African experiences and alternativity in International Relations theorizing about security

Deconstructing International Relations (IR) episteme acknowledges its generation of power imbalances in security knowledge that relegate African experiences to the margins of global politics. Central to this process of relegation is a pervasive ‘methodological whiteness’, which, while eliding coloniality and racism, projects white experience as a universal perspective. Accompanying this Eurocentric bias has been the intrusive projection of the Weberian state as the most effective site for security governance and conflict prevention on a continent with states that are characterized by a hybridity of political orders, which deviate substantially from the ideal-type state that they seek to mimic. Not only has this resulted in disastrous policies in many parts of Africa, but critical questions arise as to the relevance of conventional IR and security studies as neutral sites for dispassionate knowledge production and policy-making on African security, thereby necessitating alternative perspectives. This article reflects on the ways in which IR and security studies have been responsible, in part, for the production of a racialized mode of security knowledge generation that obfuscates the security policies and experiences of people in African locales. It draws on insights from post-colonial discourses and the episteme of alternativity to explore how the study of events and processes in Africa in a theoretically conscious manner could advance IR scholarship as a whole. It contends that incorporating African experiences as they manifest through hybrid security orders can broaden the empirical base for IR theorizing about security since they offer another perspective outside the conventional western assumptions and experiences.

EU ANTI-COVID POLICY IN THE WESTERN BALKANS

The pandemic generated by COVID-19 has brought new challenges for global politics. For this reason, the EU has been changing its policy towards the Western Balkans. The entire region is known to be engaged in the European integration process, which has received new issues associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, the «Team Europe» package was launched on April 2020 to support EU partner countries in response to coronavirus and its consequences. This programme includes the most vulnerable countries of the European Neighborhood Policy, Africa and the Western Balkans. The core task was to back the health system and the socio-economic recovery of the partner states. In addition, the distribution of vaccines against COVID-19, called as «vaccine diplomacy», has become a peculiar policy area. The EU is vigorously involved in this process, especially allocating funds to the COVAX program and its internal distribution mechanisms. Consequently, the purpose of this study is to analyze the effectiveness of the EU anti-crisis policy in the Western Balkans. The article deals with the initial measures implemented by the EU to aid the countries of the region. Moreover, the author touches upon the issue of the launching of the EU’s vaccine distribution process.

Tolerating Ambiguity: Reflections on the Schrems II Ruling

This paper considers the European Court of Justice’s Schrems II ruling from a variety of angles. From a strictly legal point of view, considering the GDPR, the CJEU came to a logical conclusion. In this paper, I nevertheless try to think about other ways of understanding the dispute and the ruling. In addition to data protection law, the case is about surveillance, platform power, resistance, global politics, data territoriality and the Court’s competence. These sensitive issues come forth when the strict data protection issues are set aside and a slightly more open analysis undertaken. In the end, however, the ruling does bring about real-life problems that pertain to data protection law. Transfers of data to third countries are a pressing problem that no one seems to know how to solve.

Global Political Landscape In The Time Of The Covid-19 Pandemic: Realist, Liberal, And Constructivist Perspectives

The vast majority of international relations scholars interpret world politics in the era of Covid-19 pandemic in accordance with realism by emphasizing on conflicts and the tendency of states to pursue their national interests. However, contemporary global politics shows complexity that cannot be understood from single perspective. This article seeks to interpret world politics in the era of Covid-19 pandemic using eclecticism approach by incorporating realism, liberalism, and constructivism. This article argues that the lanscape of global politics in the era of Covid-19 pandemic is characterized by three different features; conflicts and the pursuit of national interests, international cooperations based on the mutual benefit, and solidarity to help others dealing with the impact of Covid-19 pandemic. This finding implies that understanding international relations requires interperspective collaboration instead of debates and maintaing theoretical exclusivism.

Socioeconomic Changes in South Arabia in The First Half of The Sixteenth Century.

One of the world’s largest humanitarian crises that have been going on in Yemen for the last ten years has highlighted the growing tensions within its society. To better understand the rising antagonism between the North and the South, it is necessary to analyze the significant historic events that influenced the development of the Yemeni identity. For the inhabitants of South Yemen and Hadramaut, many of such events took place in the first half of the sixteenth century. The following article presents an analysis of these events focusing on the available Yemeni sources, especially the “Tārīkh al-Shiḥr wa akhbār al-qarn al-‘āshir”, the annals by Muḥammad b. ‘Umar al-Ṭayyib Bā Faqīh al-Shiḥrī (d. 17th cent. AD). The comparison of this chronicle with other sources reveals how the clash between Hadramaut, the Portuguese and the Ottoman empires, as well as an attempt by the Kathīrī Sultan Badr Bū Ṭuwairiq to establish a centralized South Arabian state, caused deeper integration of this region into global politics. Ironically, it was the Sultan’s loyalty towards the Ottoman Empire meant to ensure the rise of al-Shihr as one of the main trade centres of the Arabian Peninsula that soon contributed to its decline. Lastly, the sources reflect the spread of firearms that had an impact on the stratification of South Arabian society and gave more power to the tribes, allowing them to subjugate the sultans, thereby preventing the creation of a unified state in the following centuries.

Global politics, postcolonialism and cultural studies

Este artigo é uma tentativa de pavimentar o caminho teórico para substituir a política pelo político. Depois de ilustrar como as principais teorias de RI reificam o Estado como a forma dominante de subjetividade, eu exploro a ontologia de poder compartilhada pelos críticos desse modo de representação por meio de uma leitura da "analítica do poder" de Foucault: a representação jurídico-discursiva do poder, que é atribuída aos estudiosos convencionais, se opõe à representação do poder como produtivo, que acredito que os teóricos críticos compartilham. Ao ler A ficção do Imperialismo de Darby e Orientalismo de Said por intermédio das categorias foucaultianas de estratégia e tática, tento ilustrar como a configuração do poder como produtivo pode ser empregada para desestabilizar a figuração jurídico-discursiva. Esta é uma maneira de localizar onde os estudos culturais e o pós-colonialismo encontram a política global.

THE FOREIGN POLICY OF THE CENTRAL ASIAN COUNTRIES: THE RESULTS OF 30 YEARS OF DEVELOPMENT

After gaining independence in 1991, the Central Asian states, which had no experience in conducting independent foreign policy activities, began to build their own foreign policy coordinate system and develop its conceptual framework. Given their unique geopolitical position and diverse resource potential, the regional states preferred to pursue an open and multi-vector foreign policy, which allowed them to realize their national interests. With regard to the transformational processes in global politics and economy, as well as the geopolitical characteristics of their states, the political elites of the regional states have developed their own approaches to foreign policy. The article analyzes the doctrinal foundations of the Central Asian countries’ foreign policy, and the influence of global factors on the foreign policy formation of the regional states and intraregional cooperation.