A state's foreign policy or external policy is its objectives and activities in relation to its interactions with other states, unions, and other political entities, whether bilaterally or through multilateral platforms. The Encyclopedia Britannica notes that a government's foreign policy may be influenced by "domestic considerations, the policies or behaviour of other states, or plans to advance specific geopolitical designs."
In international relations, multilateralism refers to an alliance of multiple countries pursuing a common goal.
Unilateralism is any doctrine or agenda that supports one-sided action. Such action may be in disregard for other parties, or as an expression of a commitment toward a direction which other parties may find disagreeable. As a word, unilateralism is attested from 1926, specifically relating to unilateral disarmament. The current, broader meaning emerges in 1964. It stands in contrast with multilateralism, the pursuit of foreign policy goals alongside allies.
Sovereigntism, sovereignism or souverainism is the notion of having control over one's conditions of existence, whether at the level of the self, social group, region, nation or globe. Typically used for describing the acquiring or preserving political independence of a nation or a region, a sovereigntist aims to "take back control" from perceived powerful forces, either against internal subversive minority groups, or from external global governance institutions, federalism and supranational unions. It generally leans instead toward isolationism, and can be associated with certain independence movements, but has also been used to justify violating the independence of other nations.
Global governance refers to institutions that coordinate the behavior of transnational actors, facilitate cooperation, resolve disputes, and alleviate collective action problems. Global governance broadly entails making, monitoring, and enforcing rules. Within global governance, a variety of types of actors – not just states – exercise power. Governance is thus broader than government.
An international environmental agreement or sometimes environmental protocol, is a type of treaty binding in international law, allowing them to reach an environmental goal. In other words, it is "an intergovernmental document intended as legally binding with a primary stated purpose of preventing or managing human impacts on natural resources."
The Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) was a draft agreement negotiated in secret between members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) between 1995 and 1998. It sought to establish a new body of universal investment laws that would grant corporations unconditional rights to engage in financial operations around the world, without any regard to national laws and citizens' rights. The draft gave corporations a right to sue governments if national health, labor or environment legislation threatened their interests. When its draft became public in 1997, it drew widespread criticism from civil society groups and developing countries, particularly over the possibility that the agreement would make it difficult to regulate foreign investors. After an intense global campaign was waged against the MAI by the treaty's critics, the host nation France announced in October 1998 that it would not support the agreement, effectively preventing its adoption due to the OECD's consensus procedures.
Inter Press Service (IPS) is a global news agency headquartered in Rome, Italy. Its main focus is news and analysis about social, political, civil, and economic subjects as it relates to the Global South, civil society and globalization.
Paradiplomacy is the involvement of non-central governments in international relations. The phenomenon includes a variety of practices, from town twinning to transational networking, decentralized cooperation, and advocacy in international summits. Following the movement of globalisation, non-central governments have been playing increasingly influential roles on the global scene, connecting across national borders and developing their own foreign policies. Regions, states, provinces and cities seek their way to promote cooperation, cultural exchanges, trade and partnership, in a large diversity of ways and objectives depending on their decentralization, cultural, and socio-economical contexts. This trend raises new questions concerning public international law and opened a debate on the global governance regime, and the evolution of the nation-led system that has provided the grounds for the international political order in the last centuries.
A trade preference is a preference by one country for buying goods from some other country more than from other countries. It grants special support to one country over another. It is the opposite of a trade prohibition.
Environmental governance (EG) consist of a system of laws, norms, rules, policies and practices that dictate how the board members of an environment related regulatory body should manage and oversee the affairs of any environment related regulatory body which is responsible for ensuring sustainability (sustainable development) and manage all human activities—political, social and economic. Environmental governance includes government, business and civil society, and emphasizes whole system management. To capture this diverse range of elements, environmental governance often employs alternative systems of governance, for example watershed-based management.
Sea transport accounts for most of the European Union external and internal commerce. The EU is the world's third-largest importer of fisheries and aquaculture products and the fifth-largest producer. Maritime borders make up more than 70% of the Union's external borders, and hundreds of millions of travelers pass through European ports each year. The security of Europe's energy supply is heavily reliant on marine transit and infrastructure. The significant expansion of EU Member States' fleets, as well as suitable port infrastructure, contribute to a well-functioning energy market and supply security, and hence to European residents' and the European economy's overall well-being. The Arctic region is therefore a vital new area for the EU to work towards and a new strategy for the Arctic region that matches with the European green deal was established in late 2021.
Joseph Camilleri is an Australian citizen of Maltese descent. He is a social scientist and philosopher. In philosophy he mostly specialised and interested in international relations.
Multistakeholder governance is a practice of governance that employs bringing multiple stakeholders together to participate in dialogue, decision making, and implementation of responses to jointly perceived problems. The principle behind such a structure is that if enough input is provided by multiple types of actors involved in a question, the eventual consensual decision gains more legitimacy, and can be more effectively implemented than a traditional state-based response. While the evolution of multistakeholder governance is occurring principally at the international level, public-private partnerships (PPPs) are domestic analogues.
Hans Emiel Aloysius Bruyninckx is a Belgian political scientist and international relations scholar specialized in international environmental governance and European environmental politics. He has headed the European Environment Agency since 2013. While in this position, he is on leave from his posts as Professor of International Relations and Global Environmental Governance, Institute for International and European Policy; and Director, Research Institute for Work and Society, both at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.
Raffaele Marchetti is an Italian political scientist and editorialist.
Satish Modh is an Indian author, independent researcher & professor of strategy. He was the former chairman of the Aeronautical Society of India, Mumbai Branch. Satish Modh has authored several pioneering books on strategic management, leadership, ethics, disaster management and conflict resolution. He has been considered by several leading newspapers to provide expert opinion on contemporary affairs related to economy, business, higher education etc. His latest book Discover the Arjuna in You published by Jaico Publishing House was well received among management students & stalwarts.
Vegan studies or vegan theory is the study of veganism, within the humanities and social sciences, as an identity and ideology, and the exploration of its depiction in literature, the arts, popular culture, and the media. In a narrower use of the term, vegan studies seeks to establish veganism as a "mode of thinking and writing" and a "means of critique".
Rohinton P. Medhora is a Canadian economist. His fields of expertise are monetary and trade policy, international economic relations, and development economics. He is a Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) distinguished fellow and former president of CIGI.
Politicisation is a concept in political science and theory used to explain how ideas, entities or collections of facts are given a political tone or character, and are consequently assigned to the ideas and strategies of a particular group or party, thus becoming the subject of contestation. Politicisation has been described as compromising objectivity, and is linked with political polarisation. Conversely, it can have a democratising effect and enhance political choice, and has been shown to improve the responsiveness of supranational institutions such as the European Union. The politicisation of a group is more likely to occur when justifications for political violence are considered acceptable within a society, or in the absence of norms condemning violence.
Opening Towards Omnilateralism, in: Baikady, R., Sajid, S., Nadesan, V., Przeperski, J., Islam, M.R., Gao, J. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Global Social Change . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham., 6.8.2022, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-87624-1_218-1, by Wolfgang Pape
