Search results for " International Relations"
showing 10 items of 626 documents
Precarious Sovereignty in a Post-Liberal Europe : the Covid-19 Emergency in Estonia and Finland
2020
The paper addresses a puzzle resulting from the current global state of alert: the coronavirus pandemic brought us back to the world of the allegedly sovereign nation states with borders and national governments in charge, yet in fact, this retrieved sovereignty looks very vulnerable and precarious. We explain this controversy through a triad of concepts—sovereignty, governmentality, and post-liberalism—that we apply to an analysis of a corona-imposed state of emergency in Estonia and Finland. Based on comparative case study research, we posit that sovereignty is precarious in post-liberalism due to its large dependence on the technologies of responsibilization and agency. From a biopolitic…
A Century with the Same Problem - Similar but still Different Solutions? : Four perspectives on the security policies of Finland and Estonia during t…
2020
Conflictual Rebordering: The Russia Policies of Finland and Estonia
2023
This article seeks to analyse the process of conflictual rebordering in the EU’s relations with Russia. The authors single out three major crises that triggered and shaped the process of toughening the border regime and the related transformations of political meaning of the EU-Russia border: the COVID-19 pandemic, the drastic deterioration of Moscow-Brussels relations in the beginning of 2021 and the war in Ukraine that started on 24 February 2022. Correspondingly, the EU’s reactions to each of these critical junctures might be described through the academic concepts of governmentality, normativity and geopolitics. Our aim is to look at the three ensuing models – governmental, normative an…
A defense of the moral and legal right to secede
2021
We defend the moral and legal right to secede in accordance with plebiscitary theory. Our paper has three main goals. First, by offering a schematic characterization of plebiscitary theory, the main arguments in its favour (and the main objections to them), we contribute to clarify the structure of this complex debate. Second, we stress the point that, if the moral right to secede is established, the resistance for its inclusion into positive law is unjustified. Finally, by addressing old and new objections to plebiscitary theory, we hope to make a compelling case for a wider recognition of secessionist rights.
The Committee of the Regions: A Springboard for the Citizens
2013
Abstract This study focuses on the relation between the Committee of the Regions (CoR), an advisory institution of the European Union defined as the political assembly of holders of a regional or local electoral mandate serving the cause of European integration, and the democratic deficit, understood as the effective ways of citizens’ participation in the institutional decision making. The work hypothesis is that the CoR, in spite of being mostly unknown to citizens, could be an effective tool for tackling the democratic deficit. Through qualitative interviews and surveys at different levels, the article analyzes the current situation and the potential opportunities of the CoR in its relati…
Introducing the Study of Nordic Cooperation
2020
To rediscover Nordic cooperation this article develops a ‘conceptual grammar’ that provides general theoretical ‘images’ of cooperation that are systematically applied. Being supplementary analytical constructs, moreover, these images capture great variety and differentiation in Nordic cooperation. Next, this article provides a review of two sets of literature that are of particular relevance to this thematic issue. The first is a broader literature on European integration. The second is studies of Nordic cooperation. The article closes with an overview of the contributions to this thematic issue.
The Puzzle of the New European COMI Rules: Rethinking COMI in the Age of Multinational, Digital and Glocal Enterprises
2019
EU Regulation 2015/848 (Recast) laid down new rules on the debtor’s ‘centre of main interests’ (COMI) both to make it easier to determine international jurisdiction and to prevent a debtor from fraudulently relocating his/her/its COMI from one Member State to another. However, the terms of the litigation concerning the NIKI case and an in-depth analysis of the Recast demonstrate that this operation has been unsuccessful. This paper argues: first, that the new COMI rules contain logical and teleological flaws; secondly, that the prerequisite that the COMI ‘shall be the place […] which is ascertainable by third parties’ is a duplicate of the prerequisite ‘on a regular basis’; thirdly, that th…
U.S. Expansionism, Mexican Undocumented Migration, and American Obligations
2011
In his compelling piece, “Living in a Promiseland? Mexican Immigration and American Obligations,” Rogers Smith argues that the greater the degree to which the U.S. has coercively constituted the identities of non-citizens in ways that have made having certain relationships to America fundamental to their capacities to lead free and meaningful lives, the greater the obligations the U.S. has to facilitate those relationships. Over the last hundred years, many rural communities in Mexico have been constituted more by U.S. immigration policy and the labor demands of U.S. employers than by similar policies and economic factors in Mexico. According to Smith, this means that Mexicans may be owed “…
Extraterritorial Jurisdiction in International Law
2015
Application of internal law by a state beyond its own territory is an extraordinary action in international law. It requires not only a solid justification but is also subject to many restrictions. It often comes to conflicts against this background that is why extraterritorial jurisdiction is considered as a dangerous but yet an effective instrument of foreign politics. The article not only provides a concise definitions of extraterritoriality but also points to its acceptable bases (liaisons) and restrictions. Moreover, a review of interesting, representative doctrine stances has been done. Controversies and dangers related to the discussed institution are explicitly emphasized. In contra…
The Invisible Violence of Celebrity Humanitarianism: Soft Images and Hard Words in the Making and Unmaking of Africa
2009
Through their actions to eliminate extreme poverty and preventable diseases in Africa, Irish musicians Robert (Bob) Geldof and Bono (Paul David Hewson) today form a visible and celebrated centre in the world of humanitarianism as political activists,' celebrity diplomats,' global Samaritans,' men who, to quote former World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz, rock the establishment' (TIME 13.11.2006). Their contemporary calls to make poverty history' in Africa are so widely repeated and commonsensical that questions about the exceptionality of this humanitarian action itself rarely arise. In fact, despite the increasing visibility of celebrity humanitarianism, no research on their representa…