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Sweden, NATO and the gendered silencing of feminist foreign policy International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2024-03-04 Katharine A M Wright, Annika Bergman Rosamond
Sweden was the first state to adopt a Feminist Foreign Policy (FFP) in 2014, drawing on its state feminist tradition and support for the United Nations' Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda. Yet following the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and Sweden's move to seek NATO membership—abandoning its policy of non-alignment—a gendered silence on FFP pervaded. Significantly, this
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NATO in Kosovo and the logic of successful security practices International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2024-03-04 Edward Newman, Gëzim Visoka
NATO's involvement in Kosovo and its transformation from a military intervention to a UN-authorized peacekeeping operation has played a key role in the evolution of the alliance's strategic and political agenda. This article explores the importance of NATO's engagement with Kosovo in retrospect and in relation to the future outlook for European and global peace and security. It focuses on the centrality
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NATO and the global colour line International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2024-03-04 Somdeep Sen
This article explores the role of NATO in the upkeep of what W. E. B. Du Bois termed the global ‘colour line’—namely a racialized division of the world. Formally, the organization views itself as a defensive alliance, focused on safeguarding the freedom and security of its member states. However, building on works that reveal the racialized founding and workings of international relations, I argue
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Women, Peace and Security as deterrence? NATO and Russia's war against Ukraine International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2024-03-04 Míla O'Sullivan
NATO's security turn following Russia's 2014 invasion of Ukraine opened new prospects for adopting the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda from external operations to all tasks of the alliance. Drawing on feminist institutionalism and feminist pragmatist approach to security, this article interrogates NATO's WPS localization in deterrence and territorial defence. I demonstrate that NATO has in the
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The Ukraine War and nuclear sharing in NATO International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2024-03-04 Stéfanie von Hlatky, Émile Lambert-Deslandes
Russian nuclear sabre-rattling following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine has reinvigorated debates over NATO deterrence. One of its key components—nuclear sharing—has been in place since September 1954, but support for it within the alliance has varied over time. Indeed, although Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey host American gravity bombs on their territory, there were fears during
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South Korea and NATO: from unlikely companions to key partners International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2024-03-04 Bence Nemeth, Saeme Kim
Relations between South Korea and NATO have been deepening at a striking pace recently. Yoon Suk Yeol became the first South Korean president to attend a NATO Summit in 2022 and in the same year, Seoul opened its diplomatic mission to NATO in Brussels. South Korea also became the first east Asian country to join a NATO Centre of Excellence, and started increased consultations with NATO's military staffs
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Introduction NATO at 75 International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2024-03-04 Tracey German, Andrew M Dorman
This introduction to the special section highlights how NATO has overcome post-Cold War predictions of its demise, not only enduring but expanding to 31 members, with Finland and Sweden joining amid geopolitical turmoil. In 2024, as NATO turns 75, debates persist over its global role and ability to withstand both internal and external pressures.
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Peripheral voices: women in international trade scholarship International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2024-02-19 Valbona Muzaka, James Scott
We ask how women are faring in the field of international trade both as knowledge producers and as policy-makers, with a focus on the former. This is an important question in light of the increased, if belated, attention paid to the gendered impact of international trade rules and of the gendered nature of academia. Using article publishing as a proxy for international trade scholarship, we create
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Misunderstanding Myanmar through the lens of democracy International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2024-02-19 David Brenner
This article takes the 2021 military coup in Myanmar and its violent aftermath as a starting point for analysing the dominant lens through which western observers commonly narrate the country's politics as a struggle for democracy. It shows how focusing on questions of the political system is insufficient for explaining political processes and conflict dynamics, and how it risks sanitizing the country's
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How ad hoc coalitions deinstitutionalize international institutions International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2024-02-17 Malte Brosig, John Karlsrud
As ad hoc coalitions (AHCs) proliferate, particularly on the African continent, two questions crystallize. First, what consequences do they bring about for the existing institutional security landscape? And second, how can the trend of AHCs operating alongside instead of inside international organizations be captured and explored conceptually? To answer these questions, we closely examine the Multinational
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The defence of northern Europe: new opportunities, significant challenges International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2024-02-12 Karsten Friis, Rolf Tamnes
With Finland and Sweden joining NATO, the Nordics will be united for the first time in a military alliance encompassing not only northern Europe but also the broader transatlantic region. It will eventually fortify northern European security, but several obstacles must be overcome first. NATO has done a formidable job since 2014 in updating its defence plans, cumulating in the Deterrence and Defence
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Feeling for the Anthropocene: affective relations and ecological activism in the global South International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2024-02-05 Adarsh Badri
How do emotions shape ecological activism in the global South? Despite growing interest in researching ecological activism in International Relations (IR), there hasn't been much work that draws insights from the global South due to the predominant focus on western societies. Against the backdrop of the recent ‘relational’, ‘emotional’ and ‘Anthropocene’ turns in IR scholarship, this article examines
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‘BrOthers in Arms’: France, the Anglosphere and AUKUS International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2024-02-05 Jack Holland, Eglantine Staunton
Important French foreign policy dyads, such as relations between France and the United Kingdom and France and the United States, have consistently been subject to empirical, historical and policy analysis. However, France's relationship with the broader Anglosphere is rarely considered or conceptualized. This article theorizes France's relationship with the Anglosphere at a pivotal historical juncture
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The risks to refugee law of humanitarian responses to flight from Ukraine International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2024-01-08 Catherine Dauvergne
This article argues that the humanitarian outpouring of support that has greeted those fleeing the war in Ukraine exposes fragility in international refugee law. Over and over again, humanitarianism has proven insufficient to address the protection needs of refugees. The politics of humanitarianism present many advantages to states and are potentially highly motivating to publics, but they are an insufficient
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ASEAN, Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the politics of pragmatism International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2024-01-08 Jürgen Rüland
The timid response of member governments of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to Russia's invasion of Ukraine has puzzled many western observers as it flagrantly violates the most basic norms of international law to which ASEAN expressly subscribes. This article seeks to provide answers to this puzzle. Informed by practice theory, the article transcends conventional realist explanations
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The false promise of nuclear risk reduction International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2024-01-08 Benoît Pelopidas, Kjølv Egeland
In a context of intensifying great power competition and deep divergences of view between nuclear and non-nuclear powers on the urgency of nuclear abolition, ‘nuclear risk reduction’ has gained renewed attention as a pragmatic framework for managing and progressively reducing nuclear dangers. The idea is simple: with more fundamental policy changes either undesirable or out of reach, advocates of nuclear
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Bringing visibility to Latin American autonomists: a comparison between Jaguaribe and Puig International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2024-01-08 María Elena Lorenzini
Jaguaribe and Puig are two prominent International Relations theorists from the global South. Their works have become classics in Latin American studies and demonstrate a couple of different, dissident and dissonant voices from the so-called mainstream. Their contributions are the rationale behind autonomist foreign policies in Latin America, such as those that scholars envisioned during the progressive
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Latin American International Political Economy: contributions beyond the transatlantic divide International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2024-01-08 Cintia Quiliconi, Julissa Castro Silva
The way in which international political economy (IPE) developed in Anglo-Saxon countries set the main standards for its study in other regions of the world, establishing a transatlantic order that separated mainstream IPE from the periphery. This article is part of a debate that seeks to raise awareness of Latin American contributions to IPE. It underlines the connections between thought and political
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Narrative alliances: the discursive foundations of international order International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2024-01-08 Alexandra Homolar, Oliver Turner
Alliances are generally understood as groupings of states that combine to aggregate their physical capabilities against security threats. In this article we suggest transposing this well-established terminology of inter-state allegiance to the dimension of narrative. Focusing on the example of the ‘rules-based order’ (RBO), we provide a new conceptual entry point for understanding the complex relationship
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The ethics of engaged scholarship in a complex world International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2024-01-08 Deborah Avant, Naazneen H Barma, George F Demartino, Ilene Grabel
Social scientists must grapple with how to pursue knowledge about an uncertain and complex world. This challenge is accentuated when scholars wish to engage responsibly with policy-makers and the public in the interests of social betterment. In this article, we use the scholarly literature on uncertainty and complexity to examine how these issues complicate the practice of engaged scholarship. We ground
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Digital diplomacy against international stigmatization: the Bukele case International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2024-01-08 Kevin Parthenay
The article addresses the diversity of digital diplomatic strategies used by governmental actors to fight international stigmatization. Faced with structural limitations, the leaders of small states use it to defend their political project's image or reputation when they come under international criticism for deviating from or transgressing international norms. Borrowing from Erving Goffman, I draw
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The challenge for the ‘rest’: insertion, agency spaces and recognition in world politics International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2024-01-08 Fabrício H Chagas-Bastos
One of the long-standing questions for scholars and policy-makers—in particular in western capitals—is how to treat the rise of new powers in world politics. Although past research has paved the way for studying power transitions, we still lack conceptual tools to understand the behaviour of peripheral states which move between different power positions. How can we explain, from the point of view of
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Small states and the dilemma of geopolitics: role change in Finland and Sweden International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2024-01-08 Anna Michalski, Douglas Brommesson, Ann-Marie Ekengren
This article focuses on foreign policy role change in small liberal states caused by a weakening rules-based order illustrated by the decisions of Finland and Sweden to apply for membership of NATO, thereby abandoning longstanding policies of military non-alignment. Although both countries sought alignment with NATO in the context of intense security threats in northern Europe, the domestic processes
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Mexican women's neglected early International Relations contributions International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2024-01-08 Élodie Brun
This article addresses the underrepresentation of women from the global South in International Relations (IR) thinking. Gender disparities and academic global inequalities affect the quality of research in IR. The cases of three prominent women scholars—Minerva Morales, Olga Pellicer and Rosario Green, affiliated with one of the first academic departments of IR in Latin America, the Center for International
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Respected individuals: when state representatives wield outsize influence in international organizations International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2024-01-08 Timon Forster
States are keen to send representatives to international organizations, instructing them to pursue national interests and monitor staff. Yet academics tend to ignore these individuals and approximate state influence by vote shares and other state-level attributes. Against this background, I examine when state representatives in international organizations wield outsize influence on decision-making
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The scholarship–practitioner nexus: lessons from Latin American foreign policy International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2024-01-08 Melisa Deciancio
Various studies have explored the role of International Relations research in policy-making, predominantly focusing on countries in the global North. However, there needs to be a better understanding of this dynamic in peripheral countries of the global South. This article addresses this gap by examining the relationship between theory and practice in Latin American foreign policy; the synergy between
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Missing voices: Latin American perspectives in International Relations International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2024-01-08 Ricardo Villanueva, Jessica De Alba-Ulloa, Pedro González Olvera, María Elena Lorenzini
Academics working in International Relations (IR) often portray the discipline as predominantly American. The traditional orthodox narrative of the discipline, told through the ‘Great Debates’, reinforces this, as it depicts the main scholars in the history of the discipline as primarily originating from either the United States or the United Kingdom. In fact, the most popular books covering key thinkers
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From EU battlegroups to Rapid Deployment Capacity: learning the right lessons? International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2024-01-08 Christoph O Meyer, Ton Van Osch, Yf Reykers
The article uses the case of the development of the European Union Battlegroups to the Rapid Deployment Capacity (RDC) to better understand the changing learning capacity of the EU in its military Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). The article develops a theoretical framework to capture the most significant factors affecting learning by drawing on insights from the literatures on organizational
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(Re)introducing world hegemony into the ‘global organic crisis’ International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2024-01-08 Jonathan Pass
Neo-Gramscians have drawn on the concept of interregnum and connected terms to shed light on the ‘global organic crisis’ they claim we have been living through since 2008. I examine their ideas, highlighting the important contributions they have made in this terrain. In doing so, however, certain oversights are detected in the neo-Gramscian theoretical framework, leaving them unable to explain fully
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European public opinion: united in supporting Ukraine, divided on the future of NATO International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2023-11-08 Catarina Thomson, Matthias Mader, Felix Münchow, Jason Reifler, Harald Schoen
• How strong is public support for Ukraine in Europe? Given reports that Russian President Vladimir Putin may be ‘playing for time’ in the hopes that weary publics will demand an end to supporting Ukraine, this is an important question. • In February 2023, we conducted a survey of public attitudes in ten major European countries: France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, Finland
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On safer ground? The emergence and evolution of ‘Global Britain’ International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2023-09-25 Kristin Haugevik, Øyvind Svendsen
Why did Theresa May's government introduce the narrative about ‘Global Britain’, and how did this narrative evolve and manifest itself in UK foreign policy discourse in the ensuing years? We make the case that Brexit distressed the United Kingdom's foreign policy identity, and that the ‘Global Britain’ narrative emerged as a means to consolidate that identity—at a time marked by uncertainty and political
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Militarized governance of migration in the Mediterranean International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2023-09-25 Müge Kinacioglu
This article focuses on the increasing use of military actors in the governance of migration in the Mediterranean basin. The article analyses maritime migration as distinct from migration via other routes. It investigates the understudied features of the securitization processes of maritime migration and discusses their repercussions for migrants' rights. To this end, building on critical security
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Messaging Soleimani's killing: the communication vulnerabilities of authoritarian states International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2023-09-25 Kjetil Selvik, Banafsheh Ranji
The capacity of authoritarian states to manipulate narratives and undermine the authority of western democracies is increasingly emphasized in International Relations research. Far less scrutiny has been paid to the ways in which the media environment creates communication vulnerabilities for these same repressive states. We address this research gap through a case-study of Persian-language commentary
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The politics of methods in transitional justice knowledge production International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2023-09-04 Ulrike Lühe
This article is concerned with how practices of knowledge production relate to the international politics of transitional justice (TJ). It argues that quantitative scholarly studies—called for in response to the anecdotal and normative studies that prevailed in early TJ scholarship and which, it is argued, continue to shape TJ sub-fields such as the study of local justice—are themselves committed to
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Gender as a cause of violent conflict International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2023-09-04 Elisabeth Prügl
The article argues that gender can be understood to cause violent conflict, although the literatures on civil war and conflict transformation are largely silent on the matter. The problem is an understanding of causation as explaining regularities, which fails to grasp how gender, in intersection with other markers of difference, is productive and performative. Building on philosophical realism, the
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Analysing the divide between technocrats and diplomats in international organizations International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2023-09-04 Jamie Pring
International Relations scholarship has examined how technical knowledge boosts the performance of international organizations, but has found that it could also lead to behaviour undermining their broader goals. Research has not reconciled these contrasting observations by specifying when and how technical proficiency leads to such dysfunction. Addressing these gaps, this article examines the connections
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The customer is always right: the policy research arena in international mediation International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2023-09-04 Laurie Nathan
This article examines the influence of research on international mediation. It refutes claims that mediation research has not influenced policy and practice. On the contrary, it shows that the United Nations, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and other policy-makers are not only receptive to mediation research but proactively commission and disseminate research. The article argues
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Digital tools as experts in international peace and security International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2023-09-04 Luisa Cruz Lobato, Victoria Santos
Over the past decades, knowledge about peace and security has become increasingly mediated and co-produced with and through digital objects such as databases, indicators, apps, big data and data analysis algorithms. Only recently has the literature begun to recognize this. This article addresses the gap in the literature by exploring the centrality of digital objects' design in their emergence as experts
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The ‘subaltern speak’: can we, the experts, listen? International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2023-09-04 Navnita Chadha Behera
Knowledge production in peace and conflict research is marked by a disconnect between its ‘expertise-driven’ research inquiries and lived realities of people across the world. In focusing on what knowledge and whose knowledge counts as legitimate among the diverse stakeholders, the article locates the raison d'être of this gap in the epistemic erasures inflicted by imperial knowledge and its lasting
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Knowledge production on mediation: practice-oriented, but not practice-relevant? International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2023-09-04 Sara Hellmüller
International mediation has become a standard response to armed conflicts, reflected in an expanding research agenda on the topic. This article examines the alleged disconnect between practice and research on mediation. It analyses articles published in highly ranked academic journals and provides insights on who produces knowledge on mediation, how such knowledge is produced and what knowledge is
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How research travels to policy: the case of Nordic peace research International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2023-09-04 Isabel Bramsen, Anine Hagemann
How is peace research connected to practice? Observers have argued that peace research has gone from activist, political ideals about changing the world to being a methods-driven field of research that has lost all criticality. This article adds empirical substance to the debate by investigating the case of Nordic peace research and its relationship to practice. Through interview data with more than
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Knowledge production on peace: actors, hierarchies and policy relevance International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2023-09-04 Sara Hellmüller, Laurent Goetschel, Kristoffer Lidén
This special section focuses on knowledge production on peace by asking three inter-related questions: who produces knowledge on peace, what knowledge is prioritized and how does it feed into policy and practice. The articles of the section provide a critical perspective on the actors, dynamics and hierarchies in peace studies and offer insights into how current biases may be addressed. The special
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Queering the Responsibility to Protect International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2023-08-06 Jess Gifkins, Dean Cooper-Cunningham
Research on the Responsibility to Protect has become increasingly intersectional with over two decades of research; however, there remains a blind spot on the persecution of queer people. This is surprising given that queer people have been persecuted in atrocity crimes as far back as the Holocaust. While the field of genocide studies has recently begun to engage with this area, we frame queer persecution
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Hubris balancing: classical realism, self-deception and Putin's war against Ukraine International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2023-07-30 Ryuta Ito
Why did Putin decide to invade Ukraine in 2022? Structural realists regard it as a preventive war with a strategic rationale in response to NATO's eastward expansion. However, as many scholars suggest, Putin's decision-making is riddled with various irrationalities, which can be better framed as overbalancing and the classical realist concept of ‘hubris’. Lawrence Freedman and others argue that a key
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South Korea's role conceptions and the liberal international order International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2023-07-03 Yongwook Ryu
Despite South Korea's general support of the liberal international order (LIO), its actions often deviate from or weaken the practices and values of the LIO. Applying role theory, the article argues that this apparent contradiction in South Korea's foreign policy arises from a situation of role conflict due to its multiple and conflicting role conceptions. Following an analysis of leaders’ speeches
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The world Delhi wants: official Indian conceptions of international order, c. 1998–2023 International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2023-07-03 Atul Mishra
Examining India's official thinking on international order over the past quarter-century, this article maps the shift in the country's preference from liberal internationalism to the rules-based international order (RIO). It argues that despite Delhi's current narrative of a ‘New India’, the country's order conception shows continuity in being essentially reformist and mostly consistent with the pillars
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Singapore's conception of the liberal international order as a small state International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2023-07-03 Dylan M H Loh
The liberal international order (LIO) is undergoing significant challenges, and this has given rise to debates about its purported decline. In this context, most studies of the LIO focus on major powers with little attention paid to small states’ conceptualizations of the LIO despite its ubiquity in international life. Focusing on the Singaporean case as a small state, it asks the question: how does
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Blue paradigms: understanding the intellectual revolution in global ocean politics International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2023-06-18 Christian Bueger, Felix Mallin
The oceans have received extraordinary international attention in global policy and research. New insecurities and uncertainties, ranging from intensifying interstate disputes to persistent piracy and overfishing as well as to pollution, deoxygenation and climate change imply that the oceans are increasingly seen as being in crisis. This revolution in thinking about and addressing the oceans is driven
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The Trump presidency, Russia and Ukraine: explaining incoherence International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2023-06-11 Ruth Deyermond
This article examines the Trump administration's policy on Russian aggression in Ukraine and the problem of incoherence in Trump's foreign policy. It argues that the Trump administration's policy on Russia–Ukraine was characterized by incoherence, an absence of clear relationships between the views of senior administration members and official policy, and an unprecedented lack of transparency. Its
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Reinscribing global hierarchies: COVID–19, racial capitalism and the liberal international order International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2023-06-11 Andreas Papamichail
The COVID–19 pandemic led to debates within International Relations (IR) as to the extent to which it would cause a rupture in the so-called liberal international order (LIO). This article is concerned with why such a rupture did not occur and draws on theories of racial capitalism to answer this question. It explores the political economy of three dynamics of the global response to the pandemic—lockdowns
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Leadership aspirations versus reality: Germany's self-concept in Europe International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2023-06-09 Magnus G Schoeller
Leadership by powerful states is considered crucial to the success of regional integration. Since the European Union (EU) entered a ‘polycrisis’, many eyes have therefore been on Germany. But does the German political elite see itself as a leader in Europe? To date, whether German political elite members have cast off their much-cited ‘leadership avoidance reflex’ has not been empirically investigated
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Sex on mission: care, control and coloniality in peacekeeping and humanitarian operations International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2023-05-29 Jasmine-Kim Westendorf
This article critically reflects on twenty years of efforts to prevent and punish sexual exploitation by peacekeepers and humanitarian actors through the UN's zero-tolerance policy (‘the Bulletin’). I trace the assumptions and motivations that underpin the Bulletin's framing of (un)acceptable sex and investigate the operational and normative implications of its strong discouragement of sexual relationships
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Correction International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2023-05-29
Samuel Boland, review of How to prevent the next pandemic, International Affairs, volume 99, number 3, May 2023, pp. 1339–40, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiad075
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The philosophical aspect of world order International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2023-05-22 Andrew Ehrhardt
The term ‘world order’ is perhaps the most enticing, consequential and vague concept in the diplomatic lexicon. There are countless scholars, analysts and policy-makers wrestling over its theoretical and practical dimensions. But often taken for granted in these examinations is the philosophical aspect—in other words, those fundamental reflections on the very purpose and nature of order across regional
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The politics of legitimation in combined sanction regimes: the case of Venezuela International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2023-05-02 Stefano Palestini
Regional international organizations (RIOs) and states are increasingly sanctioning governments, firms and individuals they consider to have violated international norms. How do different RIOs legitimize the decision to impose (or not impose) sanctions? And how do they react to the legitimation strategies of other RIOs and states? This article addresses these questions by analysing the legitimation
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Knowledge, power and the failure of US peacemaking in Afghanistan 2018–21 International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2023-05-02 Marika Theros
The power of narrative and norm entrepreneurship in shaping policy and practice is increasingly appreciated in the study of international relations but rarely investigated in the context of international peacemaking and mediation. Applying constructivist analyses and drawing on empirical evidence from US diplomacy in Afghanistan between 2018 and 2021, this article demonstrates how emergent western
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Agents, audiences and peers: why international organizations diversify their legitimation discourse International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2023-05-02 Tobias Lenz, Henning Schmidtke
In the face of public contestation, international organizations (IOs) invoke norms in their public communication to enhance relevant audiences' legitimacy beliefs. This article offers the first comprehensive analysis of what we term normative diversity in IOs' discursive legitimation by drawing on a novel dataset on norm-based justifications in more than 32,000 paragraphs of text published by 28 regional
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Populist (de)legitimation of international organizations International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2023-05-02 Kilian Spandler, Fredrik Söderbaum
The rise of populists to power in many states around the world has caused concern among defenders of multilateralism and the so-called liberal international order. Due to their frequent attacks on established international organizations (IOs), populists are often falsely portrayed as unilateralists. Our article addresses the apparent contradiction that populist leaders delegitimate certain IOs but
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The path of least resistance: why international institutions maintain dialogue forums International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2023-05-02 Melanie Coni-Zimmer, Nicole Deitelhoff, Diane Schumann
Dialogue forums have been mushrooming in international economic institutions as a strategy to enhance their legitimacy. Promoted as deliberative spaces allowing for an open, direct exchange with civil society actors, forums have since been criticized as mere talking shops or public relations events. The article analyses why the forums are still maintained despite widespread criticism, with a particular
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Ideology, grand strategy and the rise and decline of Ethiopia's regional status International Affairs (IF 4.985) Pub Date : 2023-05-02 Goitom Gebreluel
Ethiopia transformed from a state on the verge of collapse at the end of the Cold War into one of the world's fastest-developing economies and a regional power in the Horn of Africa in less than two decades. Since 2018 its economic, military and diplomatic status have, however, become significantly compromised yet again. What explains these significant fluctuations in regional power status? Drawing