2. What Is International Relations Theory Good For?

Desde a década de 1980, o campo teórico das Relações Internacionais tem passado por uma crise profunda. Na nova sociedade da informação marcada pela globalização, o conceito fundamental das teorias tradicionais – a soberania do Estado – é desafiado. Em diálogo com outras áreas das Ciências Sociais e da Filosofia, a teoria das Relações Internacionais busca, então, refundar sua identidade. Essa refundação tem passado por uma reflexão crítica acerca de sua história e uma reavaliação de seus pressupostos. A defesa da emancipação humana passa a ser o mote orientador dessa nova tendência entre os críticos reflexivistas. Esse artigo busca resgatar algumas influências de outros campos do saber que estão na origem ao pensamento reflexivista.

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The crisis of multilateralism and EU–Russia cooperation

Public Administration ◽

10.22394/2070-8378-2020-22-1-54-57 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 22 (1) ◽

pp. 54-57

Author(s):

FRANCO BRUNI ◽

Keyword(s):

International Relations ◽

Careful Consideration ◽

Modern World ◽

Multiple Methods ◽

The Us ◽

Good For ◽

East West ◽

The Eu

The article is devoted to problems in relations between the EU and Russia. Multiple methods are considered that are aimed at solving the problem of multilateralism in current conditions. The author selected and studied specific documents on essential aspects that are devoted to this topic. Studying the arising problems requires careful consideration since, in the modern world, cooperation between global actors such as the EU and Russia cannot be ignored. Despite all the challenges faced by the parties in their fields, all difficulties are conquerable, and the article provides specific methods for its solving. The article discusses some aspects and problems that require particular attention from specialists in this field. The author concludes that strong US–EU coalition could seem more coherent with history and with the traditional East–West divide. However, the recent evolution of the US attitude towards international relations weakens the probability of such coalition and its perceived payoffs. A more or less defensive Russia–China coalition has been tried with limited results; moreover, if it were possible and probable, the two western players would change their strategy to prevent it or to contain its depth. In fact, we live in a world where many talks of a serious possibility of G2 governance, a peculiar type of coalition where the US and China keep hostile and nationalistic attitudes but join forces to set the global stage in their favor, pursuing a qualitatively limited but quantitatively rich payoff. In such world, as a counterpart of this payoff, both the divided Europe and the economically much smaller Russia would lose power and suffer several kinds of economic disadvantages. Therefore, Greater Europe would be good for Russia and for the EU as well.

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Introduction

10.1093/oso/9780190849184.003.0001 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Matthew Kroenig

Keyword(s):

International Relations ◽

International Relations Theory ◽

Nuclear Deterrence ◽

Central Question ◽

Deterrence Theory ◽

Nuclear Strategy ◽

Nuclear Policy ◽

Previous Scholarship ◽

As If

This chapter provides a summary introduction to the book. It explains the central question the book addresses and why it is important. Namely, it asks why academic nuclear deterrence theory maintains that nuclear superiority does not matter, but policymakers often behave as if it does. It then provides a brief explanation of the answer to this question: the superiority-brinkmanship synthesis theory. It discusses the implications of the argument for international relations theory and for US nuclear policy. In contrast to previous scholarship, the argument of this book provides the first coherent explanation for why nuclear superiority matters even if both sides possess a secure, second-strike capability. In so doing, it helps to resolve what may be the longest-standing, intractable, and important puzzle in the scholarly study of nuclear strategy. It concludes with a description of the plan for the rest of the book.

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Hobbes among International Relations Thinkers

10.1093/oso/9780198817215.003.0007 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

David Boucher

Keyword(s):

International Relations ◽

Political Thought ◽

International Relations Theory ◽

English School ◽

State Of Nature ◽

International Issues ◽

Civil Condition ◽

The Individual

Among philosophers and historians of political thought Hobbes has little or nothing to say about relations among states. For modern realists and representatives of the English School in contemporary international relations theory, however, caricatures of Hobbes abound. There is a tendency to take him too literally, referring to what is called the unmodified philosophical state of nature, ignoring what he has to say about both the modified state of nature and the historical pre-civil condition. They extrapolate from the predicament of the individual conclusions claimed to be pertinent to international relations, and on the whole find his conclusions unconvincing. It is demonstrated that there is a much more restrained and cautious Hobbes, consistent with his timid nature, in which he gives carefully weighed views on a variety of international issues, recommending moderation consistent with the duties of sovereignty.

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Sovereignty at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919

10.1093/oso/9780199677177.001.0001 ◽

2018 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Leonard V. Smith

Keyword(s):

World War Ii ◽

International Relations ◽

International System ◽

International Relations Theory ◽

League Of Nations ◽

Great Power ◽

World War ◽

Treaty Of Versailles ◽

The World ◽

Paris Peace Conference

We have long known that the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 “failed” in the sense that it did not prevent the outbreak of World War II. This book investigates not whether the conference succeeded or failed, but the historically specific international system it created. It explores the rules under which that system operated, and the kinds of states and empires that inhabited it. Deepening the dialogue between history and international relations theory makes it possible to think about sovereignty at the conference in new ways. Sovereignty in 1919 was about remaking “the world”—not just determining of answers demarcating the international system, but also the questions. Most histories of the Paris Peace Conference stop with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles with Germany on June 28, 1919. This book considers all five treaties produced by the conference as well as the Treaty of Lausanne with Turkey in 1923. It is organized not chronologically or geographically, but according to specific problems of sovereignty. A peace based on “justice” produced a criminalized Great Power in Germany, and a template problematically applied in the other treaties. The conference as sovereign sought to “unmix” lands and peoples in the defeated multinational empires by drawing boundaries and defining ethnicities. It sought less to oppose revolution than to instrumentalize it. The League of Nations, so often taken as the supreme symbol of the conference’s failure, is better considered as a continuation of the laboratory of sovereignty established in Paris.

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Markets are constantly collapsing: Reconceptualizing ‘the market’ as a quantum social wavefunction

Competition & Change ◽

10.1177/1024529420987825 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 102452942098782

Author(s):

Michael Murphy

Keyword(s):

Quantum Mechanics ◽

International Relations ◽

Social Theory ◽

Open Economy ◽

International Relations Theory ◽

Social Structures ◽

Value Chains ◽

Special Issue ◽

Core Concepts ◽

Broad Framework

The quantum moment in International Relations theory challenges the taken for granted Newtonian assumptions of conventional theories, while offering a novel physical imaginary grounded in quantum mechanics. As part of the special issue on reconceptualizing markets, this article questions if prior efforts to conceptualize ‘the market’ have been unsuccessful at capturing the paradoxical microfoundational/macrostructural because of the Newtonian worldview within which much social science operates. By developing a new, quantum perspective on the market, taking the physical paradigm of the wavefunction, I seek to explore the connections between entanglement, nonlocality, interference and invisible social structures. To demonstrate the applicability of quantum thinking, I explore how global value chains and open economy politics might be ‘quantized’, through the mobilization of core concepts of quantum social theory, within the broad framework of the market as a quantum social wavefunction.

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