scholarly journals بنەمای پەیوەندییەکانی هەرێمی کوردستان و وڵاتە یەکگرتووەکانی ئەمریکا

Twejer ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 337-378
Author(s):  
Zubir Rasool Ahmed ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Persian Gulf ◽  
Structural Realism ◽  
International Order ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
English School ◽  
Main Question ◽  
Realistic Approach ◽  
Offensive Realism ◽  
The One ◽  
The U.S

The relation between the U.S and Kurds has always been problematic. The main question of this study is to address what type of relations are between KRG and U.S? Is there a specific U.S policy towards KRG? To answer these questions, we have depended on the theory of Structural Realism, especially the concept of Offensive Realism which has been developed by John Mearsheimer on the one hand, and the English school on the other hand. Offensive realism can be helpful to understand the behaviour of great powers, such as the U.S., and English school to understand international community and international order. It has been concluded that, so far there is no direct U.S policy or strategy towards the KRG. The U.S interaction with the KRG has always been identified by specific interested and indirect (third) issue. Therefore, it is important to know that the U.S- KRG relation throughout its history has always been linked to another issue, especially the domestic changes in Iraq and regional developments in the Levan and Persian Gulf. The U.S has always followed its realistic approach in its relations with KRG, in particular in protecting the regional state system and international order.

The strategist’s dilemma: Global dynamic density and the making of US ‘China policy’

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 211-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hugo Meijer ◽  
Benjamin Jensen
Keyword(s):  
International Society ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Structural Realism ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
English School ◽  
Dynamic Density ◽  
Strategy Formation ◽  
Global Dynamic ◽  
Grand Strategies

AbstractCombining the English School of International Relations and the study of grand strategy decision-making processes, this article investigates how dynamic density – growing volume, velocity, and diversity of interactions within international society – alters states’ strategy formation processes. By contrasting the perspectives of structural realism and the English School on the role of dynamic density in world politics, the piece illustrates the strategist’s dilemma: as global dynamic density in the international society increases, the ability of great powers to formulate coherent grand strategies and policies potentially decreases. Specifically, it contends that growing global dynamic density generates processual and substantive fragmentation in strategy formation. Building on a large body of elite interviews, US policy toward China – and the so-called US ‘rebalance’ to Asia – is used as a probability probe of the central idea of the strategist’s dilemma. In conclusion, we contrast our findings with complex interdependence theory and examine their implications for ‘great power management’ (GPM) as a primary institution of international society. We argue that, by generating processual and substantive fragmentation in strategy formation, global dynamic density complicates GPM by hindering the capacity of great powers to manage and calibrate the competitive and cooperative dynamics at play in a bilateral relationship.

Extending Offensive Realism: The Louisiana Purchase and America's Rise to Regional Hegemony

2004 ◽  
Vol 98 (4) ◽  
pp. 563-576 ◽  
Author(s):  
COLIN ELMAN
Keyword(s):  
Great Powers ◽  
Process Tracing ◽  
Extended Version ◽  
Success Story ◽  
Region I ◽  
Property Space ◽  
Offensive Realism ◽  
Louisiana Purchase ◽  
Buck Passing ◽  
The U.S

John Mearsheimer suggests that, whenever possible, great powers are constrained to seek regional hegemony, the safest feasible situation for a state. This objective is hard to achieve because other great powers want to block the attempt, but it is doable because buck-passing and other hurdles make balancing inefficient. Contra Mearsheimer, I argue that it is the absence of balancers, not balancing inefficiencies, that best explains when states can hope to dominate their neighborhoods. Regional hegemony is only achievable when it is easy. I use property space techniques to develop an extended version of offensive realism that clarifies why states will sometimes prefer not to block a hegemonic bid. In particular, I argue that local considerations will often prevent a continental great power from responding to a rising state in another region. I test my argument by process tracing the U.S. purchase of Louisiana and show that France's decision to sell is best explained by its pursuit of its own territorial ambitions. My extended version of offensive realism suggests that its single success story of the last 200 years, U.S. dominance of North America, provides no encouragement to contemporary states contemplating a bid for regional hegemony.

New Alliances in the Middle East

Worldview ◽  
1973 ◽  
Vol 16 (10) ◽  
pp. 49-52
Author(s):  
Stephen Oren
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Persian Gulf ◽  
Violent Conflict ◽  
Rich Region ◽  
Arab Population ◽  
Arab Gulf ◽  
The Government ◽  
The One ◽  
The Persian Gulf ◽  
The U.S

Growing tensions in the Persian Gulf area threaten to plunge this oil-rich region into violent conflict. The conflict could well become a full-fledged Middle East war involving the U.S. and the USSR as these superpowers go in turn to the aid of their clients. The recent clashes between Iraqi and Kuwaiti troops, Iran's decision to buy $2 billion worth of U.S. arms and political disputes in Pakistan between Baluchi tribesmen and the government are all signs of the tensions.Who are the antagonists? On the one side, the radical Army-Ba'ath regime in Iraq, with its predominantly Arab population of over nine million, makes no bones of its conviction that the Iranian monarchy is doomed, that the Persian Gulf area (which it terms the Arab Gulf) should be dominated by Arabs, and that Iraq is the natural leader of the Arabs of the Gulf area.

scholarly journals The New Age of Hybridity and Clash of Norms: China, BRICS, and Challenges of Global Governance in a Postliberal International Order

2020 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 123-142
Author(s):  
Ziya Öniş ◽  
Mustafa Kutlay
Keyword(s):  
Global Governance ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
New Age ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Major Elements ◽  
International Order ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Fundamental Issue ◽  
Global Power ◽  
The One

This article sketches an analytical framework to account for new patterns of global governance. We characterize the emergent postliberal international order as a new age of hybridity, which signifies that no overriding set of paradigms dominate global governance. Instead, we have a complex web of competing norms, which creates new opportunities as well as major elements of instability, uncertainty, and anxiety. In the age of hybridity, non-Western great powers (led by China) play an increasingly counter-hegemonic role in shaping new style multilateralism—ontologically fragmented, normatively inconsistent, and institutionally incoherent. We argue that democracy paradox constitutes the fundamental issue at stake in this new age of hybridity. On the one hand, global power transitions seem to enable “democratization of globalization” by opening more space to the hitherto excluded non-Western states to make their voices heard. On the other hand, emerging pluralism in global governance is accompanied by the regression of liberal democracy and spread of illiberalism that enfeeble “globalization of democratization.”

The English School and postcolonial state agency: social roles and order management in Southeast Asia and the Asia-Pacific

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Robert Yates
Keyword(s):  
Social Roles ◽  
Social Role ◽  
International Order ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
State Agency ◽  
Asia Pacific ◽  
English School ◽  
System Perspective ◽  
Role Negotiation ◽  
Postcolonial State

Abstract This paper contributes to recent revisions to the English School (ES) which have sought to redress its Eurocentrism. It argues that, despite providing necessary accounts of non-Western international societies and the agency of non-European polities in the expansion of global international society, there remains a gap in capturing the agency of postcolonial states in contributing to order negotiation and management in contemporary international order. It proposes a social role negotiation framework to address the gap, which it situates within a holistic conceptual framework that supplements an ES understanding of international order between states with a world-system perspective on how states are embedded within global capitalism, and a neo-Gramscian focus on social forces as the key agents contesting and shaping states' foreign policy orientation. It highlights two major types of postcolonial state agency within international order: contesting and limiting great powers' legitimate exercise of power; and establishing responsibilities towards building and managing order vis-a-vis great powers. The paper illustrates the utility of the social roles framework with the example of ASEAN in Southeast Asian and Asia-Pacific order.

scholarly journals BIDEN’S APPROACH TOWARDS RUSSIA: A “RESET LIGHT”?

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (2/2021) ◽  
pp. 115-137
Author(s):  
Vladimir Trapara
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
First Year ◽  
The One ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The U.S

The topic of this paper is foreign policy course towards Russia employed by the incumbent United States president, Joseph Biden, during his first year in office. Motivated by the recent Biden-Putin bilateral summit and Biden’s remark on the U.S. and Russia as “two great powers”, the author presents a research question whether this event could be observed as the beginning of a “reset light” approach in Washington’s Russia policy. Unlike the previous “reset” of U.S.-Russian relations this time the goal would not be rapprochement, but structured confrontation between the two countries (such as the one which prevented escalation during the Cold War), with cooperation in areas where it is possible. Having considered Obama/Trump legacy, put Biden’s rhetoric and actions in current international and domestic context, and analyzed different issues over which Russia and the U.S. are in conflict/can cooperate, the author concludes that Biden’s approach can be considered a “reset light”, but that its success in the longer run is uncertain.

scholarly journals Globalization, values, interests

2003 ◽  
pp. 133-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mirjana Radojicic
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Persian Gulf ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Policy Practice ◽  
The World ◽  
The One ◽  
The Persian Gulf ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The U.S

The nature of the international politics, after the Cold War directed by the U.S. as the only current super-power, are considered in the text. The author?s intention is to stress the main points of divergence between moralistic-valuable rhetoric and the foreign policy practice of the U.S. In that sense, the examples of the American stand, i.e. the active treatment of the Yugoslav crisis, on the one hand, and the crisis in the Persian Gulf, on the other hand, is considered. The author?s conclusion is that the foreign policy of the only current super-power is still directed by interests rather then by values. In the concluding part, the author presents an anthropologic argument in favor of reestablishing "balance of power" as the only guarantee for peace and stability of the world.

Structural Realism/Offensive and Defensive Realism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven E. Lobell
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International System ◽  
Structural Realism ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Primary Objective ◽  
State Expansion ◽  
Offensive Realism ◽  
International Structure ◽  
Defensive Realism ◽  
The One

Structural realism, or neorealism, is a theory of international relations that says power is the most important factor in international relations. First outlined by Kenneth Waltz in his 1979 book Theory of International Politics, structural realism is subdivided into two factions: offensive realism and defensive realism. Structural realism holds that the nature of the international structure is defined by its ordering principle, anarchy, and by the distribution of capabilities (measured by the number of great powers within the international system). The anarchic ordering principle of the international structure is decentralized, meaning there is no formal central authority. On the one hand, offensive realism seeks power and influence to achieve security through domination and hegemony. On the other hand, defensive realism argues that the anarchical structure of the international system encourages states to maintain moderate and reserved policies to attain security. Defensive realism asserts that aggressive expansion as promoted by offensive realists upsets the tendency of states to conform to the balance of power theory, thereby decreasing the primary objective of the state, which they argue is ensuring its security. While defensive realism does not deny the reality of interstate conflict, nor that incentives for state expansion do exist, it contends that these incentives are sporadic rather than endemic. Defensive realism points towards “structural modifiers” such as the security dilemma and geography, and elite beliefs and perceptions to explain the outbreak of conflict.

Making it abstract, making it contestable: Gender/sex as a politicized concept

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Mazzuca ◽  
Matteo Santarelli
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Main Question ◽  
Abstract Concepts ◽  
Biological Feature ◽  
Dynamic Approach ◽  
Cognitive Sciences ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Cultural Construct ◽  
Science Framework ◽  
The One

The concept of gender has been the battleground of scientific and political speculations for a long time. On the one hand, some accounts contended that gender is a biological feature, while on the other hand some scholars maintained that gender is a socio-cultural construct (e.g., Butler, 1990; Risman, 2004). Some of the questions that animated the debate on gender over history are: how many genders are there? Is gender rooted in our biological asset? Are gender and sex the same thing? All of these questions entwine one more crucial, and often overlooked interrogative. How is it possible for a concept to be the purview of so many disagreements and conceptual redefinitions? The question that this paper addresses is therefore not which specific account of gender is preferable. Rather, the main question we will address is how and why is even possible to disagree on how gender should be considered. To provide partial answers to these questions, we suggest that gender/sex (van Anders, 2015; Fausto-Sterling, 2019) is an illustrative example of politicized concepts. We show that no concepts are political in themselves; instead, some concepts are subjected to a process involving a progressive detachment from their supposed concrete referent (i.e., abstractness), a tension to generalizability (i.e., abstraction), a partial indeterminacy (i.e., vagueness), and the possibility of being contested (i.e., contestability). All of these features differentially contribute to what we call the politicization of a concept. In short, we will claim that in order to politicize a concept, a possible strategy is to evidence its more abstract facets, without denying its more embodied and perceptual components (Borghi et al., 2019). So, we will first outline how gender has been treated in psychological and philosophical discussions, to evidence its essentially contestable character thereby showing how it became a politicized concept. Then we will review some of the most influential accounts of political concepts, arguing that currently they need to be integrated with more sophisticated distinctions (e.g., Koselleck, 2004). The notions gained from the analyses of some of the most important accounts of political concepts in social sciences and philosophy will allow us to implement a more dynamic approach to political concepts. Specifically, when translated into the cognitive science framework, these reflections will help us clarifying some crucial aspects of the nature of politicized concepts. Bridging together social and cognitive sciences, we will show how politicized concepts are abstract concepts, or better abstract conceptualizations.

Meddling in the Ballot Box

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dov H. Levin
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Theoretical Model ◽  
Preliminary Analysis ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Archival Research ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Election Results ◽  
Level Analysis ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Scholarly Attention

This book examines why partisan electoral interventions occur as well as their effects on the election results in countries in which the great powers intervened. A new dataset shows that the U.S. and the USSR/Russia have intervened in one out of every nine elections between 1946 and 2000 in other countries in order to help or hinder one of the candidates or parties; the Russian intervention in the 2016 U.S. elections is just the latest example. Nevertheless, electoral interventions receive scant scholarly attention. This book develops a new theoretical model to answer both questions. It argues that electoral interventions are usually “inside jobs,” occurring only if a significant domestic actor within the target wants it. Likewise, electoral interventions won’t happen unless the intervening country fears its interests are endangered by another significant party or candidate with very different and inflexible preferences. As for the effects it argues that such meddling usually gives a significant boost to the preferred side, with overt interventions being more effective than covert ones in this regard. However, unlike in later elections, electoral interventions in founding elections usually harm the aided side. A multi-method framework is used in order to study these questions, including in-depth archival research into six cases in which the U.S. seriously considered intervening, the statistical analysis of the aforementioned dataset (PEIG), and a micro-level analysis of election surveys from three intervention cases. It also includes a preliminary analysis of the Russian intervention in the 2016 U.S. elections and the cyber-future of such meddling in general.

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