Journeys to the limits of first-hand knowledge: politicians’ on-site visits in zones of conflict and intervention

ABSTRACT

This article explores the practice and political significance of politicians’ journeys to conflict zones. It focuses on the German example, looking at field trips to theatres of international intervention as a way of first-hand knowledge in policymaking. Paying tribute to Lisa Smirl and her work on humanitarian spaces, objects and imaginaries and on liminality in aid worker biographies, two connected arguments are developed. First, through the exploration of the routinized practices of politicians’ field trips the article shows how these journeys not only remain confined to the ‘auxiliary space’ of aid/intervention, but that it is furthermore a staged reality of this auxiliary space that most politicians experience on their journeys. The question is then asked, second, what politicians actually experience on their journeys and how their experiences relate to their policy knowledge about conflict and intervention. It is shown that political field trips enable sensory/affectual, liminoid and liminal experiences, which have functions such as authority accumulation, agenda setting, community building, and civilizing domestic politics, while at the same time reinforcing, in most cases, pre-existing conflict and intervention imaginaries.     

Adaptive strategies of smaller foreign investors in the Russian agricultural sector: identity,narrative and performance

This paper utilises a qualitative narrative analysis approach to examine smaller foreign investors operating within the Russian agricultural sector as private farmers: the foreign versions of the krestyansko-fermerskiye khoziaistva (peasant farms) that were the early focus of agrarian reform. With difficulty experienced by foreign investment in Russian agriculture, and with the Putin administration shifting its focus to larger scale agriculture, interest lies in the fate of these smaller foreign investors, set in the broader question of: ‘Is there really a future for smaller foreign investors in Russia?’ The investors were aligned along a performance and narrative spectrum, and the construction of their identities – guided by their adaptive processes on the ‘Turnerian’ frontier – were found to shape their business conduct, and interactions with labour forces and regional authorities. Negative prejudgment of the labour force existed amongst the investors – with associated negative notions of trust, inefficiency, laziness, morality, and sexual deviancy – and they were involved in explicit or ambiguous forms of gift-gifting, drawing parallels to Soviet blat behaviour. This paper concludes that despite efforts to construct identity, the narratives of the investors betrayed themselves in certain aspects, with elements of ‘undoing’ in the identity process.     

浅议BOT在我国的应用及其立法的完善

BOT是20世纪80年代以来全球兴起的一种投资方式。本文阐述了BOT的意义,尤其是对我国引进外资、发展基础设施的作用;介绍了两个我国利用BOT方式建设的项目;分析了我国现行法律与BOT在我国的发展不相适应之处,提出应调整和完善我国目前的BOT立法,以保障BOT投资方式在我国的良好运行。     

当前美国保守主义外交的国内根源及其表现

当前美国外交政策表现出明显的保守性,这有它深刻的国内根源,主要是官僚政治因素、地理与人口因素和宗教派别因素。在反恐问题、伊拉克问题、北朝鲜核问题、伊朗核问题和中美贸易等一系列美国外交所面临的现实问题上,保守主义的影响都已得到相当的体现。     

涉外警务教学方法改革——对实训教学方法的探讨

随着我国改革开放的不断深入,涉外警务得到进一步发展,并不断深入到各警种。作为推进素质教育重要途径之一的涉外警务教学,在建设法治化国家的进程中应发挥更大作用。本文以实训教学法的建构为切入,厘清其理论实质,廓清实训方法的模式选择与应用,以期为我国涉外警务教学方法的改革提供一些有价值的参考。     

The Taliban: a new proxy for Iran in Afghanistan?

Abstract

Iran has pursued a highly contradictory policy towards Afghanistan. On the one hand, it became a significant beneficiary of the overthrow of the Taliban regime by the US-led military intervention in 2001 in Afghanistan. The new Afghan government established cordial ties with Iran, allowing it to expand its political, economic and cultural influence in the country. Yet Iran has also provided significant support to the Taliban in its campaign to violently upend the political, social and economic processes in the country. This article examines the underlying domestic and regional security dynamics that contribute to this contradictory behaviour. It offers an assessment of how tensions between the United States and the Islamic Republic, as well as Tehran’s growing threat perception following the rise of the Islamic State – Khorasan in 2014, impact on Iran’s policy towards the Taliban. The paper argues that Tehran views the Taliban as an instrument to disrupt the influence of other actors in Afghanistan. The instrumentalisation of the Taliban, however, is likely to be counterproductive for Iranian security in the long run as it contributes to Afghanistan’s instability and insecurity and undermines Iran’s own long-term interests.