Suchergebnisse

"Sind Zwangsumsiedlungen ein geeignetes Mittel zur Lösung von Minderheitenkonflikten? Der Vertrag von Lausanne 1923 zwischen Griechenland und der Türkei war der erste prominente Fall, in dem Vertreibung durch eine völkerrechtliche Konvention legalisiert wurde. Das vermeintlich positive Resultat dieser Form von Konfliktlösung hat bis heute Auswirkungen auf die internationale Minderheitenpolitik." (Autorenreferat)

We explore the emergence of formal institutions of majority rule in archaic Greece from a historical and conflict-theoretic perspective. Referring to ancient and modern sources we first conclude that institutions of majority rule entered Greek collective decision-making in the seventh century BC. We argue that this development must be seen in connection with the local economic growth pattern and the adoption of a highly idiosyncratic form of warfare, which enabled Greek city-states to mobilize a greater number of citizens for war. Military participation of citizens depends on parameters of warfare and economic parameters. We show that the reduction of the average costs of fighting, coupled with an increased decisiveness of conflict, may result in an increased military participation rate. The integration of elements of majority rule in the constitution of the city-states was the political consequence of this development. [Copyright Elsevier B.V.]

On June 19, 2017 the European Union and the British government officially commenced negotiations on the terms of the British exit from the union. The dominant view among most economic policy analysts and commentators seems to be that the cards are clearly stacked against Britain and that the high-handed behaviour of the British representatives is, at best, either a bluff or, at worst, a sign of a loss of reality. In this paper we develop a formal model to show how this uncertainty regarding the preferences and strategy of the British side may affect the dynamic of the negotiations and may lead to unanticipated outcomes.

AbstractPointing out the remarkable levels of hostile interaction in the air space over contested territory between states like China and Japan or Greece and Turkey we argue that air space incursions can be interpreted as a rational strategy with ultimately political aims. In our interpretation deliberate intrusions of military aircraft into sensitive air space serve as an indirect risk-generating mechanism, as they will trigger scrambles of the opposed government's air force which may escalate into a military crisis. We derive testable hypotheses from a game-theoretic model, which we developed in earlier work to explore the strategic logic behind this risk-generating mechanism more rigorously. In order to test whether the model's predictions regarding the effect of short-term economic developments on the states' interaction hold, we built a database of daily event observations from the Hellenic National Defence General Staff reports of the last 4 years, containing time series data of Turkish intrusions into Greek-claimed air space and the number of dogfights between Greek and Turkish fighter planes. What we find is that not only Greek engagements of Turkish intruders but also massed, provocative Turkish intrusions have become significantly less likely after the onset of the Greek economic crisis. These findings are well in line with the predictions of the model and thus supportive of our theory.