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In the 21st century, international system has been ungoing rapid change in which every nation state intends to get better position to compete with other actors. It is no doubt that the United States reminded as a superpower during the Cold War era, even its position was secured until the end of Cold War. However, due to economic globalization and continous increase of cultural and social exchanges, states become more interdependent. Therefore, power politics and political powers had been forced to change. The most prominent case came from the European Union where the cross-nation cooperation reached not only in the area of economic and commerce, but also the interaction was heading towards higher level of political integration. The EU¡¦ s political power together with China¡¦ s influence, as well as Russia and Japan, will take the leading role in the global politics and balance off what was the U.S. long-defined international system. The strong powers as mentioned welcome and appreciate a multipolar system that helps to secure nation¡¦ s survival and interests, bringing nation¡¦ s power to the peak. This paper examines the foreign relations between China and the EU in light of transition in international system and interdependent theories. In doing so, the paper will also explore how the two strong actors interact from lower politics to higher politics such as political, strategic dialogue and cooperation.

China and Turkey, located in eastern and western Eurasian continent repectively, took place joint air force exercise in September, 2010. This is the first time for China to hold joint air force exercise with the members of NATO. It seemed like a sign of intensive foreign relations between China and Turkey, and it led to the great concerns and dissatisfactions with United State. During Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao¡¦s official visit to Turkey on October 8th, China and Turkey issued a joint declaration on the establishment and development of a strategic relationship of cooperation, further upgrading the level of bilateral relations. It is important to find out the developments and changes of Chinese-Turkish relations. Chinese-Turkish relations have gone through the Cold War and the Post-Cold War eras. In the Post-Cold War era, the shape of international system changed into the ¡§One Super Power with Multiple Powers¡¨ which differs from the ¡§ Bipolar System¡¨ in the Cold War era, which has a profound impact on the development of international relations. This thesis, based on the theory of Neo-realism, focuses on the development of bilateral relations between China and Turkey, especially the interactions between politics and economics, under the change of international system and constraint of international structure. The bilateral relations feature the following attributes. Politically, even though there are ¡§Eastern Turkistan¡¨ questions between China and Turkey, the bilateral political relations have been strengthened since Cold war era from being hostile to each other to establish and develop relationships of the strategic cooperation. Economically, China and Turkey are involved in serious trade deficit problems and competitions.

This thesis examines the case of Mexico as middle power. More precisely, it tries to see what were the limitations and possibilities that Mexico faced in the period 2000-2012, while trying to engage more in the international system and rise its international profile. The PAN governments that were in power at that time devoted much of their energy trying to better international position of Mexico, and implicitly the thesis will answer the question of how successful were their strategies.

Transnational advocacy networks (TANs) are a rapidly proliferating phenomenon in international contentious politics. Widely known for waging headline-grabbing wars of words, TANs remain under-theorised on important levels of analysis. Unsurprisingly, they have been termed ‘elusive’ in the political literature. Typically portrayed as vital service-providing agencies that by-pass official controls to relay civil society concerns to the world’s media and international policy-makers, TANs are commonly assumed to be the vociferous, Internet-enabled, offspring of traditional NGOs and, thus, heirs to the reputational capital of NGOs. However, despite this respected provenance, it is evident that TANs frequently fail to achieve their goals. Knowledge of why some TAN strategies succeed while others fail is contested and inconclusive. This empirical thesis attempts to build on the international political literature by showing why the emerging NGO typology of TANs cannot be explained without paying attention to the systemic complexity of their environment and the essentially communicative functioning of these globe-spanning advocacy cooperatives. It seeks to demonstrate also the analytical value of applying complex realism in IR praxis. Hence, the thesis explicates a real-world conundrum: What is the place and function of transnational advocacy networks in the contemporary international system and how effective are they in achieving their aims? To identify macro-structural conditions and indicators of relationship quality — primarily involving state and non-state elements in the context of the United Nations — the thesis study reclaimed macro-sociological perspective as a first stage, ‘top-down’ approach to this complex, multi-dimensional problem space. The resultant data and patterns were then tested by way of a second-stage, micro-sociological, ‘bottom-up’, case study exploration of the UN’s interface with three iconic TANs — Greenpeace, Oxfam and Human Rights Watch. By conceptualising these relationships as intersections between systemic elements constituted on different social levels and scales of complexity, the scalable methodology enabled the study to transcend the micro-macro problems inherent in the primary research question. The results indicate that TANs are a distinctive typology of NGO that the international system is struggling to evaluate and accommodate within existing arrangements for NGO engagement. Unexpectedly, the study found plausible indications that the barriers many TANs encounter are endogenously produced. The results challenge prevailing assumptions about the place and function of grassroots diplomacy in the international arena; the ability of communications strategies to remedy global problems; and the reality and limitations of ‘people power’. By highlighting under-exposed features of the contemporary international relational landscape, the thesis argues, we might better determine whether many contemporary TANs are, in fact, evolving as the best-suited champions for the urgent, political quests they adopt.

<p>The aim of this paper is to describe and explain which policy instruments for human rights (HR) the United States and the European Union use towards Burma and to examine the priority given to HR in their respective foreign policy. From the results of an empirical analysis this paper seeks to analyze the US and the EU as powers in the international system and aims to explain their behavior from this theoretical perspective. From the theoretical approaches used I conclude that these actors act in different ways regarding the Burmese issue. This is partially due to the structure of the international system. Both actors primarily use different forms of diplomatic tools and sanctions to try to force change for HR in Burma. From a comparison of the two this paper concludes that as a hegemon, and unlike the EU with economic interest in Burma, the US ability to focus on the HR issue in the country by far exceeds that of the European Union’s.</p><p>Though the US and the EU claim to follow liberal ideas about HR, this study shows that often other realistic preferences determine their modes of action.</p>

This thesis focuses on change and persistence of the structure of the international system. It attempts to address the question why hierarchic structures prevailed during the Ancient and Classical eras (3000 B. C. ? 1500 A. D. ). The thesis compares and contrasts the Roman Empire (the Pax Romana period 1st century B. C. -3rd century A. D. ) and the Chinese Empire (the T?ang Dynasty 618-907 A. D. ) as hierarchic structures and the multi-state system of ancient Greece (8th-4th century B. C. ) and the multi-state system of ancient China (The Spring and Autumn and the Warring States Period 722-221 B. C. ) as anarchic structures. The thesis suggests that the moral purpose of the state, the competitive security environment, the desire for benefits and geopolitical and strategic advantages played the major role in the immediate transformation from anarchy to hierarchy. The thesis asserts that the generation of common goods, the decline in transaction costs and the success in securing the commitment of the members and the legitimacy of the system enabled and encouraged the persistence of hierarchic structures. It also re-emphasizes that whereas the persistence of hierarchic systems depends on the existence of several factors, only one factor can promote the persistence of anarchic structures e. g. the moral purpose of the state.

Fundação Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro / Os direitos humanos consolidaram um conjunto de valores ético-políticos considerados fundamentais para assegurar o respeito à dignidade do ser humano. A problemática do desenvolvimento é fundamental para as considerações de política externa de países como o Brasil. A consagração do Direito ao Desenvolvimento (DaD) como um direito humano desafia a divisão artificial dos direitos humanos e revela a evolução temática deste campo de estudo. Essa dissertação usa o instrumental dos direitos humanos para avaliar a relevância e a singularidade de algumas posições brasileiras. Após uma dissonância observada nos anos 1970, reflexo do ciclo autoritário por que passava o país, verificou-se postura cooperativa do Brasil nas proposições que versavam sobre o DaD. No mesmo sentido, observou-se que, conquanto não seja conceito recorrente no discurso oficial brasileiro, as posições do país, no que dizem respeito ao modelo de desenvolvimento defendido e aos direitos humanos, autorizam a inferência de que há uma harmonia em relação aos princípios fundamentais dispostos na Declaração sobre o DaD, de 1986. Da análise das posições brasileiras, tornou-se possível particularizar a política externa do governo Lula. Do levantamento das variáveis internas e externas que exercem influência sobre a formulação política do governo, bem como das iniciativas públicas e dos discursos oficiais, encontramos alguma evidência empírica no sentido de que a política externa brasileira para os direitos humanos, na administração de Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, passa por um viés de promoção do desenvolvimento e de crítica à ordem internacional. A política se singulariza por incorporar uma dimensão de valores à crítica. Com isso, harmoniza-se com as posições defendidas pelo país nos plenários internacionais, onde o tema do DaD tem sido objeto de debate. / Human Rights have consolidated a set of ethic-political values considered essential to safeguard the respect to the dignity of the human being. The question of development is fundamental to foreign policy considerations of countries like Brazil. The consecration of the Right to Development (RTD) as a human right challenges the artificial division of Human Rights and reveals the thematic evolution of this major of study. This paper uses the instrumental of human rights to evaluate the relevance and singularity of some of the Brazilian positions. After a certain dissonance observed in the seventies, reflex of the authoritary cycle experimented by the country at that time, a cooperative stance from Brazil in the propositions that dealt with the RTD was verified. In the same sense, it was observed that despite not being a recurrent concept in the official Brazilian speach, the country?s positions concerning the model of development defended and the human rights allow to infer there is an harmony in relation to the fundamental principles placed on the Declaration on the RTD, of 1986. From the analysis of the Brazilian positions, it was possible to individualize the foreign policy of the Lula government. By the stocktaking of the internal and external variables that exert influence on the government?s political formulation, as well as of public initiatives and official speaches, we have found some empirical evidence in the sense that Brazilian foreign policy for human rights during Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva?s administration assumes an attitude of promotion of development and of criticism to international order. It is a singular policy for embodying a dimension of values to such criticism. Hence, it is harmonic with the positions defended by the country in the international plenary assemblies where the matter of RTD has been object to discussion.

This thesis focuses on change and persistence of the structure of the international system. It attempts to address the question why hierarchic structures prevailed during the Ancient and Classical eras (3000 B. C. ? 1500 A. D. ). The thesis compares and contrasts the Roman Empire (the Pax Romana period 1st century B. C. -3rd century A. D. ) and the Chinese Empire (the T?ang Dynasty 618-907 A. D. ) as hierarchic structures and the multi-state system of ancient Greece (8th-4th century B. C. ) and the multi-state system of ancient China (The Spring and Autumn and the Warring States Period 722-221 B. C. ) as anarchic structures. The thesis suggests that the moral purpose of the state, the competitive security environment, the desire for benefits and geopolitical and strategic advantages played the major role in the immediate transformation from anarchy to hierarchy. The thesis asserts that the generation of common goods, the decline in transaction costs and the success in securing the commitment of the members and the legitimacy of the system enabled and encouraged the persistence of hierarchic structures. It also re-emphasizes that whereas the persistence of hierarchic systems depends on the existence of several factors, only one factor can promote the persistence of anarchic structures e. g. the moral purpose of the state.

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