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52. Critique in a time of liberal world order
- Author:
- Beate Jahn
- Publication Date:
- 04-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- The dominance of liberalism in world politics today is widely interpreted as attesting to its universal validity. This claim provides the basis for a distinction between legitimate and illegitimate criticism — the former operating within a broadly liberal framework and the latter questioning the universal validity of that framework. This special issue brings together critiques of liberalism in the second register. The introduction sets out the two competing notions of critical analysis and argues that, far from being 'illegitimate', it is this second concept of critique that ensures that liberalism does not betray its core promise of replacing might with right in a time of liberal world order.
- Topic:
- Politics
53. The liberal renaissance and the end(s) of history
- Author:
- TIm Di Muzio
- Publication Date:
- 04-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- Addressing the historical turn in International Relations (IR), this article offers a critical appraisal of what I call the liberal renaissance by interrogating liberal discourse and its renderings of history. The main argument advanced is that whether implicitly or explicitly, liberal perspectives in IR are heir to two overlapping and often contradictory narratives of history that masquerade as universals when they can be shown to be particular (and indeed peculiar). The first narrative is animated by a juridico-philosophical discourse while the second is informed by a stadial-historical discourse. I suggest that both of these narratives contribute to a triumphant, universal and relatively pacific reading of the liberal project, the aim of which is to encourage — through a variety of strategies, tactics and technologies — liberal democratic market societies so that the world will one day be united by capitalist commerce and the institutions of polyarchical democracy. I conclude the article by considering some of the consequences of holding to these historical appreciations for contemporary IR and advocates of the liberal project.
- Topic:
- International Relations
54. Geniuses, exiles and (liberal) postmodern subjectivities
- Author:
- Rosemary Shinko
- Publication Date:
- 04-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- This article argues that Ashley and Walker's 'dissident exile' and Mill's 'genius' are virtual mirror images of one another due to the fact that both subject formulations rely on the concept of individual autonomy. Postmodern iterations of subjectivity such as those found in the work of Ashley and Walker place a great deal of emphasis on alterity and ethical engagement, striving to move beyond the ethical limitations of Enlightenment liberalism that valorises the atomised, sovereign individual. But both Mill's genius, who can choose his or her own mode of existence or plan of life, and Ashley and Walker's dissident exile, who engages in self-making in a register of freedom, are inextricably bound up with and reliant upon one of liberalism's seminal concepts: autonomy. The implications of this in terms of theorising new forms of subjectivity in international relations are significant because replacing autonomy with heteronomy or recasting autonomy in relational terms fails to fully acknowledge how central autonomy is to the entire project of critique. The critical attitude that Ashley and Walker, as well as Mill, exhibit emanates from within Enlightenment liberalism; since the very act of critique rests on the exercise of individual autonomy, perhaps the most we can hope for in terms of new iterations of subjectivity may only be one that is more expansively 'liberal'.
55. Liberal internationalism and the law vs liberty paradox
- Author:
- Linda Bishai
- Publication Date:
- 04-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- This article examines and critiques the engagement of liberal international law with liberal internationalism in international relations (IR), demonstrating that the results are not to the credit of either discipline. In particular, two key assumptions of the legal liberal international order are flawed. First, the attempt to establish a two-tiered international liberal order based on law and democracy results in intervention (both forceful and performative) that counterproductively embroils liberal states, generating resentment and counter-democratic movements. Second, the assumption that security in a globalising world can only be created by the total globalisation of the liberal order and the removal of 'outlaw' states creates a new version of the security dilemma in which the actions taken to secure the liberal world order create the very conditions of its insecurity. The article concludes with recommendations for a critical post-structuralist engagement with a post-liberal politics of virtù that paradoxically allows for the liberal identity to be better secured in its international relations with the other.
- Topic:
- Security, Politics, and Law
56. Missing the target: NGOs, global civil society and the arms trade
- Author:
- Anna Stavrianakis
- Publication Date:
- 04-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- Non-governmental organisation (NGO) activism on the arms trade is emblematic of the significant and emancipatory role attributed to civil society in post-Cold War international politics. Discussions of NGOs' efforts are marked by a distinctively liberal understanding of civil society as an increasingly global sphere separate from the state and market, promoting progressive and non-violent social relations. However, there are significant conceptual and empirical problems with these claims, which I illustrate using examples from contemporary NGO activism on the international production of and trade in conventional weaponry. First, liberal accounts underplay the mutual dependence between the state, market and civil society. NGO agency is both constrained and enabled by its historical, structural grounding. Second, I argue for a more ambivalent understanding of NGOs' progressive political value. While some NGOs may play a role in counter-hegemonic struggle, overall they are more likely to contribute to hegemonic social formations. Third, liberal accounts of a global civil society inadequately capture the reproduction of hierarchy in international relations, downplaying ongoing, systematic patterns of North-South asymmetry. Fourth, the emphasis on the non-violent nature of global civil society sidelines the violence of capitalism and the state system, and serves as a means of disciplining dissent and activism.
- Topic:
- Cold War and Non-Governmental Organization
57. Eternal peace, perpetual war? A critical investigation into Kant's conceptualisations of war
- Author:
- Andreas Behnke
- Publication Date:
- 04-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- Most discussions of Immanuel Kant's political theory of international politics focus on his work on Eternal Peace and its normative and empirical relevance for contemporary international relations and international law. Yet for all his concern with peace, Kant's work is characterised by a fascinating preoccupation with the concept of war and its role in human history. The purpose of this essay is to investigate critically Kant's different conceptualisations of war and to evaluate his writing as a critique against contemporary versions of Liberal war and peace, as well as recent attempts to reduce war to an immanent logic of biopolitics.
- Topic:
- Politics
58. Islam, nihilism and liberal secularity
- Author:
- Mustapha Pasha
- Publication Date:
- 04-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- The theme of nihilism offers fertile avenues for exploring the antinomies of classical liberalism. In its instantiation as violence, nihilism challenges classical liberalism and its recognised political settlement, notably received arrangements harnessed to cultivate uncontrolled passions or religious fervour. In its affinity to Islam, nihilism defies the secular settlement through its appeals to transcendence. By seeking legitimacy in the sacred, nihilism disrupts established boundaries between the religious and the secular. Nihilism exposes the difficulty of forging worlds of transcendence on the modern register of immanence. Transcendence affords the possibility of escape, immanence closure. The two can be reversed in politics, as the experience in several Islamic Cultural Zones (ICZs) suggests. Appeals to transcendence seek to reorganise the social world in the name of escaping it. Immanence, on the other hand, can rework notions of redemption and salvation into secular stories of progress. This paper explores how the presumed nihilistic tendency appearing in the ICZs destabilises the liberal settlement, not in the conventional sense of presenting a religious counterpoint, but in reworking religious themes into secularity. Nihilism illustrates both the contradictory character of modernity and modernity's potential to generate varied societal projects, including those informed by the sacred. The recognition that modernity can spawn discordant impulses in reconciling religion and politics helps rethink post-secular lives under the long shadow of disenchantment.
- Topic:
- Islam and Politics
59. Liberal fundamentals: invisible, invasive, artful, and bloody hands
- Author:
- Naeem Inayatullah and David Blaney
- Publication Date:
- 04-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- Returning to liberalism's Scottish Enlightenment precursors suggests that the liberal order might best be described by the tension between its assertions about the smoothing natural harmonies within the social order and its doubts about whether those harmonies can appear spontaneously and therefore require aggressive projects of reform and correction. Although committed to the inevitability and inexorability of progress, such doubts led Scottish Enlightenment figures to strategies that even today continue to mark liberalism's effort to purify modern progress of tragedy's taint. We continue to justify apparent social failings as necessary to the natural order, regarding them instead as advantages in a Providentialist manner (Smith and Hume). We preserve our faith in commercial society by aggressively reforming and correcting those inside and outside others who resist the inevitabilities we have embraced (Millar). We accept the disorders and instabilities inherent in modern market society, but replace our hope in the automaticity of adjustment with a belief in the capacity of the state or some form of international governance to resolve tensions in some higher-order liberalism (Steuart). We call for a moral revival to restore values that our contemporary liberal institutions cannot possibly sustain (Ferguson). In sum, maintaining liberalism's idealised vision of itself in the face of these necessary limits and ill consequences calls forth the purificatory zeal of the fundamentalist. If we wish to move past a response that offers us more liberalism and more zeal as a solution to the problems of liberalism, we need something that is both within and beyond liberal fundamentals: a liberalism that accepts truths beyond itself; that looks to multiple ontologies for political and ethical resources; and that accepts plural and multiple versions of virtue and progress negotiated between liberalism's fundamentals and varying local ideals and conditions.
- Topic:
- Governance
- Political Geography:
- Scotland
60. A global journal with Central European roots: a vision for the JIRD
- Publication Date:
- 07-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- The JIRD is a global journal with Central European roots. We have established a diverse editorial team of scholars from Europe and North America linked first by a commitment to publish highest quality scholarship in international relations (IR) and development, broadly conceived, regardless of substantive or methodological focus; and second by a common awareness of the contribution the Central and East European (CEE) experience can make to the study of international politics. We envision the JIRD as a globally relevant journal with a CEE touch. This does not mean dealing primarily with CEE themes, although the region will naturally remain more strongly in focus than in comparable IR journals. More profoundly, it means nurturing both CEE IR scholarship and also the broader transnational scholarly context in which it develops.
- Topic:
- International Relations and Development
- Political Geography:
- Europe and North America
61. Into the 'Heart of Darkness' — EU's civilising mission in the DR Congo
- Author:
- Gabi Schlag
- Publication Date:
- 07-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- 'Normative Power Europe', a concept introduced by Ian Manners in 2002 in order to describe the international identity of the European Union (EU), remains a lasting point of reference for academic as well as political debates. However, many contributions to this discussion tend to essentialise notions of a collective identity where normative self-depictions are uncritically used as an explanation for the EU's external actions. The main challenge, thus, is to reconstruct how a self is invented in the conduct of foreign and security policies as a discourse of locating others and articulating insecurities. These discursive processes, I will argue, are highly productive of hierarchical relations and justification narratives overlooked by most research on the EU's security and defence policies. The results of a reconstruction of EU discourse on the European Security and Defence Policy missions in the Democratic Republic of Congo lead to the preliminary conclusion that the EU might increasingly be imagined as a 'civilising power', partly re-activating its imperial legacies of the 19th century.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy
- Political Geography:
- Europe
62. Complexity theory and the War on Terror: understanding the self-organising dynamics of leaderless jihad
- Author:
- Antoine Bousquet
- Publication Date:
- 07-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- This article seeks to substantiate theoretically Marc Sageman's claims of a 'leaderless jihad' through the application of the conceptual framework offered by the novel scientific paradigm of complexity theory. It is argued that jihadist networks, such as those behind the September 11 attacks and the bombings in London and Madrid, can be profitably understood in terms of complex adaptive systems, emergent organisations that coalesce and self-organise in a decentralised fashion. Complexity sheds new light on the jihadist movement by providing an account of the bottom-up self-organisation of its networks and the systems of distributed intelligence which allow those networks to operate and pursue successful attacks on the basis of partial and localised information, and this despite the strenuous efforts at counter-terrorism deployed by states.
- Topic:
- War
63. The roles states play: a Meadian interactionist approach
- Author:
- David M. McCourt
- Publication Date:
- 07-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- Constructivist scholars have largely limited their view of how state action is socially constructed to the concepts of norms and identity. As for individuals, however, role-playing is also a core aspect of state activity. I demonstrate the potential of this concept for constructivists on the basis of a reconsideration of the roles states play in international politics - drawing on symbolic interactionism and in particular the thought of G.H. Mead. From a Meadian perspective, roles are sets of appropriate behaviours, not bundles of fixed duties; they emerge in interaction and give the actor a sense of its structure and the scope of possible action. Roles are thus the necessary social vehicle for action in its meaning-creating, identity-affirming sense. Using the illustration of the Suez Crisis of 1956, I develop a 'Meadian interactionist' conceptual approach that builds on previous attempts to harness the potential of the role concept in International Relations (IR) and sharpens constructivist understandings of the links between role, identity, norms, and action in IR.
- Topic:
- International Relations
64. The social construction of terrorism: media, metaphors and policy implications
- Author:
- Alexander Spencer
- Publication Date:
- 07-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- The article illustrates a constructivist understanding of studying terrorism and counter-terrorism by applying metaphor analysis to a British tabloid media discourse on terrorism between 2001 and 2005 in The Sun newspaper. It identifies four conceptual metaphors constituting terrorism as a war, a crime, an uncivilised evil and as a disease, and it illustrates how these understandings make certain counter-terrorism policies such as a military response, judicial measures or immigration policies acceptable while at the same time excluding from consideration other options, such as negotiations. It thereby re-emphasises that a metaphorical understanding of political phenomena such as terrorism can give International Relations insights into how certain policies become possible while others remain outside of the range of options thought to be appropriate.
- Topic:
- International Relations and Terrorism
65. Parliamentary peace or partisan politics? Democracies' participation in the Iraq War
- Author:
- Patrick A. Mello
- Publication Date:
- 07-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- This paper seeks to explain democracies' military participation in the Iraq War. Prior studies have identified institutional and partisan differences as potential explanatory factors for the observed variance. The interaction of institutions and partisanship, however, has gone largely unobserved. I argue that these factors must be analysed in conjunction: institutional constraints presume actors that fulfil their role as veto players to the executive. Likewise, partisan politics is embedded in institutional frames that enable or constrain decision-making. Hence I suggest a comparative approach that combines these factors to explain why some democracies joined the ad hoc coalition against Iraq and others did not. To investigate the interaction between institutions, partisanship and war participation I apply fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis. The analysis reveals that the conjunction of right-of-centre governments with an absence of both parliamentary veto rights and constitutional restrictions was sufficient for participation in the Iraq War. In turn, for countries where the constitution requires parliamentary approval of military deployments, the distribution of preferences within the legislature proved to be decisive for military participation or non-participation.
- Topic:
- Politics and War
- Political Geography:
- Iraq
66. Hierarchy in World Politics
- Author:
- Patrick Thaddeus Jackson and George Lawson
- Publication Date:
- 04-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- With this Special Issue the editorial team fulfils a campaign promise, so to speak. In our original proposal to assume the editorship of the Journal of International Relations and Development, we proposed three special features: a Forum on IR in Eastern and Central Europe (published in issue 12:2), a Forum on post-Communist and post-Socialist transitions (published in issue 12:4), and a Special Issue on hierarchy in world politics. The four papers collected here represent the end result of a process of soliciting proposals for manuscripts, putting those manuscripts through the regular peer-review process, and selecting papers that would allow a multi-faceted exploration of a complex topic that has made its way back into IR after the long interregnum of theories and models that focused on presumptively equivalent states operating under conditions of anarchy. But this is more than simply 'bringing hierarchy back in'; the new focus on unequal relations of power in world politics is a good deal more sophisticated than the sometimes blunt assertions of dependency theory and early world-systems accounts. The papers that we have assembled for this Special Issue represent some, but by no means all, of the rich analytical diversity in contemporary accounts of hierarchy in world politics.
- Topic:
- International Relations
- Political Geography:
- Europe
67. Empire, imperialism and conceptual history
- Author:
- Helge Jordheim and Iver B Neumann
- Publication Date:
- 04-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- Hierarchy in world politics has to be discussed by means of specific concepts. Concepts come with specific historical and social baggage. They are defined by their meanings and uses and become powerful in battle with other concepts. The concepts discussed in this article, 'empire' and 'imperialism', have lately made their return to the grand stage of world politics, most significantly as descriptions, and indeed, self-descriptions of the role and position of the United States. How is this return possible? What does it mean? To answer these questions we draw on the long-standing scientific discipline and method of conceptual history, or Begriffsgeschichte, in the way it has been theorised and practised by the German historian and theorist of history Reinhart Koselleck. In a second step, we discuss how this way of writing the history of social and political concepts has been challenged by other approaches, most importantly by the Cambridge intellectual historian Quentin Skinner. At the hands of Koselleck and Skinner conceptual history contributes to opening our eyes to the historical specificity of the uses and meanings of concepts in particular contexts, in a long historical perspective ranging from the Ancient Romans to the Bush administration.
- Topic:
- History
- Political Geography:
- United States
68. Eco-imperialism: governance, resistance, hierarchy
- Author:
- Hugh Dyer
- Publication Date:
- 04-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- The global environmental agenda, alongside the broad neoliberal agenda, may be viewed by developing states and societies as a neo-imperialist adventure to be resisted. This paper argues that while the idea of 'eco-imperialism' reflects the uncertain location of politics, the ambivalent role of states, and unchallenged state-centred assumptions about world politics, it also introduces conceptual confusion. It is an unusual case of imperialism, in so far as it involves diverse actors who may not be pursuing the same objectives. It appears that eco-imperialism may be both hegemonic force and anti-capitalist movement. In order to explain this apparent contradiction, we must note the contradictions in globalisation, but also how the mix of underlying political orientations create strange bed-fellows of, for example, developing country activists and oil company executives. In doing so, a nuanced view of the dynamics of global environmental policy and the prospects for matching these to particular political contexts may be discerned. While the exploitative and dominating aspects of global environmental policy deserve to be challenged and studied, these may have less bearing on global governance per se than on the globalised world in which it occurs. In recognising the intent of the critique, one must also note the mutual constitution of governance and resistance, local-global reverberations, and the prospects for bottom-up support identified by 'environmentality'. Hence, any signs of eco-imperialism imply 'participatory empire' at worst, which should inform rather than obstruct global environmental governance.
- Topic:
- Globalization and Politics
69. The Middle East in the world hierarchy: imperialism and resistance
- Author:
- Raymond Hinnebusch
- Publication Date:
- 04-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- This study deploys a structuralist framework of analysis, modified by elements from other theories, to examine the place of the Middle East in the world hierarchy. It surveys the origins of the regional system in imperialism's peripheralisation and fragmentation of the region, the core-periphery clientalist hierarchy thereby established, regional agency within the system, including the foreign policies of dependent and rebellious states, and the on-going struggle over the hierarchical order between revisionist forces in the Middle East and the global hegemons.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy
- Political Geography:
- Middle East
70. Hegemony, not empire
- Publication Date:
- 04-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- After a period of terminological indecision, 'empire' has staged a startling academic comeback since the beginning of this century. Like the notion of hegemony, which dominated earlier debates on the United States and world order, the term 'empire' has never been uncontested. Furthermore, no clear delineation between the two concepts emerged, and under-conceptualisation resulted in a lasting confusion about their analytical value. Analysing the pitfalls of the central debates on empire and hegemonic stability, the article contends that the choice of terminology has frequently been motivated politically rather than by scientific standards. We find that proponents of 'empire' have largely misinterpreted the policy strategy of empire — as applied by the George W. Bush administration — for the real thing, an existing empire. In this article, instead, using Gary Goertz' (2006) approach to conceptual analysis, we suggest a reformulation of the concept of hegemony to capture the current international system in which the US still enjoys an undisputed preponderance of power. With a focus on how power is used, hegemony is understood as a specific form of leadership that is dependent on the perception of its legitimacy and is differentiated with regard to its regional and global reach.
- Political Geography:
- United States
71. The state as citizen: state personhood and ideology
- Author:
- Jorg Kustermans
- Publication Date:
- 01-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- An important debate in International Relations and International Law is whether states are persons. In this article, it is argued that they are. That is, they are real persons-as-status. Furthermore, state personhood is argued to be an ideological category, marked by ideological variety. Roughly, one can tell apart liberal and republican conceptions of state citizenship. In a case study, the conceptual toolkit of state citizenship is put to work to assess the liberal credentials of modern international society. While modern international society rests on firm liberal principles, expressed most clearly in the Charter of the UN, important republican elements can be discerned, not in the least in the constitution of NATO.
- Topic:
- International Relations, NATO, International Law, and United Nations
72. Gender and race in the European security strategy: Europe as a 'force for good'
- Author:
- Maria Stern
- Publication Date:
- 01-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- Taking Robert Kagan's imagery of US-Mars and Europe-Venus as a point of departure, this article probes into how the naturalised reproduction of Europe in the text of the European Security Strategy (ESS) discursively occurs through intermeshing gendered and racialised discourses. The article therefore offers a narrative that has been largely silenced in conversations about the EU as a global security actor. By paying attention to embedded 'sticky' gendered and racialised signs in the text of the ESS, the article argues that the delineations drawn to secure Europe in the text of the ESS also engender 'Europe' as multiply masculine by dividing the world into sharp spatio-temporal distinctions. Echoing Europe's colonial past, the ESS represents its 'Others' as both feminised and subordinate. In this sense, the article argues that the European project of security-development as written in the ESS is both civilising (normative) and violently exclusionary - in contradistinction to many contemporary depictions of Europe as a normative power and a harbour of tolerance. The gendered and colonial grammar of these spatial and temporal distinctions work to naturalise a certain (re)production of 'Europe', yet haunt the secure Europe and the better world promised in the strategy.
- Topic:
- Security
- Political Geography:
- United States and Europe
73. Race for the money: international financial centres in Asia
- Author:
- Darryl S L Jarvis
- Publication Date:
- 01-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- Asia's emergence as a key player in the global economy is witnessing intense competition within the region to become Asia's next great international financial centre (IFC). Hong Kong, Singapore and Shanghai, among others, are vying for primacy, attempting to attract dense clusters of financial services firms and reap the lucrative rewards associated with this. This paper explores this emerging competition. It does so from the perspective of attempting to map the parameters necessary to become an IFC, particularly the institutional, political and spatial contexts that facilitate the concentration of international financial services. Why and how financial clustering occurs and the factors that determine the location of financial centres is an important public policy concern, both for established centres eager to maintain their competitive position as well as emerging economies keen to identify the policy levers necessary to support financial sector growth. To that end, the paper explores the experiences and strategies of three of Asia's current contenders: Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore. It analyses the policy architecture, financial sector strategies, institutional mechanisms and spatial geographies undergirding financial sector growth, and the constraints, obstacles and challenges each face in developing and or consolidating their IFC.
- Political Geography:
- Shanghai, Asia, Singapore, and Hong Kong
74. Development issues in Africa: challenges, concepts, opportunities
- Author:
- Antje Vetterlein
- Publication Date:
- 01-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- The idea for this Forum emerged during the fourth GARNET Capacity Building Workshop in Cape Town, South Africa, in November 2008, convened by The Evian Group at IMD, an international coalition of corporate, government and opinion leaders, based in Switzerland, in association with Mthente, a South African research-driven consulting firm. The workshop, entitled The Challenges of Youth in the 21st Century: Africa — Creating Opportunities through Entrepreneurship and Education, brought together about 60 participants and experts on the topic, representing civil society, government and business as well as academia to engage in a lively dialogue on the pressing issue of development on the African continent and the role education and entrepreneurship plays in this respect.
- Topic:
- Education
- Political Geography:
- Africa
75. The state of development in Africa: concepts, challenges and opportunities
- Author:
- Mills Soko and Jean-Pierre Lehmann
- Publication Date:
- 01-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- Africa's marginalisation and development challenges are extensively documented. Africa's underdevelopment is a product of the interplay of external and domestic factors including slavery and colonialism, economic mismanagement, ill-conceived structural adjustment policies, inter-state and intra-state conflicts, failed regionalism, unfair trade terms, foreign debt, aid dependence, poor governance, weak states, and institutional decay.
- Topic:
- Debt
- Political Geography:
- Africa
76. Empowering tomorrow's African entrepreneurs and managers: the Global Business School Network
- Author:
- Guy Pfeffermann and Nora Brown
- Publication Date:
- 01-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- The essay introduces an innovative low-cost knowledge-based approach to development cooperation: the Global Business School Network (GBSN). Since 2003 GBSN has been addressing a cross-cutting development issue which has been neglected or altogether ignored by Official Development Assistance institutions as well as private philanthropic funders: the extreme scarcity of well-trained local leaders and managers — 'problem-solvers' — in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) as well as other low-income areas of the world.
- Political Geography:
- Africa
77. Youth unemployment in South Africa: challenges, concepts and opportunities
- Author:
- Cecil Mlatsheni and Murray Leibbrandt
- Publication Date:
- 01-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- In investigating the reach of the idea of social exclusion, it is useful to examine the specific role of economic events of the kind that may be particularly associated with the development of an excluded population. An especially apt example is the important phenomenon of long-term unemployment. (T)he extraordinary prevalence of unemployment and worklessness is perhaps the single most important contributor to the persistence of social exclusion in a large and momentous scale. (Sen 2000: 18)
- Political Geography:
- South Africa
78. Corporate social responsibility: an oversocialised view of multinational corporations in Africa?
- Author:
- John Agbonifo
- Publication Date:
- 01-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become a buzzword in business schools, politics, NGO circles and the business community. Violent companies of yesterday, employing mistrust and malfeasance in their dealings with host communities, have become the vanguard of CSR.
- Topic:
- Politics
- Political Geography:
- Africa
79. Sexual and gender-based violence in Liberia and the case for a comprehensive approach to the rule of law
- Author:
- Niels Nagelhus Schia and Benjamin de Carvalho
- Publication Date:
- 01-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- Since the end of the conflict in Liberia, one of the main priorities of the UN Mission (UNMIL), UN agencies, NGOs and INGOs has been to address the very high level of sexual violence against women and children, often known through the 'SGBV' acronym (Sexual and Gender-Based Violence).This focus has led to a number of initiatives from the international community, including a joint UN and Government of Liberia national strategy on the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (Government of Liberia 2009); the creation of a ministry for gender issues; and a number of campaigns aimed at engendering awareness of the problem.
- Topic:
- Security and United Nations
- Political Geography:
- Liberia
80. Negotiating regions=fostering welfare: the Economic Partnership Agreements as new model of development?
- Author:
- Ulrike E Lorenz
- Publication Date:
- 01-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- Despite the melodious intentions to make poverty history in the 21st century, the quest for promising concepts proves to be far less harmonious. Hopes were high that a globalised world would imply the smooth diffusion of such positively valued 'assets' as wealth and knowledge through a just system.
- Topic:
- Economics
81. Re-presenting Ireland: tourism, branding and national identity in Ireland
- Author:
- Michael Clancy
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- This article examines sources of national identity formation under rapidly changing social and economic conditions. Specifically, it links constructivist notions of national identity formation and reformulation to the growing practice of nation branding. Following a discussion of the contributions of constructivism to the literature on national identity, the article summarises the emergence of nation branding as a contemporary strategy to promote a particular image of the nation to a specific audience. While that audience was once confined to political and economic elites, it has broadened in recent years to include potential tourists, diaspora communities and even one's own citizens. The case study of tourism branding in Ireland demonstrates that while the branding message often differs from reality, its content constitutes a powerful tool for the state in reinforcing a particular notion of national identity.
- Topic:
- Economics
- Political Geography:
- Ireland
82. Civilianising warfare: ways of war and peace in modern counterinsurgency
- Author:
- Colleen Bell
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- This article examines the emergence of counterinsurgency doctrine in Coalition interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. While counterinsurgency is complimentary to the tenets forwarded by its classical military predecessors in several respects, the article shows that it is also more than a refashioning of conventional military practice. Counterinsurgency is intimately tied to institutional practices that shape global liberal governance. It can be traced to dominant trends in international humanitarian, development and peace interventionism since the end of the Cold War and it deepens the links between the social development of war-affected populations and the politics of international security. Rather than simply a shift in military practice, counterinsurgency is distinguished by its investment in civilian modes of warfare. Counterinsurgency retells the narrative of intervention as part of the evolution of political and economic liberalisation, marking a passage from interventionary force to post-interventionary governance. Modern counterinsurgency, it is concluded, exposes the widening indistinction between contemporary modes of peace and those of war in international relations.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Cold War, Economics, War, Counterinsurgency, and Governance
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan and Iraq
83. Civil–military cooperation in crisis management in Africa: American and European Union policies compared
- Author:
- Gorm Rye Olsen
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- Cooperation between civilian and military actors has become a catchphrase in international crisis management and development policy in the 21st century. This paper examines the crisis management policies adopted in Africa by the United States and the European Union (EU), respectively. It is hypothesised that both actors' crisis management policies are likely to be path dependent, despite recent significant changes in policy preferences. It is shown that the priority combining civilian and military resources in American crisis management is only implemented to a limited degree. It is consistent with the persistent predominance of the Pentagon and of the military instruments in US Africa policy. It illustrates the conspicuous institutional path dependency of US Africa policy, which by some is described as 'militarised'. The EU has been able to apply both civilian and military instruments in crisis management in Africa, suggesting the policy is not path dependent. The European situation is arguably attributable to the widespread consensus among European actors that it is necessary to combine civilian and military instruments in crisis management.
- Political Geography:
- Africa, United States, and America
84. What is critical IPE?
- Author:
- Ian Bruff and Daniela Tepe
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- International Political Economy (IPE) has, since its emergence in the 1970s, never been a settled discipline. From the beginning there have been disputes over whether one should seek to understand the agents acting within the international economic system or instead focus on ontological enquiries into the historical evolution of world order itself.
- Topic:
- Economics and Political Economy
85. Where did the critical go?
- Author:
- Owen Worth
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- The study of international political economy (IPE) has long proclaimed to have a critical side or focus. Accounts of the intellectual history of IPE were often concerned with the difference between the 'empiricist' or 'positivist' and the 'critical' approach to the discipline (Murphy and Nelson 2002; Cohen 2008)
- Topic:
- Political Economy and History
86. 'What's "critical" about critical theory': capturing the social totality (das Gesellschaftliche Ganze)
- Author:
- Daniela Tepe and Anita Fischer
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- This is neither the first article to address the nature of Critical Theory,1 nor the first article to address the necessarily feminist character of Critical Theory. Given that most of the writing concerned with the latter was (largely) neglected in International Relations (IR) and International Political Economy (IPE) scholarship, it seems appropriate to do so again.
- Topic:
- International Relations and International Political Economy
87. Finding space in critical IPE: a scalar-relational approach
- Author:
- Huw Macartney and Stuart Shields
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- Our aim in this essay is to explore how critical international political economy (IPE) is spatially impaired, and how a scalar-relational approach offers a potential solution. By this, we mean that despite the plethora of spatial terms (national, international, global, transnational) applied as levels of analysis, the counter-hegemonic aspects of critical IPE are hamstrung by an inability to account for the production of space and the relations between particular scales.
88. Facing up to financialisation and the aesthetic economy: high time for aesthetics in international political economy!
- Author:
- Claes Belfrage
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- 'Aesthetics' has been a core concern of modern European philosophy1 (and other subject areas in the Humanities) since Baumgarten's Aesthetica (1750). Its reified dominant meaning is the result of deep struggle and is linked to dominant ideological forms in the capitalist economy, of which International Political Economy (IPE) forms part.
- Political Geography:
- Europe
89. The case for a foundational materialism: going beyond historical materialist IPE in order to strengthen it
- Author:
- Ian Bruff
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- In recent years, historical materialist International Political Economy (IPE) has been criticised frequently for a worldview that, it is claimed, emphasises in principle the inherently open-ended and contingent nature of societal evolution, but in practice adheres to a deterministic outlook. This, for (especially constructivist and post-structuralist) critics, is the case in even neo-Gramscian contributions, which explicitly discuss the role of ideas and culture as well as class conflict rooted in capitalist production relations.
- Topic:
- Political Economy
90. 'Getting things right?': a reconsideration of critical realism as a metatheory for IR
- Author:
- Juha Käpylä and Harri Mikkola
- Publication Date:
- 10-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- Critical realism (CR) has become one of the prominent metatheoretical frameworks upon which substantive inquiry of world politics in the discipline of International Relations (IR) can build. The aim of this article is to critically reconsider CR metatheory and its attitude to 'get things right' about the world. This is done, primarily, by focusing on the existence of the correspondence theory of truth in the CR framework. To support this analysis, the notions of explanatory power, retroduction and emergence are also engaged. The article poses three broad research questions: first, what is the relationship between external reality and human knowledge in the CR framework? Second, what sort of logical problems does this account entail? And last, what are the implications of the acceptance of CR metatheory for IR? The article argues that both the emphasis on the external reality as the yardstick for (social) scientific research and the attempt to combine fallibilism with the realist aim of 'getting things right' about reality with the help of the correspondence theory of truth are highly problematic. The article concludes that CR metatheory could entail serious axiological problems for IR. Among the most serious ones is the potential scientific conservatism based on realist 'truthtalk'.
91. Power beyond conditionality: European organisations and the Hungarian minorities in Romania and Slovakia
- Author:
- Jakob Skovgaard
- Publication Date:
- 10-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- The article addresses the power of three international organisations, the Council of Europe (CoE), the European Union (EU) and the High Commissioner on National Minorities (HCNM) regarding the Hungarian minority policies of Romania, Slovakia and Hungary. It is argued that most of the academic literature within the field misses the point when relying on a rather limited conceptualisation of power as something which one actor uses to get another actor to do what it otherwise would not have done. Using a broader conceptualistion of power, including the power to interpret norms and their application, leads to a better understanding of the roles of the CoE and the HCNM. Analysing the three organisations' approaches to the Hungarian minority education policy in Romania and Slovakia, as well as the Hungarian Status Law, reveals how the CoE and the HCNM interpreted norms of national minority policy and their application to the addressed policies. These interpretations shaped EU policy on the subject, and Romania, Slovakia and Hungary had to take the EU policy seriously due to their desire to join the EU. The three organisations engaged in an exchange of power, in which the CoE and the OSCE High Commissioner bestowed legitimacy on the EU, which in return could provide them with increased leverage over the accession states.
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Romania, and Slovakia
92. The social construction of European solidarity: Germany and France in the EU policy towards the states of Africa, the Caribbean, and the Pacific (ACP) and Central and Eastern European Countries (CEEC)
- Author:
- Siegfried Schieder, Rachel Folz, and Simon Musekamp
- Publication Date:
- 10-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- This article compares the foreign policies of France and Germany in the 1990s towards the European Union (EU)'s special relationships with the countries of Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (ACP) on the one hand and the Central and Eastern European countries (CEEC) on the other. Whereas France advocated support for ACP interests, Germany supported those of the CEEC. We argue that French and German prioritisations cannot sufficiently be explained by rationalist, interest-based approaches (i.e. neorealism, economic liberalism and institutionalism) and offer a constructivist supplement to fill in the gaps. This approach is based on the concept of solidarity. First, we develop our theoretical concept and identify three principles of solidarity action (i.e. ties, need and effort). We then apply our concept of solidarity to show how French and German policies towards the Cotonou Agreement, concluded in 2000 with the ACP, and the EU's Eastern enlargement process were shaped by different social constructions of solidarity, resulting in strong preferential support for either the ACP (France) or the CEEC (Germany).
- Political Geography:
- Africa, Eastern Europe, France, Germany, Caribbean, and Central Europe
93. Ali A. Mazrui, postcolonialism and the study of international relations
- Author:
- Seifudein Adem
- Publication Date:
- 10-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- First as intellectual ally and then as adversary, Kenyan political scientist Ali A. Mazrui was embraced by the North American discipline of international relations (IR) in the 1960s and 1970s; he was virtually neglected in the 1980s; and a measure of interest in his scholarship revived in the 1990s and beyond. But Mazrui has not found a place in postcolonialism ever since that school emerged in the critical margins of IR. This essay argues that the estrangement between Mazrui and IR was primarily due to the changing nature of the discipline and his unchanging approach to it. Mazrui became the methodological 'Other' in the mainstream discipline. The essay also claims that Mazrui's marginalisation in postcolonialism is ultimately attributable to his image as the cultural and ideological 'Other'.
- Political Geography:
- Kenya and North America
94. The case for a foundational materialism: going beyond historical materialist IPE in order to strengthen it
- Author:
- Ian Bruff
- Publication Date:
- 10-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- No abstract is available.
- Topic:
- International Relations
95. Whither Deleuze and Guattari: a critical introduction
- Author:
- Earl Gammon and Julian Reid
- Publication Date:
- 12-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- Years ago at a workshop one of our colleagues, whose name we shall keep anonymous, claimed — to the amusement of the participants — that International Relations (IR) is where theory goes to die. Given the vicissitudes of intellectual fads that sweep through IR, one could, perhaps, be forgiven for condemning what appears to be the superficiality of the theoretical engagements within the field. From another perspective, though, this judgement could be considered unfair, and that the convergence of so many disparate theoretical interventions in IR is actually a testament to its growing vitality. Though many scholars now label themselves constructivists, this is quite a polyglot category that seems to indicate a movement beyond the contrived inter-school debates rather than the rise of a new intellectual hegemony.
- Topic:
- International Relations
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan and Iraq
96. The European rescue, recommodification, and/or reterritorialisation of the (becoming-capitalist) state? Marx, Deleuze, Guattari, and the European Union
- Author:
- David J Bailey
- Publication Date:
- 12-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- Years ago at a workshop one of our colleagues, whose name we shall keep anonymous, claimed — to the amusement of the participants — that International Relations (IR) is where theory goes to die. Given the vicissitudes of intellectual fads that sweep through IR, one could, perhaps, be forgiven for condemning what appears to be the superficiality of the theoretical engagements within the field. From another perspective, though, this judgement could be considered unfair, and that the convergence of so many disparate theoretical interventions in IR is actually a testament to its growing vitality. Though many scholars now label themselves constructivists, this is quite a polyglot category that seems to indicate a movement beyond the contrived inter-school debates rather than the rise of a new intellectual hegemon.
- Political Geography:
- Europe
97. Oedipal authority and capitalist sovereignty: a Deleuzoguattarian reading of IR theory
- Author:
- Earl Gammon
- Publication Date:
- 12-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- Despite advancements in the theorisation of political sovereignty brought about by the engagements of critical international relations theory, there remain significant lacunae in our understanding of the reproduction of this peculiar configuration of social life. This article, drawing on the collaborative work of Deleuze and Guattari, seeks to provide a more robust theorisation of the subjectivities underpinning modern political sovereignty — here understood as capitalist sovereignty. It looks to their programme of 'schizoanalysis', which interrogates the unconscious libidinal investments of capitalist reproduction. Specifically, Deleuze and Guattari argue that a factitious Oedipal configuration of desire allows the sovereign flow of capital. This article gathers insights from schizoanalysis in elucidating a dynamic affective relationship between sovereignty and the territorial state. It also suggests the potential of schizoanalysis for reconceptualising world politics and contributing to emancipatory IR scholarship.
- Topic:
- Politics and Sovereignty
98. From The Twenty Years' Crisis to Theory of International Politics: a rhizomatic reading of realism
- Author:
- Sean Molloy
- Publication Date:
- 12-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- The idea behind this article is to employ a series of Deleuzo-Guattarian principles, primarily the concept of the rhizome, to the articulation and development of Realism as a theory of IR. The article makes the claim that using rhizomatics allows those interested in Realism to reconceptualise the relationship between Realism and Neorealism. The article argues that the publication of The Twenty Years' Crisis by E.H. Carr and Theory of International Politics by Ken Waltz represent two 'intense' moments in the descent of Realism. The article argues that despite the attempted 'territorialisation' of Realism into the static, paradigmatic Neorealism, Realism remains a heterogeneous set of concepts. The territorialisation process has met with some resistance; for example, just as Waltz was trying to territorialise Realism, his theory was being deterritorialised by Richard Ashley. The article also examines James Der Derian's attempt to save realism by deconstructing it, advocating an 'affirmative leap into the imaginary'. The article concludes that despite the Neorealist moment, attempts to splice together constructivism and realism provide evidence that Realism remains mutative, heterogeneous, open and vital.
- Topic:
- Politics
99. Of nomadic unities: Gilles Deleuze on the nature of sovereignty
- Author:
- Julian Reid
- Publication Date:
- 12-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- This paper develops Deleuze's critique of the political ideal of sovereignty by examining his philosophy of nature. In their exultation of the ideal of sovereignty, traditional forms of political theory reflect only one aspect of nature. That is, its tendency toward unity. As such, they obscure what is most 'true' of nature, and what is most 'true' of peoples and individuals, which is their tendency toward multiplicity. While Deleuze's work has received significant attention in IR, the value of his philosophy of nature for the more concretely political problem of sovereignty is still to be fully realised. Beyond its under-representation in debates concerning political problems, Deleuze's work also suffers from misrepresentation. There is an abiding misconception of Deleuze as a theorist of the possibility of a 'world without sovereignty'. This paper dispels that particular misconception by demonstrating Deleuze's attention to the necessity of the recurrence of the problem of sovereignty as a condition for an understanding of political agency.
- Topic:
- Debt and Sovereignty
100. Alongside global political economy — a rhizome of informal finance
- Author:
- William Vlcek
- Publication Date:
- 12-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- One contemporary issue confronting global finance is the nature and extent of its participation in and contribution to a global war on terror. To date, efforts have involved a variety of methods, including both an increase in the surveillance of financial transactions and the regulation of previously unregulated methods of financial exchange. This paper offers a conceptualisation of one informal value transfer method (known by its Arabic name — hawala) in the form of a rhizome, using the concept as developed by Deleuze and Guattari in A Thousand Plateaus. This paper argues that the ability of hawala to regenerate itself along multiple paths situates the procedure as a rhizome, and that standard methods for financial regulation fail to appreciate the crucial difference this regenerative ability makes for attempts at control and regulation. Consequently, the activity that the state is seeking to control will merely be displaced, to reform and regenerate itself yet again. To ground this argument in the present condition of the global political economy, the specific example considered is Al Barakaat, a transnational Somali firm that fell victim to the global war on terror in late 2001.
- Topic:
- Political Economy
- Political Geography:
- Arabia