Expanding the Study of International Relations: The French Connection

1982 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gene M. Lyons
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
International System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Policy Formation ◽  
Theory Building ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
International Power ◽  
The U.S

The study of international relations has been dominated by scholars working in the United States and has concentrated on questions that have been important to the U.S. as it emerged as the leading international power after 1945. These tendencies have limited the questions asked, the concepts generated, and the perspectives relevant to theory building. These limits can only be overcome by integrating the work of specialists from other countries. To this end, recent contributions by a number of French scholars are examined through a review of four publications. They provide a deeper sense of the options open to lesser states than is usually found in American contributions, a greater acceptance of flux and change in the international system, with less weight given to external influences on foreign policy formation and more to domestic politics and to personal relations among political leaders.

COMPETITION FOR EAST ASIA – BALANCING STRATEGIES OF THE USA AGAINST CHINA

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Attila Mezei
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Relations ◽  
East Asia ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
International System ◽  
World Order ◽  
The United States ◽  
Smart Power ◽  
The Usa

China has been a rising power in East Asia for decades. The end of the Cold War and the increasing effects of globalization brought the country in the forefront of attention on the international scene. The economic importance of the East Asian giant cannot be denied. Its economic power has been translating into a powerful tool to upset the balance of power tremendously. China has been expanding its influence around the globe and challenging the status quo more than ever before. The United States, the strongest state in the current international system has to pay attention to the increasingly assertive China. The USA uses several strategies to mitigate the threat China poses to the world order that the USA built. The structural forces of the international system, the Covid-19 pandemic, and American domestic politics make the threat of rising China more challenging. In my paper, I try to identify the balancing strategies of the United States in the 21st century against China. In my opinion, the application of neoclassical realist school of international relations can foreshadow the possible paths of the conflict. The United States of America has to use a wide variety of balancing strategies in order to counter the threat. A heavier reliance on allies is inevitable for the United States if it wants to contain the increasing influence of China around the globe. The USA should increase its hard-, soft-, and asymmetrical balancing methods mixed with smart power strategies to remain on the top of the international system. In my opinion, the showdown between China and the United States of America will be inevitable in the medium term. If the USA uses its position right, the peaceful containment of Chinese ambitions is possible. The successes of the above-mentioned strategies will decide how the competition of these two countries shape the international relations in the coming decades.

Counterterrorism Between the Wars

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary S. Barton
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Common Interests ◽  
Independence Movements ◽  
Second World ◽  
The U.S

This is a book about terrorism, weapons, and diplomacy in the interwar years between the First and Second World Wars. It charts the convergence of the manufacture and trade of arms; diplomacy among the Great Powers and the domestic politics within them; the rise of national liberation and independence movements; and the burgeoning concept and early institutions of international counterterrorism. Key themes include: a transformation in meaning and practice of terrorism; the inability of Great Powers—namely, Great Britain, the United States, France—to harmonize perceptions of interest and the pursuit of common interests; the establishment of the tools and infrastructure of modern intelligence—including the U.S.-U.K. cooperation that would evolve into the Five Eyes intelligence alliance; and the nature of peacetime in the absence of major wars. Particular emphasis is given to British attempts to quell revolutionary nationalist movements in India and elsewhere in its empire, and to the Great Powers’ combined efforts to counter the activities of the Communist International. The facilitating roles of the Paris Peace Conference and League of Nations are explored here, in the context of the Arms Traffic Convention of 1919, the Arms Traffic Conference of 1925, and the 1937 Terrorism Convention.

scholarly journals Is China Trying to Push the U.S. out of East Asia?

2015 ◽  
Vol 01 (01) ◽  
pp. 59-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dong Wang
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
East Asia ◽  
International System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Willingness To Participate ◽  
Monroe Doctrine ◽  
Western Discourse ◽  
The Future ◽  
Regional Order ◽  
The U.S

One of the key questions for understanding the future trajectory of regional order is whether or not China is trying to push the United States out of East Asia and build a China-dominated regional order. Some Western analysts accuse China of pursuing the Monroe Doctrine and excluding the United States from the region. This article argues that the Western discourse of China practicing the Monroe Doctrine is a misplaced characterization of China's behavior. Rather than having intention of pushing the United States out of East Asia and build a China-dominated regional order, China is pursuing a hedging strategy that aims at minimizing strategic risks, increasing freedom of action, diversifying strategic options, and shaping the U.S.' preferences and choices. This can be exemplified in five issue areas: China's ties with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and China's foreign policy activism, China-Russia relations, the Conference on Interactions and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) and the New Asian Security Concept, as well as China-U.S. relations. Beijing has explicitly acknowledged the U.S. predominance in the international system and reiterated its willingness to participate in and reform the existing system. It concludes by suggesting that, for a more peaceful future to emerge in East Asia, the United States and China, as an incumbent power and a rising power, will have to accommodate each other, and negotiate and renegotiate the boundaries of their relative power, as well as their respective roles in the future regional order where Beijing and Washington would learn to share responsibilities and leadership.

Rethinking United States–Caribbean relations: towards a new mode of trans-territorial governance

2000 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANTHONY PAYNE
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International System ◽  
The United States ◽  
The North ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Different Order

United States–Caribbean relations over the period of the last thirty or forty years have rarely—if ever—been analysed in a thoroughly satisfying way. It is a strange omission in the international relations literature given the proximity of the United States to the Caribbean, and vice versa. But the fact is that most accounts of the relationship have fallen prey to a powerful, but ultimately misleading, mythology by which small, poor, weak, dependent entities in the Caribbean have either created trouble for, or alternatively been confronted by, the ‘colossus to the north’ that is the United States in whose ‘backyard’ they unfortunately have to reside. Virtually all analysts of the US–Caribbean relationship have thus drawn a picture marked at heart by the notion of an inherently unequal struggle between forces of a different order and scale. Within this broad metaphor the only major difference of interpretation has reflected the competing theories of power in the international system developed by the realist and structuralist schools.

scholarly journals What Determines Foreign Policy in Latin America? Systemic versus Domestic Factors in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico, 1946–2008

2015 ◽  
Vol 57 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Octavio Amorim Neto ◽  
Andrés Malamud
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Voting Behavior ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
International System ◽  
The United States ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
The Political ◽  
Un General Assembly ◽  
Systemic Variables

AbstractIs it domestic politics or the international system that more decisively influences foreign policy? This article focuses on Latin America's three largest powers to identify patterns and compare outcomes in their relations with the regional hegemon, the United States. Through a statistical analysis of voting behavior in the UN General Assembly, we examine systemic variables (both realist and liberal) and domestic variables (institutional, ideological, and bureaucratic) to determine their relative weights between 1946 and 2008. The study includes 4,900 votes, the tabulation of 1,500 ministers according to their ideological persuasion, all annual trade entries, and an assessment of the political strength of presidents, cabinets, and parties per year. The findings show that while Argentina's voting behavior has been determined mostly by domestic factors and Mexico's by realist systemic ones, Brazil's has a more complex blend of determinants, but also with a prevalence of realist systemic variables.

scholarly journals Study on the Model Construction of Power Transfer Movement from the Perspective of China`s International Relations

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Baixu Duan ◽  
Jia Tang
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
International Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Mechanism Model ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Modelling Analysis ◽  
Short Period ◽  
International Power

Power plays a fundamental role in the system in the international relations. Basie on Game Theory, and by the assumption that the total amount of power is relatively constant in a short period of time, this paper makes a modelling analysis of the "take-and-give" movement of power among rational countries. Based on building the curve of power taken and the curve of power given, the power balance mechanism model and the power movement track model are constructed. We also make an analysis and by the examples. In the current situation, this paper agrees with the view of most scholars. China and the United States have opened a "cold war" different from the United States and the Soviet Union. With the coordination between the PRC-US relations, it is concluded that a stable international power mechanism requires the active cooperation of all countries, which could promote the power operation to reach the equilibrium point. The analysis method of power movement can explain the cause, progress, and trend of Sino US cold war to a certain extent.

scholarly journals THE DECLINING HEGEMONY OF THE UNITED STATES AND THE GROWING INFLUENCE OF CHINA: A CRITICAL PERSPECTIVE ON POWER TRANSITION THEORY IN THE 21ST CENTURY

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (18) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nasa'i Muhammad Gwadabe
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Relations ◽  
21St Century ◽  
International System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Transition Theory ◽  
Power Transition ◽  
Power Transition Theory ◽  
Rise Of China ◽  
The Rise Of China

The apparent eroding in the hegemonic power of the United States and the sustained growth of China has triggered debate as to whether the rise of China will be peaceful or conflictual. Structural realism posits that the world is characterised by the anarchic ordering principle in which there is no central authority sitting above the states. Therefore, the absence of a “leviathan” on the international system automatically makes every state equal on the system which created an atmosphere of competition for the maximisation of power for survival. On a similar line of reasoning, the Power Transition theory as a variant theory within realism postulates that when the international system is structured based on the principle of hierarchy, peace will reign. It means that when international relations are regulated and influenced by a dominant power, the international system becomes stable. But the emergence of a dissatisfied powerful nation to challenge the hegemon usually ends up in war. Based on this assumption, Power Transition theorists argued that the rise of China to rival the dominance of the United States could not be peaceful. The Power Transition theory has influenced many academics to have the belief that the two nations will end up in “Thucydides’ Trap”. This belief has aggravated the matter beyond the reasonable level and has instilled panic in the mind of foreign policymakers which could jeopardise world peace and international cooperation. Hence, this paper aims to critically evaluate the deficiency of the Power Transition theory in the 21st century in explaining the current United States-China relations and the prospect of peace or war between the two nations using process tracing. Accordingly, in this paper, it is argued that in the 21st century, an armed confrontation between the United States and China is highly unlikely. Because in today’s world, nations (including the United States and China) are intertwined by the forces of globalisation which created inexorable economic interdependence. Additionally, there is rapid advancement in military technology and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction which came with the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). Consequently, there is a need to revisit the Power Transition theory to accommodate contemporary factors. The inclusion of the current variables into the Theory will make it applicable and adequately fit in the discourse of international relations and global politics of the 21st-century international system.

U.S.-Canada Free Trade: What's in It for the U.S.?

1984 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sidney Weintraub
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Trade Policy ◽  
Free Trade ◽  
Gross National Product ◽  
European Economic Community ◽  
The United States ◽  
Economic Community ◽  
Major Trading Partner ◽  
The U.S

Trade policy has played a larger role in the internal and international relations of Canada than of the United States, certainly in the last half century. There are many reasons for this: The Canadian economy is more open than that of the United States (e.g., merchandise exports as a percentage of gross national product were 30% in Canada and 7% in the United States in 1982); the United States is far more dominant in Canada's trade than any single country or group of countries such as the European Economic Community is in U.S. trade (in recent years about 70% of Canada's exports have been sent to the United States and more than 70% of its imports came from the United States; for the United States, about 15% of its exports in recent years went to Canada, its major trading partner, and between 15% and 20% of its imports have come from Canada); and with this double dependence on trade and on a single market, a selfinterested foreign policy must concentrate on trade policy (Grey, 1981: 3-4).

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.

U.S.-China Exchange Rate Negotiation: Stakeholders' Participation and Strategy Deployment

2011 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Yixuan Cao ◽  
Yong Cao ◽  
Rashmi Prasad ◽  
Zhengping Shen
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Exchange Rate ◽  
Exchange Rates ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Historical Review ◽  
The United States ◽  
Negotiation Strategy ◽  
Negotiation Strategies ◽  
The Exchange Rate ◽  
The U.S

Exchange rates influence a country's trading capability, foreign reserves and competitiveness. Recently, the exchange rate between the Chinese RMB and the U.S. dollar has been a contentious issue in both the United States and China. In this paper, we conduct a historical review of how the United States deployed negotiation strategies with China on the exchange rate issue and consider the degree to which it follows theoretical expectations. We then analyze the changing nature of the factors which shape exchange rate negotiations between the two nations in projecting alternative scenarios for the future of conflict resolution between the U.S. and China on this issue. We predict that the U.S. is likely to continue alternating between competition and collaboration, a negotiation cycle influenced by U.S. domestic politics, and China is less likely to continue with accommodation and compromise. The sequencing and timing of each nation's negotiation strategy will lead to widely divergent consequences for the management of exchange rates and the world economy.

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