ASEANs Search for Neutrality in the South China Sea

This article seeks to make a contribution to the existing literature on the South China Sea issue by focusing on the impact of regional institutions on conflict management and resolution as well as the limits these institutions face when seeking to de-escalate disputes. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has attempted to preserve its neutrality and unity over sovereignty disputes and has focused on the establishment of a conflict management mechanism with China-the Code of Conduct for the South China Sea. However, ASEANs efforts have been undermined by an escalation of the situation in the disputed waters and by rising China-U.S. competition in the region. The article concludes by discussing various scenarios regarding the future of ASEANs South China Sea policy

Democratization, National Identity, and Indonesia’s Foreign Policy

This chapter explores the existing connections between Indonesia’s process of democratization, its evolving national identity, and its foreign policy. It reviews how Indonesia has encouraged democratic values and respect for human rights in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and through other institutional means like the Bali Democracy Forum (BDF) and the Bali Process to counter human smuggling and trafficking. Yet, despite its initiatives and some accomplishments, insufficient leadership, resource limitations, and ongoing resistance from other Southeast Asian nations have restrained Indonesia’s ability to promote democracy and human rights in the region. Indonesia seems, therefore, unable, or unwilling, to move beyond the projection of its own democratization experience and to become an influential source of advocacy for domestic policy transition within the wider region

Subsidies and agricultural productivity in the EU

This paper investigates the relationship between EU agricultural subsidies and agricultural labor productivity growth by estimating a conditional convergence growth model. We use more representative subsidy indicators and a wider coverage (panel data from 213 EU regions over the period 2004\u20132014) than have been used before. We find that, on average, EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) subsidies increase agricultural labor productivity growth, but this aggregate effect hides important heterogeneity of effects of different types of subsidies. The positive effect on productivity comes from decoupled subsidies, that is, Pillar I decoupled payments and some Pillar II payments. Coupled Pillar I subsidies have the opposite effect: they slow down productivity growth

The role of the balance-of-power factor within regimes for co-operative security: A study of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF).

The central purpose of this dissertation is to study the role and relevance of the balance of power factor within regimes for cooperative security with special reference to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF). The balance of power concept is systematically applied to an examination of their history and modalities. This thesis addresses one core question: to what extent may the balance of power, defined in political terms, play a part in such associative security arrangements and in the calculations of the participants? Attention is therefore given to the balance of power factor and its co-existence with an associative dimension part of cooperative security regimes. The dissertation assesses the role of the balance of power as a disposition to promote countervailing arrangements to deny hegemony within and beyond cooperative security even if devoid of direct military content. The establishment of ASEAN and the ARF are analysed within a balance of power perspective. Both institutions were formed with the denial of hegemony in mind but not in a conventional sense. In addition, the balance of power remained a factor in their later developments. Its ongoing relevance is examined by discussing Brunei's motives to join the Association, ASEAN's response to the Third Indochina Conflict, the workings of the Forum, and the Association's involvement in the South China Sea dispute

Vietnam and the Search for Security Leadership in ASEAN

Indonesia has traditionally been viewed as a de facto leader of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the regional body remains the cornerstone of Indonesian foreign policy. The paper addresses the question of whether other member states have become influential actors or even sectoral leaders in their own right by playing a direct role in a particular aspect of ASEAN affairs. This question is addressed by examining the regional policies of Vietnam, a country that has been mostly neglected in the existing ASEAN literature despite its strategic weight. The paper focuses on the evolving role of Vietnam in ASEAN and highlights its diplomatic initiatives, as well as various conditions to evaluate its potential to take up a leading security role in the regional body in the years to come

Peaceful Change in Southeast Asia: The Historical and Institutional Bases

During the 1960s and 1970s, Southeast Asia was referred to as the Balkans of Asia. The region has, however, gone through significant transformations and seen peaceful change since the end of the Cold War despite ongoing great-power interference, the rise of China as a military and economic power, and a series of territorial disputes including the South China Sea issue. This chapter explores the historical and institutional bases that have contributed to the process of peaceful change in Southeast Asia. It argues that peaceful change has evolved and been maintained by the Southeast Asian states by adopting strategies that combine the realist, liberalist, and constructivist approaches. The chapter concludes by discussing the changing nature of security challenges and how the region has been responding to these threats

Using community health workers to deliver a scalable integrated parenting program in rural China: A cluster-randomized controlled trial

Inadequate care during early childhood can lead to long-term deficits in skill development. Parenting programs are promising tools for improving parenting practices and opportunities for healthy development. We implemented a non-masked cluster-randomized controlled trial in rural China in order to assess the effectiveness of an integrated home-visitation program that includes both psychosocial stimulation and health promotion at fostering development and health outcomes of infants and toddlers in rural China. All 6-18 month-old children of two rural townships and their main caregiver were enrolled. Villages were stratified by township and randomly assigned to intervention or control. Specifically, in September 2015 we assigned 43 clusters to treatment (21 villages, 222 caregiver-child dyads) or control (22 villages, 227 caregiver-child dyads). In the intervention group, community health workers delivered education and training on how to provide young children with psychosocial stimulation and health care (henceforth psychosocial stimulation and health promotion) during bi-weekly home visits over the period of one year. The control group received no home visits. Primary outcomes include measures of child development (i.e. the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development, third edition—or Bayley-III) and health (i.e. measures of morbidity, nutrition, and growth). Secondary outcomes are measures of parenting practices. Intention-to-treat (ITT) effects show that the intervention led to an improvement of 0·24 standard deviations (SD) [95% CI 0·04 SD-0·44 SD] in cognitive development and to a reduction of 8·1 [95% CI 3·8–12·4] percentage points in the risk of diarrheal illness. In addition, we find positive effects on parenting practices mirroring these results. We conclude that an integrated psychosocial stimulation and health promotion program improves development and health outcomes of infants and toddlers (6–30 month-old children) in rural China. Because of low incremental costs of adding program components (that is, adding health promotion to psychosocial stimulation programs), integrated programs may be cost-effective

Morphology and connectivity of parabrachial and cortical inputs to gustatory thalamus in rats

The ventroposterior medialis parvocellularis (VPMpc) nucleus of the thalamus, the thalamic relay nucleus for gustatory sensation, receives primary input from the parabrachial nucleus, and projects to the insular cortex. To reveal the unique properties of the gustatory thalamus in comparison with archetypical sensory relay nuclei, this study examines the morphology of synaptic circuitry in the VPMpc, focusing on parabrachiothalamic driver input and corticothalamic feedback. Anterogradely visualized parabrachiothalamic fibers in the VPMpc bear large swellings. At electron microscope resolution, parabrachiothalamic axons are myelinated and make large boutons, forming multiple asymmetric, adherent, and perforated synapses onto large‐caliber dendrites and dendrite initial segments. Labeled boutons contain dense‐core vesicles, and they resemble a population of terminals within the VPMpc containing calcitonin gene‐related peptide. As is typical of primary inputs to other thalamic nuclei, parabrachiothalamic terminals are over five times larger than other inputs, while constituting only 2% of all synapses. Glomeruli and triadic arrangements, characteristic features of other sensory thalamic nuclei, are not encountered. As revealed by anterograde tracer injections into the insular cortex, corticothalamic projections in the VPMpc form a dense network of fine fibers bearing small boutons. Corticothalamic terminals within the VPMpc were also observed to synapse on cells that were retrogradely filled from the same injections. The results constitute an initial survey describing unique anatomical properties of the rodent gustatory thalamus. J. Comp. Neurol. 523:139–161, 2015. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Using biotinylated tract tracers and light and electron microscopy, the authors provide quantitative ultrastructural characterization of two inputs that arrive to the gustatory thalamic nucleus (ventroposterior medialis parvocellularis nucleus [VPMpc]): parabrachiothalamic axons that bring the primary input, and corticothalamic axons that provide the feedback input.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/109654/1/cne23673.pd

Analysing the European Union's responses to organized crime through different securitization lenses

In the past 30 years, organized crime (OC) has shifted from being an issue of little, or no concern, to being considered one of the key security threats facing the European Union (EU), the economic and political fabric of its society and its citizens. The purpose of this article is to understand how OC has come to be understood as one of the major security threats in the EU, by applying different lenses of Securitization Theory (ST). More specifically, the research question guiding this article is whether applying different ST approaches can lead us to draw differing conclusions as to whether OC has been successfully securitized in the EU. Building on the recent literature that argues that this theoretical framework has branched out into different approaches, this article wishes to contrast two alternative views of how a security problem comes into being, in order to verify whether different approaches can lead to diverging conclusions regarding the same phenomenon. The purpose of this exercise is to contribute to the further development of ST by pointing out that the choice in approach bears direct consequences on reaching a conclusion regarding the successful character of a securitization process. Starting from a reflection on ST, the article proceeds with applying a “linguistic approach” to the case study, which it then contrasts with a “sociological approach”. The article proposes that although the application of a “linguistic approach” seems to indicate that OC has become securitized in the EU, it also overlooks a number of elements, which the “sociological approach” renders visible and which lead us to refute the initial conclusion