Local Elites meet Foreign Corporations : The Examples of Iran and Azerbaijan
Oil companies have jumped on the bandwagon of promotion of democracy and human rights, but without sufficient expertise in local conditions. What works in one country may backfire in another. Azeri democrats want the oil industry to stop propping up the Aliev regime and talk to them instead, but for an Iranian democratic politician, support from Western oil companies is the kiss of death. However, in both countries democrats call for more transparency.
Keeping the peace together? Joint Russian-Western peace operations in the Commonwealth of Independent States
The purpose of this report is to discuss the conditions for future multinational peace operations in the Commonwealth of Independent States, including both Russian and Western forces. The aim and scope of this study are based on a positive attitude to challenges in general, in other words, a will to see opportunities and solutions instead of obstacles and insolvable problems. Problem: What are the possible options for multinational peace operations including Russian and Western forces in the Commonwealth of Independent States? I will focus on investigating possibilities for CPOs in the CIS area. Content: The report will consist of an initial discussion focusing on various Russian approaches that influence thinking on combined peace operations. The focus on Russia is an inevitable consequence of my West/NATO origin, but in order to give a more balanced view of the problem it will also be necessary to look at some other factors influencing this potential co-operation. Further, I will discuss three generic options for combined peace operations in the Commonwealth of Independent States. The main goal of this study is a detailed discussion of various possible scenarios for future Russian-Western co-operation in the field of peace-keeping on the territory of the former Soviet Union. In order to place the topic in a proper context the author takes a closer look at various political, mental, historical and not least purely technical determinants limiting the potential scope of the joint peace-keeping. The study contains a detailed analysis of international (UN), Western (NATO, Canada) and Russian peace-keeping terminology. It also discusses the importance and relevance of various international frameworks determining the field, the scope and the geographical dimension of the potential Russian-Western co-operation, as well as the practical experience from the joint peace-keeping missions in the former Yugoslavia. The study gives a good insight in the history and practice of joint Russian-Western peacekeeping efforts. It also outlines and analyses various practical and political challenges linked with development of this relatively new and still challenging field of co-operation between Russia and the West. As such, it is relevant for both theoreticians of peace-keeping and for those who work with peace-keeping in the field.
Selvforståelse og rolleforventning under ulike regimer : en studie av den russiske intelligentsiaens før og etter kommunismens fall sett i lys av...
Denne studien undersøker rollemønstre og selvforståelse som intellektuelle utvikler under henholdsvis et totalitært og et demokratisk regime. Mer bestemt rettes søkelyset mot den intellektuelle forstått som en samfunnskritiker, en som bidrar til dannelsen av en kritisk og våken offentlig sfære. Sentralt for studien er videre hvordan en gradvis overgang fra et totalitært til et demokratisk regime stiller de intellektuelle overfor nye og ukjente problemer med hensyn til å bli hørt og kunne delta i den offentlige debatt. Dette forholdet har berørt mange av de intellektuelle som var underlagt et kommunistisk system i Sovjetunionen og Øst-Europa. Her drøftes og analyseres hvordan den russiske intelligentsiaen har blitt konfrontert med demokratiets inntreden etter over 70 år med en sterk undertrykking av det frie ord og det sivile samfunn. Studien av intelligentsiaens skjebne gjøres med utgangspunkt i Zygmunt Baumans og Pierre Bourdieus kultursosiologi. Baumans bidrag er konsentrert om hans forståelse av det han definerer som en moderne (Sovjetunionen) og postmoderne (Russland etter 1991) samfunnstilstand og på hvilken måte disse tilstandene definerer intellektuelles roller og selvforståelse. Fra Bourdieu anvendes hans innsikter om intellektuelle som besittere av kulturell kapital og deres posisjon innenfor det han definerer som det sosiale rom. En av studiens hovedkonklusjoner er at sovjetregimet formet en selvforståelse og rolleforventning hos intelligentsiaen som la grunnlag for dens identitetskrise etter 1991.
Bulwark, Bridge, or Periphery? Polish discourse on Poland and Europe
After the Communist regime started crumbling in 1989, the official foreign policy of Poland has been redefined. A central characteristic in this process has been Polish involvement in the process of European integration and an application for membership in the European Union. These policies have not been undisputed in Polish political debates. Analyses of Polish European policy tend to concentrate on the official foreign policy of Poland and the strategies of cooperation and integration proposed by EU member states. What they seem to forget is that debates on Europe and what shape the relations between Poland and Europe should take exist within Poland as well. This thesis is an attempt to fill in this gap. What kind of Europe do Poles promote? This thesis argues that foreign policies are conditioned by the ways in which certain concepts are represented in discourse. Its purpose is to present you with an overview of the existing Polish European policy positions, analyze the representations on which they rest and, on the basis of the analysis, draw some conclusions about the preconditions of Polish European policies and make some tentative predictions for they may develop in the future. The purpose of the analysis is thus both explanatory and predicative. Discourses are closely related to the discourses that precede them. I believe that a background study of Polish discourse during Communism is an important background study in order to explicate the foundations of today’s discourse. I will therefore devote a considerable part of the thesis to the discourse of this period.
Security, integration and identity change
In this working paper Pernille Rieker attempts to contribute to a better understanding of both how the EU functions as a security system and what kind of impact the integration process has on national security identities. While security has always been the main reason behind the integration process, security and integration have usually been studied separately. Integration specialists have given more attention to economy than to security, and security experts have studied traditional security institutions and overlooked the EU. Rieker attempts to combine these two theoretical traditions by drawing on a combination of recent work on security communities and international socialisation. While the development in the Nordic countries will be used as brief examples in the final part of the paper, a more detailed analysis of these countries’ security identities will follow in a forthcoming study.
Mot demokratisk konsolidering i Russland? En studie av politisk kultur og demokratisering i det post-sovjetiske Russland