Transitions Online_Around the Bloc - 7 October
In the news: elections in Kosovo; mortgages in Poland; farewell to composer Giya Kancheli; Mike Pompeo, China, and the Balkans; and Estonia's climate policy.
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In the news: elections in Kosovo; mortgages in Poland; farewell to composer Giya Kancheli; Mike Pompeo, China, and the Balkans; and Estonia's climate policy.
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Society: Enthusiasts of the “special relationship” are gathering in Sofia this autumn, to celebrate and renew a mutual admiration society.
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In the news today: eastern Ukraine; disinformation in Latvia; a Serbian church in Bosnia; North Macedonians and Bulgarians; and alcohol in Russia.
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Today’s headlines: Russia and Georgia; bribes in Romania; journalism training in Crimea; a murder in Bulgaria; and the upcoming Polish elections.
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Regional news roundup: anti-China protests in Kazakhstan; anti-abortion rallies in Slovakia; cannabis in North Macedonia; an environmental catastrophe in Siberia; and the garment industry in Southeast Europe.
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Regional news roundup: Ukrainian farmland for sale; Russia vs. North Korea; Turkmen prisoners; a Tajik-Kyrgyz border feud; and an expensive Polish PR campaign.
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Today’s highlights: blast in Russia; surprise resignation in Armenia; the Slovenian-Austrian border; arson attack in Ukraine; and a first for Bosnia.
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TOL's regional news roundup: Russia and Belarus; journalistic standards in Bulgaria; Saxons in Transylvania; LGBT in Uzbekistan; and Russian drug laws.
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Regional news roundup: Russian protesters; Turkey and Bosnia; Poles in Belarus; smoking in Russia; and a village in Armenia.
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After half a decade building its reputation as a leader in analyzing and countering disinformation, the Czech Republic must consider new sources and forms of the phenomenon.
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In the news: Russia and NATO; Albania, North Macedonia, and the EU; Ursula von der Leyen’s commissioners; Armenia, Iran and the U.S.; and Polish coal.
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Regional roundup: Minsk and Moscow; polygamy in Russia; a new IMF head; money laundering in Estonia; and giant structures in ancient Ukraine.
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News highlights: Russia’s Olympic nightmare; Serbia’s unwelcome patriarch; tourism in Uzbekistan; Holocaust remembrance in Lithuania; and the Russian-Estonian border.
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During the 2000s, the extreme right-wing parties in Europe were supported by the wider public and experienced a significant outflow. In these years, the extreme right has been the ruling party or main opposition party in many countries. Today, the far right continues to be the leading political actors in the European countries, as well as in the developed countries of the world and in countries such as the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, which are considered as examples of liberal democracy. This progress stems from the increase in migration mobility towards Europe in recent years. In this study, the rise of the far right in Europe will be associated with the wave of migration, and the antiimmigrant policies of far-right political parties in Western societies will be dealt with in the axis of pathological normality, xenophobia and welfare chauvinism. The hypothesis of the study is that there are concerns about security, welfare loss and cultural heterogeneity behind the anti-immigration stance in Europe. It is also emphasized that the increasing reaction towards the right-wing parties, which is based on anti-immigrant policies, is being strengthened day by day.
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This research deals with the question of why states comply with international law in terms of International Relations theories. It is argued that the “Reputation Theory”, which holds the main factor urging states to comply with international law to be the concern over recognition by other states as unreliable, is an approach that combines three different theories of the International Relations discipline, namely Realism, Liberalism and Constructivism. The literature review-based study first emphasizes the differences between the perspectives of International Law and International Relations disciplines on the subject of compliance; subsequently it discusses the views of Realism, Liberalism and Constructivism on the role of international law in the conduct of states and on compliance; finally, it explains the aspects in which the reputation theory is similar to the approaches of the former theories and maintains that the reputation theory should be regarded as a unifying theory.
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The concept of war has been transforming since the Cold War period, and such transformation has been strengthened by “the war against terror” policy of the United States of America. In light of this conceptual transformation, it is no longer argued that wars take place only between states. New wars—which are asymmetric and do not have a limited war zone—have not changed traditional wars all together, instead, they have blurred the definitions and distinctions pertaining to traditional wars and added new concepts. The grey zones that have emerged due to these transformations have also led to the rise of new challenges and problems related to the implementation of the rules of international law. The normative evolution of international law and its implementations do not take place independently of international politics. In this vein, this article focuses on a question that has been underexplored especially in the International Relations literature, namely the applicability of jus ad bellum and jus in bello in new wars through the lenses of contestation theory. To this end, in its attempt to contribute the existing literature, it discusses how norms are contested in instances of cyber wars/attacks with reference to the specific cases of Estonia, Georgia and Stuxnet.
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This study is focused on analyzing the socio-political results of education mobility in Turkey’s higher education. In recent years higher education policies that are centered on students and aimed to increase the schooling rate became prominent. In addition to that, the acceleration of the “Bologna” process to be included in the European Higher Education Area increased international student transfers; but also domestic student transfers got support with a goal to deal with high demand and congestion. In this context, this study is focused on the most common form of domestic transfer -from lateral student transfer, vertical transfer and Farabi Exchange Programme- in Van Yüzüncü Yıl University, which is “lateral student transfer”. Through the study, it has been observed that even though student transfers are planned to fulfill the youth’s demands and solve their problems it causes regional inequalities. Besides that, this situation created a youth that lives in the same city for their entire education while also surrounded by family relationships and responsibilities. The target group of the study consist of students who got registered to Van Yüzüncü Yıl University for lateral transfer in the semester of 2017 fall. Findings derived from the deep interviews that had been conducted from a specific sample group got analyzed with the critical method. As a result of these analyses, it has been found that there are multiple reasons for students to apply for a lateral transfer including sociocultural, political and economic reasons. Based on the study, it can be said that family relationships and responsibilities that surround the youth are the sources of other findings and due to that the youth who shapes the future as an idealized generation face with structural limitations.
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The article aims to present the assessment of United States and China trade war on export of largest trade partners of Lithuania. Based on previous research results on international trade, gravity model was used for impact assessment. Research results indicate that out of sampled countries only Denmark and Netherlands may benefit in terms of increased export due to a United States and China trade war.
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In the academic literature, the transformation of the institutions, roles, and processes related to national security, addressed at a sub-state level of analysis, has traditionally been a less prominent area of study, especially if compared to the weight of international security and the external behaviour of states. However, the need to understand the security-related issues from the internal environment of states has led, especially in the last three decades, to the emergence of several concepts and approaches that have also addressed additional levels of analysis and topics such as human security or the transformation of the security field in states in transition. The concept of security sector reform, which refers to this last topic, developed during the 1990s. Despite its already long history, the concept is still prone to shortcomings and may be subject to further development. The aim of this paper is to briefly analyse its meaning, as well as its limits and prospects for development, in order to provide an additional contribution to a better understanding of the underdeveloped area of security studies addressed through it. The study relies upon examples from the recent past of the Romanian security sector.
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