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| Srl | Item |
| 1 |
ID:
152314
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| Summary/Abstract |
Why has the Western strategy of engagement towards China been less effective than initially heralded? Juxtaposing theoretical advances in the International Relations (IR) scholarship against the evolution of China’s domestic politics and foreign behaviour, this article critically examines the socialization scholarship, not only because of the tremendous amount of theoretical purchase constructivists have invested in it, but also because liberal-minded IR scholars have predictably relied upon this line of inquiry to endorse a strategy of engagement and integration towards an outsider power such as China. I argue that the effects of engagement/socialization are often overstated and oversold, because conventional constructivists, in their attempt to specify the conditions under which certain behavioural adaptation constitutes identity change, tend to obfuscate some issues of theoretical and methodological concern. Two approaches are under the spotlight. First, transnationalism, as it pertains to China, has a poor record of engendering and sustaining domestic political change, because the party-state, firmly in the driver’s seat, fiercely rebuffs any foreign attempt that it deems to undermine its iron-clad hold on state power. Secondly, international institutions are not as transformative as claimed by constructivists, who conflate the distinction between agents and principals. Furthermore, the socialization perspective’s penchant for positioning the state in question in a reactive mode can be an analytical straitjacket, in turn rendering it outdated and inadequate to capture the critically important dynamics and dimensions of a great power such as China in international politics and global governance. I call for a more compressive and eclectic approach that understands China as a proactive participant in international affairs.
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| 2 |
ID:
157612
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| Summary/Abstract |
Amidst calls for containing an assertive Russia, politicians and pundits have been debating whether Ukraine should serve as a ‘buffer zone’ between the Russian and Western spheres of influence. These debates provide an opportunity to revisit the long and varied history of major powers’ efforts to manage buffer zones. We draw on this history to learn the conditions under which buffer zones succeed or fail to stabilise regions, how buffers are most successfully managed, and when alternative arrangements for borderlands work better.
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| 3 |
ID:
108524
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| 4 |
ID:
152089
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| Summary/Abstract |
In this article, we explore various forms of travel writing, media reporting, diplomatic record, policy-making, truth claims and expert accounts in which different narrative perspectives on the Balkan wars, both old (1912–1913) and new (1991–1999), have been most evident. We argue that the ways in which these perspectives are rooted in different temporalities and historicisations and have resulted in the construction of commonplace and time-worn representations. In practical terms, we take issue with several patterns of narratives that have led to the sensationalism of media industry and the essentialisation of collective memory. Taken together as a common feature of contemporary policy and analysis in the dominant international opinion, politics and scholarship, these narrative patterns show that historical knowledge is conveyed in ways that make present and represent the accounts of another past, and the ways in which beliefs collectively held by actors in international society are constructed as media events and public hegemonic representations. The aim is to show how certain moments of rupture are historicised, and subsequently used and misused to construct an anachronistic representation of Southeast Europe.
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| 5 |
ID:
114182
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| Publication |
2012.
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| Summary/Abstract |
This paper looks at a group of photographs entitled Qajar Series (1998) by artist Shadi Ghadirian. Ghadirian recreates sets to look like those used in photographic portraits taken during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century of the Qajar dynasty period and dresses her female sitters in costumes reminiscent of clothes from the era. The artist also integrates contemporary objects that do not fit within the historical setting created for the camera. This essay examines how the artist uses performance to stage this anachronism and think critically about temporal discourses and their links to the categories of modernity and tradition.
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