International Politics

This issue brings together a selection of the most interesting contributions to the 2011 Millennium Annual Conference: ‘Out of the Ivory Tower: Weaving the Theories and Practices  of  International Relations’, held at the London School of Economics and Political Science on 22 and 23 October 2011.

"This volume is the first detailed study of the emergence of regular and frequent heads of government meetings (summits), covering the period from the mid-1970s to the early 1990s.

Summit meetings of heads of government have become 'banal' in today's world. Yet they are a relatively recent practice that took off only in the mid-1970s. The aim of the book is to explore the origins of this new feature of global governance in its historical context. Why did heads of Western governments decide to regularly meet up in the European Council and the G7? What were they aiming at? How were these meetings run and what consequences did they have? How did other actors of international relations – states as well as non-state and/or transnational actors - react to this transformation?

Based on newly released archival material, International Summitry and Global Governance investigates the rise of regular international summitry and its impact on international relations. The volume brings together the best specialists of this new field of historical enquiry in order to explore those features of global governance in their historical context, and open up an interdisciplinary dialogue with social scientists who have studied summits from their own disciplinary perspectives.

This book will be of much interest to students of international history, Cold War studies, global governance, foreign policy and IR in general."

"CALL FOR BOOK CHAPTERS: "MAPPING THE ALTERNATIVE MEDIA IN TURKEY"

Editors: Barış Çoban & Bora Ataman

Extended Deadline for abstracts:
January 1st 2013

http://alternativemediamap.net/

We aim to map the alternative media in Turkey, which is varied in form, structure and working styles such as “cracks”, “rhizomes” and “fronts”. Similarly to what has occurred with the mainstream media, both large and small examples of the alternative media, alongside their widespread prevalence inside the country, have also already transcended the national borders. We argue that mapping the alternative media, embracing newspapers, radio and television channels, cinemas, blogs, forums and platforms, essentially the full range of conventional and new media organs and vehicles, is one of the most useful research approaches to comprehending the nature of alternative politics in Turkey.

The alternative media works as a source of memory and an archive helping to understand the historical and current structure of alternative politics in Turkey. IT also gives voice to alternative ideologies and politics and makes their political activities visible. In addition, the alternative media, which mainly represents the “otherised”, oppressed and marginalised groups, forms the vanguard of struggle against the hegemony and barbarism of the oppressive, globalized neo-liberal society.

Alternative media, as an umbrella term, applies to those media organs which are typically bottom up organisations. In principle, their organizational structures and decision making processes are democratic, participatory, polyphonic and dialogic. Their opposition to the mainstream media finds its roots, in its form and content, in social and political struggles and is based in radical ideologies such as anarchism, radical democracy and Marxism. The existence of alternative media indicates the struggle to construct a truly democratic and free sphere of communication from a number of broad perspectives, varying from the idea of simply being independent from either the state or capital, to being completely opposed to them. In this context, it is also possible to claim that every organ of the alternative media, as a centre of subaltern resistance, is part of a greater alternative communication network.

This so-called alternative network (or networks) is/are the voice of different political or social groups, communities, minorities or even individuals at the grassroots level. Thus, they open the way for these groups to actively participate in political and social life, as either real “agents” or as “spectacles” in the field of symbolic struggle. Therefore, individuals or groups can find opportunities to get involved in both real and symbolic struggles for hegemony, not only as consumers, but also as producers; as active agents.

Therefore, alternative media institutions either on the micro- or macro-scale cannot be considered as combatants solely at the informational level. In addition to their struggle to gather, record and spread news and ideas concerning local, national and transnational problems, they also provide a response to the establishment through real political actions. It is not unusual to see their active participation in protests, or even note that they hold the leadership positions in the organisation of some of these dissident political actions. Therefore, their active struggle with the hegemonic powers can also be considered as an effort to create alternative political forms. More commonly however, alternative media operate as the symbolic production centre of alternative politics and as an incubation ground for the intellectual and ideological constructs of social movements.

Alternative media, along with other dissident institutions, are seen as paving the way for a brighter and more just future by being the voice of the voiceless and contributing to the imagining of a different world. Threatening so-called representative democracy by supporting participatory social, cultural and political activities is also deemed useful to this end. By engaging in such activities, they may be able to cause the transformation of political culture in general. More importantly, however, the ways in which subordinate constituents of the society interpret politics and their own means of participation could change in a positive manner. Moreover, such efforts may also lead to the construction of efficient counter-public spheres alongside the more common examples of alternative spaces.
Diverse anti-systemic, reformist and revolutionary ideological orientations, varied political discourses and different modes of action constituting the alternative media landscape mostly open up an opportunity for the “oppressed” to actively participate in these alternative political spaces that are, to a certain extent, diverse, colourful, vivid and, most importantly, innately dialogic.
In this context, we argue that the “duty” of academia should be to understand these alternatives without stigmatizing them as the source of conflicts within the prevailing social system. After all, we as editors, would like to study these initiatives since the imagining of an alternative world may only be possible by embracing the oppressed and their voice, even though the world around us is not particularly welcoming.

Abstracts of papers are sought on topics such as:
• Radical- militant media (affiliated with revolutionary organizations)
• Radical media (Struggling within legal parameters to push the limits of the existing system
• Identity and rights-based media (Human rights, labour and trade-union rights, gender, environment, ethnicity, struggles based on faith or denomination
• Transnational and diaspora-based alternative media
• Independent, objective, opposition media
• Dissident voices, “cracks” in the mainstream media

However, it should be noted that the categories above do not refer to independent categories with clear differences. It is possible to say that; most examples of the alternative media operating in Turkey can be included under more than one of the rubrics mentioned above. Nevertheless, the alternative media organs in Turkey, despite a degree of permeability in the boundaries that separate them, may be seen as belonging more to one or another of the above-mentioned classifications, therefore, these categories will constitute the book’s chapters.

Furthermore, we are mainly interested in the case studies (comparative if possible) and empirical research possessing theoretical and methodological clarity, and focusing on at least one of three basic dimensions of media studies; such as “Production”, “Text”, or “Audience”, without missing the multi-layered and intertwined relationships between these dimensions.

Abstracts of a maximum of 250 words in Turkish and English outlining the topic, theoretical and methodological approach as well as the research question, should be submitted to either Barış Çoban (bcoban@dogus.edu.tr) or Bora Ataman (bataman@dogus.edu.tr) until January1st 2013.

Announcement of the abstracts selected will be made by February 1 2013.

The deadline for full paper submissions is August 1, 2013

The editors are planning to publish book in Turkish and English and have made an agreement with Yordam, to publish in January 2014.

After the evaluation of the abstracts, negotiations with foreign publishing houses will begin for the English version.
Barış Çoban & Bora Ataman (Eds.)
Extended Deadline for Research Proposals: January 1st, 2013"

Diplomatic ambiguity is one of the most interesting kinds of language-use in politics in general, and in diplomacy in particular. Normally, it is taken as a device that buys a temporary agreement at the price of a later verbal and interpretive conflict or misunderstanding. Prior to this study, no comprehensive or theory-guided analysis of this both political and linguistic phenomenon had been attempted. The study focuses on a number of ambiguously phrased peace-agreements, exploring three fundamental parameters in terms of which the concept of diplomatic ambiguity can be framed: language, power, and law. It proposes an argument of relevance to the most prominent schools of thought in International Relations, and closes a visible gap in the existing literature dealing with conflict, diplomacy, international politics, and discourse-related aspects of such politics. Due to its interdisciplinary character and sensitivity to the requirements of practice, it also offers an informative and practicable guide to the practitioners of international relations, diplomacy, politics, and law.

The article first describes characteristics of major infrastructure projects. Second, it documents a much neglected topic in economics: that ex ante estimates of costs and benefits are often very different from actual ex post costs and benefits. For large infrastructure projects the consequences are cost overruns, benefit shortfalls, and the systematic underestimation of risks. Third, implications for cost–benefit analysis are described, including that such analysis is not to be trusted for major infrastructure projects. Fourth, the article uncovers the causes of this state of affairs in terms of perverse incentives that encourage promoters to underestimate costs and overestimate benefits in the business cases for their projects. But the projects that are made to look best on paper are the projects that amass the highest cost overruns and benefit shortfalls in reality. The article depicts this situation as ‘survival of the unfittest’. Fifth, the article sets out to explain how the problem may be solved, with a view to arriving at more efficient and more democratic projects, and avoiding the scandals that often accompany major infrastructure investments. Finally, the article identifies current trends in major infrastructure development. It is argued that a rapid increase in stimulus spending, combined with more investments in emerging economies, combined with more spending on information technology is catapulting infrastructure investment from the frying pan into the fire.

""The Report presents insights which illuminates the intertwinements of European regulatory policies and global governance arrangements. By pinning down the exact nature of the interaction between these two levels, the EU’s dilemma becomes obvious: On the one hand, stronger global governance can be a chance, through which the EU can clarify its own raison d’être of increased integration to the wider world. On the other hand, the design of the European project is being challenged by more assertive global structures. This is especially the case in relation to the WTO regime, which is constraining the decisional autonomy of the EU, regarding the appropriateness of its content and its external effects. Thus, the regulation of services in the EU and the WTO are discussed in the first section of this report. Section two focuses on labour standards, which are analysed from different angles in order to clarify the functions of the WTO and the ILO, multinational companies as well as other private actors within this specific field. The final section deals with the legitimacy problematic of transnational governance.

Table of contents:

Introduction
Christian Joerges and Poul F. Kjaer

Section One: Freedom of Services

Chapter 1
The Multiple Understandings of Conflict between Trade in
Services and Labour Protection
Alexia Herwig
Chapter 2
Competing in Markets, not Rules:
The Conflict over the Single Services Market
Susanne K. Schmidt
Chapter 3
Competitiveness and Labour Protection: A Comment
Markus Krajewski
Section Two: Labour Standards
Chapter 4
WTO and ILO: Can Social Responsibility be maintained
in International Trade?
Josef Falke
Chapter 5
Reframing RECON: Perspectives on Transnationalisation and
Post-national Democracy from Labour Law
Claire Methven O’Brien
Chapter 6
Transnational Governance and Human Rights: The Obligations of
Private Actors in the Global Context
Regina Kreide
Section Three: The Legitimacy of Transnational Governance
Chapter 7
Legitimacy through Precaution in European Regulation of GMOs?
From the Standpoint of Governance as Analytical Perspective
Maria Weimer
Chapter 8
The Justice Deficit of the EU and other International Organisations
Jürgen Neyer
Chapter 9
Towards Normative Legitimacy of the World Trade Order
Alexia Herwig and Thorsten Hüller
Chapter 10
From Utopia to Apology – The Return to Inter-state Justice
in Normative IR Scholarship: Comments on Neyer and
Herwig & Hüller
Jens Steffek""