Marking failure, making space: feminist interventions in Security Council policy

2019 ◽  
Vol 95 (6) ◽  
pp. 1289-1306
Author(s):  
Sam Cook
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Peace And Security ◽  
Creative Interventions ◽  
Exquisite Corpse ◽  
Central Station

Abstract Feminist interventions in international politics are, more often than not, understood (and visible) as interventions in relation to policy documents. These policies—in this case the United Nations Security Council's resolutions on Women, Peace and Security—often feature as the end point of feminist advocacy efforts or as the starting point for feminist analysis and critique. In this article the author responds to the provocations throughout Marysia Zalewski's work to think (and tell) the spaces of international politics differently, in this case by working with the concept of feminist failure as it is produced in feminist policy critique. Inspired by Zalewski's Feminist International Relations: exquisite corpse, the article explores the material and imaginary spaces in which both policies and critique are produced. It picks up and reflects upon a narrative refrain recognizable in feminist critiques on Women, Peace and Security policy—that we must not make war safe for women—as a way to reflect on the inevitability of failure and the ostensible boundaries between theory and practice. The author takes permission from Zalewski's creative interventions and her recognition of the value of the ‘detritus of the everyday’—here a walk from New York's Grand Central Station to the UN Headquarters, musings on the flash of a particular shade of blue, and the contents of a footnoted acknowledgement, begin to trace an international political space that is produced through embodied and quotidian practice.

Part I International Law and Global Security, Ch.7 Global Security and Neurophilosophy: Understanding the Human Factor

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Al-Rodhan Nayef ◽  
Puscas Ioana-Maria
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Global Security ◽  
Interdisciplinary Field ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Intellectual Origins ◽  
Peace And Security

This chapter evaluates the fundamental starting point in political theory: human nature. In doing so, it goes beyond conventional wisdom in International Relations. To understand conflict and to chart a way forward, we must re-examine our understanding of human nature. The two dominant theories of International Relations, Realism and Idealism/Internationalism, derived their intellectual origins from such contrasting and dichotomous views of human nature. One, exemplified by Thomas Hobbes, was pessimistic both about human nature and States. The other, exemplified by Immanuel Kant and to some extent Jean-Jacques Rousseau, believed in an innate perfectibility of humans, of States and the international society, which would evolve towards peace. Today, a growing body of evidence from neuroscience permits the re-examination of long-held claims about human nature and what it is that truly drives and motivates human behaviour. Neurophilosophy, the interdisciplinary field connecting findings from neuroscience and philosophy, is relevant for global security and for understanding what can propel good governance, peace, and security.

Gender issues in international relations: the case of the European Community

1994 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 225-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Hoskyns
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
European Community ◽  
Gender Issues ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Women's Politics

This article takes a concern with gender as the starting point for looking at some of the political processes and structures that have grown up within the European Community. Such an approach reveals new contours to the EC system and throws a fresh light on features hitherto regarded as ‘normal’. Though the focus is on the EC, it is argued that the results of an analysis of this kind have a wider significance. Thus the article is intended as a contribution to the growing engagement between ‘women's politics’ in its broadest sense and the theory and practice of international relations.

Ideology and international relations

1989 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Howard
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Distinctive Feature ◽  
International Politics ◽  
International System ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Major Obstacle ◽  
Correct Usage

A distinctive feature of the evolution of the modern international system has been the emergence of ideologies so universalist in their assumptions that they have ignored, or worse, denied the cultural and political diversities of mankind—diversities which constitute the ineluctable framework of international politics and which make the conduct of foreign affairs such a complex and difficult craft. One major obstacle, however, to understanding the problems which this development poses for the theory and practice of international relations is the fact that the correct usage of the term ‘ideology’ is very much broader than that which is generally accepted today.

The Good State: in praise of ‘classical’ internationalism

2005 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 427-449 ◽  
Author(s):  
PETER LAWLER
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Politics ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Good State ◽  
Political Spectrum ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Cold War

The end of the Cold War has seen Western internationalism migrate from the margins to the centre of International Relations theory and practice. As a consequence the modest ambitions of what we might now call ‘classical internationalism’ have come under challenge from more thoroughly cosmopolitan varieties from both the right and left of the mainstream Western political spectrum whose commonalities, moreover, are arguably becoming as prominent as their differences. This article attempts to recover the classical internationalist project and, more specifically, the understanding of statehood that underpins it. Some observations on the distinctions and tensions between varieties of contemporary internationalist and cosmopolitan thinking about international politics are followed by a critique of a pervasive scholarly disinterest in the varieties of Western internationalist states. These two exercises form the backdrop to advocacy of the idea of ‘the Good State’ as a response to dominant forms of contemporary Western cosmopolitanism and their critics.

scholarly journals Exeunt Omnes? Survival, Pessimism and Time in the Work of John H. Herz

2018 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 283-302 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Stevens
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Politics ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Security Dilemma ◽  
Late Modernity ◽  
Human Survival ◽  
Classical Realism ◽  
Intellectual Legacy

John H. Herz (1908-2005) is better known for his theorisation of the security dilemma than for his conviction that human survival is threatened by the conditions of late modernity. This article explores extinction and survival in his work to interrogate his persistent characterisation as an incorrigible pessimist. In his preoccupation with extinction, Herz would seem a first-rank pessimist, but his intellectual commitments belie this easy categorisation. Specifically, his appeals to interdisciplinary ‘survival research’ suggest a qualified pessimism that does not foreclose on the potential of humankind to overcome structural, political and normative obstacles. This is consistent with current understandings of pessimism within the broader realist tradition. Herz expressed an ‘open’ and ‘linear’ temporality that challenges cyclical and linear-progressive temporalities inherent to realism and liberalism, respectively. Herz articulates, therefore, a ‘productive pessimism’ that charts a different path for pessimist thought beyond its pejorative connotations. This article contributes to the literature on classical realism, to a growing interest in Herz’s intellectual legacy, and to the developing appreciation of time and temporality in International Relations theory and practice. It also provides a foundation for rethinking our assumptions about pessimism and international politics.

3. Liberalism

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Morgan
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Arab Spring ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
International Organization ◽  
Democratic Peace ◽  
Economic Liberalism ◽  
Peace And Security ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
The Arab Spring

This chapter examines the liberalist approach to the theory and practice of international politics. It begins with an overview of liberalism’s main characteristics, including its description of international politics as evolving, becoming more imbued with interdependence, cooperation, peace, and security. It then considers the major liberalist schools of thought, namely: commercial or economic liberalism, human rights liberalism, international organization or institutions liberalism, and democratic liberalism. After explaining liberalism’s position on human rights and democracy, the chapter explores democratic peace theory. It concludes with a discussion of the Arab Spring as an example of recent developments that have put the liberalist perspective under great strain.

Crafting the International Order

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
International Politics ◽  
International Order ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Legal Professionals ◽  
The Past ◽  
Law And Politics ◽  
Everyday Realities ◽  
Past 300 Years

Lawyers make politics, and international lawyers make international politics. Yet despite there being a few prominent judges and academic stars, the roles which jurists play as practitioners of international politics is often underappreciated or their juristic personas take a backseat to those of the politician and the diplomat. This volume sheds light on how lawyers over the past 300 years have made sense of, engaged in, and shaped international politics. Individual chapters show how politicians and administrators, diplomats and military men conceived of and considered their tasks in legal terms and how the large, amorphous field often described as ‘international relations’ was filled with life in the distinctly legal vernacular of laws and regulations, treaties and agreements, resolutions and conventions. The volume provides insights into what it means when concrete decisions are taken, negotiations led, or controversies articulated and resolved by legal professionals. It also enquires into how the often criticized gaps between juristic standards and everyday realities can be explained by looking at the very medium of law. Rather than sorting people and problems into binary categories such as ‘law’ and ‘politics’ or ‘theory’ and ‘practice’, the case studies in this volume reflect on these dichotomies and dissolve them into the messy realities of conflicts and interactions which take place in historically contingent situations and in which international lawyers assume varying personas.

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