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| 1 |
ID:
134566
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article argues that long-term changes in Turkish foreign policy are primarily due to the diversification of the country's political and economic interests. Important international structural shifts such as the end of the Cold War or the broad fluctuations in oil prices have constituted the initial impetus for the changes that we have seen in Turkish policies. Discussing alternative perspectives on new activism in Turkish foreign policy, the article gauges Turkey's foreign policy affinity (based on voting patterns in the United Nations General Assembly) and trade with other states to place recent trends in the broader context of the past three decades. It shows that, as the “West” has become less coherent in its policies, Turkey has moved closer to EU members and distanced itself from the US. The data also undermine “shift of axis” arguments as Turkey's foreign policy affinity with Middle Eastern countries has, in fact, declined. The trade data reveal a diversification of the country's commercial interests that contribute to Turkey's increasing regional activism. The country now balances its long term European interests with its recent regional ones.
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| 2 |
ID:
136810
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| Summary/Abstract |
India and Australia have overall traditionally shared cordial relations despite hitting rough weather during certain phases. With India’s efforts to look further east beyond her immediate south-eastern neighbors, and Australia’s desire to look further west beyond Japan and South Korea, have of late brought greater convergence in their interests.
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| 3 |
ID:
135045
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| Summary/Abstract |
A global temperature rise is being experienced earliest and most intensely in the Arctic region. The changes are worrying but the commercial interests are equally enticing. The Arctic is witnessing the convergence of the geophysical, the geo-economic and the geostrategic in strange and dramatic ways, making it a paradox and an antithesis. For India, the Arctic is distant when it comes to economic interests and near when it comes to climate change. As India today reassesses and rethinks its role in the new global geopolitical space, the Arctic becomes an important part of that reorientation and a movement towards a ‘global knowledge commons’. The Arctic is now an important geographical categorisation in India’s global policies. It must also be stressed that recent Arctic ascendancy in the policy domain stems directly from the strengthening of India’s climate change-linked economic and scientific positions in global world affairs.
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| 4 |
ID:
136137
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| Summary/Abstract |
The democratic evaluative tradition has sought to change evaluation practice towards approaches and techniques that generate diverse forms of knowledge and foster public deliberation over a programme's merit and worth. This paper locates one evaluation method, ‘Most Significant Change’ (MSC), within this tradition. Drawing on two different evaluations – one, of a comprehensive economic sector assistance package to the Government of Tokelau, and the other of a psychosocial and academic support intervention for pre-adolescent children in conflict-affected regions of the Gaza Strip – the paper provides evidence of how MSC can capture unexpected outcomes, act as a tool for real-time formative learning, and expose the competing theories, logics and values behind programme activity. The examples within the paper also provide evidence of how MSC begins to redistribute traditional power relationships in assessing the merit and worth of observed impacts by increasing the legitimacy of local programme knowledge, and engaging all parties in evaluative decisions. By doing so, MSC, the paper argues, better serves the purposes of learning, improvement and mutual accountability which should sit at the core of good development practice.
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| 5 |
ID:
134995
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| Summary/Abstract |
Australia’s foreign and security policy debate has become focused on how to manage the fundamental change in strategic and economic circumstances brought about by China’s rise. For the first time in the
nation’s history, Australia’s chief trading partner is neither an ally, nor the ally of an ally, and does not share its democratic outlook and values. This change comes against the backdrop of an increasingly
contested Indo-Pacific Asia. This article addresses two questions. First, how does Australia perceive a rising and increasingly powerful China? Second, how is Australia responding? It is argued that Australia possesses a discernable China strategy, although questions remain about its implementation, effectiveness and sustainability. That strategy has two broad strands—engagement and hedging—and the hedging strand contains several important sub-strands, namely, internal balancing (modernizing Australia’s own military) and external balancing (especially strengthening the US alliance). Each of these hedging approaches carries its own problems and questions, particularly regarding Australia’s willingness to fund an advanced military and whether the net effect of a strengthened US alliance can be stabilizing.
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| 6 |
ID:
134615
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| Summary/Abstract |
The 2010 shooting of 13 miners at Zambia's small, privately-owned ‘Chinese’ Collum Coal Mine (CCM) has been represented by Western and Zambian politicians and media as exemplifying the ‘neo-colonial’ and ‘amoral’ practices of ‘China’ and ‘the Chinese’ in Africa. CCM has been used to provide a sharp contrast to the supposed ways of the Western firms that own most of Zambia's mines. Embedded in racial hierarchy and notions of strategic competition between the West and China, the discourse of the CCM shootings further shapes conceptions of global China and Chinese overseas. While examining all the oppressive conditions that have given rise to protest at the mine, we contextualize the shooting and subsequent conflicts. In analyzing CCM's marginal and troubled development, we discuss aspects of the 2010 shooting incident known to miners and union leaders, but ignored by politicians and media. We look at the shooting's political fallout, focus also on the epilogue that was the 2012 CCM riot—in which one Chinese person was murdered and several others seriously injured—and trace the sometimes violent discontent manifested at other foreign-owned mines in Zambia since their privatization in the late 1990s. The empirical data for this detailed study derive from hundreds of documentary sources and interviews with union leaders, workers, officials and others in Zambia from 2011 to 2013.
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| 7 |
ID:
137009
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| Summary/Abstract |
This paper analyzes the experience of Bharti-Wal-Mart, a joint venture between Wal-Mart and Bharti Enterprises (an Indian telecommunications company), based on the principles of glocalization theory. By and large, glocalization refers to the adaptation of multinational corporations (MNCs) to local cultures. MNCs achieve this by immersing themselves into local cultures and by adopting unconventional marketing techniques. A major finding of this analysis is that globalization is not monolithic. It is not a homogenizing factor that forces local cultures to follow the norms, practices, and values of a big corporation. In fact, Wal-Mart executives quickly learned that imposing the Bentonville blueprint on local Indian populations would be doomed to failure from the beginning. An important focus of this analysis is to establish a framework for greater understanding of the strategies adopted by Wal-Mart in India.
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| 8 |
ID:
135463
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| Summary/Abstract |
Look East Policy in the contemporary world order intended to secure India’s foreign policy objectives with its Eastern neighbours based on geographical contiguity and civilisational ethos. As a precursor,
disintegration of the Soviet Union brought a tremendous transformation in the global geo-strategic environment entailing innovative ideas in the conduct of bilateral and multilateral relations. As a fallout, globalization was used as a tool for the diffusion of knowledge and technology stretching de-territorialized economic order. India mooted structural reforms in the nineties to deal with the emerging trends and focused on robust economic diplomacy to bring more foreign direct investment, promote Indian investment abroad as well as safeguard its economic and commercial interests in regional and multilateral trading agreements.1 As a corollary, regional and sub-regional arrangements flourished through cross-border trade and connectivity. The State-centric borders which were earlier treated as barriers for cross-border development became significant for cross-border ties signifying subregional
cooperation. Subsequently, India’s North Eastern region was incorporated in India’s Look East Policy to get rid of the hazards of geographical location and the strategy was devised to build up the economic links and connectivity with Myanmar and other South East Asian nations to bring in cross-border cooperation and development.2
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| 9 |
ID:
136828
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| Summary/Abstract |
Since the end of the Cold War and the decline of USSR, Central Asia, rich in oil and gas reserves has become the focus of national interest for global powers.The quest for energy has shifted the balance of power to the Central Asian Republics, making it an energy region of global importance. Of which, China’s increasing footprints in Central Asia, particularly in the energy sector, has drawn wide attention. Whereby, the region has risen from being a marginal factor to that of becoming a top priority in China’s foreign policy. It is guided by China’s vital interests to meet its expanding energy needs which face a supply crisis. In this dynamic, Central Asia has become a geopolitical opportunity for China to fulfil its political and economic objectives in the international arena.
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| 10 |
ID:
134612
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article reports and analyzes China's presence in Africa with an emphasis on how that has been perceived by the Africans. Based on the findings from surveys and field research conducted in eight sub-Saharan African countries and interviews with scholars and practitioners from other African countries as well as Chinese and Americans in Africa, we outline the diverse, complicated and evolving African perceptions about China's explosive presence in general and the booming Chinese business activities in particular that now range from love to suspicion. Our findings about how China is perceived in Africa suggest that Beijing has acquired substantial goodwill in Africa yet is developing deep issues and facing uncertain challenges and growing obstacles.
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| 11 |
ID:
134760
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| Summary/Abstract |
The implementation of a free trade area between China and ASEAN has enhanced economic links between them. In spite of this, China’s Southeast Asian neighbours still have strong strategic misgivings about the country’s growth in wealth and power. China’s energy rise, in the form of surging demands and an expanding presence, has added a new ingredient in Sino-Southeast Asian relations. From the combined perspectives of both economic mercantilism and economic liberalism, this article analyses the implications of China’s energy rise on its Southeast Asian neighbours, and the doubts and debates that surround them. Such impacts arguably are mixed, and the more important aspect of such impacts arises not from China’s surging demand per se, but rather from the policies it created to deal with it.
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| 12 |
ID:
135050
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| Summary/Abstract |
For nearly a quarter of the past century a series of notable changes have taken place in the Arctic. All of them, whether political, economical, environmental or climate-related, inevitably had an impact on regional and global governance. This commentary mainly focuses on the role of China in Arctic affairs in the context of global change and global governance.
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| 13 |
ID:
134611
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| Summary/Abstract |
Chinese engagement in African states has increased tremendously over the last decade, much in line with Chinese globalisation strategies and supported by state encouragement and financial support. The size and potential of China as a world power leads to the level of expectations the country faces from the developing world. However, some elements of these expectations are also created through political discourses which emphasise differences with Western countries. The types of promises that the Chinese leadership makes to create such enthusiastic welcome amongst African political leaders are linked closely to the discourse on South–South cooperation. Albeit different from Western development assistance promises and parallel attempts to produce moderate expectations, the current discourse is thus partly sowing the seeds for future disappointment. This article takes a closer look at the discussions around South–South cooperation in China–Africa relations and at key rhetorical features (‘mutual benefit’; ‘non-interference’) and at the practice of this cooperation. It concludes that the Chinese discourse is creating large public expectations in African countries and while China delivers on many projects, its impact on development is less certain. The overall development success of this strategy builds on longer-term success and is implicitly linked to the occurrence of more reforms in Africa. Chinese policy thus ‘bets on the future’ in their foreign relations with Africa; the success of this strategy is dependent on political circumstances among the partners that are largely beyond Chinese control. In a number of cases, it can thus be expected that currently up-beat political rhetoric is going to meet obstacles that will require adjustments in a discourse that, in its current form, might undermine Chinese credibility if not the core elements of South–South cooperation altogether.
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| 14 |
ID:
134616
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article examines China's response to the 2011 Libya crisis and the emergence of a new diplomatic imperative: overseas citizen protection. Over a 12-day period in February and March 2011, China evacuated more than 35,000 Chinese nationals from civil war torn Libya, testing the overseas crisis management capacity of the Chinese government. Because of increasing domestic pressure to protect the growing population of Chinese citizens abroad, Beijing is developing its diplomatic and military capabilities to manage and mitigate crises overseas. The large-scale Libya evacuation served as a wake-up call for Beijing, that conducting business in high risk countries around the world comes at a price; as a consequence, Beijing will be compelled to reassess its global strategic posture and foreign policy principles.
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| 15 |
ID:
134603
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| Summary/Abstract |
The proletarianization of rural migrants is distinctive to contemporary China's development model, in which the state has fostered the growth of a “semi-proletariat” numbering more than 200 million to fuel labor-intensive industries and urbanization. Drawing on fieldwork in Guangdong and Sichuan provinces between 2010 and 2014, supplemented with scholarly studies and government surveys, the authors analyze the precarity and the individual and collective struggles of a new generation of rural migrant workers. They present an analysis of high and growing levels of labor conflict at a time when the previous domination of state enterprises has given way to the predominance of migrant workers as the core of an expanding industrial labor force. In particular, the authors assess the significance of the growing number of legal and extra-legal actions taken by workers within a framework that highlights the deep contradictions among labor, capital, and the Chinese state. They also discuss the impact of demographic changes and geographic shifts of population and production on the growth of working-class power in the workplace and the marketplace.
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| 16 |
ID:
135070
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| Summary/Abstract |
Purpose—Despite the tension between North Korea and South Korea, tourists from China and other countries are visiting North Korea at an increasing rate. This article aims to examine the background, development trends and other factors affecting this phenomenon.
Design/Methodology/Approach—Using tourism data from the China National Tourism Administration, local reports and the news, this study attempts to analyze the growing trend of Chinese tourists to North Korea.
Finding —The results provide substantial support for the authors’ conclusion that it is possible Chinese tourists to North Korea will continue at increasingly higher rates in the coming years. Non—Chinese tourists to North Korea are also increasing. Practical 1mplications—This study provides evidence that North Korea is becoming more open and active in the tourism business, a sign that North Korea is changing its economic policy.
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| 17 |
ID:
137073
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| Summary/Abstract |
This paper is a cautiously sympathetic treatment of conspiracy theory in Pakistan, relating it to Marxist theories of the state, structural functionalism and Machiavellian realism in international relations. Unlike moralising mainstream news reports describing terrorism in terms of horrific events and academic research endlessly lamenting the ‘failure’, ‘weakness’ and mendacity of the Pakistani state, conspiracy theory has much in common with realism in its cynical disregard for stated intentions and insistence on the primacy of inter-state rivalry. It contains a theory of the postcolonial state as part of a wider international system based on class-conspiracy, wedding imperial interests to those of an indigenous elite, with little concern for preserving liberal norms of statehood. Hence we consider some forms of conspiracy theory a layperson’s theory of the capitalist state, which seeks to explain history with reference to global and domestic material forces, interests and structures shaping outcomes, irrespective of political actors’ stated intentions. While this approach may be problematic in its disregard for intentionality and ideology, its suspicion of the notion that the ‘War on Terror’ should be read morally as a battle between states and ‘non-state actors’ is understandable – especially when technological and political-economic changes have made the importance of impersonal economic forces driving towards permanent war more relevant than ever.
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| 18 |
ID:
135548
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| Summary/Abstract |
According to the convergence hypothesis, the growth of a nation’s GDP should be negatively correlated with its historical level of GDP; low income nations should be growing faster than high income nations, and the variance of national incomes should fall over time. In recent years, there has been considerable debate about whether we do in fact observe convergence in GDP, and results are mixed. This paper examines a variant of the convergence debate by examining convergence in national team soccer results. Soccer is the most popular sport in world, and almost every nation on the planet has a national team that regularly plays in international competition. This paper examines the results of national soccer teams between 1950 and 2010 and finds that, whether measured by the percentage of games won or by goal difference (goals scored minus goals conceded), there is significant evidence of convergence. This paper then speculates about why it might be so much easier to find evidence of convergence in national team soccer results than for GDP
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| 19 |
ID:
134587
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| Summary/Abstract |
On November 24, 2013, after nearly two-and-a-half years of significant economic pressure on Iran by the United States and Europe, the two sides reached a Joint Plan of Action for six months (also referred to as the interim agreement). The agreement entered into force on January 20, 2014, and was extended for a period of four months in late July 2014.1 In return for a temporary and partial suspension of the American and European economic sanctions that had been imposed on it, Iran agreed to constrain its nuclear activity. Thus, Iran pledged to suspend its 20 percent uranium enrichment, convert half of its stockpile of 20 percent enriched uranium to oxide, and to dilute the other half to no more than 5 percent. Iran also agreed to refrain from installing additional centrifuges and increasing its stockpile of uranium enriched up to 5 percent by converting newly enriched uranium to oxide. Moreover, Iran consented not to transfer fuel or heavy water to the Arak nuclear site, to halt construction work on the site, and not to build a reprocessing facility capable of producing plutonium as a by-product.2
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| 20 |
ID:
134246
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article analyses the Korean developmental state since the late 1990s, and argues that the state has continued to play a weighty role in the economy. The state guided industrial and financial restructuring after the Asian economic crisis, and intervened to stimulate the economy during the 2008 global financial crisis. In doing so, state elites have displayed a distinctive form of economic leadership that is largely consistent with the developmental state. Rather than focusing predominantly on performance-related indicators of state strength such as growth rates, this article analyses the deeper aspects of the developmental state, specifically its internal functions and its collaboration with business. The article brings politics back into analysis of the developmental state by questioning the assumption that strong economic performance is necessary for the maintenance of close ties between the state and chaebol. Instead, economic performance is better understood as a predictor of patterns of conflict and cooperation. Long-standing ties between the state and big business have endured two significant economic crises, even if the performance of the developmental state has been degraded compared to earlier decades.
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