International Studies Quarterly Research Articles

Pan-African gender governance: The politics of aspiration at the African Union

Abstract The African Union (AU) has developed an elaborate gender governance architecture, including gender machineries and women’s desks, policy frameworks, path-breaking women’s rights laws, and ongoing campaigns on women’s rights–related issues. At the same time, the member states’ engagement with this architecture is at best lukewarm, with a lack of domestication, compliance, and accountability. This paradox is addressed in this article by developing the theoretical thinking around aspirational politics (Martha Finnemore and Michelle Jurkovich, ‘The politics of aspiration’, International Studies Quarterly, 64:4 [2020], pp. 759–69) and political brokers (Stacie E. Goddard, ‘Brokering change: Networks and entrepreneurs in international politics’, International Theory, 1:2 [2009], pp. 249–81), showing the social and relational origins of pan-African gender governance. In doing so, the article examines how ‘aspirational politics’ can be operationalized to examine the sociocultural and political production of shared future imaginaries. The paper focuses on AU femocrats as the key actors for AU’s aspirational gender agenda and argues for their importance as political brokers between AU member states, donors, UN agencies, and civil society organisations. By mobilizing actors and facilitating common ground and agreement, their institutionalized broker position allowed for various political entrepreneurs to emerge and thrive. At the same time, their pursuits are met with ‘aspirational fatigue’ or outright contestation by the member states. The case of the AU demonstrates how aspirational politics is not a ‘phase’ leading to norms governance but part and parcel of normative negotiation and engagement.

Revisiting the effectiveness of economic sanctions in the context of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

ABSTRACT This paper addresses the relevant and ongoing debate surrounding the effectiveness of economic sanctions. In light of recent sanctions imposed by Canada, the United States, Europe, and other Western states in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the topic has garnered renewed attention. To assess the effectiveness of these sanctions thus far, it is important to revisit key contributions in the existing literature. We begin by defining economic sanctions and describing their most common forms. Next, we explore the question of whether sanctions are effective, by examining different conceptions of the term “effectiveness.” Then, we address the skeptics to understand why many scholars have argued that sanctions tend to be ineffective or have adverse consequences. Finally, we examine the key question of the effectiveness of economic sanctions thus far in the context of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, utilizing a five-dimensional framework devised by Lindsay (1986. Trade sanctions as policy instruments: A Re-examination. International Studies Quarterly, 30(2), 153–173). We find evidence that the sanction regime on Russia has been mostly effective thus far in dimensions of deterrence, international symbolism, and domestic symbolism, partially effective in terms of compliance, and mostly ineffective in terms of subversion. We conclude by arguing that future research should take a broader, more interdisciplinary approach when assessing sanction effectiveness.

TL SI-06 Grand Development Strategy or Simply Grandiose? China's Diffusion of Its Belt & Road Initiative into Central Europe

ABSTRACT Since the launching of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013, Chinese leaders have sought to diffuse this ambitious overseas infrastructure drive into the Central and Eastern European bloc. From the literature on policy diffusion, we refer here to a process whereby a dominant actor (China) has vigorously promoted a particular strand of its own domestic development policy in other emerging economies. Our focus is on the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, all EU members since 2004. We draw on Etel Solingen's (2012. Of dominoes and firewalls: the domestic, regional, and global politics of international diffusion. International Studies Quarterly, 56 (4), 631–644) seminal framework on policy diffusion, which considers the stimulus, the medium, political agents, and outcomes. It is the dearth of BRI loans and China-backed infrastructure projects in this sub-region that we seek to explain. Our main finding is that China has been its own biggest firewall in the diffusion of BRI into Central Europe. China needs to formulate policies that surpass the pursuit of its own economic interests and devise approaches that resonate with the more developed status of these three Central European countries.

Stylized Facts and Comparative Statics in (Social) Science Inquiry

Abstract In a recent article, David Blagden (2019) critiques our research published in the International Studies Quarterly (LeVeck and Narang 2017a), in which we draw on the well-known “wisdom of crowds” phenomenon to argue that, because democracies typically include a larger number of decision makers in the foreign policy process, they may produce fewer decision-making errors in situations of crisis bargaining. As a result, bargaining may fail less often. Blagden's critique focuses on two supposed flaws: first, that “[d]emocracies may have a larger number of more diverse policymakers, of course, but this relationship is not necessary,” and second, that “weighing against the superior ability of large groups to average towards accurate answers, meanwhile, is a substantial drawback of larger groups: the diminishing ability to take and implement decisions” due to additional veto players. In this article, we demonstrate the ways in which we believe Blagden's critique to be misguided in its approach to social science inquiry. In particular, we argue that much of his critique requires that we reject two hallmarks of scientific inquiry: the use of stylized facts in theory building; and the use of comparative statics to generate testable hypotheses.

Do Democracies Possess the Wisdom of Crowds? Decision Group Size, Regime Type, and Strategic Effectiveness

Abstract What is it about democracies—if anything—that enables them to avoid war with each other while navigating conflictual international politics in pursuit of their own interests? Recent research in International Studies Quarterly by Brad LeVeck and Neil Narang (2017) provides an elegant new answer to this longstanding question. Drawing on “wisdom of crowds” logic—the insight that a large-enough group of inexpert judges is more likely to average towards an accurate estimate of a continuous variable than a smaller group, even when the smaller group contains relevant experts—supported by experimental evidence, they suggest that democracies’ strategic advantages lie in their large, diverse decision-making communities. If such crowd wisdom equips democracies to accurately assess others’ capabilities and intentions, so the argument goes, then they should be better than alternative regime types at maximizing their own interests while still avoiding the bargaining failure that is resort to war. Unfortunately, however, the politics of democratic foreign policy-making compromise the crowd-wisdom mechanism. This response article thus elucidates key flaws in the argument that crowd wisdom underpins democratic peace, before progressing to explain how the crowd-wisdom insight nonetheless carries important implications—irrespective of regime type—for strategic effectiveness.

US Dominance in International Relations and Security Scholarship in Leading Journals

AbstractThis article investigates the factors that affect scholarly attention on particular countries in four major international relations (IR) journals: International Studies Quarterly, International Organization, International Security, and World Politics for the period 1970 to the present. The analysis supports three basic conclusions. First, the United States receives the most scholarly attention in leading IR journals by a large margin. Second, a baseline model of scholarly attention, including just population, gross domestic product (GDP), and a dummy for the United States fits the data rather well. Additional factors such as membership in prominent international organizations or involvement in armed conflicts improve model fit, but only marginally, with little evidence of regional or English-language bias. And third, there is only weak evidence that countries with stronger economic and security linkages with the United States receive more attention. However, Israel and Taiwan—two countries with unique security relationships with the United States—receive more scholarly attention than either the baseline or augmented models would predict. Our analysis of bibliometric data from leading IR journals indicates the United States is the three-hundred-thousand-pound blue whale of IR scholarship. However, this emphasis is not particularly outsized when its large population, economy, and its extensive history of participation in interstate wars are taken into account.

Truth-telling, Caring and Governing: The Significance of Foucault’s Interpretation of Parrhesia to Governance

The article is based on the proposition that the study of politics is a study and teaching of values. Political leadership should possess values and virtues important in the exercise of power and authority. The dynamics of power in the society should be analyzed in relation to values, social norms, and cultural standards. This proposition is articulated by exposing the ideas of Michel Foucault on the act of governing. Foucault gives emphasis on the governing of self which is the foundation of the governing of community, society, and state. He also espouses that the political virtues of truth-telling and caring as essential to the act of governing. The discussion of the following concepts are giving emphasis on this article in order to provide a clear understanding Foucault’s act of governing and its significance to governance: parrhesia, the dynamics of governing of self, as well as the symbiotic relationship between care of the self and truth-telling.
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Are China and Japan rivals in Latin America? A rivalry perception analysis

This article investigates whether the People’s Republic of China and Japan perceive each other as rivals in Latin America (LA; both the Chinese and Japanese governments tend to refer to the region as Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), but for the purposes of this article we focus mainly on LA), and what impact such a perception might have on their foreign policy decision-making. We take LA as a case study because China’s and Japan’s recent (re-)engagement there began almost simultaneously in the early 2000s, and has developed against the background of domestic leadership transitions, growing demands for energy and markets, as well as international political agendas in which LA might play a key role. Developing the work of Thompson [(1995). Principal rivalries. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 39 (2), 195–223; (2001). Identifying rivals and rivalries in world politics. International Studies Quarterly, 45(4), 557–586] and Vasquez [(1993). The War Puzzle. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press; (1996). Distinguishing rivals that go to war from those that do not: Aa quantitative comparative case study of the two paths to war. International Studies Quarterly, 40 (4), 531–558] on rivalry, in combination with perception theory [Jervis, R. (1976). Perception and misperception in international politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press], the article suggests three indicators by which to measure the extent to which China and Japan might perceive each other as rivals. Drawing on content analysis of a range of Chinese- and Japanese-language official writing, news reports, and academic analysis, the article argues that, despite some media representation of China and Japan as competitors for resources and power in LA, in fact mutual perceptions concerning rivalry have not affected LA policy decisions of these two countries.

What do we know about crisis, escalation and war? A visual assessment of the International Crisis Behavior Project

This study uses a visualization technique, systemism, to integrate ICB Project findings about crisis, escalation and war in particular. The domain of the analysis, 1999–2017, is the period following the authoritative review of research in Michael Brecher (1999; International studies in the twentieth century and beyond: Flawed dichotomies, syntheses, cumulation, International Studies Quarterly 43: 213–264) up to the present. Systemism is used to combine, in graphic form, substantively significant results from ICB Project research. Insights about cause and effect for escalation processes are obtained that would not readily be available in the absence of graphic representation. This learning is made possible through application of systemism, a visualization technique, to convey a network of variables leading into war.

Gender in the International Studies Quarterly Review Process

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THE CULTURE OF VIOLENCE AND UNSTABLE PROCESSES FOR THE MAINTENANCE OF PEACE

INTERVIEW
 Prof. Ish-Shalom pursued his Ph.D. in Political Science and International Relations. Member of the Steering Committe of the Standing Group of International Relations (SGIR) of ECPR. He was the Director of the Leonard Davis for International relations Associate Professor (2012-15). He was a postdoctoral fellow at the International Security Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International affairs and at the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies, both at Harvard University. In addition he was the Israel Institute Visiting Professor as well as a Visiting Associate Professor at Stanford University (2015-16), visiting scholar at the New School University in New York (2000-2001), at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF) (2012), and at the Institute for the Human Studies (IWM) in Vienna (2001). He is the author of Democratic Peace: A Political Biography (University of Michigan Press, 2013), as well as articles in different scholarly journals such as International Studies Quarterly, European Journal of International Relations, International Studies Review, Political Science Quarterly, and Perspectives on Politics.

ROLE OF GLOBAL SOUTH IN THE MULTIPLEX WORLD Interview with Professor AMITAV ACHARYA, UNESCO Chair in Transnational Challenges and Governance, Distinguished Professor at the School of International Service of American University

Amitav Acharya is the UNESCO Chair in Transnational Challenges and Governance and Distinguished Professor at the School of International Service, American University, Washington, DC. He is the first non-Western scholar to be elected (for 2014-15) as the President of the International Studies Association (ISA), the largest and most influential global network in international studies. Previously he was a Professor at York University, Toronto, and the Chair in Global Governance at the University of Bristol, U.K. He held the inaugural Nelson Mandela Visiting Professorship in International Relations at Rhodes University, South Africa in 2012-13 and the inaugural Boeing Company Chair in International Relations at the Schwarzman Scholars Program at Tsinghua University in 2016-18. He was a Fellow of Harvard’s Asia Center and John F. Kennedy School of Government, and was elected to the Christensen Fellowship at Oxford. His books include Constructing Global Order [Acharya 2018a]; The End of American World Order [Acharya 2018b]; Why Govern? Rethinking Demand and Progress in Global Governance [Acharya 2016]; The Making of Southeast Asia [Acharya 2013]; Whose Ideas Matter [Acharya 2009] and et. His essays have appeared in leading international affairs journals such as International Organization, International Security, International Studies Quarterly, Journal of Asian Studies, Foreign Affairs, Journal of Peace Research, International Affairs, and World Politics. He has received two Distinguished Scholar Awards from the ISA, one in 2015 from its Global South Caucus for his “contribution to non-Western IR theory and inclusion” in international studies, and another in 2018 from ISA’s International Organization Section that recognizes “scholars of exceptional merit... whose influence, intellectual works and mentorship will likely continue to impact the field for years to come”. In his interview, Professor A. Acharya talks about non-western IR theories, Global South issues and concept, contemporary international studies, multiplexity and the role of new institutions of global governance.

Between a Rock and a Hard Place: International NGOs and the Dual Pressures of Donors and Host GovernmentsThe Taming of Democracy Assistance: Why Democracy Promotion Does Not Confront Dictators. By Sarah Sunn Bush. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.Help or Harm: The Human Security Effects of International NGOs. By Amanda Murdie. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2014.Civil Society under Authoritarianism: The

Previous articleNext article No AccessReview EssayBetween a Rock and a Hard Place: International NGOs and the Dual Pressures of Donors and Host Governments The Taming of Democracy Assistance: Why Democracy Promotion Does Not Confront Dictators. By Sarah Sunn Bush. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Help or Harm: The Human Security Effects of International NGOs. By Amanda Murdie. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2014. Civil Society under Authoritarianism: The China Model. By Jessica C. Teets. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.Andrew Heiss and Judith KelleyAndrew HeissDuke University Search for more articles by this author and Judith KelleyDuke University Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull TextSupplemental Material Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Politics Volume 79, Number 2April 2017 Sponsored by the Southern Political Science Association Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/691218 Views: 1291Total views on this site Citations: 16Citations are reported from Crossref HistoryPublished online February 15, 2017 © 2017 by the Southern Political Science Association. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Alice Hengevoss, Georg von Schnurbein Is peer regulation perceived as an effective mediator to strengthen the mission orientation of INGO leaders?, Nonprofit Management and Leadership 33, no.33 (Oct 2022): 609–631.https://doi.org/10.1002/nml.21542Alena Sander Rethinking shrinking civic space in the Global Souths – how development donors contribute to the restriction of civil society in Jordan, Democratization 30, no.11 (Jul 2022): 22–39.https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2022.2096595Hans Peter Schmitz, George E Mitchell Understanding the Limits of Transnational NGO Power: Forms, Norms, and the Architecture, International Studies Review 24, no.33 (Aug 2022).https://doi.org/10.1093/isr/viac042Yuka Fujimoto, Ahmed Ferdous, Faisal Wali Integrative Resource Model of Workplace Inclusion for Reduced Inequality: Conservation of Resources Perspective, Journal of Business Ethics 49 (Aug 2022).https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-022-05218-7Jeremy Springman, Edmund Malesky, Lucy Right, Erik Wibbels The Effect of Government Repression on Civil Society: Evidence from Cambodia, International Studies Quarterly 66, no.33 (Jul 2022).https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqac028Elizabeth A. Bloodgood, Jesse Bourns, Michael Lenczner, Takumi Shibaike, Jenny Tabet, Amy Melvin, Wendy H. Wong Understanding National Nonprofit Data Environments, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 30 (Apr 2022): 089976402210857.https://doi.org/10.1177/08997640221085731Christopher L. Pallas, Elizabeth Bloodgood Transcalar Advocacy, (Jul 2022): 1–4.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99675-2_9585-1Caroline Dunton, Jack Hasler Opening the black box of international aid: understanding delivery actors and democratization, International Politics 58, no.55 (Feb 2021): 792–815.https://doi.org/10.1057/s41311-020-00276-yAshraf Kagee Training lay counsellors in public health: Considerations for social workers, professional counsellors and psychologists, Global Public Health 15, no.66 (Feb 2020): 918–924.https://doi.org/10.1080/17441692.2020.1730931Long Tran International NGO Centralization and Leader-Perceived Effectiveness, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 49, no.11 (Jul 2019): 134–159.https://doi.org/10.1177/0899764019861741Gijsbert M. van Iterson Scholten , ( 2020): 1.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27975-2_1Andrew Heiss Taking control of regulations: how international advocacy NGOs shape the regulatory environments of their target countries, Interest Groups & Advocacy 8, no.33 (Sep 2019): 356–375.https://doi.org/10.1057/s41309-019-00061-0Adriana Clavel-Vazquez, César Palacios-González An Argument for the Intersectional Education of Those Working in International Humanitarian Medical Nongovernmental Organizations, The American Journal of Bioethics 19, no.22 (Feb 2019): 42–44.https://doi.org/10.1080/15265161.2018.1557291Thomas Davies , International Theory 11, no.33 ( 2019): 264.https://doi.org/10.1017/S1752971919000083Thomas Davies Transnational Movements, (Dec 2018): 1–4.https://doi.org/10.1002/9781405165518.wbeost046.pub2Maria Tysiachniouk, Svetlana Tulaeva, Laura A. Henry Civil Society under the Law ‘On Foreign Agents’: NGO Strategies and Network Transformation, Europe-Asia Studies 70, no.44 (May 2018): 615–637.https://doi.org/10.1080/09668136.2018.1463512

Introduction

The Journal of Global Security Studies has been a long time in the making. As the International Security Studies Section (ISSS) of ISA grew larger and more vibrant, it developed into a big tent under which many different definitions of security, styles of analysis, and normative frameworks coexisted. At the same time, a host of ISA sections, such as Peace Studies, Intelligence Studies, International Political Sociology (IPS), Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Migration Studies (ENMISA), Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA), Feminist Theory and Gender Studies (FTGS), Scientific Study of International Politics (SSIP), and many others were addressing related issues. Appreciation of ISA’s trajectory spurred the idea of creating a security journal that would be a big tent, to do for security what International Studies Quarterly did for all of international studies. The idea gained traction, though, as the journal’s purpose morphed from providing a big tent to serving as a forum in which analysts from different perspectives would actually interact, challenge, and engage with one another. An explicit mission of encouraging conversation between different parts of the security field attracted more interest from ISSS members, from scholars in other sections (including those on the editorial team and board), and from ISA as a whole. Hence, the Journal of Global Security Studies (JoGSS) was born.

Overseas Students, Returnees, and the Diffusion of International Norms into Post-Mao China

This paper applies the model of diffusion outlined by Solingen (International Studies Quarterly, 56, 2012, 631) to the case of Chinese who studied abroad after 1978. It assesses the ability of those who have not returned to pressure the state to introduce Western academic, scientific, and business norms. It looks at the role of the returnees and national leaders in introducing these norms, particularly as a means to create world-class universities, scientific research centers, and modern private firms. It demonstrates the power of firewalls (including institutional leaders, the Chinese marketplace, and administrators who lose under reform) to block the diffusionary process.

Response to Marc Sageman's “The Stagnation in Terrorism Research”

Dr. Sageman makes a good point that despite the influx of government funding in the last decade, terrorism scholars have not been able to answer what he calls a “simple question”—what leads a perso...

Retracted: Domestic Institutions and the Taxing of Multinational Corporations

The above article, published online on 30 September 2013 in Wiley Online Library (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/isqu.12099/full), has been retracted by agreement between the author, the editors, and the International Studies Association. The article may be accessed in, and should be cited as, its originally published form: in International Studies Quarterly 57, pp. 440–448. doi: 10.1111/isqu.12015.

From Global Transformation to Big Bang-A Response to Buzan and Lawson

Buzan and Lawson (2012) ( International Studies Quarterly ) persuasively argue that IR scholars must pay greater attention to the nineteenth-century global transformation. Nevertheless, their account would be strengthened by a greater acknowledgment of the critical role indigenous intermediaries played in facilitating Western colonialism, and also by a clearer recognition of the limited and late impact that rational state-building and ideologies of progress exerted on the shape of Western colonial empires. These amendments are necessary to avoid overstating the distinctiveness of modern empires relative to their pre-nineteenth-century forerunners, and thereby missing the true significance of the twentieth-century “big bang” that saw empires’ ruin and replacement by a global sovereign state monoculture.

Gendered Citation Patterns in International Relations Journals

This paper applies a methodology utilized in economics to study citation patterns in two International Studies Association journals. The paper analyzes articles published in International Studies Quarterly (ISQ) and International Studies Perspectives (ISP) in 2005. Comparisons are made based on the sex of the authors of articles and the sex of the cited authors in each paper's bibliography. Empirical analyses suggest that male authors of ISQ and ISP articles are less likely to cite work by female scholars in comparison with female authors. Mixed-gender author teams are also significantly less likely to cite research by female scholars relative to female article authors.

R2P after Libya and Syria: Engaging Emerging Powers

The use of force� /no matter how benevolent, enlightened, or impartial in intent� /has dramatic consequences. It shapes the struggle for power and helps to determine the outcome of political contests, which is why it is inherently controversial. It is why international debates about Libya� /the first road test of the Responsibility to Protect’s (R2P) coercive element (also known as Pillar Three)� /were understandably contentious. Pillar Three is defined as ‘‘the responsibility of Member States to respond collectively in a timely and decisive manner when a State is manifestly failing to provide ... / protection.’’ 1 While peaceful means of response are primarily preferred, should that prove inadequate to ensure protection, the international community should use more robust action: ‘‘no strategy for fulfilling the responsibility to protect would be complete without the possibility of collective enforcement measures, including through sanctions or coercive military action in extreme cases.’’ 2