scholarly journals Il concetto di sovranità in Asia Centrale

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Filippo Costa Buranelli
Keyword(s):  
Central Asia ◽  
International Society ◽  
English School ◽  
Secondary Research ◽  
Legal Traditions ◽  
Research Material ◽  
Regional Agenda

This article studies the interpretation and the practice of sovereignty in Central Asia. By relying on primary and secondary research material, the paper intends to achieve three main objectives: 1) to discuss the extent to which ‘sovereignty’ in Central Asia is interpreted and practiced along the lines of Western legal traditions, or rather presents indigenous traits; 2) to understand how authoritarianism impacts on the interpretation and the practice of sovereignty; 3) to assess the presence of a postcolonial narrative of sovereignty in the region, or the lack thereof. These objectives are meant to contribute to the regional agenda of the English School by exploring the polysemy of sovereignty, providing a better understanding of how authoritarianism intermingling with international society while interacting with postcolonial discourses in processes of regionalisation and interaction with global international society.

Authoritarianism as an Institution? The Case of Central Asia

2020 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
pp. 1005-1016
Author(s):  
Filippo Costa Buranelli
Keyword(s):  
Central Asia ◽  
International Society ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
English School ◽  
Norm Diffusion ◽  
Archival Material ◽  
Authoritarian State ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
Regional Order ◽  
Elite Interviews

Abstract While much of the English School has focused on liberal aspects of solidarism, forms of “illiberal solidarism” in contemporary international society remain underexplored. Drawing on archival material and elite interviews conducted in Central Asia in the period 2013–2019, this paper advances the claim that the Central Asian elites have developed the institution of authoritarianism in their region through the mechanisms of mimicry/emulation and praise/blame. By looking at specific discourses and practices over the last two decades, the paper discusses how the Central Asian governments have been using the new elements of the “democratic transition” in combination with the traditional legitimation offered by diplomatic recognition to secure authoritarian regimes in the democratic age, to create authoritarian state-centric solidarity in the region, and to make “avtoritet” and “stabil'nost'” fundamental pillars of the Central Asian regional order. The paper contributes to the English School literature by providing an initial account of illiberal solidarism and by showing how authoritarianism can potentially be an institution of specific regional international societies; to the authoritarian diffusion literature by demonstrating that authoritarianism can have a deontic component alongside considerations of domestic survival; and to the broader norm diffusion literature by focusing on the spread of illiberal values.

scholarly journals Rising Powers, Responsibility, and International Society

2017 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 287-311 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jamie Gaskarth
Keyword(s):  
International Society ◽  
Creative Thinking ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
English School ◽  
Rising Powers ◽  
China And India ◽  
Societal Values ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
Responsible Action

Responsibility is a key theme of recent debates over the ethics of international society. In particular, rising powers such as Brazil, China, and India regularly reject the idea that coercion should be a feature of world politics, and they portray military intervention as irresponsible. But this raises the problem of how a society's norms can be upheld without coercive measures. Critics have accused them of “free riding” on existing great powers and failing to address the dilemma of how to deal with actors undermining societal values. This article examines writing on responsibility and international society, with particular reference to the English School, to identify why the willingness and capacity to use force—as well as creative thinking in this regard—are seen as important aspects of responsibility internationally. It then explores statements made by Brazil, China, and India in UN Security Council meetings between 2011 and 2016 to identify which actors they see as responsible and how they define responsible action. In doing so, it pinpoints areas of concurrence as well as disagreements in their understandings of the concept of responsibility, and concludes that Brazil and India have a more coherent and practical understanding of the concept than China, which risks incurring the label “great irresponsible.”

scholarly journals Anarchy in International Relations

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Silviya Lechner
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Society ◽  
English School ◽  
Ir Theory ◽  
Interaction Domain ◽  
Alternative Discourse ◽  
The Third ◽  
Analytical Review ◽  
International Anarchy

The concept of anarchy is seen as the cardinal organizing category of the discipline of International Relations (IR), which differentiates it from cognate disciplines such as Political Science or Political Philosophy. This article provides an analytical review of the scholarly literature on anarchy in IR, on two levels—conceptual and theoretical. First, it distinguishes three senses of the concept of anarchy: (1) lack of a common superior in an interaction domain; (2) chaos or disorder; and (3) horizontal relation between nominally equal entities, sovereign states. The first and the third senses of “anarchy”’ are central to IR. Second, it considers three broad families of IR theory where anarchy figures as a focal assumption—(1) realism and neorealism, (2) English School theory (international society approach), and (3) Kant’s republican peace. Despite normative and conceptual differences otherwise, all three bodies of theory are ultimately based on Hobbes’s argument for a “state of nature.” The article concludes with a summary of the key challenges to the discourse of international anarchy posed by the methodology of economics and economics-based theories that favor the alternative discourse of global hierarchy.

scholarly journals EXPLORING THE FACTORS OF FARMLAND ABANDONMENT – A CASE STUDY OF THE CHOSEN POLISH METROPOLITAN AREAS

2017 ◽  
Vol XIX (4) ◽  
pp. 187-194 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wojciech Sroka ◽  
Aleksandra Płonka ◽  
Piotr Krzyk
Keyword(s):  
Population Density ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Metropolitan Areas ◽  
Small Farms ◽  
Farmland Abandonment ◽  
Secondary Research ◽  
Academic Literature ◽  
Net Migration ◽  
Research Material

The main aim of this paper was to assess the factors of farmland abandonment in selected metropolitan areas in Poland. The research used secondary research material, including data from the Main Statistical Office (Polish GUS) and academic literature. Analyses were conducted by means of the method of regression trees, among other things. The research found out that nearly 16% of farmland in Polish metropolitan areas had been abandoned. The factor that most affected set-aside was the share of small farms with an area of less than 5 ha of agricultural land. In communes with the majority of small farms, almost 30% of agricultural land was set aside. Entrepreneurship indicator, population density and net migration were also significant in explaining the phenomenon discussed in the paper. High values of these measures correlated with more advanced processes of farmland abandonment.

A master institution of world society? Digital communications networks and the changing dynamics of transnational contention

2017 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 296-320 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias Lemke ◽  
Michael W Habegger
Keyword(s):  
International Society ◽  
Contentious Politics ◽  
World Society ◽  
English School ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Transnational Politics ◽  
Communications Networks ◽  
Political Contention ◽  
Fundamental Challenge ◽  
Alternative Site

In English School theory, the putative change from an international society of states to a world society of individuals is usually associated with the diffusion of a benign form of cosmopolitanism and the normative agenda of solidarism. Consequently, the notion that world society might enable alternative expressions of transnational politics, independent from international society, remains underdeveloped. Drawing on the literature of contentious politics and social movements, this article challenges orthodox accounts and suggests that the global proliferation of digitally mediated linkages between individuals and nonstate actors constitutes a fundamental challenge to traditional dynamics of interstate communication in the form of the diplomatic system. This provides an opportunity to reconceptualize world society as an alternative site of politics distinct from mainstream international society and generative of its own logic of communication, mobilization, and action. The 2011 events in Egypt and the ongoing digital presence of the so-called Islamic State are used to demonstrate how massive increases in global interaction capacity are transforming the pathways for political contention and collective mobilization worldwide.

The International Society – World Society Distinction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Williams
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
International Society ◽  
International System ◽  
World Society ◽  
English School ◽  
Regime Theory ◽  
Ir Theory ◽  
Hugo Grotius ◽  
State Organizations ◽  
The One

The English School, or society of states approach, is a threefold method for understanding how the world operates. According to English School logic, there are three distinct spheres at play in international politics, and two of these are international society and world society—the third being international system. On the one hand, international society (Hugo Grotius) is about the institutionalization of shared interest and identity amongst states, and rationalism puts the creation and maintenance of shared norms, rules, and institutions at the centre of international relations (IR) theory. This position has some parallels to regime theory, but is much deeper, having constitutive rather than merely instrumental implications. On the other hand, world society (Immanuel Kant) takes individuals, non-state organizations, and the global population as a whole as the focus of global societal identities and arrangements, and revolutionism puts transcendence of the state system at the centre of IR theory. Revolutionism is mostly about forms of universalist cosmopolitanism. This position has some parallels to transnationalism but carries a much more foundational link to normative political theory. International society has been the main focus of English School thinking, and the concept is quite well developed and relatively clear, whereas world society is the least well developed of the English School concepts and has not yet been clearly or systematically articulated.

scholarly journals The emergence of environmental stewardship as a primary institution of global international society

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Falkner ◽  
Barry Buzan
Keyword(s):  
International Society ◽  
Environmental Stewardship ◽  
The Other ◽  
English School ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Normative Order ◽  
Primary Institutions ◽  
The Impact

This article develops an English School framework for analysing the emergence of new primary institutions in global international society, and applies this to the case of environmental stewardship. The article traces the impact that global environmentalism has had on the normative order of global international society, examines the creation of secondary institutions around this norm and identifies the ways in which these developments have become embedded in the constitution and behaviour of states. It assesses the ways in which environmental stewardship has interacted with the other primary institutions that compose global international society, changing some of the understandings and practices associated with them. The conclusions argue that environmental stewardship is likely to be a durable institution of global international society, and that it might be a harbinger of a more functional turn in its priorities.

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