scholarly journals Governmentality at the limits of the international: African politics and Foucauldian theory

2012 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 763-787 ◽  
Author(s):  
CARL DEATH
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
World Politics ◽  
African Politics ◽  
Ir Theory ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The World ◽  
Analytics Of Government ◽  
Foucauldian Theory

AbstractThe ability of International Relations theory to ‘travel well’ to other parts of the world has become one of the central questions within the discipline. This article argues that a Foucauldian-derived ‘analytics of government’ framework has particular advantages in overcoming some of the difficulties IR theory has faced abroad. These advantages include a methodological focus on specific practices of power at their point of application; attention to similarities between practices of power that cut across perceived binaries such as the domestic and international, and public and private; and an illumination of the ways in which practices of freedom are combined and interrelate with forms of coercion and violence. This argument is illustrated in the context of debates about the applicability of Foucauldian theory to African politics, through examples drawn from Bayart's work on globalisation, the power of development partnerships, and violence and civil war. It argues that deploying governmentality as an analytical framework, rather than seeing it as a specifically neoliberal form of power relation, can not only facilitate the application of IR theory outside Europe and North America but can also help develop a broader perspective on genuinely world politics.

Causes of a divided discipline: rethinking the concept of cause in International Relations theory

2006 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
MILJA KURKI
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Causal Explanation ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
Causal Analysis ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Constitutive Theory ◽  
Ir Theory

During the last decades ‘causation’ has been a deeply divisive concept in International Relations (IR) theory. While the positivist mainstream has extolled the virtues of causal analysis, many post-positivist theorists have rejected the aims and methods of causal explanation in favour of ‘constitutive’ theorising. It is argued here that the debates on causation in IR have been misleading in that they have been premised on, and have helped to reify, a rather narrow empiricist understanding of causal analysis. It is suggested that in order to move IR theorising forward we need to deepen and broaden our understandings of the concept of cause. Thereby, we can radically reinterpret the causal-constitutive theory divide in IR, as well as redirect the study of world politics towards more constructive multi-causal and complexity-sensitive analyses.

International Theory Book Symposium on Peter J. Katzenstein and Lucia A. Seybert, eds, Protean Power: Exploring the Uncertain and Unexpected in World Politics

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 408-409
Author(s):  
Jacques E. C. Hymans
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Ir Theory ◽  
Control Power ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
International Theory ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
Fresh Perspective ◽  
Book Symposium

AbstractKatzenstein and Seybert's Protean Power offers a fresh perspective on the concept of power in international relations (IR) theory. Standard IR theory defines power as control power, which exists in the world of calculable risk. But IR must also grapple with protean power, which exists in the world of incalculable uncertainty. In this symposium, scholars representing a variety of theoretical perspectives evaluate the concept of protean power as it stands now and as it should develop in the future.

13. Normative International Relations Theory

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Toni Erskine
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Iraq War ◽  
Just War ◽  
Ethical Reasoning ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Ir Theory ◽  
Just War Tradition

This chapter deals with normative international relations theory, a field of study that relies on a variety of approaches and theories to explore moral expectations, decisions, and dilemmas in world politics. Normative IR theory has adopted — and adapted — conceptual categories such as communitarianism and cosmopolitanism from political theory. It also borrows from moral philosophy to designate different types of ethical reasoning, such as deontology and consequentialism. The chapter begins with an overview of the history, influences, and some of the categories that normative IR theory brings to the study of international relations. It then examines the ways in which normative IR theory engages with the hidden ethical assumptions of a range of IR approaches. It also considers the case of civilian deaths during the 2003 Iraq war in relation to the the just war tradition, and more specifically to the idea that soldiers have duties to exercise restraint in war.

13. Normative International Relations Theory

2020 ◽  
pp. 236-262
Author(s):  
Toni Erskine
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Iraq War ◽  
Ethical Reasoning ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Ir Theory ◽  
Different Types

This chapter deals with normative international relations theory, a field of study that relies on a variety of approaches and theories to explore moral expectations, decisions, and dilemmas in world politics. Normative IR theory has adopted—and adapted—conceptual categories such as communitarianism and cosmopolitanism from political theory. It also borrows from moral philosophy to designate different types of ethical reasoning, such as deontology and consequentialism. The chapter begins with an overview of the history, influences, and some of the categories that normative IR theory brings to the study of international relations. It then examines the ways in which normative IR theory engages with the hidden ethical assumptions of a range of IR approaches. The case study considers the ethics of war in the Iraq war.

Frustrated sovereigns: the agency that makes the world go around

2018 ◽  
Vol 44 (5) ◽  
pp. 787-804 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte Epstein ◽  
Thomas Lindemann ◽  
Ole Jacob Sending
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International System ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Symbolic Structure ◽  
The World ◽  
Social Dynamic ◽  
Point Of Departure ◽  
Do So

AbstractIn this article, the introduction to this Special Issue, we underline the importance of the dynamics of misrecognition for the study of world politics. We make the case for shifting the focus from ‘recognition’, where it has long been cast in social, political and, more recently, International Relations theory, tomisrecognition. We do so by returning to the original theorisation of misrecognition, Hegel’s dialectic of the master and servant. Our point of departure is not only that the desire for recognition is key social dynamic, but that thefailureto obtain this recognition is built into this very desire. It is a crucial factor for understanding how international actors behave, including, but not only, states.Thus understood, the desire for recognition is not simply a desire for social goods, for status or for statehood, but for more agency – more capacity to act. We explore the logic of misrecognition and show how the international system is a symbolic structure that is ordained by an unrealisable ideal of what we call ‘sovereign agency’.

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 ...

Sovereignty at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonard V. Smith
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International System ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Great Power ◽  
World War ◽  
Treaty Of Versailles ◽  
The World ◽  
Paris Peace Conference

We have long known that the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 “failed” in the sense that it did not prevent the outbreak of World War II. This book investigates not whether the conference succeeded or failed, but the historically specific international system it created. It explores the rules under which that system operated, and the kinds of states and empires that inhabited it. Deepening the dialogue between history and international relations theory makes it possible to think about sovereignty at the conference in new ways. Sovereignty in 1919 was about remaking “the world”—not just determining of answers demarcating the international system, but also the questions. Most histories of the Paris Peace Conference stop with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles with Germany on June 28, 1919. This book considers all five treaties produced by the conference as well as the Treaty of Lausanne with Turkey in 1923. It is organized not chronologically or geographically, but according to specific problems of sovereignty. A peace based on “justice” produced a criminalized Great Power in Germany, and a template problematically applied in the other treaties. The conference as sovereign sought to “unmix” lands and peoples in the defeated multinational empires by drawing boundaries and defining ethnicities. It sought less to oppose revolution than to instrumentalize it. The League of Nations, so often taken as the supreme symbol of the conference’s failure, is better considered as a continuation of the laboratory of sovereignty established in Paris.

Islamic International Relations Towards a Theoretical Framework

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gubara Hassan
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
The West ◽  
The Past ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
The World

The Western originators of the multi-disciplinary social sciences and their successors, including most major Western social intellectuals, excluded religion as an explanation for the world and its affairs. They held that religion had no role to play in modern society or in rational elucidations for the way world politics or/and relations work. Expectedly, they also focused most of their studies on the West, where religion’s effect was least apparent and argued that its influence in the non-West was a primitive residue that would vanish with its modernization, the Muslim world in particular. Paradoxically, modernity has caused a resurgence or a revival of religion, including Islam. As an alternative approach to this Western-centric stance and while focusing on Islam, the paper argues that religion is not a thing of the past and that Islam has its visions of international relations between Muslim and non-Muslim states or abodes: peace, war, truce or treaty, and preaching (da’wah).

scholarly journals Political Discourse on China's Stigmatization in the Context of COVID-19 Pandemic

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 22-46
Author(s):  
I. I. Arsentyeva
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Social Identity Theory ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Social Stigma ◽  
World Politics ◽  
World Health ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The World ◽  
Novel Coronavirus

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an increased interest in studying social stigma. The concept of stigma is also included in political discourse, as evidenced, among other things, by Xi Jinping’s speeches, in which the Chinese President urges to abandon further politicization and stigmatization of COVID-19. In this regard, the main aim of the article is to analyze the correlation between the novel coronavirus and stigmatization, not only from the traditional point of view (stigma associated with certain diseases), but also in terms of world politics. To explain the nature of social stigma, the author relies on evolutionary psychol- ogy, terror management theory and social identity theory. To analyze ongoing processes in international relations, some provisions of “rogue states” concept, leadership theories, and biopolitics are applied. The primary sources are documents of the World Health Organiza- tion (WHO) and the Group of Seven (G7), statements by UN and WHO officials, speeches of Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump, public opinion polls, and media publications. During the course of the study, the following scientific results were ob- tained: the works on COVID-19-related stigma have been systematized, the issues consid- ered in them and research gaps are highlighted; the consequences of stigma due the novel coronavirus have been summarized; some differences between stigma during the pandem- ic and stigma associated with other diseases are also identified; it is suggested to consider COVID-19 stigma not only at the level of interpersonal interactions, but also in international relations; the possible impact of the pandemic on the China’s role on the world stage has been revealed. It is concluded that this research approach allows to take a fresh look at the possibility of restoring ties between states and their citizens in a post-COVID-19 world, as well as to assess the likelihood of a change of global leader. In the final part of the article, possible ways of further development of the situation are predicted and prospects for study on the issue are outlined.

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