Actors In Global Politics Research Articles

E PLURIBUS UNUM? THE COMMUNITARIZATION OF EU MIGRATION, ASYLUM AND BORDER MANAGEMENT POLICIES IN TIMES OF CRISIS

The article accounts for the emergence of an external dimension of EU internal policies and focuses on the migration, asylum and border management domains. Building on Bretherton & Vogler (2006), it assesses and explains the forms and extent of EU’s external engagement. Firstly, it assesses the degree of EU actorness – that is, the extent to which the Union has become an actor in global politics - in the researched fields in terms of opportunity, presence and capabilities. Secondly, it attempts to explain the emergence of such EU external engagement. While the article defends that the treaty objective of creating an European Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (article 3 TEU) makes EU external action in the migration, asylum and border control domains necessary, it also acknowledges the role of external triggers, such as the so-called 2015 ‘migration and refugee crisis’. On the one hand, external events can provide scope conditions accelerating the pace by which EU external action is pursued. On the other hand, they can also trigger the comeback of hard security concerns linked to claims for ‘more national sovereignty’, thus constraining the development of EU (external) action. The analysis carried out shows that the degree of EU actorness varies considerably across the three domains researched. On one extreme of the continuum, neo-realist understandings of increased arrivals of foreign citizens as hard security challenges to member states account for the enhanced interest in cooperation at the intergovernmental level. Such interpretations explain why the most established domain for EU external engagement is the cooperation with third countries on border management, as it is shown by the expansion of the mandate of EU agencies such as Europol and Frontex, or by negotiation by the European Commission of international agreements containing clauses on readmission of third country citizens irregularly residing in the EU to their countries of origin (the Mobility Partnerships). Less developed, yet quickly evolving, is the EU external dimension of migration policies. Functional concerns related to the need to acquire highly specialized (and relatively cheap) workforce towards an efficient functioning of the single market have prompted a remarkable the law-making in this area, as shown by the EC directives and regulations aimed at third country students, unpaid trainees, voluntary workers and big corporations’ staff. While the neo-functionalist logic explains the emergence of the external dimension of EU migration policies, it may also explain this development is currently limited to certain areas within the policy area. A comprehensive approach to migration policy has not proved possible to achieve so far, due to institutional and bureaucratic limitations, as well as the different agenda of national policymakers. On the other extreme of the continuum, liberal theories and constructivism account for the constraints currently limiting the full development of EU actorness in asylum policies. Several member states’ civil societies do not perceive prospects for absolute gains deriving from cooperation at the EU level. Constraints to the establishment of international institutions regulating asylum policies are thus understood through the lack of strong societal pressures at the member states level. Therefore, while the article puts forward a combination of neo-functionalist, neo-realist, liberal intergovernamentalist and constructivist explanations to account for the emergence of an external dimension of migration asylum and border management policies, as wells as for the obstacles opposing that process, it also provides evidence that external triggers such as increased migratory pressure lead to internal policy dynamics with positive or negative impacts on the shift of actorness from EU member states to the EU itself.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.eis.0.11.18956

Understanding the Body of Christ: A Literature Review on Roman Catholic Church in International Relations

Artikel ini merupakan review article mengenai bagaimana literatur-literatur terkini dalam ilmu Hubungan Internasional ("HI") memaknai Gereja Katolik Roma. Dalam artikel ini akan ditunjukkan bagaimana keaktoran Gereja direpresentasikan dalam literatur-literatur terutama yang ditulis setelah Perang Dingin. Pembatasan tersebut dipilih karena perhatian HI terhadap aktor-aktor non-negara baru mulai muncul semenjak kebangkitan kajian transnasionalisme pasca Perang Dingin. Pertama-tama artikel ini akan menelusuri jejak awal Kekatolikan dalam HI. Kemudian, artikel ini akan membahas bagaimana kecendekiaan HI saat ini memahami Gereja. Berdasarkan temuan pada artikel ini, kebanyakan literatur HI terkini berlandaskan kepada asumsi bahwa Vatikan, Tahta Suci, jejaring gereja, dan NGO-NGO Katolik merupakan entitas-entitas yang terpisah. Selanjutnya, artikel ini juga akan membahas pendekatan entitas Gereja baru sebagai aktor tunggal ragam-rupa. Dengan meminjam pendekatan teologi Katolik, penulis menawarkan sintesis Gereja sebagai aktor tunggal ragam-rupa, layaknya pemahaman realisme terhadap negara sebagai aktor uniter. Dengan demikian, review article ini juga dapat dilihat sebagai tantangan terhadap (kurangnya) pemahaman kolektif HI terhadap salah satu aktor politik global tertua, yaitu Gereja Katolik Roma.

Conflicting visions: debates relating to Soviet Jewish emigration in the global arena

ABSTRACTIn 1966, Soviet leader Alexei Kosygin stated that Soviet citizens had the right to emigrate for family reunification. This sparked the campaign for Soviet Jewish emigration movement, which adopted the slogan “Let My People Go.” Yet, despite the biblical symbolism, there was a significant controversy about their final destination, with those opting for the West known as “drop-outs” (noshrim). There were intense debates between those Jewish Diaspora leaders, particularly in the United States, who stressed the democratic right of “freedom of choice,” and the Israeli leadership. When the Soviets drastically reduced emigration in the 1980s, the drop-out phenomenon (neshira) was blamed.In 1983 Morris B. Abram became chairman of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry and reversed the accepted American Jewish approach. He developed a close friendship with Australian Jewish leader, Isi Leibler. Both men believed Soviet Jews should migrate to Israel. In the late 1980s, the United States ended the refugee status of Soviet Jews, reducing its financial support. As a result, one million Russians migrated to Israel in the 1990s. This article focuses on this global debate over neshira and illustrates the importance of cooperation between American and non-American actors in global Jewish politics.

Geopolitical Structuring in the Age of Information

Ordering principles, both explicit and implicit, have provided some of the central threads for theoretical contestation in the discipline of international relations. The protagonists predominantly coalesce around principles of survival, a state of nature, or a fundamental economic logic. Through an analysis of the globalization of a logic of the private right to intellectual property, this article attempts to expose a powerful, and at times under recognized, structuring movement within a global geopolitical space that is ever increasingly shaped by the “information age.” In doing so, the aim is to problematize and suggest an alternative way of approaching ordering principles as theoretical prisms for interpreting action and actors in global politics.

The European Arctic policy in progress

The geostrategic, political, economic, and scientific relevance of the Arctic is constantly growing due to the complex process of climate change. Accordingly, the European Union—as a global political actor—, is already taking steps to ensure and strengthen its influence in the region while demonstrating readiness to face the many opportunities and challenges ahead in cooperation with the traditional stakeholders. Therefore, in order to reflect the renewed importance of the Arctic transformation, the Union has been designing its Arctic Policy focusing on climate change mitigation and multilateral cooperation as its main strengths. Unfortunately, despite the diligence and impetus that has been invested, this process has been delayed in several occasions as the Union had to deal with internal and external destabilizing factors, such as the later immigration crisis or the lack of uniformity among its member states’ foreign policy interests. These factors will be analyzed along with the process of creation and development of the EU’s Arctic policy. Despite some delays, on 27 April 2016, the long-awaited third communication was issued and progress has been made: even if, in general terms, the new document remains a political statement, there is also a clear commitment to action.

THE MULTI-SIDEDNESS OF LINGUAACADEMIC APPROACHES TOWARDS THE ROLE OF LANGUAGE IN WORLD POLITICS

The relevance of the following article is determined by the increasing value of the linguistic factor in global politics. The given part of the article introduces a complex approach to language as social phenomenon. All of these approaches find application in this research, thus helping to point out the complexity of it in the modern world. The article explores languages as a means to express the mindset of nations in the world, language as a conductor of cultures; language as a source of contradictions in international relations between countries; language as an element that influences economic relations, language as a tool for global political influence used by countries. This article explores various global events, international relations, activity of international governmental and nongovernmental organizations, interaction and intertwining of diverse global political actors, national relations and contradictions, regional conflicts and their settlement or, on the contrary, their escalation are rather dependent upon the nature of cross-language relations and the institutionalization of unification processes for countries and peoples who share the same language and use it to establish global, regional or national language policies. Many global events implement the ideas of monoculturalism, multilingualism, linguistic genocide, lingua-political misbalance of public forces, national interests related to its language and its role in the world, as well as the presence or absence of lingua-political tension in multilingual countries.

Children, childhoods, and security studies: an introduction

Children and childhoods have not garnered much attention from either mainstream or critical currents of scholarship in International Relations and Security Studies, notwithstanding the significant ways in which they may be inseparable from the fields’ subject matters, core concepts, and ideas. Addressing this omission is not a matter of simply ‘bringing children in,’ however. Rather, it necessitates first coming to terms with how children are already present both as global political actors and as expressed through deeply held ideational commitments that enable and sustain our understandings of and engagements with security. At the same time, this is a presence that has only ever been partial inasmuch as the children and youth of the field’s imagining are not imbued with full and unqualified political subjecthood. Recovering robust subjecthood and a more nuanced understanding of lived childhoods promises, among other things, important theoretical correctives and more sophisticated conceptualization of emergent concepts like resilience.

Credibility and Signaling as Strategic Drivers in China’s African Security Engagement

The aim of this paper is to show that strategic interaction provides a fruitful way to understand China’s decision-making behavior. States are actors in global politics and frequently have to make choices that are strategic. Credibility and uncertainty are central issues in this environment of incomplete information. This raises the question how China signals its motivations along this strategic chessboard. Strategic interaction assumes purposeful behavior from China in the African security environment. Signaling allows China to consider the problem of unknown motivations, making choices based in part, on what other actors are likely to do in the future. Knowing the choices of other African actors can help China judge what likely responses are.

Testing the Possibilities and Limits of Global and National Public Spheres: Lessons Learned from the Campaign to Stop a Military Base in South Korea

This article examines the civil society campaign to stop the construction of a military base in South Korea as a case study in both the promises and limits of global advocacy networks in the digital media age. First the article traces the historical and political contexts leading up to the 2007 decision by the South Korean government to locate the naval base on the coastline of Jeju Island, despite strong objections from residents of the targeted village. Then the article illustrates how local activists fighting the base gained support in the global peace, justice, and environmental movements, even if the larger protest campaign and the international media coverage it generated did not stop the project. The case illustrates how the notion of the ‘global public sphere’ remains highly contingent upon the readiness of local and global political actors to anticipate and overcome the persuasive and coercive powers of national governments as well as national political cultures that can enable authoritarian tactics to stifle public debate. It also illustrates how activists in the global justice movement often run into formidable obstacles when confronted by centralized political and economic power in specific national settings.

Hot deontology and cold consequentialism – an empirical exploration of ethical reasoning among climate change negotiators

Philosophers, political theorists and cognitive scientists have applied the traditional distinction between deontology and consequentialism to determine ethical responsibilities – usually of states – to take action in response to climate change. Most of this work is either purely conceptual or based on experiments with individuals, who are not part of the global political process. This paper makes two contributions to this debate. First, based on interview data I describe existing patterns of ethical reasoning among global political actors rather than groups selected for lab experiments. Integrating theories of risk perceptions, international relations and moral philosophy, I identify both deontological and consequentialist cognitive patterns, and examine their constitutive elements. My second contribution concerns the role of emotion in moral reasoning. Using the same qualitative data, I offer support for a controversial argument about the emotional nature of deontological reasoning. Further, I argue that many negotiators experience climate change not as an impersonal threat posed by the environment, but rather as an “up, close and personal” threat, over which other negotiation participants have significant control.

Networks, Dyads, and the Social Relations Model

Quantitative international relations scholarship has focused on analysis of the so-called dyad. Few studies have given serious thought to the definition of a dyad, or to the implications that flow from such a conceptualization. This article argues that the current approach to dyadic analysis is necessarily incomplete and at times induces incoherent pictures of the ebb and flow of interactions among actors in global politics and economics. It presents the Social Relations Model as a systematic way of analyzing the dependencies inherent in dyadic data. The study uses this model to examine militarized interstate disputes from 1816 to 2001, the trade network of 2000 and reciprocity between enemies in the treatment of prisoners of war.

Participation and inclusiveness in private rule-setting organizations: does it matter for effectiveness?

Governance, from local to global levels, relies increasingly on private governance arrangements. Private actors, specifically corporations and civil society organizations, increasingly design, implement and monitor rules and standards that guide and prescribe behavior in a range of policy areas, including sustainability, banking and international security, to name a few. Even though the involvement of private actors in global politics is not a new phenomenon, the creation of cooperative arrangements in the form of organizations that lead to private regulation – thus complementing traditional ways of political influence – is relatively novel. This paper focuses on private rule-setting organizations that have emerged in the global governance of sustainability. It starts from the observation that, despite seemingly performing similar roles and functions, organizations differ both in terms of outputs they produce as well as rules of participation and decision-making. Accordingly, the paper evaluates whether organizations providing a more inclusive and participatory approach in relation to others have different implications for the quality and relevance of rules (outputs). Hence, it aims to shed light on the way private rules and standards are decided and the associated implications, in view of their increasing role and relevance in sustainability governance. In more detail, we contend that there is no linear relation between democratic legitimacy and effectiveness. While inclusiveness and representativeness in the standard-setting process will probably lead to more stringent and comprehensive rules, those regulatory systems with high stringency will be the ones least taken up. Empirically, the paper illustrates its argument with a comparison of five private rule-setting organizations that have emerged in the global governance of fisheries sustainability: the Marine Stewardship Council, Friend of the Sea, the Aquaculture Stewardship Council, the Global Aquaculture Alliance and GlobalGAP.

Turkey’s New Multilateralism: A Positive Diplomacy for the Twenty-First Century

More than any country in this century, Turkey has raised its profile as a regional and global political actor. It has achieved economic success and political stability under the leadership of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), and its charismatic prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. This rise of Turkish multilateralism has been more recently challenged by the blocking of its effort to join the European Union and by the rising tensions experienced in its relations with neighboring Syria. Turkey remains a crucial actor with considerable regional and extraregional influence.

International organizations as collective agents: Fragmentation and the limits of principal control at the World Health Organization

What factors influence the faithfulness of international organizations (IOs) to mandates assigned to them by member states? Although recent literature treats international organization agents as autonomous actors in global politics, most work continues to treat the bureaucracy of an international organization as a unitary actor. I argue that the unitary actor assumption limits our ability to assess how internal factors such as fragmentation influence agent faithfulness. When we conceive of international organization bureaucracies as collective agents — those including more than one bureaucratic actor and subject to internal fragmentation — international organization faithfulness can be more fully explained. Specifically, fragmentation limits faithfulness by inhibiting the effectiveness of principals’ control mechanisms (i.e. oversight and agent screening and sanctioning). These arguments are illustrated using a case study of the World Health Organization and its efforts to improve health systems between 1982 and 2008.

The new climate leaders?

AbstractLittle interest has thus far been paid to the role of cities in world politics. Yet, several are the examples of city-based engagements suggesting an emerging urban presence in international relations. The Climate Leadership Group, despite its recent lineage, is perhaps the most significant case of metropolitan intersection with global governance. To illustrate this I rely on Actor-Network Theory (ANT) to develop a qualitative network analysis of the evolution of the C40 in the past seven years from a limited gathering of municipal leaders to a transnational organisation partnering with the World Bank. Pinpointed on the unfolding of a twin diplomacy/planning approach, the evolution of the C40 can demonstrate the key role of global cities as actors in global environmental politics. These cities have a pivotal part in charting new geographies of climate governance, prompting the rise of subpolitical policymaking arrangements pinpointed on innovative and hybrid connections. Yet, there remains some important rational continuity, in particular with neoliberalism, which ultimately limits the revolutionary potential these cities might have for international relations.

Leading by Example: South African Foreign Policy and Global Environmental Politics

Global environmental politics is emerging as a key field for South African diplomacy and foreign policy, in which Pretoria is endeavouring to lead by example. Environmental summits and conferences such as Johannesburg (2002) and Copenhagen (2009) have been crucial stages for the performance of this role as an environmental leader, and in December 2011 Durban will host the seventeenth Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. There are also signs from within policy-making circles that ‘the environment’ is seen as a field in which some of the lustre of South Africa’s post-1994 international high moral standing could be recovered. However, tensions remain between South Africa’s performance and rhetoric on the global stage, and domestic development paths which continue to be environmentally unsustainable. The article concludes by suggesting that while the visibility and prominence of South Africa as an actor in global environmental politics is likely to grow, it remains doubtful whether this represents a sustained and committed new direction in South African foreign policy.

China and global oil: vulnerability and opportunity

China has grown increasingly dependent on imports of oil and, as a consequence, has become a major and very visible player in the international energy markets. For a country which has traditionally been strongly committed to the principle of self-reliance, this dependence on foreign oil has been a source of vulnerability and anxiety. But it has also been a strategic opportunity for China to chart its own ambitions and objectives as a global economic and political actor. This article addresses the various ways in which China has incorporated its energy import needs within its foreign policy. There are, it is argued, three dimensions to this. There is, first, integration and cooperation with the West and other large oil-importing countries and a shift away from neo-mercantilism to a growing reliance on international markets. Second, there is a complementary strategy of balancing, which seeks to develop the energy resources close to its borders, in Russia and Central Asia, which are not so vulnerable to western intervention. And third, there is the construction, though preliminary and nascent at the moment, of a hegemonic order which challenges the US and the West in the critical maritime routes from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean and through to the Persian Gulf region.

A liberal grand strategy in a realist world? Power, purpose and the EU's changing global role

The European Union (EU) is one of the most unusual global political actors, and it inspires numerous scholarly debates about its power and purpose. One of the most important such debates involves the role of material versus non-material/ideational power resources – or hard versus soft power – in understanding the EU's ‘actorness’. Given the increasingly wide range of EU policy competencies, and the increasingly complex demands placed on the EU, this article embeds this debate in the larger context of grand strategy. It first argues that the EU's efforts as a global actor do conform to three basic components of grand strategy: physical security; economic prosperity; and value projection. Second, it analyses the content of the EU's grand strategic goals at three levels of analysis: intra-EU; regional (or neighbourhood); and global. Finally, it analyses the EU's implementation of its (largely liberal) strategic goals, particularly in terms of how they might compete with those of other global actors, such as the United States (US).

The Elephant in the Corner? Reviewing India‐Africa Relations in the New Millennium

AbstractAs countries of the ‘global South’ seek to challenge existing uneven architectures of economic, political and institutional power, now under different circumstances to those prevailing during the Cold War, relations between African countries and various ‘Rising Powers’ have drawn a great deal of academic and public attention. This scrutiny has been heavily tilted towards analysis of China’s African activities. This paper aims to partially redress this balance with an introductory review of India’s contemporary relations with sub‐Saharan Africa. A number of analysts suggest that in the longer term, India may well achieve a more prosperous and stable economy than China, while in the shorter term, its economic and political profile may result in a more productive relationship for many different African countries, sectors and constituencies. But India will also bring its own challenges in its African commercial interactions, bilateral relations and through its part in shaping the multilateral polity and global economy. This paper therefore aims to critically review contemporary India‐Africa relations on four broad thematic points. Changing geographies of Indo‐African relations; Trade and foreign direct investment; Development cooperation; and Geopolitics and diplomacy. India’s confidence as a global political and economic actor is apparent in its African diplomacy and economic engagements, but claims to exceptionalism (relative both to Chinese and Western actors) in such relations are not as self‐evident as some have asserted. Whether recent shifts in relations between African nations and India will work in the interests of less privileged citizens, workers and consumers in Africa and in India also remain unclear.

SOĞUK SAVAŞ DÖNEMİNDE AVRUPA’DA ORTAK DIŞ POLİTİKA OLUŞTURMA ÇABALARI

Nowadays, EU intends to make itself an important and effective actor in global politics which speak with one voice and have influence on international issues. In order to achieve this goal, EU has developed an effective and coherent CFSP with the Maastricht Treaty. But, to understand the CFSP better, its historical background should be evaluated. The idea of a credible and effective CFSP has been a constant theme of European integration since the early 1950’s. The failure of the EDC Project in 1950’s was followed by “Fouchet Plan”in 1960’s. After two desperate initiatives, last but successful initiative was the establishment of European Political Cooperation EPC in 1970’s and 1980’s which enabled the construction of the CFSP in large scale. The modest experience of the EPC, therefore laid the framework for the establishment of the CFSP at Maastricht. This study aims at evaluating these three initiatives which paved the way for the creation of the CFSP and European Union states efforts to develop a coherent and effective foreign and security policy in the Cold War Period