Pub Date : 2023-10-24DOI: 10.1080/09557571.2023.2272272
Moritz S. Graefrath
AbstractPolicymakers and academics alike frequently invoke power vacuums as important phenomena in international politics, referring to them in a diverse array of contexts ranging from civil war to the decline and retrenchment of great powers. However, students of international relations (IR) have largely neglected to seriously engage ‘power vacuum’ as a social scientific concept. This renders it virtually impossible to undergird current policy debates on power vacuums with social scientific analysis, and more generally raises doubts about the concept’s analytic utility. In this piece, I argue that ‘power vacuum’ is not merely a popular buzzword but a concept with considerable theoretical promise. I develop a conceptualisation of power vacuums as spaces that experience authority collapse. Since, in the context of international politics, organisations can claim authority on several political levels, I posit the existence of several types of power vacuums of which two appear particularly relevant to the study of IR: national and international vacuums. My conceptualisation is able to reflect the diverse ways in which the term is currently utilised, paves the way for novel research on a subject of great concern to policymakers, and uncovers the potential for closer collaboration across traditionally rigid thematic boundaries within IR. Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Supplemental data and research materialsSupplemental data for this article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1080/09557571.2023.2272272Notes1 On this point, but applied to the concept of ‘grand strategy,’ see Silove Citation2018, 29.2 This is the most adequate, albeit imperfect, translation of the German original, that is, ‘legitime Herrschaft.’ For similar definitions of authority, see, for instance, Deudney Citation1995, 198; Solnick Citation1998, 13; Lake Citation2016, 24; Kustermans and Horemans Citation2022, 206. As will become clear below, what I am talking about here is de facto authority, that is, authority in a descriptive, non-normative sense. On the difference between normative and descriptive conceptualisations of authority and the debate about whether it is a meaningful distinction, see Simmons Citation2016, 16.3 Emphasis removed. ‘Will to comply’ is the closest translation of the original German ‘Gehorchen wollen.’4 I thank one of the anonymous reviewers for suggesting this framing and use of the Russian doll analogy to help clarify my argument.5 As Waltz (Citation1979, 81, 88) famously posits, relations of authority are absent between the most powerful states in the system. The main reason for this is that the successful establishment of authority vis-à-vis another entity is essentially impossible without a pronounced advantage in terms of material capability. However, between particularly strong states and other, weaker political entities this precondition for authority is fulfilled, especially if the power different
政策制定者和学者都经常将权力真空视为国际政治中的重要现象,并在从内战到大国衰落和收缩的各种背景下提及它们。然而,国际关系(IR)的学生在很大程度上忽视了将“权力真空”作为一个社会科学概念来认真对待。这使得用社会科学分析来支持当前关于权力真空的政策辩论几乎是不可能的,而且更普遍地对这一概念的分析效用提出了质疑。在这篇文章中,我认为“权力真空”不仅仅是一个流行的流行语,而且是一个具有相当理论前景的概念。我提出了权力真空的概念,即经历权威崩溃的空间。由于在国际政治的背景下,组织可以在几个政治层面上宣称权威,我假设存在几种类型的权力真空,其中两种似乎与国际关系的研究特别相关:国家真空和国际真空。我的概念能够反映该术语目前使用的多种方式,为决策者非常关注的主题的新研究铺平了道路,并揭示了在IR中跨越传统上严格的主题边界进行更密切合作的潜力。披露声明作者未报告潜在的利益冲突。补充数据和研究材料本文的补充数据可以在https://doi.org/10.1080/09557571.2023.2272272Notes1上访问。在这一点上,但适用于“大战略”的概念,参见Silove Citation2018, 29.2。这是对德语原文(即“legitime Herrschaft”)的最充分(尽管不完美)的翻译。关于权威的类似定义,参见Deudney citation 1995,198;索尔尼克引文,1998,13;湖泊学报,2016,24;库斯特曼和霍尔曼引文,2022,206。下面我们会清楚地看到,我在这里谈论的是事实上的权威,即描述性、非规范性意义上的权威。关于权威的规范性和描述性概念化之间的区别,以及关于它是否是一个有意义的区别的争论,见Simmons Citation2016, 16.3重点删除。“Will to comply”是对德语原文“Gehorchen wollen”最接近的翻译。我感谢其中一位匿名评论者,他提出了这个框架,并使用了俄罗斯娃娃的比喻来帮助澄清我的论点正如华尔兹(citation1979,81,88)著名的假设,在系统中最强大的国家之间不存在权力关系。其主要原因是,如果在物质能力方面没有明显的优势,基本上不可能成功地建立对-à-vis另一个实体的权威。然而,在特别强大的国家和其他较弱的政治实体之间,特别是在它们之间的权力差异特别明显的情况下,这种权威的先决条件得到了满足请注意,我在这里并没有对大国的存在做出规范的假设——更不用说帝国和势力范围的建立了——作为一种自然或可取的东西。毕竟,这些国家通常通过战争和其他形式的暴力来积累优势能力,它们的帝国和势力范围同样基于规范上有问题的过程。相反,我的论点建立在以下观察的基础上:从历史上看,某些国家已经成为权力中心,它们利用自己的权力在国际上扩展自己的权威,这对整个国际体系产生了重要影响对于“帝国”、“领土控制”和“霸权”之间的概念关系,学者之间存在着实质性的分歧。值得注意的是,历史学家和政治学家似乎以截然不同的方式来理解这些概念之间的关系。虽然许多历史学家传统上将帝国与领土控制联系在一起(最近的一个例子,参见Immerwahr Citation2019),但今天许多政治科学家认为殖民主义只是几种可能的帝国形式之一。正如阿什福德(Citation2019)所解释的那样,“今天,大多数研究帝国的政治学家都不关注领土。相反,他们用政治影响或等级制度来定义它”(也见Doyle Citation1986, 19-21)。为了避免不必要的概念混淆,在这篇文章中,我区分了需要领土控制的正式帝国和不需要领土控制的非正式帝国。然而,这两者都是霸权的例子,即一个大国在空间上行使广泛的国际权威与上述学者一样,我也将这两个概念理解为在没有正式领土控制的情况下行使空间上广泛的国际权威,并将它们视为同义词。 但是,请注意,其他人提出了确定势力范围的替代方法,根据这些方法,两者将涉及不同的政治现象。例如,参见Resnick Citation2022, 566.9在Kustermans和Horemans的术语中(Citation2022, 209),我在这里将国际权威视为“作为契约的权威”。(参见Lake Citation2009a, 17-44.10)在一个大国自己的家园的特殊情况下,国家和国际权威的层次坍塌为一个。这个大国不仅作为中央国家权力机构统治着所有地方实体,而且由于其令人印象深刻的权力,其他地方的任何外部政治组织都无法指望统治它。因此,在这种情况下,大国同时掌握着国家和国际权威像社会科学中的任何其他理论框架一样,我在本节中发展的基础是基于一系列基本假设和本体论承诺(Hall Citation2003;Monteiro and Ruby Citation2009;Lohse Citation2017)。例如,它从民族国家的威斯特伐利亚世界的前提出发,对导致某些国家有资格成为大国的原因采用了一种完全物质的理解,假设大国与其他国家之间的区别是一种信息上的区别,在赋予物质能力和合法性特权的过程中,低估了其他可能的权威来源的重要性。随后关于权力真空的概念性讨论的合理性取决于对这些理论承诺的接受程度,这意味着它可能不会吸引那些对国际政治有着根本不同看法的学者。然而,我的希望是,即使是这些学者也会发现接下来的讨论是有价值的。作者简介moritz S. Graefrath是欧洲大学研究所政治与社会科学系的马克斯·韦伯博士后研究员。他的研究成果发表在《国际理论》(International Theory)杂志上,涉及国际关系理论与国际安全的交叉领域,重点关注大国政治、大战略和概念创新。电子邮件:Moritz.Graefrath@eui.eu
{"title":"Power vacuums in international politics: a conceptual framework","authors":"Moritz S. Graefrath","doi":"10.1080/09557571.2023.2272272","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09557571.2023.2272272","url":null,"abstract":"AbstractPolicymakers and academics alike frequently invoke power vacuums as important phenomena in international politics, referring to them in a diverse array of contexts ranging from civil war to the decline and retrenchment of great powers. However, students of international relations (IR) have largely neglected to seriously engage ‘power vacuum’ as a social scientific concept. This renders it virtually impossible to undergird current policy debates on power vacuums with social scientific analysis, and more generally raises doubts about the concept’s analytic utility. In this piece, I argue that ‘power vacuum’ is not merely a popular buzzword but a concept with considerable theoretical promise. I develop a conceptualisation of power vacuums as spaces that experience authority collapse. Since, in the context of international politics, organisations can claim authority on several political levels, I posit the existence of several types of power vacuums of which two appear particularly relevant to the study of IR: national and international vacuums. My conceptualisation is able to reflect the diverse ways in which the term is currently utilised, paves the way for novel research on a subject of great concern to policymakers, and uncovers the potential for closer collaboration across traditionally rigid thematic boundaries within IR. Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Supplemental data and research materialsSupplemental data for this article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1080/09557571.2023.2272272Notes1 On this point, but applied to the concept of ‘grand strategy,’ see Silove Citation2018, 29.2 This is the most adequate, albeit imperfect, translation of the German original, that is, ‘legitime Herrschaft.’ For similar definitions of authority, see, for instance, Deudney Citation1995, 198; Solnick Citation1998, 13; Lake Citation2016, 24; Kustermans and Horemans Citation2022, 206. As will become clear below, what I am talking about here is de facto authority, that is, authority in a descriptive, non-normative sense. On the difference between normative and descriptive conceptualisations of authority and the debate about whether it is a meaningful distinction, see Simmons Citation2016, 16.3 Emphasis removed. ‘Will to comply’ is the closest translation of the original German ‘Gehorchen wollen.’4 I thank one of the anonymous reviewers for suggesting this framing and use of the Russian doll analogy to help clarify my argument.5 As Waltz (Citation1979, 81, 88) famously posits, relations of authority are absent between the most powerful states in the system. The main reason for this is that the successful establishment of authority vis-à-vis another entity is essentially impossible without a pronounced advantage in terms of material capability. However, between particularly strong states and other, weaker political entities this precondition for authority is fulfilled, especially if the power different","PeriodicalId":51580,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Review of International Affairs","volume":"49 11","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135267692","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 : 2023-10-24DOI: 10.1080/09557571.2023.2273371
Alister Wedderburn
This article locates Martin Frobisher’s voyages to the North American Arctic in 1576, 1577 and 1578 in relation to the thought of Jamaican critic and theorist Sylvia Wynter. For Wynter, the post-Columbian settlement and colonisation of the Americas functioned as both a crucible and proving ground for a new, racialised understanding of the human, which she calls ‘Man’. Focusing on expeditionary narratives written by sailors on Frobisher’s three voyages to Baffin Island, the article treats these narratives as examples of travel writing, a genre occupying the mobile, labile threshold between history and fiction which has often mediated the comprehension of difference, hierarchy and (international) order. Focusing on these texts’ treatments of race and otherness, the article argues that the Arctic was a key site where the terms of relationality governing English interaction with the so-called ‘New World’ and its people were hesitatingly, clumsily and often violently worked out.
{"title":"Sylvia Wynter in the Arctic: early modern expeditionary narratives and the construction of ‘Man’","authors":"Alister Wedderburn","doi":"10.1080/09557571.2023.2273371","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09557571.2023.2273371","url":null,"abstract":"This article locates Martin Frobisher’s voyages to the North American Arctic in 1576, 1577 and 1578 in relation to the thought of Jamaican critic and theorist Sylvia Wynter. For Wynter, the post-Columbian settlement and colonisation of the Americas functioned as both a crucible and proving ground for a new, racialised understanding of the human, which she calls ‘Man’. Focusing on expeditionary narratives written by sailors on Frobisher’s three voyages to Baffin Island, the article treats these narratives as examples of travel writing, a genre occupying the mobile, labile threshold between history and fiction which has often mediated the comprehension of difference, hierarchy and (international) order. Focusing on these texts’ treatments of race and otherness, the article argues that the Arctic was a key site where the terms of relationality governing English interaction with the so-called ‘New World’ and its people were hesitatingly, clumsily and often violently worked out.","PeriodicalId":51580,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Review of International Affairs","volume":"40 10","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135274016","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 : 2023-10-24DOI: 10.1080/09557571.2023.2271984
Gisela Hirschmann
How do international organisations (IOs) respond to existential challenges such as membership withdrawals or budget cuts? Some IOs manage to ignore the challenge or adapt to the demands of the challenging state whereas others build institutional capacities to resist the pressure. Yet, we know little about the internal dynamics that shape IOs’ responses to such challenges. This article investigates to what extent IOs’ threat perception determines the intensity and direction of their responses to crises. Using the League of Nations’ responses to early crises as an explorative historical case study, the analysis shows that a timely and homogenous perception of a crisis leads to a more assertive and substantial response. Two broader conclusions can be drawn from the analysis for IO research. First, the role of international bureaucrats should not be underestimated in shaping an IO’s response to crises. Second, the findings indicate that a more nuanced perspective on the League’s crisis management can help overcome the failure narrative that dominates the current understanding of the League in International Relations research.
{"title":"Crisis management in international organisations: the League of Nations’ response to early challenges","authors":"Gisela Hirschmann","doi":"10.1080/09557571.2023.2271984","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09557571.2023.2271984","url":null,"abstract":"How do international organisations (IOs) respond to existential challenges such as membership withdrawals or budget cuts? Some IOs manage to ignore the challenge or adapt to the demands of the challenging state whereas others build institutional capacities to resist the pressure. Yet, we know little about the internal dynamics that shape IOs’ responses to such challenges. This article investigates to what extent IOs’ threat perception determines the intensity and direction of their responses to crises. Using the League of Nations’ responses to early crises as an explorative historical case study, the analysis shows that a timely and homogenous perception of a crisis leads to a more assertive and substantial response. Two broader conclusions can be drawn from the analysis for IO research. First, the role of international bureaucrats should not be underestimated in shaping an IO’s response to crises. Second, the findings indicate that a more nuanced perspective on the League’s crisis management can help overcome the failure narrative that dominates the current understanding of the League in International Relations research.","PeriodicalId":51580,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Review of International Affairs","volume":"64 12","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135316198","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 : 2023-10-23DOI: 10.1080/09557571.2023.2273375
David Morgan-Owen, Aimée Fox, Huw Bennett
This article examines historical fictions as social processes by which ideas about conflict and warfare are constructed and narrated within society. Focusing on Britain, it explores ‘truth telling’ about the past in an applied context, examining efforts to construct and sustain narratives about Britain’s military past and their role in upholding forms of political and societal consensus that underpin the development and use of military power. We offer a typology of the ways in which Western liberal states shape and mobilise historical fictions within their distinctive forms of militarism and civil-military relations: ‘Telling Stories’—curating and sustaining social understandings of military power through public displays, museums, and ceremonies; ‘Hiding Pasts’—using state power to shape academic research and to occlude aspects of the military past; and ‘Knowing War’—legitimating the state and armed forces’ claims to a monopoly of authoritative knowledge about war and security.
{"title":"A haunting past: British defence, historical narratives, and the politics of presentism","authors":"David Morgan-Owen, Aimée Fox, Huw Bennett","doi":"10.1080/09557571.2023.2273375","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09557571.2023.2273375","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines historical fictions as social processes by which ideas about conflict and warfare are constructed and narrated within society. Focusing on Britain, it explores ‘truth telling’ about the past in an applied context, examining efforts to construct and sustain narratives about Britain’s military past and their role in upholding forms of political and societal consensus that underpin the development and use of military power. We offer a typology of the ways in which Western liberal states shape and mobilise historical fictions within their distinctive forms of militarism and civil-military relations: ‘Telling Stories’—curating and sustaining social understandings of military power through public displays, museums, and ceremonies; ‘Hiding Pasts’—using state power to shape academic research and to occlude aspects of the military past; and ‘Knowing War’—legitimating the state and armed forces’ claims to a monopoly of authoritative knowledge about war and security.","PeriodicalId":51580,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Review of International Affairs","volume":"34 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135413494","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 : 2023-10-22DOI: 10.1080/09557571.2023.2271998
Julia Costa Lopez
In framing themselves as myth-busters, historical IR scholars have inscribed the distinction between history and fiction into how they speak to the discipline. And yet, engagement with what this might mean for the status of historical knowledge has mostly focused on broad metatheoretical distinctions and debates. Against this, I argue that questions about historical knowledge and its status are best understood as contingent settlements in the research practice of writing history, pursuing specific questions and writing specific answers. Through an exploration of the early stages in the creation of the Iberian Empires in the fifteenth century and the chronicles that provide an account of it, the article seeks to make visible the negotiations and settlements involved in writing history along four aspects of the distinction between history and fiction: facticity, emplotment, genre and the situated politics of history.
{"title":"Sources of empire: Negotiating history and fiction in the writing of historical IR","authors":"Julia Costa Lopez","doi":"10.1080/09557571.2023.2271998","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09557571.2023.2271998","url":null,"abstract":"In framing themselves as myth-busters, historical IR scholars have inscribed the distinction between history and fiction into how they speak to the discipline. And yet, engagement with what this might mean for the status of historical knowledge has mostly focused on broad metatheoretical distinctions and debates. Against this, I argue that questions about historical knowledge and its status are best understood as contingent settlements in the research practice of writing history, pursuing specific questions and writing specific answers. Through an exploration of the early stages in the creation of the Iberian Empires in the fifteenth century and the chronicles that provide an account of it, the article seeks to make visible the negotiations and settlements involved in writing history along four aspects of the distinction between history and fiction: facticity, emplotment, genre and the situated politics of history.","PeriodicalId":51580,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Review of International Affairs","volume":"39 4","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135462789","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 : 2023-09-03DOI: 10.1080/09557571.2023.2248439
Elizabeth Paradis, Anni Roth Hjermann
{"title":"Letter from the editors","authors":"Elizabeth Paradis, Anni Roth Hjermann","doi":"10.1080/09557571.2023.2248439","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09557571.2023.2248439","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51580,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Review of International Affairs","volume":"29 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134949779","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 : 2023-08-31DOI: 10.1080/09557571.2023.2248441
Nicholas Lees
Patrick James occupies a somewhat unique position among contemporary realist international relations scholars. First, unlike most realists, James is actively involved in quantitative research on war and conflict, acting as one of the current co-directors of the International Crisis Behavior project. Second, James takes the criticisms of the realist paradigm seriously. A previous theoretical treatise, International Relations and Scientific Progress (James 2002) offered a carefully considered response to the arguments of Vasquez (1997) that the realist research programme on the balance of power is degenerative, unable to account for the failure of balances to form among states without endless ad hoc emendation, producing numerous incompatible variants of realism. Offering a very detailed interrogation of the core axioms of the theory, James argued that structural realism is worth the effort to reconstruct and elaborate. Twenty years later, James continues this project in Realism and International Relations: A Graphic Turn Towards Scientific Progress, restating the argument that it would be unwise for the international relations discipline to jettison realism, due to the power of the core intuitions underpinning the paradigm and the long history of realist theorising. Acknowledging that the international relations discipline is overwhelmed with alternative theories—claims about the death of IR theory notwithstanding—James avers that a detailed, systematic comparison of realist theories is overdue (113, 150). The aim is to clarify the causal mechanisms proposed by alternative realist theories to meet the challenge of critics such as Vasquez. This is accomplished through a careful reconstruction and defense of the realist paradigm, engaging with the past two decades of debates about philosophy of social science in international relations, as well as through a ‘systemist’ method of representing theories graphically. In terms of the philosophy of social science, James draws on analytical eclecticism, which calls for breaking down paradigmatic barriers in building theoretical explanations. His project shares its concern with mechanisms, middle-range explanations and bridge-building across theoretical traditions. Yet although analytical eclecticism can be ‘part of the way forward’ (91), James wishes to retain elements of paradigmatic research, integrating mechanisms into coherent causal explanations. The framework for this integrative project is the philosopher Mario Bunge’s ‘systemism’, which examines social processes in terms of a set of causal connections: macro-macro, macro-micro, micro-macro, micro-micro, from the environment and to the environment. A fully elaborated theory of international relations would specify each of these connections. Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 2023
{"title":"Patrick James, Realism and international relations: a graphic turn toward scientific progress","authors":"Nicholas Lees","doi":"10.1080/09557571.2023.2248441","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09557571.2023.2248441","url":null,"abstract":"Patrick James occupies a somewhat unique position among contemporary realist international relations scholars. First, unlike most realists, James is actively involved in quantitative research on war and conflict, acting as one of the current co-directors of the International Crisis Behavior project. Second, James takes the criticisms of the realist paradigm seriously. A previous theoretical treatise, International Relations and Scientific Progress (James 2002) offered a carefully considered response to the arguments of Vasquez (1997) that the realist research programme on the balance of power is degenerative, unable to account for the failure of balances to form among states without endless ad hoc emendation, producing numerous incompatible variants of realism. Offering a very detailed interrogation of the core axioms of the theory, James argued that structural realism is worth the effort to reconstruct and elaborate. Twenty years later, James continues this project in Realism and International Relations: A Graphic Turn Towards Scientific Progress, restating the argument that it would be unwise for the international relations discipline to jettison realism, due to the power of the core intuitions underpinning the paradigm and the long history of realist theorising. Acknowledging that the international relations discipline is overwhelmed with alternative theories—claims about the death of IR theory notwithstanding—James avers that a detailed, systematic comparison of realist theories is overdue (113, 150). The aim is to clarify the causal mechanisms proposed by alternative realist theories to meet the challenge of critics such as Vasquez. This is accomplished through a careful reconstruction and defense of the realist paradigm, engaging with the past two decades of debates about philosophy of social science in international relations, as well as through a ‘systemist’ method of representing theories graphically. In terms of the philosophy of social science, James draws on analytical eclecticism, which calls for breaking down paradigmatic barriers in building theoretical explanations. His project shares its concern with mechanisms, middle-range explanations and bridge-building across theoretical traditions. Yet although analytical eclecticism can be ‘part of the way forward’ (91), James wishes to retain elements of paradigmatic research, integrating mechanisms into coherent causal explanations. The framework for this integrative project is the philosopher Mario Bunge’s ‘systemism’, which examines social processes in terms of a set of causal connections: macro-macro, macro-micro, micro-macro, micro-micro, from the environment and to the environment. A fully elaborated theory of international relations would specify each of these connections. Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 2023","PeriodicalId":51580,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Review of International Affairs","volume":"36 1","pages":"745 - 747"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2023-08-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43002471","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 : 2023-08-29DOI: 10.1080/09557571.2023.2248442
C. Death
James, Patrick. 2002. International Relations and Scientific Progress: Structural Realism Reconsidered. Columbus: Ohio State University. Lukes, Steven. 2005. Power: A Radical View. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Vasquez, John A. 1997. “The Realist Paradigm and Degenerative versus Progressive Research Programs: An Appraisal of Neotraditional Research on Waltz’s Balancing Proposition.” American Political Science Review 91 (4): 899–912. https://doi.org/10. 2307/2952172
{"title":"Mathias Thaler, No other planet: Utopian visions for a climate-changed world","authors":"C. Death","doi":"10.1080/09557571.2023.2248442","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09557571.2023.2248442","url":null,"abstract":"James, Patrick. 2002. International Relations and Scientific Progress: Structural Realism Reconsidered. Columbus: Ohio State University. Lukes, Steven. 2005. Power: A Radical View. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Vasquez, John A. 1997. “The Realist Paradigm and Degenerative versus Progressive Research Programs: An Appraisal of Neotraditional Research on Waltz’s Balancing Proposition.” American Political Science Review 91 (4): 899–912. https://doi.org/10. 2307/2952172","PeriodicalId":51580,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Review of International Affairs","volume":"36 1","pages":"747 - 749"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2023-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45001926","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 : 2023-08-21DOI: 10.1080/09557571.2023.2248444
J. Alam
Marcelle Trote Martins is a Research Associate at the University of Manchester and a Visiting Research Fellow at Liverpool John Moores University. She has a PhD from the University of Manchester and master’s and undergraduate degrees in International Relations from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio). She teaches at the University of Manchester and the University of Liverpool. Areas of interest: International Conflicts, Memory and Trauma, Visual Politics, Body Politics, Emotions Studies and Timor-Leste. Email: mtrotem@gmail.com
{"title":"Shyam Saran, How China Sees India and the World: The Authoritative Account of the India-China Relationship","authors":"J. Alam","doi":"10.1080/09557571.2023.2248444","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09557571.2023.2248444","url":null,"abstract":"Marcelle Trote Martins is a Research Associate at the University of Manchester and a Visiting Research Fellow at Liverpool John Moores University. She has a PhD from the University of Manchester and master’s and undergraduate degrees in International Relations from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio). She teaches at the University of Manchester and the University of Liverpool. Areas of interest: International Conflicts, Memory and Trauma, Visual Politics, Body Politics, Emotions Studies and Timor-Leste. Email: mtrotem@gmail.com","PeriodicalId":51580,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Review of International Affairs","volume":"1 2","pages":"751 - 753"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2023-08-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41298536","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 : 2023-08-21DOI: 10.1080/09557571.2023.2248443
Marcelle Trote Martins
{"title":"Adam B. Lerner, From the ashes of history: collective trauma and the making of international politics","authors":"Marcelle Trote Martins","doi":"10.1080/09557571.2023.2248443","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09557571.2023.2248443","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51580,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Review of International Affairs","volume":"36 1","pages":"749 - 751"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2023-08-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44555531","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}