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| 1 |
ID:
091433
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2009.
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| Summary/Abstract |
It is no exaggeration to say that sovereignty is the foundation both of International Relations (IR) as a field of enquiry and of international politics as an 'actual existing' field of practice. Whether seen as the archetypal IR101 topic or in debates about the rights and wrongs of humanitarian intervention, the capacity of international organisations to exert control over significant spheres of international politics, or in discussions about the legitimacy of bodies such as the International Criminal Court, sovereignty appears as the central referent point of international politics. Over recent years, however, there has been considerable debate over both the substantive content ('fact') and normative framing ('value') of sovereignty. The former comes about as a result of a series of political, economic and security challenges which see states as assuming a role as 'one-amongst-many' in an increasingly complex international topography; the latter stems from concerns about whether national states form the optimal site for the articulation of authority claims. This forum engages with both of these debates, focusing on how they relate to understandings of the emergence, development and possible emasculation of sovereignty in the contemporary world. In the introduction to the forum, we outline the ways in which scholars have contested the emergence of the sovereign state and examine the ethical issues surrounding the normative value of this form of rule. In the process, we lay out the ways in which the papers that make up this forum make uncomfortable, if important, contributions to the debate about the fact and value - or 'is' and 'ought' - of sovereignty in contemporary world politics.
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| 2 |
ID:
131416
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2014.
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| Summary/Abstract |
The two-centuries-old hegemony of the West is coming to an end. The 'revolutions of modernity' that fuelled the rise of the West are now accessible to all states. As a consequence, the power gap that developed during the nineteenth century and which served as the foundation for a core-periphery international order is closing. The result is a shift from a world of 'centred globalism' to one of 'decentred globalism'. At the same time, as power is becoming more diffuse, the degree of ideological difference among the leading powers is shrinking. Indeed, because all Great Powers in the contemporary world are in some form capitalist, the ideological bandwidth of the emerging international order is narrower than it has been for a century. The question is whether this relative ideological homogeneity will generate geo-economic or geopolitical competition among the four main modes of capitalist governance: liberal democratic, social democratic, competitive authoritarian and state bureaucratic. This article assesses the strengths and weaknesses of these four modes of capitalist governance, and probes the main contours of inter-capitalist competition. Will the political differences between democratic and authoritarian capitalists override their shared interests or be mediated by them? Will there be conflicting capitalisms as there were in the early part of the twentieth century? Or will the contemporary world see the development of some kind of concert of capitalist powers? A world of politically differentiated capitalisms is likely to be with us for some time. As such, a central task facing policy-makers is to ensure that geo-economic competition takes place without generating geopolitical conflict.
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| 3 |
ID:
175844
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This article examines China’s encounter with modernity from the 19th century to the present day. It builds on the historical narrative of modernity developed by Buzan and Lawson (2015), and two theoretical perspectives: uneven and combined development, and differentiation theory. The article opens with a short history of modernity, establishing that it is not a static phenomenon, but a continuously unfolding process. It then explores five periods of China’s encounter with modernity: imperial decline and resistance to modernization; civil war and Japanese invasion; Mao’s radical communist project; Deng’s market socialism; and Xi’s attempt to synthesize Confucius, Mao, and Deng. It explores both how China fits into the general trajectory of modernity, and how it has evolved from rejection of it to constructing its own distinctive version of ‘modernity with Chinese characteristics’. The article ends by reflecting on what issues remain within China’s version of modernity, and how it fits, and doesn’t fit with other forms of modernity already established within global international society.
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| 4 |
ID:
113805
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2012.
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| Summary/Abstract |
On one level, history is used by all parts of the International Relations (IR) discipline. But lurking beneath the surface of IR's approach to history lies a well-entrenched binary. Whereas mainstream positions use history as a means to fill in their theoretical frames (seeing history as a kind of 'scripture' of abstract lessons), many post-positivists reduce history to a pick-and-mix of contingent hiccups (a 'butterfly' of what-ifs and maybes). Interestingly enough, this binary is one reproduced throughout the social sciences. As such, there is a bigger story to the apparently 'eternal divide' between history and social science than first meets the eye. This article uses the various ways in which history is used - and abused - in IR to probe more deeply into the relationship between history and social science as a whole. This exploration reveals four frameworks, two drawn from history (context and narrative) and two drawn from social science (eventfulness and ideal-typification) which illustrate the necessary co-implication of the two enterprises. The article employs these tools as a means of re-imagining the relationship between history and social science (including IR), conceiving this as a single intellectual journey in which both are permanently in view.
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| 5 |
ID:
081359
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2008.
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The last few years have seen an opening up of what is considered to be the legitimate terrain of international relations (IR). This move is, for the most part, extremely welcome. Yet, the multiple theoretical and empirical openings in IR since the end of the Cold War have failed to elucidate many of the puzzles, questions and problems posed by the contemporary conjuncture. There are a number of reasons for this failure ranging from the stickiness of Cold War problem fields to IR's continued attachment to systemic-level theories. However, this article focuses less on symptoms than on treatment and, in particular, on how generating a more "public" international relations enterprise might help to connect IR with the core theoretical, empirical and normative terrain of "actually existing" world politics. Taking its cue from recent debates in sociology about how to generate a "public sociology," the article lays out three pathologies that a public IR enterprise should avoid and four ground rules-amounting to a manifesto of sorts-which sustain the case for a "public" international relations
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| 6 |
ID:
189243
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What is the relationship between revolution and terrorism? Much of the time, terrorism and revolution are taken to be distinct forms of political contention. This article argues that, to the contrary, their relationship is much closer than is often imagined. We show that a range of contemporary terrorist groups contain revolutionary elements: they seek to capture and hold territory, and see themselves as part of movements where the goal is to transform international as well as domestic orders. This provides two points of distinction: first, between ‘order-maintaining’ and ‘order-transforming’ goals; and second, between ‘minimalist’ and ‘maximalist’ tactics. The result is a taxonomy of different types of ‘revolutionary terrorism’. This analytic is used to dig deeper into the parameters of revolutionary terrorism, using militant Salafism as an example of a maximalist, order-transforming movement. A focus on transnational, order-transforming revolutionary terrorism generates a range of insights into the violent strategies, international dynamics and organizational forms used by Islamic State, al-Qaeda and related groups. The resulting research agenda, the article concludes, is rich in possibilities.
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| 7 |
ID:
123630
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2013.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Unlike many other social sciences, international relations (IR) spend relatively little time assessing the impact of the nineteenth century on its principal subject matter. As a result, the discipline fails to understand the ways in which a dramatic reconfiguration of power during the "long nineteenth century" served to recast core features of international order. This article examines the extent of this lacuna and establishes the ways in which processes of industrialization, rational state-building, and ideologies of progress served to destabilize existing forms of order and promote novel institutional formations. The changing character of organized violence is used to illustrate these changes. The article concludes by examining how IR could be rearticulated around a more pronounced engagement with "the global transformation."
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| 8 |
ID:
107558
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2011.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Fred Halliday saw revolution and war as the dual motors of modern international order. However, while war occupies a prominent place in International Relations (IR), revolutions inhabit a more residual location. For Halliday, this is out of keeping with their impact-in particular, revolutions offer a systemic challenge to existing patterns of international order in their capacity to generate alternative orders founded on novel forms of political rule, economic organization and symbolic authority. In this way, dynamics of revolution and counter-revolution are closely associated with processes of international conflict, intervention and war. It may be that one of the reasons for Halliday's failure to make apparent the importance of revolutions to IR audiences was that, for all his empirical illustrations of how revolutions affected the international realm, he did not formulate a coherent theoretical schema which spoke systematically to the discipline. This article assesses Halliday's contribution to the study of revolutions, and sets out an approach which both recognizes and extends his work. By formulating ideal-typical 'anatomies of revolution', it is possible to generate insights that clarify the ways in which revolutions shape international order.
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| 9 |
ID:
168426
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Forty years after its publication, Theda Skocpol's States and social revolutions remains the pre-eminent book in the study of revolutions. But how should the book be assessed from the vantage point of contemporary world politics? This essay reviews Skocpol's contribution to three main issue-areas: theory, structural approaches and the international. It argues that, rich as it has been, the research agenda initiated by States and social revolutions has run its course. It cannot respond effectively to the different contexts within which revolutions emerge and the diverse forms they take. Its bifurcation between structure and agency cannot capture the relational character of revolutionary action. And, despite its concern for the international components of revolutions, States and social revolutions cannot accommodate the ways in which revolutions are ‘intersocial’ all the way down. A new Skocpol is needed for a new age of revolutions.
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| 10 |
ID:
077892
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| Publication |
2007.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Over the last 20 years, historical sociology has become an increasingly conspicuous part of the broader field of International Relations (IR) theory, with advocates making a series of interventions in subjects as diverse as the origins and varieties of international systems over time and place, to work on the co-constitutive relationship between the international realm and state-society relations in the processes of radical change. However, even as historical sociology in IR (HSIR) has produced substantial gains, so there has also been a concomitant watering down of the underlying approach itself. As a result, it is no longer clear what exactly HSIR entails: should it be seen as operating within the existing pool of available theories or as an attempt to reconvene the discipline on new foundations? This article sets out an identifiable set of assumptions and precepts for HSIR based on deep ontological realism, epistemological relationism, a methodological free range, and an overt normative engagement with the events and processes that make up contemporary world politics. As such, HSIR can be seen as operating as an open society, a research programme and a vocation
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| 11 |
ID:
064523
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| 12 |
ID:
124176
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| Publication |
2013.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Despite the prominent place of intervention in contemporary world politics, debate is limited by two weaknesses: first, an excessive presentism; and second, a focus on normative questions to the detriment of analysis of the longer-term sociological dynamics that fuel interventionary pressures. In keeping with the focus of the Special Issue on the ways in which intervention is embedded within modernity, this article examines the emergence of intervention during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, assesses its place in the contemporary world, and considers its prospects in upcoming years. The main point of the article is simple - although intervention changes in character across time and place, it is a persistent feature of modern international relations. As such, intervention is here to stay.
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| 13 |
ID:
075356
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2006.
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| Summary/Abstract |
This essay draws on historical sociology, in particular on historical institutionalism, to critique the micro-, macro-, and meso-level explanations of contemporary international relations theory. Focusing on institutional development, change, and disintegration, it proposes a conjectural, mid-range approach to capturing the processes of large-scale change that are occurring in the international realm. This essay seeks to broaden the field's scope by outlining the possibilities that historical sociology offers to international relations theory and practice.
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| 14 |
ID:
189096
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Struggles for recognition, rooted in the desire to be acknowledged by others, are fundamental to the stability of international orders. All international orders face actors with recognition grievances, and sometimes these grievances become major sources of contention. At the same time, each international order faces struggles that are specific to its mode of legitimation because they are rooted in challenges over the constituent elements of that order. The liberal international order (LIO) is no exception to this rule. Unlike international orders that are organized through explicit social hierarchies, the LIO claims to foster egalitarian, meritocratic justice based around universal, ‘rational’ standards. Yet it is clear to many actors around the world that the LIO has historically been, and remains today, premised on ‘irrational’, unjust forms of hierarchical recognition, often organized around group identity. This opens up the LIO to charges of hypocrisy. We trace the ways in which this ‘hypocrisy charge’ is levelled by both LIO ‘outsiders’ and ‘insiders’, arguing that it generates an irresolvable tension within the LIO. This tension may not spell the end of the LIO, but it does point to a period of extended contention.
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| 15 |
ID:
155155
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This article examines the historical sociology that informs Andrew Linklater’s Violence and Civilization in the Western States-Systems. On the sociological side, it critically assesses Linklater’s use of Elias and Wight, arguing that his ‘higher level synthesis’ is internally incompatible. On the historical side, the article argues that the occlusion of the transnational interactions that, in great measure, drive historical development means that Linklater’s analysis is inadequate for its stated purpose: to chart the development of civilising processes within the Western state-systems.
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