Regimes of Cooperation in the Western Hemisphere: Power, Interests, and Intellectual Traditions

The 1994 Summit of the Americas marked a high point in hemispherism—our label for the active attempt by the nations of the Western Hemisphere to form regimes of cooperation with one another. To explain why hemispherism has not been a more powerful trend in the last 200 years, structural, interest, and cultural variables are relevant but insufficient factors. An important and often overlooked obstacle to hemispherism has beencontrarian ideas. Specifically, constellations of intellectual traditions that question the value of hemispheric cooperation have dampened both the demand for and supply of such regimes. Only when these antihemispheric intellectual traditions were in retreat—the late nineteenth century, the mid twentieth century, and the early 1990s—has hemispherism flourished. We posit three mechanisms through which intellectual traditions can decline, thus generating amodified cognitivist argument that can supplement power-based and interest-based explanations of regime formation and robustness.     

A case of failed interregionalism? Analyzing the EU-ASEAN free trade agreement negotiations

In 2007, the European Union (EU) and the Association of the Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) started interregional negotiations on a free trade agreement, which failed 2 years later. Relying on document analysis and elite interviews with officials from the EU and ASEAN’s members, this article addresses why and the extent to which the interregional negotiations failed. By rooting the theoretical model in a power-based approach, the analysis demonstrates that the EU has attempted to secure its economic and regulatory power in Southeast Asia. In striving for such power, interregionalism was initially the intuitive way because the EU perceived ASEAN as a cohesive bloc. However, the EU’s ambitious vision for comprehensive agreements clashed with the actual heterogeneity of ASEAN member states. The failure of the interregional approach is, thus, a result of the EU’s delicate balance between political and economic interests in Southeast Asia, which it pursues with trade-specific issues.     

Small enough to fail: the structural irrelevance of the small state as cause of its elimination and proliferation since Westphalia

Since the Peace of Westphalia, few great powers have “died”, while the “death rate” and proliferation of small states has been dramatic at times. What causes these fluctuations? In this paper, I claim that the dominant reason for the extinction, emergence and proliferation of the small state over the last three and a half centuries is to be found at the system level. Ultimately, small state survival is determined by the particular set-up of the state system. I advance this argument from the perspective of international relations theory, integrating the relevant scholarship of the English School and realism, especially structural realism. The latter’s systemic perspective provides the basis for arguing that small states are structurally irrelevant. It is this feature of the small state, its irrelevance with regard to the power-based structure of the state system, which has caused the small state to “struggle for existence” in the past, and which has allowed small states to proliferate during the bipolar Cold War.     

Small states and compliance bargaining in the WTO: an analysis of the Antigua–US Gambling Services Case

In recent years, studies have challenged the conventional power-based literature to show that a deficiency in resources does not limit a small state's bargaining leverage in international negotiations. However, few studies examine small state influence during compliance bargaining, the post-agreement bargaining to ensure that all signatories comply with the terms of an agreement. Using an interview with a key advisor to the small twin-island state of Antigua and Barbuda during compliance bargaining with the United States (US), and World Trade Organization (WTO) documents, this article examines how a small state can successfully attain bargaining leverage and win against a behemoth state. In this case, Antigua successfully challenged the US ban on cross-border internet gambling and betting services. The article argues that the strategies and tactics that Antigua used within the WTO dispute settlement framework contributed to the country's bargaining leverage and enabled it to punch above its weight.     

Culture and Negotiation Strategy

In this article the authors investigate the relationship between culture and joint gains by examining the role of information sharing and power strategies in intracultural negotiations. Previously, the authors found that the relationship between cultural values or norms and joint gains was uncertain in six cultures: France, Russia, Japan, Hong Kong, Brazil, and the United States. Of the five values and norms measured, only norms for information sharing in negotiation were directly related to joint gains. This article explores and extends prior findings by investigating the strategies used by negotiators in the same six cultures. Cultures that maximized joint gains used direct information-sharing strategies or a combination of indirect and direct strategies. Power strategies may help or hurt joint gains, depending on a culture's values and norms for power and whether or not power-based influence is used in conjunction with sufficient information exchange. The findings suggest that understanding the other party's cultural characteristics and strategies can help negotiators plan how to focus on information exchange and deal with unusual power strategies that they may encounter.     

Why do some international institutions contain strong dispute settlement provisions? New evidence from preferential trade agreements

To understand why some international institutions have stronger dispute settlement mechanisms (DSMs) than others, we investigate the dispute settlement provisions of nearly 600 preferential trade agreements (PTAs), which possess several desirable case-selection features and are evoked more than is realized. We broaden the study of dispute settlement design beyond “legalization” and instead reorient theorizing around a multi-faceted conceptualization of the strength of DSMs. We posit that strong DSMs are first and foremost a rational response to features of agreements that require stronger dispute settlement, such as depth and large memberships. Multivariate empirical tests using a new data set on PTA design confirm these expectations and reveal that depth – the amount of policy change specified in an agreement – is the most powerful and consistent predictor of DSM strength, providing empirical support to a long-posited but controversial conjecture. Yet power also plays a sizeable role, since agreements among asymmetric members are more likely to have strong DSMs due to their mutual appeal, as are those involving the United States. Important regional differences also emerge, as PTAs across the Americas are designed with strong dispute settlement, as are Asian PTAs, which contradicts the conventional wisdom about Asian values and legalization. Our findings demonstrate that rationalism explains much of international institutional design, yet it can be enhanced by also incorporating power-based and regional explanations.     

俄罗斯经济危机的特点及根源

本文认为俄罗斯经济危机与世界主要经济体相比是最严重的,从高度自由化金融市场迅速蔓延至实体经济。与其说是金融危机,不如说是生产性危机。一方面表现为外部输入性,另一方面其内部存在金融体系的脆弱性、经济结构的落后性。其根源在于经济原料化的发展模式、经济自由化战略以及对外部经济环境的高度依赖,特别是能源价格波动和外部融资渠道的变化。     

九鬼周造“粹”论的哲学构造

日本哲学家九鬼周造,在其代表作《“粹”的构造》中吸收、转化了海德格尔前期思想,借以分析“粹”这一日本独特的审美意识。其理论建构回应了两个具有内在同一性的问题：海德格尔提出的非西方文化是否有必要、有可能去学习西方概念体系的疑问;京都学派的理论难题,如何面对西方思想的普遍扩张渗透,确立日本思想独立的自我意识。     

The Challenges of Strategic Terrorism

ABSTRACT

The Al Qaeda type of terrorist is quite different from that of those of the IRA or Hezbollah. The former is seeking a clash of civilizations or at least a clash between the Islamic world and the West or at least between Islam and the US. The latter used and use terrorism to pursue a specific objective and a limited one at that in scope and geography. Terrorism is not a one dimensional phenomenon.     

The Sacred and the Profane: Judaism and International Relations

The author contends that one helpful way to look at Judaism and international relations is to imagine a continuum with a sacred ideal at one extreme and a profane reality at the other. Drawing on historical examples, he illustrates these polarities.     

Voluntary and involuntary resettlement in China: a false dichotomy?

The success of involuntary resettlement is contingent on recasting the involuntary as voluntary. To explore this proposition, this article presents two projects in China – one “voluntary” (Poverty Alleviation Resettlement or PAR) and relatively “successful” and one “involuntary” (Three Gorges Project Resettlement or TGPR) and less so. The research finds the voluntary–involuntary dichotomy a false one. It is not volition that leads to better outcomes, but people-centred practices that are embedded in policy, planning, and implementation of PAR. Perhaps the most important lesson drawn is that all resettlements should be based on a commitment to settlement and not just resettlement.     

New Philosophical Foundations for International Law: From an Order of Fear to One of Respect

The international legal order is dominated by a concern for security, whether national or individual, an explicit fear of the Other, towards whom one exists in no moral relation. This is not a recent phenomenon but goes back to the origin of modernity in a Hobbesian rejection of classical and medieval natural law. This fear is not marginal to liberalism; rather, the amorality vacuum affecting personal relations is integral to liberal contractarianism. This fear-inducing vacuum has to be countered through a phenomenology of the person in community, following Paul Ricouer, which restores the ethical dimension of society. At the same time, a critical phenomenology can expose the pathologies of fear, the use of force to dominate, and the consequences of the absence of respect. The whole subject-matter of international law is inherently vulnerable to these negative contradictions, and not just recent tragedies, such as the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the United States and Britain. An exit strategy from a world of fear to one of respect has still to recognise the limits imposed not so much by the difference of the Other, as by the perplexity of one's own opaqueness. The destructiveness of fear remains at this initial stage. However, one can never completely overcome it by coming out of the modernity of the isolated self. We are equally opaque to one another.     

The Surprising Logic of Transparency

The article examines the concept of transparency and its effect on international crises. It tests two possible "logics" of transparency, one positive and one negative. In the former, transparency is seen as defusing international crises by illuminating other states' peaceful intentions and ameliorating the security dilemma. In the latter, transparency is seen as exacerbating crises by overwhelming diplomatic signals with the "noise" of domestic politics and confusing opponents about which domestic voices are authoritative expressions of state policy. The authors conclude that, surprisingly, transparency makes conflicts worse more often than not—a conclusion that casts doubt on one possible explanation ofthe democratic peace.     

Conspiracism In and Around Libya

Abstract

The idea that there is one cohesive Islamist movement with a clearly defined plan to conquer power in Libya is a deeply flawed argument. It is one that, among other causes, is at the basis of the current divisions in the country and its civil strife. The Islamist movement in Libya, on the contrary, is a highly heterogeneous reality. Understanding this divisiveness is fundamental to the elaboration of a strategy for reunification and the establishment of law and order. Such a strategy should be based on the principle of incorporating those Islamists who accept the democratic process and isolating the more extremist ones.     

Diplomatic communication theory: Signals,channels, networks

The analysis of international or diplomatic communication is approached at three levels: channels (viz, dyads), signals‐messages (viz. international events‐intents), and networks (viz. international systems). Diplomatic channel theory utilizes an interpretation of the classical Shannon‐Weaver communication model and outlines a statistical information analysis of international events signals with empirical examples. Analysis of international mediation suggests several counterintuitive problems in information processing at the channel level. Diplomatic network theory distinguishes between three different communication structures: one‐to‐one, one‐to‐group, and one‐to‐subgroup. Each communication structure at the network level has characteristic complexity and channel requirements. The presence of nonlinear phenomena at both channel and network levels is emphasized, as well as asymmetries between conflict and cooperative interactions at the signal level.     

南亚地区形势的特点及其走向

在过去一年中,南亚地区各国政府虽然维持了政治上的基本稳定,但经历的挑战巨大;地区整体经济形势增长受挫;总体安全形势十分严峻。未来南亚局势将更趋复杂,主要表现为:印度的战略地位将继续走强;巴基斯坦的长期稳定问题值得担忧;美国撤军将使阿富汗面临安全真空。由于南亚具有特殊的地缘政治地位,大国在地区的角逐和争夺始终不会停止,地区局势的演变对中国的影响尤为重要,中国在对印关系、对巴关系和对阿富汗问题应有切实可行的应对思考。     

Pseudo-communication and the return of the sophist: Thank you for smoking,at first sight

Abstract

The present era is one of pseudo-communication and overwhelming relativism, where, at best, the ability to persuade one's opponents or a potential audience of the ‘rightness’ (as opposed to the communicable ‘truth’) of one's position, is all important. A closer look at the recent film, Thank you for smoking, shows it to be a stalking horse for precisely this kind of pseudo-communication and relativism, and an all the more successful one in light of its rhetorical sophistication and entertainment value. However, this is no reason to give up on the old-fashioned notion of communication (or ‘truth’), even if one has to reject the illusion – so long entertained by Western philosophy – of unambiguously clear communication of the ‘truth’ in any univocal or absolute sense. Through an analysis of the film in question an attempt is made here to demonstrate that it is a supremely persuasive piece of sophistry in the sense that Plato gave to the term, but that today (given what one has learned from the post-structuralist thinkers), instead of rejecting it on this basis, one should appropriate its lessons in rhetoric and turn it against itself, showing how a complex notion of communication and ‘truth’ of a certain kind may be uncovered in its interstitial rhetorical spaces. This is of particular importance to South Africa, given the fact that ‘persuasive communication’ forms part of curricula in communication studies. The paper aims to show how short sighted the unqualified emphasis on ‘persuasion’ is, especially in South Africa.     

上海与圣彼得堡两市居民的地缘政治关系认同

一个国家民众偏好某个国家与否的选择,反映了一个国家的国民意识和社会意愿,是民族认同的组成部分。民众对其他国家的看法和态度,既是对其他国家看法和态度的社会情绪和社会舆论的晴雨表,也是一个国家现行外交政策和外交活动实际状况的一种反映。对上海和圣彼得堡两市居民的实地调查,客观展示了中俄两国在社会转型时期,从社会禁锢走向社会开放的过程中,两国民众对与不同国家合作的评价和意愿。中俄两国民众对两国之间的相互合作均给予很积极的评价,但在中俄关系积极向上发展的过程中还存在许多不尽如人意之处。中俄两国应不断增进了解,使"睦邻友好"成为两国民众的广泛共识和自觉行为。     

Supporting communication for development with horizontal dialogue and a level playing field: The Communication Initiative

This article describes The Communication Initiative (The CI), a network of those using communication to foster economic and social change in communities around the world. Network members access information and collaborate with each other through any of three knowledge websites–one with a worldwide overview and focus, one with a focus on Latin America, and one with a focus on Africa–and their associated electronic newsletters. These online spaces are components in a broader process that the author terms ‘horizontal communication’, which is central to providing a non-judgmental, level platform for accessing the information and interactions that are important to those actually practising communication for development. Drawing on this approach, The CI has engaged 50,000-plus people from 184 countries over the past seven years; the author outlines the elements that have been central to this success.     

Terrorism and the Scholarly Communication System

The scholarly communication system with respect to terrorism research is an open one, since the flow of information is mostly from external, namely government, documents and media sources, towards the scientific community. In disciplines that are already established in academia, the scholarly communication system is a closed one: the information flows from the academic publication toward the popular press. If the study of terrorism became a closed information system, it could help the process of the maturation of this field into autonomous academic research discipline.