Foreign Policy

Millions of Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion are met with open arms in Europe. This has not always been the case for people forced to leave their homes. This rare showing of solidarity sparked a debate on the EU’s responses to refugees, with critical voices raising the issue of racist double standards. Indeed, not so long ago, most European states were quite apprehensive, and many were outright hostile towards Syrians during ‘Europe’s migration crisis’. However, these arguments, important as they may be, miss a crucial point: states instrumentalise population movements for political purposes. The struggle for power between the USA and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was a key parameter in refugee politics in the post-WW2 era. And as the world rollbacks to another Cold War, geopolitical considerations and power politics are taking again the front seat in state responses to forced displacement. In Cold War refugee politics, race becomes a ‘moldable’ concept.

This chapter provides a historical background to the present book and contributes to the international literature about the RoC by exploring the important drivers behind the country’s foreign policy, from 1960 to 2004. These drivers encompass not only the unfolding of the Cyprus Problem and important international developments but also the concepts of national survival and prosperity. The present overview is done through the prism of the RoC’s relations with international organisations and adopts a
thematic structure to tie together the drivers behind the RoC’s alignment (or not) with key international organisations. This approach accommodates the better understanding of the country’s international orientation at various periods of its Modern History.

The Indo-Pacific region stretches from the eastern Indian Ocean shores of Africa and West Asia to the littoral countries of the western Pacific. The region constitutes the ‘maritime underbelly’ of Asia, and is the fastest growing region in the world; and in a few decades, is likely to witness what may be referred to as ‘Renaissance 2.0’. The region is, therefore, ripe with enormous opportunities, not only for regional countries, but also for the rest of the global community. And yet, the region is beset with equally colossal security risks that emanate from inter alia the rise of China - that is not satisfied with ‘status quo’ in the global order including established international law and norms; strategic rivalries and the attendant security dilemma and arms race; issues of governance including maritime jurisdictions; the proliferation of malevolent non-state actors involved in maritime crimes and terrorism; and so on. The book is a collation of commentaries that analyse the trends with regard to the geopolitical and maritime security environment, along with the naval developments, in the Indo-Pacific in the past half-decade or so.

ÖZET
Bu tez çalışmasında, Sultan 2.Abdülhamid dönemi İstanbul’unda Amerika Birleşik Devletleri’nin sefir olarak vazifelendirdiği Samuel Cox’un gözlem ve anıları paylaşılmış olup dönemin Osmanlı-Amerikan ilişkileri ele alınmıştır. İki ana bölümden ve sonuç kısmından oluşan tezin birinci bölümünde Sultan Abdülhamid ile Samuel Cox’un ilişki biçimine odaklanılmış ve bu bağlamda dönemsel bir portre çizilip konuya altyapı oluşturulmaya çalışılmıştır. Ayrıca elçinin Osmanlı topraklarındaki görevi süresince sultanla olan birebir ilişkisi, Osmanlı toplumu hakkındaki düşünceleri ve o günün yaşamıyla alakalı fikri yapısı ortaya konmuştur. İkinci bölümde ise genel bir anlatımla 19.yüzyıl Osmanlı Amerikan ilişkilerindeki önemli adımlar ele alınmış ve iki devlet ilişkilerinin özellikle Sultan Abdülhamid dönemindeki durumu incelenmiştir. İkili ilişkilerdeki diplomatik yapılar ve özellikle elçi Cox’un etkisine de bu kısımda değinilmiştir. Sonuç kısmında ise Türk-Amerikan ilişkilerine ve Samuel Cox’a dair özet çıkarımlara yer verilmiştir.

The massacre of almost 50 Maidan protesters on February 20, 2014 was a turning point in Ukrainian politics and a tipping point in the conflict between the West and Russia over Ukraine. This mass killing of the protesters and the mass shooting of the police that preceded it led to the overthrow of the pro-Russian government of Viktor Yanukovych and gave a start to a civil war in Donbas in Eastern Ukraine, Russian military intervention in Crimea and Donbas, and an international conflict between the West and Russia over Ukraine. A conclusion promoted by the post-Yanukovych governments and the media in Ukraine that the massacre was perpetrated by government snipers and special police units on a Yanukovych order has been nearly universally accepted by the Western governments, the media, and many scholars. The Ukrainian government investigation identified members of the special company of Berkut as responsible for killings of the absolute majority of the protesters, but did not release any evidence in support, with the exception of videos of the massacre.
              The question is which side organized the “snipers’ massacre.” This paper is the first academic study of this crucial case of the mass killing. It uses a theory of rational choice and a Weberian theory of instrumental rationality to examine actions of major actors both from the Yanukovych government, specifically various police and security forces, and the Maidan opposition, specifically its far right and oligarchic elements, during the massacre.
          The paper analyzes a large amount of evidence from different publicly available sources concerning this massacre and killings of specifics protesters. Qualitative content analysis includes the following data: about 1,500 videos and recordings of live internet and TV broadcasts from mass media and social media in different countries(some 150 gigabytes), news reports and social media posts by more than 100 journalists covering the massacre from Kyiv, some 5,000 photos, and nearly 30 gigabytes of publicly available radio intercepts of snipers and commanders from the special Alfa unit of the Security Service of Ukraine and Internal Troops, and Maidan massacre trial recordings. This study also employs field research on site of the massacre, eyewitness reports by both Maidan protesters and government special units commanders, statements by both former and current government officials, estimates of approximate ballistic trajectories, bullets and weapons used, and types of wounds among both protesters and the police. This study establishes a precise timeline for various events of the massacre, the locations of both the shooters and the government snipers, and the specific timeline and locations of nearly 50 protesters’ deaths. It also briefly analyzes other major cases of violence during and after the “Euromaidan.” This study includes two video appendixes.
            This academic investigation concludes that the massacre was a false flag operation, which was rationally planned and carried out with a goal of the overthrow of the government and seizure of power. It found various evidence of the involvement of an alliance of the far right organizations, specifically the Right Sector and Svoboda, and oligarchic parties, such as Fatherland. Concealed shooters and spotters were located in at least 20 Maidan-controlled buildings or areas. The various evidence that the protesters were killed from these locations include some 70 testimonies, primarily by Maidan protesters, several videos of “snipers” targeting protesters from these buildings, comparisons of positions of the specific protesters at the time of their killing and their entry wounds, and bullet impact signs. The study uncovered various videos and photos of armed Maidan “snipers” and spotters in many of these buildings. The paper presents implications of these findings for understanding the nature of the change of the government in Ukraine, the civil war in Donbas, Russian military intervention in Crimea and Donbas, and an international conflict between the West and Russia over Ukraine.

This volume examines the promotion and defense of democracy in the Americas. Taking the Inter-American Democratic Charter (IADC) of 2001 as a baseline it charts the evolution of the issue over the past decade. Although it considers historical antecedents, the main focus of the book is on key instances of promotion and defense of democracy in the Western hemisphere since the adoption of the IADC. It analyzes democratic norms, norm enforcement mechanisms and how they work in practice. Special attention is paid to the 2009 Honduras coup, the issues raised by it and the debates that surrounded it, as this was the first instance in which a member state was suspended in accordance with the IADC. Three central themes guide the analysis: the nature of challenges to democracy in Latin America; the role of regional organizations as democracy promoters; and the transformation of Inter-American relations.

With China undeniably in the role of rising superpower, how Thailand chooses to position itself is open to debate. To answer this question, Benjamin Zawacki’s Thailand: Shifting Ground between the US and a Rising China illustrates changes in Thailand’s relationship with the US and China over the course of history using a descriptive approach.

This book presents a neoclassical realist model for explaining foreign policy-unpacking how and why geopolitics, global factors and domestic politics combine in decisions on war and peace. The authors apply the model to the actions of forty countries in relation to the 2008 Russo-Georgian War. Uniquely linking system, interstate (geopolitics), and intrastate (domestic politics) levels of explanation, and benefiting from the WikiLeaks revelations, official documents, and interviews, they offer an important new tool for foreign policy analysis and an original explanation of the war between Russia and Georgia.

Family is the primary agent of political socialization. There are some roles of the family toward their younger members in shaping political affiliation. The title of this research is “The Role of Family in Shaping Political Affiliation in Bangladesh: A Comprehensive Study”. The objectives of this research work are 1) To investigate the overall scenario of the role of the family in shaping political affiliation 2) To investigate and analysis the role of the family in causing political affiliation and apolitical affiliation. The rationality of this study is to create awareness in rural Bangladesh. As a result of this research work, the families are engaged to be more conscious about their role in the political socialization of next-generation and family bondage is expected to be more transparent among family members. The rural people are expected to be more concerned about their growing up children. Beck, P. A. (1991) and Jennings, M. K. (2009) are working mention three roles of family or parents. These are: parents play an important role in the political education of their offspring; children are more likely to adopt their parents’ political orientations if the family is highly politicized, and early acquisition of parental political characteristics influences the political character and behavior during their adulthood. For this research, I have selected a typical Bangladeshi Union namely Bhendabari under Pirgang Upozilla in the northern Bangladeshi district of Rangpur. This study is both qualitative and quantitative. Political socialization can be included in the academic syllabus.

The short brief analyses the new dynamics in the new EU legislature on EU enlargement to the Western Balkans, its impact on the EU’s perspective to North Macedonia, and the role of the Assembly of North Macedonia in pushing for the country’s European perspective.

This paper examines the teaching of diplomacy in the United States through a review of over five-dozen syllabi and lengthy interviews of many of their authors. By intentionally seeking out both academics and practitioners teaching diplomacy, including public diplomacy, to compare their choices in content and pedagogy, I find patterns of difference that exceed those expected by a close reading of the theory and practice “gap” literature. What the two distinct epistemic communities teach in terms of skills and procedures as well as the beliefs that inform them, the values that sustain them and the theories that lie behind them differ significantly. Drawing on the author’s three decades of diplomatic practice followed by eighteen years teaching at the college level, this paper attempts to explain why that might be the case.

In recent decades, public health policy and practice have been increasingly challenged by globalization, even as global financing for health has increased dramatically. This article discusses globalization and its health challenges from a vantage of political science, emphasizing increased global flows (of pathogens, information, trade, finance, and people) as driving, and driven by, global market integration. This integration requires a shift in public health thinking from a singular focus on international health (the higher disease burden in poor countries) to a more nuanced analysis of global health (in which health risks in both poor and rich countries are seen as having inherently global causes and consequences). Several globalization-related pathways to health exist, two key ones of which are described: globalized diseases and economic vulnerabilities. The article concludes with a call for national governments, especially those of wealthier nations, to take greater account of ...

За свою историю Польша не раз становилась участником геополитических пертурбаций, что в значительной мере обусловлено ее лимитрофным положением между цивилизационными пространствами Европы и России, а также стремлением к его преодолению посредством либо встраивания в одно из них, либо формирования под своим протекторатом альтернативного геополитического пространства. Очередным “побегом” Польши из “лимитрофного плена” стало вступление страны в НАТО и ЕС. Однако национал-консервативный курс, взятый Варшавой после прихода к власти партии “Право и справедливость”, имеет конфронтационный по отношению к Брюсселю характер. Его отражением стал конфликт Варшавы и Брюсселя, формально вызванный негативной реакцией евроструктур на реализуемую в Польше судебную реформу. Авторы анализируют 17 данный конфликт, опираясь на идеологические воззрения партии “Право и справедливость”. Указывается, что эскалация конфликта ведет к попыткам Варшавы активизировать деятельность Вышеградской группы и актуализировать геополитический проект “Междуморье”. Показано, что создаются условия для участия Польши в запуске очередных трансформаций геополитического расклада в европейском пространстве, способных оказать влияние на архитектуру системы “Европа – Россия”.

The article provides a comprehensive review of the foreign historiography of the Danish foreign policy in 1970–1980s based on the chronological and regional principles. The article examines the views of Scandinavian, European and American foreign scholars on the foreign policy issues of Northern European countries in the 1970–1980s.

Amnesty International welcomes the UK Government’s undertaking to incorporate the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) into domestic law, to put human rights at the heart of its foreign policy and to be guided by human rights principles in its treatment of asylum-seekers, its policy on arms exports and its policy towards international development. This paper reviews the subject of international human rights standards and demonstrates their importance. It then offers advice as to the steps the UK Government should take in order to implement its undertakings in full. It comments on the significance of the incorporation of the ECHR into UK law and summarizes the state of the debate over whether or not there should be a Bill of Rights for citizens of the UK. It argues that the incorporation of the ECHR into UK law should be accompanied by the creation of a (UK) Human Rights Commission equipped with effective powers to strengthen human rights protection within the UK. It concludes with a list of specific recommendations pertaining to the UK Government’s conduct of international affairs.

How do populists conduct foreign policy? Extant literature on populism focuses mainly on domestic patterns, and until recently the foreign dimension of populism has been largely overlooked. This paper aims to fill theoretical and empirical lacunae by mapping patterns of change and continuity in the formulation of geopolitical and economic international policy among Latin-American populist governments. Striving to conduct a systematic comparative analysis, this paper explores three waves of populist foreign policies in Latin America (classic, neoliberal, and progressive). While it is difficult to highlight a unified phenomenon, the findings reveal that several ‘unifying’ elements indeed exist: these are manifest in the tendency of such governments to jointly (re)construct transnational solidarities for legitimation purposes and to adopt economic foreign policies with a pragmatic bent. Moreover, in opposition to the two first waves of populist governments, the most recent wave has embraced personalist styles, emotional public diplomacy, and clientelist techniques with support networks abroad, thus actively projecting the domestic patterns of populism to the regional and global levels in an attempt to leverage both domestic and international legitimacy. This study offers critical lessons for IR scholarship's increasing engagement with populism, contributing to the lively debate regarding the rise of populist trends across the globe.

The need to achieve stability and security in Europe has been a core motivation for European Union actors in their decision in favour of enlargement, calling for new measures to advance the enlargement pro-cess. EU leaders have often justified changes to the existing enlarge-ment strategy by making reference to threats to security in Europe and by claiming that eastern enlargement could be the way to attain peace and security in Europe. Never has EU enlargement been so frequently connected with security debates. The overall effect of security concerns on the enlargement process, however, has not been adequately ana-lysed in previous studies of EU enlargement; enlargement policy has largely been explained from economic and commercial viewpoints.This article explores the role of security concerns in EU enlargement — ‘security ’ that does not necessarily come in the military form, but in what I refer to as a ‘speech act’, drawing on insights from the Copenhagen School of security studi...

Analysis on foreign policy generally focuses on its changes. Thes e changes can be seen andexamined on the main aspects of foreign policy. This article emphasizes the importance ofunderstanding about the main aspects of foreign policy and the patterns of its changes beforeany effort to give explanation on foreign poli cy change.

Debate over the extent to which the mass media serves elite interests or, alternatively, plays a powerful role in shaping political outcomes has been dogged by dichotomous and one-sided claims. Some attribute enormous power to the news media (the so-called CNN effect) while others claim the mediamanufactures consent'for elite policy preferences. This article reviews existing theories of media-state relations, in particular the work of Daniel Hallin and Lance Bennett, and highlights theoretical and empirical ...

What determined Russia’s national interests and grand strategy in the first decade after the Cold War? This article uses aspirational constructivism, which combines social psychology with constructivism, to answer this question. Central to aspirational constructivism are the roles that the past self and in-groups, and their perceived effectiveness play in the selection of a national identity and the definition of national interests. This article explains why Russian political elites settled on a statist national identity that focused on retaining Russia’s historical status as a Western great power and hegemon in the former Soviet Union and in engaging the country in bounded status competition with the United States.

Perjalanan politik Gus Dur dimulai sekitar awal 1980-an. Gus Dur menawarkan ide-ide pluralisme, demokrasi, hak asasi manusia, dan lainnya secara terbuka. Dengan geraknya dan perannya di berbagai bidang, mulai dari kiai, politisi, intelektual, budayawan, dan mantan presiden. Kiprah politiknnya semakin naik ketika secara tegas ia turun dan terjun langsung ke dunia politik praktis dengan mendirikan sebuah partai, Partai Kebangkitan Bangsa (PKB), hingga mencapai puncaknya pada 1999-2001.