Field Of International Relations Research Articles

Food Security as a Component Part of National Security: The Impact of the Russian-Ukrainian Conflict

The Russian-Ukrainian conflict has severe consequences, and the problem of food security has become global. In the current geopolitical conditions, as a strategic element of national security, food security does not fully provide the government and its population with affordable food. Also, it does not form a favorable socio-economic climate in society. Geopolitical conditions dictate their own rules, and for all governments, the solution to the food crisis is of paramount importance. After all, both warring countries are vital suppliers of agricultural products, and the ongoing conflict further highlights the fragility of global food supply chains: both important players are effectively out of the market for a while. Thus, the relevance of the topic of this study is caused by the need to develop scientific approaches and theoretical foundations of food security in conjunction with the categories of national security, as well as an integrated approach to the study of the conceptual apparatus of the food security system in the context of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. The above-stated leads to the goals of the study, which are to determine the places of food safety in the structure of national security in the context of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. The result of the study is an analysis of the state of food security in geopolitical conditions and a survey of the theoretical aspects of food security in the context of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. Conclusions: Since the issue of ensuring food security in the context of geopolitical processes in connection with the Russian-Ukrainian conflict has not been sufficiently studied, the results obtained during the study will become a signіfісаnt find for researchers, аnаlуsts, and practitioners in the field of international relations and world politics.
 
 Received: 2 February 2023 / Accepted: 13 April 2023 / Published: 5 May 2023

Corpus Approaches to Analysing Uncertainty and Ignorance in Academic Discourse

The article provides an overview of corpus approaches to researching linguistic practices for dealing with ignorance and uncertainty. Uncertainty and ignorance are first and foremost epistemological or socio-psychological categories rather than linguistic ones. But they can be applied to a corpus linguistic setting. Based on a presentation of the central terms and their relevance for digital corpus research, this paper exemplifies proposals for operationalisations using a corpus of political science texts from the field of International Relations (DIReC). It gives an overview of various methods of researching ignorance and uncertainty in academic discourse, focusing on lexicon-based, annotation-based and pattern-search-based approaches as well as combinations thereof. The structure of the explanations reflects a central conflict of aims: On the one hand, corpus-based research on ignorance and uncertainty requires a precise, interpretive approach to the contextual meaning and epistemic function of each individual piece of evidence. On the other hand, it seems advantageous to investigate the largest possible corpora for reasons of reliability. The final section presents an application sketch that addresses and exemplifies several methodological problems. It compares uncertainty markers in political science discourse as found in the DIReC corpus with those in conspiracy theories, drawing on the LOCO corpus and journalistic discourse represented in a reference corpus of US newspapers.

When English language matters: Internationalizing PhD research by Indonesian political scientists

The essay traces frequent language problems and un(der)developed academic writing skills of Indonesian PhD students in the field of political science and international relations. The author thereby draws on personal experiences as a thesis supervisor. Apart from problematic scope conditions in the Indonesian university system, he identifies a lack of training in academic writing at the undergraduate and graduate levels of education and a missing research and publication culture in social sciences. The remainder of the essay reflects about how the problem of deficient language and academic writing skills can be remedied. It argues that both Indonesian universities and also host universities abroad must develop measures to overcome the identified problems.

Editorial introduction: Punctuated equilibrium, multiple streams, environmental governance, and many more

Editorial introduction: Punctuated equilibrium, multiple streams, environmental governance, and many more

Just business? Moral condemnation and virtuous violence in the American and Russian mass publics

More often than not, violence between states in the field of international relations is understood in instrumental terms. States are thought to act purposively in the pursuit of some tangible object, treating those in their way as objects; the targets of that violence respond to such treatment phlegmatically, without any sense of outrage. Drawing on psychological research in ‘virtuous violence’, which argues that intergroup violence is primarily moralistic in character, we present results from three survey experiments in the United States and Russia and a re-analysis of a recent study, which demonstrate that moral condemnation of adversaries is extremely easy to invoke, hard to avoid, common across different cultural contexts, and a central feature of ‘binding’ morality, one of the most fundamental moral foundations. Our first survey experiment presents American respondents with a fictional state developing nuclear weapons. Strategic features of the situation – offensive capability, past history, and interest divergence – generate not only threat perception but, crucially, negative moral attributions that mediate between the two. In the next two survey experiments, we show that American and Russian respondents judge aggressive action against a third country, regardless of whether the aggressor pursues water necessary for its population or oil useful for its economy. Finally, our re-analysis of Rathbun & Stein 1 shows that moral condemnation strongly mediates the effect of binding morality on support for nuclear weapons use against terrorists. Our results suggest a future agenda on morality’s role in international relations that highlights ethical dynamics beyond the taming influence of humanitarianism and cosmopolitan individualism. Morality can drive conflict, not just restrain it.

The Common Commercial Policy as a Legal Instrument of Confirmation of the European Union International Identity

Abstract The key component of European Union external action is undoubtedly its Common Commercial Policy. Under EU primary law, the exercise of this policy falls within the exclusive competence of the EU. In order to assure its implementation, the competent EU institutions negotiate and conclude international agreements with third countries and adopt secondary law acts, mainly in the form of Regulations with the aim of liberalizing and expanding international trade as well as promoting protecting the commercial interests of member states' businesses in the international markets. The aim of the study is to examine the question of the delimitation of the scope of the Common Commercial Policy as well as the operation of the EU institutional system regarding its the formation and implementation after previously analyzing the objectives served by the exercise of this common policy in the field of international economic relations. JEL classification numbers: K20, K33, F13. Keywords: European Union Law, Common Commercial Policy.

Who’s afraid of the vulnerable terrorist? Framing violent jihadists’ life and intimate relationships

ABSTRACT This article looks at a sample of academic articles in the field of terrorism studies and international relations to explore the ways in which marriage, sexual activity and close relationships in jihadist groups are framed, imagined and investigated. Despite the scarcity of research being conducted on the subject, this article reveals that, in the study of terrorism, the issue of intimate relationships is the object of two trends: on the one hand, the themes of sexuality and marriage are in fact present in the field, only exclusively through the lens of sexual victimisation, violence, abuse and romantic manipulation. On the other hand, intimate relationships are often dismissed as not being worthy of in-depth investigation when not related to violence. Together, these two interdependent trends create, using the words of Butler, a “silent and melancholic discourse”, which downplays the subjectivity, banality, and vulnerability of the life experiences of subjects involved in jihadist groups. Using the learnings of queer scholarship, the article posits that the ways in which the intimate life of individuals involved in jihadist movements are portrayed and ascribed a perverted characteristic matter in how vulnerability is distributed and how the subjects are apprehended in academia and beyond.

Visualizing international relations: Challenges and opportunities in an emerging research field

The visual is central to global politics. Over the past two decades, scholars in the field of international relations have increasingly recognized and examined the numerous and complex ways in which the visual, the political and the international are intertwined. They have scrutinized how a diverse range of global political phenomena – from war, diplomacy and development to election campaigns and refugee policies – are shaped by images and visual artefacts, such as photographs, film, videogames, satellite images, art, surveillance technologies, monuments and architecture. The purpose of this commentary is two-fold. First: I overview this bourgeoning body of literature on visuality in international relations. I discuss the emergence and evolution of this field of research, drawing attention to the significance of the ensuing contributions. Second: I highlight three key challenges that lie ahead: understanding the changing relationship between visuality and digitalization; embarking on more cross-disciplinary inquires; decolonizing research on visual communication. I end with highlighting that understanding the role of visuality goes far beyond appreciating the political impact of images. Visuality goes to the very core of politics because it shapes how we – as individuals and as collectives – see, perceive and enact the political world around us.

Knowledge Regulation and National Security in Postwar America by Mario Daniels and John Krige

Reviewed by: Knowledge Regulation and National Security in Postwar America by Mario Daniels and John Krige Torsten Kathke (bio) Knowledge Regulation and National Security in Postwar America By Mario Daniels and John Krige. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2022. Pp. 440. Knowledge Regulation and National Security in Postwar America is Mario Daniels and John Krige's foray into a subject heretofore seldom explored: How did knowledge regulation—in the form of export controls for otherwise unclassified material, objects, and the movement of people with know-how—shape U.S. foreign policy from World War II on? And how did the complex rules governing the exportation of technologies and technical knowledge shape not only the sharing but also the creation of knowledge? Daniels and Krige's attempt is remarkable because of the breadth of the research required, but also because it breaks new ground. Academic insularity has previously precluded the further exploration of the category of "knowledge regulation" that they here propose as one of the central tenets of the national security state. Daniels and Krige especially single out the fields of economics, economic history, international relations, and security studies as "basically separate scholarly universes that barely overlap" (p. 15), echoing older critiques by Susan Strange and Michael Mastanduno. Knowledge regulation as defined by the authors traces its origins to the Espionage Act of 1917, which created a template that the United States would come back to in World War II and more permanently during the Cold War. Differing from other regimes of informational and economic control, like sanctions, export controls comprised information and "know-how"—a term emerging in the early Cold War to describe complete apparatuses of technological creation, including the researchers and engineers that operated them and their tacit knowledge—that were not directly classified but still considered as providing the United States with a valuable advantage over its rivals. This became known as "lead time," positing the United States as a technological leader that needed to use its technological prowess to keep Soviet Russia and its larger reserves of materiel and human power at bay. Even though it begins in fits and starts and remains contested between three departments of the U.S. government and their specialists (Commerce, State, and Defense), as well as Congress, the White House, companies, universities, and various adjacent bureaucracies, knowledge regulation, according to the authors, is one of the defining, if not the defining way in which U.S. foreign policy and the American scientific landscape developed since the 1940s. [End Page 636] The authors move chronologically through the development of this category, beginning with the lead-up to the Cold War from 1917 to 1945 and the early regulatory regime in the United States, as well as the development of knowledge regulation through the 1950s and 1960s. They then discuss the changes wrought on export controls beginning in the 1970s, including in academia. The second half of the book shifts geographically to Asia, addressing technology transfers to Japan in the 1980s and the challenges of the U.S.–Chinese relationship, with an epilogue about U.S.–Chinese relations and academia during the Trump administration concluding the study. Daniels and Krige offer up diligent and at times quite creative source work, and their argument that we should look at the category of "knowledge regulation" as one—though contradictory and hard to grasp—whole is a useful intervention. Framing the history of U.S. foreign policy in the second half of the twentieth century as concerned with hegemony through (military and commercial) technology, and therefore by extension its restriction, is a lens that scholars might do well to mount more often. What is somewhat missing from this book is the level of actors. While some individuals—mainly in government—do get attention, further studies should consider how academics and their institutions responded to the regulations they were faced with. Questions of whether restrictions applied to certain academics or engineers more than others, for example, would be an important aspect to explore. Were white, male, senior engineers considered more trustworthy than minorities, women, or junior ones? Did McCarthyite paranoia figure into the sanctioning of some individuals with know-how while others remained unencumbered? Knowledge...

Uma nova base cienciométrica de publicações científicas em Revistas Brasileiras de Relações Internacionais (1997-2021)

Abstract In this article, we present a new dataset covering metadata on 14 Brazilian International Relations (BIR) journals and more than 5000 articles published between 1997 and 2021. We collected the data by harvesting the journals’ public web pages via web scraping and later cleaned and structured the information in a rectangular format. A complete understanding of the International Relations field in Brazil requires a deep analysis of the ecosystem of IR academic journals and engaging explicitly and exclusively with scientific articles published in such venues. But, as of today, scientometric analysis covering BIR is rare and limited, as primary indexing sources and popular databases do not fully cover Brazilian International Relations journals. By presenting and publishing the dataset we aim to overcome such a barrier and encourage further scientometric studies in the country.

A COMPETENT APPROACH TO THE TRAINING OF LAWYERS IN "CYBERTERRORISM"

As a result of the extremely wide use of modern information and communication technologies in all spheres of existence, society has become vulnerable to cybernetic influences. The flows of information transmitted, stored and processed in cyberspace are constantly increasing, which requires their proper protection against unauthorized access for criminal purposes. Given the widespread concern about cyberterrorism and the frequent use of the term "cyberterrorism" today, many international organizations have made efforts to combat this threat. A special place among institutions that can directly or indirectly counter cyberterrorism is occupied by universities that offer bachelor's and master's degrees in law and cyber security, in particular cyber terrorism. The presence of qualified personnel specializing in both legal knowledge and knowledge in the field of information technology will contribute to the creation of prerequisites for effective countermeasures against cyber terrorism in Jordan and in other countries of the world. The purpose of the article is to investigate the role of the law college in training lawyers capable of countering cyberterrorism. In order to assess the influence of external and internal factors on the activities of the Jadara University College of Law, the study conducted a survey of four categories of respondents: students, their parents, employees and employers. All respondents were offered questionnaires with a list of questions, the purpose of which was to reveal the level of awareness regarding the definition of criteria that could potentially be included in the new master's degree program in the specialty "Cyberterrorism". Based on the results of the research, the main competencies that future students of the master's degree "Cyberterrorism" should possess are established, namely: in the field of international law; in the field of international relations; in the field of international and national security; in the field of information technologies; in the field of cyber security; in the field of communication technologies, etc. Hence, Jadar University College of Law makes a direct contribution to the social, cultural and economic development of society, and graduates of the College of Law are important ambassadors of the College and play a key role in maintaining safety in the community and providing space and improving opportunities for members of the local community to access the College of Law and use the various services it provides.

THE REGULARITY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE IN SOUTH KOREAN AND TAIWAN ACADEMIC CONTEXTS: REASONS AND CONSEQUENCES

The democratisation and economic growth of the Asian Tigers, specifically South Korea and Taiwan, brought structural changes to the academic systems of these countries, particularly in the fields of political science and international relations. The article aims to provide a comprehensive and hybrid view on the regularity of political science in the academic environments (university systems) of East Asian countries with a focus on South Korea and Taiwan through the observational analysis method and a historical-sociological mechanism. The findings are summarised, where it is argued that the pentagonal democratic citizenship system (legal, political, cultural, social, economic) as well as the establishing of structural and updated political-economic relations with the main powers in the international system are the two crtitcial factors that have contributed to the adjustment of political science in East Asian countries, including South Korea and Taiwan. The article concludes that, along with the international and domestic developments in South Korea and Taiwan, political science underwent structural changes and is becoming more regulated and structured. Keywords: South Korea, Taiwan, political science, democracy, institution

Влияние новых геополитических условий на многовекторную внешнюю политику Казахстана

he relevance of the topic of this article is determined by the need to study the multi-vector foreign policy of Kazakhstan in the face of new challenges and risks for the foreign policy of the state. The scientific novelty of the research results is that the theory and practice of conducting foreign policy in transit and in the posttransit period is a little-studied problem in the field of international relations and related scientific disciplines. The article conducted research on modern geo–economic and geopolitical realities and analyzed the adaptability of the theory and practice of the main principle of Kazakhstan's foreign policy - multi-vector approach to the new geopolitical agenda. The multilateral foreign policy of Kazakhstan at the present stage is analyzed through the prism of the theories of geopolitics, rational choice and dependence/interdependence. To study the adaptability of the main principle of the foreign policy strategy of the Republic of Kazakhstan at the present stage, criteria, theoretical approaches were determined in the study of multi-vector, its effectiveness in modern international relations. An analysis of foreign policy risks showed that they are all related to the interdependence of the Kazakh economy and diplomacy with its closest neighbors, in relation to which a multivector approach developed in the conditions of the formation of a multipolar world. New geopolitical realities indicate the expansion of the range of opportunities and at the same time the complication of the political space along the perimeter of the borders of Kazakhstan. A clearly built and conceptually substantiated multivector foreign policy of the Republic of Kazakhstan in practice needs constant adjustment. This is due to the more complex global realities, constant turbulence and the transformation of modern international relations

«Жесткая» и «гибкая» власть континентальной империи: реминисценции на историческую тему

In this paper, the author attempts to apply the concept of ‘soft power’ developed by J. Nye, which has been established in the field of international relations and political science, to the historical domain, and specifically to the analysis of basic trends in the development of the Russian Empire and the USSR. The peculiarities of the balance of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ power tools are identified with regards to the totalitarian (authoritarian) and democratic regimes. The concept of ‘smart power’ is placed into the context of historical research. The author points out the connection between the mechanisms of ‘soft power’ and the development of civil society. Russia and the USSR are presented as continental empires of the colonial type, which possessed internal colonies and dependent territories. Against the background of the general patterns of development of continental empires, which include territorial expansion, the specifics of the USSR are shown. It is determined that expanding the resource base under the dominance of the vector of extensive development, ensuring ‘security’ of the imperial ‘heartland’ at the expense of peripheral territories, and maintaining the geopolitical status have been the key drivers of development of continental empires. In relation to the USSR, the specific function of the metropolis, or capital city of the empire, is underlined. The author pays particular attention to the development of the eastern territories, and Siberia as an internal colony, that was based on the principle of ‘a region for the country’ while ignoring its own interests and internal needs. This has formed a stable matrix of suboptimal centre-periphery relations in the country. It is noted that the empire preserved itself as a single state based on the synergy of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ power, projected both into the intra-imperial space and outside. The gradual degradation of the ‘smart power’ tools used by the Soviet regime is shown. It is concluded that the collapse of the USSR meant an imbalance and loss of efficiency in the use of factors and tools of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ power, and now Russia is still experiencing a post-imperial syndrome. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the loss of satellite countries made it necessary to shift the emphasis to internal stabilization. However, the influence of two key arguments: nuclear weapons and huge resources and territory, ensured the preservation of the previous ambitions.

Introduction. Space Diplomacy: The Final Frontier of Theory and Practice

Summary A quantum leap is under way in space as a domain of human activity. The global space economy has rapidly reached almost USD450 billion in size and is projected to grow to over USD1 trillion by the 2040s. There are hundreds of actors involved, from space agencies to private companies to start-ups. Over 70 countries have space programmes and 14 have launch capabilities. These developments have involved intense transnational and international co-operation and competition, across both the public and private sectors. With such rapid changes underway, this article takes stock of how these developments impact international relations. Overall, this is the first special issue in the field of international relations to use theories of diplomacy to bring to light the various ways in which experts, scientists, astronauts, space enthusiasts and professional diplomats, among others, have shaped the formal and informal interactions among states in this key area of foreign policy.

New Angles on Whiteness and the Making of the Modern World

AbstractThese four new books on whiteness show its continuing vitality as a scholarly field, while broadening its purview to encompass North America, Africa, India and Australia from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. Thematically they draw together the Enlightenment, intellectual and affective history, gender, economics, the field of international relations, labour and immigration. All will help us to combat white supremacy.

Editor's Note

Editor's Note

School, society, culture and national identity in Oradea in the period 1920–1930

Cultural and social life clearly contributes to accentuate the self-awareness within a community that, through the act of culture, asserts itself in the field of international relations. At the same time, culture represents a sensitive barometer for socio-economic and political life, through which a series of vital factors can be identified in the process of recovery and development of nations. In the interwar period, Romanian society faced a complex situation, generated by the extensive socio-political, economic and cultural changes that occurred after the end of the Great War. The promotion of the interests of the Romanian national state and of mass culture at the level of the entire country was pursued with consistency, this reality also manifesting itself in the historical province of Crişana, with the city of Oradea as its center. In the new context, a justified emphasis was placed on the culturalization project of Romanian society, for which an appeal was made to the main state institutions and the numerous cultural associations and reunions organized after 1918. Thus, the cultural and economic development program was intended to be implemented on a social scale as wide as possible. In a general view, the schools and organized cultural events led to a series of positive results, accepted as such by the society of Oradea. First of all, the percentage of illiteracy, at alarming levels at the beginning of 1920, was significantly reduced, especially in the countryside. The network of schools in Bihor County, together with intensive conference activity, supported by specialists, allowed not only the enablement of the peasantry in socio-cultural life, but also the understanding of some socio-economic and cultural phenomena that took place with an overflowing rapidity in the interwar society.

Russian History in the mirror of the Political situation in China in the 50s of the XX century (based on school history textbooks)

This article highlights the analysis of the textbook of universal history for the 9th grade, printed in China in the 1950s. The paper examines the features of the descriptions of Russia in the textbook, as well as the relationship between textbooks and the policy pursued by China during this period. Text criticism, linguoculturological and imagological analysis are the main methods of our research. The results of the work indicate that the Chinese government in the historical period considered in the textbook sought to form a certain image of Russia among schoolchildren, which was associated with events in Russian-Chinese relations. The study of Chinese history textbooks made it possible to analyze the historical perspective and cultural dynamics between Russia and China during the Cold War. The importance of studying history textbooks and their influence on the worldview of students is emphasized in the conclusions of the article. In addition, it is necessary to analyze the political and ideological goals that can be embedded in history textbooks. So, this study allowed us to understand more deeply the historical perspective of Russian-Chinese relations during the Cold War and to realize the importance of studying history textbooks. The results of the study can be used in the education system, as well as in research in the field of history and international relations.

Peculiarities of legal consolidation of constitutional and legal responsibility in France

The article examines the peculiarities of the formation, development and legal consolidation of the institution of constitutional and legal responsibility in France. We are talking about both positive (prospective) and negative (retrospective) responsibility of the state-legal institutions of France.In the opinion of the author, the positive constitutional and legal responsibility of the President of France is reduced to the broad scope of his powers as the head of state and as the main coordinator of the executive power, namely: 1) personnel formation of the executive power; 2) in cooperation with the parliament; 3) in the sphere of functioning of institutions of direct democracy; 4) in the field of international relations – accredits ambassadors and extraordinary envoys in foreign countries; 5) in the field of defence and emergency situations. Particular attention is paid to the positive constitutional and legal responsibility of the French government (Council of Ministers), which, in our opinion, is narrower than the responsibility of the President of France. The government determines and implements the nation’s policy, disposes of the administration and the armed forces. Within the framework of the responsibility of the French government, the positive constitutional and legal responsibility of the Prime Minister is defined.The author also defined the limits of positive constitutional and legal responsibility of the parliament in the form of legislative powers and legislative activity. It boils down to the following areas: 1) positive constitutional and legal responsibility for legislative powers of a private law nature; 2) positive constitutional-legal responsibility for legislative powers of a public-law nature; 3) positive constitutional and legal responsibility for legislative powers in the field of finance; 4) positive constitutional and legal responsibility for extraordinary powers.Negative constitutional and legal responsibility is also analyzed. According to Art. 8 of the Constitution of France, the President terminates the functions of the Prime Minister and decides on the resignation of the government. At the proposal of the Prime Minister, the President of France appoints other members of the government and terminates the performance of their functions. In Art. 20 of the French Constitution also provides that the government is responsible to the Parliament in accordance with the specified conditions and procedures.