World Political System Research Articles

The True Obstacle to the Autonomy of Seasteads: American Law Enforcement Jurisdiction Over Homesteads on the High Seas

The Seasteading Institute (TSI) seeks to develop communities on the last frontier on earth: the ocean. TSI would assist others to eschew old world political and social systems in favor of new, voluntary systems of living in the hope that the high seas will maximize their autonomy. TSI defines seasteading as the creation of permanent dwellings on the ocean - homesteading on the high Without question, the undertaking that TSI envisions will require massive technological prowess to safely and profitably overcome the obstacles the ocean presents. Clearly, TSI must seek to comprehend fully the nature of the sea and the risks it would present to ocean-pioneers. Fortunately, The Seasteading Institute approaches the risks of homesteading on the high seas with a healthy pragmatism. Counter-intuitively, TSI declares that the physical threats to seasteading, such as tsunamis, typhoons and piracy, actually pose relatively little danger. What causes The Seasteading Institute far greater trepidation in planning its endeavors is [t]he tangled morass of international maritime politics and A significant part of this tangled morass is American admiralty and maritime law. Thus, a pragmatic assessment of TSI's legal obstacles must include an analysis of potential obligations and liabilities under United States criminal law in admiralty, because the United States exercises broad power over the high seas.

Civic responsibility and human rights education: a pan‐educational alliance for social justice

Educating global citizens to have knowledge of world political and economic systems and conditions is imperative as the notion of the ‘citizen’ is constantly evolving. This type of civic education needs to involve critical thinking skills that are pan‐educational and allow for cross‐cultural discussion that span all public spheres and encourage empathetic and socially just minded discourses. As such, there are universal and national elements that should be incorporated in all systems of civically responsible education. One such element is human rights education (HRE).

The World Political System at the Crossroads in the 21st Century

The World Political System at the Crossroads in the 21st Century

The humanitarian response costs of climate change

This research attempts to improve understanding of how climate change may affect international humanitarian spending, using existing international databases that track disaster occurrence and humanitarian costs. A range of potential impact scenarios is developed employing four distinct methodological approaches. The findings indicate that climate change will have a significant impact on humanitarian costs and the increase could range from a 32 per cent increase (taking into account only changes in frequency of disasters) to upwards of a 1,600 per cent increase when other criteria, such as intensity, are also taken into account. The paper further highlights that extreme weather events do not occur in isolation and the increasing interconnectedness of world economic and political systems has made disasters more complex and destructive. It makes a number of recommendations, including the need for more rigorous and systematic collection of disaster-related data and more constructive interaction between the humanitarian and climate change communities on future research, planning and action.

The Global Environment and World Politics (review)

Reviewed by: The Global Environment and World Politics Bruce Doern (bio) The Global Environment and World Politics. By Elizabeth R. DeSombre. New York: Continuum, 2007. Pp. vi+276. $34.95. In this well-written second edition of her book, Elizabeth DeSombre presents a broad but focused analysis of the ways in which global environmental politics and policy interact with and alter the larger system of world politics. While anchored in international relations (IR) theory, the book draws in four aspects that are central to the intersection between these two systems or regimes: international environmental cooperation; the issues of science, uncertainty, and risk; the experience of developing states in global environmental negotiations; and the role of non-state actors. These variables constitute DeSombre’s working framework for examining each of her empirical chapter-length case studies on ozone depletion and global climate change, the politics of whaling, the protection of Amazonian biodiversity, and acid rain in Europe and elsewhere. The audience is not specified, but the book appears to be aimed at students taking a basic course in global environmental issues grounded in international relations, and as a result, it is not theoretically adventurous. DeSombre’s coverage of the four case studies is sound and well-informed, but her overall conclusions and the arguments she advances are relatively straightforward and are also expressed in other basic books in this burgeoning [End Page 1069] field of political and policy analysis. Thus she argues that “environmental politics poses challenges to a lot of traditional thinking about international relations” (p. 5), including the idea of sovereignty, the role of cooperation, and the role of non-state actors, compared to state-centric, security-dominated approaches. But she also cautions the reader not to forget the lessons that traditional IR theory can provide. There is of course nothing inherently wrong or unimportant about these now-familiar lines of argument. But not surprisingly in this kind of basic book—even for the audience it seems aimed at—some aspects of global environmental politics are underplayed when they need not be. The discussion of global environmental cooperation is basically good, but it fails to provide a compact account of stages that environmental protocol-setting goes through or a sense of how many agreements are now in play, and of the growing interconnections in managing them. The analysis of science, uncertainty, and risk covers some of the basics quite well, but it lacks even a brief discussion about the conflicts between the norms of sound science preferred in the international trade regime compared to the broader norms that anchor the environmental regime. The relative roles of normal R&D compared to so-called “related science activities” (science for monitoring and regulatory governance) need some mention as well as the dilemmas now faced increasingly by NGOs regarding where they get their science from. The growing level of complexity of science (trans-science and interdisciplinary science) across the four case studies also needs more explicit discussion. A final dilemma warrants mention. This book is anchored in international relations theory, which tends to focus initially on nation-states. But global environmental governance quintessentially and increasingly involves multilevel governance and multilevel regulation and complex regulatory regimes. In increasingly explicit ways, it requires action by, and diverse kinds of “global” politics involving, subnational jurisdictions (states, provinces), local governments (especially big cities), and specially created spatial institutions that do not obey traditional notions of political boundaries. Even though there are glimpses of this in DeSombre’s case studies, these dimensions need to be elevated as a more explicit element, both by the readers of this book and by the author when the time comes for a third edition. [End Page 1070] Bruce Doern Dr. Doern is a professor in the School of Public Policy and Administration at Carleton University in Ottawa and in the Politics Department at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom. Copyright © 2008 Society for the History of Technology

Analyzing International Radio Stations

/ For many years, international radio broadcasting has been used by nations around the world as a foreign policy tool. As the world political system changed following the end of the Cold War, so the importance of international radio broadcasting to some nations has changed. Although there has been some scholarly work devoted to international radio broadcasting, such work has focused mainly on the station and has neglected the system in which the station operates. This article uses systems theory and organizational communication principles to develop a framework for analyzing how and why nations are using international radio broadcasting.

Ilija Garasanin: Nacertanije and Nationalism

<p>This paper analyses the national thought and policies of Ilija Garasanin. Garasanin was the first to write a Serbian national programme, <em>Nacertanije</em>, that envisioned an independent Serbian state. His ideas and policies remain highly controversial. While some scholars argue that Garasanin was an inclusive Yugoslavist, others maintain that he was an exclusive Serbian nationalist seeking a Greater Serbia. Both arguments assume that the South Slav nations are pre-modern social phenomena. In contrast, this paper suggests that a modernist perspective of nations and nationalism provides a far more coherent and nuanced interpretation of Garasanin. Garasanin was a Serbian, not a Yugoslav, nationalist. But his nationalism was inclusive not exclusive. Inclusion was a precondition for social stability of the large state he wanted to forge. Garasanin was also illiberal. Establishing a state in a predatory inter-state environment required suppressing individual liberties. Insecurity caused by a Hobbesian world political system structured the content of Garasanin's nationalism.</p>

Human Rights: Where Do We Go from Here?

'This volume was inspired by the increasing dominance of human rights in world legal and political systems'. So runs the opening sentence of the Introduction to Protecting Human Rights, a multi-national, multi-disciplinary collection of essays.' This dubious premise-it is doubtful whether the reality of human rights has been anywhere near as dominant as its rhetoric, even before the beginning of the so-called 'war on terror'-remains unchallenged throughout. Instead, Adrienne Stone's Introduction proceeds to identify the focus of the collection as 'two enduring problems for human rights theory and practice'.2 The first is the content and form of human rights; the second is how they may most effectively be implemented. The essays which follow are generally thoughtful and some are of very high quality, but they do not entirely cover the promised ground. They share the characteristic common to much writing on human rights, which suffers from an excess of philosophising and a dearth of empirically-grounded analysis. It is not that the latter is absent here, just that there is a serious imbalance. Put another way, there is a shortage of discussion about 'institutions', as opposed to concepts and theories. (There is also relatively little attention directed to 'instruments' in the sense of detailed textual analysis of specific constitutions or treaties). Nonetheless, the book grapples with large themes and merits engagement both on its own terms and as a pointer to where thinking about rights might go next. The essays which form its core address the fundamental tension between democracy in the sense of simple majority rule, and any serious attempt to protect human rights through some form of legal provision or instrument. The problem not only arises, but becomes inescapable, when the instrument for the protection of human rights takes a form which, under the constituent rules of the legal system, places those rights beyond the immediate reach of majority decision. The admirably eclectic group of contributors can draw upon their experience of four leading Anglophone jurisdictions-Australia, Canada, the UK, and the USA--each of which attempts to resolve the tension very differently. (Of the

The Terrorist Threat to the World Political System

Terrorism as a method of political struggle has been practiced since ancient times, and in this sense it is no different today. Yet, at the turn of the twenty-first century, terrorism has assumed particularly threatening forms, sparking almost universal concern. What are the reasons behind this shift? This question is met with various ready answers. Some point to the increased scope of modern acts of terror and the internationalization of terrorism; others cite dissatisfaction among the countries of the so-called “global South” with the continuing (and in some respects broadening) rift between the “North” and “South,” which results in ever greater involvement of such countries in acts of terror. Yet other observers point out that terrorists have embraced sophisticated scientific and technological approaches, thus increasing the deadly consequences of their acts. For the most part, these factors contribute to the threat of terrorism. Yet the main reason that terrorism is especially dangerous today is the fact that, during a period of crisis within the world political system, an alternative project, or ideology, is being promoted. A number of organizations are attempting to bring this system to life by terrorist means.

3- From Free Trade to Globalization: Colombia Faces An Evolving World Political System

This paper deepens into the initial conditions that explain about the expansion of the nation-state particularly referring to the Colombia case, indicating how some political and economic facts present during the 19th century led to a first globalization attempt. This paper also reflex the interest to deepen on the conditions that accelerated the political advance of the nation-state and the reasons that supported the rapid spread around the world of democracy showing some of the removed obstacles that led finally to modern governing system. We retrieve some of the initial conditions that draw our attention about the 19th century British experience, comparing these with evolving emerging countries, suggesting that as its government arms extended to its territorial dominions overseas and other trading countries. This extension of nation states governed by market principles lead finally towards the appearance of a world-system in the shape we know it today.

Governance and democracy in European systems: on systems theory and European integration

The article proposes to conjoin the analysis of European integration and a modern systems theory of society. At first identifying some deficiencies in current debates on governance and democracy in Europe, it then introduces some tenets of modern systems theory relevant for the argument, focusing on the notions of ‘world society’;, ‘structural coupling’, and ‘social evolution’;. Using the debate on an emerging European constitution as an example, it then demonstrates how a systems-theoretical perspective can help to resituate the account of a European constitutionalism in the overall evolution of world society's legal and political systems. In an equal fashion, it proposes to sharpen the theoretical discussion on democracy in Europe by first outlining the function of legitimacy in a functionally differentiated political system. A concluding section comments on the ‘value added’ of a modern systems-theoretical perspective which is still uncommon in European Studies and IR.

The new economy, the leadership long cycle and the nineteenth K-wave

Most authors analysing the 'New Economy' study it as an isolated phenomenon. This approach, however, misses the continued significance of structural economic and socio-political fundamentals, both domestically and within the world economy. This paper examines the current changes in the global economic environment in a historical and structural context and identifies change as a pattern constantly discernible in at least the past 1,000 years. The changes leading to the New Economy are neither unique in a historical context, nor do they represent the end of the nation state and its role in the global economy. Instead, the changes represent a common pattern observed over an extended period of time. A convincing framework to study and explain the question of economic and political global leadership in the course of history is the leadership long cycle paradigm. The paper identifies the Internet as the new leading sector of the nineteenth K-wave and the US as the country most likely to be the old and new leading economy in the world economic and political system.

Geopolitical fantasies, national strategies and ordinary Russians in the post‐communist Era

New geopolitical writings that have developed in the post‐Soviet period are predicated on different ideological and historical perspectives and against the formal statements of Russia's place in the world from President Vladimir Putin and enshrined in the document ‘Concept of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation’. Four geopolitical schools can be identified, ranging from the fantastic notions of extreme Eurasianism to the reformers’ goal of tying Russia firmly to the West. Formal statements concentrate on Russia's regional prominence in Eurasia and on close integration into the world economic and political systems. However, ordinary Russians display little interest in these geopolitical writings or in the foreign policy actions of the Russian state, except in special cases where the Russian military are actively involved on Russian territory or the ‘near abroad’. In this regard, Russian public opinion has increasingly become like that of the Western democracies, generally disinterested in foreign policy and focused on their personal day‐to‐day lives.

Citizenship, Humanity, and Cosmopolitan Harm Conventions

This article lays the foundations for a sociology of cosmopolitan harm conventions which protect the vulnerable everywhere from avoidable suffering and distress. It builds on the study of international society associated with the “English School” and seeks to develop its account of how states cooperate to reduce harm in their external relations. The English School argues that the principal harm conventions in international society are designed to maintain order between states. There is only limited agreement about how international order should act to prevent harm to individuals and non-sovereign associations. Several international legal conventions do outlaw harm which is justified in terms of the superiority of some cultures or races over others, and perhaps modern international society is making progress beyond earlier forms of world political organization by insisting that transnational, or cross-border, harm should be a central moral concern for the world political system as a whole. But to do so, it needs to transcend the forms of harm that particular groups inflict on others and the more diffuse types of harm which are caused by global capitalism and industrialization. A moral commitment to new forms of domestic and international political community which have this ambition lies at the heart of a sociology of cosmopolitan harm conventions with an emancipatory intent.

Colombia in the Proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas

This research attempts an exploratory inquiry to view, identify, and foresee trends where the forthcoming Summit of the Americas may depart as a dynamic agent that will determine the transformation of developing economies in the Western Hemisphere. We launched this proposition based on a comparison research where we observed the dynamics of the path dependence course on trade expansion based on selected initial conditions. This transformation followed a long term both in the world-system and in trade specializing countries like Colombia, allowing us to compare a broad historical event with the initiating Summit of the Americas Hemispheric integration. In some detail we examine what the Colombian strategic position would be according to dependent paths and showing negotiation scenarios like Andean Trade Preference Act-ATPA, Trade and Investment Commission-TIC and its relation with Plan Colombia and bloc to bloc negotiations. Colombia as an emerging country has seriously committed itself to integrate its economy to the trade world system. During the 19th century historical episode where Colombia emerged as a new nation-state competed for a place in a rapidly organizing world trading-system mainly in the profitable commodities market. This deep world historical episode serves us as a mile stone to compare and explore more in detail old and new initial conditions that contributed to enlarge world-trading currents and see how emerging countries face new investment currents trends and negotiation opportunities for investment. As the world political and economic system enlarged, complex conditions for substantiate democracy and improving people's welfare brought new negotiation patterns. Emerging trading bloc rules now depend on the advancement of globalization. Optimistic analyst suggest that convergent growth will be the direct consequence of integration of trading partners leading to accelerating regional and local development. Trade gains will according to this assumption will be evenly distributed among people and regions as economic integration proceeds.

Democracy and peace: Reply to oneal and russett

The criticism of James, Solberg and Wolfson (JSW) (1999) by Oneal and Russett (OR) is not responsive to the methodologica] issues at stake. JSW argued that war is an endogenous feature of the world political and economic system. If its causes are to be measured, it must be as a structural equation in a simultaneous system. Wedded to the idea that “democracies never fight each other,” OR rely on a single equation to justify their view. JSW claim that such an equation may be an ad hoc reduced form with no causal implications unless the equation is explicitly identified as a structural equation. JSW expand the model to explain democracy and conflict as two endogenous variables. JSW do not claim to have discovered the true relationships between these variables by their minimal expansion of the structural relation. They do show that unless these (and other) variables are treated as part of a system, the results are unstable, contradictory, of minimal size and not a reliable guide to public policy.

Designing the Ocean Policy Future: An Essay on How I Am Going To Do That

A new millennium offers an opportunity to think about possible future directions in ocean policy. But such an effort must take account of the considerable changes in the world political and economic system since 1989 - globalization with its rapid transportation, communication, economic interdependence; population increase, increased pressure on the stock of the world's natural resources and spaces, the end of the Cold War but with diffusion of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, and a rise in world environmental consciousness. In this context we must develop patterns of sustainable use, and learn how to implement forward look principles for ocean management such as those propounded by the Luso-American Foundation. However, we have not calculated the political and economic costs or understood how we will achieve outcomes consistent with the principles. These are critical to successful global ocean governance. We understand what must be achieved but not by whom or how.

Regional geopolitics in a globalising world: Kashmir in geopolitical perspective

This article explores the origins of the Kashmir dispute, and the contrasting interpretations of the factors which have kept it as an unresolved conflict since India and Pakistan became independent in 1947. The article shows how India and Pakistan continue to disagree on even the most basic ‘facts’ of the dispute's history, and suggests that the continuation of the dispute is the result of conflicting models of statehood. It explores ways in which developing concepts within political geography have contributed to understanding the ongoing significance of the region for all the parties to the dispute, and suggests that although no solution is within sight the changing relationship between India and Pakistan and the evolving world political system may change the parameters of international involvement.

NAFTA and the Fragmentation of Canada

Introduction: Free Trade in Canadian History a deeply disturbing article about Canada's future, Charles Doran (1996, 108) cast the problem of Quebec separatism in larger terms and asked, In the aftermath of the Cold War, is the system of world politics evolving toward larger and more stable polities? Or is the system devolving toward smaller, more fragmented states, cast adrift by the loss of ideology at the top of the system and rising nationalism at the bottom? He answered his own questions by concluding that: At the turn of the 21st century, the real tension is caused by the struggle, on the one hand, of the huge multicultural state to survive, and on the other, by the thousands of populist, ethnic, and linguistic regional culture centers to carve out their own identities. Not limited to the poor Third World states, this new challenge to institutional authority is common to all multicultural states, regardless of political makeup or wealth. this essay, I want to take the questions he poses here even farther by relating them to NAFTA. Canada's future is affected by its place in NAFTA in much the same way as are the relations between Canada and Quebec even though, on the surface, NAFTA is not an issue of identity politics. But that is only on the surface. Canada, trade is not just a matter of buying and selling, of markets and profits. Rather, it speaks to the broadest definition of national well-being. From pre-Confederation times, the issue of free trade with the United States has evoked passionate reactions over how it would affect national independence (Brown 1966). Sir John A. Macdonald's National Policy, in which protective tariffs were to be a means fostering industrial development, is now recognized as much for its symbolic contribution to nationalism and independence as its contribution to Canada's economic development (Jackson et al. 1986, 62). Since then, the attractiveness of free trade has always been offset by its vulnerability to nationalist attack (Granatstein 1985). Although his commitment to reciprocal trade relations with the United States was only one source of Sir Wilfrid Laurier's defeat in the 1911 election (Graham 1968, 176), the issue that sticks in our minds today is the opposition's slogan of No truck nor trade with the Yankees. From such reactions we can recognize that free trade is as much about identity politics as it is about economic relations between sovereign states. Free trade brings into question the meaning of Canada in highly complex ways. As a result, it is too simplistic to conceive of the issue simply causing a bipolar division between nationalists and continentalists, as though the latter had no claim to nationalism (Merrett 1996, 19-60). Was Laurier, with his message that the twentieth century would belong to Canada, any less a nationalist than Macdonald? There were, to be sure, those whom support of free trade was a step toward political union and, no doubt, there are still advocates of this view in Canada. But it is both more realistic and more inclusive to admit that there are others, committed to Canada's continuity as an independent state and an autonomous society, who remain divided over the optimum ways in which Canada should relate to the United States. At the same time, the general commitment to Canadian independence is not sufficient to dampen the cleavages created or reinforced by debate over free trade. other words, even if we disregard the extreme of political union with the United States, we are still left with deep societal fissures associated with competing definitions about the nature of Canada. post-Confederation Canada, free trade (or reciprocity) was a major issue in the election of 1891. Goldwin Smith, then a recent immigrant from England who came to embrace full union with the United States (Berger 1971), pointed out that the major cleavages were between industrialists and farmers, with farmers' organizations advocating commercial union (Smith 1971, 222). …

Ethnic protest in core and periphery states

Social scientists have not yet considered the role of world-level processes that might explain ethnic movements. This article offers the argument that the increasing integration of a world economic and political system facilitates ethnic fragmentation within states. Two key processes are related to integration of the world system: (a) increases in the politics of ethnic inclusion, and (b) decreases in ethnic inequality. Both contribute to the rise in ethnic protest in contemporary states. Taken together these two processes suggest why core countries tend to experience a greater number of ethnic protests that are more temperate, whereas peripheral countries tend to experience only sporadic incidences of ethnic protest that are more likely to be confrontational and violent.