The Rhetoric of Hegemony : How the extended definition of terrorism redefines international relations
This paper looks at the rhetorical extension of the word “terrorism” to cover what used to be called guerrilla war, separatism, civil war, armed resistance and all other forms of political violence, down to and including non-lethal sabotage and vandalism. It begins by reflecting on how political power must be buttressed by legitimacy, which in turn involves the de-legitimisation of challengers. This is often achieved by assimilating political dissent to the “criminality” that by definition governments are created to combat. When governments use the term “order” to mean their own convenience, and the converse, this can effectively evoke the individual citizen’s fear of personally suffering violence, even when he is in fact more at risk from the government itself than from its critics. In much the same way, “terror” no longer means government violence against citizens (as in the 19th century), nor solely violence against civilians by dissident groups; it has recently mutated to mean any armed resistance to the party deploying the rhetoric, even in conventional military forms. The terrorist label is the ultimate delegitimising technique, which may be employed to mobilise metropolitan populations to support a globally-coordinated suppression of resistance to the new world order.
A Polanyi Perspective on Post-Communist Corruption
The paper seeks to explain the present high levels of corruption in the post-communist countries, i.e. the centrally planned economies where the communist party lost power as the outcome of a specific historical process where both the character of the former economic system as well as that policy shock itself played key roles. Among the possible explanatory factors the study focuses on the effects of production decline and the ‘monetarisation’ of the economy which started before the policy shock.
Norsk utenrikshandel, markedspotensial og handelshindre
Dette notatet drøfter norsk eksport og virkninger av toll som legges på norsk eksport til andre land. Notatet viser at uavhengig av toll er økonomisk størrelse og geografisk avstand viktige forklaringsvariable for norsk eksport. Derfor kan ofte betydningen av handelspolitikk overdrives. Analysen av virkningene av toll mot norsk eksport viser likevel at tollsatser bidrar til redusert eksport. Et disaggregert datasett viser klare og signifikante effekter av tollsatser i andre land. For enkelte land kan effekten av å fjerne toll være at eksporten øker med mer enn 20 prosent. Resultatene må likevel tolkes med forsiktighet: Ulike varer har ulik følsomhet for tollsatser.
Defusing a Ticking Bomb? : Disentangling International Organisations in Samtskhe-Javakheti
This article examines how various organisations divide and coordinate their conflict prevention and development aid in the Samtskhe-Javakheti region of southern Georgia, and how that coordination might be improved. There have been numerous early warnings of impending violent conflict and calls for conflict prevention in Samtskhe-Javakheti. Counter-claims have, however, been asserted that the region’s problem is in fact not one of potential violent ethnic conflict, but rather one of poverty and peripherality, and that exaggerated, uncoordinated early warning might in fact inflate conflicts that were not initially acute. At one point it seemed that the Samtskhe-Javakheti case would provide an example of uncoordinated and one-sided focus on conflict prevention and early warning on the part of international organisations, and its potentially detrimental consequences. An overview of the activities of the organisations, however, shows the contrary. A critical, sensitive and deconstructive perspective is already incorporated into their approach, and their activities are well coordinated. More formalised institutions are nonetheless needed to ensure the inclusion of large multilateral actors such as the World Bank and Council of Europe in the process, and consistent coordination in other regions too.
A Gap in OSCE Conflict Prevention? : Local Media and Inter-Ethnic Conflict in the Former Soviet Union
This paper argues that local media have been of great importance in the escalation of inter-ethnic conflicts in the former Soviet Union, and that conflict prevention by the OSCE in the region initially did not focus appropriately on media issues. During the past few years, however, media issues have increasingly come to preoccupy the OSCE, chiefly in connection with human rights issues and freedom of speech, but to some extent also as an element of conflict prevention. The importance of local media for OSCE conflict prevention is analysed in terms of the activities of the High Commissioner for National Minorities and Representative on Freedom of the Media, and OSCE annual reports.
Krig mot Irak : Foreligger det et FN-mandat for bruk av militærmakt?
Foreligger det i dag et folkerettslig grunnlag for bruk av militærmakt mot Irak? Spørsmålet står sentralt i den pågående striden i, og rundt, FNs sikkerhetsråd. Dette notatet gjennomgår historikken omkring Sikkerhetsrådets håndtering av Irak-spørsmålet siden Iraks invasjon av Kuwait i august 1990 og er oppdatert fram til ultimo februar 2003. Notatet konkluderer med at verken resolusjonene fra 1990 og 1991 (særlig S/RES/678 og 687) eller S/RES/1441 fra 2002 gir slik eksplisitt autoritet. Under forutsetning av at Sikkerhetsrådet ikke vedtar en ny resolusjon som eksplisitt autoriserer bruk av militærmakt, vil en invasjon av Irak knyttet til spørsmålet om masseødeleggelsesvåpen ikke være i samsvar med FN-paktens krav til legitim bruk av militærmakt. Det britisk-amerikansk-spanske utkastet til resolusjon som ble framlagt 24. februar 2003 vil, dersom det skulle bli vedtatt, innebære at det konstateres at Irak ikke oppfyller de forpliktelsene landet er pålagt i så vel våpenhvile-resolusjonen (S/Res 687) som de som følger av resolusjon 1441 fra november 2002, der det trues med «serious consequences». Et slikt vedtak kan medføre at våpenhvilen etter resolusjon 687 bortfaller, og at Sikkerhetsrådet konstaterer at Irak ikke har benyttet den «siste mulighet» landet ble tilbudt i resolusjon 1441. Men dette gir ikke medlemsstatene rett til å bruke makt – til dette trengs det en særlig autorisasjon.
Norges sikkerhetspolitiske utfordringer i nordområdene
I foredraget som notatet er en gjengivelse av, stilles spørs-målet om en av de sikkerhetspolitiske utfordringene for oss i nord kanskje ligger på det mentale plan hos oss selv. Det pekes på tilvente tenkemåter fra den kalde krigen som kan virke tilslørende i forhold til nye utfordringer. Blant annet vises det til den tillærte tilbøyelighet til å regne med NATO og alli-ert hjelp i tilfelle vi skulle råke ille ut. Samtidig vises det til at NATOs tidlig-ere så sterke fokus mot områdene i nord er borte og at alliansen i dag ikke bare er vesentlig endret, men at selve dens tilværelse også er mer utrygg. Spørsmålet reises om en av våre fremste utfordringer i nord er at vi risi-kerer å bli stående mer alene enn forutsett overfor enkelte andre utfordrin-ger som kan melde seg der. I tilknytning til dette pekes det på at den inter-nasjonale orden i en periode fremover nå kan bli sterkere preget av makt til fortrengsel for rett enn vi har vennet oss til.
Ways of improvement in the Russian labour market with emphasis on the shadow employment
The report discusses the main peculiarities of the Russian labour market, such as the relatively low unemployment, the prevailing shadow labour relationships and the overmanning in the public sector. The report is organised as follows. The first part aims to highlight the main aspects of the Russian labour market development and some peculiarities of the shadow employment in Russia. The second part presents the model, and applications of possible government policies for the labour market are discussed in the third part. The last part concludes.
Creating Security through Immigration Control: An analysis of European immigration discourse and the development towards a common EU asylum and imm...
The purpose of this report is to discuss the extent to which immigration has come to be perceived as a security threat by European Union (EU) policy makers. The manner in which immigration issues are presented by policy makers at the European level is assumed to have substantive implications for the choice of instruments in the area. A second purpose is therefore to discuss the extent to which the development towards a common EU asylum and immigration policy can be interpreted as security policy strategy. Increased immigration during the last few decades has coincided with increasing unemployment and economic restructuring in Western Europe. The issue of immigration became increasingly sensitive in the late 1980s after the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe, when a tide of illegal immigrants was expected to inundate the West. Today, images of ships loaded with refugees off the shores of Italy, or of trucks filled with illegal immigrants crossing the English Channel, have become disturbing, but no longer rare features of European newspaper headlines. The impression is that of Europe being ‘swamped’, and unable to deal with the hordes of people standing outside its gates wanting in.Since the aim of this report is to examine the change that has taken place in European perspectives on immigration, a study of political discourse will enable us to deconstruct a number of justificatory domains, which are supported by the members of the European policy community. The main hypothesis is that security considerations are clearly reflected in the establishment and development of asylum and immigration instruments following the Amsterdam programme. Another hypothesis is that the framing of immigration as a security threat has legitimised the introduction of objectives and instruments that have their origin in security policy. This is notably to be seen in the accession agreements with the Central and Eastern European applicant countries, as well in the so-called ‘partnership-agreements’ with immigrant countries of origin and transit. Having established the broader aim of this report, I propose two main and inter linked questions as the framework for the analysis: First: To what extent has the issue of asylum and immigration come to be seen as a security threat, and thus as a security matter at the EU level? Second: To what extent is the above question reflected in the objectives and instruments of the common EU asylum and immigration policy? Can the development towards a common EU asylum and immigration policy be called a security policy strategy?