Morocco and Algeria face a series of urgent problems that can only be properly addressed through higher levels of economic integration and political coordination. Greater integration will achieve two main goals. First, it will help both economies by boosting trade between the two countries and by preventing "political" barriers from undermining economic exchange. Second, higher levels of political coordination will allow both countries to align their geopolitical interests in the region and avoid antagonistic objectives. The success of such a project depends on the political will of the leadership to go beyond their past disagreements, on support from civil society in both countries and the type of institutional framework that is to be adopted. Most important, the success and level of integration will depend on the countries' ability to pragmatically address the most pressing problems each country faces and to do so in a way that is consistent with European Union (EU) and U.S. interests in the region.

Geopolitical role and population development of the Republic of Kazakhstan: recent developments and prospects V. Rodionov Abstract Present research is an attempt to define the influence of the demographic factor on geopolitical development of Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan is of a specific interest herein due to its strategically important geographical location and presence of natural resources. Taking into account these factors, Kazakhstan has certain claims on leadership in the region. At the moment, Kazakhstani geopolitical leadership is based on economic achievements of the country and its political stability. At the same time demographic factor is quite sensitive from the strategic point of view. Kazakhstani population is relatively inconsiderable in number for its region. Moreover, some negative tendencies of distribution of population and its structural changes are causing concern. The government is aware of the gravity of these problems and is making certain efforts to change the situation. Nevertheless, it is very important to acknowledge the demographic factor as strategically important.

This dissertation examines how after decolonization the philosophical concept of universality was reimagined in European and Chinese literary and visual culture. My central argument is that, in the wake of the 1955 Bandung Conference and the Afro-Asian solidarity it embodied, writers and intellectuals from both sides of the Iron Curtain proposed alternative notions of universal culture and World Literature. While traditional Eurocentric conceptions of the universal were lodged in an exclusionary logic rooted in colonial violence and racism, after decolonization it became possible to imagine postcolonial claims to universality. I show how the Non-Alignment Movement imagined at Bandung inspired artists and intellectuals from both sides of the bipolar divide to voice new modes of solidarity in their work. I focus on three specific contexts: Italy, the Francophone world, and China. In the Italian context the writers I study include thinkers of a distinctively Gramscian lineage, from Pier Paolo Pasolini to Maria Antonietta Macciocchi. Conversely, the French and Francophone writers that I discuss, including Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Frantz Fanon, and Patrice Lumumba, were reconfiguring universality chiefly from a Hegelian perspective. Finally, in the Chinese context, I show how the Chinese contributions to the Bandung-era reinvention of universal culture and the ulterior art practice of the post-Mao 1980s were both rooted in the Marxist tradition. I conclude with a discussion of how postcolonial claims to universality, such as those imagined at Bandung, relate to “globalized” conceptions of the universal. My work contributes to major recent debates in the fields of Comparative Literature and Postcolonial Studies by engaging with the theoretical questions of universality and translatability. Scholars like Emily Apter have recently published critical studies of what has been dubbed the “translatability assumption” at the heart of the burgeoning field of World Literature. My research discusses how an overt emphasis on reading works of literature in translation in the name of ease of access and universal circulation can gloss over the cultural and linguistic diversity of the world’s languages and literatures. My research also relies on Judith Butler’s notion of “competing universalities.” In her text of the same title, Butler draws from Hegel, Gramsci, and others as she sets out to think the conditions of possibility for political hegemony. She arrives at an open-ended conclusion. Since many political constructs claim universality from within their located particularity, Butler argues that the intellectual’s task is to “adjudicate among competing notions of universality.” In line with these recent debates on the question of universality, my dissertation navigates between the different competing universals at stake during and after the Cold War. My dissertation is original in the sense that it is one of the first multilingual and interdisciplinary studies that elucidate how current geopolitical changes on the world stage—from China’s expansionist politics to the rise of formerly Third World nations as global economic players—are embedded in a cultural history. While globalization is commonly seen as a phenomenon that expanded after the historical shifts of 1989, my project shows how the “postcolonial universalities” imagined in the wake of decolonization by Western and non-Western writers and artists constituted the groundwork for this history.

Through Venezuela?s past experiences with foreign influences including its relationship with foreign oil companies and international organizations like the IMF, the current Venezuelan government has retaken control of national petroleum reserves. With the power acquired through the process of retaking control, the government has attempted to increase the incidence of regionalism and decrease the influence of the U.S. in three main ways: altering relationships with large South American powers, supporting leftwing governments in the region and establishing regional organizations and increased integration. However, the power acquired by the Venezuelan government and used to supplant its own influences for that of the U.S. comes from a contradictory relationship with the U.S. The contradictory nature of this relationship stems from the fact that while Venezuela supports the decline of U.S. influence and power in the region, Venezuelan power relies on access to U.S. markets to sell Venezuelan. Only through the stable sale of this petroleum does the Venezuelan government possess the capability of spreading its own influence through increasing regionalism and diminishing U.S. power.

Because the past researches of the North Korea¡¦s nuclear problem are devoid of a classical geopolitics approach, this article will explain this problem from the traditional ¡§buffer state¡¨ approach. Nuclear weapons symbolize absolute attack ability. Because of many limitations superpowers cannot smoothly transform nuclear weapons to a deterrence function; however, small countries have advantages that superpowers do not possess in using nuclear weapons so they can break these limitations and favorably transform nuclear weapons to a deterrence function. North Korea can take these advantages to change the fate of geopolitics in the past, which was a weak buffer state, and use nuclear weapons to stabilize the whole buffer system to achieve the goal of extending the peacetime. Thus, North Korea's very effort to obtain nuclear weapons is the process of stabilizing the buffer system but this does not mean that North Korea can sit without worries. The problem of the successor and the economic breakdown are two Achilles' heels in North Korea, both of which have the risk that will destroy the whole buffer system.

An increasing number of theorists are involving themselves in the historical evolution of geopolitical thought, although most are concerned only with the development of conventional western thinking' This thesis derives from the idea that it may be interesting and useful to investigate the evolution of geopolitical thought from a non- western or non-mainstream perspective. Given the current demands by the new generation of "critical" political geographers for alternative research and more viable historical perspectives on the evolution of geopolitics" ,it was intended that such an investigation would also prove to be a useful contribution to wider geopolitical knowledge and thinking. Malta was deemed to be the perfect case study from which to conduct such an investigation The thrust of the thesis can be explained in terms of three sub-aims It aims to conduct a thorough investigation into the heritage of geopolitical thought in Malta It then aims to utilize this investigation to propose a viable and thorough historical perspective on the current modes of geopolitical thinking in Malta. Third, by keeping current thinking in its historical context, it then aims instead to generate a number of insights and ideas for future geopolitical thinking in Malta. The three sub-aims introduced above are contrived to satisfy the single overriding aim of the thesis, which is; to highlight and substantiate the insights that new and alternative research into the history of geopolitical thought can bring about, not at the conventional global level of the mainstream meta-theorists but instead at the less-grandiose and more practicable levels. It is in this respect that the thesis sets out to make a new and alternative contribution to wider geopolitical knowledge and thinking.

This thesis focuses on the analysis of contemporary trends in the geopolitics of Ukraine by highlighting major periods in the formations of its geopolitics, geopolitical interests of Ukraine in the relations with strategic partners, and assessing eventual development of Ukraine's geopolitics with a special emphasis on the cooperation within global universal international organizations such as the United Nations. The research applies an analysis of history of Ukraine's geopolitics in order to promote a better understanding of recent trends in the country's foreign policy and its geopolitical interests, analyze the relations of Ukraine with its strategic partners, including the United States, countries of Central and Eastern Europe, Russian Federation and the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States, and provide an assessment for the future of Ukraine's geopolitics. In this regard, the study argues that the Ukraine's geopolitics and its interests are determined by the large scale of factors, which derive from historical, socio-cultural, geographic, political and economic specifics of Ukraine. Based on the analysis of the main trends in the modern Ukraine's geopolitics, assessment of Ukraine's geopolitical potential and the current global geopolitical situation, the thesis concludes that...

<p>Israel has many meanings that are crucial to the analysis and interpretation of any resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict. With the Middle East Peace process initiated in 1993, both Jews and Palestinians have begun to rethink their relationship to their homelands. But negotiations take place within an arena where two nations claim one territory, and where one nation also claims a "diasporic" relationship to homeland. Using anthropological and cultural studies' approaches to nationalism, diaspora and the politics of location, I explore how North American Jews construct and experience their relationships to Israel. Traveling on organized Jewish tours to Israel and participating in numerous Jewish community events over a 4-year period, I have /~ < examined how the "Israel" displayed and enacted as a Jewish homeland and nationstate through Israeli nationalist and Zionist narratives is "taken up" or interpreted by I Jews in diaspora. An identifiable, shared, tragic past, and common ancestry helps to l define all Jews as a nation, and Israel as their homeland, but, significantly, not their home. Jews in diaspora envision Israel as the Jews' homeland, and as modem nation state. It is a symbol of the Jews' accomplishments and survival as a nation. But their primary focus is on the relations of nation and feelings of responsibilities towards other Jews. These practices and ideas require a recasting of ideas of "national" identity which assume territoriality, so as to include the practices of deterritorialised identifications with the nation, or what I call "diaspora nationalism.'\ Moreover, I suggest that the" diaspora nationalism" of North American Jews is part of a general post-Zionist phenomenon.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

No

Alliances continue to remain fundamental at the core of international politics. How states make their alliance choices is important for international order and security. The end of the Cold War brought ethnic conflicts and political instabilities in the Balkan region. Based on its size and geographical configuration, Romania again confronted its history in the alliance dilemma of whether to "balance" against threatening states or to "bandwagon" with the states that posed the greatest threats in order to appease their power. Stephen M. Walt (1987) predicted that in a case like that of Romania, the statesmen would most likely choose to bandwagon because of two motives: (i) for "defensive" purposes in order to maintain its independence in the face of a potential threat and (ii) for "offensive" reasons in order to acquire territory. After reviewing Romanian historical records on alliances since 1878, the evidence is compelling that the case of Romania conforms to Walt's (1987) theory only to the extent that "balancing is not universal." Thus, it depends on which perspective balancing or bandwagoning is considered from in forming alliances. Romania either formed alliances to balance threats, or allied with the threat. Territorial security was one of the most recurrent motives prevalent in Romanian historical records that prompted Romania to form alliances. As expected, Walt's (1987) last three factors did not provide a great explanation for Romanian alliances. Modest support was found for ideological solidarity,but little for economic ideology and transnational political penetration. / Master of Arts