Escalating the crisis

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Bentley
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Direct Consequence ◽  
Comprehensive Analysis ◽  
Us Foreign Policy ◽  
As Effects

Chapter 6 demonstrates that Syria is not simply a case of misinterpretation, but one in which the taboo has intensified the conflict. The conflict is worse and more violent as a direct consequence of using the taboo as the basis of US foreign policy. It looks at the physically and politically destructive ways in which the taboo has fed the tensions underpinning the crisis, specifically where these are identified as effects that would not have occurred had the taboo not been prioritised above all other concerns. The chapter then concludes with a more comprehensive analysis of how the taboo is detrimental to international politics and whether it should even be kept as part of IR discourse.

Conclusion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Bentley
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Politics ◽  
International Community ◽  
Us Foreign Policy ◽  
Chemical Weapons ◽  
Prominent Feature ◽  
Core Dynamics ◽  
International Discourse

OBAMA’S FOREIGN policy on Syria put the chemical weapons taboo front and centre of international politics. This has always been a prominent feature of international discourse. But now, where the taboo constituted (a) an imperative for, and justification of, US foreign policy, and (b) the basis of key diplomatic negotiations, so the norm came to dominate the entire crisis. As such, this would seem to substantiate the inherent claim behind the taboo, i.e. that chemical weapons are so offensive that possession and use cannot be tolerated. Furthermore, that violation cannot take place without a significant and norm-driven response from the international community, and especially from its hegemon. This view, however, is far too simplistic. Specifically, it ignores two core dynamics of the taboo’s use (where these map onto the two parts to this book):...

US Foreign Policy After the Bush Administration

2008 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-21
Author(s):  
Francis Fukuyama
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Bush Administration ◽  
Us Foreign Policy ◽  
International Studies ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
Cornell University

Professor Fukuyama, B.A. Classics, Cornell University 1974, spoke at Cornell on April 21, 2008, at the invitation of the Einaudi Center for International Studies. The Board of the Cornell International Affairs Review had the privilege of meeting with him during his visit. The following article, produced here with his permission, is an edited transcript of this talk. The board of the Cornell International Affairs Review thanks Professor Fukuyama for his support to our mission.

Toward a Theory of International Politics

1955 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 733-746 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth W. Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Foreign Relations ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Jet Stream ◽  
Human Relations ◽  
Levels Of Abstraction ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Analysis Theory ◽  
Moving Front ◽  
Special Priority

Recently a group of scholars, analysts, and diplomatists met for a weekend conference on theoretical approaches to international politics. Their discussion was inspired by the widespread and growing interest in conceptual and theoretical problems illustrated by parallel efforts in the study of politics, economics, law, and human relations. In the field of foreign relations the impulse toward theory comes from practitioners as well as philosophers. Indeed a former Secretary of State maintains that our most urgent need is for “an applicable body of theory in foreign policy.” Practical men with first-hand diplomatic experience point to the need for rational generalizations and intellectual structures to extract meaning from the jet stream of contemporary events. The intellectual processes by which practical judgments are made along a moving front of events clearly demand inquiry and analysis. Theory in the study of international politics perhaps derserves a special priority because of the urgency of the problem and the stridency of the debate generated by competing approaches each claiming to have preempted the field. Perhaps what is called for is a sorting out and assessment of the intellectual factors that go into diverse theories of international politics at varying levels of abstraction and generality. This sorting out was one of the objectives of the conferees. Similarly this paper seeks to review the nature and purpose of theory, its limitations, and the characteristics of the chief types of theory in international politics.

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