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Conceptualizing religion and religious ideology in political science research: what is in a name and what description can do International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-09-18 Irmak Yazici
This article demonstrates that concept of ‘Islamism’ is sometimes used arbitrarily in political science literature to describe ideological political activism, supposedly grounded in Islam, and argues that descriptive work can improve the academic engagement with Islam by acknowledging the pitfalls of naming ideologies that are affiliated with religions. Instead of labeling a broad range of political
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Adam Watson and international relations: a contemporary reassessment—introduction International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-09-18 Filippo Costa Buranelli, Yannis Stivachtis
This is the introduction to the special issue 'Adam Watson and International Relations: A Contemporary Reassessment'. In this short piece, the guest editors outline the genesis, development, and purpose of the project, offer a rationale for the special issue, summarise the papers in it, and reflect on the importance of Adam Watson within the English School and International Relations canons.
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Conspiratorial imaginaries of the right: a commentary on capital, race and space by Richard Saull International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-09-17 Alexander D. Barder
In my engagement with Richard Saull’s important work Capital, Race and Space, I focus on the nexus between belief in conspiracy theories and right-wing radicalization. I want to suggest that a conspiracy theory is a particular form of social imaginary. In this case, the social imaginaries that lend themselves to right-wing or fascistic political movements concern claims about global pathologies that
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From mandate to actor: the case of the International Law Commission International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-08-30 Anne Holthoefer
This paper investigates how the International Law Commission (ILC), a subsidiary body of the UN General Assembly, constituted itself as a collective actor with a distinct identity as an international legal expert and a set of preferences in legal norm development. I use description as a method to analyze archival data to show how the ILC established a set of preferences, formed an understanding of
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Fantasies of cultural sovereignty and national unity: Russia?s ontological (in)security and its assertion of ?spiritual-moral values?? International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-08-28 Federica Prina
Drawing on ontological security studies and Lacanian theory, the article examines the role of ?spiritual-moral values? (SMV) in Russian politics. It argues that SMV have been employed by the Russian political elite to construct an (illusory) sense of ontological security, presented as attainable via the promotion of sovereignty and national unity. Through the analysis of policy documents and Vladimir
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EU–Russia energy cooperation: implications for Lithuania’s energy security International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-08-28 Pramod Kumar
The ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine has significantly strained relations between Russia and the European Union (EU) in the energy sector leading to severe turmoil. This crisis has further jeopardized the energy security of EU member states, particularly smaller countries such as Lithuania, which heavily relies on Russia for its energy resources. Nevertheless, even before this crisis, Lithuania’s
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The far right in the Global South, geopolitical conflict, and the fascist present International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-08-24 Sefika Kumral
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Germany’s positioning in the triangular relations with Russia and the US: towards a (new) European security order? International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-08-24 Nele Marianne Ewers-Peters
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What it means to know: gender differences in how white men and women justify their drug-related political beliefs International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-08-22 M. Brielle Harbin
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Introduction: explaining the far-right over the longue durée through capital, race and space International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-08-21 Richard Saull
In this forum introduction I outline the core argument of my book, Capital, Race, and Space (CRS) and its main empirical substance, and then I address how and why I came to write it and how the argument is important for considering the state of the world today. The two volumes of CRS provide the first international historical sociology of Western far-right movements from their emergence in the second
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Structured description, foreign policy analysis, and policy quality during the Biden decision to withdraw from Afghanistan International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-08-20 Jacob Shively
This article develops a descriptive study of the Biden administration’s 2021 decision process regarding whether to withdraw US military forces from Afghanistan. It addresses a practical question for both scholars and practitioners. How can outside observers assess a major foreign policy decision based upon contemporary public information? Observers regularly seek to determine whether a security strategy
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Tracing bilateral security cooperation: the asymmetric deterioration of US–Venezuelan defense relations International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-08-20 John Polga-Hecimovich, Fabiana Sofia Perera
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Qatar–Türkiye relations during the embargo of Qatar: a case study in derivative power International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-08-14 Rory Miller
Structurally, Qatar and Türkiye face different International Relations challenges—Turkey is a regional middle power with significant hard power resources, while Qatar is an ambitious small state with relatively scarce military capabilities. Nevertheless, the Arab Uprisings of 2011 and the shift from unipolarity to multipolarity provided the context for a dramatic acceleration in bilateral relations
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Contempt, fear, and hubris: the 2008 Russian–Georgian war through the lens of affect International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-08-13 Harald Edinger
Three affective phenomena epitomise the downturn in Russian–Western relations and shed light on a watershed moment—the invasion of Georgia in August 2008: contempt, fear, and hubris. Each promotes distinct appraisal patterns and action tendencies. Following a shift in the construction of Russian identity vis-à-vis Europe, elite attitudes towards the West turned contemptuous. Faced with a security crisis
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Small European states and Brexit: comparing the coping strategies of Portugal and Finland International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-08-07 António Raimundo, Laura C. Ferreira-Pereira, Juha Jokela
Brexit was a major European Union crisis with acute implications for smaller European countries. Both Portugal and Finland have considerably relied on the EU as small, geographically peripheral and ‘core’ member states. The comparison of their strategic responses to Brexit shows significant ‘sheltering’ within the EU but also more pro-active strategies in specific areas. While a hedging of bets was
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International borders and armed conflicts in Europe and Northeast Asia since 1945: the moral hazard of great-power encroachments International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-08-08 Mark Kramer
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The politics of descriptive inference: contested concepts in conflict data International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-07-29 M. P. Broache, Agnes Yu
Descriptive research is sometimes understood as simply compiling and presenting objective facts, or ‘telling it like it is.’ We challenge this understanding, arguing that description involves a series of subjective, value-laden decisions that may reflect, reinforce, or alternatively undermine, existing narratives and power structures; accordingly, description is fundamentally, and unavoidably, political
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Territorial disputes and international law: reclaiming the sui generis nature of arbitration International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-07-20 Asaf Siniver
This study aims to bridge the disciplinary gap between IR and international law in the study of conflict resolution by highlighting the sui generis nature of arbitration as a hybrid political-legal method of dispute settlement that has been lost over the years due to its overly judicialized application. It reclaims the unique nature of arbitration by demonstrating its capacity to enable state flexibility
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Adam Smith’s influence on British reform movements of the early-to-mid-19th century International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-07-19 Alexandra Digby
The reception of the Wealth of Nations in the years after its publication reveals a wide range of interpretations of Smith’s ideas. On the one hand, Smith appealed to revolutionaries and subversives; on the other hand, he appealed to ‘conservatives’ who supported the burgeoning laissez-faire movement. By 1800, however, in intellectual circles, the ‘conservative’ Smith had largely won out. Yet, this
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Brazilian failures to consolidate a domestic nuclear industry: the role of science and technology policies International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-07-08 João Paulo Nicolini Gabriel, Dawisson Belém Lopes
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IPR forum on Chih-yu Shih’s intervention on the relational turn in IR International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-07-08 Pinar Bilgin
I read Shih’s intervention as an invitation to pay attention to relationality in not only ontological but also epistemological terms. I begin by observing that even those bodies of scholarship that focus on relationality are not always aware of our connectedness in terms of the production of ideas and knowledge about how the world works. It is essential, I argue, that studying the ways in which we
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International LGBTQ+ politics today: moving beyond ‘crises’? International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-07-05 Manuela L. Picq, Markus Thiel
While the discipline of IR has expanded its inquiry into LGBTQ+ politics, it is still missing an analysis of LGBTQ+ issues in the globalized ‘risk society’ in which crises are not exceptional but increasingly normalized and performatively manipulated. The various risks, threats and crises for LGBTQ+ people are embedded in a globally networked, accelerated interdependence characterized by neoliberal
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Virtually (non)existent? The role of digital media in Russian LGBTQ+ activism International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-07-03 Radzhana Buyantueva
Over the last two decades, LGBTQ+ individuals in Russia have been using digital media to communicate and mobilize, making up for their lack of representation in mainstream media. However, the government has strengthened its control over the internet to reinforce authoritarianism, traditionalism, and anti-Westernism, using queerphobia to target online sources of ‘LGBTQ+ propaganda.’ This article explores
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The science of world order International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-06-26 Ian Hurd
“The science of international politics is in its infancy.” E.H. Carr opened The Twenty Years’ Crisis with a tone both hopeful and lamenting. He looked forward to scholarship that would identify the driving forces behind peace, war, and disorder and help policymakers avoid the mistakes of the past. Today, the scientific study of international order thrives among scholars who share Carr's faith that behind
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Un-siloing securitization: an intersectional intervention International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-06-18 Alexandria Innes
This research reflects on how securitization works as a structure of power, or as a vehicle through which extant power structures (nationalism, race, gender, class, (dis)ability) are operationalised. I attend to the relationships between three thematic areas of securitization: immigration, health, and violence against women. I examine where securitization theory secures the state while calcifying the
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Norms as instruments of non-violent rivalry? Russian views on the promotion of renewable energy International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-06-08 Anne Crowley-Vigneau, Andrey Baykov, Yelena Kalyuzhnova
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Ontological vs. societal security: same difference or distinct concepts? International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-06-07 Rita Floyd
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Terrorism Studies beyond counter-counterterrorism: opening the door to Jenseits International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-05-28 Keagan Ó Guaire
This paper offers some lines of flight away from stagnant features of Terrorism Studies. I largely reiterate the critiques made by field leaders like Lee Jarvis, but I frame the field in a way that eases the tensions between different forms of critical scholarship which have frustrated other writers. Where others split the field into ‘traditional’ and ‘critical’ strands and admonish the ‘critical’
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Considering liberation beyond statehood (deferred) International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-05-28 Lisa Bhungalia
Complicating linear narratives of liberation, the Gaza Strip under Hamas rule, Somdeep Sen argues in Decolonizing Palestine, constitutes a microcosm of the Palestinian ‘long moment of liberation’ with Hamas assuming the dual role of an anticolonial force and postcolonial government. It is in this mix of the colonial and putatively postcolonial that this book treads. In so doing, Sen offers an important
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Limited political benefits for transit countries who manage migration International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-05-27 Rameez Abbas
This article asks whether transit countries that participate in migration management efforts with their more powerful neighbors achieve significant concessions or change on policy issues. Does their cooperation yield benefits well beyond the costs of hosting and policing migrant populations, and do their occasional efforts to blackmail destination countries by “weaponizing” migrant populations produce
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Three histories of the system of states International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-05-02 Quentin Bruneau, Claire Vergerio
An enduring question for social scientists concerns the origins of the system of states we currently live in. In this review paper, we aim to clarify the terms of the discussion by mapping out three different ways of periodizing its emergence. The first view is what we call the ‘millennial’ account of the system of states: it defines states and systems of states in the broadest fashion, identifying
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Making up is hard to do: reconciliation after interstate war International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-04-07 Matthew Fehrs
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Putting Discourses About the War in Ukraine on a Map: How Different is Everyone’s Story? International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-04-02 Anton Oleinik
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Gender inclusion and rebel strategy: legitimacy seeking behavior in rebel groups International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-03-24 Heidi Stallman, Falak Hadi
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The perceived legitimacy of post-war rights: the case of Kuwaiti resistance International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-03-19 Mansour AlMuaili
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The politics of military deployments: contestation of foreign and security policy in the Netherlands International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-03-18 Richard Sonneveld
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A new cold war?: The case for a general concept International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-03-06 Barry Buzan
This paper argues for cold war as a general concept for IR that is necessary to understanding the twenty-first century world order. It distinguishes between hot and cold wars as types of war. It rejects the view that the term should be reserved for the 1947–89 event, and it argues that we are already in a Second Cold War. Its definition of cold war ties it to weapons of mass destruction, which means
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The regional powers research program: a new way forward International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-02-24 Miriam Prys-Hansen, Derrick Frazier
This introduction to our special issue on Revisiting Regional Powers examines ways in which the study of regional powers can enhance our ability to understand the dynamic nature of the international system today. The article, first, summarizes and highlights how the study of regional powers remains relevant to the broader discipline of international relations but also indicates that there remains much
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The Council of Europe, Russia, and the future of European cooperation: any lessons to be learned from the past? International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-02-20 Klaus Brummer
The Council of Europe (CoE) was among the first Western institutions to open its doors to Russia after the end of the Cold War. However, during Russia’s membership (1996–2022) hopes of socializing the country into the CoE’s standards, norms, and principles in the areas of democracy, human rights, and the rule of law never materialized. While the CoE’s norms and principles nowadays need to be secured
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From wages for housework to self-care: feminist perspectives on the care economy International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-02-14 Anna Moser
This article argues that privatization of health care since the 1970s has created a paradox whereby a neoliberal discourse of ‘freedom of choice’ masks the fact that it is increasingly difficult to make good choices when it comes to caring for oneself and for one’s loved ones. Part one historicizes this paradox by examining the pioneering international feminist movement Wages for Housework. I argue
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Adam Watson and the structure of the Cold War international society: power structure versus social structure International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-01-29 Yannis A. Stivachtis
Nowhere can Adam Watson’s contribution to English School literature be observed better than in his seminal work, The Evolution of International Society, in which he argued that Cold War global international society included two separate sub-global international societies led by the USA and the Soviet Union, respectively. Despite his acknowledgement that the newly established states that emerged from
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Small power strategies under great power competition International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-01-22 Ciwan M. Can
This article presents a theoretical argument, defined as tension theory, to explain how the strategies of small powers during eras of great power competition are influenced by (i) the level of tensions between the great powers, and (ii) the availability of a great power ally. The explanatory power of tension theory will be demonstrated through a re-examination of Norwegian, Swedish, and Finnish diplomatic
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Assembling international society International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-01-20 Tristen Naylor
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A thin debate: comparing the conflicting political narratives of the UN security council and general assembly on the Gaza Strip from 2006 to 2018 International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-01-19 Chen Kertcher
The UN reform movement calls for the UN Security Council to be changed. The underlying assumption is that it will create thicker decision-making that will allow more views on the causes of, dynamics of, and solutions to conflicts. This paper adopts a comparative analysis of three cycles of narratives in the UN Security Council and emergency sessions of the UN General Assembly when both bodies debated
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What Watson can teach us about war and order: revisiting The Evolution of International Society International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2024-01-10 Charlotta Friedner Parrat
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Havana, Moscow and international crises: implications for asymmetry International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-12-29 Mervyn J. Bain
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The right and justice of subsistence wars as necessity: a Grotian account International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-12-19 Masakazu Matsumoto
Subsistence wars revolve around the use of force exercised by those faced with hunger, deprivation, and other survival crises. This idea has been formulated as an act emerging from the right of self-defense in the ethics of war literature. Alternatively, this study attempts to conceptualize and justify it with the notion of the right of necessity derived from Hugo Grotius. The structural difference
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Racism and global war in world politics: As obvious as it is ignored International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-12-19 Errol A. Henderson
Contemporaneous theorizing of the Howard School of IR theory on the role of white supremacism in WWI implied a more general relationship between racial imperialism and global war, which we examine in this essay. Taking as its point of departure Rosenau’s (1970) admonition that mainstream IR seemed to ignore issues of racism in world politics even as a ‘surfeit’ of models existed that were applicable
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Whose anxiety? What practices? The Paris School and ontological security studies International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-12-11 Gabriella Gricius
The field of international security studies drastically evolved over the last few decades. Critical security studies emerged as one trend, seeking to make explicit statist orientations of traditional security studies, the Paris School being one such branch, highlighting the role of security professionals and the importance of studying repetitive regimes of practices. Other security trends tilted toward
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Archive as land: toward a land-based archival methodology with Lynette Hiʻilani Cruz and Emilia Kandagawa International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-11-20 Ruoyu Li
This Testify article proposes archive as land as an anticolonial methodology for archival and historical research in the field of international relations (IR) and beyond. The article does so by reflecting upon a conversation about the Richard Kekuni Blaisdell Hawaiian National Archive (HNA) with two of the organizers— Dr. Lynette Hiʻilani Cruz and Emilia Kandagawa. Aunty Lynette is a Kanaka Maoli (Native
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Global War and the Racial Imaginary International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-11-15 Alexander D. Barder
In my contribution, I want to show that Henderson’s essay opens a crucial reexamination of the nexus between histories of racial violence, genocide and the social imaginary of the West. Rather than taking for granted the idea that the formation of, and institutionalization of, the modern European/Western state-system constituted as a rational political and legal order—insofar as it circumscribed violence
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The cause of congressional oversight effort in US arms sale plans International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-11-12 Hoshik Nam
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The praxis of Azmi Bishara: envisioning and building toward the liberation of Palestine International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-11-10 Andy Clarno
Azmi Bishara’s new book, Palestine: Matters of Truth and Justice, brings together historical, political, and strategic analyses that Bishara developed from the 1990s to the late 2010s. The book provides clear-eyed critiques of the Zionist settler colonial project, its evolution into a system of permanent apartheid, and the long-term challenges facing the Palestine liberation movement. Current debates
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Race in IR: toward empirical study International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-11-09 Bianca Freeman
Errol Henderson writes “the banality of white supremacy, more than the democratic peace thesis, is probably ‘the closest thing to an empirical law in world politics.’” Such a view is likely shared by IR scholars that study race as kindred systems of hierarchy. By comparison, the collective field is now “noticing” its long silence on the subject. Renewed calls to mainstream race have come with an unsettling
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Settler colonialism, memory politics, and the Trump–Netanyahu deal International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-11-06 Nadim Khoury
Azmi Bishara’s Palestine: Matters of Truth and Justice is essential reading for understanding Palestine today. Initially, the book was supposed to be an English translation of a lecture on what Bishara calls the Trump–Netanyahu deal. Fortunately for the English reader, the lecture is now upgraded with eight chapters that build on decades of Bishara’s political and intellectual engagement with the question
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Contemplating Palestine: matters of truth and justice with rage, love and anger International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-11-02 Sharri Plonski
In this essay, in conversation with Azmi Bishara's Palestine: Matters of Truth and Justice, I am wrestling with how to write about Palestine, at the same moment that I am contending with the media's erasure and dehumanisation of Palestinian life, in January 2023. And here I am again, on 19 October, 2023, with the proofs for this piece arriving in my inbox, while witnessing bombs rain down on Gaza;
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Portugal in the nuclear realm: a case of broad ‘multilateralization’ International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-11-02 Sandra Fernandes, David Silva Ferreira
Nuclear proliferation and nuclear disarmament have regained centrality in the global security agenda. The weakening of existing regimes and the search by a growing number of states to acquire or extend their nuclear capacities have contributed to shape recent developments. This paper analyses how Portugal’s foreign policy orientations, grounded on its Euro-Atlantic identity with a global vocation and
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Introduction: the settler-colonial framing of Palestine—Matters of Justice and Truth International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-10-31 Tariq Dana
As the publication of this forum coincides with the unfolding bombs raining down on the Palestinians of Gaza, the book in question gains heightened significance. Against a backdrop where global audiences are witnessing real-time, genocidal actions by Israel against the Palestinians, contextualizing these horrific events is crucial. An in-depth understanding of the current reality and potential future
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Russia as a hybrid threat to Moldova in the context of the Russian–Ukrainian war International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-10-21 Martin Solik, Jan Graf
Russia’s invasion of neighbouring Ukraine in February 2022 has largely shaken Europe’s existing security architecture. The neighbouring Republic of Moldova, home to a Russian military contingent, has also expressed concerns about its security. These soldiers are stationed in Transnistria, a de facto state on Moldovan territory. Based on the field research conducted, the present article aims to clarify
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Not a solution but a struggle: anticolonial connectivity and steadfastness against replacement International Politics (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-10-17 Timothy Seidel
In Palestine: Matters of Truth and Justice, Azmi Bishara offers a broad overview of the history and current situation in occupied Palestine. In this article, I focus on the political (theo)logic that has shaped much of that history and continues to shape the militarism and settler colonialism Bishara describes with analytical depth. We might call these political theologies of replacement. And as Bishara