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58082. International Institutions, Globalisation and Democray: Assessing the Challenges
- Author:
- Tony Porter and William D. Coleman
- Publication Date:
- 07-1999
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition, McMaster University
- Abstract:
- The advance of globalization has involved additional governance capacity at supranational levels and thereby raised concerns about democracy, which has traditionally been based on the nationstate. For the most part, these governance arrangements take the form of intergovernmental fora, where nation-states are the principal players. In some policy areas where globalization is more pronounced, such as international finance, governance appears to feature some autonomous institutional development. Autonomy may come in the form of a relatively strong international organization with a mandate anchored in international law such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), or of the institutionalization of norms and values that give the intergovernmental forum an autonomous and distinct global perspective. As Held (1995) has observed, democratic theory has assumed that the nation-state is the relevant decision-making unit. The migration of political authority to supranational levels thus has the potential to undermine long-standing democratic arrangements.
- Topic:
- Globalization, Government, International Law, International Organization, International Political Economy, and Political Theory
58083. Social and Economic Policies to Prevent Complex Humanitarian Emergencies
- Author:
- Jeni Klugman
- Publication Date:
- 01-1999
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- United Nations University
- Abstract:
- Complex humanitarian emergencies have caused widespread death and suffering over the last two decades. While recent tragedies in Bosnia, Rwanda and Angola have made the world more aware of the terrible human toll involved, the international community has yet to develop effective policy responses to stem such crises.
- Topic:
- Conflict Resolution, Development, Economics, Genocide, Human Rights, Migration, and Politics
- Political Geography:
- Bosnia, Rwanda, and Angola
58084. Acoustic Weapons—A Prospective Assessment: Sources, Propagation, and Effects of Strong Sound
- Author:
- Jürgen Altmann
- Publication Date:
- 05-1999
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies
- Abstract:
- Acoustic weapons are under research and development in a few countries. Advertised as one type of non-lethal weapons, they are said to immediately incapacitate opponents while avoiding permanent physical damage. Reliable information on specifications or effects is scarce, however. The present report sets out to provide basic information in several areas: effects of large-amplitude sound on humans, potential high-power sources, and propagation of strong sound.
- Topic:
- Defense Policy and Science and Technology
- Political Geography:
- United States
58085. The Criterion of Citizenship for Minorities: The Example of Estonia
- Author:
- Carmen Thiele
- Publication Date:
- 08-1999
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI)
- Abstract:
- Using the example of Estonia, the criterion of citizenship as a prerequisite for membership in a national minority and its legal consequences for persons belonging to these groups is discussed. While at the universal level minority protection is considered as a basic human right, at the European level it is still viewed as a right of citizens. The author pleads for a simplification of the naturalisation process and the renouncing of the citizenship criterion as a requirement for membership of a national minority.
- Topic:
- Ethnic Conflict, Human Rights, International Law, and Nationalism
- Political Geography:
- Eastern Europe and Estonia
58086. Bilateral Agreements in Central and Eastern Europe: A New Inter-State Framework for Minority Protection?
- Author:
- Kinga Gál
- Publication Date:
- 05-1999
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI)
- Abstract:
- The practice of bilateral agreements on good neighbourly relations was 'reinvented' by Germany after 1991 to guarantee the frontiers resulting from World War II and to protect the minorities of German origin in Central and Eastern Europe. A similar policy was pursued by Hungary with five of its neighbours to deal with the problems of the Hungarian minorities. Parallel to this trend, the European Union has also promoted a policy aimed at guaranteeing stability in Central and Eastern Europe through bilateral agreements on good neighbourliness. The bilateral treaties follow each other in time, structure and content. They incorporate soft law provisions, especially with regard to their minority regulations, reflecting the strong influence of the political factor. They do not mention collective rights and fail to provide the national minorities concerned with any form of self-government. Furthermore, they were often negotiated in the absence of the minority communities they were designed to protect. As these treaties are politically highly motivated, the political aspects of the implementation mechanisms have received primacy over the legal possibilities. The treaties, and hence indirectly the provisions of international documents enshrined in them, have the same status as national legislation and could therefore be claimed before national courts. However, the joint intergovernmental committees monitoring implementation have the potential to become the most effective implementation mechanism. In conclusion, although these treaties have not significantly changed the existing practice of minority protection so far, their importance should not be diminished because they contribute to the construction of a new inter-state framework for minority protection.
- Topic:
- Ethnic Conflict, Regional Cooperation, and Treaties and Agreements
- Political Geography:
- Eastern Europe and Germany
58087. 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
58088. 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
58089. 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
58090. 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