Rebooting a Nation
Three decades after gaining independence from the Soviet Union, Estonia is a nation transformed. Today, the country is known worldwide as a startup hub, boasting billion-dollar companies including Wise, Veriff and Bolt--but even more impressive are Tallinn's pioneering efforts in e-government. With 99 per cent of government services digitalized and accessible online, citizens can vote via computer, or file their taxes online in minutes; and Estonia's use of artificial intelligence to enhance and automate its offering to citizens long predates ChatGPT. Drawing on his experience as a former official for the Republic of Estonia, Joel Burke offers unique insight into the country's rapid rise as a tech and e-government powerhouse since the turn of the century. From the founding of Skype to the future of the e-state, he unveils the tactics and stories behind Estonia's spectacular journey--after years of Soviet occupation and mismanagement--to global tech leadership. For those hoping to learn from Estonia's incredible story, Burke offers insights into the government's use of AI, its creation of a digital society, and its cultivation of a culture driving public-sector creativity and innovation. Rebooting a Nation is an informative and entertaining masterclass in Estonia's modern history.
Journal of Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society
CONTENTS: SPECIAL SECTION: TEACHING IR IN WARTIME GUEST EDITORS: KATERYNA ZAREMBO, MICH?LE KNODT and MAKSYM YAKOVLYEV Teaching the Russian War against Ukraine: Ukraine asa Microcosm of the Paradigm Shift from InternationalRelations to Planetary PoliticsIAN MANNERS Will the Russian War against Ukraine Bring Changes tothe Teaching of International Relations?OLENA KHYLKO Teaching International Political Economy in Times of WarTHOMAS FETZER From Shock to Adaptation through National Unity andAction: Third-year Undergraduate Students of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy Reflect on the First Eighty Days of Russia'sWar against UkraineGALYNA SOLOVEI ARTICLES Narratives about Baikonur: City and CosmodromeKULSHAT MEDEUOVA and ULBOLSYN SANDYBAYEVA From Decentralization to Warfare Resistance: Buildinga Cohesive UkraineOLEKSANDRA DEINEKO and AADNE AASLAND Epic Indigenization: Literature and Nation on the Soviet-Finnish Borders under StalinismDIEGO BENNING WANG
The Depth and Size of the European Union in a Time of War
This open access book, the eighth volume in the series of Interdisciplinary European Studies, explores the implications of the EU's size and depth at a time of war in Europe. Russia's fateful decision to invade Ukraine in 2022 has put the question of EU enlargement back on the political agenda and, again, the implications of a larger and more diverse EU bring key principles of integration to the fore. Addressing these issues, scholars from economics, law, and political science provide insights from previous EU enlargements and the UK's withdrawal from the EU. Based on up-to-date research findings, they provide succinct assessments of the challenges facing the EU in areas such as immigration, labour market integration, and adaptation to advanced technologies. To conclude, each chapter offers policy recommendations for decision-makers on European and national levels.
Children, Childhoods and Global Politics
Though children have never been absent from international studies discourse, they are too often reduced to a few simplistic and unidimensional framings. This book seeks to recover children's agency and to recognize the complex variety of childhoods and the global issues that affect them. Written by an international list of contributors from Europe, Africa, North America, and Australasia, chapters present highly nuanced accounts of children and childhoods across global political time and space split into three broad sections: imagined childhoods, governed childhoods, and lived childhoods. Through its analysis, the book demonstrates how international relations is, somewhat paradoxically, quite deeply invested in a particular rendering of childhood as, primarily, a time of innocence, vulnerability, and incapacity.
Confucian Governmentality and Socialist Autocracy in Contemporary China
In October 2022, the 20th Party Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) concluded, extending Xi Jinping's leadership indefinitely, which many view as a one-party dictatorship. Exploring Confucian and socialist principles, this book examines the relationship between the citizens and leaders in the Chinese autocracy. By applying a Foucauldian twist to a range of topics - from discussing the politics of love and pandemic nationalism to analysing Xi's personality - it challenges the binary of authoritarianism and democracy. Interdisciplinary in nature, it will appeal to scholars and students working in the fields of politics, international relations, culture studies and critical theory.
Understanding France
This concise, comprehensive volume provides a compelling introduction to the politics, society, economy and culture of France. Following on from the success of its predecessor volume, Contemporary France, this thoroughly revised and updated new edition places France firmly in its international environment, exploring the significance of developments from #MeToo to the 2024 Paris Olympics, and assessing France's response to global crises. The book offers: - rich empirical data presented in jargon-free, accessible language; - an up-to-date analysis of the French political landscape today; - an invaluable analysis for students across academic disciplines as well as for general readers. Examining crucial debates in contemporary France, this is a highly authoritative text that offers its readers keys for understanding how France is facing the challenges and opportunities of today's world.
Understanding France
This concise, comprehensive volume provides a compelling introduction to the politics, society, economy and culture of France. Following on from the success of its predecessor volume, Contemporary France, this thoroughly revised and updated new edition places France firmly in its international environment, exploring the significance of developments from #MeToo to the 2024 Paris Olympics, and assessing France's response to global crises. The book offers: - rich empirical data presented in jargon-free, accessible language; - an up-to-date analysis of the French political landscape today; - an invaluable analysis for students across academic disciplines as well as for general readers. Examining crucial debates in contemporary France, this is a highly authoritative text that offers its readers keys for understanding how France is facing the challenges and opportunities of today's world.
80 Years After Bretton Woods
2024 marks the 80th anniversary of the Bretton Woods conference, where the foundations of a new international economic and monetary order were laid down. After the end of the fixed exchange-rates regime between 1971 and 1973, the US dollar hegemony was strengthened while the international system was dominated by increasing global imbalances and greater vulnerability of the world economy. This was mainly due to the built-in destabilizer that characterizes each international monetary system relying on a national currency to provide global liquidity: the essence of the Triffin dilemma. Since the Great Financial Crisis an attempt was made towards a more equitable, multilateral economic governance system. But the last few years have also brought more fragmentation, shortening of global value chains and attempts to fence off negative transnational externalities deriving from various sources of interdependence (even with autarchic and neocolonial responses). Worse yet the pandemic and military conflicts reinforced the logic of blocks while the need for increased supranational public goods or reduced negative public bads is becoming pressing. This book suggests that a way to recover a path towards multilateralism is strengthened regional integration. This may help return on a path of trans-national confidence and cooperation and implement a new multilayered architecture of the international monetary system. "This book is an indispensable reading at a time when one of the essential tasks of the international community is to move towards a new monetary order and a reform of the International monetary fund (IMF) associating the new regional monetary unions to the management of a common currency: the Special Drawing Right (SDR)." Michel Camdessus, Former Managing Director, IMF; Honorary Governor, Bank of France
Shari織a, Citizenship, and Identity in Aceh
Shari`a, Citizenship, and identity in Aceh presents both an ethnographic and a sociohistorical account of identity making among both the Muslim majority population and different minority groups in Aceh, Indonesia.Diverging from previous studies on majority-minority group relations in a predominantly Muslim country that tend to engage solely with one group's experiences, Shari`a, Citizenship, and Identity in Aceh argues that the majority and minority groups in Aceh, Indonesia, have interactively and mutually created conceptions of identity and recognition that have significant implications on the experience of citizenship in the region. The authors provide not only a narrative of majority-minority group encounters in a variety of issues, but also a wide-ranging account of struggles from both the Muslim majority and non-Muslim minority groups for recognition of their own identity in the public space. To what extent do minority groups feel that they belong to Aceh's communal identity, which is mostly Islamic? And what kind of citizenship is in place when minorities feel marginalized living under Aceh's Islamic rules?Shari`a, Citizenship, and Identity in Aceh debunks the concept of citizenship by way of deploying the concept of the politics of recognition against the politics of the dominant culture theory. It looks further at how equal citizenship in a democratic political system has been negotiated and compromised, and how the politics of dominant culture has caused a sense of shared ownership to be largely deficient and vague in Aceh.
Shari織a, Citizenship, and Identity in Aceh
Shari`a, Citizenship, and identity in Aceh presents both an ethnographic and a sociohistorical account of identity making among both the Muslim majority population and different minority groups in Aceh, Indonesia.Diverging from previous studies on majority-minority group relations in a predominantly Muslim country that tend to engage solely with one group's experiences, Shari`a, Citizenship, and Identity in Aceh argues that the majority and minority groups in Aceh, Indonesia, have interactively and mutually created conceptions of identity and recognition that have significant implications on the experience of citizenship in the region. The authors provide not only a narrative of majority-minority group encounters in a variety of issues, but also a wide-ranging account of struggles from both the Muslim majority and non-Muslim minority groups for recognition of their own identity in the public space. To what extent do minority groups feel that they belong to Aceh's communal identity, which is mostly Islamic? And what kind of citizenship is in place when minorities feel marginalized living under Aceh's Islamic rules?Shari`a, Citizenship, and Identity in Aceh debunks the concept of citizenship by way of deploying the concept of the politics of recognition against the politics of the dominant culture theory. It looks further at how equal citizenship in a democratic political system has been negotiated and compromised, and how the politics of dominant culture has caused a sense of shared ownership to be largely deficient and vague in Aceh.
Fomenting Friendship
In studies of comparative politics and public policy specifically, interpersonal friendship has been generally regarded as a matter that belongs to the private domain, rather than a site for government intervention. And yet, friendship is inherently political. While friendships can and do evolve spontaneously between individuals, political factors can help to bring people together or drive them apart.Fomenting Friendship examines the ways in which friendship has been perceived in comparative politics, and the barriers to friendship that exist in capitalist society. These barriers, Andrea Chandler contends, have been shaped by government policy. Reviewing the abundant evidence that shows that access to friendship is socially determined, and that a lack of access to friendship disadvantages the individual in numerous ways, Chandler effectively makes the case that government has a role to play in encouraging interpersonal friendship, including calling upon politicians to model friendly and inclusive behaviour in public.This book is a natural resource for all those looking for answers and best policy practices for encouraging friendship and uncovering unanswered questions about friendship.The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.Funding for the Open Access has been provided by the Department of Political Science, Carleton University.
Ahmadu Bamba and Decolonization
This book presents Ahmadu Bamba as one of the pioneers of decolonization and non-violence in West Africa to examine his legacy as a man of unshakable faith, a humanist, a socio-cultural reformer, and a key agent in the decolonization of minds and spaces.
A Critical Approach to Youth Sector Peacebuilding
Using Northern Ireland as a compelling case study, this book offers a critique of peacebuilding approaches with young people in contested societies. In the north of Ireland, the spectre of murderous violence is increasingly distant for peace-agreement generations. However, legacies stemming from the 30 years of protracted conflict are ever-present in young people's segregated lives. This book presents four distinctive viewpoints that inform contemporary peacebuilding work with young people, revealing divergent purposes and conflicting aspirations. Offering a new model to understand peacebuilding, the authors urge peacebuilding communities around the globe to embrace an increasingly politicising and participative youth peace praxis.
A Critical Approach to Youth Sector Peacebuilding
Using Northern Ireland as a compelling case study, this book offers a critique of peacebuilding approaches with young people in contested societies. In the north of Ireland, the spectre of murderous violence is increasingly distant for peace-agreement generations. However, legacies stemming from the 30 years of protracted conflict are ever-present in young people's segregated lives. This book presents four distinctive viewpoints that inform contemporary peacebuilding work with young people, revealing divergent purposes and conflicting aspirations. Offering a new model to understand peacebuilding, the authors urge peacebuilding communities around the globe to embrace an increasingly politicising and participative youth peace praxis.
Everyday Humanitarianism in Cambodia
Faced with the scale of global challenges such as poverty and inequality, one question is where to start. Humanitarian efforts can only ever have limited reach. Among all of human suffering, whom should we support? And what shapes our choices? Such questions are at the core of this book. Through an ethnographic account of moralities, it traces how everyday humanitarian practitioners challenge entrenched values of what matters, upending the notion that the large-scale is inherently important, and even questioning what 'large' means in the first place. Instead, these practitioners typically aim to create a difference in the life of a particular person, situating their limited actions within pervasive poverty.
A Layman'S Guide To Naval Strategy
This book distinguishes itself by the author's ability to dispel clich矇s and elucidate the factual underpinnings of the ongoing naval warfare. The author possesses a lucid and pragmatic understanding of contemporary sea power, recognizing it as a practical rather than a convoluted concept. Unlike many works, this book does not promise a quick route to victory and avoids the typical broad and disdainful criticisms of the British and American high commands. Instead, the author elucidates the intricate challenges these commands have encountered, articulating the complexities in non-specialized language. The text notably avoids excessive use of tactical jargon.
The Australia-Japan Special Strategic Partnership
What is a "Special Strategic Partnership?" In the case of Australia and Japan, it is a unique type of relationship founded upon core values and shared interests which underpin collaboration in multiple realms-not least of which being foreign policy and security. This volume includes the agreements, joint statements, and related documents that underwrite this important security partnership. For practitioners involved in Australia-Japan relations, it is a handy reference book. For those from other countries seeking to foster ties with Australia, Japan, or both, this book presents the blueprint for how Australia and Japan built their relationship so their approach may be replicated elsewhere. For scholars and analysts, it is a one-stop resource for documents and statements related to this increasingly important bilateral relationship.
Ways of Seeing International Organisations
For decades, the field of scholarship that studies the law and practice of international organisations -also known as 'international institutional law'- has been marked by an intellectual quietism. Most of the scholarship tends to focus narrowly on providing 'legal' answers to 'legal' questions. For that reason, perspectives rarely engage with the insights of critical traditions of legal thought (for instance, feminist, postcolonial, or political economy-oriented perspectives) or with interdisciplinary contributions produced outside the field. Ways of Seeing International Organisations challenges the narrow gaze of the field by bringing together authors across multiple disciplines to reflect on the need for 'new' perspectives in international institutional law. Highlighting the limits of mainstream approaches, the authors instead interrogate international organisations as pivots in processes of world-making. To achieve this, the volume is organised around four fundamental themes: expertise; structure; performance; and capital. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Ways of Seeing International Organisations
For decades, the field of scholarship that studies the law and practice of international organisations -also known as 'international institutional law'- has been marked by an intellectual quietism. Most of the scholarship tends to focus narrowly on providing 'legal' answers to 'legal' questions. For that reason, perspectives rarely engage with the insights of critical traditions of legal thought (for instance, feminist, postcolonial, or political economy-oriented perspectives) or with interdisciplinary contributions produced outside the field. Ways of Seeing International Organisations challenges the narrow gaze of the field by bringing together authors across multiple disciplines to reflect on the need for 'new' perspectives in international institutional law. Highlighting the limits of mainstream approaches, the authors instead interrogate international organisations as pivots in processes of world-making. To achieve this, the volume is organised around four fundamental themes: expertise; structure; performance; and capital. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.