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Diplomatic Relations between the Republic of the Philippines and the East European Socialist Bloc under President Ferdinand E. Marcos
Issue:
2014 - Volume 8, Issue 3
ABSTRACT: Diplomatic communiqués between the Philippines and the Eastern European Socialist Bloc found in the Department of Foreign Affairs in the Republic of the Philippines reveals a compendium of original data significant in tracing the inception of diplomatic relations between the Philippines and...
Religion, Identity and Citizenship: The Predicament of Shiʿa Fundamentalism in Bahrain
Issue:
2014 - Volume 8, Issue 3
ABSTRACT: In 2011, Bahrain witnessed an unprecedented wave of political protests that came within a chain of protest movements in other Arab countries, which later came to be known as the “Arab Spring.” Irrespective of the difference in the appellations given to these protests, their occurrence in Bahrain...
Seeking Community Reconciliation through Traditional Ceremonies: A Strategy of Conflict Management
Issue:
2014 - Volume 8, Issue 2
ABSTRACT: The debate on the role of traditional conflict management and reconciliation practices in modern post-war situations has been around for a while. The central concern is whether approaches that reflect the cultural context of the conflict setting would be better suited for responding to the...
Vindicating Neoclassical Geopolitics, Challenging Postmodernism: A NewLook at an Old Problem
Issue:
2014 - Volume 8, Issue 4
ABSTRACT: The objective of this work is to exhort the Academia towards a Neoclassical Geopolitics, both in terms of theory and methodology. The relevance of the problem – the validity of Neoclassical Geopolitics – is based on the hypothesis that geography influences the foreign policies of States. Such...
From BSU to BSEC: The Evocation of Inter-War Geopolitical Fantasies
Issue:
2014 - Volume 8, Issue 4
Abstract: This study charts the political, cultural and economic foundations of two inter-governmental bodies intended to emerge in the Black Sea region: the first, the Black Sea Union (BSU) was an idea developed by Ukrainian geopolitical specialist Yuriy Lypa before World War II. The second is the current...
American “Foreign Policy” in Film: Post-World War II Identity Creation
Issue:
2014 - Volume 8, Issue 2
ABSTRACT: This article continues the author’s previous examination of sub-elite identification through popular film from ‘Three Incarnations of The Quiet American: Applying Campbell’s “foreign policy” to Sub-Elite Identifiers.’ Departing from the argument made in that work, this article examines five...
The Business of Private Security in Europe: The Case of Bulgaria
Issue:
2014 - Volume 8, Issue 3
ABSTRACT: This work offers readers’ information related to the infusion of private businesses into the area of private security in one of the EU’s “new” member states: Bulgaria. The materials and analysis offered in this text attempts to act and an inspirational probe that goes beyond publicly accessible...
Shooting Training of CSI Staff
Issue:
2014 - Volume 8, Issue 4
ABSTRACT: This article focuses on firearms training in the commercial security industry. The article is divided into three parts: in the first, the authors provide a description of firearms in the commercial security industry (hereinafter referred to as CSI). The second part presents and explores some...
Across the Lines of the World State: The Case of the United Nations
Issue:
2014 - Volume 8, Issue 3
ABSTRACT: This work asks how the UN attempts to bypass the current system of states while identifying a series of reinforcing UN efforts that could be utilised to hoist this organisation to the level of acting as a world government. The title of this work – which may be read in two distinct ways – illustrates...
The New Age of the US-EU-Chinese Relations and Dilemmas
Issue:
2014 - Volume 8, Issue 3
ABSTRACT: This article examines the world’s key actors: the US, EU and China, and analyses their political, economic and security relations, as well as stances on geopolitical and global economic development. Asia-Pacific is investigated as the chief determinant of the global development and also, thanks...
The “Marine” Factor: What the Lepenisation of French Politics Really Means
Issue:
2014 - Volume 8, Issue 2
ABSTRACT: Marine Le Pen, president of the French extreme-right party Front National, emerged on the political scene as not only the daughter and heir to Jean-Marie Le Pen, but a smarter and more seductive leader than her father. Her rise – just a few months before the 2012 French presidential elections...
Interregional Divergence of EU-ASEAN Relations: Achievements, Challenges and External Influences
Issue:
2014 - Volume 8, Issue 3
ABSTRACT: Interregionalism is a pragmatic strategy of the EU’s external action and a tool to extend norms and European values to the developing world as well as a tool in the promotion of global governance. In this sense, the EU has built several interregional and trans-regional frameworks around the...
Limits of Human Development in a Weak and Religiously Fractured State: The Case of Lebanon
Issue:
2014 - Volume 8, Issue 2
ABSTRACT: Deploying Lebanon as a case study, this article links the concept of human development to weak and failed states to provide insights into ways to enhance the effectiveness of implementing development strategies. Lebanon serves as an example of a weak state characterised by strong religious...
Israel and Turkey: From Realpolitik to Rhetoric?
Issue:
2014 - Volume 8, Issue 2
ABSTRACT: This article analyses the media discourse on Israel in Turkey during the crisis period that followed Israel’s Operation Cast Lead (2008) and culminated in May 2010, when Israeli armed forced attacked the Mavi Marmara, a ship operated by a Turkish Islamic NGO, leaving nine Turkish activists...
The British Broadcasting Company (BBC): Half a Century of Covering Bahrain
Issue:
2014 - Volume 8, Issue 2
ABSTRACT: Until 1968, Bahrain was a protectorate of the British government during its days of imperial glory, and home to its political agent in the region. Research shows that the first television programme covering events in Bahrain dates back to the 1950‘s making, the British Broadcasting Company...
Yet Another Version of the ‘Arab Spring:’ Ramifications of the Syrian Conflict on the Existing Arab Order and Beyond
Issue:
2014 - Volume 8, Issue 3
ABSTRACT: At the start of 2011, events began to unfold in some of the most stable Arab countries betraying signs of an unpredictable phase in local, regional and even international political life. Nine of the 22 Arab League members were, to varying degrees, undergoing unprecedented mass gestations promising...
Changes in Turkish-Israeli Relations and Implications for Regional Security Environment
Issue:
2014 - Volume 8, Issue 1
ABSTRACT: This work looks at how changes to global, regional and national political landscapes played a role in shaping Turkish-Israeli relations and how this, in turn, affected regional security and development in the Middle East. Specifically, I illustrate how Turkish political actors from the Islamic...
European Civil Society’s Conundrum: Public Spheres, Identities and the Challenge of Politicisation
Issue:
2014 - Volume 8, Issue 1
ABSTRACT: This work draws upon the novel theoretical framework of European civil society which is based on the complementary concept of civil society. It claims that relations between the Europeanised public spheres, political identities and the politicisation of the EU present an intricate and crucial...
‘I am Georgian and therefore I am European:’ Re-searching the Europeanness of Georgia
Issue:
2014 - Volume 8, Issue 1
ABSTRACT: ‘I am Georgian and therefore I am European.’ These words spoken by the late Georgian Prime Minister, Zurab Zhvania, in front of the Council of Europe in 1999. During the speech, he expressed Georgia’s EU aspirations and outlined the country’s foreign policy agenda for the next decade. Since...
Deconstructing and Defining EULEX
Issue:
2014 - Volume 8, Issue 1
ABSTRACT: Hailed as the greatest European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) mission to date, the European Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX) has been oscillating between fulfilling its mission statement crafted in Brussels, while managing the controversial ethnic expectations of the local population...
The Fading Halo of Religious Elites: A Comparative Study of the Effects of Religious Motivation on Nonviolence and Democratic Stability in Poland and Egypt
Issue:
2014 - Volume 8, Issue 1
ABSTRACT: Why has the democratic transition in Egypt stalled? The nonviolent nature of successful uprisings may be an important cause of the subsequent religious radicalisation and volatility of the new regimes. Nonviolent opposition can attract, and be sustained by, the involvement of religious elites....
Clientelism within Arabian Gulf States and Beyond: A Comparative Study
Issue:
2014 - Volume 8, Issue 1
ABSTRACT: Clientelism is a widespread phenomenon, often resulting from preexisting socioeconomic conditions such as inequalities, government dominance over the economy, and deficiencies in political institutions. State formation ushered vote buying into clientelistic behaviour and reinforced brokerage...
Is Regime Change a Solution For the Iranian Nuclear Crisis?
Issue:
2013 - Volume 7, Issue 4
ABSTRACT: Since 2002, the Iranian nuclear crisis had drawn the attention of the international community and – despite renewed negotiations in the 5+1 formula – remains one of the most salient threats to international security. The ineffectiveness of preventive means already deployed in a bid to solve...
Developing the Methods of Estimation and Forecasting the Arab Spring Events
Issue:
2013 - Volume 7, Issue 4
ABSTRACT: An assessment of the current state, and a forecast, of the social instability in the Arab world – re: in the Arab Spring processes – is an important, relevant and daunting task. Difficulties are related to the variety of factors affecting social instability, to individual peculiarities of historical,...
Overcoming the State Centred Theory of International Sanctions: Non-State Actors’ Strategies towards the Implementation of International Sanctions
Issue:
2013 - Volume 7, Issue 4
ABSTRACT: In this article I argue that non-state actors (NSAs) can play an important role in international sanctions politics, which has been underestimated due to the state-centred view of international sanctions theory. Even though NSAs do not have access to the decision making process and, until the...
Interwar Views on ManagingEastern European Space: Exploring Lypa’s Conceptualisation of theBlack Sea States Union
Issue:
2013 - Volume 7, Issue 4
ABSTRACT: Few people realise that the idea of establishing a Black Sea Union (BSU) – a regional bloc along the Black Sea littoral – was proposed in the immediate aftermath of WWII. This idea was primarily developed and advocated by Yuriy Lypa, a Ukrainian inter-war political thinker (1900-1944). In his...
Dynamics of Eastern Europeanisation and the Impact of “Membership Credibility” in EU Enlargement Rounds
Issue:
2013 - Volume 7, Issue 4
ABSTRACT: Research on EU enlargement-led Europeanisation has extensively focused on countries from Central Eastern Europe (CEE) and only recently enriched with studies dealing with specific issues and/or countries of the Western Balkans. Yet, a more comprehensive study across current and previous potential...
Western Imaginary and Imagined Defense Strategies of Eastern Europe and its Borderlands
Issue:
2013 - Volume 7, Issue 4
ABSTRACT: This work discusses how the Western imaginary or the way “the West looks East” reinforces the construction of “unstable” or ambivalent identities in the new European countries, as well as the margins of Eastern Europe. Particularly, it deals with the Western discourses that locate Eastern Europe...
Politics and Religion in Europe: The Case of the Roman Catholic Church and the European Union
Issue:
2013 - Volume 7, Issue 4
ABSTRACT: The rise of religion in international politics is often treated as a self-evident trend of recent decades. But what exactly is new about religion in global affairs that it deserves such focused attention? Is it the growing numbers of believers of major religions, or the increasing fundamentalist...
Arms for Arbenz. Czechoslovakia's involvement in the Cold War in Latin America
Issue:
2013 - Volume 7, Issue 3
ABSTRACT: This article introduces an under-researched historic problem about the relationship between Czechoslovakia and Guatemala during the protracted Guatemalan Revolution (1944-1954). Czechoslovak relation with Guatemala were already established during the interwar period when the (relatively) small...