Introduction

The study of music in the political and religious contexts of Third Republic France poses challenges that center around the relationship between the Catholic Church and the French Republic and the role of the musician therein. This introduction frames how the political and religious landscapes of the Third Republic have been discussed in the past and how cultural products shaped and were shaped by their social environment. Finally, it sets up the book’s ultimate move away from the simplistic notion that Church and State were separated by irreconcilable differences by introducing key players in the Republic’s musical transformation of Catholicism into an acceptable and desirable facet of its national and international identity.

Reputation crisis management and the state: Theorising containment as diplomatic mode

This article theorises containment as a diplomatic response mode for states when faced with potentially harmful attacks on their international identity and reputation. Despite widespread agreement in International Relations (IR) scholarship that identities matter in the context of state security, studies of crisis management have paid little attention to ontological security crises. Scholarly literature on public diplomacy has concerned itself mainly with proactive nation branding and reputation building; work on stigma management has privileged the study of how ‘transgressive’ states respond to identity attacks by recognising, rejecting or countering criticism. Our contribution is two-fold. First, we make the case that states do not perform as uniform entities when faced with ontological security crises – government representatives, bureaucratic officials and diplomats have varying roles and action repertoires available to them. Second, we argue that containment is a key but undertheorised part of the diplomatic toolkit in crisis management. Unpacking containment as a crisis management response mode, we combine insights from IR scholarship on emotions and diplomacy with insights on therapeutic practices from social psychology. We substantiate our argument with a case study of how Norwegian government representatives, bureaucratic officials and diplomats responded to escalating international criticism against Norway’s Child Welfare Services following a wave of transnational protests in 2016. A key finding is that whereas the dominant response mode of government ministers and bureaucratic officials was to reject the criticism, diplomats mainly worked to contain the situation, trying to prevent it from escalating further and resulting in long-term damage to bilateral relations.

The end of China’s romance with Central and Eastern Europe

The 2016 Mandopop hit ‘Prague square’ ushered in a new romance for Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) in China. Such infatuation has resonated not only in popular culture, but was mirrored in China’s newfound boldness on the international stage. Drawing on CEE media accounts, the article demonstrates that China’s romance with the CEE countries was never reciprocated. In fact, the CEE region might present a significant outlier in that media accounts of China have been consistently negative in the decade preceding the Covid-19 pandemic. In other words, the pandemic merely accelerated trends that were already set in motion prior to 2020. In this respect, CEE media accounts of both China and the Covid-19 pandemic reveal an interesting ‘localization of the other’. As such, China has been used to validate specific domestic positions of different political formations. Perceptions of China (what it is assumed to stands for) have been deployed domestically in the CEE region to justify particular visions of the state and its international identity.

Social Justice and Community-Based Rehabilitation Counseling

This invited article reports and reflects upon the proceedings of a presentation at the NRCA Symposium on Social Justice held on in Memphis Tennessee in 2019. The author posits that a proper understanding of social justice opens the door for a new, international vision for rehabilitation counseling in the context of community. The model reinterprets rehabilitation counseling as social justice counseling within the framework of community-based rehabilitation as currently defined within the established matrix and guidelines. This model augments our understanding of rehabilitation counseling role and function with an emerging practice in advocacy/empowerment. The construct of empowerment is operationalized for development in practice across community settings. The author reflects upon lessons learned in advancing this model of practice in the Asia/Pacific region. In a call for collaborative next steps, he concludes that the way to an empowered international identity for rehabilitation counseling is through an activist, inclusive, international community of practice that advocates for our role as agents of social justice.

The Role of Islam in Indonesian Foreign Policy: A Case of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono Introduction

As Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono won the 2004 presidential election, it marked the end of Indonesia’s democratic transition era and experienced a dynamic change in foreign policy. The new international identity that viewed Islam as an asset was introduced by SBY, emphasizing the importance of moderate Islam as opposing extremism. The phenomenon of Islamic influence was not only the result of democratic consolidation domestically but also external factors such as the aftermath of 9/11 that portrayed Muslims as potential terrorists. For this reason, Indonesian foreign policy attempted to diminish such misconceptions and tried to be a peacemaker or a mediator in Muslim-related issues globally. To contextualize the analysis, the study focuses on the influence of Islam in Indonesian foreign policy towards the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and Pakistan. The mutual aspirations on the Palestinian statehood shared by both the government and the Muslim elements in society could be found, while religious sentiments were noticeable, as shown by the Muslim groups. In contrast, the influence of Islam in Indonesia-Pakistan relations, especially regarding the Kashmir dispute, was absent due to the difference in views of the government and the Muslim groups and constraining factors, including Indonesia’s national interest priority.

CSDP MISSIONS AND OPERATIONS AS INSTRUMENTS OF EU CRISIS MANAGEMENT - THEIR ESSENCE, ROLE AND DETERMINANTS

The aim of this article is to highlight the essence, the meaning and the role of EU civilian missions and military operations conducted under the umbrella of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). The first two parts constitute an introduction which presents the institutional framework, scope and mandate of EU missions/operations as well as their nature. The subsequent parts constitute an attempt to answer the question of what distinguishes EU missions/operations and what their specificity is. In this context, the CSDP crisis management model is presented along with the significance of operations in building the EU's international identity and in strengthening the political dimension of European integration, especially in relation to security and defence policy. The main weaknesses and shortcomings of CSDP missions/operations have also been characterized. Thusly, eleven such weaknesses have been identified which, to a large extent, determine the shape, scope and nature of CSDP missions and operations carried out by the European Union

“Global Britain” as an Outcome of Historical Disputes over UK Identity

The article explores the interconnection between the discourse over national identity and attempts by the UK authorities to design new foreign policy priorities in a post-Brexit environment. Proceeding from the book of the British historian D. Reynolds ―Island Stories: Britain and Its History in the Age of Brexit‖, the author highlights debates about the UK‘s position on the international stage using different methodological approaches to international relations such as the role theory. Moreover, the article contributes to the constructivist discourse that interstate relations are defined by a set of norms, values and identity. The author analyses international narratives of the ―Anglosphere‖, ―free trade‖ and ―European question‖. It is concluded that there is a certain historic continuity which manifests itself in all the discussions over the UK objectives on the global stage. The re-design of the UK international strategy and its search for new priorities as a result of Brexit and global shifts in the international system are driven by attempts to identify a new global role through the alliance-based approach in the Euro-Atlantic and Asia-Pacific regions. The article concludes that the search in the UK of a new international identity deeply rooted in British history now comes to the fore, as the idea of Global Britain is being fit into real life.

Poland versus Russia: Competition in Ukraine

This study analyses relations in the triangle Poland–Russia–Ukraine since 2004, bringing an insightful perspective to the realist concept of competition in international relations. For the last sixteen years, despite their unequal power, Poland and Russia have competed in Ukraine. This competition involves not only a fight for influence (quite limited in the case of Poland), but also in respect of the political and economic model that is to be implemented in Ukraine and its international identity. Poland wants Ukraine to become “European”: stable, democratic, and with a free market economy, to secure the eastern border of Poland, and to limit Ukraine’s dependence on Russia. This policy is executed both through bilateral cooperation and the Euro-Atlantic institutions, especially the European Union (EU). Russia, on the other hand, wants Ukraine to keep its post-Soviet identity. An authoritarian and corrupted Ukraine, remaining culturally a part of the “Russian world,” is perceived as guaranteeing Russian interests there, in particular in the context of the expansion of the North Atlantic Alliance and EU towards the East. For this reason, Russia aims at impeding the development of Polish–Ukrainian cooperation. Until 2014 Russia was largely successful in realizing its agenda thanks to the multiple channels of dependence existing between it and Ukraine. However, since the Revolution of Dignity and the beginning of the Russian war against Ukraine, the latter has engaged in a clearly discernible, though uncertain, path to Europeanization, which may favor the implementation of the Polish scenario for Ukraine.

Going by an English Name: The Adoption and Use of English Names by Young Taiwanese Adults

It is easy to understand why Taiwanese students play the part of the name assigned to them in English class, but why do so many of them continue to use this name long after their school years? A survey of young Taiwanese adults, with follow-up interviews, investigated how and why they acquire and use an English name. The results mirror previously reported tendencies and suggest some new insights into the motivation and functionality of this practice. The data show that self-identification with their Western name offers pragmatic social and cultural advantages, including international identity, escape from rigid cultural formalities impeding social advances, establishing friendliness without getting too close, as well as self-expression. As concerns the often discussed nature of English names, the results indicate that the selection of an English name is influenced by Chinese name selection practice, the tendency to make the name unique or somehow related to the Chinese name, and especially by its intended role. As in previous studies, we found some unusual names, but these were used mainly as a nickname in communication with peers.