Institutional Habitus, State identity, and China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 879-902
Author(s):  
Dylan M H Loh
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Self Regulation ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
State Identity ◽  
Organizational Habitus ◽  
The Social ◽  
Institutional Habitus ◽  
Foreign Ministry ◽  
Foreign Ministries

Abstract Foreign ministries play a critical role in international relations and are the main interface of diplomacy. Yet, in international relations scholarship, foreign ministries are relatively neglected as an object of scholarly analysis and feature very little around discussions of state's agency and identity. Using China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) as a foil, I suggest that foreign ministries develop dispositions, perceive the social world around them, and react to the world from these orientations. The implication of this, then, are that foreign ministries are contributive to a state's identity and “actorness.” In that way, I develop the concept of institutional habitus to understand China's MOFA and the ways in which this habitus is sustained and performed through MOFA's physical artefacts and its agents. This rendering of habitus responds to sociology's invitation to extend Bourdieu-inspired analysis toward organizations and organizational change and, more broadly, complements existing theorization of state identity by showcasing an important but omitted source of identity: the foreign ministry. I argue that China's MOFA's organizational habitus manifests and preserves itself through three means: first, through the iterative reinscription of institutional memory and invocation of history; second, through displays of fealty; and third, in organizational and personal self-regulation, discipline, and taciturnity.

scholarly journals Who Gets What in Foreign Affairs? Explaining the Allocation of Foreign Ministries in Coalition Governments

2018 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kai Oppermann ◽  
Klaus Brummer
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Qualitative Comparative Analysis ◽  
Relative Size ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Coalition Governments ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
Party Family ◽  
Foreign Ministry ◽  
Foreign Ministries

AbstractIn coalition governments, political parties are concerned not only with how many but also with which departments they control. The foreign ministry is among the most highly considered prizes in coalition negotiations. This article develops hypotheses to explain under which conditions the foreign ministry is likely to be allocated to a ‘junior coalition partner’. The factors that are hypothesized to affect the allocation are: the relative size of coalition parties; the proximity of their foreign policy positions; the party family of the junior coalition party; the salience of foreign policy to the coalition parties; and past allocations of the foreign ministry to junior coalition partners. Employing a crisp-set qualitative comparative analysis, the article demonstrates that although the conjunction of the junior partner being relatively large and it having led the foreign ministry in the past is not sufficient by itself, those two factors are very influential in the junior partner being allocated the foreign ministry.

American identity and neutral rights from independence to the War of 1812

1997 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mlada Bukovansky
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
American Identity ◽  
War Of 1812 ◽  
Material Distribution ◽  
State Identity ◽  
The Social ◽  
Distribution Of Power ◽  
The Relationship

In recent international relations theory debates, constructivists have argued that explanations based primarily on interests and the material distribution of power cannot fully account for important international phenomena and that analysis of the social construction of state identities ought to precede, and may even explain, the genesis of state interests. This claim has proved difficult to operationalize empirically, though some persuasive results are now emerging. This article analyzes the relationship between state identity and state interest in the development of American neutral rights policy from U.S. independence to the War of 1812.

Discursive legitimation strategies: The evolving legitimation of war in Israeli public diplomacy

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (5) ◽  
pp. 503-520 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Simonsen
Keyword(s):  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Public Diplomacy ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
The Public ◽  
Foreign Governments ◽  
Foreign Ministry ◽  
Empirical Contribution

This article analyzes discursive legitimation strategies in the public diplomacy of the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs over the course of three wars between Israel and Hamas by combining critical discourse analysis (CDA) with a quantitative analysis of legitimation strategies. CDA fulfills a critical role in scrutinizing the power that a foreign ministry may have by influencing the attitudes of foreign governments, populations and media outlets. This power is theoretically assessed by tracking legitimation strategies and lexical choices (e.g. war on terror, human shields) diachronically and discussing legitimation strategies in light of their ability to yield resonance. The study’s empirical contribution is an analysis of how legitimation strategies develop in order to reinforce and obtain resonance with a target audience. It contributes theoretically by arguing that construing a local, particular war as global and universal enables the legitimation strategies of political leaders to obtain resonance with audiences.

The Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Transforming World Politics: Between Isomorphism and Path Dependence

2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-160
Author(s):  
Elena Georgiadou
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Path Dependence ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Operational Environment ◽  
Significant Evidence ◽  
The One ◽  
Policy Systems ◽  
Foreign Ministry ◽  
Foreign Ministries

Summary This article explores the contemporary organization and functions of the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and the ways in which it responds to the transforming world politics. In contemporary foreign policy management discourse, the study of the foreign ministry — its organization, role, functions and position within national foreign policy and diplomatic systems — constitutes a central theme. This is because patterns of change within its structure, processes and operation can provide significant evidence regarding the state’s responses to systemic change, as well as its fundamental assumptions about world politics. There is no uniformity of opinion in the literature regarding foreign ministries’ responses to the changing policy milieus. On the one hand there are observations and arguments that view the foreign ministry as adaptive and retaining its centrality in national foreign policy systems, while on the other hand there are suggestions that the transforming world politics have diminished its significance, leading to its decline. Evidence gathered through a series of interviews with Greek diplomats indicates no discernible trend towards a decline of the Greek MFA. The data rather demonstrate that this Greek diplomatic institution, similar to other European foreign ministries, is in a process of adapt-ing to its contemporary operational environment, but that this process is slow because of its organizational culture.

Creating Football Diplomacy in the French Third Republic, 1914–1939

2020 ◽  
pp. 30-47
Author(s):  
Paul Dietschy
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Interwar Period ◽  
Special Section ◽  
Third Republic ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
World Cup ◽  
Fifa World Cup ◽  
The Government ◽  
Tourism Service ◽  
Foreign Ministry

In 1920, the French Ministry for Foreign Affairs created a special section within its propaganda services in the aims of fighting the image of a postwar exhausted France, utilizing soccer within its efforts. This section created a soccer diplomacy and contributed to spreading French influence despite the weakness of French football and French decline in the 1930s. This chapter exposes and explains the contradiction and the paradox of this kind of soccer diplomacy. French diplomats began to understand that soccer matches and competitions were a new and sometimes efficient way to spread propaganda or to analyze the evolution of international relations in the interwar period. Yet, despite the dynamism of the sport and tourism service at its beginning, the government gave little financial help to the French Football Federation, especially when France organized the World Cup in 1938. The French state’s support of football within international relations in the 1930s demonstrates the challenges of soccer diplomacy. Even with the creation of a specific branch of the foreign ministry that focused on sport, international matches and major events such as the 1938 FIFA World Cup reveal the limits of the ambitions of this kind of soccer diplomacy.

The identity policy and its effect in the stability of Middle East after 2010

2019 ◽  
pp. 434
Author(s):  
Ali Hussein Kadhim Alesammi
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Social Construct ◽  
Stability And Instability ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Stability ◽  
International Interactions ◽  
Regional Interests ◽  
Political Groups ◽  
Identity Policy

Since 2010 Middle East have many events or what they call "Arab spring events" which it result of overthrow governments and the rise of new political groups, all of this elements was resulting of many international and regional activities and making new regional and international axles, as well as the intersections of the different regional interests, therefore this research will try to study the stability and instability in the region as an independent variable not according to the neorealism or neoliberalism theories, but according to the constructivism theory which it base their assumptions on:  "In the international relations the non-physical structures of international interactions are determined by the identities of the players, which in turn determine the interests that determine the behavior of international players." So the research questions are: 1-What is the identity policy and haw affect in international relations? 2-How the social construct affect in international relations? 3-How the elite's identities for the main actors in the Middle East affect in the regional axles?  

THE USE OF THE TRANSLATION METHOD IN MASTERING THE TERMS

2019 ◽  
pp. 87-95
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
English Language ◽  
Structural Features ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
General Classification ◽  
Optimal Methods ◽  
Foreign Companies ◽  
The Social ◽  
Problems Of Translation

The article is devoted to the role of Tourism terminology in linguistics and the issue of general classification, peculiarities in the expression and translation of terms related to tourism in English into Uzbek and Russian, as well as the choice of the most optimal methods for translating terms in accordance with the requirements of this professional sphere. The terminology of the English language tourism is distinguished by its brightness, versatility. Tourism terms are formed under the influence of a generalized lexical layer of language and perform a specific functional function.Tourism terms are formed through the affixation method (prefixation, suffixation, circumphixation) and get rich through the process.The terminology of English Tourism is distinguished by its content and structural features, forming a part of the language vocabulary from the linguistic point of view. Texts in the field of Tourism take into their composition concepts of Tourism and interpret them in their content. They will be mainly in the form of advertising, as well as enlighten information about a particular region or place, create informational precedents and ensure their manifestation in the social cultural presence. The relevance of the study of the problems of translation of terms in the field of tourism has been investigated, mainly due to the development of international relations, expansion of cooperation between local and foreign companies, as well as the increase in this area of communication.

Empathy not quarantined: Association between people’s empathy to others and the COVID-19 pandemic situations based on a national survey study (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhibin Jiang ◽  
Fan Yang ◽  
Bu Zhong ◽  
Xuebing Qin
Keyword(s):  
Social Support ◽  
Social Media ◽  
National Survey ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Affective Response ◽  
Survey Study ◽  
Income Levels ◽  
The Social

BACKGROUND The Covid-19 pandemic had turned the world upside down, but not much is known about how people’s empathy might be affected by the pandemic. OBJECTIVE This study examined 1) how empathy towards others might be influenced by the social support people obtained by using social media; and 2) how the individual demographics (e.g., age, income) may affect empathy. METHODS A national survey (N = 943) was conducted in China in February 2020, in which the participants read three real scenarios about low-income urban workers (Scenario I), small business owners in cities (Scenario II), and farmers in rural areas (Scenario III) who underwent hardship due to COVID-19. After exposure to others’ difficulties in the scenarios, the participants’ empathy and anxiety levels were measured. We also measured the social support they had by using social media. RESULTS Results show that social support not only positively impacted empathy, β = .30, P < .001 for Scenario I, β = .30, P < .001 for Scenario II, and β = .29, P < .001 for Scenario III, but also interacted with anxiety in influencing the degree to which participants could maintain empathy towards others, β = .08, P = .010 for Scenario I, and β = .07, P = .033 for scenario II. Age negatively predicted empathy for Scenario I, β = -.08, P = .018 and Scenario III, β = -.08, P = .009, but not for Scenario II, β = -.03, P = .40. Income levels – low, medium, high – positively predicted empathy for Scenario III, F (2, 940) = 8.10, P < .001, but not for Scenario I, F (2, 940) = 2.14, P = .12, or Scenario II, F (2, 940) = 2.93, P = .06. Participants living in big cities expressed greater empathy towards others for Scenario III, F (2, 940) = 4.03, P =.018, but not for Scenario I, F (2, 940) = .81, P = .45, or Scenario II, F (2, 940) = 1.46, P =.23. CONCLUSIONS This study contributes to the literature by discovering the critical role empathy plays in people’s affective response to others during the pandemic. Anxiety did not decrease empathy. However, those gaining more social support on social media showed more empathy for others. Those who resided in cities with higher income levels were more empathetic during the COVID-19 outbreak. This study reveals that the social support people obtained helped maintain empathy to others, making them resilient in challenging times.

Feudal Europe, 800–1300: communal discourse and conflictual practices

1992 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 427-466 ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus Fischer
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Social Science ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Structural Theory ◽  
Historical Change ◽  
Fundamental Significance ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
Scientific Argument

The discipline of international relations faces a new debate of fundamental significance. After the realist challenge to the pervasive idealism of the interwar years and the social scientific argument against realism in the late 1950s, it is now the turn of critical theorists to dispute the established paradigms of international politics, having been remarkably successful in several other fields of social inquiry. In essence, critical theorists claim that all social reality is subject to historical change, that a normative discourse of understandings and values entails corresponding practices, and that social theory must include interpretation and dialectical critique. In international relations, this approach particularly critiques the ahistorical, scientific, and materialist conceptions offered by neorealists. Traditional realists, by contrast, find a little more sympathy in the eyes of critical theorists because they join them in their rejection of social science and structural theory. With regard to liberal institutionalism, critical theorists are naturally sympathetic to its communitarian component while castigating its utilitarian strand as the accomplice of neorealism. Overall, the advent of critical theory will thus focus the field of international relations on its “interparadigm debate” with neorealism.

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