The EU and the Global Order: Contingent Liberalism

Abstract

Politicians, diplomats and analysts commonly assume that commitment to multilateralism and liberal norms is part of the EU’s very DNA. Increasingly, however, the EU’s commitment to the liberal global order is more selective. We demonstrate the shift to a more contingent liberalism by examining the EU’s recent record in relation to four different challenges: international trade; US leadership; Russian actions in the eastern neighbourhood; and security in the Middle East. We speculate on what this may portend for the EU’s self-identity, European interests and the integrity of the prevailing global order.     

全球安全治理视域下的自主武器军备控制

随着人工智能的飞速进展,不断智能化的自主武器日益显现出伦理和安全风险,使得限制或禁止自主武器成为全球安全治理领域的新兴议题。相比其他军控对象,自主武器军控进程在过去几年中获得较快推进,其中《特定常规武器公约》会议已决定设立政府专家组专门探讨自主武器问题。文章系统梳理了自主武器军备控制的概念、伦理和安全争议,旨在通过这种梳理更好地理解自主武器军控进程发展的动因,并对这一进程的未来走向做出预测。当前,自主武器军备控制的主要动因集中在道德层面,特别是让机器自主决策杀伤引发的伦理忧虑。而从安全层面看,自主武器蕴涵的安全风险在其他新兴技术领域同样存在,而发展和使用自主武器带来的战略红利依然显著,这使得主要国家推动自主武器军控的意愿并不强烈。在权力政治与道德政治的博弈下,自主武器军控在可预见的时期内将难以形成实质性成果,稍有可能的是通过“软法”等非约束性方式塑造一定的国际规范。在这个过程中,中国可以发挥更加积极主动的作用,在确保战略利益的同时营造有利的大国形象。     

气候变化对青藏高原水资源安全的影响

青藏高原不仅是世界屋脊、亚洲水塔和地球第三极,也是中国重要的生态安全屏障和战略资源储备基地,更是资源政治与地缘政治的结合之处。青藏高原是世界上第三大淡水资源“储存库”,气候变化会加速高原地区的冰川消融,改变跨国界河流径流量的年度和季节性变化,增加水资源分配模式的不稳定性,从而加剧地区性水资源稀缺性危机,使地区性洪涝灾害增多,水治理难度提升。气候变化对青藏高原水资源安全的影响会产生连锁性的政治、经济与安全效应,不仅影响高原地区国家的水力开发计划与基础设施安全,加剧地缘政治博弈的复杂性,而且影响中国的海外水电投资,使中国的“一带一路”倡议和水利“十三五”发展规划的实施面临更多的国际压力与挑战。在气候变化的影响下,青藏高原水资源安全涉及十几亿人口的生存和发展问题,涉及亚洲的稳定与和平。对此,中国应积极实践构建人类命运共同体理念,在青藏高原水资源安全的维护上扮演更重要的角色,一方面在技术层面上加强对青藏高原水资源安全动态的深度调查与持续性跟踪研究,另一方面在政治层面上推动高原地区国家的气候治理合作与区域合作框架构建。     

2030年可持续发展议程下“人的安全”及其治理

2030年可持续发展议程作为一项新的全球发展计划,其目标是构建免于恐惧和暴力的和平、公正、包容的社会,其核心是消除全球贫困与促进包容性发展,包括消除贫困、饥饿以及应对气候变化等内容。该议程的主体内容体现了联合国所倡导的“人的安全”理念,这一理念强调各种威胁的相互关联性,人的安全和人的发展是同一事物相辅相成的,这种治理观要求广泛借助联合国系统,并且顾及地方、国家、区域和国际范围内各级公私部门行为体的特点和资源,拓展一种由各种利益攸关方组成的综合框架,其内容涉及粮食安全、气候安全、环境安全、社会安全、反恐、移民等重要的传统与非传统安全议题。其中,气候变化、资源消耗、南北差距等问题是可持续发展难以实现的重要动因。上述安全议程同时体现了各种广泛的经济、社会和环境关联性。因此,建构全球“人的安全”治理机制需以联合国为核心,并形成多层治理、建构广泛的国际伙伴关系,以实现联合国所倡议的全球可持续和平愿景。     

Why do South-east Asian states choose to suppress opium? A cross-case comparison

Abstract

This paper compares the reasons given by three South-east Asian states (Laos, Thailand and Vietnam) for choosing to suppress opium production. While external pressure, often from the US or United Nations (UN)/League of Nations, is the most commonly identified reason in the literature, and was experienced in each case, it was not by itself sufficient to motivate states into action. All three cases were motivated by religious or ideological opposition to drug consumption or trade, rural development, state extension and concern for increasing domestic drug consumption. Apprehension about rising drug consumption often possessed racial or chauvinistic elements. The development of export commodities, environmental protection and national security were also identified in one or two cases. The paper concludes by hypothesising that economic and/or security considerations underlie all choices to suppress illicit drug crops.     

The origins and politics,campaigns and demands by the international fisher peoples’ movement: an Indigenous perspective

Abstract

This reflective contribution discusses the intersection of Indigenous and Small Scale Fisheries’ (SSF) issues, and how the international SSF movement has a critical role in the broader struggle for the convergence of social justice regarding the environment, food and lifeways. I explore some of the political tensions around Indigenous and SSF struggles against global neoliberalisation of land and water resources, some of the successes and challenges of the international SSF movement, and future considerations for academic/activist ‘decolonising’ work.     

Network Governance as a Mechanism for Responding to Internet Violence

Jones, Hesterly and Borgatti (1997) proposed a general theory of network governance (GTNG), identifying conditions under which network governance is likely to develop and detailing four social mechanisms that protect and promote resource exchange and collaborative action within a network. This article applies their theory to the emerging problem of swatting—internet-based spoofing attacks that compel a SWAT response to a selected innocent victim. As this problem has not been addressed through traditional policy or law enforcement mechanisms, networks have emerged to respond to these attacks. The author details the parallels between these emergent networks and Jones et al.’s theoretical framework.     

Modern poetry,popular song and their dangerous liaisons

Abstract

In this article, Tsuboi Hideto examines the mutually entwined pursuits of modern poetry and music in interwar Japan, focusing especially on the work of Nakahara Chūya, Kitahara Hakushū, and the People's Poetry group. Cutting across their respective distinctions within the poetry establishment, Tsuboi draws attention to these figures’ shared investment in symphonic, folk and popular music. In so doing, he identifies among them a prevailing concern for curating a poetic voice that might harmonize the conflictual registers of individual and collective expression and thereby attune the work of the poet to that of the ‘people’ more broadly. Meanwhile, the essay traces the currents of modernist and avant-garde thought in Japan and Europe that framed these poets’ engagements with music and sound. Tsuboi then illustrates the varying degrees to which these voices, forged within the cosmopolitan milieu of the Taisho period, bent toward the nationalizing project and later gave way to the chorus of wartime fascism and imperial expansion.     

Corporate raiding and the role of the state in Russia

To what extent are Russian state agencies involved in predatory behavior, and what are the determinants of their activities? Analyzing a novel data-set comprising 312 cases of illegal corporate raiding (reyderstvo) between 1999 and 2010, this article identifies a shift both in the regional and sectoral distribution of raids over time, as well as an increasing participation of state agencies in criminal raiding attacks. Using panel regression analysis to look at the determinants of increasing state involvement, this article shows that election results for the ruling president and his party, as well as the degree to which elections are manipulated throughout Russia's regions, are significantly and positively correlated with the number of raids in a given region, while regions with governors that have stronger local ties are characterized by a smaller number of attacks. A potential interpretation of these findings is that the federal center may tolerate a certain degree of predatory activities by regional elites, as long as these elites are able to deliver a sufficiently high level of electoral support for the center, with the effect being weaker in regions where the governor is interested in the long-term development of the regional economy.     

Ethnic diversity and development in Kenya: limitations of ethnicity as a category of analysis

This paper challenges the relevance of ethnic diversity in explaining the development impasse in Africa, using Kenya as a case study and arguing that the neopatrimonial and ethnic diversity theses are contradictory as explanatory variables of Africa's development crisis. The former speaks to homogeneity while the latter implies heterogeneity in the public policy process. This paper singles out the ethnic diversity thesis as the weaker of the two, arguing that ethnic groups lack a collective ethnic agenda that can be flagged as consequential for the political economy of the polity. Ethnic group intervention in the political arena is not determined by innate ethnic characteristics: it is due to the tendency for certain actors in the body politic to exploit institutional failure. With proper institutions, the assumed burden of ethnicity in African development would naturally evaporate. Focusing on supposedly ethnic problems is the wrong target.