International Stability Research Articles

Democratization as a Peace Strategy

The European Union’s Security Strategy views the creation of strong and stable states as a prerequisite for international peace and stability. At the same time, the establishment of democratic regimes is seen as fundamental to achieving domestic stability and, as an extension, development. Consequently, democratization and democracy promotion can been seen as strategies that the EU seek to employ in order to achieve international peace and security. The EU seeks to establish an international democratic order through the application of conditionality. The EU does not only apply conditions to states that seek membership of the Union but also to third states, such as the countries included in the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) or countries that seek to receive financial aid and development assistance from the European Union. In so doing, the article analyzes how the policy of conditionality applies to each different case.

Towards empathy: a human-centred analysis of rationality, ethics and praxis in systems development

Functionalism has long been the dominant paradigm in systems development practice. However, functionalism promotes an innate and immutable instrumental rationality that is indifferent to human values, rights, society, culture and international stability. It, in essence, lacks empathy. Although alternative paradigms have been promoted for decades in the systems development literature to help address this deficit, functionalism remains dominant. This paper reiterates the call for a fundamental paradigm shift away from myopic functionalism and towards a more empathic and human-centred philosophy. It argues that the human-centred tradition offers a philosophically compatible and mature approach that can be practically harnessed for promoting empathy in systems development. The paper investigates the potential of systems development to become truly human-centred using data originally collected as part of a multi-method critical-interpretive study of privacy in information systems development. Multiple methods are used for the data analysis presented, including principal components analysis, hierarchical clustering, Q methodology and descriptive statistics. The multi-method analysis demonstrates that a marked discreteness exists between human-centred sentiments and instrumentally rational ones in systems development praxis. The paper concludes by presenting recommendations on how human-centred values can be practically fostered and engaged to enable greater empathy in contemporary system development and strengthen international stability.

Adopting a musical intelligence and e-Learning approach to improve the English language pronunciation of Chinese students

This study investigates the use of musical intelligence to improve the English pronunciation of Chinese third level students. It is relevant for a human-centred systems engineering approach to cross-cultural interaction. Language learning is important as valid communication can help interactions and cultural understanding between countries, this also may benefit international stability. There are natural barriers between the English and Chinese language which are reflected in teaching approaches. The teaching of English in Chinese classrooms is removed from real-world English learning environments. The academic environments and approaches focus on the learning of grammar, spelling and writing with little real-life conversation and interaction with native English speakers. English language learning in China is from a more academic perspective rather than practical utilisation. Correct pronunciation and accent is therefore diminished. This study demonstrates that a musical intelligence e-Learning approach can benefit Chinese English language students.

Differential Scanning Calorimetry as a Tool to Investigate the Transfer of Anticancer Drugs to Biomembrane Model

Different anticancer drugs clinically approved by international regulatory organizations present poor water solubility and low stability after systemic injection. Their administration requires suitable carriers capable of maximizing therapeutic efficacy. Lipid and polymeric nanotherapeutics, particularly liposomes, are widely used to deliver chemotherapeutics in the clinic. The interaction between chemotherapeutics and biocompatible lipids and polymers can affect their efficacy and play a pivotal role in chemotherapy. Phospholipids are the main components of liposomes and their interactions with therapeutic agents are widely investigated in the pharmaceutical field using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). In this work, DSC was exploited to investigate the interaction between hydrophobic chemotherapeutics, i.e. docetaxel, tamoxifen and lapatinib, with lipid vesicles. Lipid carriers are prepared using dimyristoylphosphatidylcholine (DMPC), a phosphatidylcholine derivative, showing the same physicochemical features of the main lipids in the biological membranes. DMPC was used as a biological membrane model to evaluate interaction, passage, diffusion, and adsorption of chemotherapeutics. These processes were evaluated through the variation of thermotropic parameters of the biological membrane model. DSC studies were carried out in heating and cooling mode. Results demonstrated a modification of calorimetric curves and this effect is strictly related to the molar fraction and physicochemical features of chemotherapeutics. Furthermore, the interaction between chemotherapeutics and biological membranes affects their internalization and distribution inside tumors and this process depends on gel-liquid crystal transition of phospholipids. DSC results provide suitable information about this effect and can be used as tool to predict further interaction between chemotherapeutics and biological membranes.

Kosovo, Self-Determination and the International Order

Yugoslavia's wars provide a rich example of the range of challenges posed to international stability and fundamental principles of international relations since 1989. Within this context, Kosovo's independence has now become a cause celebre of the use of the principle of self-determination in state-creation. In addition, the case of Kosovo is an important development in the practice of humanitarian intervention and by implication the evolution of the concept of the Responsibility to Protect. To better understand the effects of Kosovar claims to self-determination on international order, a clearer understanding is required of the factors shaping that order and how self-determination (as it emerges from the road to Kosovo's independence) relates to those factors. The issue of ‘self-determination after Kosovo’, is placed here into both the context of Yugoslavia's collapse and a number of broader key features which could be said to have played a dominant role in shaping international order post-1989.

Privacy issues in a psychiatric context: applying the ISD privacy framework to a psychiatric behavioural monitoring system

Privacy issues are frequently discussed amongst researchers, practitioners and patients in healthcare. However, psychiatric patients’ privacy issues get less attention in information system development (ISD), whereby they are one of the most important stakeholders. This paper applies Carew and Stapleton’s ISD privacy framework to psychiatric monitoring systems to understand the issues that are related to monitoring psychiatric patients’ behaviour. By understanding the privacy issues amongst patients, the research will be able to provide guidance to system developers to produce a privacy-sensitive system that can contribute to the system engineering for international stability. We will elaborate each factor in the framework (physical, social, psychological and informational) and then explain the relationship to the privacy of psychiatric patient.

Technology, culture and international stability

Our world has never seemed so unstable and uncertain. If we are to survive and flourish as a species, it is becoming clear that we are entering a stage in human history in which we must engage with the complex systems of life itself. The challenges that now lay before us are extremely complex and exist on a global scale. We must dramatically rethink many of the core assumptions we have taken for granted. We are fast discovering just how interconnected the universe is, and just how interdependent living and nonliving systems and sub-systems are upon each other. Systems engineers close to these problems recognise the need for a radical new approach. For example, in the wake the Japanese environmental disaster of recent years, the systems engineering community represented by the International Federation of Automation and Control (IFAC) in Japan are recommending ‘‘glocal’’ thinking which delivers local science and engineering solutions with global vision. Humanity urgently needs integral, holistic, cross-disciplinary intellectual conversations and actions to create solutions that address the multi-dimensionality of the systems with which we must now engage. It is perhaps surprising that, in the face of this growing awareness, modern science and engineering and the agencies which fund them remain entrenched in their traditional silos of activity. In the West, most of these activities are organised so as to resolve short-term, commercial concerns within the narrow agenda, that is, neo-liberalism. Our myopia will be judged harshly by our children’s children’s children. According to any reasonable moral framework, this will no longer do. Technology proliferation contributes significantly to the systemic and structural effects we are now experiencing. The application of global systems of information, finance, energy and other resources has both negative and positive consequences. The recent financial crisis in the West is a testament to the fragility of our global systems and how little we really understand them. On the other hand, the global connectedness and the pluri-cultural context it has created present wonderful opportunities for our species to discover each other and learn how to care for this living system we call home. The challenge for this special issue on technology, culture and international stability was to draw together strands of thought from across a range of disciplines which share a common concern with the role of science and engineering in systems of international stability. The current international stability intellectual discourse focuses upon climate change. We have chosen not to include contributions from climate change research and praxis (although you will find indirect contributions referring to environmental concerns). This is not because environmental systems are not important, but because we think they are well represented elsewhere. In composing this issue, a range of contributions were sought which convey key dimensions of the problems we face but which have not received so much attention in the academic literature or popular press. Visionary contributions from the commercial sector, practical applicationsoriented research as well as deep theoretical reflections are included. This special issue also needed to draw from different cultures and academic subject domains. The hope is to inspire new conversations about the challenges we face, conversations which reach across the silos of science L. Stapleton (&) INSYTE Centre for Information Systems and Technoculture, Waterford Institute of Technology, Cork Road, Waterford, Ireland e-mail: lstapleton@wit.ie

Armed military robots: editorial

The four editors of this special issue met in Sheffield, UK in September 2009, one electronically, after reading each other’s papers and discovering that they shared concerns about military plans to develop armed unmanned systems, in particular autonomous ones. Concerns about peace and international stability exist with all such systems, remotely controlled or autonomous. The latter are robot weapons that once launched will select and engage targets without further human intervention. These had been appearing in all of the US roadmaps for all of the US forces since the early 2000s and there had been no international discussion amongst state actors at that time about the ethical, humanitarian and human rights issues that they would create. Although we had different as well as shared concerns, we all felt that something needed to be done. This led Altmann, Asaro, Sharkey and Sparrow to found the International Committee for Robot Arms Control (ICRAC) with a very specific mission statement:

Drones: Legitimacy and Anti-Americanism

The appearance of new weapons technologies often gives rise to questions of legitimacy. The use of missile weapons against armored knights was considered illegitimate and unchivalrous by some, as well as a destabilizing influence on the conduct of civilized warfare. An acknowledged and accepted set of rules, designed to limit the vulnerability of the ruling elite in combat, made longbow and crossbow technology illegitimate in the eyes of that warrior-class. (1) German U-boat actions against commerce in World War I, the use of aerial bombardment against civilian populations, and defoliation agents in Vietnam, are modern examples of new technologies whose legitimacy was contested in times of conflict. (2) Questions of legitimacy, however, have not always been linked to the condition of war or to a specific technology. British concentration camps curing the Boer War were examples of illegitimate policies related to warfare devoid of any specific technological change. Their illegitimacy came not from technology but from the legal and ethical questions raised by the implementation of those methods of waging war. (3) Throughout these debates over technology and policies, the term legitimacy seldom meant the same thing. Legitimacy has been used in such circumstances interchangeably with concepts such as proportional, moral, ethical, lawful, appropriate, reasonable, legal, justifiable, righteous, valid, recognized, and logical. The recent phenomena of using unmanned vehicles, or drones, to deliver lethality in situations of conflict is yet another instance in which a type of technology has proliferated before considerations of its legitimacy have been agreed upon: The exponential rise in the use of drone technology in a variety of military and non-military contexts represents a real challenge to the framework of established international law and it is both right as a matter of principle, and inevitable as a matter of political reality, that the international community should now be focusing attention on the standards applicable to this technological development, particularly its deployment in counterterrorism and counter-insurgency initiatives, and attempt to reach a consensus on the legality, of its use, and the standards and safeguards which should apply to it. (4) The current debate over the legitimacy of America's use of drones to deliver deadly force is taking place in both public and official domains in the United States and many other countries. (5) The four key features at the heart of the debate revolve around: who is controlling the weapon system; does the system of control and oversight violate international law governing the use of force; are the drone proportionate acts that provide military effectiveness given the circumstances of the conflict they are being used in; and does their use violate the sovereignty of other nations and allow the United States to disregard formal national boundaries? Unless these four questions are dealt with in the near future the impact of the unresolved legitimacy issues will have a number of repercussions for American foreign and military policies: Without a new doctrine for the use of drones that is understandable to friends and foes, the United States risks achieving near-term tactical benefits in killing terrorists while incurring potentially significant longer-term costs to its alliances, global public opinion, the war on terrorism and international stability.(6) This article will address only the first three critical questions. The question of who controls the drones during their missions is attracting a great deal of attention. The use of drones by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to conduct signature strikes is the most problematic factor in this matter. Between 2004 and 2013, CIA drone attacks in Pakistan killed up to 3,461--up to 891 of them civilians. (7) Not only is the use of drones by the CIA the issue, but subcontracting operational control of drones to other civilian agencies is also causing great concern. …

An International Lender of Last Resort? The U.K. And France in the Early Nineteenth Century

This paper explores the actions of the Bank of England and the Banque de France in promoting international economic stability during the mid-nineteenth century. The evidence presented below indicates that the Bank of England acted in concert with the Bank of France, through France’s reliance on a bimetallic standard, to stabilize markets. The Bank of France could assist the Bank of England in a crisis by providing additional silver reserves, which allowed the Bank of England to create additional money. Excerpts of testimony before committees of the British Parliament and tests of cointegration between central bank balance sheet data variables from 1820-56 indicate that the Bank of England relied upon silver inflows from abroad during a crisis. Besides contributing new insights on the role of the central bank in maintaining financial stability in the mid-nineteenth century, the results have implications for today’s policymakers considering the existence of a modern international lender of last resort.

Student Experiences in a Postgraduate Multi-Continental International Stability Education Programme: The Case of MITRA

In this era of economic instability, change and globalisation it is vital to learn from other disciplines, perspectives and cultures in order to tackle the key issues of international stability in the world today. This study seeks to understand student experiences of a post graduate programme which deals with issues associated with international stability. The study used a case study research methodology and selected the case study of the “MITRA” Erasmus Mundus Masters programme on Intercultural Mediation: Identities Mobilities and Conflict. The study specifically explores the experiences of postgraduate students in this programme and their experiences of interdisciplinary studies and intercultural interactions.

Training in Intercultural Mediation in a Multicultural University. Contributions for Fostering International Stability

Abstract In a global context where cultural interaction and exchange expands to every professional domain, a demand for cultural sensitive education is articulated more and more widely. This paper analyses a pattern of university organisation and governance opened to multiculturalism and stresses the advantages of studying in such an institution. It aims to provide a sound argumentation in favour of multiculturalism in the field of academia and lists the subsequent benefits for graduates who are expected to enter a labour market continuously shaped and transformed by cultural permeations. The paper also examines the impact of such training for the consecration of international stability.

Invited Presentation at the IFAC SWIIS 2013 Conference International Conference (Workshop) on International Stability, Technology and Culture Prishtina, Kosvo 6-8 June 2013

When we move beyond the determinism of cause and effect view, and explore international mediation within cross-cultural contexts, we encounter both the reality and actuality of conflicts. In these reality-actuality encounters, it is not just how we see others but also how others see us in conflict. The mediation process can be seen in terms of identifying knowledge and communication gaps that hinder reconciliation, and locating potential of interlocking commonalities that facilitate it. This view of the evolving mediation process does not just focus on mapping the reality and actuality of conflicts but also mapping the 'in-between' spaces of actuality-reality gaps. In this paper, we explore how human-centred concepts of 'symbiosis', 'culture of the artificial' and 'valorisation' provide a conceptual tool for a shared framework of mediation.

Knowledge Communities Harvesting Practical Knowledge For Inclusive Stability

The paper explores the role of practical knowledge in building knowledge communities for inclusive stability within a developmental context. It deals with the issue of the integration of scientific knowledge of the research community and tacit knowledge of the user community in making effective use of technological innovations. This integration transcends the 'cause-effect' perspective of automatic control systems and envisions international stability through building symbiotic collaborations between scientists, practitioners, interlocutors, and communities involved in the inclusive development process. The discussion draws upon three partnership programmes as illustrative examples of knowledge communities.

New Aspects of National Security Startegy

The article describes new aspects in the development of contemporary international security situation and strategic stability. The author opines that the current phase of international relations tends to be rather chaotic and highly unpredictable in its evolution. He attempts to trace the influence of such unorthodox factors as polycentrical nature of the world, departure from exacerbated military confrontation, global terrorist threat on the formation of a principally novel model of strategic stability which substitutes the paradigms of the cold war era. The article dresses the list of specific proposals on the strengthening of military and political security worldwide.

Reformní kroky Mezinárodního měnového fondu

Předložená stať se zabývá Mezinárodním měnovým fondem jako jednou z nejvýznamnějších nadnárodních institucí, jejímž prioritním cílem bylo přispět k dosažení mezinárodní měnové stability. Od jeho založení se rozložení moci a ekonomické síly posunulo směrem k dynamicky se rozvíjejícím ekonomikám jako je Brazílie, Indie, Rusko a hlavně Čína, a tato situace by měla být reflektována i na půdě Fondu. Hlavní pozornost je v textu proto věnována realizované reformě členských kvót, od kterých je odvozena hlasovací síla a tím i vliv v této instituci. Na základě údajů o podílu zemí G8 a G20 na světovém HDP, světovém vývozu a devizových rezervách je analyzován vztah mezi ekonomickou silou těchto zemí a jejich zastoupením v řídících orgánech Fondu. Současně je v textu věnována pozornost i dalším již realizovaným a nově připravovaným reformním krokům, směřujícím k rozvíjení strategie prevence finančních krizí. Realizace v textu akcentovaných opatření by nesporně přispěla k zvýšení legitimity této instituce, a k naplňování jejího soudobého poslání. Tak by mohla plně obhájit své místo v mezinárodním měnovém systému.

The Post-War Economic Miracle in West Germany

From the words of James C. Von Hook (2004), no society has ever become more associated with its economic system than post-war West Germany with the possible exception of Japan. However, when one looks into West Germany’s post-war economic history, one is able to clearly indentify the crucial role played by the social market economy system because it has always been invested with greater meaning and significance. The introduction of social market system of economy brought an end to economic controls of the highly condemned Nazi era. It was championed by Ludwig Erhard and his supporters in 1948. Erhard later became West Germany’s first finance minister appointed by the then Chancellor of the Federal Republic, Konrad Adenaur. Many scholars believed that West Germany’s unexpected rapid and prosperous recovery during the 1950s from the devastations caused by World War II was influenced by his social market reforms of 1948 that represented a radical break away from West Germany’s authoritarian past. Erhard was quoted as saying that the highly proclaimed economic miracle was in fact not a miracle, but rather, the natural and scientific result of the free market, free international trade, competition and monetary stability that prevailed in post-war West Germany. He argued that the rising productivity caused by the introduction of free market relationships after WWII has resulted in raising real wages which trickled down on the standard of living of the average West German. Erhard´s social market economic model received opposition from the Social Democratic Party who continue to argue that West Germany’s post-war economic success came as a result of the reconstruction boom after WWII. Other scholars still argue that the intervention provided by the Marshall Plan of the United States government was the propelling force behind this unprecedented economic and social progress. However, Von Hook (2004) observed that one of the greatest ironies of post-war economic history is how the definition of the social market economic changed over time. Today, he said, it represents the European welfare state which is the opposite of the 1950s. In an effort to present a balanced report on the subject matter, this paper aims to take into consideration the conflicting views expressed by scholars regarding the origins of the so-called the post-war West Germany economic miracle as well as highlight three competing explanations. Also, the economic situation of West Germany before the miracle and the debate between schools of thought shall be looked into. Since Ludwig Erhard´s economic reforms are widely accepted as suitable explanations for the miracle, the paper will endeavor to find out the positive economic changes it brought to West Germany as a whole. The disagreements that continue to occupy center stage in the discussion of the so-called miracle shall also be looked into in order to balance and give a fair view of the ideas presented here in this paper.

A non-sovereign modernity: attempts to engineer stability in the Balkans 1820–90

AbstractSocial theory almost invariably equates modernity with the sovereign state. This equation must be nuanced because the modern era and modern strategies of international stability have contained non-sovereign units. In the nineteenth century, the Great Powers tried to create international stability by engineering forms of rule in Europe. These strategies built on distinctively modern ideas: the possibility of radically breaking with the past, redesigning political organisations, and actively controlling political events through rational planning. Throughout the century the Great Powers alternated between creating non-sovereign units and creating sovereign units as instruments in these stabilising strategies. The degree of trust between the Great Powers accounts for the shift between the two strategies: they tended to create non-sovereign units when mutual trust was high and sovereign ones when trust was low. This article analyses Great Power strategies of designing forms of rule in the Balkans between 1820 and 1878. Like in previous centuries, nineteenth-century Europe actually consisted of two parallel but connected systems: the egalitarian system of sovereign states and a system of non-sovereign entities. Non-sovereign units disappeared only late in the century and this process was affected by the increasing rivalry and mistrust between the sovereign states.

The Mankind Growth Consistency

The international stability is viewed as corollary of the sustainable growth. This has only technology-driven solution, at global village extension, with required appropriateness and shared acceptation. The survey, on such guess, looks at the robot age potential, as supplementary aid in the balanced world deployment that adds to the socio-economic and politico-legal frames. The analysis moves from the globalisation issues, at the known (economic) global and (ecologic) no-global pictures, to outline the traits of the post-global robot age, consistent with the sustainable growth, international stability, and grounded on the force of the law. Stability based on the law of the force was the past option, even allowing steady truces. In this analysis, globalisation makes this choice unfit, having doubtful economic and social sustainability and not achieving ecologic sustainability consistently and for the long term.

Jeremy Black . The Great War and the Making of the Modern World . New York: Continuum. 2011. Pp. xv, 337. $29.95.

Jeremy Black's stated purpose is to make sense of World War I, “the most misunderstood major conflict in history” (p. 229). As he goes on to argue, a book with this aim would not have been necessary at the time or in the 1920s when, on both sides, there was clarity about why the war was fought. The “important and worthwhile issues” became obscured in the 1930s and have remained forgotten until, in recent decades, historians, if not the wider public, have reached conclusions not dissimilar from those of contemporaries. In the case of the most important belligerents of 1914, Germany quickly adopted a program of large‐scale annexations and was resolutely unwilling to contemplate peace if it was not achieved. The German leadership remained committed to this until they saw defeat staring them in the face. For Great Britain, France, and even tsarist Russia, the war was one to uphold international stability and the rule of law in the wake of Austro‐Hungarian determination, backed by Germany, to crush Serbia and the German invasion of Belgium after France had rejected German demands to occupy portions of French territory as a guarantee of its neutrality after Germany and Russia had gone to war. Black concedes that historians may face insurmountable difficulties in persuading the wider public that this was not hypocritical eyewash, so deep did that belief become embedded well after the war had ended.