Showing papers in "European Journal of International Relations in 2018"
TL;DR: In this article, the authors build on the practice turn's welcome move to redirect our attention to the unconscious habitual practices that constitute most of daily social life, including in world politics.
Abstract: This article builds on the practice turn’s welcome move to redirect our attention to the unconscious habitual practices that constitute most of daily social life, including in world politics. Since...
89 citations
TL;DR: Examination of two prominent cases in which international organizations seek to shape the world through comparative metrics shows how the indirect power that international organizations exercise as evaluators of relative national performance through benchmarking can be highly consequential for the definition of states’ policy priorities.
Abstract: The production of transnational knowledge that is widely recognized as legitimate is a major source of influence for international organizations. To reinforce their expert status, international organizations increasingly produce global benchmarks that measure national performance across a range of issue areas. This article illustrates how international organization benchmarking is a significant source of indirect power in world politics by examining two prominent cases in which international organizations seek to shape the world through comparative metrics: (1) the World Bank–International Finance Corporation Ease of Doing Business ranking; and (2) the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development FDI Regulatory Restrictiveness Index. We argue that the legitimacy attached to these benchmarks because of the expertise of the international organizations that produce them is highly problematic for two reasons. First, both benchmarks oversimplify the evaluation of relative national performance, misrep...
83 citations
TL;DR: Norms are one of the most widely studied topics of contemporary International Relations scholarship as discussed by the authors, and scholars have created an extensive theoretical and empirical literature to identify, define, and analyze them.
Abstract: Norms are one of the most widely studied topics of contemporary International Relations scholarship. Norms scholars have created an extensive theoretical and empirical literature to identify, descr...
71 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a field-theoretic variation of hegemonic-order theory was proposed, inspired primarily by the work of Pierre Bourdieu, who argued that hegemony derives from the possession of a pluralit...
Abstract: This article outlines a field-theoretic variation of hegemonic-order theory — one inspired primarily by the work of Pierre Bourdieu. We argue that hegemony derives from the possession of a pluralit...
66 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that this understanding of the resilience-resistance connection suffers from three interrelated problems: it treats resilience and resistance as binary concepts rather than processes; it presents a simplistic conception of resilient subjects as apolitical subjects; and it eschews the transformability aspect of resilience.
Abstract: A great deal has been written in the International Relations literature about the role of resilience in our social world. One of the central debates in the scholarship concerns the relationship between resilience and resistance, which several scholars consider to be one of mutual exclusivity. For many theorists, an individual or a society can either be resilient or resistant, but not both. In this article, we argue that this understanding of the resilience–resistance connection suffers from three interrelated problems: it treats resilience and resistance as binary concepts rather than processes; it presents a simplistic conception of resilient subjects as apolitical subjects; and it eschews the ‘transformability’ aspect of resilience. In a bid to resolve these issues, the article advocates for the usefulness of a relational approach to the processes of resilience and resistance, and suggests an approach that understands resilience and resistance as engaged in mutual assistance rather than mutual exclusion...
61 citations
TL;DR: The role of the US military in the global expansion of capitalist relations has been analysed in this paper. But, beyond this somewhat simplified image, and even in peacetime, the US Army has been a major geoeconomic actor that has wielded its infrastructural power via its US Army Corps of Engineers' overseas activities.
Abstract: In analysing the role of the US in the global expansion of capitalist relations, most critical accounts see the US military’s invasion and conquest of various states as paving the way for the arrival of US businesses and capitalist relations. However, beyond this somewhat simplified image, and even in peacetime, the US military has been a major geoeconomic actor that has wielded its infrastructural power via its US Army Corps of Engineers’ overseas activities. The transformation of global economies in the 20th century has depended on the capitalisation of the newly independent states and the consolidation of liberal capitalist relations in the subsequent decades. The US Army Corps of Engineers has not only extended lucrative contracts to private firms (based not only in the US and host country, but also in geopolitically allied states), but also, and perhaps most important, has itself established a grammar of capitalist relations. It has done so by forging both physical infrastructures (roads, ports, util...
57 citations
TL;DR: In the flow of activities, diplomats and other international practitioners are simultaneously influenced by past experiences and constantly innovating in response to situations that are no longer predictable as discussed by the authors, which is the case in many of our work.
Abstract: Immersed in the flow of activities, diplomats and other international practitioners are simultaneously influenced by past experiences and constantly innovating in response to situations that are ne...
50 citations
TL;DR: The body of rules and commitments on adaptation are identified and it is suggested that there are more attempts to govern adaptation than many mitigation-focused accounts of the international climate regime would suggest.
Abstract: In the last decade, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has moved from a strong focus on mitigation to increasingly address adaptation. Climate change is no longer simply about reducing emissions, but also about enabling countries to deal with its impacts. Yet, most studies of the climate regime have focused on the evolution of mitigation governance and overlooked the increasing number of adaptation-related decisions and initiatives. In this article, we identify the body of rules and commitments on adaptation and suggest that there are more attempts to govern adaptation than many mitigation-focused accounts of the international climate regime would suggest. We then ask: to what degree are adaptation rules and commitments legalized in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change? We examine the degree of precision and obligation of relevant decisions through an extensive analysis of primary United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change documents, secondary literature on adaptation initiatives and institutions, interviews with climate change experts and negotiators, and participant observation at climate negotiations. Our analysis finds that adaptation governance is low in precision and obligation. We suggest that this is partly because adaptation is a contested global public good and because 'package deals' are made with mitigation commitments. This article makes a vital contribution to the global environmental politics literature given that adaptation governance is under-studied and poorly understood. It also contributes to the legalization literature by highlighting how contested global public goods may be governed globally, but with low obligation and precision.
47 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present an empirical study that aims to draw out core elements of an assemblage theory of global governance, which provides us with a feature-rich toolbox sensitive to the routine matters of international cooperation, role of artefacts and the vitality of territories of governance.
Abstract: This article presents an empirical study that aims to draw out core elements of an assemblage theory of global governance. Situating assemblage theory in the third, practice-oriented generation of global governance research, I argue that it provides us with a feature-rich toolbox sensitive to the routine matters of international cooperation, the role of artefacts and the vitality of territories of governance. To showcase the advantages of an assemblage approach, I study a paradigmatic case: the organization of the international community’s fight against piracy off the coast of Somalia. This effort has not only been very successful, with no major piracy incident reported from 2012 to 2016, but also a ‘miracle’ that can be explained by the close cooperation of all actors involved. I zoom in on one of the core components of this cooperation, the so-called Best Management Practices, which organize state–industry relations. I present a detailed study of the making of the Best Management Practices and the terri...
45 citations
TL;DR: The role of scientific knowledge and expertise in International Relations has been examined in a longer-term perspective by as mentioned in this paper, where the history shows that knowledge has played an important role in international relations theory since Carr and Morgenthau, but that thinking has been trapped within a simple conceptual framework centered on tracing how knowledge shapes the beliefs and interests of international subjects.
Abstract: There has been a resurgence of interest in the role of scientific knowledge and expertise in International Relations, but it is not clear what the theoretical value-added of this work is. This article places recent work on scientific knowledge and expertise in a longer-term perspective. The history shows that knowledge has played an important role in International Relations theory since Carr and Morgenthau, but that thinking has been trapped within a simple conceptual framework centered on tracing how knowledge shapes the beliefs and interests of international subjects. This mode of theorizing first entered International Relations via Mannheim and has been further developed by Foucauldian and practice-based approaches since the 1990s. Outlining the history of knowledge from Carr through Haas to the present makes it possible to identify the distinctive contribution of recent work: whereas International Relations has focused on how knowledge shapes subjects such as states and international organizations, re...
40 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine international reactions to Scotland's 2014 bid for independence as an instance of socialisation of an aspirant state, what they term "pre-socialisation" and propose a nexus between roles and sovereignty.
Abstract: This article examines international reactions to Scotland’s 2014 bid for independence as an instance of socialisation of an aspirant state, what we term ‘pre-socialisation’. Building on and contributing to research on state socialisation and role theory, this study proposes a nexus between roles and sovereignty. This nexus has three components: sovereignty itself is a role casted for by an actor; the sovereign role is entangled with the substantive foreign policy roles the actor might play; and the sovereign role implicates the substantive foreign policy roles of other actors. The Scottish debate on independence provides an effective laboratory to develop and explore these theoretical dimensions of pre-socialisation, revealing the contested value and meaning of sovereignty, the possible roles that an independent Scotland could play, and the projected implications for the role of the UK and other international actors. Our analysis of the Scottish case can provide insights for other cases of pre-socialisati...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the increased focus on economics in foreign policymaking represents a fundamental change related to the transnationalisation of capitalist state-building projects, and they develop a Poulantzian-uneven and combined development framework to explain the growing economic focus of states' foreign policies.
Abstract: Proposals for regional economic integration, namely, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and the One Belt One Road proposal, have recently been driving the security dynamics of the Asian region. To explain the growing ‘economic’ focus of states’ foreign policies, we need to go beyond the dominant approaches in International Relations and International Political Economy, which are limited in their analytical power because they often make a distinction between politics/security and economics, and prioritise one over the other, rather than seeing them as internally related. Drawing on Leon Trotsky’s theory of ‘uneven and combined development’ and Nicos Poulantzas’s notion of ‘internalised transformations’, we develop a ‘Poulantzian-uneven and combined development’ framework to argue that the increased focus on economics in foreign policymaking represents a fundamental change related to the transnationalisation of capitalist state-building projects. The paper argues ...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors propose that the developmental state can be a source of global environmental regulation, and the state investing in economic development can be seen as a kind of economic development.
Abstract: What are the origins of global regulation? This article proposes that the developmental state — the state investing in economic development — can be a source of global environmental regulation. Thr...
TL;DR: The authors argues that the Islamic State's staging of killings and mutilations is not an unprecedented phenomenon, but a contemporary version of a distinct type of political violence that has been mobilized by various political agents throughout centuries.
Abstract: The militant group known as the Islamic State has become notorious for its public displays of violence. Through slick high-definition videos showing beheadings, immolations and other forms of choreographed executions, the Islamic State has repeatedly captured the imagination of a global public and provoked vehement reactions. This article examines the Islamic State’s public displays of violence. Contrary to the public constitution of the Islamic State’s violence as an exceptional evil, the article argues that the group’s staging of killings and mutilations is not an unprecedented phenomenon, but a contemporary version of a distinct type of political violence that has been mobilized by various political agents throughout centuries. However, what is new and significant about the Islamic State’s choreographed executions is the public visibility of the acts and the global spectacle that the group has created. Thus, if the Islamic State is introducing a new dynamic in global politics, it is not a new form of v...
TL;DR: The authors propose that internal colonisation provides a necessary lens through which to explore the relationship between violence and race in contemporary liberal government, while racism remains a vital demarcation in liberal government between forms of worthy/unworthy life.
Abstract: This article proposes that ‘internal colonisation’ provides a necessary lens through which to explore the relationship between violence and race in contemporary liberal government. Contributing to an increasing interest in race in International Relations, this article proposes that while racism remains a vital demarcation in liberal government between forms of worthy/unworthy life, this is continually shaped by colonial histories and ongoing projects of empire that manifest in the Global North and South in familiar, if not identical, ways. In unpacking the concept of internal colonisation and its intellectual history from Black Studies into colonial historiography and political geography, I highlight how (neo-)metropolitan states such as Britain were always active imperial terrain and subjected to forms of colonisation. This recognises how metropole and colonies were bounded together through colonisation and how knowledge and practices of rule were appropriated onto a heterogeneity of racialised and undes...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine the state of the laws of war and whether they face exceptional pressures, focusing on problems of compliance and effe ciency of the law of war.
Abstract: How can we tell what state the laws of war are in today, and whether they face exceptional pressures? Standard accounts of the condition of this body of law focus on problems of compliance and effe...
TL;DR: The authors start from the observation that International Relations scholars do not agree on what they mean by theory and conclude that "the declining popularity of grand theory and the celebration of theoretical art cannot be attributed to the same reasons".
Abstract: This article starts from the observation that International Relations scholars do not agree on what they mean by theory. The declining popularity of grand theory and the celebration of theoretical ...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors apply a method of narrative analysis to investigate the discursive contestation over the Iran nuclear deal in the United States and explore the struggle in the US Congress between narratives constituting the deal as a US foreign policy success or failure.
Abstract: This article applies a method of narrative analysis to investigate the discursive contestation over the ‘Iran nuclear deal’ in the United States. Specifically, it explores the struggle in the US Congress between narratives constituting the deal as a US foreign policy success or failure. The article argues that foreign policy successes and failures are socially constructed through narratives and suggests how narrative analysis as a discourse analytical method can be employed to trace discursive contests about such constructions. Based on insights from literary studies and narratology, it shows that stories of failures and successes follow similar structures and include a number of key elements, including a particular setting; a negative/positive characterization of individual and collective decision-makers; and an emplotment of success or failure through the attribution of credit/blame and responsibility. The article foregrounds the importance of how stories are told as an explanation for the dominance or marginality of narratives in political discourse.
TL;DR: The underlying philosophical foundations of this new geological epoch are discussed in this paper. But, the underlying philosophical foundation of the Anthropocene epoch is not discussed in this paper, nor in this article.
Abstract: We are now told to welcome ourselves to the Anthropocene, a new geological epoch where humanity is ‘literally making’ the planet (Dalby, 2014). Yet, the underlying philosophical foundations of this...
TL;DR: The welfare internationalism was and still is one of the most powerful justifications for establishing international organizations as mentioned in this paper, and it suggests that public international organizations should cater to the needs of ordinary people.
Abstract: Welfare internationalism was and still is one of the most powerful justifications for establishing international organizations. It suggests that public international organizations should cater to t...
TL;DR: This paper argued that the realist-inspired depiction of Germany as a "geo-economic power" locked into zero-sum competiti-tion is false and argued that Germany's role in the Eurocrisis was different from that of realism.
Abstract: This article aims to shed new light on Germany’s domineering role in the eurocrisis. I argue that the realist-inspired depiction of Germany as a ‘geo-economic power’, locked into zero-sum competiti...
TL;DR: The structural turn in International Relations led to an aversion to analysing or the... as mentioned in this paper, and International Relations scholars have long neglected the question of leadership in international organizations, and the structural turn of International Relations has led to the aversion to analyzing or the question
Abstract: International Relations scholars have long neglected the question of leadership in international organizations. The structural turn in International Relations led to an aversion to analysing or the...
TL;DR: It is argued that particular individuals from the three United Nations are more likely to become recognized as competent performers of practices because of their personality, understood as plural socialization experiences.
Abstract: The United Nations Security Council passed its first resolution on children in armed conflict in 1999, making it one of the oldest examples of Security Council engagement with a thematic mandate and leading to the creation of a dedicated working group in 2005. Existing theoretical accounts of the Security Council cannot account for the developing substance of the children and armed conflict agenda as they are macro-oriented and focus exclusively on states. I argue that Security Council decision-making on thematic mandates is a productive process whose outcomes are created by and through practices of actors across the three United Nations: member states (the first United Nations), United Nations officials (the second United Nations) and non-governmental organizations (the third United Nations). In presenting a practice-based, micro-oriented analysis of the children and armed conflict agenda, the article aims to deliver on the empirical promise of practice theories in International Relations. I make two contributions to practice-based understandings: first, I argue that actors across the three United Nations engage in reflective practices of a strategic or tactical nature to manage, arrange or create space in Security Council decision-making. Portraying practices as reflective rather than as only based on tacit knowledge highlights how actors may creatively adapt their practices to social situations. Second, I argue that particular individuals from the three United Nations are more likely to become recognized as competent performers of practices because of their personality, understood as plural socialization experiences. This adds varied individual agency to practice theories that, despite their micro-level interests, have focused on how agency is relationally constituted.
TL;DR: Within and outside of the discipline of International Relations, Frankfurt School Critical Theory faces a "crisis of critique" that is affecting its ability to generate analyses and political interconnections as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Within and outside of the discipline of International Relations, Frankfurt School Critical Theory faces a ‘crisis of critique’ that is affecting its ability to generate analyses and political inter...
TL;DR: Despite increased attention, investment and research, the security technologies deployed at sovereign borders often fail to ‘properly distinguish between safe and dangerous travellers and goods' as mentioned in this paper, which is a serious problem.
Abstract: Despite increased attention, investment and research, the security technologies deployed at sovereign borders often fail to ‘properly’ distinguish between safe and dangerous travellers and goods. T...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors assess the struggles against enforced water privatisation in Greece and Portugal set against the background of the structuring conditions surrounding the Eurozone crisis, based on a historical materialist perspective and following a strategy of incorporated comparison.
Abstract: In response to the Eurozone crisis, austerity and restructuring has been imposed on the European Union’s (EU) peripheral member states in order to receive financial bailout loans. In addition to cuts in funding of essential public services, cuts in public sector employment and further liberalisation of labour markets, this has also included pressure towards the privatisation of state assets. And yet, workers have not simply accepted these restructuring pressures. They have organised and fought back against austerity and enforced privatisation. Based on a historical materialist perspective and following a strategy of incorporated comparison, in this paper we will comparatively assess the struggles against enforced water privatisation in Greece and Portugal set against the background of the structuring conditions surrounding the Eurozone crisis.
TL;DR: In this article, it is shown that war crimes trials demand and seek to cultivate disobedience as a response to atrocity, and it is widely recognized that internation is not required under international criminal law.
Abstract: How is disobedience required under international criminal law? How do war crimes trials demand and seek to cultivate disobedience as a response to atrocity? It is widely recognized that internation...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that attempts to theorize the negotiation of identity fall short of their goal because they focus heavily on the notion of negotiation and very little on the concept of identity.
Abstract: Identity is an important factor in international conflicts. As it is a crucial part of the problem, some scholars argue, national identity should be an important part of the solution. Parties to the conflict, they recommend, should negotiate their national identities so as to reach a “narrative equilibrium” that will allow them to overcome national stereotypes, build trust, and sustain peaceful relations in the future. This article evaluates not the merits of these negotiations, but the tools that social scientists have employed to analyze them. Its main purpose, therefore, is methodological. It argues that attempts to theorize the negotiation of identity fall short of their goal because they focus heavily on the notion of negotiation and very little on the concept of identity. To remedy this shortcoming, the article turns to the structural theories of narrative to conceptualize the negotiation of identity as a negotiation of literary plots. It argues that the negotiation of identity is the attempt to mov...
TL;DR: The authors argued that the factors that defined the military revolution in Europe were absent in European expeditions to Asia, Africa, and the Americas, and conventional accounts are often marred by Eurocentric biases.
Abstract: This article critiques explanations of the rise of the West in the early modern period premised on the thesis that military competition drove the development of gunpowder technology, new tactics, and the Westphalian state, innovations that enabled European trans-continental conquests. Even theories in International Relations and other fields that posit economic or social root causes of Western expansion often rely on this “military revolution” thesis as a crucial intervening variable. Yet, the factors that defined the military revolution in Europe were absent in European expeditions to Asia, Africa, and the Americas, and conventional accounts are often marred by Eurocentric biases. Given the insignificance of military innovations, Western expansion prior to the Industrial Revolution is best explained by Europeans’ ability to garner local support and allies, but especially by their deference to powerful non-Western polities.
TL;DR: In this paper, international relations scholars have turned to China's tributary system to broaden our understanding of international systems beyond the states-under-anarchy model derived from European history.
Abstract: International Relations scholars have turned to China’s tributary system to broaden our understanding of international systems beyond the ‘states-under-anarchy’ model derived from European history....