http://hdl.handle.net/10071/1559 2026-04-30T09:32:51Z http://hdl.handle.net/10071/36982 Título próprio: The Lebanese-Israeli maritime agreement: A conflict resolution model or a geopolitical stopgap? Autoria: Ismail, A. Resumo: The 2022 US-mediated maritime delimitation agreement between Lebanon and Israel marked a significant technical achievement, resolving an 860 km² overlap in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and enabling future offshore gas exploration. This article examines the domestic political and economic factors in Lebanon and Israel that facilitated the settlement. It assesses the roles of external actors, particularly the United States, the EU, and the UNIFIL, in shaping and supporting the agreement. Drawing on conflict resolution theory, including models of ripeness, interest-based negotiation, conflict management and transformation, the analysis reconstructs the negotiation process and examines the implementation obstacles. It argues that, although the agreement represents a successful technical compromise, persistent domestic gridlock in Lebanon, limited enforcement mechanisms, and investor hesitation have delayed drilling and reinforced Israel’s asymmetric benefits. The absence of multilateral frameworks or maritime security protocols further limits the agreement’s potential as a model for broader cooperation in the Eastern Mediterranean. The article concludes that durable peace and stability will require accelerated Lebanese energy development, institutionalized EEZ coordination and formal maritime security arrangements. 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10071/36971 Título próprio: The Euro Area sovereign debt crisis: 2010 to 2012 and beyond Autoria: Leão, P. R.; Bhimjee, D. C. P.; Leão, E. R. Resumo: This article carries out a detailed study of the Euro Area sovereign debt crisis since its inception in late 2009 until its most acute phase in the first semester of 2012. First the origin in Greece, Portugal, and Ireland is pinpointed, followed by a description of the contagion to Spain and Italy. The specific focus of the article is on the underlying macroeconomic imbalances and structural economic weaknesses that made these countries vulnerable. The paper highlights both the common and the country-specific features of the development of the crisis. Also, it examines the responses to the crisis implemented both by individual governments and at the European level by the European Central Bank and the European Commission/European Council. The Euro Area sovereign debt crisis constitutes a historic event of great relevance to fiscal policy and the associated public debt sustainability. The public finances of Greece and Portugal became vulnerable when their export dependent economies were hit by the global economic downturn of 2008–2009. In Ireland and Spain, the source of the public finance troubles were the construction and housing crashes which occurred in these two countries. Finally, in Italy the troubles originated in the initially high public debt burden, a pre-existing problem which worsened and became unsustainable in the context of the global economic downturn and already installed sovereign debt crisis. 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10071/36333 Título próprio: Sensing, tracing, walking: Phenomenological investigations of ruins and afterlives of projects Autoria: Gez, Y. N.; Bertin, C.; Eichhorn, B.; Ngure, F.; Kuenberg, K. Resumo: Recent years have seen growing scholarship on ruins and afterlives of projects framed around a range of contexts – modernity, colonialism, infrastructure and international development. While much of this literature overlaps with phenomenological preoccupations – notably, embodied and affective interconnections between people and places – few of these studies directly engage with phenomenology. Acknowledging some scholars’ discomfort with the term, we are inspired by the critical turn among phenomenological thinkers to propose a closer conversation between the two bodies of literature. Such conversation, we argue, can enrich our understanding of ruins and afterlives with further philosophical, conceptual and methodological underpinning. In particular, we draw on ethnographic fieldwork on the remains of a colonial-cum-development intervention in southern Mozambique and on methodological directions oriented around movement and walking. We thus show how, in post-project contexts, phenomenological perspectives can help to trace intimacies between humans and the more-than-human away from grand narratives and consequentialist ends, and to understand experiences of ruins as embodied, affective and embedded within specific socio-historical contexts. 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10071/36296 Título próprio: From deportations to “frozen conflicts”: Russian nationalism, ethnic engineering and violence in the Soviet and post-Soviet space Autoria: Marsili, M. Resumo: This article examines how Soviet and post-Soviet forms of Russian nationalism used ethnic engineering – above all mass deportations and demographic reshuffling – to transform ethno-national diversity into a structural source of conflict. Building on a qualitative, historical-comparative design, the study combines close reading of Soviet constitutional and legal texts with secondary literature on deportations and “frozen conflicts” to trace mechanisms linking Stalin-era policies to contemporary wars in the post-Soviet space. Archival decrees, census data and administrative cartography are analysed through thematic coding (e.g., “collective punishment,” “demographic engineering,” “border manipulation”) and compared across key episodes such as the deportation of Chechens and Ingush, Crimean Tatars and Volga Germans. The article then connects these historical patterns to post-1991 conflicts in the Caucasus, Crimea/Donbas and Central Asia, showing how earlier deportations and territorial rearrangements created asymmetric republics, competing memories of victimhood and territorially embedded grievances. Rather than treating Russian nationalism as a purely ideological phenomenon, the analysis conceptualizes it as a repertoire of state practices that combine coercive removal, selective rehabilitation and later “protection” of co-nationals abroad. The findings challenge accounts that explain post-Soviet conflicts solely through democratization failure or great-power rivalry, arguing instead that ethnic wars in the region are rooted in a long genealogy of state-led population politics. The article concludes by discussing the broader implications for theories of ethnofederalism and for contemporary debates on how authoritarian regimes manage diversity through forced mobility rather than inclusive citizenship. 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z