for self-selection into agreements. Results show that creating any kind of RTAs providing trade preferences to their member countries significantly increases bilateral trade. Nevertheless, their average treatment effect on bilateral trade does not significantly differ according to the depth of agreements.

This paper investigates whether small countries gain relatively more than large countries from an 'expansion' of their market through the creation of a single currency. The introduction of the euro offers a particularly valuable source to test this hypothesis, which we motivate using the theoretical model by Casella of the year 1996. Our results from a panel data analysis, using both aggregate and disaggregated trade data, point to a statistically significant but quantitatively moderate small country bonus. On average, the euro has led to an improvement of the small euro area's relative export performance by 3–9%.

This paper empirically analyzes the impact of exchange-rate uncertainty, exchange-rate movements, and expectations on foreign direct investment (FDI). Using data on US outward FDI for the period 1984–2004 we examine two competing measures of exchange-rate volatility. While the standard measure yields a discouraging effect on FDI outflows in all industries the alternative risk specification reveals a clear distinction between manufacturing and non-manufacturing industries, with the latter showing a positive correlation with increased exchange risk. A real appreciation of host-country currency was associated with higher FDI flows, while expectations about an appreciation showed a negative result.