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| 1 |
ID:
135136
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| Summary/Abstract |
In 2007 the five recognized nuclear-weapon states convened for the first time to examine what nuclear transparency and confidence-building measures they could jointly pursue. The P5 process,^sup 1^ as it came to be known, was born in a nuclear policy environment vastly different from the one that prevails today.
It was established as a result of an initiative from the United Kingdom, which was eager to reverse the stagnation it sensed in the nuclear-weapon states' progress toward meeting their disarmament commitments under the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). In June 2007, UK Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett argued for the need to "engage with other members of the P5 on transparency and confidence-building measures," as well as to involve them in the testing of future verification regimes.
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| 2 |
ID:
135137
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| Summary/Abstract |
Iran’s persistent expansion of its uranium-enrichment program and its covert construction of an underground gas-centrifuge enrichment facility at Fordow have contributed to concerns that Tehran harbors nuclear weapons ambitions. Arrangements for constraining Iran’s ability to use its declared enrichment facilities for nuclear weapons programs are a particularly controversial element in the ongoing multilateral negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.
Much of the discussion about Iran’s potential production of highly enriched uranium (HEU) for use in nuclear weapons has focused on its three previously secret enrichment facilities that now are under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards. The concern is that Iran could use these facilities to produce HEU, perhaps after withdrawing them from safeguards.
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| 3 |
ID:
136093
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| Summary/Abstract |
A large quantitative cross-national literature examines why countries are more or less likely to experience civil war. Many of the theories motivating hypotheses about civil war are really arguments about when violence will happen without necessarily explaining why this violence is organized or targets the state. In this article, we examine how variables identified as causing civil war affect other forms of internal violence such as communal conflict, one-sided violence, riots, purges, and coups d'état. We find that factors such as ethnic fractionalization, population, terrain, economic development, and regime type similarly affect different measures of violence. We suggest two avenues for further research – expanding beyond civil war to study determinants of violence within countries more broadly and focusing more directly both theoretically and empirically on the specific determinants of civil war.
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| 4 |
ID:
136434
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| Summary/Abstract |
Since the late 1990s, the Chinese government has engaged in a process of attempting to reform the technical global internet governance regime, which is currently dominated by the US government and non-state actors. This article aims to contribute to the literature on Beijing’s approach to this issue by providing a detailed empirical account of its involvement in a few core regime organisations. It argues that Beijing’s reform approach is guided by its domestically derived preferences for strong state authority and expanding China’s global power, but that its reform efforts are unlikely to succeed based on countervailing structural hard- and soft-power factors.
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| 5 |
ID:
135905
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| Summary/Abstract |
In the spring of 2011 when citizens in Arab countries rose up against their regimes, it appeared that the “third wave” of democratization had begun in the Middle East and the Maghreb, and that countries would embark on successful democratic transitions. Issues such as the gendered nature of the uprisings, how gender relations and women’s mobilizations have shaped trajectories, as well as how women and their rights have been affected, have been under-researched. In this article, I put the spotlight on North Africa—Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia—which saw different protest dynamics and political outcomes subsequently. Drawing from mainstream literature on determinants of democratization and feminist literature on women and democratic transitions, I examine how women’s preexisting legal status and social positions, as well as the broad structural, institutional, and cultural contexts, shaped the course and immediate outcomes of the Arab Spring in the countries examined. I argue that those countries that saw advances in women’s participation and rights prior to the Arab Spring are the ones most likely to transition successfully to democracy, and indeed, to establish a more women-friendly democracy; and that women’s growing political leadership will influence the quality of ongoing democratizations in the Maghreb countries of Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia.
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| 6 |
ID:
134244
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| Summary/Abstract |
The creation of an army loyal to the state is one of the most important institutional tasks of post-colonial leaders. But how do novice political leaders develop the capacity to subordinate the armed forces to the authority of state institutions? This essay explains alternative methods of formulating post-colonial civil–military relations and explains why four states – India, Pakistan, Ghana, and Tanzania – took such different routes of institutional development. I make two arguments. Firstly, building armed forces that willingly acquiesce to state authority is always a critical issue of regime change – whether to democracy or some other form of government – though it is more difficult to accomplish in some contexts than others. Secondly, the political and socioeconomic contexts in which armies must be built are very different and thus pose dissimilar challenges and tasks to those crafting new armies and civil–military relations. I will assess the power of several variables to explain the disparate outcomes of the four cases: the quality of political leadership and leaders’ approach to the armed forces, the strength of political institutions, ethno-religious and regional policies, civilian control mechanisms, military–societal relations, and foreign influence.
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| 7 |
ID:
136468
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This article critically explores the implications of the recent turn to transnational efforts in activism that seeks to counter caste-based discrimination. In particular, it analyses the consequences of mobilising a concept of caste that is sufficiently expansive to accommodate occupation- and descent-based discrimination globally, and which primarily frames caste in terms of human rights. To what extent is it possible to maintain a nuanced conceptualising of caste and of what it means to occupy the margins of the caste system, if efforts to influence the workings of global governance institutions divest caste of its regional and local distinctiveness? The article demonstrates how, even though Dalit (‘untouchable’) activists have been successful in bringing attention to caste as a global concern, present endeavours, on the one hand, reinforce the marginalised identity that they seek to overcome and, on the other, fail to recognise the diversity and situated-ness of the Dalit experience.
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| 8 |
ID:
136491
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| Summary/Abstract |
Jordan has weathered a number of political challenges inspired by the Arab Spring in a way that has preserved the regime’s control. The Jordanian military’s role in these developments has been neglected but is critical to understand, particularly as the United States and its coalition partners continue to deal with violent extremist threats in the region
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| 9 |
ID:
136932
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| Summary/Abstract |
In the winter of 2011–2012 in Russia, tens of thousands of citizens attended protest demonstrations in Moscow and other Russian cities after anger erupted over electoral manipulation in the December 2011 parliamentary elections. In response, the state organised a large number of loyalists to participate in street rallies to support the regime. Similar to other events of mass protest from Occupy Wall Street in the United States (US) to the Los Indignados movement in Spain to the Arab Uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, new media played a significant role in the mobilisation of protest in Russia. Yet, the role of new media and the precise mechanisms that link new media use and protest decisions remain the subject of some debate across all of these protest events.
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| 10 |
ID:
136953
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| Summary/Abstract |
The palm oil industry exemplifies the ‘regionalisation without regionalism’ pattern seen in other industries in Asia: extensive, regionally concentrated transnational economic integration accompanied by a low level of formal regional institution-building. Production is concentrated in Malaysia and Indonesia, and Asian countries account for a major share of the market for intermediate products. The ownership structure of palm oil production reflects the dominance of transnational Malaysian and Singaporean firms. There is no authoritative regional institution governing production, investment standards or labour in the industry. A patchwork of both enabling and regulatory governance institutions supports the industry. These are formal and informal, public and private, and are situated at multiple levels: within, below and across the nation state. Although the governance structure surrounding the palm oil industry has supported it well in terms of production volumes and profits, large externalities—environmental and social costs—persist. This article argues that the governance failures associated with the industry stem from different stakeholders' competing interests in contexts of highly unequal wealth and power distribution. Misgovernance is not an unintended consequence of institutions failing to keep up with markets in scale and scope, but is embedded in the multilevel governance regime that supports, and partially regulates, the industry.
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| 11 |
ID:
134951
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| Summary/Abstract |
Since the 1969 North Sea Continental Shelf cases, natural prolongation has been a semisacred expression that characterizes the continental shelf. This article examines whether this notion is still viable. A comparative study of its current use in the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea against its original use reveals misunderstandings in three key aspects: entitlement, delineation, and delimitation of the continental shelf. This article concludes that natural prolongation no longer constitutes a pivot in the legal understanding of the continental shelf.
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| 12 |
ID:
136135
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| Summary/Abstract |
In the conditions of real confrontation with external “others” the modality of patriotic ideas is changing: what earlier had a shade of alarmism is now presented as a pressing challenge, to which Russia gives a proper response, thus affirming its independence.
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| 13 |
ID:
135312
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| Summary/Abstract |
Verification technologies based upon electromagnetics and acoustics could potentially play an important role in fulfilling the challenging requirements of future verification regimes. For example, researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) have demonstrated that low frequency EM signatures of sealed metallic containers can be used to rapidly confirm the presence of specific components on a “yes/no” basis without revealing classified information. PNNL researchers have also used ultrasonic measurements to obtain images of material microstructures which may be used as templates or unique identifiers of treaty accountable items (TAIs). Such alternative technologies are suitable for application in various stages of weapons dismantlement and often reduce or eliminate classified data collection because of the physical limitations of the method. In such cases the need for an information barrier to prevent access to classified data is potentially eliminated, thus simplifying verification scenarios. As a result, these types of technologies may complement traditional radiation-based verification methods for arms control.
This article presents an overview of several alternative verification technologies that are suitable for supporting a future, broader and more intrusive arms control regime that spans the nuclear weapons dismantlement lifecycle. The general capabilities and limitations of each verification modality are discussed and example technologies are presented. These technologies are relevant throughout a potential warhead monitoring regime, from entry into chain of custody (i.e., establishing confidence in the authenticity and integrity of the warhead) to dismantlement and final material disposition (i.e., maintaining confidence that chain of custody has not been broken).
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| 14 |
ID:
135291
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| Summary/Abstract |
IR scholars have recently paid increasing attention to unequal institutional orders in world politics, arguing that global governance institutions are deeply shaped by power inequalities among states. Yet, the literature still suffers from conceptual limitations and from a shortage of empirical work. The article addresses these shortcomings through a study of the historical evolution of global arms control institutions since 1945. It shows that in this important policy area, the global institutional order has not been marked by a recent trend toward deeper inequality, as many writings on unequal institutions suggest. Instead, the analysis reveals a pattern of institutional mutation whereby specific forms of institutional inequality are recurrently replaced and supplemented by new forms. This process, the article argues, is driven by states' efforts to adapt the regime to a changing material and normative environment within the constraints of past institutional legacies.
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