Search

Begin New Search Topic International Relations Political Geography America

71. Something old, something new, something borrowed: rerepresentations of anarchy in International Relations theory

Author:
Marcus Holmes
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Relations of the Asia-Pacific
Institution:
Japan Association of International Relations
Abstract:
There are many stories to be told regarding the development of International Relations (IR) theory in the United States over the last century. Some have pointed out IR's evolutionary properties, emphasizing the debates that have produced fitter theory with empirical reality. Others have argued that the development has been largely scientific with knowledge built hierarchically through time. In this article, I propose an alternative view of American IR's development. Specifically, I argue that IR theory is best understood through heterarchical organization, with core ideas and concepts rerepresented in new ways, and various levels of analysis, over time. In making this argument I trace duel processes of borrowing ideas from other disciplines and rerepresenting those ideas in new forms in order to solve vexing theoretical problems. The article demonstrates how conceptions of anarchy have been significantly affected by other disciplines and relates those conceptions to views of international security both at home and abroad, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region.
Topic:
International Relations
Political Geography:
United States, America, and Asia

72. The development of International Relations theory in the UK: traditions, contemporary perspectives, and trajectories

Author:
Chris Brown
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Relations of the Asia-Pacific
Institution:
Japan Association of International Relations
Abstract:
British International Relations (IR) theory is distinguished by a concern with institutions and norms, and by an emphasis on history, philosophy, and law rather than the formal methods of the social sciences; in both respects, but especially the latter, it differs from American IR theory. The origins of British IR theory are traced, and the importance of the 'English School' (ES) is stressed, partly because of the work it stimulates, but also because of its role as a brand which helps to establish the independence of British IR from the otherwise dominant American profession. Along with ES scholarship (pluralist and solidarist), political theory and IR, and critical theory, including critical security studies, are the major areas where contemporary IR theory in Britain is located. This is likely to persist, but the generally critical approach taken to social scientific theorizing may be changing, with the increasing importance of historical sociology and critical realist work. It may also be the case that the privileged status of IR theory in British IR may be under challenge.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, and Political Theory
Political Geography:
United Kingdom and America

73. Nuclear Logics: Contrasting Paths in East Asia the Middle East

Author:
Matake Kamiya
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Relations of the Asia-Pacific
Institution:
Japan Association of International Relations
Abstract:
For those who live in the American International Relations community, Etel Solingen's Nuclear Logics: Contrasting Paths in East Asia the Middle East undoubtedly represents a stunning success of the study of nuclear proliferation. In 1994, Solingen published an influential article in this field of research, 'The Political Economy of Nuclear Restraint', in International Security, and argued that countries with ruling coalitions pursuing economic liberalization have stronger incentives to refrain from developing nuclear weapons than those with 'inward-looking, nationalist, and radical-confessional coalitions'. Based on the review of cases in South Asia, on the Korean Peninsula, in the Middle East, and in Latin America, she concluded that the former are internationalist in nature and are unwilling to damage international trade and investment by going nuclear, whereas the latter are more likely to pursue nuclear weapons because they care much less about the economic costs of nuclearization. In Nuclear Logics, Solingen expands such findings of her 1994 article and argues even more persuasively that 'internationalizing models of political survival make the development of nuclear weapons less likely than inward-looking models' (p. 46). Starting from 'the puzzle of contrasting historical trajectories' across East Asia and the Middle East since the late 1960s (p. 4), Solingen conducts the first ever 'systematic efforts' (p. 11) to explain why East Asia has largely moved toward denuclearization while the norm among the core Middle East powers has been nuclearization. Criticizing four alternative theories of nuclear choices of states, i.e. neorealism, neoliberal institutionalism, constructivism, and 'theories about democracy and foreign policy', as insufficient to solve her puzzle, Solingen insists that the study of nuclear proliferation must pay more attention to the effects of internationalization on domestic politics and nuclear policy. According to Solingen, '[w]hereas inward-looking models might have regarded nuclear weapons as assets in the arsenal of building regime legitimacy, outward-oriented ones regarded them as liabilities' (p. 277) and the two distinct patterns of nuclear choices in the Middle East and East Asia during the 'second nuclear age' can be well explained by the heavy regional concentrations of respective models in respective regions. In East Asia, the concentration of leaders who stake their political survival on economic growth through integration into the global economy reinforced individual, domestic incentives of leaders to avoid nuclearization across the borders. In the Middle East, the concentration of leaders who resist internationalization by trade protection, import substitution, and state entrepreneurship had the opposite effect. In fact, Solingen's careful case studies of four 'nuclear aspirants' in East Asia and five in the Middle East successfully demonstrate that '[t]he nuclear choices of all pertinent cases' in the two regions since the 1960s 'are compatible with domestic survival models' (p. 277).
Topic:
International Relations, Nuclear Weapons, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
America, Middle East, East Asia, and Korea

74. Peter J. Katzenstein (ed.), Civilizations in World Politics: Plural and Pluralist Perspectives

Author:
Ömer Aslan
Publication Date:
07-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
The quest to incorporate non-material factors into international relations has continued apace into the twenty-first century. After religion, culture and identity, now 'civilization' seems to be attracting a great deal of attention from international relations (IR) scholars. Civilizations in World Politics: Plural and Pluralist Perspectives, which is the result of a roundtable and a panel organized at the 2007 and 2008 annual meetings of the American Political Science Association, investigates the potentiality of the concept of civilizations in order to better explain world politics. The book consists of six case studies of civilizations (American European, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, and Islamic) in six chapters, bookended by an introduction and a conclusion by Peter J. Katzenstein and Patrick T. Jackson respectively.
Topic:
International Relations and Politics
Political Geography:
China, America, and Europe

75. The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism

Author:
Geoffrey P. Macdonald
Publication Date:
05-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Woodrow Wilson School Journal of Public and International Affairs
Institution:
Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University
Abstract:
Andrew Bacevich is angry. He has tirelessly criticized a war that has raged on longer than World War II. As a self-proclaimed conservative and Vietnam veteran, his anti-Iraq War activism is uniquely cogent. On the campus of Boston University, where he teaches International Relations, Bacevich is a folk hero, lending his unimpeachable credentials to the left-leaning inclinations of his students. But his activism has not stopped the war. It didn't stop his son, Army First Lieutenant Andrew Bacevich, Jr., from being deployed to Iraq. And it didn't stop 27-year-old Andrew from being killed-in-action in May of 2007. Andrew Bacevich is angry. As he well should be.
Topic:
International Relations and War
Political Geography:
Iraq, America, and Vietnam

76. Ambiguous universalism: theorising race/nation/class in international relations

Author:
Nicola Short and Helen Kambouri
Publication Date:
09-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of International Relations and Development
Institution:
Central and East European International Studies Association
Abstract:
Although in the past decades the study of international relations (IR) has become much more sensitive to questions of culture, identity and movement, racism has remained an under-theorised area. The marginalisation of race in IR has become much more striking in the 1990s because of the renewed interest in migration and other intercultural exchanges as 'security threats', as well as the emergence of nationalism and putatively 'ethnic' conflict as a central basis of strife in the post-Cold War era. This article is an attempt to discuss new forms of racism in international relations with particular reference to American policy responses to September 11. Drawing from the work of Etienne Balibar, we argue that a contemporary neo-racism, a kind of 'racism without races', grounded in ambiguity and contradiction, is present in international relations simultaneously as a problem of knowledge and as a problem of political practise. Our aim is to contribute to the strategic movement of international relations theory from a conception of race as a marginal category in IR to one that is more fully theorised, including its history and present role in constituting the discipline and its relationship to power, hierarchy and inequality.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, and Cold War
Political Geography:
America

77. How Did the 2008 Economic Crisis Affect: Social and Political Solidarity in Europe?

Author:
Jennifer L. Hochschild
Publication Date:
01-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
One possible outcome of the economic crash of 2008 was that the majority or mainstream members of a society would direct their anger and fear against the minority or marginal members of their society. Commentators on television or the radio would claim, "it's all the fault of the immigrants!" or "if we didn't hand over so much of our tax dollars to the poor, the economy would not have deteriorated so much," or "social benefits to African Americans [or German Turks] have distorted the housing market." Citizens would come to believe these assertions, politicians would echo them – and the upshot would be not only a deteriorating national and international economy but also increased hostility and fear among racial, ethnic, or nationality groups in a country. Social solidarity would decline, perhaps irrevocably.
Topic:
International Relations, Economics, Politics, Social Stratification, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
Africa, America, Europe, and Germany

78. Overpowered?

Author:
Michael E. Mandelbaum
Publication Date:
05-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
No abstract is available.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, and NATO
Political Geography:
United States and America

79. Amin Rihani, 1876-1940: The Apostle of the Arab-American Relationship

Author:
Irfan Shahid
Publication Date:
01-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Contemporary Arab Studies
Abstract:
The tragic events of Black September, 2001, the year that opened the twenty-first century and the third millennium, more popularly called 9/11, is now a landmark in American history that is deeply carved in the psyche of the American people and is annually perpetuated by commemorative anniversaries. It practically destroyed the bridges that had been constructed between America and the Arab-Muslim world. What had been America's main adversary in the Cold War, namely Communism, has now become the Arabs and the Islamic world, which, ironically, had been America's allies against Communism.
Topic:
International Relations, Islam, Terrorism, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
United States, America, Middle East, and Arabia

80. Russia's Policy in the Middle East: Prospects for Consensus and Conflict with the United States

Author:
Dmitri V. Trenin
Publication Date:
03-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
This report is one in a series commissioned by The Century Foundation to explore issues of interest to American policymakers regarding Russia, aimed at identifying a framework for U.S.-Russian relations and policy options for a new administration and Congress that could help right the two countries' troubled relationship at a crucial juncture. The papers in the series explore significant aspects of U.S.-Russian relations, outlining a broad range of reasons why Russia matters for American foreign policy and framing bilateral and multilateral approaches to Russia for U.S. consideration. A high-level working group, co-chaired by Gary Hart, former U.S. senator from Colorado, and Jack F. Matlock, Jr., former U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, has provided direction to the project and offered recommendations for action that the United States might take.
Topic:
International Relations and Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, America, Middle East, and Asia