On the Mechanism of the Internet’s Impacts onInternational Politics

The Internet expands the field for international politics. It unveils its inneroperational logic by exerting its influence on international politics. The Internet, byeither guiding or negating the conducts of actors through its own unique innate quality,forces these actors to obey its inherent laws so as to better maintain their own interests.Firstly, this paper attempts to reveal, through level analysis, how the Internet madean impact on international politics, namely by the route of the individual, state andinternational system. Secondly, taking state interest, power and security as the coreof Internet’s action on international politics, it demonstrates that there is no absoluteInternet freedom and that the interests and security of the state come before all. Thethird part of the paper illustrates the catalytical, synchronical and constructional roleof the Internet in promoting the transition of international structure. As an informationmedium, the Internet helps promote changes in international politics. As an advancedtechnology, it helps international politics constantly identify itself with the developmentof the times. The all-inclusive interactive communication following the advent ofmicroblogs and Social Networking Services (SNS) helps provide conditions in whichinternational society is evolving itself into a world society in the world of Internet.     

Who Needs Identity? Dalit Studies and the Politics of Recognition

The essay reviews three recent contributions to the study of dalits (former untouchables) in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, and situates the monographs in the context of two important events. Firstly, the books are seen as crucial interventions to the emerging field of Dalit Studies. The books help us understand how marginalized groups construct identities, inhabit subjectivities, and articulate their worldviews. Secondly, the field itself is situated against the backdrop of significant social and political transformations in India namely the political ascendance of subordinate castes and the changing notions of what it means to be a dalit in the twenty first century. The essay suggests that Dalit Studies could complicate, nuance, and challenge entrenched shibboleths of historical change in South Asia.     

China’s Economic Contributions to the World and East Asia

China’s continued high economic growth hasdrawn increasing attention of the world. However,it has received very different evaluations, withthe most representative and conflicting ones being“China threat theory”or “China harm theory”vs.“China opportu     

Building the West’s On-Ramp to China’s Belt and Road: Opportunities in the South Caucasus

China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is already changing infrastructure and production across much of the world. The three states of the South Caucasus and their counterparts in Central Asia need diverse connectivity to preserve their economic and political independence amid China’s expanding influence. Despite some rhetoric and practical measures, the United States and the European Union (EU) continue to underestimate the BRI. This article identifies recent international and regional developments that converge to create a unique opportunity for the West and South Caucasus partners. They may develop integrated, long-terms infrastructure of lasting mutual benefit. The convergence of events in and around the South Caucasus offers the place for the West to build an “On-Ramp” to the BRI. The South Caucasus provide a potential gateway into Asia’s heart that is not dictated solely by the priorities of Chinese foreign or commercial policies, just as the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline of a generation ago served a similar role.     

The Politics of China’s Aid to North Vietnam during the Anti-American Resistance, 1965–1969

Behind the public display of Sino–North Vietnamese unity in the anti-American resistance during the height of the People’s Republic of China’s Cultural Revolution from 1965 to 1969, Beijing’s insistence on Hanoi’s acceptance of Maoist ideology coupled with its assertive demand for Hanoi to denounce Soviet revisionism politicised its economic and technical assistance to North Vietnam. Although appreciating Beijing’s enthusiasm to aid North Vietnam, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam [DRV] resented Beijing’s political and ideological objective of promoting Maoism and anti-Soviet revisionism in North Vietnam. In response, the DRV government asserted independent decision-making and bureaucratic control over the management of foreign economic and technical aid, which in turn collided with the Chinese assertion of superiority and insistence on their control over all China-aided projects. The fragmentation of Chinese bureaucratic institutions and the political chauvinism of some radical Maoists at the Chinese Embassy in Hanoi, who oversaw Chinese aid to North Vietnam, further hindered Beijing’s ability to exert significant influence over Hanoi.     

Machiavelli’s Science of Statecraft: The Diplomacy and Politics of Disorder

This paper calls into question the extent to which ethical dualism, broadly conceived as raison d’ état, does justice to Machiavelli’s understanding and practice of the diplomatic arts. Arguments are advanced herein that Machiavelli did not so much abandon morality as he sought, through the examples of Rome and antiquity, to find a different remedy for the disorder and violence rampant in the Italy of his day. Machiavelli’s reports in the diplomatic service of Florence illustrate qualities and skills of the diplomat often at odds with the caricature of the immoral statesman.     

The EU’s response to the global financial crisis and sovereign debt crisis

Since the sovereign crisis erupted in the autumn of 2009 when the true scale of the Greek fiscal deficit was revealed, the European Union (EU), and especially the euro area, has staggered from crisis to crisis. Major initiatives have, however, been taken to improve economic governance and to put in place a more resilient framework for the euro. This article assesses how the EU has responded to the crisis and offers explanations for why the reform process has been slow and indecisive. It shows that potentially enduring solutions are on the table, but that they have been hard to introduce because of differing national perspectives and disagreements about how the burdens of adjustment should be shared. The article concludes by setting out plausible options and explaining what they entail.     

Russia’s Neorevisionist Challenge to the Liberal International Order

Abstract

A conventional opinion is that Russia is trying to destroy the liberal international order. Russia indeed defies it, but also justifies its foreign policy with the liberal order’s normative frameworks and reproaches the West for not standing up to these norms. Moreover, Moscow does not present any alternative vision. Russia complains about the internal contradictions of the liberal order: sovereignty vs. intervention, pluralism vs. universality, US hegemony vs. equality and democracy, although it also exploits these contradictions. In fact Russia demands an adjustment of the liberal order rather than its eradication and should, therefore, be classified as a neorevisionist power. Two elements underlie Russia’s at times aggressive foreign policy conduct. The first one, its feeling of being ill-accommodated in the present order, predefines the direction of the policy. The second, the prioritisation of foreign policy over domestic reforms, explains the intensity of Russian discontent and its occasional aggressive manifestations. Russia’s domestic consensus regarding its foreign policy, including views on the liberal international order, facilitates this aggressiveness. Three policy conclusions can be drawn: acknowledging that Russia uses the inherent contradictions of the liberal international order opens up possibilities for dialogue and an eventual overcoming of the crisis; the survival and strengthening of the liberal order depends on its embrace of all major players, including Russia, and hence, the need for some adjustments to the order itself; and finally such adjustments presuppose Russia’s readiness to shoulder responsibility for the (reformed) liberal international order.     

The limits to judicial independence: Cambodia’s political culture and the civil law

Distinctions between the common and civil law are crucial when considering the rule of law and judicial independence in a political system. The 1993 Constitution of the Kingdom of Cambodia provides for a democratic government with separation of powers, judicial independence and human rights guarantees consistent with international legal instruments. However, Cambodia ranks poorly in international indices of political interference and corruption in the judiciary and for the rule of law. Drawing on interviews with Cambodian state officials and legal practitioners, the article situates the domestic judiciary within the socio-political environment and constitutional arrangements in which it must operate and examines the limits to judicial independence in the country. The article argues that the lack of judicial independence in contemporary Cambodia is not only attributable to its neopatrimonial political culture but also to the legal-institutional framework established during the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) period. The legal-philosophical underpinnings of civil law, the nature of the civil law system operating in Cambodia, and how it is interpreted locally, are crucial to understanding the limits to judicial independence in the country.     

Identity and anxiety: Germany’s struggle to lead

At a time when calls for German leadership abound, we need to ask what kind of leadership Berlin is likely to offer. This paper builds on scholarship that presumes identity as an essential precondition for orderly social life. My focus is on how identity is secured through ontological security-seeking. Ontological security theory reveals how Germany is responding to rising calls for leadership in Europe and beyond and traces these responses to an increasingly stressed identity narrative. It explains both Germany’s reluctance to lead and, being pressed to lead, how leadership is legitimated through discursive adaptation. Whether “leading from the center” or exercising “servant leadership”, ontological security theory exposes the specific interactions between a national self-narrative and a rapidly changing environment. I show how these interactions challenge Germany’s identity and its ability to adapt; how they cause ontological anxiety, and how the scope and direction of adaptation to structural change account for the kind of leadership Germany is able to offer. What we observe is a determined effort to position the country between a traditional culture of restraint that can no longer meet Germany’s responsibilities and a position of hegemony that speaks of self-serving behaviour and dominance.     

Memorables in the CAFIU Delegation’s Visit to Japan,New Zealand and Australia

<正>At the invitation of the Kazankai Foundation of Japan,New Zealand Rotary and Australian Rotary,a 5-member CAFIU delegation headed by Deputy Secretary-General Liu Kaiyang visited Japan,New Zealand and Australia from October28 to November 6,2013.I have the honor to be a member of the delegation to visit the abovementioned three countries,which left an     

One Plus Four: What NATO’s New Strategic Concept Should Say and How to Achieve It

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) must pivot to address a new era of persistent threats and disruptive challenges unbounded by geography. Reaffirming NATO’s cohesion as an alliance of democracies will be paramount. Each of NATO’s core tasks—defense and deterrence, crisis management, and cooperative security—must evolve to meet new dangers. The Alliance should add a fourth core task of comprehensive resilience: the ability to anticipate, prevent, and, if necessary, protect against and move forward from disruptions to critical functions of allied societies. A more capable Europe is essential to each of these tasks.     

Impediments to Abe’s Proposal to Cast off Japan’s Postwar System

A fundamental change in Japanese politics means that neo-conservatives now are meeting fewer obstacles. The wide margin enjoyed by the Liberal Democratic Party led by Shinzo Abe in Japan＇ s July 2013 election for the upper house （House of Councillors） was a second resounding victory for the LDP,     

Ukraine,Russia and the strategic partnership dynamics in the EU’s eastern neighbourhood: recalibrating the EU’s ‘self’, ‘we’ and ‘other’

The present contribution explores the changing relationship between the European Union (EU) and the two largest countries in its eastern neighbourhood, namely Ukraine and Russia, between 1991 and 2014. Taking the differential between the existence of the EU Strategic Partnership (SP) with Russia and the absence of such an arrangement in the relationship with Ukraine as a point of departure, it investigates how the EU has dealt with different aspirations and challenges stemming from its two largest eastern neighbours. Adopting the Social Identity Theory perspective, the contribution analyses the interrelationship between the evolution of the EU’s SP approach towards the eastern neighbours and the development of (particular dimensions of) the EU’s identity. It demonstrates how the process of categorization relating to the ideational ‘self’, ‘we’ and ‘other’ took place; and how only the EU’s relationship with Russia and not that with Ukraine has accumulated the discursive markers of a strategic partnership. The contribution, furthermore, analyses the challenges to the EU changing approach stemming from the 2013–2014 Ukraine crisis.     

Defending the Fortress? Assessing the European Union’s Response to Trafficking

In the early 1990s, the European Union (EU) initiated two strategies, one deepening integration, the other widening it, to combat the increasingly important soft security agenda. This article seeks to assess the effectiveness of the EU’s response to the new security environment and speculates as to whether the completion of one process makes the achievement of the other more difficult, if not impossible. One focus will be on the development of border management on the EU’s periphery. Are the applicant states sufficiently prepared for the task of acting as the EU’s external frontier guard? The reactions of existing member states is also put under the spotlight. Arguably, their failure to promote a more equitable burden sharing arrangement, coupled with the decision to maintain internal frontier controls with applicant states for a transitional period after accession, has made the task of securing a strong external frontier more difficult. The European Police Office (Europol) forms the centerpiece of analysis in relation to the deepening of integration. Its efficacy as a means of information exchange is examined, and the impact of enlargement is considered.     

Who’s afraid of an EU tax and why?—revenue system preferences in the European Parliament

The current revenue system of the EU is still structured like that of an organization based on intergovernmental cooperation, although the EU is already far advanced in legislative and political integration. This antagonism gives reason to discuss whether or not the EU should be granted an autonomous tax source. Our contribution to this debate explores the factors which shape the acceptance of the EU tax option among European policy makers. A self-conducted survey among Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), which resulted in a response of some 150 of the representatives, offers us a unique database. Concerning MEPs’ revenue system preferences, our findings confirm an important impact of party ideology and individual characteristics while they indicate that country-specific factors also contribute to understand the attitudes towards an EU tax. In the light of our findings the status quo bias in the revenue system of the EU can be attributed to the persistent importance of national interests with respect to tax policy.

Supporters’ responses to contested trade negotiations: the European Commission’s rhetoric on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership*

Abstract

Negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) commenced in 2013, and soon became the most controversial bilateral trade agreement negotiations ever attempted by the European Union (EU). When trying to understand the escalating debate over the proposed agreement, most analyses have highlighted opposition to the deal, especially from civil society organizations. However, a full understanding of the debate surrounding TTIP requires analysis of supporters’ responses, as these changed in response to strategies used by opponents of the agreement. This article uses a novel approach in trade policy scholarship—rhetorical analysis—to focus on the European Commission Trade Directorate’s response to contestation over TTIP. Drawing on work on the ‘rhetoric of reaction’, this article identifies the rhetorical strategies used by EU trade commissioners from 2013 to 2016. It outlines the evolution of the rhetoric and accompanying changes in process and policy, providing insights on the impact of TTIP politicization on the guiding principles of the EU’s trade policy.