Display options:
All articles
Alternative Futures for the EU-Turkey Accession Negotiations
Issue:
2013 - Volume 7, Issue 2
ABSTRACT: This work proposes a simple two-period interaction model to study EU-Turkey accession negotiations. Turkey perceives the EU as composed of two distinct groups with respect to its accession: traditional supporters and objectors. Supporters opt for either cooperation or defection in period one...
Improving the ENP and Establishing the Eastern Partnership Initiative: A Czech Perspective
Issue:
2013 - Volume 7, Issue 2
ABSTRACT: The European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) is among the most important external policies of the EU. Unfortunately, it has not substantially influenced EU member states as was intended. This led to other regional EU initiatives that have similar aims but took a more differentiated and country-specific...
In Every Zealot is Deep Doubt: Islamism and the Role of Psychology amongst British Muslim Students
Issue:
2013 - Volume 7, Issue 2
ABSTRACT: Drawing on Razzaque’s seminal book, From Human Being to Human Bomb which identifies patterns of extremist thought processes amongst young British Muslims, this study is the very first attempt at empirically testing such a concept and establishes a precedent for the study of the links between...
Cyberspace in Canadian Security Policy
Issue:
2013 - Volume 7, Issue 2
ABSTRACT: The phenomenon of cyber terrorism, cyber espionage, or even the first examples of using cyberspace to conduct military operations has convinced decision-makers that new solutions to security challenges need to be implemented. Cyber attacks in Estonia and Georgia, multiple incidents in the United...
Agenda Setting of the EU mission in Kosovo – A constructivist read
Issue:
2013 - Volume 7, Issue 1
ABSTRACT: The EU’s paradigmatic conceptual relationship to Kosovo is based on a post-conflict agenda, which seeks the development of a sustainable democracy. According to Laidi, a democracy building agenda in the Balkans gives the EU great leverage and accountability on nation state building. Yet, the...
National Parliaments in the Council: Parliamentary Scrutiny Reserves
Issue:
2013 - Volume 7, Issue 1
ABSTRACT: This research compares the activity of different groups of national parliaments in European decision-making as reflected by the use of parliamentary scrutiny reservations by Member States in the Council. It aims to contribute to the comparative literature on national parliamentary scrutiny...
The Europeanisation of Political Communication: Framing the Online Communication of French Political Parties
Issue:
2013 - Volume 7, Issue 1
ABSTRACT: The aim of this article is to examine the process of online Europeanisation of political communication, both theoretically and through empirical analysis. On one hand, the text emphasises the relationship between the public sphere and the legitimacy of the EU and examines different concepts...
After a Violent Revolution: Romanian Democratisation in the Early 1990s
Issue:
2013 - Volume 7, Issue 1
ABSTRACT: The 2011 uprisings in the Middle East have frequently been compared with the revolutions of 1989 in Central and Eastern Europe. The prospects of the first free elections in countries such as Egypt and Libya gave rise to concerns over the extent to which the regime change can be equated with...
The Regional Policy and Power Capabilities of Jordan as a Small State
Issue:
2013 - Volume 7, Issue 1
ABSTRACT: This article deals with the foreign policy activities of Jordan as a small state with a special focus on the Middle Eastern region. The article explores the impacts of Jordan´s “smallness,” its lack of power capabilities in terms of foreign policy, and its relations with other states in the...
Insurgencies, Border Clashes, and the Security Dilemma: Unresolved Problems for ASEAN
Issue:
2013 - Volume 7, Issue 1
ABSTRACT: The decision to deepen ASEAN cooperation by creating the ASEAN Community and particularly the concept of ASEAN as a Security Community has been debated heavily among academics. As no large scale war has occurred between the member states since the founding of ASEAN in 1967 it is reasonable...
Understanding China’s Global Search for Energy and Resources
Issue:
2013 - Volume 7, Issue 1
ABSTRACT: The need for massive amounts of energy sources, raw materials, and natural resources is, in part, driving Beijing’s defense, energy, and foreign policies. The dynamic economic growth rates experienced over the past twenty years, coupled with increased manufacturing levels, rising exports of...
A Meeting of Minds: Sino-Pakistani Military Relations
Issue:
2013 - Volume 7, Issue 1
ABSTRACT: This paper examines defence cooperation between the People’s Republic of China and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. It suggests that both countries have a strong convergence of security perspectives which encourages continued close ties. However, along with such ties comes the risk of an authoritarian...
Turkey’s Role in European Security Governance
Issue:
2012 - Volume 6, Issue 3-4
ABSTRACT: This article evaluates Turkey’s position in European security governance. In the post-Cold War period, the administration, coordination and regulation of security has been, largely, performed through such an approach which itself is based on three assumptions. Firstly, the meaning of security...
Bosnia and Herzegovina: From Military Conflict to Political Deadlock
Issue:
2012 - Volume 6, Issue 3-4
ABSTRACT: This article engages in the ongoing debate about the overall value of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina (GFAP), which is one of the most challenging issues in the contemporary peace studies scholarship. In order to support scholars who argue that the constitutional...
Defining an Individual Security Community: The EU and ASEAN in Contrast
Issue:
2012 - Volume 6, Issue 3-4
ABSTRACT: This work seeks to reveal differences in the understanding of the concept of security between the EU and the Association of South East Asian States (ASEAN) and to adequately account for such differences. This work considers that ASEAN qualifies as a nascent security community confirming that...
Divide et Impera?: Western Engagement in the Middle East
Issue:
2012 - Volume 6, Issue 3-4
ABSTRACT: One, important, reason driving recent instability in the Middle East is the influence of Western powers on local actors. In the first half of the 20th century the UK and France held significant sway; during the Cold War the US and USSR were dominant. After the Cold War, the US emerged as the...
The Polish Biomass Industry: The Case of Bobolice
Issue:
2012 - Volume 6, Issue 3-4
ABSTRACT: The renewable energy industry has recently gathered momentum due to green awareness, the need to diversify energy sources and the rise in oil and gas prices. In many ways, the Polish biomass industry has greater potential than others new EU members (post-2004). Poland’s size, as well as its...
The Security Council’s Endless Enlargement Debate
Issue:
2012 - Volume 6, Issue 3-4
ABSTRACT: Recent talks on UN Security Council reform mainly focused on enlargement issues based on the competing positions of the G4 (Germany, Japan, Brazil and India) and UfC (core members Italy, Pakistan, Mexico and Egypt); groups which seem unable to reach a compromise in the near future. Even if...
The EU and the Alter-Globalisation Movement’s Actorness
Issue:
2012 - Volume 6, Issue 3-4
ABSTRACT: This article deals with two actors – the European Union and the alter-globalisation movement – and their mutual relationship regarding recognition. Both actors profile themselves internationally as environmental and human and social rights defenders; they both create their own discourses, e.g....
Non-State Military Actors: The Case of the 2011 Libyan Conflict
Issue:
2012 - Volume 6, Issue 3-4
ABSTRACT: Non-state military actors (i.e. private military companies, contractors and/or militias) form an inherent part of the present global system. In many cases, however, the role and participation of non-state military actors appears to be rather ambiguous and unclear. In order to illustrate the...
Five Factors Affecting Stability and Security in the Middle East
Issue:
2012 - Volume 6, Issue 3-4
ABSTRACT: There are five factors that affect security and stability in the Middle East. The first of these is the ticking bomb of sectarianism between the Sunni and Shiite strands of Islam, which have become more widespread in recent years due to the politisation of sectarian tensions and their transformation...
Failed States and Theories: The (Re)Securitisation of Underdevelopment
Issue:
2012 - Volume 6, Issue 3-4
ABSTRACT: Over the past two decades, the term “failed state” has been popularised among both academics and policy-makers. This work seeks to adequately provide for the historical and cultural background driving the term and its theoretical and practical implications. However, the bulk of this work is...
Barriers to Recovery: Continental Crisis and Media Threat Inflation
Issue:
2012 - Volume 6, Issue 3-4
ABSTRACT: From the wars in Vietnam and Iraq to the Arab Spring, recent history is full of examples of how media outlets interact with government processes to shape public opinion and constrain the practical avenues policymakers may take in domestic and international affairs. The recent European financial...
The Arab Spring in French Foreign Policy
Issue:
2012 - Volume 6, Issue 3-4
ABSTRACT: The Greater Middle East has traditionally played a major role in French foreign policy. Following WWI, the 3rd French Republic acquired Syria and Lebanon which created a foundation for political, economic and cultural ties between France and the Arab world. In the post-Cold War era, French...
Dynamics of Peace Management: From Interstate to Inter-Humanity Dialogue
Issue:
2012 - Volume 6, Issue 3-4
ABSTRACT: Traditionally the term “peace” has been defined as the absence of war. Yet, “peace” is closely associated to the term “security” and although “peace” and “security” are both generally referred to in interstate affairs, “peace” is more deeply attached to civil society, since it ultimately suffers...
Balance of Power versus Complex Interdependence
Issue:
2012 - Volume 6, Issue 3-4
ABSTRACT: Both the concepts of Balance of Power and Complex Interdependence attempt to describe the post-cold war international system. We select Offensive Realism (re: Mearsheimer) and Neoliberal Institutionalism (re: Keohane and Nye), for theoretically contextualising the aforementioned concepts. Through...
How the Strong Lose Wars: Transformative Goals and the Outcome of Asymmetric Conflict
Issue:
2012 - Volume 6, Issue 3-4
ABSTRACT: This work proposes an explanation of strong actor failure in asymmetric conflict. It proposes and develops the hypothesis of transformative and non-transformative goals and shows the correlation between strong actor objectives and the outcome of asymmetric conflicts. The central argument of...
Values of the Belgrade Regime
Issue:
2012 - Volume 6, Issue 3-4
ABSTRACT: This article evaluates the legacy of Slobodan Milošević whose regime ruled Serbia for more than a decade from the end of the 1980s until 2000. The article briefly examines the main political and social aspects of the Milošević regime and analyzes a value equation by questioning the social values...
The Politics of Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Issue:
2012 - Volume 6, Issue 3-4
ABSTRACT: Since the explosion of the first atomic weapon the international system has been saddled with perceived threats to national security based around weapons of mass destruction (WMD). This is best seen through the spate of interest by countries to develop nuclear weapons. Hence, nuclear deterrence...
Private Security Companies in the Czech Republic: An Exploratory Analysis
Issue:
2012 - Volume 6, Issue 2
ABSTRACT: Czech private security companies have thus far received relatively little attention both internationally and, until recently, domestically. This article attempts to fill this gap by analysing the key characteristics of the market with more than 6,000 private security companies that together...