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CIAO DATE: 07/03
Vol. 5, No 2 (June 2002)
Articles
No-Constructivists’ Land: International Relations in Italy in the 1990s
(PDF format, 29 pgs, 252 kb)
by Sonia Lucarelli and Roberto Menotti
There is a country in Europe where Constructivism has never taken roots: Italy. Although Constructivism in its various forms has been the most popular theoretical approach on the continent, the Italian peninsula remained surprisingly immune to this “epidemic”. These results are even more interesting if we take a closer look at the Italian International Relations (IR) literature only to discover a certain predilection for the classics and for multidisciplinary philosophically-embedded theory. What is the reality of Italian IR, then? In this article the characteristics of Italian IR production in relation to the broader IR community are investigated and domestic structural and cultural explanations for those (such) features are provided. The authors claim that there is a predilection for the classics and certain dissatisfaction with the Anglo-Saxon rationalistic turn in the 1980s. They argue that certain separateness with respect to participation in international debates and gatherings has an immediate structural explanation (the small number of scholars) but also deeper structural causes in the organisation of the academic system and the dominant academic culture. They also claim that the relative weakness of the discipline in Italy is intertwined with the history and cultural evolution of the country.
Foreign Direct Investment and Fundamental Workers’ Rights
(PDF format, 19 pgs, 156 kb)
by Matthias Busse
The main focus of the article is the link between foreign direct investment and fundamental workers’ rights. It discusses how fundamental workers’ rights, sometimes called core labour standards, can influence foreign direct investment flows and empirical tests that linkage. The results show that, contrary to the conventional wisdom that foreign direct investment will predominately be attracted by countries with lower rights, improved workers’ rights are in fact positively associated with foreign direct investment inflows. Concerns about “social dumping” or “a race to the bottom” with respect to workers’ rights appear to be mistaken. This result even holds for poor developing countries.
The Baltic States’ Accession to NATO and the European Union: An Extension of the European Security Community?
by Boyka Stefanova
The article explores the processes of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and EU (European Union) enlargement with respect to the Baltic states Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. It assumes that Western Europe is an established security community and seeks to determine the consequences of any imminent Baltic accession for the geopolitical configuration of Europe. Given their proximity and complex relationship with Russia, the future institutional affiliation of the Baltic states can be regarded as a test of the probability and direction of change in the density and characteristics of the Western security community. The article draws a conclusion about the necessary, however contested, character of the Baltic states’ future membership in the Euro-Atlantic structures. Baltic accession would reinforce the community configuration prevailing in the region, and facilitate NATO’s transformation from a military alliance into a political union. However, the same process still presents a number of challenges: the extension of the security community is not necessarily beneficial for its environment.
Small States, Latent and Extant: To wards a General Perspective
by Olav F. Knudsen
Small-state studies are fragmented into several disconnected streams of literature. This necessitates a more comprehensive perspective. Over the past two generations, small-state studies have gone through alternating trends, all assuming a small state in being. This article brings into view other streams of literature not based on this assumption. The existence of small states cannot be taken for granted. Small states tend to go through life cycles in which they are sometimes latent, sometimes actual. Once a small state has been formed, the need for political survival demands economic sustainability as well as a foundation of an identifying coherence. Challenges arise from globalisation and supranational integration, as well as from societal demands. The outcome may tend towards turbulence in some cases, stability in others. We are likely to understand these processes better in a historical, comparative perspective.
Book Reviews
Understanding European Foreign Policy by Michael Merlingen
by Brian White
Integral Europe, Fast-Capitalism, Multiculturalism, Neofascism by Ladislav Cabada
by Douglas R. Holmes
Germany as a Civilian Power? The Foreign Policy of the Berlin Republic by Vladimír Handl
by Sebastian Harnisch and Hanns W. Maull (eds)
The World at 2000: Perils and Promises by Anna Leander
by Fred Halliday
Denmark’s Policy Towards Europe After 1945: History, Theory and Options by Primoz Sterbenc
by Hans Branner And Morten Kelstrup (eds)