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57971. The Albanian Aromanians' Awakening: Identity Politics and Conflicts in Post-Communist Albania

Author:
Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers
Publication Date:
03-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI)
Abstract:
Today, many thousands of Aromanians (also known as "Vlachs") live quite compactly in Northern Greece, Macedonia (FYROM) and southern Albania; and there are still traces of Vlach-Aromanian and Aromanian populations in Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia and Romania. In Albania, they were recently estimated at about 200,000 by the English scholar Tom Winnifrith. In Albanian communist times, Aromanians were not recognised as a separate minority group, officially considered to be almost completely assimilated. However, in the early post-communist transition period, a vivid Aromanian ethnic movement emerged in Albania and it became part of a recent global Balkan Aromanian initiative. The Albanian Aromanians' new emphasis of their ethnicity can be seen as a pragmatic strategy of adjustment to successes and failures in the Albanian political transition and to globalisation. It is exactly the re-vitalisation of the conflict between followers of a pro-Greek and a pro-Romanian Aromanian identification that serves to broaden the scope of options for potential exploitation.
Topic:
Development, Ethnic Conflict, and Politics
Political Geography:
Eastern Europe and Albania

57972. Europe and Its Neighbors

Author:
Gianni Vaggi
Publication Date:
11-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
European Union Studies Center
Abstract:
The paper is an introduction to some of the issues that the enlargement, both in terms of memberships and association, will involve.
Topic:
International Relations and NATO
Political Geography:
Europe

57973. Thinking About the Future: Economic Aspects

Author:
Emilio Gerelli
Publication Date:
11-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
European Union Studies Center
Abstract:
Building scenarios of the future has been defined "the art of thinking the unthinkable". And in fact the successful author of scenarios must be able to combine both an open and creative mind, and analytical capabilities to envisage different and sometimes counterintuitive combinations of actors, factors and trends. Our author is often also "heroic", since he knows that most probably he will be disproved by facts. However it is worth bravely accepting the challenge of uncertainty, since "illustrating the future by means of scenarios is a way to overcome human beings' resistance to change. Scenarios can thus open mental horizons to allow the individual to accept and understand change, and so be able to shape the world. Scenarios may help in seizing new opportunities ahead as well as avoiding undesirable effects of misconceived actions". In this connection a historian notes: "it is desirable, possible and even within certain limits necessary to forecast our future…However the process of forecasting must be based necessarily on the knowledge of the past".
Topic:
Economics, Industrial Policy, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States

57974. AIDS and Developing Countries: Democratizing Access to Essential Medicines

Author:
Tom Barry, Robert Weissman, and Martha Honey
Publication Date:
08-1999
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Foreign Policy In Focus
Abstract:
Africa and the developing world are facing an HIV/AIDS crisis equated by the U.S. surgeon general to the plague that decimated Europe in the fourteenth century. Combinations of available pharmaceuticals-too expensive for nearly all of the infected people in the developing world-could enable many afflicted with HIV/AIDS to live relatively normal lives. Compulsory licensing and parallel importing policies could help developing country governments make essential medicines more affordable to their citizens.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Science and Technology, and Third World
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, and Europe

57975. Bombs Away: A Call for the Unconditional Ending of the Bombing Campaign

Author:
Tom Barry and Martha Honey
Publication Date:
05-1999
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Foreign Policy In Focus
Abstract:
The Foreign Policy In Focus project functions as a network of foreign policy experts. The following brief, written by one of the project's codirectors, benefits from the expert opinions about the Kosovo crisis from numerous experts and organizations that have contributed to the project's efforts to make the U.S. a more responsible global leader and partner. We see this policy brief as a living document that will be regularly updated and revised as this horrific manifestation of U.S. militarism and global irresponsibility evolves. The policy brief calls for the unconditional halt to this war of terror. Comments appreciated.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Foreign Policy, NATO, Ethnic Conflict, and Migration
Political Geography:
United States and Eastern Europe

57976. European Political Considerations on Operations Beyond Europe

Author:
Klaus Becher
Publication Date:
07-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
The nations of the European Union represent not only one of the two most important economic actors in the world, but also include some countries of world-wide political importance. Half of the G-8 membership is from the EU, as are two permanent members of the UN Security Council. The responsibilities and obligations that, historically, European powers accumulated in all continents still have many remnants. The two big European wars of the 20th century were also fought in Africa, the Middle East, and parts of Asia. Europe, while enjoying the benefits of a large, expanding internal market, depends for its prosperity on a secure and functioning global order.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, and NATO
Political Geography:
Europe, Middle East, Lebanon, Iceland, Nagasaki, and Taipei

57977. The Persian Gulf

Author:
Shahram Chubin
Publication Date:
07-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
In the past fifty years five US President's from Truman to Clinton have directly or indirectly, affirmed US interests in the Middle East. The 'doctrines' in the case of Carter (1979) and Reagan (1981) specifically addressed the security of the Persian Gulf. The same period has seen the withdrawal of imperial powers. Three decades ago Britain managed the security of the Persian Gulf. Two decades ago France had the largest naval force in the Indian Ocean. The contraction of these commitments was encouraged by the US, which was unwilling to be associated with colonialism and its evils. Yet since Britain's withdrawal from the Gulf which occasioned the Nixon doctrine, the US has been grappling with how best to assure security. Reliance on regional states ("twin pillars") was upset by the Iranian revolution. In the 1980's the long Iran-Iraq war underscored the need for a Western role, but neither its shape nor its duration were clear. Local forces were reluctant to envisage any thing beyond an "over the horizon presence."
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, and NATO
Political Geography:
Britain, United States, Iraq, Europe, Iran, Middle East, and France

57978. Emerging European Power Projection Capabilities

Author:
Francois Heisbourg
Publication Date:
07-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
The Kosovo air war was an eye-opener for many Europeans, particularly for those who normally follow defence issues at a distance. There was no escaping the realisation that close to three-quarters of the aircraft and more than four-fifths of the ordnance released against Serbian targets were American. America's massive dominance in C31 was similarly spectacular, with media commentators using the over-simplified but effective equation: "Fifty U.S. military satellites, a single European satellite". Under such circumstances U.S. influence on all strategic and operational aspects of the war could only be overwhelming, for better or for worse, a situation summarised by the syllogism "no capability-no responsibility". Despite deep strategic flaws, questionable tactics and occasional rank incompetence (the Apache episode, the China Embassy bombing), the U.S. edge is so great that it can afford even serious blunders.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, and NATO
Political Geography:
America, Europe, and Middle East

57979. US Perceptions of NATO Deployments Beyond Europe and of European Capabilities

Author:
Stuart Johnson
Publication Date:
07-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
The United States and its NATO allies have engaged in two high intensity conflicts in this decade, Desert Storm in the Gulf and Operation Allied Force in Yugoslavia. Both campaigns were characterized by a strong, and successful, effort to maintain broad coalition participation and cohesion. But the story is more complex than the press releases from NATO Headquarters, Washington, and other NATO capitals would have us believe. Both operations revealed differences in US and European allies' capabilities and styles of prosecuting warfare. These forced the commanders to adopt an ad-hoc, inefficient division of labor in what, to the public, was presented as a seamless coalition operation.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, and NATO
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, and Middle East

57980. Cooption and Repression in the Soviet Union

Author:
Dmitriy Gershenson and Herschel I. Grossman
Publication Date:
12-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Independent Institute
Abstract:
The Soviet ruling elite, the nomenklatura, used both cooption and political repression to encourage loyalty to the communist regime. Loyalty was critical both in defusing internal opposition to the rule of the nomenklatura and in either deterring or defeating foreign enemies of the Soviet Union. The cost of coopting people into the communist party was a decrease in the standard of living of members of the nomenklatura, whereas the cost of political repression was the danger that members of the nomenklatura would themselves be victimized. We assume that the nomenklatura determined the extent of cooption and the intensity of political repression by equating perceived marginal benefits and marginal costs.
Topic:
Cold War and Government
Political Geography:
Russia and China