Neo‐revisionism or the emperor's new clothes: Some reflections on Niall Ferguson on the origins of the first world war

Niall Ferguson, The Pity of War (London: Allen Lane/The Penguin Press, 1998). xlv + 623 pp., £18.99 (hb), ISBN 0–713–99246–8.

Niall Ferguson (ed.), Virtual History: Alternatives and Counterfactuals (London: Picador, 1997). 548 pp., £20 (hb), ISBN 0–330–35132‐X.     

Re‐setting the Euro‐Mediterranean security agenda

The EU’s reaction is slow; the EU is divided; the EU is unable to deliver: time and time again, newspapers depict the image of an incoherent and uncoordinated EU foreign policy. This time, the topic under discussion was the EU’s response to the Libyan crisis. Many have compared the EU’s internal divisions over Libya with those over the Iraq war, an often used example to illustrate the limits of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). This article aims to assess the coherence of the EU’s short- to medium-term response to the Libyan crisis. It distinguishes between the horizontal, inter-institutional, vertical and multilateral dimensions of EU coherence. The analysis shows that unilateral actions or inactions of the member states mainly account for the EU's incoherent response. The post-Lisbon institutional structure has done little to compensate for these internal divisions. While the EU cannot change the course of national foreign policies, it should increase its ‘leadership for coherence’, Europeanise its crisis response in the medium term and aim at preventing incoherence in the longer term.     

The re‐equilibration of democracy in inter‐war Ireland

This article examines the process of democratic stabilization in inter‐war Ireland. The Irish case is a classic example of what Linz calls re‐equilibration. Re‐equilibration is a political process that, following a crisis which has seriously endangered democratic institutions, results in their continued existence at the same or higher levels of effectiveness and legitimacy. The contention of the article is that the Fianna Fáil party's transformation of the democratic institutions of the Irish Free State in the 1930s constituted a case of democratic re‐equilibration, whereby the institutions of independent Ireland were given a greater degree of effectiveness and legitimacy. Indeed, since the main Irish parties had only recently been involved in a civil war, the Irish example could well be the classic case of re‐equilibration this century. The analysis of democratic re‐equilibration between 1922 and 1937 focuses on the Fianna Fáil party's transformation from being a semi‐loyal opposition party to being a party of government, emphasizing the impact on those political actors who remained hostile to the existence of the Free State.     

Measuring international conflict: Developing cross‐country time‐series data

This paper develops a new time series of conflict data from 1948 to the present through statistical estimation of a pooled time‐series of the two most frequently used dyadic events data sets: Conflict and Cooperation Data Bank (COPDAB) (1948–1978) and World Events Interaction Survey (WEIS) (1966‐present). The resulting data series is the longest possible time‐series annual data of dyadic interaction based on daily events. The paper also provides an example of performing a Vector Autoregression (VAR) analysis of conflict and trade in a three‐country setting, utilizing the integrated data. Compared to the COPDAB and WEIS data, the integrated data have a large degree of variation and produce forecasting results that are more complex than those from the COPDAB and WEIS separately.     

The consolidation of post‐autocratic democracies: A multi‐level model

The mainstream of theoretical and empirical ‘consolidology’ speaks of consolidated and non‐consolidated democracies. This crude dichotomy does not allow for more differentiated judgments about the stage of consolidation of newly democratized political systems. To overcome this shortcoming, a multi‐level model of democratic consolidation is proposed, consisting of four interdependent levels. The particular configuration of each has specific impact on the consolidation of the other levels. The four levels are: constitutional, representative, behavioural, and civic cultural consolidation. This model helps us to understand why new democracies survive or collapse, to identify the degree to which they are consolidated and the levels on which they are most vulnerable to internal and external shocks. It helps us to locate the parts of the political system where reforms should be implemented, or stopped or reversed in order to consolidate and stabilize a new democratic regime.     

Do it yourself: The national approach to the out‐of‐area question

European Union: Identity and international role

Birthmarks of Europe: the origins oj the European Community reconsidered / Edelgard Mahant. ‐ Ashgate : Aldershot, c2004. ‐ISBN 0–7546–1487–5

EU trade strategies : between regionalism and globalism I edited by Vinod K. Aggarwal and Edward A. Fogarty. ‐ Basingstoke : Palgrave Macmillan, c2004. ‐ xiv, 249 p. ‐ ISBN 1–4039–3258–1 (pbk)

L'Europa potenza civile / Mario Telò. ‐ Bari : Laterza, c2004. ‐ XIV, 261 p. ‐ (Libri del tempo , 358). ‐ ISBN 88420–7258–3

European Union foreign and security policy : towards a neighbourhood strategy / edited by Roland Dannreuther. ‐ London : Routledge, 2004. ‐ xiv, 226 p. ‐ ISBN 0–415–32298–7 (pbk)

Paneuropa : geografia e storia di un'idea / a cura di Gianfranco Lizza; Sergio Balanzino [et al.]. ‐ Torino : UTET, C2004. ‐ x, 230 p. ‐ ISBN 88–7750–894–9

The politics of European security / edited by Jess Pligaard. ‐ Copenhagen : Danish Institute for International Studies, C2004. ‐ 198 p. ‐ ISBN 87–7605–015–7

Who are the Europeans now? I Edward Moxon‐Browne. ‐ Aldershot : Ashgate, c2004. ‐ viii, 202 p. ‐ ISBN 1–84014–429–7

China

China's role in Asia and the world economy .‐ fostering stability and growth / edited by Jan Joost Teunissen. ‐ The Hague .‐ FON‐DAD, 2003. ‐ xvi, 98 p. ‐ ISBN 90–74208–22–3

Integrating China into the global economy / Nicholas R. Lardy. ‐ Washington, D.C. : Brookings Institution Press, c2002. ‐xii, 244 p. ‐ ISBN 0–81–57–5136–2     

Civilian power and ‘history‐making’ decisions: German agenda‐setting on Europe

This article examines ‘history‐making’ decisions on Europe by the German government, drawing on the concept of civilian power, which has been refined by international relations theorists, subjecting it to a political science critique. Three case studies ‐ of economic and monetary union (EMU), dual enlargement and European defence and security policy ‐ are discussed and compared with the aim of assessing the value of civilian power for the analysis and explanation of key German decisions. The focus is on agenda‐setting in relation to key ‘history‐making’ decisions. It is argued that German European policy behaviour is better explained by civilian power than realism or neo‐liberal institutionalism. However, civilian power does not adequately capture the complex attitudes and values at work in Germany, the interests brought to bear in a fragmented, sectoralised policy process, the resource limitations on pursuing this approach, and the external conditions for sustaining such a role.     

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.     

Political terrorism in South‐East Asia

This article will provide an overview of one specific non‐military threat that is beginning to assume greater prominence on south‐east Asia's broadened security agenda: political terrorism.¹ Although by no means new to the south‐east Asian environment, for much of the twentieth century its importance was sidelined and, in a sense ‘contained’, by the more pressing concern over US‐Soviet nuclear rivalry. With the end of the Cold War, however, the ‘bottle has been uncorked’ on a variety of lower‐level threats, with issues such as terrorism now taking on greater prominence and relevance in their own right as significant regional and national security concerns.²     

‘Something old,something New’: The politics of recognition in post‐cold‐War Europe

In 1945, as a final settlement of the Palestine question drew near, the Arab states established the Arab Office, Washington, as part of their unprecedented effort to influence public and elite opinion on this matter in the United States. It was staffed by many of the leading young Arab intellectuals of the era. This article charts the Arab Office's attempt to reduce American support for the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. In particular, it examines the accusations, made at the time, that the Arab Office, in pursuing its anti-Zionist agenda had co-operated with leading American anti-Semites and was under the control of the notorious former Mufti of Jerusalem, who had collaborated with Hitler during the Second World War.     

The development of an inter‐nation tensiometer

The military expenditure (M.E.) of a nation depends partly on its wealth as measured by its Gross National Product (GNP), partly on geography, and partly on its presence in an alliance. The authors describe a method for calculating the M.E. value if it depended solely on the GNP; the value of the M.E. so obtained is termed the theoretical M.E. (M.E._Th.). Dividing the actual M.E. by the M.E._Th. (and multiplying by 100) yields a pure number, the tension ratio (T.R.). We regard tension as a function of geography (thus having a hostile neighbor increases tension and having a friendly neighbor decreases tension) and of membership in an alliance (which should cause a relaxation of tension). Tension ratios were calculated for 63 countries. Of the 13 nations engaged in a war, 76.9 percent had T.R. values greater than 155. Of the 43 nations not engaged in a war, only 26 percent had T.R. values greater than 155. Application of the chi square tests and the Kolmogorov‐Smimov test showed the association of high T.R.s concurrent with wars and antecedent to wars to be significant at the 95 percent probability level. Threshold T.R. values can pinpoint critical, potentially violent situations. Membership in an alliance does not seem as important as the effect of geography (the geographic factor includes the perception of hostility or friendliness in a neighboring country).     

The security dilemma in Sino‐Indian relations

With the end of the Cold War, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and the collapse of the old economic order in India a dozen years ago, the outmoded methods New Delhi had employed for four decades to engage the world were no longer tenable. C. Raja Mohan, one of India's leading strategic thinkers, has traced the remarkable transformation in New Delhi's foreign policy during the 1990s in Crossing the Rubicon, a thoughtful new study of the ideas shaping Indian diplomacy. Mohan highlights five changes in the conceptual underpinnings guiding Indian foreign policy since the early 1990s: a shift from domestically focused socialism to a globalized free market economy; a de-emphasis on politics in favor of economics; an abandonment of New Delhi's earlier infatuation with “Third Worldism” and non-alignment; a rejection of anti-Westernism; and a loss of idealism. These new forces have left India, Mohan contends, with a foreign policy infinitely more suitable for meeting the challenges of the twenty-first century. New Delhi is now poised, he adds, to break out of the South Asian box in which it has been confined, and assume its rightful place among the world's leading powers.     

Political evolution in post‐Soviet Central Asia

This article considers the Central Asian republics in the post‐Soviet era and the fortunes of western‐style democracy to which their respective leaders have committed themselves. A dichotomy emerges between the ‘hard’ authoritarian approach adopted by Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan and the ‘soft’ authoritarianism of Kazakhstan and Krygystan. Explanations for the authoritarian path, and implicitly for the lack of progress in democratization, are then expanded upon. These range from cultural and religious factors, to economic pressures, and to the role of Russia and the russified administrators and the political system it left behind. Finally, the article highlights the challenges, potential and real, to the perpetuation of the authoritarian culture. The future path of political transition in Central Asia is of major significance because the peaceful and stable development of this geostrategically and economically important region has yet to be secured. The emergence of political cultures centred on democratic values is far from guaranteed. There is nothing to say that such values even have any place in these societies.