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182. Essential concepts must be contested
- Author:
- Felix Berenskötter and Stefano Guzzini
- Publication Date:
- 07-2024
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)
- Abstract:
- In this forthcoming chapter for the newest Handbook of International Relations, edited by Cameron Thies, and to appear with Edwards Elgar Publ., Felix Berenskötter and Stefano Guzzini provide a methodology for how to use concept analysis for theoretical and political critique. 'Contested essential concepts' discusses the nature of concepts and of different forms of theoretical contestation, namely (1) contesting often tacit assumptions in political and normative theorizations, (2) contextualizing (and 'provincializing') the formulation of ideal-types in empirical theorizations, and (3) problematizing the use of concepts in political practice. The paper concludes by showing that meaningful contestation requires a capacity of translation.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Politics, and International Relations Theory
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
183. The role of artificial intelligence in modern warfare
- Author:
- FARAS
- Publication Date:
- 05-2024
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Future for Advanced Research and Studies (FARAS)
- Abstract:
- The use of artificial intelligence technologies in various armed conflict arenas, such as the Russian-Ukrainian war and the Israeli war in Gaza, has sparked numerous discussions about their nature, risks to international and regional security, and the sustainability of the conflict. These experiments have shown that weapons supported by artificial intelligence can be more accurate than those directed by humans, which can potentially reduce collateral damage, including civilian casualties, damage to residential areas, and the number of soldiers killed or injured. However, it also raises concerns about the possibility of committing disastrous mistakes.
- Topic:
- Artificial Intelligence, Armed Conflict, Russia-Ukraine War, 2023 Gaza War, and Warfare
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
184. Why has the Global Demand for Uranium Increased Recently?
- Author:
- FARAS
- Publication Date:
- 07-2024
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Future for Advanced Research and Studies (FARAS)
- Abstract:
- As the world transitions to electricity to combat climate change, nuclear energy is poised to become an increasingly vital component of the global energy mix. New nuclear power projects have recently reached unprecedented levels, with more than 20 countries pledging to triple global nuclear capacity by 2050. China alone plans to construct at least 150 new reactors in the next 15 years, investing over USD 440 billion. India has also announced ambitious plans to increase its nuclear capacity from 6,780 megawatts to 22,480 megawatts by 2031. This surge in nuclear energy development persists despite several factors complicating the rise of uranium as a coveted metal. Chief among these are: the significant and steady decline in investment in uranium exploration and mine development over the past decade, particularly following the Fukushima incident in 2011; governments' focus on solar and wind energy; and the recent Western sanctions imposed on Russia, which have complicated the process of importing Russian uranium (especially with a complete ban on imports to the United States). Additionally, high inflation and interest rates have led to increased costs for new and existing uranium mining projects. Furthermore, conflicts in Niger have resulted in the loss of 5% of the world's uranium supply, representing more than 24% of the European Union's uranium imports.
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Uranium, Nuclear Energy, and Green Transition
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
185. The Role of Multilateral Development Banks in Financing Energy Transition in South America
- Author:
- Maria Elena Rodriguez, Rafaela Mello Rodrigues de Sá, Octávio Henrique Alves Costa de Oliveira, and Renan Guimarães Canellas de Oliveira
- Publication Date:
- 02-2024
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- BRICS Policy Center
- Abstract:
- With the signing of the Paris Agreement in 2015, the world institutionalized the goal of keeping global temperature rise below 2ºC, based on efforts to adapt to and mitigate climate change. It is in this context that the actors involved presented their commitments to establish policies and strategies to reduce carbon emissions in different sectors of the economy. This process of reducing emissions can be called decarbonization and consists of replacing fossil energy sources with clean renewables, in addition to encouraging the use of electrification technology, such as electric cars. This movement promotes transformation toward a low-carbon economy in various sectors. In the energy sector, this transformation is called the clean energy transition, as it attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the energy matrix. For this to happen, increasing the use of renewables over using fossil fuels such as coal and oil is encouraged.
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Development, Finance, Multilateralism, Paris Agreement, and Energy Transition
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
186. Dynamics and Mechanisms of Reproduction of the Ideology of Consumerism by Transnational Data Firms
- Author:
- Stéfano Mariotto de Moura
- Publication Date:
- 01-2024
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Contexto Internacional
- Institution:
- Institute of International Relations, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro
- Abstract:
- Through the literature review method, this research identifies a non-exhaustive series of dynamics and mechanisms used by data companies such as Google, Facebook, Amazon, and also by the group of companies known as ‘data brokers’, for the reproduction of the ideology of consumerism. A definition for such ideology is also presented. Five dynamics and 17 mechanisms are described within these two categories. The combination of subsets of elements in the second categorization gives rise to the first. The research question addressed here is: how do transnational data companies act in the international reproduction of the ideology of consumerism? It is argued that they take advantage of a deliberate lack of interest, mainly state interest, in regulating how they operate in the International Political Economy, to capture data through general dynamics that result from the articulation of specific data capture mechanisms. Thus, these companies manage to naturalise, ideologically, the act of consuming. The general dynamics identified by the paper were five: personalisation, web concentration, architecture of choice, infrastructural imperialism, and lock-in. The phenomenon is discussed in the light of the Critical Theory of International Relations
- Topic:
- International Political Economy, Ideology, Consumerism, Critical Theory, and Data Firms
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
187. The Politics of Inclusion in Peace Negotiations
- Author:
- Isa Mendes
- Publication Date:
- 01-2024
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Contexto Internacional
- Institution:
- Institute of International Relations, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro
- Abstract:
- The article analyses the notion of societal inclusion in peace negotiations, a subject that has gained increasing importance in politics, policy, norm, and scholarship over the last few decades. It argues that inclusion has gone from being considered an unnecessary disturbance to a necessary one in peace processes, especially due to its growing association with the fostering of political legitimacy and peace sustainability. Reducing inclusion to its usefulness, however, obscures its fundamentally political nature and implications. The article thus tracks and unpacks the discussion on societal inclusion, drawing in particular from Chantal Mouffe’s reading of political agonism and the more recent literature about agonistic peace. Ultimately, it argues that instrumentalizing and depoliticizing political inclusion is hurtful for the democratic safeguarding of previously denied rights and counter-productive even for minimal legitimizing ends. Peacebuilding benefits from agonistic standpoints of analysis by introducing, from the negotiation stage, a political model of engagement that allows in conflict by peacefully tackling it instead of sweeping it under the rug.
- Topic:
- Conflict, Negotiation, Inclusion, Local Peace Committees, and Peace Process
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
188. Metaphoricizing Modernity
- Author:
- Nicholas Onuf
- Publication Date:
- 01-2024
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Contexto Internacional
- Institution:
- Institute of International Relations, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro
- Abstract:
- We of the modern world tell stories about being modern, becoming modern. We ask where modernity is going. Two metaphorical complexes dominate these stories: We favour metaphors of life and growth; modernity has a life of its own. Or we prefer metaphors of motion and direction; modernity is a journey that takes many paths. The two complexes coexist uneasily even as they feed on each other; together they mark the modern conceit that modernity has left tradition behind. Those whom modern society has victimized, uprooted or abandoned may resist both complexes, often seeking to retrieve the metaphors of a lost, broken, misremembered or invented past. Most beneficiaries of modernity favour the metaphorical complex of life and growth—or merely take it for granted. Scholars with a critical attitude toward modernity often favour many paths and thus the metaphorical complex of motion and direction—without realizing it. Seven metaphors reveal these tendencies: boundary, break, juncture, limit, rupture, stage, transition. They also hint at a third, distinctively modern metaphorical complex. In our stories about modernity, we deploy plural versions of spatial metaphors sequenced in time: frames, boxes, compartments, or containers, and mark the sequence with metaphorical signposts: age, stage, wave, or period.
- Topic:
- Transition, Modernity, Metaphors, Boundary, Break, Juncture, Limit, Rupture, and Stage
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
189. Exchange on Nick Onuf’s ‘Metaphoricizing Modernity,’ Part I—Dangerous Beginnings, Peripheral (Re)Beginnings: A Reconfiguration of Nick Onuf’s Constructivism
- Author:
- Victor Coutinho Lage
- Publication Date:
- 01-2024
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Contexto Internacional
- Institution:
- Institute of International Relations, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro
- Abstract:
- Nick Onuf’s constructivism is one of the most important contributions to the field of international relations in what regards the interchange between social and political theories, and philosophy. In this text, I engage with Onuf’s body of work taken as a whole. The guiding thread of the problematization I propose is woven through the attention to how Onuf’s craft and creative undertaking sets certain beginnings in the construction of his framework, and how setting them has important implications for (the conception of) ‘politics’. I would argue that Onuf’s conception of politics is sustained on two central beginnings: the conception of humans as ‘rational agents’ and the framing of what has come to be called ‘modernity’. This way, I emphasize what seems to me the most enduring contribution his body of work can provide not only to the field of international relations, but also to contemporary social and political theories more generally. The first section outlines the relation Onuf establishes between rules and rule, while the following two sections deal, in turn, with his conceptions of ‘agency’ and the ‘modern world’. My goal in these first three sections is to reconfigure Onuf’s constructivism. The fourth and final section moves ahead, giving a step further – perhaps too far, perhaps too radical –, paving a critical engagement with his work through peripheral (re)begininngs.
- Topic:
- Politics, Constructivism, Rationality, Modernity, and Periphery
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
190. Exchange on Nick Onuf’s ‘Metaphoricizing Modernity,’ Part III–Reconfiguration of Modernity and/as Metaphor(s)
- Author:
- Michael Marks and Nicholas Onuf
- Publication Date:
- 01-2024
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Contexto Internacional
- Institution:
- Institute of International Relations, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro
- Abstract:
- In this Dossier, four scholars reflect on Nicholas Onuf’s leading article, ‘Metaphoricizing modernity’, (re)engaging with – and celebrating – more broadly Onuf’s groundbreaking work from different places, perspectives, and angles. Part III (re)engages with (his) reconfigurations of Modernity and/as metaphor(s), including an extensive, and much careful response from Onuf to those four scholars and their (re)readings published in this Dossier: Celebrating Nicholas Onuf. Michael Marks is the fourth scholar to engage with and reflect on Onuf’s leading article, and his work more broadly. Marks reads Onuf’s essay on metaphoricising modernity as an invitation to see modernity in terms of its metaphorical qualities; that is, as an opportunity to reflect not only on modernity, but on the nature of metaphors and how they figure in scholarly inquiry. More specifically, for him, Onuf’s characterization of modernity as embodying notions of forward motion and territorial physicality is one of the main insights of his essay that could be further explored with additional theoretical analysis. Nicholas Onuf closes this Part and the Dossier more broadly, carefully engaging with and responding to the contributions of Victor Coutinho Lage (in Part I), Manuela Trindade Viana (in Part II), Roberto Vilchez Yamato (in Part II), and Michael Marks (in Part III). Rethinking reconfiguration as a general, constitutive process, Onuf (re)engages with modernization and modernity’s universal ethos, while responding to his postcolonial critics and their (re)readings of his highly generalized model of world-making. In so doing, Onuf also (re)engages with the concept and conceptualization of metaphors, repositioning his work and stance as a form of ‘embodied anti-realism’. For him, old ontologies never die; like metaphors, they just layer up.
- Topic:
- Modernity, Metaphors, Concepts, and Beginnings
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus