scholarly journals Democratic Struggles in Challenging Times: Insights from Mongolia and Around the World

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Byambajav Dalaibuyan ◽  
Mathias De Roeck ◽  
Elizabeth Fox ◽  
Andrea Haefner ◽  
...  

This volume analyzes different facets of democratic struggles in these challenging times. Its first section addresses the democratization process in Mongolia, one of the least-studied cases of post-Cold War democratization. The second section broadens the analysis to cover democratic struggles in other parts of the world and considers in particular the governance of natural resources, which is a key concern for Mongolia and other countries that rely economically on the extractive sector. Its contributors are drawn from a range of different countries, disciplines and career stages. They use different approaches and methodologies in highly complementary ways to shed light on underexamined facets of democracy from a variety of perspectives.

Author(s):  
Mary Elise Sarotte

This book explores the momentous events following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the effects they have had on the world ever since. Based on documents, interviews, and television broadcasts from Washington, London, Paris, Bonn, Berlin, Warsaw, Moscow, and a dozen other locations, the book describes how Germany unified, NATO expansion began, and Russia got left on the periphery of the new Europe. Chapters cover changes in the Summer and Autumn of 1989, including the stepping back of Americans and rise in East German's confidence; the restoration of the rights of the Four Powers, including the night of November 9 and the Portugalov Push; heroic aspirations in 1990, including the emerging controversy over reparations and NATO; security, political and economic solutions; the securing of building permits, including money and NATO reform; and the legacy of 1989 and 1990. This updated edition contains a new afterword with the most recent evidence on the 1990 origins of NATO's post-Cold War expansion.


1998 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 81-106
Author(s):  
M. A. Muqtedar Khan

This paper seeks to understand the impact of current global politicaland socioeconomic conditions on the construction of identity. I advancean argument based on a two-step logic. First, I challenge the characterizationof current socioeconomic conditions as one of globalization bymarshaling arguments and evidence that strongly suggest that along withglobalization, there are simultaneous processes of localization proliferatingin the world today. I contend that current conditions are indicative ofthings far exceeding the scope of globalization and that they can bedescribed more accurately as ccglocalization.~H’2a ving established thisclaim, I show how the processes of glocalization affect the constructionof Muslim identity.Why do I explore the relationship between glocalization and identityconstruction? Because it is significant. Those conversant with current theoreticaldebates within the discipline of international relations’ are awarethat identity has emerged as a significant explanatory construct in internationalrelations theory in the post-Cold War era.4 In this article, I discussthe emergence of identity as an important concept in world politics.The contemporary field of international relations is defined by threephilosophically distinct research programs? rationalists: constructivists,’and interpretivists.’ The moot issue is essentially a search for the mostimportant variable that can help explain or understand the behavior ofinternational actors and subsequently explain the nature of world politicsin order to minimize war and maximize peace.Rationalists contend that actors are basically rational actors who seekthe maximization of their interests, interests being understood primarilyin material terms and often calculated by utility functions maximizinggiven preferences? Interpretivists include postmodernists, critical theorists,and feminists, all of whom argue that basically the extant worldpolitical praxis or discourses “constitute” international agents and therebydetermine their actions, even as they reproduce world politics by ...


Author(s):  
Fabrizio Coticchia

Since the end of the bipolar era, Italy has regularly undertaken military interventions around the world, with an average of 8,000 units employed abroad in the twenty-first century. Moreover, Italy is one of the principal contributors to the UN operations. The end of the cold war represented a turning point for Italian defence, allowing for greater military dynamism. Several reforms have been approved, while public opinion changed its view regarding the armed forces. This chapter aims to provide a comprehensive perspective of the process of transformation that occurred in post-cold-war Italian defence, looking at the evolution of national strategies, military doctrines, and the structure of forces. After a brief literature review, the study highlights the process of transformation of Italian defeshnce policy since 1989. Through primary and secondary sources, the chapter illustrates the main changes that occurred, the never-ending cold-war legacies, and key challenges.


2012 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-99
Author(s):  
Gaurav Kumar Jha ◽  
Amrita Banerjee

Despite long historical ties, post-colonial relations between India and Myanmar have fluctuated between magnanimity and mistrust. While India often stood for high moral grounds and promotion of democracy, it did so at the cost of losing Myanmar to China. This affected both India and Myanmar adversely: while New Delhi’s economic, energy and security interests were hurt, isolated Yangon became more China-dependent. However, since the early 1990s, domestic developments in Myanmar and post-Cold War structural changes in the world order necessitated conditions for cooperation and mutual gains. It appears that blatant domestic suppression in, and international seclusion of, Myanmar is not desirable. Having witnessed two eras of magnanimity and mistrust, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Myanmar in 2012 heralds a prospective era of market interdependence while opening Pandora’s box: can India get a better share of Myanmar’s commercial possibilities without compromising its core interests in promoting democracy, development and diaspora protection?


2007 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 849-888 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. SIDKY

The war in Afghanistan was one of the most brutal and long lasting conflicts of the second half of the twentieth century. Anthropologists specializing in Afghanistan who wrote about the war at the time reiterated the United State's Cold War rhetoric rather than provide objective analyses. Others ignored the war altogether. What happened in Afghanistan, and why, and the need for objective reassessments only came to mind after the September 11th attacks. This paper examines the genesis and various permutations of the Afghan war in terms of causal dynamics embedded in the broader interstate relations of the world system and its competing military complexes during the second half of the twentieth century and changes in that system in the post-Cold War period.


2021 ◽  
pp. 119-141
Author(s):  
Manjari Chatterjee Miller

Like China, the world began to see India as a rising power in the post–Cold War world. While today many would argue China has pulled away from India, in the 1990s, the two countries were comparable in terms of their economic and military development. In the post-Cold War world, thanks to domestic reforms, India’s economic growth took off at unprecedented rates. It continued to invest in its military, and also became a nuclear weapons state. But, as this chapter shows through two of its relationships, with the United States and with ASEAN, India remained peculiarly reticent on the world stage. And the narratives that accompanied its material growth remained entrenched in older ideas and inward facing ideas about nation-building.


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