Issue 2019 - Volume 13 Issue 3

Issue 13:3

Rafael Contreras Luna

Russia, the Arctic and Northeast Asia: The Strategic Importance of the Far North

Historically, the Arctic has been much more important to Russia than to other Arctic countries. In Soviet times, the development of the Arctic was of paramount importance and it was used by the Soviet government to legitimise its great power status to domestic and international audiences. It is argued in this paper that the administration of President Putin has re-established a narrative on Russia as an Arctic power. In this sense, Russia not only seeks to exploit natural resources and develop…

Issue 13:3

Yayew Genet Chekol

Hydro-Politics and the Dynamics of the Shifting Ethio-Egyptian Hydropolitical Relations

The foremost intent of this article is to investigate the major dynamics that are changing in Ethio-Egyptian hydropolitical relations. To attain this objective the researcher employed case study design, primary and secondary sources of data, and purposive sampling techniques. Despite the fact that perpetual national interests on Egyptian Nile water policy are a national security issue, dynamics in the Nile basin have fostered a shift in the relations of Ethiopia and Egypt hydro political…

Issue 13:3

Kingsley Emeka Ezemenaka

Unregulated Migration and Nigeria-EU Relations

This article presents the social and political causes of Nigeria-EU migration issues concerning unregulated migration that has been affecting the EU. This was done through qualitative and quantitative methodology, which includes interviews, data gathering and documentary analysis. From the findings and discussion, the article submits that the main problems frustrating the effort of the EU interventions on migration is the political situation of Nigeria. If the political sphere in Nigeria is not…

Issue 13:3

Victor Teixeira

The United States’ China Containment Strategy and the South China Sea Dispute

The common contention regarding the South China Sea is that its characteristic assets are the central or even the sole explanation for the debate. However, it is the argument of this study that this view is distorted and perilously deceptive. This study argues that there are multiple explanations for these territorial disputes and that they are significantly complicated by the proximity of a few players, the ascent of powerful new forces, the impact of financial power, the dispersion of…

Issue 13:3

Gavan Patrick Gray

Evidentiary Thresholds for Unilateral Aggression: Douma, Skripal and Media Analysis of Chemical Weapon Attacks as a Casus Belli

The initiation of military or economic punishment generally on states requires significant justification, lest it be judged an act of aggression. In 2018 two separate incidents invoked similar rationales for such acts of reprisal, specifically that they were responding to attacks using chemical weapons. The incidents were an alleged sarin gas attack by the Syrian government on political opponents, which led to military strikes from the United States, and an alleged poisoning via novichok nerve…

Issue 13:3

Martin Karas

Trends in Investment Treaty Making: Finding Balance between National Sovereignty and Investment Protection

The debate over the prevalence of nation states as the main actors in the international arena has been going on for the past 40 years. This article focuses on a single aspect of the debate, namely the national sovereignty of states within the neoliberal investment regimes. The argument I make in this article is that while investment treaty-making in the past contributed to limiting the sovereign powers of governments in the domain of investment regulation, recent trends suggest that the states…

Issue 13:3

Miroslava Kulkova

From Negative to Positive Peace in Western Balkans: A Case for Eclectic Theory

This article analyses a qualitative transformation of relations between the Balkan states since the dissolution of the SFR Yugoslavia in the 90´s until 2008. It argues that military presence and interventions of external powers were enough to make the belligerents fold weapons and thus spread the negative peace but did not substantially aid the qualitative transformation of their relations. Evolving cooperation, mutual restraint, and resolution of conflicts by non-military means that we have…

Issue 13:3

Jan Švec

The Democratization Potential of the Middle Class in Russia

The paper on the case study of the contemporary regime in Russia questions the classical theory of the positive influence of middle classes on democratization processes. The author introduces arguments for the following three hypotheses. (1) An essential part of the middle class in Russia is dependent on the state, predominantly in the form of employment in the state sector. (2) This dependence is the main reason why the middle class in Russia keeps preserving the status quo. (3) The middle…

2020 - Volume 14 Issue 2

Sino-Qatari Relations after the ‘Qatar Blockade’ in the Context…

The article examines the development of the relations between China and Qatar since the ‘Qatar blockade’ in June 2017. Both Qatar and China view themselves as strategic partners and their relations are developing on the diplomatic and political level as well as in the field of economy and finances…

S. P. Huntington’s Civilizations Twenty-Five Years On

The study is based on the concept of Huntington's civilizations. They were used as a methodological basis for an analysis of the changes in their geopolitical power between 1995–2020 with the following conclusions: 1) The large population growth of 1995-2020 has been driven primarily by African,…

Pseudo Neutrality in Intra-State Conflict: Myanmar’s Official…

Although the most recent manifestation of conflict in Rakhine can be traced to the coordinated attack on Myanmar security forces in August 2017 by Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (hereafter ARSA), it goes without saying that the problem has a longer history. For this paper a corpus of official…