Suchergebnisse

In an interview, Giulio Andreotti, previous President of the Cabinet, offers his thoughts on international politics, the European Union, the development of the Euro, various foreign issues, & the leaders of various countries & their relations with the international community. The internal dynamics of Italian politics as well are also discussed. E. Miller

The article aims to enrich our understanding of the double-concept of "peace/war" in international relations, & of its place in international theory, starting from an examination of its relations with issues of power & freedom. The authors look at history to comprehend the essential features of peace & war in different systems of states as they have historically developed; but they also turn to contemporary international politics to highlight the ways in which both peace & war have changed since the end of the Cold War. Finally, the article investigates the politics of "peace/war" in the international order of today, with particular reference to globalization & the role of American hegemony. Adapted from the source document.

The debate between realists and liberals in the field of International Relations concerning the causes and effects of economic interdependence among states has led to a remarkable branch of empirical literature, but hardly any research has studied such dynamics in the period following the Cold War, which is so often defined "the age of globalization". This article is based on a quantitative analysis of the influence of international politics on commercial flows in the post-bipolar period and it performs such analysis on two datasets: the first one including all countries of the system for which data are available and the second one focused on the countries that previous similar studies have identified as great powers. The results show that the contemporary international system is marked by a high degree of complexity and by the simultaneous action of different and even contrasting logics. Liberal variables such as democracy and economic international institutions exert a remarkable effect on international trade, especially at the global level, but international security and even power politics issues are still relevant, particularly for the great powers in their reciprocal relationships. Adapted from the source document.

Two claims about the nature & scope of theories in International Relations can be found in Kenneth Waltzs work. The first claim is that it is possible to develop a theory of international politics, ie., a theory that is capable to predict the outcomes of interactions among states without necessarily predicting their foreign policy behavior. The second claim is that it is possible to develop a structural theory of politics, ie., a theory that rigorously separates structural & unit-level causes & only considers the former. This note argues the following: G) the two claims are distinct; (ii) Waltz does not separate them consistently; (iii) he defends the first claim by using arguments that support the second claim; (iv) the first claim is not plausible; (iv) the second claim is plausible, but it needs to be qualified. Figures, References. Adapted from the source document.

By raising the question on what made geopolitical equilibrium a tool for understanding international politics, the article discusses differences between classical and modern balance of power, and between balance of power and geopolitical equilibrium. The principal argument is that geopolitical equilibrium is, in scope, global. The second claim about the nature of geopolitical equilibrium concerns modern territoriality. Geopolitical equilibrium bases on occurrence of central powers in global politics, not on modern inter-state relations; therefore, it represents the tendency to stability in a pluralistic world-system. As a result, geopolitics remains a realistic alternative to cosmopolitism for understanding social order in global age. Adapted from the source document.

A review essay on books by (1) Michael J. Baun, A Wider Europe: The Process and Politics of European Enlargement (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000); (2) David P. Calleo, Rethinking Europe's Future (Princeton, NJ: Princeton U Press, 2001); (3) Kenneth Dyson & Kevin Featherstone, The Road to Maastricht: Negotiating Economic and Monetary Union (Oxford, UK: Oxford U Press, 2003); (4) John Gillingham, European Integration 1950-2003: Superstate or New Market Economy (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge U Press, 2003); & (5) Larry Siedentop, Democracy in Europe (London: Penguin, 2000). The article provides a detailed look at several central questions in the recent history of the European Union: monetary union, enlargement, federalism in Europe, Euroscepticism, & the role of Europe in international politics. The article concludes by reflecting that the twin challenge of "deepening" & "widening" the European Union after Maastricht has not had the results that were expected & hoped for. The EU is finding that emerging as a coherent international force is beyond it, but that retracing its steps is impossible. Adapted from the source document.

After the beginning of the experience of the center-left government in the early sixties, Italy proposes an independent and original foreign policy, consistent with its position in the Mediterranean, across the border between East and West. The preferred partner within the Warsaw Pact is Romania, considered the vanguard of a political process of internal liberalization and of political emancipation of Eastern Europe from Soviet-communism. So far, the limited historiography on the Italo-Romanian relationships has taken into account almost exclusively the economic and trade agreements. This paper, on the basis of largely unpublished documentation at the Senato della Repubblica and at the Central State's Archive in Italy, analyzes instead the main international issues of the meetings between Bucharest and Rome, namely the Détente, the Sino-Soviet conflict, the peace building in the South-East Asia, the Middle-East, the CSCE. The unpublished diary of statesman Amintore Fanfani, Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1965 to 1968, reveals how the Italian ruling class has a substantial confidence in Ion Gheorghe Maurer and Corneliu Mănescu and high expectations around an alleged non-alignment of Romania. On the other hand, the correspondence from the Italian Embassy in Bucharest for Aldo Moro (Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1969 to 1972 and from 1973 to 1974), describes the violent and authoritarian temper of the regime established by Ceauşescu in his country. In any case the Italian strategy seems then to reappraise the special partnership with Romania, in favor of a multilateral approach to the problem of Détente within the continental conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Based on recent IPE contributions on three key themes in international politics (the relation between trade-technology & interstate conflicts, the link between multinationalization in production & world stability, & the political economy of democracy promotion in post-conflict countries), this essay calls the attention on the potential that IPE studies have for the analysis of complex processes (political & economic, with domestic, international & trans-national reach) across long time-spans. Empirical research on these topics has provided new ground to test & refine hypotheses from the three IPE orthodox Schools (Realism-Mercantilism, Liberalism & Marxism), pointing to the advantages of multivariate setups that treat both political & economic determinants of international outcomes as endogenous. Studies on the trade-war links have opened the way to analyses of how growth-inducing mechanisms in war economies may combine with the lasting effects of war-borne protectionist coalitions in producing differential outcomes, according to countries' resource endowments & level of development. Hypotheses on the peace-inducing features of multinationalized production appear in need of revision, especially when applied to the context of North-South relations, in which traditional dynamics identified in the FDI literature do not seem to obtain. Last, scholars interested in the political economy of post-war reconstruction could fruitfully borrow from the comparative literature on transitions, the economic contributions on development & the IR research on conflict, to provide new theoretical tools for the analysis of democracy promotion in post-conflict states. References. Adapted from the source document.

During the 20th century intervention with respect to economic & productive activity became a normal practice for nearly all states. While, in the nineteenth century, laissez-faire liberalism generally prevailed, & the defence of private property was considered the fundamental role of the state, the twentieth century saw the affirmation in some countries of Marxist-Leninist theories, which assigned the state property rights in the means of production, the arrival on the world scene of the new Keynesian approach, which assigned the state the role of promoting & stabilizing economic & social development, &, lastly, the great world revolution consisting in colonial emancipation, which, though a political phenomenon, constituted an implicit move towards economic independence. All of these factors brought about an upheaval in the situation that had been consolidated since the second half of the 19th century -- a century that saw the consolidation of a hegemony of the most developed countries which exercised control over the natural resources of less developed countries, above all of the colonies conquered by European states in the period of imperialist expansion. The problem of nationalizations, or international expropriations, arose out of the conflict that developed between countries exporting capital, which tended to protect the property of their citizens abroad, & countries importing capital, which decided without warning to take over full responsibility for their own economic resources. It is crucial to note, in this connection, the presence, on the one hand of states with a long liberal tradition, which have often suffered losses in terms of the property of their own citizens &, on the other hand, of international actors exhibiting a socialist state structure or of recent liberal tradition, which claim sovereignty over their own resources. For this reason, international nationalizations need to be re-examined in the light of the ideological, political & economic structure of the single states. They concern, in other words, national sovereignty, general political economy choices, the position held within the international community & relations with various other international state-actors, aiming, in the last analysis, to take account of the role adopted, since the 1960s, by the main international organization, the United Nations. Adapted from the source document.

The war in Iraq uncovers important aspects of the current phase of world politics. The present analysis focuses on the potential impact on the Atlantic coalition made by the American project of introducing important changes in the strategy of global leadership. Hegemonic theory of world politics is the theoretical framework of the analysis. At the same time, the evolutionary world politics model is adopted to understand change in world politics. In the first part, preventive doctrine & the issue of external military intervention to change domestic regimes are analyzed. In the second part, a set of concepts for the analysis of the structure of government of the world political system is presented. In the last part, these concepts are used to analyze the potential effect of the United States project of change on transatlantic relations. 2 Tables, 45 References. Adapted from the source document.