Antemurale Christianitatis as a Realist Strategy: Serbia, Poland, and Croatia in the Ottoman Frontier

Silent Sponsors: A New Approach to Measuring Recognition of Self-Determination Movements

Misused Financial Aid, Political Aid, and Regime Survival

How do self-determination groups move toward diplomatic recognition? Although recognition is the dominant activity used to understand international sovereignty, it is perhaps the most costly decision states make towards these groups. Third parties have many substantial interactions with aspiring states, building their sovereignty by other important means. I argue that our understanding of international sovereignty can be improved by conceptualizing it as a dynamic, continuous process, reflected in foreign policy decisions short of the legal recognition. I create a Bayesian latent variable model of international sovereignty, using bilateral data on diplomatic exchange, IGO voting, sanctions, military aid, and intervention in separatist conflicts. Complementing prior work on international sovereignty, my measure provides support for important theoretical expectations previously explored using only recognition as a measure of sovereignty. I find that diplomatic recognition, extant violence, separatist victory, and sour third-party–incumbent relations positively impact latent sovereignty of separatists, while concern for precedent negatively impacts it.

Within social movement literature, the concept of collective identity is used to discuss the process through which political activists create in-group cohesion and distinguish themselves from society at large. Newer approaches to collective identity focus on the negotiation of boundaries as social movement agents interact with social structural forces. However, in their adoption of a perspective that holds identity as a process, these social movement studies neglect the more tangible cultural elements that actors manipulate when they express collective identity. This research project adopts a subcultural perspective in the Birmingham tradition to address the question of how social movement actors reapporpriate symbolic expressions of identity and what meaning systems they draw from that enable them to redefine “stigmatization” as “status” This article offers the concept of “oppositional capital” as a general framework for analyzing the symbolic work that social movement actors perform in their expressions of collective identity. For the purposes of analysis, the primary elements of oppositional symbolic expressions are divided into the four categories of distinction, antagonism, political activism, and popular cultural aesthetics. This article applies the concept of oppositional capital to representations of collective identity of a radical branch of political activism within the social movement of harm reduction. Specifically, it analyzes the zine, Junkphood to describe how actors within this social movement cohort are able to present their collective identity as part of an alternative status system by drawing from an economy of signs that are generally recognized as oppositional.

Within social movement literature, the concept of collective identity is used to discuss the process through which political activists create in-group cohesion and distinguish themselves from society at large. Newer approaches to collective identity focus on the negotiation of boundaries as social movement agents interact with social structural forces. However, in their adoption of a perspective that holds identity as a process, these social movement studies neglect the more tangible cultural elements that actors manipulate when they express collective identity. This research project adopts a subcultural perspective in the Birmingham tradition to address the question of how social movement actors reapporpriate symbolic expressions of identity and what meaning systems they draw from that enable them to redefine “stigmatization” as “status” This article offers the concept of “oppositional capital” as a general framework for analyzing the symbolic work that social movement actors perform in their expressions of collective identity. For the purposes of analysis, the primary elements of oppositional symbolic expressions are divided into the four categories of distinction, antagonism, political activism, and popular cultural aesthetics. This article applies the concept of oppositional capital to representations of collective identity of a radical branch of political activism within the social movement of harm reduction. Specifically, it analyzes the zine, Junkphood to describe how actors within this social movement cohort are able to present their collective identity as part of an alternative status system by drawing from an economy of signs that are generally recognized as oppositional.

Students of world politics have long shown a special interest in sea power. International relations, however, tends to treat the means of power as homogeneous and interchangeable. Are military capabilities largely undifferentiated goods, or do specific assets matter for politics? We argue that the characteristics of naval power offer distinctive tradeoffs in terms of the causes of war. Naval presence, firepower, and mobility enable naval nations to fight farther from home and obtain more diplomatic recognition. At the same time, mobility and stealth introduce ambiguity about national priorities and contribute to errors in assessing the local balance of power and resolve. We find empirically that disproportionate investment in sea power is associated not only with heightened diplomatic recognition and power projection across greater distances, as navalists expect, but also with increased instability in the form of a higher risk of dispute initiation. Disaggregating sea power by platform type—battleships, submarines, aircraft carriers—suggests similar tradeoffs across platforms as for navies generally. Sea power enables political leaders to intervene in distant locales, where their interests are more peripheral, and to reconsider their commitments, where their interests do not justify the risk. One counterintuitive implication is that offshore balancing strategies, which rely on sea power for deterrence, may actually be destabilizing.

Microstates are unique participants in the international arena. Many of the world's microstates are located in the Pacific basin and are characterized by limited natural and human resources. Because they are so small and isolated, the Pacific microstates are frequently overlooked diplomatically in the larger, international system. Conversely, diplomacy is often their only effective instrument of statecraft for making an impact within the international system on issues critical to their national interests. In contrast to the belief that the microstates are mere pawns in international relations, this text will view the Pacific microstates as active participants in diplomacy by exploring their involvement in two broad strands of Pacific Rim diplomacy: • The political struggle between the People's Republic of China and Taiwan for influence in the Pacific region, diplomatic recognition, and support in the United Nations and other international agencies. • Fishing issues between Japan, the microstates, and other regional powers as illustrated within the International Whaling Commission. The article will show that reciprocity is the key concept and mechanism governing their diplomatic arrangements with Taiwan and Japan. The conclusion suggests two ideas for these microstates in dealing with their larger neighbors on the above issues, and summarizes their active, rather than passive, diplomatic role in Pacific Rim international relations.

This research note examines the communication strategies employed by Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries in disclosing or withholding information about their military aid to Ukraine following the Russian invasion. Using a comparative case study design, this research note analyzes the contrasting approaches of Romania and Poland. It explores three competing explanations for the secrecy or transparency surrounding military aid: domestic backlash avoidance, external security considerations, and bureaucratic culture. The findings reveal that electoral incentives drove both Romania's secrecy and Poland's transparency. This research note makes an empirical contribution to the understanding of foreign policy secrecy and the politics of military assistance in international relations, highlighting how political leaders may rely on secrecy to prevent the politicization of military aid.

Background: The Baghdad Pact of 1955, later known as the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO), was a strategic alliance formed to counter Soviet influence in the Middle East during the Cold War. Pakistan’s decision to join the pact was driven by geopolitical considerations, including security concerns, economic and military aid, and alignment with Western powers. The pact played a pivotal role in shaping Pakistan’s foreign policy and regional influence, making its participation a subject of historical significance in international relations. Objective: This study aims to examine the motivations behind Pakistan’s participation in the Baghdad Pact, assess its role and contributions within the alliance, and evaluate the broader impact of its membership on regional and international geopolitics during the Cold War. Methods: A qualitative research design was employed, incorporating archival research and thematic analysis of primary and secondary sources. Government documents, diplomatic correspondences, and historical records were examined to understand the political negotiations surrounding Pakistan’s entry into the pact. Thematic coding categorized data into key areas such as security strategy, military aid, and diplomatic engagement. A comparative analysis of Pakistan’s role in relation to other member states was conducted to assess its influence within the alliance. Results: Pakistan’s membership in the Baghdad Pact was primarily motivated by security concerns, economic incentives, and diplomatic positioning within the Western bloc. The country actively participated in joint military initiatives, leveraged alliances with regional powers, and received military and economic assistance. However, the pact’s effectiveness in ensuring long-term regional stability was limited by internal political shifts and divergent national interests among member states. Conclusion: Pakistan’s involvement in the Baghdad Pact had significant implications for its foreign policy trajectory, reinforcing its strategic alignment with Western powers. The study provides valuable insights into the complexities of alliance-building in volatile geopolitical environments, offering a historical perspective on Pakistan’s contemporary diplomatic and security strategies.

Norm Contestation and Global Governance: Taking Actor Configurations and Practical Reasoning Seriously

This short analysis attempts to find and highlight the most important reasons that determined the deterioration of the international imagine of the communist regime from Nicolae Ceaușescu’s Romania. Although after 1968 – the year when the Romanian leader publicly condemned Czechoslovakia’s invasion by the Red Army –, Romania’s image in the Western countries was excellent, during the ’80s the whole capital of sympathy completely disappeared. Nicolae Ceaușescu’s anti-Soviet foreign policy made him a so-called “spoiled child” of the West. In 1989, the Romanian dictator remained the only Stalinist leader from European countries, paradoxically an anti-Soviet Stalinist leader. In my opinion there were three very important events that determined the irreversible degradation of the regime’s image abroad: Helsinki Final Act in 1975; General Ion Mihai Pacepa’s (vice-leader of Foreign Information Department of Romanian Intelligence) run to the USA and last but not the least, Mikhail Gorbachev’s election as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. (CPSU) I started from the hypothesis that these three moments were somehow decisive for Ceaușescu’s decline in the eyes of his own people and mainly in international relations. From methodological point of view I tried to explain briefly how and in what measure the three mentioned events and their consequences changed maybe irreversibly the image of Romanian dictator mainly abroad. I tried also to make a short comparison between Ceaușescu’s situation in 1968 and his position in the 1980’s. I strived to identify the main reason for which the popularity level of Ceaușescu’s regime decreased so much. In the year 1968, in August, Romanian leader was at the apogee of his popularity in Romania and in international relations as well. Due to his courageous attitude towards Kremlin, the Western powers perceived somehow Romanian leader as a kind of a new Iosip Broz Tito. We could identify a paradox concerning Ceaușescu’s policy. Even though an anti-Soviet leader until the end in his foreign policy, internally, the Romanian leader turned out to be a fervent Stalinist. During 1980’s the most draconian measures were implemented because the dictator intended to pay all the external debt of the Romanian state. In this way, he wanted to affirm Romania’s independence in international affairs. Unfortunately the costs and the sacrifices of the Romanian population were huge. For the international deterioration of Nicolae Ceaușescu’s „regime”, I have to take into consideration the international context in the late 1980’s, the improvement of the bilateral relations between Moscow and Washington and, as a consequence, the end of the ideological conflict. The Cold War will be over soon. The regional circumstances in Central and Eastern Europe are also very important and I must take them into account. Kremlin had decided to replace Brezhnev’s doctrine of the limited sovereignty with so-called Sinatra Doctrine. Thus, the countries from Soviet sphere were able to choose their own ways and to build their own destinies. The end of the Cold War and refolutions from Central and Eastern Europe made impossible the survival of the last Stalinist regime. The paper also attempted to distinguish a few elements of continuity in Nicolae Ceaușescu’s foreign policy (mainly regarding USSR-Romania relations), unlike in his domestic policy. In this respect one can speak about a few elements of discontinuity. Romanian foreign policy position could be called quasi non-alignment or extended autonomy.

Why Nothing Can Really Be Done about North Korea’s Nuclear Program Andrei Lankov (bio) If one were asked to describe the worldview of the North Korean political elites, it could be done in a single word: they are “hyperrealists.” Their idea of how international relations are structured agrees extremely well with the prescriptions of the realist school (of whose existence most of them seem blissfully unaware), and in many cases they take this school’s ideas to its logical extremes. This has been the case for well over half a century. This hyperrealism is how a small group of North Korean hereditary elites have managed to stay in power against seemingly impossible odds since the late 1950s. In that time, North Korea has survived the Sino-Soviet quarrel of the 1960–80s, long-term economic decline, the meteoric rise of South Korea (its major geopolitical rival), the collapse of the Soviet Union (its major aid provider), and famine and the near-complete disintegration of its economy in the 1990s. Any one of these events would probably be enough to wipe out the majority of the world’s regimes. But the Kim family regime is alive and kicking. How did it manage this? How is it still surviving? The regime largely persists because the Kim family is the best bunch of Machiavellians currently in operation. The major goal of the North Korean regime is, above all, survival. Its elites can hardly be expected to have read John Mearsheimer’s works, but the regime’s approach appears to mimic the major assumptions of the realist school.1 These people do not make compromises on issues that they, rightly or wrongly, believe concern not merely the survival of their regime but also the survival of their state as an entity and, above all, their own political survival. This essay first considers the Kim regime’s prioritization of survival and the implications of this orientation for North Korean foreign policy. It then assesses the prospects for the international sanctions regime to successfully pressure Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons program. [End Page 104] The Kim Regime’s Prioritization of Survival North Korea is part of a divided nation and faces the far more powerful South Korea. Once an agrarian backwater, lagging well behind the then industrial North until the 1960s, South Korea has become one of the powerhouses of the world economy. The per capita income ratio between North and South Korea (1 to 22 if you believe the Bank of Korea’s most recent estimates) now represents the world’s largest such gap between two countries that share a land border.2 This would be a great contrast anywhere, but in this case the two states are populated by people who speak the same language, claim a common national identity, and often present eventual unification as their supreme goal. The existence of such a neighbor means that any serious political crisis inside North Korea could easily lead to regime collapse, followed by South Korea’s absorption of the impoverished North. In a sense, we are talking about a much-exaggerated version of the German reunification scenario.3 If such an outcome transpires, the North Korean elites expect no quarter. Unlike the East German leaders, they indeed have engaged in massive violations of human rights for decades. The ratio of prisoners to the total population in North Korea is roughly equal to that of Stalin’s Russia in the early 1950s: the incarceration of political opponents’ entire immediate families remained mandatory until the early 2000s, and the regime conducted terrorist attacks and civilian abductions in earlier stages of North Korean history.4 Thus, the country’s elites have good reason to believe that if their state collapses as a result of a foreign attack or internal popular revolution, they not only will lose their power and (rather modest) affluence but also are likely to be held responsible for past abuses. To prevent such an outcome, North Korean decision-makers are not only remarkably careful but also remarkably ruthless in their political planning. They care about regime survival above all, treating all other considerations as secondary. This is applicable to economic growth, which in...

Book abstract   The monograph “Health security and cyber innovations in health care” edited by Katarzyna Marzeda-Mlynarska, Justyna Kięczkowska, Liliana Wegrzyn-Odzioba, Aneta Wójciszyn-Wasil is an interdisciplinary analysis of contemporary challenges and opportunities related to the implementation of modern digital technologies in the health care sector in the context of ensuring the health security of individuals and entire populations. The publication is the result of cooperation between Lublin academic centers within the framework of a cyclical event, which is a nationwide scientific conference organized under the banner of health security. The organized conference is an opportunity for an in-depth discussion of representatives of various scientific disciplines: political science, international relations, law, science, security sciences, media and communication studies, medical and natural sciences, who in their research focus on the various elements constituting the issue at hand. The issues addressed during the conference were reflected in a monograph, which consists of 11 articles, in which the authors make an in-depth exploration of the relationship between the progressive digitization of medical systems and their impact on the efficiency of diagnostic, therapeutic and management processes. The paper takes into account both technological, organizational and social perspectives, showing how cyber innovations - such as telemedicine, artificial intelligence, big data and IoT systems - contribute to optimizing healthcare, improving access to medical services and increasing patient protection. At the same time, it draws attention to issues of data security, cyber threats and the ethical implications of implementing digital solutions. The monograph also addresses the integration of modern technologies with traditional health care systems, pointing to the need to build sustainable risk management strategies and create public policies that foster synergies between digital innovations and health security standards. The analyses contained in the work are based on a solid research background and case studies, so that the conclusions and recommendations presented are of high applied value to both health policy makers and practitioners of medicine and the IT sector. The volume opens with an article by Mark Pietrasia titled Specifics of securitization of health security risks, where the author analyzes the process of securitization of health security risks. Another article by Malgorzata Gruchola deals with the ethical challenges of using medical artificial intelligence in the healthcare system. Katarzyna Marzęda- Młynarska in the article Challenges and prospects for international food systems in light of the Covid-19 pandemic experience shows the impact of the COVID- 19 pandemic on international food systems. Justyna Szulich-Kałuża, Malgorzata Slawek-Czochra in the text entitled Covid passports in Poland and Europe - a symptom of post-pandemic normalization or behavioral intervention? A study based on empirical research and discourse analysis, analyze whether covid passports were perceived by citizens of Poland and other European Union countries. Tomasz Bichta, in the article Health Security System in Angola, presents the health system in Angola and changes in the face of the Covid - 19 pandemic. Justyna Kięczkowska and Liliana Węgrzyn-Odzioba, in the article Teleporada- Opportunity or Threat to Health Security, analyze the challenges and risks associated with this type of service and present best practices and recommendations to minimize risks. In the text, on the other hand, Security of medical data in Poland after the Covid-19 pandemic, the authors assess the course of the digitization process in the area of security of medical data understood as “health data” and “personal data” of patients. Stanislaw Bichta in the article E-public relations in health care and related risks describes conducting public relations activities in the health care system. Paulina Szaniawska, in the article Ethics and security related to AI in medicine, discusses problems related to transparency, inequalities in access to AI. In the article Securing patient data in the era of digital medical platforms: cyber-intelligence as a response to modern threats, Mateusz Wojcik outlines the most important challenges and threats related to the protection of patient data. Aleksandra Kramek, in the article AI in modern medicine, analyzes the most important applications of AI in various fields of medicine, such as mental health treatment support, telemedicine, and care of chronically ill patients. The monograph offers a complementary view of the dynamics of modern health care, highlighting the importance of cyberinnovation as an integral part of strategies to enhance health security under conditions of digital transformation  

Learning, problem solving, and automation are areas in which AI is enabling changes across industries, impact productivity, creativity and competitiveness. The paper considers the changes that occurred in the course of AI's development as the economic factor and its position in relation to traditional factors for productivity. The chapter explores automation and industries and manufacturing techniques, supply chain innovations and logistics. It examines new economic opportunities created by AI; new markets, goods, and services, thereby raising the notion that with AI there could be enhanced economic transformation and growth. The chapter also looks at how AI is transforming the global economy especially in trade, international relations, and power relations. The paper focuses on the function of AI in finance, and its stability, as well as its use in markets, banking, investment, risk management, and fraud. The discussion conveniently evaluates the reasons for worry regarding AI's economic growth contribution such as the digital divide, values, inequality, and employment reduction.

The literature on global international relations (IR) has argued that the discipline develops in the footsteps of world politics, but no sustained attention has been given to more immediate causes such as the funders that pay for IR teaching and scholarship. These donor–recipient relations have only attracted the attention of authors interested in cultural hegemony and those contributing to the recent historiography of IR. Among the latter, some have studied how during the Cold War the Rockefeller Foundation attempted to buttress classical realism in the United States and Western Europe. This article connects and moves forward IR historiography and the global IR literature by shedding light on philanthropic foundations’ attempts to further a specific IR theory—classical realism—and area studies in the global south. The article argues that world politics influenced global IR, but this influence was mediated by highly contingent events. Even a proximate cause like science patronage, let alone “world politics,” is not a sufficient cause capable of determining IR theories and disciplinary boundaries. Donors may achieve some impact but only under specific circumstances such as the ones explored here, that is, the donor is a unitary actor determined to advance its agenda by resorting to conditionality, alternative donors and funding are scarce, the discipline is either poorly or not institutionalized, and the recipient perceives the donor's preferences as legitimate. The article uses previously untapped, fine-grained, primary sources to unravel philanthropy's impact on Latin America's first IR center. Because science patronage is exposed to many sources of indeterminacy and to contingency, donors cannot determine scholarship, which makes cultural hegemony all but impossible. Still, IR scholars need to study their patrons to understand their discipline, in and outside Europe and the United States.