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241. Discourse, Meanings and IR Studies: Taking the Rhetoric of "Axis of Evil" As a Case

Author:
Liu Yongtao
Publication Date:
02-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
Using “speech act” theory as its starting point, the article ponders the sources of hostility and conflict in global politics, arguing that discourse as a social practice is an increasingly crucial but a more or less neglected source of (in)security culture, postuating that greater attention should be taken to it in international relations studies. The article states that the politics of (in)security, conventionally accepted as “objec Using “speech act” theory as its starting point, the article ponders the sources of hostility and conflict in global politics, arguing that discourse as a social practice is an increasingly crucial but a more or less neglected source of (in) security culture, postuating that greater attention should be taken to it in international relations studies. The article states that the politics of (in)security, conventionally accepted as “objective” and “natural”, are in fact a socially, politically and lexically (re)constructed and (re)interpreted by nation-States. Discourse and meanings, in turn, can help (re)produce the effects of hostility and conflict between Nation-States. This article illustrates the importance of designing a language policy in international relations by taking U.S. president George W. Bush's rhetoric of “axis of evil” as an example and thus revealing the extents of causal links between the improper use of language and the construction of antagonistic tensions between the U.S. and its lexically targeted counter-parts.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, and Communications
Political Geography:
United States

242. Discurso y narración en las dinámicas de cons-titución identitaria. La experiencia kirchnerista en Argentina

Author:
María Mercedes Patrouilleau
Publication Date:
02-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
CONfines de Relaciones Internacionales y Ciencia Política
Abstract:
The presidencial discourse has regained interest since the current theory of populism, and in Agentina spe-cially from discursive interpellation of its main leaders in last years, Néstor Kirchner y Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. This work examines discoursive interpellation of both leaders emphasizing the narrative dimension of discourse. Kirchnerismo as political subject proposes a new meaning of traditional elements of the national and popular (and peronism in particular), by the promotion of an “historic citizenship” for argentines and the arti-culation of a political history along a path marked by institutional disruption.
Topic:
Communications and Political Theory
Political Geography:
Argentina and South America

243. Gramáticas de acción, retorno de experiencia y arte para resolver los problemas

Author:
Pierre Tripier
Publication Date:
03-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
CONfines de Relaciones Internacionales y Ciencia Política
Abstract:
This article emphasizes the utility, in social sciences, of concepts like “grammar”, “grammar of action” and “grammar of interpretation of a situation” as used in Clausewitz's work and in The Art of War. Two empirical examples illustrate this subject: the first one is analyzed by the novelist Karl Weick and the second by the expert in military tactics, Lieu-tenant Colonel Michel Goya. This demonstrates the necessity to use the concept of “grammar” in sociological investigations. If Sociology would like to latter and be like other sciences, sociologist should not be satisfied to establish diagnosis, but should dare prognostics and to help decisions with the assistance of those grammars.
Topic:
Communications and Sociology

244. China-Russia Relations

Author:
Yu Bin
Publication Date:
09-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Comparative Connections
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
Abstract:
For much of the third quarter, Russia and China were besieged by disasters of various kinds. Leaders sent each other messages to express their sympathy and support while relief materials were delivered. Bilateral relations began to gather momentum at the end of August when Prime Minister Putin attended the opening of the Russian-Chinese oil pipeline. In September, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization kicked off its Peace Mission 2010 exercise in Kazakhstan. This was followed by President Medvedev‟s state visit to China in the name of “comprehensively deepening Russian-Chinese strategic partnership relations.” All of this occurred against the backdrop of heightened tension on the Korean Peninsula after the sinking of the South Korea Navy ship in March and the rapid deterioration of China-Japan relations after Japan‟s seizure of a Chinese fishing boat in early September.
Topic:
NATO and Communications
Political Geography:
Russia, Japan, China, Kazakhstan, and South Korea

245. Strategies—Good and Bad—for Navigating Information Hyperabundance

Author:
Anthony Olcott
Publication Date:
06-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University
Abstract:
Dr. Fingar made the comment above to highlight the challenges that “the explosive growth of the amount of information that is out there” now present to the analytic and policymaker communities—as illustrated by the fact that official People's Republic of China (PRC) statistics from 2003, the last year they were published, put the number of China's periodicals at 11,193. However, although Fingar did not say so, there is some chance that his project thirty-one years before may have been driven, in part at least, by the intelligence community's recognition that there was already too much information.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Intelligence, Science and Technology, and Communications
Political Geography:
China

246. Institutions and Information: The Challenge of the Six Vs

Author:
Anthony Olcott
Publication Date:
04-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University
Abstract:
Humans have always wanted information, but technological limitations have always made information difficult and costly to create, transmit, and retain. The consequences of those limitations are among the factors driving the formation of large administrative entities, primary among them states. Addressing and redressing the information shortage that physical reality mandated gave states the opportunity to control and channel information, in all manner of ways.
Topic:
Economics, Intelligence, Politics, Science and Technology, and Communications

247. Creating the Demand Curve for Cybersecurity

Author:
Melissa Hathaway
Publication Date:
12-2010
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
America's future economic and national security posture, enabled by the digital revolution, is at risk. If the Obama administration is serious about mitigating that risk by increasing the security of the nation's information and communications infrastructure, it should exercise every instrument of power at hand to move the United States toward a better place.
Topic:
Communications
Political Geography:
United States and America

248. America's Edge: Power in the Networked Century

Author:
Anne-Marie Slaughter
Publication Date:
01-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
The United States' unique ability to capitalize on connectivity will make the twenty-first century an American century.
Topic:
War and Communications
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, America, and Georgia

249. North Korea-South Korea Relations

Author:
Aidan Foster-Career
Publication Date:
01-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Comparative Connections
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
Abstract:
The final three months of 2008 saw relations between the two Koreas continue to worsen, as they had since South Korean voters in December 2007 elected the conservative Lee Myung-bak as their next president, ending a decade of rule by liberals. Official ties remained frozen as Pyongyang media continued to heap childish insults on Lee. Upping the ante from words to deeds, but also shooting itself in the foot, from December the North placed restrictions on cross-border traffic and expelled most Southerners from the joint Kaesong Industrial Complex (KIC), just north of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). But the end of the year brought a possible way forward, with hints from both sides that they are considering a deal where the South would pay for the release of abductees and prisoners of war held by the North. It remains to be seen whether this will fly or how soon the two Koreas can tone down the enmity stoked over the past year. Meanwhile, nongovernmental interaction continues, albeit on a far smaller scale than during the former “Sunshine” policy.
Topic:
Government and Communications
Political Geography:
South Korea and North Korea

250. The Power of Truth? Questions for Ayman al-Zawahiri

Author:
Brian Fishman, Jarret Brachman, and Joseph Felter
Publication Date:
07-2009
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
Abstract:
On 16 December 2007, Ayman al-Zawahiri invited journalists and Jihadist enthusiasts to ask him questions via the primary Jihadist web forums. Zawahiri promised to personally answer some of those questions in a subsequent statement. On 2 April 2008, As-Sahab Media released the first part of Zawahiri’s response in the form of a one hour, forty-three minute audio statement, which was accompanied by Arabic and English transcripts. Zawahiri used the opportunity to publicly address topics that have been dogging him for years. He answered some questions directly, like whether al-Qa’ida’s willingness to kill innocent Muslims in the course of their operations is apostasy. He sidestepped other questions, including more politicized ones about al-Qa’ida’s increasing difficulties in Iraq and, in particular, al-Qa’ida’s official position toward Iran. In our analysis of those questions, we found a major disconnect between what was actually asked to Zawahiri versus the topics that he chose to answer. Beyond the obvious selection bias of the questions that Zawahiri chose to answer, we believe that he made one major strategic mistake in his 2 April statement, one that bolsters suggestions that Abu Umar al-Baghdadi, “Emir” of al-Qa’ida’s Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), is a fabricated persona. The following analysis of Zawahiri’s Part I response is broken into three sections. The first evaluates the most important themes that Zawahiri addressed on 2 April, namely HAMAS, the killing of innocents, Yusuf al-Qaradawi and the Muslim Brotherhood, the Lebanese Jihadist group Fatah al-Islam, and Zawahiri’s dispute with Sayyid Imam Sharif, the former Emir of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. The second section explores the issues that Zawahiri mentioned but failed to actually answer, namely al-Qa’ida’s relationship with other insurgents in Iraq and al-Qa’ida’s position toward Iran. In the third section, we are pleased to offer our analysis of 1,888 questions that were posed to Zawahiri on the password-protected Al-Ekhlass and Al-Hesbah websites.
Topic:
Communications, Al Qaeda, Media, Hamas, and Muslim Brotherhood
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Iraq, and Palestine