El declive del poder relativo de los Estados Unidos ha alimentado un debate sobre el surgimiento de un orden global multipolar fundado sobre bloques regionales. Uno de estos seria Sudamérica, organizado alrededor de la "potencia media", Brasil. En este artículo analizamos la estrategia de internacionalización de empresas, "campeones nacionales", desarrollada por el gobierno brasileño desde inicio del siglo, a través del Banco Nacional de Desarrollo Económico y Social (BNDES), en la región y en el mundo; y ponemos en relación este fenómeno con las críticas a la capacidad de liderazgo de Brasil en Sudamérica. En particular, nos preguntamos si para llevar a cabo una estrategia expansiva de firmas nacionales desde el Estado es necesario ejercer un liderazgo "formal" sobre otros países. Considerando las consecuencias negativas para los países vecinos y sus empresas y los ambiguos efectos sobre el fortalecimiento de la "autonomía política" del mismo Estado brasileño, concluimos que esta estrategia, a pesar de producir claras ventajas económicas para el país, dificulta la consolidación de un liderazgo regional sólido. En este sentido, al par de otras, esta iniciativa se inserta en una "zona gris" en la cual una creciente centralidad económica y material de Brasil en Sudamérica no se acompaña con su reconocimiento formal como líder regional. A pesar de esto, consideramos que la expansión de las empresas brasileñas en la región es un ejemplo del poder coercitivo implícito del cual ese país goza, pudiendo contar con la economía más grande de la región y las firmas más competitivas. La aceptación de esta expansión por parte de los otros países se produce entonces no tanto por su reconocimiento como un atributo legítimo de liderazgo, sino más bien por un tácito consenso basado sobre la necesidad de garantizarse el acceso al mercado brasileño y a los financiamientos que Brasil otorga a través de varias iniciativas regionales. Finalmente, a la luz de la conclusión de la estrategia de creación de "Campeones Nacionales" en 2014 y de la postura del nuevo gobierno de Brasil con respecto al financiamiento de la internacionalización de las grandes empresas, proponemos que esta estrategia sea utilizada como caso de estudio para profundizar la investigación sobre la particular alianza política y social que ha sostenido en estos años esta política y que ahora parece haberle dado la espalda. ; The decline of U.S. hegemony has opened a debate about the emergence of a multipolar wold order based on regional blocs, with a South America organized around the "middle power" Brazil being one of them. The aim of this article is to analyse the Brazilian government strategy of promotion of "National Champions" companies through the National Economic and Social Development Bank (BNDES) and their expansion regionally and globally. The focus is placed particularly on the link between this phenomenon and the debate about Brazil's scarce capabilities of leadership in South America, asking if it is necessary to hold a "formal" and recognized leadership position over other countries for a specific State to implement an expansive strategy for its national companies. Our conclusion is that, economic gains aside, the negative impact this strategy has over the other South American countries, as well as the ambiguous effects it produces on the "political autonomy" of the very Brazilian State are all elements that contribute to detain the consolidation of a solid regional leadership. In this respect, the national champions initiative belongs to a "grey area" in which Brazil's augmented material and economic centrality in South America is not matched by a formal recognition as a regional leader. This notwithstanding, we consider the expansion of Brazilian firms in the region as an example of the implicit coercive power the country holds, derived from owning the biggest economy and the most competitive companies in South America. Acquiescence with this expansion by other countries is thus based more on a tacit support arising from the necessity of securing access to the Brazilian market and regional funding than on its validation as a rightful feature of leadership. Finally, in the light of the conclusion of the "National Champions" strategy in 2014, as long as the new stance on financing big companies expansion abroad adopted by the new government of Brazil, we propose to use this strategy as a case study to deepen our knowledge on the particular political and social alliance that has buttressed this policy for years only to apparently turn its backs on it more recently. ; Fil: Clemente, Dario. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires; Argentina
Il lavoro prende in considerazione i principali avvenimenti che hanno influenzato l'evoluzione economica finanziaria del nostro Paese nella crisi del cambio 1992,ho voluto concentrare l'attenzione sugli avvenimenti a partire dal 1979 e analizzando l'intervento delle autorità monetarie. Allora non esisteva l'Euro, esisteva il Sistema Monetario Europeo con una sorta di valuta di riferimento, l'ECU, a cui le varie valute nazionali aderenti al sistema dovevano stare agganciate, entro una percentuale di scostamento non superiore al 2,25% per alcune e al 6% per altre, fra cui la lira. La Germania vantava di un'economia più solida di altri, con un sistema produttivo di avanguardia e con una moneta forte che faceva da riferimento per tutte le economie. L'Italia aveva un' economia che si doveva adattare continuamente alle conseguenze di una gestione del paese sconsiderata, miope e orientata al breve termine, frutto di una incompetenza della classe politica. Nel marzo 1979, l'Italia aveva aderito al Sistema Monetario Europeo, una decisione orientata, insieme con la politica estera, al rafforzamento dei vincoli comunitari nell'intento di dar luogo alla creazione di un'Europa Unita; consapevoli che questa sarebbe stata una scelta più di carattere politico che economica. L'adesione allo Sme avvenne in un clima di divergenza, Paolo Baffi allora governatore della Banca d'Italia, faceva infatti presente che una valuta debole come la lira, avrebbe trovato difficoltà ad abbandonare il regime delle svalutazioni facile. diversi economisti, oltre a Baffi,al di là di dove sedessero, se in Parlamento come Luigi Spaventa o alla direzione della Banca d'Italia o ancora all'interno del governo come Rinaldo Ossola, sostenevano la loro contrarietà all'ingresso nel Sistema Monetario Europeo, esponendo motivazioni tra loro eterogenee. Tutti si attendevano che il vincolo esterno dei cambi stabili costringesse il paese a seguire una politica di rigorosa stabilità monetaria. L'Italia aveva ottenuto il privilegio di una banda di oscillazione del 6%, contro il 2,5% degli altri paesi, ma tutti intendevano che l'adesione all'accordo di cambio avrebbe imposto una politica di rientro all'inflazione. Contro le aspettative generali, l'inflazione proseguì invece più violenta di prima. Il tasso di cambio, assunse con l'avanzare del progetto unitario una significatività crescente, aggiungendo alla sua funzione di strumento di orientamento, quella di fattore di credibilità. Le autorità monetarie italiane non accettarono mai una svalutazione esterna della lira pari a quella interna. Fra il 1980 e il 1987, i riallineamenti di parità nell'ambito dello Sme si susseguirono numerosi e coinvolsero numerose valute. Ogni riallineamento segnò una svalutazione della lira rispetto al marco. Dopo il 1987, i riallineamenti vennero sospesi e il corso della lira subì un solo ritocco al ribasso, in occasione del rientro della banda stretta. La politica di fatto seguita fu dunque quella di una graduale rivalutazione della lira, in termini reali, rispetto al marco. All'inizio degli anni novanta venne firmato il trattato di Maastricht, il contenuto degli accordi si inseriva in un contesto politico- sociale interno altamente critico, nel quale le energie politiche a lungo represse dalla guerra fredda si erano liberate, grazie al crollo del Muro di Berlino, spingendo quindi gli equilibri del sistema politico e economico con una rottura che si verificò del tutto nel 1992. Se il processo d'integrazione europeo era stato spesso rappresentato dalla classe politica come una sorta di panacea alle tare italiane, a Maastricht, si celebrò l'innocenza dell'europeismo italiano che vide stravolgere e crollare la visione retorica con la quale aveva guardato alla costruzione europea a partire degli anni '70. Per la storia dell'integrazione europea, il trattato di Maastricht rappresenta una pietra miliare, anche se con l'entrata in vigore ha creato ancora più instabilità, in quanto caratterizzato da uno scarso realismo degli obiettivi di convergenza delle variabili macroeconomiche, da mancanza flessibilità e insieme da asimmetrie dei comportamenti possibili delle banche centrali. La scena economica internazionale era segnata da: tendenze divergenti dei tassi di interesse, al ribasso negli Stati Uniti per rilanciare l'economia, al rialzo in Germania per gli effetti dell'unificazione tedesca, con conseguenti indebolimenti del dollaro, rafforzamento del marco, tensione nello Sme; le incertezze circa il completamento della unificazione monetaria in Europa, quale è stata sancita nel trattato di Maastricht. Questi sviluppi esterni coglievano l'economia italiana in una fase di attività produttiva debole, inflazione in lenta discesa, squilibri irrisolti nella finanza pubblica. Tra gli accadimenti che sono susseguiti, sono da richiamare i seguenti: l'esito negativo del referendum danese sul trattato di Maastricht del 2 giugno, infatti il referendum di Copenaghen si conclude al fotofinish (50,7%) di no contro il (49,3%) di si; mancata riduzione dei tassi di interesse in Germania; voci di svalutazione della lira; rialzo dei tassi ufficiali in Germania. Nel corso dell'anno 1992 si assiste a una piena recessione, infatti con il debito pubblico al 105,5 del Pil, con un fabbisogno attorno al 10,4 del Pil, con il passivo della bilancia dei pagamenti di parte corrente in crescita, la crisi era alle porte. Il 6 giugno la Banca d'Italia aumenta il tasso sulle anticipazioni a scadenza fissa di mezzo punto percentuale, irrigidendo così la politica monetaria, Moody's mise sotto controllo l'Italia per la sua incapacità nella riduzione del debito pubblico. Il 29 giugno il cambio contro il marco arrivò a 756,54 a fronte di una sostanziale stabilità nei confronti della sterlina e della peseta, Amato per effettuare un risanamento economico annunciò il 5 luglio la manovra da 30000 miliardi di lire, e con quella successiva di 100000 miliardi dà inizio al risanamento finanziario del Paese. Le vicende relative alle turbolenze che hanno sconvolto le parità valutarie dei paesi aderenti allo Sme hanno avuto inizio con la svalutazione del 7% della lira, la quale appariva quasi un riallineamento da manuale. Il 21 settembre, la Banca d'Italia, annunciò che le autorità monetarie si sarebbero astenute all'effettuare la quotazione ufficiale della lira. Questo fu un colpo durissimo per l'Italia che fino a quella data, aveva fatto del cambio della lira l'architrave della sua politica economica e finanziaria, sostenendo pesanti oneri in termini di riserve valutarie, infatti tra il giugno e il settembre vennero impiegate 53000 miliardi di riserve; colpo durissimo anche per la Comunità, colpita al cuore proprio nello strumento fondamentale, lo SME, investito nel ruolo di preparare e garantire le condizioni di stabilità, generalizzata e consolidata, che avrebbero dovuto, poi consentire quel salto di qualità dell'Europa, con il decollo della Unione Economica e monetaria, la moneta unica e il sistema delle banche centrali europee. Successivamente le tensioni speculative investono la lira , la sterlina e la peseta: momento in cui Italia e Gran Bretagna annunciano di uscire dagli Accordi europei di cambio. Subito dopo la svalutazione del 1992, si aprì un periodo di svalutazione generale della lira rispetto alle altre monete, periodo che si protrasse all'incirca fino al marzo 1993. Tra il 1992 e 1993 vennero firmati due accordi triangolari il protocollo Amato 31 luglio 1992 che abolì il sistema di scala mobile, completato da Ciampi nel luglio 1993, con la quale si fissarono gli obiettivi comuni di politica di reddito. Dopo di allora la lira rimase agganciata al dollaro. Il legame fra lira e dollaro potrebbe essere frutto dell'agire spontaneo dei mercati, ma potrebbe anche essere scaturito dalla decisione delle autorità monetarie italiane di ritornare alla vecchia linea di cambio differenziato, già seguita negli anni prima del 1979, fino all'ingresso dello Sme. Il problema essenziale delle autorità di governo era quello di evitare che la svalutazione esterna della lira si traducesse in inflazione importata, l'aver agganciato la lira al dollaro può essere inteso come una misura ragionevolmente coerente con l'obiettivo della stabilità monetaria. Di certo che la svalutazione della lira non ha contribuito alla soluzione del problema economico italiano, ha rischiato di aggravarlo producendo perdita di credibilità per il Paese. La crisi del sistema monetario europeo ha favorito una ripresa dei dibattiti teorici sui modelli di crisi valutarie, che si distinguono tra prima e seconda generazione, quelli di prima collegano l'emergere della crisi all'incompatibilità tra politiche macroeconomiche e stabilità del cambio; quelli di seconda, il cui sviluppo è stato stimolato dagli stessi fatti del 1992, nella quale l'emergere di una crisi appare come una scelta endogena, effettuata dalle autorità in base alle proprie preferenze e all'interazione con gli agenti economici privati. Analizzando i modelli si può concludere che mentre la rappresentazione di un regime di cambio fisso per mezzo di un livello puntuale del cambio non rappresenta un limite interpretativo rilevante, le ipotesi relative al processo di espansione del credito e all'esistenza di un livello di soglia delle riserve, nei modelli di Krugman, non sembrano dar conto adeguatamente della realtà dei fenomeni economici. I modelli di prima generazione danno una spiegazione "fondamentalista" delle crisi nel senso che fanno risalire la crisi allo sfasamento dei fondamentali macroeconomici dell'economia, in particolare l'esistenza di politiche fiscali espansive e prolungati deficit di bilancio incompatibili con un impegno di cambio fisso. I modelli di seconda generazione sottolineano il comportamento ottimizzante del policy-maker che non subisce più la crisi, ma decide di avviarla perché tale scelta minimizza i costi, nel senso che i costi in termini di reputazione a cui il governo va incontro uscendo dall'impegno sono comunque minori dei costi di rimanere in termini di incremento dei tassi di interesse e riduzione delle riserve valutarie. I modelli di terza generazione pongono enfasi sulla presenza di squilibri di natura finanziaria con la conseguenza che delle crisi valutarie non sono più viste come fenomeni a sé stanti ma come parte di una crisi sistemica in cui le crisi valutarie e bancarie si autoalimentano. Le ipotesi di perfetta previsione, d'altra parte, implicano che la razionalità degli agenti sia tale da non permette il realizzarsi di peso problem, i quali invece vengono osservati nella realtà. (Riassunto tradotto in inglese) Labour takes into account the main events that influenced the financial economic development of our country in the 1992 exchange rate crisis, I wanted to focus on the events since 1979 and analysing the intervention of the monetary authorities. At that time there was no euro, there was the European Monetary System with a kind of reference currency, the ECU, to which the various national currencies participating in the system had to be hooked, within a variance rate of no more than 2.25% for some and 6% for others, including the lira. Germany boasted of an economy stronger than others, with a state-of-the-art production system and a strong currency that was the benchmark for all economies. Italy had an economy that had to adapt continuously to the consequences of a reckless, short-sighted and short-term management of the country, the result of an incompetence of the political class. In March 1979, Italy had joined the European Monetary System, a decision aimed, together with foreign policy, at strengthening EU ties in order to create a united Europe; aware that this would be a more political than an economic choice. The accession to the Sme took place in a climate of divergence, Paolo Baffi then governor of the Bank of Italy, in fact, pointed out that a weak currency such as the lira, would find it difficult to abandon the regime of devaluations easy. several economists, in addition to Baffi, beyond where they sat, whether in Parliament as Luigi Spaventa or at the management of the Bank of Italy or even within the government as Rinaldo Ossola, argued their opposition to entry into the European Monetary System, exposing heterogeneous motivations among themselves. Everyone expected that the external constraint of stable exchange rates would force the country to follow a policy of strict monetary stability. Italy had obtained the privilege of a 6% swing band, compared with 2.5% in the other countries, but all wanted that accession to the exchange agreement would impose a policy of returning to inflation. Against general expectations, however, inflation continued more violent than before. The exchange rate, as the unitary project progressed, became increasingly significant, adding to its role as a guideline, that of a credibility factor. The Italian monetary authorities never accepted an external devaluation of the lira equal to the internal one. Between 1980 and 1987, the realignments of parity within the Sme followed numerous and involved numerous currencies. Each realignment marked a devaluation of the lira against the mark. After 1987, the realignments were suspended and the course of the lira underwent only one downward adjustment, on the occasion of the return of the narrow band. The policy followed was therefore that of a gradual revaluation of the lira, in real terms, with respect to the mark. At the beginning of the 1990s the Maastricht Treaty was signed, the content of the agreements was part of a highly critical internal political-social context, in which political energies long repressed by the Cold War had been freed, thanks to the collapse of the Berlin Wall, thus pushing the balance of the political and economic system with a break that occurred entirely in 1992. If the process of European integration had often been portrayed by the political class as a kind of panacea to the Italian tare, in Maastricht, the innocence of Italian Europeanism was celebrated, which saw the rhetorical vision with which it had looked to the construction of Europe since the 1970s, overturned and collapsed. For the history of European integration, the Maastricht Treaty represents a milestone, although with the entry into force it has created even more instability, as it is characterized by a lack of realism in the convergence objectives of macroeconomic variables, lack of flexibility and at the same time as asymmetries of the possible behaviour of central banks. The international economic scene was marked by: divergent trends in interest rates, downwards in the United States to boost the economy, up in Germany due to the effects of unification Germany, resulting in a weakening of the dollar, a strengthening of the mark, tension in the SME; The uncertainty about the completion of monetary unification in Europe, as enshrined in the Maastricht Treaty, is. These external developments caught the Italian economy in a period of weak production activity, slow-falling inflation, unresolved imbalances in public finances. Among the events that have followed, the following are to be recalled: the negative outcome of the Danish referendum on the Maastricht Treaty of 2 June, in fact the Copenhagen referendum ends at photofinish (50.7%) no versus (49.3%) yes; failure to reduce interest rates in Germany; rumours of the valuation of the lira; official interest rates in Germany. During the year 1992 there is a full recession, in fact with public debt at 105.5 of GDP, with a requirement around 10.4 of GDP, with the passive of the current account balance growing, the crisis was upon us. On 6 June, the Bank of Italy increased the rate on fixed-term advances by half a percentage point, thus tightening monetary policy, and Moody's brought Italy under control for its inability to reduce public debt. On 29 June, the exchange rate against the mark reached 756.54 in the face of substantial stability against the pound and the peseta, Amato to carry out an economic recovery announced on 5 July the maneuver of 30000 billion lre, and with the next one of 100000 billion begins the financial consolidation of the country. The events surrounding the turmoil that have disrupted the currency parities of the SME member countries began with the devaluation of 7% of the lira, which appeared to be almost a textbook realignment. On 21 September, the Bank of Italy announced that the monetary authorities would refrain from making the official listing of the lira. This was a very serious blow for Italy, which until that date had made the lira change the backbone of its economic and financial policy, bearing heavy burdens in terms of foreign exchange reserves, in fact between June and September 53 trillion reserves were used; It is also a very serious blow for the Community, which has been struck at the heart by the fundamental instrument, the EMS, which has been invested in the role of preparing and guaranteeing the conditions of stability, generalised and consolidated, which should have allowed Europe to jump in quality, with the take-off of the Economic and Monetary Union, the single currency and the system of European central banks. Subsequently, speculative tensions hit the lira, sterling and peseta, when Italy and Great Britain announced they were leaving the European Exchange Agreements. Immediately after the devaluation of 1992, a period of general devaluation of the lira against the other currencies opened up, which lasted approximately until March 1993. Between 1992 and 1993, two triangular agreements were signed, the Amato protocol on 31 July 1992, which abolished the escalator system, which was completed by Ciampi in July 1993, which set common income policy objectives. After that, the lira remained pegged to the dollar. The link between the lira and the dollar may be the result of the spontaneous action of the markets, but it could also have stemmed from the decision of the Italian monetary authorities to return to the old differentiated exchange line, which was already followed in the years before 1979, until the entry of the Sme. The main problem of the government authorities was to prevent the external devaluation of the lira from translating into imported inflation, the having pegged the lira to the dollar can be understood as a measure reasonably consistent with the objective of monetary stability. Certainly the devaluation of the lira did not contribute to the solution of the Italian economic problem, it risked aggravating it, producing a loss of credibility for the country. The crisis in the European monetary system has encouraged a resumption of theoretical debates on currency crisis patterns, which stand out between the first and second generations, those of first generation link the emergence of the crisis to the incompatibility between macroeconomic policies and exchange rate stability; Second, the development of which was stimulated by the same events of 1992, in which the emergence of a crisis appears to be a choice "It's not just a way of using private economic agents," he said. By analysing the models, it can be concluded that while the representation of a fixed exchange rate regime by means of a timely exchange rate does not represent a relevant interpretive limit, assumptions about the credit expansion process and the existence of a level of reserve threshold, in Krugman's models, do not seem to adequately account for the reality of economic phenomena. First-generation models give a "fundamentalist" explanation of crises in the sense that the crisis is traced back to the shift in macroeconomic fundamentals of the economy, in particular the existence of expansionary fiscal policies and prolonged budget deficits incompatible with a fixed exchange rate commitment. The second-generation models emphasize the optimising behaviour of the policy-maker who is no longer suffering from the crisis, but decides to start it because this choice minimizes costs, in the sense that the reputation costs that the government faces by exiting the commitment are still lower than the costs of staying in terms of raising interest rates and reducing currency reserves. Third-generation models place emphasis on financial imbalances, with the consequence that currency crises are no longer seen as stand-alone phenomena but as part of a systemic crisis in which currency and banking crises feed themselves. The hypotheses of perfect prediction, on the other hand, imply that the rationality of the agents is such that it does not allow the realization of weight problem, which instead are observed in reality.
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Alexander Dugin on Eurasianism, the Geopolitics of Land and Sea, and a Russian Theory of Multipolarity
IR has long been regarded as an Anglo-American social science. Recently, the discipline has started to look beyond America and England, to China (Theory Talk #51, Theory Talk #45), India (Theory Talk #63, Theory Talk #42), Africa (Theory Talk #57, Theory Talk #10) and elsewhere for non-Western perspectives on international affairs and IR theory. However, IR theorists have paid little attention to Russian perspectives on the discipline and practice of international relations. We offer an exciting peek into Russian geopolitical theory through an interview with the controversial Russian geopolitical thinker Alexander Dugin, founder of the International Eurasian Movement and allegedly an important influence on Putin's foreign policy. In this Talk, Dugin—among others—discusses his Theory of a Multipolar World, offers a staunch critique of western and liberal IR, and lays out Russia's unique contribution to the landscape of IR theory.
Print version of this Talk (pdf) Russian version
What, according to you, is the central challenge or principle debate within IR and what would be your position within this debate or towards that challenge?
The field of IR is extremely interesting and multidimensional. In general, the discipline is much more promising than many think. I think that there is a stereometry today in IR, in which we can distinguish a few axes right away.
The first, most traditional axis is realism – the English school – liberalism.
If the debates here are exhausted on an academic level, then on the level of politicians, the media, and journalists, all the arguments and methods appear new and unprecedented each time. Today, liberalism in IR dominates mass consciousness, and realist arguments, already partially forgotten on the level of mass discourse, could seem rather novel. On the other hand, the nuanced English school, researched thoroughly in academic circles, might look like a "revelation" to the general public. But for this to happen, a broad illumination of the symmetry between liberals and realists is needed for the English school to acquire significance and disclose its full potential. This is impossible under the radical domination of liberalism in IR. For that reason, I predict a new wave of realists and neorealists in this sphere, who, being pretty much forgotten and almost marginalized, can full well make themselves and their agenda known. This would, it seems to me, produce a vitalizing effect and diversify the palette of mass and social debates, which are today becoming monotone and auto-referential.
The second axis is bourgeois versions of IR (realism, the English school, and liberalism all together) vs. Marxism in IR. In popular and even academic discourse, this theme is entirely discarded, although the popularity of Wallerstein (Theory Talk #13) and other versions of world-systems theory shows a degree of interest in this critical version of classical, positivistic IR theories.
The third axis is post-positivism in all its varieties vs. positivism in all its varieties (including Marxism). IR scholars might have gotten the impression that postmodern attacks came to an end, having been successfully repelled by 'critical realism', but in my opinion it is not at all so. From moderate constructivism and normativism to extreme post-structuralism, post-positivistic theories carry a colossal deconstructive and correspondingly scientific potential, which has not yet even begun to be understood. It seemed to some that postmodernism is a cheerful game. It isn't. It is a new post-ontology, and it fundamentally affects the entire epistemological structure of IR. In my opinion, this axis remains very important and fundamental.
The fourth axis is the challenge of the sociology of international relations, which we can call 'Hobson's challenge'. In my opinion, in his critique of euro-centrism in IR, John M. Hobson laid the foundation for an entirely new approach to the whole problematic by proposing to consider the structural significance of the "euro-centric" factor as dominant and clarifying its racist element. Once we make euro-centrism a variable and move away from the universalistic racism of the West, on which all systems of IR are built, including the majority of post-positivistic systems (after all, postmodernity is an exclusively Western phenomenon!), we get, theoretically for now, an entirely different discipline—and not just one, it seems. If we take into account differences among cultures, there can be as many systems of IR as there are cultures. I consider this axis extremely important.
The fifth axis, outlined in less detail than the previous one, is the Theory of a Multipolar World vs. everything else. The Theory of a Multipolar World was developed in Russia, a country that no one ever took seriously during the entire establishment of IR as a discipline—hence the fully explainable skepticism toward the Theory of a Multipolar World.
The sixth axis is IR vs. geopolitics. Geopolitics is usually regarded as secondary in the context of IR. But gradually, the epistemological potential of geopolitics is becoming more and more obvious, despite or perhaps partially because of the criticism against it. We have only to ask ourselves about the structure of any geopolitical concept to discover the huge potential contained in its methodology, which takes us to the very complex and semantically saturated theme of the philosophy and ontology of space.
If we now superimpose these axes onto one another, we get an extremely complex and highly interesting theoretical field. At the same time, only one axis, the first one, is considered normative among the public, and that with the almost total and uni-dimensional dominance of IR liberalism. All the wealth, 'scientific democracy', and gnoseological pluralism of the other axes are inaccessible to the broad public, robbing and partly deceiving it. I call this domination of liberalism among the public the 'third totalitarianism', but that is a separate issue.
How did you arrive at where you currently are in your thinking about IR?
I began with Eurasianism, from which I came to geopolitics (the Eurasianist Petr Savitskii quoted the British geopolitician Halford Mackinder) and remained for a long time in that framework, developing the theme of the dualism of Land and Sea and applying it to the actual situation That is how the Eurasian school of geopolitics arose, which became not simply the dominant, but the only school in contemporary Russia. As a professor at Moscow State University, for six years I was head of the department of the Sociology of International Relations, which forced me to become professionally familiar with the classical theories of IR, the main authors, approaches, and schools. Because I have long been interested in postmodernism in philosophy (I wrote the book Post-philosophy on the subject), I paid special attention to post-positivism in IR. That is how I came to IR critical theory, neo-Gramscianism, and the sociology of IR (John Hobson, Steve Hobden, etc.). I came to the Theory of a Multipolar World, which I eventually developed myself, precisely through superimposing geopolitical dualism, Carl Schmitt's theory of the Grossraum, and John Hobson's critique of Western racism and the euro-centrism of IR.
In your opinion, what would a student need in order to become a specialist in IR?
In our interdisciplinary time, I think that what is most important is familiarity with philosophy and sociology, led by a paradigmatic method: the analysis of the types of societies, cultures, and structures of thought along the line Pre-Modernity – Modernity – Post-Modernity. If one learns to trace semantic shifts in these three epistemological and ontological domains, it will help one to become familiar with any popular theories of IR today. Barry Buzan's (Theory Talk #35) theory of international systems is an example of such a generalizing and very useful schematization. Today an IR specialist must certainly be familiar with deconstruction and use it at least in its elementary form. Otherwise, there is a great danger of overlooking what is most important.
Another very important competence is history and political science. Political science provides generalizing, simplifying material, and history puts schemas in their context. I would only put competence in the domain of economics and political economy in third place, although today no problem in IR can be considered without reference to the economic significance of processes and interactions. Finally, I would earnestly recommend to students of IR to become familiar, as a priority, with geopolitics and its methods. These methods are much simpler than theories of IR, but their significance is much deeper. At first, geopolitical simplifications produce an instantaneous effect: complex and entangled processes of world politics are rendered transparent and comprehensible in the blink of an eye. But to sort out how this effect is achieved, a long and serious study of geopolitics is required, exceeding by far the superficiality that limits critical geopolitics (Ó Tuathail et. al.): they stand at the beginning of the decipherment of geopolitics and its full-fledged deconstruction, but they regard themselves as its champions. They do so prematurely.
What does it entail to think of global power relations through a spatial lens ('Myslit prostranstvom')?
This is the most important thing. The entire philosophical theme of Modernity is built on the dominance of time. Kant already puts time on the side of the subject (and space on the side of the body, continuing the ideas of Descartes and even Plato), while Husserl and Heidegger identify the subject with time altogether. Modernity thinks with time, with becoming. But since the past and future are rejected as ontological entities, thought of time is transformed into thought of the instant, of that which is here and now. This is the basis for the ephemeral understanding of being. To think spatially means to locate Being outside the present, to arrange it in space, to give space an ontological status. Whatever was impressed in space is preserved in it. Whatever will ripen in space is already contained in it. This is the basis for the political geography of Friedrich Ratzel and subsequent geopoliticians. Wagner's Parsifal ends with the words of Gurnemanz: 'now time has become space'. This is a proclamation of the triumph of geopolitics. To think spatially means to think in an entirely different way [topika]. I think that postmodernity has already partly arrived at this perspective, but has stopped at the threshold, whereas to cross the line it is necessary to break radically with the entire axiomatic of Modernity, to really step over Modernity, and not to imitate this passage while remaining in Modernity and its tempolatry. Russian people are spaces [Russkie lyudi prostranstva], which is why we have so much of it. The secret of Russian identity is concealed in space. To think spatially means to think 'Russian-ly', in Russian.
Geopolitics is argued to be very popular in Russia nowadays. Is geopolitics a new thing, from the post-Cold War period, or not? And if not, how does current geopolitical thinking differ from earlier Soviet (or even pre-soviet) geopolitics?
It is an entirely new form of political thought. I introduced geopolitics to Russia at the end of the 80s, and since then it has become extremely popular. I tried to find some traces of geopolitics in Russian history, but besides Vandam, Semyonov-Tyan-Shansky, and a few short articles by Savitskii, there was nothing. In the USSR, any allusion to geopolitics was punished in the harshest way (see the 'affair of the geopoliticians' of the economic geographer Vladimir Eduardovich Den and his group). At the start of the 90s, my efforts and the efforts of my followers and associates in geopolitics (=Eurasianism) filled the worldview vacuum that formed after the end of Soviet ideology. At first, this was adopted without reserve by the military (The Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia), especially under Igor Rodionov. Then, geopolitics began to penetrate into all social strata. Today, this discipline is taught in the majority of Russian universities. So, there was no Soviet or pre-Soviet geopolitics. There is only the contemporary Eurasian school, which took shape at the end of the 80s. Foundations of Geopolitics was the first programmatic text of this school, although I had published most of texts in that book earlier, and some of them were circulated as texts in government circles. Recently, in 2012, I released two new textbooks: Geopolitics and The Geopolitics of Russia, which together with The War of Continents are the results of work in this field, along four axes.
In your book International Relations, not yet published in English, you set out your Theory of a Multipolar World as a distinct IR theory. What are the basic components of the Theory of a Multipolar World—and how is it different from classical realism?
In order to be understood and not get into the details, I can say that the Theory of a Multipolar World seriously and axiomatically adopts Samuel Huntington's thesis about the plurality of civilizations. Russia has its own author, who claimed the same thing more than a hundred years ago: Nikolay Danilevsky, and then the Eurasianists. However, everything starts from precisely this point: civilization is not one, but many. Western civilization's pretension to universalism is a form of the will to domination and an authoritarian discourse. It can be taken into account but not believed. It is nothing other than a strategy of suppression and hegemony. The following point follows: we must move from thinking in terms of one civilization (the racism of euro-centric versions of IR) to a pluralism of subjects. However, unlike realists, who take as the subject of their theory nation-states, which are themselves products of the European, bourgeois, modern understanding of the Political, the Theory of a Multipolar World proposes to take civilizations as subjects. Not states, but civilizations. I call them 'large politeiai', or civilizations, corresponding to Carl Schmitt's 'large spaces'. As soon as we take these civilizations—'large politeiai'—as subjects, we can then apply to them the full system of premises of realism: anarchy in the international system, sovereignty, the rationality of egoistic behavior, etc. But within these 'politeiai', by contrast, a principle more resembling liberalism, with its pacifism and integration, operates, only with the difference that here we are not talking about a 'planetary' or 'global' world, but about an intra-civilizational one; not about global integration, but about regional integration, strictly within the context of civilizational borders. Post-positivism, in turn, helps here for the deconstruction of the authoritarian discourse of the West, which masks its private interests by 'universal values', and also for the reconstruction of civilizational identity, including with the help of technological means: civilizational elites, civilizational media, civilizational economic algorithms and corporations, etc. That is the general picture.
Your theory of multipolarity is directed against the intellectual, political, and social hegemony of the West. At the same time, while drawing on the tools of neo-Marxist analysis and critical theory, it does not oppose Western hegemony 'from the left', as those approaches do, but on the basis of traditionalism (Rene Guenon, Julius Evola), cultural anthropology, and Heideggerian phenomenology, or 'from the right'. Do you think that such an approach can appeal to Anglo-American IR practitioners, or is it designed to appeal mainly to non-Western theorists and practitioners? In short, what can IR theorists in the West learn from the theory of multipolarity?
According to Hobson's entirely correct analysis, the West is based on a fundamental sort of racism. There is no difference between Lewis Morgan's evolutionistic racism (with his model of savagery, barbarism, civilization) and Hitler's biological racism. Today the same racism is asserted without a link to race, but on the basis of the technological modes and degrees of modernization and progress of societies (as always, the criterion "like in the West" is the general measure). Western man is a complete racist down to his bones, generalizing his ethnocentrism to megalomaniacal proportions. Something tells me that he is impossible to change. Even radical critiques of Western hegemony are themselves deeply infected by the racist virus of universalism, as Edward Said showed with the example of 'orientalism', proving that the anticolonial struggle is a form of that very colonialism and euro-centrism. So the Theory of a Multipolar World will hardly find adherents in the Western world, unless perhaps among those scholars who are seriously able to carry out a deconstruction of Western identity, and such deconstruction assumes the rejection of both Right (nationalistic) and Left (universalistic and progressivist) clichés. The racism of the West always acquires diverse forms. Today its main form is liberalism, and anti-liberal theories (most on the Left) are plagued by the same universalism, while Right anti-liberalisms have been discredited. That is why I appeal not to the first political theory (liberalism), nor the second (communism, socialism), nor to the third (fascism, Nazism), but to something I call the Fourth Political Theory (or 4PT), based on a radical deconstruction of the subject of Modernity and the application of Martin Heidegger's existential analytic method.
Traditionalists are brought in for the profound critique of Western Modernity, for establishing the plurality of civilizations, and for rehabilitating non-Western (pre-modern) cultures. In Russia and Asian countries, the Theory of a Multipolar World is grasped easily and naturally; in the West, it encounters a fully understandable and fully expected hostility, an unwillingness to study it carefully, and coarse slander. But there are always exceptions.
What is the Fourth Political Theory (4PT) and how is it related to the Theory of a Multipolar World and to your criticism of the prevailing theoretical approaches in the field of IR?
I spoke a little about this in the response to the previous question. The Fourth Political Theory is important for getting away from the strict dominance of modernity in the sphere of the Political, for the relativization of the West and its re-regionalization. The West measures the entire history of Modernity in terms of the struggle of three political ideologies for supremacy (liberalism, socialism, and nationalism). But since the West does not even for a moment call into question the fact that it thinks for all humanity, it evaluates other cultures and civilizations in the same way, without considering that in the best case the parallels to these three ideologies are pure simulacra, while most often there simply are no parallels. If liberalism won the competition of the three ideologies in the West at the end of the 20th century, that does not yet mean that this ideology is really universal on a world scale. It isn't at all. This episode of the Western political history of modernity may be the fate of the West, but not the fate of the world. So other principles of the political are needed, beyond liberalism, which claims global domination (=the third totalitarianism), and its failed alternatives (communism and fascism), which are historically just as Western and modern as liberalism. This explains the necessity of introducing a Fourth Political Theory as a political frame for the correct basis of a Theory of a Multipolar World. The Fourth Political Theory is the direct and necessary correlate of the Theory of a Multipolar World in the domain of political theory.
Is IR an American social science? Is Russian IR as an academic field a reproduction of IR as an American academic field? If not, how is IR in Russia specifically Russian?
IR is a Western scientific discipline, and as such it has a prescriptive, normative vector. It not only studies the West's dominance, it also produces, secures, defends, and propagandizes it. IR is undoubtedly an imperious authoritarian discourse of Western civilization, in relation to itself and all other areas of the planet. Today the US is the core of the West, so naturally in the 20th century IR became more and more American as the US moved toward that status (it began as an English science). It is the same with geopolitics, which migrated from London to Washington and New York together with the function of a global naval Empire. As with all other sciences, IR is a form of imperious violence, embodying the will to power in the will to knowledge (as Michel Foucault explained). IR in Russia remains purely Western, with one detail: in the USSR, IR as such was not studied. Marxism in IR did not correspond to Soviet reality, where after Stalin a practical form of realism (not grounded theoretically and never acknowledged) played a big role—only external observers, like the classical realist E.H. Carr, understood the realist essence of Stalinism in IR. So IR was altogether blocked. The first textbooks started to appear only in the 90s and in the fashion of the day they were all liberal. That is how it has remained until now. The peculiarity of IR in Russia today lies in the fact that there is no longer anything Russian there; liberalism dominates entirely, a correct account of realism is lacking, and post-positivism is almost entirely disregarded. The result is a truncated, aggressively liberal and extremely antiquated version of IR as a discipline. I try to fight that. I recently released an IR textbook with balanced (I hope) proportions, but it is too early to judge the result.
Stephen Walt argued in a September article in Foreign Policy that Russia 'is nowhere near as threatening as the old Soviet Union', in part because Russia 'no longer boasts an ideology that can rally supporters worldwide'. Do you agree with Walt's assessment?
There is something to that. Today, Russia thinks of itself as a nation-state. Putin is a realist; nothing more. Walt is right about that. But the Theory of a Multipolar World and the Fourth Political Theory, as well as Eurasianism, are outlines of a much broader and large-scale ideology, directed against Western hegemony and challenging liberalism, globalization, and American strategic dominance. Of course, Russia as a nation-state is no competition for the West. But as the bridgehead of the Theory of a Multipolar World and the Fourth Political Theory, it changes its significance. Russian policies in the post-Soviet space and Russia's courage in forming non-Western alliances are indicators. For now, Putin is testing this conceptual potential very gingerly. But the toughening of relations with the West and most likely the internal crises of globalization will at some point force a more careful and serious turn toward the creation of global alternative alliances. Nevertheless, we already observe such unions: The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, BRICS, the Eurasian Union—and they require a new ideology. Not one like Marxism, any universalism is excluded, but also not simple realist maneuvers of regional hegemons. Liberalism is a global challenge. The response to it should also be global. Does Putin understand this? Honestly, I don't know. Sometimes it seems he does, and sometimes it seems he doesn't.
Vladimir Putin recently characterized the contemporary world order as follows: 'We have entered a period of differing interpretations and deliberate silences in world politics. International law has been forced to retreat over and over by the onslaught of legal nihilism. Objectivity and justice have been sacrificed on the altar of political expediency. Arbitrary interpretations and biased assessments have replaced legal norms. At the same time, total control of the global mass media has made it possible when desired to portray white as black and black as white'. Do you agree with this assessment? If so, what is required as a response to this international situation?
These are true, but rather naïve words. Putin is just indignant that the West establishes rules in its own interests, changes them when necessary, and interprets allegedly 'universal norms' in its own favor. But the issue is that this is the structure of the will to power and the very organization of logo-phallo-phono-centric discourse. Objectivity and justice are not possible so long as speech is a monologue. The West does not know and does not recognize the other. But this means that everything will continue until this other wins back the right to recognition. And that is a long road. The point of the Theory of a Multipolar World is that there are no rules established by some one player. Rules must be established by centers of real power. The state today is too small for that; hence the conclusion that civilizations should be these centers. Let there be an Atlantic objectivity and Western justice. A Eurasian objectivity and Russian justice will counter them. And the Chinese world or Pax Sinica [world/peace: same word in Russian] will look different than the Islamic one. Black and white are not objective evaluations. They depend on the structure of the world order: what is black and what is white is determined by one who has enough power to determine it.
How does your approach help us understand Russia's actions on the world stage better than other IR approaches do? What are IR analyses of Russia missing that do not operate with the conceptual apparatus of multipolarity?
Interesting question. Russia's behavior internationally is determined today by the following factors:
First, historical inertia, accumulating the power of precedents (the Theory of a Multipolar World thinks that the past exists as a structure; consequently, this factor is taken into account from many sides and in detail, while the 'tempocentrism' (Steve Hobden, John Hobson) of classical IR theories drops this from sight. We have to pay attention to this especially taking into consideration the fact that Russia is in many ways still a traditional society and belongs to the 'imperial system' of IR.) There are, besides, Soviet inertia and stable motives ('Stalinism in IR');
Second, the projective logic of opposition to the West, stemming from the most practical, pragmatic, and realist motivations (in the spirit of Caesarism, analyzed by neo-Gramscians) will necessarily lead Russia (even despite the will of its leaders) to a systemic confrontation with American hegemony and globalization, and then the Theory of a Multipolar World will really be needed (classical IR models, paying no attention to the Theory of a Multipolar World, drop from sight the possible future; i.e., they rob themselves of predictive potential because of purely ideological prejudices and self-imposed fears).
But if an opponent underestimates you, you have more chances to land an unexpected blow. So I am not too disturbed by the underestimation of the Theory of a Multipolar World among IR theorists.
In the western world, the divide between academia and policy is often either lamented ('ivory tower') or, in light of the ideal of academic independence, deemed absent. This concerns a broader debate regarding the relations between power, knowledge and geopolitics. How are academic-policy relations in Russia with regards to IR and is this the ideal picture according to you?
I think that in our case both positions have been taken to their extreme. On one hand, today's authorities in Russia do not pay the slightest attention to scholars, dispatching them to an airless and sterile space. On the other hand, Soviet habits became the basis for servility and conformism, preserved in a situation when the authorities for the first time demand nothing from intellectuals, except for one thing: that they not meddle in socio-political processes. So the situation with science is both comical and sorrowful. Conformist scholars follow the authorities, but the authorities don't need this, since they do not so much go anywhere in particular as react to facts that carry themselves out.
If your IR theory isn't based on politically and philosophically liberal principles, and if it criticizes those principles not from the left but from the right, using the language of large spaces or Grossraum, is it a fascist theory of international relations? Are scholars who characterize your thought as 'neo-fascism', like Andreas Umland and Anton Shekhovstov, partially correct? If not, why is that characterization misleading?
Accusations of fascism are simply a figure of speech in the coarse political propaganda peculiar to contemporary liberalism as the third totalitarianism. Karl Popper laid the basis for this in his book The Open Society and its Enemies, where he reduced the critique of liberalism from the right to fascism, Hitler, and Auschwitz, and the criticism of liberalism from the left to Stalin and the GULAG. The reality is somewhat more complex, but George Soros, who finances Umland and Shekhovstov and is an ardent follower of Popper, is content with reduced versions of politics. If I were a fascist, I would say so. But I am a representative of Eurasianism and the author of the Fourth Political Theory. At the same time, I am a consistent and radical anti-racist and opponent of the nation-state project (i.e. an anti-nationalist). Eurasianism has no relation to fascism. And the Fourth Political Theory emphasizes that while it is anti-liberal, it is simultaneously anti-communist and anti-fascist. I think it isn't possible to be clearer, but the propaganda army of the 'third totalitarianism' disagrees and no arguments will convince it. 1984 should be sought today not where many think: not in the USSR, not in the Third Reich, but in the Soros Fund and the 'Brave New World'. Incidentally, Huxley proved to be more correct than Orwell. I cannot forbid others from calling me a fascist, although I am not one, though ultimately this reflects badly not so much on me as on the accusers themselves: fighting an imaginary threat, the accuser misses a real one. The more stupid, mendacious, and straightforward a liberal is, the simpler it is to fight with him.
Does technological change in warfare and in civil government challenge the geopolitical premises of classical divisions between spaces (Mackinder's view or Spykman's) heartland-rimland-offshore continents)? And, more broadly perhaps, does history have a linear or a cyclical pattern, according to you?
Technological development does not at all abolish the principles of classical geopolitics, simply because Land and Sea are not substances, but concepts. Land is a centripetal model of order, with a clearly expressed and constant axis. Sea is a field, without a hard center, of processuality, atomism, and the possibility of numerous bifurcations. In a certain sense, air (and hence also aviation) is aeronautics. And even the word astronaut contains in itself the root 'nautos', from the Greek word for ship. Water, air, outer space—these are all versions of increasingly diffused Sea. Land in this situation remains unchanged. Sea strategy is diversified; land strategy remains on the whole constant. It is possible that this is the reason for the victory of Land over Sea in the last decade; after all, capitalism and technical progress are typical attributes of Sea. But taking into consideration the fundamental character of the balance between Leviathan and Behemoth, the proportions can switch at any moment; the soaring Titan can be thrown down into the abyss, like Atlantis, while the reason for the victory of thalassocracy becomes the source of its downfall. Land remains unchanged as the geographic axis of history. There is Land and Sea even on the internet and in the virtual world: they are axes and algorithms of thematization, association and separation, groupings of resources and protocols. The Chinese internet is terrestrial; the Western one, nautical.
You have translated a great number of foreign philosophical and geopolitical works into Russian. How important is knowledge transaction for the formation of your ideas?
I recently completed the first release of my book Noomachy, which is entirely devoted precisely to the Logoi of various civilizations, and hence to the circulation of ideas. I am convinced that each civilization has its own particular Logos. To grasp it and to find parallels, analogies, and dissonances in one's own Logos is utterly fascinating and interesting. That is why I am sincerely interested in the most varied cultures, from North American to Australian, Arabic to Latin American, Polynesian to Scandinavian. All the Logoi are different and it is not possible to establish a hierarchy among them. So it remains for us only to become familiar with them. Henry Corbin, the French philosopher and Protestant who studied Iranian Shiism his entire life, said of himself 'We are Shiites'. He wasn't a Shiite in the religious sense, but without feeling himself a Shiite, he would not be able to penetrate into the depths of the Iranian Logos. That is how I felt, working on Noomachy or translating philosophical texts or poetry from other languages: in particular, while learning Pierce and James, Emerson and Thoreau, Poe and Pound I experienced myself as 'we are Americans'. And in the volume devoted to China and Japan, as 'we are Buddhists'. That is the greatest wealth of the Logos of various cultures: both those like ours and those entirely unlike ours. And these Logoi are at war; hence, Noomachy, the war of the intellect. It is not linear and not primitive. It is a great war. It creates that which we call the 'human', the entire depth and complexity of which we most often underestimate.
Final question. You call yourself the 'last philosopher of empire'. What is Eurasanism and how does it relate to the global pivot of power distributions?
Eurasianism is a developed worldview, to which I dedicated a few books and a countless number of articles and interviews. In principle, it lies at the basis of the Theory of a Multipolar World and the Fourth Political Theory, combined with geopolitics, and it resonates with Traditionalism. Eurasianism's main thought is plural anthropology, the rejection of universalism. The meaning of Empire for me is that there exists not one Empire, but at minimum two, and even more. In the same way, civilization is never singular; there is always some other civilization that determines its borders. Schmitt called this the Pluriverse and considered it the main characteristic of the Political. The Eurasian Empire is the political and strategic unification of Turan, a geographic axis of history in opposition to the civilization of the Sea or the Atlanticist Empire. Today, the USA is this Atlanticist Empire. Kenneth Waltz, in the context of neorealism in IR, conceptualized the balance of two poles. The analysis is very accurate, although he erred about the stability of a bipolar world and the duration of the USSR. But on the whole he is right: there is a global balance of Empires in the world, not nation-States, the majority of which cannot claim sovereignty, which remains nominal (Stephen Krasner's (Theory Talk #21) 'global hypocrisy'). For precisely that reason, I am a philosopher of Empire, as is almost every American intellectual, whether he knows it or not. The difference is only that he thinks of himself as a philosopher of the only Empire, while I think of myself as the philosopher of one of the Empires, the Eurasian one. I am more humble and more democratic. That is the whole difference.
Alexander Dugin is a Russian philosopher, the author of over thirty books on topics including the sociology of the imagination, structural sociology, ethnosociology, geopolitical theory, international relations theory, and political theory, including four books on the German philosopher Martin Heidegger. His most recent books, only available in Russian at the moment, are Ukraine: My War and the multi-volume Noomachia: Wars of the Intellect. Books translated into English include The Fourth Political Theory, Putin vs. Putin: Vladimir Putin Viewed From the Right, and Martin Heidegger: The Philosophy of Another Beginning.
Related links
Who is Alexander Dugin? Interview with Theory Talks editor Michael Millerman (YouTube) TheFourth Political Theory website (English): Evrazia.tv (Russian) Evrazia.tv (English) Geopolitics.ru (English version) InternationalEurasian Movement (English version) Centerfor Conservative Studies (Russian)
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A New York Times poll released this week found that 13% of voters defecting from President Joe Biden, those who voted for him in 2020 but will not do so in November, cite his handling of foreign policy and Israel's war in Gaza as the reason for pulling their support. But an investigation by Responsible Statecraft finds that those same policies likely benefit the president's re-election campaign in a different way: his biggest funders happen to support them. A review of campaign contributions, philanthropy, and public statements reveals that over one third of the president's top tier funders — those giving in excess of $900,000 to the Biden Victory Fund — appear to see little nuance in the conflict and show overwhelming sympathy for Israel, at times verging into outright hostility to Palestinians and anti-Muslim bigotry.That's in sharp contrast with 13% of defecting 2020 Biden voters who say they won't vote for the president's reelection - a group that could tip the scales this November toward Donald Trump - only 17% of whom sympathize with Israel over the Palestinians."I think many Victory Fund members are in a bubble and out of touch with political reality but they also seem indifferent to the suffering of over 1 million children in Gaza whose lives are treated by Netanyahu and Biden as worth far less than those of Israeli children," said Amed Khan, a former Victory Fund donor who resigned in November over Biden's handling of the war. "The American people see these policies as morally repugnant."Thus, Biden likely isn't hearing those voices opposing Israel's brutal war in Gaza at fundraisers with his top donors.Take for example, billionaire Haim Saban, who contributed $929,599 to the Victory Fund. Saban also serves on the board of Friends of the Israel Defense Forces and contributed $1 million to the United Democracy Project, the independent expenditure arm of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, that runs ads supporting pro-Israel candidates and ads criticizing candidates deemed insufficiently supportive of Israel. Last week, in an email to Biden apparently forwarded by an intermediary, Saban slammed the president's decision to hold a weapons shipment to Israel, warning, "Let's not forget that there are more Jewish voters, who care about Israel, than Muslims [sic] voters that care about Hamas," suggesting that putting conditions on U.S. weapons transfers to Israel is akin to supporting Hamas.Saban made his priorities clear in a 2004 New York Times interview, saying, "I'm a one-issue guy and my issue is Israel."Saban's wife, Cheryl Saban, also donated $929,600 to the Victory Fund, gave $2.18 million to Friends of the Israel Defense Forces in 2022 (a gift made alongside her husband), and cheered on pro-Israel provocateur Ben Shapiro's statement that, "If Israel put down its guns tomorrow there would be a second holocaust. If the Palestinians put down their arms tomorrow there would be a Palestinian state." "Bravo," said Cheryl Saban last November.Mobile gaming pioneer Mark Pincus offered even more blunt statements. Pincus, who contributed $929,600 to the Victory Fund, is outspoken on Israel on social media."Why do we only see pro palestinians [sic] in acts of violence? Why has this become an accepted form of protest," he asked in a March 8 post on X."[T]heres [sic] no mention by nyt of baby beheading or Biden speech about it. [B]ut continued coverage of destruction in Gaza and Israeli military failures. [T]hey should rename as 'the new hamas times,'" wrote Pincus in an October 11 post, referencing the claim, walked back by the White House on October 12 that Biden had seen photographic evidence of babies beheaded by Hamas on October 7.LinkedIn co-founder and venture capitalist Reid Hoffman also has a history of praising elite IDF units. At the 2022 Aspen Security Forum, Hoffman said the U.S. needed a "digital ROTC" and used the Israeli 8200 signal intelligence unit as an example of what was necessary. (As it turned out, the 8200 unit was not active on October 7 because it doesn't operate on nights and weekends.)Hoffman currently funds a "1-year full scholarship executive excellence program" that is "specially tailored for outstanding alumni of IDF Elite Units," via the Hoffman Kofman Foundation.Attorney and political pundit George Conway, who also contributed $929,600 to the Victory Fund, regularly posts pro-Israel commentary on X while expressing little concern for Palestinians and expresses skepticism about the organizing behind college protests against Israel's actions.Other donors were less vocal but their recent philanthropy and political giving suggests a strong pro-Israel bent in their foreign policy views.Real estate and casino magante Neil Bluhm contributed $929,600 to the Victory Fund, $200,000 to the United Democracy Project, and $225,000 to the American Israel Education Foundation — the fundraising arms of AIPAC that arranges for congressional junkets to Israel, among other activities — via his family's charitable foundation in 2022.Entertainment and sports mogul Casey Wasserman donated $929,600 to the Victory Fund and $25,000 in 2022 to Israel Emergency Alliance (also known as Stand With Us), a pro-Israel group that works to oppose boycotts against Israel. Stand With Us, earlier this month in a press release, called for the resignation of Northwestern University president Michael Schill after he "announced a set of concessions to [student encampment protester] organizers Monday that included pledging to implement full-ride scholarships for Palestinian students and faculty positions for Palestinian academics."Pete Lowy, son of Australian-Israeli billionaire Frank Lowy, contributed $929,600 to the Victory Fund and maintains close ties to hawkish pro-Israel groups. "Retail industry tycoon Peter Lowy inspired and delighted over 100 IAC Supporters at a donor reception toasting Israel's 70th Independence Day on Tuesday, April 24," read a 2018 press release from the Israeli-American Council, a group that describes itself as "wholeheartedly support[ing] the State of Israel." And until 2020, Lowy served as a senior vice president at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), a pro-Israel think tank formed by AIPAC. Another Biden Victory Fund supporter, developer Eli Reinhard, who is listed as giving $1.84 million, also contributed $300,000 to WINEP and $50,000 to Friends of the IDF via his foundation in 2022.In total, nine out of the 25 donors who gave more than $900,000 to the Biden Victory Fund had either contributed funds to staunchly pro-Israel groups or made statements that showed a strong pro-Israel bias. Other donors were largely silent on the Israel-Gaza war or, like film director Steven Spielberg, have responded to the conflict by denouncing both anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim views.The New York Times warned that, "yearning for change and discontent over the economy and the war in Gaza among young, Black and Hispanic voters threaten to unravel the president's Democratic coalition." But Biden's most important campaign funders appear to offer a very different coalition than those in the broader electorate: donors with a one-sided support for Israel even as it wages a brutal war in Gaza that's incurring a steep political cost on Biden's reelection effort.The Sabans, Pincus, Hoffman, Conway, Bluhm, Wasserman, Lowy and Reinhard did not respond to requests for comment.
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With about 120 days remaining until Taiwanese voters head to the polls for the January 2024 presidential election, it's evident that Lai Ching-te, the candidate of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), has established a clear lead over each individual contender (although not when the combined strength of the others is taken into account). Although some public opinion polling has shown a strong sentiment for change in 2024, Lai has been consistently ahead with support fluctuating at around 35 percent, while his opponents have scored an aggregate of around 50 percent since May. And his prospects have improved even more since the founder of electronics manufacturing giant Foxconn, Terry Gou, formally declared his candidacy in late August, further fragmenting Lai's opposition by creating a third opposition candidate alongside Ko Wen-je of the Taiwan People's Party (TPP) and Hou Yu-ih from the Kuomintang (KMT). Even though Hou, Ko, and Gou have all declared a readiness to forge a coalition — a strategy that has emerged as the only plausible possibility of thwarting Lai's occupancy of the presidential palace – the prospect of each assuming a subordinate role in another's campaign likely remains highly unattractive to them, especially to Gou. Moreover, should any party display a willingness to make concessions, reaching consensus will likely require meticulous, confidential, and protracted negotiations. Given the current trend, a critical question looms large regarding the future of U.S.-China relations: Are Washington and Beijing prepared for another DPP administration in Taiwan led by Lai Ching-te, the self-proclaimed "political worker of Taiwan Independence?" Are the two powers ready for the unique set of risks that a Lai-led government in Taiwan could pose to their bilateral relations?As an avid baseball fan, Lai used to describe himself as a "relief pitcher" on the political mound, an observation elaborated by President Tsai Ing-wen, who praised Lai as a "skillful pitcher." Unfortunately, however, in terms of stability across the Taiwan Strait, what Lai could be skillful at is possibly delivering a "strikeout" scenario to the already fragile Sino-U.S.-Taiwan triangle.Lai's "strike one" could very well exhaust Beijing's strategic patience regarding peaceful unification. While discussions swirl about the possibility of Beijing having set a reunification deadline — some U.S. analysts argued for a 2027 timeline, others a 2035 deadline for forceful unification — these predictions often overlook the role that Taiwan's domestic politics could play in affecting Beijing's calculations. Beijing would likely be hesitant to confront a Taiwan leadership aligned with the "92 consensus" should the KMT's Hou pull off next year's presidential election. However, a third consecutive triumph for the DPP's presidential bid led by one of the mainland's least favorite Taiwanese politicians might lead Beijing to conclude that Taiwan's public sentiment has irreversibly shifted in favor of formal independence. If so, the prospects for much greater Chinese pressure on Taiwan – perhaps even a coercive takeover – could increase considerably."Strike two" on Lai's part would be the impact of his policies on the efficacy of Washington's longstanding "dual deterrence" strategy regarding the Taiwan Strait, an approach intended to discourage unilateral changes to the status quo by both Beijing and Taipei. Within the DPP, Lai is seen as a political figure deeply aligned with pro-independence forces, as witnessed by the more extreme stance he took during his challenge to President Tsai in the DPP primary in 2019. Lai's label, promoted at the time as the "golden grandson of Taiwan Independence" frequently evokes parallels with former Taiwan president Chen Shui-bian's moniker of "son of Taiwan."In recent months, some in the United States have seemed to cast doubt on Lai's stated intention to maintain the status quo. However, there is also strong support for Lai's pro-independence stance in Washington, especially in Congress. A Lai victory in next year's election would likely embolden support for Taiwan Independence in Congress and elsewhere and encourage him to alter President Tsai's relatively cautious stance on cross-strait issues and adopt more assertive pro-independence policies, thus undermining Washington's "dual deterrence" strategy.Lai's "strike three" would be the blow that he could deliver to Taiwan's economic prosperity. Despite President Tsai's effort to pursue economic diversification from China through initiatives such as the "New Southbound Policy," Taiwan's economic growth still largely relies on China. As Taiwan's biggest trading partner, China (Hong Kong included) accounted for nearly 40 percent of Taiwan's total trade in 2022. Taiwan's trade surplus with the mainland and Hong Kong even surged to $100.43 billion in 2022 from $66.66 billion in 2016. Such growth could be explained by China's tireless effort to woo Taiwan through economic incentives, as well as the geographically and culturally entwined relationship between Taiwan and the mainland.However, China has also been active in using economic disincentives, by stifling trade and exchanges on certain targeted commodities, to pressure Taiwan. Concerns have recently surfaced about China's possible intention to terminate the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) with Taiwan if Lai were to be elected. Although many argue that such a move itself would have only a limited impact on Taiwan's economy, the deeper implications for Taiwan could be substantially negative, as Taiwan's prosperity relies on investors' faith in a secure and stable environment.Of course, Lai rejects the notion that his presidency would constitute a "strikeout" for Taiwan. In a Bloomberg interview in August, Lai stressed his commitment to peace and the importance of upholding the status quo. In late August, he even playfully conveyed his willingness to share shrimp fried rice and bubble tea with Chinese President Xi Jinping in what was intended as a goodwill gesture.. In early September, Lai stated that he would "fight for peace" and seek cooperation with China if elected. In the eyes of many in Taiwan and across the globe, Lai's rebuttals present a compelling case. There are valid concerns regarding the KMT's pro-Beijing stance and the relative inexperience of the four-year-old TPP's ability to run a national government. These concerns revolve around the potential consequences: either strengthening China's sway and influence within Taiwan if the KMT should win, or weakening Taiwan's governance under the TPP at a time when the need for internal strength and unity is paramount in countering China's mounting pressure. Terry Gou's candidacy raises even more pronounced concerns, primarily stemming from the fact that Foxconn, the multinational company he founded, possesses billions of dollars in assets located within mainland China. This substantial economic stake potentially provides Beijing with significant leverage over a President Gou.These concerns have led many observers to view a government led by Lai as the least risky option, albeit not without its challenges.But a Lai victory in January 2024 will clearly pose major challenges to both Washington and Beijing. It is imperative that both capitals carefully think through the possible consequences that could result from such a development and consider policies designed to avert them. Doubling down on extreme opposition to a President Lai through coercive means (by Beijing) or greater political support for his pro-independence instincts (by Washington) could prove disastrous.
This thesis shall represent the arbitration regime under the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) in connection with protection mechanism of Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs). It shall analyse the achievements of ICSID and BITs and their influence of foreign direct investments, investors and the host country. Finally, this thesis will try to assess the achievements in this area and discuss advantages or disadvantages for the involved parties. Individuals and corporations are interested in foreign direct investments (FDI) to exploit new markets, to realize or to sell business ideas, and to raise their market value or personal wealth. Under an economical point of view, money or investments always found its way to the most efficient places on earth which were able to be reached in any century to produce a better or the same product or service for a better price. The raising of profit margins was the driving force to explore new markets; also foreign governments tried to attract investors from all over the world to create new jobs and import new technology for their economies to raise the capacity to compete on an international level. In the early nineteenth century the prevalent form of foreign direct investment was that carried out through loans and government bonds. In contrast, modern foreign investment is more characterized by direct investment on the spot: the building of infrastructure, like railroads or telephone networks, and the establishment of joint-ventures in the car industry, to name but two examples. Investment abroad also means to play in a new and unknown playground. Investors have to place their money in a foreign environment under different laws, different rights and duties, and with unknown future protection of their investments. This makes foreign direct investments an uncertain game, and uncertainty did always keep investors from direct investments in a foreign and unknown country. Furthermore, not only the unknown environment is an investment obstacle, investors also were faced with problems with governments in the foreign market. First foreign governments promoted foreign direct investments to raise their economic power. Large infrastructure projects had an important effect on the countries where they were constructed: they were the basis for a faster growing economy. Later the same governments or new political powers changed government positions regarding foreign investment and they restricted investment related money transfers of investors out of the investment area or they initiated measures and laws to expropriate the property of investors without financial compensation. The big infrastructure investments were seen as a necessity for the welfare of the citizens and as a security of the host state. Many host countries felt that these projects should be controlled by the government and not by foreigners. The treatment of aliens by governments was, and still is, dependent on political theories and influences. A change of the investment climate, the "political risk", can be a huge uncertainty for foreign direct investments. Every investor has to ensure that the investment is lucrative and that he has the possibility to reduce risks and cost in case of changes of the investment climate. In the past foreign investors had no direct way to enforce investments claims against a foreign state for its sovereign acts or for breach of customary international law. Instead, investors had to rely upon their own government taking up the claim on their behalf and try to solve the dispute by diplomatic measures. This dependence on others was inconvenient and unpredictable, and therefore dissatisfying for alien investors. The settlement of foreign investment disputes in the past was a question of political influence and economic power. Individuals or corporations had to influence their governments to take up their case on the state's behalf. This was only possible for very important and influential investors. The investor's state then sent warships to threaten the offending state until reparations were paid. This "gunboat diplomacy" was exercised frequently by European powers until the early twentieth century, for example when faced with Venezuela's default on its sovereign debt in 1902, the governments of Great Britain, Germany and Italy sent warships to the Venezuelan coast to demand reparation for the losses incurred by their nationals. The need for security and predictability for foreign investments was one of the main reasons to establish diplomatic relations with other states. Various ideas from the point of view of money receiving and money spending states were discussed and realized, from the Calvo doctrine - where contracts between the host state and foreign investors included an agreement in which the latter agreed to confine himself to the available local remedies without relying on diplomatic interference of his own state - to the principle of diplomatic protection - where a state espouses the claim of its nationals as a claim on its own behalf. With the Second International Peace Conference of The Hague in 1907, states agreed to a framework for the conclusion of bilateral arbitration treaties which were the basis for independent arbitration tribunals in case of a dispute between two states arising out of particular interests of its national investors. The right of diplomatic protection as mentioned above was still inadequate to promote foreign investments: the Latin American countries relied upon the Calvo Doctrine, which denied the possibility of interference under diplomatic protection principle. Also, the breach of investment treaties by states was still not sanctioned by public international law. Only expropriation was recognised quite early as a possibility for diplomatic protection claims. Furthermore diplomatic protection was only accessible for nationals of the claiming state. Questions arose what happens if transnational corporations claim protection? The obstacle for investors to convince their government to claim diplomatic protection for its nationals was very high and unpredictable to foresee. Also a claim against the home state to exercise diplomatic protection does not exist. Today, in our small world, where businesses are moved from the United States to India, industrial production is transferred from Europe to China, or new infrastructure projects are started in Central Africa, one cannot imagine international business without FDI. Foreign direct investments need security, investors need security. Security is necessary to promote foreign investment which is recognized as one of the driving forces in supporting development in developing and least developed countries. Investors want to know their rights regarding their investments and they want to enforce their rights directly in a fast and cost-effective way. The need for protection is the reason for various measures introduced by governments to secure investments. In the following the system of foreign dispute settlement under the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) in combination with Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) shall be highlighted. The ICSID is the result of the investor insecurity mentioned above. ICSID shall also support FDI in the developing countries. The focus shall be on the increased interest for BITs and the therefore increased interest in ICSID arbitrations. Why do states use BITs? Did the establishment of a neutral venue for investment dispute settlement reach its goal to depoliticise disputes? Is it used by investors, and what is protected? Do BITs play an important role in the system of dispute settlement and why? And how do they work together with the ISCID system?
The aim of the article is to delineate contours of certain social strategies, images and discourses as well as cultural practices related to the Lithuanianness, as culture and heritage imagined, constructed and contested in and among different waves and generations of the Lithuanian Americans. The period, the wave of immigration, the way it happened and in particular the rooted-ness in the American soil are basic markers for a distinct pattern of Lithuanianness to be recognized. Any one of these patterns falls into the ascription of a certain social strategy, ideology and politics of identity and is motivated and re-enforced by 'symbolic capital' taken from 'repository' (Castells 1997) of national or ethnic heritage. Consequently, the Lithuanian heritage gains its meaning as well as any item of the national 'repository' becomes imagined, (re) constructed and circulated differently among at least four generations of the Lithuanian descendants, who started to settle in the United States in 1860's as economic immigrants, continued in the late 1940s as political DPs (who have moved from displaced person's camps in Germany) and do continue up to the recent wave of post-Soviet Lithuanian immigration. Lithuanianness as ethnicity can operate as shelter and aid. This is a strategy of particular importance for the each category of the Lithuanian immigrants. It is a sort of model for ethnic subsistence, based on neighborhood ties, as well as on shared language skills and also on an appreciation of common cultural heritage in terms of ethnic foods and customs. Ethnic emancipation is a strategy especially evident during the establishment of the ethnic Lithuanian Catholic Church with service in Lithuanian although all believers in the diaspora never supported such a strategy. Nationalist mission is a strategy of cherishing, perpetuating and retaining ethnicity/nation-ness in terms of culture, language, traditions and heritage. The Lithuanian Charter of 1949 is the best example of the nationalist imperative and mission, applicable to any Lithuanian in exile "to pass on the culture to future generations to insure the eternal nature of his nationality' The parish of the Lithuanian Catholic Church is the most visible social network in the case of ethnicity. The role of the parish to shelter and embrace ethnic life, is most visible through the whole history of the Lithuanian diaspora in the US, in particular in its early stages. Only one other ethnic organization – the Lithuanian Community, (Lietuviu bendruomene) founded and maintained almost entirely by DPs, primarily for nationalist activities, could be compared in scale and popularity with the parish. For many that immigrated after World War II, the Lithuanian Community was at least of equal importance as was the parish to old-timers. The social networks of the post-communist immigrants are based on common social and economic experience of the Communist regimes, visible in the job market, such as the economy of favors, nepotism and clientalism. Participation in such social networks 'of their own' or 'groups of friends' is a source of higher salaries, more secure jobs, benefits, and finally, means of successful adaptation, helping immigrants to achieve higher social and economic mobility in American society. Earlier generations of immigrants also transplanted their social experiences from the home country, but unlike new immigrants, they were met by, and exposed to, the same or, at least, very similar social bonds in the new country, where the parish stands as the best example. The most critical issue along all waves of immigration is a normative image of home country. Old-timer's wave of immigration is overwhelmingly guided by rural and heroic romanticism of the old underdeveloped country. Their image of the people of this country is that of a 'strong' people who founded a medieval empire, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and regained independence from Russia twice during the last century, in 1918 and in 1990. It is also the main source of being 'proud of being Lithuanian'. The DPs image of the home country was constructed from the typical political refuge experience. The occupied and suffering country, left behind at the end of the World War II, encouraged them to take on a mission of regaining nation and retaining its culture. For the post-Communist newcomers, the image of the home country is full of postcolonial transitional uncertainty, with a clear understanding that Lithuania belongs to the Eastern European region with Russian as lingua franca. They are very self-conscious, and their image of the home country and Lithuanian people is in many ways focussed on the 'unique-communist regime – experience' as possessed by the immigrants themselves and their compatriots in Lithuania. The question of sociocultural production of meaning of ethnicity implies praxis of everyday life in diasporas, where manipulation of the Lithuanianness takes place. At least two Lithuanian cultural and heritage practices could be defined. The first involves the essentialisation and codification of culture and heritage. Discourses on the issue of 'birthright to glorious Lithuanian heritage' already appeared in the Lithuanian newspapers published in the US at the end of the nineteenth century. The issue of the Lithuanian culture was altered significantly by DPs. The perpetuation of the notion of occupied, and thus repressed and deprived, Lithuanian nation and its culture gained political acceptance within the US government. It gave political motivation for Lithuanian culture in the US to become more than one of many ethnicity cultures within the 'American dream', and to acquire a 'public' and 'prestigious' image. So, despite the predominant 'Melting Pot' cultural politics of the US during the post World War II period, the Lithuanian label held moral and cultural prestige. A second visible Lithuanian cultural and heritage practice in America invokes a cultural bricolage of retained and adopted elements. Cultural bricolage is conducted by creating new meanings for national/ethnic cultural forms of kinship, language, artifacts, visual-virtual materials, narratives and stereotypes. Ethnic identifications phrased as "Proud to be Lithuanian" or 'I am American first and Lithuanian always' along with a few catchwords or phrases in Lithuanian are starting point in practicing cultural bricoleur. An interest in family genealogies, which is usually strongly related to an interest in finding ethnic roots and eventually ends up in ethnic pilgrimages to Lithuania as a homeland (or the land of ancestors), also belongs to that practice. Material objects, which are supposed to belong to the ethnic/national repository, are used for decoration of private homes and public halls, usually enshrined by ethnic shrines. ; Manipuliavimas bet kuriuo ir bet kurio paveldo – ypač tautinio – aspektu vyksta ne tik ir ne tiek tautinės valstybės viduje, bet nė kiek nemažiau ir už jos ribų. Emigrantus, pabėgėlius, deportuotuosius ir kitus persikėlusius ar perkeltuosius sieja ne tik socialinė atmintis apie "namų šalį", bet ir transplantuoti, reprodukuojami bei sumeistraujami tautiniai paveldai. Šio rašinio tikslas – nubrėžti kai kurių socialinių strategijų, socialinių tinklų, įvaizdžių ir diskursų kontūrus, bendrais bruožais aptarti su konkrečiu etniškumu/nacionalumu sukibusio tapatumo kultūrines praktikas, kitaip sakant lietuviškumą – kaip savitą lietuviškos kultūros ir paveldo formą; t. y. kaip "lietuviškumą" įsivaizdavo ir įsivaizduoja, konstravo ir tebekonstruoja bei/ar siekia užginčyti skirtingos Amerikos lietuvių bangos ir kartos. Remiuosi 2000–2002 m. JAV Vidurio Vakarų valstijose atliktų antropologinių lauko tyrimų duomenimis. Didžiausias dėmesys skirtas Rytų ir Pietų Ilinojaus (įskaitant Westville, Collinsville, West-Frankfort ir Herrin) bei Misurio (St. Louis miesto rytinės dalies) valstijų buvusių angliakasių bendruomenių likučiams bei lietuvių gyvenamiesiems rajonams Èikagoje (įskaitant Brighten Park ir Marquette Park).
The term "inclusive cities" is increasingly being used as a "catch-all" phrase to signify intent but with little precision in its use. In this note we use "inclusive cities" to mean cities in which we see a commitment to an inclusive politics with the establishment of institutionalized interactions between organized groups of disadvantaged citizens and the state with local government taking a primary role. They are also cities in which governments have undertaken specific measures to secure improved access for low-income and otherwise disadvantaged groups to a range of essential goods and services including secure tenure for housing, inclusion in access to basic services and where required approval of and support for housing improvements. This note begins by considering who is excluded and from what and how. Seven challenges to the achievement of more inclusive cities are discussed: (i) lack of household income and the continuing prevalence of informal incomes; (ii) a lack of state investment capacity; (iii) a lack of political will; (iv) a lack of the basic data needed for identifying and addressing exclusion; (v) a lack of space for participation, especially by the lowest income groups; (vi) a lack of vision for what an inclusive city means within city government; and (vii) the constraints on inclusion from city governments organized sectorally. The note then discusses the metrics and indicators that can help inclusion and that have relevance for the post-2015 sustainable development agenda. These are challenges that governments and communities must tackle through their collective efforts. In terms of collaboration between groups, three particular challenges must be addressed:(i) to avoid being partial in their efforts and so to reach out to all groups in the city through finding forms of engagement that incentivize a breadth of activities drawing in all of those in need; (ii) to set up processes that outlive specific administrations or interests and that provide for continuity in collaboration between civil society and the state in each city; and (iii) to link across cities and city regions. We see a need to think about collaboration and joint efforts between city administration and surrounding municipalities, as well as a need to link experiences and efforts across cities. This should help in ensuring appropriate central government policies, regulatory frameworks, and the redistribution of resources.
Poland towards Russia between 1992 and 2015 and outline their specifics. The author attempted at a synthesis of major manifestations of Polish-Russian cooperation and most sticking points in the intergovernmental (international) relations during that period. An important objective was to show the sources and examples of a divergence of interests, and point to the goals, which were based on these premises, established by the foreign policy-makers in Poland and Russia and pursued in mutual relations and international affairs. Between 1992 and 2015, in Poland's foreign policy towards the East and national security policy, the relations with Russia and the Ukraine were of utmost importance. On the economic level, considering the volume of mutual trade turnover, Poland's main partner in the East was the Russian Federation, whereas on the political level, the Ukraine was seen as a strategic partner. Along with the Ukraine, Russia played a key role in Poland's security policy in the discussed period. It should be emphasized that Polish-Russian and Polish-Ukrainian relations were very closely linked, and so was Poland's policy towards Russia and the Ukraine. In Poland's foreign policy towards Russia, or in broader terms, in Polish-Russian relations between 1992 and 2015, seven stages can be distinguished; each having their own characteristic. Despite some new specifics in each particular stage, they all shared an element of continuity. The constant theme was a great divergence of interests between Poland and Russia, particularly with regard to the European security system, and the role of NATO in shaping this security, as well as further stages of the alliance's enlargement, especially by countries of the post-Soviet area; energy security and Poland's strive for diversification of fuels supplies faced with Russia's actions aimed at the diversification of routes of sending its gas and crude oil to Western Europe bypassing the Ukraine and Poland; a historic dispute, in which a thorough, satisfying for the Poles, explanation of the Katyn Forest massacre was particularly high on the agenda among other issues; opposing visions of building an order in Eastern Europe, and first and foremost, in the Ukraine. With the passing of time, especially after Poland's NATO and the EU accession, the future of Eastern European countries, particularly the Ukraine and Belarus, has become a fundamental issue in Polish-Russian relations. Both Russia and Poland treated Eastern European countries as a sort of a safety buffer. However, the two countries had entirely different visions of how this buffer ought to be shaped. The political leadership in Poland saw the strenghtening of national security in the strenghtening of the Ukrainian buffer through the Ukraine's membership in NATO and the EU, whereas for the political leadership in Russia, the strenghtening of national security through Ukrainian buffer meant preserving its outside NATO status, or incorporating it in the the security system built under the aegis of Russia on the area of CIS. A characteristic of the Polish-Russian relations in that period was a great imbalance to Poland's disadvantage, resulting from the differences in broadly understood physical potential of the two countries and, consequently, their international roles (Poland being a medium-size country situated in Central Europe and Russia being a superpower in Central Eurasia). The capacities of Poland to shape the situation in Eastern Europe on its own were incomparably lower than Russia's. Therefore, Poland was trying to make use of European and Euro-Atlantic multirateral structures, mainly through the Eastern Dimension realized by the EU and NATO, to have as much influence as possible, on the desired developments in Eastern Europe. The eastern policy under successive RP governments was characterized by their overrating, frequently, of their own capacities, lack of objectivity in assessment of the situation across our eastern border, and application of double standards, particularly in the policy towards Russia. Polish-Russian political relations throughout the post-Cold War period were critical, and improvements were relatively short-lasting. Not only Russia, but also Poland is to blame for such a state of events. The Polish side, due to historical reasons and imbalance of potential, expected Russia to take more initiative in coming to an agreement with Poland. However, it has to be admitted that in many activities undertaken by Poland with regard to European security, in particular Eastern European subregion, the interests of Russia were completly disregarded, although they did not have to be accepted fully. An example of this was Polish diplomacy in the second half of 2013 intended not to allow Russia to be included in the negotiations on the EU association agreement with the Ukraine about issues that had economic implications for Russia's interests. In their policy towards Russia, foreign policy-makers in Poland, forgot, all too often, or, were unwilling to remember, about the principle that in order to meet the security needs of one's own country, one should also consider the security needs of other countries, the neighbouring ones in the first place. Analyzing the policies under succesive III RP governments on European security and relations with the post-Soviet countries, it is hard to share the view prevailing in our country that Poland did its best to develop partnership and good neighbourly relations with Russia. Among politicians, publicists and the Polish society, there was a large group of people who took a stance, though it was not always formally articulated, that Poland has a right, or even a duty to remain hostile towards Russia. On the other hand, Russia should not act unfavourably towards Poland, regardless of Poland's anti-Russian policy, although, obviously, it was declared otherwise. One of the few stages showing a distinct improvement in Poland's policy towards Russia and a mutual willingness to normalize our political relations, was the one between 2008 and 2010, when an unsuccesful attempt was made at pragmatizing foreign policy towards Russia. Since the end of 2007, this new foreign policy, gradually encompassing other areas, led to a greater or lesser modification of the policy to date towards Russia, the Ukraine, Belarus and Georgia by basing it on the so-called positive realism. These new trends increased cooperation between Poland and Russia and, eventually, a considerable progress was achieved in normalizing our relations. Between 2008 and 2010, Polish policy towards the East not only changed in practice, it was also a conceptual change. The crash of the presidential plane at Smoleńsk (April 10th, 2010), in which 96 peple were killed, including President of RP Lech Kaczyński and His Spouse, was a major, if not primary reason why the normalization process (2008–2010) was seriously hampered to the point of a standstill between 2011 and 2013. The Smoleńsk air disaster, and conflicting stands over its causes in particular, exacerbated divisions in the Polish society and strenghtened reluctance, if not hostility, towards Russia. A large part of the Polish political class and society did not accept a version of an inadvertent air disaster (plane crash), whose causes, like not following correct procedures, lay on both Poles and Russians. The surveys conducted during the years following the Smoleńsk air disaster showed that over 30% of the Polish society were convinced that it had been an attempt on the life of the Polish delegation en route to a commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the Katyn Forrest massacre, and that the Russian government and secret services had been involved. After the Smoleńsk air disaster, foreign policy towards Russia and Polish-Russian relations became a ground for political struggle in our country. For many politicians and conservatist right-wing journalists, a demonstrated degree of anti-Russian sentiment became the main criterion of patriotism. In a large part of the Polish society, a belief was strenghtened that actions should be taken to weaken and isolate Russia, and to minimize, rather than increase cooperation between the two countries. This meant that internal conditions within our country, which could possibly motivate the foreign policy-makers to stop viewing Russia as the main threat and encourage a breakthrough in thinking about that issue, deteriorated markedly. Consequently, Polish-Russian relations between 2011 and 2013 remained in a state of deadlock. In the foreign policy of Poland between 1992 and 2015, Russia played the leading role. This, however, stemmed from Russia being perceived by the policy-makers as the main threat to our national security, not a recognized partner in pursuing this security. Throughout that period, in all successive stages of Polish security policy, Russia was regarded as the main threat. Each political leadership in Poland, especially since the mid 1990s, treated Russia in this way, and these were not merely anti-Russian declarations, but a guiding principle of the foreign policy. Behind it, was a conviction that Russian imperialism was timeless and Russia would never accept the sovereignty of Poland. It was an obvious reference to the classical Polish geopolitical thought about Russia posing main threats to our national security. During the crisis and conflict in eastern Ukraine, between 2014 and 2015, the foreign policymakers in Poland revived the stance of a military threat on the part of Russia. For the first time since the end of the Cold War, such loud voices were heard about a possible military attack on Poland. Unlike the earlier periods, when there was an informal presumption that Russia was a threat to the security of Poland, in 2014, for the first time, in III RP's security policy, Russia was formally pointed to as a direct military threat. It was articulated in official state documents, including Strategia Bezpieczeństwa Narodowego Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej from November, 2014, and in addresses delivered by the Polish government officials (for instance in exposé of Foreign Minister R. Sikorski and his follower G. Schetyna). The crisis and conflict in south-eastern Ukraine did not substantially change Poland's policy towards Russia. What did change between 2014 and 2015, however, was that much more emphasis than ever was placed on Russia being a threat to our national security, and there being a serious risk of a Russian direct invasion of Poland. During 2014 and 2015, the process of politicizing fear (policy of fear) of Russia was at its height. For Poland, a major outcome of the Ukrainian conflict and crisis was decreased national security and growing fears, among them the fear of Russian invasion, which does not mean that such a threat was real. During the years 2014 and 2015, Polish-Russian political relations at the highest level came almost to the point of being frozen. Important direct implications of the Ukrainian conflict for Poland's security were, apart from a growing fear of Russia, increased desires towards strenghtening its own defense capability, strenghtening NATO cohesion, increased involvement of NATO in our sub-region's security and closer bilateral Polish-American cooperation regarding military security. Resolving the conflict in eastern Ukraine as quickly as possible was in the interests of Poland. However, Polish diplomacy did not engage much in the conflict deescalation. They were very sceptical about the successive agreements aimed at ending the military operations negotiated within the frames of the so-called Normandy format (Mińsk I and Mińsk II). It seems that, considering the geopolitical situation in the Ukraine and divisions of the Ukrainian society, this country should remain a buffer state. Alternatively, coming out of this role should occur gradually, through a simultaneous Europeization of the Ukraine and Russia. Poland should not be interested in the "revolutionary" speeding up of the processes occuring in the Ukrainian society. Responsible politicians willing to serve the best interests of their nation should be aware of the limitations in pursuing even the most support worthy goals. The policy of every country, the foreign policy of Poland and the Ukraine included, should be founded on a realistic assessment of one's own capabilities so that aspirations would not outgrow the real possibilities of their attainment. Poland, aspiring to the role of the EU main expert in Russian and the post-Soviet area affairs, through insisting in the EU on the earliest possible Ukraine association with the EU, contributed in a way to the situation when the Ukraine had to choose between the EU and Russia. Polish politicians did not anticpate the negative outcomes of such acceleration for the Ukraine itself (including the loss of Crimea and strong separatist tendencies in the East of the Ukraine), as well as for Russian- Ukrainian relations and the security of Poland. Therefore, the firm support and involvement of the Polish political class in the so-called democratic revolution in the Ukraine during 2013 and 2014, can hardly be regarded as a succcess. Polish policy towards the East ended in yet another failure, which was shown as confirmation when Poland was not included in the talks aimed at resolving the Ukrainian crisis, which were held by officials from the Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France since the middle of 2014. The Ukrainian crisis and conflict was a turning point in Polish security policy and Polish-Russian relations. The Polish government officially began to treat Russia as the largest threat to the national and international security. A considerable part of the political elites in Poland did not see the threat in excessive dependence of Polish economy on Russian energy resources or other economic threats, but in a direct military attack. Generally speaking, it is unknown to what extent the Ukrainian crisis and conflict will, in the long run, have an impact on changes in Polish policy towards the East, particularly towards Russia and the Ukraine. It exposed the ineffectiveness of our foreign policy to date towards the East. In this context, a question arises: What will be mid- and long-term implications of the Ukrainian conflict for the modification or a radical alteration to Polish foreign policy towards the East? Another fundamental question pertains to Polish-Russian relations: What policy should Poland pursue towards Russia now and in the future? Will the foreign policy and security policy be directed, like in 2014 and 2015, at instransigence and confrontation, or will the normalization tendency prevail as regards Russia, and will the relations with the Ukraine be redefined? However, at the end of 2015, nothing implied that the foreign and security policy-makers intended to transform in any way the policy towards Russia and the Ukraine to date. It does not mean that changes will not be implemented in the years to come. It will be closely connected with the impact of the Ukrainian conflict on the modification of the policy of Germany and the entire European Union as well as the policy of the United States on the post-Soviet area. The crisis and conflict in eastern Ukraine strenghtened the legitimacy of argumentation that the main player in the post-Soviet area is Russia. None of the serious problems in this area can be resolved without the participation of Russia, and all the more, against Russia, which obviously, does not mean that the proponents of this stance overrate the capabilities of Russia in terms of shaping the closer and farther international environment. On this account, Polish policy will be hardly effective if at least some of Russia's interests in the post-Soviet area, especially in Eastern Europe, are taken into consideration, as was proven to date. Bearing in mind long-term consquences, the strategic conceptions of the Polish policy towards the East, should opt for the closest possible ties of Russia with political and economic structures of the EU and Euro-Atlantic structures (Europeization of Russia). This, in turn, should result in the evolution of the economic-political system of Russia into liberal democracy. The Ukrainian crisis and conflict classified the effectiveness of the Polish conception aimed at occidentalizing the Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova without simultaneously occidentalizing Russia. As was indicated by the proponents of this conception, its implementation assumed an inevitable cost such as a political conflict with Russia. The crisis and conflict in the Ukraine between 2014 and 2015 should be a good reason to change this stance. The biggest price for its implementation was paid by the Ukraininas themselves. Therefore, in the context of these experiences, Poland should suport not in opposition to Russia, but together with Russia, which does not imply that this process has to be fully synchronized. The direction of actions in this matter is of key importance. Despite the many contentious issues in Polish-Russian relations and different historical memory of Poles and Russians, in the long-term interests of Poland's security, lies implementing a cooperative and integrating, not a confrontational conception. For the normalization of Polish-Russian relations, it is essential that the successive governemnets of Poland and Russia should have a political will to a less confrontational approach towards disputable issues and resolve emerging problems in a compromising way, which is one of the "scarcest commodities" in the Polish-Russian relations. A compromise should not be treated as a failure, as is often believed, also by the Poles. It also requires changes in mutual perception. A true normalization of mutual relations between Poland and Russia will not be possible if the majority of political elites, media and society in both countries will see the other not even as a difficult partner of rival, but an enemy. The divergence of interests does not have to lead to hostility. The governing groups in Poland and Russia face a challenge in improving Polish-Russian relations. They can either attempt to broaden the area of common interests or to highlight the discrepancies and divergence of interests, and thus strenghten social attitudes prone to either cooperation or confrontation.
Este documento refleja el entorno dentro del cual se está luchando actualmente por la justicia de género en el mundo. También da un paso para atrás para darnos un marco analítico que explique las tensiones centrales entre la justicia de género y otros elementos de la justicia social o económica y las implicaciones estratégicas de los múltiples sitios en que operan las relaciones de género. Se inspira en las experiencias de feministas que se dedicaron al análisis y a la promoción al mismo tiempo que participaban en las negociaciones de las conferencias de las Naciones Unidas de los años 90. Estas conferencias – sobre el medioambiente, los derecho humanos, la población, el desarrollo social, la mujer, la vivienda, los niños, el VIH/SIDA, la seguridad alimentaria, el racismo – y sus revisiones cada cinco o diez años – han brindado una oportunidad única para negociar un programa social progresivo de forma sistemática y seguida. Pero aun cuando se estaban acordando los detalles de un programa de este tipo, el ámbito de la política económica estaba casi completamente supeditado al pensamiento económico neoliberal dominado por el Consenso de Washington. La interacción entre estas dos fuerzas constituye nuestro tema principal. El documento también comenta las implicaciones para la justicia de género del cambio en el orden mundial hacia la monopolaridad, y especialmente, el cambio de la era neoliberal a una época neoconservadora. El trabajo de feministas y demás académicos y activistas después de las conferencias de los años 90, muestran claramente que la seguridad de los medios de vida y de un entorno económico habilitador forman una base importante para satisfacer las necesidades de salud reproductiva y sexual mediante sistemas sanitarios que funcionen bien (Petchesky 2003). Sin embargo, algunos de los países que apoyaban más fervientemente la lucha por los derechos sexuales y de reproducción eran los más refractarios en las negociaciones económicas entre el Norte y el Sur. Estas tensiones se hicieron sentir no solamente en las conferencias de la ONU, particularmente en El Cairo y Beijing, sino también en sus revisiones 'más cinco'. A pesar de esto, se lograron avances considerables en cuanto a los derechos de reproducción y de salud sexual durante los años 90 por el control limitado sobre el poder del Estado que tenían los fundamentalistas religiosos. Este escenario ha cambiado mucho en el período neoconservador mediante, por un lado, más control por parte de los fundamentalistas religiosos sobre los niveles claves del poder estatal y, por otro, el auge de una economía política neoconservadora. La primera década de este siglo ha producido pruebas tangibles e importantes de lo dicho en conferencias claves sobre el VIH/SIDA, la infancia, la población, y también en muchos otros foros. Este informe parte de análisis previos de la fase anterior para extraer las consecuencias para el terreno actual en el que los feministas y sus aliados están luchando para mantener sus logros difíciles y avanzar hacia delante. ; This paper is a reflection on the environment within which the struggle for gender justice is currently under way in the global arena. It also steps back to provide an analytical frame to explain the core of the tensions between gender justice and other elements of social/economic justice, and the strategic implications of the multiple sites in which gender relations operate. It draws from the experiences of feminists who engaged in analysis and advocacy while participating in the negotiations of the United Nations conferences of the 1990s. These conferences— on environment, human rights, population, social development, women, habitat, children, HIV/AIDS, small island states, food security, racism—and their five- and 10-year reviews have provided a unique opportunity for negotiating a progressive social agenda in a systematic and ongoing way. But even as such an agenda was being spelled out, the global economic policy terrain was almost entirely subordinated to neoliberal economic thinking dominated by the Washington Consensus. The interplay between these two sets of forces is our subject matter. The paper also comments on the implications for gender justice of the shift to a unipolar world order, and in particular, the movement from the neoliberal era to the neoconservative one. The work of feminist and other scholars and activists following the conferences of the 1990s showed clearly that security of livelihoods and an enabling economic environment are an important basis for moving forward to meet reproductive and sexual health needs through well-functioning health systems (Petchesky 2003). Yet some of the very countries that were most vocal in their support for sexual and reproductive rights were also the most hard-nosed in South–North economic negotiations. These tensions came to the fore not only in the UN conferences themselves, especially Cairo and Beijing, but also in their "plus five" reviews. Despite this, considerable advances were possible on reproductive and sexual health and rights during the 1990s because of the limited control over state power by religious fundamentalists. This scenario has undergone a major change in the neoconservative period, with much stronger control over key levers of state power by religious fundamentalists on the one hand, and the rise of neoconservative political economy on the other. The first decade of this century has seen significant and tangible evidence of this in key conferences on HIV/AIDS, children, and population, as well as in many other sites. This paper builds on previous analysis of the earlier phase to draw out implications for the current terrain in which feminists and allies are struggling to maintain hard-won gains and move forward. ; Ce document est une réflexion sur l'environnement dans lequel se poursuit la lutte pour la justice sexuelle dans le monde. L'auteur prend aussi du recul pour fournir une grille d'analyse qui permette d'expliquer l'essentiel des tensions entre la justice sexuelle et d'autres éléments de la justice sociale et économique, et de tirer les conséquences stratégiques de la multiplicité des espaces dans lesquels interviennent les rapports sociaux entre hommes et femmes. Elle s'appuie sur l'expérience de féministes qui ont fait un travail d'analyse et de sensibilisation alors qu'elles participaient aux négociations des conférences organisées par les Nations Unies dans les années 90. Ces conférences, qui ont porté sur l'environnement, les droits de l'homme, la population, le développement social, les femmes, l'habitat, les enfants, le VIH/sida, les petits Etats insulaires, la sécurité alimentaire, le racisme, et l'examen de leurs retombées cinq et dix ans après ont été des occasions sans pareille de négocier un programme social progressiste de manière systématique et continue. Mais au moment même où ce programme se définissait, le terrain de la politique économique mondiale était presque entièrement occupé par la pensée économique néolibérale, elle-même dominée par le consensus de Washington. L'interaction de ces deux types de force est précisément le thème de ce document. L'auteur traite aussi des répercussions qu'ont eues sur la justice sexuelle le passage à un ordre mondial unipolaire et, en particulier, l'avènement de l'ère néoconservatrice après l'ère néolibérale. Les travaux réalisés par des féministes et d'autres intellectuelles et militantes à la suite des conférences des années 90 ont montré clairement que la sécurité des moyens d'existence et un environnement économique favorable sont des conditions importantes pour la satisfaction des besoins de santé gynécologique et génésique dans un système de santé bien rodé (Petchesky 2003). Cependant, certains des pays les plus assidus à défendre les droits en matière de sexualité et de procréation ont été aussi les plus intraitables dans les négociations économiques Sud-Nord. Ces tensions sont apparues au grand jour non seulement dans les conférences des Nations Unies elles-mêmes, en particulier au Caire et à Beijing, mais aussi dans les conférences d'examen tenues cinq ans plus tard. Malgré cela, il a été possible de réaliser des progrès considérables sur les droits et la santé en matière de procréation et de sexualité dans les années 90 parce que les fondamentalistes religieux n'avaient qu'un pouvoir limité sur l'Etat. La situation a complètement changé pendant la période néoconservatrice, marquée, d'une part, par une tenue beaucoup plus ferme des principaux leviers de l'Etat par les fondamentalistes religieux et, de l'autre, par la montée de l'économie politique néo-conservatrice. On en a eu des preuves tangibles et multiples pendant la première décennie de ce siècle, lors des grandes conférences sur le VIH/sida, les enfants et la population, et à bien d'autres occasions. Ce document s'inspire d'une analyse de la phase antérieure pour tirer les conséquences qui s'imposent pour la situation actuelle, où les féministes et leurs alliés se battent pour conserver des acquis durement gagnés et aller de l'avant.
Biogas production from anaerobic digestion of organic resources can potentially contribute to a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in several sectors and can play a central role in both the bioeconomy and the circular economy. Several European countries have political goals to increase biogas production and to increase the amount of manure to anaerobic digestion. The treatment method is, however, known to be costly and the markets for biogas and for digestate are immature. There is a need for a better understanding of how the biogas value chains should be designed to minimise environmental impacts while at the same time achieving profitability for the actors. In Norway the most common substrates for biogas production are sewage sludge and organic waste from households and industry. Manure is identified as the substrate with the greatest theoretical biogas potential, but there are currently few plants utilising manure. Until recently, biogas in Norway has mainly been applied to generate heat, where a large share has been utilised internally at the plant or in surrounding buildings. In the last few years, however, several new and existing plants have invested in upgrading equipment to produce biomethane for use as a fuel in the transport sector. The most common treatment of the digestate, which is a co-product from anaerobic digestion, is to dewater it and use the dry fraction as a soil improvement product, while the wet fraction is sent to waste water treatment. A few new plants do, however, deliver liquid digestate to agriculture as a biofertiliser. The objective of this thesis has been to make a contribution towards knowledge regarding ways of optimising Norwegian biogas value chains to reduce environmental impacts, by developing models that can provide decision support. The aim is to suggest improvements to the regulatory systems and the preconditions for further development of the biogas industry in Norway. Systems theory and system analysis methodology was applied, and three different domains were assessed: environmental impacts, economy of the actors in the value chain and policies. The case studies were limited to the substrates organic waste from households (food waste) and manure from cattle and pigs. In the economic assessment, only the annual results for the biogas plants and cattle and pig farms were calculated. Four scientific papers were developed as part of this PhD thesis. In the first paper, life cycle assessment methodology and generic results were presented for the BioValueChain model. The model was developed to be able to evaluate the environmental impacts of different options for biogas value chains. In the second paper, environmental assessment was combined with economic assessment of large scale biogas plants for four different value chain configurations. In addition, the most profitable option was used as a reference to calculate the incentives necessary to make the most preferable option in terms of reduction of environmental impacts as profitable as the reference. A comparative assessment of biogas value chains in Norway and Denmark was carried out in Paper 3. Denmark has implemented an end-use support of biogas through a feed-in tariff, while Norway provides investment support and support for farmers per tonne manure delivered to a biogas plant. The objective was to evaluate the effect of different regulatory systems. This was achieved by defining a Norwegian and a Danish biogas value chain, and calculating the costs and income. In addition, the economic results were calculated for the Norwegian value chain when assuming Danish conditions, and vice versa. In paper 4 the methodology of an optimisation model for the use of manure resources for anaerobic digestion in one region was described, and the model was employed to perform a case study on 50 farms in one region in Norway. The model calculated the economic profit for farmers and the greenhouse gas emissions for three options: no biogas production, farm scale biogas production and centralised biogas production. The results in this PhD work showed that the amount of organic waste and manure used for anaerobic digestion should be increased to reduce environmental impacts. The most preferable option for the use of biogas is as a fuel for transport to substitute diesel, and the best use of the digestate is as a fertiliser in agriculture as a substitute for mineral fertiliser, which requires a high level of sector integration in the value chain. To obtain a maximal reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, efforts should be made to avoiding diffuse emissions and reducing emissions from the storage of digestate. The economic calculations showed that large-scale biogas plants in general lack economic incentives to include the agricultural sector in the value chain. Inclusion of the transport sector is the most profitable option for use of biogas only for the largest scale biogas plants and for those who are able to sell biomethane for a high price. The most profitable option regarding the management of manure for cattle and pig farms was the supply of manure to a centralised biogas plant and the return of the digestate as biofertiliser. This was, however, dependent on the agreement between the farm and the biogas plant. As a result of the newly introduced support per tonne manure sent to biogas production, investment in a small scale biogas plant can also be profitable for most cattle and pig farms, all though the majority of farms in Norway would struggle to find a good use for the biogas on the farm. This indicates that the current barriers to increased use of manure resources for biogas production are not principally economic. The current support system has contributed to an increase in biogas production. Based on the assessments performed as part of this thesis, however, some recommendations were made to improve the framework conditions of an optimised biogas production in Norway, to reduce environmental impacts and achieve the political objectives. While the exemption from CO2 tax and road fee has contributed to an increased use of biogas in the transport sector, an increase in the taxes for fossil fuels could contribute to making upgrading of the gas the most profitable option for most large-scale biogas plants. Raising the importance of the environmental aspects in public procurements would enhance the role of biogas in achieving the political objectives of obtaining fossil free public transport and in the reduction of environmental impacts from waste treatment. In addition, it is important to consider measures that motivate large scale plants to use manure as a substrate and deliver digestate to agriculture. An increase in the knowledge regarding the economy of farm scale biogas production in a Norwegian context would make the results from the economic assessment more robust and reduce the risk for farmers in making the investment. These include knowledge with regard to the start-up and operation of small scale plants to avoid unforeseen costs. Political instruments that encourage the development of technology for cheaper small scale upgrading solutions could further reduce the greenhouse gas emissions, as would the use of raw biogas in tractors and other agricultural equipment currently using fossil fuels. In some regions, this could also be achieved by implementing regional development plans for farm scale production with piping infrastructure and centralised upgrading. These measures could promote an increase in the amount of manure for biogas production The work carried out as part of this thesis has shown that models combining environmental life cycle assessment and economic cost assessments can serve as decision support and can make a valuable contribution to policy development. The results are, however, highly dependent on the quality of the data used and the level of detail in the models. In order to increase the robustness of the results, there is a need for more research into the quantification of emissions from the storage and spreading of digestate, and ways in which they can be reduced. In addition, there is a need for a greater understanding of the properties of digestate as a fertiliser, such as the fertilising effect, carbon storage and other contributions to soil quality. More research should also be carried out on the emissions from dewatering and composting of digestate, and its use as a substitute for peat. Furthermore, the cost assessments could be expanded to also to include the economy of the actors in the transport sector and the farmers receiving digestate. ; Biogassproduksjon fra anaerob utråtning av organiske ressurser kan potensielt bidra til reduksjon av klimagasser i flere sektorer og kan spille en viktig rolle i både bioøkonomien og sirkulærøkonomien. Flere europeiske land har politiske målsetninger om å øke biogassproduksjon og øke mengden gjødsel til anaerob behandling. Behandlingsmetoden er derimot kjent for å være kostbar, og markedene for biogass og biorest er umodne. Det er behov for en bedre forståelse av hvordan verdikjedene bør utformes for å minimere miljøbelastningene samtidig som man oppnår lønnsomhet for aktørene. I Norge er de vanligste substratene for biogassproduksjon kloakkslam og organisk avfall fra husholdninger og industri. Gjødsel er identifisert som substratet med det høyeste teoretiske biogasspotensialet, men det er foreløpig få biogassanlegg som bruker gjødsel som råvare. Inntil nylig har biogass i hovedsak blitt brukt til å generere varme, hvor en stor andel har blitt brukt internt i anleggene eller til å varme opp bygninger i nærheten. I løpet av de siste årene har derimot flere nye og eksisterende anlegg investert i oppgradering og produserer biometan til bruk i transportsektoren. Den vanligste behandlingen av bioresten, som er et biprodukt fra den anaerobe behandlingen, er å avvanne den og bruke den tørre fraksjonen som et jordforbedringsprodukt og sende vannfasen til renseanlegg. Noen få nye anlegg leverer derimot den flytende biorest til lanbruket som biogjødsel. Hensikten med denne avhandlingen har vært å bidra til økt kunnskap om hvordan norske biogass verdikjeder bør optimaliseres for å redusere miljøbelastninger ved å utvikle modeller som kan gi beslutningsstøtte. Målet er å foreslå forbedringer av virkemiddelapparatet og forutsetningene for videre utvikling av biogassindustrien i Norge. Systemteori og systemanalyse-metodikk ble brukt, og tre ulike aspekter ble analysert: miljøpåvirkninger, økonomien til aktører i verdikjeden og politikk. Casestudiene er begrenset til substratene organisk avfall fra husholdninger (matavfall) og gjødsel fra storfe og gris. I økonomianalysene ble kun det årlige resultatet til biogassanlegg og storfe- og grisegårder analysert. Fire vitenskapelige artikler ble utviklet som en del av avhandlingen. I den første artikkelen ble livsløpssmetodikk og generelle resultater for BioValueChain-modellen presentert. Modellen ble utviklet for å muliggjøre evaluering av miljøpåvirkninger fra ulike alternativer for biogass verdikjeder. I den andre artikkelen ble miljøanalyser kombinert med økonomiberegninger for storskala biogassanlegg for fire ulike verdikjede-konfigurasjoner. I tillegg ble det mest lønnsomme alternativet brukt som referanse til å beregne hvilke insentiver som er nødvendig for at den mest gunstige løsningen med tanke på reduksjon miljøbelastninger, blir like lønnsom som referansen. En komparativ analyse av biogass verdikjeder i Norge og Danmark ble gjennomført i Paper 3. Danmark har implementert støtteordninger for sluttbruk av biogass gjennom en feed-in tariff, mens Norge tilbyr investeringsstøtte og støtte til gårder per tonn gjødsel levert til biogassanlegg. Hensikten var å undersøke effekten av ulike virkemiddelsystemer. Dette ble utført ved å definere en norsk og en dansk biogass verdikjede og beregne kostnadene og inntektene. I tillegg ble de økonomiske resultatene beregnet for den norske verdikjeden under danske forutsetninger, og vice versa. I Paper 4 ble metodikken til en optimaliseringsmodell for bruk av gjødselressurser i en region til biogassproduksjon beskrevet, og modellen ble brukt til å gjennomføre en casestudie på 50 gårder i en region i Norge. Modellen beregnet årlig økonomisk resultat for gårdene i regionen og utslipp av klimagasser for tre alternativer: ingen biogassproduksjon, biogassproduksjon på gårdsanlegg og sentralisert biogassproduksjon. Resultatene i PhD-arbeidet har vist at organisk avfall og gjødsel i større grad bør benyttes til biogassproduksjon for å redusere miljøbelastninger. Den beste løsningen for bruk av biogassen er som drivstoff slik at biogassen kan erstatter diesel, og den beste løsningen for bruk av biorest er som biogjødsel i landbruket til å erstatte mineralgjødsel, noe som krever et høyt nivå av sektorintegrering i verdikjeden. For å oppnå maksimal reduksjon av klimagassutslipp, bør det fokuseres på å redusere diffuse utslipp og å redusere utslipp fra lagring av biorest. Økonomiberegningene vise at storskala biogassanlegg mangler generelt økonomiske insentiver for å inkludere landbrukssektoren i verdikjeden. Inkludering av transportsektoren er kun det mest lønnsomme alternativet for anlegg over en viss skala eller for anlegg som får en høy pris for den oppgraderte gassen. For storfe og grisegårder er det mest lønnsomme alternativet med tanke på gjødselhåndtering å levere gjødsel til et sentralt biogassanlegg, og å få bioresten i retur. Denne konklusjonen er svært avhengig av avtalen mellom gården og biogassanlegget. Takket være den nylig introduserte støtten per tonn gjødsel til biogassanlegg, kan investering i et gårdsanlegg også gi økonomisk overskudd for bonden, til tross for vanskeligheter med å finne et godt bruksområde for gassen. Dette gir en indikasjon på at barrierene for å øke mengden gjødsel til biogassproduksjon på det nåværende tidspunkt ikke i hovedsak er økonomiske. Det eksisterende virkemiddelapparatet har bidratt til en økning i biogassproduksjonen. Basert på analysene som er utført i denne avhandlingen kan det likevel gis noen anbefalinger til forbedringer i rammevilkårene for en optimalisert biogassproduksjon i Norge, for å redusere miljøpåvirkningene og for å oppnå de politiske målsetningene. Unntak fra CO2-avgift og veiavgift har sannsynligvis bidratt til en økning i bruk av biogass i transportsektoren. En ytterligere økning i avgiftene for fossile drivstoff vil sannsynligvis medføre at oppgradering blir den mest lønnsomme løsningen for de fleste storskala biogassanlegg. Et økt fokus på viktigheten av miljøaspekter ved offentlige innkjøp kan bidra til å oppnå de politiske målsetningene for fossilfri kollektivtransport og reduksjoner av miljøbelastninger fra avfallshåndtering. I tillegg er det viktig å vurdere virkemidler som kan motivere storskalaanlegg til å bruke gjødsel som substrat og levere biorest til landbruket. En økt forståelse for økonomien til gårdsanlegg under norske forhold vil gjøre resultatene fra de økonomiske beregningene mer robuste og redusere risikoen for bønder som ønsker å investere. Dette inkluderer kunnskap om oppstart og drift av småskalaanlegg for å unngå uforutsette utgifter. Politiske virkemidler som legger til rette for utvikling av teknologi for billigere småskala-oppgradering kan redusere klimagassutslippene ytterligere. Det samme kan bruk av rågass i traktorer og annet landbruksutstyr, som på det nåværende tidspunkt bruker fossilt drivstoff. I noen regioner kan det være aktuelt å lage en regional plan for biogassproduksjon med rørnett og sentralisert oppgradering. Disse tiltakene vil kunne bidra til å øke mengden gjødsel til biogassproduksjon. Arbeidet som er gjennomført i forbindelse med denne avhandlingen har vist at modeller som kombinerer livsløpsanalyser og økonomiberegninger kan bidra med beslutningsstøtte og kan gi verdifulle innspill til politikkutforming. Det er likevel viktig å være oppmerksom på at resultatene er svært avhengig av kvaliteten på datagrunnlaget og detaljnivået til modellene. For å øke robustheten til resultatene er det behov for mer forskning på kvantifisering av utslipp fra lagring og spredning av biorest, og reduksjon av disse utslippene. Det er i tillegg behov for en bedre forståelse av egenskapene til biorest som et gjødselprodukt, slik som gjødseleffekt og karbonlagringseffekt og andre bidrag til jordkvalitet. Det er også behov for mer kunnskap om utslipp fra avvanning og kompostering av biorest og på erstatning av torv. Videre kan kostnadsberegningene med fordel utvides til å inkludere aktørene i transportsektoren og gårder som mottar biorest. ; publishedVersion
