A western cold war: the crisis in Iceland's relations with Britain,the United States,and NATO, 1971–74

The article explores the crisis in Iceland's relations with the Western Alliance following a left-wing government's decisions, in 1971, to expand Iceland's fishery limits and to demand the withdrawal of US military forces. This sparked a cod war with Britain and a diplomatic stand-off with the United States, with NATO in the middle. It analyzes the motives behind Iceland's behaviour – especially the tension between a pro Western foreign policy course and a domestic anti Western nationalism – the Western response within the context of alliance politics and the democratic peace theory, and the role of international mediation and domestic political realignments in diffusing the crisis.     

Foreign Policy Orientation, Strategic Interaction, and the Initiation of International Crises

In recent years, scholars studying U.S. foreign policy and the diversionary use of force have begun to focus more attention on when foreign regimes time crises with the U.S. Many argue that U.S. domestic conditions play a role in this. I argue that these models should take into consideration the foreign policy relationship between foreign governments and the U.S. I develop a theory of crisis initiation that considers the foreign policy orientation of states that may initiate a crisis with the U.S., and second, when the crisis may occur. I argue that by virtue of their foreign policy orientation, some regime leaders will be more likely than others to initiate a crisis with the U.S. Those regimes that are either closely aligned with the U.S. or closely identified with anti-U.S. interests will be much more likely to initiate crises with the U.S. than those whose foreign policy interests do not lead to such intimate ties of friendship or enmity. I develop and test hypotheses predicting what regime characteristics will be predictive of crisis initiation and when such crises are likely to occur. The results demonstrate that regime type matters more than U.S. domestic conditions in predicting where and when crises involving the U.S. will take place.     

'Suez in reverse': The arab response to the iraqi bid for Kuwait, 1961-63

On 25 June 1961,';Abd al-Qarim Qassem, the ruler of Iraq, declared Kuwait to be an integral par of Iraq. The announcement ignited a crisis involving Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union and aLL the Arab states. In retrospect, and in light of Saddam Husayn's subsequent invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, one may regard this event as a 'dress rehearsal'. Despite its being mainly an Arab crisis, most studies have focused on the role of the Western powers-in particular Britain. This article, in contrast, aims to shed new light on the conduct of the Arab states during the Arab world operated as a system with its own features and characteristics. The article shows that the crisis heralded the decline of President Nasser's central role in the Arab system - a trend that was reinforced with the demise of the Egyptain-Syrian merger shortly after. In addition, although the dialogue between the Arab rules was couched in pan-Arab terminology, the players acted according to thier own interests, thus strengthening the territorial Arab state.     

'Suez in reverse': The Arab response to the Iraqi bid for Kuwait, 1961-63

On 25 June 1961,';Abd al-Qarim Qassem, the ruler of Iraq, declared Kuwait to be an integral par of Iraq. The announcement ignited a crisis involving Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union and aLL the Arab states. In retrospect, and in light of Saddam Husayn's subsequent invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, one may regard this event as a 'dress rehearsal'. Despite its being mainly an Arab crisis, most studies have focused on the role of the Western powers-in particular Britain. This article, in contrast, aims to shed new light on the conduct of the Arab states during the Arab world operated as a system with its own features and characteristics. The article shows that the crisis heralded the decline of President Nasser's central role in the Arab system - a trend that was reinforced with the demise of the Egyptain-Syrian merger shortly after. In addition, although the dialogue between the Arab rules was couched in pan-Arab terminology, the players acted according to thier own interests, thus strengthening the territorial Arab state.     

Ukraine's Orange Revolution,NGOs and the Role of the West*

This article examines the role of Western support for domestic non-governmental organisations during the 2004 Ukrainian election and the Orange Revolution. It critically assesses the thesis that Western support and the groups who received Western money were overly biased towards a particular candidate, namely Viktor Yushchenko.     

国际金融危机对日本经济的主要影响因素分析——基于MIMIC模型的硏究

2008年由美国次贷危机引发的"金融海啸"席卷全球,日本经济也受到了强烈的冲击。日本MIMIC模型的建立发现了影响日本"危机强度"的国内信贷/GDP和政府债务/GDP两个国内主要影响因素,对各种传染渠道进行检验后发现了这次引起日本金融危机的主要是贸易传染渠道,对上述国内外主要影响因素进行分析,日本政府为刺激经济的一系列扩张性政策,在金融市场中并没有转化为有效的投资和需求反而大大增加了政府债务。     

The Global Communitarian Deficit

This article uses the sociological/philosophical theory of liberal communitarianism to analyze existing trends in global affairs. The European Union (EU) has often erred by expanding its missions without also recognizing the pull of nationalism and conducting community-building to strengthen the bonds among member nations. EU nations and countries around the world are retreating to nationalism. Rather than bringing the world together to fight a common enemy, the COVID-19 crisis has accelerated these global trends. The rise of nationalism has not increased domestic cohesion, but has led to high levels of domestic polarization. International communities seem a long way off, and the world order in the near future may depend to a considerable extent on whether the United States will permit China to increase its influence in the Western Pacific, which would allow for collaboration on most other matters.     

China,the Interdependent Giant,and the Global Economic Crisis

The global economic crisis revealed China to be an interdependent giant, one whose ‘rise’ was undeniable but also one whose deepening participation in transnational production sharing and network trade made it highly susceptible to an external shock. China weathered the storm relatively well – avoiding a recession, in particular – not because it had ‘decoupled’ from the G7 economies but because its stimulus measures were unusually swift and powerful. One cost, however, has been a worsening domestic imbalance between investment and consumption that carries a heightened risk of asset price inflation, non-performing loans and destabilising levels of local government debt. Meanwhile, China’s ties to the world economy have not fundamentally changed since the crisis began. Despite stirring leader rhetoric and summit declarations, the BRICS have made only modest progress in meeting their goals. East Asia, North America and Europe remain China’s principal trade partners, and cross-border production chains connecting these regions remain the dominant mode of China’s incorporation into the world economy.     

FLAG and the Diplomacy of the Iran Hostage Families

The extraordinary public diplomacy carried out by the families of the American hostages held in Iran from 1979 -1981 domesticated and humanised the biggest foreign policy crisis of Jimmy Carter's presidency. The families, notably represented by the Family Liaison Action Group (FLAG), led an unprecedented campaign to raise awareness of the plight of their relatives. The families designed their efforts to garner public and media attention, and manage relations with the press. To that end, the news media emerge as a singularly influential domestic actor in this episode. Moreover, women constituted the vast majority of family members regularly cited in news coverage and occupied a sizeable leadership role within organised activities during the crisis. The centrality of the families helped harden American attitudes toward Iran: not merely an outgrowth of a diplomatic dispute, it represented a sort of personal violence toward individual Americans and their families.     

ASEAN cooperation: the legacy of the economic crisis

This article examines the implications of domestic politicalchanges in the post-1997 era for ASEAN's regional cooperationand institutionalization. The conceptual framework traces regionalrelations to the makeup and grand strategies of domestic coalitions(internationalizing, hybrid, backlash). Had some predictionsin the immediate aftermath of the crisis been fulfilled, theadvent of domestic backlash coalitions would have portendedlower levels of regional cooperation. Alternatively, in theabsence of changes in the fundamental nature of most rulingcoalitions after the crisis, ASEAN's cooperative thrust wasexpected to be maintained. The article explores the extent towhich ASEAN's activities in the post-crisis era supports eitherof these two propositions. It finds that a shock of major proportionsin Southeast Asia led to some immediate challenges to bilateralrelations. At the same time, the aftermath of the crisis ledto considerable multilateral and bilateral cooperation on economicissues, expansion, intervention, and security. Furthermore,cooperation may have indeed improved despite subsequent crises,including 9/11 and its aftermath. Yet no linear progressionor irrevocable process towards internationalization or regionalcooperation can be assumed. Alternative coalitions, and theirpotential for changing regional trajectories, must be reckonedwith.     

Engaging environmental turbulence: drivers of organizational flexibility in the armed forces

Since the transformation was set in motion to change Western armed forces from large-scale mechanized defensive organizations into smaller agile expeditionary crisis response forces, the call for organizational flexibility has rocketed. Yet, actual research into the key organizational drivers of flexibility has hardly been done. To bridge this gap, the present study has analyzed to what extent modular organizing and organizational sensing have contributed to flexible military crisis response performance. The study uses the Netherlands’ armed forces as a representative example of a contemporary Western crisis response organization and empirically draws upon its recent operational experiences. It has uncovered that within most mission contexts, modular organizing acts as a facilitator for the organizational sensing process. Yet, within highly turbulent crisis response missions, organizational sensing becomes the predominant driver, stimulating ad hoc solutions that challenge existing structures, available technology, and standard procedures.     

美国金融危机对中国对外贸易出口企业的影响分析

一、美国金融危机产生的背景及原因 当前的美国金融危机是经济过度虚拟化和自由化后果的集中反映。20世纪80年代开始，美国进行大规模的产业结构调整，把大量的实体制造业转移到拉美和东南亚，而把美国本土打造成贸易、航运和金融等服务业中心；同时，在里根及其继任者的极力推动下，以私有化、市场化和自由化为目标的“华盛顿共识”在拉美和西方国家迅速推行。随着信息技术的迅速进步、金融自由化程度的提高，以及经济全球化的发展，虚拟资本的流动速度越来越快。     

Domestic politics,regional integration,and human rights: interactions among Myanmar,ASEAN, and EU

This paper tries to explain the evolving relations between the recent domestic political changes in Myanmar and the role of regional integration as they affect human rights in Myanmar. I posit that the two most important causes of the humanitarian crisis in Myanmar are the survival of the authoritarian regime and ethnic-religious conflicts. Those causes differ in nature and their political interactions with the ASEAN regional integration. This paper first examines the relationship between authoritarian regime survival and the humanitarian crisis/efforts during the 2008 natural disaster of cyclone Nargis and the resultant flooding. Second, I investigate the political dynamics of the human rights violations of ethnic and religious minorities, especially the Rohingya Muslim minority in the Rakhine State, during Myanmar’s recent democratic transition. This study approaches the aforementioned questions from both the EU and ASEAN perspectives and also deals with these two regional organizations’ interactions regarding Myanmar’s human rights.     

泰国社会转型过程中的“缓冲器”——制造可控的政治危机

20世纪90年代以来,泰国正经历着社会的全面转型,社会转型带来不可避免的社会动荡。然而有着自身政治发展规律的泰国却通过制造一系列可控的政治危机消减社会转型造成的过剩能量,维持着整个社会的基本稳定,推进着国内政治的发展。可以预见,在泰国社会转型没有最终完成之前,其国内政治危机仍将是社会常态。     

When News Norms Collide,Follow the Lead: New Evidence for Press Independence

The literature on media independence shows that the public statements of government officials can simultaneously stimulate news coverage and regulate the discursive parameters of that coverage. This study investigates two sources of uncertainty in that literature which have limited the ability of researchers to draw firm conclusions about the nature of media independence: how critical the news actually is, and how journalists put the indexing norm into practice. I examine policy discourse appearing in evening news broadcasts during the 1990-1991 Persian Gulf crisis, and find that sources outside the institutions of American government produced far more discourse critical of American involvement in the Gulf crisis than was produced by the "official" debate among domestic political leaders. Moreover, changes in the amount of governmental criticism coming from official circles did not tend to produce parallel changes in the amount of critical news coverage. This suggests that criticism of government in evening news discourse was not triggered by or closely tied to patterns of gatekeeping among elected officials. Television news coverage did not merely toe the "line in the sand" drawn by the Bush administration. Instead, the evidence from this case suggests that journalists exercised considerable discretion in locating and airing oppositional voices.     

European‐Atlantic Security Institutions: Current state and future prospects

Since the turn of the millennium, scholars and pundits have been musing over the decline of the West. The disappointing US military invasions in Afghanistan and Iraq, together with the subprime mortgage crisis, seem to be evidence of an abrupt end to America's ‘unipolar’ moment. In Europe, the sovereign debt crisis has amplified Europe's long-term structural economic problems and laid bare the fragile institutional foundation on which the Economic and Monetary Union was built. At the same time, the BRICs and other emerging economies have been growing at unprecedented rates. Those same analysts see a ‘decoupling’ in the world economy: the developing economies pulling the world out of recession, while the advanced industrial economies are unable to solve their domestic difficulties. So to them, the events of the past five years signify the beginning of the end of Western influence, eventually leading to a more complete rebalancing of the world economy's current ‘Western’ system of governance. This article argues instead that the West still has a significant edge when it comes to most critical factors that determine long-term economic growth potential, including technology, innovative capacity, research and development, investment climate and education. Furthermore, the transatlantic economy is less vulnerable than the rest of the world to outside economic shocks and might eventually prove more capable of reform than many expect. The current malaise in the transatlantic community might therefore prove once again to be more cyclical than structural. Relying on linear projections, many are ‘crying wolf’ again, too loud and too soon.     

新加坡经济波动透视

近年来,新加坡经济出现了急剧的波动。究其原因,主要是在经济全球化下受到主要发达国家经济周期波动的冲击和金融危机后国内经济转型与结构调整的影响。面对国内经济的迅速衰退,新加坡政府积极采取措施,大力实施国内经济重组与调整。从中长期看,新加坡经济增长速度将放缓而波动将加大。     

Foreign Policy Restructuring: Egypt's Disengagement from the Arab–Israeli Conflict Revisited

This article first examines the relative potency of explanations of Egypt's disengagement from the Arab–Israeli conflict that have stressed Sadat's beliefs, class interests or US influence, and it then makes the case for a state–society-centred explanation. Much is written about a diversionary internal–external linkage when a state threatened by internal unrest resorts to international aggression. This article makes the case for a preservative linkage between domestic tensions and accommodationist external behaviour. It identifies the fiscal crisis and societal challenges as key factors behind the policy shift and examines state utilisation of the policy shift to reduce domestic threats. Foreign policy provided the means for easing strained state–society relations by generating resources to alleviate societal crisis and limit the politically costly domestic taxation. Though this did not necessitate making a specific decision (e.g. the visit to Jerusalem), it tipped the scales towards a particular policy option, in this case disengaging from the external conflict rather than maintaining the status quo.     

东盟经济增长的波动及其趋势

近年来,东盟国家经济增长出现了急剧的波动。究其原因,主要是在经济全球化下受到主要发达国家经济周期波动的冲击和金融危机后国内经济转型与结构调整的影响。从东盟经济增长趋势看,各国经济增长速度将放缓而波动有所加大。     

论政府权威在韩国摆脱金融危机中的作用

一些西方学者和国内学者把韩国迅速摆脱金融危机并恢复经济增长的原因归结为政府干预被削弱以及市场作用得以发挥的结果。其实,“政府权威”不仅可以在一定程度上解释韩国战后以来维持经济高速增长的原因,而且还能解释韩国从金融危机中捷步脱身出来并迅速恢复增长的原因。