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9582. Finding space in critical IPE: a scalar-relational approach
- Author:
- Huw Macartney and Stuart Shields
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- Our aim in this essay is to explore how critical international political economy (IPE) is spatially impaired, and how a scalar-relational approach offers a potential solution. By this, we mean that despite the plethora of spatial terms (national, international, global, transnational) applied as levels of analysis, the counter-hegemonic aspects of critical IPE are hamstrung by an inability to account for the production of space and the relations between particular scales.
9583. Facing up to financialisation and the aesthetic economy: high time for aesthetics in international political economy!
- Author:
- Claes Belfrage
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- 'Aesthetics' has been a core concern of modern European philosophy1 (and other subject areas in the Humanities) since Baumgarten's Aesthetica (1750). Its reified dominant meaning is the result of deep struggle and is linked to dominant ideological forms in the capitalist economy, of which International Political Economy (IPE) forms part.
- Political Geography:
- Europe
9584. The case for a foundational materialism: going beyond historical materialist IPE in order to strengthen it
- Author:
- Ian Bruff
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- In recent years, historical materialist International Political Economy (IPE) has been criticised frequently for a worldview that, it is claimed, emphasises in principle the inherently open-ended and contingent nature of societal evolution, but in practice adheres to a deterministic outlook. This, for (especially constructivist and post-structuralist) critics, is the case in even neo-Gramscian contributions, which explicitly discuss the role of ideas and culture as well as class conflict rooted in capitalist production relations.
- Topic:
- Political Economy
9585. AQAP's 'Great Expectations' for the Future
- Author:
- Bruce Riedel
- Publication Date:
- 08-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- CTC Sentinel
- Institution:
- The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
- Abstract:
- American counterterrorism officials recently warned that al-Qa`ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is trying to produce the lethal poison ricin to be packed around small bombs for use in attacks against the U.S. homeland. This latest development is further evidence of AQAP's growing threat to the United States. The group has demonstrated remarkable resiliency and adaptability in its history, surviving several leadership changes and major crackdowns in both Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Its success in the face of adversity is a model for other al-Qa`ida units now threatened. In particular, with al-Qa`ida's core in Pakistan under severe pressure due to Usama bin Ladin's death in May 2011, AQAP provides insights into the jihad's capacity to rally back from defeat.
- Topic:
- Terrorism
- Political Geography:
- Pakistan, America, Yemen, and Arabia
9586. Seeing Russia Straight
- Author:
- Ilan Berman
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Journal of International Security Affairs
- Institution:
- Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs
- Abstract:
- As Russians look to the future, three recent events have shaken the complacency of those hoping for a democratic evolution in the country. The first was the New Year's Eve jailing of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov for his participation in an anti-Kremlin rally. The second was the guilty verdict in the trial of Mikhail Khodor - kovsky, the former head of the Yukos oil company on fresh (and clearly fabricated) corruption charges. The third was the devastating terrorist attack at Domodedovo Airport that left 35 dead and 41 seriously injured.
- Topic:
- Corruption
- Political Geography:
- Russia
9587. Introduction
- Author:
- James Pattison
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- The NATO-led intervention in Libya, Operation Unified Protector, is noteworthy for two central reasons. First, it is the first instance in over a decade of what Andrew Cottey calls “classical humanitarian intervention”— that is, humanitarian intervention that lacks the consent of the government of the target state, has a significant military and forcible element, and is undertaken by Western states. Not since the NATO intervention in 1999 to protect the Kosovar Albanians from ethnic cleansing has there been such an intervention. To be sure, since 2000 there have been some robust peace operations that fall in the gray area between classical humanitarian intervention and first-generation peacekeeping (such as MONUC, the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo). But, even if these operations were to some extent forcible, they had the consent of the government of the target state.
- Topic:
- United Nations
- Political Geography:
- Libya, Kosovo, and Albania
9588. Civilian Protection in Libya: Putting Coercion and Controversy Back into RtoP
- Author:
- Jennifer Welsh
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- As noted by other contributors to this roundtable, the response of the international community to civilian deaths in Libya—and the threat of further mass atrocities—is unusual in two key respects. First, Security Council Resolution 1973 authorized “all necessary measures” to protect civilians without the consent of the “host” state. The Council's intentions, and actions, could not be interpreted as anything other than coercive. Second, in contrast to other crises involving alleged crimes against humanity (most notably Darfur), diplomacy produced a decisive response in a relatively short period of time. Both of these features suggest that many analysts of intervention (including myself) need to revise their previously pessimistic assessments of what is possible in contemporary international politics.
- Political Geography:
- Libya
9589. Libya and the Responsibility to Protect: The Exception and the Norm
- Author:
- Alex J. Bellamy
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- The Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) played an important role in shaping the world's response to actual and threatened atrocities in Libya. Not least, the adoption of Resolution 1973 by the UN Security Council on May 17, 2011, approving a no-fly zone over Libya and calling for “all necessary measures” to protect civilians, reflected a change in the Council's attitude toward the use of force for human protection purposes; and the role played by the UN's new Joint Office on the Prevention of Genocide and the Responsibility to Protect points toward the potential for this new capacity to identify threats of mass atrocities and to focus the UN's attention on preventing them. Given the reluctance of both the Security Council and the wider UN membership even to discuss RtoP in the years immediately following the 2005 World Summit—the High-level Plenary Meeting of the 60th Session of the General Assembly that gave birth to RtoP—these two facts suggest that significant progress has been made thanks to the astute stewardship of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who is personally committed to the principle. Where it was once a term of art employed by a handful of likeminded countries, activists, and scholars, but regarded with suspicion by much of the rest of the world, RtoP has become a commonly accepted frame of reference for preventing and responding to mass atrocities.
- Topic:
- United Nations
- Political Geography:
- Libya
9590. The Ethics of Humanitarian Intervention in Libya
- Author:
- James Pattison
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- Wars and interventions bring to the fore certain ethical issues. For instance, NATO's intervention in Kosovo in 1999 raised questions about the moral import of UN Security Council authorization (given that the Council did not authorize the action), and the means employed by interveners (given NATO's use of cluster bombs and its targeting of dual-use facilities). In what follows, I consider the moral permissibility of the NATO-led intervention in Libya and suggest that this particular intervention highlights three issues for the ethics of humanitarian intervention in general. The first issue is whether standard accounts of the ethics of humanitarian intervention, which draw heavily on just war theory, can capture the prospect of mission creep. The second issue is whether epistemic difficulties in assessing the intervention's likely long-term success mean that we should reject consequentialist approaches to humanitarian intervention. The third issue concerns selectivity. I outline an often overlooked way that selectivity can be problematic for humanitarian intervention.
- Political Geography:
- Libya and Kosovo
9591. "Leading from Behind": The Responsibility to Protect, the Obama Doctrine, and Humanitarian Intervention after Libya
- Author:
- Simon Chesterman
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- Humanitarian intervention has always been more popular in theory than in practice. In the face of unspeakable acts, the desire to do something, anything, is understandable. States have tended to be reluctant to act on such desires, however, leading to the present situation in which there are scores of books and countless articles articulating the contours of a right—or even an obligation—of humanitarian intervention, while the number of cases that might be cited as models of what is being advocated can be counted on one hand.
- Political Geography:
- Libya
9592. RtoP Alive and Well after Libya
- Author:
- Thomas G. Weiss
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- With the exception of Raphael Lemkin's efforts on behalf of the 1948 Genocide Convention, no idea has moved faster in the international normative arena than “the responsibility to protect” (RtoP), which was formulated in 2000 by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS). Friends and foes have pointed to the commission's conceptual contribution to reframing sovereignty as contingent rather than absolute, and to establishing a framework for forestalling or stopping mass atrocities via a three-pronged responsibility—to prevent, to react, and to rebuild. But until the international military action against Libya in March 2011, the sharp end of the RtoP stick—the use of military force—had been replaced by evasiveness and skittishness from diplomats, scholars, and policy analysts.
- Political Geography:
- Libya
9593. Editor's Note
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Insight Turkey
- Institution:
- SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
- Abstract:
- There is no better instrument than the ballot box to decide “who is to govern” if we care about popular legitimacy. No one can question the mandate given by the people through a free and fair election to a political party, irrespective of its ideology, identity and program.
- Political Geography:
- Turkey and Middle East
9594. Unrest in the Arab World: Four Questions
- Author:
- Dietrich Jung
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Insight Turkey
- Institution:
- SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
- Abstract:
- This essay addresses four questions that the “Arab spring” has raised with respect to academic scholarship and policy advice. Why did scholars fail to predict the recent developments? Should we throw the work on Middle Eastern authoritarianism in the garbage bin of academic misinterpretations? In which ways can we support the move toward democracy in the region? Is there a “new Middle East” in the making? In critically examining the scholarly debate about the resilience of Arab authoritarianism, it rejects demands requesting both the predictive power of academic analyses and their direct applicability in foreign policy-making. The continuing interpretation and re-interpretation of the relationship between Islam and politics have absorbed our analytical capacities at the expense of a closer inspection of societal change. In putting the recent events into their international and regional context, the essay tries to give a tentative answer to the question whether we are witnessing a new Middle East in the making.
- Political Geography:
- Middle East
9595. Russia's Counter-Revolutionary Stance toward the Arab Spring
- Author:
- Pavel K. Baev
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Insight Turkey
- Institution:
- SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
- Abstract:
- The wave of uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa has not only affected Russia's interests but also opens some new opportunities for strengthening Russian influence. Nevertheless, the prevalent attitude in Moscow towards these dissimilar but inter-connected crises is negative, which is caused primarily by the nature of its own corrupt quasi- democratic regime haunted by the specter of revolution. The stalled NATO intervention in Libya has re- focused the attention of the Russian leadership on the issue of sovereignty, which determines the decision to disallow any UN sanctions against Syria. Russia's position has evolved in synch with the course taken by China, and Moscow is interested in strengthening this counter- revolutionary proto-alliance by building up ties with conservative Arab regimes, including Saudi Arabia, and also by upgrading its strategic partnership with Turkey. Harvesting unexpected dividends from the turmoil in the Arab world,Russia cannot ignore the risks of a sudden explosion of a revolutionary energy – and neither can it effectively hedge against such a risk.
- Political Geography:
- Russia, China, Middle East, Arabia, Moscow, Saudi Arabia, and North Africa
9596. Prospects for Palestinian Unity After the Arab Spring
- Author:
- Yousef Munayyer
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Insight Turkey
- Institution:
- SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
- Abstract:
- If the revolutions sweeping then Arab world are in fact its “spring” then the Hamas/Fateh reconciliation deal may very well be the first buds this season produced. Whether or not this reconciliation deal will bear any fruit for the Palestinian people, however, is yet to be seen. To best understand the factors affecting the success of the deal, one must have grasp of the history of the relationship between Hamas and Fatah and the role of external actors in that relationship as well. In this commentary I lay out a history of tensions and the role of the US and Israel in driving wedges between the parties. Similar challenges will undoubtedly face this reconciliation attempt and the greatest chances of success can be achieved when both parties put the interests of the Palestinian people ahead of the demands of their external patrons.
- Political Geography:
- United States, Israel, Palestine, and Arabia
9597. Turkish Foreign Policy in the Balkans and "Neo-Ottomanism": A Personal Account
- Author:
- Hajrudin Somun
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Insight Turkey
- Institution:
- SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
- Abstract:
- This essay examines the influence and performance as well as the perception of the new, pro-active Turkish foreign policy in South-East Europe. It emphasizes that certain political and intellectual circles in the Balkans have a different take on Turkey's policies in the region. The paper assesses how Turkey's activism in the Balkans has revived the debate on the Ottoman legacy in the region and Turkey's perceived aspirations to renew its influence under the guise of “neo-Ottomanism.” This paper will also address the impact in this debate caused by the recent book of the well-known Serbian orientalist, Darko Tanaskovic, entitled “Neo-Ottomanism – the Return of Turkey to the Balkans.”
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Turkey, Serbia, and Balkans
9598. Turkey's 2011 General Elections: Towards a Dominant Party System?
- Author:
- Ali Çarkoğlu
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Insight Turkey
- Institution:
- SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
- Abstract:
- Since 2002, the Turkish electoral environment and the party system have been undergoing a significant transformation. The Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) has continued to increase its electoral support for a third time in a row. The declining volatility and fractionalization in the election results together with the expanding geographical base of AKP electoral support may be taken as signs of the emergence of a dominant party system in Turkey. This article offers a descriptive account of the election results and links those results to the literature on the dominant party system. A discussion on the implications of this new development for the evolution of Turkish party system, Turkish political landscape and future elections concludes the article.
- Political Geography:
- Turkey
9599. Economic Liberalization and Class Dynamics in Turkey: New Business Groups and Islamic Mobilization
- Author:
- Gül Berna Özcan and Hasan Turunç
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Insight Turkey
- Institution:
- SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
- Abstract:
- The growth of new capitalist classes since the 1980s has transformed social stratification, multi-party politics and the international political orientation of Turkey. New business groups energized by Islam have facilitated much-needed class mobility. In this process, there has also emerged a confrontational split in middle-class positions between Islamic and secular political outlooks. These new middle classes are engaged in promoting Islam as a strategic resource in the class politics of Turkey and seek protection from the negative effects of market capitalism. More dramatically, these new capitalist classes have redefined the allocation of markets and the distribution of assets while they have increased opportunities for their affiliated groups at home and in foreign markets. However, the paradox between modernity and authenticity remains unresolved for Turkey's old middle classes and the new pious elite alike. Although the Islamic-leaning business groups have become the winners of the new regime, they have increasingly lost their cutting-edge idealism and originality and are being “normalized” as the new establishment.
- Political Geography:
- Turkey
9600. The Syrian Opposition in the Making: Capabilities and Limits
- Author:
- Ufuk Ulutas
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Insight Turkey
- Institution:
- SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
- Abstract:
- Syria became the latest Middle Eastern country to join the chain of protests sweeping across the Middle East. The protests have since spread to several other cities with varying frequency and numbers, and the violent handling of the protests by the Syrian regime has created a protest movement, which has brought forth an array of demands from political reform to the fall of the regime. Opposition in different forms has always existed in Syria and among the Syrian diaspora. However, legal restrictions on social and political activities and the long-lasting atmosphere of fear, perpetrated by the Ba'ath Party and pervasive intelligence services, have so far limited the opposition's organizational capabilities. Despite difficulties and restrictions, the Syrian opposition is in the making. This paper presents a brief analysis of the opposition in Syria, surveys the opposition's fight for survival under the Ba'ath regime, and assesses its current strength and weaknesses.
- Political Geography:
- Middle East and Syria