INTERVIEW
Martha Finnemore has visited MGIMO-University this September, she gave several public lectures for students and participated in a number of roundtables. Professor Finnemore was very kind to give an interview to our journal on various issues of international information and cybersecurity. The interview was conducted by Elena Zinovieva, vice director of the Center for International Information Security, Science and Technology Policy at MGIMO-University.
RESEARCH ARTICLES. Security Issues in Theory and Practice of International Relations
The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the best Western practices in strategic planning with the view to improve the effectiveness of the Russian Federation national security policy in the face of new challenges and threats.
Having analyzed Western approaches to ensuring national security, the article concludes that the political and governance practice needs to include more of strategic planning elements, such as strategic forecasting, monitoring, and national security assessment. Based on applicability to the Russian environment, the article particularly focuses on the American experience in strategic planning and discusses the origins and nature of the ideologeme of Americentrism that has dominated the American politics since 1990s. The author reveals how important role the use of soft power in specific national interests plays in the government policy for national security purposes and concludes that interrelation and mutual influence between planning and governance are indispensable.
Having analyzed the Western practices, the article demonstrates the need to adjust significantly the strategic goal setting, first and foremost in Russia’s essential strategic planning documents.
The article provides an analytical review of the literature on the issue of harm in the theory of international relations, as a result of which this issue has been supplemented and expanded. The issue has initially been posed by Andrew Linklater as a question of physical harm to humans in the context of a state-centered international system. Audra Mitchell entered into a discussion with A. Linklater from the standpoint of post-humanism. From her point of view, harm should be evaluated not only and not so much from the human point of view, but from the perspective the whole world, the totality of animate and inanimate nature, including humanity. Alex Hoseason called into question the nature of causal relations in the theories of A. Linklater and A. Mitchell. From his point of view, in complex social systems, such as international system, non-linear causal relationships and multiple causality prevail. In addition, based on the philosophy of critical realism, Alex Hoseason suggested that not only actors in international relations, but also social structures can cause harm. This narrative is further developed by problematique of biopolitics. Political governance of biological aspects of the life of the population is directly related to the problem of physical harm in the sense that biopolitics, on the one hand, is aimed at maintaining the physical health of the population, on the other hand, politics is still at the core of biopolitics, so sometimes it can turn against all or part of its population as happened in Nazi Germany. Today, biopolitics at the global level is implemented in the UN development programs, in various international and transnational initiatives to promote international development, as well as in global health governance. Expanding the problematique of harm to biopolitics brings us back to the original anthropocentric model of harm proposed by A. Linklater, nevertheless, this step allows us to analyze not only the causes of harm, but also approaches to reducing it.
The article offers an inquiry into the problem of “ethnic revival” in politics against the background of the accelerated globalization processes through the example of the indigenous movements in Latin America. In particular, it explains how such global trends as the democratization and liberalization of social and political spheres, intensified activities of international institutions on the empowerment of disadvantaged social groups, the inclusion of ecological problems in national and international agendas, growing interest of international society to the social and political problems of developing countries have contributed to the intensification of political activities of the indigenous peoples in Latin America in the last 25 years.
The indigenous political activism has taken radically different institutional forms and has led to diverse outcomes. For instance, in Mexico the indigenous peoples did not manage to create a viable sociopolitical force capable of advocating for their rights. In some other Latin America states, there are indigenous organizations that successfully promote the interests of native peoples. Moreover, in various countries the indigenous representatives are elected to national and local governments. In Colombia, Ecuador and Nicaragua the indigenous political parties were found, which, as long as other political forces, are participating in electoral processes and are delegating their representatives to public institutions. Whereas in case of Bolivia, the indigenous movement in alliance with left and progressive social organizations, has become the leading political force.
The author gives an explanation why the political activism of the indigenous peoples in different Latin American countries has taken such forms and has contributed to such results. On the basis of the analysis of these political activities the conclusion is made about common features of political culture, self-identification and perception of social and political processes by the indigenous peoples of Latin America.
RESEARCH ARTICLES. World economy
Main objective of the article – assessment of problems and opportunities of speeding up of world economic growth in the context of the crisis phenomena and turbulence in economy. Complication and reformatting of the economic relations between the countries represents serious challenges for modern economic dynamics. Methodological approach of the authors is based on assessment of the defining influence of new factors on delay of economic activity and economic development. The thesis about the defining impact of international trade on economic growth is called into question. It was analyzed the value and a role of the international companies as growth catalysts in the conditions of new technological revolution. It is established that risks of development of the world economy continue to increase, and the main of them – in decline in labor productivity in the developed countries, uncertainty concerning interest rates and economic policy of the states, the universal growth of sovereign and corporate debt of the states. It is shown that China has the increasing problems with the growth; however the flexibility of its economic policy allows to connect additional mechanisms of speeding up of social and economic development. In the European Union economic growth depends on the solution of problems of consolidation of the budgetary process, decrease in a debt, and in general – on reforming of the existing model of social and economic development. Prospects of economic dynamics will depend in many respects on stability of trade relations between the countries, and on the effective international cooperation directed to overcoming imbalances of the modern world economy. Opportunities and problems of an exit of developing countries to a trajectory of sustained economic growth in the conditions of digitalization and digital transformations in the world economy are estimated. Aggravation of a problem of inequality in the conditions of digitalization of the world economy is possible to overcome, however a number of measures in the sphere of industrial, innovative and regulatory policy is necessary. Also at the international level serious reforms in the sphere of financial regulation and taxation are necessary. The conclusions received as a result of the research have important practical importance as overcoming the problems stated above and also trade political differences between the countries will make economic growth steady and inclusive.
Global financial crisis of 2008–2009 demonstrated the need for reforms in the system of financial regulation. An institutional mechanism was created under the auspices of the G20 with the purpose to implement a global reform. In the article results of the postcrisis global financial reform are analysed in contingent with review of the evolution of institutional mechanism, which specifics often determined success or its absence in particular directions of the reform. The author selects and reviews three main periods of development of the global financial regulation’s institutional mechanism. In the initial period – the first years after the crisis works were progressing in two directions simultaneously: a) co-ordination of activities of national financial regulatory bodies in coping with the crisis processes and neutralization of its consequences; b) development and reconciliation of major global standards of financial regulation. We can consider that period as successful because crisis processes were overcame in relatively short time, trade and currency wars were also avoided and at the same time international regulatory standards were widely agreed.
The second period according to the author’s classification (approx. 2012–2015) – transmission to the implementation of agreed international standards at the national and supranational (EC) levels. That time a range of difficulties and contradictions between leading countries revealed. First of all these problems related to the spheres where the regulations of transnational activities of financial institutions had to be agreed. As the author shows exactly in that time a problem of the so-called asymmetrical sovereignty in the financial policy aggravated.
The third period is continuing in the present time. During this period, from the one side, the global financial regulation expands its coverage according to emergence of new challenges, but from the other side the interest to the reform is being loosing and the trend to increase of the independence of the national financial regulators is expanding. So the threat to fragmentation of the international financial markets and revision of already agreed regulatory standards became not illusive.
Special attention in the article was paid to analysis of the problem of regulating the shadow banking or non-bank financial intermediation (NBFI), which are till now largely outside of the regulatory mandate of the governance bodies. Rapid growth of transactions by the latter, according to the author’s opinion, is a threat to the global financial stability especially taking into account such factors as its close interconnectedness with traditional financial institutions (banks), exposure to the bank-like risks, the wide implementation of financial innovations for making new unregulated products.
Investigating new challenges beyond the perimeter of the post-crisis reform the author came to the conclusion that implementation of financial technologies as well as the necessity to take into account ecological and social factors require serious transformation of the global financial system as well as it’s regulation. Taking into account the global nature of new challenges the need for international co-operation of financial regulatory bodies will be continued.
The article describes the current state of Japan's public debt, which exceeds its GDP by almost 2.5 times; it seeks to identify the main causes for its growth, analyses its structure, reviews the main stages of its formation; assesses the effectiveness of government measures to regulate it and makes a comparative analysis with the national debt of the United States.
The distinctive nature of Japan's public debt is that it is based on the relative stability of Japan’s financial system and a high degree of trust in it both domestically and abroad. In particular, the sustainability of the debt is ensured by the fact that 95% of government bonds are owned by residents. Despite the pessimistic mood of the IMF, investors continue to actively acquire debt obligations of the Japanese government. The behavior of investors is affected by the strengthening of the position of Neo-Keynesians in world economic sci ence, who consider domestic debt safe, assuming that budget expenditures can be equal to the sum of tax revenues and domestic debt. Government bonds will continue to play a dominant role in the Japanese debt market for a long time and, although the volume of this type of loans is large, a high degree of confidence in Japanese finances will remain both domestically and abroad thanks to a competent, cautious and conservative financial policy. In the field of public debt regulation, the author considers the Bank of Japan's policy to be successful, it mitigates the negative impact of public debt on the development of the Japanese economy. On the contrary, the effectiveness of government measures, including the Three Arrows Plan of Prime Minister S. Abe, is assessed as non-effective. Government spending is growing, but the government does not introduce restrictive measures of debt policy, considering that an annual increase in government debt by 1% is necessary to maintain economic growth. Based on the study, a forecast is made that Japan will maintain a high level of public debt for the next five years.RESEARCH ARTICLES. Green economy
Transition of the world development to the post-industrial phase is accompanied by the global challenges, which could be solved within the "green economy". The basic principles of a "green economy" (GE) correspond to the concepts of balanced development and of rational nature use: the "green economy's" concept focuses on the idea of living standards improvement and economic growth while reducing the environmental damage. The indicators of GE reflect the complexity of the integrated assessment of economic, environmental and social outcomes. Since the common approach to such assessment has not yet been adopted, the development of global and national economies is often compared with the dynamics of their energy or resource intensity. This approach allows to take into account the "life cycle" of products and to allocate the responsibility of countries for environmental damage. Foreign experience can be used to implement the ideas of GE in Russia and CIS countries. Most experts are sceptical about these prospects due to its dependence on fossil fuels. Nevertheless, the experience of some regions of Russia and Kazakhstan shows the viability of strategies based on the renewable energy sources. Elaboration of financing mechanisms for "green" development is equally important. Such mechanisms must be adapted to meet the environmental needs of society, with attention to the losses from natural disasters and environmental damage. Today, national environmental management strategies are based on the transition to a resource-efficient low-carbon economy, and contribute a lot to the search for opportunities for the practical implementation of this concept.
Clean energy transition is one of major transformation processes in the EU. There are different approaches among EU countries to decarbonization of their energy systems. The article deals with clean energy transition in France with the emphasis on power generation. While this transformation process is in line with similar developments in the EU, the Franch case has its distinct nature due to nuclear power domination in electricity production there. It represents a challenge for the current model as the transition is linked to a sharp drop of nuclear share in the power mix. It is important to understand the trajectory of further clean energy transition in France and its ultimate model. The article reviews the historical roots of the current model (which stems from Messmer plan of the 1970-es) and its development over years, as well as assesses its drawbacks and merits in order to outline possible future prospects. The conclusion is that the desired reduction of nuclear energy is linked not solely to greening process but has a complex of reasons, the ageing of nuclear reactors being one of them. Nuclear power remains an important low-carbon technology allowing France to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. A desired future energy model in France can be understood based on the analysis of new legislation and government action plans. The targeted model is expected to balance of nuclear and green energy in the generation mix in 50% to 40% proportion by 2035, with the rest left to gas power generation. Being pragmatic, French government aims at partial nuclear reactors shut down provided that this will not lead to the rise of GHG emissions, energy market distortions, or electricity price hikes. The balanced French model is believed to be a softer and socially comfortable option of low-carbon model.
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