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5931. Reflections from China

Author:
Cheng Ruisheng
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of International Affairs
Institution:
School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
Abstract:
Since the formalization of diplomatic relations in 1950, China and India have balanced a series of opportunities for cooperation against a host of potential conflicts. Cheng Ruisheng, veteran diplomat and former Chinese ambassador to India, discusses this complex relationship with the Journal's Diyana Ishak, and explains why he is optimistic about the future of Sino-Indian relations
Political Geography:
China and India

5932. Beyond Rhetoric: Sino-Indian Relations in an Era of Interdependence - Asian Knowledge-Based Economics: Complex and Convoluted

Author:
Aditi Malik and Maria Y. Wang
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of International Affairs
Institution:
School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
Abstract:
With the simultaneous rise of two titans in Asia, India and China, what are the features that mark their relations with one another? Furthermore, what can current relations tell us about future prospects for peace between the two nations? These are the fundamental questions with which Jonathan Holslag is concerned. He notes that these are not new questions but ones that have been the subject of continuous debate. He argues that this debate has broadly produced two camps: the first camp is focused on the “security relationship,” while the second analyzes the above questions from the perspective of the increased interdependence between the two nations. Holslag aims to situate his work by taking into account information from both camps.
Topic:
Security and Economics
Political Geography:
China, India, and Asia

5933. Hierarchy in World Politics

Author:
Patrick Thaddeus Jackson and George Lawson
Publication Date:
04-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of International Relations and Development
Institution:
Central and East European International Studies Association
Abstract:
With this Special Issue the editorial team fulfils a campaign promise, so to speak. In our original proposal to assume the editorship of the Journal of International Relations and Development, we proposed three special features: a Forum on IR in Eastern and Central Europe (published in issue 12:2), a Forum on post-Communist and post-Socialist transitions (published in issue 12:4), and a Special Issue on hierarchy in world politics. The four papers collected here represent the end result of a process of soliciting proposals for manuscripts, putting those manuscripts through the regular peer-review process, and selecting papers that would allow a multi-faceted exploration of a complex topic that has made its way back into IR after the long interregnum of theories and models that focused on presumptively equivalent states operating under conditions of anarchy. But this is more than simply 'bringing hierarchy back in'; the new focus on unequal relations of power in world politics is a good deal more sophisticated than the sometimes blunt assertions of dependency theory and early world-systems accounts. The papers that we have assembled for this Special Issue represent some, but by no means all, of the rich analytical diversity in contemporary accounts of hierarchy in world politics.
Topic:
International Relations
Political Geography:
Europe

5934. Empire, imperialism and conceptual history

Author:
Helge Jordheim and Iver B Neumann
Publication Date:
04-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of International Relations and Development
Institution:
Central and East European International Studies Association
Abstract:
Hierarchy in world politics has to be discussed by means of specific concepts. Concepts come with specific historical and social baggage. They are defined by their meanings and uses and become powerful in battle with other concepts. The concepts discussed in this article, 'empire' and 'imperialism', have lately made their return to the grand stage of world politics, most significantly as descriptions, and indeed, self-descriptions of the role and position of the United States. How is this return possible? What does it mean? To answer these questions we draw on the long-standing scientific discipline and method of conceptual history, or Begriffsgeschichte, in the way it has been theorised and practised by the German historian and theorist of history Reinhart Koselleck. In a second step, we discuss how this way of writing the history of social and political concepts has been challenged by other approaches, most importantly by the Cambridge intellectual historian Quentin Skinner. At the hands of Koselleck and Skinner conceptual history contributes to opening our eyes to the historical specificity of the uses and meanings of concepts in particular contexts, in a long historical perspective ranging from the Ancient Romans to the Bush administration.
Topic:
History
Political Geography:
United States

5935. Eco-imperialism: governance, resistance, hierarchy

Author:
Hugh Dyer
Publication Date:
04-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of International Relations and Development
Institution:
Central and East European International Studies Association
Abstract:
The global environmental agenda, alongside the broad neoliberal agenda, may be viewed by developing states and societies as a neo-imperialist adventure to be resisted. This paper argues that while the idea of 'eco-imperialism' reflects the uncertain location of politics, the ambivalent role of states, and unchallenged state-centred assumptions about world politics, it also introduces conceptual confusion. It is an unusual case of imperialism, in so far as it involves diverse actors who may not be pursuing the same objectives. It appears that eco-imperialism may be both hegemonic force and anti-capitalist movement. In order to explain this apparent contradiction, we must note the contradictions in globalisation, but also how the mix of underlying political orientations create strange bed-fellows of, for example, developing country activists and oil company executives. In doing so, a nuanced view of the dynamics of global environmental policy and the prospects for matching these to particular political contexts may be discerned. While the exploitative and dominating aspects of global environmental policy deserve to be challenged and studied, these may have less bearing on global governance per se than on the globalised world in which it occurs. In recognising the intent of the critique, one must also note the mutual constitution of governance and resistance, local-global reverberations, and the prospects for bottom-up support identified by 'environmentality'. Hence, any signs of eco-imperialism imply 'participatory empire' at worst, which should inform rather than obstruct global environmental governance.
Topic:
Globalization and Politics

5936. The Middle East in the world hierarchy: imperialism and resistance

Author:
Raymond Hinnebusch
Publication Date:
04-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of International Relations and Development
Institution:
Central and East European International Studies Association
Abstract:
This study deploys a structuralist framework of analysis, modified by elements from other theories, to examine the place of the Middle East in the world hierarchy. It surveys the origins of the regional system in imperialism's peripheralisation and fragmentation of the region, the core-periphery clientalist hierarchy thereby established, regional agency within the system, including the foreign policies of dependent and rebellious states, and the on-going struggle over the hierarchical order between revisionist forces in the Middle East and the global hegemons.
Topic:
Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
Middle East

5937. Hegemony, not empire

Publication Date:
04-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of International Relations and Development
Institution:
Central and East European International Studies Association
Abstract:
After a period of terminological indecision, 'empire' has staged a startling academic comeback since the beginning of this century. Like the notion of hegemony, which dominated earlier debates on the United States and world order, the term 'empire' has never been uncontested. Furthermore, no clear delineation between the two concepts emerged, and under-conceptualisation resulted in a lasting confusion about their analytical value. Analysing the pitfalls of the central debates on empire and hegemonic stability, the article contends that the choice of terminology has frequently been motivated politically rather than by scientific standards. We find that proponents of 'empire' have largely misinterpreted the policy strategy of empire — as applied by the George W. Bush administration — for the real thing, an existing empire. In this article, instead, using Gary Goertz' (2006) approach to conceptual analysis, we suggest a reformulation of the concept of hegemony to capture the current international system in which the US still enjoys an undisputed preponderance of power. With a focus on how power is used, hegemony is understood as a specific form of leadership that is dependent on the perception of its legitimacy and is differentiated with regard to its regional and global reach.
Political Geography:
United States

5938. The state as citizen: state personhood and ideology

Author:
Jorg Kustermans
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of International Relations and Development
Institution:
Central and East European International Studies Association
Abstract:
An important debate in International Relations and International Law is whether states are persons. In this article, it is argued that they are. That is, they are real persons-as-status. Furthermore, state personhood is argued to be an ideological category, marked by ideological variety. Roughly, one can tell apart liberal and republican conceptions of state citizenship. In a case study, the conceptual toolkit of state citizenship is put to work to assess the liberal credentials of modern international society. While modern international society rests on firm liberal principles, expressed most clearly in the Charter of the UN, important republican elements can be discerned, not in the least in the constitution of NATO.
Topic:
International Relations, NATO, International Law, and United Nations

5939. Gender and race in the European security strategy: Europe as a 'force for good'

Author:
Maria Stern
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of International Relations and Development
Institution:
Central and East European International Studies Association
Abstract:
Taking Robert Kagan's imagery of US-Mars and Europe-Venus as a point of departure, this article probes into how the naturalised reproduction of Europe in the text of the European Security Strategy (ESS) discursively occurs through intermeshing gendered and racialised discourses. The article therefore offers a narrative that has been largely silenced in conversations about the EU as a global security actor. By paying attention to embedded 'sticky' gendered and racialised signs in the text of the ESS, the article argues that the delineations drawn to secure Europe in the text of the ESS also engender 'Europe' as multiply masculine by dividing the world into sharp spatio-temporal distinctions. Echoing Europe's colonial past, the ESS represents its 'Others' as both feminised and subordinate. In this sense, the article argues that the European project of security-development as written in the ESS is both civilising (normative) and violently exclusionary - in contradistinction to many contemporary depictions of Europe as a normative power and a harbour of tolerance. The gendered and colonial grammar of these spatial and temporal distinctions work to naturalise a certain (re)production of 'Europe', yet haunt the secure Europe and the better world promised in the strategy.
Topic:
Security
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

5940. Race for the money: international financial centres in Asia

Author:
Darryl S L Jarvis
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of International Relations and Development
Institution:
Central and East European International Studies Association
Abstract:
Asia's emergence as a key player in the global economy is witnessing intense competition within the region to become Asia's next great international financial centre (IFC). Hong Kong, Singapore and Shanghai, among others, are vying for primacy, attempting to attract dense clusters of financial services firms and reap the lucrative rewards associated with this. This paper explores this emerging competition. It does so from the perspective of attempting to map the parameters necessary to become an IFC, particularly the institutional, political and spatial contexts that facilitate the concentration of international financial services. Why and how financial clustering occurs and the factors that determine the location of financial centres is an important public policy concern, both for established centres eager to maintain their competitive position as well as emerging economies keen to identify the policy levers necessary to support financial sector growth. To that end, the paper explores the experiences and strategies of three of Asia's current contenders: Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore. It analyses the policy architecture, financial sector strategies, institutional mechanisms and spatial geographies undergirding financial sector growth, and the constraints, obstacles and challenges each face in developing and or consolidating their IFC.
Political Geography:
Shanghai, Asia, Singapore, and Hong Kong