Theory Of Statecraft Research Articles

Instability, crisis, and statecraft in Conservative Britain, 2010–24

Abstract This article examines how the Conservative Party dominated British politics from 2010 to 2024 despite this period being one of instability and crisis. It argues that a key source of this turmoil was the Conservative Party itself, which under a succession of Prime Ministers struggled to formulate an effective statecraft strategy. While these leadership failings have been well documented the underlying difficulties run deeper, reflecting tensions for the self-proclaimed natural party of government in adapting its statecraft to the rise of populist and anti-politics pressures. The article exposes these through the lens of statecraft theory, which is applied to the largely overlooked constitutional dimension of Conservative statecraft. This reveals a persistent willingness to prioritize partisan statecraft strategy over adherence to constitutional norms, which portends a slide into populism now the party has returned to opposition.

Living Things (活物) and Dead Things (死物) －Theory of Statecraft and criticism of Neo-Confucianism in the Edo Period－

에도시대에 전개된 經世濟民論에서 제일 중요한 책은 18세기에 저술된 다자이 ？？다이의 『經濟錄』이다. 다자이 ？？다이는 이 책에서 중국에서 ‘心法’의 학문이 유행하면서 ‘經濟’를 위한 학문이 쇠퇴했다고 보았다. ‘心法’이란 주자학, 양명학, 불교, 노장사상 등 마음을 함양하는 것을 중요시하는 사상을 말한다. ？？다이는 내면적 도덕성을 수양하는 心法을 인간사회를 ‘死物’로 만드는 것이라고 비판하고 인간에게 생기를 주고 사회를 활성화하는 ‘活物’을 통해 경세제민에 힘써야 한다고 주장하였는데, ‘活物’과 ‘死物’의 은유로 인간사회를 보는 이러한 사고방식은 주로 古學派 지식인의 사상을 계승하면서 형성된 것이다. 그들은 특히 주자학을 ‘死物’로 보고 강력하게 비판했다. 본고에서는 古學派 지식인 야마가 소코, 이토 진사이, 오규 소라이가 ‘活物’과 ‘死物’의 은유를 어떠한 문맥으로 사용했는지를 살펴 주자학에 대한 비판의식이 다자이 ？？다이의 경세 사상에 어떻게 반영되었는지를 검토하였다.

담와 홍계희의 경세학 저변 연구 -연행(燕行)과 통신사행(通信使行)을 중심으로-

Hong Gye-hee(洪啟禧) is a politician and scholar of Yeongjo University in the late Joseon Dynasty. He is a person who has made efforts to improve the system and culture essential for national management. His theory of statecraft(經世學) has the following background. Family traditions, academic succession, and the influence of various reformed thinkers. He has a multifaceted academic character; he has open and practical characteristics. In particular, his history of visiting China and Japan as a diplomat representing the country is also considered important. He visited Japan as a “Chosun Tongsinsa(朝鮮通信使)” in 1748 and China as a “Yeonhaeng(燕行)” in 1760, respectively. He has been a diplomat representing the country and has widened many opinions. This is believed to have helped him own many international senses as an intellectual in East Asia in the 18th century, apply them to the Joseon society, and manage the country. He also made practical conversation materials with great interest in Chinese and Japanese, and also met and talked to Southeast Asian and German Catholic priests in Beijing. Many remains of Japan remain as well as several artifacts he left behind. In particular, he had many human networks related to him; several figures related to him accompanied him; his third son was Japan, and his fifth son was accompanied by China. Lee Bong-hwan also joined both countries. Hong Gye-hee bought a large amount of books in Japan, and in China he directly explored the birthplace of the King of Korea and left it as a record. After his death, Hong Gye-hee was not properly evaluated for the political problems of his offspring. In the future, it is necessary to conduct a proper evaluation and multilateral research.

Performing Power in Early Renaissance Italy: Princely Image and Consensus in Political Treatises

This article investigates how the idea of performing power becomes crucial in Italian Renaissance political thought. The analysis focuses on two pre-Machiavellian mirrors for princes written in the second half of the fifteenth century in the kingdom of Naples, under the Aragonese monarchy: Giovanni Pontano’s De principe (1465) and Giuniano Maio’s De maiestate (1492), respectively in Neo-Latin and the vernacular. These are the first Italian political treatises where the concept of majesty is systematically theorized and is linked with the practical aspects of the art of governing and the performance of power. In particular, the whole second part of Pontano’s text defines and illustrates the virtue of majesty as coinciding with the “external” image of princely rulership and with all concrete strategies deployed by the prince to gain consensus. This concept is recovered and emphasized in Maio’s De maiestate, the first treatise entirely devoted to this key aspect of kingship, to the extent that the figure of ideal princeps is encapsulated in the all-encompassing notion of majesty, the virtue that becomes the most important royal attribute. Thus, this new theory of statecraft, with a specific focus on the image that the ruler is able to give to his subjects and on the importance of the people’s consent, displays the emergence of a blossoming idea of political realism, which is specific to this age and context and would develop in more mature forms in the following century.

Logics of appropriateness: Explaining Chinese Financial Institutions’ weak supervision of overseas financing

Abstract Over the past decade, China has moved closer to accepting international infrastructure financing standards and sought to address those environmental and social problems that have occurred in many overseas projects funded by China. These new policies include enhancing the state regulatory regime, requiring the financial entities and infrastructure companies to adopt international best practices, and at the same time revamping various regulations in the financial sector. But, these reforms have not led to any fundamental change in the actual behavior infrastructure companies’ sustainability performance on the ground. This paper addresses the question why the sustainability performance of China’s overseas financing is still ostensibly weak in despite of these government’s efforts. Building on the existing theoretical perspectives, for instance, economic statecraft theory, fragmented authoritarianism model, and governance weaknesses of the host countries, this research seeks to examine the role of China’s policy banks in supervising those infrastructure projects that they have financed. This study looks at three cases of infrastructure financing by China Development Bank and EXIM Bank in Southeast Asian countries in different periods. Drawing theoretical insights from normative institutionalism, this paper contends that the unsatisfactory sustainability performance of Chinese financing continues to take place because decision-making based on the logics of appropriateness-conforming to various informal political norms inside China-has prevented Chinese financiers from making accountable business decisions, leading to their failures in exercising effective oversight of those overseas infrastructure projects. The findings in this paper provide a better understanding of China’s overseas infrastructure development and contribute to the debate on China’s development financing, as well as the Belt and Road Initiative.

Kegagalan Penerapan Economic Statecraft Arab Saudi Terhadap Lebanon Tahun 2016

This paper aims to discuss the failure of economic statecraft carried out by Saudi Arabia against Lebanon in 2016. The difficult economic conditions of Lebanon after the 1975-1990 civil war made Lebanon dependent on foreign aid, one of which was assistance from Saudi Arabia. But in February 2016, Saudi Arabia stopped aid that would initially be used to buy weapons to protect the Lebanese border. The cessation of aid came because of Lebanon's decision not to support an Arab League agreement to condemn Iran over the case of an attack on Saudi diplomatic missions in Tehran. The cessation did not change Lebanon's policy into pro-Saudi but inside Lebanon, the pro-Iranian faction was strengthened by the support of pro-Saudi politicians for pro-Iranian politicians to become the new Lebanese President. This raises the question why Saudi Arabia's economic statecraft efforts to Lebanon have not been successful in influencing Lebanese policy. To know this, this paper will use the political economic statecraft theory from Jean-Marc F. Blanchard and Norrin M. Ripsman. The findings of this paper are the failure of Saudi Arabia's economic statecraft against Lebanon because the level of Lebanese stateness which is at a significant stateness level means that Lebanon has the ability to reject or ignore the economic statecraft.

Mirror for the Muslim Prince: Islam and the Theory of Statecraft ed. by Mehrzad Boroujerdi

Mirror for the Muslim Prince: Islam and the Theory of Statecraft ed. by Mehrzad Boroujerdi

Ideology and Statecraft: A Reply to Griffiths

This article offers a qualified defence of statecraft theory. It argues that it helps frame important questions about politics by drawing our analytical attention towards the partisan strategic calculations that politicians make. It cautions, however, that in utilising the statecraft approach we must remain sensitive to the ideational dimension of politics, and to the (often implicit) ideological assumptions of our own theoretical viewpoints.

Statecraft as a Straightjacket: A Reply to Gamble and Hayton

‘Statecraft’ theory, with its focus on politicians' strategic, electoral choices, has undergone a revival in recent years. This is a reply to those authors who have used ‘Statecraft’ in their analysis of the Conservative Party under David Cameron [notably Hayton (2014) Parliamentary Affairs 67, 1; Gamble (2014) Parliamentary Affairs]. Statecraft theory raises various questions and contains implications—ontological, epistemic and methodological—that need to be dealt with by its contemporary advocates. I conclude that while the contributions discussed here are a valuable reminder that strategic thinking is an important part of what any politician does, strict adherence to the Statecraft model is a straitjacket to our understanding of British politics.

The Emergence of Classical American Patent Law

One enduring historical debate concerns whether the American Constitution was intended to be -- referring to a theory of statecraft that maximizes the role of private markets and minimizes the role of government in economic affairs. The most central and powerful proposition of classical constitutionalism is that the government's role in economic development should be minimal. First, private rights in property and contract exist to any community needs for development. Second, if a particular project is worthwhile the market itself will make it occur. Third, when the government attempts to induce development politics inevitably distorts the decision making. The result is excessive state involvement, with benefits typically going to well placed interest groups.From the Colonial period until the mid-nineteenth century American legislatures and courts conceived of the patent as an active tool of economic growth. States in particular granted patents in anticipation that the grantee would actually develop some work of public improvement. This conception of the patent was distinctly pre-classical in the sense that it envisioned considerable state involvement in ensuring that granted patents were put to appropriate use. In addition, state issued patents, although not federal patents, were issued to promoters -- that is, to those who did not really claim to have invented anything new, but rather promised to develop technology or infrastructure in a new place.A few decades later a much more classical conception of the patent emerged, as a property right pure and simple. Questions about whether and how to employ a patent were lodged almost entirely with its owner, who at the high point of patent classicism even had the power to use patents to keep technology off the market -- precisely contrary to what the original framers of the provision had in mind.An essential part of this development was the rise of federal patent exclusivity -- a result that was not mandated by the text of the Constitution's IP Clause, particularly when read against the Tenth Amendment. The sources of increased hostility toward state issued patents were twofold. First was the view that state issued patents burdened interstate commerce. For example, the Supreme Court struck down the state-issued steamboat patent under the Commerce Clause, not under the Constitution's IP Clause. Second, however, only federal exclusivity could effectively limit the power of the states to grant unwarranted exclusive rights to favored grantees. The eventual result was a regime in which Congress acquired the exclusive power to award patents for inventions.Changes in United States patent law under the 1836 Patent Act and later were driven by classical beliefs that monopoly is bad and generally unnecessary for economic development, with invention as a narrow exception. This entailed, first, that the conditions for obtaining a patent be narrow, limited to actual inventions within the applicant's possession, and adequately disclosed. Second, patent issuance had to be made a nonpolitical, administrative action. The applicant was entitled to a patent if he could make specific showings concerning technology and use. The prior art queries that increasingly dominated patentability doctrine focused on what had been available in the past, rather than what economic development might require for the future. Finally, once a patent was issued the government very largely abandoned its interest. The patent entered commerce as personal property, creating individual rights but few social obligations. Together these requirements led both Congress and the courts away from relatively open ended policy concerns, and toward technical specification and boundary clarity. The result was a patent system increasingly detached from questions about economic development.

Nation-Building through War

How do the outcomes of international wars affect domestic social change? In turn, how do changing patterns of social identification and domestic conflict affect a nation’s military capability? We propose a “second image reversed” theory of war that links structural variables, power politics, and the individuals that constitute states. Drawing on experimental results in social psychology, we recapture a lost building block of the classical realist theory of statecraft: the connections between the outcomes of international wars, patterns of social identification and domestic conflict, and the nation’s future war-fighting capability. When interstate war can significantly increase a state’s international status, peace is less likely to prevail in equilibrium because, by winning a war and raising the nation’s status, leaders induce individuals to identify nationally, thereby reducing internal conflict by increasing investments in state capacity. In certain settings, it is only through the anticipated social change that victory can generate that leaders can unify their nation, and the higher anticipated payoffs to national unification makes leaders fight international wars that they would otherwise choose not to fight. We use the case of German unification after the Franco-Prussian war to demonstrate the model’s value-added and illustrate the interaction between social identification, nationalism, state-building, and the power politics of interstate war.

Mirror for the Muslim Prince: Islam and the Theory of Statecraft Edited by MEHRZAD BOROUJERDI

Mirror for the Muslim Prince: Islam and the Theory of Statecraft Edited by MEHRZAD BOROUJERDI

Mirror for the Muslim prince: Islam and the theory of statecraft

Mirror for the Muslim Prince moves beyond the fashionable yet cursory understanding of Muslims' beliefs regarding power and statecraft. By assembling a group of world class scholars, this book challenges a host of exalted assumptions and theories concerning political power in the muslim world.

Yulgok(栗谷) Yi I(李珥)’s Statecraft Theory and its Political Setting

Yulgok(栗谷) Yi I(李珥)’s Statecraft Theory and its Political Setting

The Study on Anseokgyeong's Theory of Statecraft and Method of Thinking

The Study on Anseokgyeong's Theory of Statecraft and Method of Thinking

Debate—Proportional Representation: PR and Democratic Statecraft

Debate—Proportional RepresentationPR and Democratic Statecraft Quentin L. Quade (bio) In "Constitutional Choices for New Democracies," Arend Lijphart sets out to describe and evaluate some of the primary institutional alternatives available to new democracies. Lijphart knows that the choice of electoral system is especially important, since it will likely determine whether many or few parties will compete, and whether coalition or single-party governments will result. He also knows that once chosen, the electoral system will be hard to change. Lijphart favors proportional representation (PR), welcomes proliferated parties, and esteems coalitions. I have publicly defended the opposite view. I urge plurality voting in single-member districts, hope and expect that this will encourage a two-party system, and applaud the single-party government that would result.1 How is it that two democrats with similar starting points like Lijphart and myself could come up with such starkly contrasting practical advice for newly emerging democracies? As in real estate, the key is to inspect the premises. Even a brief and selective inspection, as this one must be, will show why our recommendations differ so sharply, and why I think Lijphart's position rests on questionable, even utopian, foundations. Advocates of proportional representation typically describe it as more "fair" and more "just." Lijphart's article says PR produces "consensus" politics, promotes "conciliation and compromise," and is more "representative" than plurality voting. In fact, each of these good words applied to PR begs a question and calls for a rarely given philosophical argument to establish a meaning for "fair," "just," "representative," and so on. No such arguments are presented or even summarized by Lijphart. The only thing certain about PR is that it will tend to re-create society's [End Page 36] divisions and locate them in the legislature. That is its purpose, logic, and result.2 Whether a system that encourages party proliferation is any of the good things its proponents call it—fairer, more just, more representative—depends on a theory of statecraft and democratic form. What is the purpose of the state? Does the adoption of democracy eliminate or even lessen the traditional requirements of state action? In particular, does democratic statecraft have a diminished responsibility to synthesize society's parts, unify and defend its people, or identify and pursue the common good—meaning those values that no particular part of society will ever seek as its own but on which all particular parts depend? Or does democratic politics exist to do all the things states exist for, but to do them in a new way, a responsible and accountable way? If it does, then the first test of fairness, justice, and representation that democratic politics must pass will be the test of excellence in state action. The second and no less important test will be that of accountability. But for Lijphart and his fellow PR advocates, the first question appears to be: how well are society's natural divisions recreated and relocated in the legislature? Where he equates the number of women in legislatures with representation of women's interests, for example, Lijphart uses the term "representation" as identical to recreation. In his uncritical implicit reliance on the "picture theory" of legislative representation, Lijphart writes as if Edmund Burke had never lived. To prove that PR's tendency to re-create divisions and proliferate parties is indeed a good thing, an extended argument is required. It must explain how a political system will be "fair" if it succumbs to the centrifugal pull of interests, how it can advance the general welfare if it "represents" only minute and particular aspects of society, and how a government cobbled together out of postelection splinters by a secretive process of interparty bartering can be considered responsible and accountable. Only by doing this can PR advocates escape the charge of question-begging. Easy Cases and Unfounded Speculations I have suggested that PR advocates generally, and Lijphart in particular, tend to make their work easy by eliding from PR's tendency to re-create societal divisions to an unexamined designation of such recreation as good. Another labor-saving approach, greatly evident in Lijphart's article, is to build the argument for PR on...

On Theory of Statecraft

Today the term political theory has two main meanings. It means the study of great thinkers who have, more or less systematically or polemically, written on matters political. This is the sense in which the term has been used in this century, down to the “behavioral revolution.” We shall adhere to that usage. Since the “behavioral revolution,” the term has also come to mean a theory, or theories, formal or axiomatic in structure, on subjects political but not traditionally dealt with by political theory in the first sense. This kind of political thought we shall call formal (political) theory.

The Just War: Force and Political Responsibility.

In the wake of Operation Desert Storm, the question of 'just war' has become a hotly contested issue, and this classic text on war and the ethics of modern statecraft written at the height of the Vietnam era in 1968 speaks to a new generation of readers. In defending just war against Christian pacifism, Ramsey joins a line of theological reasoning that traces its antecedents to Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas. Ramsey argues that decisions regarding war must be governed by 'political prudence.' Whether a particular war should be fought, and at what level of violence, depends, Ramsey writes, on one's count of the moral costs and benefits. Characterized by a sophisticated yet back-to-basics approach, his analysis begins with the assumption that force is a fact in political life which must either be reckoned with or succumbed to. He then grapples with modern challenges to traditional moral principles of 'just conduct' in war, the 'morality of deterrence,' and a 'just war theory of statecraft.'