What are the Main Challenges to the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP)?
The European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) came into being in 2004 after the last round of accessions where decided. As the EU’s borders went eastward and southward, the EU came more and more into contact with areas of instability. The ENP thus is the policy aimed at stabilising the EU’s new neighbours through a normative agenda. This essay will look at the historical and institutional context in which the ENP appeared, what the ENP is and then assess the challenges that it faces.
Mechanisms Through which Involuntary Minorities are Socially, Economically and Politically Excluded
In order to discuss the mechanisms through which involuntary minorities are socially, economically and politically excluded primarily I am going to define the meaning of the term ‘involuntary minority’. Following this, a brief identification of the main direct and indirect mechanisms clarifies the direction of the discussion. To examine the mechanisms used I have selected three examples of involuntary minorities to focus on; Palestinians in Israel, black Americans in the U.S. and refugees/asylum seekers in Britain.
The Leverage of the OSCE and EU on Romanian and Estonian Minority Policies
This article applies and discusses a historical institutionalist approach and a contextual approach to domestic receptiveness in Estonia and Romania on minority issues to leverage applied by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the European Union. It concludes that in this case a historical institutionalist approach provides a better explanation of receptiveness and offers more predictive power. The historical dimension of the country and its minority issues is better discussed by this structural approach.
The Greed and Grievances of Canada and Nigeria
Through a comparison of oil governance in Nigeria and Canada as it relates to the two marginalized communities within these oil-wealthy countries: the Ogoni, of Rivers State in the Niger Delta and the Lubicon Cree of Northern Alberta, the main thesis of this paper argues that even in countries as different as Nigeria and Canada, once they have been stripped of factors that are external to oil production and focusing only on the most vulnerable peoples and regions, oil governance conflicts with marginalized communities through a structural violence unconvincingly justified by an economic benefit for the greater public good. In making this comparison the examination of oil governance necessarily includes three parties as identified by discourse theorists Abiodun Alao & ’Funmi Olonisakin (2000) and James Fearon (2005): the governments, the communities and the industry.
¡Viva Pacha Mama!* NAFTA’s Role in Mexico’s Indigenous Crisis
The paper will proceed in four parts. First it, will briefly explore the general situation of Mexico’s Indigenous peoples. This will be followed by a discussion of the effects of NAFTA on the agricultural sector, paying close attention to the case of corn as it relates to the plight of Indigenous peoples. Third, it will explore the connections between the degradation of the agricultural sector, migration and Indigenous communities. Finally, it will conclude with a brief examination of the major resistance movement that opposes NAFTA in the name of Mexico’s Indigenous peoples, the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) of Chiapas, and look at the human rights abuses that have occurred in connection with this uprising.
The Sixth Year of a Fifteen Minute Change: Mexico’s Indigenous since Vicente Fox
As this paper will argue, despite revamping of programs, creation of institutions and rebranding Mexico as a “pluricultural” and “multilingual,” (Comisión Nacional para el Desarrollo de los Pueblos Indígenas, 2006—herein cited as CDI, 2006) [5]the Fox government has failed to improve the lives of the country’s first peoples. At best the new policies, inspired by neo-liberal views of development, encourage continued cycles of dependency. While in the worst cases, they function directly in conflict of the Accords.
NAFTA’s Chapter 11
When the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was negotiated between Canada, the United States, and Mexico, Chapter 11 of the treaty was included to protect investors from state appropriation or ‘taking’ and, in theory, requires that the same treatment be given to foreign companies as domestic companies. In American law, the Fifth Amendment to the Bill of Rights prevents the government from seizing private assets without due compensation. A ‘taking’, also referred to as eminent domain in Californian law, is a legal principle that governs how and why the federal, state, or local government can ‘take’ private property.
New Constitutionalism: Theorizing European Integration
In “Theorizing European Integration: The Case for a Transnational Critical Approach,” Apeldoorn, Overbeek, and Ryner argue that orthodox approaches to European regional integration, such as realism, liberalism, constructivism, and traditional Marxism, overlook the diffused power of elite consensus. They believe Neo-Gramscian approaches can reveal the agency of elite interests, and their formation of a neo-liberal hegemonic bloc supporting integration schemes. Stephen Gill has applied this perspective to explain regional integration schemes with the theoretical framework of New Constitutionalism. Yet other Neo-Gramscians contend that New Constitutionalism is pessimistically determinist, focusing solely on the agency of a liberal elite while overlooking the agency displayed by progressive social forces in formulating regional integration policy.
To What Extent has the ‘War on Terror’ Affected the PRC Government’s Handling of the Northwest Uighur Muslim Population and its Campaign for an Independent State of East Turkestan?
The events of September 11th 2001 (hereafter 9/11) and the ensuing ‘War on Terror’ had profound ramifications for governments worldwide, influencing both international and domestic policy and engendering a reinvigorating and defining phase in global geopolitics. Within this framework, it is proposed that 9/11 impacted palpably upon the PRC (People’s Republic of China) government’s policy toward ‘its’ restive Uighur Turkic Muslim minority in the northwestern border province of Xinjiang.
‘NAFTA was signed because it made political sense’. Discuss.
This essay will begin with a detailed analysis of how NAFTA fits into the concept of regionalism and addressing the international political economy theories that inform it. It will then move on to a thorough critique of the economic and political motivations of the United States, Canada and Mexico and the theories that explain them, before bringing the NAFTA debate up to date with a brief summary of where we stand now. It will argue that NAFTA primarily serves an economic function, but was brought about by a ‘confluence of many factors’ which helped to shape NAFTA into the free-trade agreement that today appears irreversible.
