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Begin New Search Topic International Relations Theory Political Geography Global Focus Content Type Working Paper

1. Foreign influence and domestic policy

Author:
Toke S. Aidt, Facundo Albornoz, and Esther Hauk
Publication Date:
01-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Nottingham Interdisciplinary Centre for Economic and Political Research (NICEP)
Abstract:
In an interconnected world, economic and political interests inevitably reach beyond national borders. Since policy choices generate external economic and political costs, foreign state and non-state actors have an interest in infl uencing policy actions in other sovereign countries to their advantage. Foreign infl uence is a strategic choice aimed at internalizing these externalities and takes three principal forms: (i) voluntary agreements, (ii) policy interventions based on rewarding or sanctioning the target country to obtain a specific change in policy and (iii) institution interventions aimed at influencing the political institutions in the target country. We propose a unifying theoretical framework to study when foreign in fluence is chosen and in which form, and use it to organize and evaluate the new political economics literature on foreign infl uence along with work in cognate disciplines.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, International Relations Theory, Borders, Nation-State, and Domestic Policy
Political Geography:
Global Focus

2. The Cartographic Constitution Of International Politics

Author:
Jeppe Strandsbjerg
Publication Date:
03-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Brown Journal of World Affairs
Abstract:
Our current system of international politics is built on a cartographic real- ity of space. Te legal attachment of sovereignty to territory requires a particular cartographic representation of space. By this I mean that our system of states— being territorially defned—implicitly requires a geography that is mapped in a way that is compatible with our notion of sovereignty. Te cartographic image of state territory enables us to maintain the idea of territorial integrity even when the reality on the ground corresponds very little with the fundamental principles of the UN Charter: Sovereignty (Article 2:1) and Territorial Integrity (Article 2:4).1 When UN operations map the Democratic Republic of Congo it is represented as an integrated territory, and Iraq and Syria maintain their coherent cartographic-territorial representation even when both countries have been divided in all but formal name. Although these are obvious examples of the territorial ideal disagreeing with the power relations on the ground, they actually capture a general logic where the territorial order represented by the map precedes the order on the ground.
Topic:
International Relations, Geopolitics, International Relations Theory, and Cartography
Political Geography:
Global Focus

3. Refugees and their Allies as Agents of Progress: Knowledge, Power and Action in Forbidden and Dangerous Boundary Regions

Author:
Beverly Crawford
Publication Date:
01-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies (IES), UC Berkeley
Abstract:
Focusing on the historical and contemporary dilemmas posed by the “refugee crisis,” this essay investigates the potential for international progress in acknowledging our common humanity. I examine the utility of Emanuel Adler’s theory of cognitive evolution as a lens through which to assess the extent of that potential. I employ the theory to explore how certain practices dealing with forced migration became prevalent, while others lay dormant. I also examine how competing communities of practice battle to shape our understanding of forced migration in the current “post-truth” environment. I argue that cognitive evolution offers a potent conceptual framework for understanding both the extent to which the suffering of migrants has and has not been alleviated—a powerful indicator of the degree to which the world community has acknowledge their humanity. This holds for the social order of refugee protection, even in the current period as tribalism threatens to erode epistemological security, as normlessness threatens to replace a competition among norms, and as these threats weaken our shared reality.
Topic:
Refugees, International Relations Theory, Borders, Knowledge Production, and Territory
Political Geography:
Global Focus