Pub Date : 2022-08-04DOI: 10.1177/00471178221116015
Jan Selby
If international relations can be theorised as ‘inter-textual’, then why not also – or indeed better – as ‘inter-carbonic’? For, not only is the modern history of carbon to a large degree international; in addition, many of the key historical junctures and defining features of modern international politics are grounded in carbon or, more precisely, in the various socio-ecological practices and processes through which carbon has been exploited and deposited, mobilised and represented, recycled and transformed. In what follows I seek to make this case, arguing that carbon and international relations have been mutually constitutive ever since the dawn of modernity in 1492, and that they will inevitably remain so well into the future, as the global economy’s dependence on fossil carbon continues unabated and the planet inexorably warms. Will climate change generate widespread conflict, or even civilisational collapse? How are contemporary power dynamics limiting responses to climate change? And how, conversely, might 21st-century world order be transformed by processes of decarbonisation? Building on research in political ecology, I argue that a dialectical sensitivity to ‘inter-carbonic relations’ is required to properly answer these questions. Scholars and students of International Relations (IR), I suggest, need to approach climate change by positioning the element C at the very centre of their analyses.
{"title":"International/inter-carbonic relations","authors":"Jan Selby","doi":"10.1177/00471178221116015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00471178221116015","url":null,"abstract":"If international relations can be theorised as ‘inter-textual’, then why not also – or indeed better – as ‘inter-carbonic’? For, not only is the modern history of carbon to a large degree international; in addition, many of the key historical junctures and defining features of modern international politics are grounded in carbon or, more precisely, in the various socio-ecological practices and processes through which carbon has been exploited and deposited, mobilised and represented, recycled and transformed. In what follows I seek to make this case, arguing that carbon and international relations have been mutually constitutive ever since the dawn of modernity in 1492, and that they will inevitably remain so well into the future, as the global economy’s dependence on fossil carbon continues unabated and the planet inexorably warms. Will climate change generate widespread conflict, or even civilisational collapse? How are contemporary power dynamics limiting responses to climate change? And how, conversely, might 21st-century world order be transformed by processes of decarbonisation? Building on research in political ecology, I argue that a dialectical sensitivity to ‘inter-carbonic relations’ is required to properly answer these questions. Scholars and students of International Relations (IR), I suggest, need to approach climate change by positioning the element C at the very centre of their analyses.","PeriodicalId":47031,"journal":{"name":"International Relations","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-08-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88027945","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-22DOI: 10.1177/00471178221112480
T. Greene
As European radical right parties grow in influence, and as foreign and security policy becomes more politicised, these parties have increasing potential to shape national debates on international affairs. This paper shows how radical right opposition parties seek to exploit policy dilemmas surrounding military intervention according to the nature of the political opportunity these dilemmas present in specific national settings. Its findings are based on qualitative comparative case studies of Front National, AfD and UKIP responses to intervention debates surrounding the Syrian civil war in France, Germany and the UK. I find that non-intervention is not an absolute value for radical right parties. Whilst liberal-humanitarian interventions are uniformly rejected, interventions on national security grounds, whether to combat Jihadist threats or prevent uncontrolled migration, prompt a range of responses shaped by the domestic political context. Yet even where these parties back intervention in votes, their discourse focuses on fitting the issue to the populist dimensions of their political agenda, especially attacking mainstream rivals for incompetence, duplicity or incoherence, and failing to protect the sovereignty and ethnic integrity of the nation.
{"title":"Fitting national interests with populist opportunities: intervention politics on the European radical right","authors":"T. Greene","doi":"10.1177/00471178221112480","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00471178221112480","url":null,"abstract":"As European radical right parties grow in influence, and as foreign and security policy becomes more politicised, these parties have increasing potential to shape national debates on international affairs. This paper shows how radical right opposition parties seek to exploit policy dilemmas surrounding military intervention according to the nature of the political opportunity these dilemmas present in specific national settings. Its findings are based on qualitative comparative case studies of Front National, AfD and UKIP responses to intervention debates surrounding the Syrian civil war in France, Germany and the UK. I find that non-intervention is not an absolute value for radical right parties. Whilst liberal-humanitarian interventions are uniformly rejected, interventions on national security grounds, whether to combat Jihadist threats or prevent uncontrolled migration, prompt a range of responses shaped by the domestic political context. Yet even where these parties back intervention in votes, their discourse focuses on fitting the issue to the populist dimensions of their political agenda, especially attacking mainstream rivals for incompetence, duplicity or incoherence, and failing to protect the sovereignty and ethnic integrity of the nation.","PeriodicalId":47031,"journal":{"name":"International Relations","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-07-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76718634","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-14DOI: 10.1177/00471178221110135
Pål Røren, A. Wivel
The Scandinavian states’ pursuit of status in world politics is well documented. However, little is known about whether these endeavors have resulted in higher status for these states. In this article, we suggest that the Scandinavian countries represent a useful case to explore whether similar foreign policy profiles and common club membership equalizes or exacerbates the unequal distribution of status recognition in world politics. To measure the status recognition of Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, we use a network centrality measure of diplomatic representation and exchange from 1970 to 2010. We also measure how well the states have performed to increase their status recognition given their available status resources (measured by military capabilities and wealth) and their status-seeking effort (measured by relative diplomatic outreach). Our results show that Sweden has received significantly more recognition and performed much better than both Denmark and Norway in the measured period. We offer three explanations for these developments. First, the spoils of seeking status using the Scandinavian brand is akin to a regional zero-sum game in which Sweden, as the most visible state of the three, is the main beneficiary of the status recognition in the direction of the club. Second, status recognition often lags achievements or increases in status resources because the beliefs of foreign policy practitioners are only updated sporadically. This status lag is especially visible when states struggle to convert their resources into status (Norway), or when they succeed in maintaining their status despite experiencing a drop in status resources (Sweden). Third, an increase in status resources will only influence status recognition if it plays into a corresponding narrative. Sweden, in contrast to the nouveau riche Norwegians, has managed to rearticulate its foreign policy in a way that has attracted recognition in world politics.
{"title":"King in the North: evaluating the status recognition and performance of the Scandinavian countries","authors":"Pål Røren, A. Wivel","doi":"10.1177/00471178221110135","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00471178221110135","url":null,"abstract":"The Scandinavian states’ pursuit of status in world politics is well documented. However, little is known about whether these endeavors have resulted in higher status for these states. In this article, we suggest that the Scandinavian countries represent a useful case to explore whether similar foreign policy profiles and common club membership equalizes or exacerbates the unequal distribution of status recognition in world politics. To measure the status recognition of Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, we use a network centrality measure of diplomatic representation and exchange from 1970 to 2010. We also measure how well the states have performed to increase their status recognition given their available status resources (measured by military capabilities and wealth) and their status-seeking effort (measured by relative diplomatic outreach). Our results show that Sweden has received significantly more recognition and performed much better than both Denmark and Norway in the measured period. We offer three explanations for these developments. First, the spoils of seeking status using the Scandinavian brand is akin to a regional zero-sum game in which Sweden, as the most visible state of the three, is the main beneficiary of the status recognition in the direction of the club. Second, status recognition often lags achievements or increases in status resources because the beliefs of foreign policy practitioners are only updated sporadically. This status lag is especially visible when states struggle to convert their resources into status (Norway), or when they succeed in maintaining their status despite experiencing a drop in status resources (Sweden). Third, an increase in status resources will only influence status recognition if it plays into a corresponding narrative. Sweden, in contrast to the nouveau riche Norwegians, has managed to rearticulate its foreign policy in a way that has attracted recognition in world politics.","PeriodicalId":47031,"journal":{"name":"International Relations","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-07-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82944432","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-06-28DOI: 10.1177/00471178221109002
D. W. Larson
Recent criticisms by leaders and scholars have raised questions about prospects for survival of the liberal world order as well as the relationship between American hegemony and order. The three books discussed in this essay have similar diagnoses of problems in the liberal order but differ in their prognoses. Yan’s Leadership and the Rise of Great Powers offers an alternative model for leadership of the world order – humane authority. Cooley and Nexon’s Exit from Hegemony maintains that US hegemony is gone for good and the liberal world order is unraveling due to the rise of great power challengers, changing behavior by smaller states, and anti-liberal transnational movements. Ikenberry’s World Safe for Democracy argues that current problems are due to attempted global extension of the liberal order. The liberal order should be restored to its original purpose of providing a protective environment for liberal democracies. All three books emphasize the role of domestic political governance and moral values in contributing to global leadership.
最近领导人和学者对自由世界秩序的生存前景以及美国霸权与秩序之间的关系提出了质疑。本文讨论的三本书对自由主义秩序中的问题有相似的诊断，但在预测上有所不同。阎的《领导与大国崛起》为世界秩序的领导提供了另一种模式——人道权威。库利和尼克森的《退出霸权》认为，由于大国挑战者的崛起、小国行为的改变以及反自由主义的跨国运动，美国霸权已经一去不复返，自由主义世界秩序正在瓦解。伊肯伯里的《民主的世界安全》(World Safe for Democracy)认为，当前的问题是由于自由主义秩序试图向全球扩张。自由主义秩序应该恢复到为自由民主国家提供保护环境的最初目的。这三本书都强调了国内政治治理和道德价值观在促进全球领导力方面的作用。
{"title":"Is the liberal order on the way out? China’s rise, networks, and the liberal hegemon","authors":"D. W. Larson","doi":"10.1177/00471178221109002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00471178221109002","url":null,"abstract":"Recent criticisms by leaders and scholars have raised questions about prospects for survival of the liberal world order as well as the relationship between American hegemony and order. The three books discussed in this essay have similar diagnoses of problems in the liberal order but differ in their prognoses. Yan’s Leadership and the Rise of Great Powers offers an alternative model for leadership of the world order – humane authority. Cooley and Nexon’s Exit from Hegemony maintains that US hegemony is gone for good and the liberal world order is unraveling due to the rise of great power challengers, changing behavior by smaller states, and anti-liberal transnational movements. Ikenberry’s World Safe for Democracy argues that current problems are due to attempted global extension of the liberal order. The liberal order should be restored to its original purpose of providing a protective environment for liberal democracies. All three books emphasize the role of domestic political governance and moral values in contributing to global leadership.","PeriodicalId":47031,"journal":{"name":"International Relations","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-06-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81924936","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-06-22DOI: 10.1177/00471178221105598
Neil C. Renic, S. Kaempf
In this article, we argue in favour of a conceptual expansion of the Just War idea of ‘due care’, to include the foreseeable, but indirect harm generated by Western force protection. This harm includes the phenomenon of ‘casualty displacement warfare’ – circumstances in which the prioritisation and relative success of Western force protection incentivises some Western adversaries to redirect more of their own violence away from Western soldiers and onto civilians. Primary moral responsibility for such violence should be allocated to those who violate the principle of non-combatant immunity, whatever their motivations. Critically though, we argue that Western militaries do bear some indirect culpability for the conflict conditions that structure such violence. These same militaries, we argue, are morally duty bound to do what they feasibly can to reduce the risks of casualty displacement, even if this necessitates a relaxation of their own commitment to force protection.
{"title":"Violence re-directed: due care and the moral challenge of casualty displacement warfare","authors":"Neil C. Renic, S. Kaempf","doi":"10.1177/00471178221105598","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00471178221105598","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, we argue in favour of a conceptual expansion of the Just War idea of ‘due care’, to include the foreseeable, but indirect harm generated by Western force protection. This harm includes the phenomenon of ‘casualty displacement warfare’ – circumstances in which the prioritisation and relative success of Western force protection incentivises some Western adversaries to redirect more of their own violence away from Western soldiers and onto civilians. Primary moral responsibility for such violence should be allocated to those who violate the principle of non-combatant immunity, whatever their motivations. Critically though, we argue that Western militaries do bear some indirect culpability for the conflict conditions that structure such violence. These same militaries, we argue, are morally duty bound to do what they feasibly can to reduce the risks of casualty displacement, even if this necessitates a relaxation of their own commitment to force protection.","PeriodicalId":47031,"journal":{"name":"International Relations","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91112108","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-06-22DOI: 10.1177/00471178221104697
P. Silva
This article analyzes the national security strategies of EU member states in the 2009–2018 period, and conceptualizes three security strategies EU member states have adopted toward Russia – flexible accommodation, cooperative deterrence, and calibrated confrontation. It tests strategic culture hypotheses against those of realism and commercial liberalism to explain the variation of EU member states’ security strategies toward Russia. While a realist explanation would predict EU member states geographically proximate to Russia would possess more confrontational security strategies, geographic proximity and confrontational security strategies toward Russia are not positively correlated. Bilateral economic interdependence with Russia, the presence of populist parties in EU member states governing coalitions, and EU member states’ alignment or status as an occupied state during the Cold War also do not explain EU member states’ security strategies toward Russia. A more consistent explanation of the variance in EU member states’ policy on Russia revolves around the strategic culture of the state in question. States with a more Atlanticist perspective tend to be more confrontation with Russia than their more Europeanist counterparts, regardless of geographic proximity or economic interdependence with Russia.
{"title":"Strategic culture and competing visions for the EU’s Russia strategy: flexible accommodation, cooperative deterrence, and calibrated confrontation","authors":"P. Silva","doi":"10.1177/00471178221104697","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00471178221104697","url":null,"abstract":"This article analyzes the national security strategies of EU member states in the 2009–2018 period, and conceptualizes three security strategies EU member states have adopted toward Russia – flexible accommodation, cooperative deterrence, and calibrated confrontation. It tests strategic culture hypotheses against those of realism and commercial liberalism to explain the variation of EU member states’ security strategies toward Russia. While a realist explanation would predict EU member states geographically proximate to Russia would possess more confrontational security strategies, geographic proximity and confrontational security strategies toward Russia are not positively correlated. Bilateral economic interdependence with Russia, the presence of populist parties in EU member states governing coalitions, and EU member states’ alignment or status as an occupied state during the Cold War also do not explain EU member states’ security strategies toward Russia. A more consistent explanation of the variance in EU member states’ policy on Russia revolves around the strategic culture of the state in question. States with a more Atlanticist perspective tend to be more confrontation with Russia than their more Europeanist counterparts, regardless of geographic proximity or economic interdependence with Russia.","PeriodicalId":47031,"journal":{"name":"International Relations","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82027523","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-06-16DOI: 10.1177/00471178221105576
T. Ide
The war on terror as a discourse assumes that terrorism is an essential threat of global proportions, is mostly perpetuated by Islamist networks, and requires a strong international response. This discourse had tremendous impacts on both domestic and international politics. Consequentially, a large number of studies analyse the assumptions underlying and the policies legitimised by the war on terror discourse. However, existing work mostly focusses on one or a few cases, predominantly in the global north. This article introduces a novel dataset containing information on the war on terror discourse in the school textbooks of 36 countries, representing around 64% of the world’s population, for the period 2003–2014. Based on this dataset, I present the first comprehensive analysis of the global diffusion of the war on terror discourse. The study finds that the discourse has by no means globalised but is mostly limited to wealthy countries in Europe and North America. There are hence clear limits to the USA’s soft power and the hyper-globalisation of terrorism discourses. Factors like terrorism intensity, armed conflict and authoritarian regime have little predictive power. This is despite clear incentives for challenged (authoritarian) regimes to adapt the war on terror discourse. Contrary to common assumptions in critical security and terrorism studies, the war on terror discourse is hardly associated with an emphasis on terrorists’ irrationality and hatred or with the marginalisation of socio-political grievances.
{"title":"Globalising the ‘war on terror’? An analysis of 36 countries","authors":"T. Ide","doi":"10.1177/00471178221105576","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00471178221105576","url":null,"abstract":"The war on terror as a discourse assumes that terrorism is an essential threat of global proportions, is mostly perpetuated by Islamist networks, and requires a strong international response. This discourse had tremendous impacts on both domestic and international politics. Consequentially, a large number of studies analyse the assumptions underlying and the policies legitimised by the war on terror discourse. However, existing work mostly focusses on one or a few cases, predominantly in the global north. This article introduces a novel dataset containing information on the war on terror discourse in the school textbooks of 36 countries, representing around 64% of the world’s population, for the period 2003–2014. Based on this dataset, I present the first comprehensive analysis of the global diffusion of the war on terror discourse. The study finds that the discourse has by no means globalised but is mostly limited to wealthy countries in Europe and North America. There are hence clear limits to the USA’s soft power and the hyper-globalisation of terrorism discourses. Factors like terrorism intensity, armed conflict and authoritarian regime have little predictive power. This is despite clear incentives for challenged (authoritarian) regimes to adapt the war on terror discourse. Contrary to common assumptions in critical security and terrorism studies, the war on terror discourse is hardly associated with an emphasis on terrorists’ irrationality and hatred or with the marginalisation of socio-political grievances.","PeriodicalId":47031,"journal":{"name":"International Relations","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-06-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89739685","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-06-16DOI: 10.1177/00471178221105597
Deborah Barros Leal Farias
With almost universal membership, the World Heritage Convention is at the heart of the global governance of heritage. Nested within UNESCO, the Convention sets the parameters for determining which natural and/or cultural sites can receive the prestigious ‘World Heritage Property’ designation and be added to the World Heritage List. What started in the early 1970s as an expert-based classification procedure focused on heritage preservation has become an ostensive political process, and a hotbed of competing nations interested in the domestic and international power deriving from inscriptions in the World Heritage List. This paper takes this empirical case as a springboard to reflect upon two key interrelated issues: the politicization of expertise and classification by International Organizations, and heritage as a national identity project and projection of ‘soft power’. In doing so, it highlights how changes in the global system since the late 19th century – for example, colonialism, Cold War, ‘emerging’ powers – affected the global politics of heritage. The paper adds to the incredibly trans-disciplinary field of world heritage research by anchoring itself in International Relations literature, mostly through a Constructivist-based approach.
{"title":"‘UNESCO’s World Heritage List: power, national interest, and expertise’","authors":"Deborah Barros Leal Farias","doi":"10.1177/00471178221105597","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00471178221105597","url":null,"abstract":"With almost universal membership, the World Heritage Convention is at the heart of the global governance of heritage. Nested within UNESCO, the Convention sets the parameters for determining which natural and/or cultural sites can receive the prestigious ‘World Heritage Property’ designation and be added to the World Heritage List. What started in the early 1970s as an expert-based classification procedure focused on heritage preservation has become an ostensive political process, and a hotbed of competing nations interested in the domestic and international power deriving from inscriptions in the World Heritage List. This paper takes this empirical case as a springboard to reflect upon two key interrelated issues: the politicization of expertise and classification by International Organizations, and heritage as a national identity project and projection of ‘soft power’. In doing so, it highlights how changes in the global system since the late 19th century – for example, colonialism, Cold War, ‘emerging’ powers – affected the global politics of heritage. The paper adds to the incredibly trans-disciplinary field of world heritage research by anchoring itself in International Relations literature, mostly through a Constructivist-based approach.","PeriodicalId":47031,"journal":{"name":"International Relations","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-06-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85517316","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-06-03DOI: 10.1177/00471178221098913
Luke Cooper
Drawing on the concept of uneven and combined development this article critically interrogates Benedict Anderson’s theory of the ‘imagined community’ through an historical investigation into the English-realm-cum-British-empire. Placing its rise in the context of the conflicts of Post-Reformation Europe, it identifies vectors of combined development (money, goods, ideas, people) which shaped the formation of new imagined communities. These post-Reformation struggles were not defined by nationality but subjecthood, which saw ‘the realm’ displace the monarch as an object of rights and duties. The 18th century rise of British nationalism was a response to the long crisis of subjecthood (1639–1688). However, this emergence was uneven and non-linear, such that it co-existed as a political imagination with continued belief in – and political support for – subjecthood. Ironically, given its latter-day mythology, the American Revolutionary War was fought to protect subjecthood under the Crown from subordination to the British nation and its parliament.
{"title":"Imagined communities: from subjecthood to nationality in the British Atlantic","authors":"Luke Cooper","doi":"10.1177/00471178221098913","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00471178221098913","url":null,"abstract":"Drawing on the concept of uneven and combined development this article critically interrogates Benedict Anderson’s theory of the ‘imagined community’ through an historical investigation into the English-realm-cum-British-empire. Placing its rise in the context of the conflicts of Post-Reformation Europe, it identifies vectors of combined development (money, goods, ideas, people) which shaped the formation of new imagined communities. These post-Reformation struggles were not defined by nationality but subjecthood, which saw ‘the realm’ displace the monarch as an object of rights and duties. The 18th century rise of British nationalism was a response to the long crisis of subjecthood (1639–1688). However, this emergence was uneven and non-linear, such that it co-existed as a political imagination with continued belief in – and political support for – subjecthood. Ironically, given its latter-day mythology, the American Revolutionary War was fought to protect subjecthood under the Crown from subordination to the British nation and its parliament.","PeriodicalId":47031,"journal":{"name":"International Relations","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-06-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78320067","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-05-24DOI: 10.1177/00471178221097908
Christopher Phillips
How does the international system impact a civil war? Does polarity affect the war’s outbreak, character and how long it lasts? Systemic Realists argue multipolarity makes inter-state war more likely, but is this also true of intra-state war? Using the Syria conflict (2011-present) as a case study, this article suggests a connection can be found. It argues that the end of US-dominated unipolarity, and its interaction with a new multipolarity in the Middle East region impacted the behaviour and calculations of foreign states involved, contributing to the outbreak of war and how it progressed. The same interacting multipolarity paradoxically also shaped Russia’s decision to intervene in 2015, ultimately edging the war towards a conclusion, something that Systemic Realists would not expect. This study of the systemic effects in the Syria conflict suggests that the Neo-Realist concept of polarity continues to have relevance and can be useful in understanding intra- as well as inter-state conflict. It points to the importance of the interaction between regional and global systems in generating these effects, and it suggests a reconsideration of the Neo-Realist view that multipolarity always makes wars harder to end.
{"title":"The international system and the Syrian civil war","authors":"Christopher Phillips","doi":"10.1177/00471178221097908","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00471178221097908","url":null,"abstract":"How does the international system impact a civil war? Does polarity affect the war’s outbreak, character and how long it lasts? Systemic Realists argue multipolarity makes inter-state war more likely, but is this also true of intra-state war? Using the Syria conflict (2011-present) as a case study, this article suggests a connection can be found. It argues that the end of US-dominated unipolarity, and its interaction with a new multipolarity in the Middle East region impacted the behaviour and calculations of foreign states involved, contributing to the outbreak of war and how it progressed. The same interacting multipolarity paradoxically also shaped Russia’s decision to intervene in 2015, ultimately edging the war towards a conclusion, something that Systemic Realists would not expect. This study of the systemic effects in the Syria conflict suggests that the Neo-Realist concept of polarity continues to have relevance and can be useful in understanding intra- as well as inter-state conflict. It points to the importance of the interaction between regional and global systems in generating these effects, and it suggests a reconsideration of the Neo-Realist view that multipolarity always makes wars harder to end.","PeriodicalId":47031,"journal":{"name":"International Relations","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-05-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83877155","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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