Suchergebnisse

First Online: 13 September 2018 ; The contributions on cloud communities and citizenship in this blog raise both hopes and fears. The reality of an idea initially as outlandish as citizens of a digital cloud is materialising as we ponder and debate its practices. Political theory and the law must attempt to keep up with these rapidly changing circumstances. This comment raises some questions regarding three assumptions in this debate: (1) Cloud states have no territory; (2) Cloud states cannot exert violence; (3) Cloud state membership is based on choice.

In explaining the development of institutional structures within states, social science analysis has focused on autochthonous factors and paid less attention to the way in which external factors, especially purposive agent-directed as opposed to more general environmental factors, can influence domestic authority structures. For international relations scholarship, this lacunae is particularly troubling or perhaps, just weird. If the international system is anarchical, then political leaders can pursue any policy option. In some cases, the most attractive option would be conventional state to state interactions, diplomacy, or war. In other instances, however, changing the domestic authority structures of other states might be more appealing. In some cases, domestic authority structures have been influenced through bargaining, and in others through power. Power may reflect either explicit agent-oriented decisions or social processes that reflect the practices, values, and norms of more powerful entities.

In this article I analyse how Georgia, as a political entity, coped with the de facto loss of two of its territories: Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The process by which Georgia lost these territories started in early 1990 and reached its final phase in 2008 after the Georgian-Russian war. This article explores how Georgia adjusted to these losses without ever acknowledging its loss of the two territories, demonstrating a perfect example on how the normative territorial structure of an international system works. The analysis focuses on the crucial role of time in the process of the de facto territorial changes and examines how Georgia, in adapting to territorial losses and through its own actions, actually strengthened its separation from Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

"Communist State Administrative Structures" published on by Oxford University Press.

Ordered printed January 2, 1838 ; Caption title ; Mode of access: Internet.