Between mobile corridors and immobilizing borders: race, fixity and friction in Palestine/Israel

This article wrestles with the question of ‘national’ borders in racial capitalism. We do so through an examination of border and capitalist corridors. We focus particularly on the Israeli border, branded and then sold to the rest of the world by the epistemic community of border-makers and interlocutors. In tracking the Israeli border and showing the implication of the experts and their markets, we ask how the border reflects and is refracted through a global order organized by the twin dictates of racism and capitalism. We are especially interested in how racialized processes of bordering, ostensibly governed by national exigencies, are transplanted on to other contexts. Two points emerge from this: in the first instance, we ask who and what enables this movement of the border. And in the second, we interrogate which logics and practices are transplanted with the border, as it is reproduced and seemingly fixed in a new place. We examine the violent ontologies that give shape and reputation to Israel's high-tech border industry, which has become a model for the ever-growing global homeland security industry. We ask: has Israel's border become an exportable commodity and who are the actors who have enabled this ‘achievement’? Related to this, what sort of occlusions and structural violence does the fetishization of the Israeli border rely on?

The European Union – Japan Strategic Partnership in the Contested Global Order. External Relations of the EU in the Context of Economic, Normative and Security Framework

The aim of this article is to review the strategic partnership of the European Union-Japan in the context of the changing global order, exploring economic, normative and security dimensions. This leads to wider reflections allowing us to theorize international relations with regards to the concept of strategic partnerships. The research question concentrates on what the foundations of the strategic partnership between the European Union and Japan are, and how it answers the challenges in the three above indicated fields. The hypothesis is formulated from the perspective of strategic partnership theory. Methodologically, the work is based on the analysis of primary and secondary sources, as well as on qualitative methods implemented in the form of semi-structured interviews. The key findings reveal that the changing global order and international environment have pushed both partners to create a strategic partnership that has spilled over from economic relations to the normative, political and finally security fields.

Chinese Diplomacy Discourse in the Prism of the Relations with the Sub-Saharan Region

Chinese economic reforms initiated by Deng Xiaoping have given China the necessary push for the development and growth of the domestic economy. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) under Xi Jinping claims, that the originally planned transformation is completed, and China is ready for achieving new goals, such as first peripherical and, later, global dominance, leadership in manufacturing and technology and probably even the moral benchmark. The PRC presents a new model of global order with its active position as the super nation.Chinese current behaviour on the international stage is the direct illustration of the political thought of Xi Jinping. To understand the main principles and the vision of the PRC under Xi, his principles of diplomacy have been analysed.This paper claims, that the rhetoric of Xi Jinping and his administration is a neo-pragmatic approach, which includes nativism, anti-traditionalism and pragmatism within.The article takes as a case study for the implementation of the Chinese foreign policy the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) member states.Contrarily to the American dominance, China suggests guidance, collaboration with mutual benefits and growth, which involves both sides. “Shift in space” stresses the concrete steps for achieving the “China’s dream” of rejuvenation.

The Challenge of Taliban Ideology for International Politics: Religious Competition, Counterterrorism, and the Search for Legitimacy

This paper examines the Taliban vision of an Islamic polity posing a challenge to neighboring Central and South Asian states as well as more distant ones in Eurasia and the Middle East. As a potential magnet for militants across these regions, Taliban Islam represents an alternative to forms of piety and legal practice in states that have signifi cant Muslim populations and where each government claims some degree of religious legitimation and control over Islamic authority and interpretation. Author claims the Taliban ideology poses a dilemma to regional actors, too, in that it makes all parties who might cooperate with the movement vulnerable to criticism based on human rights discourse. At the same time, the presence of the Islamic State – Khorasan Province (ISKP) has permitted the movement the opportunity to seek to reframe its international standing and its relationship to violence. The Taliban have adapted their critique of ISKP to the claim that they share a counterterrorism mission with other governments, an assertion that allows the movement and its partners to defl ect criticism from various quarters and normalize relations with other states. Author concludes that, seeking international support, the Taliban have adapted their ideological claims to position the movement simultaneously as a competitor to other visions of militant jihadist politics and as a counterterrorist force laying the groundwork for the legitimation of their place in a rapidly evolving global order.