EU-Russia gas relations: Back to «business as usual»?
Commercial interests in the European Union (EU) and Russia (Gazprom) have agreed to double the capacity in the Nord Stream pipeline transporting gas from Russia to Germany. The project has become one of the most controversial issues in EU gas-related debates today, above all in Central and Eastern Europe.
Being Peacekept? The Implicit Assumptions that Hamper the Protection of Civilians
Protection of Civilians (PoC) has during the last decade evolved to become an important guideline for international actors in post-conflict and conflict affected societies. While much policy literature has been written on how to better implement the PoC framework, less has been written on the conceptual framework of the protection of civilians and how this fits with local contexts, networks and relationships. Drawing on recent research and empirical material from Afghanistan, Somalia, Liberia, Sudan, Uganda and Colombia this policy brief identifies five implicit assumptions underpinning the Protection of Civilians as conceptualized in the Aide Memoire and UN Security Council resolutions. Through these assumptions we analyze how a skewed conceptual platform for protection implementers paradoxically disconnects protection needs.
Reform, Renegotiation and Referendum
The UK stands on the brink of a momentous decision: whether to leave or remain in the European Union. Unlike all the other states that have sought late entry to the EU, the UK did not hold a referendum on whether to join in 1973: the decision was taken on the basis of a parliamentary vote. However, in 1975 voters were asked whether they wished to stay in the European Community, and a strong vote to remain was thought to have resolved the matter. However, in 2013, divisions within the Conservative Party led Prime Minister David Cameron to promise to engage in reform of the EU and to renegotiate the UK’s terms of membership before holding a referendum on whether to stay in. It was a high-risk, high-stakes proposition. Cameron must persuade his party, the British lectorate and his partners in the other EU member states of the merits of his case. The negotiation covers four areas of concern for the UK: economic governance, competitiveness, sovereignty, and immigration. To some British Eurosceptics, the emands seem woefully inadequate; to fellow EU leaders, they pose significant difficulties. The formal negotiations began in late 2015, after months of exploratory talks with the other member states, and are expected to be completed by the end of February, with the referendum coming as early as June 2016. While those who seek to leave the EU have been honing their arguments at least since the 1993 Maastricht Treaty, just that they envisage leaving the EU to look like is unclear. Brexit could take many forms, representing a journey to an unknown destination.
CONSTRUCTION TIME AGAIN: HISTORY IN CONSTRUCTIVIST IR SCHOLARSHIP
In this article we seek to understand how succeeding generations of constructivists have invoked history to exact narratives of change within IR. We make the case that there is a move from a rst generation where history served primarily to undermine generalised and ahistorical mainstream arguments through a second generation where history was providing data to undercut speci c mainstream stories, replacing them with their own largely progressive stories, to a third generation where history is embraced for its own purpose, where history is seen as more open-ended and contingent. This has been a move from the general to the particular and from a meta-critique of the mainstream through accommodation with the mainstream, to a more localised opposition against the mainstream.
What's next for Europe?
How should the EU respond to the American ‘pivot’ – the strategic shift towards the Asia-Pacific?
STEAL Final Seminar: Global Wealth Chains and Tax Evasion
This seminar will present the findings of the project "Global Wealth Chains and Tax Evasion", and a discuss of the latest cases investigated
Legal Regimes and Women's Economic Agency (WomEcon)
The project's objective is to improve our understanding of how legal regimes and legal changes affect the economic agency of different subgroupes of women across the world...
Energy security in Northern Europe and the Baltic region
This roundtable seminar will discuss energy security in Northern Europe and the Balticum, the effects by the Ukraine conflict and how the new European Energy Union will impact energy security efforts.
Frozen Moments: Visualizing the Polity in Times of Overheating
We are living in a new epoch: the Anthropocene, where the world is overheated by human activity, driven too fast and filled too full, uneven and unequal. This collection explores the question of identity in this new world, looking at the consequences of rapidly accelerating change on social and personal identities and providing a concrete set of perspectives on how people conceive their selves and belonging in the twenty-first century. Featuring examinations of the Phiippines, Israel, Australia, the Cape Verde Islands, and Afghanistan, the book studies changes generated by rapid industrialization, forced return of migrants, sudden population growth, and the touristification of local cultures.
Policy options for sustainability and resilience in potato value chains in Bihar: a system dynamics approach
Potatoes are an important crop for food security in Bihar, providing significant income generating activities for participating farmers and an additional source of diet diversification for consumers. Recent reforms to the Agriculture Production Market Committee (APMC) Act and improvements in state-wide governance have provided further incentives for investment in the potato sector, particularly in cold storage facilities that can mitigate seasonal price fluctuations and improve the availability of potatoes. At the same time, climate change could have severe ramifications on the potato sector in Bihar, with some forecasts redicting a decline in yields of over 20 percent in the coming decades. In this paper, we look at the quantitative impacts over time of different investment, trade, and policy scenarios in the potato value chain, particularly those that can mitigate climate change effects, using a system dynamics model of the potato value chain that builds on previous qualitative studies (e.g. Minten et al. 2011). Preliminary results highlight that reducing storage costs, either through subsidies or increased competition, could reduce the price variability inherent with climatic shocks. On the other hand, encouraging conventional types of cold storage could have additional feedback effects that exacerbate climatic shocks, suggesting a need to consider “climate-smart” investments.