New Blog Posts: On the Brexit

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flickr | freestocks orgFor the first time in the history of the European Union, a member state is set to leave the organization. The novelty of United Kingdom’s withdrawal, better known as Brexit, has left many in the European and international community puzzled as to the causes of the referendum results and the political and economic implications of this situation.

Co-founder Miguelángel Verde Garrido analyzes, in two blog posts, various aspects of the Brexit. The first blog post offers an overview of the main social and political facts of the referendum campaigns and results. In the second blog post, Miguel discusses the main reasons for the Brexit and places the issue in a wider context. He argues that the referendum results should be a lesson for every liberal democracy that is failing to deliver its promises and where citizens have forgotten the importance and consequences of their civic responsibilities.

The first part, ‘Brexit, A Web Of Lies, And A Disunited Kingdom’, is available here, and the second part, ‘Lesson Learned: Brexit Was About Much More Than The EU’, is available here.

(Photo credit: freestocks org | Flickr)

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New Blog Post: Climate Finance – Shifting for a Fix

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23625949416_54e933fdff_kIn the second blog post of the series “Global Politics of Climate Change“, our guest contributor, William Hull, sheds light on the most recent developments in climate finance. This is one of the trickier points in climate negotiations, which has historically represented a challenge in cooperation between developed and developing countries.

William explains, in this blog post, how this issue was tackled during the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris (COP21) while looking at the next steps in the build-up to the Marrakesh Climate Change Conference (COP22) later this year. The blog post, entitled ‘Climate Finance: Shifting for a Fix’, is available here.

The next blog post in the series will focus on climate action and sustainable development.

(Photo credit: Takver | Flickr)

Blog Post Series: Global Politics and Climate Change

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The Berlin Forum on Global Politics welcomes the newest contributor to our blog, William Hull, who will write a blog post series on the global politics of climate change throughout the next months, and address a range of topics, from international negotiations and climate finance to sustainable development and security.

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William launches the blog post series with a discussion about the significance of the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change as well as the challenges lying ahead in terms of implementation and verification. The blog post, entitled ‘Maintaining the Momentum after the Paris Agreement: The Distance We’ve Come and the Distance Yet to Go’ is available here.

The next blog post in the series will focus on climate finance and be published in June/July.

#TTIPLeaks: Greenpeace Leaked 248 Pages of TTIP Documents Today

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florez - ttip demo 004Today, Greenpeace Netherlands released 248 pages of leaked documents from the secretive negotiations of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the proposed free trade agreement between the United States (US) and European Union (EU). The leaked documents cover 13 chapters that address topics from telecommunications to regulatory cooperation, from pesticides, food and agriculture to trade barriers, the US’ position, and internal EU documents that outline the “tactical state of play of the TTIP negotiations”.

When we published ‘The Transatlantic Colossus: Global Contributions to Broaden the Debate on the EU-US Free Trade Agreement’ in December 2013, our intention – as is the case with Greenpeace – was to draw public attention to the wide range of political, economic, and social implications that the proposed agreement could have on the everyday lives of US and EU citizens as well as on the rest of the world. Nowadays, more than ever, as civil societies on both sides of the Atlantic have voiced their concerns about TTIP and other agreements (i.e., TPP, CETA, and TiSA), it is important to continue broadening the debate with objective information and reliable analyses that include academics, experts, and civil society.

You can read and download the released documents at the dedicated #TTIPLeaks website.

Although we have dedicated and will continue to dedicate efforts to TTIP, we have also started to cover other topics, sharing our understanding on why the EU is failing to provide asylum to refugees, publishing a blog post series on sovereignty and global politics (i.e., in relation to financial markets, the Internet, and trade), and addressing some of the reasons behind environmental disasters. For this reason, we will soon welcome a new contributor to our blog, who will write a series of blog posts on the global politics of climate change and environmental diplomacy.

We will be announcing the launch of the blog post series on global politics of climate change promptly! For now, we leave you to consider how, despite the success of the Paris Agreement, the TTIP negotiations show that trade authorities within the EU and the US may not be as committed as the rest of their polities to seriously addressing the challenges of climate change and upholding environmental standards.

(Photo credit: Berlin Forum on Global Politics & Jonathan Florez | BFoGP)

New Blog Post: TTIP and Sovereignty

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TTIPOur blog post series on sovereignty and global politics comes to a close with an analysis by co-founder Daniel Cardoso on the relationship between trade and sovereignty today. Daniel argues that, when free trade agreements like the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) are used to advance at all costs the privileges of dominant world forces, sovereignty remains a necessary tool to manage globalization, protect the public interest, and guarantee citizens’ rightful participation in public policymaking.

The blog post, entitled ‘How TTIP Threatens State Sovereignty and Why We Should Be Concerned’, is available here.

(Photo credit: European External Action Service | Flickr)

New Blog Post: “All your Internet are Belong to Us”

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283894146_df1150c0d8_oWe continue our blog post series on sovereignty and global politics with co-founder Miguelángel Verde Garrido‘s analysis of sovereignty in relation to information and communications technology, which argues that proposals for technological and information sovereignty would do little to defend from, for example, mass surveillance, and concludes further efforts to establish global governance would better serve to confront nation states’ challenges regarding the Internet.

The blog post, entitled ‘“All your Internet are Belong to Us”: On Nation States’ Claims of Sovereignty over ICT Architecture and Contents’, is available here.

(Photo credit: Imamon | Flickr)

Blog Post Series: Sovereignty and Global Politics

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leviathan detailThe Berlin Forum on Global Politics is glad to share a blog post series, which will focus on the topic of sovereignty and global politics. Capital, information, goods and people move around the world at incredible speed and in vast numbers. As globalization widens and deepens, regional and global forms of governance attempt to handle the issues and challenges of our times. Against this background, the blog series inquires about the role of sovereignty today: in which ways does this long-standing concept continue to matter?

Stemming from discussions held within the Center for Global Politics (CGP) Alumni Association and inspired by the reflections and work of Prof. Klaus Segbers (Director of the CGP at the Freie Universität Berlin) on this topic, the authors address the role of sovereignty in three areas of global governance: finance, the Internet, and trade.

We will publish a blog post each week, starting today with co-founder Marc Venhaus’ analysis of sovereignty in relation to international financial markets in the post-2008 economic crisis, entitled ‘Sovereignty over Capital Controls: From Orthodoxy to Heresy… and Back Again?’. The blog post is available here.

(Photo credit: Frontispiece from Thomas Hobbes’ 1651 ‘Leviathan’ | United States Library of Congress)

Become a Member!

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Berlin Eastside GalleryWe believe that a better understanding of the world is the key to a better tomorrow.

Public, academic, and expert understanding of global politics in an ever more interconnected world is fundamental for informed political action regardless of where you are.

That is why we research, analyze, and create high quality and original knowledge about global politics and share it openly with society under a Creative Commons license.

Become a member of the Berlin Forum on Global Politics (BFoGP) and help us shape the future.

(Photo credit: Berlin Forum on Global Politics & M. Venhaus | BFoGP)

New Blog Post: ‘Failing to Provide Asylum’

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Bengin Ahmad | FlickrCo-founders Daniel Cardoso and Miguelángel Verde Garrido discuss the ongoing refugee crisis in Europe in this post. They argue that the (mis)management of the refugee crisis by the European Union and European governments has little to do with the extent of the challenge and more with being compromised by institutional and identity crises.

The blog post is the start to a series of events, activities, and materials that the Berlin Forum on Global Politics will organize in order to discuss the ongoing refugee crisis.

The post, entitled ‘Failing to Provide Asylum: Why Europe Cannot Manage the Refugee Crisis’, is available here.

(Photo credit: Bengin Ahmad | Flickr)

BFoGP is Now Ready for New Members and Funding!

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charamelody - in our hands - flickrDear friends of the Berlin Forum on Global Politics,

We are very happy to announce that the German state has granted our organization the status of a gemeinnütziger Verein, that is to say, of a tax-exempt nonprofit organization – the legal equivalent in the United States is a 501 (c) organization and in the United Kingdom is a Community Interest Company (CIC) or charity. Being a tax-exempt nonprofit organization enables us to do two important things:

1) allow interested parties to become members, who can contribute to expanding and supporting our efforts;

2) allow for funding of public events and activities as well as research, publications, and projects.

We are enthusiastic about this important development in our organization, since we are confident that it will allow us to better interact with the vast numbers of people who want to better understand and discuss global politics at the academic, expert, and public debate levels. Their interest – your interest – is clearly evidenced by our statistics: in the two years since we launched our website we have already had more than 15000 views from over 130 countries, counted more than 3100 downloads of our publication ‘The Transatlantic Colossus‘ from our website alone, and now count with over 600 supporters on our Facebook page and over 130 in our LinkedIn profile.

During the following weeks we will provide you with our constitutional articles, which explain the reasons for founding the Berlin Forum as well as our goals and means, and will update you regarding:

– how to become a member of the Berlin Forum on Global Politics;

– why we chose the GLS Bank (GLS Gemeinschaftsbank eG) to hold our funds;

– how to make donations to fund our activities;

– and, what we intend to do in order to contribute to the public debate on the socio-political implications of the ongoing influx of asylum seekers to Europe and the European Union.

Lastly, we would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your support, which we hope to continue to count with as we strive towards promoting the informed participation of civil society in public debates about global politics throughout the world.

(Photo credit: charamelody | Flickr)