Ideology, socialization and hegemony in Disciplinary International Relations

This article argues that Disciplinary International Relations (DIR) does not only explain international affairs, but it also socializes and hegemonizes publics and professionals into an ideological worldview consistent with the interest of states that underwrite the world economic and security order based on hegemonic liberalism. Considerable emphasis is placed on tracing the continuities between the early theorization of IR in the United Kingdom and the United States, and the contemporary academic/foreign policy/security ‘complex’ dedicated to the maintenance of a hegemonic world order. The article demonstrates that the call for a greater theory–policy nexus in international affairs is redundant because leading American scholars double up as policy-makers, either directly or through other avenues such as consultancies. Some of the most prominent IR scholars, such as Michael Doyle, John Lewis Gaddis, Samuel Huntington, G. John Ikenberry, Stephen Krasner, Theodore H. Moran, Joseph Nye and Anne-Marie Slaughter, among others, have served in high-level positions in the United States foreign policy and security apparatus. The article also shows the ways in which in the early days of IR theorizing in the UK, scholars such as Lionel Curtis, Alfred Zimmern and Norman Angell doubled as staunch defenders of the British Empire, albeit in the language of liberal internationalism.

The Constitutionalization of International Law After Liberalism

Many political changes that have taken place across the world in the last decade have been connected with the spill-over of a new narrative in the public dimension. Among other things, this narrative has emphasized returning control over the public space to the people once again, revitalization of the democratic community, restraint on an expansion of judicial power over representational politics, and in many instances, a specific national approach to the questions of governance. These trends have gained the name “illiberal democracy”, a description which Viktor Orban introduced into the language of political practice a few years later. Indeed, in many countries worldwide, from the United States of America (USA) during the presidency of Donald Trump, Central and Eastern Europe, to Turkey and Venezuela, it has been possible to observe changes which had the principal leitmotif to negate liberal democracy as the only possibility of organizing public space within the state. These trends are continuing, and there are no signs of them disappearing in the near future. The new dispensation in the USA under President Biden also does not guarantee an immediate return to the liberal internationalism of the 1990s. Political changes directed toward the constitutional space of the State have inspired researchers to consider the issues of new constitutionalism, new forms of democracy, and the rule of law beyond liberalism. This article is an attempt to transfer these considerations to the international level. The text aims to consider whether withdrawal from the liberal doctrine could also be observed on an international level and what these facts could mean for the intellectual project of constitutionalization of international law. Building upon reflections on constitutionalism and constitutionalization of international law, this text presents what has up until now been the mainstream understanding of international law as a liberal construct. This showcases the illiberal turn observed among certain countries as exemplified by the anti-liberal and realist language of their constitutional representatives. In this respect, this analysis is a modest contribution to the so far nascent field of sociology of international law. However, the main endeavor of this article is to unchain the notions of international liberalism and constitutionalization of international law as being popularly understood as two sides of the same coin. Consequently, the idea of political constitutionalism of international law is introduced. Seeing things from this perspective, this text focuses on the material rather than formal aspects of international law's constitutionalization. Within the stream of so called thick constitutionalism, there are a few elements listed with which the discussion about international law may continue to engage, if this law is to be considered as legitimate not only formally, but also substantially.

America's Wars

The collapse of the Soviet Union ushered in American global hegemony in world affairs. In the post-Cold War period, both Democrat and Republican governments intervened, fought insurgencies, and changed regimes. In America's Wars, Thomas Henriksen explores how America tried to remake the world by militarily invading a host of nations beset with civil wars, ethnic cleansing, brutal dictators, and devastating humanitarian conditions. The immediate post-Cold War years saw the United States carrying out interventions in the name of Western-style democracy, humanitarianism, and liberal internationalism in Panama, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo. Later, the 9/11 terrorist attacks led America into larger-scale military incursions to defend itself from further assaults by al Qaeda in Afghanistan and from perceived nuclear arms in Iraq, while fighting small-footprint conflicts in Africa, Asia, and Arabia. This era is coming to an end with the resurgence of great power rivalry and rising threats from China and Russia.

Intelligence and Grand Strategy

This chapter explores the relationship between intelligence and grand strategy. The first section discusses how intelligence informs grand strategy, and describes several factors that limit its influence. The second section introduces the concept of an intelligence posture, which describes how states build and operate their intelligence services. A state’s intelligence posture reflects its choices about how to collect information, how to prioritize what it collects, and whether to employ covert action abroad. These choices depend on the state’s broader approach to national security. Grand strategy guides key decisions about spying and sabotage, just as it provides the logical basis for the use of force. The chapter illustrates this idea by sketching intelligence postures for three grand strategies: restraint, liberal internationalism, and primacy.

Liberal Internationalism, Decolonization, and International Accountability at the United Nations: The British Dilemma

Even as policymakers in both the United States and Britain agreed that decolonization should be gradual, the principles and institutions that the Americans advocated undermined the very prospect of the sort of gradual change they claimed to prefer. At the heart of the matter was the notion of political accountability to an international organization. While American policymakers assumed that such accountability would—and should—be established after the Second World War, British policymakers recognized that the mere assent to the principle of international political accountability would lead to the pressure to decolonize more rapidly. American policymakers would constantly reassure their British counterparts that the commitments to international accountability which they had undertaken under American pressure were safely restricted to the moral and legal realm and would therefore not undermine their ability to govern in the colonies. But policymakers in Britain accurately predicted that once admitted in principle, the moral commitment to political accountability to the international community would become a political weapon against the colonial powers. The American conviction—which stemmed from a thoroughgoing liberal internationalism—that the colonial powers could persuade the anti-colonial powers to moderate their stance and sympathize with the dilemmas of decolonization was refuted time and again.

India’s Interplay with Liberal International Order: Potentials and Constraints

India’s limited partnership with the liberal international order (LIO) of the post-Second World War period had seen a substantial transformation after the end of the Cold War through its economic integration with the world economy. At this critical time of liberal internationalism triggered by the relative decline of American hegemony, rise of the non-Western powers and the tendency of populism in the West, India’s role in the emerging order has been a fundamental imperative. The rationale for its comprehensive partnership with liberal order rests on four main considerations: the looming threat on the liberal order and India’s role; consistency of India’s political principles with that of liberal order; the concern for national interest, identity and global role; and finally, the absence of any viable alternative order. In spite of these promising values and necessities, India’s deeper integration has been constrained by three major factors. The first reason relates to the very concept of the LIO, which is slightly Western-oriented. The second reason corresponds to India’s core identity and its governing view with regards to the world—of non-alignment, sovereign autonomy, non-interference and civilisational identity. Finally, its maximum assimilation within the liberal order continues to be hindered by ‘domestic setbacks’.