scholarly journals Facing human interconnections: thinking International Relations into the future

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 267-289
Author(s):  
Charalampos Efstathopoulos ◽  
Milja Kurki ◽  
Alistair Shepherd
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Environmental Degradation ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Introductory Article ◽  
The Future ◽  
And Shifts

Communities on the planet are faced with complex challenges: changing relations within and between human communities, changing relations with ecological and climatic conditions, and shifts in technology-human interconnections. The complex interconnections across issue areas – migration, environmental degradation and new technologies, for example – demand that scholars increasingly think across theories, paradigms, specialisms and disciplines. But how should we ‘hold things together’ as we try to make sense of complex realities in International Relations (IR)? This introductory article to the Special Issue ‘Facing human interconnections: thinking International Relations into the future’ discusses the open thematic of ‘human interconnections’ that is used to loosely structure the contributions. Analysis of human interconnections, as understood here, does not have a precise or fixed definition but is considered an open-ended notion with varied meanings and dimensions. Indeed, the authors engage it here in varied ways to explore their empirical, theoretical and political concerns. Yet, this notion also allows for interesting new questions to be posed on the potential and limits of IR as it faces the future, and debates around how we see interconnections between issue areas and ‘-isms’, how IR constructs ‘humans’ or ‘non-humans’ in interconnections, and what is at stake in bringing to our attention unacknowledged interconnections. Here we set out why human interconnection is an interesting notion to work with and why we need to keep its meaning open-ended. We also provide an account of six different orientations we observe amongst the authors tackling the dynamics of human interconnections in this Special Issue.

scholarly journals Blockchain: Current Challenges and Future Prospects/Applications

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 258 ◽  
Author(s):  
Spyros Makridakis ◽  
Klitos Christodoulou
Keyword(s):  
New Technologies ◽  
New Technology ◽  
Future Internet ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Future Prospects ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
General Introduction ◽  
Personal Lives ◽  
The Future ◽  
Decentralized Autonomous Organizations

Blockchain is a new technology, often referred to as the Internet of Value. As with all new technologies, there is no consensus on its potential value, with some people claiming that it will bring more disruptive changes than the Internet and others contesting the extent of its importance. Despite predictions that the future is perilous, there is evidence that blockchain is a remarkable, new technology that will change the way transactions are made, based on its ability to guarantee trust among unknown actors, assure the immutability of records, while also making intermediaries obsolete. The importance of blockchain can be confirmed by the interest in digital currencies, the great number of published blockchain papers, as well as MDPI’s journal Future Internet which exclusively publishes blockchain articles, including this special issue covering present and future blockchain challenges. This paper is a survey of the fast growing field of blockchain, discussing its advantages and possible drawbacks and their implications for the future of the Internet and our personal lives and societies in general. The paper consists of the following parts; the first provides a general introduction and discusses the disruptive changes initiated by blockchain, the second discusses the unique value of blockchain and its general characteristics, the third presents an overview of industries with the greatest potential for disruptive changes, the forth describes the four major blockchain applications with the highest prospective advantages, and the fifth part of the paper ends with a discussion on the most notable subset of innovative blockchain applications—Smart Contracts, DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations) and super safe networks—and their future implications. There is also a concluding section, which summarizes the paper, describes the future of blockchain, and mentions the challenges to be overcome.

scholarly journals Militarism and security: Dialogue, possibilities and limits

2017 ◽  
Vol 49 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 3-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Stavrianakis ◽  
Maria Stern
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
The Other ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Political Work ◽  
The World ◽  
And Shifts ◽  
Analytical Tools ◽  
The Relationship

While attention to security has grown exponentially over the last few decades, militarism – the preparation for and normalization and legitimation of war – has not received the widespread and sustained focus it warrants in mainstream or critical circles. Rather than stake a claim for one concept over the other, however, this article – and the special issue to which it serves as an introduction – asks how we are to understand the relationship between security and militarism, both as analytical tools and as objects of analysis. We examine, first, what analytical and political work militarism and security do as concepts, and how they can be mobilized methodologically; second, what the possibilities are of fruitful exchange between knowledges produced about these concepts or practices; and, third, what the limits are of militarism and security. In the process, we address the shifts in the world that international relations and its related subfields study; shifts in the institutional framing and materiality of fields and subfields of research; and shifts in how international relations studies the world. Read together, the contributions to the special issue make the case for a reinvigorated focus on the mutual co-constitution of militarism and security.

Nieuwe diplomatieke geschiedenis van de premoderne tijd

2014 ◽  
Vol 127 (4) ◽  
pp. 541-552 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maurits Ebben ◽  
Louis Sicking
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Cultural Dimensions ◽  
Diplomatic History ◽  
Diplomatic Relations ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Early Modern History ◽  
Introductory Article ◽  
Territorial States ◽  
Cultural Turn

Abstract New Diplomatic History in the Premodern Age. An IntroductionThe study of medieval and early modern diplomacy has long been considered one of the most conservative subdisciplines in the field of history. During the last three decades, however, diplomatic history has undergone profound changes. This introductory article shows how these changes were triggered by developments in other disciplines and happened under the influence of the cultural turn. Until recently most general histories of diplomacy were based on the conceptions of Donald Queller and, more particularly, of Garrett Mattingly. Scholars working on medieval and early modern history have applied new international relations theories and moved away from analyses that were strictly oriented towards diplomatic relations between sovereign territorial states. The cultural turn gave rise to a range of innovations in diplomatic history, leading historians to focus on the diplomatic process and its cultural dimensions rather than on the results of diplomatic activity. The special issue for which this article serves as an introduction shows that historians working in the Netherlands have also been influenced by these developments.

scholarly journals Introduction: Interdisciplinarity and the International Relations event horizon

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (1_suppl) ◽  
pp. 3-13
Author(s):  
Ursula Daxecker ◽  
Annette Freyberg-Inan ◽  
Marlies Glasius ◽  
Geoffrey Underhill ◽  
Darshan Vigneswaran
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Event Horizon ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Problematic Relationship ◽  
The Future ◽  
Anniversary Issue ◽  
Per Se ◽  
New Form

This Introduction contextualises this special anniversary issue of the journal. The Editors of a previous 2013 special issue of the EJIR (The End of International Relations Theory?) asked if the paradigmatic “theoretical cacophony” in IR was deep and irresolvable. We argue that there is still very much a conversation going on across ‘generalist’ and specialised IR journals, and that renewal and broadening is more important than boundaries per se. Meanwhile the field of International Relations has continued to broaden, absorbing much from other social science disciplines in the process. Yet IR has a problematic relationship with interdisciplinarity, often discovering as ‘new’ what other fields have long debated and in turn ‘domesticating’ these insights from other fields by fitting them into existing IR paradigms. This special issue is thus aimed above all at what ‘we’ in IR are not seeing from other disciplines, and we go on to argue how IR scholars might best employ ‘transdisciplinary’ insights to ensure the future dynamism and innovation of the field. We argue that in this context, a special effort of critical and open engagement with work that makes us uncomfortable is required and that the very notion of inter-disciplinarity takes on a new form.

scholarly journals Border Justice: Migration and Accountability for Human Rights Violations

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 311-334
Author(s):  
Cathryn Costello ◽  
Itamar Mann
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Direct Action ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Apparent Lack ◽  
Introductory Article ◽  
Migration Control

AbstractThis introductory Article sets out the premise of the Special Issue, the entrenched and pervasive nature of human rights violations in the context of migration control and the apparent lack of accountability for such violations. It sets out features of contemporary migration control practices and their legal governance that contribute to this phenomenon, namely the exceptional treatment of migration in international law; the limited scope of international refugee law; and the pervasive use of externalized, delegated migration controls, in particular by the EU and its Member States. The roots of the current condition are traced back to the containment practices that emerged at the end of the Cold War, with the 2015 “crisis” framed both as an illustration of the failures of containment, and a source of further stasis. Following an overview of the contributions that make up the Special Issue, this Article identifies five emergent themes, and suggests further lines of inquiry. These are: the promise and limits of strategic human rights limitations; the role of both international criminal law, and domestic (and regional) tort law in securing accountability; the turn to positive obligations to challenge entrenched features of containment; and the role of direct action in support of and solidarity with those challenging migration controls most directly, refugees and migrants themselves. Rather than offering panaceas, the Article concludes with the identification of further new challenges, notably the role of new technologies in further dissipating lines of accountability for decisions to exclude.

scholarly journals The impact of colonialism on policy and knowledge production in International Relations

2022 ◽  
Vol 98 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-22
Author(s):  
Jasmine K Gani ◽  
Jenna Marshall
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
100Th Anniversary ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Academic Knowledge ◽  
Introductory Article ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Is there an academic–policy divide, and does that gap need to be bridged? For decades, International Relations (IR) scholars have reflected on their roles and responsibilities towards the ‘real world’, while policy-makers have often critiqued the detachment of academic research. In response, there have been increased calls for academics to descend from their ‘ivory tower’. However, the articles in this 100th anniversary special issue of International Affairs interrogate this so-called theory–policy divide and problematize the exchange of knowledge between academics and practitioners, highlighting the colonial underpinnings of their historical entanglements. In this introductory article we bring together the core arguments of the special issue contributions to delineate three prominent dynamics in the academic–practitioner nexus: the role of academia as a supplier of knowledge for colonial policies; the influence of imperial practice and policy-makers in shaping IR and academic knowledge production; and the contestation from academics and/or practitioners against racial hierarchies in knowledge production and policy-making. Confronting the exclusions, amnesias and denials of colonialism in the theory and practice of International Relations is the necessary first step in any process of repair towards a more just and viable politics.

scholarly journals Future imaginaries in the making and governing of digital technology: Multiple, Contested, Commodified

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Astrid Mager ◽  
Christian Katzenbach
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Digital Technology ◽  
Business Models ◽  
Digital Transformation ◽  
Public Institutions ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Sociotechnical Imaginaries ◽  
Introductory Article ◽  
The Future ◽  
Future Society

Preprint (March 2020) forthcoming in New Media & Society:Mager, A. & Katzenbach, C. (2020). Future imaginaries in the making and governing of digital technology: Multiple, Contested, Commodified. New Media & Society. Online First. doi: 10.1177/1461444820929321.Visions of the future are omnipresent in current debates about the digital transformation. This introductory article and the full special issue are concerned with the function, power, and performativity of future visions and how they relate to the making and governing of digital technology. Revisiting existing concepts, we particularly discuss and advance the concept of sociotechnical imaginaries. In difference to ephemeral visions and partisan ideas, imaginaries are collectively held and institutionally stabilized. Nonetheless, we hold that they are multiple, contested and commodified rather than monolithic, linear visions of future trajectories enacted by state actors. Introducing and summarising the articles of the special issue, we conclude that imaginaries are increasingly dominated by technology companies who not only take over the imaginative power of shaping future society. They also partly absorb public institutions’ ability to govern these very futures with their rhetoric, technologies and business models.

scholarly journals Diskurssintutkimus – monitieteinen ja monimenetelmäinen ala

2018 ◽  
pp. 4-19
Author(s):  
Lotta Lehti ◽  
Lauri Haapanen ◽  
Liisa Kääntä
Keyword(s):  
Data Analysis ◽  
Data Collection ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Linguistic Research ◽  
Introductory Article ◽  
The Future ◽  
Discourse Studies

There is a growing interest towards metatheoretical examination of linguistic research. This special issue contributes to this examination from the perspective of discourse studies. The issue consists of seven articles which present methods in different areas of discourse studies. The aim of this introductory article is firstly to define the notions of discourse and method. Secondly, through the presentation of the articles of the issue, we present a variety of methods pertaining to different stages of research. In particular, methods of data collection and classification, as well as of data analysis, are presented. We conclude the article with some remarks on the future avenues of the methodology of discourse studies.

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