This study examined the role of an international Agency (USAID) and Democratic Election; A Prognosis to the role of Security Personnel in Nigerian 2015 Elections. USAID and other international Agencies have relentlessly assisted both the emerging and consolidating democracies such as Nigeria, in conducting free and fair elections via provision of some forms of technical assistance so as to achieve credible elections and ensure improved governance but in spite of all these, events and happenings from developed democracies and across the globe have shown that the vitality of election security to the credibility of elections cannot be ignored because the conduct of free and fair elections to a large extent depend on the security system available in the country. This study anchored on Elite theory propounded by Paredo and Gaetano with descriptive qualitative method of data collection and Content analysis. It discovered that the fact that consistently undermined democratic consolidation in Nigeria is the varying degrees and measures of electoral violence so it therefore recommends that impartial and unbiased security agencies should be recruited for each election in order to prevent the reoccurrence of electoral violence during each election.
Myanmar is currently faced with conflicts mainly considered as crimes against humanity that require resolution sooner or later. The conflict in Myanmar is closely linked to ethnicity, creating a cycle of violence that continues to escalate without any possibility of diminishing. The inability of the state to address ethnic minority grievances or provide adequate security to communities has created a literal arms race among minority groups. More action needs to be taken to finally resolve the situation and crisis unfolding in Myanmar, and that is where countries in Southeast Asia play a very important role for conflict resolution. This research was carried out using qualitative method with descriptive analysis regarding to the situation that occurred in Myanmar, especially regarding the Rohingya crisis and the Myanmar Military Coup which was the focus of the research. The escalation of the humanitarian conflict and the deprivation of democracy by the Myanmar people, requires joint handling in order to avoid further expansion of the conflict. In this case, neighboring countries such as Indonesia have an important role as a driver of mediation in regional forums to resolve conflicts in Myanmar. ASEAN, as a diplomatic platform in the Southeast Asian region, must be put forward and reach a consensus for finally intervening in the Myanmar conflict, which is taking more and more lives. The United Nations with the principle of responsibility to protect can also play a role in overcoming the conflict, considering that the conflict has resulted in crimes against humanity that cannot be tolerated.
As a motivational factor of action, political efficacy is an important predictor of political behaviour. The term was invented to capture the extent to which people feel that they can effectively participate in politics and shape political processes. Today, we have a comprehensive knowledge of the individual-level factors (socio-demographic variables, political preferences etc.) that shape the level of internal and external dimensions of political efficacy. However, while it is widely demonstrated that media consumption influences the level of political efficacy, the country-level media context factors affecting it have rarely been studied. This paper reports the findings of extensive research on how two crucial features of the media context, the political significance of the media and the level of political parallelism in the media system, shape the level of external and internal political efficacy. The investigation draws upon the dataset of the seventh round (2014 – 2015) of the European Social Survey (ESS) and includes more than twenty-two thousand respondents from nineteen European democracies. The research hypothesizes that in countries where the media play a more important role, people have lower levels of external and higher levels of internal political efficacy. Political parallelism, which shows the extent to which media outlets are driven by distinct political orientations and interests within a particular media system, is expected to directly increase both external and internal political efficacy. Its indirect effect is also hypothesized, arguing that partisan media amplifies the winner-loser gap in political efficacy as a kind of "echo chamber". The findings show that in countries where the media play a major role in shaping political discourse, people have lower levels of external political efficacy, while the political parallelism of the media system indirectly affects the external dimensions of political efficacy. Internal political efficacy is, however, not related to these context-level factors.
The military is generally considered to act as a professional when it comes to retreating forces from military battleground or international conflict areas. At the same time recent national experiences with the withdrawal of national troops from international peacekeeping operations are filled with disappointments and crises. In this article the authors question the idea that these disappointments and crises are simply due to problems of reduced military competence or military morale. They argue that the military is still the alleged expert who knows how to perform military retreats and other military actions. At the same time they show that network-like decision-making structures that are inherent to the deployment of troops in international peacekeeping missions, have become a major obstacle for the military to act in its own right. The lessons that government can learn from the military experience are firstly, that decisions for national public cutbacks should be accompanied by a more in-depth (re)consideration of public (key) tasks than up to now was considered appropriate, and secondly, that more trust should be shown in the skills, knowledge and motivation of professionals to delineate and constrain the boundaries of their own fields of expertise.
Klep, Christ, Somalië, Rwanda, Srebrenica. De nasleep van drie ontspoorde vredesmissies (Dissertatie Utrecht 2008; Amsterdam: Boom, 2008, 385 blz., ISBN 978 90 8506 668 2)When the Home Front meets Foreign Parts. The Aftermath of Commissions of Inquiry into derailed Peace MissionsPeace Missions take place in difficult and volatile circumstances. It is therefore hardly surprising that some peace missions become 'derailed'. Christ Klep zooms in on three 'derailed' missions in his book and focuses on the value of Commissions of Inquiry which are subsequently set up as a result of public and political pressure. Do they succeed in revealing the 'how' and the 'why' of such derailments and – above all – identifying those who are responsible? Based on a broad spectrum of questions and extensive source materials, Klep concludes that 'the number of escape routes from the labyrinth of responsibility is practically infinite'; a clear message for all those taking part in international and domestic politics. It is here that the author skillfully and expertly succeeds: exposing the complex entanglement of domestic and foreign policy, even concerning events that sometimes happen away from the capital city.
Klep, Christ, Somalië, Rwanda, Srebrenica. De nasleep van drie ontspoorde vredesmissies (Dissertatie Utrecht 2008; Amsterdam: Boom, 2008, 385 blz., ISBN 978 90 8506 668 2).ResponseThe validity of my comparative approach (Somalia-Rwanda-Srebrenica) still stands, in my opinion. At the level of political responsibility and the process of coming to terms with events, the similarities are stronger than the differences. My estimation that the Inquiry reports were 'hijacked' by almost all of the stakeholders involved (especially the Canadian, Belgian and Dutch governments) is more of a matter of fact and a political reality than a reproach that ought to have legal implications. Finally, the question of how far the three governments that were involved learned lessons from the three affairs is difficult to answer. Was it not also the wider developments (for example, the switch from the 'blue' missions to the more robust 'green' missions) that compelled the lessons to be drawn out?
The subject of this study is the strategic cooperation of the permanent members in the Security Council in the period 1946 2000. Because of their right of veto the cooperation of the permanent members has a significant influence on the functioning of the Council. The most important aspects of the cooperation that were investigated are the intensity of the cooperation and the ef-fectiveness of this cooperation in preventing and ending wars. To investigate these aspects, for both the intensity and the effectiveness measuring instruments were constructed. These measuring instruments were based on comprehensive sets of so-called 'leading indicators' and statistical methods and techniques. The intensity of the cooperation increased gradually from 1946 until 1990 (the end of the Cold War). Then it started to increase rapidly until 1996. From 1996 a slight decrease can be discer-ned. The strong increase in the strategic cooperation of the permanent members in the security Council can be established in all the majors forms of cooperation in the Council: the numbers of adopted strategic resolutions and presidential statements, the numbers of employed means (like peacekeeping missions and enforcement actions) and the amounts of money that were spent on peacekeeping activities. Further it was established that the response times of the Council regarding potential and waged wars dropped significantly since the end of the Cold War. The effectiveness of the cooperation of the permanent members in the Council was, insofar this was measurable with the applied method, not good for many years, but after the Cold War a clear improvement can be discerned. This goes for the prevention of wars, as well as for post war peacebuilding and the ending of wars. Also the numbers of potential and waged wars in which the Council not intervened dropped significantly since the end of the Cold War, as well as the use of vetoes. The large number of potential and waged wars in which the Council did not intervene during the Cold War was nearly exclusively caused by 'non decisions' (the non placing of wars on the agenda), and not by the use of vetoes by permanent members, as is often assumed in literature. Further, a comparison of two phase classifications of the Cold War showed that the great powers, even when there are great tensions among them, are prepared to cooperate in the Security Council to resolve strategic matters, if they consider this in their interest. Analyses of the adopted strategic resolutions during the Cold War revealed that cooperation here was nearly exclusively limited to issues that were not core issues of the Cold War. From this it can be concluded that cooperation against third party states was a basis of cooperation of the great powers in the Security Council. Finally, the results of this study show clearly that the Security Council was regarded and used to a large extent by the permanent members in the period 1946 2000 as an instrument of foreign policy to pursue their national interests, and not as an instrument of the world community to prevent and end wars.
Global developments that are full of dynamics are marked by the emergence of interdependence between countries. Global developments are in line with the development of science and technology which causes countries to seem borderless. The blurring of boundaries between countries and the development of an increasingly dynamic environment are also accompanied by the development of increasingly broad and multidimensional threats. This global development is also marked by the emergence of new actors in international relations. The development of threats and increasing global issues that cannot be handled by the state alone have created a new phenomenon in the international relations order, namely global governance. Previously, the state was the sole actor in the order of international relations. However, with global governance, there is a new arrangement in the international relations system that accommodates all actors who play a role. This research will use a qualitative phenomenological method. The theory used in this research are global governance, defense diplomacy and international organization as a basis theory and concept, and also a security theory as supporting theory. In the end, we can see that the change of international order can bring the positive effect for countries in achieving their national goals and accomplish their national interests.
'Will the Netherlands be defended?' The debate about NATO's main lines of defence at the beginning of the 1950sAt the beginning of the 1950s, the Netherlands would not have been able to defend itself in the event of a Soviet attack. Despite the fact that NATO, under the leadership of the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General Eisenhower, and later General Ridgway, was in the process of rapidly building up its defences, it was still incapable of conducting a forward defence. The pivotal political and military issue in the short term centred on one question: Which areas in Western Europe could and should be kept and which not? Answers to this question exposed conflicting national interests and points of view, particularly those of the Dutch and the French. As it was taking a considerably long time to build up the Netherlands' defences, the Dutch government had very few trump cards to add weight to its demands. Indeed, in the summer of 1952, when Parliament asked to be given a precise account of how the Dutch defences were progressing, the government was practically boxed into a corner.
The central question of this dissertation is what role national identity has played in the interdepartmental policy field of international cultural policy (ICP) in the Netherlands between 1970 and 2012. In four chapters I analyse the history of ICP and the related political debate, using a theoretical framework consisting of the main concepts of a Discourse Historic Analysis (critique, ideology, and power), and tensions within the discourses on ICP and national identity. The role of national identity in the first period (1970-1986) is characterized as 'cultural nationalism'. Culture plays an important role in distinguishing the nation state from the rest of the world, and due to the decreasing autonomy in the field of economics and politics culture is considered (by some) to be the last bearer of the national identity. The debates focus on the question whether or not the government has a role in (actively) protecting that identity. The publication of the report "Culture without borders" by the Scientific Council for Government Policy marks the beginning of the second period (1987-1996). Gradually the primacy of the policy shifts from foreign to cultural policy, and attempts are made to combine within ICP the growing cultural diversity of the Dutch society with the uniting role of a national identity. Therefore the role of national identity is characterized as 'multiculturalism'. Extra funding for international cultural activities in 1997 marks the beginning of the third period (1997-2006), in which the role of national identity is characterized as 'cultural relativism'. The relationship between culture and the nation becomes more loose, and cultural activities abroad no longer seem to represent the nation's identity. This approach in ICP contrasts strongly with the growing discontent and heated public and political debate on national identity. Characteristic for the fourth period (2007-2012) is the return to the primacy of foreign policy and the focus on diplomatic and economic goals. Culture is treated as a ...
What we today call the international system was created by the West from early modern age. This term is often used in political theory, but less focused on how to classify integrative forces within the international system. In the context of this study, we are attempting to lay down some conceptual basis. How do we understand the linking and unifying factors within the international system? Initially, the emergence of the international system was largely attributed to political factors in theory, but we can also refer to other explanatory principles: one considers economic factors and civilizational factors are taken into consideration as essential aspects of the international structures. According to our viewpoint, inter-civilization dialogue seems to be a "third way" that goes beyond the expansive one-sidedness of Western universalism and the world-level confrontation of hostile civilizations. This "civilizational approach" incorporates the two previous aspects - economic and political - and this is what gives its importance. In our view, inter-civilization dialogue is the only viable way to create global ethos, and only the resulting "intellectual revolution" can make national and supranational economic and political institutions to operate in effective way under the conditions of globalization.
This paper explores how Britain's and Colombia's privileged relations with the United States (U.S.) influenced their journey through the European Community (EC) and the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR). The Anglo–American Special Relationship (AASR) was compatible with British participation in the European Single Market, but not with adherence to creating the EC's common currency, nor with leadership in building a European defence structure autonomous from NATO. Thus, since the start of the Iraq war, Britain played a rather obstructive role in what later was called European Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). The US–Colombia Partnership (USCP), based on a longstanding military association reinforced under Plan Colombia, naturally discouraged any meaningful Colombian participation in UNASUR's South American Security Council (CDS), a regional cooperative security project, promoted by Brazil. Cherished projects of the liberal CAP – such as triangular cooperation (to export Colombian security expertise to Central America with U.S. co-financing and oversight) and NATO partnership – also distracted Colombia's interest from UNASUR, diminishing the latter's relevance collaterally. A role for UNASUR – alongside the Organization of American States (OAS) – in South American security management was compatible with the liberal CAP, but not with the neoconservative CAP. Even a lopsided complementation – such as the one between NATO and the CSDP – proved unviable between the OAS and UNASUR.
Tanulmányunk a nemzetközi rendszer átalakulásával foglalkozik, azt Polányi kettős mozgásának a nemzetközi politikai gazdaságtan három vizsgálati szintjére (rendszer szintje, nemzetállam szintje, ideák szintje) való kiterjesztésével mutatja be. A cél annak az ingamozgásnak a bemutatása, mely az önszabályozó piac és a Bretton Woodsi "beágyazott liberalizmus" között írható le. Bemutatjuk azt is, hogy a populista pártok napjainkban megfigyelhető növekvő népszerűsége a piacosító folyamatokkal szembeni ellenmozgásként értelmezhető. = Our paper examines the transformation of the international economic system. We examine the process of Polanyi's double movement on the three levels of analysis of the international political economy: systemic, domestic and cognitive. Our aim is to show that during the development of the international system a certain pendulum is present which swings between the idea of the self-regulating market and 'the embedded liberalism' of the Bretton Woods System. We will also show, that the increasing popularity of populist political parties might be also understood as a countermovement against forces of marketization.
Geopolitics as a multidisciplinary branch of social science and as a theory of foreign policy appeared on the Latin-American continent in the second half of the 1920s. The main features they include are the next: aggressive approach to the space, the continental adaption of the organic state-theory elaborated by Ratzel and Kjellen, moreover, the developed geopolitical theory was thought to be converted into practice via the growing role of the army. In all Latin- American countries the armed forces and their various institutions became the scientific centre of elaborating the new attitude to the international relations as a theory. When the army az an institution assumed the political power, however, it was given an opportunity to put these theories into practice. With the definition of the constant and conjuntural national goals those countries of the vast territories aimed at both re-determination of their international economic and political positions and solving their problems connected with their own inner space. Therefore the regional transitions, the settling in the rarely- populated areas, the usage of sources of raw material and reserves, the control of transport and communication network of international significance and obtaining the influence over the new territories were the problems that in many of those countries came to the front. On the Latin-American continent the geopolitical schools with important theo-retical background were established in Argentina, Brazil and Chile. In this study we are going to introduce the Chilean geopolitical theory and practice established by generals Ramon Cañas Montalva and Augusto Pinochet. Apart from the theoretical outlines we will analyse the Chilean attitude to the possession of the Beagle-channel, The Drake-passage and the Magellan-strait and the Antarctic. ; Geopolitics as a multidisciplinary branch of social science and as a theory of foreign policy appeared on the Latin-American continent in the second half of the 1920s. The main features they include are the next: aggressive approach to the space, the continental adaption of the organic state-theory elaborated by Ratzel and Kjellen, moreover, the developed geopolitical theory was thought to be converted into practice via the growing role of the army. In all Latin- American countries the armed forces and their various institutions became the scientific centre of elaborating the new attitude to the international relations as a theory. When the army az an institution assumed the political power, however, it was given an opportunity to put these theories into practice. With the definition of the constant and conjuntural national goals those countries of the vast territories aimed at both re-determination of their international economic and political positions and solving their problems connected with their own inner space. Therefore the regional transitions, the settling in the rarely- populated areas, the usage of sources of raw material and reserves, the control of transport and communication network of international significance and obtaining the influence over the new territories were the problems that in many of those countries came to the front. On the Latin-American continent the geopolitical schools with important theo-retical background were established in Argentina, Brazil and Chile. In this study we are going to introduce the Chilean geopolitical theory and practice established by generals Ramon Cañas Montalva and Augusto Pinochet. Apart from the theoretical outlines we will analyse the Chilean attitude to the possession of the Beagle-channel, The Drake-passage and the Magellan-strait and the Antarctic.
This thesis is about International Medical Graduates or foreign doctors, trained outside the European Economic Area, who settle permanently in the Netherlands. From the early nineties the number of foreign doctors residing in the Netherlands either as refugees or as partners/spouses of Dutch citizens has risen steadily. Foreign doctors who wish to practise medicine in the Netherlands must obtain a declaration of professional competence, issued by the Department of Public Health, Welfare and Sports (VWS). A considerable number of foreign doctors received negative decisions by the Health Department. They were not allowed to practise medicine in the Netherlands. As a result, from the mid nineties, a growing number of foreign doctors applied to the medical faculties for admission as medical students in order to obtain a Dutch medical degree. Therefore, in 1995, it was decided to institute the Committee Influx Foreign Doctors (CIBA), a central placing committee. Between 1996 and 2007 the CIBA has processed over a 1000 admission requests. Until 2002, in spite of the imminent shortage of doctors, the Department of Health had done little to enhance the use of the expertise brought in by the foreign doctors for the benefit of Dutch society. The focus of this investigation has been: 1. How is it guaranteed that foreign doctors meet the medical quality standards (knowledge, skills, attitude), or how is the assessment of these qualities measured. And 2. After obtaining permanent residency in the Netherlands, do foreign doctors have access to the profession for which they had qualified before in their country of origin or another non-EEA country? Late 2001 the Department of Health and the medical schools were stimulated to cooperate in order to improve the additional training programmes for foreign doctors. It led to the new assessement procedure for foreign doctors that came into force in December 2005. This thesis contains two reports on the medical careers of foreign doctors. These investigations showed that nearly all ...
