Suchergebnisse

This article presents a critical discourse analysis of the Baltic states' self-positioning within European foreign policy. It argues that, despite certain relief in their immediate security concerns after the dual enlargement of the EU and NATO, the shift from existential politics to normal politics by the Baltic states is far from being accomplished. The way in which the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) have responded to the construction of their identity as 'Europe but not Europe' throughout the enlargement processes of the EU and NATO has been largely neglected in empirical studies on their post-Cold War self-conceptualizations in the European arena. Yet, the experience of being framed as simultaneously in Europe and not quite European has left a constitutive imprint on the current security imaginary of the Baltic states. William Connolly's concept of the politics of becoming is thus applied to analyse the Baltic version of becoming a subject in the field of common European foreign policy.

The European Commission's New Pact on Migration and Asylum, adopted in September 2020, presents a series of legislative proposals in pursuit of an integrated approach to the reality of migration. However, to date there does not seem to be a real consensus among Member States to achieve a genuine common migration policy. On the other hand, the possible impact of the New Pact on the Common Security and Defense Policy demonstrates, in our opinion, a clear recognition of its work in border control and the fight against illegal immigrant. ; El Nuevo Pacto sobre Migración y Asilo de la Comisión Europea, aprobado en septiembre de 2020, presenta una serie de propuestas legislativas en la consecución de un enfoque integrado ante la realidad migratoria. No obstante, no parece que exista a fecha de hoy un auténtico consenso entre los Estados miembros a fin de lograr una verdadera política migratoria común. Por otra parte, la posible incidencia del Nuevo Pacto en la Política Común de Seguridad y Defensa demuestra, en nuestra opinión, un claro reconocimiento a su labor de control fronterizo y lucha contra el tráfico ilícito de inmigrantes.

This paper argued that the development of the Philippine uplands can significantly contribute in achieving the country's food security objectives through the role of institutions and governance. This paper analyzed the institutional and governance issues that confront agricultural development in the Philippine uplands by examining the past and present literatures that directly and indirectly affected the efforts to achieve food security at the global and domestic arena. Critical institutional and governance issues (as affected by Philippine laws, policies and programs, particularly the Local Government Code of 1991, the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act, Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program , Community Based Forest Management, etc) such as decentralization and multiplicity of agencies, under-investment, lack of institutional capabilities and weak collective action and security of tenure among upland farmers have collectively contributed in the failure of the government to address agricultural development in the Philippine uplands as one of the major options left to achieve food security. This study recommends that Food Security stakeholders should craft an Research Development and Extension RDE agenda that directly support achievement of the food security challenges by providing knowledge and tools to support a policy and institutional environment in which upland agriculture can fully contribute to food security. The RDE design should focus on policies, institutions and governance to improve impacts on the ground in the area of enabling institutions and governance for the upland poor. The proposed RDE should be focused on achieving a more capable, effective and equitable institutional arrangements to strengthen the upland poor's access to rural services, property rights, collective action, and assets to be able to contribute to upland agricultural development and food security.

This paper focuses on Iran's foreign policy towards the Caucasus and Central Asia regions in the post-Soviet Union era, using a theoretical approach which stresses the importance of historical and geographical contextualization for the analysis of foreign policy. The article's main argument is that Iranian foreign policy towards these regions in the last 25 years, although the result of a complex and multi-layered decision-making process, has been led by two unifying long-term objectives: regional stability and national security. In order to demonstrate this argument, the article undertakes a factual analysis focusing on the role Iran played during the main regional conflicts that have occurred since the Soviet Union's collapse in Central Asia and the Caucasus, as well as the diplomatic re-engagement Iran has been building with the countries of these two regions after the end of the Iran nuclear deal. Standard interpretations of Iran's foreign policy define it as a player with hegemonic ambitions whose foreign policy is mainly led by ideological factors. This paper assumes that foreign policy's analysis needs time and space contextualization. Once historical and geographical factors are taken into account—of which the most important are Iran's proximity to Russia and Afghanistan along with its international diplomatic isolation due to nuclear sanctions—then Iran's foreign policy in Central Asia and the Caucasus appears to be that of a regional power interested in maintaining the existing status quo. Stability and territorial integrity in these two regions in fact are seen by Teheran as necessary conditions for Iran's own territorial integrity and internal security. The paper is based on both secondary and primary sources, most of them official statements, all in the public domain.

Europe is implementing common security systems, but does not seem that they are well-functioning and integrated. Beyond of the technical difficulties, we believe that problems of poor cooperation between the States are present and that a cause of this stems from the concerns about migration and its regulation at European level. After reporting on the major issues on European security agencies, Europol, SIS and VIS, we dwell on the Eurodac system, created for the control of asylum seekers arriving in Europe. We argue that some European regulation, like the Dublin agreement on asylum seekers, puts improper incentives, dampening a cooperative behaviour of the participants to the European Union. We argue that this, among other things, derives from rival interests of the various States, and that this has negative implications on the construction of a European intelligence system.

One aftermath of the Madrid Peace Conference was establishment of a multilateral track (the "multilaterals") by the United States designed to address issues of region-wide concern, such as arms control and regional security, economic development, water, the environment, and refugees. For the first time since Israel's creation, Israel and Arab states gathered together specifically to address regional issues of mutual concern, marking a major turning point in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Despite problems, the multilaterals produced joint projects and unprecedented regional economic conferences, and the first regional Arab-Israeli institutions. Among the most significant of these institutions is the Bank for Economic Cooperation and Development in the Middle East and North Africa, or the MENABANK. The MENABANK was primarily created to serve the political objectives of the peace process, creating cooperative outlets for Arab-Israeli interaction that would establish a favorable regional climate for peacemaking. This paper uses the MENABANK case to explore the sources of new regional institutions and to illustrate larger lessons about the forces supporting and impeding regional multilateral cooperation. Conceptually, international relations scholarship has begun to recognize the need to focus on the question of regional orders which, outside the European context, have been greatly ignored. The question of building regional institutions as part of these orders is particularly important, especially because such institutions can help facilitate more stable relations if constructed properly. But institution building, like any political process, is a contentious exercise that deserves careful study, a point well illustrated by the MENABANK.

The status of women and their role in community and family
decision. making, including timing and number of births and choice of
contraception, have an important bearing on improving the standard of
living, success of family planning and long• term reduction in fertility
of a country. In a society, whose women depend on their children for
social and economic security and lack legitimate alternatives to
childbearing, fertility is likely to be high. Mandelbaum [34] summarised
a number of studies relating to fertility and motivation in Indian
society. The most commonly reported reason for desiring large families
was the absence of alternative roles for women to the role of
wife-mother. This absence of alternative roles for women has often been
suggested as a stumbling block to diffusion of small family size norm in
developing countries [56; 37J. For effective reduction of population
growth, the proponents of the 'beyond family planning approach'
emphasize the complementarity of the roles of men and women, creation of
alternatives to childbearing and reduction of dependence on children by
providing educational opportunity and economic independence for women
[56; 2; 3; 15; 28]. Of particular interest is the nature of relationship
between female education, labour force participation and conjugal role
of women on the one hand and fertility and the use of contraception on
the other. In this study, an attempt is made to examine the dynamics of
the relationship between female labour force status and fertility
behaviour (i.e. use of contraception and fertility) and also to evaluate
the implication of the relationship for reduction of fertility,
particularly with reference to the developing countries of the world.

Global security concerns, acts of terrorism and organised crime activity have motivated nation states to delve into implementing measures of mass surveillance in cyberspace, the breadth of which was partly revealed by the whistleblower Edward Snowden. But are modern nation states fighting a battle in the wrong space? Is mass surveillance of cyberspace effective and are the conventional metaphors of technology control appropriate for it? Can algorithms detect, classify and decide effectively on what constitutes suspicious activity? We argue that as cyberspace is a construct that has only recently been viewed strategically, let alone indoctrinated (the UKs cyber-security strategy is only four years old), the societal impact of such bulk measures is yet much unclear – as are the assumptions about the fitness of state organisations that are charged with their oversight and the potential for unintended consequences. Recent experiences highlight the role of multiple forms of intelligence inputs, especially human- and community-based, and the need for application of such intrusive measures in a targeted manner. We believe that intrusive measures, where necessary, must be used decoupled from the seductive promises of advanced technology and ought to go hand-in-hand with means that strengthen the affected communities to identify, report and battle extremism and organised crime, in ways that safeguard the fundamental principles of our contemporary democratic Western states.

AbstractThis article sets the scene for the Special Issue 'Reaching for allies?' by setting out the research questions and structure of the Special Issue. Specifically, this introduction reviews the state of the art of dialectics interweaving International Relations and Area Studies. Specifically, it focuses on tracing the genealogy of these debates, identifying the actors engaged with them, as well as, mapping those sites where such transdisciplinary knowledge is produced and circulated. We also provide an assessment of the interaction between the two disciplinary traditions as scholarly disciplines by reviewing the field as it had developed in the last decade since 2013. In order to do so, we present data on the brokers of this dialogue by analysing top-ranked Journals across regions, dedicated Special Issues on the matter as well as main international conferences and participants. Overall, this article provides a threefold contribution: first, we provide an account of the globalization of knowledge production and circulation that has also increasingly decentred, valuing local peculiarities and epistemological traditions beyond the Western academia(s). Second, we assess and discuss how Western and non-Western academics have contoured concepts which demand and entail site-intensive techniques of enquiry, exposure to complexities on the grounds, ethnographic sensitivity, and, at the same time, comparative endeavours going beyond area specialisms. Third, by looking at international and regional policy-making milieus with attention to context-specificity, we believe critical policy-relevant implications can be discussed, specifically in relation to local ownership and bottom-up approaches.

Procurement programmes in Asia appear to be focused on asymmetric relationships and defensive strategies of denial rather than control. The result may not resemble the classical security dilemma. (Survival / SWP)

Talks on NATO-Russia missile-defence cooperation were suspended in April during the crisis over Crimea. In retrospect, the window for a real breakthrough had closed some18 months earlier. (Survival / SWP)