Understanding Of International Politics Research Articles

Shifting sands: How change-point and community detection can enrich our understanding of international politics

When and how do international political arrangements change? International relations scholars have long examined the nature of shifts in international alliance and cooperation networks, often arguing that times of disruption in the international system are the most precarious for peace. In this research note, we rely on innovations in change-point and community detection methods to endogenously examine the timing and nature of shifts in country-to-country relationships through defense cooperative agreements. Using new methodical innovations from network science, we can see how countries move through different communities over time, changing the nature of polarity in the system. This empirical approach can help provide insights into determinants of peace, vulnerabilities in the international system, and potential aggressors in world politics.

Konrad Adenauers blauwdruk voor een verenigd Europa

Abstract Konrad Adenauer’s blueprint for a united Europe. Rescuing the Christian Occident (1949-1963) In his role as German Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer proved to be an important force in the process of European integration. His thinking about European unity was determined by the peculiarly German notion of Abendland (Occident). How did Adenauer’s concept of the Christian Abendland inspire his blueprint for European integration? This article shows that for Adenauer European integration was essential in order to prevent the demise of this Christian Abendland in the face of materialist ideologies such as Communism. Moreover, it evaluates existing interpretations of the Christian Abendland in Adenauer’s Europapolitik (empty rhetoric, ideological weapon, cultural foundation) and adds a fourth interpretation: the Christian Abendland as affective glue in Adenauer’s blueprint for European integration. As such, it integrates the history of ideas with the history of emotions, and shows that the emotional quality of beliefs, such as the Christian Abendland, is critical for our understanding of international politics in general, and European integration in particular.

READING CHINA’S SELF-DEFINITION OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICS FROM INTERGOVERNMENTAL CONFERENCES

abstract The investigation of intergovernmental conferences is an important lens to examine international geopolitical issues that seem to remain understudied in the existing literature, especially from the perspective of how emerging countries shape their discourse, image, and geopolitical imaginations through such conferences. This paper aims to read China’s relationships with the outside world from both its holding and participating in intergovernmental conferences between 2002 to 2017. Based on the textual analysis of conference materials from 919 intergovernmental conferences in which China has been involved, this paper highlights three lines with which China’s self-definition of its geopolitical positions in international politics can be understood. First, China’s delicate balance between the United States and Russia consists of the most fundamental structure of Chinese geopolitical views; second, China’s self-construction as a responsible regional power also makes up a large portion of China’s geopolitical view; third, the crucial role of intergovernmental conferences for the Chinese government is to convey China’s nonthreatening model of development, which is also the most important principle of China’s foreign relations. This paper helps to understand how China constructs its international relations and shapes international discourse and image through intergovernmental conferences. Such conference-based and self-defined geopolitics has furnished a special and, most importantly, a Chinese-styled geopolitical view that can further the understanding of international politics.

Chaos Synergy, Geopolitics And Culture Explain History Of International Relations. A Critique of William Wohlforth

The article is a critique of William Wohlforth’s piece on usefulness of IR theory in explaining the history of international relations published in this issue of MGIMO Review of International Relations. It offers an alternative answer to the key question raised by Wohlforth – why humans continue to resort to such a self-destructive method of conflict resolution as war. The author argues that the current aggravation of relations between Russia and the West helps find a new way of answering this eternal question. With the help of historical examples and logical reasoning the author shows that international relations are governed not so much by structural anarchy, as Wohlforth argues, as by «natural spontaneous systemic force», which does not depend on the will of people and manifests itself in events that seem random and irrational. This force can be rationally known by studying how classical geopolitics, cultural (especially legal culture) and civilizational factors influence international relations. These aspects, according to the author, explain both the Cold War and its on-going «second edition». Taking into account civilizational, cultural, historical, linguistic and legal characteristics of actors becomes the key to an adequate understanding of international politics. It should also be noted that cultural and civilizational features affect not only the practice of international relations, but also the IR. According to the author, the theory of political realism in Russia has been reinterpreted in light of the maxim: «God is not in power, but in truth». Thus, an important category of Russian realism turns out to be «justice».The alternative answer to the question about the recurrent practice of wars in international relations can be formulated as follows: the states are sometimes forced to fight each other due to their geopolitical contradictions complicated by cultural and civilizational differences.

Democracies in Conflict

The vast literature on the impact of democratic political institutions on foreign policy behavior has yielded some of the most important developments in our understanding of violence and war over the past thirty years. The Journal of Conflict Resolution has played a prominent role in this growth and development. Critics of the democratic peace have dismissed this literature as a correlation in search of an explanation. However, I argue that the democratic peace literature and its various descendants represent a surprisingly productive example of an empirically focused and puzzle-oriented research program that has produced cumulative scientific knowledge regarding our understanding of international politics. This sustained investigation of democracy and foreign policy has yielded an increasingly robust and sophisticated model of democratic constraint that is the consequence of a progressive research program that compares favorably to earlier research programs that emphasized clashing paradigms of international politics.

Ownership, Transient Rights, Spiritual Source, Nostalgia: Land and its discontents

Stephen Chan OBE is Professor of International Relations and is widely respected as a distinguished academic who has made a major contribution to the academic understanding of international politics in general and African politics in particular. He has also made a significant impact on political developments in Africa through his involvement in high-level diplomacy and actions and advice on the ground. The firstborn son of Chinese refugees to New Zealand, Stephen Chan was a national student president, publisher, newspaper editor and international civil servant before he became an academic, first in Africa and later in Britain. Professor Chan has published 27 books on international relations and more than 200 articles and reviews in the academic and specialist press, as well as over 100 journalistic feature articles.

War and the state: the theory of international politics

This book exposes the deep logical contradictions of Realist political thought and counters it with a new, more robust theory of war. War and the State dismantles the fundamental workings of Realism and exposes its intrinsic flaws. Where Realists insist that any theory of international politics should focus on the interactions within a system of states, Wagner demonstrates that any understanding of international politics must instead be part of the more general study of the relationship between political order and organized violence - as it was in the intellectual tradition from which modern-day Realism was derived. In this, his first book, Harrison Wagner draws on the insights from his distinguished career of international relations scholarship to create an elegantly crafted essay accessible to both students and scholars.

The Tragedy of Tragedy

There are good reasons to consider tragedy, especially Greek tragedy, a resource for current debates in international relations. This is not only because of the ethical and political dilemmas tragedy explores with such dramatic force, but because tragedy is a significant context for reading Thucydides with the political and literary acumen he demands. To ignore this context is to domesticate the ways tragedy challenges both our conventional readings of Thucydides as well as our substantive views of politics and the ways we study it. While this article fully supports the enterprise of invigorating classical realism with the study of tragedy and of posing the question, ‘What can a tragic sensibility contribute to our understanding of international politics?’, it makes that enterprise and that question more rather than less problematic. But it does so in the name of Greek tragedy and for an ultimately more challenging appropriation of it.

Global Humanitarianism: NGOs and the Crafting of Community (review)

Reviewed by: Global Humanitarianism: NGOs and the Crafting of Community Chris Minnix Global Humanitarianism: NGOs and the Crafting of Community. By D. Robert Dechaine . Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2005; pp v + 185. $65.00 cloth; $22.95 paper. Since the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, human rights non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have played a significant role in shaping the policies, agendas, and discourses of the contemporary humanitarian movement. The expanding influence of NGOs in international institutions has radically altered previous conceptions of state sovereignty and has brought discussions of cosmopolitan politics and global civil society to the forefront of international relations. In the past two decades, NGOs have utilized advances in communicative technologies and increasing access to international institutions to create dynamic, interactive spaces for international solidarity and activism. The increased visibility and influence of NGOs has inspired a large body of interdisciplinary work that has regarded them as harbingers of a growing global civil society or international community. These advancements, however, have occurred during a period where the economic and cultural forces of globalization have created significant challenges for international solidarity. In many studies of globalization, claims for the emergence of a global civil society are critiqued for ignoring the political fragmentation, economic colonization, and cultural homogenization that has accompanied this new sense of global connectedness. In Global Humanitarianism, D. Robert Dechaine presents a compelling and thorough analysis of the role of NGOs in symbolically framing and materially coordinating an international community capable of responding to the fragmentary forces of globalization through the shared discourse of universal human rights. Dechaine, a rhetorical scholar and professor of cultural studies, demonstrates the need to ground interdisciplinary discussions of international community and global civil society in the communicative practices of NGOs. In place of these terms, Dechaine suggests that "global rhetorical culture" more [End Page 157] fully captures the dynamic, discursive struggle of NGOs to symbolically frame an international community based on the public deliberation of universal humanitarian principles (18). As agents within this rhetorical culture, NGOs utilize their "symbolic resources" to "'conjure' a global humanitarian community into existence as a collective or 'people' united in the furthering of humanitarian goals" (20). NGOs frame this community in a contentious discursive context, in which their rhetoric of community is often placed in opposition to the fragmentary discourses of state sovereignty, economic globalization, and political nationalism. Human rights NGOs, as less powerful actors in international politics, utilize their rhetoric to reframe the dominant cultural and ideological terms that structure public awareness, and understanding of international politics and international community. Developing a methodology for the ideographic analysis of NGO discourse based in the work of Michael Calvin McGee, and Celeste Condit, and John Lucaites, Dechaine argues that NGOs are involved in a hegemonic, discursive struggle to construct the social reality and "public morality" of global civil society (22–3). Through his analysis of these ideographs, he traces the dynamic, contentious relationship of NGO discourse to the alternative articulations of community constructed in the discourses of states, international institutions, and other transnational actors. Humanitarian NGOs draw from a rich ideographic context that reflects the historical development of human rights norms. In his second chapter, Dechaine traces the historical genealogy of human rights and humanitarian NGOs, arguing that changing geopolitical conditions have shaped the emergence of international humanitarian NGOs and have fostered the development of global civil society. He argues that a new, universal "ethos" of international community has emerged from the human rights movement and is embodied in the ideographs of "<human dignity>, <universality>, <brotherhood>, <duty>, and <democracy>" that are constructed in The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (49). NGOs actively and dynamically frame and invoke international solidarity and community through their articulation of these ideographic terms in their campaigns and public rhetoric. The ideographs of universal human rights empower humanitarian NGOs with a universal rhetoric that can be read against discourses of political and national interest. As NGOs work to galvanize political will on the issues they address, they utilize this rhetoric to link actors across national, political, and ideological borders, symbolically framing and materially linking the actors of their rhetorical cultures. In chapters 3 and 4, Dechaine applies his ideographic analysis...

Using Game Theory to Link Domestic and International Politics

How do the links between domestic politics and the international system affect the way that states interact in the global arena? Scholars are giving this question greater attention today than they have in the past. One reason is that many see the end of the cold war as having made domestic politics more important in foreign policy matters. Similarly, the increasing importance of economic affairs in international relations has made domestic interest groups and coalitions more salient. Theoretical developments in the field of international relations also point toward a greater need to study the links between domestic politics and foreign affairs. For several decades, many in the field organized their arguments around particular levels of analysis or made claims about the primacy of one level over another (Singer 1961; Waltz [1954] 1959, 1979). Although the distinction has helped scholars make significant contributions to our understanding of international politics, many now feel a theoretical synthesis of variables from the international system and domestic politics is necessary. Some scholars who argue for a move past the levels-of-analysis distinction take issue with the positivist epistemology underlying most work in international relations. In particular, constructivists argue that looking at how states and systems mutually constitute each other can increase our understanding of world politics (Ashley 1984; Cox 1981; Wendt 1992). Others maintain that a positivist synthesis is possible, under the rubric of two-level games or a similar metaphor (Evans, Jacobson, and Putnam 1993; Mastanduno, Lake, and Ikenberry 1989; Putnam 1988). The contributors to this special issue agree with the latter position; we need not toss out the positivist baby with the levels-of-analysis bathwater. This issue explores the role that game theory can play in transcending the levelsof-analysis distinction and debate. The contributors show that game-theoretic tools can help scholars think rigorously about the simultaneous or interactive effects of

The Political Psychology of International Politics: More than a Luxury

Some years ago, a brokerage firm ended its television ads with the claim that, E. F. Hutton talks, people listen. When Robert Jervis talks about political psychology and international relations, we should all listen carefully. During the past two decades, no one has more effectively explored and illustrated how psychology can contribute to our understanding of international politics. Because I concur with the essential points of Jervis' sober assessment, my comments will be limited to elaborating on his observations concerning the limits of structural explanations, the neglect of nationalism, and the collaboration of historians.

Pluralistic Rigor: A Comment on Bueno de Mesquita

As Bueno de Mesquita notes previously in this symposium, it is not clear whether we can make progress toward a scientific understanding of international politics. Indeed, it is not clear, at least not to me, whether we can make much progress in our discussions of this subject. Interest in it seems to go through cycles. The subject occupied much of our journals-and our PhD examinations-at the end of the 1960s and, after a period in which we tired of examining our epistemological and methodological assumptions, seems to be receiving more attention again. Whether we will do better this time around remains to be seen, but if Bueno de Mesquita's paper and the responses are typical, it does seem that there is now a bit greater convergence of views and a bit more civility in the debate. Thus readers who are anticipating a discussion whose entertainment value will rival that of the (1969) exchange between Levy and Kaplan (1969: 106-109) will be disappointed. Before discussing areas of convergence, let me note a few disagreements. First, the question of the utility of case studies is a large and complex one and I do not think Bueno de Mesquita has done it justice. I briefly refer the reader to the detailed arguments of Campbell (1975), Eckstein (1975), and George and McKeown (1985). First, although this may fall outside of the scope of Lakatos's (1978) criteria, case studies are particularly important in international politics because most of us are keenly interested not only in generalizations, but also in the explanation of particular events. Since large wars kill many people and strongly influence the future, we are concerned about conflicts like World War I or World War II whether or not they are typical of wars in general. (For further discussion, see Jervis, forthcoming.) Second, by dealing with many different aspects of the situation, case studies can meet Lakatos's criterion of accounting for previously unexplained facts and subsuming facts we already have explained. Thus, a study that looks at domestic politics in 1914 might explain both the origins of World War I, the foreign economics policies of European powers, and the domestic policies which were pursued. Alternatively, a study of 1914 in terms of the significance of the prevailing beliefs that the offense would dominate the defense could explain facts relating to preemptive war, alliance structures, crises that were particularly liable to lead to war, and the interplay of bureaucratic and domestic politics (see, for example, Snyder, 1984a, 1984b; Van Evera, 1984). The other side of this coin is that I must admit to being a bit confused by some of Bueno de Mesquita's arguments about the utility of using large ifs. Without passing on the validity of the claim that the Altfeld and Bueno de Mesquita theory (1979) can encompass and extend the Organski and Kugler formulation (1980), I do not think

Coordination and collaboration: regimes in an anarchic world

The study of regimes can contribute to our understanding of international politics only if regimes represent more than international organizations and less than all international relations. The conceptualization of regimes developed here accepts the realist image of international politics, in which autonomous self-interested states interact in an anarchic environment. Yet there are situations in which rational actors have an incentive to eschew unconstrained independent decision making, situations in which individualistic self-interested calculation leads them to prefer joint decision making (regimes) because independent self-interested behavior can result in undesirable or suboptimal outcomes. These situations are labeled dilemmas of common interests and dilemmas of common aversions. To deal with these, states must collaborate with one another or coordinate their behavior, respectively. Thus there are different bases for regimes, which give rise to regimes with different characteristics. Coordination is self-enforcing and can be reached through the use of conventions. Collaboration is more formalized and requires mechanisms both to monitor potential cheating and to insure compliance with the regime. The article elucidates the assumptions of such an interest-based approach to regimes, assimilates alternative explanations into this framework, and develops the implications for regime maintenance and change.

The Korean Crisis of 1873 and Early Meiji Foreign Policy

Post-Restoration Japan faced a number of serious problems in its relations with East Asia and the West, all of which came to a head inseikan ronsō, the clash in the Council of State, October 1873, over sending a punitive expedition to Korea. Essentially this was a struggle to define the nature of the Meiji Restoration—how radical would it be—and to decide who would control the politics of Japan's renovation, but intermixed with these domestic issues were several questions of foreign policy. To Japan's leaders, the Ryukyus, Taiwan, and Sakhalin were as important as Korea; security of the frontier in East Asia as significant as equal treaties with China and the West. And for historians with the advantage of a century of hindsight, the debate is important evidence in assessing the strength and sophistication of expansionist sentiment in early Meiji Japan. Does modern Japanese imperialism date from this period as consistent and persistent government policy or simply as a set of commonly held aspirations and desires, stronger in some than others or more evident outside of government than within it? To assist in answering these questions there is a wealth of Western and Japanese language diplomatic correspondence and numerous memoirs, letters, and diaries. The clash pitted die returning members of the Iwakura embassy and their allies at home against prominent officials in the caretaker government. The envoys, who had gained from their journey to die West a better understanding of international politics and the instability of the world order as well as a clearer perception of the gigantic transformation Japan must undergo, won with the argument of restraint abroad and rapid reform at home. But were the differences primarily in methods and timing and not ultimate intentions? Were Japan's leaders only biding their time until domestic strength made foreign adventurism possible, as is often charged? There is little evidence that Iwakura's group had such ulterior motives. In the grosser sense of the existence of an elaborate plan of conquest, there was no imperialist conspiracy. In the more complex sense of consistency of dreams, aims, or ambitions, there was more continentalism among public critics than officials. The victors in the debate wished to create a strong and enlightened state capable of taking whatever measures seemed necessary, whether at home or abroad. Expansion into frontier regions therefore was always a possibility but even then for security and prestige rather than overseas dominion. Such thinking guided the government for the next twenty years. However more research is needed on the basic character of Meiji Japan's political and economic institutions, the expansionist sentiments of the government's critics, changing concepts of security, and Japan's response to Western imperialism.