“Being rich in energy resources – a blessing or a curse” finds that an energy resource curse plagues many EU supplier states. This in turn directly affects Europe’s energy supply security and threatens to engulf Europe in unwanted hostilities at home and abroad. The study addresses seven...

We use cooperative game theory to analyze how the architecture of the pipeline network determines the power structure in the supply chain for Russian gas. If the assessment is narrowly focused on the abilities to obstruct flows in the existing system, the main transit countries, Belarus and...

There is no doubt that the Iranian leaders are feeling the heat on all fronts. On the nuclear front the negotiations have practically stagnated, which can be translated to no sanctions lifting and hence no relief for the severely ailing economy. On the Syrian front Tehran and Hezbollah of...

The present paper firstly examines and comments the arguments proposed by Werner Sinn and Wollmershaeuser in their paper on Target loans, current account balances and capital flows: the ECB’s rescue facility. Secondly, this contribution suggests an alternative view for solving the crisis in...

The concept of ‘mode of coordination’ captures the way economy is embedded in social relationships and influences the integration of society through an ‘instituted process.’ Three main typical or ideal modes of coordination have been identified in the literature, namely the market, the...

This article presents the basics of argumentation theory. The relations of the argument with the concept of logical inference and an illustration of argument in international comparative policy analysis: the analysis of arguments in the invasion of Iraq

This note is about the possibility of a stalemate in a continuing conflict. Following the prevailing economic literature on the topic, under some assumptions, the outcome of a conflict can be described in two ways: (i) a predetermined split of a contested output; (ii) a winner-take-all contest...

How useful are probabilistic forecasts of the outcomes of particular situations? Potentially, they contain more information than unequivocal forecasts and, as they allow a more realistic representation of the relative likelihood of different outcomes, they might be more accurate and therefore...

This paper presents a model of conflict in an economy characterized by two sectors. In a first sector labelled as contested sector two agents struggle in order to appropriate the maximum possible fraction of a contestable output. In a second sector, the uncontested sector, each agent holds...

Where nations depend on resources originating outside their borders, such as river water, some believe that the resulting international tensions may lead to conflict. Homer-Dixon (1999) and Toset et al. (2000) argue such conflict is most likely between riparian neighbours, with a militarily...