The Noble American Science of Imperial Relations and Its Laws of Race Development

2020 ◽  
pp. 3-42
Author(s):  
Robert Vitalis
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Historical Sociology ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
American Science ◽  
The Way

We now know that the ‘birth of the discipline’ of international relations in the United States is a story about empire. The foundations of early international relations theory are set in not just international law and historical sociology but evolutionary biology and racial anthropology. The problem is the way in which scholars today deal with the place of race in the thought of John Hobson, Paul Reinsch, and virtually all other social scientists of the era. The strand of thought that still resonates in our own time about empire, states, and the like is raised up and depicted as the scientific or theoretical core in the scholars’ work, while the strand that involves now archaic racial constructs is downgraded and treated instead as mere ‘language’, ‘metaphors’, and ‘prejudices’ of the era. To undo this error and recover in full the ideas of early international relations theorists it is necessary to bring the work of historians of conservative and reform Darwinism to bear on the first specialists and foundational texts in international relations.

The Language of Security in Philippine-us Relations

2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 121-146
Author(s):  
Charmaine G. Misalucha
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Language Games ◽  
The World ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Way

Abstract There is a need to reformulate the way in which we view international relations. Rather than simply a play at an obscure theater with the same characters reprising their respective roles based on an old script, international relations need to be seen as a play at the world stage whose script is always being reviewed, revised, rewritten, and renegotiated by characters who are actively searching for ways to be accommodated. In this way, the characters and the roles they play are provisional: they become who or what they are because of actions they take, and not necessarily because they are fated to be revered or condemned. To achieve the fluid nature of this script, one must pay attention to language games. These games allow for the participation of both sides of the equation – the Philippines and the United States – in the creation of the structure and direction of their relationship.

The American Society of International Law 1906–1956

1956 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 293-312 ◽  
Author(s):  
George A. Finch
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
Peace Treaty ◽  
Law And Justice ◽  
Jay Treaty ◽  
American Society

The founding fifty years ago of a society to promote the establishment of international relations on the basis of law and justice was a step marking the progress that had been made at the beginning of the century in the age-long efforts to find a means of substituting reason for force in the settlement of international controversies. At that time arbitration was generally regarded as the most suitable and acceptable substitute for war. Great Britain and the United States had both heavily contributed to that conviction first by submitting to arbitration under the Jay Treaty of 1794 the numerous misunderstandings that developed in carrying out the provisions of the Peace Treaty of 1783, and then three-quarters of a century later in submitting to arbitration by the Treaty of Washington of 1871 the dangerous Alabama Claims dispute following the American Civil War.

scholarly journals When US Scholars Speak of ‘Sovereignty’, what do they Mean?

2007 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 318-340 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriana Sinclair ◽  
Michael Byers
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
Totalitarian Regime ◽  
Political Independence ◽  
The Us ◽  
American Academic

The term ‘sovereignty’ figures prominently in international affairs and academic analysis. But does ‘sovereignty’ mean the same thing in different countries and political cultures? In this article, we examine conceptions of sovereignty as they appear in the writings of US scholars of international law and those international relations scholars who deal with international law, in order to obtain a clearer picture of what ‘sovereignty’ means in American academic discourse. At first glance, the US literature is dominated by two distinct conceptions of sovereignty: (1) a statist conception that privileges the territorial integrity and political independence of governments regardless of their democratic or undemocratic character; (2) a popular conception that privileges the rights of peoples rather than governments, especially when widespread human rights violations are committed by a totalitarian regime. On closer examination, what seem to be two conceptions are in fact different manifestations of a single, uniquely American conception of sovereignty which elevates the United States above other countries and protects it against outside influences while concurrently maximising its ability to intervene overseas.

scholarly journals Laws and Politics of the International Relations of Japan and the United States

1997 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 43
Author(s):  
A H Angelo
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Comparative Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public International Law ◽  
American University ◽  
International Service ◽  
Joint Declaration

This article is a book review of Makitaro Hotta Laws and Politics of the International Relations of Japan and the United States (published jointly by the School of International Service, American University, Washington, and the College of International Relations, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, 1996) 195 pages. The book is a compendium of documents and materials relating to Japan and United States relations from the Cairo Declaration of 1 December 1943 to the Japan/US Joint Declaration on Security Alliance for the 21st Century of 17 April 1996. Angelo praises the book’s versatility, as it can be used for comparative law classes and for international relations programmes, for constitutional law teaching, and for aspects of public international law. 

Implications for American Leadership

2020 ◽  
pp. 213-224
Author(s):  
Matthew Kroenig
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
International System ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
Theoretical Explanation ◽  
World Politics ◽  
New Era ◽  
Innovative Economy

This chapter reviews the central arguments of the book and its findings about a democratic advantage in international politics. It then discusses the implications for international relations theory and for U.S. foreign policy. This book advances international relations theory by providing a novel theoretical explanation that traces the origins of power in world politics to domestic political institutions. It makes a “hard power” case for democracy. The chapter then lays out a competitive strategy for the United States in this new era of great power rivalry. It urges the United States to strengthen its democratic form of governance domestically. Washington should also ensure it maintains an innovative economy, a robust financial sector, strong alliances, and a favorable military balance of power in Europe and Asia. Internationally, the chapter urges the United States to revitalize, adapt, and defend the rules-based international system. The chapter concludes with a challenge to Russia and China. If these countries wish to be true leading global powers, then they must adopt democratic forms of government.

Interwar International Relations Research: The American Experience

1949 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
William T. R. Fox
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Future Development ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
American Experience ◽  
The Future

What is today in the United States conventionally known as international relations is a subject different in content and emphasis from its counterpart of even two decades ago. Much of what seemed important in 1929 seems irrelevant, and some of it even trivial, in 1949. Another twenty years may perhaps bring a similar judgment on work now being done. But we ought at least to be aware of the direction in which we have been moving if we are to control the future development of the field.In 1930 the following statement passed unchallenged in a discussion among some of Ameria's leading social scientists: “The emotional drive is so highly developed in the kind of person who goes into the international relations field that it often leads to unclear thinking.” The implication that no one without this drive could conceivably be persuaded to enter the field is a commentary on the disesteem with which international relations research was then regarded.

Letter to the Editors of the Symposium

1999 ◽  
Vol 93 (2) ◽  
pp. 351-361 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martti Koskenniemi
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
Critical Legal Studies ◽  
Academic Quality ◽  
Legal Studies ◽  
New Approaches ◽  
The Way

As I started to think about how to respond to your kind invitation to participate in the symposium on method in international law, and what to write to the readers of the Journal, I soon noticed that it was impossible for me to think about my—or indeed anybody’s—“method” in the way suggested by the symposium format. This was only in part because I felt that your (and sometimes others’) classification of my work as representative of something called “critical legal studies” failed to make sense of large chunks of it whose labeling as “CLS” might seem an insult to those in the American legal academy who had organized themselves in the 1970s and early 1980s under that banner. You may, of course, have asked me to write about “CLS” in international law irrespectively of whether I was a true representative of its method (whatever that method might be). Perhaps I was only asked to explain how people generally identified as “critics” went about writing as they did. But I felt wholly unqualified to undertake such a task. Dozens of academic studies had been published on the structure, history and ideology of critical legal studies in the United States and elsewhere. Although that material is interesting, and often of high academic quality, little of it describes the work of people in our field sometimes associated with critical legal studies—but more commonly classed under the label of “new approaches to international law.“1 In fact, new writing in the field was so heterogeneous, self-reflective and sometimes outright ironic that the conventions of academic analysis about “method” would inevitably fail to articulate its reality.

Norms of Self-Determination: Thinking Sovereignty Through

2012 ◽  
Vol 4 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 195-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Scott
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Third World ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
Democratic Governance ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
The Way

This essay is an exploration of the contemporary normative conditions of thinking about the problem of sovereignty. Specifically it is a consideration of some aspects of the way in which the problem of Third World sovereignty has been taken up and argued out in international relations theory and international law on the legal-political terrain of self-determination. The essay traces the transformation of the norm of self-determination as an anti-colonial standard to its post-Cold War re-composition as a norm of democratic governance.

The Empirical, Normative, and Theoretical Foundations of International Studies

1967 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth W. Thompson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War I ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Society ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Studies ◽  
World War ◽  
Theoretical Foundations ◽  
The Way

International relations have been the object of widespread study and review in the United States since World War I. Attention has focussed alternately on the flow of events, the goals and standards, and the underlying principles of world affairs. Primary emphasis has been directed to empirical, normative and theoretical problems. Along the way, scholars, statesmen and observers have singled out certain factors from the myriad dimensions of international society. Students have looked for concepts and methodologies by which order and meaning could be derived in this as in other complex fields.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document