Suchergebnisse

States interested in reducing the level of arms competition with a rival can employ a variety of strategies designed to promote cooperation. We examine the ability of three important strategies—unilateral action, tacit bargaining, and negotiation—to reduce the intensity of arms races motivated by different patterns of preferences and complicated by different sources of uncertainty. The latter include strategic misrepresentation, imperfect intelligence, problems of interpretation, and problems of control. Examples are drawn from 19th- and 20th-century arms races that did not result in war.

A number of factors hinder regional cooperation in Central Asia. They include multidirectional foreign policy priorities of the countries of the region and unresolved acute regional problems (territorial borders, water and energy, environmental, transport and communication, agricultural and food). The ruling elites of the countries of the region may fail to resist the temptation to channel population's dissatisfaction with the difficult socio-economic situation into the mainstream of interethnic and interstate conflicts. Therefore, there can be no question of Central Asian integration.

This article examines the internal decision-making process in the European Union when the EU participates in international environmental negotiations. More particularly, the practical functioning of the relation between the member states and the EU negotiator (i.e. the Commission, the Presidency or a lead country), representing the member states externally, is examined. Starting from principal—agent theory and based on empirical research on eight EU decision-making processes with regard to international environmental negotiations, the article argues, first, that control by the member states on the EU negotiator takes place most manifestly during the course of the international negotiations, and, second, that these ad locum control mechanisms perform not only a control function, but also a cooperation function.

Abstract: Observers tend to interpret the contemporary Sino-Russian relationship in terms of strategic, purposeful cooperation driven by national interests and power-political considerations. The search for power and security, as well as balancing against the United States, have increasingly been pushing China and Russia closer together. The energy realm offers a distinct picture of the Sino-Russian relationship. The pace of cooperation has varied and depended on key domestic players in particular sectors. As a consequence, success stories have been accompanied by major setbacks. Energy cooperation encompasses both a meteoric rise of oil cooperation and the muddling through of gas cooperation. The foundations for close ties in the energy realm were laid well before the post-Crimean acceleration of Sino-Russian cooperation. More often than not, however, parochial interests of dominant state-owned and private enterprises rather than strategic considerations have driven this cooperation. Looking through the prism of energy cooperation, I emphasize the complexity of Russia and China as actors in international politics instead of approaching them as rational and unitary players.