Part 2 Scenarios of Deteriorating Relations The Chinese-Russian relationship has been stable over the last two decades and continues to improve. Even the Russian interventions in Ukraine and in Syria did not lead to deteriorating relations, a scenario some western analysts predicted (Fu Ying, 2016). However, the Chinese response to the crisis in Ukraine gives an insight into the limits of their relation. China was ve

Part 1 Ties between the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation currently are rather friendly, especially if compared to the conflict-ridden years during the Cold War (Fu Ying, 2016). The first step to better relations was laid down in 1989 when Mikhail Gorbachev paid an official visit to China, marking the normalization of their relations. The relationship subsequently improved, leading to a „str

In den vergangenen zwei Monaten starben bei Terroranschlägen in der Türkei (10. Oktober), in Ägypten (31. Oktober), im Libanon (12. November) sowie im Irak und in Frankreich (jeweils 13. November) insgesamt mehr als 500 Menschen, weit über 1.000 wurden zum Teil schwer verletzt. 14 Jahre nach Verkündung eines vollumfänglichen „War on Terror“ müssen sich nun endlich alle Verantwortlichen eingestehen, dass man den damal

A critical comment. From a cynical point of view Hashtags like #PrayForParis and the Tricolour-Feature for profile pictures on Facebook seem like marketing strategies to profit from a momentary social media buzz. As well as other (news) media cycles, the Web 2.0 deals in numbers of traffic, views, clicks and hits. So, from an unemotional – maybe even heartless – position these aspects of a tragedy seem like opportuni

Norms in Constructivist Tradition Beginning with Alexander Wendt’s famous article “Anarchy is what states make of it” (1992: 391-425) the theory of constructivism has increasingly become more important in the study of international relations. Apart from meta-theoretical issues, including epistemology or ontology, constructivism also deals with independent variables which might affect the behavior of states. One

After hearing a talk from Kilian Kleinschmidt about refugee treatment and his work in the world’s 3rd biggest refugee camp in Jordan, I couldn’t help but wonder about the concepts of social entrepreneurship. In talking about his work as “the mayor of Zaatari”1, he described how the UN treated refugees as victims, who had to be feed (2100 kcal a day), a right to water access, sanitation and 4,5 m2 of space

Fragt man nach den passendsten Schlagwörtern zur Beschreibung der aktuellen innen- und außenpolitischen Geschehnisse, stünden die Termini „Flucht“, „Asyl“ und „Massenmigration“ im Ranking wohl ganz klar vorne. Politik und Medien jonglieren tagtäglich mit diesen Begriffen und suggerieren der Öffentlichkeit sehr eindringlich, welche Aspekte der Flüchtlingskrise gerade „bedeutsam“ und damit vorrangig zu thematisieren se

How can such a sparsely populated, small plot of land at the eastern end of the Mediterranean arrogate Turkey’s foreign policy, and even thwart its EU accession? The answer has two dimensions, one is Turkey’s problems with its immediate security orbit; the other is the EU’s internal problems in regard to Turkey. While the former is a best practice example of the application of realist theory on actual events, the lat

Several months ago, a Washington Post article took up the delicate task to parallel the Houses of Westeros, the fictional entities of the Game of Thrones books and series, with the countries of the Middle East1. What started as a far stretched endeavor, resulted in an exceptionally well placed comparison. My heart as a fan of Game of Thrones was of course immediately taken by the writing. But more so, my mind as an a

Spoiler alert: no. Looking at the current security policy of Turkey, one might assume the government in Ankara went bonkers, fighting a peaceful left-wing grassroots organization that is currently devoting most of its energy to fight the Islamic State in both Iraq and Syria and which was key in liberating Yazidis from mount Sinjar helping to prevent mass atrocities against innocent people. But the picture is complete