Issue 2008 - Volume 2, Issue 2

Issue 2:2

Patrycja Podrazik

Who Really Lost the Georgian War?

The media coverage of Russia’s recent military intervention in Georgia has been intense. Moscow justified its early August attack on its Caucasian neighbour as a “peace enforcement” operation and an attempt to protect Russian citizens living in the breakaway republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. What is striking in many commentaries and analyses is the fact that they repeat the same odd assertion that, firstly, the US and the EU showed a weak resolve in responding to the…

Issue 2:2

Marie Homerova

Personal Experiences from the Years of 'Late Normalization,' 1980s: Study at SS Cyril and Method's Theological Faculty in Litomerice

Nearly 20 years after the Velvet Revolution, and the Czech Republic (among other neighbouring post-communist countries in Central Europe) has begun to expose its recent history for public consumption. Archival documents and memories of the contemporaries have often caused upheaval widely covered by the press in these countries. One of the most current topics concerns the collaboration of religious denominations with the Communist regime. In 1948, after the Communists - atheist by nature -…

Issue 2:2

Miroslava Filipovic

Cross-Cutting Issues in International Capital

For many decades, particularly since the 1970s, markets have been praised as the most effective economic mechanisms, and the more market actors there are, the better the mechanisms work, making the world economy an ideal stage for the interplay of market forces. Different streams of liberalism and the ideas stemming from them, have emphasized the critical importance of unrestrained market functioning for the overall well-being of individuals, states and probably the global economy as a whole. …

Issue 2:2

David Erkomaishvili

Collective Security and Unilateral Decisions - Security Prospects for the post-Soviet Space

Unlike anywhere else within the international community, the post-Soviet space (pSs) is unique since the states within it are bound together not only because of common history and culture, but also due to political geography and largely uniform self-perceptions. The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) – the cultural, political, economic and security successor of the USSR – has important and even a strategic advantage over comparable organizations such as: Le Francophonie, the Commonwealth…

Issue 2:2

Liyan Hu and Ter-Shing Cheng

China's Energy Security and Geo-Economic Interests in Central Asia

Energy security, a relatively new term in international relations jargon, implies states (or other political communities) securing adequate and reliable energy supplies at stable prices. Currently, this involves securing so-called primary energy supplies which include, coal, petroleum, natural gas, hydro-electricity as well as a variety of other, alternative resources. A large proportion of primary energy is converted into electricity and indeed, the more advanced an economy, the larger the…

Issue 2:2

Scott Romaniuk

The Russian Minority in Post-Communist Politics: a Case Study of Ukraine, Moldova and Chechnya

From the moment the republics of the Soviet Union proclaimed their independence in 1991, the face of the Soviet ethno-cultural demographic changed significantly. Soviet dissolution was the primary expedient for the creation of the Russian diaspora, as twenty-five million Russians found themselves located in freshly created states that were re-designed as their new political homelands. In due course, displaced Russians were forced to either return to the newly created Russian Federation, or…

Issue 2:2

Sarka Matejkova

Establishing the Norm of Humanitarian Intervention in International Relations

International relations are presently in the midst of impressive change. Whether discussing traditional geopolitics, political and economic globalisation, international institutions, the rise of religious extremism, energy security, or enviro-politics, it is sure that the 21st century offers new challenges, and thus presents international relations scholars with new problematics to consider and address. The changing characteristics of violent conflicts require new approaches to their resolution…

Issue 2:2

Abubakar Siddique

Pakistan at 61: An Assessment of Challenges and Opportunities

Sixty-one years after its independence in 1947, Pakistan still faces fundamental questions of identity, governance, state and nation-building. Despite being the only nuclear-armed Muslim country – raising Pakistan’s international political importance – more than one third of the Pakistani population still lives in extreme poverty. Despite a few years of impressive economic growth, bankrolled by the international community following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against the US,…

Issue 2:2

Mohammed T. Obidallah

Water and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict

Economically, the Middle Eastern region is primarily agricultural, which is being practiced in an arid and desert-like environment. Water is a highly politicized and naturally scarce resource in the region, and there have always been conflicts over the ownership and use of water resources. Modern history has shown that even as water supplies in the Middle East are limited, unequal use and overuse of water resources by Israel has hindered development and peace between Israel and Palestine, as…

2019 - Volume 13 Issue 2

Borderlines, Natural Resources and Conflicts: Towards a…

This article seeks to examine the phenomenon of boundary disputes in East Africa. By way of a case-study approach, guided by the theory of territorial materialism, the study posits that the ‘colonial causation’ narrative, exemplified in the ethnic partitioning/disintegration hypothesis, does not…

Regionalism in World Politics: Interrogating the Relevance of…

Globalisation has promoted the connections among sovereign states in the international political economy. Despite the preponderance of neo-protectionist tendencies in the United States and some European countries, the import of regionalism in global political economy has not waned. While economic…

Modi’s Cultural Diplomacy and Role of Indian Diaspora

Ever since Prime Minister Narendra Modi came into the helm of affairs, he has stressed the role of the Indian Diaspora in Indian foreign policy making because he had realized the importance of the Diaspora in his development strategy. More than 25 million members of the Indian Diaspora are…

Comparative Analysis of the Hybrid Tactics Application by the…

The essence and main characteristics of the hybrid war are reviewed as a means of destroying the enemy country from inside due to the effective combination of conventional armed forces, subversion, propaganda, and dissemination of misinformation. The hybrid tactics used by the Russian Federation in…

The ‘War on Drugs’ Concept as the Basis for Combating Drugs in…

The article attempts to critically evaluate a controversial transnational phenomenon in the Western hemisphere, known as the ‘War on Drugs’. Started by Richard Nixon to regain the support of his electorate, it has continued to dominate anti-drug policies in the Americas until now. In this article,…

Kinds of Democracy: New Models of Federal Republics and Multi…

In “Kinds of Democracy,” I vary the kind of democracy across levels in multi-level governments and federations. Varying the kind of democracy from level to level produces new competitive structures (and also new kinds of political complexity), such as producing opportunity structures for political…