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After Terror: Promoting Dialogue Among Civilizations.
The article reviews the book "After Terror: Promoting Dialogue Among Civilizations," by Akbar Ahmed and Brian Forst.
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Austrian Neutrality: Burden of History in the Making or Moral Good Rediscovered?
Since the late 1980s, when the importance of neutrality for Austrian politicians and officials significantly decreased, mainstream scholarship on Austrian foreign policy has condemned neutrality to oblivion. Today, these scholars feel considerable disappointment when they confront the return of the idea of neutrality even among previously neutrality-sceptical politicians. The aim of this essay is (1) to show that the inability to comprehend this development is caused primarily by posing the wrong questions and (2) to suggest a different orientation of future research.ABSTRACT FROM AUTHORCopyright of Perspectives: Central European Review of International Affairs is the property of Ustav Mezinarodnich Vztahu, v. v. i. (Institute of International Relations) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract.
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Christien van den Anker: The Political Economy of New Slavery.
The article reviews the book "The Political Economy of New Slavery," edited by Christien van den Anker.
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Complex Systems -- New Conceptual Tools for International Relations.
Globalization, as a social process, induces particular constraints on the analysis of peace and war. The increasing complexity of social systems can only be ignored at the cost of inefficient social intervention and a decrease in the understanding of the phenomena. The distinction between the ‘classical’ and the ‘complex’ system becomes an issue at the core of the epistemological debates. Non-linearity is inherent in politics, and therefore linearity assumptions do not help very much in understanding the non-linearity of the real world. In order to analyse peace and war from a complex systems perspective we need to identify the ways in which the states of peace or war can be stable attractors of the systems. The property which makes the attractors valuable for studying conflicts and peace is their emergent nature. In order to make the concept ‘attractor’ more operational, we analyse the ‘degree of freedom’ of the systems and the way it is diminished by the emergence of certain normative regulations. Social attractors express the limitation on the degree of freedom of the systems. The emergence of a powerful conflictual attractor in the system causes the system to return, after any perturbation, into the state of conflict. On the other hand, the emergence of pacific attractors is a condition for any stable peace. Finally, the case of the European Union is analyzed as an example of a pacific attractor that shaped the post-war European states system.ABSTRACT FROM AUTHORCopyright of Perspectives: Central European Review of International Affairs is the property of Ustav Mezinarodnich Vztahu, v. v. i. (Institute of International Relations) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract.
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Conflict Transformation the Estonian Way: The Estonian-Russian Border Conflict, European Integration and Shifts in Discursive Representation of the "Other".
This article explores the scope and character of the transformation of conflictive relations between Estonia and Russia that has taken place over the past decade in the context of the EU's latest round of enlargement. Examining the allegation regarding the pacifying nature of European integration, I assess the contribution of various ‘pathways of EU influence’ (Diez et al., 2004, 2006) to the shifts in the construction of identity and otherness in Estonian-Russian relations, based on the analysis of (de-) securitising moves as well as references to the EU as a legitimising factor of attitudinal change in elite and public discourses. Focusing primarily on Estonia as one of the new EU member states, I demonstrate that despite some evidence of de-securitisation of the Russian ‘other’ in Estonian elite and public discourses, this transformation has remained limited and uneven and cannot be unequivocally attributed to the effects of European integration. While the construction of Estonia's political identity is still heavily dependent upon a conflictive image of Russia, a large portion of public discourses advocating a more tolerant and secure identity construction vis-à-vis Russia ‘compensate’ for this by a latent antagonism towards Estonian politics with an admixture of Euroscepticism.ABSTRACT FROM AUTHORCopyright of Perspectives: Central European Review of International Affairs is the property of Ustav Mezinarodnich Vztahu, v. v. i. (Institute of International Relations) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract.
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Europe as Empire. The Nature of the Enlarged European Union.
The article reviews the book "Europe as Empire. The Nature of the Enlarged European Union," by Jan Zielonka.
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Germany's Uncertain Power: Foreign Policy of the Berlin Republic.
The article reviews the book "Germany's Uncertain Power: Foreign Policy of the Berlin Republic," by Hanns W. Maull.
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Harald Barrios, Martin Beck, Andreas Boeckh, Klaus Segbers (eds.): Resistance to Globalization: Political Struggle and Cultural Resilience in the Middle East, Russia, and Latin America.
The article reviews the book "Resistance to Globalization: Political Struggle and Cultural Resilience in the Middle East, Russia, and Latin America," edited by Harald Barrios, Martin Beck, Andreas Boeckh and Klaus Segbers.
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Helsinki Process (Negotiations within the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe 1972-1991).
The article reviews the book "Helsinki Process (Negotiations within the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe 1972-1991)," by Andrey Zagorskiy.
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IMF Surveillance and America's Turkish Delight.
Recently, there have been US offers to payoff Turkey for its cooperation in the war against Iraq. They are as follows: First, USD 6 billion were offered in exchange for the use of Turkey's bases during a US attack on Iraq; second, USD 1 billion dollars were offered in exchange for the use of the Turkish air space, contingent upon Turkish compliance with the continued IMF surveillance. It is argued that the United States used the IMF as an agent to impose, monitor, and assess strict financial discipline on Turkey. Borrowing arguments from the growing literature on delegation to international organisations and principal-agent models, this case raises important points and explains how the US have benefited from delegating loan monitoring to the IMF's surveillance function.ABSTRACT FROM AUTHORCopyright of Perspectives: Central European Review of International Affairs is the property of Ustav Mezinarodnich Vztahu, v. v. i. (Institute of International Relations) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract.
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Jan Koehler and Christoph Zürcher (eds.): Potentials of Disorder: New Approaches to Conflict Analysis.
The article reviews the book "Potentials of Disorder: New Approaches to Conflict Analysis," edited by Jan Koehler and Christoph Zürcher.
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Legitimisation Struggles in Hungarian Politics The Contours of Competing Foreign Policies in Prime Ministers' Speeches.
Identity and foreign policy are posited as mutually determining one another in Constructivist theories of International Relations. The present paper focuses on the analysis of Hungarian foreign policy emanating from the identities of the political right and the left. The purpose is to collect the arguments legitimizing the foreign policies pursued by the two sides and see to what extent they add up to a coherent foreign policy, which the country will follow. Despite the rather tense relationship between the two dominant parties, the analysis arrives to the surprising coherence of foreign policy. The paper uses the discourse analysis method to focus on the Prime Ministers' speeches, of the two sides, as the main spokesmen of the dominant parties' foreign policy lines.ABSTRACT FROM AUTHORCopyright of Perspectives: Central European Review of International Affairs is the property of Ustav Mezinarodnich Vztahu, v. v. i. (Institute of International Relations) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract.
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László Csaba: The New Political Economy of Emerging Europe.
The article reviews the book "The New Political Economy of Emerging Europe," by László Csaba.
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Managing Expectations and Hidden Demands: Options for the German EU Presidency.
The ‘pause for thought’ decreed by the heads of state and the government (after the voters in France and the Netherlands rejected the Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe) has been extended for at least another year. The European Council meeting held on the 15<sup>th</sup> and 16<sup>th</sup> of June 2006 did little more than sketch out the way forward for the period 2006-2008. By the end of 2008, decisions should be made about how to continue the reform process. Before anyone can agree on how to move forward, all 27 European Union member states would have to state clearly what goals they are pursuing in the process of institutional reform (a process which all sides agree is necessary) and what steps they believe are required for achieving these goals. In this context, clear statements on the importance of the Treaty and its fate are needed. It is unlikely that Consensus on these issues be achieved among all 27 member states. Regardless, in order to allow a constructive discussion to take place, the 27 member states would have to agree on a shared criteria for assessing the reform proposals, that are on the table and on the options for resolving the ‘constitutional crisis.’ABSTRACT FROM AUTHORCopyright of Perspectives: Central European Review of International Affairs is the property of Ustav Mezinarodnich Vztahu, v. v. i. (Institute of International Relations) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract.
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The European Commission and Member States: Conflict Over Nuclear Safety.
Nuclear energy has received increased attention in the European Union (EU) as a source of energy with the enlargement of 10 members many with Soviet designed nuclear power plants. It has been discussed as an alternative to fossil fuel plants as a strategy to meet Kyoto Protocol goals, reducing greenhouse gas emissions. However nuclear security and safety issues are major concerns. The European Union Commission introduced legislation harmonizing existing safety standards for all Member States. However, a conflict emerged between the Commission and Member States as to whether the EU should expand its legal authority in an area that has been the responsibility of the Member States. EU institutions have been unable to develop harmonized standards for nuclear power plants leaving issues of safety and the long-term disposal of radioactive waste and spent fuel unresolved.ABSTRACT FROM AUTHORCopyright of Perspectives: Central European Review of International Affairs is the property of Ustav Mezinarodnich Vztahu, v. v. i. (Institute of International Relations) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract.
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The European Union's Strategic Non-Engagement in Belarus Challenging the Hegemonic Notion of the EU as a Toothless Value Diffuser.
Beyond the European Union's increasingly fortified eastern border lies the continent's blind spot - Europe's last dictatorship. The Republic of Belarus, which slid into authoritarian rule in the mid-1990s, is amongst the academically most underinvestigated states in contemporary Europe. This article will contribute to the thin body of literature on Belarus by exploring the policies of the European Union, the continent's self-styled bringer of peace and prosperity, towards its unknown eastern neighbour. Within the existing literature on the EU's policies towards Belarus, the article identifies a dominant narrative, which depicts the Union as a ‘toothless value diffuser’. This hegemonic notion shall be challenged and replaced by the concept of ‘strategic non-engagement’, which more adequately describes the EU's approach vis-à-vis Minsk.ABSTRACT FROM AUTHORCopyright of Perspectives: Central European Review of International Affairs is the property of Ustav Mezinarodnich Vztahu, v. v. i. (Institute of International Relations) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract.
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The Geographical and Systemic Influences on Greek Foreign Policy in the Balkans in the 1990s.
The aim of this article is to structurally and operationally link geography to foreign policy. Greek foreign policy will be used as a case study in order to define reasons for policy differentiation between Greece and its EC/EU partners. The analysis builds upon a state-centric assumption of state behaviour according to which a state's foreign policy is determined by geography, culture, threat [mis]perceptions, domestic politics as well as its systemic features such as structure, interactions amongst players, the input and output ratio of the local subordinate system as well as its self-stabilizing potential. The analysis is formulated on the assumption that foreign policy choices are dependent on cultural elements, and that foreign policy cannot be formulated in a vacuum of domestic interests. To support the view that geography and system structure define state behaviour and affect international outcomes, the paper uses the two-security zone typology of M. Singer and A. Wildavsky that operationally and structurally differentiates Greece's environment from that of its EC/EU partners. The emergence of the post-Cold War Balkan subordinate system and its characteristics will provide a causational approach to the adoption of self-help policies that may distance the country from its European partners. To look into the causes of this trend in Greek foreign policy in the 1990s, its policy adjustment margins in a zone of turmoil will be compared to the Western European zone of peace and within Greece's systemic operational framework (Balkan subordinate system).ABSTRACT FROM AUTHORCopyright of Perspectives: Central European Review of International Affairs is the property of Ustav Mezinarodnich Vztahu, v. v. i. (Institute of International Relations) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract.
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The Great Deception. The Secret History of the European Union (Skryté dějiny evropské integrace od roku 1918 do současnosti).
The article reviews the book "The Great Deception. The Secret History of the European Union/Skryté dĕjiny evropské integrace od roku 1918 do současnosti," by Christopher Booker and Richard North.
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Václav Tomek, Ondřej Slačálek: Anarchism: Freedom against Power (Anarchizmus: Svoboda proti moci).
The article reviews the book "Anarchism: Freedom Against Power/Anarchizmus: Svoboda proti moci," by Václav Tomek, Ondřej Slačálek.
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