The international politics of truth: C. Wright Mills and the sociology of the international

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Bryan Mabee
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The World ◽  
Historically Situated ◽  
International Power ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Political Commitments ◽  
Structural Determinant

Abstract C. Wright Mills's critical work on international relations is well known, but is often dismissed as being unscholarly, reductionist, and overly polemical. However, seeing the work in the context of his earlier career can allow for a new perspective, with Mills's activist views on war and militarism shaped very clearly by his earlier theoretical and political commitments. Mills developed a distinctive political sociological understanding of international politics, theorising the state as a historically-situated structural determinant of international power: a network of elite power that was contextualised by the influence of the socially constructed realities of the international created by elites. Mills's crucial critical contribution was to see the role of the intellectual as criticising these realities through the imaginative reconceptualisation of the world, which he called the ‘politics of truth’. The article argues the international politics of truth was not only Mills's distinctive theory of the international, but that it was clearly supported by his early theorisation of the international. A revised view of the importance of Mills's international relations work can help to situate Mills as part of a broader tradition of IR scholarship, a lost lineage of the critical historical and political sociology of the international.

Role-playing and identity affirmation in international politics: Britain's reinvasion of the Falklands, 1982

2010 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 1599-1621 ◽  
Author(s):  
DAVID M. McCOURT
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Role Playing ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Ir Theory ◽  
Colonial Power ◽  
The World ◽  
Identity Based ◽  
Complete Interpretation

AbstractDid Britain reinvade the Falklands because of its ‘identity’? Or was reinvasion instead required by its ‘role’ in international politics? In this article I show that a complete constructivist explanation of Britain's response must consider both its identity affirmation, which constructivist International Relations (IR) theory would certainly draw attention to, but also the role it played on the world stage at the beginning of the 1980s, which would very likely be overlooked. I show that a solely identity-based explanation is incomplete and ultimately unpersuasive since identities are affirmed by playing social roles, which give identity meaning. In 1982, a number of roles could have fulfilled this function for Britain; it is important then that Britain chose and was able to play the role of astatus quooriented power rather than that of a colonial power. Beyond offering a more complete interpretation of the events, the article clarifies the links between roles, identity, and action in international politics, and the type of theory appropriate to such analysis.

Disarmament

2008 ◽  
pp. 286-299
Author(s):  
Keith Krause
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Arms Control ◽  
Land Mines ◽  
International Peace ◽  
Small Arms ◽  
The World ◽  
Peace And Security ◽  
World Organization ◽  
Light Weapons

This article evaluates the achievements and limitations of the world organization in the field of disarmament. It stresses the role of the UN as part of the efforts to control arms as a way to achieve international peace and security. It also notes specific cases where progress was achieved or not, as well as the more recent efforts to handle the problems of anti-personnel land mines and small arms and light weapons. The article also tries to draw out some of the broader implications for international relations of the UN experience with formal multilateral arms control, among others.

From the Colonial to Feminist IR: Feminist IR Studies, the Wider FSS/GPE Research Agenda, and the Questions of Value, Valuation, Security, and Violence

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (04) ◽  
pp. 739-746 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna M. Agathangelou
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Security Studies ◽  
Global Political Economy ◽  
Personal Lives ◽  
Ir Studies ◽  
The World ◽  
Forms Of Violence

International relations (IR) feminists have significantly impacted the way we analyze the world and power. However, as Cynthia Enloe points out, “there are now signs—worrisome signs—that feminist analysts of international politics might be forgetting what they have shared” and are “making bricks to construct new intellectual barriers. That is not progress” (2015, 436). I agree. The project/process that has led to the separation/specialization of feminist security studies (FSS) and feminist global political economy (FGPE) does not constitute progress but instead ends up embodying forms of violence that erase the materialist bases of our intellectual labor's divisions (Agathangelou 1997), the historical and social constitution of our formations as intellectuals and subjects. This amnesiac approach evades our personal lives and colludes with those forces that allow for the violence that comes with abstraction. These “worrisome signs” should be explained if we are to move FSS and FGPE beyond a “merger” (Allison 2015) that speaks only to some issues and some humans in the global theater.

scholarly journals The role of Anglo-German Naval Agreement in escalation of crisis trends of the Versailles system (based on the materials of new archival documents)

2020 ◽  
pp. 75-84
Author(s):  
Alexander Naumov
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
World War I ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
World War ◽  
Systemic Mechanism ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The World ◽  
Archival Documents

This article reviews the role of Anglo-German Naval Agreement of 1935 in escalation of crisis trends of the Versailles system. Leaning on the British Russian archival documents, which recently became available for the researchers, the author analyzes the reasons and consequences of conclusion of this agreement between the key European democratic power and Nazi Reich. Emphasis is placed on analyzing the moods within the political elite of the United Kingdom. It is proven that the agreement became a significant milestone in escalation of crisis trends in the Versailles model of international relations. It played a substantial role in establishment of the British appeasement policy with regards to revanchist powers in the interbellum; policy that objectively led to disintegration of the created in 1919 systemic mechanism, and thus, the beginning of the World War II. The novelty of this work is substantiated by articulation of the problem. This article is first within the Russian and foreign historiography to analyze execution of the Anglo-German Naval Agreement based on the previously unavailable archival materials. The conclusion is made that this agreement played a crucial role in the process of disintegration of interbellum system of international relations. Having officially sanctioned the violation of the articles of the Versailles Treaty of 1919 by Germany, Great Britain psychologically reconciled to the potential revenge of Germany, which found reflection in the infamous appeasement policy. This launched the mechanism for disruption of status quo that was established after the World War I in Europe. This resulted in collapse of the architecture of international security in the key region of the world, rapid deterioration of relations between the countries, and a new world conflict.

scholarly journals The Pandemic and the Crisis in the System of International Relations

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 6-19
Author(s):  
Al. A. Gromyko
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Institutions ◽  
Competitive Advantages ◽  
Direct Impact ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
World Economic ◽  
Strategic Autonomy ◽  
The Eu

The research is focused on several key problems in the system of international relations influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic. It is shown that the events caused by it and broadly identified as a coronacrisis have a direct impact on the world economic contradictions (pandenomica) and political ones, including the sphere of security. These particular aspects are chosen as the main objects of the research. The author contends that the factor of the pandemic has sharpened the competition between regional and global players and has increased the role of a nation- state. In the conditions of transregional deglobalisation, regionalism and “protectionism 2.0” get stronger under the banners of “strategic vulnerability” and “economic sovereignty”. A further weakening of multilateral international institutions continues. The EU endeavours to secure competitive advantages on the basis of relocalisation, industrial and digital policies and the Green Deal. The article highlights the deterioration in the relations among Russia, the US, the EU and China, the unfolding decoupling between Washington and its European allies, which stimulates the idea of the EU strategic autonomy. An urgent need for the deconfliction in Russia – NATO interaction is stated.

Empire, History and the Contemporary Global Order

2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominic Lieven
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Global Order ◽  
The Core ◽  
The World

This lecture discusses empire in its entirety across the millennia and across all the regions of the world. It presents an argument that power in its many manifestations is the core and essence of the empire. The lecture also seeks to address the concerns of both historians and students of international relations. It stresses the crucial significance of power in a way that is more familiar to international relations scholars than to many contemporary historians of empire. Finally, the lecture shows how important empire has been in shaping the contemporary global order, and that it still has much to tell about the nature of modern international politics.

scholarly journals Racial sovereignty

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (1_suppl) ◽  
pp. 39-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kerem Nisancioglu
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
International Politics ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
Constitutive Relationship ◽  
World Today ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

This article explores how International Relations (IR) might better conceptualise and analyse an underexplored but constitutive relationship between race and sovereignty. I begin with a critical analysis of the ‘orthodox account’ of sovereignty which, I argue, produces an analytical and historical separation of race and sovereignty by: (1) abstracting from histories of colonial dispossession; (2) treating racism as a resolved issue in IR. Against the orthodox account, I develop the idea of ‘racial sovereignty’ as a mode of analysis which can: (1) overcome the historical abstractions in the orthodox account; (2) disclose the ongoing significance of racism in international politics. I make this argument in three moves. Firstly, I present a history of the 17th century struggle between ‘settlers’ and ‘natives’ over the colonisation of Virginia. This history, I argue, discloses the centrality of dispossession and racialisation in the attendant attempts of English settlers to establish sovereignty in the Americas. Secondly, by engaging with criticisms of ‘recognition’ found in the anticolonial tradition, I argue that the Virginian experience is not simply of historical interest or localised importance but helps us better understand racism as ongoing and structural. I then demonstrate how contemporary assertions of sovereignty in the context of Brexit disclose a set of otherwise concealed colonial and racialised relations. I conclude with the claim that interrogations of racial sovereignty are not solely of historical interest but are of political significance for our understanding of the world today.

Energy as an Instrument in Global Politics

2019 ◽  
pp. 291-319
Author(s):  
Lior Herman
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Renewable Energy Sources ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
Global Politics ◽  
Energy Sources ◽  
Sovereign Wealth Funds ◽  
The World ◽  
Oil And Natural Gas

Oil and natural gas have frequently been used as instruments of foreign policy. While scholars have given substantial attention to the economics of exports and imports, much less has been paid to theorizing how energy can be its own type of carrot or stick, influencing international relations around the world. Future scholarship should focus on developing foreign policy theories specific to energy, including renewable energy sources and drawing on constructivist theories. In addition, the role of transit states, energy firms, sovereign wealth funds, and civil society should be more carefully theorized. Future theoretical and empirical research should also focus on the use of electricity and renewable energies as foreign policy instruments and their effects on global politics.

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