If Asia Wants to Prosper,Don't Listen to the IMF

The great story of the last decade has been the “rise of the rest”—emerging economies such as China, Brazil, Turkey and India—to a position rivaling that of the established, advanced economies. As the aftershocks of the financial crisis of 2008–2009 continue to ripple through the global system, will the rising rest stay or track or be derailed? Some of the world's top economists examine this question in the following section.     

If The US And Japan Don't Deter China,Dominos Will Fall

Despite grand visions of a cosmopolitan planet living in peace, the first globalization at the turn of the 20th century descended into World War I as the old empires scrambled to preserve themselves as others sought self‐determination. Powers on the losing end of that war reasserted themselves in yet another worldwide calamity within decades. After World War II, in the early 1950s, with the victorious American‐led alliance in the driver's seat, institutions such as the United Nations and the Bretton Woods arrangements created a global stability that enabled peace, prosperity and the “rise of the rest.” In 2014, the world order is shifting again with the rise of China reviving in Asia the very kind of nationalist rivalries that led Europe to war twice in the 20th century. Will we be able to build new institutions that accommodate the new powershift without resorting to war, or will the second globalization collapse as well? Top strategists from the US, Japan and China respond to this momentous question.     

If You Want a Middle Class Keep Your Industrial Base

The future of the European Union has never been more in doubt than at the very moment it has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for its historical accomplishments. When the heads of Europe's weakest institutions—the Commission, the Council and the Parliament—collected the prize in Oslo on December 10, 2012 they spotlighted the nub of the problem. Unless these institutions can garner the legitimacy of European citizens and transform into a real federal union with common fiscal and economic policies to complement the single currency, Europe will remain at the mercy of global financial markets and the fiscally authoritarian dictates of its strongest state, Germany. Moving beyond this state of affairs was the focus of a recent “town hall” gathering in Berlin sponsored by the Berggruen Institute on Governance. The meeting brought together current power brokers—such as the contending voices of German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble and French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici, who rarely appear in public together—as well as Europe's top former leaders, key thinkers and young people who will govern in the future. The peace‐building project of the European Union was born out of the ashes of World War II and the anguish of the Cold War. Yet, as George Soros points out, its current inability to resolve the eurocrisis by forging greater union is dividing Europe once again, this time between creditors and debtors. Former Greek premier George Papandreou has warned that this division is fomenting a new politics of fear that is giving rise to the same kind of xenophobic movements that fueled the extreme politics of the Nazi era. To avoid a repeat of the last calamitous century, Europe first of all needs a growth strategy both to escape the “debt trap” it is in—and which austerity alone will only deepen—and to create breathing space for the tough structural reforms that can make Europe as a whole competitive again in a globalized world. To sustain reform, it needs a clear path to legitimacy for the institutions that must govern a federal Europe. The proof that Europe can escape its crisis through a combination of growth, fiscal discipline and structural reform comes from the one country so many want to keep out of the union: Turkey. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan rightfully boasts of Turkey's accomplishments that resulted from the difficult changes carried out after its crisis in 2001—ranging from quickly cleaning up the banks to liberalizing markets to trimming social benefits to make them more affordable in the long run. As a result, Turkey today is the fastest growing economy in the world alongside China with diminished deficit and debt levels that meet the eurozone criteria that many members states themselves cannot today meet. Turkey has even offered a 5 billion euro credit through the IMF for financial aid to Europe. Germany itself also provides some lessons for the rest of Europe. The obvious reason Germany rules today is because it is the most globally competitive country in the European Union. That is the result of a series of reforms that were implemented starting in 2003 under the leadership of then‐chancellor Gerhard Schröder. Aimed a bolstering Germany's industrial base and its collateral small and medium enterprises which are the foundation of its middle class society, those reforms introduced more labor flexibility and trimmed benefits to make them sustainably affordable while investing in training, maintaining skills and research and development. Even if Europe's individual nation states can shrink imbalances by following Turkey and Germany in getting their act together, the only ultimate way to save the euro, and thus Europe itself, is to build the complementary governing institutions at the European level. For those institutions to become effective, they must be empowered and legitimated by European citizens themselves. To this end, Tony Blair has suggested a bold move: the direct election of a European president. Symbolically, the Oslo ceremonies were a historical turning point for Europe. By recognizing the European Union's peace‐making past, the Nobel Prize challenged Europe to escape once and for all the destructive pull of narrow national interests and passions.     

Guilty Bodies, Productive Bodies, Destructive Bodies: Crossing the Biometric Borders

This article examines the forms of power brought into play by the deployment of biometrics under the lenses of Foucault's notions of discipline and biopower. These developments are then analyzed from the perspective of governmentality, highlighting how the broader spread of biometrics throughout the social fabric owes not merely to the convergence of public and private surveillance, but rather to a deeper logic of power under the governmental state, orchestrated by the security function, which ultimately strengthens the state. It is associated with the rise of a new governmentality discourse, which operates on a binary logic of productive/destructive, and where, in fact, the very distinctions between private and public, guilty, and innocent—classic categories of sovereignty—find decreasing currency. However, biometric borders reveal a complicated game of renegotiations between sovereignty and governmentality, whereby sovereignty is colonized by governmentality on the one hand, but still functions as a counterweight to it on the other. Furthermore, they bring out a particular function of the "destructive body" for the governmental state: it is both the key figure ruling the whole design of security management, and the blind spot, the inconceivable, for a form of power geared toward producing productive bodies.     

Business,Brokers and Borders: The Structure of West African Trade Networks

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to show how a formal approach to networks can make a significant contribution to the study of cross-border trade in West Africa. Building on the formal tools and theories developed by social network analysis, we examine the network organisation of 136 large traders in two border regions between Niger, Nigeria and Benin. In a business environment where transaction costs are extremely high, we find that decentralised networks are well adapted to the various uncertainties induced by long-distance trade. We also find that long-distance trade relies both on the trust and cooperation shared among local traders, and on the distant ties developed with foreign partners from a different origin, religion or culture. Studying the spatial structure of trade networks, we find that in those markets where trade is recent and where most of the traders are not native of the region, national borders are likely to exert a greater influence than in those regions where trade has pre-colonial roots. Combining formal network analysis and ethnographic studies, we argue, can make a significant contribution to the current revival of interest in cross-border trade in the policy field.     

If Americans Accept Obama, They Can Accept a Rising China

America is more a creed than a nation. Our promise has always been that all individuals, despite race, religion or gender, have the equal chance to make it. The election of Barack Hussein Obama as president of the United States is thus a “soft power” coup for America's global image, which had lost its luster during the Bush years. Obama is the anti‐Bush who will lead by the power of example instead of the example of power. Yet, there are real limits. Can the power of example stop the North Korean or Iranian nuclear programs? Can it stop jihadists bent on establishing a new Caliphate across South Asia? Can it limit China's ambitions as the new power in Asia? In this section commentators from across the world offer their views.     

美军武装直升机为何老出事

美国《纽约时报》近日报道:自今年1月20日以来,驻伊拉克美军部队已有7架直升机坠毁,这一数字比驻伊美军2006年全年的损失量还多.其实不只是伊拉克,美军以前在其他海外战场也经常有直升机坠落的事件,这是由其技术弱点、作战环境和很多其他原因造成的.     

Knowing Me,Knowing You: Media Portrayal of the EU in Kazakhstan

Abstract

The dichotomy of Self/Other prevails in shaping identity. This article asks how and to what extent the elements of the EU’s image produced by media discourse shape the national identity of Kazakhstan. It contends that a state’s identity can be formulated not in opposition—that is, not ‘Us against Them’—but rather, ‘Us as One of Them’. It argues that, in the case of Kazakhstan, the predominantly positive media discourse about the EU ‘Other’ contributes to a positive formulation of the Self via the legitimisation of the domestic regime on the national and international levels.