International Politics - Science topic

In the United States, another culture war is flaring up around encyclopedias.

Under pressure from liberal activists, the popular Merriam-Webster dictionary changed the definition of a woman. This is now an individual who has the opposite gender identity of a male.

By itself, characterization through negation is already original. It cannot be determined otherwise in the era of the deconstruction of the cultural foundations of society. No wonder even Biden's candidate for the Supreme Court at the hearing stated that she was not a biologist - and therefore did not know who women were.

Another war has unfolded around the term “recession”. Wikipedia began to feverishly make changes, until they completely removed the presence of two consecutive quarters with a fall in the economy from the definition of a recession. Just to help Biden deny the fact that the US economy has already fallen into recession for a longer time.

This kind of Orwellianism - with the twisting of the most basic concepts - will become more and more as we continue to be dragged into the abyss of the cultural revolution.

The pandemic has definitely changed the way in which countries operate from the health sector to technological advances to the education and economic well being. However, Kiprotich Kiptum has a valid point.

After American economic sanctioned on Iran, there is huge opportunity for china to sympathize Iran. No doubt, Iran- China relation will be more strengthen after American action. Israel, Saudi Arab and America have thrown Iran into China's court and China will never miss this golden chance to cash.

The current terrorism of the 21st century has a greatly effect on oil production and prices, contributed to the loss of billions of dollars for oil-producing countries, and contributed to oil deals& contracts for certain regions of the world. The sale of weapons has been unprecedented, and it has served certain countries by selling their old expired conventional weapons rather than destroying them. It has also contributed to increasing the poor and misery in quantity and quality. This is to say the least for terrorism.

For those interested in an update on China (the mentioned article is dating back from 2004), see the report published by Merics in 2017: http://www.merics.org/index.php/en/papers-on-china/chinas-emergence-global-security-actor-1

Concerning the question on international politics, it is an endless discussion...

You still have geopoliticians and analysts basing their insight on the sole ground of geographical and/or historical background (1st wave of geopoliticians, the classical ones), looking at states only within the lens of hegemon and counter-hegemons creating alternatives or countering the hegemon while the end objective remains to replace the current hegemon. In order to reach their goals, states take either the form of a sea power (Mahan) or land power (Mackinder)... and the frequent conception that borders are only a temporary halt (typically an idea taken from Haushofer).

On top of that, we have the current international order developed by the US for 50 years and currently challenged (see the articles of Anne-Cécile Robert, L’ordre international piétiné par ses garants, in Le Monde diplomatique of Feb 2018 or the article Present at the Erosion - International Order on the Brink published in the Munich Security Report of 2018). Nevertheless, it doesn't look like a nasty business and Joshua Stowell has for example well described that it is not because the system is challenged that we would expect a seism (see https://globalsecurityreview.com/west-really-retreat-probably-not/).

For the moment, media attention is clearly focused on the Asian tiger, DPRK or a new Cold War... The world is clearly summarised as a zero-sum game (President Trump's apparent view)...

But it is clearly to easy, international relations are nowadays deeply influenced by globalisation, private companies can have a deep impact even on an hegemon (e.g. delocalising jobs)... whithout taking into account transnational organised crime, climate change, health security or migrations... without forgetting the simple access to potable water.

To answer the question what can we do as scholars and researchers to change this seemingly "nasty and dangerous business"?, my humble comment would be:

- explain to our elites the various trends at stake,

- provide them with foresight, because they are clearly centered on short-term objectives (they nowadays want actionable information, beeing under constant pressure so "we need to show we are doing sthg") and we clearly need to look beyond in order to tackle emerging threats and/or challenges...

- if given the opportunity, explain to the media & our population international politics is much more than a zero-sum game (if it was the case, then why have we seen the creation of the EEC, even if the European Union as a project is nowadays clearly challenged?),

Dear Anurag Gangal,

It is a pity I have seen your question just now. In the "Handbook of India's International Relations" edited by David Scott (Routledge 2011) it is underscored that in 2002 the Bharatiya Janata Party took into consideration a foreign policy based on three concentric circles - immediate region, extended neighborhood and global issues - (p. xix). Under the Modi administration, India is targeting more and more the third circle, as the concept of India as a global power is not any more an illusion.

Best wishes,

Monica

That means the problem is driven by upper goals more than local attacks. So what solution to monitor and control ?

Dear Dr Yusnidah Ibrahim,

But the problem is data availability in malaysia. I have checked but SDC Platinum and Thomson One both are not available here. Infact, due to data unavailability I am bound to change my PhD topic of M&A . If you find some university that has these databases please let me know about it.

Dear Thomas:

In the field of Geography see:

 van Houtum H (2010) Human blacklisting: The global apartheid of the EUs external border regime. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 28: 957–976.

Hyndman J and Mountz A (2008) Another brick in the wall? Neo-refoulement and the externalization of asylum in Australia and Europe. Government and Opposition 43(2): 249–269.

And more recently:

Burridge A and Gill, N (2017) Conveyor-Belt Justice: Precarity, Access to Justice, and Uneven Geographies of Legal Aid in UK Asylum Appeals Antipode 49(1): 23-42.

See also:

Carling J and Hernandez-Carretero M 2011 Protecting Europe and Protecting Migrants? Strategies for Managing Unauthorised Migration from Africa The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 13(1)42-58

Maybe this can help you

Kurdish President Massoud Barzani ignored the American and European pressure to postpone the referendum on the independence of the region, and drew sharp criticism to Kurdish forces opposed to the timing of the referendum, stressing that «the step does not mean the declaration of the state».

This is not the first time that the Kurds of Iraq have shown independence. What is new in the recent calls?

The President of the Kurdistan region Massoud Barzani, finally met with the main political parties and parties participating in the government except the Movement for Change and the opposition and the Kurdistan Islamic Group, and stressed the holding of a referendum on the fate and future of the Kurdistan region before the start of presidential elections in the United States, Obama.

The head of the provincial office, Fouad Hussein, said that the visit that Barzani was scheduled to take, finally, to the United States to meet with Obama was postponed to a later time », adding that Barzani and Vice President Joe Biden« stressed that the current stage is a sensitive stage and require continuation Contacts and exchanges between Washington and Arbil ».

According to the 2005 census, the population of Iraq's Kurdish region is 5.5 million, most of them Kurds, as well as other minorities such as Arabs, Turkomans and Assyrians. The majority of these populations are Sunni Muslims as well as religious minorities from Christians, Alawites, Sabians and Jews.

The area of the Kurdistan region of Iraq is 40 thousand square kilometers, it was 37 thousand kilometers on March 11, 1970 and include three main areas are Erbil, Dahuk and Sulaymaniyah.

Iraq's Kurdistan, which operates 24 oil groups, exports about 100,000 barrels of oil a day through the Turkish port of Ceyhan. The export of this oil has raised recurrent problems between Erbil and the Baghdad government. In 2013, the Kurdistan Region and Turkey established their own pipeline to export oil to Europe via the Turkish port of Ceyhan.

For the moment the school project is limited to the countries where we have done the research, Colombia, Brazil and Bosnia. It would be great if the research could be expanded to the countries that you suggest, Thailand, Philippines and Indonesia. Would be glad to help.

Dear Sharifah Syahirah,

 I’m new to ResearchGate while poking around I came across your question. I’ve done some work on human rights and their relationship to the physical constructal law. Please find an overview in the following article:

 Best regards,

Mike

I would recommend checking out Daniel Kahan's  "Cultural Cognition Project" at Yale University Law School.  I fear I can't point you toward a single website that will help you, but the general idea is locating people on 2x2 matrix that can then be used to predict (with very high accuracy) how people will answer a range of other questions.  His work draws heavily on grid-group matrix developed by Mary Douglas.  Various political typologies have been developed from her work.  I think Kahan is the first to develop a model that generates accurate predictions.   The key variable in Douglas (and perhaps in Kahan) is how individuals think about risk.  It encompasses libertarians and statists, but much more.

 Dr. Molchanov,

Though I absolutely agree with Dr. Moiz's answer (and like his wording quite a bit) I think that your first impulse is worth further consideration.  The economic precarity that accompanies globalization is certainly very crucial as well. I would also point out that perception is a crucial consideration here, as the pure and untrammeled locale is a myth and globalization or at least multi-locale connection is not as new as the language some use to talk about it may imply.  Specifically, I mean that economic situations are inherently dynamic in a market economy, but that confidence in market stability can lead to the perception that they are less precarious at a given point in time. Additionally, I would argue that what you are dealing with is also - in part - a matter of when the perception of globalization became foregrounded by people who were uncertain, nervous, or angry about what had happened to their personal, "local" life. 

Just as the threat of identity dissolution compels some to retreat to nationalism, the increased awareness of economic instability is also a powerful driver to "double down" on identity and boundary maintenance work (of both the conceptual and material kind). As Dr. Moiz points out, the return flow of the globalization ( and here I mean globalization-as-project) that was imposed upon what was once called the Third World is the presence of more and more migrants from those countries in the "First World." When this accompanies an economic shift, the presence of apparent physical, ethnic, and cultural differences are easily conflated with the presence of a different economic condition, and thus scapegoating can easily occur and gain traction. 

To summarize, I think that it is an powerful insight that the cultural diffusionism facilitated by globalization (or at least transnational systems/networks/circuits) will lead to a heightened perception of the threat of identity solution and will trigger greater nationalism and identity politics, but I would add that economic precarity is not an alternative but rather a complementary part of this process. At the bottom, it seems that Dr. Moiz and I both agree that the rise of nationalism results from "the effects of globalism," but I would not discount the possibility or necessity for their to be some two-way constitution of this phenomenon.

Georgios Varouxakis'Liberty Abroad: JS Mill on International Relations has a chapter on Mill's view of empire.

Three alternative indices to the EIU's come to mind: Polity IV, the Bertelsmann Transformation Index (BTI), and v-dem. 

There are several factors that should be considered. The most important of them are:

1- Iran is the country leading the Shia community within the Muslim community and Saudi Arabia is the country leading the Sunni community within the same community. These two main branches of the Islam have a strong religious confrontation a very long time ago, and the confrontation still exists today.

2- As the leader of these two different Muslim communities, Iran and Saudi Arabia wishes to be the dominant forces in the Middle East, and this is the reason for the strong confrontation between these two countries.

3- Saudi Arabia is one of the most relevant allied of the USA in the Middle East, and Iran is the strongest enemy of the USA in the same region.

4- The position of both countries against Israel is different.  Iran has a strong opposition to the existence of Israel in the region, while Saudi Arabia has a more tolerant position against the existence of this country.

The only way that these two countries could contribute to the stability in the Middle East is if both countries find a solution to their differences and stop supporting other countries with the same position. Taking into account the current situation in the region this is not going to happen any time soon.

Check INEC's website. The commission did some constituencies amendment before and after 2011 general election

Dear Nina:

Y suggest that you can start checking this.

A possible answer which may indirectly throw some light on the challenging question of «foreign military occupation with subsequent regime change” is to consider the advantages and disadvantages of various alternative mechanisms of regime change, and contrast these with the advantages and disadvantages of the current states of affairs with challenging legal issues. That’s the approach in the following paper, and the references may possibly be useful.

Hausken, K. and Knutsen, J.F. (2010), “An Enabling Mechanism for the Creation, Adjustment, and Dissolution of States and Governmental Units,” Economics: The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal, Vol. 4, 2010-32. doi:10.5018/economics-ejournal.ja.2010-32, http://dx.doi.org/10.5018/economics-ejournal.ja.2010-32.

Perhaps, but the history of partitions is decidedly mixed and they can transform what are analytically "domestic" conflicts into "international" one (South Asia is a very good example).  The partitions that have worked relatively well (the breakup of the Czechoslovakia) are the exception (and here the role of the EU and NATO was key).  In the case of Iraq along with partition will be major population exchanges and the need to reach cooperative relations over water rights, oil and other resources.  The recent partition of Sudan shows that without agreements on these issues the conflicts and violence simply continue under other guises.  Having said that, partition may still be a desirable partial solution in that at least the question of self-governance may be properly addressed.

Are there any specific types of terrorism in international politics? Can it be really defined in terms of nature of terror recruits ?

There are two questions here.  Let me address them in order. First, most writers on the topic agree that terrorism is (i) a deliberate use or threat of violence, (ii) politically-motivated, and (iii) directed against non-military personnel, that is, against civilians or noncombatants.  Taking these as the only essential features of terrorism, perhaps the simplest and more accurate reportive definition is this:

There are all sorts of distinctions that can be made among types of terrorism.  One overlooked distinction is between state-terrorism (that waged by states), and non-state terrorism (that waged by non-state groups).  In the contemporary setting, states and their mainstream media tend to use the term "terrorism" to refer only to the latter.  This is itself a form of terrorism, as I explain in my articles, "The Terrorism of "Terrorism""  and "The Reign of 'Terror.'."

In my written work on the topic, I have drawn another distinction between strategic terrorism and reactive or retaliatory terrorism.  The former uses violence or coercive threat is part of a plan to achieve a political goal, while the latter derives from an emotional response to politically-induced grievances, for example, vengeance for confiscation of land or for assassinations of leaders.  Of course, since strategy and emotion can be jointly operative, and actions can have multiple agents, a given act might be both strategic and retaliatory.

No doubt there are other distinctions to be made among types of terrorism.

Dear Norman,

concerning your questions

1) i have no clue if people consider Hussein regime good or bad, we can only measure it through the public opinion. nevertheless, even in post-communist young democracies there was research stated that people wanted change of  political representatives, not the whole regime. but you never know what the future will bring, everybody wants better tomorrows and if somebody is promising you better future you are believer, for me it is kind of religion believing that democracy saves me from bad socio-economic status (which unfortunately, is not true as history and contemporary research is telling us, see compatibility of democracy and capitalism causing disparities, inequalities, fears, xenophobia etc which is going on in western civilization) btw you can not generalize the public opinion, for some the Hussein regime was working, for some not, same as with democracy, i am just saying that democracy is ideology based on belief in welfare state, is the  best one to reach it partially and is the best one compatible with liberal capitalism. oof course the example of china is saying sth else, but we should be aware of it. further, there is a question if people really know what is the best for them?  

2) the same thoughts, i am not an expert for Iraq political system, but i do not want to underestimate the culture and religion. you can not abandon something which is present for thousands of years for something which is promising you the future. tradition, habits, culture are main determinants  of everyday life, and sometimes i have a feeling that scientists are forgetting what is the identity of people and what really construct them. btw the pressure of economic globalization and  a change of society is present and politics should reflect it, but appropriately concerning the needs of people. but not every country in the world is the same as US, Britain, France etc...we should not colonize other countries with just promises of great democracy if we see that in established democracies sth is wrong with it.

best wishes ;)

Patricia

Political efficacy is a term used primarily in political theory and discussion to refer to the amount of faith and impact citizens feel or believe they have upon their government. When it is low, it indicates the citizens of a country have little faith in their government and feel like their actions have little or no impact upon the actions of their political leaders. Higher levels of efficacy, however, tend to indicate that citizens believe their government is doing what is best for them and that the actions they take on a common basis can have a positive impact on the government. This type of information is often determined through polling and surveys, and used by politicians and news broadcasters to understand the political climate of a country or region.

When studying this concept, political scientists tend to divide it into two forms: internal and external. Internal efficacy deals with how a person feels that his or her skills, knowledge, and abilities can have an effect on the political system. This type of efficacy often indicates the likelihood of a person to vote or become politically active, as he or she feels what he or she has to offer can really make an impact on the political system. While there is some debate regarding the potential causality between political efficacy and voter turnout, there does seem to be a strong correlation between those with higher internal efficacy and the likelihood for them to vote

External efficacy has to do with how a person feels his or her government responds to his or her needs and how well the political system and government reflect his or her needs and concerns. This type can have a great deal to do with trust and to what degree a person feels his or her government cares about him or her and the needs of others like him or her. Low external efficacy can often indicate apathy toward politics or government, and citizens with a sense that the government does not represent them.

Both forms can be used as indicators of potential voter turnout, as well as prevailing attitudes toward the government and the popularity of anti-establishment movements. Those with lower political efficacy tend to be more likely to support reform candidates, though they may not actually vote as they feel that their actions do not actually affect the political process. Higher efficacy tends to indicate those who will likely vote because they believe they have an effect on the government, and may support the incumbent since they likely feel the government is already effectively representing them

Yes. Fracking.

Indirect source: Venona papers and related materials:

If you happened to read in Polish, you might also try to read a book I discussed some time ago:

Choosing your framwork depends very much on your goals. Joost Schilperoord and myself are preparing a chapter on editorial cartoons from an argument theoretical point of view, based on a lecture we gave in the Cognitive Linguistics conference

Schilperoord, J., & van den Hoven, P. J. (2011, July). Interpreting visual arguments in cartoons. Paper presented at the 11th ICLA Conference, Xian, China.

Joost published a very nice article on Iwo Jima cartoons:

Schilperoord, J. (2013), Raising the Issue: A Mental-Space Approach to Iwo Jima-Inspired Editorial Cartoons. Metaphor and Symbol, 28. 185-212.

 I think that a cognitive approach (mental space theory or some other conceptual framework) is very productive. Also look at the methods used in:

Schilperoord, J. & Maes, A. A. (2009), Visual metaphoric conceptualization in editorial cartoons. In C. J. Forceville & E. Urios-Aparisi (Eds.), Multimodal metaphor. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter. 213–243.

For a (cognitive) rhetorical approach you can take a look at my book (Gold mining, see here on RG).

References to more political appraoches are easy to find in for example Schilperoord 2013.

Hello Roy: Thanks for the book,

Policies to reduce a budget deficit:

1)  Cut government spending

2)  Tax increases

3)  Economic Growth

4) Bailout

5) Default

With respect I think the way the question is framed make it more appropriate as a political statement than an academic inquiry.  Two different matters are being conflated.  Democracy and how states behave.  USA is a democracy and there is an expectation that as such it should behave particularly well in international politics.  But it is also a great power or, more specifically, the only superpower, and as such it behaves as great powers do.  Democracy is not a concept or a system that governs power politics in the international community.  A democracy can be a benign great power or a non-benign one. Its government merely needs to account for its actions to its electorate periodically.  It is therefore not academically sound to say a democratic country behaves un-democratically to other states.  It would be more appropriate, strictly on academic grounds, to say that despite the USA commitments to democracy and democratic values, which raises high expectation of how it will conduct itself in international affairs, it falls short of the expectation the USA has raised for other states.  Or one may prefer to use a stronger language in criticizing how the USA conducts its foreign relations.  

Very good responses provided, but to interpret your question is terms of "essence", I would, in a single sentence:

Elections in a dominant party system provide a mechanism for legitimizing that governing authority. 

Hi, have you looked into Damion, Thomas L. Globetrotting: African American Athletes and Cold War Politics, 2012? It might be useful. Also, you could contact Simon Rofe from SOAS, London, since he's been working lately on Sport Diplomacy (his 'Prologue: Diplomacy and Sport.' Diplomacy and Statecraft  and 'Sport and Diplomacy: A Global Diplomacy Framework.' Diplomacy and Statecraft  are both forthcoming in 2016). You can check on his publications and contacts at https://www.soas.ac.uk/staff/staff74153.php. Best, Carla

Not sure what you mean Sarah. Some of the many problems associated with the use of one dominant language in the EU  are discussed eg in my article Language competition in European Community institutions, 2003. If useful I can send it to you- kbwayalat@gmail.com

I believe states do lose their soverignity as a result of globalization and it is not only a matter of policies of international organizations. All the international interdependences limit the scope of states' possible activities. In theory they still may act independently, but as a result of globalization consequences of "irresponsible" acts might be devastating.

By: S.W.R. de A. Samarasinghe

"War" is too vague a term. Like "poverty" and "disease" it is easy to throw up our hands and declare they will always be with us.  But look more carefully. We have made progress against many diseases, against some forms of poverty, and against many forms of organized violence.   Major wars follow a Poisson distribution. They are absent far more often than they are present. Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature, describes the decline of violence, and war is one aspect of this decline. Goldstein, Winning the War on War, ascribes part of the victory to international organization and the UN. We're getting better at understanding the dynamics of sub-state violence, civil wars, and organized crime. Bernadette Berti, Armed Political Organizations, describes the organizational trade-offs between armed violence and non-violent political action with higher participation.  Chenoweth and Stephan, Why Civil Resistance Works describe the strategic logic of nonviolent resistance, and provide compelling evidence that it is more effective and more strongly related to democratic change than violent opposition.  Kilcullen's Out of the Mountains describes processes of competitive control - if the state doesn't manage, violent specialists and political entrepreneur's will step in.  Those terms come for Charles Tilly (2003) The Politics of Collective Violence, in which he breaks down types of organized violence according to salience and coordination - it's a useful scheme and illustrates why "war" is too loose a term to be useful analytically.  If we break down the types of violence reflected in war data in projects like the Correlates of War Project, and SIPRI's databases, and control for geography, we get a different picture of the types of systemic violence that are actually entrenched in the international system.  They have a lot to do with poverty, resource extraction, social breakdown, poor governance, ineffective  and predatory security sectors, and the ready availability of weapons and ammunition - provided by major powers.  

I think Harry Cleaver is correct in ascribing some of this entrenched violence to the nature of global capitalism, but capitalism has a productive cooperative side, as well as a destructive predatory side (Geoff Mulgan, The Locust and the Bee). I think Carla Cunningham is also onto an important insight when she suggests that gender relations play a role.  UNSCR 1325 requires gender-based analysis of conflict, and that has helped us start to understand some of the destructive patterns generating violence in society.  Microsociologies of violence (e.g. Collins, Violence: A Microsociological Theory, and Bakonyi et al, Microsociology of violence) have started to tease out the enabling and causal factors in sudden and protracted violence.  Mike Lawrence at Waterloo is working with Thomas Homer-Dixon on pathways to catastrophic dehumanization - responsible for the worst sorts of violence like genocide and strategic bombing. Maryan Siraj's answer points to the constructed nature of war and organized violence.  War is a constructed; so is peace. War, and other forms of politically motivated organized violence, are only as entrenched as we make them.

thank you both so much, these answers have been  extremely helpful! :)

It can be useful to check ISO 18091. It is way to measure quality in government

I recommend works of Camila Góes, who has made research and got an MA degree in São Paulo University with a dissertation on this theme. Please, get in touch with her. Please, see her profile in researhgate.net below:

The point is English School is ecletic and does not offer an alternative to this dilema. The consequence is that concepts which are incompatible with each other can not be operated in terms of strategies of empirical investigation. This is exactly what ecletism means: everything, even incompatible concepts, become part of the same problem or issue or theory.

Those are concepts that have been growing apart. In real situations there have been increasing cases - or just more evident? - of politicians compromising justice and integrity for their own interests. The study of integrity in the public sector is one of the most urgent problems to be solved nowadays. I am a PhD researcher developing a study on good regulations to approach the e-waste problem and, frequently, I could identify problems of implementation of laws or even delays on drafting laws due to conflict of interests and industry influencing politics ... 

Thought for sure someone might have answered this by now.  Perhaps it is because nobody has found exactly what you are looking for, but fortunately, I was able to contact another research librarian.  This is what she provided me:

A publication from the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics called "The Statistical Abstract," which is published annually. It goes back to 1996.  The link to it is here: http://www.cbs.gov.il/reader/ shnatonenew_site.htm

The librarian I contacted even offered helpful tips on how to get to the information.  It may be helpful to read the following as you explore the site: 

"To get to the election information, in the “choose subject” drop-down, I chose “10. Government and Local Authorities”, then “continue”. Then a series of tables will be displayed. I was looking at “election results for the 19th Knesset, by type of locality."

I attached a file of a screen shot of the categories of information you will find at this site.  You will notice that you are able to download an Excel spreadsheet of the data found here.  If you really need election data that goes back to 1980, I would first start by contacting the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics.  You can e-mail the bureau at info@cbs.gov.il.

Hope that helps!

To arrive at a more "scientific" answer you need to sort out the subject matter, so that you can focus more precisely on what seems to be your main interest - the mass immigration from the Middle East and the disputes about its handling between the states you refer to. You need to decide for your analysis whether you will assume that the present disputes are linked up with prior disputes between these countries (as you seem to suggest), or whether today's conflicts are specifically about mass illegal immigration as such. My personal guess would be that the Dublin regulation is the chief culprit.

Yes the UN has passed resolution regarding counter terrorism efforts as as above these resolutions have not been specific in regards to countries or procedures. When looking at anti-terrorism and why certain countries assist the US it i important to understand the politics behind these decisions. China has a strong non invention approach to foreign affairs and is of  course very interested in promoting Chinese export and imports of raw materials etc.

Russia supports the concept of anti terrorism strategies but has had terrorist attacks on its home soil and perhaps is a tad worried that if it supports the US actions this could at a some stage relate to attacks on them under the guise of anti terrorism. Plus ideologically Russia does not usually align itself with the US. 

While some would argue that counter-terrorist strategies are legal there is no international law that covers terrorism or counter-terrorism. It can be looked at through humanitarian law etc and until there is agreement on what is terrorism and as such what is counter terrorism the debates will continue

I cannot cite a source but surely 'Sir" Anthony Eden's blunder in the Suez 1956 escapade has to be an example of what you are looking.  After the famous Eisenhower speech Eden went into the desert so to speak and really paid for his blunder.  It was not just seen as a blunder however; it was seen as an attempt at mass deception.  And the rest is history …  A second example might be Nasser's blunder in the Six Day War.  Poor old Nasser actually paid for that horrendous misjudgement of the situation with his health.  He died very soon after …  Both the reputation of Eden and Nasser went down the plug hole.  Eden just disappeared and Nasser lost momentum in his whole project of Arab nationalism.   Hope this is of some help.  

First option would be http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/ 

They have quite a lot of available news on various aspects and a huge archive, with the mention that the news are targeted for exogenous audiences, thus sometimes different than what they have for domestic public.

If you are working at some article you can always find some co-author via Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. http://casseng.cssn.cn

They have some resources at http://english.cssn.cn. 

I used both for a manuscript on Romania, I'm not sure if they have the same amount of data on Egypt. But might be a bridgehead. Good luck!

Mr. Xu

Look for sudden spikes or drops in the data cross referencing it with political news (bills passed, conflicts engaged in etc) or also geological events,  Here's a good one too to review.  

You might want to take a look at the Robinson/Gallagher thesis about informal empire as applied to mid-Victorian British expansion.  Its fairly interesting and focuses on the economic levers of control rather than military intervention or military-strategic imperatives.  It would seam to be analogous to China in Africa.

I am rather doubtful if VOC approach (Hall and Soskice type) has anything concrete to analyse global financialization. I will explain in the subsequent post that VOC approach has a serious theory defect that prevents it analyse and examine globalization phenomenon.

Financialization has been a big topic for Regulationists since 1980's, for they considered finacialization as successor to Fordist regime of accumulation.  They have many books and papers on this theme.

It will be helpful and informative for you to read a review paper like van der Zwan's  

STATE OF THE ART: Making sense of financialization. Socio-Economic Review (2014) 12: 99–129. (see the link below)

It contains major survey on three major approaches: accumulation approach, share value approach and everyday life approach.  

Gwen, I think one of the important factors to consider in this respect is the possibility of majority voting or, differently stated, the possibility that a sub-group of members of an organization imposes its will on all members. This is very much a feature of the EU, both via (qualified) majority voting in the legislative procedures at the Council, the decisions taken by the Commission, for example in anti-trust or state aid cases, and the judgments of the European Court of Justice. All of these are binding on the Member States whether or not they agree to a particular case. One term of art used to describe this feature of the EU is its "supranationality", i.e. the EU has powers ABOVE the state level.

By contrast, most other organizations either do not have such powers at all and have to take any and all decisions by unanimous vote or by consensus (for example the EFTA) or they have only very narrow powers that could bind a state against its wishes, for example via judgments of the European Court of Human Rights or in the context of decisions taken by the UN Security Council under Chapter VII of the Charter.

The next question in this context is the enforceability of the decisions. Even if an international organization does have some supranational powers, it is not very "scary" for the (potential) members, if the enforcement powers are weak. As you surely know, public international law has very few options at enforcement, chiefly among them the naming and shaming of perpetrators/violators and the idea of tit-for-tat, i.e. retaliation in kind. For example, if a country is found by the WTO Dispute Settlement Body to be in violation of the rules, it has to rectify this breach (for the future only, no retroactive obligations to pay damages or the like). If it does not do so, the worst thing that can happen to it is pretty much retaliation in kind, i.e. the complaining or injured country can get permission from the WTO to suspend trade concessions roughly equal to the losses incurred because of the initial breach. This is not very scare for a country and they can make a cold calculation whether a certain breach is worthwhile maintaining. It is also not affecting countries equally because, for example, a trade embargo from the US against New Zealand will be much more damaging than the other way around.

Similarly, in the ECHR system, the worst thing that can happen to a country found in breach of the Convention by the Court is that it will be named and shamed (not very effective if it happens a lot, since public and international opinion tires easily, see Russia) and that it is convicted to pay damages. Since member states of the Council of Europe have been reluctant to pay large amounts in damages - they simply won't comply - the EuCtHR is nowadays imposing very modest amounts that countries will pay without much hesitation. For example, Italy has been convicted many many times over many years for undue length of criminal trials. Instead of fixing the problem, the country just pays a few thousand Euros to every complainant who makes it all the way to a judgment in Strasbourg.

However, the EU is a very different animal altogether. First, it administers a large budget and more than half of the Member States are net recipients and they can simply see their allocations withheld if they do not follow the rules (example Greece). This is more powerful than another tool, suspending voting rights. Second, and most important, the European Court of Justice, via the procedure of Article 267, has a tool of ensuring compliance with its judgments that no other court on the planet comes even close to. In the end, Member States of the EU have to follow EU law in very nearly every case, whether they voted for it or against, and whether they like it or not. This is unique and not comparable to other international organizations.

You may not like this proposal but I think that it would be too simplistic to look merely whether something is economic integration or not. You should also look whether it is purely international (between states) or whether it has at least some supranational elements and real enforcement powers.

Cristina and Megali, - I thank you for the very interesting information. In Albania, we are now discussing the new law on lustration, and the practices of some former communist countries are good examples to be analyzed. New Albanian Law on opening “the dossiers” is taken from the German practice, but law is not accompanied with the process of lustration, which I think is a more complex process and more difficult. Again, thank you!

See Agustin José Menendez, Exporting rights: The Charter of Fundamental Rights, membership and foreign policy of the European Union, available at: http://www.sv.uio.no/arena/english/research/publications/arena-publications/workingpapers/working-papers2002/wp02_18.htm

That's a good question to a very current problem.

As usual, countries can either do what they think it's best for them (Australia and New Zealand, in this respect, lead the way in the Pacific) or follow a broader international consuetude. Such a thing - with such a scope - does not exist yet, meaning that, unfortunately, it's up again to the UN or another supranational organization to take the first, surely controversial, step. An ad hoc committee would be something to start with. The introduction of amendments to bi-multilateral agreements, suggested by Jean-Paul Huteau Skeete, would be good too, altough I think it's quite unlikely they would be implemented, as they might reduce the economic benefit on both sides of the agreement.

If you look at political movement in Mexico, you may have an answer. The poors are often voting in favor of the one who oppress them the most.This is often true for many democratic and non-democratic states.

I didn't find any stats or polls (not a big surprise) trying to find the explicit opinion of the maids in HK, so all I have to say is speculation and generalization from one situation to another.

Two mains elements seems to play an important role in the mobilization at Hong Kong:

1. High level of control of the information by the State.

2. Reclamations seem to be mostly about right to education and electoral representation.

Somebody once said: ''Being informed is a luxury that most can't afford'', for many of the maids, their lives is mostly about working hundred of hours a week and trying to make a living out of it. In a situation where state control the information, having access to information about A) the existence of the demo, B) the repression of the protesters and then C) the point of view of the protester, may be hard.

On the other side, the poorer often doesn't really care about social and political movement because they are often seens as pointless for them. In Hong Kong, Philippian and Indonesian doesn't want to have better access to universities and better representation in political institution, they want to be able to live easier.

If you look at mexican political movement, they'll be very popular in rural regions for the poorer, but in the city, it is the middle class that carry those visions. For the poors, it is often harder to have access to information about the situation specially since many of them are analphabet. They'll mostly get their information from the 

televisions and radios where their is often an over-representation of the governement officials.

Finally,if corruption is the source of many social and economic inequalities, it is also the way it goes in Mexico. The poors get money to vote in favor of those who pay them and they often bribe policemen or city officials to simplify their lives. It would be costly for the poor to give up on corruption. Farmers in rural region can generally sees quickly that, for them, the cost is overrun by the benefices because their money comes from what they produce. In the city, industrial workers often don't have a direct link to the product they make to see how much they lose with the corruption. Taking a stance in solidarity would then means compromising their safety, not only for the current movement, but for their futur also.

The same could apply to Philipian and Indonesian. Since the protest doesn't offer solution to their concerns but would asked them to suffer great risk for the little they have, it is possible that the social movement is seen more as a threat than a solution.

I hope it help your reflexion on the matter, sorry for not having a factual answer to your interrogation.

HERMAN, Edward et al (1989). Hope and Folly. The United States and UNESCO, 1945-1985. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

OK!

May be we can look at Political Consciousness which evolved by Lawrence R. Alschuler (his book titled, Political Conciousness of Liberation from Jungian perp) that had been taken from Paulo Freire's Concept about dehumanization. there are three stages of consciousness development ; Magical Consciousness which refer to a condition wherein the people do not realize that they are being pressured by the oppressor, second is Naive Consciousness which refer to a condition wherein the people individually realize they are oppressed by the opressor and the third is Critical Consciousness which mean a condition wherein the people collectively realize the situation and then start to make a movement againts the oppressor collectively and coordinatively..

Iran's moves in the region should be viewed in context with its rivalry with the KSA. when the Saudis and Pakistani Salafis arm Extremist groups like the Taliban and other Sunni Groups in countries like Iraq, Syria, Tajikistan...... this encourages Iran to do the same, as with Hezbollah and other Shi'ite groups in Iraq. in regards with destroying Israel, that was a miss-interpretation of what Ahmadinejad meant(i don't like the guy either) but anyways, Mike Wallace censored the part that AHJD explained what he meant, its available on you-tube, and this Pro-War act by Wallace recieved a Grammy!

i want to mention again that i think what shouldn't be ignored is Westerners Double standards when coming to the ME. the U.S is going around the world talking of Democracy, whilst its number one allies in the Region are the best examples of Undemocratic and Totalitarian Regimes A.K.A Bahrain, KSA, Kuwait, Qatar and.....the Minor Sunni group are leading the Major Shi'ite group and killing them everyday, but we dont see a media hokum like the one on Syria

anyways, its a pleasure to read your responses here:)