International System and China’s Asia-Pacific Strategy

What impact does a shift in the global distribution of power have on the international order? According to the views of traditional realists,power transitions in the international order are usually accompanied by major wars,the best example being the two world wars of the twentieth century.China’s peaceful rise is conducive to the peace and stability of Asia and Pacific regions.The steady rise of China’s position and its role in dealing with international and regional problems have proved China’s success in...     

International System in Transition:China's and U. S.' Strategies and Measures in Response

The current international system is transitioning from the Cold War bipolarity to the post-Cold War multipolarity, which proves to be a long process. China and the United States see     

The Democratic Parties and Party System in China

InChina'spoliticalsystem,besidestherulingCommunistPartyofChina(CPC),thereareeightdemocraticpoliticalpartiesparticipatinginthestateaffairs,namelytheRevolutionaryCommitteeoftheChineseKuomintang,ChinaDemocraticLeague,ChinaDemocraticNationalConstructionAssocia-tion,ChinaAssociationforPromotingDemocracy,ChinesePeasantsandWorkersDemocraticParty,ChinaZhiGongDang,JiuSanSocietyandTaiwanDemocraticSelf-GovernmentLeague.Initiatedandsponsoredmainlybypoliticalrepresentativesofthenationalbourg…     

Going Abroad for Agricultural Cooperation:Fuhua’s Experience

Jilin Fuhua Agricultural Science and Technology Development Co.,Ltd.(hereinafter referred to as Fuhua Company) is specialized in international trade and overseas agricultural development.Fuhua Company,under the leadership of President Liu Ye,has embarked on the path of success featuring dedication,integrity and     

Al-Qaeda’s Propaganda Decoded: A Psycholinguistic System for Detecting Variations in Terrorism Ideology

We describe a novel hybrid method of content analysis that combines the speed of computerized text analysis with the contextual sensitivity of human raters, and apply it to speeches that were given by major leaders of Al-Qaeda (AQ)—both in its “core” Afghanistan/Pakistan region and its affiliate group in Iraq. The proposed “Ideology Extraction using Linguistic Extremization” (IELEX) categorization method has acceptable levels of inter-rater and test-retest reliabilities. The method uncovered subtle (and potentially non-conscious) differences in the emphases that Usama Bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri put on the various components of their ideological justification for terrorism. We show how these differences were independently recognized as the crux of the rift in AQ, based on documents that were confiscated in Abbottabad following Usama Bin Laden’s assassination. Additionally, several of the ideological discrepancies that we detected between AQ “core” and its Iraqi affiliate correspond to schisms that presumably led to the splintering of AQ Iraq and the rise of ISIS. We discuss IELEX’s capability to quantify a variety of grievance-based terrorist ideologies, along with its use towards more focused and efficient counter-terrorism and counter-messaging policies.     

China’s Peripheral Security Environment:Analytical Framework,Indicator System and Evaluation *

Since the end of the Cold War, the West and China have had diverginginterpretations of “security environment.” China tends to define security from theperspective of development, while the West’s definition concerns external threatsto security. In Chinese circumstances, the understanding of security environmenthas evolved from simply military to a more comprehensive one covering military,politics, economics and public opinions. This article develops a theoretical frameworkto analyze China’s peripheral security environment in the new era, and constructs anindicator system to evaluate it. The indicator system consists of the political securityenvironment, military security environment, development security environment,public opinion security environment, and China’s periphery strategy, drawing uponthe theories of Realism, Liberal Institutionalism and Constructivism. Furthermore, thisarticle analyzes indicators through dimensionless methods based on the databases of theWorld Bank, the “Foreign Relations” database of the Institute of Modern InternationalRelations at Tsinghua University and the People’s Daily, and compares three peripheralsecurity environment scenarios. The result shows that in a general sense, China’speripheral security environment has improved over the past decades. However, thesituations after the 2008 global financial crisis have diverged, and different theoreticalperspectives provide very different images. It seems that China has entered a verydifferent environment, and for stable security environment in the future, China needs tocooperate with neighboring countries.     

Re-visioning the “Eye in the Sky”: targeted drone strikes and an ethics of the encounter

ABSTRACT

The complexities which beset any attempts to ascribe a foundational ethic to matters of a political stripe are well known, and continue to provoke fierce debate within studies of international relations, geopolitics and security studies. Unsurprisingly, these questions have taken on crucial import within the sub-field of critical terrorism studies (CTS), as authors grapple with the range of counter-terrorism, counter-radicalisation and counter-extremism practices enacted by the Western state as part of an ongoing ‘War on Terror.’ And while much of this scholarship has been invaluable in problematizing the concept of ‘terrorism’ per se, normative questions have proven somewhat more elusive. Through a reading of the film Eye in the Sky, along with its take on the controversial counter-terrorism practice of targeted drone assassinations, this article reiterates the case for an ethical approach which takes radical difference as the basis for any engagement with the Other. Moreover, and following international relations authors of a poststructuralist lineage, it will be argued that supplementing Levinasian ethics with Derridean deconstruction can open up new and useful ways of approaching such seemingly intractable ethical conundrums.     

‘Bread and butter’ human rights: NGOs in Fiji

While ‘rights-based’ approaches to development – those in which development and poverty alleviation are viewed through the lens of human rights – have become the language of choice among the international development community, less is known about how human rights are used for development at the local level. Using a case study of Fiji, this research investigates how local NGOs understand and use human rights for development. It demonstrates some of the tensions involved in translating broad and supposedly universal approaches to human rights into local contexts.     

U.S. Mid-term Elections and America’s China Policy in the Coming One or Two Years

The Democratic Party won a majority in both houses of the Congress for the first time since 1994 in the recent U.S. mid-term elections. By analyzing the major reasons for the Democratic Party's victory in the elections, we can conclude that in the coming one or two years, the U.S. domestic politics will focus on     

‘No‐party’ politics and local democracy in Africa: Rawlings’ Ghana in the 1990s and the ‘Ugandan model’

Ghana's decentralised form of administration run by elected District Assemblies was created in 1989 by Jerry Rawlings’ military government. As in Uganda under Museveni's National Resistance Council regime, it was inspired by populist theories of participatory, community‐led democracy which idealised the consensual character of ‘traditional’ village life and rejected the relevance of political parties. The Assemblies remain by law ‘no‐party’ institutions, notwithstanding Ghana's transition to multi‐party constitutional democracy in 1992. Their performance since 1989 is examined in the light of the question: to what extent can the Ugandan ‘no‐party’ model continue within a context of party competition, given that it assumes the all‐inclusive and non‐conflictual character of community politics? The conclusion is that the contradictions between the no‐party consensual model, de facto ruling party domination and the reality of local conflict have created significant difficulties for the Assembly system. Participation has declined and conflict‐resolution been made more difficult, whilst the legitimacy and transparency of resource decisions have been undermined.     

‘The camp’ and ‘the lesser evil’: humanitarianism in Sri Lanka

This article examines the 2009 humanitarian disaster in Sri Lanka through fieldwork conducted at the time and through theoretical lenses supplied by Arendt, Foucault and Agamben. The article suggests that this catastrophe represents a salutary example of the consequences of promoting a ‘lesser evil’ in the context of a government-fuelled human rights disaster. In line with Arendt's critique of the ‘lesser evil’, the case illustrates the limits to prioritising compromise, quietude and ‘access’. At the same time, while ‘democracy’ and ‘terror’ have frequently been posed as opposites, this tragedy shows how democratic forces, nationally and even internationally, can embrace something that approximates to Agamben's ‘camp’, a state of emergency in which entire groups of people lose their rights and can, at the extreme, be killed with impunity. Meanwhile, a pervasive official language of ‘care’ and ‘humanitarianism’ (corresponding to Foucault's politics of ‘life’) not only proved entirely consistent with ethnic cleansing and the large-scale killing of civilians; it also actively assisted in this endeavour by creating a smokescreen behind which massacres could be carried out.     

Promoting inclusive development in Ghana: disabled people’s and other stakeholders’ perspectives

This article highlights barriers to inclusive development from the perspective of disabled people, as well as staff of NGOs and government agencies. A qualitative study was conducted between August 2011 and September 2012, and in September 2013, in rural and urban areas in Greater Accra and Eastern regions in Ghana. The research shows that inaccessible public infrastructure and services, negative attitudes of service providers, little political will, limited capacity of development agencies, and lack of multi-agency coordination in the disability development sector were barriers to disabled people’s inclusion and participation in development processes.     

Extreme nationalism and violent discourses in Scandinavia: ‘the resistance’, ‘traitors’, and ‘foreign invaders’

This is a comparative analysis of neo‐Nazis and anti‐immigration activists in Norway, Denmark and Sweden with regard to their rhetoric and justifications for violence against ‘foreigners’ and political opponents, and actual patterns of violence and harassment. Different traditions of nationalism in the three Scandinavian countries, and highly dissimilar historical experiences ‐ especially during World War II ‐influence the rhetorical strategies of the two types of extreme nationalists, and their respective abilities to appropriate national symbols. However, based on divergent historical analogies, most extreme nationalist groups present themselves as a ‘resistance movement’ fighting ‘foreign invaders’ and ‘traitors’.     

From the Secret Ballot to the Public Vote: Examining Voters’ Experience of Political Discussion in Vote-by-Mail Elections

Considerable research on political discussion has focused on identifying its antecedents and outcomes. The rise of voting by mail provides an opportunity to examine the subject in a new context—one in which voters discuss their views and electoral choices with others while filling out their ballots. We explored the possibility that conventional predictors of political engagement would predict who partakes in such discussions. Past research also suggested that those voters most likely to report changing their minds as a result of discussion would perceive their discussants as holding contrary views and higher levels of political sophistication. We further hypothesized that less politically engaged voters would seek out discussants they rated as more knowledgeable than themselves, whereas the more politically sophisticated voters would seek out like-minded discussants. Past research also suggested that the least partisan voters would be those most likely to report disagreement in their absentee discussions. To test these hypotheses, we analyzed telephone survey data from two elections conducted in Washington State. Results showed that the factors that predict traditional forms of political participation and discussion do not explain who engages in discussion during vote-by-mail elections. We also found that independent voters were more likely to talk with ideologically divergent discussants, whereas less knowledgeable citizens sought discussants who knew more about politics than they did. Many voters reported that these discussions shaped their vote choices, with the highest rates of perceived influence coming from those who viewed their discussion partners as more knowledgeable and more ideologically divergent.     

Status and Foreign Policy Change in Small States: Qatar’s Emergence in Perspective

ABSTRACT

Small states are just as easily seduced by status and glory as other states. When conceived as situated in a stratified international society, small states acquire an inherent tendency to overcome their disadvantage in conventional power terms through the pursuit of status. Hence, it is precisely because of their position in the international hierarchy, not in spite of it, that strategic ideas based on state size stimulate foreign policy change in small states. This mechanism provides an explanation to the question why the small state of Qatar has pursued such a high-profile diplomatic strategy since its emergence in the late 1990s.     

Renegotiating ‘law and order’ : judicial reform and citizen responses in post-war Guatemala

This study examines reforms aimed at strengthening the rule of law in Guatemala implemented since the signing of the peace accords in December 1996. Despite nearly US$200 million in foreign aid to the justice sector, impunity remains the rule, the judicial process is subverted by military and criminal networks, citizen confidence in the judicial system remains low and recourse to non-judicial measures – the ‘privatisation of justice’- is on the increase. It is argued that the institutionally-focused approach to rule of law reform currently predominating in donor thinking ignores the historical context within which understandings of ‘law’, ‘justice’ and ‘rights’ are shaped. Institutions do matter, but only by understanding the role of law in long-run processes of state formation and the dynamic, inter-subjective nature of legal interactions can we begin to understand the specificities of socio-legal change.     

Identity and learning in international volunteerism: ‘Sport for Development and Peace’ internships

Young sportspersons now serve abroad within the ‘Sport for Development and Peace’ (SDP) movement. Drawing on interviews with former interns from Commonwealth Games Canada's Canadian Sports Leadership Corps programme, this study explored what interns brought to, and learnt from, international SDP service. Interns confronted notions of expertise and privilege and, in some cases, considered the limits of Northern development stewardship. Interns also experienced a sense of ‘First World guilt’ that secured their sense of self at the expense of deeper engagements with inequality and struggles for development justice. Based on these findings, recommendations for supporting future volunteers are considered.

Identité et apprentissage dans le volontariat international : stages « Sport for Development and Peace »

De jeunes sportifs sont désormais actifs à l'étranger dans le cadre du mouvement « Sport for Development and Peace » (SDP - Sport pour le développement et la paix ). Sur la base d'entretiens avec d'anciens stagiaires du programme du Groupe canadien de leadership dans le sport des Jeux du Commonwealth Canada, cette étude a examiné ce que les stagiaires ont apporté au service SDP et ont appris de ce dernier. Les stagiaires se sont confrontés aux notions de connaissances spécialisées et de privilège et, dans certains cas, ont réfléchi aux limites de la gestion du développement émanant du Nord. Les stagiaires ont aussi ressenti une mesure de « culpabilité du Premier Monde » qui a renforcé leur sentiment de soi aux dépens d'engagements plus approfondis contre l'inégalité et de luttes pour la justice en matière de développement. Sur la base de ces conclusions, des recommandations pour soutenir les volontaires futurs sont considérées.

Identidade e Aprendizado no Voluntariado Internacional: Estágios do Esporte para Desenvolvimento e Paz

Jovens esportistas agora atuam no exterior dentro do movimento “Esporte para Desenvolvimento e Paz” (SDP). Baseando-se em entrevistas com antigos internos do programa “Canadian Sports Leadership Corps” do Commonwealth Games Canada, este estudo examinou a contribuição dos internos ao serviço do SDP internacional e o que eles aprenderam com este serviço. Os internos confrontaram noções de conhecimento e privilégio e, em alguns casos, consideraram os limites da liderança do desenvolvimento do hemisfério norte. Os internos também vivenciaram uma sensação de “culpa do Primeiro Mundo” que assegurou a consciência do seu eu às custas de engajamentos mais profundos com desigualdade e lutas por justiça de desenvolvimento. Com base nestes resultados, as recomendações para apoiar voluntários futuros são consideradas.

Identidad y aprendizaje en el voluntariado internacional: pasantías del programa Deportes para el Desarrollo y la Paz

Actualmente varios deportistas jóvenes cooperan en el extranjero en el marco del movimiento “Deportes para el Desarrollo y la Paz” (DDP). Basándose en entrevistas a excooperantes del programa Cuerpo de Líderes Deportivos Canadienses de los Juegos de la Mancomunidad en Canadá, este ensayo analiza lo que los cooperantes aportaron a y aprendieron de su experiencia internacional en el DDP. Los cooperantes afrontaron juicios de experiencia y privilegio y, en algunos casos, reflexionaron sobre los límites de la gestión basada en el desarrollo del Norte. Los cooperantes experimentaron la “culpabilidad del Primer Mundo”, que si bien provocó la autoreflexión, se hizo a costa de un compromiso más profundo contra la desigualdad y por la lucha a favor de la justicia en el desarrollo. En función de estos resultados, el ensayo formula recomendaciones para el apoyo a futuros voluntarios.