Straightjacketing migrant rescuers? The code of conduct on maritime NGOs

In July 2017, Italy drafted an EU-sponsored code of conduct aimed at regulating non-governmental migrant rescuing NGOs offshore Libya. The code makes permission for NGO vessels to disembark migrants in Italian ports conditional on collaborating in the fight against smugglers and accepting the presence of law enforcement personnel on board. This article investigates the inception, content and likely consequences of the Code, arguing that most of its provisions are either redundant or counterproductive. As suggested by scholarship on civil–military cooperation and maritime rescuing, the code as it stands would only violate humanitarian principles without increasing existing rescuing capabilities.     

欧俄能源合作中的大国博弈

At present,the European Union,the United States and Russia are engaged in some political jousting over energy resourcing between Europe and Russia based on their different interests and geostrategic orientation.The US and Europe share similar geopolitical interests,while Europe and Russia share economic interests in energy cooperation,and this dichotomy will have a major impact on the evolving trilateral relations among the EU,the US and Russia.Therefore,it is necessary to deepen our analysis of the major-power contention in EU-Russia energy cooperation and study its influence and future trend.     

边界功能、威胁认知与中国对陆上边界问题的应对

2017年6月,中印在洞朗地区发生边界对峙。中方在此次危机中始终保持了克制,并未通过武力方式解决边界危机。这与中国在1962年运用军事手段应对印度的挑衅截然不同。为何针对与同一个对象国出现的同类性质危机,中国的应对方式存在显著差异?文章认为,中国对陆上边界问题的处理方式,主要受到边界功能和决策者对威胁程度的认知这两个因素的影响。基于中国决策者对边界功能是政治与安全功能凸显还是经济功能优先,以及对对象国行为所带来的威胁认知高低程度不同的判断,将导致中国对边界问题采取四种应对方式:诉诸武力、展示决心(包括军事对峙等)、外交谈判、互利合作。通过对中国处理1962年与2017年两次中印边界危机、1956年中缅边界问题、2004年中俄边界问题的方式进行分析,可以发现上述分析框架得到了初步验证。文章通过探讨中国对陆上边界问题采取不同应对措施的原因,不仅有助于厘清影响中国政府针对陆上边界问题采取差异化应对措施的因素,还有利于为中国恰当地处理中印领土争端及其他陆上争议边界问题提供一定的启示,进而为改善中国周边外交、保障中华民族的伟大复兴提供初步的政策建议。     

Negotiating normative premises in democracy promotion: Venezuela and the Inter-American Democratic Charter

ABSTRACT

This article analyses negotiations on democracy promotion by looking at the case of the Inter-American Democratic Charter. It argues that Venezuela contested the concept of representative democracy during the Charter negotiations, advancing the notion of “participatory and protagonist democracy” and that, even if it was unsuccessful in its demands, the country contributed to deepening the debate on the concept of democracy, on which there is far from worldwide consensus. The article suggests that the main drivers of the negotiation process and the final agreement were domestic political changes in Venezuela, specific features of the negotiations, and the structural position of Venezuela in the field of democracy promotion in the global and regional contexts, which were, at the time, favourable to a compromising attitude to conclusion of the Charter, even if not to the concept of democracy.     

Contesting land grabs,negotiating statehood: the politics of international accountability mechanisms and land disputes in rural Cambodia

Abstract

In Cambodia, rural citizens embroiled in protracted land grabbing cases with the state and private companies are turning increasingly to international accountability mechanisms for resolution. This article applies the interlinked concepts of hybrid governance and legal pluralism to understand the prospects and limitations of ‘forum-shopping’ through appeals to international mechanisms for rural communities affected by land grabs. Drawing on interviews and using process tracing, it examines the outcomes of a mediation case filed with the International Finance Corporation’s Compliance Advisor/Ombudsman (CAO) involving indigenous groups and a Vietnamese rubber company in north-east Cambodia. It argues that while international accountability mechanisms yield platforms for dispossessed groups to assert claims, they also reify choices between entitlements and attainability without circumventing the problems associated with justice delivery under Cambodia’s authoritarian regime. Overall, this study highlights the interaction, competition and collaboration between distinct forms of regulatory authority exercised by national and transnational actors involved in land grabbing cases in Cambodia, demonstrating their role in ‘negotiating statehood’ by governing local claims to land.     

From centralisation to fragmentation and back again: the role of non-state actors in Brazil’s transformed foreign policy

Abstract

Since the 1990s, Brazil’s foreign policy-making, traditionally a highly centralised and hierarchical process, has become more fragmented, plural and horizontal. In this context, the role of non-state actors has been increasingly relevant. The impact and significance of these actors have been however a matter of debate. While there are authors that consider that non-state actors play only a secondary role in the policy-making process, there are others that assert that these actors work alongside governmental actors and directly influence policy choices. Drawing on the concept of network governance, the paper proposes a different view from the two recurrent approaches in the literature mentioned above. It argues that the recent steps to transform Brazil’s state governance from hierarchy to horizontal networks have indeed expanded the room for the direct participation of non-state actors in the policy process. However, state authorities fought to adjust this tendency, in order to retain control over the decision-making process, by putting in place formal and informal coordinating mechanisms led by the Ministry of Foreign Relations and the Presidency. This suggests Brazil’s foreign policy was made in the shadow of hierarchy. The paper demonstrates the argument using the case of Brazil’s foreign policy towards China.     

新中国70年国家安全观的演变:认知、内涵与应对

新中国成立以来，面对国内外安全环境的变化，中国实现了由传统安全观向总体国家安全观的演变，显著体现在安全环境研判、安全内容认知和安全维护手段三个方面。中共十八大以来，中国在安全方面频繁推出新理念、新方案和新举措，中国的安全能力不断增强，国际安全影响日益增加。在安全观方面，中国先后提出了总体国家安全观、亚洲新安全观、亚太安全观等理念，实现了安全观的变革与创新。安全环境研判方面，对国内安全的认知更加全面系统、对周边安全的认知更加统筹协调、对国际安全认知更加注重“中国作为”；安全内容认知方面，认知内容日益丰富，兼顾传统安全与非传统安全，统筹国家安全与人民安全；安全维护手段方面，不断完善国家安全体系、加强国家安全能力建设和推进国际安全合作。回顾新中国七十年国家安全观的演变，历经安全实践的锤炼，已经形成了一些基本经验，主要体现在安全环境研判需考虑内外因素并注重其联动性、坚持核心安全需求的底线和安全维护手段要以和为贵、文攻武备。展望未来，其重要启示在于中国的国家安全观要注重安全需求与安全能力之间的平衡，将安全能力建设视为至关重要的任务，不断促进安全维护手段的多样性和灵活性。     

International aid,trade and investment and access and allocation

International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics - The access to goods and their allocation (who gets what, when, where and how) is one of the analytical problems of the 2009...     

How do coalition signals shape voting behavior? Revealing the mediating role of coalition expectations

Existing empirical research suggests that there are two mechanisms through which pre-electoral coalition signals shape voting behavior. According to these, coalition signals both shift the perceived ideological positions of parties and prime coalition considerations at the cost of party considerations. The work at hand is the first to test another possibility of how coalition signals affect voting. This coalition expectation mechanism claims that coalition signals affect voting decisions by changing voters' expectations about which coalitions are likely to form after the election. Moreover, this paper provides the first integrative overview of all three mechanisms that link coalition signals and individual voting behavior. Results from a survey experiment conducted during Sweden's 2018 general election suggest that the coalition expectation mechanism can indeed be at work. By showing how parties' pre-electoral coalition behavior enter a voter's decision calculus, the paper provides important insights for the literature on strategic voting theories in proportional systems.