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1. Diaspora Organisations in International Affairs

Author:
Mesut Özcan
Publication Date:
01-2025
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Institution:
International Relations Council of Turkey (UİK-IRCT)
Abstract:
Diasporas and their organisations, which traditionally aimed to serve their interest in the homeland and abroad, have long been studied under several social science disciplines, such as anthropology, sociology, political science, and geography. At the beginning of the 2000s, for instance, human and political geographers started to focus on diaspora realizing that it is a geographical concept, which addresses various geographical themes such as dispersion, boundaries, territory (as homeland), and identity. The “geographical turn” contributed to the concept theoretically, and also to transnationalism and migration studies empirically by which cases were reconsidered through the lens of geographical concepts, such as space, place, and time. Similar to geographers’ arguments, diaspora organisations (DO) -as a distinct form of collectivity- and their activities are very relevant to what we study in International Relations (IR), especially when it comes to exploring DOs’ role that transcends state borders in development, human rights, conflict, and peace. In that regard, attempts to introduce novel contributions from various disciplines have the potential to significantly enhance our comprehension of the theory of diaspora and its associated organizations.
Topic:
International Affairs, Diaspora, Book Review, and Organizations
Political Geography:
Global Focus

2. The Advisory Function of the International Court of Justice: Are States Resorting to Advisory Proceedings as a “Soft” Litigation Strategy?

Author:
Myrto Stavridi
Publication Date:
04-2024
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Public and International Affairs (JPIA)
Institution:
School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA), Princeton University
Abstract:
In the last decades, there has been an increase in advisory opinions of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that relate to vital political interests directly affecting the sovereignty of states. Even though advisory opinions are not binding and do not require the consent of the states involved, advisory proceedings have been increasingly and strategically used by states and international actors as contentious proceedings in disguise. Exploring the history of the advisory function of the ICJ and its predecessor, this article argues that advisory proceedings constitute a “soft” litigation strategy and a particularly useful tool for small states or non-state entities, as it has the potential to counterbalance the inherent power disparities in the process of international bargaining by adding the authoritative voice of the ICJ to the debate. This paper connects this development to a modern tendency of states to judicialize international affairs.
Topic:
International Law, Sovereignty, International Affairs, International Court of Justice (ICJ), and Advisory Opinions
Political Geography:
Global Focus

3. The Past, Present, and Future of Realism: A Conversation with Stephen M. Walt—February 2024

Author:
Stephen M. Walt
Publication Date:
07-2024
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Fletcher Security Review
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
I liked realism from the start because I thought it did a much better job of explaining how states behave than other theories. It is not perfect, and it’s not that other perspectives don’t make their own contributions to our understanding, but I felt that realism had a much better track record in explaining how countries behaved. It also had extraordinary range across time and space: realist ideas could explain a lot about how empires acted, how city-states acted, how nation-states acted. It had explanations for why wars occur, why alliances form, why some states rise and fall. So it had a very wide applicability. And I thought that the main modern rivals to realist theory just weren’t as persuasive. Liberal theories didn’t predict that well. A good liberal would think that democracies would act fundamentally differently than autocracies, but the evidence that they do is limited. And as we talked about before, realism tells you that international law or norms will be of only limited value in controlling what the most powerful states will do.
Topic:
International Affairs, Democracy, Realism, and State
Political Geography:
Global Focus

4. Foresight and its application in ministries of foreign affairs

Author:
Javier Ignacio Santander
Publication Date:
05-2022
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Argentine Council for International Relations (CARI)
Abstract:
Based on previous research regarding foresight capabilities of ministries of foreign affairs, this work focuses on the modern concept of foresight and of its application to foreign relations. Specifically, it aims to provide a summary of similiarities observed in the way in which foreign affairs ministries have developed foresight capacity.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Government, and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

5. Competition between Democracy and Autocracy: The Defining Challenge of the 21st Century

Author:
Derek Mitchell
Publication Date:
03-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Brown Journal of World Affairs
Institution:
Brown Journal of World Affairs
Abstract:
Ambassador Derek Mitchell is the president of the National Democratic In- stitute. He served as the U.S. ambassador to Myanmar from 2012 –2016, following a long and distinuguished career in and outside the government.
Topic:
International Affairs, Democracy, Strategic Competition, and Autocracy
Political Geography:
Global Focus

6. A Roundtable on Lauren Turek, To Bring the Good News to All Nations: Evangelical Influence on Human Rights and U.S. Foreign Relations

Author:
Andrew Preston, Darren Dochuk, Christopher Cannon Jones, Kelly J. Shannon, Vanessa Walker, and Lauren F. Turek
Publication Date:
01-2021
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
The Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR)
Abstract:
Historians of the United States and the world are getting religion, and our understanding of American foreign relations is becoming more rounded and more comprehensive as a result. Religion provides much of the ideological fuel that drives America forward in the world, which is the usual approach historians have taken in examining the religious influence on diplomacy; it has also sometimes provided the actual nuts-and-bolts of diplomacy, intelligence, and military strategy.1 But historians have not always been able to blend these two approaches. Lauren Turek’s To Bring the Good News to All Nations is thus a landmark because it is both a study of cultural ideology and foreign policy. In tying the two together in clear and compelling ways, based on extensive digging in various archives, Turek sheds a huge amount of new light on America’s mission in the last two decades of the Cold War and beyond. Turek uses the concept of “evangelical internationalism” to explore the worldview of American Protestants who were both theologically and politically conservative, and how they came to wield enough power that they were able to help shape U.S. foreign policy from the 1970s into the twenty-first century. As the formerly dominant liberal Protestants faded in numbers and authority, and as the nation was gripped by the cultural revolutions of the 1960s, evangelicals became the vanguard of a new era in American Christianity. Evangelicals replaced liberal Protestants abroad, too, as the mainline churches mostly abandoned the mission field. The effects on U.S. foreign relations were lasting and profound.
Topic:
International Relations, Religion, International Affairs, History, Culture, Book Review, Christianity, and Diplomatic History
Political Geography:
United States and Global Focus

7. AI and International Stability: Risks and Confidence-Building Measures

Author:
Michael Horowitz and Paul Scharre
Publication Date:
01-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for a New American Security (CNAS)
Abstract:
Militaries around the world believe that the integration of machine learning methods throughout their forces could improve their effectiveness. From algorithms to aid in recruiting and promotion, to those designed for surveillance and early warning, to those used directly on the battlefield, applications of artificial intelligence (AI) could shape the future character of warfare. These uses could also generate significant risks for international stability. These risks relate to broad facets of AI that could shape warfare, limits to machine learning methods that could increase the risks of inadvertent conflict, and specific mission areas, such as nuclear operations, where the use of AI could be dangerous. To reduce these risks and promote international stability, we explore the potential use of confidence-building measures (CBMs), constructed around the shared interests that all countries have in preventing inadvertent war. Though not a panacea, CBMs could create standards for information-sharing and notifications about AI-enabled systems that make inadvertent conflict less likely.
Topic:
Science and Technology, International Affairs, Military Affairs, Political stability, and Artificial Intelligence
Political Geography:
Global Focus

8. Supporting a Public Purpose in Research & Development: The Role of Tax Credits

Author:
Jake Taylor
Publication Date:
06-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
Tax credits for research and development are a means of incentivizing the private sector to invest their own resources on challenging problems. However, in practice, the fungibility of tax credits and other monetary elements can lead to misalignment between the public good represented by R&D and the actions of the company. In this policy brief, we consider the existing mechanism of tax credits. We see how they can encourage private sector risk-taking to enable research and development (R&D) outcomes. However, our goal is to go beyond economic growth benefits, and to include the less tangible considerations of public good and public purpose in the research and development domain. We then suggest an expansion of tax credits focused on supporting the researchers involved in the R&D and encouraging innovation in both large organizations and in startups and small businesses. This approach builds upon the existing framework of agency-led, mission-defined support of the private sector used by the U.S. government, as occurs in other programs such as America’s Seed Fund (sometimes known by its acronyms, SBIR and STTR). The integration of specific agency- and mission-focused elements to the credit system ensures that these additive credits support research and researchers whose R&D outcomes will improve the health, prosperity, and opportunity for the U.S. as a whole. Specific means of implementing this public-purpose R&D credit system under existing authorities within the executive branch are suggested, along with the public-facing mechanisms for creating and maintaining the evaluation approach of what constitutes “public purpose” as science and society progress.
Topic:
Economics, Science and Technology, International Affairs, Tax Systems, and Tax Credits
Political Geography:
Global Focus and United States of America

9. Aligning Venus and Mars: Striking the Appropriate Balance Between Diplomacy and Defense in International Affairs

Author:
Charles Ray
Publication Date:
08-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
The issue of militarization of American foreign policy is one that has simmered for decades. The American preference for employment of economic pressure and/or military force as a ‘quick-fix’ to deal with international problems instead of a more nuanced diplomatic approach is not a phenomenon of the 20th or 21st century. The increased militarization of U.S. foreign policy of the last decade is a continuation of a trend that has existed in one form or another for most of the nation’s history. The over-reliance on military power in foreign affairs, the militarization of U.S. foreign policy, dramatically increased with the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. However, almost from the beginning of the founding of the republic, under pressure from business interests concerned with maintaining or increasing their prosperity or groups interested in maintaining their positions of influence or power, American political leaders have often resorted to use of force for a short-term solution.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, International Affairs, History, and Militarization
Political Geography:
Global Focus and United States of America

10. 2019: A Changing International Order? Implications for the Security Environment

Author:
Christopher Ankersen, Prof. William G. Braun III, Ferry de Kerckhove, Carol V. Evans, Kathryn M. Fisher, Samit Ganguly, Anna Geis, Sara K. McGuire, Kim Richard Nossal, Ben Rowswell, and Stefanie Von Hlatky
Publication Date:
10-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:
KCIS2019 examined the implications of the changing international order for international security. It studied the hypercompetitive, multipolar environment in which we find ourselves, marked by a persistent struggle for influence and position within a “grey zone” of competition. This edited collection features contributions from academic and military experts who have examined the future of the liberal international order and what is at stake. These evidence-based examinations discuss the challenges to the order, and why it has been so difficult to articulate a compelling narrative to support the continuation of American leadership.
Topic:
Security, International Affairs, Armed Forces, and Army
Political Geography:
Global Focus and United States of America