Communities of practice and what they can do for International Relations

This article argues that communities of practice (CoPs) provide IR with a unique way to understand how a small group of committed people can make a difference to international politics. The point is addressed in three steps. First, the article advances our understanding of how CoPs work. While at its core a CoP is a group of people brought together by a practice they enjoy, a CoP also shares a sense of timing, placing, and humour. These aspects help the group anchor, refine, and innovate their practice in the face of challenges and uncertainty. Second, the article contrasts the analysis of CoPs with other IR approaches, especially institutional analysis, network analysis, and epistemic communities, to show how CoPs supplement them. Third, the article illustrates the argument with the example of the EU foreign policy towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It concludes by suggesting that a CoP's perspective not only helps IR better understand informal politics, but also opens up conversations across disciplines.

Exploring Politics of Social Safety Net in Bangladesh through Political Settlement: The Case of Rajakhali Union in Cox’s Bazar District

The purpose of the study is to explore the politics of beneficiaries’ selection and resource distribution of social safety net (SSN) programs and how local elites and political groups establish political settlement by using it as a tool. In developing countries, formal systems are not strong enough and elites’ groups use their power to create informal institutions for securing their interests. As other studies have shown, informal politics influence the processes of selection and distribution of SSN programs in Bangladesh. The study is qualitative in nature and the selected research area is Rajakhali Union in Cox’s Bazar District. The study found that informal systems (e.g. clientelist politics, political affiliation, personal conflicts, and kinship) determine the selection and distribution of SSN programs. The Union Parishad (UP) members distribute the SSN programs to their ineligible clients (supporters, local elites, and political groups) by bypassing the formal systems for strengthening clientelist relations, increasing their legitimacy, stabling their power, and increasing their vote banks. They (UP members, political elites, and local elites) have allowed introducing more informal structures that better serve their interests. They have used the SSN programs as a tool for establishing the political settlement (distribution of power between UP members and local elites).

The politico-commercial nexus and its implications for television industries in Bangladesh and South Asia

Over the past decade, television has proven its political, economic, and cultural worth as the most influential mass media in South Asia. Taking Bangladesh as a vantage point, the article shows how informal political and economic affiliations have become crucial factors for media development in South Asia. Particularly, the article dissects the ownership structures and the formal and informal politics of licensing private television by Bangladeshi governments between 1995 and 2019 in contesting India’s regional media hegemony with harnessing a powerful indigenous ‘politico-commercial nexus’. Based on field-based research, this study reveals multiple areas of political struggle, regional contestation, and democratic deficits in the television industry. The findings widen our understanding beyond the bureaucratic processes of media regulation, revealing the deeper problem of unipolar political preconditioning and the increasingly authoritarian nature of the state vis-à-vis the ownership of media and its diminishing prospects for voicing plural and contending political perspectives.