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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > International relations > International institutions
This book contends that far-right parties play pivotal roles in setting the tone of political debates, shaping the political party system, and structuring government policy. Increasingly, as national governments attempt to cope with new realities of greater global migration, strained welfare states, and threats of foreign terror, opportunities have opened for parties of the far right to position themselves strategically.
This is the first scholarly examination of climate change litigation in the Asia Pacific region. Bringing legal academics and lawyers from the Global South and Global North together, this book provides rich insights into how litigation can galvanize climate action in countries including Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia and China. Written in clear and accessible language, the fourteen chapters in this book shed light on the important question of how litigation may unfold as a potential regulatory pathway towards decarbonization in the world's most populous region.
Voting distills a complex decision into a deceptively simple action. During campaign seasons, the electorate faces a messy tangle of parties, leaders, and issues. How is it possible for voters to unravel it all? How do they perceive and evaluate the political landscape? How, in short, do voters choose? Not only is voting a complex choice, but voters themselves also vary widely in their degree of interest, and involvement in politics. Too often, though, scholars have ignored this variety by focusing on a mythic "average voter." In The Simple Art of Voting, Delia Baldassarri provides a new understanding of how voting works by focusing on how choices are made given the cognitive limitations of the human mind and the environment in which decision-making takes place. Drawing on recent advances in the study of cognitive psychology, decision-making, and political cognition, Baldassarri provides a careful empirical examination of the strategies voters actually use to manage the complexity of political choice. Expressly rejecting the prevailing one-size-fits-all, "what a rational voter should do" approach, she distinguishes voters based on the cognitive shortcuts, or heuristics, they use to simplify the decision-making process. Drawing on survey data from the 1990s Italian national general elections, the book identifies four types of voters, classified not by economic interest, partisanship, or demographics, but by how they perceive and organize the political debate-from those who capably rely on nuanced ideological categories to those who, skeptical about all-things-political, prove easy prey for television broadcasters. The typology allows political scientists and sociologists to grasp the actual differences in political sophistication among citizens and to understand which factors-parties, leaders, ideology, the media-are most important to different types of voters. Proving that there is no "average" voter, The Simple Art of Voting helps us make sense of the various ways in which citizens themselves make sense of-and make "simple"-the complex world of politics.
This book provides a unique study of the role of universities, as organisation systems, in the pursuit of the Europe 2020 strategy. While Europe 2020 focuses on creating the basis for the advancement and cohesion of the EU's member states, it also has an important role in influencing the development strategies for potential candidate states. In this regard, the book examines two new member states - Slovenia and Croatia - and two potential EU candidate states - Serbia and Kosovo - in the Western Balkans. Based on these cases, the author argues that the operationalization of the Europe 2020 strategy depends to a great extent of the role and contribution of tertiary organisations such as educational institutions, i.e. public and private universities, and therefore requires the formulation of an economic development strategy at the national level that is capable of duly allocating the available financial resources. The study suggests that the paradigm shift represented by Europe 2020 has helped to forge a new academic identity, adding to the relevance of university organisations as fundamental agents for the promotion of economic development; in addition, it shows that an intensive learning process involving major structural changes is underway in the four countries discussed, as well as many other EU member states.
This book applies the analytical approach called Historical Institutionalism (HI)- so far mostly used within comparative politics-to the field of International Relations (IR). It provides an introduction to HI concepts and makes an argument for why it is particularly well-suited for understanding current developments within international institutions. In particular, it helps us to understand the combination of change and stability that together form the dynamics of institutional development over time. It is the first book to collect original, empirical research applying historical institutionalism to international institutions. The chapters cover a range of institutions important to IR, including the development of European Union competition policy, the global politics of financial reform after the 2008 crisis, the institutional development of the World Health Organization, membership reforms in the League of Nations and the United Nations Security Council, and civil society access to intergovernmental organizations. The concluding chapter discusses the relationship of HI to other institutionalist approaches and the role of HI in future IR research.
This history of the United Nations recounts the actions of the UN in confronting the world's crisis situations, the conflicting policies of the member states and the initiatives undertaken in each case to preserve the peace. It is based on detailed examination of the record UN discussions.;This volume deals with a period when the organization was involved with major crises over Suez, Hungary, Lebanon, India, the Congo, the Cuba Missile Crisis and armed conflicts in Cyprus, Kashmir and the Dominican Republic. It covers the first UN peace-keeping operations: in Sinai, the Congo and Cyprus. It examines the effectiveness of the UN's peace-keeping role in these countries and suggests how this might be improved.
The Oxford Handbook of French Politics provides a comprehensive and comparative overview of the French political system through the lens of political science. The Handbook is organized into three parts: the first part identifies foundational concepts for the French case, including chapters on republicanism and social welfare; the second part focuses on thematic large-scale processes, such identity, governance, and globalization; while the third part examines a wide range of issues relating to substantive politics and policy, among which are chapters on political representation, political culture, social movements, economic policy, gender policy, and defense and security policy. The volume brings together established and emerging scholars and seeks to examine the French political system from a comparative perspective. The contributors provide a state-of-the-art review both of the comparative scholarly literature and the study of the French case, making The Oxford Handbook of French Politics an invaluable resource for anyone interested in the foundations of contemporary political life in France.
This timely book explores economic, political, social, and cultural impacts of the COVID-19. It aims to reveal a future world shaped by the worldwide pandemic. The main content of this book is divided into 5 parts: the pandemic-a short sketch of the pandemic through 2020, the acceleration of the global power transition: from East to West, comparison between authoritarian and democratic in the pandemic era, global international organizations under the COVID-19 influence, and regional international organizations under the COVID-19 influence. In addition, this book also analyzes the impacts from two aspects: the changes of the world order and the repercussions for international organizations and globalization. Three questions will be focused: How the pandemic has changed the existing world order? What the new post-pandemic world order will be? How international cooperation has been affected and will be affected? This book is a comprehensive study that investigates the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the political implication on international organizations. It would not only inspire readers to think about impacts of the outbreak of COVID-19 from economic and political perspectives, but also encourage readers to have a deeper understanding of the global political pattern and potential changes of world order after the pandemic. Therefore, the intended readership not only includes the academics but also includes pro-academics. The academic audiences include university and college scholars (especially those majoring in history, political sciences, economics, and international relations), teachers, and administrative staff at the undergraduate, graduate, postgraduate, and Ph.D. levels, as well as study centers and research institutes and campus and public libraries. The pro-academic groups include civil servants, especially scholarly bureaucrats and technocrats; white collar and middle-class citizens interested in reading, especially those interested in and concerned about current affairs; and international business elites. The most important feature of this book is that it points out the COVID-19 pandemic has been shaping the world order. It also shows in the coming post-pandemic world, the United States would maintain the position of superpower while the still rising China is likely to share some responsibilities in constructing a new multi-polar world with US and other powers. The prevailing of unilateralism will heavily constrain the role of international organizations.
This book analyses the Europeanization of the Portuguese political system in the context of globalization and the so-called Third Wave of Democratization. It pursues the thesis that democratization and Europeanization are two intertwined processes in the case of Portugal. Inte gration into the European Union has changed considerably the rationalities within the political structures of the Portuguese political system. Furthermore, the author stresses the necessity to encourage greater political participation of the population and to evolve towards a project of sustainable democracy.
This volume analyzes international agreements from a political economy perspective. In four essays, it raises the question of whether domestic institutions help explain if countries join international agreements, and in case they do, what type of international organization they join. The book examines how specific democratic design elements channel and mediate domestic demands directed at politicians, and how under certain circumstances entering international agreements helps politicians navigate these demands to their benefit. The volume also distinguishes between different types of international instruments with a varying expected constraining effect upon member states, and empirically tests if this matters for incentives to join. The volume addresses scholars, students, and practitioners interested in a better understanding of how the shape of domestic institutions affects politicians' incentives to enter into binding international agreements.
United Nations peacekeeping has undergone radical transformation in the new millennium. Where it once was limited in scope and based firmly on consent of all parties, contemporary operations are now charged with penalizing spoilers of peace and protecting civilians from peril. Despite its more aggressive posture, practitioners and academics continue to affirm the vital importance of impartiality whilst stating that it no longer means what it once did. Taking Sides in Peacekeeping explores this transformation and its implications, in what is the first conceptual and empirical study of impartiality in UN peacekeeping. The book challenges dominant scholarly approaches that conceive of norms as linear and static, conceptualizing impartiality as a 'composite' norm, one that is not free-standing but an aggregate of other principles-each of which can change and is open to contestation. Drawing on a large body of primary evidence, it uses the composite norm to trace the evolution of impartiality, and to illuminate the macro-level politics surrounding its institutionalization at the UN, as well as the micro-level politics surrounding its implementation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, site of the largest and costliest peacekeeping mission in UN history. Taking Sides in Peacekeeping reveals that, despite a veneer of consensus, impartiality is in fact highly contested. As the collection of principles it refers to has expanded to include human rights and civilian protection, deep disagreements have arisen over what keeping peace impartially actually means. Beyond the semantics, the book shows how this contestation, together with the varying expectations and incentives created by the norm, has resulted in perverse and unintended consequences that have politicized peacekeeping and, in some cases, effectively converted UN forces into one warring party among many. Taking Sides in Peacekeeping assesses the implications of this radical transformation for the future of peacekeeping and for the UN's role as guarantor of international peace and security.
Who were key figures in the making of European monetary union? Which ideas did they contribute to ensuring that monetary union would be sustainable? How prescient were they in identifying the necessary and sufficient foundations of a sustainable monetary union? This book provides the first systematic historical examination of key architects of European monetary union in the period before its launch in 1999. Using original archival and interview research, it investigates the intellectual and career backgrounds of these architects, their networking skills, and their own doubts and reservations about the way in which monetary union was being constructed. In the light of the later Euro Area, Architects of the Euro deals critically with not just their contribution to the making of European monetary union but also their legacy. The book brings together a distinguished group of scholars working on the history of Economic and Monetary Union.
Recent years have seen a remarkable expansion in the scale and importance of economic, social, and cultural rights (ESC rights), culminating in the adoption of the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in December 2008. The Protocol gives individuals and groups the ability to bring complaints about rights violations before the UN Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. Against this background, this book focuses on the question of how fundamental socio-economic human rights enshrined in international law are defined, interpreted, understood, and implemented. It assesses how effective efforts to realize ESC rights have been and investigates the contemporary challenges obstructing their protection. It sets out the impact of the global financial crisis and austerity measures, the human rights responsibilities of corporations, and trends in the justiciability of those rights at the national and international level. The interrelationship between ESC rights and other legal regimes such as trade and investment law, environmental law, international criminal law, and international humanitarian law is also thoroughly examined. After an introduction by the editors the book contains seventeen chapters looking at the main questions which shape the progressive realization of ESC rights and their monitoring mechanisms. The authors of the chapters, both scholars and practitioners, adopt interdisciplinary approaches that move beyond traditional analyses of ESC rights. In doing so, they clarify and illuminate multiple aspects of the law by bringing together the different aspects of ESC rights, restating the challenges they face, and assessing the progress that has been made in expanding their adoption.
This book focuses on how Indonesian civil society organisations interact with ASEAN to shape human rights institutionalisation in the region. Using Bourdieu-inspired constructivist IR as an analytical lens, the book argues that there are pre-reflexive norms that dominate the field of interaction in the region that shape the way civil society organisations operate. This has resulted in the diverging advocacy practices, thus complicating human rights institutionalisation process in ASEAN.
This text critically analyzes the institutions of the EU and NAFTA. It covers both the general problems of building new and integrated markets, and several policy areas that are related to economic integration. The institutions established in both Europe and America are seen as deficient in several respects: not only are the "side effects" on labour markets, social and environmental conditions considered inadequately addressed. Without offering adequate replacements, the book claims, the economic integration projects are actually undermining some of the core institutions that serve the needs of the market economies institutions upon the integration process itself depends.
Until 1919, European wars were settled without post-war trials, and individuals were not punishable under international law. After World War One, European jurists at the Paris Peace Conference developed new concepts of international justice to deal with violations of the laws of war. Though these were not implemented for political reasons, later jurists applied these ideas to other problems, writing new laws and proposing various types of courts to maintain the post-World War One political order. They also aimed to enhance internal state security, address states' failures to respect minority rights, or rectify irregularities in war crimes trials after World War Two. The Birth of the New Justice shows that legal organizations were not merely interested in ensuring that the guilty were punished or that international peace was assured. They hoped to instill particular moral values, represent the interests of certain social groups, and even pursue national agendas. When jurists had to scale back their projects, it was not only because state governments opposed them. It was also because they lacked political connections and did not build public support for their ideas. In some cases, they decided that compromises were better than nothing. Rather than arguing that new legal projects were spearheaded by state governments motivated by "liberal legalism," Mark Lewis shows that legal organizations had a broad range of ideological motives - liberal, conservative, utopian, humanitarian, nationalist, and particularist. The International Law Association, the International Association of Penal Law, the World Jewish Congress, and the International Committee of the Red Cross transformed the concept of international violation to deal with new political and moral problems. They repeatedly altered the purpose of an international criminal court, sometimes dropping it altogether when national courts seemed more pragmatic.
Are international courts effective tools for international governance? Do they fulfill the expectations that led to their creation and empowerment? Why do some courts appear to be more effective than others, and do so such appearances reflect reality? Could their results have been produced by other mechanisms? This book evaluates the effectiveness of international courts and tribunals by comparing their stated goals to the actual outcomes they achieve. Using a theoretical model borrowed from social science, the book assesses their effectiveness by analysing key empirical data. Its first part is dedicated to theory and methodology, laying out the effectiveness model, explaining its different components, its promise and limits, and discussing the measurement challenges it faces. The second part analyses the role that indicators such as jurisdiction, judicial independence, legitimacy, and compliance play in achieving effectiveness. Part three applies the effectiveness model to the International Court of Justice, the WTO dispute settlement mechanisms (panels and Appellate Body), the International Criminal Court, the European Court of Human Rights, and the European Court of Justice, reflecting the diversity of the field of international adjudication. Given the recent proliferation of international courts and tribunals, this book makes an important contribution towards understanding and measuring the value that these institutions provide.
As EU non-majoritarian bodies such as the European Commission, the Court of Justice of the European Union, and the European Central Bank grow in political influence, many have identified the pressing need to keep these bodies accountable to the repositories of the EU's democratic legitimacy. This collection of essays sheds light on the inherent tension between independence and legitimacy in the EU's institutional system and explores the options of reconciling the two. Featuring analysis from both legal and political perspectives, the volume assesses whether, to what extent, and how it is possible to control the various EU independent bodies and make them answerable for what they do, while at the same time upholding their independence.
After an exploration of the experience gained by former central and eastern European countries in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, Peter Naray gives an analysis of the Russian economic and social crisis and comes to the conclusion that this crisis is responsible for the delay of Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO). The author criticizes the approach taken in Russian reforms because the country's historical legacy (weak legal system, underdeveloped political and economic institutions etc.) was neglected. The book describes the steps made by Russia towards WTO membership underlining the present and expected difficulties. It warns against a fundamentalist approach by the members of the WTO that may result in Russia's isolation in political and economic matters that would represent a danger to the whole world.
Relying on micro-evidence on the repercussions of civil conflicts, this edited book explores theories and policies of post-conflict peacebuilding. Reconsidering existing knowledge on the civil conflict and peacebuilding processes in particular, it empirically presents the relationships between conflict dynamics and citizens' norms, values, and preferences in the post-conflict context. Once it occurs, civil conflict brings enormous suffering on the local society. As a consequence of wartime coercion and violence that tear it apart, citizens come to harbor fear, distrust, and hatred of others, especially of those who are in different sociopolitical groups. This can significantly alter the pre-conflict norms and values of the citizenry and make reconciliation difficult across groups in the aftermath of the conflict. To tackle these problems, post-conflict peacebuilding should be well designed so that it can widely cover and sufficiently deal with conflict-affected citizens. This approach urges us to pay serious attention to the individual-level impact of the conflict process and dynamics. The importance of micro-level analysis does not disregard that of normative and/or macro-level approaches to the development of peacebuilding policies. However, the micro-level approach is better able to capture wartime civil-military relations that largely vary between individuals. The book is aimed at linking academic knowledge with policy development in peacebuilding. To reflect existing policy frameworks in peacebuilding, the implications of micro-evidence-based studies for conflict-affected societies are discussed here. A bottom-up approach pursued throughout this book allows us to elaborate desirable policy schemes for peacebuilding that conform to local contexts.
This book explores post-Soviet Eurasian regional security governance, as embedded in the military alliance of Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). CSTO was established in 2002 and consists of six post-Soviet countries: Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Moving studies of regional security governance beyond the so-called Eurocentrism trend expressed, inter alia, via the focus on Western military alliance, such as NATO, this book examines CSTO as a new, post-Soviet form of regional security cooperation by looking at the reasons and drivers behind the establishment of the post-Soviet Eurasian security governance; the organization's institutional design; the military capabilities of its member states; the degree of the members' integration within the alliance; the cooperation pattern adopted by CSTO members; as well as the effect and effectiveness of this military alliance.
What explains differences in the lobbying behaviour of interest groups? And what consequences do these differences have for the access that interest groups can gain to decision-makers and the influence that they can exert on policy outcomes? Building on an unprecedented amount of empirical evidence on lobbying in Europe, this book puts forward a distinction between lobbying insiders and lobbying outsiders. Lobbying insiders, most prominently business interests, try to establish direct contacts with decision-makers, enjoy good access to executive institutions, and manage to shape policy outcomes when mobilizing the public on an issue is difficult. Lobbying outsiders, in particular citizen groups such as consumer, environmental or health non-governmental organizations, put greater emphasis on mobilizing the public or changing public attitudes, find it easier to gain access to legislative decision-makers, and have the greatest impact on outcomes on issues that are amenable to an outside lobbying campaign. The book shows that a single argument, building on group type as the main variable, can explain variation across interest groups in their choice of strategy, their access to decision-makers, and the conditions under which they can exert influence. The existence of lobbying insiders and lobbying outsiders has important implications for both our understanding of political decision-making and the normative appraisal of contemporary democracy.
In this volume, a group of distinguished economists, political scientists, and sociologists analyzes the political economy of European integration. The authors evaluate recent developments of European politics and institutions. They consider the current situation, and assess prospects for the future of an Integrated Europe. This book will be of great interest to observers, scholars, and students of European economic and political affairs, macroeconomic policy, institutional analysis, and comparative and international political economy. The book is unique in combining perspectives from economics and political science and provides in-depth analysis of the new European institutions. It is published in conjunction with "Monetary and Fiscal Policy in an Integrated Europe" by the same editors.
Focussing on access to territory and authorization of presence and residence for third-country nationals, this book examines the EU law on immigration and asylum, addressing related questions of security of residence. Concentrating on the key measures concerning both the rights of third-country nationals to enter and stay in the EU, and the EU's construction of illegal immigration, it provides a detailed and critical discussion of EU and ECHR migration and refugee law. Rights of admission include three categories of entrants: labour migrants, family migrants, and asylum seekers and refugees. Legal entry raises further questions, and recent key measures, including the EU Blue Card Directive, the Family Reunification Directive, and the Dublin Regulation and related instruments are examined. As most of these EU measures deal with those border crossings where human rights norms have already established some constraints on state discretion, the interaction between the EU norms and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) is a key concern. The uniting theme is the interaction between established human rights norms, in particular the ECHR, and EU law. Does the EU fulfil its post-national promise to create forms of membership beyond the state, or in its treatment of non-Europeans, does it undermine human rights and existing legal protections? |
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