E. H. Carr: a ‘historical realist’ approach for the globalisation era

2002 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 697-717 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Goldfischer
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
National Interest ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Primary Concern ◽  
Economic Instruments ◽  
New Era ◽  
Realist Approach ◽  
Considerable Cost

Realist international relations scholars have approached the connection between economics and security in two ways. Cold War-era realists derived the national interest from the international balance of power, and assessed the utility of both military and economic instruments of statecraft. A second realist approach, advanced by E. H. Carr in his 1939 The Twenty Years' Crisis, places interstate competition in the context of another struggle over wealth and power in which no-one's primary concern is the national interest. That is the realm of capitalism (and resistance to capitalism). That deeper set of connections between economics and security was overlooked in Cold War IR literature, at considerable cost to our understanding of world politics. Understanding why Carr's ‘historical realism’ was bypassed can help pave the way for a more fruitful realist approach to comprehending a new era in world politics.

scholarly journals Conceptual Fundamentals of Post-Westphalian International Relations

2020 ◽  
Vol 12(48) (4) ◽  
pp. 69-85
Author(s):  
Alla Kyrydon ◽  
Sergiy Troyan
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International System ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
International Order ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Soviet Bloc ◽  
Structure Changes ◽  
The World ◽  
The Cold War

Conceptual approaches to understanding the current stage of the evolution of international relations were put in place during the destruction of the bipolar world of the Cold War and the formation of new foundations of the world and international order. The distinctiveness of this process is that the collapse of the postwar system took place in peaceful conditions. Most often, two terms are used to describe the interconnectedness and interdependence of world politics after the fall of the Iron Curtain: the post-bipolar (post-westphalian) international system or international relations after the end of the Cold War. Two terms, post-bipolar international system and international relations after the end of the Cold War, have common features, which usually allows them to be used as synonyms and makes them the most popular when choosing a common comprehensive definition for the modern international relations. The collapse of the Soviet bloc and the global bipolar system put on the agenda issues that cannot be resolved within the traditional terms “poles,” “balance of power,” “configuration of the balance of power” etc. The world has entered a period of uncertainty and growing risks. the global international system is experiencing profound shocks associated with the transformation of its structure, changes in its interaction with the environment, which accordingly affects its regional and peripheral dimensions. In modern post-bipolar relations of shaky equilibrium, there is an obvious focus on the transformation of the world international order into a “post-American world” with the critical dynamics of relations between old and new actors at the global level. The question of the further evolution of the entire system of international relations in the post-bipolar world and the tendency of its transformation from a confrontational to a system of cooperation remains open.

Constructing Identity in “Glocal” Politics

1998 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 81-106
Author(s):  
M. A. Muqtedar Khan
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Socioeconomic Conditions ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Important Concept ◽  
Construction Of Identity ◽  
The World ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

This paper seeks to understand the impact of current global politicaland socioeconomic conditions on the construction of identity. I advancean argument based on a two-step logic. First, I challenge the characterizationof current socioeconomic conditions as one of globalization bymarshaling arguments and evidence that strongly suggest that along withglobalization, there are simultaneous processes of localization proliferatingin the world today. I contend that current conditions are indicative ofthings far exceeding the scope of globalization and that they can bedescribed more accurately as ccglocalization.~H’2a ving established thisclaim, I show how the processes of glocalization affect the constructionof Muslim identity.Why do I explore the relationship between glocalization and identityconstruction? Because it is significant. Those conversant with current theoreticaldebates within the discipline of international relations’ are awarethat identity has emerged as a significant explanatory construct in internationalrelations theory in the post-Cold War era.4 In this article, I discussthe emergence of identity as an important concept in world politics.The contemporary field of international relations is defined by threephilosophically distinct research programs? rationalists: constructivists,’and interpretivists.’ The moot issue is essentially a search for the mostimportant variable that can help explain or understand the behavior ofinternational actors and subsequently explain the nature of world politicsin order to minimize war and maximize peace.Rationalists contend that actors are basically rational actors who seekthe maximization of their interests, interests being understood primarilyin material terms and often calculated by utility functions maximizinggiven preferences? Interpretivists include postmodernists, critical theorists,and feminists, all of whom argue that basically the extant worldpolitical praxis or discourses “constitute” international agents and therebydetermine their actions, even as they reproduce world politics by ...

The Study of Peaceful Change in World Politics

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
T.V. Paul
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
Agents Of Change ◽  
Different Dimensions

This introductory chapter offers an overview of the core themes addressed in The Oxford Handbook of Peaceful Change in International Relations. It begins with a discussion of the neglect of peaceful change and the overemphasis on war as the source of change in the discipline of international relations. Definitions of peaceful change in their different dimensions, in particular the maximalist and minimalist varieties, are offered. Systemic, regional, and domestic level changes are explored. This is followed by a discussion of the study and understanding of peaceful change during the interwar, Cold War, and post–Cold War eras. The chapter offers a brief summary of different theoretical perspectives in IR—realism, liberalism, constructivism, and critical as well as eclectic approaches—and how they explore peaceful change, its key mechanisms, and its feasibility. The chapter considers the role of great powers and key regional states as agents of change. The economic, social, ideational, ecological, and technological sources of change are also briefly discussed.

A Research Agenda for the Study of Peaceful Change in World Politics

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah Welch Larson ◽  
T.V. Paul ◽  
Harold A. Trinkunas ◽  
Anders Wivel ◽  
Ralf Emmers
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
World Order ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Mechanisms Of Change ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Conceptual Clarity ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Made In

This concluding chapter offers a summary and evaluation of the key ideas contained in the chapters of this Handbook. The chapter discusses peaceful change in terms of conceptual clarity; historical evolution of scholarship in the area, especially the interwar, Cold War, and post–Cold War era efforts at analyzing the concepts; and the policy innovations in this realm. This is followed by an evaluation of the key umbrella theories of international relations—realism, liberalism, and constructivism—and how they approach peaceful change. Some important sources and mechanisms of change are analyzed. This is followed by discussion of the policy contributions of selected great and rising powers toward peaceful change. The chapter then offers a summary of contributions and progress that various regions have made in the area of peaceful change. It concludes with some ideas for future research while highlighting the significance of the subject matter for international relations and the world order.

History and the International Order in Hegel’s Philosophy of Right

2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-57
Author(s):  
Davide Barile ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
New Era ◽  
End Of History ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Philosophy Of Right ◽  
The Cold War

For a long time, the sections of the Philosophy of Right dedicated to the relations among states have been neglected by contemporary International Relations theories. However, especially since the end of the Cold War, this discipline has finally reconsidered Hegel’s theory, in particular by stressing two aspects: the thesis of an ”end of history” implied in it; and, more generally, the primacy of the state in international politics. This paper suggests a different interpretation. It argues that, in order to really understand Hegel’s theory of international relations, it is necessary to consider how it is related to the momentous changes that occurred in the wake of the French Revolution and to previous philosophical developments in the Age of Enlightenment. Indeed, the convergence of these two aspects in his own philosophy of history should suggest that, according to Hegel, by the early nineteenth century international politics had finally entered a new era in which states would still interact as the foremost actors, but would be bound nonetheless by an unprecedented awareness of their historical character.

Europe after the Cold War: interstate order or post-sovereign regional system?

1999 ◽  
Vol 25 (5) ◽  
pp. 201-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
WILLIAM WALLACE
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
World Politics ◽  
State System ◽  
Global State ◽  
European State ◽  
Religious Wars ◽  
Regional System ◽  
The Cold War

The changing structure of European order poses, for any student of international relations, some fundamental questions about the evolution of world politics. Concepts of European order and of the European state system are, after all, central to accepted ideas of international relations. Out of the series of conflicts and negotiations—religious wars, coalitions to resist first the Hapsburg and then the Bourbon attempt at European hegemony—developed ideas and practices which still structure the contemporary global state system: the equality of states; international law as regulating relations among sovereign and equal states; domestic sovereignty as exclusive, without external oversight of the rules of domestic order. The ‘modern’ state system, modern scholars now agree, did not spring fully-clothed from the Treaty of Westphalia at the close of the Thirty Years' War; it evolved through a succession of treaties and conferences, from 1555 to 1714. It remains acceptable, nevertheless, to describe the European state order as built around the Westphalian system.

History ends, worlds collide

1999 ◽  
Vol 25 (5) ◽  
pp. 41-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHRIS BROWN
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Social Life ◽  
International System ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
The Social ◽  
Distribution Of Power ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Business As Usual

The end of the Cold War was an event of great significance in human history, the consequences of which demand to be glossed in broad terms rather than reduced to a meaningless series of events. Neorealist writers on international relations would disagree; most such see the end of the Cold War in terms of the collapse of a bipolar balance of power system and its (temporary) replacement by the hegemony of the winning state, which in turn will be replaced by a new balance. There is obviously a story to be told here, they would argue, but not a new kind of story, nor a particularly momentous one. Such shifts in the distribution of power are a matter of business as usual for the international system. The end of the Cold War was a blip on the chart of modern history and analysts of international politics (educated in the latest techniques of quantitative and qualitative analysis in the social sciences) ought, from this perspective, to be unwilling to draw general conclusions on the basis of a few, albeit quite unusual, events. Such modesty is, as a rule, wise, but on this occasion it is misplaced. The Cold War was not simply a convenient shorthand for conflict between two superpowers, as the neorealists would have it. Rather it encompassed deep-seated divisions about the organization and content of political, economic and social life at all levels.

scholarly journals Strategic Triangles and Balancing in World Politics

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 23-43
Author(s):  
D. A. Degterev ◽  
M. S. Ramich
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Composite Index ◽  
World Order ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Modern World ◽  
The Past ◽  
Regional Conflicts ◽  
Buffer States

Trilateral diplomacy is a common format of interaction in international relations, which forms various configurations of the balance of power within the framework of triangles. The concept of a “triangle” is characterized by ambivalence, has a variety of characteristics and principles of formation.The article provides an overview of the theoretical discourse on strategic triangles, as well as of practical examples of trilateral diplomacy of the past and present day. The main characteristics of strategic triangles and the features of changes in their configuration are identified (the case of USA–PRC–USSR triangle). Classification of both symmetric and asymmetric triangles (unicenter and bicenter) are given, the concept of buffer states, as well as regional conflicts with the participation of a great power as a defender, are presented.The most influential countries at the global and regional levels, forming geopolitical triangles, are identified basing on the Composite Index of National Capability (CINC). The concept of pivot states is analyzed permitting to indicate relatively small but geopolitically important countries, forming triangles together with influential states.The main strategic triangles of the modern world order are analyzed, presenting mostly countries of Asia (China, Japan, India), Russian Federation, USA and EU. The main trends of global competition based on geopolitical triangles in the XXI-st century are identified.

scholarly journals The United Nations is grounded on the Westphalian state system. Throughout the de-colonizationperiod, the Organization ceased to be peculiar to the West only, and soon became the prevalent model in theentire globe. The Cold War also solidified and institutionalized the Westphalian State as the fundamentalprinciple in international relations. The end of the Cold War, however, along with the collapse of theEastern bloc, the challenges of peace and security in Africa, and the failure of the states in coping withhumanitarian crises increasingly made the three fundamental principles of Westphalian state, namely the“non-interventionism”, “sovereign-equality” and “territoriality” disputable among political scientists. Newapproaches and arguments on the end of the Classical Westphalian state and the emergence of a so-called“New Medieval Age” have widely been circulated. This paper alternatively suggests that, since the end of thecold war, the world politics has gradually and decisively been evolving into a system of states that could becalled Neo-Westphalian.

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 235-266
Author(s):  
Öner Buçukcu
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
United Nations ◽  
World Politics ◽  
State System ◽  
The West ◽  
Sovereign Equality ◽  
The World ◽  
Peace And Security ◽  
The Cold War

The United Nations is grounded on the Westphalian state system. Throughout the de-colonizationperiod, the Organization ceased to be peculiar to the West only, and soon became the prevalent model in theentire globe. The Cold War also solidified and institutionalized the Westphalian State as the fundamentalprinciple in international relations. The end of the Cold War, however, along with the collapse of theEastern bloc, the challenges of peace and security in Africa, and the failure of the states in coping withhumanitarian crises increasingly made the three fundamental principles of Westphalian state, namely the“non-interventionism”, “sovereign-equality” and “territoriality” disputable among political scientists. Newapproaches and arguments on the end of the Classical Westphalian state and the emergence of a so-called“New Medieval Age” have widely been circulated. This paper alternatively suggests that, since the end of thecold war, the world politics has gradually and decisively been evolving into a system of states that could becalled Neo-Westphalian.

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