The amount of taxes paid by multinational enterprises (MNEs) in host and home countries continues to make headline news. Corporate tax regimes, particularly those in many OECD countries, have never been more complex and the competition to attract and retain foreign direct investment (FDI) has perhaps never been so great. All of these political, legal, economic and competitive realities face countries at a time when they need additional budget revenues. At the June 2012 G-20 Summit in Los Cabos, leaders identified base erosion and profit shifting as key fiscal issue to be addressed. Many are expecting this to translate into a new approach to applying existing international tax standards, an increased pressure to eliminate "corporate tax breaks", enact tougher anti-abuse provisions, and less tolerance of aggressive tax planning. There has been an increased critical focus on transfer pricing, corporate restructuring and double tax treaties. Some have suggested that double tax treaties are eroding the domestic tax bases of developing countries, while others conclude that double tax treaties promote development and FDI and thereby expand the tax base. Dividing up a "revenue pie" has never been easy and the implementation of international tax rules to transparently and predictably allocate revenue to avoid double taxation and double non taxation has never been more adversarial between taxpayers and tax authorities and between tax jurisdictions. It was for these reasons that the Global Tax Policy Center of the Institute for Austrian and International Tax Law (Vienna University of Economics and Business) and the International Tax and Investment Center (ITIC) decided to undertake this study. The objective of our study was to look at the development impact of double taxation treaties and, more broadly, how tax policy can help generate economic growth and prosperity. Legally domestic tax laws are normally subordinate to international double taxation treaties, but in reality a double tax treaty only serves a country as well as its domestic tax regime. We've concluded that the problems affecting developing countries lie not with double tax treaties but rather in weak domestic tax legislation. Our study reviews empirical data from 20 developing countries, including LDCs, middle-to-high income developing countries, resource-rich countries, and BRIICS[1] countries. We hope that the empirical analysis and the conclusions that can be drawn from it can help guide policymakers to refocus their policy objectives to boost capital formation, expanding exports, and protect their domestic tax bases. We believe that a country with strong domestic tax legislation can advance their pursuit of the Millennium Development Goals by affectively utilizing double tax treaties and the related international tax rules to more transparently share and grow their tax base. (authors' abstract) / Series: WU International Taxation Research Paper Series

This PhD thesis examines the Gulf monarchies of Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates as they strive to transform their political economies away from dependency on hydrocarbon revenues into more diverse sectors of economic activity. In particular, the research attempts to forecast the monarchies’ chances of achieving the transformation into principally private sector-led economies, while maintaining absolute rule and excluding those outside the circle of the ruling élites from political power or influence. The central research question guiding the study is ‘Human and National Security in Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates – Should Climate Change Matter?’ The effects of climate change provide a useful lens through which to examine each of the states’ policies and actions as they attempt to cope with the physical degradation of an already water and heat-stressed environment, coupled with declining oil and gas revenues from the West as a result of international climate change agreements. The thesis applies a ten question research framework to each of the entities to produce individual case studies for comparison. The research finds that climate change is acknowledged as an issue by each of the states, but is not at the top of their list of priorities. Rather, measures to improve human security are aimed at maximising the economic productiveness of each country to make up the deficit caused by decreasing hydrocarbon revenues and enable the monarchies to maintain the high level of free and subsidised state services they currently provide to their populations. They believe the effective maintenance of services directly contributes to political stability which assures the continuance of their current system of governance where political power lies solely with the rulers and their close advisors. Essentially, the priority for each of the ruling families is not climate change, but regime survival, preferably in its current form.

Hope accompanied El Salvador’s peace agreements, ending 12 years of civil war. New peace and democratic renewal were expected in the tiny Central American state. Instead, extreme violence has persisted as a lived experience for individuals and a part of its state operations. Successive governments proved unable to consolidate control over the post-war crime wave. ‘Tough on crime’ public policy agendas, which included hard-handed violence-repression tactics, had little success in mitigating insecurity. In 2009, a new ex-guerrilla party, the National Liberation Front ‘Farabundo Marti’ (FMLN), was elected on a hope and change platform. The party was committed to a new approach in security governance. This presented an opportunity to study the interactions of implicated actors as they negotiated the governance of security. It raises the question: To what extent did security governance change under the FMLN government during their first administration (2009-2014)? To address this question requires an understanding of situated security concepts and an examination of the spaces created for actor interactions to formulate the policy guiding security governance. Broadly, security is often considered to be a response to the issues threatening state, society, or the individual. In the Latin American context, this expansion largely took place within the concept of citizen security – a term which recognised both rights and responsibilities within the state. However, the term has also been responsible for problematising institutional weaknesses or failure where an apparent inability to control violence is observed, justifying the inclusion of a range of non-state security actors. Theories of hybridity or state transformation instead posit that the gaze should be directed on those spaces where security problems, once identified, are managed in practice (Hameiri & Jones, 2015). For this study, three ‘levels’ of security governance are addressed: the national government, the Central American regional diplomatic structure, and strategic municipal jurisdictions. Second, by providing this multi-levelled analysis, the study includes the regional level, which is often ignored in existing Central American security studies. This is crucial to an understanding of the multiple and often competing agendas organising and supporting security interventions within El Salvador in a regional context of transnational threats. Third, this investigation shows the operational changes required of government institutions when other actors are introduced as authoritative participants in the process. Despite multi-actor, multi-level security governance strategies working to mobilise new actors, security concepts, and operational frameworks to reduce and manage security issues, many practical governance efforts enjoy only limited term results. This thesis concludes that broad changes in security governance structures are likely to be continually mitigated by traditional forces, limiting the potential for true transformation of security policy approaches.

La présente recherche doctorale ancrée en Sciences de l’information et de la communication traite de la place de la réserve militaire dans la Politique publique d’Intelligence économique française. Interdisciplinaire par essence, attaché aux pratiques informationnelles et acteur-centré, notre travail de recherche vise une meilleure intelligence du fait social étudié en vue d’accroître la mobilisation et la participation des réservistes militaires au cœur de la Politique publique d’Intelligence économique.Trois apports majeurs découlent de notre étude : une analyse des mutations du volontariat en général et de la réserve en particulier, l’élaboration du panorama des activités de réserve touchant à l’Intelligence économique et la proposition d’un modèle agrégatif du profil motivationnel et d’engagement des réservistes militaires attachés à de telles missions. / The present doctoral research stands in the specific French field that mixes Information science and communication. It deals with finding the right place for the military reserve within the French public policy of competitive intelligence. It’s an interdisciplary work focusing on information practices and an actor-centered work. Our research brings three main elements : an accurate analyse of « volunteers’ transformations» and the consequences it fathers on management, a panorama of the competitive intelligence activities that reservists can perform (such as Cyberdefense, influence, defense industry, advice and training) and a proposal of a motivationnal and commitment profile for reservists dealing with information and particularly with competitive intelligence.

Depuis de nombreuses années, les institutions régaliennes de l’État ont été soumises à d’importants changements organisationnels (délocalisation, restructuration). Dans leur mode de fonctionnement, elles ont dû intégrer la théorie de la « nouvelle gestion publique » (NGP), une approche pragmatique de la division du travail, pour mieux gérer le rapport coût/efficacité de leurs services. Ces changements ont contraint certains agents à se réorienter pour poursuivre leur parcours professionnel. Par ailleurs, d’autres agents sont dans une dynamique non pas contrainte, mais de choix volontaire d’orientation. La thèse vise à interroger les dynamiques identitaires et les processus développés par l’agent dans l’accomplissement de son projet de réorientation. Celui-ci s’expose aux risques liés à son choix et à la fonction dans la reconstruction de son identité professionnelle, qui lui permettent de s’investir dans son travail et d’acquérir compétences, professionnalisme et reconnaissance. Elle se propose de contribuer à comprendre comment les CPRP s’engagent dans cette nouvelle fonction et les freins qui entravent la reconstruction identitaire de ces agents. Les données recueillies et traitées se sont établies sur la base d’un questionnaire auprès de trente agents suivis de quinze entretiens d’approfondissement. L’analyse porte sur la prise de risque dans l’engagement dans la fonction, et lors de l’exercice de cette fonction les difficultés rencontrées et les stratégies mises en place, la gestion du risque et la reconstruction identitaire. Elle a permis de caractériser les différentes configurations identitaires. Dans le rapport nous avons représenté ces configurations à partir de six monographies parmi celles les plus significatives développées. Nous montrons ainsi que le choix initial est un choix qui peut être pris par défaut, la prise de conscience intervient lorsque que le CPRP est confronté au réel de l’activité et que la fonction de « conseiller » inclue une prise de risque qui peut empêcher la mise en place du processus de construction de l’identité professionnelle et de reconstruction de soi, indissociables à la réalisation des missions. / For many years, state institutions have undergone major organizational changes (relocation, restructuring). In their operation mode, they had to integrate the theory of "new public management" (NGP), a pragmatic approach to the division of labor, to improve the management the cost effectiveness of their services. These changes have compelled some agents to reorganize their career path. Besides, other agents are in a dynamic not constrained, but voluntary choice of orientation. This thesis endeavors to investigate the identity dynamics and the processes developed by the agent in the accomplishment of his reorganization project, which expose him to the risks associated with his choice and function in the reconstruction of his professional identity, and allow him to invest in his work and to acquire skills, professionalism and recognition.It aims at contributing to the understanding how the CPRP engage in this new function and the obstacles that hinder the identity reconstruction of these agents. The collected and processed data are uprooted on a questionnaire of thirty staff members followed by fifteen in-depth interviews. The analysis focuses on the risk taking in the commitment related to the function, and in the case of the performance of this function, the encountered difficulties and the set-up strategies, the risk management, and the identity reconstruction. It has made it possible to characterize the different identity configurations. In the report, we have represented these configurations from six monographs among the most significant developed ones.We thus show that the initial choice is a choice that can be made by default, the awareness takes place when the CPRP is confronted to the reality of the activity and that the function of "advisor" includes a risk taking that can prevent the process establishment of building professional identity and self-reconstruction, inseparable from the realization of missions.

This thesis explores EU borders and bordering in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) in the context of the 2004 EU enlargement, the 2007 extension of the Schengen zone and the 2004 Eastern Dimension of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) that, in 2009, was upgraded to the Eastern Partnership (EaP). The thesis links borders with identities and governing orders to argue that while the EU has successfully included, inter alia, Czechs and Poles, it has excluded Ukrainians sufficiently to impact negatively on their lives and on the achievement of EU goals in the neighbourhood. The de-bordering and re-bordering inherent to enlargement, Schengen, ENP and EaP have (partially) displaced CEE borders from traditional locations at state frontiers. Bordering activities still take place within the supposedly borderless Schengen zone as well as at external frontiers with neighbouring states, but the EU has also exported border practices onto the territories of its neighbours. These processes prompted the questions addressed in this thesis: where, how, why and with what effects the EU makes its borders in CEE. An analytical framework – the ‘Borderscape’ – is developed to explore the complex manifestations of post-frontier bordering and to understand its socio-political, spatial and temporal underpinnings, and the consequences that EU bordering has for identities and subjectivities, order and governance in CEE. The borderscape encompasses border features, bordering discourses and bordering practices, which are constituted by EU and national governmental actors, border security and law enforcement agencies, by civil society actors and the people who move and dwell in the region. The borderscape is tailored to the regional particularities of CEE, with specific reference to processes of post-communist transition, EU accession and the EU’s engagement with its neighbours, specifically Ukraine. The findings of the research are based on extensive, interpretive fieldwork conducted in the Czech Republic, Poland and Ukraine. The thesis shows the various sites, forms and functions of contemporary EU bordering that comprise a diverse yet connected border archipelago stretching from the Schengen interior into the Eastern neighbourhood. The EU’s bordering discourses are shown to be plural and often contradictory: notions of freedom, security and justice and the desire to benefit from sharing these with Central and Eastern Europeans are juxtaposed with narratives of fear, suspicion and narrow-minded self-interest. The EU’s Europeanised bordering practices, including Risk Analysis and the protection of both borders and migrants, have enhanced mobility for EU-Europeans (such as Czechs and Poles) who now share in the highly desirable form of order that it has created. However, the EU has also restricted mobility for Ukrainians, who are still seen as ‘Eastern-Europeans’. The borderscape betrays the EU’s internal crises of identity and confidence, which has had psycho-social exclusionary effects on Ukrainians and contributed to the politico-strategic crisis in the Eastern Neighbourhood. However this analysis also points to ways that the EU can address these issues.

L’apparition de l’arme nucléaire et son utilisation par les Américains en 1945 sur les villes japonaises d’Hiroshima et de Nagasaki ont été assez largement comprises en Occident comme marquant la fin des guerres chaudes directes et l’entrée du monde dans des guerres froides indirectes et totales. Dès les années 1950, le sentiment s’est fait jour au sein des milieux militaires occidentaux que l’âge nucléaire nous éloigne, au moins partiellement, des conceptions stratégiques élaborées dans le cadre de la tradition clausewitzienne. De même, les revers que connaissent les armées occidentales au cours des guerres de décolonisation ont pu amener les stratèges de l’époque à s’interroger sur le bien-fondé de leurs réflexions sur l’action. Mais, plus que tout, la récente guerre contre le terrorisme, où ces mêmes armées suréquipées sont tenues en échec par un adversaire irrégulier qui évite la confrontation directe et cherche à user l’ennemi, sans qu’on puisse espérer jamais en venir totalement à bout, semble mettre carrément en question les présupposés mêmes de la « science militaire ». Par contraste avec l’impasse où les élaborations conceptuelles des Machiavel, des Clausewitz et, plus récemment, des John von Neumann, auraient conduit l’Occident, la tradition chinoise de réflexion sur l’action est perçue, dans cette même partie du globe, comme plus adaptée aux nouvelles conditions du monde contemporain. Beaucoup sont persuadés que se trouvent chez le théoricien chinois du Ve siècle avant J.-C. Sun Zi un certain nombre de solutions pour triompher infailliblement dans toutes les situations conflictuelles du monde actuel. À travers l’examen des grands textes par lesquels traditions occidentale et chinoise de réflexion sur l’action se sont construites, l’étude s’emploie à rétablir un équilibre, et si possible une certaine objectivité dans la façon de concevoir et d’estimer celles-ci. Elle dénonce certaines illusions – dont l’illusion idéaliste – dont sont parfois victimes ceux que fascine la tradition chinoise, et souligne en particulier que les choses tangibles tels que les territoires, les machines de guerre, la puissance de feu, ne sont pas entièrement relativisées par rapport à la connaissance, à l’information ou aux aspects plus ou moins virtuels de la guerre. En mettant en évidence les dynamismes qui structurent chacune des deux cultures stratégiques, l’étude montre surtout que la volonté de hiérarchiser celles-ci est vaine. / The invention of the nuclear weapon and its use by the United States in 1945 on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have generally been considered by Western countries as a shifting from direct hot war to indirect and total cold war. From the Fifties onward, there has been a growing feeling among Western military circles that the nuclear age strays, at least partially, from the strategic conceptions developed in the wake of the Clausewitzian tradition. Likewise, the setbacks experienced by Western armies during wars of decolonization led strategists back then to question the validity of their reflection on action. But most of all, the recent war on terrorism led by countries whose over-equipped armies are held at bay by an irregular adversary avoiding direct confrontation, and wearing down the enemy leaving no hope of a total elimination seems to throw into question the presuppositions of military science. Contrary to the dead-end where the conceptual elaborations of Machiavelli, Clausewitz, and more recently, John von Neumann, and their followers, would have led Western countries, the Chinese tradition of reflection on action is perceived, in this same part of the world, as more adapted to the new conditions of the modern world. Many among them are convinced that they can find in the writings of a 5th century BC Chinese theoretician, Sun Zi, a certain number of solutions to prevail unerringly in any given conflictual situation in the world. Basing itself on the study of great writings through which oriental and occidental traditions upon reflection on action have been built, this study strives to re-establish a balance, and if possible, a certain objectivity in its approach to conceive and estimate this reflection. This study also denounces certain illusions, among which include the idealistic illusion, sometimes affecting thinkers fascinated by Chinese tradition, and particularly stresses the fact that tangible things such as territories, war machines and fire power are not entirely relativized in relation to knowledge, information, or aspects of war more or less virtual. By highlighting the dynamisms structuring the two strategic cultures, this study shows above all that trying to organize them into a hierarchy is pointless.

Memoria (licenciado en ciencias jurídicas y sociales) / Las rupturas familiares de la modernidad y las posteriores desapariciones de niños (ya sea dentro o fuera del país) en manos de alguno de sus progenitores, aparece como un problema propio de nuestros tiempos, reflotando una de las viejas discusiones que se han dado en el delito de sustracción de menores respecto de la determinación del sujeto activo. Teniendo en cuenta las diversas posturas doctrinales y jurisprudenciales, así como también la evolución del artículo 142 del Código Penal, habría que diferenciar entre la solución dada para el caso de los guardadores y de los progenitores. Tratándose de los guardadores, no sería aplicable la referida norma, por encontrarse regulada una figura especial en el artículo 355 del Código Penal y que sería plenamente aplicable a los mismos. Sin embargo, tratándose de los progenitores, sería posible que en ciertos casos les sea aplicable el artículo 142 por ser un tipo penal abierto en cuando al sujeto activo, eso sí, habría que efectuar una serie de distinciones partiendo siempre de la base de encontrarnos en situaciones de crisis familiar, ya que de lo contrario el menor se encontraría irrefutablemente en la esfera de protección de sus padres y no resultaría afectado el bien jurídico protegido por la norma

Le 12 septembre 2002, George Bush profitait d'un discours devant l'Assemblée Générale de l'ONU pour saisir le Conseil de Sécurité et exposer à la communauté internationale ses griefs à l'encontre de Saddam Hussein et de ses armes de destruction massive. Dictée par des impératifs électoraux, cette saisine de l'ONU s'était imposée à la Maison Blanche en raison de l'échec de la propagande néo-conservatrice à convaincre l'opinion publique de la nécessité d'une guerre en Iraq. Celle-ci devant donner corps au concept de « guerre contre le terrorisme » de la future campagne présidentielle, la Maison Blanche avait décidé de s'appuyer sur la crédibilité et la légitimité de l'ONU, pour relancer la propagande et travestir une guerre illégale en un acte de légitime défense, en tenant secret la décision de la guerre.La communauté internationale ne fut ni dupe ni complice de cette supercherie, mais le poids de la relation transatlantique interdit au Royaume-Uni de se désolidariser de l'Amérique et à la France d'user de son droit de veto contre ses alliés. Ces contradictions expliqueront la crise du Conseil de Sécurité de 2003, où, en désaccord, les gouvernants du bloc occidental s’affrontèrent sur la nécessité d’une seconde résolution autorisant la guerre. Cette crise ne fut sans conséquence, ni pour l'administration Bush, ni pour la communauté internationale, et encore moins pour l'ONU, puisqu'une fois enlisés en Iraq, les États-Unis obtiendront du Conseil de Sécurité plusieurs résolutions, sans reconsidérer leur unilatéralisme. Mise en porte à faux, l'Organisation internationale sera prise pour cible et son quartier général en Iraq détruit. Le chaos succédant à la guerre, l'administration néo-conservatrice sera finalement contrainte, sous la pression électorale, d'abandonner son unilatéralisme et de céder à l'ONU la résolution politique du conflit. / On September 12, 2002, George Bush during a speech at the United Nations General Assembly seized the opportunity to submit the Security Council and expose to the International Community his worries concerning Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction. Dictated by election requirements, referring to the United Nations was imposed on the White House because of failing neo-conservative propaganda convincing the public opinion of need for war in Iraq. This was supposed to give body to the upcoming presidential campaign’s concept of “war against terrorism”, the White House had decided to lean on the United Nations credibility and legitimacy to re-launch propaganda and disguise an illegal war into an act of self defence, by keeping the decision of war secret.The International Community was not fooled by or accomplice of this trick, but the weight of the trans-Atlantic relationship forbade the United Kingdom to set itself apart from the United States and for France to use its right to veto against its allies. These contradictions explain the 2003 Security Council crisis, where, by disagreeing the western governments faced one another on the necessity of a second resolution authorizing war.This crisis was not without consequences, for Bush’s administration or for the International Community and even so for the United Nations, since being stuck in Iraq, the United States obtained several resolutions from the Security Council without questioning their unilateralism. Being in an awkward position, the International Organisation was targeted and its headquarters in Iraq destroyed. In the chaos in the aftermath of the war, the neo-conservative administration was obliged, under electoral pressure, to give up its unilateral attitude, and let the Unieted Nations politically resolve the conflict.

A bulk of empirical literature has emerged that explores the role of various location factors as determinants of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs). A notable feature of these studies is that their empirical approaches abstract from third-country (spatial) effects in FDI across the home and host country dimensions. Neglecting these effects could bias results concerning the role of location factors for attracting FDI. This in turn may lead to misguided economic policy conclusions. The current paper adds to the literature by applying the recently proposed spatial "origin-destinationow model" of LeSage and Pace (2008) to FDI ows from 7 Western OECD home countries to 8 CEE host countries. Controlling for country-pair and time effects our results indicate that (a) spatial interactions across the host country dimension matter for FDI revealing that vertical complex FDI ows dominate total FDI ows to CEECs; (b) spatial autocorrelation in the home country dimension is absent; (c) results of previous studies remain valid as coefficient estimates on location factors change only slightly when spatial interdependencies are considered and (d) effective corporate income taxes and the endowment with production-related material infrastruc- ture are statistically and economically signifficant determinants of FDI in CEECs. (author's abstract) / Series: Discussion Papers SFB International Tax Coordination