Vol. 43, No. 4, December 2008
Opinions
Using Criminal Justice to Foster US-EU Cooperation on Counter-terrorism
Paul Wilkinson
EU and US political leaders and elites
share the same overall threat assessment of terrorist networks but differ over the choice
of strategy to defeat them. While President Bush's "war on terrorism" has relied
on the military to suppress terrorism, incarcerating terrorist suspects in Guantanamo and
refusing them access to US federal courts, Europeans have stressed a holistic and
multilateral approach to the struggle, giving a greater role to the criminal justice
system. Abandoning due process and violating suspects' human rights betrays the very
values and principles upon which the democracies supposedly being defended are founded.
Courts in Europe since 9/11 have demonstrated that it is possible to bring terrorists and
conspirators to trial and to convict them on the basis of overwhelming evidence. Hence,
the strengthening of national judicial processes and international judicial cooperation
should remain the major objective of the transatlantic alliance.
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Less Words and More Deeds in Constructing Europe
William Wallace
British politicians have two different
motivations in strongly wishing for a long pause in the negotiations over institutional
reform, after 20 years of revisions to the EU treaties. The first is their sensitivity to
a domestic debate which presents "Brussels" as a determined assault on British
sovereignty by unelected officials. The second is their scepticism about federalistic
rhetoric, unsupported by commitments to implement common policies. British disillusion at
the gap between promises and fulfilment has been sharpest over common foreign and defence
policies, where those governments most actively committed to integrating national policies
have also been the most frequent defaulters. Yet successive British governments are also
to blame, both for failing to shift the balance of the Eurosceptic public debate within
the UK, and for leaving it to other governments to set the EU agenda, for fear of arousing
public hostility at home.
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The AKP in Turkey: Off the Hook This Time
Senem Aydin Düzgit
Against expectations, in July 2008, the
Constitutional Court in Turkey ruled against banning the AKP. The decision of the Court
needs to be interpreted against a background of closely intertwined internal and domestic
constraints. While the risk of political and economic crises, lack of a credible political
opposition, high public opposition to the closure of the party and prospects of further
polarisation in society constitute the main domestic determinants, the implications of a
potential ban on the country's relations, primarily with Europe, namely the EU and the
Council of Europe, are also major external constraints behind the Court's final decision.
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Essays
Perspectives on EU-Turkey Relations
The Effect of US Policy in the Middle East on EU-Turkey Relations
Henri J. Barkey
Among the unintended consequences of US
policies in the Middle East is their impact on the Turkish-EU relationship. Although
Turkey, at the government and popular level, reacted to the US invasion of Iraq much the
same way the Europeans did, at the end of the day the gulf between Europe and Turkey has
widened. This is because the 9/11 attacks, the American reaction to them and the Iraq war
have reminded ordinary Europeans of the civilisational divide between East and West, of
the dangers of extending Europe's boundaries to the Middle East and of Turkey's unresolved
domestic Kurdish problem.
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EU-Turkey Trade: A Case of Deep Integration
Luigi Narbone and Agnieszka Skuratowicz
The 1963 Ankara agreement established
the framework for the relations between Turkey and the European Economic Community. A key
intermediate objective was setting up a customs union, which was established in 1996. From
a long-term trade perspective the customs union has had a positive impact on EU-Turkey
bilateral trade, its growth and its composition. The subsequent pre-accession process has
further fostered trade integration, facilitated structural reforms and boosted the
country's economic potential. The increasingly close political and economic relations have
also promoted stability and growth in the Turkish economy. These positive developments
have been linked, however, to the prospects of Turkey's EU accession and could be
undermined by uncertainty over the eventual outcome of this process.
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Israel and Palestine in Focus
Palestinian Islamism: Conflating National Liberation and Socio-political Change
Khaled Hroub
For many decades, mainstream
Palestinian Islamists have oscillated between two agendas: Islamising their own society
and resisting the Zionist project in Palestine. Prioritising one over the other has always
been problematic even if responsive to context and capabilities. Though they emerged in
Palestine in the 1940s as the Palestinian chapter of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood,
founded in Egypt in 1928, it was not until 1987 with the forming of Hamas that these
Islamists moved to the forefront of Palestinian politics. Hamas' project espouses
"resistance" as a priority, yet without marginalising socio-religious activism,
an effective formula that has enabled Hamas to compete with the PLO for Palestinian
leadership, culminating in its victory in the 2006 elections.
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Principled or Stubborn? Western Policy toward Hamas
Nathan J. Brown
American and European policies toward
Hamas have been based largely on the movement's reputation as terrorist, a threat to the
peace process and emblematic of the dangers contained in democratic reform. While some
debate has occurred in policy circles, US policy remains extremely strict. This has had
effects, many of which are negative (undermining Palestinian institutions), while it has
not produced a softening of Hamas' position. In recent years, some European states have
shown discomfort with the harshness of this policy and the political chaos it threatens to
unleash. An alternative policy toward Hamas, more conditional and nuanced, would not
necessarily have produced better results over the short term, although it could have
produced longer term changes and avoided some of the costs of the draconian path followed.
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One State in the Holy Land: A Dream or a Nightmare?
Menachem Klein
With Israeli having de facto control
over historical Palestine, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has shifted from being a
border conflict to an ethnic struggle between almost minority but powerful Israeli Jews
and Arab Palestinians. Hence, the "one-state proposal" now circulating for the
two peoples is not a viable solution but rather the current problematic reality: the area
between the Jordan and the Mediterranean is heading toward Balkanisation. Nevertheless, as
long as the majority on both sides rejects the joint state in favour of their own nation
state, the Balkan model can be avoided. Indeed, when the cost of ethnic conflict becomes
too high, Israel will be quick to put new effort into working on the idea of two states.
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Partition as a Solution to Ethnic Conflict
Costantino Pischedda
Partition has historically been more
effective than its more popular alternative power-sharing as a lasting solution to ethnic
civil war. However, partition does not appear to be a "cheap" strategy because
it tends to require the deployment of robust international peacekeeping forces in order to
work. In addition, international support for partition risks generating incentives for
more secessionist rebellions. Thus policymakers are likely to face a difficult trade-off
between the objective of putting an end to ethnic war in one place and running the risk of
encouraging violence somewhere else.
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European and American Roles in Nation-Building
James Dobbins
Contrary to popular belief, the number
of conflicts and the number of casualties, refugees and displaced persons resulting from
them has fallen dramatically since the end of the Cold War. Previously, with neither
superpower wanting a dispute to be settled to its disadvantage, conflicts dragged on
indefinitely or were permanently frozen. After 1989, dynamics changed and international
interventions began to pursue more far-reaching objectives: to disarm combatants, promote
civil society, restore the economy, etc. Nation-building thus replaced inter-positional
peacekeeping as the dominant form of international intervention with such missions
becoming larger, longer and more frequent. The UN's success rate, as measured in enhanced
security, economic growth, return of refugees and installation of representative
governments meets or exceeds that of NATO- and EU-led missions in almost every category.
It is time, therefore, for Western governments, militaries and populations to get over
their disappointment at the UN's early failures and begin once again to do their fair
share in these efforts.
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Italy in World Affairs
Not a Zero-Sum Game: Atlanticism and Europeanism in Italian Foreign Policy
Osvaldo Croci
In Italy, Atlanticism and Europeanism
should not be seen as two alternative and therefore mutually exclusive policies.
Strengthening Atlanticism, for instance, does not necessarily correspond to an equal
weakening of Europeanism, as implicitly assumed by those who expect a tilt one way or the
other each time a centre-right government replaces a centre-left one or vice versa.
Rather, the two policies are hierarchical and constitute a "nested game", with
Europeanism nested, as it were, in Atlanticism. Italy's foreign policy choices thus result
from a double constraint, one of which, Atlanticism, is more important than the other,
Europeanism. More precisely, Italian foreign policymakers have traditionally regarded
Europeanism as a policy aimed at reinforcing Atlanticism.
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Europe Forum
European Foreign Policy Without Legal Personality?
Carmen Campo Fanlo and Miguel Medina Abellan
The European Union was not explicitly
granted legal personality by its founding Treaty. As a result, the matter has been the
subject of debate ever since. Is there a relationship between legal personality and the
EU's foreign policy? Are there legal obstacles to the articulation of an EU foreign policy
worthy of the name? The external representation and treaty-making power of the EU are
often said to suffer from the lack of explicitly conferred legal personality.
Nevertheless, it can hardly be blamed for the EU's record in international affairs. In the
end, conferring legal personality will be just one more step on the road towards a unitary
system of EU foreign policymaking.
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Book Reviews
Making Sense of Euro-Mediterranean Relations
Nathalie Tocci
Review of: European foreign policy
making toward the Mediterranean, Federica Bicchi, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007
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An Empire of Liberty?
James Edward Miller
Review of: Libertà e impero : gli
Stati Uniti e il mondo, 1776-2006, Mario Del Pero, Laterza, 2008
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Crisis Does Not Mean the End: the Atlantic Alliance in the 21st Century
Emiliano Alessandri
Review of: The end of the West? :
crisis and change in the Atlantic order, edited by Jeffrey Anderson, G. John
Ikenberry, Thomas Risse, Cornell University Press, 2008
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The Foundations of American National Security
Francesco N. Moro
Review of: Creating the national
security state : a history of the law that transformed America, Douglas T. Stuart,
Princeton University Press, 2008
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Recent Publications
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Volume 43 Contents
Index 2008
List of
Contributors 2008
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