The Role of the Cyprus Issue in the Greek-Soviet Relations (1956-1960)

The article examines the role of the Cyprus issue in the bilateral relations between Greece and the USSR in 1956-1960. It is based on primal archival research realised at the Constantine Karamanlis Archive (AKK) and at the Diplomatic and Historical Archive of the Greek Foreign Ministry (DIAYE) in Athens. The analysis of the recently declassified documents relate to the events which took place in 1954, when the Soviet Union supported the Greek claims for self-determination of the Cypriot people in the United Nations on the basis of the anti-colonial principles. This contributed to the impressive increase in trade between Greece and the USSR, especially after the unofficial visit of the Soviet Foreign Minister D.T. Shepilov to Athens in 1956. Against the backdrop of the deterioration of the international situation in 1957, Kremlin heavily criticized NATOs decision to deploy the US Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles (IRBMs) in Europe and applied diplomatic pressures to NATO member-states including Greece. The shift from tensions to a peaceful offensive strategy, characteristic of the Soviet diplomacy towards Greece, proved to be a double-edged sword for Moscow in the long term. The author concludes that both countries exploited the Cyprus issue for their benefit. Thus, Moscow managed to take advantage of the Greek discontent with the NATO allies as a means of increasing its own prestige in the region, while the Greek governments capitalized on the Soviet tactics in order to increase its political leverage in confronting NATO on Cyprus.

Garrison state structure of Egypt and its implications for growth and development

Ever since Egypt’s independence in 1952, its military has enjoyed political leverage and patronage unparalleled to any other institution in the country. The domination of the military in the state’s civil apparatus can be deemed as a key factor that has undermined Egypt’s socio-economic growth and development. This paper, therefore, by employing Garrison State theory, formulated by Harold Laswell, aims to understand the ramifications of military domination on Egypt’s political economy. While examining its impact on the country’s macro-economy, the paper also examines the implication of military domination on Egypt’s socio-economic indicators, namely: health, education, income, and gender equality. Structuring the analysis on Amartya Sen’s schema of Development as Freedom, the paper concludes that diversification and democratization of the political structure are imperative to overcome the plight of underdevelopment in Egypt Keywords: Political Economy, Garrison State, Egypt, Military, Growth, Development, Freedom

Stones River

The Battle of Stones River and the capture of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, took place at a critical time in the Union war effort. The federal government needed to create battlefield victories to support the implementation of the Emancipation Proclamation, slated to go into effect on January 1, 1863. Despite a grueling campaign that the Federals nearly lost, they were able to deliver enough of a victory to provide that political leverage. The battle also strengthened ties between the Federal army that fought at Stones River and its government, while weakening the confidence felt by Southerners in their own army. After the battle, the Federals remained inert at Murfreesboro for six months. Their impact on the community and its region was enormous. Even though Tennessee was exempt from the Emancipation Proclamation, slaves in the area broke down slavery by fleeing to the Union flag at Murfreesboro.

Social movements and exchanges: Sketch of a theory

Using social exchange theory, this article presents a new theory for understanding the strategic choices made by social movement leaders—the “movement exchanges” theory. It looks at how leaders engage in exchanges of valued rewards with constituencies, institutional political players, bystander publics, and voluntary organizations. Leaders receive from these players important rewards (like committed activists, political leverage, and resources) for achieving movement goals. In turn, leaders make strategic choices (expressed in frames, tactics, targets, and claims) that other players find rewarding, favoring persistent exchanges across time. By considering movements’ simultaneous exchanges with several players, the theory makes sense of choices that remain puzzling for major movement theories. It also blends strategic behavior with culture (in the form of utopias, ideology, and emotions) but does not require the maximizing assumption of the homo economicus. I use the case of the contemporary Chilean student movement to illustrate the theory.

Corruption, Elites, and Power: An Overview of International Policy Efforts to Improve the Quality of Government

In 1996, the then president of the World Bank James Wolfenson stressed the malign effects of corruption on development, putting anticorruption on his institution’s agenda. Since then, the Bank and many other development institutions have focused on corruption and quality of government. This chapter reviews the different approaches taken to improve the quality of governments while fighting corruption: state structural reform, simplification and reduction of administrative discretion, transparency and accountability initiatives, international agreements and conventions, and specialized anticorruption bodies. This chapter reviews the effectiveness of these approaches and concludes that while there have been some successes, there is relatively little evidence of major improvement in aggregate levels of corruption. The reason for this lies in the political nature of corruption and the powerful incentives of elites to maintain the status quo. The limited impact of anticorruption efforts reflects the fact that the international donor community, often operating in an uncoordinated way, usually does not have the political leverage to shift these incentives.

Evolving Social and Political Dialogue through Participatory Video Processes

Spaces for social and political dialogue within communities and across social levels in inequitable contexts generally do not incorporate difference across community, or enable the most marginalized people to participate meaningfully. In this article, we propose that participatory video can contribute to building agonistic pluralism, namely a recognition of the unavoidable tensions between perspectives, and maintaining, rather than erasing, difference when working towards positive change. We draw on our comparable experience using participatory video methodologies to consider how it can be used to progressively build agency and deeper criticality, address difference across communities and to collectively construct political leverage.

Corporate Governance and the Environmental Politics of Shipping

A handful of companies dominate the world’s shipping industry. These firms have gained political leverage over the global governance of container shipping in particular. Intriguingly, in recent years the Danish conglomerate Maersk—the world’s biggest container and shipping vessel company since the mid-1990s—has been using its influence to push for higher environmental standards for the industry as a whole. To some extent these initiatives are helping to promote environmental efficiencies, cleaner fuels, and greener technology. But they are also raising costs for small and midsized companies with extremely low profit margins, further enhancing the competitiveness of the biggest shipping conglomerates in an increasingly oligopolistic market. While voluntary self-governance by companies such as Maersk is incrementally improving the environmental management of global shipping, it is also further concentrating governance power within a few transnational corporations, potentially taking more ambitious regulation off the agenda.

Market Power Politics

This book explores how market power competition between states can create disruptions in the global political economy and potentially lead to territorial aggression and war. When a state’s firms have the ability to set prices in a key commodity market like oil or natural gas, state leaders can benefit from increased revenue, stability, and political leverage. Given these potential benefits, states may be motivated to expand their territorial reach in order to gain or maintain such market power. This market power motivation can sometimes lead to war. However, when states are economically interdependent, they may be constrained from using force to achieve their market power goals. This can open up an opportunity for institutional settlements. However, in some cases, institutional rules and procedures can preclude states from reaching a settlement in line with their market power ambitions. When this happens, states may opt for strategic delay and try to gradually accumulate market power over time through salami tactics. To explore how these dynamics play out empirically, the authors examine three cases of market power competition in hard commodity markets: Iraq’s invasion and occupation of Kuwait to seize market power in the oil export market, Russia’s territorial encroachment into Georgia and Ukraine to preserve and expand its market power in the natural gas market, and China’s ongoing use of strategic delay and gray zone tactics in the South and East China Seas to maintain its dominant position in the global market for rare earth elements.

Political cooperation between Thailand and Russia: current trends and problems

The author studies such aspects of the topic as political cooperation between Thailand and Russia from 2014 till present. The concepts of national interests, the balance of power and neoliberalism are used as the analytical framework of the study. The current bilateral cooperation has positive dynamics in the political field which is demonstrated by the visits of the heads of government since 2015. These visits have led to the development of cooperation for the both countries in all aspects and dimensions. However, the political leverage hasn’t achieved the optimum level, and the cooperation between the two states faces particular problems. The author outlines some of them: first of all, political instability in Thailand affects cooperation. Several transformations in the government of Thailand, which had taken place from 2006 till 2014, as well as domestic problems caused by the coup, have affected the foreign policy of the country. The author arrives at the conclusion that the main factors, influencing Thailand-Russia relations, are the political and diplomatic mechanisms. High-level visits and bilateral discussions help deepen and strengthen the connections between the two states. Nevertheless, these relations will not progress if Thailand fails to solve its domestic problems.