Abstract ▼

Since 2015 more than one million migrants from the Middle East, Africa and Asia have arrived on the European soil. The phenomenon of the “European Refugee Crisis” impacted on increased security risk, new economic and social issues as well as on political and geopolitical pressures overall on the European Union and its member states. In order to face the crisis, the European Union and its members had turned to operational actions and political pressures in accordance with its principles of foreign and security politics. This article will focus on a particular member state, Austria, and its political action toward the crisis. Even though Austria was characterized as a part of the “western group of member states”, with the arrival of the new government coalition which was a collaboration of the Austrian People’s Party (conservative party, ÖVP) and the Freedom Party of Austria (far-right part, FPÖ), it tended more to the politics of the eastern group of states especially when it came to the European refugee crisis. Following this, new issues/questions emerged: What are the biggest concerns of the new government coalition? What changes did the Austrian new government implement into European Asylum Law? What is the new treatment for migrants in Austria?

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The paper investigates to what extent the Chinese geopolitical position is prone to change in the 21st century, in the context of its policy towards the EU and especially sub-initiatives such as the “16+1”. To address this issue, the Hegemonic Stability Theory (HST) postulates developed by Charles P. Kindleberger will be employed. Besides its wide application within IR research, this theory is fruitful as it presents a solid basis for exact indicators which can be established and compared. While the first two premises according to which China is the world’s benevolent leader are not questioned (large and growing economy as well as being political and military power), there is the third one according to which a hegemon must commit to the system, which needs to be perceived as mutually beneficial for other great powers and important state-actors. The “16+1” initiative will serve as a case study and will demonstrate that China’s foreign policy is far from being only a middle range power. The author starts with testing the first two postulates of the theory on Chinese economic presence in the Central and Eastern Europe space, followed by China’s commitment to the international system in which the “16+1” initiative will be analyzed as a challenging factor for its relations with the EU. This paper points out the Sino-European cooperation model which presents the basis for creating the EU’s attitude towards this and recent similar Chinese initiatives.

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The present article focuses on the current arms race between the USA and Russia with the aim to investigate if it will lead to a constant increase of the military budget and eventually to the collapse of the Russian economy. Therefore, it briefly mentions the Cold War time arms race and then draws parallels with the present situation. The Russian military budget has been rising since the 2000s; however, dramatic changes have occurred in the military sector since the Munich Speech in 2007. Hence, a correlation between international events and budget is analyzed in the article. In order to approach the research question, it is necessary to discuss two geopolitical crises that both powers are involved in - the Ukrainian crisis and the Syrian Civil War. Here it is important to highlight that Russia did not provoke either one, while the USA could be taken responsible for both.

Abstract ▼

The Kurdish issue, that is, the independence aspiration of the largest nation in the world without a state, is the subject of study from a wide variety of aspects. This article deals with the explanation of the Kurdish issue in Turkey from the historical and foreign-policy aspect, as well as with the genesis and the TurkeyKurdish conflict transformation. The author has also attempted to identify key domestic and international factors that have shaped the Turkey-Kurdish relationship over time. The aspirations of the Turkish Kurds, as a rule, included the taking of ideological standpoints opposite to those of the ruling Turkish political elites. During the XX century, at the time of the secular and pro-Western orientation of Turkish politics, the Kurdish liberation movement was at first painted with religious colors while during the Cold war it was heavily influenced by Marxist-Leninist ideas. This also was a period when the Kurdish question was exclusively the internal issue of Turkey. In the 1990s, the Kurdish political organizations laid the foundations for their ideological transformation into civicliberal movements, which among other factors contributed to the increase of international public interest for their problems. Today, Turkey’s Kurdish conflict is primarily determined by the dynamic of the Syrian civil war, where the Kurdish liberation movement is being consolidated.