scholarly journals Eurasian Regionalism as a Research Agenda. Interview with Dr. Mikhail A. Molchanov, University of Salamanca, Spain

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 560-573
Author(s):  

Mikhail Aleksandrovich Molchanov is a prominent Canadian political scholar, professor and publicist. He has worked as a senior policy analyst for the Government of Canada and a professor of political science at several Canadian universities. He held a visiting professor appointment at the American University of Sharjah, UAE, and several visiting research appointments at the United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies, Waseda University and Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo, Japan, and at the United Nations University Institute of Comparative Regional Studies (UNU-CRIS) in Brugge, Belgium. Dr. Molchanovs research focuses on international relations in Eurasia and international political economy of regional integration. His research projects have been supported by the United States Institute of Peace, The Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, the United Nations University Institute on Comparative Regional Integration Studies (UNU-CRIS), the United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies (UNU-IAS), Japan Foundation, Soros Foundations, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation. In 2011, he was awarded the Japan Foundations prestigious Japanese Studies Fellowship, and in 2012, elected Foreign Member of the National Academy of Educational Sciences of Ukraine. He is the winner of the inaugural Robert H. Donaldson prize of the International Studies Association for the best paper study of the post-communist region. He sits on the Board of the Global and International Studies Program, University of Salamanca, Spain. Dr. Molchanov has published extensively on comparative politics and international relations of the post-communist states. He has authored and co-authored 7 books and nearly 120 articles and book chapters, including, most recently, Eurasian Regionalisms and Russian Foreign Policy [Molchanov 2016a], and Management Theory for Economic Systems [Molchanov, Molchanova 2018], as well as Eurasian Regionalism: Ideas and Practices [Molchanov 2015], Russias Leadership of Regional Integration in Eurasia [Molchanov 2016b], The Eurasian Economic Union [Molchanov 2018a], New Regionalism and Eurasia [Molchanov 2018b], Russian Security Strategy and the Geopolitics of Energy in Eurasia [Molchanov 2019], and Eurasian Regionalisms and Russias Pivot to the East: The Role of ASEAN [Molchanov 2014]. In his interview Dr. Molchanov talks about the formation of Eurasian studies in the U.S., Europe and the post-Soviet states, leading scientists in this area and periodicals. Special attention is paid to the perception of the Eurasian space in Western countries, to the prospects for further institutionalization of the Eurasian Economic Union, to the partnership between Russia and China and to Russia - EU relations.

1986 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 626-645 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gene M. Lyons

Aside from language, students of international relations in the United States and Great Britain have several things in common: parallel developments in the emergence of international relations as a field of study after World War I, and more recent efforts to broaden the field by drawing security issues and changes in the international political economy under the broad umbrella of “international studies.” But a review of four recent books edited by British scholars demonstrates that there is also a “distance” between British and American scholarship. Compared with dominant trends in the United States, the former, though hardly monolithic and producing a rich and varied literature, is still very much attached to historical analysis and the concept of an “international society” that derives from the period in modern history in which Britain played a more prominent role in international politics. Because trends in scholarship do, in fact, reflect national political experience, the need continues for transnational cooperation among scholars in the quest for strong theories in international relations.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Kate Breach

<p>To win its seat on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in both 1993-94 and 2015-16, New Zealand campaigned using the same prime pillar; its ability to act independently on the world’s prime authority for maintenance of international peace and security. With the substantial change in New Zealand’s international relationships between the two UNSC tenures, most particularly with the United States of America and China, many commentators have questioned whether New Zealand still acts independently in international affairs. Employing analytic eclecticism, this thesis applied a combined analytical framework to assess the drive behind New Zealand’s actions during both its 1993-94 and 2015-16 UNSC tenures, allowing both traditional international relations theories of neo-realism and neo-liberalism and the constructivist lens of national identity to be combined for greater explanatory power for the state’s actions in the contemporary era of complex international interdependencies. This research determined that most of New Zealand’s actions aligned with pursuit of its interests, as a small state, as ensured through multilateralism under the lens of institutional neo-liberalism. However, a number of actions taken, and strong positions held, by New Zealand on the UNSC in both periods did not align with the state’s pursuit of material interests under traditional international relations theories. By first establishing the popularly internalised national identity characteristics (or content) during each UNSC tenure period, defined as residing in public opinion, this thesis argues that a ‘win-set’ of national identity content relative prioritisation during each period enabled, and arguably drove, New Zealand’s political elite to take actions or hold positions not aligned with those of powerful states on which the small country’s material interests depended. It is argued that New Zealand’s actions on the UNSC in 2015-16 reinforced the social construction of New Zealand’s internationally regarded national identity content as an independent advocate for the global good, which was strongly established during its 1993-94 tenure.</p>


Author(s):  
Bob Reinalda

The emerging discipline of Political Science recognized international organization as an object of study earlier (i.e., around 1910) than International Law, which through an engagement with League of Nations ideals began to follow the developments of international organizations (IOs) during the 1920s, and History, which kept its focus on states and war rather than on IOs until the early 2000s. The debate between Liberal Institutionalism and (after 1945 dominant) Realism deeply influenced the study of IOs. The engagement of the United States in the United Nations System, however, stimulated further studies of IOs and produced new theoretical orientations that left room for Realist factors. The modernization of International Relations studies through Regime Theory eventually removed the need to ask historical questions, resulting in short-term studies of IOs, but new approaches such as Constructivism and Historical Institutionalism contributed to studies of long-term change of IOs and critical junctures in history. The main International Relations approach traces the rise of the United Nations System (or, more broadly, IOs) as an instrument of American exceptionalism in the world. This view is being criticized by the paradigmatic turn in the discipline of History in the early 2000s, which has included IOs in its research and relates the creation of IOs to imperial powers such as the United Kingdom and France that wanted to safeguard their empires. These historical studies start in 1919 rather than 1945 and also question International Relations’ Western-centrist universalism by including competing universalisms such as anticolonial nationalism.


Author(s):  
Natalia Eremina

Regional integration creates a common economic, social, and political space, which is based on interstate dialogue. A common integration space forms the territory of security, since the security sphere is not only to solve specific tasks, but also to create permanent instruments for preventing various risks. The Post-Soviet space remains a complex territory, the states of which have gone through a period of political destabilization, faced various threats, and come to the idea that only collective security mechanisms in the framework of constant cooperation are capable of preventing risks. Therefore, the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) is not only an economic project, it is a project that forms a common security space for all participants, and not only for its member states. In this regard, this chapter is structured around two key problems: established conceptual approaches in the field of security in relation to integration processes and tools of the EAEU for the formation of a common and indivisible security space for all its participants.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Kate Breach

<p>To win its seat on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in both 1993-94 and 2015-16, New Zealand campaigned using the same prime pillar; its ability to act independently on the world’s prime authority for maintenance of international peace and security. With the substantial change in New Zealand’s international relationships between the two UNSC tenures, most particularly with the United States of America and China, many commentators have questioned whether New Zealand still acts independently in international affairs. Employing analytic eclecticism, this thesis applied a combined analytical framework to assess the drive behind New Zealand’s actions during both its 1993-94 and 2015-16 UNSC tenures, allowing both traditional international relations theories of neo-realism and neo-liberalism and the constructivist lens of national identity to be combined for greater explanatory power for the state’s actions in the contemporary era of complex international interdependencies. This research determined that most of New Zealand’s actions aligned with pursuit of its interests, as a small state, as ensured through multilateralism under the lens of institutional neo-liberalism. However, a number of actions taken, and strong positions held, by New Zealand on the UNSC in both periods did not align with the state’s pursuit of material interests under traditional international relations theories. By first establishing the popularly internalised national identity characteristics (or content) during each UNSC tenure period, defined as residing in public opinion, this thesis argues that a ‘win-set’ of national identity content relative prioritisation during each period enabled, and arguably drove, New Zealand’s political elite to take actions or hold positions not aligned with those of powerful states on which the small country’s material interests depended. It is argued that New Zealand’s actions on the UNSC in 2015-16 reinforced the social construction of New Zealand’s internationally regarded national identity content as an independent advocate for the global good, which was strongly established during its 1993-94 tenure.</p>


1961 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 419-436
Author(s):  
William G. Cornelius

Much has been heard in the postwar years about “Hemispheric Solidarity.” In popular belief, this concept not only has concerned matters of security for the Western Hemisphere but frequently has been extended to cover practically all of the international relations of the American states. Particularly, there has been the widespread assumption that the Latin-American states form a bloc in the United Nations — and, incidentally, a bloc of twenty votes in the pocket of the United States.


1999 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
D.B.E. Rosalyn Higgins

TO see what international law can offer in an apparently chaotic and fast changing world is far from easy. But it is only by examining and trying to understand the evolving international system that some answers may be found, because international law and international relations are in a symbiotic relationship.The characterising features of the contemporary international system are globalisation on the one hand and a unipolar power structure on the other. The former is having a significant impact on international law as by its very nature actors are engaged in transactions across State boundaries in alliances that are not bounded by nationality. Modern technology facilitates these alliances of interest and gives an unprecedented voice to non-State actors, whether in human rights, in environmental matters or in international markets.The concentration of military power in the United States had led to various incremental changes in authorisations of force by the United Nations, whether for peacekeeping or for enforcement actions. The evolving relationship between the United Nations and NATO has negative as well as positive factors and needs careful monitoring.


1996 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mats Berdal

Writing about the United States and its highly ambivalent relationship to the United Nations, Conor Cruise O'Brien once noted how, in ‘the land which houses the United Nations, and which does most both to support and to use it, discussion of the functioning of the United Nations is almost all on [a] quas-supernatural plane, whether it be in terms of the strengthened Platonic UN, or in terms of a UN of evil enchantment—God or the Devil’. With some exaggeration, much the same can be said about the public debate of the UN's role in international relations in recent years. It is heartening, therefore, as the UN celebrates its fiftieth anniversary, to see a growing number of studies prepared to examine critically the performance of the organization; to explore its possibilities in a world where interdependence and transnational processes require greater cooperation; but also to acknowledge its limitations in the same world where the autonomy and primacy of the state remain unchallenged in vital spheres of activity.


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