scholarly journals Neorealism, neoclassical realism and the problem(s) of history

2021 ◽  
pp. 004711782110339
Author(s):  
Gustav Meibauer
Keyword(s):  
Historical Contingency ◽  
Cognitive Tool ◽  
Neoclassical Realism ◽  
Sequence Of Events ◽  
Historical Turn ◽  
Systemic Factors ◽  
State Behaviour ◽  
Constructivist Approaches ◽  
Intervening Variables ◽  
General Explanation

Following scholarship on IR’s ‘historical turn’ as well as on neorealism and neoclassical realism, this article finds fault particularly in neorealism’s implicit reliance on the historically contingent but incompletely conceptualised transmission of systemic factors into state behaviour. Instead, it suggests that neoclassical realism (NCR) is well-suited to leveraging ‘history’ in systematic and general explanation. This article interrogates two routes towards a historically sensitive NCR (intervening variables and structural modifiers), and how they enable different operationalisations of ‘history’ as a sequence of events, cognitive tool or collective narrative. The first route suggests history underpins concepts and variables currently used by neoclassical realists. Here, history is more easily operationalised and allows a clearer view at learning and emulation processes. It is also more clearly scoped, and therefore less ‘costly’ in terms of paradigmatic distinctiveness. The second route, in which history modifies structural incentives and constraints, is more theoretically challenging especially in terms of differentiating NCR from constructivist approaches, but lends itself to theorising systemic change. Both routes provide fruitful avenues for realist theorising, can serve to emancipate NCR from neorealism in IR and foster cross-paradigmatic dialog. Examining how ‘history’ can be leveraged in realism allows interrogating how other ‘mainstream’, positivist approaches can and should leverage historical contingency, context and evidence to explain international processes and outcomes.

ANXIETY AND AFFILIATION (OR ISOLATION?): A NOTE ON TEICHMAN'S STUDY

1990 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cheryl Mills Albas
Keyword(s):  
Observational Study ◽  
Trait Anxiety ◽  
Graduate School ◽  
Affiliative Behavior ◽  
Ego Threat ◽  
High Trait ◽  
Ego Threats ◽  
High Trait Anxiety ◽  
Intervening Variables ◽  
General Explanation

Teichman (1987) designed and executed an experiment in which she tested the hypothesis that specific ego threats under conditions of high trait anxiety will produce isolation. Her subjects were groups of students who had either already been accepted into or were competing for entrance to graduate school. On the basis of the results she concluded that anxiety (resulting from a specific ego threat) leads to negative affiliation. A longitudinal participant observational study of university students which had as one of its major foci the affiliative behavior of students immediately prior to writing examinations (specific ego threat) found results opposite to those of Teichman (Albas & Albas, 1984). It is suggested that these polar findings can be reconciled by Rofe and Lewin's (1988) more general explanation that anxiety leads to behavior which strives to minimize stress which, in turn, may be either affiliation or isolation depending upon other intervening variables.

scholarly journals The Decline of Indonesia’s Leadership Role in ASEAN: Systemic and Domestic Constraints of Jokowi’s Foreign Policy Alterations

2022 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 115
Author(s):  
. Darwis ◽  
Bama Andika Putra
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Leadership Role ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Policy Framework ◽  
Neoclassical Realism ◽  
Domestic Constraints ◽  
Rise Of China ◽  
Grand Strategies ◽  
Intervening Variables

This article addresses how systemic stimuli and domestic constraints, specifically on the perception of foreign policy executives, influence Indonesia’s leadership decline in ASEAN under Joko Widodo’s first presidential term. Through the lens of neoclassical realism, it is concluded that Indonesia’s leadership decline in ASEAN is attributed to the changing geopolitical landscape of Asia, with the assertive rise of China and the need to find other models of grand strategies in facing the regional hegemon. Furthermore, there is a unified perception of the irrelevance of maintaining a leadership role in ASEAN, and how the foreign policy executives of the Indonesian President and the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs have concluded to this approach. Implementation of this research is the contribution to the foreign policy framework in facing certain systemic stimuli in the region of Asia, and to understand the role of a unified perspective among foreign policy executives to the actual output of foreign policy. This article contributes to the discourses of; (1) neoclassical realism, specifically on the role of systemic stimuli and elite perceptions as intervening variables in understanding alterations in foreign policy behavior, and (2) empirical analysis of Indonesia’s leadership role in ASEAN during the presidency of Joko Widodo.   Received: 16 August 2021 / Accepted: 25 October 2021 / Published: 3 January 2022

scholarly journals Interests, ideas, and the study of state behaviour in neoclassical realism

2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gustav Meibauer
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Policy Choice ◽  
Neoclassical Realism ◽  
Language And Communication ◽  
State Behaviour ◽  
Political Deliberation

AbstractIdeational variables have frequently been employed in positivist-minded and materialist analyses of state behaviour. Almost inevitably, because of these commitments, such studies run into theoretical challenges relating to the use of ideas. In this article, I suggest that integrating ideational factors in positivist and materialist approaches to state behaviour requires: (1) distinguishing conceptually between interests and ideation as well as between individual beliefs and social ideas; and (2) addressing challenges of operationalisation and measurability. To that end, I employ neoclassical realism as a case study. I argue that a re-conceptualisation of ideas as externalised individual beliefs employed in political deliberation allows neoclassical realists to focus on how ideas and ideational competition intervene in the transmission belt from materially given interests to foreign policy choice. At the same time, it more clearly operationalises ideas as identifiable in language and communication. I suggest this reconceptualisation, while consistent with realist paradigmatic assumptions, need not be limited to neoclassical realism. Instead, transposed to different paradigms, it would similarly allow positivist-minded constructivists and institutionalists to avoid a conceptually and methodologically awkward equation of different ideational factors.

On Systemic Paradigms and Domestic Politics: A Critique of the Newest Realism

2017 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-190 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Narizny
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
Neoclassical Realism ◽  
Top Down ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Methodological Errors ◽  
Intervening Variables ◽  
Societal Preferences ◽  
Do So

Both Gideon Rose's neoclassical realism and Andrew Moravcsik's liberalism attempt to solve the problem of how to incorporate domestic factors into international relations theory. They do so in very different ways, however. Liberalism is a “bottom-up” perspective that accords analytic priority to societal preferences; neoclassical realism is a “top-down” perspective that accords analytic priority to systemic pressures and treats domestic factors as intervening variables. These two approaches are not equivalent, and the choice between them has high stakes. Although it has gained rapidly in popularity, neoclassical realism is fundamentally flawed. Its intellectual justification is weak; it is logically incoherent; and it induces the commission of methodological errors. Realism can incorporate certain domestic factors without losing its theoretical integrity, but it does not need and should not use neoclassical realism to do so.

Neoclassical Realist Theories, Intervening Variables, and Paradigmatic Boundaries

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elias Götz
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Interest Group ◽  
Real World ◽  
Strategic Culture ◽  
Neoclassical Realism ◽  
Causal Factors ◽  
Moderating Factors ◽  
Research Designs ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Intervening Variables

Abstract Extant neoclassical realist scholarship has identified a range of real-world factors (e.g., state capacity, interest group pressure, strategic culture, and leadership personality) that serve as intervening variables between systemic imperatives and states’ foreign policy behavior. Despite these elaborations, the intervening variable concept remains underdeveloped. In this article, I show that neoclassical realists have lumped together three different types of causal factors under the label intervening variable: (1) moderating factors, (2) complementary factors, and (3) primary causes. Making these distinctions explicit will enable scholars to increase the analytical precision of neoclassical realist approaches, choose appropriate research designs to test them, and define more clearly the paradigmatic boundaries of neoclassical realism vis-à-vis other perspectives.

Investor-State Dispute Settlement under NAFTA Chapter 11: The Shape of Things to Come?

1998 ◽  
Vol 35 ◽  
pp. 263-290
Author(s):  
J. Anthony VanDuzer
Keyword(s):  
Free Trade Agreement ◽  
Dispute Settlement ◽  
Trade Agreement ◽  
Minimum Standards ◽  
The North ◽  
State Behaviour ◽  
Nafta Chapter 11 ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Right

SummaryRecently, there has been a proliferation of international agreements imposing minimum standards on states in respect of their treatment of foreign investors and allowing investors to initiate dispute settlement proceedings where a state violates these standards. Of greatest significance to Canada is Chapter 11 of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which provides both standards for state behaviour and the right to initiate binding arbitration. Since 1996, four cases have been brought under Chapter 11. This note describes the Chapter 11 process and suggests some of the issues that may arise as it is increasingly resorted to by investors.

Fine Structural Changes in the Adenohypophyses of Rats Following Destruction of the Pituitary Stalk

1977 ◽  
Vol 35 ◽  
pp. 496-497
Author(s):  
K. Kovacs ◽  
E. Horvath ◽  
J. M. Bilbao ◽  
F. A. Laszlo ◽  
I. Domokos
Keyword(s):  
Structural Changes ◽  
Tissue Injury ◽  
Anterior Lobe ◽  
Uranyl Acetate ◽  
Male Rats ◽  
Pituitary Stalk ◽  
Sequence Of Events ◽  
Pituitary Glands ◽  
Electrolytic Lesions ◽  
Ultrathin Sections

Electrolytic lesions of the pituitary stalk in rats interrupt adenohypophysial blood flow and result in massive infarction of the anterior lobe. In order to obtain a deeper insight into the morphogenesis of tissue injury and to reveal the sequence of events, a fine structural investigation was undertaken on adenohypophyses of rats at various intervals following destruction of the pituitary stalk.The pituitary stalk was destroyed electrolytically, with a Horsley-Clarke apparatus on 27 male rats of the R-Amsterdam strain, weighing 180-200 g. Thirty minutes, 1,2,4,6 and 24 hours after surgery the animals were perfused with a glutaraldehyde-formalin solution. The skulls were then opened and the pituitary glands removed. The anterior lobes were fixed in glutaraldehyde-formalin solution, postfixed in osmium tetroxide and embedded in Durcupan. Ultrathin sections were stained with uranyl acetate and lead citrate and investigated with a Philips 300 electron microscope.

Desmosomal distribution in the epidermis of a non-contracting human skin equivalent

1992 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 896-897
Author(s):  
L.X. Oakford ◽  
S.D. Dimitrijevich ◽  
R. Gracy
Keyword(s):  
Human Skin ◽  
Basal Layer ◽  
Skin Equivalent ◽  
Tissue Component ◽  
Intact Skin ◽  
Similar Sequence ◽  
Sequence Of Events ◽  
Suprabasal Keratinocytes ◽  
Human Skin Equivalent

In intact skin the epidermal layer is a dynamic tissue component which is maintained by a basal layer of mitotically active cells. The protective upper epidermis, the stratum corneum, is generated by differentiation of the suprabasal keratinocytes which eventually desquamate as anuclear comeocytes. A similar sequence of events is observed in vitro in the non-contracting human skin equivalent (HSE) which was developed in this lab (1). As a part of the definition process for this model of living skin we are examining its ultrastructural features. Since desmosomes are important in maintaining cell-cell interactions in stratified epithelia their distribution in HSE was examined.

Albumin-Induced Endocytic Vacuoles in Tetrahymena Pyrijormis

1975 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 694-695
Author(s):  
L. J. Brenner ◽  
D. G. Osborne ◽  
B. L. Schumaker
Keyword(s):  
Electron Microscopy ◽  
Bovine Serum Albumin ◽  
Bovine Serum ◽  
Protein Concentration ◽  
Tetrahymena Pyriformis ◽  
Sequence Of Events ◽  
Cytoplasmic Bodies ◽  
Food Vacuoles ◽  
Mouse Ascites ◽  
Normal Human

Exposure of the ciliate, Tetrahymena pyriformis, strain WH6, to normal human or rabbit sera or mouse ascites fluids induces the formation of large cytoplasmic bodies. By electron microscopy these (LB) are observed to be membrane-bounded structures, generally spherical and varying in size (Fig. 1), which do not resemble the food vacuoles of cells grown in proteinaceous broth. The possibility exists that the large bodies represent endocytic vacuoles containing material concentrated from the highly nutritive proteins and lipoproteins of the sera or ascites fluids. Tetrahymena mixed with bovine serum albumin or ovalbumin solutions having about the same protein concentration (7g/100 ml) as serum form endocytic vacuoles which bear little resemblance to the serum-induced LB. The albumin-induced structures (Fig. 2) are irregular in shape, rarely spherical, and have contents which vary in density and consistency. In this paper an attempt is made to formulate the sequence of events which might occur in the formation of the albumin-induced vacuoles.

Amyloid β-peptide and Alzheimer's disease

2014 ◽  
Vol 56 ◽  
pp. 99-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Allsop ◽  
Jennifer Mayes
Keyword(s):  
Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Alzheimer's Disease ◽  
Senile Plaques ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
Amyloid Β ◽  
Amyloid Β Peptide ◽  
Amyloid Cascade Hypothesis ◽  
Sequence Of Events ◽  
Aβ Amyloid ◽  
Amyloid Cascade

One of the hallmarks of AD (Alzheimer's disease) is the formation of senile plaques in the brain, which contain fibrils composed of Aβ (amyloid β-peptide). According to the ‘amyloid cascade’ hypothesis, the aggregation of Aβ initiates a sequence of events leading to the formation of neurofibrillary tangles, neurodegeneration, and on to the main symptom of dementia. However, emphasis has now shifted away from fibrillar forms of Aβ and towards smaller and more soluble ‘oligomers’ as the main culprit in AD. The present chapter commences with a brief introduction to the disease and its current treatment, and then focuses on the formation of Aβ from the APP (amyloid precursor protein), the genetics of early-onset AD, which has provided strong support for the amyloid cascade hypothesis, and then on the development of new drugs aimed at reducing the load of cerebral Aβ, which is still the main hope for providing a more effective treatment for AD in the future.

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