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Adoption of Socially Responsible Investment Practices in the Chinese Investment Sector: A Cost-Benefit Approach
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2007 - Volume 1, Issue 2
In 2003, ten of the world’s largest private banks, in cooperation with the International Finance Corporation, voluntarily committed themselves to adopting social and environmental investment-standards. Since then, 54 institutions from 21 states, active in over a 100 countries have adopted these...
Uzbekistan: An Important Regional and International Actor
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2007 - Volume 1, Issue 1
As an Uzbek national I often encounter questions regarding the current situation, and regional and international significance of Uzbekistan. Precious little information and knowledge is readily available, and many people seem to confuse other regional conflicts, for example in Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan...
History under the Threat of Politics
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2007 - Volume 1, Issue 1
There is a church in the centre of Prague, near Karlovo Namesti. One who is unfamiliar with its history may simply pass it by. As many buildings in Prague, it is charming; retaining its own history and specificity. Nevertheless, there is a unique story attached to this particular church. On the south...
The Peace Process in Northern Ireland: A Real Breakthrough?
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2007 - Volume 1, Issue 1
Although ‘friendship’ was not on offer, March 26th 2007 witnessed a historical moment when leaders of the two main parties representing rival factions of society in Northern Ireland sat down at the same table. Who would ever have imagined Ian Paisley, a hawkish protestant cleric heading the...
US Missile Defence in Central Europe: A Comment
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2007 - Volume 1, Issue 1
Three different missile defence systems are currently operational or under construction within the European theatre. These are: 1) NATO Missile Defence, 2) NATO Layered Theatre Ballistic Missile Defence and, 3) an American Missile Defence initiative (achieved bilaterally). Recently, the American system...
Small Scale Successes and Hope in the Horn of Africa
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2007 - Volume 1, Issue 1
In November 2006, I traveled to Ethiopia to join an international medical mission organized by ‘Operation Smile;’ a twenty-five year old, non-profit organization, based in Norfolk, Virginia, which provides free cleft palette and cleft lip surgery to the economically disadvantaged worldwide....
Towards Supranational Governance in EU Counter-Terrorism? – The Role of the Commission and the Council Secretariat
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2010 - Volume 4, Issue 1
Since the events of 11 September 2001 (9/11), it has been argued by some scholars that security has become the dominant force in the European Union’s Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ). As a result, there has been an active debate on the ‘securitization’ of the new threats, such as refugees...
The Use and Effectiveness of Migration Controls as a Counter-Terrorism Instrument in the European Union
Issue:
2010 - Volume 4, Issue 1
Since the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001, the issue of the linkages between security concerns, in particular terrorism, and asylum and migration policies in the European Union (EU) has received an increasing amount of scholarly attention (see Guild, 2003a; Guild, 2003b; Baldaccini and Guild,...
Perceptions of the Terrorist Threat among EU Member States
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2010 - Volume 4, Issue 1
The European Union’s (EU) efforts in the fight against terrorism have already been analysed in a number of scholarly articles and edited volumes. While differing substantially in their scope, depth and focus, most analyses have identified important gaps and shortcomings of the nascent EU Counterterrorism...
Bringing Effectiveness into the Debate: A Guideline to Evaluating the Success of EU Targeted Sanctions
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2010 - Volume 4, Issue 1
The relevance of international sanctions has increased since the end of the Cold War as states and international organisations have resorted to this foreign policy tool more frequently than in the past. The European Union (EU) has contributed to this trend by using sanctions in more than twenty different...
Assessing the Effectiveness of EU Sanctions Policy
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2010 - Volume 4, Issue 1
While the European Communities (ECs) has applied autonomous sanctions for many years, their character has significantly changed since the 1990s. Such changes may be the result of the transformation of the ECs into the European Union (EU), and to the creation of its second pillar; the Common Foreign and...
Western Values and Strategic Interests? Evaluating Potential Georgian Membership in NATO
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2010 - Volume 4, Issue 1
Since the Russian-Georgian conflict in August 2008, the Republic of Georgia’s potential membership in NATO has been a hotly contested issue. Unfortunately, the arguments on both sides of the debate often rely on catchphrases such as “vibrant democracy” and “corrupt authoritarianism” without referencing...
Moving Together Toward an Uncertain Future: US-European Counterterrorism Vision, Responses & Cooperation Post-9/11
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2010 - Volume 4, Issue 1
The lead-up to the Iraq War, and its conduct, highlighted significant differences in transatlantic perspectives, capabilities, and methods. While terrorism has generally been America’s central fixation since 9/11 (until the recent economic recession), Europe sees terrorism as only one of several important...
Europe and the United States in the “Asian” 21st Century: The Political, Economic and Security Context
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2010 - Volume 4, Issue 1
While, at the western end of Eurasia, most European states are taking part in a great experiment; broadening and deepening their political, economic and security integration within the EU, at the eastern end of Eurasia, an experiment of no less importance is underway. China, the world’s most populous...
What We Talk About When We Talk About Democracy Assistance: The Problem of Definition in Post-Conflict Approaches
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2010 - Volume 4, Issue 1
Since the early 1990s, one of the most striking characteristics to emerge in post-conflict peacebuilding has been the prime position assumed by democratisation; an approach we can term post-conflict democracy assistance. This focus has hinged on an unerring belief that democratic governance, provided...
Questioning the Dominance of Military Means: The Bush Administration’s Fight against Terrorism
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2010 - Volume 4, Issue 1
This work is devoted to investigating the variety of approaches that the US presidential administration of George W. Bush deployed to counter terrorism following 9/11. This topic deserves special attention because Bush’s approach to fighting terrorism is often misconceived as primarily or even only,...
Evaluating Sub-State Participation in the History of International Health Co-operation
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2010 - Volume 4, Issue 1
The Treaty of Westphalia is often referred to as the point of departure in the history of international relations. It was in 1648 that the modern state system was established and the concept of national sovereignty born. Today, these two concepts remain essential elements that govern interstate relations....
Iraqi Insurgent Media: The War of Images and Idea
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2007 - Volume 1, Issue 2
Presented primarily in Arabic on an array of websites unknown to most Americans and Europeans, Iraqi insurgent media hover at the margins of mainstream reports in the form of a "claim of responsibility on an insurgent website" or a "video posted to a jihadist forum." Such marginal references fail to...
The Role of Diasporas in Foreign Policy: The Case of Canada
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2007 - Volume 1, Issue 2
Diasporas engage in a range of trans-national activities for political purposes. Forcefully dispersed or conflict-generated diasporas are more prone to be politically engaged than diasporas whose members have moved for economic reasons or in order to improve their standards of living. While some of these...
Security Sector Reform (SSR) in Post-Conflict States: Challenges of Local Ownership
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2007 - Volume 1, Issue 2
While the term Security Sector Reform has been widely used in the post-conflict peace-building context, further clarification is needed to reveal a larger significance. The OECD's Guidelines on Security System and Governance Reform defines security sector reform as; [it] includes all the actors, their...
Humanitarian Arms Control, Symbiotic Functionalism and the Concept of Middlepowerhood
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2007 - Volume 1, Issue 2
This article arises from dissatisfaction with predominant accounts concerning changes in interactions between nongovernmental actors and governments in contemporary world politics, namely the image of a tension between so-called state-centric and transnational worlds. Specifically, it can be conceived...
The Gratuitous Suicide by the Sons of Pride: On Honour and Wrath in Terrorist Attacks
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2007 - Volume 1, Issue 2
In the Western philosophic and literary tradition to be without home or country is a fate that both demands our loathing and pity. As Aristotle characterized it, a man born without a city is either a "beast or a god". Such beings Aristotle maintains, since they cannot properly be called human, have a...
Israeli Security Doctrine between the Thirst for Exceptionalism and Demands for Normalcy
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2007 - Volume 1, Issue 2
Israeli security has been invoked time and again to explain Israeli behavior and justify Israeli actions vis-à-vis neighboring states and peoples. Yet there have been few insights into the manner in which Israeli security doctrine3 has been formulated, the various factors that have shaped and influenced...
EU Counterterrorism Policy and the 2004 Eastern Enlargement
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2007 - Volume 1, Issue 1
The European Union’s counterterrorism policy can be traced to the early 1970s, when the European Political Cooperation (EPC) came into being. The initial impetus for greater intergovernmental cooperation among Member States was the growth of terrorist incidents perpetrated by indigenous Western European...
Conscription and European Security: A Theoretical First-Step
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2007 - Volume 1, Issue 1
In the 18 year process of European reintegration, military conscription – as a feature of the European political scene – has largely vanished. The evaporation of sizeable, conscripted militaries reflects the widespread belief that conscription is a political, economic and military anachronism reminiscent...
The Privatization of Peace: Private Military Firms, Conflict Resolution and the Future of NATO
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2007 - Volume 1, Issue 1
The end of the Cold War marked the beginning of a new world order and an end of regional strategic patronage of superpowers. Withdrawing support to client regimes created a power void that prompted developing countries – which previously relied on major powers for their security and stability – to look...
Demos and Ethnos: Dangerous Democratisation in Pre-Genocide Rwanda
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2007 - Volume 1, Issue 1
The last decades of the twentieth century witnessed a worldwide wave of democratisation. In Sub-Saharan Africa alone, twenty-one states had, by 1990, embarked on a process to liberalise their political arena, leading to the ousting of eleven authoritarian leaders. The democratisation process in many...
Humanitarian Intervention, Dirty Hands, and Deliberation
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2007 - Volume 1, Issue 1
Let’s begin with a short exegesis of humanitarian intervention couched in terms of just war theory (JWT), in order to establish some practical and moral guidelines for the former. Of course, these criteria of action are meant as relatively specific and tight practical and moral constraints for the purposes...
Search for a European Identity - Psycho-Sociological Perspective
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2007 - Volume 1, Issue 1
Many authors distinguish between collective and individual identity, or between the collective and individual dimensions of identity (e.g. Calhoun 1994, Taylor 1989). At first glance it seems quite obvious that European identity is a collective identity or a collective dimension of identity. On closer...
EU Official Development Aid to the Palestinian Authority and the Rise of Hamas
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2007 - Volume 1, Issue 1
The economic situation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip is to a large extent determined by its security condition. Given that a considerable part of Palestinians work on Israeli territory, the 2000 intifada followed by the closure of the borders, stringent checkpoint controls and eventually leading...