Realistic Theory Research Articles

Iran and Venezuela: From Peripheral Realism to Resilient Diplomacy (1999-2023)

This article aims to demonstrate that Tehran and Caracas have managed to circumvent the dynamics of the international system, and have developed alternative ways of surviving the liberal order through resilient diplomacy.. Which, according to the evidence we provide, surpasses the theory of peripheral realism, not as an epistemological improvement, but as empirical facts of the foreign policy of both. Iran and Venezuela have developed two revolutionary diplomatic phases that respond to two critical moments in their relations with the Liberal International System (LIS), a rebellious phase (Chávez- Ahmadinejad) and challenges where the postulates of peripheral realism are met and later a resilient diplomacy (MaduroRaisi) that allows overcoming the LIS pressures and punishments.

What Drives Nuclear-Aspiring States? The Cases of Iran and North Korea

What Drives Nuclear-Aspiring States? The Cases of Iran and North Korea

Are Radical Realists Hypocrites about Intuition-Dependence?

Abstract Radical realists criticise the role that moral intuitions play in moralist political philosophy. However, radical realists may also rely on certain epistemic intuitions when making use of their theories of ideology critique. Hence, one might wonder whether radical realists’ criticism of moralists’ intuition-dependence is hypocritical. Call this the intuition asymmetry objection. My aim in this article is to show that the intuition asymmetry objection fails. After examining the basis of objections by radical realists to the role of moral intuitions in moralist political philosophy, I show that the presence of intuitions in radical realist theories of ideology critique is consistent with their criticism of moralism.

Türkiye’nin Dış Politika Davranışının Neoklasik Realist Bir Açıklaması: Bülent Ecevit’in 1978-1979 ve 1999-2002 Hükümetlerinin Karşılaştırılması

This study examines and compares the foreign policy behavior of Türkiye under the premiership of Bülent Ecevit between 1978-1979 and 1999-2002 via utilization of neo-classical realist theory. The article argues that the permissive strategic environment in both periods, détente in the former and unipolar international system in the latter paved the way for Türkiye’s multi-dimensional foreign policy which put special emphasis on neighboring regions. The worldviews of Ecevit and his foreign ministers Gündüz Ökçün and İsmail Cem as well as the emergence of grave economic problems in the country also contributed to the consolidation of region-centric foreign policy streak in both periods. Yet, while the arrival of the Second Cold War in December 1979 following the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan interrupted Türkiye’s multi-dimensional foreign policy stance for a while, the increasing trend towards multi-polarity starting from mid-2000s facilitated Türkiye’s pursuit of more autonomous foreign policy line.

Anti-Communitarian Construction of Human Rights Provisions and the Problematics of Engineering Social Development in Commonwealth Africa: Ripples from the Nigerian Case of Agbai V. Okogbue.

In most countries of the world, socio-economic rights are now concrete and enforceable. In Nigeria however, chapter II of the 1999 Constitution has remained non-justiciable, irrespective of the adoption and ratification of the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, which contains replica of these socio-economic rights. In countries like South Africa, India and some Latin American countries, the socio-economic rights have been given full force of enforcement either by composite construction of constitutionally guaranteed rights to encapsulate socio-economic rights or by expansive interpretation of the Constitution by the courts. Enforcement of socio-economic rights has nonetheless remained a mirage in Nigeria. Successive governments have hidden under the non justiceability of chapter II of the constitution to evade accountability and responsibility especially in provision of life changing infrastructure. This has impelled communities to engineer their own social development via self-help. Enforcement of compliance towards these self-help measures usually clash with the perceived rights of individuals. This paper therefore raises concern on the construction of the rights provisions to stifle communitarian philosophy enhancing social development via communal self-help projects by revisiting the case of Agbai v. Okagbue. It is posited that with recent dwindling government responses especially in rural infrastructural development, the court has to re-engineer communal development by superimposing communal interest over personal interest especially where such communal interest will also further full realization of personal rights. Key Words: Human Rights, Community Development, Communitarian Principle, Realist Theory, Problem and Commonwealth Africa

El océano azul de la política común de seguridad y defensa

The blue ocean of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) of the European Union is the object of study of this research, from a basically policy-making approach, focused on policy design. As a starting point, it takes content from geopolitics and realism theories that analyse why the common European defence policy is so problematic. The study explains the blue ocean tool with the case study of the F-35 aircraft. Based on their understanding, the red ocean strategy is described against the blue ocean strategy, contrasting a Europe within NATO and dependent on the US against a Europe as A²E (strategic actor and strategic autonomy). Subsequently, the scheme of four actions in the construction of a common defence policy in Europe is elaborated. The blue ocean matrix is structured, where the construction of a common defence policy in Europe is analysed, presenting what should be eliminated from the defence policy, what should be reduced, what should be increased and, finally, what should be created to achieve a common security and defence policy of the European Union (EU). Then, the four organizational barriers to achieving a European Armed Forces and the three key components of the change to the European Armed Forces are considered.

Narrative Structures for the European Identity Crisis: Antiplot in Ulysses’ Gaze, A Talking Picture and Our Music

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsMaría NogueraMaría Noguera teaches History of Cinema and Film Criticism in the Universidad de Navarra (Spain) since 2006. In the same institution, she has been Head of Master’s Degree in Screenwriting (2015–2018). Her research and academic interest focus on European cinema. She has written extensively about realistic theory traditions in cinema and their connection to film directors such as Roberto Rossellini, Joao Botelho or Manoel de Oliveira.Miguel Muñoz-GarnicaMiguel Muñoz-Garnica teaches Film Criticism and Foundations of Narrative in the Universidad de Navarra (Spain). He completed a doctoral thesis about the image of family in Japanese cinema and its relevance in the films of contemporary filmmaker Hirokazu Koreeda. He has released several academic writings related to Japanese and Asian cinema. He also works as a film critic at the online Spanish magazine El Antepenúltimo Mohicano.

Impacts of the Russian – Ukraine conflict on Food Security in Africa

The issue of food security has remained one of the major challenges in Nigeria, Africa and the world today and this cannot be over emphasized. Africa’s population have long been suffering from hunger due to an alarming rate of dwindling land and water resources as well as harsh climatic and natural conditions that has resulted in food insecurity. The objective of this paper is on the impact of the ongoing Russia – Ukraine conflict on food security in Africa. The paper posits that the inability of the continent to provide adequate food for its citizens has exposed it to the negative impact of the conflict. Thus, efforts by successive governments and institutions at achieving food security on the continent has not yielded the desired results which is evident in hunger, malnutrition and inadequate supply of basic food staples that pervade the continent. The study adopts descriptive and historical methodology and secondary data as evidence and anchors it analysis on the realist theory. Findings revealed that the impacts of the conflicts on food security in Africa is quiet severe since about 80 per cent of the continents food is dependent on food import. The paper therefore recommends that the governments and regional leaders must provide all the necessary funding, modern technology and infrastructure needed to achieve food security for the continent. Again, the global community must also employ diplomacy to bring the conflict to an end for the sake of humanity since both countries are global food producers.

Conceptualization of Theoretical Ideas on Religious Security in the Context of Western Studies of Interaction Between Society and Religion

The article analyzes the problems of religious security presented in modern research concepts. The article is aimed at proving the idea that in Western science the problems of religious security are conceptualized within the framework of discussing the contradiction between concepts asserting the spiritual essence of religious extremism and concepts proving the social nature of threats emanating from religious associations. The theoretical basis of the presented work is the theory of structural realism. The methodological basis of the research is a systematic approach that reveals the structure of religious security as a state of protection of religious systems and values of society. The scientific novelty of the study is the fact which reveals that in Western security studies, the contradiction between the concept asserting the spiritual essence of religious threats and the concept proving the social nature of threats emanating from religious associations is essential. In conclusion, the authors state that in Western social philosophy, despite the fact that the concept of “religious threat” was practically not used, the phenomenon associated with it was discussed from various points of view. As a result of this discussion, it was attributed to a number of concepts related to the theories of religious conflict, within which it began to be evaluated as a label that was used in the process of combating confessional opponents by those who presented themselves as representatives of a “genuine” tradition and defenders of social foundations and values. The scientific and theoretical significance of the work lies in enriching the concept of structural realism with the idea of the need to distinguish between extremism as a violent act and religious doctrines as the value content of religion. The practical significance of the work lies in the fact that its results can be used in the implementation of policies aimed at preventing interaction between secular and confessional institutions and the state.

Density-tuned effective metal-insulator transitions in two-dimensional semiconductor layers: Anderson localization or Wigner crystallization

Electrons (or holes) confined in 2D semiconductor layers have served as model systems for studying disorder and interaction effects for almost 50 years. In particular, strong disorder drives the metallic 2D carriers into a strongly localized Anderson insulator (AI) at low densities whereas pristine 2D electrons in the presence of no (or little) disorder should solidify into a Wigner crystal at low carrier densities. Since the disorder in 2D semiconductors is mostly Coulomb disorder arising from random charged impurities, the applicable physics is complex as the carriers interact with each other as well as with the random charged impurities through the same long-range Coulomb coupling. By critically theoretically analyzing the experimental transport data in depth using a realistic transport theory to calculate the low-temperature 2D resistivity as a function of carrier density in 11 different experimental samples covering 9 different materials, we establish, utilizing the Ioffe-Regel-Mott criterion for strong localization, a direct connection between the critical localization density for the 2D metal-insulator transition (MIT) and the sample mobility deep into the metallic state, which for clean samples could lead to a localization density low enough to make the transition appear to be a Wigner crystallization. We believe that the insulating phase is always an effective Coulomb disorder-induced localized AI, which may have short-range WC-like correlations at low carrier densities. Our theoretically calculated disorder-driven critical MIT density agrees with experimental findings in all 2D samples, even for the ultra-clean samples. In particular, the extrapolated critical density for the 2D MIT seems to vanish when the high-density mobility goes to infinity, indicating that transport probes a disorder-localized insulating ground state independent of how low the carrier density might be.

How regional organisation survives: ASEAN, hedging and international society

ABSTRACT How can a regional organisation survive in great power contests? This article uses the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as the empirical case to address the puzzle. The inquiry is important for three reasons. First, the recent developments in world politics have shown the increasingly penetrative actions of the major powers into regional multilateral organisations. Second, looking at ASEAN, the internal cohesion and solidity of the Association's member countries over the last decade have been challenged by the competition between China and the U.S. Third, the existing literature on ASEAN regional strategic affairs has been focused on hedging as the weaker states’ agential choice to manage their relations with the stronger states. However, there is insufficient explanation of what makes sustainable Southeast Asian states’ hedging possible. Working within the English School theory of IR, this article offers two factors explaining ASEAN’s survival as a regional international society: elite diplomatic culture and great power management. The argument is that ASEAN has developed its ideas and values of intra-regional diplomatic relations and built institutions that can mitigate the damaging consequences of the U.S.–China order contestation. Furthermore, this study promotes an English School perspective on hedging based on the ASEAN case. Arguing against the realist theory of hedging, which focuses on the domestic function of foreign policy strategy, the narrow conception of national interests and the relative distribution of power at the systemic level, hedging works because of viable institutions of the regional international society oriented toward constructing and preserving order .

An objective collapse model without state dependent stochasticity

The impossibility of describing measurement in quantum mechanics while using a quantum mechanical model for the measurement machine, remains one of its central problems. Objective collapse theories attempt to resolve this problem by proposing alterations to Schrödinger’s equation. Here, we present a minimal model for an objective collapse theory that, in contrast to previous proposals, does not employ state dependent stochastic terms in its construction. It is an explicit proof of principle that it is possible for Born’s rule to emerge from a stochastic evolution in which no properties of the stochastic process depend on the state being evolved. We propose the presented model as a basis from which more realistic objective collapse theories can be constructed.

Brazil’s Emergence in the United States’ ‘Backyard’: Domestic Leadership and Systemic Status

This article studies Brazil’s emerging power status crisis due to policy shifts under President Jair Bolsonaro. In addition to studying the material bases, diplomatic relations and perceptions that shape emerging power status, this article also addresses how political elites shape such status. While the crisis of status is explained through domestic political and economic instabilities, this article points to the role of the United States in fomenting such instabilities. The US–Brazil bilateral relations between 2003 and 2022 are analysed through realist and power transition theory to outline the systemic dynamics of Great Power and Emerging Power interactions. Narratives of Brazil’s emergence were premised on steady economic growth, regional preponderance, and formulation of a globalist foreign policy under former President Lula. There were divergences of interests between Lula’s globalist foreign policy and the US interests in Latin America. Recent disclosures show that Lula was controversially arrested due to US interference in his trial in 2018 while he was favored to win the Presidential election. Bolsonaro secured the victory and initiated sharp policy shifts, aligning closely with the US. Bolsonaro’s policies consolidated an expansive American presence in South America, reducing Brazilian leadership roles and creating a crisis in status. This article contextualizes American interference in Brazil’s domestic politics and the erosion of status by examining the role played by individuals in impacting systemic status.

Postcolonial Discourse Reflected Through Magical Realism in Tess Uriza Holthe’s When the Elephants Dance

This article aims to show the postcolonial discourse of the Philippines through the utilization of magical realism in the novel When the Elephants Dance (2002) by Tess Uriza Holthe. When the Elephants Dance is intrinsically structured into four main sections which describe the events leading up to Japan’s surrender. Inside these four sections, the story is integrated with five sub-stories from accompanying characters which are A Cure for Happiness, Mang Minno, Ghost Children, The Twilight People, and The Portrait of an Aristocrat. These sub-stories act as one of the highlights of the novel since they are utilized by the characters as a way to retain their sanity and cope with the tragic experiences of living in the middle of a war. The characters’ coping mechanism of telling their life stories that are filled with Filipino mythology reflects the postcolonial discourse of the Philippines prior to and during World War II. With the research limitation of analyzing the story of Mang Minno, this research will use the theory of magical realism by Wendy B. Faris to see the presence of magical realism, as well as the utilization of New Historicism as a bridge to analyze the postcolonial discourse. The results show that by integrating magical realism and history, Holthe was successful in depicting historical events that occurred in the Philippines under the fictional aspect of the novel. Holthe used magical realism to conceal the postcolonial discourse of alterity and emphasize the magnificence of Catholicism in the Philippines.

The United States-The People's Republic of China relations: A systemic level impact analysis

Are the United States (the US)- the People's Republic of China (the PRC) relations inevitably headed for war? The US-the PRC relations constitute one of the most interesting topics in terms of international political studies. Precisely for this reason, the study of political relations between the US and the PRC is of the great importance in terms systemic level of the international political studies. The main purpose of this study is to show that the relations of the US and the PRC, as two influential acting units at the level of systemic international politics, are of competitive cooperation. In this study, Popperian falsification method was used in the context of political, economic and cultural data revealed by bilateral relations. The definition of the inevitably dragged into a war by the US-the PRC with a historicist perspective also brings with it an important problem in terms of international political studies. This point also creates an important opportunity to discuss the explanatory capacity of international political theories. Considering the Structural Realist Theory in the US-the PRC case, it is seen that military, economic and social relations are important in terms of influencing the structure as much as the formation of the structure. The US-the PRC relations, it is seen that a competitive cooperation structure has emerged rather than a process leading to war.

Understanding ESL Preservice Teachers’ Metaphorical Epistemology in the Teaching Practicum Context

This study examined twenty English as Second Language (ESL) preservice teachers’ learning-to-teach experiences amid the teaching practicums from the perspectives of social realist theory and practice architectures in the US. Through iterative discourse analysis and constant-comparative approach, this paper reveals four aspects of the participants’ metaphorical epistemology. First, the participants developed the constructivist metaphorical epistemology on ESL teaching by grappling with the emergent properties and practice architectures. Second, the participants’ metaphorical epistemology changed from pre-reflection and surface reflection to pedagogical reflection. Third, the participants modeled the reflective disposition by activating their personal emergent properties and tackling the social-political arrangements. Fourth, the participants’ metaphorical epistemology predominantly focuses on their pedagogical reasoning and negotiation of their multiple professional identities. Implications for facilitating ESL preservice teachers’ metaphorical epistemologies in the teaching practicum context are discussed.

The Role of the US in the UN Conflict Resolution: The Case of 2021 Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

In today's world where frequent regional conflicts affect global economic, political, and other fields, and trigger humanitarian crises, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is among the most significant conflicts around the world. As the current world hegemony, the United States has an undoubted influence on the global community. Since the founding of the United Nations, to protect its own interests, the United States is enormously influential in various decisions of the United Nations to varying degrees, especially in the process of conflict settling. In the context of the failure of conflict resolution in the United Nations, this study analyzes the United States’ role in the mediation of disputes in the United Nations, with the method of case analysis. Guided by the realistic theory, this paper aims to deeply understand the motives of the United States' actions and how it affects conflict resolution, which has important practical significance. In conclusion, the United States has used a variety of strategies to influence conflict resolution of the United Nations, leading to the loss of the UN’s peacekeeping power.

Study on the Moral Realism Theory and Its Enlightenment

Moral realism theory takes political leadership as the core variable, which differs from the traditional realism theory. Moral realism theory aims to analyze the motivation and logic of rising state replacing dominant state in international system. This paper uses documentary analysis to introduce and analyze this theory, which provides an innovative perspective for analyzing the current strength comparison between China and the United States and its impact on international relations in the future, while also helping to understand the diversified development of realism theory in international relations.

The Impact of Globalization on Leadership and Governance in Mali

Purpose: The study sought to analyze the impact of globalization on leadership and governance in Mali 
 Materials and Methods: The study adopted a desktop methodology. Desk research refers to secondary data or that which can be collected without fieldwork. Desk research is basically involved in collecting data from existing resources hence it is often considered a low cost technique as compared to field research, as the main cost is involved in executive’s time, telephone charges and directories. Thus, the study relied on already published studies, reports and statistics. This secondary data was easily accessed through the online journals and library.
 Findings: The results show that globalization has had a profound impact on leadership and governance in the world today. Globalization is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon, and its effects can be seen in virtually every sector of society. From economic and political systems to social and cultural norms, globalization has altered the way in which we view and interact with the world.
 Unique Contribution to Theory, Practices and Policies: The functionalism theory, realism theory and constructivism theory may be used to anchor future studies in the leadership and governance sector. The study results will also benefit other stakeholders such as the policy makers as well as researchers and scholars from different parts of the world. The top management of private and public industries in the country will also use the study findings to improve leadership and governance performance in all their activities and programs. The study recommends that the adoption of effective development policies in the leadership and governance will help to improve efficiency in their major operations and activities.

A Neoclassical Realist Theory of Overbalancing

Abstract Why do states overestimate threats and, as a result, mount disproportionately strong and therefore costly balancing responses? To answer this question, we build a neoclassical realist theory of overbalancing to argue that unit-level intervening variables help generate a counterforce greater than what a structurally induced ideal response would call for. We identify the factors and conditions that steer states to deviate from realist, optimal policies, pinpoint the consequences of such suboptimal behavior, and provide policymakers with recommendations more suited to an interest-driven foreign policy in line with power considerations. We apply our theory to two distinct case studies: Egypt's costly intervention in Yemen in the 1960s and the American overreaction to the real, but very limited, threat posed by terrorism since 2001.