Suchergebnisse

AbstractIn this article I utilise the editors' conceptual frame of sovereignty/intervention/transnational social forces to argue that the relationship that ensues between these phenomena has to be understood in colonial-modern – rather than modern – terms. I thereby argue that intervention is a distinctive technology of colonial-modern rule, specifically, one that erects and polices the difference between sovereign and quasi-sovereign entities via a standard of civilisation. Additionally, I argue that transnational social forces struggle – cognitively, socially, and politically – over the upholding or refuting of this standard; and in this struggle, some might even defend particular sovereign entities against colonial interventions. I demonstrate my argument by explicating the global colonial context of the Italy/Ethiopia conflict in 1935–6, the nadir of the interwar crisis. I 'decolonise' received interpretations of the conflict through the heuristic of two differing catechisms of Psalms 68:31 proffered at the time: one, invoking a civilising mission of Africans; the other, invoking a project of self-liberation by Africans.

Abstract
Much has been made of the "spaghetti or noodle bowl" problem of overlapping preferential trade agreements (PTA). A new PTA, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), currently under negotiation between eleven states – Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam – is intended to help address this issue. The TPP will lower or eliminate barriers to trade among the partners. But officials are not operating in a vacuum as they negotiate this new agreement. Instead, they must contend with rules created in previous agreements, many of which link TPP partners together in ways that constrain their options now. This article looks in detail at negotiations over market access in goods to better understand the tradeoffs faced by negotiators. Unfortunately, some of the decisions made so far after three years of talks suggest that the TPP market access deal could end up being just another twisted noodle in a crowded bowl.

The Obama administration struggled throughout its first term to live up to its campaign promises to reverse the most objectionable of the Bush administration's counterterrorism policies and to govern by "rule of law" principles. It is clear that most of these policies continued with minimal changes, and some even expanded to include more controversial elements such as targeted killings. The most visible policy failure has been the inability to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay. Efforts to accomplish this closure became entwined with two other unfulfilled campaign promises—rejection of the use of military commissions for prosecuting terrorist suspects and halting the practice of indefinite detention of uncharged suspects. In this article I analyze the impact of the role played by the rivalry for influence between White House political advisors and policy principals, on the one hand, and executive branch legal advisors, on the other, on the failure to roll back Bush's counterterrorism policies.

After the withdrawal of Serbian units from Kosovo in the second half of 1999, we could witness Kosovo being transformed into an unstable area while the KLA became the informal ruler of the country with de facto unrestricted authority. Several originally classified documents leaked into the public domain in the last two years. These were authored by various international institutions, and they indicate the involvement of former KLA high officers and current leading Kosovar politicians in the illegal trade with organs of Serbian POWs. During the unofficial investigation of the whole issue, there appeared several obscurities and controversies that cast a bad light on the passive and often rather opportunistic approach of the international community, which has, moreover, repeatedly failed to protect key secret witnesses. However, the report of Dick Marty and the establishment of the EULEX Special Investigation Team headed by Clint Williamson give us some hope that the investigation will bring tangible results and the whole case will be legitimately closed. Adapted from the source document.

In Iran, where males and females are kept separated in different spheres, Facebook may be used as an opportunity to bridge this gap between the genders. However, this study showed that Facebook, as a nonymous platform in which people are in contact with their already-made social ties, didn't seem to be liberating from the existing norms and rules within society. Facebook was a stage that became restricted with the involvement of social ties. The study's analysis of interviews with six young Iranians showed that social meanings and norms of self-presentation on Facebook are defined to a large degree in terms of gender. The informants used a variety of strategies when presenting themselves on Facebook. They used Facebook simply for gaining personal autonomy. Strategies were adopted especially when one's personal and community needs were in conflict. Efforts made to apply strategies were gendered and were used mainly by females. Males conformed to and women resisted societal norms and expectations.

This article analyses certain issues of implementation of Russian energy policy in the Baltic region fr om the geoeconomic perspective. The purpose of the study is to explain Russian energy policy in the region as dependent solely on the import capacity of its partners. Russian energy policy is viewed as one of the most important activities of the state and its business structures. As such it aims to achieve both general economic goals (generation of profit, market domination) and more specific geoeconomic tasks. At the same time, the policy follows the traditional rules of consumer/producer market game. Russian energy resources are delivered to an energy deficient region, where the demand and need for them is stable. The study is based on the author's geoeconomic methodology, which extensively uses geographical and general scientific methods. This work aims to develop a geoeconomic paradigm in the framework of social geography. It will be of interest to anyone who aims to analyse the true motives behind Russian current energy policy.

The analysis of the historical development of users' rights in the Viennese context reveals the following: legislation shifted away from an initial emphasis on protection of people and was soon rewritten to protect vehicle traffic. In fact, the National Socialist street ordinance – which was enacted in Austria in the year 1938 – provided the most significant shift in the hierarchy of street users. While this development was a response to the general increase of motorized traffic, the shift of emphasis was accomplished through legislative means. Postwar regulations called for »care, caution, and attention«, but nevertheless remained primarily fixed on the protection of traffic. It was not until 1960 that the so-called cautionary rule was rephrased, and the human being once again moved into the centre, replacing traffic as the focus of attention. By this even the current traffic ordinance, and with it the rights to use public street space, are rooted in a system of values that privileged the ideal of a »Gesamtvolkssinn« over the rights and the protection of individuals. (author's abstract)

"In survey research the parental leave beneficiaries are usually coded as either employed or inactive. An exception is the European Labor Force Survey (EU-LFS), which includes parental leave among other forms of being employed but temporarily not working. This paper explores classification of parental leave takers in EU-LFS. The authors show that classification rules differ cross-nationally: in some countries parental leave takers are considered inactive, in others - employed but temporarily not working. In particular in the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary and Slovakia the EU-LFS data classify the beneficiaries as inactive. The authors estimate the number of mothers on parental leave in these countries and show that EU-LFS employment rates of women aged 18-40 are biased downwards 2-7 percentage points; for mothers of children aged 0-2 the bias reaches 12-45 percentage points. Their study shows the limited comparability of EU-LFS employment rates and warns about possible bias in cross-national studies." (author's abstract)

It is widely recognized that UN peacekeeping operations are an undertheorized topic. In this respect, scholars call to devote more attention to the incorporation of the study of UN peacekeeping operations into the framework of international relations theories. The article responds to these calls and suggests conceptualizing UN peacekeeping as an international regime. Some authors have already referred to UN peacekeeping as an international regime, however, the references have been rather fragmentary and there is no detailed identification of individual dimensions of this regime. The article uses the conception of Stephen Krasner who defines regimes as "principles, norms, rules, and decision-making procedures around which actors' expectations converge in a given area of international relations" to carefully identify and characterize the dimensions of the UN peacekeeping regime. The conceptualization of UN peacekeeping as an international regime is understood as a first and necessary step to opening new ground to the theoretical study of UN peacekeeping operations within the regime analysis.

After eleven years of democratic rule Pakistan once again went under military regime when Pervaiz Musharraf imposed emergency in the state by ousting the then elected Prime Minister Mian Nawaz Sharif from his office and started ruling the country with the help of Military junta. This time military stepped in as an institution due to the wrong deeds of politicians. Pervaiz Musharraf declared himself Chief Executive of the state and tried to fulfill his own agenda. He amended the anti terrorism act to punish Nawaz Sharif. Basic pillar of federalism the judiciary remained under fire throughout his regime and Chief Justice of Pakistan was deposed from the office. Political activities and parties were banned. Powers were centralized in the name of devolution of powers. Constitution was abandoned and LFO was introduced to provide victory to the King's party in an engineered elections. Musharraf jumped into war against terrorism and the whole country was facing bomb blasts and attacks of militants on official institutions of the state.

Abstract
The syndicated structure of the German coal industry has not yet been reflected on in detail in business history. Generally the picture is dominated by the idea of a powerful controlling German Coal Syndicate (RWKS). In fact, the relationship between the Coal Syndicate and its formerly dependent trading organizations, such as the Coal Trading Association (SHV), changed rapidly as a result of World War One. One outcome of this change was the attempt of the Coal Trading Association – the exclusive coal trader of Ruhrcoal on the Dutch market – to diversify into a producer itself. This diversification and investment into the Sophia-Jacoba colliery became a risk investment because of the marketing rules the Syndicate imposed upon its trader. Even though the colliery's integration of special rights into the Dutch-German Treaty of 1920 had been reflected in political historical science, it is suggested here to focus that case in the context of the syndicated market structure, to get an understanding of this explosive issue for the SHV.

Much current research fails to provide in-depth explanations as to how and with what resources frontline employees deal with incidents where customers display dysfunctional behaviour. By drawing on theory of implicit knowledge and practical judgement this paper aims to explain this and conceptualize inherent structures and sub-mechanisms, central to service marketing. The analysis is based on in-depth interviews and narratives from four different industries, each representing service provision wherein customer misbehaviour is found to be frequent. The results display linkages between the central dimensions of dealing with customer misbehaviour. When incidents of misbehaviour occur they are met by tactics ranging from routinized action to more analytical and strategic approaches. These tactics are guided by underlying mechanisms in the form of practical judgements based on rules, balanced adjustment or reflection, with the judgements in turn being informed by implicit knowledge based on norms, schemes, or multi-perspective thinking. The study reveals patterns of linkages between these.

This article argues that European Union (EU) risk regulation of hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) was both a trigger and formative factor in the development of similar Chinese regulation. The attractiveness and global interdependence of the EU market in EEE impelled a response from Chinese policy-makers. Fostering the domestic industry's global competitiveness was one of the driving factors behind Chinese substance restriction regulation. Additionally, symbolic emulation and growing domestic environmental problems related to waste EEE infl uenced the Chinese policy agenda. Chinese substance restriction rules are not, however, a mere copy of EU regulation. The limited domestic capacity of the Chinese economy, administration, and legal structure to adopt policies similar to those of the EU explains, to a large extent, the emergence and partial persistence of differences between EU and Chinese risk regulation. In the course of the implementation and evaluation of Chinese substance restriction regulation, lessons learned from the EU's experience increasingly contributed to shaping the policy, leading to growing convergence.

When starting a new job, newcomers strive to learn the tasks and expectations of their work, decipher the unwritten rules or norms of the culture, and achieve membership in the organization. The literature on the socialization of newcomers in organizations typically links success to the ability of the newcomer to learn to fit in. Yet recent empirical studies identified coworkers and managers as sharing the responsibility for successful socialization. The purpose of this study was to investigate the orientation and socialization processes (also known as onboarding) from the broader perspective of social capital. The concept of social capital generally describes the value and resources of social relations and network ties afforded to members of social networks or groups. Through a set of in-depth interviews with newly hired engineers in a large manufacturing organization, newcomers reported how they learned about and integrated into the social networks that made up their workplace. Overall, it was the quality of the relationships newcomers formed with coworkers and managers that was the primary driver of socialization outcomes.