‘Turning’ everywhere in IR: on the sociological underpinnings of the field's proliferating turns

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Stephane J. Baele ◽  
Gregorio Bettiza

Abstract In the past two decades, calls for International Relations (IR) to ‘turn’ have multiplied. Having reflected on Philosophy's own linguistic turn in the 1980s and 1990s, IR appears today in the midst of taking – almost simultaneously – a range of different turns, from the aesthetic to the affective, from the historical to the practice, from the new material to the queer. This paper seeks to make sense of this puzzling development. Building on Bourdieu's sociology of science, we argue that although the turns ostensibly bring about (or resuscitate) ambitious philosophical, ontological, and epistemological questions to challenge what is deemed to constitute the ‘mainstream’ of IR, their impact is more likely to be felt at the ‘margins’ of the discipline. From this perspective, claiming a turn constitutes a position-enhancing move for scholars seeking to accumulate social capital, understood as scientific authority, and become ‘established heretics’ within the intellectual subfield of critical IR. We therefore expect the proliferation of turns to reshape more substantively what it means to do critical IR, rather than turning the whole discipline on its head.

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (4(13)) ◽  
pp. 31-50
Author(s):  
Shiyu Zhang ◽  

Over the past decade, bilateral relations between China and Russia have attracted the attention of the whole world. As neighbors and rapidly developing countries, China and Russia are becoming increasingly important in the international arena. The strategic partnership and interaction between China and Russia occupy a significant place in the politics of both countries. Cooperation is developing dynamically in various fields, primarily in politics. After 2012, a change of government took place in China and Russia, which brought new changes to international relations. Studying the involvement of the media in this process can clarify their impact on international relations, in particular, their role in the relationship between China and Russia.


1926 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-30
Author(s):  
Percy Alvin Martin

To students of international relations it has become almost a commonplace that among the most significant and permanent results of the World War has been the changed international status of the republics of Latin America. As a result of the war and post-war developments in these states, the traditional New World isolation in South America, as well as in North America, is a thing of the past. To our leading sister republics is no longer applicable the half-contemptuous phrase, current in the far-off days before 1914, that Latin America stands on the margin of international life. The new place in the comity of nations won by a number of these states is evidenced—to take one of the most obvious examples—by the raising of the legations of certain non-American powers to the rank of embassies, either during or immediately after the war. In the case of Brazil, for instance, where prior to 1914 only the United States maintained an ambassador, at the present time Great Britain, France, Italy, Belgium, Portugal, and Japan maintain diplomatic representatives of this rank.Yet all things considered one of the most fruitful developments in the domain of international relations has been the share taken by our southern neighbors in the work of the League of Nations. All of the Latin American republics which severed relations with Germany or declared war against that country were entitled to participate in the Peace Conference. As a consequence, eleven of these states affixed their signatures to the Treaty of Versailles, an action subsequently ratified in all cases except Ecuador.


2021 ◽  
pp. 105971232199468
Author(s):  
Jeannette Pols

The response asks about the relationship between artist and audience in the RAAAF artworks. Is the artist an Autonomous Innovator who breaches the ties with the past and the environment? Or is the aesthetic practice located in the creation of relationships around these objects, hence expanding the artwork by using know-how, experiences and enthusiasm of the audience/users?


Urban Studies ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 49 (10) ◽  
pp. 2085-2107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge Inzulza-Contardo

Although gentrification is an accepted process nowadays around the globe, little debate is found in the Latin American context—particularly, when considering that 70 per cent of this continent is urbanised and that major physical and socioeconomic changes have been observed in its historical neighbourhoods in the past 20 years. This paper focuses on the continuity and change that Santiago, Chile, has shown in recent decades. Empirical data are provided to reflect both the physical and socioeconomic patterns of change that have modified the urban morphology and the social capital of Santiago’s inner city. Furthermore, by selecting Bellavista—one of the oldest inner-city neighbourhoods of Santiago—this paper draws conclusions about how specific urban regeneration strategies can promote gentrification and then links them with wider patterns of ‘Latino gentrification’.


2012 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 859-880 ◽  
Author(s):  
PETER LEE

AbstractOver the past three decades Jean Bethke Elshtain has used her critique and application of just war as a means of engaging with multiple overlapping aspects of identity. Though Elshtain ostensibly writes about war and the justice, or lack of justice, therein, she also uses just war a site of analysis within which different strands of subjectivity are investigated and articulated as part of her broader political theory. This article explores the proposition that Elshtain's most important contribution to the just war tradition is not be found in her provision of codes or her analysis of ad bellum or in bello criteria, conformity to which adjudges war or military intervention to be just or otherwise. Rather, that she enriches just war debate because of the unique and sometimes provocative perspective she brings as political theorist and International Relations scholar who adopts, adapts, and deploys familiar but, for some, uncomfortable discursive artefacts from the history of the Christian West: suffused with her own Christian faith and theology. In so doing she continually reminds us that human lives, with all their attendant political, social, and religious complexities, should be the focus when military force is used, or even proposed, for political ends.


1914 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-49
Author(s):  
Alfred L. P. Dennis

War has marked the year 1913; and charges and countercharges as to alleged atrocities by belligerents have been rife. Treaties were drawn to be promptly torn up; and solemn declarations of intention and policy often proved futile. The existence of internal disorder and the outbreak of domestic revolutions in several countries have also exerted disturbing influences on international relations. The result was economic loss and diplomatic tension even well beyond the field of military operations. And these conditions have led to renewed activity in the struggle for concessions and investment in renascent communities. Racial and religious sentiments have also aroused bitter feeling; while political leaders in several countries compel renewed consideration of the weight of individuals in the determination of the world's affairs.In large part the problems of 1913 were historic; but in part they were affected by apparently impending changes which we cannot as yet define. Thus the influence of socialism and of various forms of radical thought on international relations is a factor. The adoption of oil as a naval fuel, the opening of the Panama Canal, the plans for administrative reorganization of Turkey, and its capitalistic development, the renewed debate as to the Monroe doctrine, and the problem of China are all matters whose future significance scarcely concern us here; but their influence in the past year has been unquestionably great. We cannot estimate as yet the true value of many recommendations touching various fields of international coöperation; and the value of delay in international action still remains in dispute. So on the whole the year 1913 has apparently been the year of the cynic.


2017 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-62 ◽  
Author(s):  

How can we understand German-Russian relations since German reunification? Both the geopolitical positions of the two states and the political and economic ties between them have been transformed over the past twentyfive years. This paper will argue, however, that the role of the two countries’ leaders in shaping these relations has been surprisingly important. Building on the tradition of “first image” analysis in international relations, this paper shows that, along with larger political and economic trends, personal relations between these leaders have helped to set the tenor of bilateral ties. When the leaders were able to build trust and personal friendships, relations improved. Yet more recently, since 2012, relations have soured sharply. While there are obviously larger reasons for this, more negative personal ties between leaders have also played an important role. In short, just as issues of trust and friendship matter in personal ties, they also matter in International Relations.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rouben Karapetyan

The textbook covers the main events and developments in the recent history of the Arab world. The key issues of the past and present of the major Arab countries are examined. The general patterns, main stages and peculiarities of the historical development of these countries are presented. The work is designed for students of the faculties of “Oriental Studies”, “History” and “International Relations”, as well as wide range of readers interested in the history of the Arab world.


2015 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gubara Hassan

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).


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