Competition And Convergence

The dynamics of internal changes in China – whether these changes impact its national economy or its political order and distribution of power – have imminent influence on its relations with the rest of the world. The important, and perhaps less treated, question vis-à-vis China’s rise is how and to what extent do internal changes in China affect its external behavior and thus its relations with the current world hegemon, the United States. In addition, this publication asks what the clash of two politically, culturally and economically different internal orders of the US and China will mean for their future interactions in the twenty-first century. The aim of this publication is not to measure and encompass the entirety of the posed question, but rather to provide an incursion into this problem through two specific case studies – one focusing on the interactions of two distinct political cultures and the other on the economic, geopolitical and ideological interplay of the US and China on the African continent. As will be demonstrated, incompatible as the two regimes and their respective foreign policies may seem, they will not necessarily predestine conflicts in mutual relations. As America can well coexist with China even if it does not meet the Western standards of a liberal democracy, so does the competition in Africa between these two major powers not have to amount to a zero-sum game. At the end of the day, both countries might meet halfway in their respective political interactions.

Competition and convergence: hearing before the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, One Hundred Ninth Congress, second session, March 30, 2006.

Competition and convergence : hearing before the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, One Hundred Ninth Congress, second session, March 30, 2006.

Hegemony and World Order explores a key question for our tumultuous times of multiple global crises. Does hegemony – that is, legitimated rule by dominant power – have a role in ordering world politics of the twenty-first century? If so, what form does that hegemony take: does it lie with a leading state or with some other force? How does contemporary world hegemony operate: what tools does it use and what outcomes does it bring? This volume addresses these questions by assembling perspectives from various regions across the world, including Canada, Central Asia, China, Europe, India, Russia and the USA. The contributions in this book span diverse theoretical perspectives from realism to postcolonialism, as well as multiple issue areas such as finance, the Internet, migration and warfare. By exploring the role of non-state actors, transnational networks, and norms, this collection covers various standpoints and moves beyond traditional concepts of state-based hierarches centred on material power. The result is a wealth of novel insights on today's changing dynamics of world politics. Hegemony and World Order is critical reading for policymakers and advanced students of International Relations, Global Governance, Development, and International Political Economy.

The telecommunications industry has experienced dynamic changes over the past several years, and those exciting events and developments are reflected in the chapters of this volume. The Telecommunications Policy Research Conference (TPRC) holds an unrivaled place at the center of national public policy discourse on issues in communications and information. TPRC is one of the few places where multidisciplinary discussions take place as the norm. The papers collected here represent the current state of research in telecommunication policy, and are organized around four topics: competition, regulation, universal service, and convergence. The contentious competition issues include bundling as a strategy in software competition, combination bidding in spectrum auctions, and anticompetitive behavior in the Internet. Regulation takes up telephone number portability, decentralized regulatory decision making versus central regulatory authority, data protection, restrictions to the flow of information over the Internet, and failed Global Information Infrastructure initiatives. Universal service addresses the persistent gap in telecommunications from a socioeconomic perspective, the availability of competitive Internet access service and cost modeling. The convergence section concentrates on the costs of Internet telephony versus circuit switched telephony, the intertwined evolution of new services, new technologies, and new consumer equipment, and the politically charged question of asymmetric regulation of Internet telephony and conventional telephone service.

The international dimensions of competition law and policy are most often examined at the level of substantive law. In this legal area both intentional and spontaneous assimilation and harmonization trends can be recognized, which manifest themselves e.g. in comparable approaches to combating particularly harmful restraints (so-called "hardcore cartels"). However, the complex terrain of enforcement law has been mainly ignored up to date. Are there common approaches in this field as well? How are the various competition laws linked with each other in respect to procedural norms? This book conceptualizes "International Competition Enforcement Law" against the backdrop of these issues and at the level of comparative law. The ciphers "cooperation" and "convergence" will serve as the two principle ideas for this book.

The inspiration for this volume of essays is a British-German conference held in 1998 in Rauischholzhausen Castle near Giessen (Germany). 15 authors from the United Kingdom and Germany deal with problems of competition and convergence of European legal systems in the context of important fields of law, for example Constitutional Law and the law of ethnic minorities, Criminal Law, Telecommunication Law, Contract Law, Securities, Law of Employment, Law of Procedure and Health Law.