The China-Google cyberconflict adds to the debate on the position of China in the world system, & creates insecurities about the ambitions, capabilities and hidden desires of the ‘next hegemon’. It brings together in one discussion a complex matrix of debates: global politics and world-system theorizing, global political economy and many more.
This essay suggests that ‘Europe’ cannot be primarily identified in terms of shared histories, cultures, or even geographies. Consequently, attempts to define the EU supranational paradigm as a teleological institution have failed, no European grand narrative of ‘unity in history’ (or culture, or religion) exists, nor can it exist.
War, like football- two games that are commonly known yet rarely understood. Two games, too often reduced to playing rather than winning, scoring goals rather than attaining them. Precisely because football is so well-established and the game “commonly understood”, it is crucially relevant in understanding small wars (a match between professionals and amateurs)
The strategy of the MST meets numerous challenges from within and outside of the movement. This essay will argue that those challenges are obstacles to its success in the fields of social transformation and political change. Therefore it is questionable if the movement’s strategy for social change has a future in Brazil or if it has reproducible strategy in other national contexts.
Warnings against the political construction of the Self through opposition to a negative-valued, dangerous or threatening Other are common at a time when the discourses of the clash of civilisations have acquired a worryingly prominent place in the public spheres of many different countries. But do we actually need ‘more’ religious and cultural traditions rather than less in order to oppose religiously-inspired political violence?
From the beginning of the twentieth century France’s foreign and defence policy has been impaled on the horns of a dilemma: whether to seek a European or a transatlantic solution to her security problems. Since coming to power in 2007 Nicolas Sarkozy appears to wish to embrace both routes in equal measure. If French history is anything to go by he may not be able to sustain that position for long.
It is wrong to say that Barack Obama rejects the democracy tradition in American foreign policy. His record, appointments and first-year budget requests show that democratization is not being jettisoned as a US goal. To varying extents, the president and his foreign policy principals are liberal internationalists. However there has been a stark rhetorical break from the Bush era.
It is getting boring. American officials make a stout plea for NATO assistance in some out of area effort, praising the alliance as vital to the security of the members and the globe. Meetings are held at which NATO officials underline the importance of the mission and its relevance to the alliance.
Piracy seems to be a notion of ages ago yet it is far from gone. News reports over the last couple of years show that pirates are far from extinct and that they are still very active. This paper discusses some of the actual items on the news today regarding piracy and international law, analyzing piracy today and providing a common understanding of piracy, before looking at its relation to International Law and law enforcement.
There is widespread acknowledgement that Putin’s federal reforms have had considerable success in subordinating regional authorities to the will of central government. And undoubtedly, Putin believed that such reforms were a necessary aspect of reigning in the “emotionalism” and resultant chaos of the Yeltsin years.
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