scholarly journals An Oil Company as a Force for Good? How Statoil put Norway’s Identity as a‘ Champion of Ideals’ to the Test

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-40
Author(s):  
Ada Elisabeth Nissen
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Foreign Relations ◽  
Moral Authority ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
International Activism ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Global Arena ◽  
Oil Company

This article explores how Norway’s quest for moral authority to be recognized as a “champion of ideals” came under strain in the 1990s when the Norwegian state’s oil company (Statoil) expanded its operations in- and outside Norwegian borders. While we know a lot about Scandinavia’s international activism after the end of the Cold War, we know less about Scandinavian business’ responses to this policy. Neither do we know much about business’ potential impact on this policy. The aim of this article is therefore to begin address this issue by examining Statoil’s response to some of Norway’s moral and ethical aspirations in the post-Cold War global arena. Particular attention is paid to the tension between Norway’s ambition to be an early mover for sustainable development and a human rights advocate, and Statoil’s approach to environmental problems and human rights violations. As such, the article explores the role of state-owned enterprises in profit-making and global expansion during a formative decade when economy became an increasingly important determinant of Norwegian foreign relations, and ethical and moral objectives with roots in earlier decades were revitalized through an unprecedented number of international initiatives.

Why Nations Rise . . . or Remain Reticent

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Manjari Chatterjee Miller
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Rising Powers ◽  
Late 19Th Century ◽  
Additional Element ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Rising Power

What is known of rising powers is both sparse and contentious. This chapter discusses the assumptions of rising powers and puts forward an alternate way of understanding them. It shows that all rising powers are not the same, even if their military and economic power is increasing relative to the status quo, and argues that narratives about becoming a great power are an additional element that needs to be considered. It also discusses what great power meant in the late 19th century, during the Cold War, and in post–Cold War eras, and lays out the map of the book. Topics covered in this chapter include the power transition and rising power literature, the role of ideas in foreign policy, and an overview of the perceptions of great power.

Cold War Legacies: The Migration and Transformation of Popular/Unpopular Culture

2007 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 137-143
Author(s):  
Roger Chapman
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Cold War ◽  
International Context ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
American Popular Culture ◽  
The Past ◽  
New Meanings ◽  
Cold War Era ◽  
The Cold War

This article reviews two recent collections of essays that focus on the role of popular culture in the Cold War. The article sets the phenomenon into a wide international context and shows how American popular culture affected Europe and vice versa. The essays in these two collections, though divergent in many key respects, show that culture is dynamic and that the past as interpreted from the perspective of the present is often reworked with new meanings. Understanding popular culture in its Cold War context is crucial, but seeing how the culture has evolved in the post-Cold War era can illuminate our view of its Cold War roots.

scholarly journals Suits and Uniforms

2004 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-121
Author(s):  
Hasan Kösebalaban
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Foreign Relations ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Turkish Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War Era ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Policy Elites ◽  
Second World

Philip Robins contends that Turkish foreign policy has faced four challengesin four distinct periods of its history: (1) consolidating the emergentTurkish Republic through external recognition (1930s), (2) remainingneutral during the Second World War (1940s), (3) confronting thechallenge of Soviet expansionism (the cold war era), and (4) respondingto the end of bipolarity (post-cold war era). Robins examines these foreignpolicy issues in the last period.The main thesis of this work is threefold: First, Turkey is a status quopower in the way that its foreign policy elites have fastened their thinkingand practice to the framework of “the sanctity of borders, of states, ofmultilateral institutions and of norms of conduct, even when it becameclear that systemic changes had rendered some of these continuities nolonger tenable” (p. 6). Second, Turkey continues to be firmly orientedwestwards in terms of its foreign relations, which are characterized by itsstrong commitment to NATO as well as its desire to join the EuropeanUnion (EU). Finally, Turkish foreign policy has been characterized moreby “caution than daring,” quoting Malik Mufti. Despite the increase in itspower relative to its neighbors, Turkey has avoided an interventionist foreignpolicy by emphasizing the formation of multilateral frameworks forconflict resolution.Robins defends these arguments by analyzing the international systemicand domestic politics context in which Turkish foreign policy is ...

scholarly journals After International Law: Anthropology Beyond the “Age of Human Rights”

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 115 ◽  
pp. 289-293
Author(s):  
Mark Goodale
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Cold War ◽  
International Law ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Collective Identities ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
Anthropological Research ◽  
Legal Strategies ◽  
The Cold War

This essay examines the ways in which anthropologists have tracked the rise and fall of international law after the end of the Cold War. It argues that anthropological research has made important contributions to the wider understanding of international law as a mechanism for social and political change, a framework for protecting vulnerable populations, and a language through which collective identities can be expressed and valorized. Yet, over time, international law has lost many of these expansive functions, a shift that anthropologists have also studied, although with greater reluctance and difficulty. The essay explains the ways in which particular categories of international law, such as human rights and international criminal justice, grew dramatically in importance and power during the 1990s and early 2000s, a shift whose complexities anthropologists studied at the local level. As the essay also explains, anthropological research began to detect a weakening in human rights implementation and respect for international legal norms, a countervailing shift that has broader implications for the possibilities for international cooperation and the resolution of conflicts, among others. At the same time, the retreat of international law from its highpoint in the early post-Cold War years has given way to the reemergence of non-legal strategies for advancing change and accounting for past injustices, including strategies based on social confrontation, moral shaming, and even violence.

Introduction

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Arab World ◽  
International Conflicts ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
A Site ◽  
The Cold War

This book examines the role of the United Nations in the confounding geopolitical tensions arising from key international conflicts in the Cold War and post-Cold War periods, including the hostilities between Palestine and Iraq and between Libya and Syria. It explores how the UN has been shaped by the Palestine question and how the struggle over Palestine produced the institutions of “peacekeeping” and of the “UN mediator.” It also discusses the politics around the UN and shows that it is always constrained by geopolitics despite serving as a site of struggle over legitimacy claims by warring factions. The book is divided into four sections dealing with themes that are considered the most important elements of UN work in the Arab world: diplomacy, enforcement and peacekeeping, humanitarianism and refugees, and development. This introduction provides an overview of the literature on the UN that emerged in the post-Cold War period in line with the complexity and reach of various UN missions and agencies.

Diplomatic Security in the United Kingdom

2019 ◽  
pp. 57-74
Author(s):  
Christopher Kinsey
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Previous Experience ◽  
Government Agencies ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Diplomatic Protection ◽  
Security Personnel ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Informal Approach

This chapter examines the United Kingdom’s diplomatic security policies, arrangements, and methods during the Cold War and post–Cold War eras, explaining where responsibility for the procedures used to protect missions lies before touching on the role of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and other government agencies in underpinning diplomatic security. In particular, the chapter notes that British diplomatic protection remains based on an informal approach that relies on the personal contacts and previous experience of the security personnel responsible for protecting missions abroad.

New national organization of Europe: nationalism and minority rights after the end of the Cold War

2016 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-41
Author(s):  
Matti Jutila
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Minority Rights ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Surface Level ◽  
National Minorities ◽  
Universal Human Rights ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Relationship

Post–Cold War Europe witnessed the resurgence of different forms of nationalism and also the re-establishment of a minority rights regime. At the surface level, rights of national minorities seem to undermine nationalism as a political organization principle, but on a closer investigation the relationship between the two is more complex. This article uses insights from the English school’s theorizing on primary and secondary institutions to investigate the relationship between the primary institution of nationalism and secondary institution of minority rights regime. After a brief discussion of nationalism as a primary institution and its influence on the implementation of universal human rights, this article presents a detailed study of the minority rights regime analysing how it challenges, transforms and reproduces nationalism as a primary institution of contemporary European society of states.

6. Security and Insecurity

2021 ◽  
pp. 125-147
Author(s):  
Stephanie Lawson
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Cyber Security ◽  
General Concept ◽  
Global Politics ◽  
Security Threats ◽  
Sovereign State ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Traditional Approaches

This chapter assesses the general concept of security and the way in which issues come to be ‘securitized’. The security of the sovereign state, in a system of states, and existing under conditions of anarchy, has been the traditional focus of studies in global or international politics. Security in this context has therefore been concerned largely with the threats that states pose to each other. Over the last few decades, however, the agenda for security in global politics has expanded, and so too has its conceptualization. The chapter looks at traditional approaches to security and insecurity, revisiting the Hobbesian state of nature and tracing security thinking in global politics through to the end of the Cold War. This is followed by a discussion of ideas about collective security as embodied in the UN, paying particular attention to the role of the Security Council and the issue of intervention in the post-Cold War period. This period has also seen the broadening of the security agenda to encompass concerns such as gender security, environmental security, cyber security, and the diffuse concept of ‘human security’. Finally, the chapter provides an overview of the ‘war on terror’, raising further questions concerning how best to deal with non-conventional security threats.

Human Rights, Democracy, and the Inescapability of Politics; or, Human Dignity Thick and Thin

2005 ◽  
Vol 38 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 358-377 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yehudah Mirsky
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Advisory Opinion ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Democratic Regimes ◽  
The Icj ◽  
Political Idea ◽  
Human Rights Advocacy ◽  
The Cold War

The essay places the ICJ opinion in a broader legal and political context and argues that the failure to distinguish between democratic and non-democratic regimes characterizing the ICJ advisory opinion reflects broader trends with potentially ruinous consequences for the enterprise of human rights promotion itself. The ICJ opinion's willful ignoring of Israel's democratic character yielded a tendentious and inconsistent ruling. By contrast the Israel High Court of Justice's decision invalidating portions of Israel's security wall reflects a healthy understanding of a democracy's needs and limitations, as reflected in that court's proportionality standard of review. The ICJ willingly blurred crucial distinctions between democratic regimes that genuinely adhere, however imperfectly, to principles of human rights in their own governance, and those states and actors that do not, a distinction made all the more imperative by the events of September 11.The judicialization of human rights in the post-Cold War era takes place against the background of a tensile relationship between human rights advocacy and democracy promotion during the Cold War. While human rights represent an essentially legal idea, democracy a political idea. In closing, the essay lays out one basic, hopefully workable, conceptual division of labor between human rights and democracy as complementary elements of a broader project of human dignity, in which human rights represents a “thin” universal conception of human dignity, while democracy offers a process whereby that conception can be “thickened” in various political, social and cultural contexts around the globe.

East-West vs. South-North Migration: Effects upon the Recruitment Areas of the 1960s

1992 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 401-412 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nermin Abadan-Unat
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Political Action ◽  
General Process ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Second Generation Immigrants ◽  
Islamic Identity ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Cold War

The end of the Cold War has been marked by the re-emergence of nationalism. This article is focused on Turkey and Turkish emigration abroad. It examines integration of second generation immigrants in Western Europe and various forces fostering Islamic identity. It then compares political discourse on immigration in France and Germany. It concludes that the resurgence of ethnic identity as the basis for effective political action in widely divergent societies is a key feature of the post-Cold War period. Immigrants have been actively involved in this general process as witnessed by the role of immigrants in recent conflict in Yugoslavia and Turkey.

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