Desirable, Sufficient, Realistic?

Perhaps nothing complicates tackling the numerous issues with Facebook more than the fact that it is a free service. A simple thought experiment raises a series of questions that illuminate the complexity of the situation: imagine of the company were to charge a dollar for a month of use. Would that near-negligible but at least concrete monthly fee drastically change the way we approach the social media behemoth in terms of our expectations regarding, for example, data privacy, and the general value of the service that we expect to be provided in exchange for our money?

Perspectives for the next year from the Antall József Knowledge Centre Research Team

This year, New Years’ Eve will not only see a regular new year coming but the closing of a whole decade. The aggregate analysis of the AJRC research group points toward specific likely conclusions about the world which suggest 2020 to be a concluding year of the problems of the 2010s. Many of those issues that characterised international relations for quite some time have now reached a point of rest—though not resulted in a definitive outcome.

The aim of present paper is to analyse and compare different approaches to the challenges and opportunities that Europe and Asia face in terms of connectivity, especially in the light of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), as well as the EU’s Asia-Europe connectivity plan. The paper primarily focuses on the economic, political, and geopolitical dimensions of the topics at hand. Firstly, the authors touch upon different approaches to connectivity and compare the EU’s connectivity plan and BRI. Secondly, the developments of BRI will be presented along with actual cases that show how BRI projects have been realized so far.

Analysing Israel’s Balancing between Business Engagement with Rising Powers and Its Special Relationship with the West

The State of Israel is situated in a unique position on the globe, as it is the only land bridge between Eurasia and Africa, literally the centre of the “World Island.” The “World Island,” an expression which came from the works of the renowned geopolitical thinker Halford Mackinder, is the superstructure of the Asian, European and African continents.

Understanding the Political and Economic Ramifications of Sanction Policies Four Years Later

The geographical proximity of Russia to the EU affords the EU many logistical benefits. This is especially relevant for the V4 nations of Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia. Due to its economically advantageous location, Central Eastern Europe (CEE) has historically looked east as much as it has looked west. With the advent of the 2014 economic sanctions though, this dynamic is changing.

Nationalism and revisionism has been growingly a part of international discussions about Japan in the past 15-or-so years, and it does not seem to simmer down anytime soon. On the contrary, the Abe administration seems to accelerate not only the public debate about the phenomena, but the movement itself too. During these debates, much of the calculations are about the relevance of nationalism and how much influence does it – really – have.

Challenges of democratic consolidation in Serbia

After the dissolution of Yugoslavia and the end of the bloody civil war, democratic transition could have started in the Western Balkans accompanied by the strong assist and support of the European Union. Although this process has been delayed in some countries due to different types of challenges, since the beginning of the 2000s the institutional background for democratic political systems has been provided in the region.

Priorities and challenges after the general elections

Shortly after the Italian general elections, many analysts predicted that the country should be prepared for a long negotiation process that could even take few months. After the negotiations, a new, unprecedented gov­erning-coalition took the responsibility to lead Italy for the next five years. In fact, the two most voted parties, the Five Stars Movement (Movimento Cinque Stelle, M5S) and the League (Lega), which expressed a strong anti-establishment and Eurosceptic rhetoric, merged their programmes and made an agreement for “changing the country.”