Notes on non‐proliferation

Crime imposes various costs on society – for prevention, for response, the consequences for the victims themselves, etc. But there are also other kinds of costs that are indirect, such as lost investment, lost jobs and fewer opportunities for development. In the case of Italy, the historical presence of organised crime in the southern regions represents a significant economic burden. Economists have tried to estimate the costs and the economic and social consequences of crime. Studies clearly show that high levels of crime tends to affect economic outcomes negatively, creating notable distortions in local markets and a business climate that is unfavourable to foreign and national investment.     

Militant neo‐Nazism in Sweden

This study examines the emergence of a neo‐Nazi terrorist movement in Sweden, focusing on the largest group, Vitt Ariskt Motstånd (White Aryan Resistance). VAM is inspired by traditional national socialism, the militant wing of the skinhead movement, South African apartheid ideology and, especially, US racist groups like ‘The Order’. Notions of the ‘Zionist Occupation Government’ (ZOG) and the coming ‘racial war’ are central in VAM's worldview. The adaptation of this extreme revolutionary ideology radicalized the group towards terrorism. The quest for status and prestige within the group and vis‐à‐vis other groups has also been an important factor in this radicalization process.1     

The re‐equilibration of democracy in inter‐war Ireland

This article examines the process of democratic stabilization in inter‐war Ireland. The Irish case is a classic example of what Linz calls re‐equilibration. Re‐equilibration is a political process that, following a crisis which has seriously endangered democratic institutions, results in their continued existence at the same or higher levels of effectiveness and legitimacy. The contention of the article is that the Fianna Fáil party's transformation of the democratic institutions of the Irish Free State in the 1930s constituted a case of democratic re‐equilibration, whereby the institutions of independent Ireland were given a greater degree of effectiveness and legitimacy. Indeed, since the main Irish parties had only recently been involved in a civil war, the Irish example could well be the classic case of re‐equilibration this century. The analysis of democratic re‐equilibration between 1922 and 1937 focuses on the Fianna Fáil party's transformation from being a semi‐loyal opposition party to being a party of government, emphasizing the impact on those political actors who remained hostile to the existence of the Free State.     

Neo‐nationalism and Neo‐Atlanticism in Italian foreign policy

The European Union has low expectations for the international climate regime after 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol effectively expires. The United States is not thought likely to sign up to new binding international commitments, whereas EU countries have experienced unexpected difficulties in implementing existing commitments. As a consequence, the European Union may be prepared to settle for a surprisingly weak follow-up to the Kyoto Protocol. At the same time, the European Union will pursue bilateral and regional climate agreements with like-minded countries, parallel to the UN framework and possibly independently of it. Collectively, such agreements could produce an international climate regime that is more robust than what could be agreed at the consensus-based UN level. Nevertheless, the European Union will continue to support the UN process as the only legitimate forum for international negotiations on climate change.     

The Nuclear Non‐Proliferation Regime After the NPT Extension Conference ‐ The Tasks Ahead

Rome’s approach to the Libyan unrest has been guided by two objectives: to protect the commercial relationship that it has built up with Libya over the past decade, and to prevent a mass exodus of migrants toward Italy. Initially, it was believed that these objectives would be endangered by the intervention advocated by Great Britain and France. By early April, principally because Washington’s support for the military mission became clearer, the government’s policy changed. Italy secured commitments from the rebel leaders to honour existing agreements and to scale future relations to the level of support they receive. Although Rome’s concern about immigration proved to be exaggerated, it was also addressed in late April when France agreed to support a proposed reform of Schengen. Once it concluded that the Qadhafi regime was unlikely to survive, Italy cast aside its earlier caution and joined the NATO-led war.     

Rethinking Italy’s Shrinking Place in the International Arena

Italy’s foreign policy is still shackled by two features inherited from its modern history: an obsessive focus on rank and prestige, and a no less delusional faith in the redemptive character of the EU and other multilateral arrangements it belongs to. The ‘middle power’ foreign policy model elaborated in the 1980s had a rationale of its own but it can hardly be adapted to the globalised world, nor can it be sustained by a deteriorated economic and societal domestic fabric. Italy has to rethink its basic national interests, adapt its foreign policy tools to new concepts of relevance and influence, and focus on a long-term, concerted effort at domestic regeneration if it is to withstand the challenges of the globalised world we live in.     

European‐Chinese relations in the Nineties

In recent decades, there have been many international campaigns on numerous issues. In turn, scholars have analysed the activist networks promoting human rights, environmental quality and global justice, developing theories of transnational advocacy, strategies and outcomes. However, analysts have seldom noted that the ‘progressive’ networks on which these theories have been based seldom act unopposed. Instead, on numerous global issues leftwing groups face fierce opposition from networks of rightwing activists. This article provides examples of such clashes, focusing on these understudied conservative networks. In addition, it outlines a theory for understanding the conflict of networks over many policy issues.     

Right‐wing terrorism in South Africa

This article reviews the background to the rise of the right wing in South Africa and argues that there has always been a strand in Afrikaner politics with a proclivity to violence. The transformation in South Africa began in the 1980s and accelerated in the 1990s, alienating conservatives and those in the security forces who were still in the grip of the militarist doctrines espoused during the P.W. Botha era. Hit squads, dirty tricks and efforts to destabilise neighbouring governments were part of the state's response to the rise of black militance in the 1980s. Terrorism was also practised by paramilitary right‐wing groups, the biggest of which was the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB). Eventually the right‐wing counterrevolution failed, in large measure because potentially the most effective of the paramilitary forces, led by retired General Constand Viljoen, rejected the option of violence and sought instead a negotiated accommodation     

Political terrorism in South‐East Asia

This article will provide an overview of one specific non‐military threat that is beginning to assume greater prominence on south‐east Asia's broadened security agenda: political terrorism.¹ Although by no means new to the south‐east Asian environment, for much of the twentieth century its importance was sidelined and, in a sense ‘contained’, by the more pressing concern over US‐Soviet nuclear rivalry. With the end of the Cold War, however, the ‘bottle has been uncorked’ on a variety of lower‐level threats, with issues such as terrorism now taking on greater prominence and relevance in their own right as significant regional and national security concerns.²     

German Nuclear Non‐Proliferation Policy During the 1980s: A Case of Regime Compliance

The Muslim community in Italy does not benefit from official recognition, which could, among other things, provide it with access to state funding. Nor does its fragmented nature favour a process of aggregation leading to the formation of a single representative body delegated to dialogue with the institutions. The government initiative establishing the Council of Italian Islam (Consulta) sought to encourage an original course in this direction, but it seems that the body is unlikely to solve the problem. The solutions adopted in various European countries and the proposals put forward by experts suggest that legal recognition cannot sidestep the question of representation and therefore calls for a process of cultural mediation.     

Nuclear proliferation and ‘realistic deterrence’ in a new century

Deterrence became an all‐purpose theory and policy solution during the Cold War. The end of the Cold War has caused theorists and policy‐makers to ask whether deterrence is still either practicable or theoretically compelling. The prospect of additional and angry state and non‐state actors armed with nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction (WMD), together with long‐range delivery systems, threatens to shake the foundations of deterrence stability. In this article we consider whether this is so. First, we examine some of the theoretical arguments for a benign world with nuclear proliferation and some reasons to be skeptical about those arguments. Second, we consider the current status of nuclear weapons spread and some of the particular challenges presented to deterrence and arms race stability by nuclear proliferation.     

The security dilemma in Sino‐Indian relations

With the end of the Cold War, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and the collapse of the old economic order in India a dozen years ago, the outmoded methods New Delhi had employed for four decades to engage the world were no longer tenable. C. Raja Mohan, one of India's leading strategic thinkers, has traced the remarkable transformation in New Delhi's foreign policy during the 1990s in Crossing the Rubicon, a thoughtful new study of the ideas shaping Indian diplomacy. Mohan highlights five changes in the conceptual underpinnings guiding Indian foreign policy since the early 1990s: a shift from domestically focused socialism to a globalized free market economy; a de-emphasis on politics in favor of economics; an abandonment of New Delhi's earlier infatuation with “Third Worldism” and non-alignment; a rejection of anti-Westernism; and a loss of idealism. These new forces have left India, Mohan contends, with a foreign policy infinitely more suitable for meeting the challenges of the twenty-first century. New Delhi is now poised, he adds, to break out of the South Asian box in which it has been confined, and assume its rightful place among the world's leading powers.