Intervention Theatre: performance,authenticity and expert knowledge in politicians’ travel to post-/conflict spaces

ABSTRACT

This article explores the role of official travel activities by politicians to post-/conflict spaces in German foreign policymaking. Starting from the observation that official travel justifications stress the value of authentic insights and unfiltered information, while journeys in practice are meticulously planned and staged, it asks what kind of knowing is possible, how actors make sense of the staged nature of field trips, and how multiple performances create and/or undermine notions of authenticity and first-hand expertise. The article shows that official on-site visits are composed of multiple conscious performances by all actors involved, but that these performances do not undermine the notions of authenticity and expertise. On the contrary, knowledge authenticity—or truth claims on the basis of authentic insights—and related expert authority are produced through travel-as-performance. The emphasis policymakers put on on-site presence and (the performance of) localized knowledge contradicts intervention literature’s generalized finding of a prioritization of technocratic over localized knowledge. The article draws on politics and performance scholarship and authenticity theories in tourism studies to make sense of a wealth of empirical material on the claims, practice and functions of German MPs’ journeys to post-/conflict spaces as part of broader political struggles over policy knowledge.     

Resilience as the new EU foreign policy paradigm: a pragmatist turn?

This article examines the rise of resilience discourses in EU foreign policy. The European Union Global Strategy (EUGS) refers to building state and societal resilience in its neighbourhood as one of the key strategic priorities of the EU. This article argues that the discourse of resilience that permeates the EUGS chimes well with a pragmatist turn in social sciences and global governance. The EUGS introduces resilience-building alongside an emphasis on flexibility, tailor-made approaches and the need for local ownership, capacity-building and comprehensiveness. More importantly, the new EUGS proposes “principled pragmatism” as a new operating principle in its foreign policy. While this might suggest a more pragmatic EU foreign policy, a closer examination of the EUGS discourse reveals significant tensions between a pragmatic and a principled foreign policy, which undermine the added value of resilience-building as a new foreign policy paradigm.     

农村信用社向合作银行的转制研究——绩效、原因、问题与政策建议

该文对农村信用社向农村合作银行的改制进行了分析,指出改革取得成功的主要原因,并对存在的问题进行了剖析。农村信用社向农村合作银行改制的改革,必须解决好合作银行性质与定位、省级联社的定位和功能、服务“三农”、县域范围市场竞争过度、以及人员素质难以适应金融发展需要和债务负担过重等问题,针对上述问题,该文提出相应的政策建议。     

外商直接投资区位理论综述

对外直接投资在二战后发展的规模和速度极为突出。作为国际生产的主要载体,跨国公司在对外直接投资时．首先要考虑的一个重要问题就是区位选择问题。跨国公司直接投资的区位因素分析,一直是国际经济学界关注的理论热点之一。在经济全球化背景下,研究跨国公司对外投资区位决策因素的变迁,对分析跨国公司的直接投资行为和投资流向的变化具有重要意义。     

欧盟东扩与俄罗斯的对外经济贸易取向

在 90年代 ,通过东西欧经济一体化和对俄共同战略 ,欧盟已成功地把中东欧候选国和俄罗斯纳入欧盟的国际分工体系 ,并将最终把它们融入欧洲的政治和法律体系。欧盟东扩不仅使俄罗斯的对外贸易地理方向明显偏向西欧 ,而且使俄罗斯成为欧盟原材料和燃料的主要提供者。东扩后的欧盟将与俄罗斯拥有漫长的共同边界 ,从而使双方经贸关系更加密切 ,这无疑会成为 2 1世纪制约中俄贸易发展的一个重要因素。只有早日形成以产业内贸易为主体的贸易格局 ,中俄贸易才有可能取得较快的发展。     

Bush: The Sequel

This article examines the likely foreign policy initiatives of the U.S. under the leadership of George W. Bush. The new president has outlined a fairly thorough critique of America's international behavior in the 1990s. Because a leader's public statements arguably serve to persuade various audiences and to build support for policy change, the article takes Bush's words quite seriously—along with those spoken or written by his closest foreign affairs advisors. Bush intends to abandon the so-called Clinton Doctrine and deploy national missile defenses. He is critical of American policies toward China and Russia, but has not presented bold new initiatives toward those powers. Under the rubric of "compassionate conservatism," Bush may alter U.S. relations toward the Global South in some interesting ways. The president and his advisors often purport to be realists, but the article demonstrates that their own words belie this claim as they often justify policies based on ideals rather than the pursuit of power.     

对朝鲜民主主义人民共和国引进外资的分析

朝鲜人民民主主义共和国在对外经贸合作中,曾在70年代至90年代期间实施了对外引资政策.目前,为了实现经济强国目标,正积极与世界各国建立外交联系,打破孤立状态,吸引外国资本,促进朝鲜经济发展.     

The moral purpose of US power: neoconservatism in the age of Obama

The ‘neoconservative moment’ is widely assumed to have come and gone with the George W. Bush administration. This article argues, however, that the hope that the neoconservative chapter in US foreign policy will be definitively closed under Barack Obama's administration is unlikely to be realized in practice, owing to the continuing influence that neoconservatives are able to exercise over national debates regarding the ‘moral’ use of US power in order to shape the international environment. While the moral agenda of the ‘neocons’ is often misconceived as simply a mask for the naked pursuit of the United States' material and strategic interests, this article demonstrates that this misrepresents the rationale that underpins the neoconservative perspective. Exploring the re-articulation of morality in neoconservative thought reveals the nexus that both links the neoconservative domestic agenda for political change to its foreign policy goals and also provides a framework for understanding the ‘staying power’ that neoconservatism continues to exhibit. Although the Obama presidency is widely heralded as a repudiation of this agenda, the neoconservative conception of the United States as a moral power is deeply rooted in US foreign policy traditions and is domestically allied to traditional expressions of social conservatism, which enables neoconservative ideas to continue to resonate in US foreign policy debates.     

With friends like these: foreign policy as personal relationship

Governments are run by humans who have sympathies and moods. The study of leaders' personalities, albeit not widespread, is an important tool for foreign policy analysis. Plus, friendship is a feeling that decision-makers like to express for each other. This paper analyses the activity of Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's three times premier, who has made ‘friendship’ a central tenet of his personal foreign policy. Three cases are considered, namely, Berlusconi's relationship with George W. Bush, Tony Blair and Vladimir Putin. The paper concludes that his friendship-based foreign policy has somehow worked; but, because he decided to ignore Italy's structural constraints in the international arena, he ended up wasting opportunities and resources.     

International democracy promotion and democratization in the Middle East and North Africa

This article offers an overview of the literature on international democracy promotion in relation to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). It draws on the criteria of process tracing to evaluate the mechanisms, processes and episodes of democratization associated with international democracy promotion in the region. It finds that the literature lacks a clear account of how international democracy promotion relates to conditions for democratization and could pay greater attention to the role of media in either supporting or counteracting democracy promotion activities which impact democratization processes in the region.