Mainstreaming gender in refugee protection

The issues of gender-related persecution and violence against women have been put onto the international agenda, largely thanks to lobbying by feminist NGOs and transnational networks. There is a question, however, of how successfully this agenda-setting has translated into effective policy-making and policies that will increase the protection of women who are victims of gender-related persecution. One of the problems with policies to support women refugees and asylum seekers lies in a failure of transmission of the goals of gender sensitivity through all the various bureaux and representatives of a large bureaucratic organization such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). For nearly twenty years, since the early 1990s, the UNHCR has identified ‘refugee women’ as a policy priority, and yet, despite this prioritization of concerns about women refugees and gender issues in the asylum and refugee process, it could be argued that little progress has been made in implementation of policies on refugee women. This article will examine the way in which the concept of gender has been adopted within the UNHCR and the processes that have been put in place to mainstream gender within refugee protection activities. How far has mainstreaming managed to move policies to protect women beyond a mere focus on ‘vulnerable’ groups, and to integrate a gendered understanding of the global processes that produce refugees, and of the protection needs of these refugees?     

Post–Conflict Global Governance: The Case of Microfinance Enterprise Networks in Bosnia and Herzegovina

The article examines the institutional infrastructure that supports the foreign aid flows in the mcrocredit sector in postconflict Bosnia and Herzegovina. It documents the mobilization of transnational networks between different international agencies in the course of the policy formulation and implementation, and elicits the effects that certain network attributes exert on the policy choices made by individual organizations. How and why do international governmental and nongovernmental organizations, with at times conflicting goals, join forces in such networks? More important, whose goals are eventually implemented, and under what conditions? Whose goals are diluted in the process of network mobilization? What are the policy implications of such "battles" for the postconflict reconstruction? The article seeks some answers to these questions, demonstrating how transnational networks intermediate between the organizational goals and the final policy outcomes that result from such a network–based mode of global governance in postconflict regions.     

International Plug 'n Play? Citizen Activism, the Internet, and Global Public Policy

One of the most dramatic changes in world politics has been the rise to prominence of citizen networks. Among the many factors responsible for their emergence are new communication technologies, and in particular the World-Wide Web. Opinions on the nature and significance of these citizen networks, however, are mixed. Some applaud citizen networks as potential counter-hegemonic forces and expressions of democratic participation. Others see them, on the contrary, as undemocratic and largely destructive. Straddling both of these views is a third argument that suggests "real" communities cannot be sustained on the Internet, hence calling into question the long-term viability of citizen networks as actors on the world political stage. To help push these debates further, this article examines the case of the citizen networks that emerged to lobby against the Multilateral Agreement on Investments, focusing in particular on how the Internet played a part in the opposition movement. The case suggests that, contrary to those who see new media as an obstacle to global citizen etworks, the Internet and World-Wide Web greatly facilitated their activities. As a consequence, citizen networks will likely continue to grow and expand, intruding into international policymaking processes. The article concludes by examining several global public policy issues that are raised by this shift in the landscape of world politics that will have to be addressed by practitioners of international relations in years to come.     

Mainstreaming international governance: The environment,gender, and IO performance in the European Union

International organizations (IOs) have moved increasingly in recent years to adopt cross-cutting mandates that require the “mainstreaming” of particular issues, such as gender equality or environmental protection, across all IO policies. Successful IO performance with respect to such mandates, we hypothesize, is determined in large part by the use of hard or soft institutional measures to shape the incentives of sectoral officials whose cooperation is required for successful implementation. We test this hypothesis with respect to two such mandates—gender mainstreaming and environmental policy integration—in a single international organization, the European Union, demonstrating a strong causal link between the use of hard incentives and IO performance in these and related mandates.     

Through,against and beyond the racial state: the transnational stratum of race

Though race is most commonly associated with domestic politics, the concept itself was born in the transnational realm. This article conceptualizes race as a system of global power relations that has changed over time, manifests differently across space and exists on multiple analytical levels. Drawing from the insights of international relations, comparative politics and critical race theory, it argues that race is a transnational norm or idea that can independently affect both domestic policy outcomes and international relations among nation-states. The article explores several promising avenues of research in the examination of the varied manifestations of race in international and domestic realms and ends with a brief discussion of continuing challenges and future research agendas in the comparative and international study of race.     

European‐Chinese relations in the Nineties

In recent decades, there have been many international campaigns on numerous issues. In turn, scholars have analysed the activist networks promoting human rights, environmental quality and global justice, developing theories of transnational advocacy, strategies and outcomes. However, analysts have seldom noted that the ‘progressive’ networks on which these theories have been based seldom act unopposed. Instead, on numerous global issues leftwing groups face fierce opposition from networks of rightwing activists. This article provides examples of such clashes, focusing on these understudied conservative networks. In addition, it outlines a theory for understanding the conflict of networks over many policy issues.     

Police,policy and politics in Brussels: scenarios for the shift from sovereignty to solidarity

This article analyses the evolution of European Union (EU) police cooperation on the basis of structural processes in the form of agencification, regulation and standardization, as well as substantive processes in the form of information-sharing and multi-disciplinary cooperation. The Lisbon Treaty holds some key conditions for further integration. The level of integration of police cooperation in the EU is measured by analysing institutional power, the regulatory framework and transnational professionalism. Despite a positive score on each of these levels, member states remain caught between national sovereignty and solidarity. As a consequence, they face an implementation gap and have not embedded European police cooperation in their domestic systems. Building on the pro-integrative moves that have been introduced by virtue of the Lisbon Treaty, improved governance and deeper integration can be achieved by means of more active parliamentary involvement, independent police oversight (both at European and at the national level), the mainstreaming of cooperation mechanisms and a systematic Europe-wide cultivation of police professionalism. Within the realm of internal security cooperation in the EU, a concerted effort is required which demands close consultation between relevant institutional actors and the professional actors in the member states.     

Leaders or Laggards: engendering sub-national governance through women's policy machineries in Spain and Poland

More than three decades of international best practice and a rich body of scholarship demonstrate that women's policy machinery (WPM) is a crucial tool for promoting feminist policymaking. A new and unstudied form of WPM is emerging at the sub-national level. In this paper, we examine the effects of (1) regional leftist party governance and (2) sub-state durability on feminist policymaking. We employ Stetson and Mazur's model of effective, feminist WPM and operationalize policy Influence and Access provided to feminist groups. Drawing on four regional cases within Spain and Poland, we use field research, interviews, and party documents to examine whether regional leftist party governance and federalized state structure are associated with WPM ‘Leaders’ in feminist policymaking. We find that regional leftist governance is associated with WPMs that offer feminist policy and empower feminist groups; however, sub-state durability modifies the impact of party governance. We conclude with suggestions for further research.     

Issue Frames and the Political Outcomes of Transnational Campaigns: A Comparison of the Jubilee 2000 Movement and the Currency Transaction Tax Campaign

Since the end of the Cold War, a large number of transnational advocacy networks (TANs) have launched campaigns focusing on a number of different global issues. Some of these campaigns have been quite successful in influencing global public policy, while others have not. What accounts for differences in TANs' ability to shape the global policy process? How can we explain the variation in TAN campaign outcomes? To answer these questions, I draw on the concept of framing, which has been used to explain social movement mobilisation and outcomes, and apply it to two TAN campaigns that have had different outcomes: Jubilee 2000 and the Currency Transaction Tax campaign. I argue that effective framing strategies, i.e. the use of issue frames that resonate with international norms and values and provide compelling analyses and policy proposals, is one explanation for the variation in the outcomes of these two TAN campaigns.     

Not in Anyone's Backyard: The Emergence and Identity of a Transnational Anti-Base Network

Providing an overview of the emergence, characteristics, trajectory, and potential limitations of the transnational anti-base network, this article focuses on two broad questions relevant to transnational politics. First, what processes and mechanisms enabled local and transnational activists to form the international No Bases network? Second, how did activists juxtapose existing local anti-base identity and frames to emerging transnational ones? Following existing transnational movement theories, I argue that the global anti-base network slowly emerged through processes of diffusion and scale shift in its early stages. The onset of the Iraq War, however, injected new life into the transnational anti-base movement, eventually leading to the inaugural International Conference for the Abolition of Foreign Bases in 2007. Although loose transnational ties existed among anti-base activists prior to 2003, the U.S. war in Iraq presented anti-base activists the global frames necessary to accelerate the pace of diffusion, scale-shift, and brokerage, and hence, the consolidation of a transnational anti-base network. Paradoxically, however, even as No Bases leaders attempted to forge a new transnational identity, anti-base activists, as "rooted cosmopolitans," continued to anchor their struggle in local initiatives.     

The Political Economy of Intellectual Property Protection: The Case of Software

The end of the twentieth century was marked by a sea change in global governance in the realm of intellectual property rights (IPRs). Whereas countries historically retained substantial autonomy with regard to what they defined as intellectual "property" and the rights granted to the owners of intellectual property, the 1990s witnessed the establishment of new global obligations regarding national practices. This paper focuses on the case of software "piracy" to assess the mechanisms by which the new global obligations for the treatment of IPRs are transmitted from the international to the national levels. We first consider a set of national-level factors that many scholars have shown to be important determinants of IPR policy. We then supplement the standard emphasis on domestic factors with an analysis of new transnational factors: countries' multilateral obligations under the World Trade Organization's (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and bilateral pressures from the United States to increase the protection of IPRs. Population-averaged panel data models are used to assess the effects of these national and transnational determinants on levels of software piracy in 80 countries from 1994 to 2002. Our results indicate that membership in the WTO and bilateral pressures from the United States—particularly pressures that offer reciprocal concessions—lead to substantial increases in levels of protection in rich and poor countries. There is, in short, a new international political economy of intellectual property.     

Gender mainstreaming in organisational culture and agricultural research processes

Despite increased attention to gender issues in the international development arena since the rise of feminism in the 1970s, few agricultural research organisations have integrated gender in their problem diagnosis and technology development. Gender mainstreaming can significantly enhance the impact of research and technology development. Entrenching gender mainstreaming in organisations and their research agendas remains a challenge. To overcome it requires political will, accountability, a change in organisational culture, and technical capacity within an organisation. This article presents an experience of gender-mainstreaming practice in the institutional culture and agricultural research processes by Urban Harvest and the International Potato Centre (CIP).     

Transnational Networks and Global Environmental Governance: The Cities for Climate Protection Program

The past decade has witnessed a growing interest among scholars of international relations, and global environmental governance in particular, in the role of transnational networks within the international arena. While the existence and potential significance of such networks has been documented, many questions concerning the nature of governance conducted by such networks and their impact remain. We contribute to these debates by examining how such networks are created and maintained and the extent to which they can foster policy learning and change. We focus on the Cities for Climate Protection (CCP) program, a network of some 550 local governments concerned with promoting local initiatives for the mitigation of climate change. It is frequently asserted that the importance of such networks lies in their ability to exchange knowledge and information, and to forge norms about the nature and terms of particular issues. However, we find that those local governments most effectively engaged with the network are mobilized more by the financial and political resources it offers, and the legitimacy conferred to particular norms about climate protection, than by access to information. Moreover, processes of policy learning within the CCP program take place in discursive struggles as different actors seek legitimacy for their interpretations of what local climate protection policies should mean. In conclusion, we reflect upon the implications of these findings for understanding the role of transnational networks in global environmental governance.     

Patterns of Internet and Traditional News Media Use in a Networked Community

Abstract

International communication has come increasingly under the impact of at least three major technological, socio‐economic, and political forces: expanded channels of communication provided by technological developments, democratizing pressures that have brought new voices to be heard in international media and forums, and new but as yet weak mechanisms for the conduct of meaningful dialogue and negotiations. Power politics has been thus increasingly supplemented or supplanted by image politics, questioning traditional boundaries between domestic and international politics, and creating image fixations that have proved occasionally inimical to accommodation of real interests. The symbolic uses of images, on the other hand, have served at least three kinds of cognitive interests: national solidarity, and domestic instrumental and global community. The Iranian hostage crisis, among a number of other contemporary examples, illustrates how these interests were served, symbolically and actually, in domestic as well as international politics. Through a case study of the hostage crisis, me paper concludes with some warnings on the potentials as well as menaces of image politics.     

“Gendering” European security: policy changes,reform coalitions and opposition in the OSCE

The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has rarely been considered in scholarship on gender and security, even though it was one of the regional security organisations whose gender policy predated the United Nations Security Council’s call for more international attention to issues related to women, peace and security in October 2000. Based on an analysis of official OSCE documents and on semi-structured interviews, we trace the integration of gender issues in the OSCE and explore the rationale behind and the challenges associated with it. We identify two phases of gender policy change in the OSCE and show how the integration of UNSCR 1325 brought about an expansion of OSCE gender policy from an exclusive focus on “soft” security issues towards increased inclusion of gender in the area of “hard” security. Drawing on historical and feminist institutionalism, we argue that reform coalitions were crucial for the policy changes in the OSCE but that they encountered institutional and ideational barriers, which hampered implementation of the gender policy. In light of rising opposition, our analysis warns of a backlash that might jeopardise current achievements.     

Feminist Studies of Globalisation: Beyond Gender,Beyond Economism?

This article offers a distinctive mapping of the feminist literature on globalisation. Part I sets the “new wave” of debate in the context of long-standing feminist theorising and organisation around global power and politics, drawing attention to a growing focus on economic processes. Part II explores the marginalisation of feminist arguments within globalisation studies, pointing to the dominance of an economistic model of globalisation as a key factor. It also identifies a parallel feminist tendency to neglect non-feminist efforts to develop non-economistic analyses of globalisation. Part III seeks to pinpoint the originality of the contribution of feminism. Although the most obvious starting point for such an evaluation is an emphasis upon gender, the feminist contribution is not reducible to this. Feminists have integrated gender analyses into accounts of multiple, intersecting relations of global power. They also offer distinctive analyses of the relation between the local and the global and the character of agency and resistance. The article indicates that the feminist response to economism still remains incomplete. Nonetheless, it demonstrates that feminist insights pose a significant challenge to non-feminist accounts of globalisation and to those organising within and against global power relations.     

External networks and institutional idiosyncrasies: the Common Security and Defence Policy and UNSCR 1325 on women,peace and security

In 2008, the Council of the European Union (EU) adopted a ‘Comprehensive Approach’ that outlines a strategy for securing gender mainstreaming; two years later, the Council introduced a set of indicators to assess its implementation. The EU was responding to the United Nations Security Council’s call for regional institutions to assist in implementing Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325, adopted on 31 October 2000, concerning ‘women, peace and security’. This resolution sought to meet the ‘urgent need to mainstream a gender perspective into peacekeeping operations’. Considering that prior exposure to gender issues, resources and well-established relations with civil society and gender advocates are lacking, the adoption of both the Comprehensive Approach and the indicators, as well as the structures and procedures established since then as part of the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy, requires some explanation. This article draws on feminist institutionalist approaches to argue that the impetus for change came from individuals and groups within the EU who were involved in external networks, both above and below the supranational level, who seized on institutional idiosyncrasies that also shaped the implementation of UNSCR 1325 in important ways.     

从比较的视角看海外移民的流动性对中国的影响

在经济全球化发展日趋增强的今天,移民活动的状况或本质正越来越表现为流动性而非定居性。移民的流动性,是“人权高于主权”这一国际政治思潮的反映,是全球化发展所产生的一种“跨国逃避”趋势,也是国际政治经济多元化、不平衡发展和各国综合国力竞争的必然产物。本文试图通过对移民流动性的探讨,揭示中印两国海外移民的流动性对两国发展和综合国力提升所共同具有的有益影响,以及中印两国因其海外移民流动性在国际社会中所面临的不同处境。     

Framing the matter differently: the political dynamics of European Union labour migration policymaking

Most of the scholarly literature on European Union immigration policymaking has emphasized the predominance of governmental actors. The major changes entailed in the 2009 Lisbon Treaty, however, imply a significant increase in supranationalism and necessitate rethinking earlier conclusions. Exploring the concomitant rise of policy entrepreneurship traits in the actions taken by the European Commission, this article emphasizes the role of discourse structuration in managing policymaking in a contested and controversial policy domain. The Commission is thus gaining more influence and importance, partially facilitated by institutional changes in the Lisbon Treaty, but mainly due to astute policy entrepreneurship in facilitating consensus. Framing problems in a fashion that maximizes potential agreement by member state governments facilitates political agreement regarding potentially divisive policy proposals. Discursive elements are created and circulated that are designed to appeal, render political implementation at the national level unproblematic and, in some cases, are deliberately bipartisan in nature. Thus, great rhetorical emphasis is placed on linking policy with competitiveness, economic growth and the Europe 2020 agenda to appeal to centre-right concerns, but in the case of temporary migration links are also constructed to centre-left issues, including enhancing migrant rights, avoiding exploitation and creating benefits for sending countries. Empirically, the article focuses on the politics surrounding the genesis of the directive on highly qualified migrant workers (the so-called Blue Card) and the migrant seasonal workers directive.     

Sovereignty, globalization and transnational social movements

Traditionally, sovereign states have been defined, in termsof their external and internal dimensions, as mutually exclusiveterritorial jurisdictions. Economic globalization is associatedwith the liberalization of the world economy, decreases in transactioncosts, the development of communication technologies, and theemergence of transnational social and cultural spaces. Thesehave eroded the divide between national and international systemsand fostered the dispersal of power in social networks. As aresult, it is unrealistic to define state sovereignty as a counterposeto the global system, as these phenomena have become mutuallyembedded. States and their sovereignty are not disappearing– on the contrary, they may be gaining new tasks and resources– but they cannot exercise their agentive power as effectivelyas before. This means that the internal dimension of state sovereigntyhas been transformed more thoroughly than the external one.This is in part due to the growth and proliferation of transnationalsocial movements, which have also gained agentive power in nationalsocieties. Therefore, the anti-globalization movement, althoughit is unable to halt the process of economic integration, hasbeen able to redefine the terms of the globalization debateand influence responses by national governments and internationalfinancial institutions.