Search

Begin New Search Journal International Politics

101. Institutional regionalism versus networked regionalism: Europe and Asia compared

Author:
Lay Hwee Yeo
Publication Date:
05-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
For much of the second half of the twentieth century, regionalism has been conceptualized with reference to Europe. The European Union (EU) is seen as the most successful example of regional integration and this 'model' is largely based on an exclusive 'institutional' regionalism where integration is achieved through endowing specific institutions with far-reaching decision-making powers to shape the behaviour of the member states. In contrast, the East Asian region-building process seems to operate on a different logic, with an emphasis on open-ended networked regionalism. This article sketches out the process of regional construction in Europe and East Asia and attempts to develop and contextualize the idea of networked regionalism in order to assess how useful it can be in explaining the trajectory and contours of region-building in East Asia.
Political Geography:
Europe, East Asia, and Asia

102. The European Union's Asia strategies: Problems of foreign policy and international relations

Author:
Michael Smith and Natee Vichitsorasatra
Publication Date:
05-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
European Union (EU)–Asia relations raise linked problems (on the one hand) of EU collective action and identity and (on the other hand) of cooperation. The relationship is characterized by complexity and variety in three dimensions: first, 'voices' and history; second, institutional engagement and structure; and third, issue structure. In order to explore the implications of this complexity and variety, and to generate propositions for further research, we deploy International Relations theories based on material interests, ideas and institutions. These help us to demonstrate not only the application of 'analytical theory' but also the role of 'practitioner theory' in the evolution of relations between the EU and Asia, and thus to reflect systematically on the problems of collective action and cooperation identified at the beginning of the article.
Topic:
International Relations and Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
Europe and Asia

103. Regions in the world: The EU and East Asia as foreign policy actors

Author:
Cesar de Prado
Publication Date:
05-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
This article argues that multidimensional regional processes have an external projection that may be explained by their semi-liberal governance structures. It analyses the European Union (EU) and the East Asian grouping of countries, focussing on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the active participation of Japan, South Korea and the People's Republic of China within ASEAN Plus Three. Both regional processes have a multi-level external projection as seen in their links with key states (especially the United States), other regional processes, and global regimes like the UN and the G20. In both cases, one finds that public actors have to collaborate with private actors, although they do so in a restricted fashion and often using think tanks and elite public-private intellectual (track-2) actors. The comparative analysis concludes with some hypotheses regarding the consolidation of regional processes in the world.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and United Nations
Political Geography:
Russia, China, Taiwan, East Asia, South Korea, and Southeast Asia

104. China–Europe relations: The limits of strategic partnership

Author:
Pradeep Taneja
Publication Date:
05-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
The China–European Union (EU) relationship has grown rapidly over the past three decades with international trade being its mainstay. China and the EU also share a number of common strategic interests and positions. To maximize the potential of this relationship, both sides decided to build a comprehensive strategic partnership. However, serious differences remain between the two sides on questions of norms and values, delaying progress on a strategic framework. This article argues that while these differences constitute a serious obstacle to the realization of a genuine strategic partnership, the growing importance of trade and investment relations between China and the EU will cushion the impact of these differences, thus allowing each side more leverage over the other in dealing with complex bilateral and international issues.
Topic:
International Relations
Political Geography:
China and Europe

105. European and Asian monetary issues

Author:
Hee-Yul Chai
Publication Date:
05-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
In recent years, there has been considerable scholarly and policy community attention accorded to comparisons between the EU's monetary integration and attempts to create monetary integration in East Asia. This article examines these attempts in comparative perspective, focusing in particular on the challenges of monetary integration in Asia. After explaining recent development of financial and monetary cooperation initiatives in East Asia, such as Post-Chiang Mai Initiative and the attempt to introduce a Regional Currency Unit (RCU), this article illustrates why it is preferable for East Asia, in its attempt to pursue monetary integration, to follow a path similar to the European experience, rather than to follow alternative paths such as a parallel currency approach or a harmonized inflation targeting. That RCU could in the future be issued by the so-called 'Asian Exchange Rate Stabilization Fund' (AERSF). The AERSF would assure the stability of regional currencies taken as a whole vis-à-vis third currencies, and between themselves as well, and as such, pave the way for full monetary integration in Asia. Comparisons with Europe are explored and implications for European and Asian regionalism are examined.
Political Geography:
Europe, East Asia, and Asia

106. EU and ASEAN: Issues of regional security

Author:
Nicholas Rees
Publication Date:
05-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
The article critically explores how, and in what ways, the EU and ASEAN have addressed contemporary security issues, including non-traditional security threats. The comparison of the EU and ASEAN responses to these threats highlights the different forms and functions that regional integration has taken in Europe and Southeast Asia, and the implications of these differences for intra- and extra-regional security cooperation. The article considers how the EU and ASEAN might work more cooperatively together, noting some existing examples in which experiences and good practice are already shared, as well as other areas in which cooperation might be possible. The article concludes that while security cooperation in the EU and ASEAN, as well as between the two regional entities, is problematic, reflecting differing regional and national interests and organisational capabilities, there are concrete areas in which cooperation is possible.
Topic:
Security
Political Geography:
Europe and Southeast Asia

107. Intellectual legacies, ethical policies and normative territories: Situating the human rights issue in EU–Asia relations

Author:
Georg Wiessala
Publication Date:
05-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
This article investigates EU foreign policies regarding Human Rights with Asia. The perspective adopted here argues for a consideration of selected, social-constructivist, perspectives. The article emphasizes ideas, identities, values, educational exchange and human rights in EU policy towards Asia. Through a number of case studies, the article demonstrates that there is both an 'enabling' and an 'inhibitory' human rights dynamism in EU–Asia dialogue. The article suggests some ways of translating this into policies. It proposes a more inclusive, 'holistic', understanding of human rights discourse in East–West relations.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, and Human Rights
Political Geography:
Europe and Asia

108. Positions of responsibility: A comparison of ASEAN and EU approaches towards Myanmar

Author:
Alistair D B Cook
Publication Date:
05-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
Recent challenges have tested the approaches of both the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the European Union (EU) to adequately respond to forced migration in Myanmar. This article provides a comparison between the European sanctions regime and ASEAN's 'constructive engagement' with Myanmar. In the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis, it is ASEAN, along with the United Nations (UN), that has offered an effective mechanism to access populations of concern in Myanmar. This article draws on the experience of the UN High Commission for Refugees on the western border and argues that while the new ASEAN-UN-led mechanism offers a new way to assist people in the delta region, this access is contingent on three constraints: maintenance of personal relations with military decision-makers, continuation of an ASEAN-UN-led mechanism and ongoing funding from donor nations.
Topic:
United Nations
Political Geography:
Southeast Asia and Myanmar

109. Persistent primacy and the future of the American era

Author:
Robert J Lieber
Publication Date:
03-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
Arguments are widely expressed that America is in decline, both at home and abroad. These admonitions extend not only to economic, diplomatic and geopolitical realms, but even to the cultural arena. The United States does face real and even serious problems, but there is an unmistakable echo of the past in current arguments. Antecedents of these views were evident in the 1970s, '80s and '90s, and on occasion even in identical language. Indeed, declinist proclamations have appeared on and off not only throughout the 20th Century, but also during the 18th and 19th Centuries. Moreover, periodic crises in US history have included challenges more daunting than those of today. It can thus be instructive to compare the arguments and prescriptions of the new declinism with those of earlier eras. The evidence suggests a pattern of over-reaction, a historicism, and a lack of appreciation for the robustness, adaptability and staying power of the United States.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
United States and America

110. From Pax Romana to Pax Americana? The history and future of the new American Empire

Author:
Mark T Berger
Publication Date:
03-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
This review paper focuses on the most recent cycle in the debate about the history and future of the 'New American Empire,' both in relation to the rise and fall of the Roman Empire specifically, and against the wider backdrop of the extensive debate about the US position in the changing global order more generally. It argues that much of the literature, including some of the books under review, rest on a misreading of history (Roman or otherwise) and a flawed grasp of the fate of the American ascendancy in relation to the contemporary crisis of the nation-state system and the far from unexpected boom-bust cycles of 'genuinely existing' liberal capitalism (globalization) in the twenty-first century. The washout on Wall Street in the latter part of 2008 could only come as a surprise to those who have not been paying attention to the vicissitudes of 'genuinely existing' liberal capitalism over the past 30 years or more. The paper argues that the American ascendancy, contrary to much of the contemporary prognostication, remains in its prime and Pax Americana will only begin a downward spiral when it has been successfully challenged and displace by an equally powerful and systemic alternative. In the meantime, the New American Empire, especially under new leadership, looks set to continue and even flourish.
Political Geography:
United States and America

111. A Neoconservative Revolution that wasn't Is the Bush Revolution over?

Author:
Steven Hurst
Publication Date:
03-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
Several observers have argued that the radical transformation of American foreign policy wrought by George W. Bush is already over. They argue that the 'Bush Revolution' was merely a result of the short-term conjuncture of neoconservative influence and the impact of September 11, 2001, and that this temporary deviation has been ended by the American failure in Iraq. Yet the causes of the Bush Revolution are more fundamental and long-term than this argument implies. It is in the combination of the shift to a militarily unipolar international system and the dominance of the Republican Party by its conservative wing that the real roots of the Bush foreign policy lie, and neither condition is likely to alter in the foreseeable future. Moreover, although the Iraq War has led to some shifts in policy, the Republicans' selection of John McCain as their presidential candidate confirms the continued vitality of the Bush Revolution.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and War
Political Geography:
Iraq and America

112. Foreign policy fusion: Liberal interventionists, conservative nationalists and neoconservatives — the new alliance dominating the US foreign policy establishment

Author:
Inderjeet Parmar
Publication Date:
03-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
Several tendencies in US foreign policy politics generated a new foreign policy consensus set to outlast the Bush administration. Three developments are analysed: increasing influence of conservative organizations - such as the Heritage Foundation, and of neoconservatism; and, particularly, democratic peace theory-inspired liberal interventionism. 9-11 fused those three developments, though each tendency retained its 'sphere of action': Right and Left appear to have forged an historically effective ideology of global intervention, an enduring new configuration of power. This paper analyses a key liberal interventionists' initiative - the Princeton Project on National Security - that sits at the heart of thinking among centrists, liberal and conservative alike. This paper also assesses the efficacy of the new consensus by exploring the foreign policy positions and advisers of President-elect Barack Obama and his defeated Republican rival, Senator John McCain, concluding that the new president is unlikely significantly to change US foreign policy.
Topic:
Security and Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
United States

113. Whither The Bush Doctrine? Out of sync: Bush's expanded national security state and the war on terror

Author:
Robert G Patman
Publication Date:
03-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
The US national security state was fashioned at the beginning of the Cold War to contain the global threat of the rival superpower, the Soviet Union. However, this security framework did not wither away with the end of the Cold War and the disintegration of the USSR. The events of September 11 starkly exposed the limitations of a state-centric approach to international security in a globalizing world. But the Bush administration falsely assumed that the traumatic events of 9/11 came out of a clear blue sky, and that a rejuvenated national security state would eventually overwhelm the 'new' threat of terrorism. The dangers of persisting in this direction were shown by the US-led invasion of Iraq. Far from closing the gap between the US approach to security and the operation environment of a post-Cold War world, Bush's war on terror undermined the international reputation of the US and presented the American taxpayer with a huge and probably unsustainable burden. All this highlighted the need for a more multilateral direction in US security policy in the post-Bush era. Such an approach would not only correspond better to the realities of today's interconnected world, but also serve as a buffer against the extension of the power of government that had been witnessed in America during the Bush years.
Topic:
Security, Cold War, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, America, and Soviet Union

114. Geopolitics, the revolution in military affairs and the Bush doctrine

Author:
Simon Dalby
Publication Date:
03-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
In the aftermath of September 11, 2001 American geopolitical categories changed as the world was remapped into categories congruent with the prosecution of the global war on terror. The designation global was linked to the capabilities of the new military technologies of the revolution in military affairs in official documents that codified the Bush doctrine. The official US doctrine now explicitly states that ending tyranny on earth is the national security objective for which these new forces will be used. But a careful reading of the official 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review Report, and Thomas Barnett's popular exposition of the logic of the war on terror in The Pentagon's New Map shows that both these geographical specification of contemporary geopolitics, and the high-technology forces planned to fight the war, offer little promise that it will be successfully prosecuted. Geopolitics remains much more complicated than either contemporary policy statements or popular cartographic justifications suggest.
Political Geography:
United States and America

115. Coming face to face with bloody reality: Liberal common sense and the ideological failure of the Bush doctrine in Iraq

Author:
Toby Dodge
Publication Date:
03-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
A conventional technocratic wisdom has begun to form that blames the failure of the US led invasion of Iraq on the small number of American troops deployed and the ideological divisions at the centre of the Bush administration itself. This paper argues that both these accounts are at best simply descriptive. A much more sustained explanation has to be based on a close examination of the ideological assumptions that shaped the drafting of policies and planning for the aftermath of the war. The point of departure for such an analysis is that all agency, whether individual or collective, is socially mediated. The paper deploys Antonio Gramsci's notion of 'Common Sense' to examine the Bush administration's policy towards Iraq. It argues that the Common Sense at work in the White House, Defence Department and Green Zone was primarily responsible for America's failure. It examines the relationship between the 'higher philosophies' of both Neoconservatism and Neo-Liberalism and Common Sense. It concludes that although Neoconservatism was influential in justifying the invasion itself, it was Neo-Liberalism that shaped the policy agenda for the aftermath of war. It takes as its example the pre-war planning for Iraq, then the disbanding of the Iraqi army and the de-Ba'athification of the Iraqi state. The planning and these two decisions, responsible for driving Iraq into civil war, can only be fully explained by studying the ideology that shaped them. From this perspective, the United States intervention in Iraq was not the product of an outlandish ideology but was instead the high water mark of post-Cold War Liberal interventionism. As such, it highlights the ideological and empirical shortcomings associated with 'Kinetic Liberalism'.
Topic:
Cold War
Political Geography:
United States and America

116. The North–South divide and security in the Western Hemisphere: United States–South American relations after September 11 and the Iraq war

Author:
Mario E Carranza
Publication Date:
03-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
This paper examines the economics-security nexus in US policy toward South America, and the implications for South America of the 'securitization' of US foreign economic policy during the Bush administration. There has always been a tight linkage between the US foreign economic and security agendas but the real issue is the degree of 'tightness' at a given point in time. After the Alliance for Progress lost its way the United States tended to pursue its economic and security interests in South America in separate tracks, even if preventing Soviet intrusions in the region remained in the background. Yet after the collapse of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) negotiations in 2004 a US strategy of 'divide and conquer' through bilateral trade deals has been accompanied by a 'securitization' discourse and there are some indications that it may 'securitize' as a new threat the social movements and neopopulist regimes that oppose neoliberal economic policies. The paper discusses the limits of the securitization thesis. The conclusion examines the future of US-South American relations and argues that the United States needs to renew its commitment to genuine multilateralism and re-engage the region to establish an effective and lasting partnership for dealing with common economic and security challenges in the twenty-first century.
Topic:
Security and War
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, America, and South America

117. Neoconservative democratization in theory and practice: Developing democrats or raising radical Islamists?

Author:
Matthew Crosston
Publication Date:
03-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
Neoconservative democratization took on new life after 9/11: the United States should be a global guarantor of liberty, even if coercing this freedom. The justification was a hybrid of liberal democratic peace and realist national security. However, this aggressive democratization is contradictory: the philosophical foundation is insincerely decorated by liberal language that overlooks damaging compromises when ideology is put into practice. Uzbekistan, with whom a close partnership in the war against terror was developed and then was further deepened along supposedly democratic development lines, is used as a critical case study. In short, the contradictions in neoconservative ideology create flaws in policy implementation that do not create smoother paths to development, prevent democratic consolidation and weaken American security interests.
Topic:
Democratization
Political Geography:
United States, America, and Uzbekistan

118. Bush–Cheney Redux

Author:
Linda B Miller
Publication Date:
03-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
Bush-Cheney Redux Books Under Review The War WithinBob WoodwardSimon and Schuster: New York, 2008, $32, 486 pp. AnglerBarton GellmanPenguin Press: New York, 2008, $27.95, 483 pp. The Limits of PowerAndrew J. BacevichMetropolitan Books: New York, 2008, $24, 196 pp.