Critical Misunderstandings: Ineffective International Governance and the UK Nuclear Industry

In 2017, significant media and political interest was sparked by the UK decision to leave Euratom, the European Atomic Energy Community. While such interest in nuclear matters has to be welcomed, the apparent lack of knowledge displayed in the regulatory governance of the UK nuclear industry is disquieting. This article therefore offers an overview of the publicly funded UK nuclear industry and its regulatory governance including its links with European and global nuclear agencies to inform the debate and to identify critical issues in need of resolution.     

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。     

The identity of ‘the other’ for sexual violence victims: is there anything new in sexual violence prosecutions before the International Criminal Court?

Despite the spectacular development in the field of international criminal law, critical feminism stresses the narrow scope of the sex and gender crimes in the Rome Statute establishing the first permanent International Criminal Court. The current international criminal law discourse, as expressed by recent case law, is geared towards the protection of certain groups targeted on account of their distinctiveness within the framework of a conflict situation, and gender is not recognized as one of these group identities. The question whether international criminal law on sexual violence applies only to inter-group conflicts brings to the fore an uneasy likelihood of exclusion of some recently emergent situations where identities of the conflicting parties transcend a particular ethnicity or nationality, and where victims of sexual violence belong to the same group as their perpetrators. The article argues that, rather than the Rome Statute or newly introduced rules and regulations, a significant obstacle in developing gender justice is the narrow interpretation of sexual violence to inter-group hostilities.     

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.     

Bureaucratic Authority and Mimesis: The Eurasian Economic Union’s Multiple Integration Logics

Regional economic integration in the post-Soviet space stands in a complex relation with the European Union’s integration process. Multiple competing internal logics of integration, as well as the EU model are drivers of Eurasian regionalism. The Eurasian Economic Union illustrates how bureaucracies mobilise their technocratic authority in a process of mimesis that reconciles multiple internal and external integration logics: selective learning from the EU and successful incorporation of internal integration logics produce an organisational design and output that member states support to varying extents.     

From Active Learning to Taking Action: Incorporating Political Context Into Project-Based,Interdisciplinary, International Service Learning Courses

Educational approaches that enable students to actively and directly participate in “real-world” projects are increasingly recognized as valuable pedagogical tools and, as such, being incorporated into university curriculums worldwide. Though not traditionally associated with political science courses, project-based international service learning presents a tremendous opportunity to bring classroom concepts and theories to life, provide an active approach to addressing international challenges, and assist students in the development of the hands-on, problem-solving, team-based, critical-thinking skills that are increasingly important to employers across all sectors. This article seeks to encourage political science faculty to incorporate international service learning—and/or project-based approaches—into their educational offerings. Through examination of the course Global Synthesis in Liberal Arts and Engineering Studies at California Polytechnic State University, we have identified multiple factors that can help promote successful execution of project-based international service learning as a pedagogical tool, and provide additional suggestions for faculty interested in adopting specific aspects of these educational approaches, and/or in doing so closer to home.     

Multinationals as global institution: Power,authority and relative autonomy

This article aims to inform the long‐standing and unresolved debate between voluntary corporate social responsibility and initiatives to impose binding legal obligations on multinational enterprises. The two approaches share a common feature: neither can fully specify its own scope conditions, that is, how much of the people and planet agenda either can expect to deliver. The reason they share this feature is also the same: neither is based on a foundational political analysis of the multinational enterprise in the context of global governance. Such an analysis is essential for providing background to and perspective on what either approach can hope to achieve, and how. This article begins to bridge the gap by illustrating aspects of the political power, authority, and relative autonomy of the contemporary multinational enterprise. The conclusion spells out some implications for the debate itself, and for further research.     

The Reputational Impact of Investor-State Disputes

To what extent do alleged violations of international commitments damage state reputation? This article explore this question with specific reference to investor-state disputes arising under the protection of international investment agreements. Its main contributions are threefold. First, building on the political institutions literature, the study places the theoretical importance of information about the rules of the game, and the actions of the participants at the center of analysis. Second, in contrast to prior empirical research, the study systematically analyzes the costs of state involvement in investment treaty arbitration by examining all known disputes. Third, the study addresses the impact of investment disputes on both foreign investment flows and state reputational rankings. We show that the consequences of investment disputes vary with the transparency of the investor-state dispute settlement process. The central implication of these findings for the broader body of literature on international institutions is that reputational mechanisms for effective treaty enforcement cannot be taken as given but instead need to be explored on the basis of a nuanced approach that addresses the pivotal issues of institutional design and information costs.     

Seal the Deal: Bargaining Positions,Institutional Design,and the Duration of Preferential Trade Negotiations

Multilateral negotiations at the World Trade Organization have stalled. This has contributed to a steep rise in preferential trade agreements (PTAs). At the same time, negotiations for PTAs have not always proven quick and painless: While some treaties are sealed within a few months or days only, other agreements are preceded by protracted bargaining processes in trade and trade-related issue areas. In this article, we provide a theoretical explanation for this empirical variation. More specifically, we argue that PTA negotiations take longer the greater the distance between the prospective partners’ initial bargaining positions. Moreover, we contend that negotiation processes become more protracted the higher the relative ambition of the prospective PTA. Due to the limited links to the domestic political arena in autocracies, we expect this latter effect to play out for groups of democratic bargaining partners only. We test these two hypotheses for 198 preferential trade negotiations using novel measures for bargaining templates and the ambition of PTA clauses. In our two-stage survival models, we find support for our argument. In line with qualitative evidence from recent preferential trade initiatives, our models indicate that services, investment and intellectual property rights are particularly sticky agenda items for democratic leaders at the international bargaining table.     

Contestation and Transformation. Final Thoughts on the Liberal International Order

Abstract

The liberal international order, the inseparable mix of US geopolitical power and ideational project of organising international relations along normative frameworks such as internationalism, institutionalism and democracy, is reeling under the pressure of profound systemic changes such as greater interconnectedness and multipolarity. Predictions abound that increasing great power competition, most visibly at play in geographical areas of contested orders, will eventually tear it down. However, even if major actors – the US included – display a selective, irregular and often instrumental commitment to the liberal order, they are still repositioning themselves in that order and not outside of it. In addition, conflict is not the default outcome of order contestation, as hybrid forms of governance are possible even in troubled regions. No doubt, the world of tomorrow will be less American-shaped and less liberal, but transformation is a more plausible future than collapse for the liberal order.