Showing papers in "Review of International Studies in 2009"
TL;DR: In this article, regions are conceptualised as processes that gain their boundaries, symbolisms and institutions in the process of institutionalisation, and a region becomes established, gains its status in the broader regional structure and may become a significant unit for regional identification or for purported regional identity.
Abstract: ‘New regionalism’, ‘region’, ‘city-region’, ‘cross-border region’, ‘border’ and ‘identity’ have become important catchphrases on the global geo-economic and geopolitical scene. The resurgence of these terms has been part of the transformation of both political economy and governance at supra-state, state and sub-state scales. Regions have been particularly significant in the EU where both the making of the Union itself and the ‘Europe of regions’ are concrete manifestations of the re-scaling of state spaces and the assignment of new meanings to territory. Such re-scaling has also led to increased competition between regions; a tendency that results from both the neo-liberalisation of the global economy and from a regionalist response. Regional identity, an idea at least implicitly indicating some cohesiveness or social integration in a region, has become a major buzzword. It has been particularly identified in the EU’s cohesion policy as an important element for regional development. In spite of their increasing importance in social life and academic debates, regions, borders and identities are often studied separately, but this paper aims at theorising and illustrating their meanings in an integrated conceptual framework and uses the sub-state regions in Europe, and particularly in Finland, as concrete examples. Regions are conceptualised here as processes that gain their boundaries, symbolisms and institutions in the process of institutionalisation. Through this process a region becomes established, gains its status in the broader regional structure and may become a significant unit for regional identification or for a purported regional identity. This process is based on a division of labour, which accentuates the power of regional elites in the institutionalisation processes.
324 citations
TL;DR: The Copenhagen school's theory of securitisation has mainly focused on the middle level of world politics in which collective political units, often but not always states, construct relationships of amity or enmity with each other as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The Copenhagen school's theory of securitisation has mainly focused on the middle level of world politics in which collective political units, often but not always states, construct relationships of amity or enmity with each other. Its argument has been that this middle level would be the most active both because of the facility with which collective political units can construct each other as threats, and the difficulty of finding audiences for the kinds of securitisations and referent objects that are available at the individual and system levels. This article focuses on the gap between the middle and system levels, and asks whether there is not more of substance there than the existing Copenhagen school analyses suggests. It revisits the under-discussed concept of security constellations in Copenhagen school theory, and adds to it the idea of macrosecuritisations as ways of getting an analytical grip on what happens above the middle level. It then suggests how applying these concepts adds not just a missing sense of scale, but also a useful insight into underlying political logics, to how one understands the patterns of securitisation historical, and contemporary.
248 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a discussion of an everyday "post-liberal peace" and critical policies for post-conflict environments is presented, which opens up a discussion about an everyday 'post- liberal peace' and critical policy for peacebuilding.
Abstract: The ‘liberal peace’ is undergoing a crisis of legitimacy at the level of the everyday in post-conflict environments. In many such environments; different groups often locally constituted perceive it to be ethically bankrupt, subject to double standards, coercive and conditional, acultural, unconcerned with social welfare, and unfeeling and insensitive towards its subjects. It is tied to Western and liberal conceptions of the state, to institutions, and not to the local. Its post-Cold War moral capital, based upon its more emancipatory rather than conservative claims, has been squandered as a result, and its basic goal of a liberal social contract undermined. Certainly, since 9/11, attention has been diverted into other areas and many, perhaps promising peace processes have regressed. This has diverted attention away from a search for refinements, alternatives, for hybrid forms of peace, or for empathetic strategies through which the liberal blueprint for peace might coexist with alternatives. Yet from these strategies a post-liberal peace might emerge via critical research agendas for peacebuilding and for policymaking, termed here, eirenist. This opens up a discussion of an everyday ‘post-liberal peace’ and critical policies for peacebuilding.
246 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the security mechanisms, institutions, and practices that sustain international orders, including balance of power and alliances, hegemony, security regimes based on regional or global institutions, public, private, and hybrid security networks, often coexist or overlap in political discourse and practice.
Abstract: By now arguments about the varieties of international order abound in International Relations. These disputes include arguments about the security mechanisms, institutions, and practices that sustain international orders, including balance of power and alliances, hegemony, security regimes based on regional or global institutions, public, private, and hybrid security networks, as well as different kinds of security communities. The way these orders coexist across time and space, however, has not been adequately theorised. In this article we seek to show (A) that, while analytically and normatively distinct, radically different orders, and in particular the security systems of governance on which they are based (such as balance of power and security community), often coexist or overlap in political discourse and practice. (B) We will attempt to demonstrate that the overlap of security governance systems may have important theoretical and empirical consequences: First, theoretically our argument sees ‘balance of power’ and ‘security community’ not only as analytically distinct structures of security orders, but focuses on them specifically as mechanisms based on a distinct mixture of practices. Second, this move opens up the possibility of a complex (perhaps, as John Ruggie called it, a ‘multiperspectival’) vision of regional security governance. Third, our argument may be able to inform new empirical research on the overlap of several security governance systems and the practices on which they are based. Finally, our argument can affect how we think about the boundaries of regions: Beyond the traditional geographical/geopolitical notion of regional boundaries and the social or cognitive notion of boundaries defined with reference to identity, our focus on overlapping mechanisms conceives of a ‘practical’ notion of boundaries according to which regions’ boundaries are determined by the practices that constitute regions.
172 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a framework for empirical research on the contested meaning of norms in international politics has been proposed to examine associative connotations of norms that come to the fore when norms are contested in situations of governance beyond the state and especially in crises.
Abstract: This article proposes a framework for empirical research on contested meaning of norms in international politics. The goal is to identify a design for empirical research to examine associative connotations of norms that come to the fore when norms are contested in situations of governance beyond-the-state and especially in crises. If cultural practices shape experience and expectations, they need to be identified and made ‘account-able’ based on empirical research. To that end, the proposed qualitative approach centres on individually enacted meaning-in-use. The framework comprises norm-types, conditions of contestation, types of divergence and opposition-deriving as a specific interview evaluation technique. Section one situates the problem of contestation in the field of constructivist research on norms. Section two introduces distinctive conditions of contestation and types of norms. Section three details the methodology of conducting and evaluating interviews and presents the technique of opposition-deriving with a view to reconstructing the structure of meaning-in-use. Section four concludes with an outlook to follow-up research.
168 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine contested views on what constitutes a region and on the nature and functioning of regional architecture, drawing from thematic and case-specific literature to indicate the expanse of analytical enquiry, including the roles and interpretations of geography, identity, culture, institutionalisation, and the role of actors, including a hegemon, major regional powers and others actors from within a region.
Abstract: Long a focal point in the study of Geography, regions have become a major concern of International Relations, and for some even its essence. Principle definitions and approaches, however, remain contested, as do the contexts in which and how they matter, from economic to security. This article examines contested views on what constitutes a region and on the nature and functioning of regional architecture, drawing from thematic and case-specific literature to indicate the expanse of analytical enquiry. These include the roles and interpretations of geography, identity, culture, institutionalisation, and the role of actors, including a hegemon, major regional powers and others actors from within a region, both state and societal. A final section indicates additional areas for future research.
139 citations
TL;DR: A hermeneutical perspective centred on the liminality of security as a category in-between theory and policy, which produces a more precise algorithm for empirical research is needed.
Abstract: How do we know when we are dealing with security issue? This is a cardinal question in Security Studies, and securitisation theory provides and authoritative yet incomplete answer, mainly because it rules out that the meaning of security can vary contextually. To overcome this limitation, we need a hermeneutical perspective centred on the liminality of security as a category in-between theory and policy, which produces a more precise algorithm for empirical research. A contextual hermeneutics of security signals that normative awareness is necessary even in the absence of a unifying normative manifesto, also confronts the spectre of the "death of security" invoked by those who object to the potentially endless broadening of its meaning.
137 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on the different avenues that Latin America is undertaking in terms of regional projects and assess the dynamics of intra- regional integration and the inter-action effects with varieties of North-South integration and show a long term trend towards potential convergence, especially if the Community of South American Nations moves on.
Abstract: The breakdown of the North-South, East-West governing principles, and the removal of superpower overlay have led to an increasingly decentralised system setting the stage for the so called new geography of trade and the reconfiguration of political – diplomatic strategies. Such strategies now include contestation, articulation, competitive liberalisation, ample inter-state coalition building such as the G-20, G-33, G-90 in the Doha Round and the proliferation of regional and wider ranging preferential arrangements. Regionalism is both policy and project. Agreements vary widely in motivation, form, coverage and content. It is very often the case that, as in multilateral institutions, one major actor sets the agenda at the regional level with the view not only of constructing and retaining power at that level but also of setting global precedents. New balancing or bandwagoning efforts vis-a-vis the local strong power are set in motion with fresh implications for the emerging global architecture. Regional alignments are thus constantly shaping and reshaping market relations. Intra-Latin American agreements (those not including the majors, the US and the EU) were motivated by the search for wider markets building up economies of scale amongst similar countries. Such agreements mostly focused on market liberalisation through diverse schedules of tariff reduction. The result has been the emergence of shallow regional agreements. Nonetheless, most have not been fully implemented, but they show a long term trend towards potential convergence, especially if the Community of South American Nations moves on. External pressures have also spurred agreements as defensive mechanisms. So we witness impulses to regionalism complementing and at times competing with older patterns and trends. This contribution focuses on the different avenues that Latin America is undertaking in terms of regional projects. It will assess the dynamics of intra- regional integration and the inter-action effects with varieties of North-South integration.
108 citations
TL;DR: A regional security complex (RSC) is a set of states continuously affected by one or more security externalities that emanate from a distinct geographic area as discussed by the authors, and the members are so interrelated in terms of their security that actions by any one member, and significant security-related developments inside any member, have a major impact on others.
Abstract: . The ordering principle of international relations varies widely across regional security complexes and has profound effects on regional order. States form hierarchies over one another based on relational authority, which itself rests on social contract theories that posit authority as an equilibrium of an exchange between a dominant state and the set of citizens who comprise the subordinate state. Regional orders emerge because of the strong positive externalities of social order and economies of scale in its production, and the mutually reinforcing legitimacy accorded the dominant state by local subordinates. This implies that regions characterised by the hierarchy of single dominant states will possess more peaceful regional orders. Regions often described as pluralistic security communities in which cooperation is understood to have emerged spontaneously from anarchy are better described as regional hierarchies in which peace and conflict regulation are the products of the authority of a dominant state. Introduction A regional security complex (RSC) is a set of states continuously affected by one or more security externalities that emanate from a distinct geographic area. In such a complex, the members are so interrelated in terms of their security that actions by any one member, and significant security-related developments inside any member, have a major impact on others. Regional orders describe how states within an RSC manage their security relations and range from balances of power, to regional power concerts, collective security organisations, pluralistic security communities, and integration.
102 citations
TL;DR: The authors suggests that the nature of hegemonic competition and transition in East Asia is more uncertain and complex than some of the most influential theoretical understandings of hegemony would have us believe.
Abstract: The ‘rise of China’ is seen by some observers as a precursor of inevitable hegemonic competition in East Asia. At the very least, it seems likely that China’s influence in East Asia will grow at the expense of the United States. Whether this will eventually amount to a form of ‘hegemonic transition’ is far less clear. It is, therefore, an opportune moment to consider the relative strengths and weaknesses of China and the US in East Asia. This paper suggests that the nature of hegemonic competition and transition is more uncertain and complex than some of the most influential theoretical understandings of hegemony would have us believe.
86 citations
TL;DR: For example, this article argued that the aggregate benefits from the agreements are likely to be limited given the low levels of tariffs and the availability of provisions that facilitate the intra-regional exchange of components.
Abstract: East Asia has emerged over the last decade as the most active site for the negotiation of regional inter-governmental collaboration. The primary focus has been on trade but, in the wake of the financial crises, governments have also engaged in historically unprecedented collaboration in several areas of finance. Multiple factors have driven this new regional engagement. Although the agreements have been primarily economic in their focus, the primary motivation for many of them has been to secure diplomatic or strategic gains. The aggregate benefits from the agreements are likely to be limited given the low levels of tariffs and the availability of provisions that facilitate the intra-regional exchange of components. They may, however, be of significant interest to producers of specific products either because they provide advantage over competitors (or remove the advantage that competitors through agreements that their governments have signed). The trade agreements thus often reflect particularistic interests that governments have been enlisted to champion.
TL;DR: The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) was designed to manage the collapse of the Soviet Union and foster post-Soviet cooperation in political, economic, and security spheres.
Abstract: The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) was designed to manage the collapse of the Soviet Union and foster post-Soviet cooperation in political, economic, and security spheres. Over a decade into its existence, most analysts would rate it a failure: many post-Soviet states do not participate in CIS ventures, the institutional machinery of the CIS is weak, and Russia, the most dominant post-Soviet state, has tended to favour bi-lateral relationships over multi-lateral institutions. Why is this the case? This article looks at the CIS through the prism of theories of regionalism, demonstrating that the CIS was handicapped on many fronts, including emergent multi-polarity in the post-Soviet space and domestic-level political considerations in many post-Soviet states.
TL;DR: In this article, it is argued that some promise can be found in the work of Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben, whose diagnosis of the operation of sovereign power in terms of the production of bare life has significant implications for analysing borders and the politics of space across a global bio-political terrain, and that many of the resources in political thought to which we might turn for new border vocabularies already rely on unproblematised perceptions of what and where borders are.
Abstract: This article is a response to calls from a number of theorists in International Relations and related disciplines for the need to develop alternative ways of thinking ‘the
border’ in contemporary political life. These calls stem from an apparent tension between the increasing complexity of the nature and location of bordering practices on the one hand and yet the relative simplicity with which borders often continue to be treated on the other.
One of the intellectual challenges, however, is that many of the resources in political thought to which we might turn for new border vocabularies already rely on unproblematised
conceptions of what and where borders are. It is argued that some promise can be found in the work of Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben, whose diagnosis of the operation of
sovereign power in terms of the production of bare life offers significant, yet largely untapped, implications for analysing borders and the politics of space across a global
bio-political terrain.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors consider the idea that feminism has performatively failed within the discipline of international relations and suggest that one aspect of this failure relates to the production of sexgender through feminism, which they suggest is partly responsible for a weariness inflecting feminist scholarship, in particular as a critical theoretical resource.
Abstract: In this article we critically consider the idea that feminism has performatively failed within the discipline of International Relations. One aspect of this failure relates to the production of sexgender through feminism which we suggest is partly responsible for a weariness inflecting feminist scholarship, in particular as a critical theoretical resource. We reflect on this weariness in the context of the study and practice of international politics – arenas still reaping the potent benefits of the virile political energies reverberating since 9/11. To illustrate our arguments we re-count a familiar feminist fable of militarisation – a story which we use to exemplify how the production of feminist IR is ‘set’ up to ‘fail’. In so doing we clarify our depiction of feminism as seemingly haunted by its inherent paradoxes as well as explaining why it matters to discuss feminism within the locale of the academic study of international politics. We conclude with a consideration of the grammar of temporality that delimits representations of feminism and move to recast feminist failure as aporetic and concomitantly implicated in the process of intervening politically.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that there is a dominant tendency to collapse into a binary analysis that asserts either we are witnessing convergence or we are experiencing path dependency, and propose a twofold critique: on the one hand it addresses those accounts commonly associated with the Varieties of Capitalism literature and their associated understanding of neo-liberalism.
Abstract: This article develops a twofold critique: on the one hand it addresses those accounts commonly associated with the Varieties of Capitalism literature and their associated understanding of neo-liberalism to argue that there is a dominant tendency to collapse into a binary analysis that asserts either we are witnessing convergence or we are experiencing path dependency. On the other hand it addresses ‘neo-Gramscian’ accounts which tend to overemphasise processes of transnational convergence and the emergence of a transnational capitalist class at the expense of the embeddedness of capital in national-domestic contexts. On this basis, it is argued that several contributions within political geography pose meaningful questions about the premise that neo-liberalism is inherently variegated. Principally, this involves developing the notion of variegated neo-liberalism to analyse the dynamics of a contingent neo-liberal consensus between transnationally-oriented fractions that both drives EU reform in a neo-liberal direction and reinforces domestic linkages organic to the national context. As a result, the article suggests we therefore reject the notion of a transnational capitalist class somehow detached from the national.
TL;DR: This paper proposed a more coherent, rigid, and systematic constructivist framework for research by combining the methods of process tracing, discourse analysis, and counterfactuals, and provided clearer methodological criteria for the evaluation of constructivist research by modifying some of the positivist criteria.
Abstract: My aim in this article is to improve the methodology of the modernist constructivist approach and to provide a more coherent, rigid, and systematic constructivist framework for research. I do this by combining the methods of process tracing, discourse analysis, and counterfactuals. In addition, I aim to provide clearer methodological criteria for the evaluation of constructivist research by modifying some of the positivist criteria and adding the criterion of contextual validity. I assert that a more coherent methodology will strengthen and improve constructivist study and may contribute to better communication between constructivist and positivist scholars.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors consider seven types of challenges, each pointing to a specific disanalogy between domestic and global arenas which is said to justify the restriction of egalitarian justice to the former, and argue that none of them offers a conclusive refutation of global egalitarianism.
Abstract: Many political theorists defend the view that egalitarian justice should extend from the domestic to the global arena. Despite its intuitive appeal, this ‘global egalitarianism’ has come under attack from different quarters. In this article, we focus on one particular set of challenges to this view: those advanced by domestic egalitarians. We consider seven types of challenges, each pointing to a specific disanalogy between domestic and global arenas which is said to justify the restriction of egalitarian justice to the former, and argue that none of them – both individually and jointly – offers a conclusive refutation of global egalitarianism.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that neo-realism can be seen as an ideology rather than a theory of international politics, and propose an ideology critique to explore this argument.
Abstract: This article is interested in the hegemony which neo-realism accomplished during the second half of the 20th century in both the academic field and policy making of I/international R/relations. Our examination posits the argument that neo-realism can be seen as an ideology rather than a theory of international politics. While this view can connect to individual voices from the 1960s as well as to an emerging body of critical literature since the 1990s, we propose an ideology critique to explore this argument. To unfold this approach we will elaborate some neo-realist misreadings which we think manipulate intellectual history (among others, the writings of Hans J. Morgenthau) and represent an ideological impact intrinsic in the development of IR. An ideology critical approach – which is inherent in Morgenthau's thoughts on international theory themselves and thus helps to reveal profound discrepancies at the heart of an ostensible ‘realist’-neo-realist ‘unity’ – has, firstly, to problematise those discrepancies and, secondly, to focus on hegemonic strategies applied to ideologise and mainstream the academic field. The first part of such an agenda is what we present here; the second part is what we outline methodologically and suggest for further studies in, and of, IR.
TL;DR: This article argued that irony can impact the discussion of global ethics by pitching less as a discourse of grand universals and more as a set of hopeful narratives about how to reduce suffering, and extended this notion via the particular and particularly - ethnocentric case of British irony.
Abstract: The article provides a critical analysis of the concept of irony and how it. relates to global justice. Taking Richard Rorty as a lead, it is suggested that irony call foreground a sense of doubt over our own most heartfelt beliefs regarding justice. This provides at least one ideal sense in which irony can impact the discussion of global ethics by pitching less as a discourse of grand universals and more as a set of hopeful narratives about how to reduce suffering. The article then extends this notion via the particular and particularly - ethnocentric case of British Irony. Accepting certain difficulties With any definition of British Irony the article reads the interventions of three protagonists oil the subject of global justice Chris Brown, Banksy and Ricky Gervais. It is argued that their considerations bring to light important nuances in irony relating to the importance of playfulness, tragedy, pain, self-criticism and paradox. The position is then qualified against the (opposing) critiques that irony is either too radical, or, too conservative a quality to make a meaningful impact oil the discussion of global justice. Ultimately, irony is defended as a critical and imaginative form, which call (but does not necessarily) foster a greater awareness of the possibilities and limits for thinking/doing global justice.
"The comic frame, in making a man the Student of himself, makes it possible for him to 'transcend' occasions when lie has been tricked or cheated, since he call readily put Such discouragements into his 'assets' column, under the heading of experience'.... In sum, the comic frame should enable people to be observers of themselves, while acting., Blackadder: Baldrick, have you no idea what it-oily is? Baldrick; Yes, it's like goldy and bronzy only it's made out of iron."
TL;DR: A number of leading realists now argue that the best strategy for the US is to extricate itself from Iraq, reduce its regional footprint, and adopt an offshore balancing strategy.
Abstract: In this paper, I argue that there is an emerging consensus among realists that the US should abandon its hegemonic strategy and adopt an offshore balancing strategy. Here, Iraq and the so called war on terrorism (or ‘long war’, or ‘global counter-insurgency’, as some American officials sometimes refer to it) have been the catalysts. Increasingly, it is recognised that US aims in the Persian Gulf/Middle East – and the American military presence in the region – have fuelled terrorism, and caused Iran to self-defensively seek to acquire a nuclear weapons capability. A number of leading realists now argue that the best strategy for the US is to extricate itself from Iraq, reduce its regional footprint, and adopt an offshore balancing strategy.
TL;DR: In this article, a multi-levelled hegemonic encounter has developed in Central Asia, where a global hegemon, the USA, a regional hegeman, the Russian Federation, an aspirant sub-regional hegoman, Uzbekistan, and an emergent regional and global hehemon, China, co-exist within the framework of Central Asian security politics.
Abstract: A multi-levelled hegemonic encounter has developed in Central Asia, in which a global hegemon, the USA; a regional hegemon, the Russian Federation; an aspirant sub-regional hegemon, Uzbekistan; and an emergent regional and global hegemon, China, co-exist within the framework of Central Asian security politics. Where these hegemons’ interests do not conflict this can be characterised as a matrioshka model of hegemony: the different level hegemons can accommodate one another peacefully and where their interests coincide they can form alliances. The model of multi-levelled hegemony developed here highlights the simultaneous presence of competition and cooperation. This article explores the way in which the various bilateral hegemonic relations in the region also indicate that actual and emergent hegemonic states at different levels can cooperate as hegemons in order to challenge, or to respond to challenge, by hegemonic states at other levels. This helps to clarify the question of whether the increasingly competitive interaction between these states is likely to lead to conflict.
TL;DR: The authors examines literature in the field of cultural political economy (CPE), which emphasises the constitutive importance of the cultural norms and practices situated at the level of everyday life, and develops an institution-based perspective that is more suitable to theorising the linkages between structural power and state power.
Abstract: Critical work in international political economy (IPE) has sought to theorise US financial power through the concept of structural power, intended as a means to go beyond state-centric conceptions of political power and to trace the state’s interaction with socio-economic forces. But due to the tendency to ontologise the distinction between state and market, IPE has not been fully successful in articulating the linkages between structural power and state power. The article then examines literature in the field of cultural political economy (CPE), which emphasises the constitutive importance of the cultural norms and practices situated at the level of everyday life. The CPE literature fails to challenge established IPE accounts in some key respects, and the article relates this to its conception of political power. The article develops an institution-based perspective that is more suitable to theorising the linkages between structural power and state power, and then proceeds to develop an interpretation of the construction of American financial power over the course of the 20th century. It reinterprets some of the key moments in the history of US and global finance and re-examines notions of American financial decline.
TL;DR: Clark as mentioned in this paper argues that what artists think and make is profoundly interesting and important, and that the nature of their achievement tends to be underestimated, and points out the importance of returning to earlier work and drawing out its continued significance.
Abstract: ‘You can refute Hegel,’ wrote Yeats, ‘but not the Song of Sixpence.’ All of the contributors, supporters and scene-shifters of this special section start from the assumption that art matters, ethically and politically; affectively and intellectually. It is another way of apprehending the world. It has consequences. Not only does it make us feel, or feel differently, it also makes us think, and think again. It is in a certain sense irrefutable. Cézanne is supposed to have said of Poussin that he put reason in the grass and tears in the sky. Reason and tears may be as good an encapsulation of International Relations as any. This special section is dedicated to the proposition that art can enlarge our understanding of both. If the way artists see and shape the world is intensely political, this has profound significance for those of us in a field that tries to make sense of the characteristics of that world, and intervene in it. The political issues most fundamental to International Relations – war, peace, order, justice – have always been fundamental to artists as well. Indeed, many artists are highly sophisticated analysts of the international sphere. It is about time that those of us who study global politics became equally sophisticated analysts of that art. We are not precious about definitions. ‘Is it art?’ is not a question that need detain us. We are not concerned only with ‘high art’ from well-established painters, playwrights, photographers or poets. We are interested in creative productions that seek to comment on the current state of global life. And not only contemporary art; we emphasise the importance of returning to earlier work and drawing out its continued significance, often overlooked. This collection is predicated on Valéry’s claim that a work of art is defined by the fact that it does not exhaust itself – offer up what it has to offer – on first or second or subsequent reading. Great art is practically inexhaustible. It has the capacity to invite a repeated response. We go beyond ourselves, in Gadamer’s phrase, by penetrating deeper into the work: ‘That “something can be held in our hesitant stay” – this is what art has always been and is still today.’ In short, the artist articulates a vision of the world that is insightful, and consequential; and the vision and the insight can be analysed. Put differently, we believe that what artists think and make is profoundly interesting and important, and that the nature of their achievement tends to be underestimated. We are with T. J. Clark:
TL;DR: Forgiveness has significant political, legal, and moral implications as discussed by the authors. But beyond these, the subject concerns how states confront their history and their collective responsibility for wrongdoing, and why states ask for forgiveness from other states or peoples that they have harmed.
Abstract: This article examines why states ask for forgiveness from other states or peoples that they have harmed. Asking for forgiveness has significant political, legal, and moral implications. But beyond these, the subject concerns how states confront their history and their collective responsibility for wrongdoing. My focus on the reasons states have for asking forgiveness could also improve our understanding of conflict resolution. The article introduces an innovative typology of requests for forgiveness by presenting important conceptual distinctions in the terminology currently employed in the field. Apologies, regrets, and expressions of sorrow are conceptualised as distinct avenues of asking forgiveness with varying degrees of significance and meaningfulness. I assert that the type of request for forgiveness is influenced by the degree of severity attributed to a wrongdoing and by the extent to which a state perceives its image as threatened by its wrongful act. The article analyses the important 1951 statement of West Germany's Chancellor Adenauer regarding the Jewish Holocaust as an example of a type of request for forgiveness.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on the production and dissemination of photographic images by serving US soldiers in Iraq who are photographing their experiences and posting them on the Internet, a form of visual communication that is new in the representation of warfare.
Abstract: This article focuses on the production and dissemination of photographic images by serving US soldiers in Iraq who are photographing their experiences and posting them on the Internet. This form of visual communication – in real time and communal – is new in the representation of warfare; in earlier wars soldiers took photographs, but these were not immediately shared in the way websites can disseminate images globally. This digital generation of soldiers exist in a new relationship to their experience of war; they are now potential witnesses and sources within the documentation of events, not just the imaged actors – a blurring of roles that reflects the correlations of revolutions in military and media affairs. This photography documents the everyday experiences of the soldiers and its historical significance may reside less in the controversial or revelatory images but in more mundane documentation of the environments, activities and feelings of American soldiery at war.
TL;DR: In this paper, a family resemblance concept (FRC) is used to explain the complex meanings associated with international legitimacy, including subjective perceptions and beliefs, the normative quality of oughtness, and the idea of consent.
Abstract: What is international legitimacy and whence does it stem? What entities seek it and why, and who grants or withholds it? How might the different meanings of the concept be reconciled? This article argues that Family Resemblance Concept (FRC) methods are particularly well-suited to explicating the complex meanings associated with this multidimensional concept. We start with a basic level definition based on subjective perceptions and beliefs, the normative quality of oughtness, and the idea of consent. We then expand this definition by developing several secondary-level dimensions: shared values, constitutionalism (consisting of two forms of process legitimacy), and outcome legitimacy. At the indicator level, we examine 14 different survey questions asked in international public opinion polls to provide a tentative empirical glimpse of how our FRC version of legitimacy could be operationalised and tested. The paper concludes with a discussion of the usefulness of the FRC scheme in imposing some order on the legitimacy concept and in illuminating the recent legitimacy problems afflicting the United States.
TL;DR: The authors argue that the history of the British and American Empires offers important lessons for current debates including what is the appropriate definition of the American empire, what are the social and political foundations of American Empires, and what are their consequences for the US and the wider world.
Abstract: A growing number of scholars, commentators, and pundits describe the contemporary US as an empire. This article argues that these authors have not paid sufficient attention to the historiography of empire and imperialism. Indeed, the historiography of the British and American empires offers important lessons for current debates including what is the appropriate definition of the American empire, what are the social and political foundations of the American Empire, and what are the consequences of the American Empire for the US and the wider world.
TL;DR: The authors examine the contradictions of North America integration in order to explain why North Americans have been so open to regionalisation but so resistant to regionalism, and argue that this is a profound misreading of the two free trade agreements of the late 1980s and early 1990s and the SPP mechanism of 2005, but also of the political and economic implications of those agreements.
Abstract: Students of regionalism almost reflexively include North America in their lists of regions in contemporary global politics. Inevitably students of regionalism point to the integrative agreements between the countries of North America: the two free trade agreements that transformed the continental economy beginning in the late 1980s – the Canada–US Free Trade Agreement that came into force on 1 January 1989, and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the United States, Mexico, and Canada, that came into force on 1 January 1994 – and the Secutity and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP), launched in March 2005. These agreements, it is implied, are just like the integrative agreements that forge the bonds of regionalism elsewhere in the world. We argue that this is a profound misreading, not only of the two free trade agreements of the late 1980s and early 1990s and the SPP mechanism of 2005, but also of the political and economic implications of those agreements. While these integrative agreements have created considerable regionalisation in North America, there has been little of the regionalism evident in other parts of the world. We examine the contradictions of North America integration in order to explain why North Americans have been so open to regionalisation but so resistant to regionalism.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that looking at images of human suffering is often said to prolong this very suffering and to fix human subjects as victims, and that the relationship between viewing the images and participating in the acts of violence qua viewer appears to be uncomfortably close indeed.
Abstract: When confronted with images of war and other forms of human suffering, not looking is not an option, not only because we are permanently exposed to images but also because it would not seem to be a morally tenable position. However, looking at images of human suffering is often said to prolong this very suffering and to fix human subjects as victims. Especially when acts of violence have been committed in order to produce images of these very acts the relationship between viewing the images and participating in the acts of violence qua viewer appears to be uncomfortably close indeed. Thus, looking is not an option, either. This article, in the first part, engages with standard criticisms of photography, especially with accusations according to which photographs aestheticise that which they depict and desensitise their viewers. In the second part it discusses Alfredo Jaar's and Jeff Wall's work in order to show possible ways to circumvent the looking/not looking dilemma.
TL;DR: In this article, a critique of the Securitisation framework around its ability to provide a comprehensive security analysis when applied in a developing socio-political context is provided, and the authors argue that the framework's conditionalities around who can securitise and how, and its assumptions around the nature of the state restrict the ability to consider the role of non-state actors in raising existential threats to societal security.
Abstract: This article provides a critique of the securitisation framework around its ability to provide a comprehensive security analysis when applied in a developing socio-political context. It argues that the framework's conditionalities around who can securitise and how, and its assumptions around the nature of the state restrict its ability to consider the role of non-state actors in raising existential threats to societal security. Through a case study of newspapers in Bangladesh raising ‘misgovernance’ as a security threat to its citizens, it explores how the securitisation framework can become more perceptive to security dynamics in contexts which differ from the one within which the framework has evolved.