Post-war European Integration: How We Got Here
The principal factors driving European integration were the desire for internal stability, the need to project a significant voice on an international stage, and the external security concern of Communism perched on Europe’s eastern doorstep.
Why Have Far-right Parties Been More Successful in Some States Than Others?
From Hungary to Norway, far-right parties have made electoral gains across Europe; quadrupling their average share of the vote in recent decades
Can the EU Foster a Post-national European Identity by the Extension of European Constitutional Rights?
Constitutional patriotism carries several threats. It imperils the meaning of rights, making them too dogmatic or too universal. In the latter case it disconnects them from institutions, in the former it alienates those with a minority identity.
The 1989 Tiananmen Challenge
The 1989 Tiananmen event presented the strongest challenge to the CCP’s monopoly of power. Although the CCP still hold dominance in Chinese politics, the influence of the media and the high number of participants and methods used by the protesters were all factors contributing the high level of reaction from CCP leaders.
Social Policy in Post-Reform China
This essay analyses the extent to which social policy reform in China contributed to the overall human well-being of the Chinese citizen. The analyses will focus on the social policy reforms in the two sectors of healthcare and housing. The analytical categories used for assessing human wellbeing are borrowed from the analytical framework used by Chak Kwan Chan and Graham Bowpitt.
Critically assess the decision to go to war against Iraq in 2003
The decision for the United States and Britain to go to war with Iraq in 2003 was, and remains, one of the most controversial foreign policy acts that any British government has undertaken. This essay proceeds to compare and contrast the various aspects of the Just War Theory with the causes and outcomes of the war against Iraq in order to determine whether the war conforms to the theory.
What role does the AIDS pandemic play in accounting for poverty in sub-Saharan Africa?
This paper will highlight the significance of the AIDS pandemic in South Saharan Africa and assess the linkages between HIV/AIDS and poverty, both at a macro and micro level. It will argue that the dynamics of the epidemic are a cause as well as a symptom of poverty and underdevelopment in the region.
Was the European student movement of the 1960s a global phenomenon?
The anti-conformist student movement was indeed a global phenomenon, even though there are still some sociologists that support the idea that the protests were only movements of university students, and small minorities of young people that had little to do with higher education.
American Federalism and Post-1997 Devolution in Britain
The amalgamation of state and federal powers, the increased capacity of the central government to control the states through grants and mandates and the growing convergence of central and peripheral policy are all features of the competitive interdependence form of federalism that can be seen reflected in the new devolved British governmental structure.
Why is the Concept of Preventive War so Controversial in World Politics and how is it Dissimilar to the Idea of Pre-emption?
“One can never anticipate the ways of divine providence securely enough” to declare war because one held a belief of the future hostile intent of one’s adversaries, remarked Otto von Bismarck in 1875. Such arguments have surrounded the concepts of preemption and its illegitimate counterpart – prevention – long before the inception of the controversial Bush Doctrine in the 2002 National Security Strategy of the United States. Preemption has been practiced for centuries as a legitimate means of self-defense for states. Prevention, an aggressive strategy intended to neutralise a threat before it can come fully into existence, has traditionally been outlawed under international law, international organisations and Just War theory.
