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5661. Christian 'Renewalism' and the production of global free market hegemony

Author:
Kyle Murray
Publication Date:
03-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
Charismatic and Pentecostal elements of global Christianity serve key roles in the production of free market hegemony within and between states, societies and markets across the world. While many of the institutions of these Christian social forces are fiercely decentralised, this popular global movement has converged on key elements of a shared conception of the world which links core, semi-peripheral and peripheral societies across national boundaries and class distinctions. These activities highlight the necessity of linking the emergent narratives on 'global religious economy' with the larger narratives of Critical IPE. It is argued here that Gramsci provides us with useful conceptual tools with which we may contextualise specific transnational religious movements and social forces within the framework of globalisation and the production of neoliberal hegemony within and between specific states, societies and markets.

5662. The relevance of understanding code to international political economy

Author:
David M Berry
Publication Date:
03-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
This article argues that international political economy (IPE) needs to engage in a close reading of computer code. This, I argue, will open up IPE to a very important resource for understanding and explaining many of the forces of capitalism operating today and which are instantiated and reflected within computer code. I also suggest a way in which the 'global', particularly in relation to financial markets and systems, might be read from within the new space of flows represented by computer code and software. There is no doubt at all that software is a hugely important global industry, and that software is critical to the functioning of multinational companies, governments and non-governmental institutions. Therefore, it is curious that so little attention is paid to code itself as an empirical object within IPE. In this article, I want to introduce some of the main contours of the debate and introduce some important concepts for why a close reading of code could be useful to IPE scholars.
Topic:
International Political Economy

5663. Horsemen of the apocalypse? Jihadist strategy and nuclear instability in South Asia

Author:
Andrew Phillips
Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
Since 9/11, counter-terrorism officials have fretted over the possibility of jihadist terrorists obtaining and deploying a nuclear weapon. Although acknowledging that such anxieties are well grounded, I offer here a reconceptualisation of the jihadist terrorist nuclear threat that focuses alternatively upon the remote but real possibility that jihadist terrorists may seek to advance their goals by trying to provoke an Indo–Pakistani nuclear confrontation. Such a confrontation would serve jihadist goals by aggravating religious polarisation on the sub-continent while dramatically weakening the Pakistani state. The system-destabilising consequences of such a catastrophe would likely also offer the jihadists their best opportunity to revive their faltering movement, which otherwise appears fated to terminal decline. In the light of this assessment, I argue that a higher priority must be accorded towards strengthening Indo–Pakistani crisis stability and advancing regional reconciliation if the risk of a jihadist-provoked nuclear exchange is to be minimised.
Political Geography:
Pakistan, South Asia, and India

5664. Rethinking China's grand strategy: Beijing's evolving national interests and strategic ideas in the reform era

Author:
Feng Zhang
Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
The question of China's grand strategy is of great importance for understanding the international impact of China's rise. Both Western and Chinese scholars dispute whether China has developed a coherent grand strategy in the reform era. The main reason for the controversy seems to lie as much in theoretical and methodological assumptions about defining and analyzing grand strategy as in empirical validity. This article contributes to the debate by adopting a novel theoretical approach to analyzing grand strategy by seeing it as the conjunction of national interests and strategic ideas. It examines China's evolving national interests and strategic ideas in the reform period in order to clarify the exploratory, evolutionary and adaptive nature of policy change. China cannot be said to have developed a premeditated grand strategy during this period. Even though one may still be able to rationalize elements of China's foreign policies into a grand strategy, it comes at the cost of missing their changing nature.
Political Geography:
China

5665. Regional threats and global management of conflicts in regions: The case of the US in the Middle East

Author:
Benjamin Miller
Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
This article addresses the following two questions: First, how does the United States (US) manage regional war and peace, especially in the Middle East (ME)? It will show that the strategies the US has adopted in conflict management in the ME over the last several decades have shown considerable variations, both in the goals of its involvement – between trying to shape the regional balance of power and to reorder the domestic regimes in the regional states, and in the means of involvement – between a unilateral and a multilateral strategy. Second, it seeks to explain these variations in the US regional patterns of involvement.
Political Geography:
United States and Middle East

5666. The end of the cold war and soviet collapse – the limits of realism and liberalism: A reply to Wohlforth, Deudney and Ikenberry

Author:
Campbell Craig
Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
William Wohlforth and Daniel Deudney and John Ikenberry provide strong Realist and Liberal analyses, respectively, of the End of the Cold War. Both interpretations, however, beg larger conceptual and historical questions, which cannot be answered without making the nuclear revolution central to explaining Soviet collapse.
Topic:
Cold War
Political Geography:
Soviet Union

5667. Arbitrating the Israeli–Palestinian territorial dispute: A riposte

Author:
Amnon Aran
Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
Breaking the current deadlock in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict has thus far proved impossible. However, the suggestion that arbitration should replace negotiations is flawed.
Political Geography:
Israel and Palestine

5668. Russia in the new international order: Theories, arguments and debates

Author:
Roger E Kanet
Publication Date:
07-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
Throughout the Cold War, studies of Soviet foreign policy were generally 'atheoretical'. In so far as they were based on theoretical models from international relations, those models tended to be some version of 'realism' or 'neorealism'. Over the past two decades, since the end of the Cold War, other approaches – especially those based on 'constructivism' – have challenged the domination of the 'realist' framework in studies of Russian foreign policy. The articles in this special issue of International Politics examine the strengths and weaknesses of the various theoretical frameworks employed to explain Russian policy.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and Cold War
Political Geography:
Russia and Soviet Union

5669. Conceptualizing sovereignty in Russian foreign policy: Realist and constructivist perspectives

Author:
Charles E Ziegler
Publication Date:
07-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
Russia's approach to sovereignty reflects a close linkage between the recentralizing project domestically, and reassertion of Russia's position as a great power on the international scene. This article assesses the relative utility of constructivist and realist approaches in Russian readings of sovereignty. A constructivist approach is found to be more useful in treating sovereignty - it directs our attention toward the problem of developing a new post-Soviet identity, the role of culture and historical interpretation in foreign policy, Russian concepts of the hostile Other and domestic ideas linked to Russian concepts of federalism - all critical factors in understanding Russian foreign policy behavior. The major ideological construct of the post-communist period - sovereign democracy - insists that both sovereignty and democracy are socially and culturally determined, and therefore clash with Western interpretations of these concepts. The emergence of a new, post-modern and Western-dominated set of global norms limiting sovereignty is closely linked to continued tensions between Russia and the West.
Political Geography:
Russia and Soviet Union

5670. Applying constructivism to understanding EU–Russian relations

Author:
Joan DeBardeleben
Publication Date:
07-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
The improved relations between Russia and the European Union (EU) in the 1990s were followed by a rise in tension since 1999. This article argues that constructivism can provide important insights into the basis of continuing difficulties. Drawing on the nature of the two actors, the author argues that the foreign policy identities of both actors are in a formative process, and thus the construction of inter-subjective meanings has the potential to be a particularly transformative element in the relationship. Both the Russian Federation and the EU are relatively new as regional and global actors, and both are in the process of forming their foreign policy identities, although in quite different contexts. Neither the EU nor Russia has developed a strategic conception for the relationship, and political discourse often obstructs communication rather than furthering the generation of inter-subjective meanings. The article argues that a constructivist analysis can help to expose the deep interconnections between normative disagreements, conflicting constructions of interests and differing concepts of governance.
Topic:
Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
Russia and Europe