Empires and Nations in the Modern World: Shifting Political Orders

This essay traces the path of empires and nations as forms of governance, the eventual predominance of nations and disappearance of empires, and the contemporary interplay of large and small nations as the dominant form of global governance. It also gives attention to the rise of capitalist economic organization as a factor expanding empires and later encouraging nationhood. The essay emphasizes two stages in the emergence of nations: the emergence in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries of nations and eventually of the great powers, and the post-1945 emergence of nations as the universal form of government, consisting mostly of small powers, linked by the United Nations.

Europe's far-right educational projects and their vision for the international order

Figures like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and former French National Front leader Marion Maréchal are seeking to establish what we call a new globalist illiberal order. The globalist illiberal agenda extends elements of the globalist project while reclaiming a radicalized view of Christian democracy. Europe's far-right views the global order as composed of strong nations who need to defend their sovereignty on ‘cultural’ issues while protecting their common Christian roots. We trace their project by focusing on two new institutions of higher education, Hungary's National University of Public Service Ludovika (Ludovika-UPS) and the Institut de sciences sociales, économiques et politiques (Institute of Social Sciences, Economics and Politics—ISSEP), based in France and Spain. Through these institutions, globalist illiberals aim to cultivate new leaders outside the liberal ‘mainstream’ and redefine the meaning of Christian democracy. We conclude that surging nationalism among mid- to small powers is not resulting in deglobalization but is fostering illiberal globalization, which has no place for those who do not fit in their exclusionary vision of Christian Europe.

Do Small Powers Retrench?

This article analyses and develops the rationale behind the foreign policy of the syriza-led government towards the Western Balkans. It challenges the prevalent view in the academic literature that there was continuity between policies of the syriza government and its predecessors. By analysing the track record of Greek foreign policy towards the region from 2009 to 2019, it argues that from mid-2016 onwards syriza implemented a major policy shift and adopted a policy of retrenchment. This change was a response to the country’s diminished economic and diplomatic power and influence in the region, as well as a reaction to the widening gap between Greek and Turkish capabilities. The adjustment of Greek foreign policy to the realities of the protracted economic crisis demonstrates that the theory of MacDonald and Parent concerning the policies followed by great powers in acute economic decline may also be applied to the study of policies followed by small powers in decline.

Unleashing Nepal’s Demography as Soft Power

For small powers like Nepal, enhancement of soft power to achieve national interests and economic aspirations is important. For this, however, the aspect of Nepal’s demography has not been considered as a source for advancing Nepal’s soft power. Owing to the same research gap, this study emphasises how Nepal’s demographics can be a significant facet to enhancing Nepal’s soft power. With the same objective, this paper has essentially explored the unexplored territories of demography, migration and also women’s contributions to Nepal’s economy to boost up Nepal’s soft power ambition. Stressing on the changed narrative away from the conventional notion of “yam between two boulders”, the study introduces the idea of “Global Nepali” as a component to enhance Nepal’s soft power, considering the changing demography of Nepal. Also, by shedding light on the contribution of Nepali women in Nepal’s economic growth and its potentiality to advance Nepal’s soft power, this study reiterates that the soft power of a country like Nepal lies in the hearts of its people and what they have to offer to the world.

The Sea Power of Small States: A Case Study of Sri Lanka

The geo-strategic location of Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean, which is a part of global and regional power competition, is close to the key and busy naval routes between the East and the West. Particularly, the marine area of Sri Lanka has critical geopolitical importance due to its location between the Strait of Hormuz and the Strait of Malacca, which are essential transit zones in the world. The marine area of Sri Lanka has gained much attention from the industrial and newly industrial nations due to the living and non-living natural resources contained in the surrounding sea. With this background note, this paper focuses on discussing the sea power dimension of national security, focusing on the case of Sri Lanka, which has been neglected by contemporary academia of small powers’ studies. For this purpose, Alfred Thayer Mahan’s theory on sea power has been employed to theoretically and practically examine the feasibility of its application for enhancing the sea power of Sri Lanka in the context of changing global order. The research was drawn from a wide range of secondary sources and a descriptive analysis was made. The paper concludes with implications for some realistic policies for enhancing the sea power capacity of Sri Lanka as it allows the free flow of people and goods as well as the projection of naval power of Sri Lanka.

Sweden and the Petsamo-Kirkenes Offensive, October 1944 — January 1945

The article deals with the problems of war and post-war Europe and the role of Sweden in the European relations in this period. The Petsamo-Kirkenes offensive and the Soviet Union military advance into northern Norway revealed the new situation when Sweden’s neutrality began to shift from adaption to Germany towards a more pro-allied stance. In these circumstances the Swedish neutrality was under the severe test: some of the cabinet ministers worried that this opportunistic shift in neutrality policy would affect the country’s international image after the war. Yet the reality imposed its conditions. This applied to the Sweden’s efforts to get Finland out of the war, reception of refugees from Finnish and Norwegian territories, ferrying wounded German soldiers across their territory. As the USSR had more military success in Lapland and Northern Norway in Swedish political and military circles increased fears about the future of the country and the post-war order. After the war, the Defense Staff stated, two antagonistic, global alliances would dominate the international system and it would be difficult for small powers like Sweden to remain neutral or independent in this environment. For Sweden to join any of the two great power blocs would obviously entail major risks. The creation of a Scandinavian defensive alliance was considered as an alternative to neutrality. Thus, it was the Petsamo-Kirkenes offensive and the advance of the USSR to the West that caused serious reflections in the political life of Sweden about the future, about how a small country should act and survive in the conditions of the continuing ideological conflict of the great powers.

The Power of Hegemon: the Role of Discourse

This paper explores one of the central issues of current international discourse : how is world order sustained and maintained, is it shifting and changing, is it being reinvented and reimagined, or are we on the cusp of global disorder and competition among great and small powers? The conventional lens used to examine these questions is that of ‘hegemony’ or ‘dominance.’ This paper discusses how hegemony is conceptualized, what kinds of resources are mobilized (material, discursive, institutional, and performative) in maintaining hegemony, and what the current chessboard of geopolitics looks like in terms of rising and falling powers. Despite a chaotic picture of the train derailed there is also an optimistic end of that story. First we are moving from a unipolar to the polycentric world. Secondly that new world will be less dramatically divided as it will be based on macro-regional arrangements. Thirdly multi-regional arrangements will be closer civilizationally and thus less prone to conflicts. Finally - in order to survive - most probably they will voluntarily keep close ties with other macro-regiond making the system more stable that today.

Perturbative-Iterative Computation of Inertial Manifolds of Systems of Delay-Differential Equations with Small Delays

Delay-differential equations belong to the class of infinite-dimensional dynamical systems. However, it is often observed that the solutions are rapidly attracted to smooth manifolds embedded in the finite-dimensional state space, called inertial manifolds. The computation of an inertial manifold yields an ordinary differential equation (ODE) model representing the long-term dynamics of the system. Note in particular that any attractors must be embedded in the inertial manifold when one exists, therefore reducing the study of these attractors to the ODE context, for which methods of analysis are well developed. This contribution presents a study of a previously developed method for constructing inertial manifolds based on an expansion of the delayed term in small powers of the delay, and subsequent solution of the invariance equation by the Fraser functional iteration method. The combined perturbative-iterative method is applied to several variations of a model for the expression of an inducible enzyme, where the delay represents the time required to transcribe messenger RNA and to translate that RNA into the protein. It is shown that inertial manifolds of different dimensions can be computed. Qualitatively correct inertial manifolds are obtained. Among other things, the dynamics confined to computed inertial manifolds display Andronov–Hopf bifurcations at similar parameter values as the original DDE model.

Between ‘Coercive League’ and ‘Consultative League’: a reappraisal of debates surrounding the ‘Reform’ of the League of Nations

This article addresses debates surrounding the reform of the League of Nations from the viewpoint of Britain and China. They focused on the pros and cons of collective security because the failure of the League to stop Japanese invasion of Manchuria and Italian invasion of Abyssinia threatened the collapse of the League. There were two contrasting visions in debates, the ‘Coercive League’ and the ‘Consultative League’. The ‘Coercive League’ was the course to reinforce collective security to prevent further aggression. Conversely, the ‘Consultative League’ argument was to weaken collective security and induce Germany, Italy, and Japan to cooperate with the League. Deliberations took place in both the Council, in which great powers exerted a strong presence, and the Assembly, in which small powers made their voices heard. Therefore, this article deals with Britain as an example of a great power and China as one of a small power.