Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luis Cabrera
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
Moral Purpose ◽  
Moral Orientation ◽  
Institutional Reforms ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Institutional Order

Is a global institutional order composed of sovereign states fit for cosmopolitan moral purpose? This question has lain near the heart of cosmopolitan thought at least since Kant’s interventions of the 1780s and 1790s. Kant seemed torn between supporting large-scale global institutional reforms—the creation of a world republic—and promoting a more modest transformation of states and their interrelations within a voluntary union. Likewise, in the more recent flowering of cosmopolitan thought, dating to the 1970s and intensifying from the immediate post–Cold War period, a persistent question has been whether states can be ascribed duties consistent with a cosmopolitan moral orientation, or whether, as Harold Laski memorably put it in 1925, state sovereignty is simply “incompatible with the interests of humanity.” Such institutional questions are central to this volume. This chapter introduces the major themes examined here and summarizes each author’s contribution.

Conclusion

2019 ◽  
pp. 240-254
Author(s):  
Edward M. Geist
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
The United States ◽  
Civil Defense ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Historical Evolution ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Cold War

This conclusion describes some general findings about the historical evolution of civil defense in the two superpowers over the course of the Cold War. Neither U.S. nor Soviet officials regarded their civil defense efforts as successful, but the shortcomings of the programs appear to have resulted from domestic political obstacles rather than technical, strategic, and budgetary considerations. In the United States, Congressional opponents blocked large-scale funding for civil defense before its unpopularity with the general public became a crippling obstacle. In the Soviet Union, ideological strictures simultaneously impelled the development of civil defense yet undermined its plausibility. This chapter also makes some observations about post-Cold War developments in U.S. and Russian civil defense and their possible policy implications.

Russia Before and After Crimea

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
State Level ◽  
Russian Society ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
Before And After ◽  
News Headlines ◽  
East West

Explores the momentous changes that have taken place in the Russian national identity discourse since Putin’s return to the presidency Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 marked a watershed in post-Cold War European history and brought East–West relations to a low point. At the same time, by selling this fateful action in starkly nationalist language, the Putin regime achieved record-high popularity. This book shows how, after the large-scale 2011–2013 anti-Putin demonstrations in major Russian cities and the parallel rise in xenophobia related to the Kremlin’s perceived inability to deal with the influx of Central Asian labour migrants, the annexation of Crimea generated strong ‘rallying around the nation’ and ‘rallying around the leader’ effects. The contributors to this collection go beyond the news headlines, focusing on aspects of Russian society that have often passed under the radar, such as intellectual racism and growing xenophobia. These developments are contextualised by chapters that provide a broader overview of the latest developments in Russian nationalism – both state-level nationalism and independent, bottom–up-driven societal nationalism, and the tensions between the two are explored.

Are Digital Technologies Transforming Humanity and Making Politics Impossible?

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 209-223
Author(s):  
Jonathan O. Chimakonam ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Social Identities ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
The Public ◽  
Digital Space ◽  
The People ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Digital Identities

My question in this paper is whether digital technologies transform humanity and make politics impossible. Digital technologies, no doubt, are revolutionary. But I argue that what they have done in the Post-Cold War era are: (1) to further contract the spaces between politicians and the people; (2) transform actors from subjects to objects, such that we may in addition to social identities, talk about digital identities; (3) relocate the public sphere from squares to ilosphere where individuals are granted enormous expressive powers but at the same time become vulnerable to large scale manipulations; (4) and escalate the tools of politics. My argument will be that digital technologies in a subtle way are transforming humanity in the digital space and that this might have costly moral consequences not only in politics generally but specifically in liberal democracy. However, I will contend that this transformation of humanity does not make politics impossible; it only escalates it with troubling consequences like those we saw in the 2016 American presidential election.

ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT RESEARCH IN GERMANY: RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT

2015 ◽  
Vol 17 (01) ◽  
pp. 1550010 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHANN KOEPPEL ◽  
GESA GEISSLER
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Environmental Assessment ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Case Study Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Theory Building ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Study Research ◽  
Assessment Research

This paper aims to provide an overview of German Environmental Assessment (EA) research over the recent decades. Likely reasons for previous developments as Germany's post-Cold War challenges, ongoing case study research endeavours and further prospects are outlined. This involves research on large-scale SEA making, an enhanced EA theory building and a move towards "best available science" research. Last but not least, a stronger research oriented conference series is proposed.

scholarly journals From Land-Locked to Land-Linked?

2021 ◽  
pp. 37-56
Author(s):  
Ashley Scott Kelly ◽  
Xiaoxuan Lu
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Political Transitions ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Mekong Region ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Historical Periods

AbstractThis chapter, From land-locked to land-linked? Laos within a continuum of connectivity in the Mekong region, constructs a history of infrastructure-building in Laos understood through economic connectivity. This chapter challenges the dominant narrative of a de-historicized, often linear progression from land-locked to land-linked or from isolation to integration by contextualizing the contemporary imaginations and developments of Laos within the broader social, economic and political transitions across the Mekong region. We examine the malleable identities of “Laos,” “border” and “infrastructure” in the strategic importance of the Mekong region and the struggles to control and reshape its interconnectivity, especially during the period between colonial-era obscuration and more recent revitalization of the Southern Silk Road. Rather than comprehensive or strictly chronological, this chapter focuses on three loosely defined historical periods: the colonial period from the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth century, the Cold War period from the mid-twentieth century to late 1980s, and the post-Cold War period from the late 1980s until the present day. We ground the distinct histories of these periods in discourses specific to their times and places, each with their own geographic conception of the Mekong region and particular combination of socioeconomic and geopolitical imperatives driving investment in large-scale infrastructure projects.

The Turbulent 1990s

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas G. Weiss
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
Policy Debate ◽  
Current Policy ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
History Of ◽  
Policy Problems ◽  
Current Reality

The responsibility to protect is central to the current policy debate on humanitarian intervention in war zones, and so it is instructive to explore its immediate post-Cold War origins in the decade preceding the December 2001 release of the report by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty. The history of the turbulent decade of the 1990s is essential to understanding the normative and policy problems that the Commission was trying to resolve as well as the remaining contestation that surrounds coming to the rescue of civilians caught in the throes of war. This chapter provides a sense of the practical and political problems that animated the development of R2P along with the distance yet to be covered to make mass atrocities an unpleasant memory instead of an ugly and continuing current reality.

Managing the world: the United Nations, decolonization, and the strange triumph of state sovereignty in the 1950s and 1960s

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva-Maria Muschik
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Public Affairs ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
The Public ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Capitalist World ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Work Done

AbstractThis article examines a 1956 United Nations effort to respond to decolonization, by supplying newly independent governments with international administrators to help build sovereign nation-states out of the disintegrating European empires and anchor them firmly within the capitalist world. The article reveals the UN as a significant historical actor during the Cold War beyond the organization’s function of providing a forum for intergovernmental debates and lobbying. While the initiative never resulted in a large-scale response to decolonization, it ultimately effected a substantial shift in the practice of development assistance: from advisory services to a more paternalist approach that focused on ‘getting the work done’ on behalf of aid recipients. Recovering this history helps account for the strange triumph of state sovereignty in the second half of the twentieth century: its global proliferation at a time when international actors became increasingly active in the management of the public affairs of developing countries.

Japan Embraces Internationalism: Explaining Japanese Security Policy Expansion through an Identity-Regime Approach

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 589-613
Author(s):  
BHUBHINDAR SINGH
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Collective Identities ◽  
Institutional Reforms ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Cold War

AbstractThe paper examines the domestic politics explanations to Japanese security policy expansion between the Cold War and post-Cold War periods. In response to the various explanations offered in the literature, such as the implementation of administrative and institutional reforms since 1994 that resulted in the centralization of the decision-making process, changes to the balance of power of political parties within the Japanese political system, and shift in the type of politicians that dominate the LDP, opposition parties and security policymaking structure, this paper argues that it is important to incorporate collective identity into understanding Japanese security policy expansion. Two reasons highlight the importance of collective identity – first, without collective identity, it is difficult to understand the type of security policy produced as the discussion of vision is omitted; and, second, collective identity reveals the organizational make-up of the security policymaking structure that is responsible for the formulation of security policy. To explicate the collective identity–institution relationship, this paper focuses on Japanese security identity and the Japanese security policymaking regime in the Cold War and post-Cold War periods. Two security identities for Japan are examined – the peace-state and international-state; and three elements of the regime are studied – the agents involved or marginalized in the security policymaking process, the decision-making structure of the security policymaking, and the role of the US. This paper aids in our understanding of how collective identities are sustained and supported within an institution, and how Japanese security policy expanded in the post-Cold War period.

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