On 9 June 2020, Greece and Italy signed in Athens a maritime delimitation agreement in the Ionian Sea, completed by a joint Greek-Italian proposal to the European Commission for the modification of ...the Annex 1 of the Common Fisheries Policy and a declaration on the resources of the Mediterranean. This agreement adopts the continental shelf delimitation line agreed in 1977 for the delimitation of the other zones to which both countries are entitled under International Law. It addresses both countries’ fundamental interests: Italy’s essential fishing interests and Greece’s legal and political concerns related to its half century-old dispute with Turkey over maritime delimitation in the Aegean Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean.
•Greece and Italy concluded a maritime delimitation agreement on June 9th, 2020.•It produces an “all-purpose” line, following that of 1977 for the continental shelf.•It serves Italian fishing interests, which is an absolute priority for Rome.•It matches Greece’s views on delimitation with regard to its dispute with Turkey.•Confirmation of compliance with EU Law and ratification are still pending.
The question of region dominated the 2021 West Bengal elections in a way it did not in states where elections were held alongside. Subsequently, the victory of the Trinamool Congress has been hailed ...by commentators and scholars as a successful instance both in regional politics and in the defence of federal polity. However, this article contends, the implications of this mandate for the politics of region and federalism cannot be grasped with reference to its own details, but only in a comparative reading of a series of assembly elections held in the recent past and the general elections of 2019. Considering how regional politics gets constituted and elections produce results today, this paper makes an argument that the emergent pattern of mandates indicates rather a problem – that of neutralization of regional politics and federal structure into a devolution of power instead of their elaboration as domains of contestation of an expansionist regime.
How do nonprofit organizations (NPOs) engage in advocacy in closed political regimes? This article studies nonprofit advocacy in Russia by focusing on strategies and explanatory factors. We argue ...that Russian NPOs rely on collaborative rather than confrontational strategies. They use official channels, personal contact with state officials, strategies for resource exchange and evidence-based advocacy. Based on empirical research in eight regions, we show that nonprofit advocacy depends on both external (contextual) and internal (organizational) factors. NPOs have greater opportunity to engage in advocacy when the subnational institutional context and the policy field allow for their active participation in policy formation and implementation. Moreover, NPOs are more successful in their advocacy when they strategically use their capabilities (e.g., knowledge, expertise and skills) and emphasize mutual trust, loyalty and readiness to compromise. Our findings point to the relevance of collaborative forms of advocacy, particularly in constrained political environments such as Russia.
Scholarly research on regional politics has been gradually shifting from the institutional descriptions of the past decades to detailed examinations of the real manifestations of self-governance. The ...so-called second generation of research on multi-level governance emphasizes the policy dimension and conditions for autonomous decision-making, an approach offering greater analytical depth. In this article, this approach is applied to the neglected case of the Czech Republic and is especially fruitful due to the country’s mixed model of administration, which combines the principles of decentralization and deconcentration. Examined by the example of the South Moravian Region, the Czech regional level of self-governance is identified as significantly weak in almost all policy areas. There is extremely limited space for autonomous political decision-making, mostly in the form of mere financial investment, not direct regulation.
Political decentralization is widely believed to reduce ethnic
conflict and secessionism in the world today. Yet decentralization is more
successful in reducing conflict and secessionism in some ...countries than in
others. In this article, I explore why this difference occurs. I
demonstrate using a statistical analysis of thirty democracies from 1985
to 2000 that decentralization may decrease ethnic conflict and
secessionism directly by bringing the government closer to the people and
increasing opportunities to participate in government, but that
decentralization increases ethnic conflict and secessionism indirectly by
encouraging the growth of regional parties. Regional parties increase
ethnic conflict and secessionism by reinforcing ethnic and regional
identities, producing legislation that favors certain groups over others,
and mobilizing groups to engage in ethnic conflict and secessionism.Earlier versions of this article were presented
at Harvard University and the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics
at Princeton University. The author would like to thank Sandra
Alfonso-Leon, James Alt, Micah Altman, Barry Friedman, Shigeo Hirano,
Simon Hug, Gary King, Rose Rozaghian, Tulia Falleti, and two anonymous
reviewers for their very helpful comments.
This article analyses the EU's influence on regional institutional change in Mercosur and the Southern African Development Community from a diffusion perspective. Focusing on market-building ...objectives and dispute settlement mechanisms, it addresses the puzzle that policy-makers in both regions have, over time, increasingly adopted EU-style institutional arrangements even though alternative institutional models more suitable to their preferences for 'pragmatic', sovereignty-preserving cooperation have been available at various critical junctures of institutional evolution. The article makes two main arguments. First, it suggests that EU influence has affected outcomes in several specific ways that are irreducible to, and quite different from, mainstream functional accounts of economic regionalism. Second, it contends that the diffusion of EU institutional templates can be understood as a process of spurred emulation, when regional policy-makers emulate EU institutional models under conditions of uncertainty and promoted by EU-oriented domestic actors as well as the EU's direct involvement in the process.
Shambaugh begins with a description of factors that elaborates the antecedents to China's new diplomacy and posture in Asia. He provides a systematic look at the region and considers a series of ...conceptual models for understanding its dynamics and the evolving order.
A probe of various regional power nuclear postures reveals that such postures, rather than simply the acquisition of nuclear weapons, can have differential effects on deterrence and stability ...dynamics. The India-Pakistan dyad is a useful candidate for exploring these various effects because the three regional power nuclear postures—catalytic, assured retaliation, and asymmetric escalation—have interacted with each other in South Asia. In particular, Pakistan's shift from a catalytic posture to an asymmetric escalation posture in 1998 against a continuous Indian assured retaliation posture allows the effects of nuclear posture to be isolated in an enduring rivalry in which many variables can be held constant. The asymmetric escalation posture may be "deterrence optimal" for Pakistan, suggesting that nuclear postures do have different effects on conflict dynamics, but it has also enabled Pakistan to more aggressively pursue longstanding revisionist preferences in India, triggering more frequent and intense crises on the subcontinent. Furthermore, the command and control procedures that Pakistan undertakes to make its asymmetric escalation posture credible amplify this instability. These procedures generate risks to the safety and security of Pakistan's nuclear assets, both at present and as India and Pakistan continue to dynamically evolve nuclear and conventional postures. The conclusions for South Asian and international security of this reality are grim.
Across South Asia and beyond, the politics of belonging continue to breed alarming volatility and violence. The embodied, affective dimensions of these politics remain an imminent concern. In this ...article, I question how anxiety informs these reckonings of who belongs and who does not. Capable of galvanizing bodies and the greater body politic, anxieties over national belonging remain a powerful, but less understood, political force. In Darjeeling, India, anxieties over belonging–what I term "anxious belongings"–have fueled a particularly mercurial subnationalist politics, involving recurrent agitations for a separate state of Gorkhaland. Situated amid these interplays of anxiety, politics, and belonging, I identify anxious belonging as a collectively embodied phenomenon–at once historical, social, and pregnant with political possibility. As I show, these anxieties are deeply rooted in body and time. Today, they remain as unsettling as they are formative of a people and their politics. Thinking anthropologically about the origins and sociopolitical life of anxiety in Darjeeling, with this article I signal new ways of understanding–and perhaps anticipating–the volatilities that attend the politics of belonging worldwide. Anxious belonging accordingly comes into view as a dimension of and potential for markedly agitated forms of life and politics. A través de Asia del Sur y mas allá, la política de pertenencia continúa generando, una inestabilidad y violencia alarmantes. Las dimensiones representadas, afectivas de estas políticas permanecen como una preocupación inminente. En este artículo cuestiono cómo la ansiedad influye en las consideraciones de quien pertenece y quien no. Capaz de incitar cuerpos y una entidad política más grande, las ansiedades sobre pertenencia nacional continúan siendo una poderosa fuerza política pero poco entendida. En Darjeeling, India, ansiedades sobre pertenencia–lo que llamo "pertenencias ansiosas"–han avivado una política sub-nacional particularmente volátil envolviendo recurrentes agitaciones por el estado separatista de Gorkhaland. Situada en el medio de estas interacciones de ansiedad, política y pertenencia, identifico pertenencia ansiosa como un fenómeno colectivamente corpóreo-a la vez histórico, social, y concebido con posibilidad política. Como demuestro, estas ansiedades están profundamente arraigadas en cuerpo y tiempo. Hoy ellas continúan siendo inestables en la medida en que influyen en la gente y su política. Pensando antropológicamente sobre los orígenes y la vida socio-política de la ansiedad en Darjeeling, con este artículo indico nuevas maneras de entender–y quizás anticipar–las inestabilidades que están presentes en la política de pertenencia a través del mundo. Pertenencia ansiosa, por consiguiente aparece como una dimensión de y potencial para formas de vida y política marcadamente agitadas.
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