The ubiquity of state fragility : fault lines in the categorisation and conceptualisation of failed and fragile states

In the last three decades, the categories of fragile and failed states have gained significant importance in the fields of law, development, political science and international relations. The wider discourse plays a key role in guiding the policies of international community and multilateral institutions and has also led to the emergence of a plethora of indices and rankings to measure and classify state fragility. A critical and theoretical analysis of these matrices brings to light three crucial aspects that the current study takes as its departure point. First, the formulas and conceptual paradigms show that fragility of states is far more ubiquitous than is generally recognised, and that the so-called successful and stable states are a historical, political and geographical anomaly. Second, in the absence of an agreed definition of a successful state or even that of a failed or fragile state, the indicators generally rely on negative definitions to delineate the failed and fragile state. They generally suggest that their reading is built on a Weberian ideal–typical state, which takes the idea of monopoly over legitimate violence as its starting point. The third and final point suggests that the indicators and rankings, misconstruing the Weberian ideal–typical state, actually end up comparing fragile states against an ideal–mythical state. The article argues that this notional state is not only ahistorical and apolitical, but it also carries the same undertones that have been the hallmark of theories of linear development, colonialism and imperialism

Senate Floor Debates: Presidential Inability and Vacancies in the Office of the Vice President: Conference Report

Discussion of Senate Joint Resolution 1 and Conference Report No. 564. Further debate on the proposed constitutional amendment regarding presidential succession and inability.https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/twentyfifth_amendment_congressional_materials/1026/thumbnail.jp

Kinstate intervention in ethnic conflicts : Albania and Turkey compared

Albania and Turkey did not act in overtly irredentist ways towards their ethnic brethren in neighboring states after the end of communism. Why, nonetheless, did Albania facilitate the increase of ethnic conflict in Kosovo and Macedonia, while Turkey did not, with respect to the Turks of Bulgaria? I argue that kin-states undergoing transition are more prone to intervene in external conflicts than states that are not, regardless of the salience of minority demands in the host-state. The transition weakens the institutions of the kin-state. Experiencing limited institutional constraints, self-seeking state officials create alliances with secessionist and autonomist movements across borders alongside their own ideological, clan-based and particularistic interests. Such alliances are often utilized to advance radical domestic agendas. Unlike in Albania's transition environment, in Turkey there were no emerging elites that could potentially form alliances and use external movements to legitimize their own domestic existence or claims

Steady states in hierarchical structured populations with distributed states at birth

We investigate steady states of a quasilinear first order hyperbolic partial integro-differential equation. The model describes the evolution of a hierarchical structured population with distributed states at birth. Hierarchical size-structured models describe the dynamics of populations when individuals experience size-specific environment. This is the case for example in a population where individuals exhibit cannibalistic behavior and the chance to become prey (or to attack) depends on the individual's size. The other distinctive feature of the model is that individuals are recruited into the population at arbitrary size. This amounts to an infinite rank integral operator describing the recruitment process. First we establish conditions for the existence of a positive steady state of the model. Our method uses a fixed point result of nonlinear maps in conical shells of Banach spaces. Then we study stability properties of steady states for the special case of a separable growth rate using results from the theory of positive operators on Banach lattices.Comment: to appear in Discrete and Continuous Dynamical Systems - Series

Always in control? Sovereign states in cyberspace

For well over twenty years, we have witnessed an intriguing debate about the nature of cyberspace. Used for everything from communication to commerce, it has transformed the way individuals and societies live. But how has it impacted the sovereignty of states? An initial wave of scholars argued that it had dramatically diminished centralised control by states, helped by a tidal wave of globalisation and freedom. These libertarian claims were considerable. More recently, a new wave of writing has argued that states have begun to recover control in cyberspace, focusing on either the police work of authoritarian regimes or the revelations of Edward Snowden. Both claims were wide of the mark. By contrast, this article argues that we have often misunderstood the materiality of cyberspace and its consequences for control. It not only challenges the libertarian narrative of freedom, it suggests that the anarchic imaginary of the Internet as a ‘Wild West’ was deliberately promoted by states in order to distract from the reality. The Internet, like previous forms of electronic connectivity, consists mostly of a physical infrastructure located in specific geographies and jurisdictions. Rather than circumscribing sovereignty, it has offered centralised authority new ways of conducting statecraft. Indeed, the Internet, high-speed computing, and voice recognition were all the result of security research by a single information hegemon and therefore it has always been in control

U.S.-EU Safe Harbor Framework; A Guide to Self-Certification

[Excerpt] In this guide, we have provided an outline of the most critical pieces of the Safe Harbor Framework. The application is made available, along with a Helpful Hints Guide that explains how to fill it out. The Safe Harbor Principles and FAQs are also provided for easy reference. There is also an explanation and listing of third party dispute resolution providers (or Independent Resource Mechanisms) with descriptions of the services provided by three dispute resolution providers that work with Safe Harbor. Finally, we’ve also included several sample company privacy policies for reference, and a glossary that explains key terms. We’ve broken this Guide into nine major sections, each to address different questions you might have. What follows is a brief description of each section: Overview: The overview gives some background on the Safe Harbor Framework, how it came about, and explains many of the certification requirements. The overview also lists the principles of the Safe Harbor program. Application: The Application is provided for easy reference. Applicants should apply online at http://export.gov /safeharbor (click on “Certification Form” in the right sidebar). Certification Mark: The Commerce Department’s International Trade Administration has recently developed a certification mark for the Safe Harbor Framework. The mark may be used by companies on their websites to signify that they have self-certified compliance with the provisions of the Safe Harbor Framework. Instructions for use of the certification mark are provided. Helpful Hints Guide (to Certification): The Helpful Hints Guide is meant to give quick answers to any questions a U.S. company might have about the certification process. It should be used in conjunction with the rest of the Guide, however it answers many of the most common questions about the certification process. Safe Harbor Principles: We have provided the full text of the official declaration of the Safe Harbor Principles as announced on July 21, 2000. This text is helpful for understanding the foundation of the Safe Harbor Principles and the Framework. Frequently Asked Questions: We have provided the Frequently Asked Questions in full text because they answer many of the most commonly asked questions about the Safe Harbor Framework. Dispute Resolution Providers: Here we have provided a short description of the role of dispute resolution providers (also referred to as Independent Recourse Mechanisms) and descriptions of the services they offer. Sample Privacy Policies: Here we have provided three sample privacy policies for reference, which may serve as guidance when creating a new Privacy Policy or updating an existing Privacy Policy to align it with the Safe Harbor Framework. The Safe Harbor Framework requires an affirmative commitment in the Privacy Policy to the principles of the Safe Harbor Framework. Glossary: A short glossary is also provided for many of the technical terms frequently used in the Guide

Presidential Succession Act of 2004

A proposed bill to modify the presidential succession list after the Secretary of Veterans Affairs. The list would include the Secretary of Homeland Security and selected U.S. Ambassadors.https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/twentyfifth_amendment_congressionalmaterials_ppsl/1005/thumbnail.jp

The Asian-American Labor Force in the Recovery

[Excerpt] Asian-Americans and Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders are a growing share of the United States labor market. They are also a diverse population who identify their ethnicity as Asian Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese and several other ethnicities. Aggregate numbers show that the Asian-American community as a whole exhibits better labor market outcomes than other racial groups, but the aggregate measurements veil the wide variations within this highly diverse group. Numbers broken down by gender, by age and by country of origin, illustrate that there exists significant disparity within those who identify their race as Asian . These numbers demonstrate that some Asian-Americans face greater challenges and therefore need more attention and assistance than the aggregate data suggest