{"title":"Tony Karbo and Kudrat Virk (eds.): The Palgrave Handbook of Peacebuilding in Africa.","authors":"Mira Abrahamyan","doi":"10.32422/mv.1654","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.32422/mv.1654","url":null,"abstract":"This handbook offers a critical assessment of the African agenda for conflict prevention, peacemaking, peacekeeping, and peacebuilding; the challenges and opportunities facing Africa’s regional organisations in their efforts towards building sustainable peace on the continent; and the role of external actors, including the United Nations, Britain, France, and South Asian troop-contributing countries. In so doing, it revisits the late Ali Mazrui’s concept of Pax Africana, calling on Africans to take responsibility for peace and security on their own continent. The creation of the African Union, in 2002, was an important step towards realising this ambition, and has led to the development of a new continental architecture for more robust conflict management. But, as the volume’s authors show, the quest for Pax Africana faces challenges. Combining thematic analyses and case studies, this book will be of interest to both scholars and policymakers working on peace, security, and governance issues in Africa.","PeriodicalId":311735,"journal":{"name":"Czech Journal of International Relations","volume":"15 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116834473","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Hilary Appel and Mitchell A. Orenstein: From Triumph to Crisis: Neoliberal Economic Reform in Postcommunist Countries","authors":"D. Lee","doi":"10.32422/mv.1647","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.32422/mv.1647","url":null,"abstract":"The postcommunist countries were amongst the most fervent and committed adopters of neoliberal economic reforms. Not only did they manage to overcome the anticipated domestic opposition to 'shock therapy' and Washington Consensus reforms, but many fulfilled the membership requirements of the European Union and even adopted avant-garde neoliberal reforms like the flat tax and pension privatization. Neoliberalism in the postcommunist countries went farther and lasted longer than expected, but why? Unlike pre-existing theories based on domestic political-economic struggles, this book focuses on the imperatives of re-insertion into the international economy. Appel and Orenstein show how countries engaged in 'competitive signaling', enacting reforms in order to attract foreign investment. This signaling process explains the endurance and intensification of neoliberal reform in these countries for almost two decades, from 1989–2008, and its decline thereafter, when inflows of capital into the region suddenly dried up. This book will interest students of political economy and Eastern European and Eurasian politics.","PeriodicalId":311735,"journal":{"name":"Czech Journal of International Relations","volume":"54 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131363948","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Dambisa Moyo: Edge of Chaos: Why Democracy Is Failing to Deliver Economic Growth—and How to Fix It.","authors":"Jose de Arimatéia da Cruz","doi":"10.32422/mv.1652","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.32422/mv.1652","url":null,"abstract":"Around the world, people who are angry at stagnant wages and growing inequality have rebelled against established governments and turned to political extremes. Liberal democracy, history's greatest engine of growth, now struggles to overcome unprecedented economic headwinds--from aging populations to scarce resources to unsustainable debt burdens. Hobbled by short-term thinking and ideological dogma, democracies risk falling prey to nationalism and protectionism that will deliver declining living standards. In Edge of Chaos, Dambisa Moyo shows why economic growth is essential to global stability, and why liberal democracies are failing to produce it today. Rather than turning away from democracy, she argues, we must fundamentally reform it. Edge of Chaos presents a radical blueprint for change in order to galvanize growth and ensure the survival of democracy in the twenty-first century.","PeriodicalId":311735,"journal":{"name":"Czech Journal of International Relations","volume":"81 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123208902","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Jakub Eberle: Discourse and Affect in Foreign Policy. Germany and the Iraq War","authors":"Zuzana Buroňová","doi":"10.32422/mv.1649","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.32422/mv.1649","url":null,"abstract":"Foreign and security policy have long been removed from the political pressures that influence other areas of policymaking. This has led to a tendency to separate the analytical levels of the individual and the collective. Using Lacanian theory, which views the subject as ontologically incomplete and desiring a perfect identity which is realised in fantasies, or narrative scenarios, this book shows that the making of foreign policy is a much more complex process. Emotions and affect play an important role, even where ‘hard’ security issues, such as the use of military force, are concerned. Eberle constructs a new theoretical framework for analysing foreign policy by capturing the interweaving of both discursive and affective aspects in policymaking. He uses this framework to explain Germany’s often contradictory foreign policy towards the Iraq crisis of 2002/2003, and the emotional, even existential, public debate that accompanied it. This book adds to ongoing theoretical debates in International Political Sociology and Critical Security Studies and will be required reading for all scholars working in these areas.","PeriodicalId":311735,"journal":{"name":"Czech Journal of International Relations","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130760805","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Ioannis Armakolas and James Ker-Lindsay: The Politics of Recognition and Engagement: EU Member State Relations with Kosovo","authors":"J. Naegele","doi":"10.32422/mv.1655","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.32422/mv.1655","url":null,"abstract":"This edited volume explores the different ways in which members of the European Union have interacted with Kosovo since it declared independence in 2008. While there is a tendency to think of EU states in terms of two distinct groups – those that have recognised Kosovo and those that have not – the picture is more complex. Taking into account also the quality and scope of their engagement with Kosovo, there are four broad categories of member states that can be distinguished: the strong and weak recognisers and the soft and hard non-recognisers. In addition to casting valuable light on the relations between various EU members and Kosovo, this book also makes an important contribution to the way in which the concepts of recognition and engagement, and their relationship to each other, are understood in academic circles and by policy makers.","PeriodicalId":311735,"journal":{"name":"Czech Journal of International Relations","volume":"20 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114320501","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Indirect Interventions in Civil Wars: The Use of States as Proxies in Military Interventions","authors":"K. Klosek","doi":"10.32422/mv.1644","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.32422/mv.1644","url":null,"abstract":"Current research on motivational sources of military interventions in civil wars frequently assumes that states intervene due to direct interests in the civil war country. However, this study argues that there exists a subset of interventions in which weaker powers intervene on behalf of interests which great powers hold vis-à-vis the civil war country. Using the logic of principal-agent theory in combination with arms trade data allows one to identify 14 civil wars which experienced the phenomenon of indirect military interventions. This type of intervention features a weaker power providing troops for combat missions, whereas its major arms supplier is only involved with indirect military support. The analysis is complemented with two brief case studies on the Moroccan intervention in Zaire (1977) and the Ugandan intervention in the Central African Republic (2009). Both case studies corroborate expectations as deduced from the proxy intervention framework.","PeriodicalId":311735,"journal":{"name":"Czech Journal of International Relations","volume":"27 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124276068","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Making Europe Defend Again: The Relaunch of European Defense Cooperation from a Neoclassical Realist Perspective","authors":"M. Baun, Dan Marek","doi":"10.32422/mv.1643","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.32422/mv.1643","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines the relaunch of European defense cooperation since 2016 from the perspective of neoclassical realism, a theoretical approach to the study of foreign policy which explores how domestic political and ideational factors shape national foreign policy responses to international systemic pressures. It argues that while Europe’s changing geostrategic and security environment has created incentives for increased defense cooperation, explaining the form and content of this cooperation requires understanding the preferences of key European states, especially France and Germany. The article focuses on two new forms of European defense cooperation: PESCO and the E21, the former inside the EU institutional framework and the latter outside of it. The article argues that these initiatives are explained by the contrast between French and German preferences on defense cooperation, which in turn reflect their divergent national security priorities but also their different strategic cultures, including their differing perspectives on European integration.","PeriodicalId":311735,"journal":{"name":"Czech Journal of International Relations","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126007419","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Fawaz A. Gerges: Islámský stát. Cesta k moci.","authors":"K. Černý","doi":"10.32422/mv.1627","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.32422/mv.1627","url":null,"abstract":"Jaké jsou kořeny vzniku Islámského státu, jeho strategie a nečekaného úspěchu? Může se vzestup podobných skupin opakovat? Jeden z nejvýznamnějších světových expertů na problematiku muslimského extremismu, rodák z Libanonu vyučující mezinárodní vztahy v Londýně, podává zasvěcený a do hloubky jdoucí portrét této zlověstné organizace. Počátky islámského státu Gerges sleduje v chaosu vyvolaném americkou invazí do Iráku v roce 2003, popisuje, jak jej posílily události kolem tzv. arabského jara a jak dokázal převzít z rukou al-Káidy vůdčí roli džihádistického hnutí. Věnuje se hlavní postavě takzvaného Islámského státu, Abú Bakru al-Bagdádímu, jeho strategii a metodám stejně jako základní komponentě úspěchu IS, vztahu mezi militantními džihádisty a někdejšími důstojníky rozpuštěné irácké armády Saddáma Husajna. Ve světle dění v Iráku a Sýrii v posledních měsících vyznívají aktuálně autorova slova o tom, že i pokud bude IS vojensky poražen, nepřestane existovat. Pouze změní svou strategii a stáhne se do podzemí, kde bude čekat na další šanci – tak jako al-Káida Ajmána Zaváhirího, jež ostatně podle Gergese časem opět získá na džihádistické scéně dominanci. A další příležitost, ať již pro Islámský stát či pro jiné skupiny, pravděpodobně přijde, protože radikální islamismus je dvojčetem politického autoritářství a celkové krize politiky v arabském světě.","PeriodicalId":311735,"journal":{"name":"Czech Journal of International Relations","volume":"16 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124488637","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Provázanost náboženství a nacionalismu v zápasu o autokefalitu ukrajinské pravoslavné církve","authors":"Josef Mlejnek","doi":"10.32422/mv.1623","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.32422/mv.1623","url":null,"abstract":"Studie se zaměřuje na dlouhodobý zápas o autokefalitu ukrajinského pravoslaví z hlediska vazeb mezi náboženstvím a nacionalismem. Teoreticky vychází především z přístupu Rogerse Brubakera, z jeho konceptu náboženství překrývajícího se nebo provázaného s nacionalismem. Konkrétní formy provázanosti jsou však upraveny vzhledem k povaze zkoumaného případu. Identifikované formy překrývání a provázanosti se ukazují jako důležité pro pochopení jednání hlavních aktérů. Studie upozorňuje na skutečnost, že ideový základ konfliktu o autokefalitu ukrajinského pravoslaví tvoří střet dvou historicko-náboženských mytologií, které jsou příkladem provázanosti náboženství a nacionalismu a mohou výrazně spoluformovat nejen církevní či náboženskou scénu Ukrajiny a Ruské federace, ale i pojetí národní identity a hodnotové postoje obyvatel obou zemí.","PeriodicalId":311735,"journal":{"name":"Czech Journal of International Relations","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114534632","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Nabucco unášený Jižním proudem: Byla sekuritizace ruského plynovodu úspěšná?","authors":"Nikita Odintsov","doi":"10.32422/mv.1621","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.32422/mv.1621","url":null,"abstract":"Cílem tohoto článku je zjistit, nakolik byla sekuritizace ruského plynovodu South Stream ze strany Evropské komise úspěšná. Komise chtěla, aby se dotčené členské země EU vzdaly plynovodu South Stream a podpořily konkurenční plynovod Nabucco. Diskurzivní analýza ukázala, že všechny zúčastněné země uznaly bezpečnost dodávek coby referenční objekt. Neakceptovaly však opatření nabízená Evropskou komisí, a sice přijetí nadnárodního přístupu k energetické bezpečnosti a úpravu již uzavřených mezivládních dohod s Ruskem. Místo toho tyto členské státy přišly s alternativním diskurzem, jímž se sekuritizaci aktivně bránily. Evropská komise dokázala projekt plynovodu South Stream zablokovat až po přímém, nediskurzivním zásahu proti Bulharsku, které po zahájení řízení o porušení práva projekt formálně pozastavilo. Zúčastněné země tento zásah akceptovaly, ale nesouhlasily s ním.","PeriodicalId":311735,"journal":{"name":"Czech Journal of International Relations","volume":"34 20","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133787456","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}