World Politics Research Articles

A doctor for the crown princess: child mortality and women’s political agency at the Danish court, 1784–1797

ABSTRACT This article examines the entwined dynamics of gender, material bodies, and court politics at the Danish, absolutist court during what has been termed the reform reign, 1784–1797. The reform reign was inaugurated by a 1784 bloodless coup d’état, in which the crown prince took power in the royal Privy Council. During the following years, his leading advisers faced opposition from other factions at court and within the royal family, and the crown prince and his wife faced reproductive challenges, as they lost several children shortly after birth. The article explores the attempts at seeking influence made by two wives of leading advisers to the royal crown prince, Frederik (6.). Producing a male heir was imperative to the crown prince couple’s claim to power in the absolutist reign, and the advisers’ political positions therefore also hinged on the couple’s reproduction. I discuss how the advisers’ wives, the two sisters Sybille Reventlow (1753-1827) and Charlotte Schimmelmann (1757-1816), attempted to solve these issues and advance their group’s position at court. The article identifies several strategies employed by the women to help the crown prince couple’s situation, but primarily aimed at the crown princess; firstly, conversations on childrearing; secondly, the discussion of adoption; while a third strategy included traveling to the spa at Bad Pyrmont, where the advisers’ wives would engage the spa’s famous doctor Heinrich Mathias Marcard as accoucheur to the crown princess. The women’s struggles to gain influence show how those women who were not members of the royal household tried to navigate the political world of a hereditary and personal monarchy, where personal relationships and parenting experiences were also a political matter.

Efekty spillover chińskich inwestycji zagranicznych w Angoli i Zambii

SPILLOVER EFFECT OF THE CHINESE FDI IN ANGOLA AND ZAMBIAIn recent years, Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) in Africa has attracted interest from both academia and the wider political world. Some postulate that Chinese companies – unlike Western corporations – have greater potential to initiate and carry out the structural transformation of the continent. Some researchers even indicate that thanks to the inflow of Chinese FDI, Africa may become “the next factory of the world”. The aim of this article is to analyse external effects (also called spillover effects) related to Chinese FDI in Africa using the examples of Angola and Zambia. According to the current state of knowledge, spillover effects are the most desirable effects of FDI in the host country, because the related increase in the productivity of local enterprises is key to the occurrence of structural transformation in local economies. The subject of the analysis presented in this article are three aspects (determinants) of spillover effects: (i) the potential of Chinese FDI to generate spillover effects, (ii) the absorptive capacity of local companies and (iii) local institutional settings favouring the occurrence of spillover effects. The findings indicate that due to the existence of weak and few linkages between foreign investors and local firms, spillover effects occur rarely and are relatively small. They are also not sufficient to initiate the transfer of valuable knowledge and technology. The presented research results were based on over 150 in-depth interviews and two rounds of surveys conducted among Chinese investors, Angolan and Zambian companies and representatives of local authorities.

Some aspects of consıderable models of oıl and gas ındustry development

The article examines some assumptions and problems of the world economic theory, it is pointed out that these assumptions are based on the characteristics of the economic structure in different parts of the world where the distribution of world production and the global exchange of goods, services and other results of human activity take place, of course the oil and gas industry is not left out in this matter shown. Moreover, taking into account the importance of its impact on world politics, it has been pointed out that the field is one of the most relevant objects of economic analysis today. The characteristic features of modern globalization are given in the article. In such a situation, it was suggested that since the real scale of the application of methods that increase oil production in Azerbaijan is not able to prevent the deterioration of the structure of reserves, it will not be possible to make a big positive change in the exploitation of extractable reserves. The article also discusses the application of econometric models in economic research on the oil and gas industry. As a means of research and prediction of natural processes, the mathematical modeling method has been shown to be very widespread in oil and gas extraction. The observations made were summarized and it was shown that there is a systematic progress in the dynamics of the world economic system in the conditions of modern globalization, the main characteristic features of modern globalization were classified and given by the author, the creation of optimal conditions for the operation of the oil and gas industry as a result of the administrative and fiscal regulation of the state in the conditions of globalization was noted, and also the oil and gas industry some aspects of the theoretical models of the future development of the field have been studied and shown, taking into account its specific characteristics and in the context of the natural decrease of the volume of production. In the article, it was determined that one of the most important issues is the correct determination of the oil and gas reserves of the field, its calculation by separate reserve categories. Experience shows that it is very important to calculate these resources in different ways, to analyze the indicators of field development in detail, and to compare them with real indicators in order to implement one or another project indicators. The basis of these methods is the determination of reserves and their role in the technical-economic justification of the options for field development. This gives special relevance to such issues in the oil and gas industry and considers their constant improvement in the conditions of the market economy appropriate. The developed article is dedicated to the study of such issues.

О НЕКОТОРЫХ ВОПРОСАХ ОПРЕДЕЛЕНИЯ ПОНЯТИЯ «САНКЦИЯ» В СОВРЕМЕННОЙ ЮРИДИЧЕСКОЙ НАУКЕ

The article examines the retrospective and modern aspects of the definition of sanctions in interna-tional law, characterizes various types of sanctions, including international political and economic sanctions. The author's interpretation of the definition of international sanctions is proposed, taking into account the modern realities of world politics, describes the mechanism for analyzing interna-tional sanctions, using the example of sanctions that have been in force and are in force against Iraq, Iran and Cuba, their consequences and countermeasures. The article also examines the issues of expediency and fairness of unilateral sanctions, analyzes countermeasures (retaliatory measures) that a state can apply in response to international legal violations of another State.

The anxious and resilient European Union: experiencing FOMO in the increasingly geopolitical world order

ABSTRACT In this paper, we draw on insights from the literature on social psychology and marketing in order to account for the emotional mechanism through which resilience became a key aspect of the EU’s strategy in world politics. We argue that faced with the deep uncertainty created by multiple and overlapping crises, the EU’s response was shaped by its experience of the ‘fear of missing out’ (FOMO). FOMO represents the intersubjective process through which actors compare their own experience with those of their peers, and experience anxiety due to the realisation that they are not benefitting from similar opportunities or managing risks and challenges as effectively as their peers in the context of limited windows of opportunity. The article presents a model for understanding FOMO as a cycle that occurs under conditions of uncertainty and can be used to study other settings.

Back from the dead: the ecology of IR

Rather than dealing in death, if IR is to retain relevance among the social sciences in seeking to both account for and change a world in the midst of a deepening ‘polycrisis’, it needs to recognise and take its place in the web of life. In this article, I firstly argue for the need to ‘choose life’ by de-centring three key (interrelated) pillars of the discipline: the normalisation of militarism as a means and end of foreign policy; economic growth as the means and end of industrial economies and anthropocentrism and its unstated ideology of human supremacy in world affairs. Secondly, I propose a series of conceptual and methodological innovations by which a more ecological view of IR might take hold in the discipline, as well as concrete political strategies for embedding it in the conduct of IR. I suggest that these moves form the basis of both an improved account of the underlying sources of key threats in world politics such as war, poverty and ecological crises and an alternative source of solutions focussed on transcending dominant features of the discipline through a more than human account of IR and a more global and pluriversal account of world politics and the relations which matter most within it.

Governing transit and irregular migration: informality and formal policies

ABSTRACT Informality has attracted significant attention in migration studies, yet a fresh look is needed given the succession of world crises over the past 15 years and the increasing use of informality to deal with them. This special issue considers informality as practices of governance that supplement, substitute, replace or operate beyond formal rules. It focuses on dissecting the governance of transit and irregular migration in the liminal space between formal policies and informal practices, and focuses on three major questions: Why and how has migration governance experienced informality’s expansion in policies and practices? What are the drivers, sites, temporalities, and implications of such an expansion? How do power relations among different stakeholders affect such governance compared to normative and institutional logics? This special issue ventures beyond existing constatations that the formal and informal are entangled. A core assertion is that informality can be a deeper structuring force, because informal interactions repeat over time, creating alternative or supplementary forms of governance beyond formal institutions. This collection of articles is original in shedding light on such governance from the perspective of world politics and political regimes, little discussed thus far in systematic ways. It is also at the forefront of theorizing on how stakeholders use mechanisms of power to govern polycentrically, that is from multiple centres related to each other but not hierarchically subordinated. This collection provides novel perspectives on socio-spatial and temporal aspects of informality’s use in such governance. Building on extensive fieldwork and data-driven secondary research, this collection covers Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland, post-socialist countries in Eastern Europe, including Belarus and Russia after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Turkey and Iraq in the Middle East, and Albania in the Balkans, as well as Thailand and Myanmar in Asia.

Transforming epistemological disconnection from the more-than-human world: (inter)nodes of ecologically attuned ways of knowing

Drawing out resonances across art-based practice and critical imaginations in the discipline, this paper maps out conceptual, creative and experiential resources for re-rooting International Relations for the climate and the needs of the more-than-human world. I trace what I describe as ecologically attuned ways of knowing along two main inspirations: L. H. M. Ling’s Imagining World Politics and the 7000 HUMANS participatory initiative designed by Shelley Sacks. Writing with a rhizomatic sensibility and foregrounding ways of knowing that may emerge in and through encounters with trees, I explore imaginative possibilities for transforming epistemological disconnection from vegetal life into embodied, integrative, life-enhancing modes of relating to both ourselves and the more-than-human world.

Perceptions of a Global Democratic Deficit: An International Survey Experiment

While scholars consider the global democratic deficit a key issue, we know little about citizens’ perceptions in this regard. To what extent and why do citizens perceive global democratic deficiencies? I conceptualize deficiencies absolutely and relatively—theorizing countries, knowledge, and framing as explanatory factors. Between 2018 and 2021, I conducted survey experiments on around 42,000 respondents in 17 highly diverse countries. Contrary to many scholarly assessments, I find that most people do not perceive major global democratic deficiencies, in the sense that global governance is generally not perceived as highly undemocratic in absolute terms and more democratic than developing democracies. However, the results vary by the object and aspect of inquiry: World politics (versus international organizations) and input (versus output) are perceived as less democratic. Plus, neither gains in relevant knowledge nor common framings affect public perceptions, which are thus quite robust. These findings add novel evidence to debates about global governance.

Childhoods, Cultures, and Critical Qualitative Inquiry: Researching the Political and Life Worlds of Children

The purpose of this special issue is to present work that moves beyond the dominant logic of childhoods as imposed on those who are younger, and instead, to demonstrate how critical empirical qualitative investigations that honor, as well as answer, the complex political and life worlds of children in the present and the past offer a way forward; a path that supports communities and the public institutions important to them so that all children can thrive and become the persons they want to be. To do so, these articles draw on different theoretical and methodological critical orientations and traditions to broadly consider the ways in which cultural studies rooted in critical qualitative research can generate knowledges that expand conceptualizations of/for multiple worlds of children/childhood. In doing so, these pieces examine the contemporary, multiple, and immanent cultural worlds and life conditions of children and notions of childhood—both past and present. Such work speaks to the complex, and often unjust, worlds of children and childhoods, and in doing so, the authors propose and illuminate discourse, policy, and relationship changes and actions required to address the complex pressing needs faced by children across a range of communities and/or public institutions.

REGULASI DAN SWA-REGULASI INDONESIA DALAM PENYELENGGARAAN MEDIA TERKAIT PERAN MNC GROUP TERHADAP PARTAI PERINDO

In political contestation, the perpetrators are plural in taking various ways so that their political goals can be practically achieved. One of them is the use of mass media as a mouthpiece in increasing self-electability and political vehicles. Media has a role as the fourth pillar of the state after the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial powers. Because of its vital role, the media and the people behind it are required to be able to convey honest and useful information to the wider community. The existence of media owners who are involved and involved in the world of practical politics makes a preliminary indication of the increasing interest of a particular group. Indonesia, which upholds the rule of law, has established regulations and self-regulation for cases like this. Meanwhile, in the regulation and self-regulation of the media, it has been stipulated that the media must be neutral and not take sides with any party and not benefit the interests of individuals or groups. The government has the right and obligation to take action against the products produced by the media if a violation is found. Because the channels used by the media, especially public frequencies, do not belong to the media, but must be used for the greatest prosperity of the people.

Navigating East: Exploring Northeast India’s Perspective on the Look (Act) East Policy

The early 1990s witnessed a strategic shift in India’s foreign policy with the introduction of the Look (Act) East Policy. The policy was conceptualised originally to meet the challenges of the post-Cold War world politics. The idea that Northeast India can develop in the process of the implementation of the policy and can be a gateway to South East Asia was realised rather late in the early part of the twenty-first century. Since then, the expectations around the Look (Act) East Policy have been remarkable. The change in nomenclature as ‘Act East’ in 2014 has further strengthened the hope about the potential impact of the policy in Northeast India. However, without addressing the issues of concern within Northeast India and cultivating sufficient local resources, it remains impossible for the states in the Northeast to abruptly hope for redemption across the mountains from Southeast Asia. Against this backdrop, the present study aims to comprehend the implications of the policy for Northeast India, evaluates the prospect of participation of the North-Eastern states and examines the perspective of the locals on the basis of primary data collected for the study.

CONCEPTUALIZING THE SUBJECTIVITY OF GLOBAL LEADERSHIP IN CONTEMPORARY INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY

This article, based on an interdisciplinary approach and structural-functional analysis tools, examines the transformation of classical forms of conceptualizing the subjectivity of global leadership in contemporary international relations theory under the influence of new global political realities. It emphasizes that the initial classical positioning of international leadership as the primacy or hegemony of a single state on the international stage is yielding to other political practices that have not yet gained normative consolidation and theoretical conceptualization. It has been identified that modern international processes demonstrate a trend towards the institutionalization of international leadership in the form of a collective subject of international relations, endowed with exceptional powers and special status. New theoretical approaches increasingly note a shift in focus from classical factors ensuring leadership in international relations by enhancing the status and leadership potential of individual actors to the formation of collegial global leadership, including the concept of global governance, which is increasingly seen as the most probable and conventionally interpreted prognostic model for the transformation of the modern world order. Contemporary international relations theory identifies several subjects of international relations, with the nation-state traditionally occupying a leading position. In recent decades, other actors have been added to the list, including international governmental and non-governmental organizations, transnational corporations, civil associations, and private individuals. The emergence of new types of international relations subjects on the international stage, combined with the increasing importance of integration associations and the growing technological potential of digital networks, alongside the practical impossibility of establishing control over them, and the transfer of certain sovereign powers from national states to international institutions, indicates that traditional methods of governance and regulation in world politics are becoming outdated, losing their relevance and effectiveness in contemporary conditions. This necessitates the formation of an institutional foundation appropriate to the modern international system. Increasingly, this foundation of world order is associated with the phenomenon of global leadership. However, attempts to conceptualize it based on classical subjects of international relations are demonstrating increasing methodological inefficiency, leading to the search for new forms of the subjectivity of global leadership on the international stage.

Critical Evaluation Of Judicial Independence Question In The International Court Of Justice

In view of developments in world politics in recent years, such as an upsurge in nationalism, doubts about multilateralism, the Covid pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war, an inquiry concerning the peaceful resolution of international disputes is in order. How capable are international dispute resolution mechanisms of satisfying demands and preserving their reputations at such a critical time? The fundamentally political entities involved are likely to remain very disparate, a fact that can only worsen their widely acknowledged poor image in this respect without instituting any remedial measures. As a judicial body, however, the ICJ would hardly be allowed such latitude. Concerns about the impartiality of ICJ judges have already been expressed on the grounds of their perceived allegiance to their home countries, an issue that the existing political zeitgeist only makes more controversial. No solutions are readily available to alleviate all concerns. The current article takes several normative assessments into consideration, arguing that these can devalue the authority of the ICJ’s judgments. It then provides insight into how to recognise and deal with the persistent problem of judicial independence within the ICJ.

The Banality of White Supremacy in World Politics

The Banality of White Supremacy in World Politics

Forum on Heikki Patomäki’s World Statehood: The Future of World Politics

In this forum, six scholars discuss Heikki Patomäki’s book World Statehood: The Future of World Politics, published in 2023. The editor’s introduction situates it in the discursive contexts of cosmopolitanism, deep history and functional differentiation. Ian Crawford looks at the concept of world statehood from an astrobiologist’s point of view, putting the debate in the context of research on the possibility of life existing beyond Earth. Eva Erman notes that there are methodological issues that primarily derive from a missing distinction between theoretical and practical normativity in Patomäki’s thought. Oliver Kessler offers a critical perspective on underlying, and possibly unrealistic, assumptions about a universal translatability of specialized knowledges and vocabularies that he argues underlines Patomäki’s project. Jens Bartelson argues that the concept of world community has probably accumulated too much conceptual baggage to be useful in building world statehood. Mitja Sienknecht observes that the evolution of artificial intelligence is insufficiently addressed in World Statehood and probes possible implications in this respect. Heikki Patomäki then replies to these contributions.

Interventions of post-colonial states in the normative structure of world politics: the case of Iran and the norm of democracy

Within Global IR a constructivist-postcolonial literature is emerging which inquires into how postcolonial states intervene into the normative structure of world politics. This research programme has less covered the question how postcolonial states relate to the international norm of democracy, how and in which ways do they contest this norm, and to which effects? This question is important both to study how the ‘postcolonial condition’ can be overcome, as well as to understand which contours and shapes the norm of democracy might be taking in a multiplex world. To study this multifaceted question from a perspective which acknowledges the shadow of the past, as well as the agency of postcolonial states, Wiener’s concept of norm contestation is applied and further developed in three respects: firstly, by staking out various forms of contestation, that is rejection, strategic contestation and the construction of alternative meaning; secondly, by bringing in identity as a mediating device which impacts the forms of contestation; and thirdly, by studying various sites of contestation where actors beyond the state are also taken into account. This framework is then applied to heuristically study the case of Iran which is of particular interest as it intervenes in the global contestation of the norm of democracy on a dual level of external resistance and internal dissent. Studying Iranian contestation at the UN, within Iran and in Iranian-EU engagement, it becomes evident that during times of geopolitical confrontation with the US, the spectre of the past is produced as present and the form of contestation features dialectics of hypocrisy which harm the norm of democracy. At the same time, we also see a strengthening of the norm of democracy through hybridity both in Iranian encounters with the EU, as well as in the contestation of meanings of democracy within Iran itself.

The Visual Governance of Canadian Migration Agencies

Despite increasing attention to images in the study of world politics, the role of visual representations in transnational governance processes in general and migration governance, in particular, has received less attention. This paper aims to fill this gap by examining the visual representation of migration governance by the two Canadian government institutions responsible for it: Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) and the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA). Through a multi-modal analysis of their X (formerly Twitter) images, the paper shows how they tend to shy away from a visual representation of people on the move, privileging a technical communication in an aspiration toward a “neutral” representation of migration issues. Secondly, it sheds light on the discrepancies between the policies directed toward Afghani and Ukrainian refugees and the unexpectedly undifferentiated visual communication about the two groups. Finally, the paper explores what the pictures accompanying X (formerly Twitter) posts of IRCC and CBSA can tell about how these government institutions represent themselves. Findings showed that government institutions’ esthetic practices are not always in line with the institutional migration policies and text narratives, suggesting that different government implementation tools (i.e., regulations, practices, textual discourses) may not reinforce each other but advance alternative perspectives.

Racial, Ethnic, and Socioeconomic Disparities in COVID-19 Pandemic Worries.

Racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic health disparities became evident during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study explores whether these disparities extend to the content of worries. We surveyed 1,222 participants from three metropolitan New York City (NYC) based cohorts through telephone interviews conducted from March to September 2020. Worries were assessed using 37 dichotomous questionnaire items, and exploratory factor analysis derived ten categories of worry. Factor scores were analyzed in generalized linear mixed models to examine their associations with race/ethnicity and household income, adjusting for covariates. The most prevalent worry items pertained to U.S. and world politics, American values, health concerns, and return to normalcy. Higher household income was associated with lower worry about economic needs, job/employment, and violence/victimization, while violence/victimization worries were strongly associated with Asian, Hispanic, Black, and multiracial or other race/ethnicity. During early COVID-19, lower-income and minoritized race and ethnic groups were disproportionately affected by economic and violence/victimization worries, whileother worries showed minor variations by income or race/ethnicity.

Геополитика как идеология

The article presents arguments in favor of interpreting geopolitics as one of the widespread types of “false consciousness,” i.e., ideology. The author shows that the revival of the concept of geopolitics, as well as the ideas about the world of politics associated with this concept, was associated with the actualization of the neo-imperial view of the world. The basis of these ideologized ideas about politics as an arena for the implementation of the “intraspecific” struggle of states is a social Darwinist view of the world, according to which all peoples are enemies, conflict between states is the main form of relations between them according to the principle of a “zero-sum game”, and all unions, alliances and blocs are just tactical ploys that do not cancel the immanent common hostile essence. In other words, the ideology of geopolitics is based on the concept of “looking at neighbors through a gun sight.” The article is of a scientific and analytical nature and does not imply a direct connection with current policy issues.