Corvinus Journal of International Affairs
COJOURN: A Multidisciplinary Journal of International Affairs, published by the Institute of International Studies at Corvinus University, Budapest, Hungary.
Institute of International Studies, Corvinus University of Budapest
Authors are the primary copyright holders. COJOURN maintains the right to re-publish an article (e.g. in a prospective anniversary edition, or in an occasional selection of articles) in its future issues.
Social and Environmental Conflicts in the Peruvian Amazon
The Peruvian Amazon remained relatively undisturbed until the 1860s, with higher immigration and the extraction of raw materials only beginning in the second half of the century. As a result of the rubber boom (1880–1910), many ethnic groups became extinct. During the 20th century, the exploitation of mahogany, cedar, and other useful trees, the cultivation of various plants and also, in some regions, gold mining began. In the last decades of the 20th century, the extraction of oil and other raw materials as well as the construction of roads and infrastructure led to a significant reduction in forest areas. Further developments are planned for the upcoming years. Illegal gold mining, oil extraction and deforestation are expected to intensify, with increasing local social resistance, one of the most prominent examples being the bloody conflict between the Peruvian army and local ethnic groups in 2009 in the city of Bagua. A growing number of non-governmental organizations are protesting against the processes taking place in the region. The purpose of this study is to provide a background for the understanding of these processes and present the current situation.
Filling the Vacuum: New Players in the Geopolitical Backyard of the United States?
At the end of the Cold War, the attention of the United States was drawn away from its own neighbouring region, Latin America. Events in the Balkans and the Middle East, besides others, and the fall of the Soviet Union left the region unattended, leaving a vacuum there. Latin American states slowly found their way back to democracy, although after a short period most of them tried a different route than before: the populations of several countries elected left-wing governments one after the other. The phenomenon known as Pink Tide changed the political landscape of the region not just domestically but also with regards to foreign relations: governments started to look for allies other than the US and other countries in the Western World. In parallel to these changes, China started to reach out for resources, and Russia rebooted its strategic views about its own global role — thus some of the new connections. Additionally, however, in the shadow of these large-scale steps, smaller steps by a distant regional power were also taken: Iran, and its proxy, the Hezbollah, as well as Lebanon, also set foot in Latin America. The paper aims to focus on these actors, with special regard to Iran and its growing influence in certain areas of the region.
Identity Crisis in U.S. Foreign Policy: Discourses of Greatness and Exceptionalism after 2008
By the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, the United States had to face a number of interrelated crises: the economic and financial crisis of 2008-09 coincided with the military overexpansion resulting from interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. These developments culminated in a crisis of foreign-policy identity: the notion refers to a situation in which well-established conceptions of a country’s role in the international system are questioned, and new conceptions are created and reproduced. For the U.S., this manifested in a challenge to the unipolar leadership role that had been widely accepted in the post-Cold War era. Surprisingly, this did not lead to the disappearance of discourses of “American exceptionalism” and “greatness.” On the contrary, these ideas gained even greater significance in the foreign-policy debates of the 2010s, although their precise meaning was the subject of intense contestation. What explains this resurgence of exceptionalist rhetoric, and how can we characterize the different themes that appeared in these debates? The article introduces a new theoretical framework for understanding discourses of U.S. exceptionalism, and briefly examines the discourses of the Obama and the Trump presidencies. This analysis can highlight how the use of certain terms may accompany decisive changes in U.S. foreign policy, and how especially the presidency of Donald Trump signals a shift in the understanding of U.S. national role conception.
Redistributive and Developmental Policies of the Brazilian State during the World Economic Upswing
This article forms a part of a longer study that deals with the developmental problems of the peripheries in the global hierarchical world economy. This part of the research introduces the economic and social policies of semi-peripheral Brazil under the Lula era, the most successful catching-up period of the largest Latin-American country after the Second World War. The research questions were how the government influenced domestic consumption and investments in the period of the world economic expansion, and how efficient these policies were in increasing the Brazilian economic growth and mitigating the historically deep poverty and inequality. The article concludes that the developmentalist and redistributive government policies could not have had meaningful positive results if beneficial world economic circumstances had not made it possible by facilitating export and production.
From Cold-War Communist Connection to Post-Cold-War Divergence: Cuba and Ethiopia
My paper will assess the effects that decolonization and communism had on Ethiopia and Cuba during the Cold War. The lasting impacts such concepts had on both countries after the Cold War and into the present day will also be examined. It may be interesting to contemplate that both Ethiopia and Cuba were third-world countries that transitioned into communist nations during the Cold War, but, after the end of the Cold War, only Cuba kept its communist government. Ethiopia was the only non-colonized country in the continent of Africa. Instead of being controlled by outside European nations, Ethiopia was ruled by a monarch for six hundred years. However, in the 1970s, the country was weakened by political in-fighting. In order to restore public confidence and unity, Lieutenant Colonel Mengistu seized power in a military coup and transformed the country into a communist state. As of today, Ethiopia has a formally democratic political system with a federal republic. On the other hand, Cuba had been colonized by the Spanish from the 15th century until the Spanish-American War in the 19th century. In 1959, its US-backed President, Fulgencio Batista, was ousted during the Cuban Revolution leaving the country in the hands of Fidel Castro. Since then, Cuba has been a one-party state under communist rule. Castro would utilize his party to exercise control over all aspects of Cuban life. Through my paper, I will research why out of these two third-world countries with similar desires to unify their nations under communism only Cuba remained a communist nation in the 21st century.
The Family as a Cold War Weapon: Italian-American Cultural Diplomacy to Italy, 1951-1957
Based on a full version of this project, this short paper sets out to form a descriptive analysis of Italian-American cultural diplomacy towards Italy from 1951-1957, during the Cold War era. Diverging from current scholarship on cultural diplomacy from the U.S. towards Italy in this period, I assert that intersections between gender and religion (specifically Catholicism) contributed to the ways in which Italian-Americans were able to relate with those they left behind in Italy. This paper utilizes archival evidence pertaining to Catholic Italian-Americans in Utica, New York to explore the roles of gender and religion in Italian-American cultural diplomacy to Italy. The conclusion I arrive at in this project is that many Italian-Americans were not only consistently in touch with their relatives in Italy, but they also sought ardently to protect a very Catholic ideal for the family in which the woman was viewed as the protector of familial structures. In a sense, the family was used as somewhat of a strategic weapon in this cultural exchange, in an attempt to convince Italians that the wellbeing of the family rested on disavowing Communism. Moreover, this paper addresses its topic with a “one-way street” approach to cultural diplomacy, concentrating primarily on the historical richness of Italian-American mentalities involved in reaching out across the Atlantic to influence the politics of their ancestral homeland. As such, this essay explores Italian-American mentalities in cultural diplomacy to Italy as opposed to the effects/reception of said diplomacy in Italy.
“Israeli imperialists”: The Soviet «anti-Israel» campaign of 1967
The paper discusses the so-called «anti-Israel» campaign which the USSR started after the Six Day War between Israel and the Arab countries. The focus of the analysis is on the connection of this campaign and the general dynamics of the Cold War. The paper introduces the main lines of propaganda that sought to frame the Israeli victory and Israeli policies as those of an «imperialist» state.
More than a Historical Sidenote: The Nuclear Ambitions of the Shah of Iran
Scholarly work on nuclear proliferation tends to relegate the atomic aspirations of the Shah to the role of a framing device for the nuclear ambitions of the Islamic Republic of Iran. This approach is lacking, as it overlooks a large body of primary source material which portends to an alarming interest in, and potential movement towards nuclear weapons on the part of the Iranian ruler. This article will examine whether the Shah took any concrete steps towards developing nuclear weapons. In arguing that Mohammad Reza Pahlavi did so, two arguments are made. Firstly, that the Shah’s nuclear energy programme, when completed, would have allowed for nuclear weapons to be developed. Secondly, there were multiple efforts by the Shah to procure weapon systems which are key in a functioning nuclear deterrent.
The period framed as the Cold War of the superpower-led blocs is a limitless treasure trove of hidden stories about people, places and processes hitherto underestimated in significance. It is often said that the study of political events ultimately leads towards a convergence of the historical and the social sciences-based approaches, the idiographic and the nomothetic. What could better exemplify this than the impact of the continuous unearthing of important but — at least in comparative terms — ignored subjects relating to Cold War history, resulting in a need to constantly revaluate the old evidence regarding established truths and narratives? The emergence of new pieces of fact and novel considerations feeds into just the kind of process-tracing analysis that is increasingly common in historical studies as well as the social sciences.
Copyright (c) 2020 Péter Marton, Csaba Békés
Reflections on the Analysis of Counterfactual Propositions and Alternative History Speculative Fiction about WWI
This article offers a brief overview of the challenges of assessing counterfactual statements in terms of plausibility, to then consider the reasons for the comparative scarcity of WWI alternative histories in published alternative history (AH) speculative fiction. The relative rarity of such fiction may be striking, given the popularity of the notion that the event of the nearly-botched assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir presumptive to the throne of Austria-Hungary, in 1914, in Sarajevo — in a sense a small, improbable event — was the decisive trigger of the conflict. Explaining the comparative lack of AH in the light of a systematic understanding of the difficulties of counterfactual analysis may be as interesting for literary theory as to political analysis. The article closes with a discussion of the few relevant pieces of genre literature that have been identified during the course of the research for this piece.
Arab Public Debate on the “Deal of the Century” in the “Versailles” Framework
The Trump administration has reportedly planned to publish its self-drafted Middle East peace initiative some time during the year 2019, exactly 100 years after the Treaty of Versailles (1919) was signed. Although previous and subsequent agreements, declarations and treaties, such as the Sykes-Picot Agreement (1916), the Balfour Declaration (1917), the Treaty of Sèvres (1920) and the Treaty of Lausanne (1923) had much more to do with the fate of the Middle East than the Treaty of Versailles itself, the coincidence of the announcement of the “deal of the century” with the anniversary of “Versailles” provides great significance to the latter in current Arab public debate. While the above mentioned events and decisions did not meaningfully hinder the long-term Israeli–Palestinian peace process, the “deal of the century” might have harmful effects for it. Arab leaders as well as opinionmakers of all kinds agree on the existence of a strong parallel between the aims and design of the Versailles-related treaties and those of the “deal of the century.” They agree that both of them deny the right of self-determination to Arab nations and that they are both designed to foreshadow decades of bloody conflicts between the nations of the Middle East. The “deal of the century” might also sanctify the “acquisition of land by force” which has clear implications for state-to-state relations. In my analysis, I will provide a snapshot of the Arab public debate on the “deal of the century” and how it is related to the anniversary of the Treaty of Versailles and related agreements.
Why (and How) Rusyns Joined Czechoslovakia a Hundred Years Ago
It is soon to be 100 years since the modern Transcaprathian region of Ukraine (also known as Kárpátalja, as the Podkarpatska Rus and as the Zakarpattia Region) was incorporated into the new-born state of Czechoslovakia as per the treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Czechoslovakia was built by merging different ethnicities, one of which were the Rusyns who were promised substantial autonomy within the confines of their traditional ethnic lands. The present study examines the thoughts of the Rusyn leaders regarding their preferences of territorial belonging at the end of World War I, with due attention to the differences between various groups in Hungary and in the American diaspora. At the Paris Peace Conference, the Rusyns, as members of the Czechoslovak delegation, were aiming to gain fair borders for their nation, a task that was, however, complicated, to say the least. During the conference, the region became a source of numerous conflicts between the victors, and even within the Czechoslovak delegation itself. As a result, significant Rusyn minorities remained in Romania, Poland and Slovakia. In this particular case, geopolitical considerations prevailed over the principle of self-determination for a nation which the “New Europe” declared to be one of the key elements of the postwar world. The fact that the seceding parts of imperial states were often divided about what country to belong to and under which particular political elite is often overlooked in Western historiography. This study seeks to provide new insights into this relatively seldom-discussed case — and into the reasons and circumstances that led to the decisions taken at the Conference in regard to it.
The Round Table Movement in Paris and the Rise of a New World Order after WWI
The Paris Peace Conference represented a turning point for the British Empire. Great Britain and its Dominions placed on the side of the Entente all their military might together with the most powerful navy. However, at the end of the war, Britain, in spite of being a victorious country, saw its world hegemony reduced and its control over the widest Empire in the history of the world irremediably affected. On the other side of the Atlantic, the United States turned out to be the real winner of the war and this gave them great leverage in Paris in shaping the new international order. However, the passage from the period of the Pax Britannica, which for almost a century granted stability in Europe, to the Pax Americana, was not so unexpected and painful for the British political establishment as we usually think. Among the British establishment, there was a movement that was able to shape the country’s foreign policy for more than twenty years and prepared the ground for the creation of the Anglo-American alliance. This article tries to focus on the circumstances that made possible this transatio imperii and the role played by the Round Table movement in Paris in this respect.
A Step-by-Step Revision of the Treaty of Versailles? Gustav Stresemann’s Eastern Policy
Gustav Stresemann, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and German Foreign Minister of the 1920s, is well-known for the international cooperation of the Weimar Republic with Europe’s great powers. He simultaneously pursued a peaceful modification of the eastern boundaries of Germany, while accepting the reality of the Versailles system. This paper analyses the change in Germany's relations with her eastern neighbours, as well as Stresemann’s intentions to achieve border revisions and to support German minorities abroad. It is especially exciting to consider the purposes of the German approach to the Soviet Union in Stresemann’s program, and if this could have been used to force concessions from the West. The study also sheds light on why Stresemann overestimated the revisionist potential of the Locarno Treaties, and on the remaining possibilities of border revisions that existed at the end of his six-year tenure as Foreign Minister.
The Impact of the Treaty of Trianon on Hungarian Infrastructure
This study aims to give an overview of the clauses of the Treaty of Trianon specifically targeted at the Hungarian system of transportation, and its overall impact on the country’s infrastructure. In the place of well-publicized slogans of “national self-determination,” economic and strategic considerations were primarily at play in this issue, with the system of transportation at their intersection. Since railways represented the most important means of transportation at that time, given the fact that train connections were fast, cheap, and had a huge transport capacity, railroads came to the forefront of the postwar border settlement second only to natural or ethnic boundaries that could serve as bulwarks of the new borders. As it is commonly known, new borders created new divisions, cutting through traditional economic units, detaching major cities from their hinterlands. It is less well known what the repercussions were of the maimed transportation infrastructure on the national and regional levels.
Constructing the Borderland: The Legacy of Versailles and the Small States of Central Europe
The paper seeks to interpret the unique nature of the Central European region as a borderland of the Western society of states, a status which developed throughout history but crystallized most clearly as a result of the Versailles peace treaties. We track this process through understanding the specific route of Central European state formation by juxtaposing the impact of two key periods of early modern intellectual evolution on the region. Pointing to the belatedness of absolutistic centralisation and the timely arrival of nationalism in Central Europe, we show how the latter dismantled the more heterogeneous and centralised states of the region. Following this, the consequences of the Versailles Treaties are evaluated with a focus on the self-perceived image of the new countries and the role of intellectuals.
Copyright (c) 2019 Zoltán Kelemen, Máté Szalai
The Legacy of Versailles in International Relations Theory
The legacy of Versailles is a rather well-defined and thoroughly researched area in the discipline of History. But what did the Treaty of Versailles and the events surrounding the peace conference give to the discipline of International Relations? In order to answer this question, the article first examines the place of Versailles in the foundational myths of the discipline. After that, in the second part, it briefly reviews the most persistent and influential ideas in IR which have emerged during the construction of the new world order of the time, putting a special emphasis on the concept of national self-determination as the “new master principle” of the international society after Versailles.
Reassembling a World Order: Toward a New Historiography of the Paris Peace Conference
The evaluation of the Paris Peace Conference or the “Versailles–Washington world order” is one of the most widely discussed subjects in the study of history and international relations. The abundance of research and assessment is partly down to the formative character of the post-WWI peace on the national consciousness of many states and to the term ‘Versailles’ which has become an oft-recurring keyword in the analysis of international relations. Due to the sheer volume of accounts, a historiography of the Paris Peace Conference is inevitably a collection of the author’s own discretion. This paper focuses on the international historiography of the Paris Peace Conference and its consequences, and argues that after the consolidation of orthodoxies following 1919, and the triumph of revisionist history in the late-1980s, the scholarly community is now experiencing another reappraisal – beginning from the 2010s.
June 2019 saw the 100th anniversary of the conclusion of the Treaty of Versailles. There may have been only a few other international events that had shaped our international environment as profoundly and as pervasively as did the settlement after the First World War. Often termed in Hungarian as “peace treaties concluded in the vicinity of Paris” (that is, as Párizs környéki békeszerződések), it is not only a contested accord, but a whole system of interstate contacts. “Versailles” as a concept thus refers both to a treaty between the Entente powers and Germany, and, as a metaphor, to the “world order” that unfolded after the cessation of hostilities. This order has been heavily criticized as well as cautiously praised ever since, with its interpretations varying between descriptions as a dangerous destruction of the balance of power, as the promising beginning of liberal internationalism, and as a hypocritically set up facade for old school great power politics.
Copyright (c) 2019 Tamás Péter Baranyi, Péter Marton
Security Sector Reform, Small Arms and Light Weapons and Gender in the Post-Conflict Western Balkans
We all experience war in a different way – building peace in post-conflict environments requires solutions that bring together various aspects of these experiences at the local, national and international levels. However, the actors involved and the social groups they address are only rarely those at the margin, and the diversity of the catch-all category of “locals” frequently goes unacknowledged when considering Security Sector Reform (SSR) and especially small arms2 control. Numerous studies have focused on SSR and gender in the Balkans, on perceptions of security in post-conflict environments and its gender-related aspects, as well as on the gendered aspects of small arms, but so far the analysis bringing together all of these aspects is scarce. This paper aims to address this gap, providing an overview of these areas to show that attempts at state-building and security-provision in the Western Balkans have failed to appropriately incorporate gender mainstreaming into their agendas. It is the central claim of this paper that policymakers must realize that gender mainstreaming without a broader understanding of gendered aspects of security does not and will not have transformative power – neither in the Western Balkans, nor in other post-conflict environments.
Stereotypes, Character Assassination and Women in Politics
How are gender stereotype cues used to target women in power in contemporary politics? There are commonalities across cases where the female politicians’ image and reputation are being targeted by political rivals. For instance, stereotypes are often invoked, as products of shared cultural knowledge. Various forms of political communication, e.g., in election campaigns, often with the aim of character assassination (CA from hereon), may deploy stereotypical cues to achieve impact in this regard. Online micro-targeting creates a new platform for political strategists to practice CA and stereotype activation. Female candidates do participate in elections, raise campaign funds, and win elections; yet women remain underrepresented at all levels of elected office. It is interesting to observe the role of gender stereotypes in this process and the current challenges female candidates face. The research presented in this paper illustrates the stereotypical cues used to target women in politics, and highlights various gender-specific political obstacles to the success of female candidates.
The Soviet Union as a ‘Feminist Colonialist?’ The Women’s Question in Early Soviet Central Asia
The Soviet Union as a colonial power in Central Asia decided to step up against the perceived traditional marginalisation of women. It intended to create an equal society for men and women, and treated women as important allies in the modernisation and the restructuration of traditional societies. However, in reality, while the Soviet initiatives contributed to the emancipation and empowerment of women on the surface, in the meantime they also served as a significant tool for the colonisation of Central Asia. The aim of the article is to shed light on this almost entirely overlooked process of the Soviet colonial power using the ideas of Marxist feminism to strengthen its power over the region, and to argue that this approach had contributed to the fact that the attempts of the Soviet Union aimed at the emancipation and empowerment of Central Asian women could only reach their declared objectives on the surface
In contemporary democratic politics, gender is an issue that two people are perfectly capable of debating without even slightly being disturbed by having a completely different understanding of the term from that of the other. Some go so far as to oppose the use of the word „gender” altogether, arguing that it is something „made up”, even as they are themselves involved in the promotion of gender ideals whose contents do not in fact derive from biological traits.
Girl child soldiers: Towards a gender-sensitive approach?
Though the recruitment of child soldiers is a violation of universally accepted human rights and humanitarian law, hundreds of thousands of children participate in armed conflicts today all over the world. Among these child soldiers, girls are the most vulnerable group. Apart from actively participating in the conflict, they usually experience other grave human rights violations, including forced marriage and sexual abuse. Yet, they still constitute the most invisible group of those participating in armed conflicts. The paper aims to fill this gap and examines the current situation of girl child soldiers with particular attention to the post-conflict reconstruction process and disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) programmes. It builds on the assumption that the experience of girls is distinct from that of boys, and argues that a gender-sensitive approach has not yet been sufficiently incorporated into strategies. Therefore, the paper proposes the adoption of a distinct protection regime in international law and the recognition of the complexity of girl child soldier experiences during policy making. The implementation of this approach can lead to more efficient DDR programmes and higher participation rates, while it can also transform the public perception that places boys at the core of the child soldier phenomenon.
“Human Rights for the Righteous Humans”: The influence of Brazilian Conservatism on the national perception of human rights
In the past years Brazil has been through innumerous corruption scandals and increasing political polarization, which has led to the impeachment of a president and a serious economic crisis. However, these are not the only consequences generated by the clash between the left and the right wing in the country. In right wing populist discourse, human rights have been systematically identified with the political left – as this is captured in the popular conservative saying “Direitos Humanos para Humanos Direitos” (Human Rights for the Righteous Humans), meaning that the fundamental purpose of human rights is the protection of outlaws and the perpetuation of the weakness of that state that has to treat all individuals equally. For the Brazilian far right, human rights are a synonym of exaggerated and harmful “political correctness.” The aim of this paper is to understand how and why the term has become pejorative for a whole political segment, and what its effects are on Brazilian national and foreign policy regarding the human rights agenda.
Gender inequality in Japan: The status of women, and their promotion in the workplace
The Constitution of Japan, enacted in 1947, states that gender equality and human rights must be maintained and guaranteed. The constitution was ratified prior to the publication of the UN Declaration on Human Rights of 1948. Nevertheless, Japanese society is presently faced with a high level of gender inequality. In the field of diplomacy, the proportion of Japanese female ambassadors is 3%; in the House of Representatives, the proportion of female politicians is 10.1%. These numbers suggest that women are presently being excluded from decision-making processes – meaning that women's opinions are not being reflected in society, potentially leading to serious violations of human rights. This paper attempts to analyse and verify the reasons for this high level of inequality in Japan, which can be assumed to be deeply rooted in social norms. Using official statistical data, as well as detailed information describing the situation society faces, I analyse the gap between government policy concerning the rights of women and social reality.
Towards a normative framework: The UN Treaty on transnational corporations, other businesses and human1 rights
While transnational corporations and other business enterprises have the capacity to foster economic well-being, development, technological improvement and wealth, trade and investment agreements often lead to policies and governmental measures with a negative impact on the full enjoyment of human rights. In 2014, the United Nations Human Rights Council decided to establish an open-ended intergovernmental working group on transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights, whose mandate is to elaborate a binding instrument of international law. The paper offers a discussion of the progress achieved on the topic so far by focusing on the key challenges: the added value of a specific treaty, personal scope, material scope, the State duty to protect human rights, the corporate responsibility to respect human rights, the need for greater access to remedy for victims of business-related abuses, etc.
A brief reflection on the impact of the Universal Periodic Review on the efficient investigation of hate crimes in Hungary
Hate crimes, sadly present all over the world, are criminal acts motivated by bias towards a particular group of people. The act itself constitutes an offence under criminal law (e.g. physical assault or disorderly behaviour) and the motive of the mentioned bias is present. Bias motivation is understood as intolerance or hatred directed toward a particular group that shares a common protected characteristic, such as race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, gender, disability or any other fundamental characteristic. The article sheds light on certain specific aspects of the fight against hate crimes in order to demonstrate through this specific example the nature and the practical impact of UPR recommendations on the protection of human rights. The legalistic (but hopefully accessible) language at certain points of the article is needed for the understanding of the reality of practical details of the criminal legal response on hate crimes. The UPR recommendations fall into this reality: without understanding them, the nature of the recommendations could hardly be assessed.
A real threat: Compliance with human rights is no longer a value in Europe
The internationalization of the human rights standards and the creation of the basic human rights conventions can be regarded as a great success of the international community. Nevertheless, it has also become clear that there is a wide gap between written norms and practice, and the current mechanisms prove insufficient to protect and promote human rights. The author argues that the effort of the international community to compel countries to protect human rights has essentially failed. Even the current European regime, in particular the related mechanism of the European Union, is unsuitable for managing the violation of human rights standards.
Copyright (c) 2018 Erzsébet Kardos Kaponyi