Brazil, the Russian Federation, India and China (Coined under the acronym BRIC at the end of 2001) are alongside the United States of America (USA), Canada, Japan, Mexico and South Africa the strategic partners of the European Union (EU). Although the relationships between the EU and each of the...

This chapter contributes to comparative regionalism studies by exploring the Belt and Road Initiative (BR) as an emerging regionalism project. We start by stating a need for broad conceptual frameworks to study the BR dynamics and consider the “world of regions” framework as such an...

We examine the role of bilateral political relations on cross-border merger and acquisition (M&A) activities. Based on a large sample of cross-border deals during 1990- 2010, we find strong and robust evidence that bilateral political relations have large and significant causal effects on...

Measures of bilateral political relations are typically long-memory (fractionally integrated) processes. Appropriate inference and interpretation of this property hinges on the underlying reasons behind it. There are three possible explanations: (i) mechanical aggregation, (ii) bilateral...

This paper examines the shortcomings in the UK government's Brexit negotiation strategy which reflected Prime Minister Theresa May's weak political leadership. The Prime Minister focused on securing the short-term political survival of her government amidst turbulent and fractious domestic...

In this paper, we assess the implications of changes in bilateral diplomatic relations with the United States for economic relations. We identify countries whose relations with the US changed during two historic and significant milestones in the past three decades, and a third group of countries...

U.S. lawmakers and analysts see China's efforts to control much of the South China Sea as a serious threat, endangering regional security, freedom of navigation, and the liberal world order. This paper finds that political leaders and experts exaggerate the dangers of China's South China Sea...

Using donor-recipient data from 1973 to 2013, we find that reducing foreign aid as a fraction of the recipient’s GDP by 10% improves the bilateral political relation by 2% in the long run. Such a negative relationship is robust for aid with different purposes, for sample averaged over 3 to 5...

COVID-19 is provoking a major reorientation of American and European foreign policy. At the heart of this is their changing relationship with China. The pandemic has given rise to fears of a new Cold War, which are based on out-of-date assumptions and a misunderstanding of China’s motivations....

The donation and sale of vaccines are diplomatic tools that have impact well beyond health policies. Having been more successful than Western capitals in controlling Covid-19 at home, Beijing then felt confident about engaging in the distribution and sale of shots around the world. May Chinese...