The Problem of Order

After Victory ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 3-20
Author(s):  
G. John Ikenberry
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Order ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Weak States ◽  
Interstate Relations ◽  
Rules And Principles ◽  
To Come ◽  
Distribution Of Power ◽  
New Distribution

This introductory chapter provides an overview of how states build international order. The great moments of international order building have tended to come after major wars, as winning states have undertaken to reconstruct the postwar world. Certain years stand out as critical turning points: 1648, 1713, 1815, 1919, and 1945. At these junctures, newly powerful states have been given extraordinary opportunities to shape world politics. In the chaotic aftermath of war, leaders of these states have found themselves in unusually advantageous positions to put forward new rules and principles of international relations and by so doing remake international order. The most important characteristic of interstate relations after a major war is that a new distribution of power suddenly emerges, creating new asymmetries between powerful and weak states.

The Study of Peaceful Change in World Politics

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
T.V. Paul
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
Agents Of Change ◽  
Different Dimensions

This introductory chapter offers an overview of the core themes addressed in The Oxford Handbook of Peaceful Change in International Relations. It begins with a discussion of the neglect of peaceful change and the overemphasis on war as the source of change in the discipline of international relations. Definitions of peaceful change in their different dimensions, in particular the maximalist and minimalist varieties, are offered. Systemic, regional, and domestic level changes are explored. This is followed by a discussion of the study and understanding of peaceful change during the interwar, Cold War, and post–Cold War eras. The chapter offers a brief summary of different theoretical perspectives in IR—realism, liberalism, constructivism, and critical as well as eclectic approaches—and how they explore peaceful change, its key mechanisms, and its feasibility. The chapter considers the role of great powers and key regional states as agents of change. The economic, social, ideational, ecological, and technological sources of change are also briefly discussed.

The Song Remains the Same: International Relations After COVID-19

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel W. Drezner
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Inflection Point ◽  
World Politics ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Critical Junctures ◽  
Ex Post ◽  
Key Variables ◽  
Distribution Of Power ◽  
Novel Coronavirus

Abstract Since the onset of COVID-19, there has been a surfeit of commentary arguing that 2020 will have transformative effects on world politics. This paper asks whether, decades from now, the pandemic will be viewed as an inflection point. Critical junctures occur when an event triggers a discontinuous shift in key variables or forces a rapid acceleration of preexisting trends. Pandemics have undeniably had this effect in the far past. A welter of economic and medical developments, however, have strongly muted the geopolitical impact of pandemics in recent centuries. A review of how the novel coronavirus has affected the distribution of power and interest in its first six months suggests that COVID-19 will not have transformative effects on world politics. Absent a profound ex post shift in hegemonic ideas, 2020 is unlikely to be an inflection point.

scholarly journals On the concept of international disorder

2020 ◽  
pp. 004711782092228
Author(s):  
Aaron McKeil
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
International Order ◽  
World Politics ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
Order And Disorder ◽  
Recent Interest ◽  
History Of ◽  
International Systems

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.

scholarly journals Conceptual Fundamentals of Post-Westphalian International Relations

2020 ◽  
Vol 12(48) (4) ◽  
pp. 69-85
Author(s):  
Alla Kyrydon ◽  
Sergiy Troyan
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International System ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
International Order ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Soviet Bloc ◽  
Structure Changes ◽  
The World ◽  
The Cold War

Conceptual approaches to understanding the current stage of the evolution of international relations were put in place during the destruction of the bipolar world of the Cold War and the formation of new foundations of the world and international order. The distinctiveness of this process is that the collapse of the postwar system took place in peaceful conditions. Most often, two terms are used to describe the interconnectedness and interdependence of world politics after the fall of the Iron Curtain: the post-bipolar (post-westphalian) international system or international relations after the end of the Cold War. Two terms, post-bipolar international system and international relations after the end of the Cold War, have common features, which usually allows them to be used as synonyms and makes them the most popular when choosing a common comprehensive definition for the modern international relations. The collapse of the Soviet bloc and the global bipolar system put on the agenda issues that cannot be resolved within the traditional terms “poles,” “balance of power,” “configuration of the balance of power” etc. The world has entered a period of uncertainty and growing risks. the global international system is experiencing profound shocks associated with the transformation of its structure, changes in its interaction with the environment, which accordingly affects its regional and peripheral dimensions. In modern post-bipolar relations of shaky equilibrium, there is an obvious focus on the transformation of the world international order into a “post-American world” with the critical dynamics of relations between old and new actors at the global level. The question of the further evolution of the entire system of international relations in the post-bipolar world and the tendency of its transformation from a confrontational to a system of cooperation remains open.

Vicarious Identity in International Relations

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher S. Browning ◽  
Pertti Joenniemi ◽  
Brent J. Steele
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Self Esteem ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Ontological Security ◽  
Interstate Relations ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
Social Settings ◽  
The Uk

This book theorizes and problematizes the politics of vicarious identity in international relations, where vicarious identity refers to processes of “living through the other.” While prevalent and recognized in family and social settings, the presence and significance of vicarious identification in international relations has been overlooked. Vicarious identification offers the prospect of bolstering narratives of self-identity and appropriating a sense of reflected glory and enhanced self-esteem, but insofar as it may mask and be a response to emergent anxieties, inadequacies, and weaknesses it also entails vulnerabilities. The book explores both its attraction and potential pitfalls, theorizing these in the context of emerging literatures on ontological security, status, and self-esteem, highlighting both its constitutive practices and normative limits and providing a methodological grounding for identifying and studying the phenomenon in world politics. Vicarious identification and vicarious identity promotion are shown to be politically salient and efficacious across a range of scales, from the international politics of the everyday evident, for instance, in practices associated with (militarized) nationalism, through to interstate relations. In regard to this latter the book provides case analyses of vicarious identification in relations between the United States and Israel, the UK–US special relationship, and between Denmark and the United States, and it develops a framework for anticipating the conditions under which states may be more or less tempted into vicarious identification with others.

Orders of Exclusion

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyle M. Lascurettes
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Order ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Perceived Threat ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
Change Order ◽  
Do So

When and why do powerful countries seek to enact major changes to international order, the broad set of rules that guide behavior in world politics? This question is particularly important today given the Trump administration’s clear disregard for the reigning liberal international order in the United States. Across the globe, there is also uncertainty over what China might seek to replace that order with as it continues to amass power and influence. Together, these developments mean that what motivates great powers to shape and change order will remain at the forefront of debates over the future of world politics. Prior studies have focused on how the origins of international orders have been consensus-driven and inclusive. By contrast, this book argues that the propelling motivation for great power order building at important historical junctures has typically been exclusionary, centered around combatting other actors rather than cooperatively engaging with them. Dominant powers pursue fundamental changes to order when they perceive a major new threat on the horizon. Moreover, they do so for the purpose of targeting this perceived threat, be it another powerful state or a foreboding ideological movement. The goal of foundational rule writing in international relations, then, is blocking that threatening entity from amassing further influence, a motive Lascurettes illustrates at work across more than three hundred years of history. Far from falling outside of the bounds of traditional statecraft, order building is the continuation of power politics by other means.

`Big and Important Things' in IR: Structural Realism and the Neglect of Changes in Statehood

2009 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georg Sørensen
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Structural Realism ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Military Power ◽  
Weak States ◽  
Security Dilemma ◽  
Self Help ◽  
External Threat ◽  
International Threat

Structural realism has important insights to offer regarding the current balance of power and its effects on world politics. But structural realism is less ready to analyze changes in statehood and their implications for international relations. States are not `like units' and anarchy does not always mean self-help. A richer concept of structure which includes economic power, political—military power, and international norms gives us a better take on the ways in which international forces affect domestic structures of states. In particular, they help us detect the weak states in the developing world, and the postmodern states in the OECD world. In weak states the classical security dilemma has been turned on its head: instead of domestic order and international threat there is domestic threat and international order. In postmodern states violent external threat has been dramatically reduced because these states make up a security community.

scholarly journals International Relations in the Great Indian Ocean through the Prism of Geopolitics and Geostrategy

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 318-332
Author(s):  
Nina Borisovna Lebedeva
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
International Relations ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Asia Pacific ◽  
Asian Countries ◽  
Indian Ocean Region ◽  
Interstate Relations ◽  
Ocean Region ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
Three Stages

The article is devoted to an analysis of some concepts and geopolitical approaches towards the international relations in the Indian Ocean, later the Great Indian Ocean (GIO). It is the conceptual approaches that have given and give the opportunity to understand the system and structure of the IO region and to analyze the evolution, trends and practices in this system. In recent decades, the region has evolved from the mosaic of countries and the randomness of interstate relations in the first postcolonial years to a qualitatively different than before, expanded and central role in world politics and geostrategy due to new factors of the 21st century, many of which were somehow reflected in theoretical ideas of international relations (IO), proposed by Indian scholars. The article analyzes the correlation of approaches of Indian authors with Western approaches, reveals the features of Indian approaches in the context of the characteristics of the IR system of the Indian Ocean region, and identifies similarities with approaches of specialists from other Asian countries. The evolution of the concepts of Indian scientists has gone through three stages in its development. The first one is a postcolonial period till 1991, the end of bipolarity. The second is characterized by forming of the IO system under conditions of littoral states entrance in the IO scene and China intrusion in the Indian Ocean region. The essence of the third period is in transformation of the GIO IR system in force of the concept of uniting with the Asia-Pacific Region (APR) and forming Indo-Pacific megaregion.

scholarly journals Immigration and International Relations

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heather Johnson
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Migration ◽  
International System ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Migration Studies ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
International Labour Organisation ◽  
Interstate Relations ◽  
Critical Scholarship ◽  
Regulatory Frameworks

The study of immigration/migration in international relations (IR) is, in many ways, a latecomer to the discipline. This is perhaps no great surprise, as the discipline has traditionally focused on questions of stability and war in the international system. However, there are many ways that international migration intersects directly with IR, even traditionally defined, and this has driven a growing body of scholarship. First, migration is itself a function of the international system of states. Without states, there are no borders to cross and it is the crossing of borders that remains at the heart of the politics of migration: who crosses, how, where, and why, are the operative issues at the heart of policymaking, debate, and practice in migration. This also places the state at the heart of much of the analysis; the ability to control borders is at the core of questions of state sovereignty. It is state action, regulation, and law, therefore, that shape and determine much international migration. As many critical scholars have pointed out, however, migrants themselves also have agency and autonomy; their movements are not simply reactive to state policy and practice, but determine its direction. Here, then, we see a manifestation of one of the foundational debates of world politics: which actors have power, and how that power is understood. Further, international migration by its very definition involves more than one state, calling attention to interstate relations, and to questions of bilateral and multilateral cooperation. The emergence of key international institutions, such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), and the International Labour Organisation (ILO), also brings us questions of institutional power (often versus state power), and of the development of international regimes. Migration studies is located at the intersection of several different disciplines and fields of study. Particularly in critical scholarship, work in geography, sociology, anthropology, political and social theory, economics, and cultural studies have all influenced, and been influenced by, work in IR. Within IR, the key issues of analysis that emerge are a focus on international regulatory frameworks and regimes, issues of governance, questions of cooperation, and the intersections between migration and security. Although IR has often been accused of a Euro- or Western-centric scholarship, important alternative voices emerge within migration studies, and they are represented particularly in scholarship that focuses on refugees and asylum issues.

The road (not) taken? How the indexicality of practice could make or break the ‘New Constructivism’

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 538-561 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timo Walter
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Theoretical Work ◽  
International Order ◽  
Blind Alley ◽  
The Road ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
To Come ◽  
The One ◽  
Empirical Analyses

The ‘turn to practice’ has become a methodological keystone for the project of a ‘New’ Constructivism within International Relations. This project aims to use the observable level of everyday, practical activities as a prism for making empirically tractable the processes of world-making that constitute international order. In making the logic of practice the starting point for substantive theorizing, this New Constructivism seeks to provide a methodological platform for more empirically grounded, analytically open conceptions of international order. More ‘experience-near’ modes of inquiry would thus allow us to come to terms with the increasingly heterogeneous and unruly nature of the International, and help avert further fissuring of an already divided discipline. While sharing the view that more experience-near modes of inquiry promise much in this regard, this article argues that the New Constructivism is in danger of going down a methodological blind alley that severely undermines its ability to achieve its objectives. It shows that the one-sided, meta-theoretically motivated emphasis on the (alleged) direct observability of practice orders in their natural contexts severely stunts our ability to make their logic explicit in concrete empirical analyses. To highlight these dangers, the article provides a close analysis of the methodological implications of the indexicality of meaning (its dependence on ‘socially organized occasions of its use’). It closely examines how recent applied practice-theoretical work in International Relations is handicapped by a deeply engrained misconception of indexicality. This shows that we need to accept reflexivity as a necessary ingredient for interpretation, and thus for making explicit the practical logics that constitute the International.

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