Ukraine has crossed the line. The tension in the country, which has been increasing since the fall, has resulted in a kind of failed coup, such as the one that happened in Russia in 1993. Until recently, this seemed impossible in Ukraine, with its different political culture.
However, not only is it possible, it is worse. In Russia, October 1993 was the tragic end of a struggle for power, and it put an end to any questions about the direction in which the country was headed. This is not the case...
... to waltz past (BBC, 2013). It seems, this area will be where the geopolitical game will be played for the foreseeable future, be it as a test-bed for China or off-shoring policy for the US. Maybe we ought to welcome such rivalry and its resurgence in geopolitics - if we adapt an accepted principle that in business a supreme practice is reached via competition. We should not forget that the reason the Cold War period remained relatively calm, was because USA kept USSR in check, while USSR kept USA ...
This post will examine whether unrecognised states really fit such a title, and why it is that unrecognised states remain unrecognised and thus outside of the international state system. This will involve a brief appraisal of the definition of statehood itself, as well as a review of the two main theories concerning state recognition. Finally this post will outline the thought process behind non-recognition in international law.
As regards the current legal status of statehood there is little...
... is that of neo-realism. Neo-realism assumes that it is international constraints that influence state behaviour, in general overriding domestic interests and internal political struggles. 7 This assumption, intertwined as it is with the discipline of geopolitics and rational thought theory, essentially reduces the foreign policy of small states to predetermined actions outside of their control. The founding father of neo-realism, Kenneth Waltz, ascribed to the overarching realist principle of anarchy ...
