Lighthouse HT19

the

ighthouse Oxford International Relations Society

COOPERATION

A Note From The Editors This issue, “Cooperation,” has asked both readers and staff alike to contemplate the disunity of our time. The world in which we live in 2019 faces significant challenges that make the daily front page news—challenges for which there are no simple solutions: climate change, the outpacing of technology over law, violence against journalists, and violations of human rights. All these, and more, impact lives regardless of borders, and so we ask the question, why try to solve them alone? When crises occur— humanitarian and ecological alike—we ought to strengthen the institutions that facilitate cooperation and reimagine the ones that do not; to elevate the voices of activists fighting to shape the futures of their communities; to respect and learn from the nuances of cultures unlike our own. Believe as we do in the value of diverse voices participating in discussion that will have a positive impact on the world, we are proud to represent the student writers of this issue. We hope that these articles inform and inspire our readers to see the possibility of cooperation in our divided world and foster it where it is most needed.

We would like to start this issue, however, by expressing our deepest thanks to all those who have helped us put this issue together. We are particularly indebted to our Editor-in-Chief, Michelle, for all her guidance, support, and energy in leading us every step of the way, from the finances to the editing process, and ensuring our content was done on time. Our team of Sub-Editors, Alan, Nicholas, James and Nicole, have worked tirelessly to support the writers to ensure each article is succinct, precise, and powerful. Many thanks go out to Ruby Lyons, who has outdone herself as our Graphics Designer. We are also grateful to Ed Lawrence, the International Relations Society President, and Viola Fur, the IRSoc Treasurer, for their support in promoting the journal and assisting its finances. Without the collaboration and effort of all these people, this term’s Lighthouse would have been much poorer and possibly even non-existent. Thanks are also due to the Hertford JCR, Somerville JCR, Trinity JCR, and Wadham SU for their generous donations, without which we would not be able to continue our excellent, independent journalism.

We also want to thank the writers for their excellent work. We encourage our readers to follow our website, lighthousejournal.co.uk, where we will be uploading even more exciting articles and multimedia pieces.

Elizabeth Merrigan and Julia Pieza

Crises Evaporating Time: Cooperative Solutions to Egypt’s Water Crisis Alan Grad Katowice 2018: Progress or Stalemate?

Hannah Hodges Cooperative Solutions to the Mediterranean Refugee Crisis, and Why They’ll Never Happen Matthew Blayney Protecting Privacy: Cooperation and Conflicts Thomas Rizvi A New Wave: Indo-Japanese Cooperation in a Changing Indo-Pacific Shantanu Roy-Chaudhury

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Institutions Aid: Great Cooperation, Great Failure and The Way Forward Hugh Thomas Democracy without Demos? The EU Won't Survive Without Truly European Elections Kenneth Stiller The Benefits of Minilateral Diplomacy Gordon Ahl Between A Rock and a Hard Place: The WTO in a Competitive Age Nicholas Monaco

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Eyes on the Street: Protecting Citizen Journalism in the Middle East Nicole Dominiak The Cost of Press Freedom: Cooperation and Collaboration in the Trump Era James Cleaver Coordinating Dissent: How Technology is Transforming the Russian Opposition Sofya Sudets

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Activism

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Culture Confucius and Cooperation: The Tianxia Concept in the Twenty-First Century Zhining Liu Sanseverino, Cooperation and Compromise: Why the Western Ideal of Democracy Must Come to Terms with Islam Bianca Vimercati Sanseverino Emerging Communities: Can Russia Cooperate with its Central Asian Migrants?

Kayla Kim

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Crises

EVAPORATING TIME: COOPERATIVE SOLUTIONS TO EGYPT’S WATER PROBLEM Alan Grad A brief look at the news headlines regarding Egypt tells a story of poor governance, extrajudicial killings, military brutality, oil exports and a meagre record of tourism security. However, a very different, and rarely mentioned, problem that has been slowly brewing for the past century is one of acute water shortages in this historical breadbasket of the Mediterranean. It poses a true challenge for the upcoming generations as water shortages are set to increase in scope and severity. Egypt is steadily on the path of crossing the UN boundary of “absolute water scarcity” by 2025 with its current population of a hundred million, which is set to increase by almost seventy percent by 2050. The water supply per capita has already dropped by half since the late 1970s, affecting freshwater and food costs. Bearing these dangers in mind, the necessity to design cooperative solutions ensuring Egypt works with other riparian states to ensure water security and safeguard against droughts and famines is undeniable.

upstream states, Egypt and Sudan were awarded a large proportion of the Nile water, most of which originates in the Ethiopian highlands.

Although the conflict over water lay dormant for most of the last century, it has recently flared up as Ethiopia committed to a push for the development of its hydropower capacity with the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. The project was paired with the construction of a reservoir able to hold more than a year’s water supply of Egypt. As the artificial lake fills up over the coming decade, the supply downstream will be reduced, further undermining the fragile water distribution schemes in place. This assertion of independence has resulted in the Egyptian side sabre rattling that culminated in Mohamed Morsi, then President, threatening armed intervention. He said of the Nile, “If it loses one drop, our blood is the alternative”. The talks aiming to renegotiate the river’s water distribution were resumed after the coup d'état in 2013 but broke down again in November 2017 as the Ethiopian dam nears completion.

The preponderant water source of the region, the Nile, accounts for 98% of total water supply in the country as there is virtually no rain, making the situation in Egypt very different to that of the other basin countries.

Under treaties dating back to colonial times and established with no say from the

This unique situation calls for unique solutions. One simplistic avenue of action available to the government is to actively limit the water-intensive agriculture, which consumes as much as a quarter of the Nile’s water available in Egypt. However, even barring the ques-

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tions of the economic ramifications of a sudden change in food prices in a country where 6 million are undernourished, any such policy would be deeply disruptive. As about a quarter of the working population is involved in the agricultural sector, top-down pressure to explicitly limit food production through licensing, or limiting the amount of water diverted to irrigation would bring about an immense increase in unemployment, poverty. It could potentially arouse political unrest of the kind that has thrown Egypt into military dictatorship since 2013.

will continue to tap into the most accessible reservoirs available, to the demise of their neighbour downstream.

Some of the ways in which Egypt could secure a more ample supply of water is through investing in its neighbours upstream, particularly South Sudan and Ethiopia.

As of now, Egypt is legally entitled to source some 60 billion cubic metres from the river which, while being significant, is not enough. Exchanging a greater quota of the Nile water for financing alternative water catchment and purification systems in Ethiopia that would reduce the consumption upstream is one possibility. Another could involve restarting a shelved project of circumventing the Sudd swamps in South Sudan, with an artificial canal. Yet currently, almost half of the water in the Sudd swamps is lost to evaporation and what remains available to the local population is polluted beyond potability. The project, coupled with the construction of an artificial reservoir would not only reduce losses to evapotranspiration, but also decrease the impact of droughts and famines such as the one that affected half of the East Africa’s population in 2017. Yet another possibility would be to invest in more efficient use of the plentiful rainfall in the south of Sudan proper in exchange for some of the Sudanese 20 billion cubic metres of the Nile river quota.

Engineering concrete projects that would noticeably increase the water supply in the country directly is hardly viable. What could be accomplished in Singapore using Malaysian water or in China through a series of grand canals is near impossible in North-Eastern Africa, if only for lack of any neighbours with significant water surpluses.

The changing climate in the region will not be a positive influence either, with the already minimal precipitation set to fall further and evaporation rates growing, the water supply will keep decreasing.

Although the conflict over water lay dormant for most of the last century, it has recently flared up as Ethiopia committed to a push for the development of its hydropower capacity with the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam

Egypt is steadily on the path of crossing the UN boundary of “absolute water scarcity” by 2025 with its current population of a hundred million, which is set to increase by almost seventy percent by 2050

A recent proposal released by the government envisages building water desalination plants along the coast to supplement its water endowment, but the initiative appears to be too little, too late. The project seeks an investment of $51 billion in water desalination plants along the coast of the Red Sea. It is set to expand the current desalination capacity tenfold, but by the end of their construction these would still only provide for less than 1% of the water demand in the country. Still, even if the project were to be expanded dramatically, bridging the 30 billion cubic metres gap between demand and supply would require around 60% of Egypt’s current energy consumption to power the plants under today’s technology.

In the long run it is clear it will still be necessary to explore domestic solutions, reducing agricultural output and exploring alternative water sources such as seawater.

Still, as the countdown to the next deadly and disruptive drought runs down, what the Nile basin desperately needs is cooperation. However, regardless of what combination of the above policies emerge as solutions, for them to be achieved all parties need to come around, sit down and discuss the conflict in a civil way. Toning down the verbal aggression seems to be a good start.

Ultimately, Egypt will have to look to its neighbours upstream to help. Fortunately, the possibilities for cooperation are plentiful. For one, while the Nile appears currently to be the only viable source of drinking water for Egyptians, other countries of the basin experience average rainfall that amounts to more than ten times the water required by their populations, in addition to having access to other water sources. However, without international coordination and significant investment, all of these states

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EVAPORATING TIME: COOPERATIVE SOLUTIONS TOPROGRESS EGYPT’S WATER PROBLEM KATOWICE 2018: Vimercati ORBianca STALEMATE? Hannah Hodges

conclusion gave the conference a profound sense of exigency, and many activists hoped it would force leaders to recognise that now is the time for radical action and policies.

The 2018 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Katowice, Poland, was meant to present a united front of world leaders committed to tackling climate change.

Instead, two weeks of strenuous negotiations have laid bare the cracks and revealed an unresolvable discrepancy between nations’ priorities. With the US, Russia, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia refusing to officially accept the urgency of climate change and Brazil threatening to bring the talks to a halt, producing a final document was far from an easy feat. Whilst Michał Kurtyka, president of the conference, seemed positive, the behaviour of key carbon emitters suggests any hope of future international cooperation on the theme of climate change is somewhat utopic .

“Right now we are facing a man-made disaster of global scale, our greatest threat in thousands of years: climate change. If we don’t take action, the collapse of our civilisations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon.” This was the warning issued by Sir David Attenborough on the second day of the 24th UN conference on climate change. Attenbrough’s cautionary tone echoes the findings of a report published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in October, which insisted that the 2°C limit on temperature rise set out by the Paris Agreements was still too high. The IPCC report stated that in order to prevent serious environmental damage this would have to be reduced to 1.5°C. This new target would demand “unprecedented” changes in international environmental policy. Such an alarming

Far from a diplomatic compromise, this is evidence of how four of the world’s top ten oil-producing countries are unambiguously blocking any international pledge to cut emissions Hopes were soon dashed as the report proved to be only the first hurdle of the conference. An optimistic proposal to issue a statement claiming the UN “welcomes” the findings of the IPCC was quickly shot down by the US alongside Russia, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. The latter had allegedly already attempted to restrict the conclusions of the report at the IPCC Panel Conference in Incheon, South Korea. The country disagreed with a section stating that current voluntary national commitments were insufficient in order to meet the 1.5°C target. Two months later and the report’s wording was still proving difficult for Saudi Arabia to stomach. Clearly concerned about the

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economic repercussions of any revolutionary environmental commitment, Saudi Arabia with its fellow oil-countries vetoed the optimistic wording and the statement was scrapped. What was eventually agreed on was a much more neutral, half-hearted statement, “welcoming the timely completion of the report” as opposed to the alarming content of it. Far from a diplomatic compromise, this is evidence of how four of the world’s top ten oil-producing countries are unambiguously blocking any international pledge to cut emissions.

as Bolsonaro and Trump are concerned it seems to be just as much political as economic. Their climate-change scepticism confronts a scientific or academic elite and sets out to undo commitments made by their predecessors. In other words, their uncooperative stance on environmental policy contributes to their image as heterodox leaders who put their country’s economic prosperity first, refusing to bow to international pressure.

If this is the case, is there anything that can make them cooperate? The casualties caused by the collapse of the Brumadinho Dam in Brazil was a terrifying example of the dangers of unsustainable environmental practices. It may force Bolsonaro to rethink his dismissive attitude towards environmental policy, but in this case the pressure will come from inside the country. If something similar were to happen in the US, a call for more cooperation on environmental policy would be likely. On the other hand, Saudi Arabia and Russia are no strangers to a certain antagonism when it comes to international relations, making it hard to imagine how much international pressure needs to be applied in order for them to sacrifice their oil gains for the sake of environmental protection.

This is even more so the case when we consider that any pressure from without would have to compensate for the significantly muted pressure offered by civil society on the inside.

But why are oil-nations dragging their feet?

This is not new behaviour for Russia, Kuwait, or Saudi Arabia and it won’t come as a surprise to many that Trump’s America has joined in. However, these weren’t the only nations causing problems. Brazil joined its fellow oil-nations, creating perhaps the most dramatic deadlock of the conference. The world’s ninth largest oil-producer gave indication that it might prove a tricky customer announcing just a few days before the conference it would be would no longer be hosting next year’s UN conference on climate change. Although financial restrictions were given as the reason for the decision, it is likely that newly-elected president Jair Bolsonaro also had a part to play. During his election campaign Bolsonaro claimed he was willing to relax Amazon rainforest protections in order to expand the mining and agricultural industries, and it appears this rhetoric may have influenced the Brazilian stance in Katowice. Brazilian representatives wanted a weak set of rules on the trading of carbon credits and the continuation of current market mechanisms. Carbon trading is perhaps one of the most ambiguous aspects of the Paris Agreements and has been essentially manipulated by large emission countries such as Brazil, curbing the effectiveness of emission targets. These emission trading practices, viewed by most experts as “cheating”, allow rich countries to buy more carbon credits in order to meet targets set out in the Kyoto Protocol. The conference attempted to look at ways that carbon trading could be policed more strictly, but was met with strong Brazilian opposition. As a result, the topic of carbon market regulations was simply deferred until next year. Deferring discussions is yet another example of the power held by uncooperative oil-nations.

These emission trading practices, viewed by most experts as “cheating”, allow rich countries to buy more carbon credits in order to meet targets set out in the Kyoto Protocol The IPCC report is a potent reminder that climate change will not wait for political leaders to reach a consensus or to wait for oil-nations to be convinced of the economic and political viability of environmental policy. There is no longer any room for nations to pursue a self-centric policy when the problem is global; there is no time for tepid statements or commitment. Instead if there is to be progress there needs to be true cooperation and a radical change in country’s priorities. The reality is, however, that such a turn-around may not be achieved within the pressing time limit scientists have set.

Whilst “bully” might be too strong a word, the political and economic power of oil-producing nations does seem to allow them to manipulate the outcome of international conferences. Opposite them stand AOSIS (The Association Of Small Island States) representing one-fifth of UN members and over 40 million people whose livelihoods are threatened by rising sea levels. Yet countries such as the Soloman Islands hold little negotiating power when Russia and the US are, at this point, sitting on the same side of the table. Even if Europe earnestly commits to radically reducing temperatures, they are going to need to encourage the bigger players to do the same and refuse to delay negotiations if they are to save some of the Pacific’s lowest lying islands. But why are oil-nations dragging their feet? As far

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COOPERATIVE SOLUTIONS TO THE MEDITERRANEAN REFUGEE CRISIS, AND WHY THEY’LL NEVER HAPPEN Matthew Blayney

With refugee crises around the world shaking the humanitarian resolve of Western democracies—with a rise in isolationism, fuelled by the rhetoric of fear around migration—we should look back not only to what allowed this crisis to happen, but what made it so politically divisive, and why no cooperation is being found over the issue.

Looking at the Mediterranean, and at the surges of asylum-seeking caused by warfare in Africa and the Middle East, it becomes clear how many opportunities there have been to prevent, to mitigate, or to fix the refugee crisis—and how little we have done.

The refugees taking the dangerous trips across the Mediterranean in illegal ships are not doing so because they do not have the means to reach Europe legally. A seat on these ships costs between €1,000 at the lowest and often up to €8,000. A single legal plane ticket from Lebanon to London is €340. The cheapest option open to them, a commercial ferry from Turkey to Greece, is €20. These refugees can afford to fly. They can reach an airport far easier than the coast, and easier yet than walking across Europe. So why don’t they?

As part of a guarantee that Schengen-Area states would be protected from illegal immigration, the EU passed EU Directive 2001/51/EC. In effect, this made it a universal policy across the EU that, if an asylum seeker takes a flight to Europe and applies for refugee status on the other end, but is then denied that status, the airline must cover the costs to return that refugee to their home country. To protect their commercial interests, the airlines then don’t let anyone

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board without a visa.

No legitimate routes to asylum in Europe, where they have a chance of being accommodated in a humanitarian way, are open to them. There are no means of applying for asylum without being within the borders of the country where you wish to apply for asylum. The few cases where we do see asylum granted beforehand are like those of Rahaf Mohammed who was recently allowed to flee to Canada, and Malala Yousafzai in the UK. These cases are few, far between, and driven by media attention: in other words, largely unavailable to the average asylum seeker.

SOLUTION 1 The easiest option open to European countries would be to allow people to apply for asylum through their embassies, or online through offices at airports. The clear issue is the lack of incentive: there is no reason they should want to increase the number of people who can claim irrevocable right to move to their country. The crisis’ core problem, however, and the most common argument used by those against accepting asylum seekers, is that refugees are mixed with “economic migrants,” and we have no way of filtering the two. Making asylum application more accessible would be the first step towards filtration. If nothing more, countries would have a much stronger mandate to turn away those entering illegally. Nevertheless, politics thrives on controversy. The public turn against immigration is fuelling a rise of support for the

right which benefits most of the governments of Europe.

Out of 28, only eight EU countries are under governments less right wing than their main opposition. For the other 20, regardless of their leaders’ views on the crisis, if they are perceived to be “weak on immigration,” they give ground to far right parties and divide their voter base.

BEYOND THE MEDITERRANEAN The ideas of recreating the same process voluntarily grabbed the interest of the governments of Honduras and Madagascar, who began arrangements to work with Romer to make these Charter Cities happen. Madagascar’s government was immediately brought down by allegations of treason by the opposition party.

The problem is that the right to asylum is necessarily in conflict with national sovereignty in the control of immigration. The desire for control is incompatible with the fundamental idea of rights: that rights must be granted unconditionally. This means that the two cannot coexist in full. The right of people to asylum and the right of nations to sovereignty are two irreconcilable unconditionals. The one cannot be protected without compromising the other.

Honduras seemed promising. Amendments to the constitution to allow the cession of land passed by articles?

124:1 and 114:1. They had it overseen by a Transparency Committee, headed by the idea’s theorist Paul Romer. The proposed city was also placed on the path of refugees from South America to the USA. The government, however, began to use the plan to evict people from their homes, and sought to make the charter a tax haven within Honduras rather than a safe, well-administered place for people to live. Paul Romer and almost all committee members have since resigned. Both cases where Charter Cities were attempted, they failed due to the inherent problems of the host country: political division in Madagascar and corruption in Honduras.

SOLUTION 2 A further possibility is to overturn EU Directive 2001/51/EC and manage claimants to refugee status through asylum communities. These would be areas where asylum applicants are housed and fed whilst their status is considered.

This allows all management of asylum to take place in the potential host country. Those that receive asylum could also be housed more permanently in asylum communities, to be returned when it is deemed safe. However, the problem here is glaring. The very idea of it conjures images of the Calais jungle, the US-Mexico border family separation policy. It is hard to see the scheme, wherever it’s executed, receiving proper funding or adequate humanitarian handling. Whether or not this policy would be preferable to inaction is difficult to foresee, but what is certain is that, if implemented, the government would receive far more flak either way, making it naturally unappealing to a democratic government, and unlikely to be implemented.

The desire to protect national sovereignty fosters irrationality and distrust. In an increasingly interdependent world, facing international problems with international consequences, like asylum, solutions are going to need innovation and cooperation. The incongruence between the solutions we pursue and the solutions we need is possibly the surest sign of shift to come in the world’s approach to international politics. The question is which of the irreconcilable rights will win out: that of sovereignty, or of asylum?

SOLUTION 3 Perhaps the most radical proposal yet, and most divisive, is that of charter cities. Dubbed “Voluntary Colonialism” when proposed by Germany’s Africa Commissioner, it has been vehemently rejected by the African Union, but received strong acclaim from academics. Paul Romer’s original theory involved a developing country temporarily granting administrative responsibility over a small portion of territory to a developed country, in which they would follow a separate rule of law in the hope that freedom from corruption and violence would make it attractive for investors and migrants. As a foreign charter, Hong Kong went from being mostly barren hills to a popular destination for refugees and economic migrants from China. After it had developed and later flourished under liberal and accountable rule of law, it served as a model for China’s opening up, being the basis for four “special zones” and fourteen coastal cities. Following this pattern became key to China’s economic development.

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PROTECTING PRIVACY: COOPERATION AND CONFLICTS Thomas Rizvi platforms (see, for instance, talk of “responsible encryption”). More troubling, the bill also allows intelligence agencies to target specific individuals working at these companies with the punishment for non-compliance being jail time. Signal, the popular messaging app developed by Open Whisper Systems, has already announced its intention to refuse compliance. Given that many of these messaging platforms are based outside of Australia, if companies hold firm and refuse to cooperate, the Australian government will face a choice: back down or block. The key will lie in unity among the firms, whilst the majority of consumers are not particularly concerned about encryption. The number of people using Facebook Messenger as their primary form of communication, for example, is rather indicative. If some apps acquiesce and non-compliers are blocked, I suspect one will simply see a shift to other available platforms, with little more than disgruntled grumblings from users. If Australia succeeds, cooperation in regulation becomes irrelevant; once the backdoors exist, other countries will demand access, and digital privacy will have taken a critical hit. For a government representing less than half the world’s population to set such a precedent is a clear point to contest.

In its infancy, the World Wide Web was seen as a kind of regulatory wilderness. Early adopters talked enthusiastically about the potential for freedom and openness, with it presenting a new medium for conversation and expression. Simple technical regulations have, of course, always existed - however, as the last 20 years have shown, the content of the Internet is also subject to regulation. US copyright law, for example, now serves as the de facto method for resolving copyright disputes. With the ever-increasing reach and importance of the Internet, cooperation between states has become increasingly important. It is, therefore, vital to open up a discussion of the role played by states over the internet, and the implication this holds for privacy rights.

A key issue in this debate centres on the extent to which the Internet can be effectively regulated by individual, or multiple, states. An interesting case to watch will be Australia. Here, in 2018, the Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment to the Assistance and Access Bill was passed. It allows state intelligence agencies to demand access over end-to-end encrypted services, and includes apps, such as WhatsApp and Signal. The bill does, admittedly, include text promising that providers cannot be “requested or required to implement or build a systemic weakness or systemic vulnerability", however, this does little to impose meaningful checks on state powers. It is simply the latest in a long line of euphemisms, designed to give the impression that backdoors can exist without crippling the security of

Cooperation has certainly brought individuals some significant privacy benefits. The landmark example of this would be the EU’s General Data Protection Regulations.

For your average user, GDPR is probably a nuisance, the recent influx of ‘cookie’ confirmations being the most obvious example. To businesses, particularly small businesses, it was a compliance challenge, though this

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was somewhat mitigated by the two-year implementation period. To privacy-conscious users, however, (and really to all users, though most will never notice the benefits) it was a game changer. A great deal of attention when it comes to online privacy centres on states. Certainly, this is not unwarranted, state surveillance of communications - and particularly mass data collection – are a serious threat to the fundamental right to privacy.

this changing. Discovery relies on individual whistle-blowers, and even when flagrant violations of privacy law are discovered there is little desire among governments to rectify them (see, for instance, the US Senate granting immunity in 2008 to telecoms providers who cooperated with the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping).

Certainly, there are distinctions between privacy from the state, and privacy as it pertains to private companies’ collection of data. However, this dichotomy is not as clear cut as it might appear. If firms are given free rein to collect and, often improperly store user data, they can easily and secretly be compelled by states to disclose it.

If Australia succeeds, cooperation in regulation becomes irrelevant; once the backdoors exist, other countries will demand access, and digital privacy will have taken a critical hit

With Britain leaving the EU, we shall have to accept our role as a minor player in internet regulation and hope that British courts offer the same check on government surveillance that the ECHR once did

Yet, states are far from the only entities to collect data.

Advertisers, social networks, even small websites: they are all tracking users. Not all of this is done with malicious intent; analytics can often allow websites to understand how users interact with their sites, thus enabling them to improve their basic functions. Anonymised and with narrow scope, such data collection is beneficial. For big tech companies, however, such as Google and Facebook, this data is not anonymous, and it is certainly not limited in scope. You probably don’t think twice about using Google Maps, or commenting on a Facebook post. However, every action you take can be used to shape a detailed profile of your personal tastes and activities. This usually results in the production of target ads designed specifically for you, much of the information will be things that you don’t even realise you’ve disclosed.

Ultimately, one of the fundamental roadblocks to continuing protection of digital privacy is the apathy of users. To paraphrase George Carlin, “Think of how little the average person cares about online privacy. Then remember that half of people care even less”. Massive revelations of privacy breaches, both by states and companies, have yielded relatively little in the way of public demand for change. With Britain leaving the EU, we shall have to accept our role as a minor player in internet regulation and hope that British courts offer the same check on government surveillance that the ECHR once did. In order to protect our rights relating to internet use, cooperation is required. Yet it needs to start at a base level among consumers; the objective being to place pressure on state entities to act. If this is achieved, the chance of international cooperation becomes increasingly likely.

This is something that we should all strive towards in the future and be conscious of in the present.

The key question is this: Do you trust these companies to use your data responsibly? Facebook has admitted to manipulating the ordering of posts on users’ feeds, as a means of testing reactions to emotional content. The Cambridge Analytica scandal showed the enormous importance and power of big data sets, with tech firms now playing a key role in democratic procedure. Regulating these multinational corporations requires a great deal of influence. It is only through international cooperation that countries, other than the US, have a hope of achieving this.

It is, of course, impossible to discuss privacy without talking about state surveillance, and here cooperation has been a key component of Western strategy. The Snowden revelations, for example, showed that cooperation between national intelligence agencies allowed them to evade laws restricting civil surveillance. The “Five Eyes” (USA, NZ, Australia, UK, Canada), instead, spied on each other’s citizens, and shared the data. Here, there can be little doubt that cooperation has a harmful effect on individuals, and their fundamental rights. Already permissive national security legislation has been circumvented in favour of maximum data collection, in other words, minimum privacy. There is unfortunately little chance of

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A NEW WAVE: INDO-JAPANESE COOPERATION IN A CHANGING INDO-PACIFIC Shantanu Roy-Chaudhury cities such as Chittagong in Bangladesh, Hambantota in Sri Lanka, and Gwadar in Pakistan. This is often referred to by analysts as the “String of Pearls,” which they theorize may be meant to encircle India. Such a system would threaten India’s power projection, trade, and, potentially, territorial integrity. Furthermore, there is also the potential for the Gwadar port in Pakistan and the Hambantota port in Sri Lanka to turn into overseas naval military bases for the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN). Secondly, the overland route of the BRI’s China-Pakistan Economic Corridor passes through disputed territory between India and Pakistan. These two points of contention add to an unresolved border dispute with China. The colonial-era “McMahon Line” currently serves as the boundary between India and China, but its legal status is disputed

by Beijing and it served as the main pretext for the 1962 Sino-Indian War. Given these two points of contention, along with the border issue which has created tensions between the two countries, it is imperative for the government of India to strengthen its position against the growing Chinese influence in its neighbourhood.

As growing Asian economic and military power continues to re-shape the world’s geopolitical landscape, the Indo-Pacific, an enormous region spanning from the western edge of the Indian Ocean to the central Pacific Ocean, has taken centre stage. According to Rory Medcalf, an Australian national security strategist, this Indo-Pacific strategic concept recognizes the increasing connections between the Indian Ocean region and the Pacific, placing India at the centre of this larger maritime strategic space. With the Trump administration’s commitment to increasing the American role in in the Indo-Pacific and calling out Chinese actions that “undermine” the rules-based international system, the geostrategic spotlight has turned towards this region and the numerous strategic interplays taking place within it. One such interplay is the increasing Indo-Japanese cooperation in this changing Indo-Pacific.

In Asia, China’s unprecedented economic and military rise in recent years has created concerns for neighbouring countries. With the ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a development project spanning Asia, Europe, and Africa, the Chinese government has sought to enhance regional connectivity. However, not all countries are convinced that this project is solely developmental. Instead, they see it as a push for Chinese dominance in global affairs by building a China-centred trading network. Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad demonstrated his scepticism by terminating three Chinese-backed gas pipeline projects worth billions for allegedly suspicious payment structures.

Their partnership is only natural, with one the largest and the other the richest democracy in Asia

From the Indian perspective, parts of this enormous development project seem to threaten India’s national security.

Firstly, a segment of the BRI would develop a series of ports and commercial facilities using funding from the Chinese in

Across the Indo-Pacific, Japan faces its own tensions with China. The two countries have an ongoing dispute over a group of uninhabited islands known as the Senkakus.

These islands are of great strategic and economic value

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as, under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, they serve as the demarcation of the countries’ exclusive economic zones (EEZs). With an EEZ comes access to important shipping lanes, large fishing resources, along with the possibility of oil, gas, and mineral deposits around the islands. China’s illegal construction and militarization of artificial islands in the South China Sea have also put Japan on edge. Reacting to this assertiveness, the Japanese government has sought to expand its influence in the Indo-Pacific through partnerships with other countries to balance China, India foremost among them. Their partnership is only natural, with one the largest and the other the richest democracy in Asia.

Chinese presence in the region.

Although both governments have successfully strengthened ties, their individual reluctance to pointedly challenge China could serve as a barrier to increased cooperation. Due to the enormous amount of bilateral trade they have with China, the country is seen as too important to directly antagonize. In a similar fashion, India has also been cautious with its warming relationship with the U.S., whose pressures on India to be the direct anti-China balancing power in the region have so far failed to win over New Delhi. India’s reluctance to openly join the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue and adopt a unified line on China is one such example. Simply known as the “Quad,” comprising the U.S, Japan, India, and Australia, this dialogue was billed as a response to a rising China but has not yet been officially formalised.

The two Asian powers are deepening bilateral cooperation across all sectors, including economic, diplomatic, cultural, and military affairs. Amid growing concerns about the BRI, India and Japan are partnering to create a viable alternative for infrastructure development and connectivity among countries across regions, including Africa, South Asia, and the Indo-Pacific. The two countries formed a “Special Strategic Global Partnership” in October 2018, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his counterpart, Shinzo Abe are reaffirming their ties. Modi’s recent visit to Japan in October 2018 was their twelfth meeting overall since 2014.

A historic civil nuclear deal was struck between the two countries in 2016—the first such deal Japan has made with a country which has not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Japan is also considering developing the strategically important Chabahar port in Iran alongside India as a counter to the Chinese-backed Gwadar port in Pakistan.

New Delhi prefers to strengthen relationships through bilateral mechanisms and it seems that economic cooperation and developmental bilateral ties with Japan are only getting closer. Even with the upcoming Indian elections in May 2019, it is unlikely that this cooperation will change with whoever forms the government. However, it is imperative that the importance of this partnership is not forgotten and it should continue to be prioritized in Indian foreign policy. Due to the importance of China to the economic and security goals of both countries, they must walk a precarious line to both further ties while at the same time not jeopardising and further deteriorating their relationship with China. To do so, they need to clearly lay out their national security objectives and geostrategic goals. According to New Delhi-based analyst at the Centre for Policy Research, Brahma Challaney, “If they can leverage their relationship to generate progress towards broader cooperation among the region’s democracies, the vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific may be achievable.”

Although both governments have successfully strengthened ties, their individual reluctance to pointedly challenge China could serve as a barrier to increased cooperation There have also been talks between the two countries to set up an Acquisition and Cross Servicing Agreement, which would allow the militaries of both countries to provide logistical support to each other and, more importantly, to access to each other’s bases. This agreement would increase the Japanese Self-Defence Forces’ operational reach in the Indian Ocean, allowing it to better protect its interests in the region. For India, this agreement would allow it to maintain greater presence in East Asia and the Oceania’s Pacific Islands, a move into a region in which the United States has been wanting India to play a larger role. The government of India is also aligning with Japan to balance the growing Chinese influence in third-party countries like Sri Lanka. India and Japan have likewise partnered with numerous African countries through the Asia-Africa Growth Corridor, an economic cooperation arrangement intended to offset the strong

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Institutions

AID: GREAT COOPERATION, GREAT FAILURE AND THE WAY FORWARD Hugh Thomas

flows of private finance into Africa match official aid, and remittances sent home by workers overseas continue to rise.

In 2017, official donors around the world spent $146 billion on overseas development aid. That is a lot of money, but it could be far more. Just five countries (including the UK) met the UN’s target of spending 0.7% of GNI on aid, despite this being UN policy since the 1970s. Donor nations, however, could also give far less. The nationalist right in many countries decry supporting poorer nations when their own populations could be comforted. A common bugbear for British populists is India, which has both its own space program and aid agency.

Richer nations need to remember why they continue to give aid. The primary driving force is still the desire to lift people out of poverty.

In absolute terms, there are still staggeringly high numbers of people barely able to afford the nutrients they need to survive. Yet many governments remain weak, often lacking a fiscal base of tax revenue to effect change, or with only patchy control of its territory due to weak national institutions. If the richer world can assist governments and the poor to escape their poverty traps, there is a clear moral obligation to do so.

The debates over aid are becoming more complicated. China and India, who historically contained the majority of the world’s poor, no longer require the world’s charity. China itself is now one of the largest donors. The majority of the world’s poorest people (those surviving on below $1.90/day) today live in sub-Saharan Africa. Whilst we have seen a great reduction in the proportion of the world’s population living in extreme poverty, we may have only saved the most easily assisted. China and India are just two states with relatively strong institutions; in Africa, states are weaker and will have to cope with the additional burden of population growth.

Additionally, as the number of middle-income countries grows, the world cannot be divided into rich ‘givers’ and poor ‘takers’.

Finally, countries no longer predominate, as

Aid has often admittedly failed to achieve its goals. At times, it has militated against good development Aid has often admittedly failed to achieve its goals. At times, it has militated against good development. Academic studies have found no link between a state’s aid receipts and its growth rate between 1950 and 2000. The huge

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debt that developing countries accrued instead led to fiscal difficulties as debt servicing costs mounted, despite the concessional rates which the World Bank charges. In 1996, the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative was launched, which, combined with the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative, has relieved 36 countries of $99 billion of debt. But worryingly, the size of debt in poor countries is growing, with debt payments increasing by 60% over 2014-2017, and 40% of African countries now in danger of slipping into debt crises. At a micro level, well-meant but poorly-considered interventions have distorted local markets threatening livelihoods. Free mosquito nets for instance, whilst a potentially life altering gift to a family, will quickly put the traditional seller of nets out of business.

Zambia after the Zambian government admitted that $4.3 million had gone missing. Countries can spend more on ‘cash-on-delivery’ assistance. Developing nations are set a development target, which upon accomplishing they receive a financial pay-out. Putting the task in domestic hands has two great virtues. Firstly, locals know best how to tackle local solutions. Secondly, and more importantly, the scheme targets outcomes (such as infant mortality), rather than inputs or outputs (such as money spent, or numbers of clinics run). Concessional loans may have a role in this framework, but care must be taken to ensure that they do not become too cumbersome, with lowest income countries in particular being treated carefully.

Aid should also be spent on an evidential basis wherever possible, responding to grassroots feedback and encouraging innovation. Charities, for instance, are commonly distributing cash to individuals instead of services in kind.

Although there is a risk of the money ending up in the hands of armed militias, the benefits of protecting local markets outweigh the risks, particularly if new technology such as mobile money transfers were used. Conducting randomised control trials is naturally difficult if projects are attempted on a national scale, but when feasible they should be used. In India, Seva Mandir (an NGO) has run programs targeting absenteeism in the public health service and measured their effect. Based on the evidence gathered, other policy makers should be willing to adapt their own programmes to maximise efficiency and positive outcomes. Aid sceptics can rightly point to failures of aid, and this is the only way to respond.

The rich must spend smarter.

Donors should hold to account poor governance, corruption and autocracy in countries that receive aid There are fears that much aid has been misdirected.

Throughout the Cold War, all sides were guilty of bankrolling authoritarian dictatorships, solely on the basis of ideological leanings. Geopolitical considerations are important now, with the fight against terrorism a top priori ty of donors. Egypt, Jordan and Turkey each got more net aid than Bangladesh in 2014, despite having fewer people living in extreme poverty. Domestic constituents are also important, as evidenced by President Trump’s withholding of funding for the UNRWA in 2018. It also appears that both the US and China ‘buy’ votes at the UN: countries that consistently support a great power tend to receive more aid according to The Economist’s analysis.

But worryingly, the size of debt in poor countries is growing, with debt payments increasing by 60% over 2014-2017, and 40% of African countries now in danger of slipping into debt crises

A final concern lies in aid’s political effects. The unfortunate reality of corruption means assistance channelled through government budgets can end up supplementing officials’ salaries. China has exacerbated this problem, by maintaining far lower standards for clean, democratic rule than most Western donors. Even worse, the money can end up in the hands of groups causing crises. A BBC report has alleged that perhaps 95% of cash intended to provide food in rebel-controlled areas of Ethiopia in 1984-85 was spent on arms. In response, many donors attempt to bypass government entirely and act unilaterally. The lack of cooperation creates a myriad of schemes, losing the benefits of operating on a large scale. Lastly, many NGOs fear countries will become dependent on aid, with no incentive to improve their own national institutions.

Some economists, such as Jeffrey Sachs, have argued that only a big push of aid is needed to eradicate poverty. Rich countries need to give more, but that is not enough.

Development is not simply about funnelling money into a country. Care must be taken to encourage improvements in many areas, including health, education and equality.

An important part of this, imperfectly reflected in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, will be ensuring that the Global South has a voice in its development.

Achieving the global partnership envisioned by these goals requires communication to be a true partnership.

Through spending more intelligently, the failures of the 20th Century will turn into the successes of the 21st.

However, these are not arguments for spending less.

Instead, the rich must spend smarter. Donors should hold to account poor governance, corruption and autocracy in countries that receive aid. Encouragingly, such steps are being taken. In September 2018, the British government along with three other European nations froze aid to

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DEMOCRACY WITHOUT DEMOS? THE EU WON'T SURVIVE WITHOUT TRULY EUROPEAN ELECTIONS Kenneth Stiller ment is the sum of partly incompatible national party systems.

This year will see the ninth elections to the European Parliament (EP). Before 1979, delegates selected among national MPs acted as the EP. The current electoral system, however, is highly dysfunctional. Citizens neither seem to have European politics in mind when making their choice, nor does a meaningful and visible competition for policies exist. Ultimately, the post-1979 electoral system failed to transform simultaneous national elections into truly transnational elections. The current state of affairs reduces the EU’s legitimacy among its citizens, giving them hardly any chance to influence policy-making than through protest votes.

The institutional design of these elections limits the degree of democratic integration. If voters have to make a choice among national parties, it is no surprise that national issues play a determinative part in their campaigns; cleavages in those debates follow the familiar ones in national campaigns rather than reflect voters’ political views regarding European policy decisions. The lack of common political deliberation, which is essential to democracies, is hardly deniable. The EU simply is not a political community.

Only 11% of Britons say they are confident naming their MEP and, according to the latest Eurobarometer poll, almost 50% of EU citizens feel that their voice is not heard in Brussels. A fall in turn-out from 62% in 1979 to merely 43% in 2014 should not come as a surprise. That the lack of confidence in these elections is growing is certainly harmful to the idea of a democratically legitimated European Union. But why aren’t citizens more enthusiastic?

Giving Eurosceptics a louder, institutionalised voice in Europe might in fact increase the perceived legitimacy of the EU

Elections to the EP are not unitary elections, so the European Parliament is not a unitary parliament either. In fact, elections to the European Parliament are the sum of independent elections that simultaneously take place in the Union’s member states; voters choose among national parties, who might have a more or less explicit European manifesto. In the vast majority of cases the results of European elections reflect the national party systems and electoral results on the national level. The European Parlia-

Fortunately, the formation of a political community, with genuine deliberations taking place across national borders and transnational mass media, is not a requirement for the democratisation of the EU. Instead, the promise of such a community can be realised by embedding truly European debates in the already existing political communities of the member states: a form of institu-

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tionalised transnational democracy that heavily relies on democratic discourse on the national level.

Fourth, transnational elections would open up a constructive political discourse on the future of the EU, reducing the need to protest or revolt against “the establishment.” Though the repeated grand coalition bargain in the EP does not give citizens the chance to effectively determine the course on which the EU will embark, there are numerous legitimate democratic views on the future of the EU. Giving Eurosceptics a louder, institutionalised voice in Europe might in fact increase the perceived legitimacy of the EU. Transnational European elections would give voters the chance to vote to halt European integration and, possibly, certain reforms that are disintegrative.

But more importantly, they could only effectively do so by forming alliances and coalitions on European level.

In the absence of a European political community, transnational elections with truly European parties running in all member-states are the most promising way to achieve the democratisation of Europe. They would not result in the creation of a European people or demos, but, via single transnational manifestos, centre national-level debatesaround truly European issues. Presenting clear European proposals to citizens as well as enhancing accountability through direct responsibility of transnational parties for policy-making will contribute to giving citizens the opportunity to vote parties into and out of office based on the actual performance of parties.

So far, the EP has failed to fulfil this promise, maybe because it was never designed to do so. In fact, electoral reform seems highly unlikely as it would be diametrically opposed to the interests of the current system’s beneficiaries: national political parties. It was not by chance that Emmanuel Macron dared propose electing former British seats in the European Parliament through transnational elections. Not surprisingly, the European Parliament itself and representatives of national parties rejected his proposal.

If Eurosceptics manage to create what established national parties still reject, are nationalists the better Europeans?

Transnational elections would create a functional division between European and national political parties and allow the EP to better represent the diverse politics of the member-states. Besides this fundamental change to European democracy, transnational elections would also mitigate other problems of the current electoral system.

This year’s election to the EP will see two attempts to reform its electoral system overcome its current dysfunction. It is not by accident that these reforms do not originate from within the EP or established national parties.

First, Yanis Varoufakis, former Greek minister of finance, is creating a transnational European party that seeks to contest the elections with a single manifesto. In a highly symbolic move, Varoufakis will run for a seat in Germany, where he became an object of hatred during the heights of the European sovereign debt crisis. Technically, every EU citizen can run for a seat in the European Parliament in any EU country. While it is rather unlikely that his party will gain a large number of mandates, Varoufakis seeks to show that European elections in their current shape are unsustainable and must be democratised. Further, by contesting the elections in Germany, he will make the point that it is political beliefs, not nationality, that should be and are the defining cleavages in European politics. Consequently, his candidacy could be a first step in dissolving the monopoly of national political parties. It is an attempt to reform the European Parliament from the bottom up, whose success, however, is questionable

First, they would force voters to deal with issues that are of relevance in other states, but not necessarily of primary importance in their home state. Transnational elections might induce mutual understanding of other societies’ concerns by bringing them all onto the agenda across the EU. Second, the tyranny of the most populous EU member states would diminish. Even if allocations of seats in the EP would not be altered, transnational elections would reduce the power of, for instance, German or French parties compared to their weight within the current factions. While those states’ MEPs would still dominate, their advantage would be less institutionalised and organised than it is currently the case.

Third, parochial debates would be prevented, and electoral subsidiarity would be established; only European issues that are of relevance for a significant share of the EU population would be picked up by transnational parties. Issues that are national in character would be dealt with in national elections.

Second and paradoxically, an alliance of nationalists and Eurosceptics is overcoming the national divide through the creation of a common set of political beliefs and demands. Without any doubt, those parties have developed a political position that is coherent, easy to grasp, and makes clear demands. Most likely, their success is also a consequence of perceived political impotence in European elections. Moreover, they appeal to voters across borders as part of a transnational campaign. If Eurosceptics manage to create what established national parties

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still reject, are nationalists the better Europeans?

Varoufakis seeks to show that European elections in their current shape are unsustainable and must be democratised Clear recognisable positions and political beliefs of pro-Europeans remain scarce in elections to the European Parliament. However, Europe cannot aord a situation in which only anti-European national parties are able to jointly pursue their partially destructive aims. If the established national political parties that currently represent citizens in the EP fail to act on reform, they will run out of arguments soon. They might lose grip on European policy-making, either through grassroots-movements or, more likely, a uniďŹ ed alliance of anti-Europeans and nationalists. Depending on the outcome, their not being open to reform might be very costly to Europe. The EU might be able to survive without a European demos, but not without functional European elections.

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THE BENEFITS OF MINILATERAL DIPLOMACY Gordon Ahl Prior to the start of the 21st century, multilateral diploma cy largely took a “maxilateral” form in which institutions like the UN saw inclusivity of as many countries as possible as an end in itself. However, in an increasingly divided and complicated world, this form confuses inclusivity with effectiveness as states now only sign onto vague agreements lacking legally binding force as opposed to the major global treaties of the 20th century ranging from the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea to the Geneva Conventions regarding humanitarian treatment in war. While many fear the decline or even collapse of multilateral forums, new ad-hoc coalitions of the willing provide a much-needed alternative path to efficient and strong mutual cooperation on specific issues. These innovative “minilateral” groupings, however short-run, can serve to embed norms into the greater international community, not just the states who explicitly join.

With the exception of the Paris Agreement in 2015, no major “maxilateral” treaties—defined as those with over 100 signatories as that is approximately half of states with membership at the UN—have been concluded in the past decade. Simultaneously, the relative power of the United Nations to promote new causes and provide solutions to global issues has decreased, especially in the Security Council, where disagreement amongst the five permanent members frequently prevents the passage of meaningful resolutions. Issues like the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya minority in Myanmar or the divergent views on settling conflict in Syria demonstrate the weaknesses of a UN that merely reports information and condemns actions without

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the capacity for a substantial response. Outside the UN, traditional multilateral forums such as the WTO have faced criticism for an inability to control Chinese trade policies and intellectual property theft. Many observers have blamed President Trump for causing this disdain of traditional multilateralism, but his actions are merely a symptom of a longer running illness affecting global diplomatic efforts. For example, despite President Obama campaigning on promises of building new international institutions in reference to Roosevelt and Truman’s construction of the UN and Bretton Woods institutions, he failed to seriously propose institutional reforms to match modern geopolitical realities as he realized very few domestic supporters and powerful allies were keen on changing the status quo. Therefore, the past decade has witnessed overall a crumbling of the multilateral framework created in the post-World War II era. Trump undoubtedly has exacerbated and celebrated the decline of maxilateralism with actions such as withdrawing the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement, but he is certainly not alone in recognising the diminished role formal institutions play—even if his celebratory posture is detrimental and unique. Despite this trend in an era of states with widely divergent interests, it seems unlikely that formal institutions such as the UN or WTO will cease to exist. Instead, they will be supplanted primarily by so-called “minilateral” coalitions which will create new ideas in groups with overlapping narrow interests.

Minilateralism is defined as diplomatic efforts by more than three countries outside of traditional multilateral

forums to deal with specific topics that individual states alone cannot manage but that all the states together likewise cannot agree. Of the many benefits of this minilateralism, first, all parties to the agreement or coalition are there by choice to solve a collective action problem for which they need cooperation and are desperate for new ideas. This makes the process by which states share norms with others more achievable on the micro-scale, allowing new cooperative thinking to more easily be adopted by individual states. Second, many scholars have challenged the true power of enforcement mechanisms in past agreements, even legally binding conventions. One popular notion is that states only obey multilateral treaties when it is in their interest to do so. Thus, compliance occurs only insofar as the benefits for a state outweigh the costs of violating the rules. With new minilateral approaches, there are often no formal enforcement mechanisms, but the same social pressures for compliance persist as states who back out after agreement can still be subject to economic and diplomatic reprisals from the other parties. Thus, the relative importance of legally binding versus non-binding seems trivial when assessing minilateralism’s prospects.

sparked the formation of an exclusive global crisis-response committee which jointly injected unprecedented amounts of liquidity into the world economy, formed new regulatory standards, and insisted on global bank capital requirements. While the G-20’s momentum diminished, they managed to cause policy changes and new thinking at institutions such as the World Bank and IMF, thus they successfully managed to spark changes in formal global institutions and thus achieved their narrow short term goal while having a long term impact as well. One final example lies in New Zealand’s newly created special refugee visa for Pacific islanders affected by rising sea levels rendering their homes uninhabitable. While there is very little political will globally to address this issue, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has started a process inviting other willing states to join on ensuring a framework is in place before the crisis worsens.

The past decade has witnessed overall a crumbling of the multilateral framework created in the post-World War II era

Lastly, there is good reason to believe that bigger is rarely better when it comes to tackling international issues.

Comprehensive international agreements often require so many compromises and exceptions that the meaning of the final text is diminished. Additionally, formal UN engagements only allow voting to official member-states while minilateralism allows for representation by non-state actors directly in the decision-making process.

Abandoning states who at times are obstructionist on certain issues allows for more efficient processes and strengthens the overall language of the agreements. These policies can be tested on a smaller scale and, if proven successful, be expanded to include more members, be copied in similar forms elsewhere around the globe, or be carried to multilateral forums for global discussions and potentially adoption. Thus, minilateral coalitions can further serve as laboratories of new ideas which can later be taken up by the formal global institutions.

As states become increasingly frustrated with the United Nations and other formal global institutions whose power has declined, they will feel emboldened to tackle issues among ad-hoc groups of willing states on specific issues. While this minilateralism has the potential for negative consequences, it can also provide some much needed efficiency to cooperative efforts and serve as a means to test solutions before being implemented on a larger scale. Cooperation will not cease to exist even with the rhetoric of Trump but will instead navigate through new channels to pursue mutual aims, leaving obstructionist states behind.

Despite these theoretical benefits of the rise of minilateralism it must be noted that its track record has been and likely will remain mixed. It is a more chaotic form of global governance, giving rise to cooperative and destructive groups alike. The modern era is not characterized by the absence of multilateralism but its astonishing diversity. A major early example was the anti-piracy armada which emerged in the Indian Ocean involving naval vessels from the United States and its traditional allies alongside China, India, Iran, Yemen, and others. While these countries disagree on many issues and almost certainly would fail to sign an overarching new set of rules on the laws of the sea, they managed to unite behind the common cause of securing sea-lanes off the African coast. Another example following the outbreak of the Great Recession in 2008 was the evolution of the G-20, which united leaders of both developed and developing states around their shared need to avoid worsening the global economic crisis. This need

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BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE: THE WTO IN A COMPETITIVE AGE Nicholas Contas Monaco international technological market among accusations of military-industrial cyber-espionage. Looking outward, China’s Belt and Road Initiative has invested in the infrastructure of developing economies, which the Trump administration has criticized as a form of “debt-trap diplomacy.” Meanwhile, the United States and Western Europe, whose capabilities to deal with peers or near-peers have atrophied after two decades of counterterrorism and counterinsurgency, resort to limited formal economic sanctions as their first, and often seemingly only, response to malfeasance by state competitors .

The international order that emerged after the Cold War rested upon two complementary pillars: relative harmony among the great powers and economic globalisation. In the long shadow of American hegemony, trade barriers fell, technological progress accelerated and diffused, national economies converged, and multilateral organisations arose to manage the widening and deepening of global integration. For possibly the first time, the stewards of world order saw their era’s defining threats—terrorism, disease, transnational crime—as largely the consequences of “failed” states rather than strong ones. In this new paradigm, openness to globalisation was accepted as an unalloyed advantage, and with economic and security issues ostensibly separable, growth was king. The question of the distribution of growth’s benefits between or within states was largely dismissed as irrelevant or inevitable, the product of market forces beyond the reach of popular politics and outside the realm of national security.

The re-emergence of explicit interstate strategic competition has placed the dubious assumptions undergirding that order under great and growing stress. Both in their means and ends, the security and economic policies of the great powers are increasingly indistinguishable.

Russia has adroitly leveraged its dominant share of Europe’s energy supply to forestall sharper reactions to its seizure of Crimea and sponsorship of Ukrainian separatists. China has steadily aggrandised its direct control of one of the main maritime arteries of global trade, while it attempts to break into—and then dominate—the

Can cooperation in the international economic order survive the re-emergence of outright rivalry between its largest constituent parts?

Unveiling the Pentagon’s 2017 National Defense Strategy, then-Secretary of Defense James Mattis proclaimed that “great power competition, not terrorism, is now the primary focus of US national security.” With the great powers explicitly inaugurating a new period of hard-nosed competition, the question arises: can cooperation in the international economic order survive the re-emergence of outright rivalry between its largest constituent parts?

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Caught in this growing divide is the World Trade Organiza-

sideration of the institutions and norms governing global trade. Robert Lighthizer, the US Trade Representative, says his country “is not talking about a level playing-field…what we are saying to [potential trade partners] is ‘We’ll give you better access than the rest of the world, and you give us approximately an equal amount of better access’”– a stark, eminently political rebuke of the WTO’s pursuit of a truly global economy, in which nations cannot bend market forces towards preferred partners. Under such a transactional, case-by-case, and bloc-oriented approach, trade can become more a means of consummating alignments and pooling strength than sewing the entire world together in a moderating interdependence.

tion (WTO). Created in 1995 to move global trade from the province of competitive power politics to that of cooperative international law, the WTO epitomises the post-Cold War impulse to segregate economics and security. On a purely functional level, it has become increasingly anachronistic, while its decisions command less and less credibility. In a recent article published in the Harvard International Law Journal, Professor Mark Wu argues convincingly that the WTO is, at present, structurally incapable of addressing the ambiguities and nuances of the Chinese economic model—the highest priority geoeconomic challenge for the United States and no small concern for Europe. Concerns about the self-aggrandisement of the WTO’s appellate body, too, have grown for years. Reforming the organisation to better address contemporary economic realities, however, would require the sort of broad-based political cooperation that made the WTO possible in the first place and is now sorely lacking. In an attempt to kick-start reform through brute force, the US has systematically crippled the WTO’s dispute settlement body, vetoing the appointments of new appellate trade judges to endanger the organisation’s highest court’s ability to reach a quorum to conduct business. By justifying its new steel and aluminium tariffs, ordinarily illegal under WTO rules, through an exclusion for “national security,” the Trump administration has essentially dared the WTO to either proclaim itself the arbiter of its members’ security concerns or limply accede to trade barriers imposed on the flimsiest of pretexts. Caught between its own maladies and the conflicting interests of its newly-assertive members, the WTO is truly between a rock and a hard place.

The multipolar tug-of-war over the soul of the WTO speaks to a broader effort to reimpose national interests and prerogatives upon the ebbs and flows of the global economy. The WTO came of age in an era, one must remember, in which former US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan could claim in 2007 “…that, thanks to globalisation, policy decisions in the US have largely been replaced by market forces. National security aside, it hardly makes any difference who will be the next president.” It is a testament to just how much has changed in the interim that this statement has aged so poorly. Not only were those “market forces” within a year of painfully demonstrating their fallibility in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, but the underlying assumption—“National security aside”—has since proven to be at best misplaced idealism, at worst dangerous self-deception. In the mid-2000s, when the animating concerns of “national security” centered on disparate non-state actors, it could be charitably judged the former. Now that the very interstate competitive impulses that the WTO and its ilk attempted to subdue have returned to the surface, however, it is decidedly the latter.

Caught between its own maladies and the conflicting interests of its newly-assertive members, the WTO is truly between a rock and a hard place

What, then, are the prospects for economic cooperation in this new world? In many ways, they are rather disquieting. While the Trump administration’s “trade wars” have provoked jitters in the markets, it seems unlikely that those markets have fully comprehended the true challenges posed by the slowing, stalling, or even partial rolling-back of thirty years of global economic openness.

Most policymakers, corporate leaders, and citizens worldwide seem to have internalised the claimed values and facial rhythms of a unipolar, integrationist, and optimistic period that has, with the passage of time, increasingly proven itself a transient anomaly. The vestigial institutions and norms of those thirty years now face an agonising trial, with the looming risk of WTO obsolescence standing as a challenge and a warning.

Can one imagine a more treacherous position for an organi sation meant to oversee the ostensibly apolitical process of global economic integration, and to maintain a bright line between geopolitics and globalisation? Even if technical fixes to the institutional weaknesses and anachronisms of the WTO were somehow found and agreed upon, it remains highly uncertain that the vision of international economic order—all-encompassing, rules-based, and unsullied by security concerns—that the WTO stands for could endure in the coming decades. After all, official US doctrine now proclaims its support for China’s 2001 WTO accession a mistake of historic proportions; the world’s two most powerful nations, the “Chimerica” that has carried the post-Cold War global economy on its conjoined shoulders, cannot agree that they both belong in the same purportedly universalist trading system.

With promoting overall global growth forced into the backseat by questions of the relative distribution of economic power, the stage is set for a fundamental recon-

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Activism

EYES ON THE STREET: PROTECTING CITIZEN JOURNALISM IN THE MIDDLE EAST Nicole Dominiak position when it comes to defending freedom of the press and exposing government action.

“Street journalism” played an essential part in the Arab Spring, the series of revolutions which swept across the Middle East beginning in 2010. Though the majority of revolutions were unsuccessful, they indicated the potential impact that a unified front of citizens, their voices both magnified and connected by their devices—could have. Citizen journalism has served as a vehicle for solidarity during times of instability in Egypt and Iran, past and present.

The murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi has made clear to the international audience the state of press freedom in the Middle East. Though there are exceptions, Middle Eastern countries remain largely at the bottom of the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) press freedom index. Journalists in Syria and Yemen face severe dangers in the midst of ongoing civil wars; those in countries like Iran and Egypt are subject to police brutality and forced disappearances as the result of broad and blanket-like censorship laws. These conditions make the work of these journalists—to be the eyes and ears of the body politic—inordinately difficult, if not impossible. While much focus has been given to the plight of professional journalists, the work of citizen journalists in the Middle East remains an important means of preserving press freedom and deserves increased support from the international community.

In January of 2011, millions of protesters gathered across Egypt to raise their voices against government corruption and police brutality, and to demand the ousting of then-president Hosni Mubarak. Although only one-third of Egyptians at the time had access to the internet, social media platforms including Facebook and Twitter allowed movement leaders to organize rallies and disseminate information. One protestor, Fawaz Rashed, posted, "We use Facebook to schedule the protests, Twitter to coordinate, and YouTube to tell the world."

Citizen journalism refers to the process by which citizens play an active role in collecting and distributing news and has grown in popularity due to the accessibility of social media platforms and other recent technological shifts. Although citizen journalists continue to face threats from governments across the world, they occupy a unique

Social media platforms and citizen-reporting played an similarly important role in the Iranian Green Movement. Iran has tended to

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swing back and forth regarding press freedom, depending on its current leaders. While the constitution mandates state control over television and radio, presidents such as Mohammad Khatami enacted policies that have given freedom to more liberal and critical news outlets. These policies would be short-lived. In the summer of 2009, mass protests spread throughout the nation after the election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, when allegations of voter fraud surfaced. Social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook were used to coordinate opposition and provide information. However, police arrested, pepper-sprayed, beat, and tortured the protesters who had taken to the streets of Tehran and other cities. Following the election crisis, Ahmadinejad ordered a major crackdown on all forms media, ranging from print journalism to Internet publications. However, even though as a result of these new policies websites were often blocked, social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and personal blogs continued to serve as important information sources.

The situation is much the same in Egypt, where reporting on economic and military issues, especially those related to the Sinai region, are hugely restricted. In 2015, human rights and politics journalist Ismail Alexandrani was sentenced to ten years of prison on the grounds that he produced anti-state and false news. Numerous other bloggers, activists, and journalists have been arrested for their social media posts, including popular bloggers Islam al-Refaei, Mohamed Ibrahim, and Wael Abbas. In both Iran and Egypt, because telecommunications companies are state-run, the government can slow internet connection in order to throttle users and limit protesters’ ability to organize. Despite this, in both areas according to RSF, the internet remains the primary source of independent news, with many important updates being provided by citizen journalists on social media.

While the hands of professional journalists are tied, citizen journalists emerge to fill the information gap.

What, though, is the impact of having these untrained, largely unorganized “journalists” cover a nation-shaking series of events—from the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi uprisings in Tahrir Square —in place of a professional media? On the one hand, citizen journalism has the benefit of speed of coverage and broadness of scope, independent of the market pressures that limit mainstream media. On the other, it gives experts and those directly affected by an issue a chance to be involved in its reporting.

Although citizen journalists continue to face threats from governments across the world, they occupy a unique position when it comes to defending freedom of the press and exposing government action

However, the misreporting of facts and the unchecked biases of individuals untrained in journalistic ethics have led to citizen journalism being criticised for its inconsistent quality. Additionally, the field may not be not as democratic as it seems—citizens who choose to post online, despite the risks, are also more likely to do so with the intention of supporting a particular group or agenda.

Today, however, state control of news and information outlets has tightened in both countries. Professional journalists remain vulnerable to severe government censorship, and citizen journalists are not much safer, having also been the remain the targets of arbitrary arrest and unfair trials. In Iran, major social media platforms that have provided communities for citizen journalism to thrive, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google, are blocked.

More recently, the controversial cloud-based instant messaging service, Telegram, has been added to the government blacklist. With these developments, the future of watchdog journalism, which holds governments accountable for their actions, appears bleak.

Furthermore, there remains the problem of government persecution for those who speak out, even on an informal basis. When fear of punishment is strong enough, a media—even one run by citizens— controlled by self-censorship emerges. Citizen coverage allowed the international audience to stay tuned on the current state of the Syrian civil war when the state largely banned foreign reporters. However, the growing number of violent responses to Internet content has resulted in a pulling back from citizen reporting. In Egypt, digital reporting has recently decreased due to increased police violence and persecution against those who speak against the government.

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What, then, is the future of citizen journalism’s role in the Middle East? According to major press freedom organizations such as Reports without Borders and Freedom House, Internet-based reporting by citizens remains an important alternative to state-owned or censored professional organizations. With more powerful, more innovative ways of connecting with movements and perspectives born every day, this trend is likely to continue—but not without cooperation. The future of the strength and integrity of press freedom lies in the continued potential of citizen journalism, enhanced by the exchange of ideas and methods between amateur journalists and professional organizations.

Such cooperative work is already being done. The International Center for Journalists recently joined with Google News to provide training to over 4,000 journalists, activists, and entrepreneurs across the Middle East in essential skills like sourcing, story-building, and gathering information. Journalists for Human Rights is a Canadian organization which aims to collaborate with those on the ground for more accurate reporting and quicker updates. The Aileen Getty School of Citizen Journalism works to train youth in the Middle East and Africa in photo and video journalism. Programs like these close gaps between professional and amateur reporting, giving legitimacy to the latter and giving voice to a new generation of journalists.

There remains the problem of government persecution for those who speak out, even on an informal basis. When fear of punishment is strong enough, a media—even one run by citizens— controlled by self-censorship emerges In addition, professionals support citizen journalists by delivering outstanding amateur content to a wider audience. In 2014, Al Jazeera launched a show called “The Stream,” in which commentators looked at the footage submitted to them by citizens on the ground and brought footage gathered by citizens to national attention. Further collaboration between local citizens and international news organizations like Al Jazeera should be encouraged, especially as the field of media shifts.

The future of press freedom—and ensuring that it has a future—depends on our willingness to support the rights of individual citizens to gather information that will determine their political realities, while also providing them with the opportunity to develop their own skills and build legitimacy.

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THE COST OF PRESS FREEDOM: COOPERATION AND COLLABORATION IN THE TRUMP ERA James Cleaver Today, most of us take press freedom for granted. Democracies uphold it, constitutions defend it, and conflicts are fought over it. Yet, in some parts of the world, the struggle continues. In the past, groups have worked together to defend liberty. Equally, authoritarian regimes have collaborated to suppress it. Now, at a time of changing powers, it is natural for us to look to the ‘free world’ for guidance.

America is still regarded as a pillar of liberty and with this perception comes an expectation: that the US will defend press freedom, no matter what. Under the current administration, it seems pertinent to examine America’s record on press freedom, and re-evaluate its status. It is time for us, as a generation, to hold world powers to account, and to consider the true cost of attacking the press.

The fight for press freedom has been long and bloody. May 10, 1768 marked a watershed moment for Britain. On this date, seven civilians were shot and killed by the English army.

A demonstration had taken place in London against the imprisonment of John Wilkes–a radical MP, critical of King George III. His crime had been the publication of a sensitive article, the contents of which were deemed too offensive for print. In response to his arrest, a crowd of 15,000 marched on Southwark Prison. As the mob grew restless, the army was mobilised and the order to shoot was given. This day was one of needless violence. Yet, despite this, 1768 should not be remembered solely for its bloodshed. Wilkes would later go on to win his freedom and in 1774, he was elected Lord Mayor of London, his work directly contributed to the downfall of state censorship.

The murder of Jamal Khashoggi serves as a fresh reminder for the importance of press freedom. Although 250 years have now passed since the imprisonment of Wilkes, journalists still face persecution from authoritarian regimes. For expressing views critical to the state, reporters are attacked

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by those in power. The point here is rather obvious: the time for complacency is over. Now, more than ever, it is necessary for world leaders to cooperate–both with each other, and the press itself. If leaders, such as the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman are not held accountable for their action by the international community, then innocent journalists shall continue to pay the price.

Although 250 years have now passed since the imprisonment of Wilkes, journalists still face persecution from authoritarian regimes. For expressing views critical to the state, reporters are attacked by those in power America has positioned itself as a defender of liberty and freedom; however, this image has started to wane under the Trump administration. Yet America’s past record on press freedom has been far from perfect. We have only scratched the surface in assessing the true cost its activities in Latin America–specifically, its involvement in Operation Condor (1968-1989). Here, the US worked alongside authoritarian leaders, with the intention of suppressing opposition groups. In collaboration with right wing governments, the CIA funded operations against political activists. Although the precise number of deaths caused

by Condor has been disputed, some estimates place the figure as high as 60,000. Thousands of journalists were kidnapped, tortured and killed, and over 400,000 political prisoners were captured. The campaign took place under the supervision of US officials, with the removal of left wing groups forming a core part of America’s anti-Communist policy. For the Latin American press, this period was marked by strife and struggle.

laws are still not always on the side of the press. In 2016, Theresa May introduced a ‘Snooper’s Charter’–a bill allowing the mass surveillance of British citizens. The act was ruled incompatible with European law, and a petition was signed by over 100,000 calling for its removal. In a report published by the British human rights group, Article 19, the bill was labeled a “threat to investigative journalism.” Again, re-evaluating the nature of press freedom in the west illustrates uneven progress, and dangerous precedents set for others to follow. The rise of the BRIC nations economically and politically has not granted greater press freedoms with countries, such as China, ranking low on the Freedom House scale. No doubt these nations will continue to shape our global world and taking press freedom for granted now poses a rather obvious danger for the future. If this is to be combatted, then a higher standard of accountability must be set by, and for, today’s leaders. This needs to occur first on a domestic level, allowing for international cooperation to follow.

The effects of Condor are still visible today. Press freedom in Latin America is now, largely, established in a de jure sense–the de facto reality, is far less convincing. In 2011, Chilean reporters were placed under state control; 2018 saw Venezuela fall to 143rd out of 180 for press freedom.

An especially relevant case is that of Wilson García Mérida, a Bolivian journalist exiled in 2016 on charges of sedition following his criticism of President Quintana. Sedition was the exact crime Wilkes was charged with in 1768. The fact that this parallel exists in the 21st century paints an alarming picture for contemporary journalism.

Press freedom is vital to societal progress, and investigative journalism continues to thrive across the globe, yet this liberty is not enjoyed by all. This article has focused on the need for change–on the necessity for us, as a generation, to avoid the mistakes of the past. Cooperation is not impossible. There exists the potential for governments to work alongside each other–and with the press. Now, more than ever, we see the danger of a disassociated president. It is only through addressing the internal weaknesses that the US can hope to inspire positive change internationally. If international cooperation is to occur, then America must make a decision about its position and responsibility within the international order.

Authoritarian regimes are taking advantage of Trump and others discrediting western media outlets. Inaction and acquiescence from national leaders have become a worrying norm in global politics This poses an important question for America: if the effects of Condor are still felt today, what impact will the Trump administration have on global press freedom?

Trump’s treatment of the media is a much-labored point. It is a regular occurrence for him to attack news outlets, and the infamous words of ‘FAKE NEWS’ will appear in history books for generations to come. In 2018, a Republican Congressman, Greg Gianforte, assaulted a Guardian reporter. Rather than condemn the act, Trump praised it, setting another alarming precedent in global politics.

Already, other leaders have been emboldened by Trump’s actions. In 2018, the Egyptian government labeled American news networks as ‘false media’. Trump remained uncharacteristically silent. Since the incident, the Egyptian government has used the same language in attacks against its own media. The difference here is that journalists in Egypt face more than just harsh words–they are also charged with treason. This article is not holding the US accountable for the actions of other states. It is, however, asserting that authoritarian regimes are taking advantage of Trump and others discrediting western media outlets.

Inaction and acquiescence from national leaders have become a worrying norm in global politics.

Some would argue that for change to occur internationally, it is first necessary to ensure press freedom on a domestic level. The UK has come a long way since Wilkes, yet its

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CREATING DISSENT HOW TECHNOLOGY IS TRANSFORMING THE RUSSIAN OPPOSITION Sofya Sudets rubber-stamp Putin’s authoritarian decisions on daily basis and do not even pretend to advocate antagonistic policies.

February 24th, 1848, Paris: King Louis-Philippe is overthrown, and the Second French Republic is proclaimed.

Within one-month protest spread across the continent due to the contagious effect of the revolution. Today, faster communication means that protest, or at least the news of protest, spreads even faster. The gilets jaunes demonstrations were born on and relayed through Facebook, with the viral “hunt against drivers” video gathering 5.4 million views in a few days.

The opposition and the people have been united by the digital space to such an extent that the distinctions and differences between them began to get blurred

Unlike France, where revolutionary cooperation has a strong tradition, Russia does not have a history of being united by protest. It is a large and extremely culturally diverse country: 20% of the population are members of more than 180 nationalities. Historically, informal opposition has been weakened by differences between the centre and the periphery, between the working and middle classes and between the different cultures and ethnicities.

These differences are getting erased by the spread of the internet and technology, enabling an unprecedented extent of cooperation between factions.

The Russian opposition cannot be found in parliament, which is made up of politicians whose participation in the elections has been pre-approved by the Kremlin. It cannot be found on the TV either, as state channels abide by “blacklists” handed down by the government. The real opposition in Russia is heavily persecuted by the police, the courts and the media. Its leaders are censored, attacked, illegally detained and tortured. Nevertheless, it can increasingly be found on YouTube, Telegram and Twitter. Through these media, opposition leaders have been able to mobilise remarkable support across the country and get an unprecedented number of people to

To understand how technology is transforming the Russian opposition it is necessary to gauge who and what it is. Make no mistake, there is no formal opposition in Russia. Parties such as the Communist Party, the Liberal-Democratic party and the centrist Yabloko party have supported the unconstitutional elections of 2008,

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cooperate in opposing the regime.

affect the masses. Inevitably, this makes more people speak out in anger and disgust. The name Anna Pavlikova has come to ring a woeful bell with many people across the country; the girl, like many other teenagers was arrested and imprisoned at the age of 17 for fabricated extremism charges. When her health reached a critical stage due to the abominable prison conditions, women across Russia went out to the streets holding toys instead of posters to not give the police an excuse to arrest them.

Hundreds of toys were left on the doors and the fences of the High Court of Russia: pictures of them were reposted on Twitter and Instagram a countless number of times.

Anna was transferred to house arrest the next day and released within two months.

Alexey Navalny’s campaigns are arguably the most recognizable manifestation of the use of technology to unite people in opposition to the government. Back in March 2017, 60,000 people across 80 Russian towns and cities made it to the streets to support his call to challenge government corruption in the largest demonstrations modern Russia had ever seen. The authorities were so taken back by the protests, orchestrated entirely through social media, exploding in cities from east to west of the country every couple of hours on the same day, that they failed to mount an effective response. The people, however, were brought closer than ever: the seven-hour time difference between the two sides of the country meant that by the time people went out on the streets in Moscow, they were protesting against the illegal detentions of their counterparts in Vladivostok as well as corruption.

Historically, informal opposition has been weakened by differences between the centre and the periphery, between the working and middle classes and between the different cultures and ethnicities

Like all of the following demonstrations, breaking out on monthly basis ever since, the March protests were streamed on social media. Thousands of Russians declaring their discontent only to be beaten up and arrested, watched live by millions of their fellow citizens through phones and computers, was the most powerful and the most transformative phenomenon the country had ever seen. The opposition and the people have been united by the digital space to such an extent that the distinctions and differences between them began to get blurred.

This cooperation, brought about by connections forged online through anti-establishment YouTube channels and Instagram pages, sows panic in the Kremlin. Unsurprisingly, the government responds in incompetent and even ridiculous ways: paying singers to release propaganda content, getting hackers to make and circulate memes that scorn the opposition and inviting beauty bloggers to speak in parliament. None of these gain current, the people see through the blatant attempts to regain control. A popular blogger known as Ded Edros laughed in an interview, “These people know as much about the internet as my grandmother”. Despite the censorship and the fear-mongering, despite the abhorrent arrests of kids for Facebook reposts, the internet remains a forum for cooperation and will continue uniting people against the hateful and appalling human rights abuses by the government.

Today, the digital connection pushes ordinary people into politics and into cooperation with the opposition Two years later, on the 10th of February 2019, this change unambiguously manifested itself: hundreds of women across Russia went out to the streets holding hands in what became known as the Mothers’ Anger March. It was held in response to the death of a detained activist’s daughter. The girl died in the hospital without being able to see her mom, who was recently arrested for being a member of an opposition movement.

What is so powerful about the Mothers’ Anger March is that the women and children taking part are neither members of the opposition nor have any prior concern for politics. Ten, even five years ago arrests of activists were met with apathy. Today, the digital connection pushes ordinary people into politics and into cooperation with the opposition. Svetlana Pchelintseva, one of the women interviewed at the protests, told a newspaper called Novaya Gazeta “I feel like I am at war. And other mothers feel the same way.” Her son Dmitrii has been detained and tortured by the authorities.

For the government, these developments are a vicious cycle: the more ordinary Russians cooperate with the opposition, the more will the illegal and cruel repressions

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Culture

CONFUCIUS AND COOPERATION: THE TIANXIA CONCEPT IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY Zhining Liu 古为今用(Gŭ wèi jïn yòng) Applying ancient ways to the present situation Chinese proverb

mutual obligation between social superiors and inferiors had to be observed. Similarly, in the international arena, China sought to support and guide all other nations in filial interstate relationships. Consequently, Tianxia came to mean a system of hegemonic magnanimity, where China benevolently offered its civilized culture, trade, and protection, to all that were prepared to accept Chinese suzerainty - even at the expense of China's immediate interests.

For two thousand years, Imperial China played the central role within a largely peaceful interstate system that spanned across Asia. The Chinese called this hegemonic system “Tianxia,” or All-Under-Heaven. Through the Tianxia system, China maintained for centuries at a time a vast network of trade and cooperation with lower rates of war than any other world region. Scholars such as Wang Gungwu and Salvatore Babones suggest that the world has entered into a new central state system – the difference being that America, rather than China, now lies at the core. This understanding of the world as an “American Tianxia” provides avenues for re-vitalised international cooperation with roots in East Asian history.

Just as the Tianxia concept encourages us to think of the world in totality, it also encourages us to think of humanity as a whole

Tianxia can only be understood within its Confucian context. Followers of Confucius, an ancient Chinese philosopher, believed that the highest aim of society was universal harmony. For this to be achieved, a moral system based on filial relationships of

Over the last two decades, a rich discourse has developed on the theoretical implications of the Tianxia concept for international

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relations. The seminal work in this discourse is Zhao Tingyang’s The Tianxia System: An Introduction to the Philosophy of a World Institution (2005). Zhao's ideas have since been analysed by William A. Callahan, who broke down Zhao’s text into a three-part conceptualisation of Tianxia: (1) The World, (2) All the People, and (3) the World Institution.

power is encouraged to abandon its national interests, and instead identify itself with the world order, and all humanity. The hegemon thus comes to act in the interests of all, providing security to weaker states. Weaker states no longer need fear predation from the hegemon - equally, they are assured against predation through the security it offers. A truly cooperative world order, therefore, appears possible. States, placing global concerns above national interests, will be better incentivized to cooperate on long-term, global issues. Such issues often stem from the over-exploitation of the global commons, which centre on climate change, threats to biological diversity, and pollution. For Chinese theorists, the only solution lies in a conceptual shift among policymakers, and an acceptance of the Tianxia ethic.

Zhao's concept of Tianxia can be understood as a process of 'worlding', whereby people come to identify themselves as part of a cosmopolitan and collective global system. For Zhao, an awareness of The World as a whole is a method for approaching world problems from a global perspective.

This all-inclusive approach avoids discord and chaos, by refusing to take the viewpoint of any individual or country over another. Just as the Tianxia concept encourages us to think of the world in totality, it also encourages us to think of humanity as a whole. Zhao argued that an awareness of Tianxia as ‘All the People’ allows us to reject the division of humanity into categories. Individuals will no longer be regarded as native or foreigner – rather, they will simply be perceived as human. Thus, Confucian magnanimity sees no Other. Instead, it seeks engagement over confrontation; attraction rather than conquest. Discord is avoided, and order is brought to the world. Such a deeply cosmopolitan world order, having arisen out of cooperation and inclusivity, can be accepted by all, and therefore has an overarching legitimacy. Tianxia as ‘the World Institution’ is this fundamentally legitimate world order.

The advantages of Tianxia, compared to Western models, then, are seemingly obvious - it plainly resolves the contradiction between cosmopolitan cooperation and the power politics of hegemony, resulting in a more harmonious world order

Consequently, Tianxia came to mean a system of hegemonic magnanimity, where China benevolently offered its civilized culture, trade, and protection, to all that were prepared to accept Chinese suzerainty - even at the expense of China's immediate interests

Modern attempts to incorporate the Tianxia concept into Chinese foreign policy have, however, been met with opposition abroad. Under President Xi Jinping, China has pursued a foreign policy centred on the 'Community of Shared Destiny for Mankind’ - which appears heavily inspired by Tianxia. Foreign countries have been encouraged to join 'the express train of Chinese development', on the condition that they accept China’s leading role.

Yet, despite China's supposed magnanimity, global opinion has been overtly suspicious. The levels of debt incurred by developing countries through the Belt and Road Initiative have been frequently criticised, and China's motives are continually questioned. Some observers have even gone as far as to accuse China of neo-colonialism.

The advantages of Tianxia, compared to Western models, then, are seemingly obvious - it plainly resolves the contradiction between cosmopolitan cooperation and the power politics of hegemony, resulting in a more harmonious world order. Western IR perspectives, especially the Realist school, tend to take the interests of individual countries as their starting point. This results in a conceptualisation of the world as an anarchic system, whereby cooperation is rendered temporary and contingent on immediate national interests.

Fundamentally, these suspicions arise from a simple fact.

Although the Tianxia concept centres on a hegemonic power, China is not yet the global hegemon. Thus, China’s magnanimity rings hollow - especially given its cooling economy. It is easy to suspect China of pursuing a cynical strategy to accumulate power for its own national interests, rather than a policy of benevolence in the interests of all.

For the current world hegemon, the situation is, of course, different. Wang Gungwu and Salvatore Babones have pointed to the US as the centre of the global 'American Tianxia' – the point being that it bears a striking paral-

On the other hand, the Tianxia model lends itself to a more inclusive conceptualisation of the world. The hegemonic

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lel to the historical Chinese Tianxia. The hegemonic status of the US is demonstrated by its continued military and economic pre-eminence. Crucially, the American Tianxia today is as much a universal moral order as the historical Tianxia. America’s liberal philosophy, and promotion of universal human rights, is perceived as a magnanimous policy for global benefit – this being consistent with the Tianxia concept. As a result, people across the globe have enthusiastically adopted practices based on American principles - morality and culture being two examples. The Tianxia concept, therefore, encourages the US to benevolently take the lead in international relations, with the objective being to advance global interests. These might include areas such as climate change, global development, and poverty alleviation. The historical experience of East Asia demonstrates that such an approach can reinforce this global system, with this ultimately fortifying America’s hegemonic status.

The issue in this lies with the current administration.

Trump’s government has, so far, pursued for a nationalist foreign policy antithetical to magnanimity. The withdrawal of the US from the Paris Climate Agreement, alongside its trade war with China, are both prominent examples. In doing so, America has abandoned any semblance of leadership within long-term global problems. The Tianxia concept is a reminder to the US that placing national interests over those of the world undermines America’s hegemonic status. It, therefore, remains to be seen whether the US will take responsibility, and live up to the inspirations of history.

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COOPERATION AND COMPROMISE: WHY THE WESTERN IDEAL OF DEMOCRACY MUST COME TO TERMS WITH ISLAM Bianca Vimercati Sanseverino These first years of the 21st century have shown movements towards closer relationships between the Western world and the Middle East: the Iran pact signed in 2015 was a big step forward, and the fact that France, the United Kingdom, and Germany are set on maintaining and improving their relationships with Iran after the breakdown of the deal is certainly a good sign. But these last 20 years have also seen remnants of a stormy 20th century and some complications: the war in Iraq of 2003 is the most obvious example. The events of 9/11 in particular have reintroduced a reluctance in the Western world to build relations with non-Western countries similar to those between countries in the West. Cooperation in this increasingly globalised world is crucial, but the Western world needs to get better at it.

In order to improve East-West relations, we must first understand what the obstacles are. Why is it that there is reluctance to cooperate? One key issue is simply that the West tends to approach international relations and diplomatic exchange with Islamic countries such as Iran in a misinformed and aggressive manner. Islamic governments are perceived by the West as illegitimate, and this has been a significant obstacle towards building relationships where compromise is possible. Raffaele Mauriello, a professor of Persian Literature and Foreign Languages at Allameh Tabataba'i University in Tehran, proposes that this perceived illegitimacy has led to rupture where none was necessary, which suggests a broader problem: the discipline of IR has been, and is to this day, dominated by Western-based theories and paradigms. These theories are based on the Western

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history of International Relations since the treaty of Westphalia, and have widely been recognised to be inadequate in analysing countries and political systems outside of the Western world itself, such as the Arab Spring uprisings, or the phenomenon of Islamic democratization.

The discipline of IR has been, and is to this day, dominated by Western-based theories and paradigms Religion shapes so many aspects in society, there are far too many to list. International Relations, as a framework which is based on behavior of states, cannot ignore the importance of religion in shaping states’ behaviour beyond those of people. Currently, there is far too wide a gap between the paradigms available to us and the real-world events in countries outside of the West. There needs to be a reinterpretation of international systems outside of the Western order to allow for the formulation of paradigms that might provide an appropriate framework for interpretation and prediction of the interactions of Islamic countries in particular with the wider international community. As Michael Young says, relationships between the Middle East and the West infallibly defy simplistic models.

To this end, Nassef Manabilang Adiong and Raffaele Mauriello have founded co-IRIS, the International Relations and Islamic Studies Research Cohort, and in their very recent work, presented in Oxford this January, they collate a series of works which address the gap between the study of International Relations and Islam. This research is just the beginning in filling the gap in literature for analysis of non-Western, and specifically Islamic, state systems and international communities.

This feeds into the second issue: there is a serious problem of perceived legitimacy with regards to the Iranian government, which is relevant to any would-be Islamic republic. Western democratic ideology is seen as fundamentally and diametrically opposed to the Islamic democracy of the Islamic republic of Iran. However, Mauriello states that, “In a Muslim country, legitimacy is not necessarily based on (or at least limited to) Western-defined principles and paradigms but on principles of Islamic governance (hikmat, ‘izzat, maslahat, ‘idalat, iman, ma‘naviyat and so on) and the use of a political vocabulary and discourse that makes reference to the rich political culture developed by the Islamic civilization during its fifteen-century-long history; this is certainly the view of the current leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

The fact that Western diplomacy has failed to come to terms with this has led to stagnation in relationships between Western democracies and the IRI which need not be there.

Western democratic ideology is seen as fundamentally and diametrically opposed to the Islamic democracy of the Islamic republic of Iran Concerning the problem of diplomatic relations and cooperation between the West and the Islamic world, some illuminating work has been done by Raffaele Mauriello in his book, “Islam in international relations, Politics and Paradigms.” His argument analyses Ali Khamenei’s position, as the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, on what Iran’s role on the world stage is, and what it should be. Iran’s international stance is not worrying, and it is not irrational; it has stayed the same for 30 years.

Khamenei’s speeches and statements—all as easily accessible to anyone who might be interested as those made by American foreign-policy makers—demonstrate that his position has been steady and consistent throughout the thirty-odd years in which he has held sway over Iranian politics. Khamenei has defined his understanding of Islam as essentially rational, and emphasised that that reason (‘aql) should be widely used in determining the goals of the IRI. Yet, Western countries still insist on regarding it as an irrational actor, and treating it with wariness—a perception which entirely unfounded: we should ask ourselves what kind of a bias leads us to ignore evidence in favour of prejudice.

It is undeniable that Iran at this point should be considered a major player on the world stage—persuading all of the Security Council members, as well as Europe, to negotiate the Nuclear Deal of 2015 itself is irrefutable evidence of this. However, cooperation necessitates understanding and compromise in order to be fruitful. The approach taken by the West in confronting governments such as that of Iran demonstrate truly little understanding, and the compromises reached therefore make little headway in laying the groundwork for fruitful and continuing cooperation.

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EMERGING COMMUNITIES: CAN RUSSIA COOPERATE WITH ITS CENTRAL ASIAN MIGRANTS? Kayla Kim in the world’s top 5 remittance-receiving countries relative to GDP; in 2018, money earned abroad, primarily from Russia, made up 32.2% of Tajikistan’s GDP and 35.1% of Kyrgyzstan’s GDP, according to the World Bank. Even this percentage is a major downturn, as the 2014 Russian economic slowdown slashed remittances to Kyrgyzstan by nearly 50%, to Uzbekistan by 60%, and to Tajikistan by nearly 70 percent. These reductions have negatively impacted communities which depend on foreign income for basic needs.

The popular mid-2000s Russian sketch comedy Наша Russia, or ‘Our Russia’, features two characters who represent labour migrants from Muslim ex-Soviet Central Asia. Ravshan and Joomshut speak in broken Russian, pander to a Slavic boss, and exhibit terrible hygiene – one episode, for example, depicts the two making noodles in a toilet tank.

The show reflects the stereotypes Russians have built against the recent influx of migrants from Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan who have worked in Russia beginning in the mid-2000s. In 2015, there were approximately 5 million migrants born in Central Asia recorded living in the Russian Federation.

This Central Asian labour migration to Russia is economically and culturally beneficial for both the migrants and the host country, but proper integration will require a shift in Russian migration policy and in local attitudes.

In 2015, there were approximately 5 million migrants born in Central Asia recorded living in the Russian Federation

Beneficence, however, is not one-sided; migration is pragmatically valuable to Russia. Statistics in 2017 suggest that migrant laborers generate nearly 10% of Russia’s economic output. Further, the UN predicts that by 2050 the population of Russia will decrease by 30 million, to 112 million, and the average age of the Russian population will increase. Populations of the smaller Central Asian nations, by contrast, are expected to expand in that time: Tajikistan’s from 8.1 million to 10.4 million, Turkmenistan’s from 5.1 million to 6.8 million, and Kyrgyzstan’s from about 5.5 million to 6.7 million.

Making Russia an appealing home for the rapidly growing Muslim population would counterbalance the shrinking of ethnic Russians while mitigating the unemployment that will result from Central Asia’s population growth exceeding its economic development, especially in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

The wages earned by migrants in Russia are a crucial aid to Central Asian countries, which have small economies and large diasporas. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are both

Beyond concrete financial amelioration for Central Asian states and population balance, migration contributes positively to Russian society. Many invest long-term in life

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in Russia: a third of migrants stay for longer than two years, a third migrate with a spouse, and almost a million have become Russian nationals. Central Asian influence has diversified cities. Uzbek restaurants have gained vast popularity, shashlik, plov, and samsas are available everywhere, and oriental silk scarves and pashminas have risen into fashion. Individual Central Asian immigrants have also brought success and fame to Russia. Alisher Usmanov, who runs several major mining, communications, and technology companies, is an ethnic Uzbek; rapper Jah Khalib and film director Timur Bekmambetov hail from Kazakhstan; and cosmonaut Salijan Shapirov was born in southern Kyrgyzstan. The Kazakh migrant population has further bolstered Russia in a different way, as the migration stream is predominantly composed of students and highly skilled professionals. The 2018 Russo-Kazakh film Ayka actualizes the coexistence of collaboration between Russia and Central Asia with the problems of migration.

Ayka follows the struggle of an undocumented Kyrgyz migrant with no job, no money, and no work permit struggling to survive in bleak Moscow. The story shows the gritty reality of migrant life, and yet the film itself is a testament to successful cultural cooperation of Russian and Kazakh individuals.

A change in the cultural acceptance of migrants must first begin with a change in Russia’s migration policy. Migration regulation was historically uneven until the 2002 law ‘Concerning the legal status of foreign citizens in the Russian Federation’, which established policy for differentiating between foreign citizens. The greatest changes since then have been enacted due to the formation of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev in 2014. This union, which aims to create a space of coordinated economic policy and free movement of goods, services, capital, and, crucially, workforce, allows citizens of member states to work in any Union country without a work permit. It is for this reason primarily that Kyrgyzstan joined in 2015. However, the EAEU excludes Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Tajik and Uzbek citizens, as a result, are susceptible to restricted migration laws established in 2015, which now require migrants to register a home within days of moving to Russia and acquire a labour license which overall costs 25,000 rubles (about 300 pounds), a significant barrier for new migrants looking for work. In addition, Russia has increased the policing of migration, most visibly evident in the introduction of administrative expulsion and an entry ban on any migrant who violates the terms of their stay. These restrictions have led migrants to consider other countries as potential labour destinations, such as Kazakhstan and Turkey, where in 2017, Uzbekistan already ranked among the top five countries whose nationals were captured as illegal migrants.

Central Asian influence has diversified cities.

Uzbek restaurants have gained vast popularity, shashlik, plov, and samsas are available everywhere, and oriental silk scarves and pashminas have risen into fashion Despite the mutual economic and cultural benefits of migrant populations, social integration is still insufficient.

The divide between a Russian ‘host’ society and a ‘migrant’ community is novel, as until the dissolution of the Soviet Union, both were part of the same political and cultural community. But, with the arrival of a new generation with no direct Soviet experience, the notion of Soviet unity has dissipated. Many Russians generalize Central Asians as no more than Our Russia’s Ravshan and Joomshut. Polls align with the comedy’s negative outlook towards the recent influx of migrants. According to the Russian Public Opinion Research Centre, ‘78% of respondents advocate for limiting the influx of migrants to Russia, 60% openly admit their hostility towards those of other nationalities, 52% agree that there are controversies between local citizens and newcomers’. Migrants are isolated and subjected to racial abuse, economic hardship, and mistreatment, which has notably left some vulnerable to radicalization by jihadist groups and resulted in several high-profile terrorist incidents carried out by Central Asian militants in 2016-17.

The resulting domestic discourse on the connection between ISIS terrorists and labour migrants has led to more frequent raids on Central Asian diasporas in Russia

Cultural cooperation may be on the horizon. ‘Our Russia’ aired back in 2006, and eight years later, the sitcom Кухня, or ‘The Kitchen’, premiered. In one episode, migration police enter Moscow’s top restaurant, the show’s primary location, and the kitchen’s many undocumented workers try to flee. In the frenzy, humour arises not at the expense of these workers, but from the contrasting antics of a young Russian chef-aspirant begging the expert opinion of a harried Kyrgyz chef on his pâté. This show is bifocal just as Ayka is; it serves as a positive portrayal of Central Asian migrant workers but reflects, too, that the migration police remain one threatening step away. The Russian government must be willing to cooperate with its migrants rather than installing restrictive policies in order to encourage future migration.

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A Note About Oxford IRSoc Lighthouse is the Oxford International Relation Society’s termly journal.

In it are published a collection of student-written articles, both undergraduate and postgraduate, edited by a team of Oxford students. Each article is the result of a collaborative effort between writer and editor, and is written over the first four weeks of term. This finished journal is the final product of countless hours of work put in by the writers, editors, and the committee of IRSoc. If you are interested in being involved in next term’s edition of Lighthouse, please follow the Lighthouse Journal page on Facebook. Applications for editing positions will be opened in seventh week and the call for articles to be published in the print journal will be at the beginning of next term; both will be published on Facebook. Articles are published on the website on a rolling basis.

Thanks to this term’s team of editors: Editor in Chief Michelle Huang Co-Editors Julia Pieza Elizabeth Merrigan

Sub-Editors James Cleaver Alan Grad Nicole Dominiak Nicholas Monaco Graphic Designer Ruby Lyons

February/March 2018 Issue 20 (Formerly ‘Sir’) Email: editor-in-chief@oxirsoc.org Printed by Anchorprint Group Ltd. The fonts used are Didot (titles) and Severek (body)

The Lighthouse Journal 2019 Oxford International Relations Society