Globalization and the future of the nation state

This article addresses the issue of whether the nation state has a future as a major locus of governance in an increasingly ‘globalized’ economic and social system. It begins by considering the development of the sovereign state and argues that international agreements between states were important in establishing the power of the state over society. It goes on to consider the changing capacities of the state in the modern world. Extreme versions of the 'globalization' thesis are then challenged, and it is argued that national-level economic processes remain central and that the international economy is far from ungovernable. Major nation states have a pivotal role to play in creating and sustaining such governance. However, their role is less than as autonomous national macro-economic managers, than as agencies that are representative of their populations and sources of legitimacy for new forms of governance. The central function of the nation state is that of distributing and rendering accountable powers of governance, upwards towards international agencies and trade blocs like the European Union, and downwards towards regional and other sub-national agencies of economic co-ordination and regulation.     

Citizenship at Europe's Borders: Some Reflections on the Post-colonial Condition of Europe in the Context of EU Enlargement

This article proposes a critical approach to European citizenship through the analysis of the legal dispositives which define the external borders of Europe in the context of EU enlargement. It examines the deterritorialization of the EU's external and internal borders through an analysis of the immigration laws of Poland, Romania and Bulgaria which have all been recently modified in order to meet the requirements of the Schengen aquis. By comparing these legislative changes with the legal mechanisms of colonial systems, the article suggests that the material process of the constitutionalization of EU citizenship highlights a post-colonial condition of the European polity.     

Border formations: security and subjectivity at the border

This paper offers a normative argument for reconfiguring borders that rests on a critique of intersecting logics bearing on security, incorporation, agency, subjectivity, encounter, and citizenship. Especially important to my critique is the mutually reinforcing relationship between border security and prevalent assimilationist and integrationist forms of incorporation associated with the dominant single-citizenship model. I offer instead an alternative framing of incorporation I call enfoldment, which is anchored in the contingent and negotiated agency and subjectivity of mobile persons and a multiversal understanding of societies. As I argue, one avenue for opening the possibilities of migrant agency and subjectivity is via what I term ‘mediated passage’. It entails shielding migrants and travellers from the direct control of movement by states at borders, allowing for passage across borders mediated by civil society organizations possessing independent power and authority.     

Borders,citizenship and change: the case of the Sami people, 1751–2008

The Sami, an indigenous people in north-western Europe, today faces the challenge of having their territory, Sápmi, partitioned among four nation states; Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. Whereas borders and citizenship are generally used to defend cultures, interests and territories, separating those who belong from those who do not, this perspective does not include how a non-dominant indigenous people such as the Sami is affected by the partitioning of their territory. Initially, when the first borders were established, the states showed respect and consideration for the Sami and their rights, but during the following centuries, more and more restrictions were being placed on the trans-border movement of the Sami people. In this process, the Sami also had to become citizens in one of the states, and even though the process of changing citizenship remained relatively uncomplicated up until the early twentieth century, the partitioning of the Sami into separate national arenas caused divisions within the people. This article focuses on how the establishment of state borders partitioning Sápmi and the enforced citizenship in the states affected the Sami, and how they acted in response to this development.     

Citizen co‐production of cyber security: Self‐help,vigilantes, and cybercrime

Given the limited resources and capabilities of states to maintain cyber security, a variety of co‐production efforts have been made by individuals or by collectives, of varying degrees of organization and coordination. This article identifies different forms of citizen co‐production of cyber security and notes the risk of unintended consequences. Safeguards and principles are proposed in order to facilitate constructive citizen/netizen co‐production of cyber security. Although co‐production of security can contribute to social control, only those activities within the bounds of the law should be encouraged. Activities of private citizens/netizens that test the limits of legality should be closely circumscribed.     

The Relevance of Security Sector Reform in Humanitarian Intervention: The Case of the European Union in the Mediterranean

Security sector reform (SSR) is a new concept that was adopted by international institutions at the end of the 1990s as a relevant and critical part of development and stabilization processes. It consists of reforming the security sector in those states in which security structures are not able to protect citizens from security challenges facing developing and transitional societies. It includes a large spectrum of services and is strongly based on the abandoning of the classical conception of security as strictly connected with the territorial integrity of a state and the adoption of the broader concept of security and a security agenda that considers the well-being of populations and the respect of human rights. This article aims at analyzing the relevance of SSR in the security relations between European Union (EU) and Mediterranean countries. In the first part, a definition of SSR will be developed. In the second part, the EU's definition of SSR will be stressed, and its links with the security concept as it has been developed in EU external action. In the third part, the EU missions in Mediterranean countries will be analyzed in order to verify if SSR is included in the aims of the missions.     

Communities and citizens: Identity and difference in discourses of Asia‐pacific regionalism

In the post‐Cold War world era, increasing attention is being given to forces of regionalism in global politics. These forces raise the possibility of thinking about citizenship beyond the usual borders of the political communities of nation‐states. Yet the extension of questions of citizenship to regional levels does not dispel the problems of identity formation and the suppression or exclusion of difference in the construction of communities. In the burgeoning discourses of Asia‐Pacific regionalism there is a new orthodoxy which combines elements of neo‐realism, neo‐liberalism and what is often referred to as an ‘Asian way’. But this new orthodoxy neither surrenders nor disturbs sovereign statehood. As a result, discourses of Asia‐Pacific regionalism reinforce the kinds of citizenship granted by political communities of existing nation‐states of the region and fail to recognize difference within and between these communities.     

Debating globalization: cosmopolitanism and communitarianism as political ideologies

Economic, cultural and political systems formerly bounded by the borders of nation states are increasingly globalized. Politicians, civil society and other societal actors engage in publically debating issues related to globalization. Whether conflicts consolidate to form a stable cleavage depends among other factors on the extent to which they become ideologically underpinned. As the basis for such an underpinning, we identify philosophical debates about justice between globalists and statists and between universalists and contextualists as raw material that political entrepreneurs active in the public sphere can draw upon. On this basis, we identify four major bones of contention that could provide the core of such ideological underpinning: the permeability of borders; the allocation of authority between levels; the normative dignity of communities; and the patterns of justification. One ideal typical combination of those four components can be labelled cosmopolitanism—combining arguments from globalists and universalists; another communitarianism, combining statist and contextualist arguments. The more these two ideal types feature as political ideologies in public debate, the more do debates about globalization solidify into a new cleavage. We develop a conceptual framework which can subsequently be used in support of empirical research analysing the ideological foundations of globalization conflicts.     

Border Security and Drug Trafficking in Senegal: AIRCOP and global security assemblages

Transnational security governance initiatives in West Africa, operationalized through international statebuilding interventions, are altering the sub-region’s borders and border enforcement. The article employs a practice-oriented ‘global security assemblages’ approach to demonstrate how border security professionals compete over how, who, and where to secure the border from borderless threats like drug trafficking. The article demonstrates this theoretical position empirically through an analysis of struggles over a flagship drug control project implemented by the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) at Senegal’s Leopold Sédar Senghor (LSS) airport—AIRCOP. Senegalese customs, police, and gendarmes simultaneously cooperate and compete with international actors, private actors based at the airport, and amongst themselves, over how to curb drug trafficking. Through these competitive struggles over who should be the border’s guardian and how it should be guarded, it can be seen how new security practices and understandings are devised, as well as how borders become (re)constituted within the connected spaces of global security assemblages.     

Great powers,ASEAN, and security: reason for optimism?

Abstract

The positive role that external powers can play in the creation and maintenance of security in regions has long been ignored; external interference is generally perceived as detrimental to the ability of a group of states to function as a community. However, this paper argues that in the case of ASEAN, the presence of external actors allows the group to function as a community that also provides and ensures security. This paper furthers the debate regarding ASEAN's security functions. With international attention focused on the Asia-Pacific, there is a need to understand the context in which security is maintained in Southeast Asia.     

Quiet power: Japan's China policy in regard to the Pinnacle Islands

Abstract

This paper explores how the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has tackled the threat of terrorism since 9/11 and the Bali bombings. It claims that ASEAN has applied its traditional approach to security, based on comprehensive security and the principle of resilience, when addressing this challenge. The resilience concept underpins the nexus between national and regional security and emphasizes domestic regime consolidation re-enforced by regional consultations. In their pursuit of resilience, member states have sought in various degrees to address terrorism domestically through a mixture of security, law enforcement, socio-economic, ideological, and educational policies. It is noted that Indonesia, the Philippines, and Singapore have tackled terrorism more comprehensively than Thailand and Malaysia. Reflecting the synergy between national and regional resilience, ASEAN has operated as an umbrella organization meant to complement domestic and sub-regional efforts. It has been committed rhetorically, has produced frameworks of action, as well as reached agreements with the great powers. The paper is not overly optimistic, however, about ASEAN's role in promoting regional resilience against the threat of terrorism in Southeast Asia.     

Voting power and voting blocs

We investigate the method of power indices to study voting power of members of a legislature that has voting blocs. Our analysis is theoretical, intended to contribute to a theory of positive political science in which social actors are motivated by the pursuit of power as measured by objective power indices. Our starting points are the papers by Riker (Behavioural Science, 1959, “A test of the adequacy of the power index”) and Coleman (American Sociological Review, 1973, “Loss of Power”). We argue against the Shapley–Shubik index and show that anyway the Shapley–Shubik index per head is inappropriate for voting blocs. We apply the Penrose index (the absolute Banzhaf index) to a hypothetical voting body with 100 members. We show how the power indices of individual bloc members can be used to study the implications of the formation of blocs and how voting power varies as bloc size varies. We briefly consider incentives to migrate between blocs. This technique of analysis has many real world applications to legislatures and international bodies. It can be generalised in many ways: our analysis is a priori (assuming formal voting and ignoring actual voting behaviour) but can be made empirical with voting data reflecting behaviour; it examines the consequences of two blocs but can easily be extended to more.     

Democracy,creeping socialism,and ideological socialism in rent-seeking societies

Rent-seeking societies suffer from a serious distortion of incentives. Incentives to engage in distributional struggles, to seek contrived transfers are strong, but incentives to engage in productive work are too weak. Stagnation and some unemployment should be expected. Long lasting democracies within unchanged borders create a permissive environment for rent-seeking. The provision of rents very much depends on government. The stronger the governmental involvement in the economy, the higher social security spending, the more rents the government is likely to generate. Therefore, creeping socialism understood as increased government control of the economy should reinforce the rent-seeking society and the corresponding negative effects on growth and employment. Whether such creeping socialism is backed by ideological socialism or not should make little difference for growth or employment. These ideas have been tested and partially supported by a 19 nation sample of industrial democracies, using data from the sixties and seventies. By and large, the rent-seeking approach is fairly successful in explaining national differences in economic growth rates, but receives ambiguous support or less for unemployment. Olson's (1982, 1983) proposition about the negative impact of long lasting democracy within unchanged borders on economic growth is much better supported than the growth-retarding effects of government revenues or social security spending are.     

The Externalities of Civil Strife: Refugees as a Source of International Conflict

Domestic strife and civil war frequently produce large population dislocations and refugee flows across national boundaries. Mass refugee flows often entail negative consequences for receiving states, particularly in developing countries. Moreover, civil violence frequently extends across national boundaries as “internal” conflicts are not constrained by borders. This article argues that refugee flows between states significantly increase the likelihood of militarized interstate disputes (MIDs) in that dyad. Refugee‐receiving states are more likely to initiate MIDs as they intervene to prevent further externalities, and refugee‐sending states initiate MIDs as they violate borders in pursuit of dissidents. Moreover, this research challenges conventional theories of international conflict that focus exclusively on distributional bargains between states. These propositions are tested in a quantitative analysis of the relationship between refugees and MID initiation, 1955–2000. Results confirm that refugees significantly increase the probability of international conflict.     

When Liberal Peacebuilding Fails: Paradoxes of Implementing Ownership and Accountability in the Integrated Approach

As a consequence of the popularity of integrated and nationally owned peace processes, aligning external actors to a national peacebuilding strategy has become part of the recipe for success. Using the case of Sierra Leone, this article engages with the question of what constructing such unified peacebuilding agenda in fragile states means politically. Contrasting the purpose of peacebuilding with the practices through which it is carried out, the article argues that the implementation of a unified peacebuilding agenda to a large extent undermines the liberal pretences of peacebuilding. While the integration of government, civil society and donors works to portray a more ordered society in countries where the lack of such order has been a manifest security problem, it also works to undermine the crucial autonomy of and accountability between them.     

Peacebuilding as Security in ‘Failing’ and Conflict-Prone States

Abstract

Peacebuilding activities in conflict-prone and post-conflict countries are based upon the assumption that effective—preferably liberal—states form the greatest prospect for a stable international order, and that failing or conflict-prone states represent a threat to international security. Peacebuilding is therefore a part of the security agenda. This has brought obvious benefits, most obviously much-needed resources, aid and capacity-building to conflict-prone countries in the form of international assistance, which has contributed to a decline in intrastate conflicts. However, there are a number of negative implications to the securitization of peacebuilding. This article considers the implications of this, and concludes that it is difficult to mediate between conventional and ‘critical’ views of peacebuilding since they are premised upon quite different assumptions regarding what peacebuilding is and what it should be.     

The changing character of national borders

At the end of the twentieth century, the pace of change in the international system is increasing. New actors and even new categories of actors are emerging. Some have a strong impact on international relations, thus competing with the traditional type of international actor, the sovereign nation‐state. One salient feature of the nation‐state is its power to control its borders. In the process of globalization, this power is being disintegrated.

In some respects, national borders have completely lost their relevance, owing to certain adverse ecological developments like the degradation of the ozone layer and other virtually global threats. They are equally of limited use in influencing the speed and content of some trade operations concerning goods or currencies or the free flow of media information.

They however continue to function in a rather efficient way for people. Immigration laws and certain other procedures of the ‘rich’ countries tend to distinguish between wanted and unwanted immigrants. Due to various catastrophies and disasters, wide‐spread violence and the anticipation of a bleak economic future, the number of migrants continues to grow rapidly, as does the pressure from migrants from the ‘poor’ and densely populated countries of the world on the borders of the ‘rich’ countries. This is a multi‐dimensional development with political, economic, but also moral aspects.     

Structuring international institutions for the efficient provisioning of global security

This paper analyzes the issue of security provision by an alliance against the threat of a rogue nation. Proactive security effort by an alliance member is assumed to be non-rival and non-excludable, so the results of the effort jointly accrue to every other member. This effort has both positive and negative effects, as security measures mitigate the threat, but also involve loss of commercial benefits, collateral damages, and infringement on human rights. In this paper I suggest an institutional structure for the alliance which would lead to the achievement of the efficient level of world security through multilateral participation.     

Competing Concerns: Balancing Human Rights and National Security in US Economic Aid Allocation

This paper theorizes that the effect of human rights violations on US economic aid is conditioned by the salience of US national security concerns. National security concerns will be more salient in situations where recipients contribute to maintaining US security and in temporal eras when the USA is perceived as being under increased external threat. As the relational and temporal salience of national security increases, any negative effect of human rights violations on US economic aid should decrease. I test this hypothesis by examining US economic aid allocations to states from 1977 to 2005. The results show that the salience of national security concerns present in the US-recipient relationship does condition the relationship between human rights violations and US economic aid. There are also significant differences between different temporal eras of US foreign aid allocation. Future work should address how conflicts between interests and values in US foreign policy are negotiated.     

Party Types,Organisation and Functions

Austria, which between the wars could neither find its political identity nor put its economy in order, has made a spectacular recovery after its resurrection in 1945, and especially since the State Treaty ten years later which restored its sovereign independence. Today, Austria is one of the most stable and reasonably prosperous small nations in Europe, pursuing a policy of ‘active neutrality’ between the Great Power blocs and cultivating good relations with other neutral and non‐aligned states. Behind her internal consolidation and her new role in international politics is the remarkable personality and diplomatic skill of Bruno Kreisky, Federal Chancellor of Austria and leader of the Socialist Party.