Continue reading “Northern dogmatism damages European solidarity”
Ratchet or rollback? Explaining the consequences of IO emergency powers
Note: A first version of this article originally appeared in December 2019 on E-IR.
The past three decades have seen a considerable rise of political authority enjoyed by international organizations (IOs). At the same time, however, IO authority practically remains highly constrained. In everyday politics, disagreement among powerful states, legal hurdles, and general sovereignty concerns not only hinder discreet expansions of IO authority, but also impede its effective exercise more generally.
Yet, in times of global or regional crisis, windows of necessity and opportunity sometimes create conditions in which “leaps of authority” occur, as IOs intervene assertively in circumvention of legal or political constraints of normal times. Justified by exceptional circumstances, IOs may do something structurally very similar to what we know of national governments in the state of exception: they adopt emergency powers by expanding their executive discretion and interfering with the rights of their rule-addressees. This, at least, is what I argue in my new book Emergency Powers of International Organizations (EPIO).
Continue reading “Ratchet or rollback? Explaining the consequences of IO emergency powers”
Omid Nouripour: “The Iran Nuclear Deal is not dead yet”
According to Omid Nouripour, foreign policy spokesman of the Green Party in the Bundestag, just a small time window remains to save the Nucelar Deal with Iran. A failure to do so could result in a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. After the killing of general Qasem Soleimani and the Iranian announcement to resume uranium enrichment without restrictions, Europe has triggered the dispute settlement mechanism, allowing for possible negotiations until February 14th. But with Donald Trump pushing for a completely new agreement and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson siding with the U.S. president, cracks become visible in the European front. Read more in the whole interview in German here.
The Sudden Greening of Red-White-Red
Tunisia nine years after the revolution: the arrival of democracy?
Lawyers, Guns and Money: Illiberal Societies and the Rise of Crony Capitalism
[4×6/gettyimages]
There is an old rock station back in Boston which had a special knack for playing those lesser-known B side tracks. I am reminded of one, a late 70s pop song by Warren Zevon with the quirky title: Lawyers, Guns and Money. It chronicles the exploits of an English expat who finds himself ensnared by a Russian Mafioso after a late night gambling. Half way through the second stanza he sings ‘send lawyers, guns, and money!’ Partially for its whimsy refrain and partially because I happen to like obscure 70s pop, the track strikes me as the perfect namesake for a piece on the rise of crony capitalism.
Continue reading “Lawyers, Guns and Money: Illiberal Societies and the Rise of Crony Capitalism”
Interview: Siddharth Mallavarapu on postcolonial approaches in International Relations and the politics of knowledge
In this episode of our interview series, Lynda Iroulo talks to Prof. Siddharth Mallavarapu from the Department of International Relations and Governance Studies at Shiv Nadar University, Uttar Pradesh, India.
Listen in, as Prof. Mallavarapu shares his thoughts on the current state of International Relations, how global the discipline really is and how IR can profit from incorporating perspectives from the Global South.
[Photo: Siddharth Mallavarapu]
Find a short abridged transcription of the interview below or listen to the full one here:
Is Europe that hard to explain?
Public support for the European integration project can hardly be treated as given any more. Public opinion on the EU fluctuates heavily. Critical media reporting from and about Brussels increases. And Eurosceptic campaigns and parties flourish in most EU member states.
Both the public and the academic debates concentrate primarily on the strategies of the challenging actors in this regard. Yet, politicization is an interactive process. For the evolution of the debate about Europe, the political signals of the established actors are at least equally decisive.
For these actors – especially from governing or major opposition parties – political science mainly expects reluctant communication about European integration. The political ‘mainstream’ is expected to avoid internal partisan conflict on the EU while trying not to endanger supranational compromises. Thus clear political signals on the EU should be rare. Against surging public politicisation, however, this strategy is risky: a lack of competition about political alternatives within Europe may quickly lead to more fundamental opposition against Europe (for versions of this argument see here, here, here, or here). So, how do established political actors actually communicate on European integration?
Who is curtailing freedom?
[Photo: Kaja Smith]
The ancient Greeks and Plato had this idea of the philosopher kings. In their kingdom, the people enjoyed all freedoms and were governed by wise, benevolent rulers—and by them alone. In practice, this never happened because every supposedly benevolent ruler eventually came to a point where he saw his power under threat. If he is unwilling to share power, he cannot allow demonstrations, the founding of parties, or critical opinions. He needs to curtail the freedom of his citizens.
Today, autocratic tendencies are intensifying worldwide, with China under president Xi Jinping often being seen as a vanguard. The economic success of the People’s Republic has made autocracy a real option for some states. Even in the EU, where membership criteria prescribe a stable democracy, undemocratic values are experiencing a revival in states like Poland and Hungary, as well as in the thought of right-wing populist parties.
Paradoxically, in order to sustain their power, autocrats will resort to means usually associated with liberty and democracy. Take elections as an example. Virtually every autocratic state holds elections to uphold the pretense of participation, transforming people and opposition into accomplices. Whoever doesn’t play along becomes a target. A second example is internet access. In China, for instance, almost everything is being handled online. This renders life more convenient, but the state is eavesdropping, censoring, and intervening when it gets critical. Moreover, cooperation among autocracies has tightened. They join forces and help one another cope with sanctions.
The rise of autocracy has surprised many. After the fall of the Soviet Union, political scientist Francis Fukuyama proclaimed the “end of history”. He thought that sooner or later, every state on the globe will eventually democratize and people will live freely and in peace. Unfortunately, this turned out to be a premature assumption. It gives us a headache to think about the many people who still do not possess the right to speak and act freely. Our wish is to overcome the remaining autocracies one day. And to overcome them, we need to understand them.
Note: This text was originally published in the latest issue of Leibniz magazine. Read it in German here.
Is Global Health Research truly Global?
[fpdress/gettyimages]
At the turn of the millennium, France had the best healthcare system in the world, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), and it became a Global Health leader by contributing to setting up and funding key Global Health initiatives, such as UNITAID and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Almost two decades later, the government faces an unprecedented strike in the emergency services, while experts worried about the decrease in French expertise and influence in Global Health. France’s health leadership thus seems to be challenged both at the national and international level. This parallel is quite striking because, traditionally, the Global Health literature is blind to health development in donors’ countries. Rather it studies primarily interventions by high-income countries in the Global South. In this blog post, I want to understand how these domestic and foreign health issues can be related through an analysis of the French case.