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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > International relations > International institutions
Democracy promotion in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) remains a central pillar of the foreign policy of the European Union (EU). Rather than concentrating on the relations between the incumbent authoritarian regimes and the opposition in the relevant countries, and on the degree to which these relations are affected by EU efforts at promoting democracy, human rights and the rule of law (an outside-in approach), this collection of articles inverts the focus of such relationships and attempts to look at them 'inside-out'. While some contributions also emphasise the 'outside-in' axis, given that this continues to be analytically rewarding, the overarching thrust of this book is to provide some empirical substance for the claim that EU policy making is not unidirectional and is influenced by the perceptions and actions of its 'targets'. Thus, the focus is on domestic political changes on the ground in the MENA and how they link into what the EU is attempting to achieve in the region. Finally, the self-representation of the EU and its (lack of a) clear regional role is discussed. This book was published as a special issue of Democratization.
Now in its third edition, this book is the authoritative text on one of the world's most important human rights treaties, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The Covenant is of universal relevance. Adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1966 and in force from 1976, it commits the signatories and parties to respect the civil and political freedoms and rights of individuals. Monitored by the UN Human Rights Committee, the Covenant ratified by the majority of UN member states. The book meticulously extracts and analyzes the jurisprudence over nearly forty years of the UN Human Rights Committee, on each of the various ICCPR rights, including the right to life, the right to freedom from torture, the right of freedom of religion, the right of freedom of expression, and the right to privacy, as well as admissibility criteria under the First Optional Protocol. Key miscellaneous issues, such as reservations, derogations, and denunciations, are also thoroughly assessed. Comprehensively indexed and cross-referenced, this book offers elegant and straight-forward access to the jurisprudence of the Human Rights Committee and other UN human rights treaty bodies. Presented in a clear and illuminating manner, it will be of use to the judiciary, human rights practitioners, human rights activists, government institutions, academics, and students alike.
This impressive work sheds light on the recent history of the UN Security Council (UNSC), examining how the penchant for UN-backed humanitarian intervention in the 1990s has given way to an impotent UNSC, unable to play a meaningful role in the war in Iraq. It examines the precepts that govern UNSC politics, including the sanctity of sovereign states, the norm of non-intervention and state interests. Designed for readers who are interested in gaining a deeper understanding of the workings of the UNSC, the attitudes of its members towards the use of force and sovereignty, as well as understanding its limitations in international politics, this volume: * evaluates key issues such as the principle of consent, the use of force, intervention and sovereignty * provides a rich array of case studies to understand the challenges of consent-based peacekeeping * presents strong analytical consistency drawing on a wide variety of sources
This edited collection addresses a paradox at the heart of the European Union: if it is a constantly enlarging empire of governance, how can almost thirty member states design policies as an administrative whole, whilst narrowly approaching all political issues from one economic point of view? The contributors to this collection approach this by studying knowledge production, policy formation and policy implementation in the union. The topics covered include the history of the union, its nature as an empire in the making compared to historical successors as well as current USA and China, formation of union level statistical data and policy documents, paradoxes of fiscal governance, social innovation policy, youth and education policy, energy policy and foreign policy with particular regard to Russia. The concluding chapter outlines five alternative future scenarios for the union extending from collapse and marginalization to the emergence of a federal empire. The book is essential reading for anybody interested in the EU, including students and scholars across a range of disciplines, including sociology, political science, international relations, economics, management studies, public and social policy, science and technology studies, and environmental policy.
This book examines the multitude of challenges which the European Commission faces: once the centre of political gravity in Europe's integration process, the growth of Euroscepticism and the emergence of new institutional rivals threaten to undermine its status as an institution. Tracing the roots of the Commission's decline from the early 1990s through to the Eurozone and refugee crises, Stuart A Brown draws on new evidence to illustrate why the EU's executive now faces a battle for its future, and asks whether in the reforms of Jean-Claude Juncker the Commission may be facing its last chance. This study will appeal to students and scholars in EU institutions, politics, and public policy.
From climate change over shale gas to the race for the Arctic, energy makes headlines in international politics almost daily. Thijs Van de Graaf argues that energy is in dire need of global governance. He traces the history of international energy cooperation from the notorious 'Seven Sisters' oil-companies cartel to the recent creation of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). He analyses how international institutions have been created for securing oil rents, coordinating consumer-countries' energy security policies, promoting producer-consumer dialogue, managing regional gas markets, and dealing with energy-related environmental externalities. Drawing on the emerging regime complexity literature, he constructs a novel analytical framework to explain the fragmented architecture of global energy governance, and studies prospects for institutional reform at the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the G8/G20.
This book explores how the EU, as an international actor, is adapting to recent transformations in the multilateral system. The international identity of the European Union is built upon its support for effective multilateralism and its commitment to core norms and values. Until recently, there was no need to choose between these goals. Emerging powers in the international system are not only demanding more power in multilateral institutions, but also sometimes seeking to influence their purpose and function, away from those championed by the EU. This presents a dilemma for EU foreign policy - framed in this edited volume as either accommodating changes in order to support multilateral institutions or entrenching the EU position in order to uphold values. Using a common analytical framework, the chapters include case studies on important multilateral institutions such as the United Nations Security Council, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization and the International Criminal Court, as well as key policy areas such as energy, climate change, nuclear non-proliferation, and human rights.
The mandate of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) is close to many of the core issues now confronting developing and transition economy countries, and this book offers the first concise and accessible guide to this important organization. As the only UN organization to have been transformed from a UN secretariat entity to an independently governed UN agency, UNIDO has also an agency which has had to make drastic changes of focus and business practice in order to adjust to a changing environment. This book charts the complex origins and developments of the organization, and moves on to examine the current mandate of the agency, including trade capacity building, poverty reduction and Green Industry Initiative. It also examines the significant partnerships it has formed with other UN based systems such as UNCTAD and the ITC to achieve these goals. In the era of rapid globalization, UNIDO faces growing challenges. In the second part of this work, Browne seeks to review these challenges, and UNIDO's recent reforms under its current management, and looks suggest how the organization can help to meet some of the key global development challenges in the increasingly competitive environment of development cooperation and private sector initiative. This work will be a useful resource for all those with an interest in international organizations, international relations, development and trade, and international political economy.
Rethinking the Future of Europe has brought together three contrasting collections of contributions: the incrementalist perspective concerning the step by step development of Europe, the more radical reform/restructuring approach to the future of Europe, and a view of Europe from the outside.
This book explores how the multiplicity of nationalist parties across the European Union have embraced or refused the process of European integration and made it a platform for transnational coordination in the European arena. The author analyzes how opposing pro-European minority nationalist parties and Eurosceptic populist nationalist parties have diversely politicized European integration over the past three decades and engage in different patterns of Europeanization. Tracing their divergent trajectories of transnational coordination, the book examines the common challenges these opposing nationalist party families face and their systematic fragmentation in the European arena. The book offers a novel approach to understanding the conditions for the emergence of truly European nationalist party families, based on the interaction of ideological, strategic and institutional variables that underpin the Europeanization of heterogeneous nationalisms. Nationalisms in the European Arena will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines including sociology and political science. It contributes to the increasing literature on identity politics in the European Union and reveals the mechanisms behind why the European arena is adverse to the political translation and organization of domestic nationalisms as distinctive European actors.
It is often assumed that the European Commission is a unitary actor, with a shared set of values. Liesbet Hooghe's book questions this assumption through interviews with over one hundred officials on central issues in the governance of Europe. She finds that officials in fact have diverse views, are not "socialized" during their time at the Commission, and that contention over key issues within the Commission echoes debates among Europe's wider public. The Commission is not, she argues, a determinedly pro-integrationist organization with closer union as its aim.
David Begg examines how four small open economies- Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands and Ireland- have managed the stresses and strains of Europeanisation since the single market came into being, and as fault lines begin to appear within the European integration project. In particular, he drills down into the Irish Polity to see how its institutions have engaged with Europe and how decisions on critical issues like integration, EMU and Social Partnership were reached. He finds that both Ireland and Europe are at a critical juncture for different but interconnected reasons, and identifies the options that are available to them.
The term 'Eurocracy' is a word that exists in all European languages. Yet beyond fantasized representations of the 'Brussels bubble', we know little about members of the European Parliament, Commissioners, European civil servants, lobbyists, members of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank, European trade unionists, diplomats and journalists who work in or around the EU institutions? What are their social and professional trajectories, the type of authority they possess, and how does it matter? Based on extensive fieldwork, this volume aims at answering these questions by building upon Pierre Bourdieu's theory of the field of bureaucracy. 45 years after Altiero Spinelli's 'The Eurocrats', this book sheds new light on the relational structures that underpin the functioning of the EU polity. Specialists of European affairs, scholars and students in politics, administration and sociology as well as citizens will find original insights to understanding EU institutions and why the European project appears to be in crisis.
Unlike much of the previous literature that have covered small states' channels of influence, this book focuses on the tensions created by the interaction of the national and international levels. The book is innovative in focusing on the domestic dimension involved in determining the performance of small states in European security organisations, while not ignoring the transnational and international structural factors that shape the domestic level. Offers new conceptual tools to advance the study of small states as well as detailed empirical material on various aspects of small states' security policy in Europe.
Christoph Knill's book analyses the impact of European policies on national administrations. Under which conditions can we expect domestic change, particularly the convergence of administrative styles and structures? How can we explain national patterns of administrative transformation in the context of Europeanisation? Knill's study is a comparative assessment of the factors influencing administrative adjustment to European policy demands in the member states. It addresses the topic from an innovative theoretical perspective, combining institution-based and agency-based approaches, and includes a detailed account of the administrative impact of EU environmental policy in Britain and Germany. The Europeanisation of National Administrations will be of great interest to students, scholars and practitioners in the fields of European studies, public administration and public policy, environmental politics, and European and administrative law.
Following the disintegration of the Soviet bloc, many Central and Eastern European Countries launched a vigorous "return to Europe" campaign, which primarily focused on accession to NATO and the European Union. By 2007, ten countries became members of the Euro-Atlantic community, personifying the long-awaited reunification and reconciliation of Europe. The book argues that the EU and NATO eastern enlargements represent a settlement of historical-psychological accounts for countries affected by the "black trinity" the Munich Agreement, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and the Yalta-Potsdam Conferences.
The contributors to this book describe, discuss, and evaluate the normative reframing brought about by the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (the Ban Treaty), taking you on a journey through its genesis and negotiation history to the shape of the emerging global nuclear order. Adopted by the United Nations on 7 July 2017, the Ban Treaty came into effect on 22 January 2021. For advocates and supporters, weapons that were always immoral are now also illegal. To critics, it represents a profound threat to the stability of the existing global nuclear order with the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty as the normative anchor. As the most significant leap in nuclear disarmament in fifty years and a rare case study of successful state-civil society partnership in multilateral diplomacy, the Ban Treaty challenges the established order. The book's contributors are leading experts on the Ban Treaty, including senior scholars, policymakers and civil society activists. A vital guide to the Ban Treaty for students of nuclear disarmament, arms control and diplomacy as well as for policymakers in those fields.
The contributors to this book describe, discuss, and evaluate the normative reframing brought about by the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (the Ban Treaty), taking you on a journey through its genesis and negotiation history to the shape of the emerging global nuclear order. Adopted by the United Nations on 7 July 2017, the Ban Treaty came into effect on 22 January 2021. For advocates and supporters, weapons that were always immoral are now also illegal. To critics, it represents a profound threat to the stability of the existing global nuclear order with the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty as the normative anchor. As the most significant leap in nuclear disarmament in fifty years and a rare case study of successful state-civil society partnership in multilateral diplomacy, the Ban Treaty challenges the established order. The book's contributors are leading experts on the Ban Treaty, including senior scholars, policymakers and civil society activists. A vital guide to the Ban Treaty for students of nuclear disarmament, arms control and diplomacy as well as for policymakers in those fields.
Given their immense potential for development and representation of a new international political and economic order, the BRICS countries have become a strong nascent force on the global stage. However, as overall economic growth continues to slow down, and the geopolitical situation becomes more complex, the BRICS countries are facing a series of new challenges that require further development in the way they cooperate with one another. This volume offers a panoramic view of cooperation between the BRICS countries in the light of these new challenges. The editors reveal that policy coordination has been strengthened, bringing into play complementary advantages as viable ways for promoting robust, sustainable, and balanced growth in the world economy. They argue that the experience gained, and lessons learned in the development of and cooperation between the BRICS countries has offered a positive role model for cooperation between other countries as well as providing valuable lessons for research in international politics. Students and scholars in international relations and politics will benefit from this volume.
In light of new global challenges for international cooperation and coordination, such as the revival of protectionism, surge of populism, or energy-related issues, this volume highlights possible scenarios for the future of Global Economic Governance (GEG). The contributing authors analyze the substance of GEG as a normative framework for resolving collective action issues and promoting cross-border co-ordination and co-operation in the provision or exchange of goods, money, services and technical expertise in the world economy. Furthermore, the book examines drivers of fundamental shifts in global economic steering and covers topics such as power and authority shifts in the global governance architecture, technological and energy-related challenges, and the role of the G20 and BRICS in shaping global economic governance. "This book provides a very timely and nuanced account of the challenges facing the established global order." Andrew F. Cooper (Professor of Political Science at the University of Waterloo) "This valuable collection from a new generation of innovative scholars of global economic governance offers insights from a broad range of theoretical approaches to the central policy issues of the day" John Kirton (Director of the Global Governance Program, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto)
Can the power of the G20 be legitimate? This book examines the politics surrounding the G20's efforts to act effectively and legitimately and the problems and challenges involved in this activity. Developing a critical constructivist conceptualisation of the G20, the book considers holistically and practically the ways that the G20 develops various forms of power and influence and acts as an apex form of global governance that seeks to be an overall coordinating forum to address global problems. Assessing how debates about the legitimacy of the G20 shaped its operation, Slaughter argues that the G20's power can be legitimate despite a range of considerable challenges and limits. The book also explores what measures the G20 could take to be more legitimate in the future. Offering a direct and accessible consideration of the politics of legitimacy with respect to the G20, this book will be of interest to those attempting to understand and analyse the G20 as well as to scholars of IR theory, global political economy, global policy, diplomacy and globalisation.
Addressing the problem of reconciling China's voting record in the UN on human rights and repressive policy at home, this book argues that domestic factors determine the way the Chinese government acts on wider human rights issues. China has a very active voting record in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on human rights resolutions and is active internationally on such rights, something at odds with its increasing repression of human rights at home. Using rational choice's emphasis on actors acting to advance their preferences, the author argues that it is the perceived domestic threat to the rule of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that determines the way the Chinese government acts on the human rights issues explored in this book. The author documents the pattern of this relationship through an in-depth examination of China's voting in the UNGA on human rights issues, and statements made by Chinese delegates in the UN on human rights issues. This book will appeal to students of China, human rights, international relations, and international organizations, and for both state and non-state actors seeking to advance policy changes regarding China and human rights. In addition, the findings have policy implications for INGOs and states seeking to influence China's policies.
At a time of profound transformations in international relations, the second edition of Historical Dictionary of the United Nations maps out the continuing and deepening role and relevance of the United Nations in the maintenance of peace and the promotion of development and human rights. Focusing on the past two decades developments, this book contributes to a reasoned and fuller understanding of an organization which remains the cornerstone of a changing world fraught with challenges which simply cannot be addressed either unilaterally or bilaterally. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of the United Nations contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 1,000 cross-referenced entries on its basic organizations, subsidiary bodies, related specialized and other agencies, and nongovernmental actors as well as outstanding figures in its history. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the United Nations.
Since 1995 the world experienced a period of significant advance in international law, norms, and institutions. Progress was particularly intense in the fields of global environment, human security, cultural diversity, and human rights. This wave of multilateral activity led to milestones such as the Kyoto Protocol on climate change (1997), the landmine treaty, the International Criminal Court, or the UNESCO Convention on cultural diversity. Remarkably, most of these advances were not US-led, as in the past. What caused such a burst in global institutions and who were the key founding fathers?The book reveals the crucial roles played by the European Union, Japan, and Canada (so-called 'Minervian actors') in this fascinating period. It also reveals that they acted with various partners and sub-state actors and with a variety of motivations: they sometimes sought to balance against US dominance; they engaged in normative work with global civil society; or they sought to demonstrate international leadership to their home audience.
This book examines migration as a key element of the European Union's (EU's) foreign policy and thus a critical domain for understanding and evaluating EU external action. It documents, explains, and assesses the implementation of EU migration policies, especially after the crisis of 2015, providing a much-needed overall evaluation and comparison in different geographic contexts. Applying a composite approach to global political justice, it affords a normative assessment of EU's action and shows the tensions between the justice claims of the many actors involved in the EU migration system of governance. This book will be of key interest to scholars, students and policymakers in European Union external/foreign policy, migration and refugee studies, global justice, ethics and more broadly to European studies/politics, and international relations. |
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