Suchergebnisse

Canada has found itself in serious diplomatic disputes over the past year with Saudi Arabia and China. The Saudis took issue with the Canadian foreign minister's call to release human rights activists from prison, whereas China was angry at Canada's arrest of a senior Chinese executive on an extradition request from the United States. These incidents should not be viewed as isolated aberrations. Authoritarian regimes seem increasingly emboldened to lash out at countries that displease them, including allies of the United States. But Ottawa has succeeded in rallying considerable international support for its position in the China dispute, suggesting that while Canada may be exposed, it is not destined to be alone.

El presente fragmento introduce los argumentos de Roland Paris acerca de la construcción de las paz postbélica. Paris critica la metodología empleada durante los noventa por las misiones de construcción de la paz que trataron de implementar reformas democráticas y liberales demasiado rápido. Aunque Paris sostiene que la meta principal todavía debe ser convertir países destrozados por la guerra en sistemas democráticos de mercado, mantiene que la introducción de tales reformas sin suficientes instituciones gubernamentales puede provocar la recaída de estos países en el conflicto. Por lo tanto, propone una nueva estrategia de "institucionalización antes que de liberalización", que implica la construcción inicial de una base institucional para luego permitir la introducción de reformas democráticas y liberales que fomenten una paz duradera ; This fragment introduces Roland Paris's argument regarding post-conflict peace building. Paris criticises methods used during the nineties by peace building operations for trying to implement democratic reforms and liberalisation too quickly. Whilst Paris maintains that the principal objective still should be to convert war torn countries into market democracies he believes that the implementation of such reforms without sufficient government institutions can provoke the regression of these countries into conflict. Therefore, he proposes a new strategy "institutionalisation before liberalisation" that first builds a strong institutional base, which he argues may then allow the introduction of democratic and liberal reforms capable of creating a lasting peace

For many students of global governance who explore the myriad institutions, rules, norms, and coordinating arrangements that transcend individual states and societies, what really marks the contemporary era is not the absence of such governance but its "astonishing diversity." In addition to "long-standing universal-membership bodies," such as the United Nations, writes Stewart Patrick, "there are various regional institutions, multilateral alliances and security groups, standing consultative mechanisms, self-selecting clubs, ad hoc coalitions, issue-specific arrangements, transnational professional networks, technical standard-setting bodies, global action networks, and more." The proliferation and diversification of governance mechanisms—yielding a jumble of formal and informal arrangements—has supplanted the simpler image of state representatives gathering at official assemblies. Many scholars believe this pluralism opens important new avenues for tackling a growing array of complex transnational problems, particularly at a time when the responsiveness of traditional multilateral institutions is being called into question.

How do foreign actors involved in 'regime change' decide which kinds of domestic governance structures to promote in place of the regimes they have deposed? Most of the literature on foreign-imposed regime change assumes that interveners make such decisions based on rational calculations of expected utility. This article, by contrast, contends that interveners are predisposed to promote political arrangements that correspond to their own governance 'schemas', or taken-for-granted assumptions about the nature of political authority. These patterns are examined in relation to the US-led regime-change invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. In both cases, the interveners appeared to be guided – and partially blinded – by their own governance schemas. Yet, if schemas have these effects, they should also be visible in cases where interveners held very different assumptions about governance and the 'state' than those held by US officials in Afghanistan and Iraq. To probe this possibility, this article also examines an older, non-Western case of intervention – the Mongol invasion and occupation of northern China in the thirteenth century – a case that yields similar results and highlights the need for additional historical research in this field.