Race in International Relations: Beyond the “Norm Against Noticing”

Author(s):  
Bianca Freeman ◽  
D.G. Kim ◽  
David A. Lake

The global movement for racial justice and the rise of anti-Asian hate at the height of the pandemic have called new attention to race and racism in international politics. Although critical theorists have decried the “norm against noticing,” other scholars of international relations have long sidestepped the possible role of race in shaping contemporary international affairs. New studies of hierarchy in international relations open the door for new understandings of race in world politics. We propose an analytic framework for the relationship between racial hierarchy, international law, and foreign policy, demonstrating that race can help explain patterns of interstate interactions that sustain an unequal global order. Positing two faces of racism in international relations, we examine how race biases international law in practice and affects the assessment of foreign threats and national interest. We discuss key methodological challenges in empirical research on race in international relations, focusing on issues of measurement, aggregation, and causation. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Political Science, Volume 25 is May 2022. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

1911 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-37
Author(s):  
Paul S. Reinsch

The year 1910 continued the era of peace and comparative quiet in international affiairs which the world has enjoyed since the end of the Russo-Japanese War. The electoral and party struggles in Great Britain, involving fundamental constitutional issues, the revolutionary changes in Portugal, the political and social unrest in Spain, the development of the constitutional régime in Turkey, are indeed all facts which considered separately are of the highest interest and which in their joint effect will exert a profound influence also in the field of international relations. But as to these latter themselves, they were free from startling features and dramatic climaxes such as delight the journalist and the war-scare monger. This is not to say that things of the highest significance were not accomplished, that understandings of moment were not given definite form during this year; even some unexpected things came about, but, on the whole, international relations were placid and followed the quiet course of natural development. Yet to the careful observer of international affairs the situations and tendencies that have appeared to the view during this year are of the highest significance. Indeed it may almost be said that some entirely new principles in the action of world politics have been revealed through the groupings and relations of the powers as effected in 1910.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 253-261
Author(s):  
Ekaterina Samorodova ◽  
Irina Belyaeva ◽  
Jana Birova ◽  
Mikhaïl Ogorodov

Aim. One of the most important tasks which precedes the setting of goals for teaching a foreign language of a specialty and the selection of methods for achieving them is to identify the competencies that a qualified specialist must master. Therefore, the authors of this article see the need to set the following research tasks: the identification of professional competencies in the professional discourse of international affairs; the allocation of competencies among those that require the knowledge of a foreign language; and determination of the language material necessary for studying the specialty in the language lessons for international affairs. Methods. The empirical methods of our research comprise studying and analysis of the works of Russian and foreign scientists and teachers working in the related fields; and interviewing specialists in the international sphere who have graduated from the faculties and institutes of international relations, international law, world politics and economics in the form of an anonymous questionnaire. Theoretical methods include analysis, synthesis, comparison, generalisation, deduction, and induction. Results. A study based on the analysis of a survey completed by international specialists showed that a large number of professionals in the field of international relations, international law, politics, and economics use legal terminology in their work more often than others. Among the professional skills that are required in their work, the respondents named negotiation, business dialogue, and correspondence. Conclusion. A recent study has shown that disciplines such as international law must be included in the language training program for international specialists as diplomates and lawyers.


1992 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terry Nardin

In this paper I am going to argue a familiar but still controversial thesis about the relation between international ethics and international law, which I would sum up in the following list of propositions:First, international law is a source as well as an object of ethical judgements. The idea of legality or the rule of law is an ethical one, and international law has ethical significance because it gives institutional expression to the rule of law in international relations.Secondly, international law—or, more precisely, the idea of the rule of law in international relations—reflects a rule-oriented rather than outcome-oriented ethic of international affairs. By insisting on the priority of rules over outcomes, this ethic rejects consequentialism in all its forms.


2020 ◽  
pp. 004711782092228
Author(s):  
Aaron McKeil

International relations today are widely considered to be experiencing deepening disorder and the topic of international disorder is gaining increased attention. Yet, despite this recent interest in international disorder, in and beyond the academy, and despite the decades-long interest in international order, there is still little agreement on the concept of international disorder, which is often used imprecisely and with an alarmist rather than analytical usage. This is a problem if international disorder is to be understood in theory, towards addressing its concomitant problems and effects in practice. As such, this article identifies and explores two ways international order studies can benefit from a clearer and more precise conception of international disorder. First, it enables a more complete picture of how orderly international orders have been. Second, a greater understanding of the problem of international order is illuminated by a clearer grasp of the relation between order and disorder in world politics. The article advances these arguments in three steps. First, an analytical concept of international disorder is developed and proposed. Second, applying it to the modern history of international order, the extent to which there is a generative relationship between order and disorder in international systems is explored. Third, it specifies the deepening international disorder in international affairs today. It concludes by indicating a research agenda for International Relations and international order studies that takes the role of international disorder more seriously.


1999 ◽  
Vol 25 (5) ◽  
pp. 201-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
WILLIAM WALLACE

The changing structure of European order poses, for any student of international relations, some fundamental questions about the evolution of world politics. Concepts of European order and of the European state system are, after all, central to accepted ideas of international relations. Out of the series of conflicts and negotiations—religious wars, coalitions to resist first the Hapsburg and then the Bourbon attempt at European hegemony—developed ideas and practices which still structure the contemporary global state system: the equality of states; international law as regulating relations among sovereign and equal states; domestic sovereignty as exclusive, without external oversight of the rules of domestic order. The ‘modern’ state system, modern scholars now agree, did not spring fully-clothed from the Treaty of Westphalia at the close of the Thirty Years' War; it evolved through a succession of treaties and conferences, from 1555 to 1714. It remains acceptable, nevertheless, to describe the European state order as built around the Westphalian system.


2007 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 318-340 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriana Sinclair ◽  
Michael Byers

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.


Author(s):  
Christopher A. Whytock

Political scientists—primarily in the discipline’s international relations subfield—have long studied international law. After considering how political scientists and legal scholars define international law, this article identifies five stages of political science research on international law, including the current interdisciplinary international law and international relations (IL/IR) stage, and it reviews three trends in political science research that constitute an emerging sixth stage of interdisciplinary scholarship: a law and world politics (L/WP) stage. First, moving beyond the “IL” in IL/IR scholarship, international relations scholars are increasingly studying domestic law and domestic courts—not only their foundational role in supporting international law and international courts but also their direct role in core areas of international relations, including international conflict and foreign policy. Second, moving beyond the “IR” in IL/IR scholarship, political scientists are adapting their research on international law to the broader world politics trend in political science by studying types of law—including extraterritoriality, conflict of laws, private international law, and the law of transnational commercial arbitration—that govern the transnational activity of private actors and can either support or hinder private global governance. Third, moving beyond the domestic-international divide, political scientists are increasingly rejecting “international law exceptionalism,” and beginning to take advantage of theoretical convergence across the domestic, comparative, and international politics subfields to develop a better general understanding law and politics.


Author(s):  
Raúl Bernal-Meza

In Latin America international affairs are currently being considered from a perspective that doesn’t use theoretical instruments from other academic fields, whether from American, English, French, or other schools. Our aim is to emphasize recent contributions to the discipline, specifically Latin American ones. The spirit behind this line of analysis is to approach the study of international relations from the perspective of the region itself, because the goals and interests of its countries within the framework of world politics are not a struggle for power. This effort doesn’t seek to disrespect or ignore the importance of American theorizing. This compilation contains an elaboration of concepts that do not have any theoretical pretension of universality. Its only goal is to help understand how Latin American countries react to the contemporary dynamics of international affairs.


1951 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 142-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pitman B. Potter

Members of the American Society of International Law are by inference charged by the Constitution of their Society with doing all that is possible to promote the study and development of international law and the conduct of international affairs on the basis of law and justice. For this purpose it is not sufficient to study and advocate the development of the law itself or for its own sake. Much attention must be given, certainly much more than has been given in the past, to the second section of the mandate, partly because of its own importance and partly to provide the kind of international situation where the law can thrive and be effective— which in turn is calculated to promote peace and justice. Friends of international law cannot afford to evade even the most difficult and delicate issues in the field of international relations on the ground that they are purely political in character.


2006 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 281-298 ◽  
Author(s):  
DUNCAN S. A. BELL

This essay surveys recent scholarly work on the political theory of empire and international relations in Britain during the long nineteenth century. It traces the dominant themes and arguments to be found, points to some interpretative and methodological weaknesses, and highlights a number of topics that remain to be explored in detail. I focus on the following: the relationship between liberalism and empire and, in particular, the role played by the idea of civilization in circumscribing liberal claims to universality; the nature and evolution of international law, and the key role that jurisprudential thought played in shaping conceptions of civilization and setting the bounds of legitimacy for imperialism; the vexed relationship between the history of imperial thought and cultural/political history; and the important, though frequently marginalized, role of the colonial empire in the Victorian imperial imagination. Finally, I suggest that areas that remain to be explored in depth include non-liberal visions of international affairs; the role of theology in shaping conceptions of global order; and the balance between the United States, Europe, and the various (and very different) elements of the empire.


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