scholarly journals Chaos Theory: The Case of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Wuhan, China from the perspective of international relations

2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (68) ◽  
pp. 369-384
Author(s):  
Natalia Vladimirovna Kovalevskaia ◽  
Iuliia Alexandrovna Fedoritenko ◽  
William Leahy
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Chaos Theory ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Critical Essay ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Current State ◽  
The World ◽  
Basic Concepts ◽  
Interdisciplinary Study

The objective of the article was to reveal the international imbalances caused by the COVID-19 pandemic through the coordinates of chaos theory. Methodologically it is a critical essay based on documentary observation. To understand the current state of world politics and the balance of power in international relations, it is appropriate to use chaos theory. At the beginning of the article, the origins of chaos theory are an interdisciplinary study, and its basic concepts are introduced. The value of using chaos theory and its great potential for analysis and applications in the study of international relations is shown in the example of the 2019-2020 events in Wuhan is the capital of Hubei Province in the People's Republic of China (PRC). associated with the onset of a COVID-19 viral infection that has spread around the world. At the end of the article, conclusions are drawn and the strengths and weaknesses of the use of chaos theory in dialectical relation to international relations are revealed, both as a field of study and at the same time as geopolitical reality.

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.

Images of the world, images of conflict

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben O’Loughlin
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Visual Images ◽  
The World ◽  
Conceptual Understandings ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Ideal

In the short story Pascale’s Sphere Borges wrote, ‘universal history is the history of a few metaphors’. The history of world politics certainly seems marked by a few recurring concepts and metaphors: the universal and the particular, the inside and the outside, the balance of power, and the ideal of symmetry and actuality of chaos. Across eras, these concepts have shaped the image of world politics held by leaders, citizens and scholars. Such concepts are abstract but become visualised through diplomacy, war and cartography and through the lived experience of world affairs. For critical scholars of International Relations, these concepts and the images they translate into are responsible for conflict, for they become concrete in the states, borders and security dilemmas that propel us from conflict to conflict. It follows that there is a relationship between ‘the image of world politics’ and actual visual images of world politics; between abstract, conceptual understandings of the ontology and mechanics of International Relations and the horrific news and events we witness every day.

Constructing Identity in “Glocal” Politics

1998 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 81-106
Author(s):  
M. A. Muqtedar Khan
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Socioeconomic Conditions ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Important Concept ◽  
Construction Of Identity ◽  
The World ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

This paper seeks to understand the impact of current global politicaland socioeconomic conditions on the construction of identity. I advancean argument based on a two-step logic. First, I challenge the characterizationof current socioeconomic conditions as one of globalization bymarshaling arguments and evidence that strongly suggest that along withglobalization, there are simultaneous processes of localization proliferatingin the world today. I contend that current conditions are indicative ofthings far exceeding the scope of globalization and that they can bedescribed more accurately as ccglocalization.~H’2a ving established thisclaim, I show how the processes of glocalization affect the constructionof Muslim identity.Why do I explore the relationship between glocalization and identityconstruction? Because it is significant. Those conversant with current theoreticaldebates within the discipline of international relations’ are awarethat identity has emerged as a significant explanatory construct in internationalrelations theory in the post-Cold War era.4 In this article, I discussthe emergence of identity as an important concept in world politics.The contemporary field of international relations is defined by threephilosophically distinct research programs? rationalists: constructivists,’and interpretivists.’ The moot issue is essentially a search for the mostimportant variable that can help explain or understand the behavior ofinternational actors and subsequently explain the nature of world politicsin order to minimize war and maximize peace.Rationalists contend that actors are basically rational actors who seekthe maximization of their interests, interests being understood primarilyin material terms and often calculated by utility functions maximizinggiven preferences? Interpretivists include postmodernists, critical theorists,and feminists, all of whom argue that basically the extant worldpolitical praxis or discourses “constitute” international agents and therebydetermine their actions, even as they reproduce world politics by ...

E. H. Carr: a ‘historical realist’ approach for the globalisation era

2002 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 697-717 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Goldfischer
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
National Interest ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Primary Concern ◽  
Economic Instruments ◽  
New Era ◽  
Realist Approach ◽  
Considerable Cost

Realist international relations scholars have approached the connection between economics and security in two ways. Cold War-era realists derived the national interest from the international balance of power, and assessed the utility of both military and economic instruments of statecraft. A second realist approach, advanced by E. H. Carr in his 1939 The Twenty Years' Crisis, places interstate competition in the context of another struggle over wealth and power in which no-one's primary concern is the national interest. That is the realm of capitalism (and resistance to capitalism). That deeper set of connections between economics and security was overlooked in Cold War IR literature, at considerable cost to our understanding of world politics. Understanding why Carr's ‘historical realism’ was bypassed can help pave the way for a more fruitful realist approach to comprehending a new era in world politics.

Islamic International Relations Towards a Theoretical Framework

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gubara Hassan
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
The West ◽  
The Past ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
The World

The Western originators of the multi-disciplinary social sciences and their successors, including most major Western social intellectuals, excluded religion as an explanation for the world and its affairs. They held that religion had no role to play in modern society or in rational elucidations for the way world politics or/and relations work. Expectedly, they also focused most of their studies on the West, where religion’s effect was least apparent and argued that its influence in the non-West was a primitive residue that would vanish with its modernization, the Muslim world in particular. Paradoxically, modernity has caused a resurgence or a revival of religion, including Islam. As an alternative approach to this Western-centric stance and while focusing on Islam, the paper argues that religion is not a thing of the past and that Islam has its visions of international relations between Muslim and non-Muslim states or abodes: peace, war, truce or treaty, and preaching (da’wah).

scholarly journals Political Discourse on China's Stigmatization in the Context of COVID-19 Pandemic

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 22-46
Author(s):  
I. I. Arsentyeva
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Social Identity Theory ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Social Stigma ◽  
World Politics ◽  
World Health ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The World ◽  
Novel Coronavirus

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an increased interest in studying social stigma. The concept of stigma is also included in political discourse, as evidenced, among other things, by Xi Jinping’s speeches, in which the Chinese President urges to abandon further politicization and stigmatization of COVID-19. In this regard, the main aim of the article is to analyze the correlation between the novel coronavirus and stigmatization, not only from the traditional point of view (stigma associated with certain diseases), but also in terms of world politics. To explain the nature of social stigma, the author relies on evolutionary psychol- ogy, terror management theory and social identity theory. To analyze ongoing processes in international relations, some provisions of “rogue states” concept, leadership theories, and biopolitics are applied. The primary sources are documents of the World Health Organiza- tion (WHO) and the Group of Seven (G7), statements by UN and WHO officials, speeches of Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump, public opinion polls, and media publications. During the course of the study, the following scientific results were ob- tained: the works on COVID-19-related stigma have been systematized, the issues consid- ered in them and research gaps are highlighted; the consequences of stigma due the novel coronavirus have been summarized; some differences between stigma during the pandem- ic and stigma associated with other diseases are also identified; it is suggested to consider COVID-19 stigma not only at the level of interpersonal interactions, but also in international relations; the possible impact of the pandemic on the China’s role on the world stage has been revealed. It is concluded that this research approach allows to take a fresh look at the possibility of restoring ties between states and their citizens in a post-COVID-19 world, as well as to assess the likelihood of a change of global leader. In the final part of the article, possible ways of further development of the situation are predicted and prospects for study on the issue are outlined.

Do We Have Too Much Theory in International Relations or Do We Need Less? Waltz Was Wrong, Tetlock Was Right

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael D. Ward
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
World Politics ◽  
The World

The field of international relations has developed the notion that world politics is made up of dyads, a thing that no one has actually ever seen. This notion is referred to as a theory by many scholars. Both the notion that world politics is dyadic as well as the idea that this is a theory need to be jettisoned from our scholarship. They have deleterious effects on what we can learn about the world.

Statistical Analysis of International Interdependencies

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael D. Ward
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
International Relations ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Strategic Decision ◽  
Systematic Data ◽  
Causes Of War ◽  
The University ◽  
Interdisciplinary Study ◽  
Violent Conflicts

The origin of the statistical analysis of international relations can be traced back to 1920s with the work of Quincy Wright, who founded the University of Chicago’s Committee on International Relations. He led an interdisciplinary study of war that provided a first compendium of what was then known about the causes of war. Wright's studies and those that came after them were based on the assumption that systematic data were required to advance our knowledge about the causes of violent conflicts, and that an analysis of the dynamics of strategic decision making were essential; in short, systematic data coupled with a theoretical framework that focused on the decision-making calculus. However, debates soon raged over whether this scientific approach was better than the classical approach, which was based on philosophy, history, and law, and did not conform to strict standards of verification and proof. Since then, the literature has evolved into studies with a strong theoretical motivation, often expressed via game theoretical analytics, examined empirically with statistical frameworks that are specifically sculpted to probe those strategic dependencies. As such, existing models have resolved the levels of analysis problem that appeared daunting to earlier generations by actually focusing on the modeling of aspects of world politics that enjoin many different levels simultaneously.

scholarly journals Mathematical evaluations of development and use of western countries` military capacity (on the example of Germany)

2021 ◽  
pp. 226-244
Author(s):  
Philipp Trunov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Military Presence ◽  
War Machine ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Given ◽  
First Time

We can face the fact that the factor of military power has been gaining increasing influence in the world politics. In this regard one of key tasks of international relations` studies is the exploration of armed forces` building of the countries in the dynamics. The creating a three-dimensional picture of these processes is difficult without the use of mathematical indicators, which show the key features and “narrow places” of the development and the usage of war machines’ potential of the key countries in the world arena. In this article the focal case of these studies with the usage of mathematical assessments is the Bundeswehr. The reason of the given choice is the changing German role and place in the Euro-Atlantic community and the world arena as the whole. Germany has been trying to become the status of full-fare world power. One of the inherent features of this process is the growing of the Bundeswehr`s potential that had begun in the second half of 2010-s and has had the perspective by the middle 2030-s. The article presents mathematical indicators that allow to show a more voluminous assessment of the progress of building the Bundeswehr's potential and German military budget (both in general and in terms of articles of spending and other specific indicators) in comparison with other largest NATO member states. The research paper also examines the indicators that make it possible to “highlight” the peculiarities of the Bundeswehr’s usage outside and inside the NATO zone of responsibility as well as issues the evolution of the foreign (allied) military presence on the territory of the FRG. The author tries to conclude the generalizations of German “war machine” development, basing on 11 mathematical indicators, 6 of which introduced into scientific circulation for the first time.

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