Despite the central importance often placed on expectations in defining norms, expectations are routinely invoked in a fleeting manner. When they are, expectations are utilised in many different ways, without anyone acknowledging this, which creates confusion. The article argues that expectations should not be viewed as playing a singular role in the norm process. Instead, it puts forward three roles

A correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41311-021-00299-z

The human security of both migrants and refugees is at risk at several steps in the process of migration. This work considers that migrants’ human security is not automatically guaranteed once they reach a safe country in Europe either. This article explores how, with the evident will to bypass Italian anti-discriminatory law, derogatory legal instruments, such as law decrees, have been used to increasingly

Created in 1920, the London-based ‘British Institute of International Affairs’ (in 1926 renamed the Royal Institute of International Affairs) has for a century been at the forefront of an ongoing ‘Anglo-American’ conversation about world politics. Yet even though the Institute was regarded from the outset as the institutional expression of a very ‘special relationship’ between the UK and the United

This paper traces the evolution of Indian foreign policy during the two terms of the Obama presidency followed by that of Trump. It argues that that a substantial degree of policy continuity has persisted despite changes in administration in the United States.

Research on small powers has composed a slim section of International Relations literature. More focus has been given on super, great, and middle powers since their interactions have more influence. Differentiating small from middle powers is also problematic, unlike distinguishing great powers from these two. The difficulty of choosing the “right” quantitative and/or qualitative criteria for defining

Advancing the literature on status in world politics, this article argues that Brexit generated status insecurity for the UK. In order to deal with the consequences of the shock represented by Brexit, the UK sought to address status insecurity in two ways. Firstly, it pursued more modes of engagement with European security simultaneously. It continued to play a leadership role in NATO, and it deepened

The interaction between Russia and Gulf countries represents the story of ups and downs, severe conflicts and sharp warmings that can largely be explained by the permanently changing role and place of each of these players at the global and Middle Eastern political arenas. After Russia's “return” to the Middle East in 2012–2015, Moscow's foreign policy towards the Gulf can be explained in terms of

All wars are expensive, but civil wars carry heightened stakes. Defeat can mean loss of territory, the dissolution of the sitting government, or the liquidation of the state itself. Even a victorious government may face tremendous crises and pressures in the short-term. A central bank can signal a sovereign’s creditworthiness to potential lenders, but the bank’s independence (or even existence) can

In the summer of 2017, the identitarian youth organization ‘Defend Europe’ deployed a ship in the Mediterranean to prove sea rescue NGOs’ alleged collusion with human smugglers and assist the Libyan Coast Guard in interdicting migrants. This study shows that Defend Europe developed organizational structures, discourses, and practices that display meaningful similarities with those of the charities

The distributive bargaining literature argues that Germany prevails in the European Union due to its superior power resources. This paper tests this expectation empirically by assessing Germany’s success on actual EU legislation with three sources of data: Council voting records (2009–2019), decision outcomes on the most controversial proposals (1999–2009) and the outcomes of the Eurozone reform (2010–2015)

International organizations (IOs) constitute key arenas in which states discuss common issues. Such debates are central prerequisites for taking qualitatively good decisions. Yet researchers have not examined how IOs foster discussion through their institutional provisions. We conduct a factor analysis of institutional rules of 114 IOs which reveals that two ideal types how IOs seek to induce discussion

Russian actions since 2007 appear increasingly to constitute a realist approach to international affairs. Russia appears to be behaving as a rising power, attempting to become a regional or global superpower. Essential to this pursuit, a state must gather information strategically. We examine one feature of strategic information gathering, called a test, a state action that asserts power but also garners

The three pillars of India’s foreign policy strategy under an overarching preference for ‘strategic autonomy’ are security, economic development, and status. Japan plays a significant part with respect to all three. We employ an analytical framework that assesses how Narendra Modi, in line with a trend set in motion by his predecessors, has attempted to build the India–Japan partnership through a set

In this paper, four elements of statehood will be used to assess the Islamic State’s (IS’s) June 2014 claim of sovereignty, thereby raising important questions over its classification as a “non” state armed actor. As such, it seeks to contribute to a small, but growing, literature which attempts to look beyond IS’s virulent bellicosity and to consider the political institutions it established on their

This paper is a discussion of how indigenous Afrocentric epistemologies proffer critiques and alternative to neoliberal discourses of resilience and what differences it makes for the study of International Politics. There has been an epistemological shift in recent times towards resilience as a form of governance aimed at enhancing the agency and adaptive capacity of populations. This has necessitated

Since 2007, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has debated the security implications of climate change on several occasions. This article addresses these debates by exploring two interrelated questions: What drives the continuous efforts to place climate change on the UNSC’s agenda and to what extent do the UNSC’s debates illustrate an ongoing process of climatization? To answer these, the

This article brings insights from Critical Border Studies (CBS) to bear on the diverse and proliferating borderings that have characterised the EU’s migration crisis. It harnesses the broad ontological and empirical scope of ‘Borderscapes’ scholarship to make coherent sense of seemingly disparate, plural borderings without eliding their diversity or particularity. It conceptualises the ‘borderscape’

For all the complexities of India’s politics, Prime Minister Narendra Modi seemed to have his economic path cut out for him. His ‘Achche din aane waale hein’ (good days are coming) campaign, which had won him a resounding election victory in 2014 for his first term, suggested that Modi’s primary goal was growth and development for his country and people, and hence also an agenda of economic reform

Narendra Modi’s visit to Australia in November 2014 was the first for an Indian Prime Minister in almost three decades and promised much. Modi declared that Australia was no longer on the ‘periphery’ of New Delhi’s ‘vision’, ‘but at the centre of our thoughts’. He pledged to work with Canberra at the G20 and regional multilateral forums, deepen the bilateral security partnership, and conclude a free

Donor states may delegate to other actors to deliver aid through partnerships. We ask whether some partnerships are more effective than others with democratization aid. We identify five actors, arguing that they can affect the recipient’s democracy outcomes via the fungibility of the funds. We hypothesize that organizations that have relationships of accountability and dependency to the donor are most likely

Existing literature on economic sanctions is abundantly clear regarding the motivation of countries to impose sanctions on other nations. Yet, there are few scholarly works on the motivation behind the improbability of economic sanctions in a specific country or region. In other words, the key question is not ‘why do states impose sanctions?’ but rather ‘why do not states impose sanctions is spite

The concepts and theories of small state studies, a sub-discipline of international relations, have been connected to Western political development, making their applicability in regions outside of Europe questionable. Using the framework of the English School, the present article aims at identifying the main elements of small state theory which are needed to be altered to make it suitable for the

While Giorgio Agamben’s political theory of the exception received a great deal of attention in the early 2000s, he is once again riding a wave in International Relations theory as the growing community of “theologies of the International” investigates the many contributions of theological inquiry for world politics. At the same time as his works provide a common point of conversation between critical

Post-Weberian scholarship remains divided between a conception of legitimation as an exercise of justification by rulers and legitimation as the necessary consent given by the ruled. Going beyond these contending approaches, the field now envisions legitimation as an interactive process linking the authorities of international and regional organizations to various stakeholders. This is a significant

Is Europe headed towards nonpolarity? What would that entail for the future stability and security of the continent? Taking its cue from IR debates about the effects of polarity on international order, the article develops conceptual tools and an analytical narrative concerning Europe during the post-Cold War era. It refines the concept of a Great Power by suggesting the notion of ‘ordering agents’

Created in 2010 during the international climate conference in Cancun, Mexico, the Mesoamerican alliance of peoples and forests (AMPB) lobbies for the recognition of territorial rights, which it frames as a fundamental safeguard in the global fight against climate change. On the one hand, it seeks to participate in global climate arenas, so as to capture the wide political and financial opportunities

This article introduces the special issue by going beyond the traditional debates about geopolitics and great power rivalry. Instead, it examines the emergent and highly complex world of Central Eurasia, in its transformative effort to reorder itself in response to both global and local change. In particular, the paper (and the volume) focuses on two interrelated themes: one of a changing Russia, that

Inspired by the literature on populist social movements and Ralph Nader’s convergence thesis, this paper aims to understand the potential for a left–right anti-corporate political convergence in the USA. We use the academic interpretation treating populism as a citizen’s reaction against perceived unresponsive elites, where anti-corporate grievances voiced by populist movements reflect feelings of

The main aim of the article is to compare the energy relations of the EU with current (here represented by Angola) and potential energy-resource suppliers (here represented by Tanzania) in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2007–2018. In this article, the external actorness of the EU in its energy relations is analysed and specified based on a set of predefined criteria of a modified concept: (1) external recognition

In this article, we analyze the patterns of sexual violence against Albanian women during the Kosovo conflict (1998–1999) as a weapon of the Milosevic regime’s campaign of ethnic cleansing. We used a broad combination of sources: a secondary literature of history and social science, human rights reports, trial records, our oral history of survivors, interviews with advocates and psychologists handling

Climate change is increasingly shaping security narratives, including military strategy. While considering climate change a security issue, the military’s role in this discourse and praxis becomes critical as a security actor. However, the interrelationships between climate change, security and the military are conceived and approached by different states diversely. Within different states, this triangular

The 2015 Paris agreement represents a deep-rooted change in global climate governance. While existing scholarly assessments highlight central institutional features of the Paris shift, they tend to overlook its symbolic and discursive dimensions. Our analysis shows that the Paris architecture combines two core elements: an iterative pledge and review process to stimulate global climate action, and

This article studies the process of climatization of the French military initiated with the 21st Conference of the Parties in 2015 through an analysis of the discourses produced by military actors on climate change. I will argue that there are two ways in which the climatization of the military discourse operates. First, it leads to a reframing of existing security narratives such as migrations or

Philanthropic foundations are a mainstay of the international climate debate, and yet they are surprisingly absent from the mainstream academic literature. This article attempts to fill this gap by exploring how philanthropic foundations, through their grantmaking, field-building and convening efforts, sought to shape and orientate the international climate regime. In particular, we show how foundations

NATO did not dissolve following the Soviet Union’s collapse and the end of the Cold War. Instead, the alliance expanded, in stages—from 16 members at its Cold War peak to 30 in 2020. While NATO enlargement alone did not cause the deterioration of US–Russian relations, it did contribute significantly to that outcome. Champions of NATO expansion aver that it maintains peace in Europe and promotes democracy

In the 1990s and 2000s, as NATO enlargement became a reality, scholars commented on the socializing influence of NATO, predicting a transformation of security identities. Was NATO successful in institutionalizing self-restraint and cooperative security among its new members and partners? We contend that it was successful so long as threats to transatlantic security remained low. When states perceive

NATO’s enlargement into Central and Eastern Europe after the Cold War is the subject of significant debate in academic and policy circles. With few exceptions, however, this debate focuses on single issues, such as whether enlargement led to the decline of the West’s relations with Russia. In this framing document, we look to expand the debate. We do so by sequentially reviewing the process by which

Driven by an increased interest in enhancing connectivity, great powers are in the competition to implement their transportation projects. Meanwhile, small states located in the crossroad of the transportation routes are offered with benefits while facing several challenges. In this regard, the current article studies three major transportation initiatives in the South Caucasus region from both political

This article responds to Acharya’s call to integrate deep area studies knowledge and methods into a global IR by presenting the findings of an empirical enquiry into the concept of civilization in Turkish Islamist thought. It delves into primary and secondary sources, in English and Turkish and in particular into the works of a number of emblematic Islamist thinkers in Republican (post-1923) Turkey

Did NATO expansion foster democratic development in Eastern Europe? Past scholarship offers conflicting answers to this question. We seek to bring clarity by focusing on the 2004 NATO expansion to include the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, as well as Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. We leverage the fact that we now as many years of data since NATO entry as we have

In the original article, the first author name has been published incorrectly as “Andrey A. Sushenstov”. The correct name is “Andrey A. Sushentsov”.

This piece situates the logic of NATO expansion in the immediate post-Cold War era within the broader history of the alliance. It argues that NATO has, since its inception, faced two competing pressures: to remain static or to become more dynamic and take on new members or new functional roles. With the end of the Cold War, the strongest arguments for a static NATO fell away, and the case for dynamism

The article argues that policymakers often make use of historical narratives in order to underpin their foreign policy agenda. It duly explores how the structure of such a narrative is realized linguistically and illustrates this point by exploring a recent shift in Ukrainian foreign policy discourse. It is argued that in order to justify its pro-EU foreign policy agenda, the Ukrainian political leadership

It is often claimed that NATO’s post-Cold War geographic enlargement threatened Russian security interests and caused the downturn in Russia’s relations with the West. This article unpacks and challenges that causal claim, making three basic arguments. First, NATO enlargement made the alliance weaker. Russia knew this and did not react militarily to any perceived threat from Europe until after it seized

Memories of the past conflicts are a major part of Russian foreign policy discourse. Scholarly literature highlighted the widespread use of Second World War references in Russian discourse during the Ukraine crisis. However, the use of historical memory in the context of Russia’s intervention in Syria remains underinvestigated. Applying securitisation theory, the paper analyses a set of political statements

What have been the consequences of NATO enlargement for European security? To the vindication of its critics, the consequences appear disastrous. Insecurity pervades Europe while NATO is in crisis with a Russia justifiably aggrieved by broken promises and the overreach of liberal hegemony. This insecurity is especially troubling because NATO’s newer commitments are indefensible. In this essay, I evaluate

How has enlargement affected NATO as a military organization? This article explores the strategic and military consequences of expansion for NATO as a regional defense alliance. The article makes the case that by pursuing enlargement alongside internal adaptation efforts and by failing to reconcile the tensions resulting from expanding commitments while simultaneously drawing down military forces and

Russian relations with the West have deteriorated significantly in the past two decades, in particular after the rise of Vladimir Putin. The factors leading to this shift included domestic issues such as the role of the military and security elite, as well as the reemergence of authoritarianism and growing concern in Russia for the expansion of Western influence in post-Soviet space.

We contribute to the debate on NATO expansion in two ways that depart from standard practice: we make explicit the theoretical models that this debate demands; and we carefully trace Russian discourse and behavior through time. We show that NATO centrality rather than simply NATO expansion is the root issue. It best captures the historical origins of the problem and is most consistent with the Russian

The research presented in the article is dedicated to the issue of utilizing sports to positively affect a state’s image according to the example of staging sports mega-events. The aim of the research was to analyze if and to what extent hosting sports mega-events allows states to increase their international visibility and familiarity. The analysis was undertaken on the basis of fluctuations in the

This article argues that NATO enlargement, while stabilizing Central and Eastern Europe, still undermined other aspects of European security over the long term. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, US administrations pursued three ambitious policies: they expanded NATO, but also its geographic scope, and they ensured that no alternative European security architectures could compete with NATO. Through interviews

How should alliance patterns respond to changing relative power? If states ally against the greatest threat, they should switch alliances if a shift in relative power makes a new state more threatening than the previous adversary. For some states, a “threat transition” will occur when the risk of a preventive war from the declining state falls below the risk of a revisionist war from the rising state

Since the Cold War, NATO enlargement has moved from a contentious issue in US foreign policy debates to an accepted plank in US strategy. What explains this development—why has support for enlargement become a focal point in US foreign policy? After first reviewing US policy toward NATO enlargement, this article evaluates a range of hypotheses from international relations theory and policy deliberations

NATO’s ongoing relevance as a political alliance appeared time and again in the debates of the 1990s, as the Western allies struggled to adapt their old institutions to the challenges of a new world, one without the Cold War. This article explores continuities in allied thinking pointing to concerns and considerations that remained no less relevant with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the splintering

To provide a global answer to a global problem, the climate change movement (CCM) has long organized itself around international organizations and summits. However, waning trust in a multilateral answer to climate change has motivated many in the CCM to abandon their traditional focus on UN climate summits (COPs) and to rely increasingly on decentralized actions and organizing. This fundamental transformation

Belgium traditionally presents itself as a strong supporter of multilateral security cooperation and aims to be a reliable partner in the EU and NATO. Nevertheless, the uninterrupted decline of Belgium’s defence budget paints a different picture, that of a country that rides cheap on the defence efforts of its partners. Belgium does make equitable contributions to multinational military operations

This paper provides an assessment of the ability of different international relations theories to grasp modern uses of international digital disinformation. More specifically, the paper argues that E. H. Carr’s notion of propaganda, John J. Mearsheimer’s typology of lies and Joseph Nye’s conceptualisation of public diplomacy all offer useful theoretical lenses through which we can advance our understanding

Disputes over collective memory are a common source of bilateral friction in international politics. For example, differences over war memory have negatively impacted Sino–Japanese relations for many decades, despite apologies and other attempts to deal with the problems. Why are history-related issues so persistent? Existing explanations suggest, for example, that efforts to improve relations have

In this article, we trace the failure of neoconservative and neoliberal thinkers to revise positions in light of changing US fortunes to highlight the need to evaluate paradigmatic contributions to US Foreign Policy. Drawing on the philosophy of science literature, we suggest that, in order for approaches to be taken seriously, their proponents ought to present means of their own falsification. We