The regional brand: collective image consciousness in Africa and Southeast Asia

States in the same region are bound together by the ways in which the world imagines them as a collective. One distinguishing feature of post-Cold War regionalism is its outward orientation – the importance of the external dimension of regional cooperation. By and large, though, existing analysis of regional institutional development in the Global South does not explicitly conceptualise and theorise collective image consciousness and management. This paper works to address this conceptual gap. Making use of two cases of regional image crisis – post-1980s Africa and post-1997 Southeast Asia – it draws out two primary logics of regional image consciousness: the logic of influence and the logic of resources. A region’s ‘brand’ with respect to (dys)function and international norm (non-)compliance matters to regional actors because it affects the region’s political influence in international arenas and the region’s ability to attract resources from donors and investors.     

Global international relations and the Arab Spring: the Maghreb’s challenge to the EU

Abstract

This article contributes to the Global International Relations project by critically evaluating the roles ascribed to Europe and the EU by Levitsky and Way in their model for explaining regime transitions. Focusing primarily on their international dimensions of linkage and leverage, it assesses both the normative geopolitical underpinnings and explanatory power of their thesis, drawing on the North African cases of Tunisia and Mauritania at the start of the Arab Spring to illustrate and substantiate its observations and arguments. It concludes that the EU’s failure to discipline either country’s competitive authoritarian regime raises important questions about the validity of the privileged role in which they cast Europe.     

My Country,My Country,directed by Laura Poitras,produced by Jocelyn Glatzer and Laura Poitras Iraq in Fragments,directed by James Longley,produced by John Sinno and James Longley

A new form of “entertaining news,” accessed by most through television, has become a privileged domain of politics for the first time in countries “beyond the West” in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. What are the political consequences of this development: What is the relationship between media and politics in these regions? We answer these questions through a case study of India, the world's largest democracy, where two decades of media expansion and liberalization have yielded the largest number of commercial television news outlets in the world. We show why prevailing theories of media privatization and commercialization cannot account for the distinctive architecture of media systems in places like India. In this article, we first provide an overview of the historical and contemporary dynamics of media liberalization in India and the challenges that this poses to existing models and typologies of the media-politics relationship. We then present a new typology of media systems and a theoretical framework for studying the relationship between television news and democratic politics in India, and by extension in the global South. In the concluding section, we reflect on the broader comparative insights of the essay and discuss directions for future research. We believe that our alternative comparative framework captures more meaningfully the diversity and complexity of emerging media systems and their relationships to democratic practice in these regions.     

The retention of personal information online: A call for international regulation of privacy law

New technologies permit online businesses to reduce expenses and increase efficiency by, for example, storing information in “the cloud”, engaging in online tracking and targeted advertising, location and tracking technologies, and biometrics. However, the potential for technology to facilitate long term retention of customers' personal information raises concerns about the competing right of individuals to the privacy of their personal information. Although the European Commission has recently released a proposal for regulation to “provide a data subject with the right to be forgotten and to erasure”, neither the OECD Privacy Guidelines nor the APEC Privacy Framework includes any requirement to delete personal information. While New Zealand includes a “limited retention principle” in the Privacy Act 1993, apart from one limited exception the privacy principles cannot be enforced in court. Taking New Zealand privacy law as an example, this paper examines the issue of retention of customer data, explains why this is a serious problem and argues that although it could be addressed by appropriate amendments to domestic laws, domestic privacy legislation may not be sufficient in an online environment. In the same way as other areas of law, such as the intellectual property regime, have turned to global regulatory standards which reflect the international nature of their subject matter, international privacy regulation should be the next stage for the information privacy regime.     

The OECD and “The Rest”: Analyzing the Limits of Policy Transfer

Abstract

Prompted by the rise of the emerging economies and the growing importance of the G20, the OECD has formally announced its intention of establishing itself as a key actor in global policy coordination. As part of this ambition, it has embarked on cultivating closer relations with five G20 countries it designated as key partners through the so-called “Enhanced Engagement” programme: Brazil, China, India, Indonesia and South Africa. This article mobilizes concepts from the policy transfer literature to explain why the OECD’s attempts to increasingly involve all five countries in its policy have fallen short of its original ambitions, and also why the transfer of its policy work has been uneven across policy and country issue.     

Relativierung des Rechts durch Digitalisierung

Das Recht ist in modernen Gesellschaften ein wichtiges Steuerungsmittel. Schon bisher ist es allerdings nicht das einzige Instrument gewesen, um gesellschaftliche Entwicklungen und individuelles Verhalten zu beeinflussen. Es gab und gibt Bereiche, die sich selbst organisieren und in denen staatliches Recht aus unterschiedlichen Gründen nicht das entscheidende Steuerungsmittel ist. Dieser Beitrag untersucht, wie sich die zunehmende Digitalisierung der modernen Gesellschaften auf die Steuerungsfähigkeit des Rechts auswirkt. Er kommt dabei zu dem Ergebnis, dass die Bedeutung des Rechts in der digitalisierten und hoch fragmentierten Welt abnimmt. Das Recht muss sich deshalb Verbündete in anderen Bereichen der Gesellschaft suchen, um weiterhin Steuerungsfunktionen für die Gesellschaft wahrnehmen zu können. Der Beitrag skizziert, wer als Verbündeter des Rechts in Frage kommt und wie die notwendigen transrechtlichen Kooperationen aussehen könnten.     

理解当代中国的安全哲学

通过分析安全主体在安全政治中的思维逻辑和行为方式,可以抽象出其所信奉的安全哲学。以当代中国的安全哲学为例,自改革开放以来,基于自身关于和平与发展是当今时代主题的战略判断,中国提出与之相匹配和呼应的新安全观,并且分为互信、互利、平等、协作的新安全观,以及共同、综合、合作、可持续的新安全观两个阶段。同时,中国所主张的新安全观与旧安全观在政治基础、安全结构、安全战略、争端因应、和平保障五个方面形成鲜明对比。以此为线索,当代中国安全哲学的具体内涵可以被理解和概括为一体安全、兼容安全和发展安全,倡导树立忧患意识与发扬斗争精神。当然,当代中国的安全哲学还面临包括启动成本、维持成本和机会成本在内的成本问题,包括不对称问题和道德风险问题在内的行动问题,以及包括安全感问题、实践转化及其效力问题和他者问题在内的竞争力问题等现实困境和理论困难,这也是当代中国的安全外交需要作答和完成的理论命题与实践课题。     

疫情冲击下的世界经济与中国对策

新冠肺炎疫情的急剧扩散正在对世界经济产生严重冲击,使得任何国家都无法独善其身。本文探讨了疫情对世界经济增长、深层次结构以及全球经济治理等领域可能造成的冲击,认为世界经济秩序和国际经济关系都将受到重大影响,全球化进程可能呈现出现碎片化发展趋势,全球治理赤字更加凸显且内容更加广域化,跨国公司的产业链重构进程将有所加快并更加注重安全因素。在这种严峻形势下,中国应采取更加系统的应对措施,短期内宏观经济政策重心应该从“保增长”调整为“保就业”,并努力确保外向型产业链稳定;中长期应该更加注重扩大内需,进一步扩大金融业开放和积极推进国际经济协调。     

区域全面经济伙伴关系协定对台湾的经济影响--基于价值链分析和GTAP政策模拟

2020年11月,区域全面经济伙伴关系协定(RCEP)正式签署,全球最大的自由贸易区应运而生。本文从传统贸易与价值链出发,阐述台湾与RCEP成员经贸关系和价值链联系,分析RCEP签署对台湾经济和贸易的影响,利用GTAP模型模拟RCEP关税削减对台湾岛内经济与产业的影响。结果显示:RCEP建立将导致台湾对外贸易与投资的转移,贸易条件恶化,从而对岛内各产业产出、经济增长、消费者福利带来负面冲击。同时,台湾通过后向联系参与全球价值链的低端产业将面临被替代的风险。