scholarly journals Albania, a Stabilizing Factor in the Western Balkans Region Favored by Its Geostrategic Position

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 61-64
Author(s):  
Mirela Metushaj
Keyword(s):  
International Organizations ◽  
Former Yugoslavia ◽  
Small Country ◽  
Western Balkans ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Religious Conflicts ◽  
Difficult Time ◽  
The World ◽  
The Stability

Abstract Albania, a stabilizing factor in the region favored by its geostrategic position. Albania, being a small country in the world geography, but also in the regional one, has played a determining role in several historical moments after ’90 for its membership in the NATO, and after the membership in this organization it has played a role in guaranteeing stability and peace in the Western Balkans, and therefore in the international arena. It is a known fact that Western Balkans had and still has many ethnic, cultural and religious conflicts and has experienced various challenges which provoked the stability of the countries which, after a difficult time after the dissolution of former Yugoslavia, have been able to be independent and internationally recognized countries, aiming to become members of the NATO and EU, and for this reason they have been little prone to develop conflicts between them. Albania has proved to be always in favor of dialogue and stability in the relations between the states, with the main purpose of achieving the major aim for the Western Balkans to become a complete member in European and international organizations, as this would influence the vital and political improvement not only in some countries of the Balkans, but in the Balkans as a whole, especially in the economic aspect. What is the role of the geostrategic position of Albania in the region and elsewhere from the stability viewpoint?

scholarly journals Russia and the problem of Kosovo and Metohija

Balcanica ◽  
2007 ◽  
pp. 243-268
Author(s):  
Predrag Simic
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Western Balkans ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
South Ossetia ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
The Usa

Nearly ten years since the 1999 NATO military intervention against Serbia and the establishment of UN administration, Kosovo and Metohija has resurfaced as a topical issue in international politics, separating the positions of the USA and Russia, and becoming a precedent in international relations, possibly with far-reaching consequences not only for the future of the western Balkans but also for many territorial disputes worldwide. Russia has only recently pulled herself out of the years-long Chechnya crisis, and facing similar problems in her 'new neighborhood' (Abkhazia, South Ossetia Transdniestria), is among the countries that might be affected by this precedent. Secondly, with her bad experience in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, Russia has become sensitive not only to any disturbance in the balance of power in the Balkans but also to any change to the existing international order. Moscow has not forgotten that during the 1990s many Westerners saw Serbia as a 'metaphor for Russia' and that the NATO interventions against the Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina (1995) and against Serbia (1999) revealed Russia's weakness, sending her the message to give up her interests in the Balkans and Europe. Thirdly, diverging American and Russian policies on Kosovo and Metohija coincide with their strained relations over the deployment of an antimissile 'shield' in Poland and the Czech Republic, the war in Iraq, policy towards Iran and other issues currently at the top of the list of international problems. Fourthly, meanwhile Russia has managed to recover from the disintegration of the USSR and to consolidate her economic and political power in Europe and the world, owing above all to oil and gas exports, but also to the export of industrial products (military in particular). The precedent that an independent Kosovo and Metohija would constitute in international relations is therefore a test of Russia's role as a permanent member of the UN Security Council. She has found herself in the role of the defender of the fundamental principles of international law such as the inviolability of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the UN members.

Meta-Regulation of Private Standards: The Role of Regional and International Organizations in Comparison with the WTO

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Yoshiko Naiki
Keyword(s):  
International Organizations ◽  
World Trade ◽  
Regulatory Function ◽  
Soft Law ◽  
Trade Law ◽  
International Trade Law ◽  
Private Standards ◽  
The World ◽  
One Step

Abstract The rise and proliferation of private standards have been recognized in international trade law, and various concerns have been raised. Existing literature analyses how the World Trade Organization (WTO), particularly the SPS (Sanitary and Phytosanitary) Committee and the TBT (Technical Barriers to Trade) Committee, have responded (or cannot respond) to the proliferation of private standards. This paper goes one step further by focusing specifically on the meta-regulatory function performed by regional and international organizations other than the WTO. This paper sheds light on three types of governance techniques that can serve as meta-regulatory activities in relation to private standards by regional and international organizations: (1) governance by delegation; (2) governance by information; and (3) governance by soft law. This paper analyses features of these governance techniques and considers the relation between these governance techniques and the WTO's approach.

Is there a role for extraretinal factors in the maintenance of stability in a structured environment?

1994 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 258-258 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eugene Chekaluk
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
The World ◽  
Calibration Solution ◽  
The Stability ◽  
Perceptual Factors

The calibration solution to the stability of the world despite eye movements depends, according to Bridgeman et al., upon a combination of three factors which presumably all need to operate to achieve the goal of stability. Although the authors admit (sect. 4.3, para. 5) that the relative contributions of retinal and extraretinal factors will depend on the particular viewing situation, Figure 5 (sect. 4.3) makes it clear in its representation that the role of perceptual factors is relatively minor compared to extraretinal ones. It is with this representation that this commentary wishes to take issue, believing that it occurs as a result of some assumptions about terminology that may be ambiguous, as well as some misconceptions about the circumstances in which there is a need for stability.

scholarly journals The Second Most Difficult Job in the World

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 270-281
Author(s):  
Jan Klabbers
Keyword(s):  
World Health Organization ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Practical Wisdom ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
World Health ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Conflicting Demands ◽  
The World ◽  
Health Organization

This article addresses the ecology and functioning of the World Health Organization in a time of crisis, zooming in on the pressures on both the organization and its leadership generated by the circumstance that the organization cannot avoid allocating costs and benefits when taking decisions. The article argues that the covid-19 crisis illustrates how international organizations generally and the who in particular are subjected to conflicting demands, and how this impacts on the role of decision-makers. The latter, it transpires, need to display considerable practical wisdom.

Breakup of Yugoslavia Portrayed by Serbian Alternative Comics Scene - The Case of Aleksandar Zograf

2020 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 16-25
Author(s):  
Natalia Nowińska-Antoniewicz
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Former Yugoslavia ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Foreign Culture ◽  
The World ◽  
Comic Art ◽  
Scientific Standards

The article presents phenomenon of emergence of Serbian alternative comics scene during the period of breakup of Yugoslavia. The analysis is focused on anthology of works “Regards from Serbia” by Aleksandar Zograf who is considered the founder of the new direction in comic art. The works drawn over the nineties were portraying everyday life in Yugoslavia during its breakup. This period has been considered a strong taboo since and is not being willingly taken up by scientist from former-Yugoslavia what makes it difficult to gain knowledge that would meet scientific standards. Zograf’s comics were being published both in his country and abroad, what made them source of knowledge on situation in the Balkans of the world. In the article comic art is also being treated as anthropological evidence that enables understanding of foreign culture and processes related to attempts of rejection of the old ideological, moral, and axiological order.

Theories of International Relations and Northern Ireland

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Peace Process ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
Peace Processes ◽  
Middle Range ◽  
The World

The peace process in Northern Ireland is associated with the signing of the Good Friday or Belfast Agreement, the arduous and lengthy implementation of this Agreement, and the continuing sectarianism in Northern Ireland. Despite the numerous and various studies about this case, no collection of scholarly analysis to date has attempted to assess a wide variety of theories prominent in International Relations (IR) that relate directly to the conflict in Northern Ireland, the peace process, and the challenges to consolidating peace after an agreement. IR scholars have recently written about and debated issues related to paradigms, border settlement and peace, the need to provide security and disarm combatants, the role of agents and ideas, gender and security, transnational movements and actors, the role of religions and religious institutions, the role of regional international organizations, private sector promotion of peace processes, economic aid and peacebuilding, the emergence of complex cooperation even in the world of egoists, and the need for reconciliation in conflict torn societies. How do the theories associated with these issues apply in the context of Northern Ireland’s peace process? Theories of International Relations and Northern Ireland explores primarily middle-range theories of International Relations and examines these theories in the context of the important case of Northern Ireland.

The Cominform: A Five-Year Perspective

1953 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 368-376 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernard S. Morris
Keyword(s):  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
World Federation ◽  
Union Activity ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Actual Role ◽  
The World ◽  
Communist Movement

Five years ago the Comintern loomed once again as a spectre on the European horizon with the founding in Poland, September 1947, of the Information Bureau of the Communist Parties of the USSR, Bulgaria, Hungary, Rumania, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia (expelled June 1948), France, and Italy. It has since become both fashionable and convenient to identify the “Cominform” with all aspects of international Communist activity, ranging from the most general of policy directives to an isolated Communist-led strike. The indiscriminate identification of “Cominform” with international Communist activity provides the layman with a convenient stereotype which spares him the trouble of further inquiry. For the student of Communism, however, this lack of precision merely results in obscuring the actual role of the Cominform, as it is known to us, and more particularly, its function within the configuration of various covert and overt instrumentalities of the international Communist movement. To speak, for example, of a “Cominform” policy of collectivization or of a “Cominform” purge trial in the Balkans, or to suggest by “Cominform” the whole web of controls of national Communist parties maintained by the USSR is to ascribe a role and importance to the Cominform that it simply does not have. For without minimizing the importance of the function the Cominform has come to discharge, it may be said that its role is essentially that of a central, but by no means the most important, propaganda instrument of the international Communist movement, designed primarily to provide public guidance and information to the leadership of various national Communist parties. Thus Pravda and the USSR radio broadcasts furnish daily guidance to the international Communist movement, and the World Federation of Trade Unions is continuously engaged in attempting to bring trade union activity in line with Communist policy.

Shifting and sharing adjustment burdens: the role of the industrial food importing nations

1978 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 655-677
Author(s):  
Robert L. Paarlberg
Keyword(s):  
Food System ◽  
Food Policy ◽  
Burden Sharing ◽  
Trade Policies ◽  
World Food ◽  
Poor Countries ◽  
The World ◽  
The Rich ◽  
The Stability

Too often world food problems are viewed as North-South problems, as matters to be resolved between rich and poor. In fact, most world food trade takes place entirely among the rich. The industrial nations of the European Community, Japan, and the USSR import more food today than all of the poor countries combined. These industrial food importing nations make a dubious contribution to the stability and security of the world food system. In different measure, they seek to shift adjustment burdens onto others, to enjoy something of a free ride. All have subsidized production for export in times of world surplus, and all have stepped ahead of poor countries to purchase high priced imports in times of scarcity. To these burden-shifting trade policies, the USSR in particular adds its own troublesome nonparticipation in most multilateral efforts at world food policy management. Prospects for improved burden sharing in the future are dim. Fortunately, the world food system still gains most of its stability and security from separate production decisions within nations, rather than from collective storage, trade, or aid decisions among nations.

scholarly journals EEC and Yugoslav cooperation in the frames of modern international relations in Europe

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-55
Author(s):  
E. G. Entina
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Former Yugoslavia ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Western Balkans ◽  
Economic Relations ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
South East Europe ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Eu

Traditionally the phenomenon of the European integration towards South East Europe is regarded starting from the XXI century. The explanation for such a periodization are resolution of the open conflicts on the territory of the former Yugoslavia and implementation of the complex EU strategy for the region. Starting point of the majority of researches is the year of 2003 when the EU Agenda for the Western Balkans was started in Thessaloniki. The topic of EEC-Yugoslavia relations, SFRY having been first socialist country to institutionalize its trade and economic relations with Brussels, are unfairly ignored in domestic and foreign scientific literature. It is regarded solely as a chronological period of trade agreements. Nevertheless, this issue is of fundamental importance for understanding the current neighborhood of the European Union. The main thesis the author proves is that in the 1960s and 1980s as it is the case nowadays, the main imperative of Brussels' policy towards the Balkans was to prevent Moscow from increasing its influence. This led to the formation of a very specific format of relations with Belgrade and was one of the reasons why the economic crisis in Yugoslavia became extreme and its economy irreformable. In addition, at a later and structurally much more complicated stage of relations between the countries of the former Yugoslavia and the European Union the specificity and main components of relations of the Cold War period did not fundamentally change. As for the policy of so-called containment of the external actors one could see that besides Moscow, we can speak about similar attitude of the EU towards China. It makes it possible to consider the EU policy towards the countries of the former Yugoslavia in the paradigm of neoclassical realism, rather than in the paradigm of traditional liberal European integration approaches which allows us to unite neorealists elements with the specifics of internal processes, including the modernization of institutes, relations between society and state, types of political leadership.

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