|
|
|
Sort Order |
|
|
|
Items / Page
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Srl | Item |
| 1 |
ID:
112750
|
|
|
|
|
| Publication |
2012.
|
| Summary/Abstract |
Defying a 2003 agreement to halt its nuclear program, Iran resumed its nuclear
activities in 2005 despite the objections and sanctions of a concerned international
community. Theoretical frameworks in international relations may suggest the
strategic environment, regime type, and international institutions as key variables
to explain foreign policy-making. In this article, it is argued that nuclear decisionmaking in Tehran cannot be understood through a "black-box" model that would
assume Iran to be a unitary rational actor that knows its capabilities, interests, and
wants. Instead, one must investigate the changes in the domestic decision-making
and bargaining process through a bureaucratic politics model. Although some
point out hardliner President Ahmadinejad as the sole decision-maker, we argue
that a single individual could not have changed the course of the entire country;
there were coalitions and struggles among multiple actors within the regime.
Analyzing two different eras within the case of Iran, we argue that the shift in
bureaucratic coalitions among the Supreme Leader, the President, the Revolutionary
Guards, the Atomic Energy Agency of Iran, and the Supreme National Security
Council explains the shift in Iranian foreign policy. In our conclusion, we draw
several implications of this argument for the scholarly literature and offer policyprescriptive advice.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 2 |
ID:
094319
|
|
|
|
|
| Publication |
2009.
|
| Summary/Abstract |
In the past decade there have been efforts to understand the war on terror through the writings of Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben. Some analyses reify certain concepts employed by Foucault and Agamben. Others do not accurately represent the actual occurrence of violence at ground level. Without claiming to present a sovereign gaze on the literature and the reading of sovereign violence in places such as Guántanamo, this article argues that there are at least three central elements that philosophers and theorists might want to reconsider in connection with sovereignty, biopower, and subjectivity: that there is a Derridean logic at play between sovereignty and biopower; that there is a connection between sovereignty and subjectivity informed by a "dangerous connection" between power and knowledge; and that sovereignty is informed by a classifying and hierarchizing regime characteristic of a regime of truth. Although Agamben claims to correct Foucault, he betrays important methodological and epistemological elements of Foucault's work. Nevertheless, there are elements in Agamben's work that can shape our understanding of a "biopolitical reading" of our contemporary era.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 3 |
ID:
124774
|
|
|
|
|
| Publication |
2013.
|
| Summary/Abstract |
In the wake of the recent Arab revolutions, the European Union (EU) has sought to provide genuine and substantial support to a range of Arab social movements in the region's emerging polities. Yet the EU's recent democracy-promotion efforts represent a puzzle for earlier critical approaches to the relationship between Europe and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), which argue for the existence of hegemonic patronage linkages. We argue, however, that the EU's attempts at democracy promotion in the MENA region may be understood through a governmentality framework, despite the limitations of such an approach. Specifically, the EU is actively promoting neoliberal policies in the aftermath of the Arab Spring in order to foster a mode of subjectivity that is conducive to the EU's own norms and interests. What we observe are not just innocent attempts at democracy promotion, but a form of politics and economics that seeks to subject the agency on the 'Arab street' to EU standards. We conclude by going over the radical plurality of the Arab street, and show how it was in fact earlier neoliberal reforms by their former regimes that created the conditions of possibility for the recent revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 4 |
ID:
099485
|
|
|
|
|
| Publication |
2010.
|
| Summary/Abstract |
Notwithstanding the troubled past and uncertain future of its relations with the European Union (EU), Turkey persists in its bid for membership in the EU. What accounts for Turkey's continuing pursuit of EU membership? We argue that the historical and institutional trend of modernization has locked Turkey into a pattern of domestic and foreign policies which is difficult, if not impossible, for current policymakers to break or reverse. As part of its modernization process, Turkey chose to follow a Western-oriented foreign policy, which became entrenched during the Cold War era with increasing returns or positive feedback from its overall engagement with the West and Europe in particular. Hence, the policy choices of Turkish policymakers about the EU are constrained by historical and institutional factors.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|