How did the euro area survive the crisis?

Six recent books differ in their explanations as to how the euro area survived the crisis. In this review it is concluded that strong supranational institutions rather than German or Franco-German leadership, shared identity or the popular legitimacy of central institutions have been the crucial condition. Popular support for the euro has remained relatively high in many member states. While the crisis led to some expansion of the intergovernmental method, survival of the euro area required a great expansion in the powers of supranational institutions.     

De-Europeanisation in Turkey: The Case of the Rule of Law

Abstract

This article investigates the political dynamics shaping the post-2010 ‘de-Europeanisation’ of Turkey’s judicial system, particularly regarding judicial independence and rule of law. The analysis suggests the limits of conventional Europeanisation accounts emphasising causal factors such as European Union (EU) conditionality and the ‘lock-in effects’ of liberal reforms due to the benefits of EU accession. The article argues that the Justice and Development Party’s (AKP’s) bid for political hegemony resulted in the reversal of rule of law reforms. De-Europeanisation is discussed in terms of both legislative changes and the government’s observed discourse shift.     

信息化进程中国际体系与秩序特征探析

人类文明正在从工业化社会迈向信息化社会,世界各国立足于不同的国情,秉持迥异的发展理念与施政方略,在国际舞台上共同演奏了民族国家竞争角逐、合作互惠、兴衰失衡并存的交响曲,共同造就了当代国际战略格局与世界秩序的全新态势.美国作为信息化浪潮的发源地与最为积极踊跃的推动者,赢得了信息化时代全球博弈的最大红利,依托厚重的经济基础和强大的军事实力,成为短期内难以逾越的单极霸权;而其他从两极格局中分离出来的诸强国以及为信息化、全球化浪潮所催生的多种国际行为体在把握机遇、发展实力、蓄势待发的同时,也于不同的领域与层次上对美国霸权形成一定的平衡与制约.单极主导、多元并存无疑成为步入信息化时代之初国际政治体系最显著的标志,但随着信息化浪潮在深度与广度上进一步拓展,在飞跃与调整的交替中不断前行,世界格局多极化、国际关系民主化、国际社会行为体多元化、从传统的"国家间政治"向世界政治乃至"全球政治"转变等趋势初现端倪,作为未来世界的可能性蓝图正逐渐呈现于世人眼前.从美国全球扩张战略的周期看,从20世纪80年代以来经过近30年持续的攻势态势,已经呈现出疲惫的征兆,在次贷危机和金融危机的影响下,美国很可能要进入一个战略休整期,美国在国际体系中的主导地位也将受到一定程度的削弱.     

Global political leadership in the twenty-first century: problems and prospects

While issues of political leadership have recently powerfully reclaimed ground in international political science, global political leadership has remained strikingly understudied. This article starts with a reconstruction of the diffusive leadership debate in international relations and eventually arrives at the fundamental distinction between structural leadership, relating to the material power capabilities of an actor, and behavioural leadership which refers to the concrete actions of a possible leader. It then inquires what collective actors – from major states via international organizations to transnational movements – could possibly exert global political leadership (structural, behavioural, or both). Overall, the major states would appear to hold the most favourable position, though their relative superiority in terms of material capabilities alone does not turn them into genuine leaders. The most radical visions, such as global leadership by transnational networks of civil society, are also the most vulnerable empirically. Given their explicit focus on ‘real change’, they correspond however more closely to established notions of genuine leadership than the order- and stability-oriented agendas of most other players.     

Food for Thought: Reflections on a Counter-hegemonic Food-related Intervention in a South African University

Currently the Academy operates primarily as a space that helps to create and cement neoliberal hegemony in the Gramscian sense. However, since hegemony is never complete, universities are a site of struggle and the opportunity exists to engage in a “war of position” within them. This must necessarily involve allowing space for counter-hegemonic discourses to emerge through critical reflection on “common sense” discourses, as well as the deliberate inclusion of counter-hegemonic thinking and theory from below. This article reflects on an attempt to do this in a South African university, the University of KwaZulu-Natal, in relation to the issue of food. The Food Festival was an attempt to subvert interlocking hegemonic discourses, including that of food security, by “reading the world” (à la Freire) in order to understand the actual nature of existing food systems as inherently oppressive, and “inserting” the concept of food sovereignty as developed by the global peasants’ movement La Via Campesina. After considering the counter-hegemonic intentions of the Festival, the article reflects on its uneven success.     

全球化进程中我国文化安全面临的挑战及应对策略

随着全球化进程的发展,以文化安全问题为重心的非传统的安全观念日益凸显。一个国家的发展壮大不仅仅单纯依靠政治、经济等一些传统的安全因素,文化等相关的非传统因素的发展也至关重要。认清目前条件下中国面临的文化安全问题,并据此制定相应的国家文化安全战略,将是今后相当长的一个时期内,中国对外发展政策和国家文化发展战略的重要内容。     

Counter-hegemony in today's Belarus: dissident symbols and the mythological figure of Miron Vitebskii

Tackling the role of state symbols in negotiating national identity and political development, this research focuses on Belarus where the alternative white–red–white flag became instrumental in protests against the dominant political discourse. Since 1995, oppositional mass media have been reporting about cases of this tricolor being erected in hard-to-reach and/or politically sensitive places. These actions were mainly attributed to some “Miron,” whose identity remained concealed and served as a simulacrum of a national superhero in non-conformist discourse. The image of Miron immediately acquired multiple functions: condemning the Soviet colonial past, struggling for the European future, and creating a nation-state rather than the Russian-speaking civil-state of Belarus. Yet, first and foremost, Miron became a means for contesting the authority of the president who has been in power since 1994. Concentrating on the methods employed for the construction of the counter-hegemonic fakelore project of Miron and its aims, this article explores the vernacular response to its creation.     

Constructing and Conceptualizing “Interdependent Hegemony” in an Era of the Rise of the BRICS and Beyond

The paper aims to provide a framework for understanding the global impact of the rise of the “Second World” (emerging powers, such as BRICS) brought about by globalization and the transformation of international relations and international political economy. The paper takes the point of departure from one of Gramsci’s key conceptual categories and analytical apparatus, e.g. “hegemony,” to explore the extent that the upsurge of the emerging powers has reshaped the terrain and parameters of social, economic and political relations both at the national and global levels, and has exerted pressure on the existing international order in terms of both opportunities and constraints. The paper intends to examine the dialectical nexus between the role of the emerging powers as a counter-hegemonic, socio-economic and socio-political force for a new world order. The paper’s analytical approach is to combine neo-Gramscian hegemony theories with critical post-hegemony theories. The conclusion of the paper is to suggest that in an era of globalization and transformational capitalism it is impossible for the emerging powers to establish an alternative independent hegemony; rather, the world will witness a new era of “interdependent hegemony,” in which both the “First World” and the “Second World” are intertwined in a constant process of shaping and reshaping the world order in the nexus of national interest, regional orientation, common economic and political agendas, security alliance and potential confl icts.     

More continuity than change? US strategy toward Cuba under Obama and Trump

This article examines the policies implemented by both the Obama and Trump Administrations toward Cuba to evaluate the claim that the ‘Thaw’ of relations between Washington and Havana represents a significant change in US foreign policy toward the island nation. Despite the appearance that the change in policy is a fundamental shift, I argue that the changes in US policy toward Cuba under both Obama and Trump represent changes in the means for pursuing the same historical objectives pursued by the Washington for the past few decades. In other words, the overall strategy and objective of US hegemony in Cuba is the same, with the only change being the means for achieving these ends. The central implication of this is that the ‘Thaw’ in relations between Cuba and the US represents a new, more ‘consensual’ means to instigating the same objective of provoking American-orchestrated political, economic, social and ideological changes in the island nation.     

数字鸿沟与国际关系知识霸权

霸权是国际关系的伴生物。农业社会霸权国家具有明显的军事强权特性,工业社会霸权国家具有明显的工业强权特性,信息社会霸权国家初步显形知识霸权的特性。数字鸿沟的浮现使得国际关系中的知识霸权凸现,成为发达国家获利、强国和称霸的利器,科学的认识和探讨知识霸权对当代国际关系的影响具有重要的理论和现实意义。