Showing papers on "International relations published in 2017"

International Relations and the European Union

Abstract: PART ONE: FRAMEWORKS PART TWO: INSTITUTIONS AND PROCESSES PART THREE: ACTIVITIES AND IMPACT PART FOUR: EVALUATION AND CONCLUSION

Determining the Role of the Internet in Violent Extremism and Terrorism: Six Suggestions for Progressing Research

Abstract: Some scholars and others are skeptical of a significant role for the Internet in processes of violent radicalization. There is increasing concern on the part of other scholars, and increasingly also policymakers and publics, that easy availability of violent extremist content online may have violent radicalizing effects. This article identifies a number of core questions regarding the interaction of violent extremism and terrorism and the Internet, particularly social media, that have yet to be adequately addressed and supplies a series of six follow-up suggestions, flowing from these questions, for progressing research in this area. These suggestions relate to (1) widening the range of types of violent online extremism being studied beyond violent jihadis; (2) engaging in more comparative research, not just across ideologies, but also groups, countries, languages, and social media platforms; (3) deepening our analyses to include interviewing and virtual ethnographic approaches; (4) up-scaling or ...

Explaining the Rise of Diaspora Institutions

Abstract: Why do states establish and empower diaspora engagement institutions? Origin-state institutions dedicated to emigrants and their descendants have been largely overlooked in mainstream political studies, perhaps because they fall in the grey area between domestic politics and international relations. Now, diaspora institutions are found in over half of all United Nations member states, yet we have little theory and broad-sample statistical evidence to guide our understanding about when they are more likely to emerge and increase in importance. In response, we identify and then investigate empirical support for three theoretically-grounded perspectives on diaspora institution emergence and importance: instrumentally rational states tapping resources of emigrants and their descendants; value-rational states embracing lost members of the nation-state; institutionally-converging states governing diasporas consistent with global norms. We document support for these alternative perspectives in regression and related analyses modelling diaspora institution emergence and importance in 144 states observed from 1990-2010. Tapping perspective estimations exhibit better overall model fit compared to estimations based on other perspectives. Estimations combining perspectives exhibit the best model fit. Individual terms exhibiting signs contrary to prediction suggest new directions for theoretical and empirical research from different perspectives. We advance international relations research by identifying, distinguishing and testing alternative perspectives explaining diaspora institution emergence and importance. We also advance international relations practice and policy with evidence-guided insight on near-term trends in institution emergence and importance.

Beyond Realism and Marxism: Critical Theory and International Relations

Abstract: Acknowledgements - Introduction - Power, Order and Emancipation in International Theory - Marx and the Logic of Universal Emancipation - The Nation and the Species - Class, State and Nation in the Theory of Capitalist Imperialism - Marxist and Neo-Marxist Theories of Inequality and Development - The States-System and the World-System - Class and State in International Relations - Conclusions - Notes and References - Select Bibliography - Index

The Behavioral Revolution and International Relations

Abstract: What explains the strategically costly and ill-planned American invasion and occupation of Iraq? What accounts for Saddam Hussein’s failure to take actions that might have deflected it? These decisions can be explored with rationalist tools, including the existence of credible commitment problems and asymmetries in information.1 But explanations of this sort beg a number of important questions. The Clinton and Bush administrations did not differ substantially in their information about Iraq. But Bush administration officials—and the president himself—did hold beliefs that differed substantially from those of their predecessors, and those beliefs had profound effects. Decision making by both Iraqi and US leaders displayed strong biases. Saddam Hussein failed to recognize that the United States was committed to war unless he was willing to reveal credibly that he had, in fact, dismantled his weapons of mass destruction. The United States signaled its intentions repeatedly, but the Iraqi leader remained impervious to new information. Bush administration officials believed that the Americans would be greeted as liberators and democracy would flourish of its own accord. Such motivated reasoning both precipitated war and contributed to the failure to plan adequately for rebuilding the Iraqi state in war’s wake. The causes of the Iraq War and the disastrous consequences of its aftermath appear to lie as much in the realm of beliefs and decision making as in standard theories of bargaining. Similar anomalies can be found in the study of international political economy. The theory of open-economy politics offers clear predictions about individual preferences with respect to trade policy. When factors of production are specific to an industry,

A Bottom-Up Theory of Public Opinion about Foreign Policy

Abstract: If public opinion about foreign policy is such an elite-driven process, why does the public often disagree with what elites have to say? We argue here that elite cue-taking models in International Relations are both overly pessimistic and unnecessarily restrictive. Members of the public may lack information about the world around them, but they do not lack principles, and information need not only cascade from the top down. We present the results from five survey experiments where we show that cues from social peers are at least as strong as those from political elites. Our theory and results build on a growing number of findings that individuals are embedded in a social context that combines with their general orientations toward foreign policy in shaping responses toward the world around them. Thus, we suggest the public is perhaps better equipped for espousing judgments in foreign affairs than many of our top-down models claim.

Micro-moves in International Relations theory:

Abstract: This article posits empirical and political reasons for recent ‘micro-moves’ in several contemporary debates, and seeks to further develop them in future International Relations studies. As evidenced by growing trends in studies of practices, emotions and the everyday, there is continuing broad dissatisfaction with grand or structural theory’s value without ‘going down’ to ‘lower levels’ of analysis where structures are enacted and contested. We suggest that empirics of the last 15 years — including the war on terror and the Arab Spring — have pushed scholars into increasingly micropolitical positions and analytical frameworks. Drawing upon insights from Gilles Deleuze, William Connolly and Henri Lefebvre, among others, we argue that attention to three issues — affect, space and time — hold promise to further develop micropolitical perspectives on and in International Relations, particularly on issues of power, identity and change. The article offers empirical illustrations of the analytical purchase of t...

Mapping the Boundaries of Elite Cues: How Elites Shape Mass Opinion across International Issues

Abstract: Despite intense interest in the nature and malleability of public opinion about foreign policy, there remains debate over when and how elite messages shape mass opinion on international issues, especially whether the informational or partisan components of elite cues dominate. The rise of survey experiments has offered conflicting insights. We argue that the single-issue nature of most survey experiments masks systematic variation in elite cue effects across international issues, and that these effects depend on the baseline distribution of mass opinion on the issues themselves. Two characteristics of underlying opinion are crucial: the share of those not aligned with expert opinion, and the degree of partisan polarization. Where polarization is limited, information effects should dominate, but where issues are polarized, information intake should be limited by partisan attribution. We test these hypotheses using nine survey experiments across a range of issues, including the rise of China, climate change, international institutions, and the use of force. At one extreme, all messages, even those endorsed by generic or opposition experts, can shift opinion; at the other, only partisan-attributed messages matter. The findings are important not only for understanding public opinion about international issues, but also for mobilizing opinion in a democratic setting. Mapping the Boundaries of Elite Cues: How Elites Shape Mass Opinion Across International Issues International relations scholarship has taken to heart the idea that domestic politics shapes how states make foreign policy choices across a wide range of issues. As part of the debate about exactly how domestic politics matters, scholars have focused extensively on public opinion, not only in terms of the nature of public attitudes themselves, but also the extent to which these attitudes are malleable. Thanks in part to the rise of the survey experiment, there has been a surge of research on the determinants of public attitudes about international issues, including trade (e.g., Herrmann, Tetlock, and Diascro 2001; Hiscox 2006), security (e.g., Berinsky 2009; Tomz and Weeks 2013; Kreps 2014), and transnational issues such as climate change and international organizations (Bechtel and Scheve 2013; Tingley and Tomz 2014). The degree to which different messages and messengers can shift opinion is an important concern for policymakers seeking to mobilize domestic coalitions around a policy, particularly on international issues which are by nature distant from most voters’ everyday concerns and thus especially ripe for cue-giving by elite actors. Yet as more and more evidence from survey experiments accumulates, an important concern is that survey experiments usually proceed issue-by-issue and are rarely attentive to variation in issue context. Some of this variation may be idiosyncratic, but there may also be systematic variation across issues at a given time. For example, some issues like climate change may be more politically polarized at the time of a survey, while others may simply have received less attention. Variation across issue context is potentially crucial for understanding the impact of elite cues on public attitudes. Despite wide agreement that elite cues matter (see, for example, Herrmann, Tetlock, and Diascro 2001; Hiscox 2006; Berinsky 2009; Trager and Vavreck 2011; Levendusky and Horowitz 2012), there remains debate about how messages and messengers shift mass opinion. In one view, cues can convey, distill, and contextualize information about policies or events for the benefit of the voter (e.g., Gilens 2001; Hiscox 2006). From another perspective, however, voters use the identity of cue-givers—most commonly, their partisanship—as a shortcut (e.g., Zaller 1992; Berinsky 2009). While IR scholarship has tended to emphasize the role of information, recent research has brought partisanship to the fore, particularly in a security context (see Berinsky 2009; Trager and Vavreck 2011; Levendusky and Horowitz 2012). Each view finds support in specific issue areas even as other issues have been

Moral authority and status in International Relations: Good states and the social dimension of status seeking

Abstract: We develop scholarship on status in international politics by focusing on the social dimension of small and middle power status politics. This vantage opens a new window on the widely-discussed strategies social actors may use to maintain and enhance their status, showing how social creativity, mobility, and competition can all be system-supporting under some conditions. We extract lessons for other thorny issues in status research, notably questions concerning when, if ever, status is a good in itself; whether it must be a positional good; and how states measure it.

Why is there no Non-Western International Relations Theory? Ten years on

Abstract: A decade ago in 2007 we published a forum in International Relations of the Asia-Pacific (IRAP) on ‘Why there is no non-Western IR theory?’. Now we revisit this project ten years on, and assess the current state of play. What we do in this article is first, to survey and assess the relevant literature that has come out since then; second, to set out four ways in which our own understanding of this issue has evolved since 2007; third to reflect on some ways in which Asian IR might contribute to the emergence of what we call ‘Global IR’; and fourth to look specifically at hierarchy as an issue on which East Asian IR scholars might have a comparative advantage. Our aim is to renew, and perhaps refocus, the challenge to Asian IR scholars, and our hope is that this will contribute to the building of Global IR

The Comparative Politics of Transnational Climate Governance

Abstract: We live in an era of remarkable transformations in how governance is supplied at the global level, as traditional means of intergovernmental institutions are being joined by a growing diversity of

Worlding, Ontological Politics and the Possibility of a Decolonial IR:

Abstract: This article argues that attention to representational practices and epistemology, however important for expanding the boundaries of International Relations as a field of study, has been insufficie...

Populism and Foreign Policy

Abstract: Combining insights from International Relations theory and Comparative Politics, this chapter discusses the effect of international politics on the political fortune of populist parties in the world as well as the impact of populist parties on their countries' foreign policies. It argues that at least four different types of populist parties can be distinguished, each with a distinct foreign policy agenda.

International Environmental Justice : A North-South Dimension

Abstract: This important work satisfies the need for a thorough assessment of environmental justice concerns at the global level. Using three international environmental case studies, the book extends the theory of environmental justice, commonly used in domestic settings, to the international arena of environmental law, policy and politics. Spanning the traditional boundaries between political science, international relations, international law, international political economy and policy studies, this text is intended primarily for scholars of environmental justice, national and international policymakers, businesses, activists and students of international environmental law, public policy and political economy of the third world.

China as a Polar Great Power

Abstract: China has emerged as a member of the elite club of nations who are powerful at both global poles. Polar states are global giants, strong in military, scientific, and economic terms. The concept of a polar great power is relatively unknown in international relations studies; yet China, a rising power globally, is now widely using this term to categorize its aspirations and emphasize the significance of the polar regions to their national interests. China's focus on becoming a polar great power represents a fundamental re-orientation - a completely new way of imagining the world. China's push into these regions encompasses maritime and nuclear security, the frontlines of climate change research, and the possibility of a resources bonanza. As shown in this book, China's growing strength at the poles will be a game-changer for a number of strategic vulnerabilities that could shift the global balance of power in significant and unexpected ways.

Status and the Challenge of Rising Powers

Abstract: The rise of China and other great powers raises important questions about the persistence and stability of the 'liberal international order'. This book provides a new perspective on these questions by offering a novel theory of revisionist challenges to international order. It argues that rising powers sometimes seem to face the condition of 'status immobility', which activates social psychological and domestic political forces that push them toward lashing out in protest against status quo rules, norms, and institutions. Ward shows that status immobility theory illuminates important but often-overlooked dynamics that contributed to the most significant revisionist challenges in modern history. The book highlights the importance of status in world politics, and further advances a new understanding of this important concept's role in foreign policy. This book will be of interest to researchers in international politics and security, especially those interested in great power politics, status, power transitions, revisionism, and order.

Foreign policy in an era of digital diplomacy

Abstract: The Internet revolution has affected all aspects of life, including International relations. Diplomacy as a tool of foreign policy has also being transformed by this revolution. This paper examines...

Beckett's Political Imagination

Abstract: Beckett's Political Imagination charts unexplored territory: it investigates how Beckett's bilingual texts re-imagine political history, and documents the conflicts and controversies through which Beckett's political consciousness and affirmations were mediated. The book offers a startling account of Beckett's work, tracing the many political causes that framed his writing, commitments, collaborations and friendships, from the Scottsboro Boys to the Black Panthers, from Irish communism to Spanish republicanism to Algerian nationalism, and from campaigns against Irish and British censorship to anti-Apartheid and international human rights movements. Emilie Morin reveals a very different writer, whose career and work were shaped by a unique exposure to international politics, an unconventional perspective on political action and secretive political engagements. The book will benefit students, researchers and readers who want to think about literary history in different ways and are interested in Beckett's enduring appeal and influence.

Decolonising International Relations

Abstract: How do we ‘decolonise’ the field of International Relations? The aim to decolonise has become a widely discussed and mentioned subject across the social sciences and humanities The article aims to

Global Norms with a Local Face : Rule-Of-Law Promotion and Norm-Translation

Abstract: To what extent are global rule-of-law norms, which external actors promote in post-conflict states, localized? Who decides whether global standards or local particularities prevail? This book offers a new approach to the debate about how the dilemma between the diffusion of global norms and their localization is dealt with in global politics. Studying the promotion of children's rights, access to public information, and an international commission against impunity in Guatemala, Lisbeth Zimmermann demonstrates that rule-of-law promotion triggers domestic contestation and thereby changes the approach taken by external actors, and ultimately the manner in which global norms are translated. However, the leeway in local translation is determined by the precision of global norms. Based on an innovative theoretical approach and an in-depth study of rule-of-law translation, Zimmermann argues for a shift in norm promotion from context sensitivity to democratic appropriation, speaking to scholars of international relations, peacebuilding, democratization studies, international law, and political theory.

Explaining Euro-Paralysis: Why Europe is Unable to Act in International Politics

Abstract: Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations Introduction Beyond Euro-optimism and Skepticism Power Politics, Again Divergent Traditions and Conflicting Interests Paradigm Lost and the Conceptual Confusion The Crisis of Modern Democracy Weak Institutions The Choices to be Made Selected Bibliography Index

Liminal geopolitics: the subjectivity and spatiality of diplomacy at the margins

Abstract: This paper argues that the lens of liminality has the potential to enrich scholarship in critical geopolitics by offering a nuanced approach to the geographies and ambivalence of political subjectivity. In the context of a perceived proliferation of ‘new’ actors the paper turns critical attention to what happens at the threshold between the categories of state and non-state, official and unofficial diplomacy. It asks what such a perspective on diplomacy might mean for understandings of who is, and who should be, a legitimate actor in international politics by turning to the notion of liminality as developed in cultural anthropology. This is a concept that surprisingly has been overlooked in political geography and this paper asks how geographers might engage more productively with it, particularly in light of emergent critical international relations research on liminality as a paradigm for understanding stability and change in institutionalised orders. Empirically, the paper focuses on the articulation of liminal political subjectivities and spatialities through the lens of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO), a coalition of almost 50 stateless nations, indigenous communities and national minorities that currently are denied a place at international diplomatic forums. Drawing on this case study, the paper examines three areas of geopolitical enquiry that the notion of liminality opens up. First is the spatiality of diplomacy in terms of the out-of-placeness of liminal actors and the construction of transformative spaces of quasi-official diplomacy. Second are particular qualities of political subjectivity, including the blurring of boundaries between diplomacy and activism, and the notion of geopolitical shapeshifters. Finally, attention turns to the notion of communitas to draw out the politics of belonging, recognition and legitimacy. The paper concludes by suggesting that the idea of ambivalence that underpins liminality is a useful provocation to take creativity and aspiration seriously in geopolitics.

Gender Bias in International Relations Graduate Education? New Evidence from Syllabi

Abstract: Gender diversity is good for the study of international relations (IR) and political science. Graduate training is an opportunity for scholars to affect the demographics of their field and the gendered practices within it. This article presents a first-cut investigation of the degree to which gender bias exists in graduate IR syllabi. The author found that the gender of the instructor for graduate courses matters significantly for what type of research is taught, in two ways. First, on average, female instructors assign significantly more research by female authors than male instructors. Second, women appear to be considerably more reluctant than men about assigning their own research as required readings. Some but not all of the difference between male- and female-taught courses might be explained by differences in course composition.

Soldiers of Empire: Indian and British Armies in World War II

Abstract: How are soldiers made? Why do they fight? Re-imagining the study of armed forces and society, Barkawi examines the imperial and multinational armies that fought in Asia in the Second World War, especially the British Indian army in the Burma campaign. Going beyond conventional narratives, Barkawi studies soldiers in transnational context, from recruitment and training to combat and memory. Drawing on history, sociology and anthropology, the book critiques the 'Western way of war' from a postcolonial perspective. Barkawi reconceives soldiers as cosmopolitan, their battles irreducible to the national histories that monopolise them. This book will appeal to those interested in the Second World War, armed forces and the British Empire, and students and scholars of military sociology and history, South Asian studies and international relations.

Diplomatic Material: Affect, Assemblage, and Foreign Policy

Abstract: In Diplomatic Material Jason Dittmer offers a counterintuitive reading of foreign policy by tracing the ways that complex interactions between people and things shape the decisions and actions of diplomats and policymakers. Bringing new materialism to bear on international relations, Dittmer focuses not on what the state does in the world but on how the world operates within the state through the circulation of humans and nonhuman objects. From examining how paper storage needs impacted the design of the British Foreign Office Building to discussing the 1953 NATO decision to adopt the .30 caliber bullet as the standard rifle ammunition, Dittmer highlights the contingency of human agency within international relations. In Dittmer's model, which eschews stasis, structural forces, and historical trends in favor of dynamism and becoming, the international community is less a coming-together of states than it is a convergence of media, things, people, and practices. In this way, Dittmer locates power in the unfolding of processes on the micro level, thereby reconceptualizing our understandings of diplomacy and international relations.

Renegotiating the World Order: Institutional Change in International Relations

Abstract: Rising powers often seek to reshape the world order, triggering confrontations with those who seek to defend the status quo. In recent years, as international institutions have grown in prevalence and influence, they have increasingly become central arenas for international contestation. Phillip Y. Lipscy examines how international institutions evolve as countries seek to renegotiate the international order. He offers a new theory of institutional change and explains why some institutions change flexibly while others successfully resist or fall to the wayside. The book uses a wealth of empirical evidence - quantitative and qualitative - to evaluate the theory from international organizations such as the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, European Union, League of Nations, United Nations, the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization, and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. The book will be of particular interest to scholars interested in the historical and contemporary diplomacy of the United States, Japan, and China.

No Substitute for Experience: Presidents, Advisers, and Information in Group Decision Making

Abstract: Despite advances in the study of individuals in international relations, we still know little about how the traits and biases of individuals aggregate. Most foreign policy decisions are made in groups, usually by elites with varying degrees of experience, which can have both positive and negative psychological effects. This paper addresses the aggregation problem by exploring how the balance of foreign policy experience among leaders and advisers affects decision making in war, using a principal-agent framework that allows the relative experience of leaders and advisers to vary. A leader's experience affects decision making and, ultimately, the risks associated with conflict, through three mechanisms. First, experience influences a leader's ability to monitor advisers. Second, a leader's experience affects the credibility of delegation to experienced advisers and, in turn, the nature and extent of information gathering. Third, experience affects whether leaders are able to diversify advice, as well as their preference for policies that appear certain. I illustrate the argument using two cases that hold an unusual number of factors constant: the 1991 and 2003 Iraq Wars. George W. Bush's inexperience exacerbated the biases of his advisers, whereas his father's experience cast a long shadow over many of the same officials. Understanding the experience and biases of any one individual is insufficient—the balance of experience within a group is also important. Experience is therefore not fungible: a seasoned team cannot substitute for an experienced leader.