Pub Date : 2022-09-01DOI: 10.1177/2336825X221113226
K. Chan
The situation in Hong Kong today is not dissimilar to the moral predicaments that Central and Eastern Europe had endured during the Communist era. Then, as now, state oppression and intimidation aim not only at generating a pervasive sense of learned helplessness in society but also incentivising political opportunism. This paper begins with a thorough examination of the relevance of the open society against the background of the regime’s all-out attacks on the pro-democracy opposition and the civil society in the name national security following unprecedented protests in 2019. Civil society organisations are in retreat under the pressure of autocratic rule, but the normative appeal of the open society as a custodian for the city’s distinctive values and identity is expected to grow against the backdrop of the moral and institutional decay of the official, ‘Orwellian’, realm. It then seeks to explain why the barriers against norm entrepreneurship – individual and collective actions resisting moral decline and decay – are not insurmountable as they first appeared. Three decades after the end of Communism in Europe, the moral commitment to the open society serves as rallying point against the rise of illiberal democracies or electoral authoritarianism. In any case, autocrats are not invincible and there is nothing inevitable about the authoritarian backlash.
{"title":"The relevance of the open society to Hong Kong’s fight against moral and institutional decay: Lessons for Central and Eastern Europe","authors":"K. Chan","doi":"10.1177/2336825X221113226","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2336825X221113226","url":null,"abstract":"The situation in Hong Kong today is not dissimilar to the moral predicaments that Central and Eastern Europe had endured during the Communist era. Then, as now, state oppression and intimidation aim not only at generating a pervasive sense of learned helplessness in society but also incentivising political opportunism. This paper begins with a thorough examination of the relevance of the open society against the background of the regime’s all-out attacks on the pro-democracy opposition and the civil society in the name national security following unprecedented protests in 2019. Civil society organisations are in retreat under the pressure of autocratic rule, but the normative appeal of the open society as a custodian for the city’s distinctive values and identity is expected to grow against the backdrop of the moral and institutional decay of the official, ‘Orwellian’, realm. It then seeks to explain why the barriers against norm entrepreneurship – individual and collective actions resisting moral decline and decay – are not insurmountable as they first appeared. Three decades after the end of Communism in Europe, the moral commitment to the open society serves as rallying point against the rise of illiberal democracies or electoral authoritarianism. In any case, autocrats are not invincible and there is nothing inevitable about the authoritarian backlash.","PeriodicalId":42556,"journal":{"name":"New Perspectives","volume":"189 1","pages":"274 - 292"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77385940","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-23DOI: 10.1177/2336825X221117493
Ruth Deyermond
The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was a rupture point in European politics of a kind not seen since the collapse of the USSR in 1991. The effects on the human, military, energy and environmental security of Central and Eastern Europe have been dramatic, but ideational factors are proving to be as significant as material ones. Conflicting understandings of shared history are shaping the course of the war in Ukraine and its effects on the rest of Europe, underscoring the status of Russia as the other against which European societies construct their identity. As a result, in the rest of Europe as well as in Ukraine itself, Ukrainian identity is now increasingly seen as European, and European identity is understood to include Ukraine. At the same time, a collective focus on this reshaping of identity is muting some of the most urgent questions about the limits of European liberalism and democracy.
{"title":"Security, history and the boundaries of European identity after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine","authors":"Ruth Deyermond","doi":"10.1177/2336825X221117493","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2336825X221117493","url":null,"abstract":"The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was a rupture point in European politics of a kind not seen since the collapse of the USSR in 1991. The effects on the human, military, energy and environmental security of Central and Eastern Europe have been dramatic, but ideational factors are proving to be as significant as material ones. Conflicting understandings of shared history are shaping the course of the war in Ukraine and its effects on the rest of Europe, underscoring the status of Russia as the other against which European societies construct their identity. As a result, in the rest of Europe as well as in Ukraine itself, Ukrainian identity is now increasingly seen as European, and European identity is understood to include Ukraine. At the same time, a collective focus on this reshaping of identity is muting some of the most urgent questions about the limits of European liberalism and democracy.","PeriodicalId":42556,"journal":{"name":"New Perspectives","volume":"41 1","pages":"230 - 235"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-08-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87347868","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-23DOI: 10.1177/2336825X221115888
Christof Royer, Nicholas Michelsen
This issue of New Perspectives examines the concept of Open Societies. The issue and introduction has been guest edited by Christof Royer of the Central European University, who leads the Open Society Research Platform, with each individual submission independently peer reviewed. In this introduction, we set out the relevance of the concept of open societies for New Perspectives Journal, and why this tangled idea deserves more than the limited interrogation it sometimes receives. Today, it has become a commonplace to point out that we live in an ‘ age of crisis ’ (Tooze 2021; Saad-Filho, 2021). Russia ’ s invasion of Ukraine has captured the headlines, overtaking the COVID-19 pandemic which has kept the world in suspense since its outbreak in 2019. Populist movements around the world claim to defend ‘ the people ’ against ‘ elites ’ while, at the same time, challenging pillars of liberal democracy. The rapid development of modern technologies challenges our ideas of human autonomy and personal responsibility. It is surely wrong to look at these phenomena in isolation. Not only because geopolitical, economic and political crises are (and always have been) interlinked (Thompson 2022), but also, as Katalin Fabian argues in her article, because they reveal deeper con fl icts about fundamental values – of the superiority of the individual over the collective, the meaning(s) of justice and human rights, or the signi fi cance of (but also the tensions between) freedom and equality. The society part an
{"title":"New perspectives on open society","authors":"Christof Royer, Nicholas Michelsen","doi":"10.1177/2336825X221115888","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2336825X221115888","url":null,"abstract":"This issue of New Perspectives examines the concept of Open Societies. The issue and introduction has been guest edited by Christof Royer of the Central European University, who leads the Open Society Research Platform, with each individual submission independently peer reviewed. In this introduction, we set out the relevance of the concept of open societies for New Perspectives Journal, and why this tangled idea deserves more than the limited interrogation it sometimes receives. Today, it has become a commonplace to point out that we live in an ‘ age of crisis ’ (Tooze 2021; Saad-Filho, 2021). Russia ’ s invasion of Ukraine has captured the headlines, overtaking the COVID-19 pandemic which has kept the world in suspense since its outbreak in 2019. Populist movements around the world claim to defend ‘ the people ’ against ‘ elites ’ while, at the same time, challenging pillars of liberal democracy. The rapid development of modern technologies challenges our ideas of human autonomy and personal responsibility. It is surely wrong to look at these phenomena in isolation. Not only because geopolitical, economic and political crises are (and always have been) interlinked (Thompson 2022), but also, as Katalin Fabian argues in her article, because they reveal deeper con fl icts about fundamental values – of the superiority of the individual over the collective, the meaning(s) of justice and human rights, or the signi fi cance of (but also the tensions between) freedom and equality. The society part an","PeriodicalId":42556,"journal":{"name":"New Perspectives","volume":"55 1","pages":"201 - 209"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-08-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74182446","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-13DOI: 10.1177/2336825X221113230
Christof Royer
Is polarisation a fundamental threat to the open society? Are the divisions that run through societies and separate them into two (or more) more or less hostile groups problems to be solved? Or are they the corollaries of a vibrant democratic system that might legitimately be called an ‘open society’? These are the questions I seek to explore in this contribution to the special issue. My argument unfolds through a reinterpretation of Karl Popper’s conception of open society as a democratic idea, characterised by an appreciation of genuine human plurality and diversity that make ‘critical encounters with the other side’ possible (and desirable); this conception of open society also recognises the progressive potential of social and political conflicts. For that reason, political polarisation cannot be regarded as a lethal threat to open societies. By contrast, ‘belief polarisation’, with its Manichean orientation and anti-political tendencies, is a much more serious threat. It follows that advocates of open society should avoid the temptation to solve the ‘problem’ of political polarisation – they should accept it as the price to be paid for the ‘imperfect ideal’ of open society. However, they should take steps to reduce belief polarisation through the active creation of spaces of critical encounters with the other side. The overarching aim of the article, then, is to make a contribution to both the literature on open society and polarisation. To that end, I will bring the concept of open society and the phenomenon of polarisation into a relationship of reciprocal elucidation: through the engagement with open society, I will shine some light on polarisation, and through the analysis of polarisation, I will put flesh on the concept of open society.
{"title":"Boon or bane? Open society and polarisation","authors":"Christof Royer","doi":"10.1177/2336825X221113230","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2336825X221113230","url":null,"abstract":"Is polarisation a fundamental threat to the open society? Are the divisions that run through societies and separate them into two (or more) more or less hostile groups problems to be solved? Or are they the corollaries of a vibrant democratic system that might legitimately be called an ‘open society’? These are the questions I seek to explore in this contribution to the special issue. My argument unfolds through a reinterpretation of Karl Popper’s conception of open society as a democratic idea, characterised by an appreciation of genuine human plurality and diversity that make ‘critical encounters with the other side’ possible (and desirable); this conception of open society also recognises the progressive potential of social and political conflicts. For that reason, political polarisation cannot be regarded as a lethal threat to open societies. By contrast, ‘belief polarisation’, with its Manichean orientation and anti-political tendencies, is a much more serious threat. It follows that advocates of open society should avoid the temptation to solve the ‘problem’ of political polarisation – they should accept it as the price to be paid for the ‘imperfect ideal’ of open society. However, they should take steps to reduce belief polarisation through the active creation of spaces of critical encounters with the other side. The overarching aim of the article, then, is to make a contribution to both the literature on open society and polarisation. To that end, I will bring the concept of open society and the phenomenon of polarisation into a relationship of reciprocal elucidation: through the engagement with open society, I will shine some light on polarisation, and through the analysis of polarisation, I will put flesh on the concept of open society.","PeriodicalId":42556,"journal":{"name":"New Perspectives","volume":"41 1","pages":"236 - 254"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-07-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90461496","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-06-30DOI: 10.1177/2336825X221111662
Anna Gromilova, Mats Braun
There is a substantial literature in the tradition of constructivism and sociological new institutionalism that suggests the existence of shared EU norms. Yet, the issue of how EU norms are adopted and/or contested in EU member states remains underexamined. In the paper, we therefore study the public discourse on citizenship in Latvia and examine how the discourse relates to EU norms on citizenship, minority rights and in the broader sense human rights. The analysis takes its empirical starting point in the period after the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 and focuses on how the issue of statelessness was discussed in the Latvian online media. Looking at how the contested term (‘statelessness’) achieves different meanings in the Latvian discourse, and how the domestic actors try to reformulate the EU norms in question, we aim at a better understanding of the diffusion of norms within the context of a regional organization. The conclusion indicates that apart from the EU human rights norm, there are several different articulations of statelessness (i.e. othering, security and instrumental) that are present in the discourse. This has enabled Latvian governments to stress their commitment to human rights promotion, while simultaneously facing criticism regarding the country’s stateless inhabitants.
{"title":"The unwrapping of various understandings of statelessness in Latvian media discourse","authors":"Anna Gromilova, Mats Braun","doi":"10.1177/2336825X221111662","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2336825X221111662","url":null,"abstract":"There is a substantial literature in the tradition of constructivism and sociological new institutionalism that suggests the existence of shared EU norms. Yet, the issue of how EU norms are adopted and/or contested in EU member states remains underexamined. In the paper, we therefore study the public discourse on citizenship in Latvia and examine how the discourse relates to EU norms on citizenship, minority rights and in the broader sense human rights. The analysis takes its empirical starting point in the period after the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 and focuses on how the issue of statelessness was discussed in the Latvian online media. Looking at how the contested term (‘statelessness’) achieves different meanings in the Latvian discourse, and how the domestic actors try to reformulate the EU norms in question, we aim at a better understanding of the diffusion of norms within the context of a regional organization. The conclusion indicates that apart from the EU human rights norm, there are several different articulations of statelessness (i.e. othering, security and instrumental) that are present in the discourse. This has enabled Latvian governments to stress their commitment to human rights promotion, while simultaneously facing criticism regarding the country’s stateless inhabitants.","PeriodicalId":42556,"journal":{"name":"New Perspectives","volume":"106 1","pages":"210 - 229"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78058667","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-06-01DOI: 10.1177/2336825X221093413
Nicholas Michelsen
{"title":"Relationality in Central and Eastern Europe","authors":"Nicholas Michelsen","doi":"10.1177/2336825X221093413","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2336825X221093413","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42556,"journal":{"name":"New Perspectives","volume":"21 1","pages":"143 - 147"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84394585","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-05-31DOI: 10.1177/2336825X221089199
C. Epstein
{"title":"Seeing the ecosystem in the international: Ecological thinking as relational thinking","authors":"C. Epstein","doi":"10.1177/2336825X221089199","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2336825X221089199","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42556,"journal":{"name":"New Perspectives","volume":"48 1","pages":"170 - 179"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88029944","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-05-15DOI: 10.1177/2336825x221089202
P. Jackson, Sujin Heo
In this essay, we elucidate the insufficiency of a simple binary choice between substantialism and relationalism or between dualist and nondual/incarnational sensibilities. We highlight the ways that all translations of these sensibilities into the scholarly form of life encounter characteristic problems and challenges precisely because the very practice of scholarly writing is always and already inclined towards a more dualist way of going on.
{"title":"Working on relationalism","authors":"P. Jackson, Sujin Heo","doi":"10.1177/2336825x221089202","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2336825x221089202","url":null,"abstract":"In this essay, we elucidate the insufficiency of a simple binary choice between substantialism and relationalism or between dualist and nondual/incarnational sensibilities. We highlight the ways that all translations of these sensibilities into the scholarly form of life encounter characteristic problems and challenges precisely because the very practice of scholarly writing is always and already inclined towards a more dualist way of going on.","PeriodicalId":42556,"journal":{"name":"New Perspectives","volume":"32 1","pages":"157 - 169"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90970919","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-04-24DOI: 10.1177/2336825X221089189
Amaya Querejazu
This essay is about water governance and relationality. It reflects on the questions that articulate this forum on relational International Relations (IR): what do relational theories of IR offer to the field and add to the debate about IR? What are the promises or limits of relational approaches, and how can or should discussion proceed? I narrate my personal story about exploring and experiencing relationality to offer some reflections and thoughts on these questions which are relevant not only for IR, but to the ways we engage reality. I illustrate the potential of relationality by referring to three dimensions where relationality provides with alternative thinking: the problem of ontological difference; the pluralization and diversification of ways of thinking and being and the engagement with the other than other-than-human. These aspects are some among many others, but they announce opportunities, challenges, tensions, contradictions and possibilities. In the end, the essay reveals not only a transformative experience but a very different approach to water governance providing the reader a general understanding of the alternative thinking derived from relational standpoints and the possibilities it opens to theorize IR and beyond.
{"title":"Water governance","authors":"Amaya Querejazu","doi":"10.1177/2336825X221089189","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2336825X221089189","url":null,"abstract":"This essay is about water governance and relationality. It reflects on the questions that articulate this forum on relational International Relations (IR): what do relational theories of IR offer to the field and add to the debate about IR? What are the promises or limits of relational approaches, and how can or should discussion proceed? I narrate my personal story about exploring and experiencing relationality to offer some reflections and thoughts on these questions which are relevant not only for IR, but to the ways we engage reality. I illustrate the potential of relationality by referring to three dimensions where relationality provides with alternative thinking: the problem of ontological difference; the pluralization and diversification of ways of thinking and being and the engagement with the other than other-than-human. These aspects are some among many others, but they announce opportunities, challenges, tensions, contradictions and possibilities. In the end, the essay reveals not only a transformative experience but a very different approach to water governance providing the reader a general understanding of the alternative thinking derived from relational standpoints and the possibilities it opens to theorize IR and beyond.","PeriodicalId":42556,"journal":{"name":"New Perspectives","volume":"47 1","pages":"180 - 188"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-04-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85469383","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-04-24DOI: 10.1177/2336825x221089191
M. Kurki
Relational theories challenge, in a multitude of ways, how we understand and work with relations in International Relations (IR) scholarship. It invites engagement with thought and practice of relationality from different parts of the world and invites a rethinking of the boundaries between states and individuals but also between humans and non-humans. This essay considers the role of relational theory in and around IR by way of a series of short inter-related reflections, drawing on ‘IR’ but also author’s experiences of relational shifts in everyday life. The experiences of ‘traversing the webs’ of relationality at home and at work, with humans and non-humans, in IR scholarship and beyond it, demonstrate the ways in which relational thought and practice is much more than ‘theory’, travels well beyond ‘IR’, and yet also poses important questions to how we think and do IR.
{"title":"Traversing webs: Reflections on relational theory and international relations","authors":"M. Kurki","doi":"10.1177/2336825x221089191","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2336825x221089191","url":null,"abstract":"Relational theories challenge, in a multitude of ways, how we understand and work with relations in International Relations (IR) scholarship. It invites engagement with thought and practice of relationality from different parts of the world and invites a rethinking of the boundaries between states and individuals but also between humans and non-humans. This essay considers the role of relational theory in and around IR by way of a series of short inter-related reflections, drawing on ‘IR’ but also author’s experiences of relational shifts in everyday life. The experiences of ‘traversing the webs’ of relationality at home and at work, with humans and non-humans, in IR scholarship and beyond it, demonstrate the ways in which relational thought and practice is much more than ‘theory’, travels well beyond ‘IR’, and yet also poses important questions to how we think and do IR.","PeriodicalId":42556,"journal":{"name":"New Perspectives","volume":"359 1","pages":"189 - 197"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-04-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86800558","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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