1,721,035 research outputs found
Emerging Middle Powers’ Soft Balancing Strategy: State and Perspectives of the IBSA Dialogue Forum
Full text linkHow can weaker states influence stronger ones? This article offers a case study of one recent exercise in coalition building among Southern middle powers, the ‘India, Brazil, South Africa (IBSA) Dialogue Forum’. The analysis outlines five major points: first, it argues that the three emerging players can be defined as middle powers in order to frame their foreign policy behavior and options at the global level. Second, soft balancing is a suitable concept to explain IBSA’s strategy in global institutions. Third, institutional foreign policy instruments are of pivotal significance in IBSA’s soft balancing strategy. Fourth, the potential gains of IBSA’s sector cooperation, particularly in trade, are limited due to a lack of complementarity of the three economies. And fifth, IBSA’s perspectives and impact on the international system will depend on four variables: IBSA’s ability to focus on distinct areas of cooperation, the consolidation of its common strategy of soft balancing, the institutionalization of IBSA, and its enlargement in order to obtain more weight in global bargains.India, Brazil, South Africa, IBSA Dialogue Forum, middle power, foreign policy, international relations, South-South relations
Bert Hoffmann, The Cuban Transformation as a Conflict Issue in the Americas. The Challenges for Brazil's Foreign Policy
No full textVayssière Pierre. Bert Hoffmann, The Cuban Transformation as a Conflict Issue in the Americas. The Challenges for Brazil's Foreign Policy. In: Caravelle, n°74, 2000. pp. 304-306
It’s Not Only Rents: Explaining the Persistence and Change of Neopatrimonialism in Indonesia
Full text linkIndonesia has long been associated with neopatrimonialism, corruption, collusion, and nepotism as the main modi operandi of politics, economics and public administration. Despite various measures and initiatives to fight these practises, little evidence for a significant decline can be found over the years. Rather, longitudinal analysis points to changes in the character of neopatrimonialism. Based on more than 60 in-depth interviews, focus-group discussions, and the analysis of both primary and secondary data, the aim of this article is, first, to describe the changes that have taken place, and, second, to investigate what accounts for these changes. Political economy concepts posit the amount and development of economic rents as the explanatory factor for the persistence and change of neopatrimonialism. This study’s findings, however, indicate that rents alone cannot explain what has taken place in Indonesia. Democratisation and decentralisation exert a stronger impact.Economic Rents, Neopatrimonialism, Democratisation, Decentralisation, Indonesia
Transitions from Charismatic Rule: Theories of Leadership Change and Cuba’s Post-Fidel Succession
Full text linkFor theories of political succession and charismatic authority, the almost half-century long rule of Fidel Castro presents an extraordinary test case since Fidel in July 2006 handed over power ‘temporarily’ to his deputy and brother Raúl. On the background of Max We-ber’s work on charismatic rule, the paper analyzes the way in which the Cuban leadership has responded to the succession question and identifies four aspects in which it differs from the succession problems typically attributed to charismatic rule: Cuba’s longstanding exceptionalism regarding the ‘second man’ behind the leader; the succession during the life-time of the leader with a sui generis modus of ‘cohabitation’ between the outgoing and the incoming leader; the routinization of charisma which domestically allows a bureau-cratic succession model with the Communist Party, rather than any individual, being pos-tulated as Fidel Castro‘s heir; and as a correlate to the latter, the ritual transmission of Fidel’s charisma to a heir beyond the nation-state, Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, as the new charismatic leader to continue Fidel Castro’s universal revolutionary mission.political succession, leadership change, charismatic authority, Max Weber, Cuba
A Regional Power Promoting Democracy? India’s Involvement in Nepal (2005–2008)
Full text linkAccording to the theory of “democratic peace,” India, as the largest democracy in the world and as South Asia’s predominant regional power, should be expected to promote democracy in neighboring countries. However, New Delhi lacks any official democracypromotion policy, and its past record on democracy in the region is mixed at best. Against this background, the paper analyzes the substantial role India came to play in the peace and democratization process in Nepal in the years 2005–2008, asking whether this constitutes a departure from New Delhi’s traditional policy of noninterference in its neighbors’ internal affairs and a move towards a more assertive approach to democracy promotion. The analysis shows that India’s involvement in Nepal was the product of short-term stability concerns rather than being an indicator of a long-term change in strategy with the intention of becoming an active player in international democracy promotion.democracy promotion, India, Nepal, regional power, peace process, democratization
When Do Autocracies Start to Liberalize Foreign Trade? Evidence from Four Cases in the Arab World
Full text linkThis paper argues that trade and capital account reforms within autocracies underlie the primacy of foreign currency procurement. A longitudinal comparison of four countries (Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt and Jordan) in the Middle East and North Africa region shows a historical sequencing of reforms. In the 1960s and 1970s, the foreign exchange scarcity was managed primarily by rising restrictions, accumulation of debt and a number of unilateral country-specific strategies, including broader economic openings (infitah) and isolated capital account liberalizations. However, IMF-friendly reforms (orthodox trade liberalization) only became a political option in the context of the extreme fiscal scarcity of the 1980s and 1990s, after the failure of these earlier policies and the drying up of alternative unconditional finance. Additionally, the time differences regarding when orthodox reforms are implemented within autocracies mainly relate to global and regional cycles of different external windfall gains. These findings complement recent debates about the rush to free trade in at least two regards. First, they point to distinct causal mechanisms depending on the type of political regime (for example, autocracy versus democracy), explaining the beginning of trade and capital account liberalizations among developing countries. Second, they reveal the conditional historical influence of neoliberal ideas among structurally similar autocracies.Autocracy, trade and capital account liberalization, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt,Jordan
India and the Civil War in Sri Lanka: On the Failures of Regional Conflict Management in South Asia
Full text linkThe paper provides an assessment of India’s role in the final years of the civil war in Sri Lanka (2003-2009). In particular, it looks for explanations for India’s inability to act as a conflict manager in its own region, which is in contrast to predominant assumptions about the role of powerful regional states. It also seeks to explain the surprising turn in India’s approach to the conflict, when in 2007 New Delhi began to rather explicitly support the Sri Lankan government— in disregard of its traditional preference for a peaceful solution and its sensitivity for the fate of Sri Lankan Tamils. While historical and domestic pressures led to India’s indecisive approach during the years 2003-2007, starting from 2007 regional and international factors— most notably the skillful diplomacy of the Sri Lankan government and the growing Chinese presence there—induced New Delhi to support the government side in order to keep some leverage on Sri Lankan affairs. The analysis of the Sri Lankan case opens several avenues for further research in the fields of regional conflict management and foreign policy analysis.India, Sri Lanka, conflict management, civil war
Measuring Geopolitical Power in India: A Review of the National Security Index (NSI)
Full text linkThis review examines how India perceives its own rise to power by undertaking a detailed analysis of the Indian National Security Index (NSI) for the period from 2003 to 2008. Like other power formulas, the NSI includes various indicators of power, though it is uniquely Indian in that it initially emphasized human development and later included ecology based on a holistic human-security paradigm. The analysis demonstrates that this holistic approach has now been abandoned in favor of a more conventional one, and that the technical formulas and theoretical concepts of the NSI exhibit various inconsistencies and problems. In particular, one can recognize the absolute need for a unified standard for handling variables in the construction of composite indexes in general.India, geopolitics, statistics, power formula, power index, human security
Technological Readiness in the Middle East and North Africa – Implications for Egypt
Full text linkInnovation is widely recognized as a key driver of sustainable economic development. Governments, international organizations, donors and investors are increasingly interested in evaluating the technological capabilities and innovative capacities in developing countries, but often lack appropriate approaches for such measurement. This paper focuses on innovation and technological progress in the MENA region and discusses the challenges of understanding, expanding and fostering innovative potential in Egypt.Egypt, Middle East, North Africa, Technology, Developing countries
The Formation of Preferences in Two-level Games: An Analysis of India’s Domestic and Foreign Energy Policy
Full text linkThis paper examines the formation of India’s energy-policy strategy as an act of doubleedged diplomacy. After developing an analytical framework based on the two-level game approach to international relations (IR), it focuses on the domestic context of policy preference formation. India’s energy strategy is shaped by a shortage of energy and the scarcity of indigenous reserves; these problems have together resulted in a growing import dependence in order to sustain economic growth rates, outdated cross-subsidies, overregulation, and nontransparent bureaucratic structures which are adverse to private investment. The Indian government still dominates the energy sector, but large electoral constituencies within the country exert a considerable indirect influence. The paper analyzes how all these domestic necessities combine with India’s general foreign policy goals and traditions to form an overall energy strategy. We finally discuss how this strategy plays out in a competitive international environment where global resources are shrinking (with most claims already distributed) and environmental concerns are on the rise.preferences in two-level games, Indian foreign policy, energy security
- …
