Volume 1, Issue 1
EU Counterterrorism Policy and the 2004 Eastern Enlargement
Oldrich Bures
The European Union’s counterterrorism policy can be traced to the early 1970s, when the European Political Cooperation (EPC) came into being. The initial impetus for greater intergovernmental cooperation among Member States was the growth of terrorist incidents perpetrated by indigenous Western European as well as Middle Eastern organizations in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Conscription and European Security: A Theoretical First-Step
Mitchell A. Belfer
In the 18 year process of European reintegration, military conscription - as a feature of the European political scene - has largely vanished. The evaporation of sizeable, conscripted militaries reflects the widespread belief that conscription is a political, economic and military anachronism reminiscent of times of great continental insecurity and international militarism which are no longer considered valid sources of European identity.
The Privatization of Peace: Private Military Firms, Conflict Resolution and the Future of NATO
Rouba Al-Fattal
The end of the Cold War marked the beginning of a new world order and an end of regional strategic patronage of superpowers. Withdrawing support to client regimes created a power void that prompted developing countries – which previously relied on major powers for their security and stability – to look somewhere else to provide them with (at least) their military needs.
Demos and Ethnos: Dangerous Democratisation in Pre-Genocide Rwanda
Marie-Eve Desrosiers
The last decades of the twentieth century witnessed a worldwide wave of democratisation. In Sub-Saharan Africa alone, twenty-one states had, by 1990, embarked on a process to liberalise their political arena, leading to the ousting of eleven authoritarian leaders. The democratisation process in many of these countries was the result of a combination of internal contention and international pressures.
Humanitarian Intervention, Dirty Hands, and Deliberation
Charles A. Robinson
Let's begin with a short exegesis of humanitarian intervention couched in terms of just war theory (JWT), in order to establish some practical and moral guidelines for the former. Of course, these criteria of action are meant as relatively specific and tight practical and moral constraints for the purposes of establishing the legitimacy of wars before, during, and after conflict and/or humanitarian intervention.
Search for a European Identity – Psycho-Sociological Perspective (An Attempt at Agency Approach)
Karel B. Muller
Many authors distinguish between collective and individual identity, or between the collective and individual dimensions of identity (e.g. Calhoun 1994, Taylor 1989). At first glance it seems quite obvious that European identity is a collective identity or a collective dimension of identity. On closer inspection we find that both identities (and its dimension) are bound together and both are a part of personal, subjective identity.
EU Official Development Aid to the Palestinian Authority and the Rise of Hamas
Jaroslav Petrik
The economic situation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip is to a large extent determined by its security condition. Given that a considerable part of Palestinians work on Israeli territory, the 2000 intifada followed by the closure of the borders, stringent checkpoint controls and eventually leading to the construction of a security barrier physically barring Palestinians from crossing to Israel outside regular checkpoints, brought a 16 % increase in unemployment and 33 % drop in average per capita income by 2003.
The Political Cartoon and the Collapse of the Oslo Peace Process
Ilan Danjoux
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has long been challenging to researchers. The nature of the conflict appears, at times, to defy both the material interests and strategic rationality of the warring parties. The struggle has been described as possessing a primordial intensity, unpredictability and elusiveness that weighs heavily on academic research.
See also Comment&Analysis articles or visit Archive
