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CIAO DATE: 10/00
Journal of International Relations and Development
Volume 3, No. 1 (March 2000)
Articles
This article employs a background theme of coping and conformity to elucidate theoretical and practical implications of environmental values. Coping is viewed here as a strategic disposition towards change in the international system, while conformity reflects policy opportunities and challenges. The predominance of interest-based approaches in International Relations theory is problematic, since description of a coping/conformity response to competing interests would not capture the values that underlie interest calculations. Using a value-oriented theoretical perspective, however, allows the idea of "environmental security" to indicate changing values in the post-Cold War world.
Problems relating to the apparent incompatibility of ethnic identity with dominant constitutional and international forms of organisation have been increasingly problematic since the end of the Cold War. This is somewhat paradoxical in the sense that the general liberation from superpower competition has in many cases not liberated identity groups, but instead has highlighted the inequalities pertaining to the distribution of power, rights, and resources across the international system. Domestic discussions of state security have in many multi-ethnic states been replaced with a discussion of ethnic security, which itself is formulated in a broader sense, in which security is taken to imply economic, political, social, linguistic, and environmental rights and stability. This has highlighted the inconsistencies of the practice and structure of the international system and has accentuated claims to sovereignty vis-à-vis security in an environment in which notions of justice have become more significant in practice as well as theory. Such notions, in the context of ethnic security, have been expressed in a variety of ways, some peaceful and some violent. The frameworks of politics which provide broad security and representation needs to become more responsive to the liberation of identity in order to prevent the enslavement of ethnic groups all over again.
There is a consensus among scholars that, despite the establishment of genuine Palestinian authority in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the Palestinian territories are still governed by authoritarian means. This article aims primarily at contributing to an explanation of the emerging authoritarian rule of the Palestinian Authority (PA) as established by Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation as a result of the Middle East peace process. The article starts with the observation that the old occupational system has not been completely removed but replaced by a complex system that comprises three actors: Israel, the PA, and, more indirectly, the Western donors of international aid. It will be shown that the policies of all three actors contribute, of course in very different ways, to the emergence of an authoritarian regime in Palestine. By showing the relevance of external factors for the authoritarian rule in the Palestinian territories, the article draws on the insights of the rent theory.
The consolidation of democracy is widely regarded as a separate, though related, endeavour from a transition to democracy. Slovenia's democratic consolidation is examined in the context of a wide body of theoretical literature on democratic consolidation. The major issues of consolidation are discussed, and Slovenia's experiences are then analysed in order to determine the country's fit with previous findings on democratic consolidation. Slovenia's experiences represent a very different case for consolidation theory, emerging out of the disintegration of Yugoslavia and faced with the additional challenge of state-building. Nevertheless, consolidation theory provides a remarkably good foundation for understanding Slovenia's experiences. The successful incorporation of the Slovenian case suggests that consolidation literature can be useful for analysing events in the post-communist world. Overall, Slovenia has made good progress in its efforts toward consolidation and the future appears equally promising.
Book Reviews