Central European University Political Science Journal
Institution:
Central European University
Abstract:
In Political Science and International Relations scholarship HIV/AIDS as a socio-political phenomenon affecting millions of people worldwide has largely tended to be approached in global terms. Particularly in discussions of contemporary international regimes of security and human rights, HIV/AIDS is associated with the generalized idea that in time of globalization 'there are no boundaries.' Just like the human beings who carry them, viruses circulate apparently uncontrolled across the world. To a large extent, this assertion derives clearly from another, broader, assumption based on the retreat of nation-states, and concomitant expansion of a West-led, hegemonic project of globalization, namely with regard to technologies of management of, and response to, human-related issues. However, national contexts have always been fundamental in global approaches to social intervention.
Central European University Political Science Journal
Institution:
Central European University
Abstract:
Collaboration with students is quite often a source of interesting research ideas. Teaching in the U.S. Naval Academy, Professor Stephen Frantzich noticed to his great wonder that his students, who would be in government service in future, were cynical about their government. The main task for teacher is “to provide real examples of relatively typical individuals who overcame cynism to affect public well-being”.(p.ix). Academic experience originated interesting research work which would help to prove that government could not ignore the people and had to respond.
Central European University Political Science Journal
Institution:
Central European University
Abstract:
The problems associated with climate change and their unintended consequences have challenged the capacities for comprehension. At the same time, the issues provoked by environmental degradation tend to evince the fickleness of established models for their management. Equally significantly, the dynamics associated with climate change have come to indicate the pervasive uncertainty of the post-Cold War climate of international interactions and the unpredictability of the emerging global patterns. While not new in themselves, the cumulative effects of intensifying environmental threats have drawn the attention of international relations theory to the complex challenges posed by climate change.
The wave of popular uprisings sweeping across the Arab world has caught the region's most entrenched authoritarian regimes off guard. Yet unlike Tunisia, Egypt, and other custodians of an undemocratic status quo, Yemen is no stranger to instability. Long before protesters took to the streets of Sana`a on January 20, 2011 to demand political reforms, the 32-year-old regime of President Ali Abdullah Salih was already struggling to contain a daunting array of security, economic, and governance challenges.
On December 3, 2009, President Barack Obama hosted a special White House summit on jobs. With the United States deep in the throes of the most severe economic downturn since the 1930s, and with unemployment hovering around 10 percent, the administration was determined to show an anxious public its commitment to finding ways to get people back to work. Among the challenges raised by summit participants was the need to expand exports. A month and a half later, the President made it clear that he got the message.
Vanessa Muñoz, 24, and Hector Quiroga, 22, haven't met, but they have a lot in common. Both are from poor families; both have children; both live in the same district of Bogotá; and neither has completed secondary education. They are also both members of a 95-million-strong generation of Latin Americans aged 15 to 24 that is being hit hard by the global economic crisis. The 2008 recession ended five years of growth in Latin America that created jobs and market access for many of the region's young adults. Around the globe, there were an estimated 81 million unemployed young workers in 2009—almost 8 million more than in 2007—reflecting a sharper rise in youth unemployment than ever before. In Latin America and the Caribbean, where young workers are three times more likely to be unemployed than their elders, formal youth unemployment rose from 14.3 percent to 16.1 percent between 2008 and 2009.