IR Theory

Although the existence of foreign fighters is nothing new in the inter- national arena, the phenomenon has not yet triggered a substantial reflection in International Relations (IR) theory. A relatively rare phenomenon before the 1980s, foreign fighters have so far received little attention under IR. This state of affairs began to change in the spring of 2014, when a jihadist armed group that incorporates an unprecedented number of foreign recruits—the Islamic State (IS)—proclaimed a ‘Caliphate’ spanning large portions of Syrian and Iraqi ter- ritory and captured global attention by widely circulating to the media all sorts of terror tactics and war crimes it systematically perpetrates. This chapter seeks first of all to bring foreign fighters into an IR analytical focus by identifying those trends that make them a discrete actor category distinct from insurgents and terror- ists. Second, it addresses some of the difficulties in grasping the question from an IR theory angle, beginning with transnational mobilisation and State sponsorship. Finally, it reflects on how foreign fighters are involved in State-making/un-making, and how this affects movements in the tectonics of the international system.

Action-­sentences about states, such as 'North Korea conducted a nuclear test', are ubiquitous in discourse about international relations. Although there has been a great deal of debate in IR about whether states are agents or actors, the question of how to interpret action-­sentences about states has been treated as secondary or epiphenomenal. This article focuses on our practices of speaking and writing about the state rather than the ontology of the state. It uses Hobbes' theory of attributed action to develop a typology of action-‐sentences and to analyze action-sentences about states. These sentences are not shorthand for action-­sentences about individuals, as proponents of the metaphorical interpretation suggest. Nor do they describe the actions of singular agents, as proponents of the literal interpretation suggest. The central argument is that action-­sentences about states are 'attributive', much like sentences about principals who act vicariously through agents: they identify the 'owners' of actions—the entities that are responsible for them—rather than the agents that perform the actions. Our practice of ascribing actions to states is not merely figurative, but nor does it presuppose that states are corporate agents.

Multiplicity claims to provide common ground for International Relations and, potentially, to appeal across the epistemological and theoretical spectra of the discipline. However, Multiplicity also challenges existing theories of the international, of international politics and, potentially, political theory more widely. Rosenberg’s conception of Multiplicity explicitly sought to break IR out of ‘the prison of political science’, to question the theoretical fundaments of the latter as well as the former discipline, and challenge the often-presumed hierarchy between them. Multiplicity therefore challenges IR scholars to identify and take possession of the ‘fact general to the social world’ that is the ‘deepest ontological premise’ of our discipline (and not of others). In doing so, multiplicity situates the international (a particular historical form of multiplicity) as the lens or heuristic through which the international can be used to explain or interpret various phenomena, rather than itself being the object to be interpreted or explained by or through those phenomena.

This Forum draws together scholars working in different ways and different settings to discuss how (and, indeed, whether) Multiplicity: 1) can become more deeply embedded in IR – does it indeed provide common ground? 2) helps IR scholars to widen the impact of our analyses beyond our disciplinary boundaries – and address the negative balance of ideational trade with cognate disciplines; and 3) has the potential to increase the impact of IR beyond academia – and what may need to be done to realise that potential? The Roundtable draws together scholars working in a variety of ways – ranging from political psychology, Constructivism and practice theory, critical theory, analysis of great power politics, Foreign Policy Analysis and Critical Security Studies – to explore what Multiplicity can do for and to (international) (political) (theory) as well as how it may affect the discipline of IR.

هه‌ر له‌سه‌ره‌تاى دامه‌زراندنى ده‌وڵه‌تى توركیاى كۆمارى له‌ساڵى 1923 له‌سه‌ر ده‌ستى موسته‌فا كه‌مال ئه‌تاتورك تاوه‌كو ساڵى 1974، ده‌وڵه‌تى توركیا ڕێگربووه‌ له‌به‌رده‌م ماف و داخوازییه‌كانى كورد له‌و وڵاته‌. دواى نزیكه‌ى چوار ده‌یه‌ له‌ ڕووبه‌ڕووبونه‌وه‌ى نێوان توركیاو پارتى كرێكارانى كوردستان، له‌سه‌ره‌تاى ساڵى 2013 ئاگربه‌ستێكى ئاشتى له‌ نێوان توركیاو پارتى كرێكارانى كوردستان هاته‌كایه‌وه‌. به‌ڵام ته‌مه‌نى ئاگربه‌سته‌كه‌ زۆر كورت بوو، له‌دواى سه‌ركه‌وتنى پارتى دیموكراتى گه‌لان له‌ هه‌ڵبژاردنه‌كانى مانگى شه‌شى ساڵى 2015 ، ره‌جه‌ب ته‌یب ئه‌ردۆگانی سه‌رۆكی توركیا به‌ فه‌رمى كۆتایی به‌ ئه‌گربه‌ست هێنا له‌گه‌ڵ په‌كه‌كه‌دا به‌شێویه‌كى تاك لایه‌نه‌و به‌م شێوه‌یه‌ش جارێكى تر شه‌ڕو پێكدادان له‌ نێوان توركیاو پارتى كرێكارانى كوردستاندا ده‌ستیپێكرده‌وه‌، كه‌ هه‌ندێك كات به‌شه‌ڕى سیاسى ئه‌ردۆگان له‌دژى كورد ناوده‌برێت (1). ئه‌م توێژینه‌وه‌یه‌ به‌شێوه‌یه‌كى گشتى باس له‌ هۆكاره‌كانى شكستهێنانى پڕۆسه‌ى ئاشتى له‌نێوان توركیاو په‌كه‌كه‌ ده‌كات، دواتر  لێكه‌وته‌ى جه‌نگى نێوان ئه‌و دوو لایه‌نه‌ ده‌خاته‌ڕوو. له‌كۆتاییدا لێكۆڵینه‌وه‌كه‌ گفتوگۆى داهاتووى ڕووبه‌ڕووبونه‌وه‌ى نێوان توركیاو په‌كه‌كه‌  ده‌كات.

While IR’s Eurocentric limits are usually acknowledged, what those limits mean for
theorizing about the international is seldom clarified. In The Global Transformation,
Buzan and Lawson offer a ‘composite approach’ that goes some way towards
addressing IR’s Eurocentrism, challenging existing myths about the emergence and
evolution of the international system and society. This paper seeks to push the
contribution made by Buzan and Lawson in two further directions: first, by
underscoring the need to adopt a deeper understanding of Eurocentrism; and second,
by highlighting how this understanding helps us recognize what is missing from IR
theorizing – conceptions of the international by ‘others’ who also constitute the
international. I illustrate this point by focussing on a landmark text on Ottoman
history, Ortaylı’s The Longest Century of the Empire.

his book examines the changing dynamics of power in the international arena since the end of the Cold War. Brown engages in analysis of how the United States and the European Union have responded to the so-called rise of China through an examination of how policymakers’ perceptions of China have changed over time and influenced their policy choices. This study undertakes rigorous analysis of how these perceptions have evolved between 1989 and 20092016, offering a comparative perspective on the similarities and differences between the policy discourse and behaviour within these two Western powers.

Brown argues that ‘China’s rise’ is a contested notion, with varied perceptions of how the implications of China’s ascendancy have shaped policy preferences in ways that are inconsistent with concerns over the threat of an impending power-transition. Combining concepts and methods derived from IR and FPA, the book examines the linkages between great power politics and policymakers’ competing interpretations of key international actors, and their influence upon foreign policies. The main objective of the study is to illuminate the different ways in which the US and the EU have responded to the rise of China through a close analysis of their decision-making processes and outcomes across a series of key encounters and events, including the transatlantic debate over the EU’s proposal to lift its China arms embargo (2003-2005).

Undertaking qualitative analysis of the development of American and European policymakers’ perceptions of China, this book will be of interest to graduates and scholars of post-Cold War international politics, Foreign Policy Analysis, policymaking, US-China relations and EU-China relations.

El presente trabajo académico se interesa por exponer la óptica con la que las comunidades académicas de China y Corea del Sur abordan y se interesan por aproximarse a la disciplina de Relaciones Internacionales. Ello a partir de una revisión de la forma en la que se insertó dicha disciplina en los referidos países asiáticos, la evolución histórica de la misma en ambos casos, así como su situación actual según lo descrito por los propios académicos chinos y sudcoreanos, quienes a través de sus escritos manifiestan sus perspectivas en torno a la misma.

Es preciso tener en mente además, la idea sostenida por diversos académicos respecto a la constante importancia que ha adquirido la comunidad académica occidental, no solo en la consolidación y el progreso de la disciplina en términos generales, sino también por su relevancia dentro del estudio de las RRII en las distintas comunidades académicas de Asia; cuestión que es un elemento crucial para los académicos chinos y sudcoreanos, y para varios de los académicos asiáticos en general, a la hora de desarrollar sus argumentos en relación a la forma en que se han acercado o pretenden acercarse a la disciplina.

No phenomenon is arguably more central to the study of international relations (IR) than war. The history of armed conflict is deeply intertwined with the formation of virtually every nation-state and it was the very superiority of the modern territorial polity's mobilization of the war machine that ensured its historical dominance over other types of units. The exercise of armed force is still viewed today by states as their singular prerogative and the greatest calling they can make on their populations and, as realist scholars keep reminding us, the ever-present possibility of war always lurks in the background of international relations. Yet for all its centrality, the concept of war itself was until relatively recently rarely submitted to sustained scrutiny within IR scholarship. This is a paradox given the importance accorded to war within the modern academic discipline of IR at its foundation. Back then, figures such as E. H. Carr (2001) and Hans Morgenthau (1948) insisted on a clear-eyed recognition of the inherent propensity of states to employ bellicose means to further their interests as the surest way to avert, or at least mitigate, the evils of war. The original emphasis on war is hardly surprising given that the field established itself in the shadow of two world wars and a tense confrontation between American and Soviet superpowers. But it is precisely the weight of these historical conditions that gave scholars little reason to probe the concept of war in any great depth, so self-evident did it appear to them that it primarily referred to the kind of large-scale interstate conflict that had so dominated recent world affairs.

This book critically engages with NATO’s two main referent objects of security: civilisation and individuals. By rethinking the seemingly natural assumption of these two referent objects, it suggests the epistemological importance of an unconscious dimension to understand meaning formation and behaviour change in international security.
The book provides a historicised and genealogical approach of the idea of civilisation that is at the core of the Alliance, in which human needs, narratives, and security arrangements are interconnected. It suggests that there is a Civilised Subject of Security at the core of modern Western security that has constantly produced civilised and secure subjects around the world, which explains NATO’s emergence around a civilisational referent. The book then proceeds by considering the Individualisation of Security after the Cold War as another stage of the civilising process, based on NATO’s military operations in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo and Afghanistan.
https://www.palgrave.com/cn/book/9783319744087#aboutBook

For international relations (IR) scholars, the story behind the figure of Udjahorresnet might seem as an obscure phase in international history. Yet the pre-Roman period is educative for testing constitutive IR
concepts such as the balance of power theory, international system, or soft power, which are still widely assumed to have become relevant only in the post-Roman context rather than in the ancient civilizations of
the Eastern Mediterranean preceding the Greco-Roman experience. This article proposes that insights from IR theory can offer ancient historians and Egyptologists theoretical tools by linking empirical facts to patterns
rather than just unique events via conceptual analysis. Udjahorresnet as diplomatic figure is an important primary source to understand the transition of power from native Egyptian hands to the Achaemenid rule,
and thus it provides a case study where micro and macro levels of analyses find fertile ground in a cross-disciplinary framework.

Scholars and policymakers currently lack systematic criteria for determining the credibility of China's foreign policy signals, which has produced widely divergent conclusions about its likely intentions. "China optimists" view China's cooperative signals as credible, while dismissing its non-cooperative behaviors as unrepresentative of its broader preferences. Conversely, "China pessimists" see China's cooperative signals as non-credible misrepresentation, and focus on China's recent "assertive" behavior. Drawing on theoretical scholarship on signaling and credibility in IR, this paper introduces general deductive criteria for assigning credibility to a rising state's foreign policy signals. It then applies these criteria to evaluate the specific Chinese signals that optimists and pessimists have cited in support of their respective positions. The analysis finds that both optimists and pessimists have overlooked multiple conditions that have reduced the credibility of China's cooperative and non-cooperative foreign policy signals alike. This implies that far more uncertainty about China's intentions is warranted than has been acknowledged on either side of the current debate.

This is the table of contents of my forthcoming book, Political Theology of International Order, Oxford University Press, 2020. It investigates presuppositions of international order that originate in medieval theology. The main argument is that international order understood in terms of individuals—either states or human beings—and artificial relations, established by the operation of an impersonal mechanism or the adoption of positive rules, is a worldly application of a theological pattern. The book uncovers these presuppositions as they emerged in a medieval dispute about the nature of God and the extent of his power and its traces their assimilation into modern politics and law.

International relations must distance itself from its Eurocentric and masculine moorings if it is to address its increasing irrelevance in the modern world and become more "international" and truly inclusive. The theoretical position of postcolonial feminism gives the discipline the best chance of doing so. The effect of conflict on women in Kashmir and the North East illustrates how a postcolonial feminist perspective enriches an understanding of the issue and enables international relations to reflect the lived reality of the people. - See more at: http://www.epw.in/journal/2017/20/special-articles/can-postcolonial-feminism-revive-international-relations.html#sthash.YHvmoJy9.dpuf

India’s rise has changed the nature of its relationships with other major players in the Asia-Pacific region. In response, regional states and great powers have moved to “engage” India. But what does “engagement” involve? And which “engagement strategies” – diplomatic, military, economic or public – have worked and which have not? Finally, what do the “engagement of India” tell us about India’s place in world politics and the best means by which it and others can manage its rise?

This book explores the various engagement strategies employed by key international actors, including those used by United States, Japan, Russia and China, as well as the responses these strategies have prompted from India in both its foreign and domestic policies. It draws upon a growing body of theoretical literature that explores the nature and utility of engagement in international relations,  and employs it to make better sense of India’s rise, its causes and its consequences.

In recent years, scholars in the academic discipline of International Relations (IR) have become increasingly interested in practices and the everyday. As part of this trend, which is often referred to as IR's "practice turn," a broad spectrum of practice-theoretical approaches from sociology and social theory have been introduced to IR and further developed and transformed in response to the particular questions that the study of the international poses. While the various approaches to the study of international practices are far from forming one singular theory, they nonetheless share a many core concerns. These concerns include an emphasis on process, sensitivity for different forms of knowledge and learning, and an understanding of the world as performative and anchored in materiality. Practice theory in IR has been associated with several promises. Its proponents argue that it allows for inter-paradigmatic dialogue, to better conceptualize social change, to get closer to the everyday activities of those involved in international politics, to re-appreciate materiality, and to develop forms of analysis resonating with practitioner communities. The goal of this article is to familiarize the reader with the major studies that draw on and develop practice-theoretical concepts in IR. The article introduces, first, the core programmatic texts, overviews, and collections that give shape to the practice turn in IR as a research program. Second, it presents a range of distinct approaches to international practice theory. Finally, it highlights a range of thematic areas that have featured prominently in discussions of the practice turn in IR.

The internet has developed into the number one port for communication and information. With the millions of websites available, search engines play a vital role in filtering information online. Over time, both search engines and technical equipment have been changing: web-enabled devices have been getting smaller, new search engines were launched, new search features added, and the presentation of the search results has undergone modifications. Users have been changing their search habits, too, they have been getting more experienced in searching the web. Analytical search engine studies, e.g. logfile analyses, are numerous. User-focused studies of search engine behavior and user satisfaction, on the other hand, are still rare. However, certain scenarios, such as exploratory searches, and the users' subjective satisfaction may not be captured in those analyses. Nonetheless, the users' subjective opinions and skills eventually decide upon the achieved search performance and the success of a search engine. The last user-focused search engine studies in Germany are from more than a decade ago. This study investigates user search engine behavior and satisfaction from the perspective of internet users in Germany. An survey was conducted to learn about search engine usage frequency, preferred search engines, and priorities for search engine selection, and to assess specific search habits, such as preferred search query language, customization of the search engine language settings, and the necessity for repetitive searches and query rephrasing as perceived by the users. The survey also evaluated the users' satisfaction with the search results in general, the search results on the first page, as well as the results retrieved with German versus English search queries. Where possible, the paper compares the findings with the user-focused studies from 2003 and 2005.

In 2009, after US president Barack Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize for, amongst others, his commitment to long-term nuclear disarmament (BBC,2009), Time Magazine published an article titled “Want Peace? Give the Nuke a Nobel”. This reflects the long-standing claim that, far from a threat to world peace, nuclear weapons--or the fear of them--can actually be instrumental in reducing the incidence of violent conflict, by deterring not merely their own use, but also any conventional war that could trigger a nuclear exchange. Though the fear of 'Mutually Assured Destruction' has long been a well-established concept in (nuclear) deterrence theory, few have taken this argument to its logical conclusion--the idea, developed most famously by Kenneth N. Waltz in his controversial ‘The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: More May be Better’ (1981), that if the mutual fear of nuclear war can deter states from conventional war, and if such deterrence is stable, then perhaps measured nuclear proliferation to other countries could be the best stabilizer of regional and global conflict, ultimately creating zones of 'Nuclear Peace'.

The suggestions that nuclear weapons might be ‘the best [and] only peacekeeping weapon that the world has ever known’ [Sagan & Waltz,2010: 92], and that their ‘horizontal’ proliferation to other states might constitute ‘an international good’ [Waltz, 2009, 431], are remarkable and highly controversial, as they fly in the face of both the Non-Proliferation Treaty (‘NPT’), as well as dominant attitudes in the West towards many nuclear-threshold states, such as Iran and North Korea.

Driven by the question "would the world be safer if more nations had nuclear weapons?", this article examines the chief arguments presented against and in favor of broad nuclear proliferation, and their counterarguments. To answer this question, I briefly theorize the positive or negative impact, on deterrence
stability and military-organizational safety, of conditions such as asymmetrical strategic force strengths or -postures (counterforce / countervalue); novel technologies (cost-effective missile shields), operational protocols
(‘launch-on-warning’) and finally several ‘deterrence-breaking’ strategies ('Hamburg grab'; 'madman strategy').

In terms of structure, this essay will present the general architecture of deterrence theory; common arguments against Waltz's 'laissez-faire' nuclear proliferation--and their validity. It will be considered if the ‘nuclear peace’-model, even if valid for the Cold War, is sufficiently applicable and transposable to other contexts to warrant Waltz’ advocacy of ‘total proliferation’—or whether proliferation should be ‘limited’ because the safety and stability of nuclear deterrence are not assured, either because its strategic logic can be subverted in ‘rogue states’ who lack rationality and restraint, or because the 'vulnerability' of 'poor’ nations small arsenals invites a decapitation strike. I will argue that this is not the case, and that Waltz’s ‘total’ form of proliferation optimism is indeed the most, or even the only legitimate ‘pro-proliferation’—or indeed, non-disarmament—argument.

Nevertheless, I conclude that even Waltz's cogent formulation fails to make the case for a ‘nuclear world’ being meaningfully safer, as it does not come to terms with how instability, irrationality, and most importantly organizational accidents are not mere imperfections of nuclear deterrence, but rather irreducible, essential, and inevitable to it, making systemic breakdown inevitable, cataclysmic, and in the long-term terminal.

ABSTRACT (does not appear in published version):

Much has been written in the past two decades about the sociological and geographic dimensions of knowledge and power in the IR discipline — research funding patterns, social networks, national academic communities, institutions, academe-policy connections, leading journals and patterns of publication and citation. Such elements have been the dominant focus of efforts to describe and explain the “hegemony” of American/Western scholarship within the global IR discipline. While recognising the great value of this work, this essay argues that its success in identifying, characterising and explaining the phenomenon of disciplinary “hegemony” in academic IR has been partial at best.

Geographical and social-structural accounts have largely ignored the epistemic aspects of disciplinary hegemony; as a result, we lack precise, rigorous, in-depth and up-to-date analyses of the type, content and style of scholarship that constitutes hegemonic IR theory. Moreover, the powerful allure of measurable and seemingly comparable data about large-scale, structural features of the discipline has led to a lack of detailed and discriminating attention to its practices — to the variety of specific, concrete things that hegemonic scholars actually, and regularly, do.

The result is that we still lack a very precise idea of what the hegemony in IR theory actually is, who it involves, where it extends and, particularly, how it functions. This essay briefly suggests an alternative way of characterising disciplinary hegemony and of identifying and analysing the socio-epistemic (and other) practices which compose it, and outlines certain benefits we might be able to expect from such an approach.

ABSTRACT
Peripheral Realism postulates that the interstate system is not “anarchic” (in the Waltzian sense) but imperfectly hierarchic. States do not have the same functions. There are states that rule (the ones with rule-making capabilities, which are the first to break their own rules), states that obey (the majority of states, including highly developed ones without apocalyptic military capabilities) and states that rebel (rogue or pariah states). In this brief anthology of three essays, we examine the interstate hierarchies that set the rules after the two world wars, and during the events leading to the end of the Cold War, 1989-91. Secondarily, we also take a peek at the hierarchical mechanisms that governed in a previous historical period, culminating with the Congress of Vienna of 1815.
The most important normative conclusion is that in the hierarchies prevailing in the last century there has been an excess of "strategic constraint" that has made the world increasingly insecure. It well may be that the challenge posed by a rebel state like North Korea should be neutralized with the use of nuclear weapons, in such a way as to use the atomic oligopoly in order to preserve the atomic oligopoly. As Bertrand Russell put it, back in 1945, it may well be “humanity’s last chance”.
RESUMEN
Tal como postula el Realismo Periférico, el orden interestatal no es anárquico (en el sentido usado por Waltz) sino imperfectamente jerárquico. Los Estados no poseen las mismas funciones. Hay Estados que mandan (son los que establecen las reglas del juego, y también los que las quiebran con mayor frecuencia), Estados que obedecen (la gran mayoría, incluso los altamente desarrollados sin capacidad militar apocalíptica), y Estados que se rebelan (Estados paria, o canallas). En esta breve compilación de tres ensayos, pasamos revista a las jerarquías interestatales que sentaron las reglas de juego después de las dos guerras mundiales, y durante el rápido desenlace de la Guerra Fría en 1989-91. Secundariamente, se analizan también los mecanismos jerárquicos que gobernaron en la etapa anterior, que culminó con el Congreso de Viena de 1815.
La conclusión normativa más importante es que existe, en las jerarquías vigentes en el último siglo, un exceso de “strategic restraint” que ha hecho al mundo cada vez más inseguro. El desafío presentado por un Estado rebelde como Corea del Norte quizá debería ser neutralizado con el uso de armas atómicas, de manera de usar el oligopolio nuclear para preservar al oligopolio nuclear. Como dijo Bertrand Russell en 1945, puede ser que sea “la última oportunidad de la humanidad.”

This book emphasizes on the comparative study of theoretical as well as hypothetical issues of structural realism of international relations theory vis-à-vis those of systemic geopolitical analysis. Are they scientific fields evolving in parallel, but with common philosophical and cognitive roots? Could they be used as complementary theoretical tools or their relation is disjunctive and contrapuntal? When decoding the core hypotheses of structural realism and systemic geopolitical analysis, an effort takes place for the sake of the central scientific aim; i.e. the untainted descriptive analysis without ontologically groundless claims.
The debate on interstate relations and the framework, on which these are structured, is long-term with its philosophical background detected at the juxtaposition between those referring to “sein” and the others expressing the “sollen”. The modern version of the afore-mentioned dialectic is related with scholars in multiple – in many different ways – scientific fields. This research struggles to explain the converging and diverging points between the neorealist approach of international relations theory and the systemic geopolitical analysis.

E.H. Carr was one of Europe’s preeminent thinkers in the field of international affairs. Yet his contribution to International Relations theory is continually questioned. Realists depict Carr as a quintessential realist; revisionists draw from his wider corpus to qualify his contribution. Although not inaccurate, the revisionist literature is incomplete as it neglects a number of Carr’s diplomatic histories. Refocusing on these, especially the manner in which traces of Ranke’s the primacy of foreign affairs tradition are evident, this paper points to a more conservative and less critical Carr. Utilising an interpretivist framework, this shift in traditions of thought is explained by the dilemmas Carr faced. Although works of history rather than theory, the paper contends that Carr’s diplomatic histories remain relevant, particularly with regard to the embedded criticism of realpolitik they contain. This realisation is made evident through a reading of Carr in parallel with the concept of tragedy.

Una lectura que muestra la utilización de las teorías de RRII. El libro cubre diversas teorías de relaciones internacionales, desde racionalistas al constructivismo, con algunas aportaciones teóricas novedosas. Cada capítulo analiza el caso de la intervención en Libia desde su propio cuerpo teórico, especializado en algunos actores o en general. Lectura obligatoria del estudiante y profesor del curso de Teorías de RRII.

Are rising authoritarian powers such as China and Russia converging towards or challenging the normative structures of the liberal international order? This article argues that scholarship on norm contestation provides a fruitful theoretical avenue for addressing this question. It finds, however, that this literature has problematically tended to either overlook or externalize power dynamics from norm contestation. The article therefore proposes and develops a power political approach to norm contestation that, informed by a realpolitik sensibility, more explicitly and consistently makes power central to the analysis. A power political perspective conceptualizes norm contestation as the expression of battles for influence in world politics that take place at the ideational level and through symbolic instruments. It understands these struggles as occurring in the context of an international system profoundly marked by conflicting interests, cultural pluralism, hierarchical structures, and power asymmetries. This power political lens is then used to identify four modes of contestation Russian and Chinese actors are engaged in: liberal performance, liberal mimicry, civilizational essentialization, and counter-norm entrepreneurship. It empirically explores how these contestatory practices express themselves at different intensity levels-applicatory, meaning, and validity-and display specific power political logics-fragmenting and integrative-with the goal of undermining the ideational hegemony of liberal Western-based actors and structures in world politics, and advancing alternative non-liberal visions of domestic and international order. Along with contributing to the literature on norms, this paper also makes a broader intervention in current debates about rising powers and the future of the liberal international order

The World War I marked dramatic changes in international political landscape as evidence by the catastrophic costs of the Great War and an increasing role of the U.S. in world stage. In the immediate aftermath of the war, the U.S and other victorious nations, established the League of Nations. The primary goal of the League was to prevent any future world wars, sustain world peace as well as promote international cooperation.
This article investigates the significance of the League of Nations, influenced by liberalism, on the development of international system during the interwar period. Labelled as “Utopianism” from the realist camps according to its failure to prevent the outbreak of the World War II; nevertheless, this article argues that the creation of the League reflects a significant breakthrough of the very first institutionalized international politics of the 20th century. More importantly, even the League’s actual performance was disappointing in preventing another devastating war, its legacies as well as the spirit of liberalism live on.

The term "cable," as used in the context of diplomacy, is ambiguous. It denotes both a message and its technological messenger. Telegraph wires were used around the middle of the nineteenth century to connect the capitals of Europe. The network soon expanded, and by 1870, with the laying of submarine cables, fast-traveling telegraphic messages could be sent between Britain, Continental Europe, North America, the Middle East, and India. Through these cables, diplomatic posts communicated with their ministries back home. But the term "cable" also came to denote the message that was sent by telegraph. In this chapter I use this ambiguity as an entry point for an exploration of what the new materialist turn can bring to Diplomatic Studies. I will demonstrate how at three particular points in history the cable, as both diplomatic message and technological messenger, made a difference to how things played out. To make sense of this, one needs to be perceptive of the myriad ways in which meaning and materiality intertwine in the making of what we call diplomacy. What is called for is, in other words, a material-semiotic analysis of diplomacy...

In the classical meaning, the international society consisting of sovereign states plays a role of an international environment in the international system. Taking into consideration the dynamic transformation in the world politics after the Cold War, globalization, the strengthened international interdependence in its vertical, as well as horizontal realms, and the institutionalization of international social and political spheres fuels the discussion about the future of the international society, its inner structural changes, common norms, values, and rules. Th e thesis of the paper is the claim that the changes in international state-society reflecting the dynamic of world politics and the global trends do change the character of the international society, but do not change its essence. A growing and seemingly lasting process is strengthening the role of culture and identity in shaping the new structure of the international society.

Hans Morgenthau’s Scientific Man vs. Power Politics appeared one year after he received tenure at the University of Chicago. Thus,
the monograph demarcates the beginning of Morgenthau’s career in
the United States, to which he had emigrated nine years earlier. Three main aspects
seem important for understanding this work. The first is Morgenthau’s
bewilderment about American political culture and, as he perceived it, its cheerful
optimism about the betterment of politics, society, and humanity in general. The
second aspect is the nature of the argument: Scientific Man is a dogmatic tract, an
attempt to hammer home certain philosophical positions—positions that were
largely unpopular in the U.S. social sciences in the s (and later)—rather
than a reflective scholarly elaboration of certain philosophical commitments.
The third is Morgenthau’s place between two academic cultures: Morgenthau’s
language in his American writings partly stems from, but also tries to leave behind,
his European academic socialization. The monograph thus reflects the author’s
peculiar situation, as he inhabits two sometimes crucially different
semantic and cultural contexts, but fails to bridge or broker them.

This article argues that an engagement with the political philosophy of Leo Strauss is of considerable value in International Relations (IR), in relation to the study of both recent US foreign policy and contemporary IR theory. The question of Straussian activities within and close to the foreign policy-making establishment in the United States during the period leading up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq has been the focus of significant scholarly and popular attention in recent years. This article makes the case that several individuals influenced by Strauss exercised considerable influence in the fields of intelligence production, the media and think tanks, and traces the ways in which elements of Strauss’ thought are discernible in their interventions in these spheres. It further argues that Strauss’ political philosophy is of broader significance for IR insofar as it can be read as a securitising response to the dangers he associated with the foundationlessness of the modern condition. The article demonstrates that the politics of this response are of crucial importance for contemporary debates between traditional and critical IR theorists.

The origins of international conflict are often explained by security dilemmas, power-rivalries or profits for political or economic elites. Common to these approaches is the idea that human behaviour is mostly governed by material interests which principally involve the quest for power or wealth. The authors question this truncated image of human rationality. Borrowing the concept of recognition from models developed in philosophy and sociology, this book provides a unique set of applications to the problems of international conflict, and argues that human actions are often not motivated by a pursuit of utility maximisation as much as they are by a quest to gain recognition. This unique approach will be a welcome alternative to the traditional models of international conflict.

Part I Theoretical Preliminaries Introduction The International Politics of Recognition Erik Ringmar 1 Recognition between States: On the Moral Substrate of International Relations Axel Honneth 2 Prickly States? Recognition and Disrespect between Persons and Peoples Reinhard Wolf 3 Symbolic and Physical Violence Philippe Braud 4 Is a Just Peace Possible without Thin and Thick Recognition? Pierre Allan and Alexis Keller Part II Empirical Applications 5 Spirit, Recognition, and Foreign Policy: Germany and World War II Richard Ned Lebow 6 World War I from the Perspective of Power Cycle Theory: Recognition, "Adjustment Delusions," and the "Trauma of Expectations Foregone" Charles F. Doran 7 Recognition, Disrespect, and the Struggle for Morocco: Rethinking Imperial Germany's Security Dilemma Michelle Murray 8 Self-Identification, Recognition, and Conflicts: The Evolution of Taiwan's Identity, 1949-2008 Yana Zuo 9 Recognition, the Non-Proliferation Regime, and Proliferation Crises Alexandre Hummel 10 Recognizing the Enemy: Terrorism as Symbolic Violence Andreas Behnke Part III Conclusions 11 Concluding Remarks on the Empirical Study of International Recognition Thomas Lindemann

Scheda analitica realizzata nell'ambito del corso di Relazioni Internazionali della prof.ssa Ruth Hanau Santini, che tratta dell'articolo di Alexander Wendt "L'anarchia è ciò che gli stati ne fanno" che ha aperto le porte al costruttivismo sociale all'interno della teoria delle Relazioni Internazionali.