Does the UN have a real role to play in today's world? Analyze the role and effectiveness of the UN in recent conflicts
Essay - 1 pages - International relations
The United Nations (UN) is an international organization created in 1945 after World War II. Currently it is composed of 192 members. Because of the horrors of the two world wars, the aim of the UN is first of all to establish a lasting peace in the world. During the Cold War, the role of the UN...
The Implementation of SAPs in Africa in the 1980's: the Issue of Conditionality
Essay - 7 pages - International relations
When discussing the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries initiative (HIPC initiative), a joint debt relief initiative by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank currently being implemented in 29 African countries, one has to remember that debt relief programs are not new in the...
Economic sanctions: what effectiveness?
Essay - 5 pages - International relations
Economic sanctions have been an increasingly conspicuous feature of world politics since the end of World War I. This increase owes largely to the decreasing legitimacy of the use of force and the world's growing economic interdependence. With World War I, it became generally recognized that...
What was driving the war on terror?
Essay - 4 pages - International relations
"On September the 11th, enemies of freedom committed an act of war against our country. Americans have known wars. But for the past 136 years, they have been wars on foreign soil, except for one Sunday in 1941". The terrorist attacks of September 2001 represent a second Pearl Harbor, America is...
Identify and Assess the Core Elements of Liberal Thinking in International Politics
Essay - 3 pages - International relations
At the end of World War I, the world was traumatized and will never be the same as it was before. Indeed, the 'Great War' was the first total war, the first large-scale slaughter. President Woodrow Wilson in his 14 points speech represents his hope for a change in international policy. In...
Partition or Consocialism?
Essay - 3 pages - International relations
Facing proliferating ethnic conflicts since the end of the Cold War (the most important ones being Rwanda and Yugoslavia)the international community needs to find new and efficient solutions to ensure peace between ethnic groups and give them political power in order to prevent new massacres and...
The Outbreak of an Ethnic - Conflict in Serbia
Essay - 3 pages - International relations
Like many other peoples throughout Europe, the Serbs form a community united by a common history and a common culture. Serbs feel specifically united by their historical sufferings, mainly the Ottoman rule until the 19th century and the persecution by the Croatian Usta'e during World War Two....
International Trade Centre: Trade Policy for Human Development?
Essay - 2 pages - International relations
The International Trade Centre (ITC) of the United Nations defines its role as enabling 'small business export success in developing countries by providing, with partners, sustainable and inclusive trade development solutions to the private sector, trade support institutions and...
U.S foreign policy : the changing balance of power faced by Barack Obama
Essay - 3 pages - International relations
Barack Obama's election as the President of the United States of America hasn't occurred in an easy period: the country is currently in the midst of a global financial crisis, whilst also being bogged down in an arduous conflict in Iraq. Hence, several challenges are awaiting the...
How useful is the Vietnam analogy for understanding the Iraq War?
Essay - 3 pages - International relations
The Vietnam War, in which the US participated between 1964 and 1973, and the fights in Iraq that have begun in 2003 are two of the greatest conflicts that the American nation had to face in the last half-century. At first sight, they are worlds apart: their nature, the international and domestic...
Mexico and the USA - A recent history framed by the North American Free Trade Agreement : the borderless economy in a "Neo-Monroeist" order ?
Essay - 7 pages - International relations
In 1994, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) represented a turning point in the relationship between Mexico and the USA and was considered likely to resolve key bilateral issues. NAFTA was thus a sort of promising frame to achieve the benefits of interdependence in a globalizing...
Migratory pattern between Mexico and the USA : historical elements and current trends of a migratory couple
Essay - 13 pages - International relations
The United States and Mexico share a common history that includes some dramatic events such as the territorial struggles which often turned into established wars. In 1848 the USA annexed California and other Northern Mexican states. The episode generated important dissensions among the...
Beyond the issue of immigrant organizations : transnationalism as the engine of the immigrants' activities
Essay - 9 pages - International relations
Even though the word 'transnationalism' had been used since the 1970's in some scholars' research, the concept actually emerged during the 1980's. It has been quickly assimilated and appropriated by many disciplines such as anthropology, sociology, political sciences and other...
The pregnancy of the organized crime: "narcos" as a constitutive element of the Mexican society or Mexico as a "Narco-State"?
Essay - 4 pages - International relations
In a historical perspective, Mexico has always represented a major supply route between the continent's major consumer of drugs (the US) and the principal suppliers (Colombia, Peru and Bolivia). The National Drug Intelligence Center considers Mexican drug cartels as dominating the illicit...
Mexico and the USA : the Immigration issue
Essay - 6 pages - International relations
In the 19th century, the approach of the United States to immigration control can be characterized as "laissez-faire" with almost no governmental interference in flows that were almost only labor flows. The issue of migration was already in the hands on United States through the role of its...
Theory of International Cooperation: Possibility, reasons and conditions of International Cooperation - publié le 29/10/2009
Essay - 3 pages - International relations
The two main theories have very different views on cooperation. The first, and the dominant theory of neorealism, is that cooperation is not likely to occur, while on the other hand, neoliberalism focuses on the possibility for cooperation to take place. According to neorealism,...
European security : The role of the OSCE in the Transnistrian conflict in the Copenhagen school perspective
Essay - 4 pages - International relations
Along with entities such as Abkhazie or South Ossetia, Transnistria is one the non internationally-recognized states of Europe. Transnistria is widely seen as a hub for a spectrum of illegal activities and as a matter of concern in term of security for many countries. Before going any further, it...
Scotland and Independence
Essay - 12 pages - International relations
The issue of independence in Scotland has raised the crowd for many centuries. It has been advocated by many political movements that desire the secession of Scotland from the United Kingdom. I chose this topic as it has been hotly debated over the last few months in Scotland because of the...
The minorities in Europe under the EU and the UN protection
Essay - 7 pages - International relations
"We must do more to prevent conflicts happening at all. Most conflicts happen in [?] countries, especially those which are badly governed or where power and wealth are very unfairly distributed between ethnic or religious groups. So the best way to prevent conflict is promote political...
The American strategic culture in the international relations
Essay - 12 pages - International relations
Culture can be defined as a persistent group, through which traditions, ideas, means of thought, and attitudes are transmitted socially and more or less specifically in a community of geographically located security and historical experience which is unique. We move towards a standardization of...
The Conflict between India and Pakistan from 1947
Essay - 13 pages - International relations
Pervez Musharraf cannot be called "General President? anymore as he has quit the post as the leader of the Pakistani armies which he occupied since October 7th, 1998. By removing his double cap, he will officially become a "civil president". However his tenure does not lack in incidents and the...
What distinguishes diaspora members from simple migrants?
Essay - 3 pages - International relations
The highly motivated Chinese and Indians working hard to become prosperous in the United States or Europe, and the haggard Palestinians living in refugee camps have much in common. They are, with the Jews, Japanese, Africans, Afro-Americans, Kurds, Greeks, Gypsies and numerous other groups,...
An evaluation of constructivism as an approach to international relations theory
Essay - 11 pages - International relations
Before the 1980s, the focus of the international scholarship relations was on two main debates: on the one hand, opposing the neo-realists to the neo-liberal institutionalists; and on the other rationalism to critical theory. Whereas the former is a debate in which the two mainstream theories,...
Global terrorism
Essay - 6 pages - International relations
"They want to live, we want to die" Osama bin Laden observed very meaningfully. "Our war will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated", G.W. Bush answered. After 9/11 the concept of management of war has seen great radical changes. The usual...
The issues regarding Sino-Japanese relations: from economic interdependence to geopolitical tensions
Essay - 11 pages - International relations
In the current political context, China and Japan are vying for Asian leadership. Furthermore, Sino-Japanese relations are beset by various geopolitical tensions, and all the issues of that confrontation are about influence and control. A paradoxical situation follows from this. How may one...
The Darfurian conflict
Essay - 1 pages - International relations
The Darfurian conflict is much talked about nowadays. In the newspapers one can read that if no agreement is reached by Darfur peacekeepers by Jan. 1st, the United Nations will deploy a "hybrid" force at that location. Darfur is located in Sudan, close to the Chad border. On one hand, there are...
Should or should not Japan revise Article 9 of its Constitution?
Essay - 3 pages - International relations
Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution was added during the occupation after World War II, after the defeat of the Axis alliance (Germany, Italy and Japan) by the Allies (mainly composed by British Empire, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and United States of America) in 1946. The source of...
The Kashmir conflict - publié le 18/06/2009
Essay - 16 pages - International relations
India and Pakistan form a complex and conflicting couple. They are often presented as enemy brothers because they arose from the partition of the British empire of India. The India-Pakistan rivalry remains one of the most enduring and unresolved conflicts of our time. The triangular war between...
What Will B. Obama Mean for Globalization?
Essay - 3 pages - International relations
On November 4th, 2008, Barack Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States. He beat Senator McCain by 6.9 percentage points. For many individuals (Americans and foreigners), the outcome of this election has been regarded as a turning point for America, not only because Obama is the...
Modern Maritime Piracy: Stakes and Prospects of a Transnational Organized Crime
Essay - 14 pages - International relations
Piracy is not a new phenomenon. Quite the reverse, it is as old as sea navigation and especially maritime trade. As early as in the Antiquity, the Roman Empire organized military campaigns to destroy pirate ships that were starving the Empire despite the fact that piracy was considered an...
