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"Volatile States in International Politics" by Eleonora Mattiacci explores the increasing unpredictability of state behavior in world politics. The book combines statistical data and archival frames of reference to explain the concept of "volatility" in international politics, its causes, impact, and potential remedies. The author examines factors that contribute to interstate volatility, such as relative power and resource availability, and proposes novel methods for measuring volatility. The book also provides a detailed assessment of countries engaged in strategic rivalry and explores the prevalence of volatility in interactions between countries with defensive commitments. While the book emphasizes the importance of understanding volatility, it neglects the larger context of the security dilemma and the potential value of creative diplomacy in countering volatility. Overall, "Volatile States in International Politics" is a well-written and valuable introduction to the concept of volatility in international politics. [Extracted from the article]

This article explores the intertwinement of politics, international affairs and culture during the Cold War through a case study of Polish-Dutch cultural relations and the heterogeneous factors that shaped them. The study centres around the turbulent events of 1968 in Poland, and their impact on the international cultural policies of the Polish People's Republic and the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It demonstrates that the cultural field suffered the most immediate consequences of the political decisions taken by both parties – consequences which lasted for a considerable time – thus making it a metaphorical litmus test for the Cold War international relationships. This article reconstructs and analyses Polish and Dutch reactions to the 1968 events and their use of culture for the sake of their own policies – both as a form of protest and as an anti-crisis tool meant to influence the authorities and citizens of the target country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

McKenna follows, citing Harper's overt politicization of the bureaucracy - what he calls "Fort Pearson", a "dark, nasty and mean-spirited period" in Canada's foreign relations (17). In the first sentence of I Harper's World i , editor Peter McKenna refers to former Prime Minister Stephen Harper as a "super-charged political animal.". [Extracted from the article]

Archives in financial institutions can often appear detached from reality, less relevant in reporting political facts and the documents mostly reveal redundant financial details. Yet financial institutions hold reliable primary information and their files contain insights of international historical relevance. Through the analysis of documents kept at the historical archive of the the Italian Bank for China (now in Archivio Storico UniCredit) it is possible to contextualize the bank's activity in the first half of the twentieth century in relation to historical facts of the first republic, China. In this article, the author unveils how the Banca Italiana per la Cina was involved in financial and political events concerning the Chinese and Italian governments. In the documents and correspondence written by the bank's management the facts are described with real perception of the situations. They reveal, using reliable sources, significant aspects regarding Sino-Italian relations during that historical period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the 'blind spots in IPE' recently addressed in related Special Issues of Review of International Political Economy and New Political Economy. It identifies a blind spot of law in IPE, tracing the problem to a blind spot in the discipline of international relations (IR) generated by tendencies in dominant theories to consider international law to be super-structural, epiphenomenal, and not worthy of political analysis, and to associations of international law with idealism. The analysis notes an inverse blind spot in international law (IL), wherein legal scholars tend to regard IL as autonomous of politics and the political economy of 'who gets what, when, how'. These blind spots contribute to the neglect of how legal forms function to mystify the political economy of IL, thereby advancing transnational capitalism and inequality. The empirical focus is on transnational contract law, dispute settlement, and value and production chain contracting. These laws function as Capital's law and central pillars of the transnational politico-legal order by reaching deep inside states to restructure domestic spheres according to new constitutionalism and the demands of transnational capital. Drawing on critical political economy, the paper develops a historical materialist analysis to denaturalize and demystify Capital's law. This is a necessary move for scholars interested in the progressive and emancipatory potential of IL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role of the European Parliament as an international moral tribune for the promotion of human rights through a qualitative case-study design. It focuses on the emblematic Ayotzinapa case, which involved the enforced disappearance of 43 young rural students and the killing of other six civilians in Mexico in September 2014. The paper innovatively analyses the parliamentary diplomacy activity of four Members and their respective political groups: Franziska 'Ska' Keller (Greens/EFA, Germany), Josep-Maria Terricabras i Nogueras (Greens/EFA, Spain), Estefanía Torres Martínez (GUE/NGL, Spain) and Teresa Jiménez-Becerril Barrio (EPP, Spain), during the 8th parliamentary term (2014–2019). It addresses: How does the European Parliament, acting as an international moral tribune, exercise its role in promoting human rights in practice? Importantly, how do individual members and their political groups contribute to fulfilling this role? The research findings reveal that the phenomenon of parliamentary diplomacy on human rights is highly complex, challenging the mainstream notion that the European Parliament is a monolithic player acting as a moral tribune in international relations. Results also provide important insight for understanding the (micro-)processes of parliamentary diplomacy and their relevance for human rights advocacy within the European Union's external relations and its Member States'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces Mahāyāna Buddhist medicine into the contemporary international relations (IR) literature. In this paper, we will elucidate the perception towards subjectivity and relationality based upon the non-binary relationality of Mahāyāna Buddhist medicine, and strive to provide a refreshing understanding of the world. In order to achieve this goal, we start this article by focussing upon the way in which the essentialised subjectivity became the norm of contemporary IR even in non-Western regions. Second, we will provide a general introduction to Mahāyāna Buddhism. Here, we will explain the fluid subjectivity of this particular philosophical tradition, particularly its assumptions of subjectivity, relationality and temporality. Third, we will shift our focus to a practical application of this line of thought, Mahāyāna Buddhist medicine. We argue that Mahāyāna Buddhist medicine is extremely suggestive to contemporary colonial/postcolonial relations in the sense that it provides a practical way to cure those who are suffering from fear and anxiety generated by the assumptions of autonomy and independence. Last, we will return to the discourses of IR, in particular a recent discussion on temporality, relationality and ethics, to consider the possible contributions of Mahāyāna Buddhist medicine to IR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This piece is an imagined email correspondence between three renowned international relations scholars, E. H. Carr, Hedley Bull and Coral Bell, who are discussing the Australian 2016 Defence White Paper. The purpose of such an exercise is to reflect on the 'big-picture' international relations questions posed by what might otherwise be thought of as a relatively technical defence policy document. In particular, the correspondence between the three focuses on the central importance of the White Paper's assumptions of a 'rules-based global order' and the relationship between this order and US power. In their time, all three authors spoke directly to questions of power, law and order in their scholarly work, which had been deeply influenced, in all three cases, by periods spent working at the 'coalface' of these issues in government in Britain and Australia. As such, Carr, Bull and Bell have much to say about how Australia is positioning itself for a post-unipolar world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper identifies major themes and recommends preferred strategies in Australia’s engagement with the world. These themes and strategies relate to geopolitics, economics and the ‘new international agenda’; there is also a more specific focus on Australia’s Pacific island neighbours and Timor-Leste. There is a strong emphasis on perceived Australian national interests throughout the document. The geopolitical discussion is primarily ‘realist’; economically the document is pro-globalisation; the discussion of the ‘new international agenda’ involves an Australian-oriented pragmatism; there is an assertion of Australian leadership in the South Pacific. With some minor criticism, Labor has accepted the general direction advocated in the White Paper. The document is thus indicative of the likely future direction of Australian foreign policy. Lack of US response indicates declining US engagement with Australia and the Asia-Pacific or Indo-Pacific region. China, as the other major power highly significant for Australia, has been low-key in its criticisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Notwithstanding India's public stand professing its respect of the sovereignty principle, the imperatives of competitive international relations have necessitated the use of force against its neighbors, thereby undermining their sovereignty. This use of force has been manifested through conventional wars as well as through the sub-conventional use of force such as surgical strikes. This paper examines how India has sought to toe a fine line between pursuing its national interest through the application of military power while being mindful of the broader normative frameworks influencing state behavior since 1947. In doing so, it engages with the interplay of the material and the ideational. Given the time span of the study, it also seeks to shine light on the elements of continuity and change that mark its application of military power through the prism of the sovereignty principle. Furthermore, the paper also pays attention to the recent surgical strikes, features that mark them as being different from previous such actions performed by India, and what this means for India's understanding of the sovereignty principle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article maps the behaviours of two middle powers, Australia and Indonesia, as a response to the emergence and evolution of the Indo-Pacific concept. The background for this analysis is the emergence and development of the 'Indo-Pacific' concept as a response to crises of legitimacy enveloping the region and how countries in the region, including middle powers, respond to it. Using a minimalist definition which I have developed of a middle power as a country with a middle level of power capabilities and a penchant for cooperation, this article develops a framework based on two dimensions of outcome (ranging from status-quoist to reformist outlooks) and process (ranging from Lockean to Kantian strategies) to facilitate a more open-ended approach towards looking at middle-power behaviours beyond the common categorisation of traditional/emerging, and Western/non-Western. Using Australia's 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper and 2023 National Defence: Defence Strategic Review, and Indonesia's 2015 Defence White Paper and 2019 ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific, this article concludes that while Australia is exhibiting a status-quoist/Lockean approach, Indonesia is demonstrating a reformist/Kantian approach towards the Indo-Pacific. The outcome-process dimension framework developed in this article is useful as a tool to map other middle power behaviours in various contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated acceptance of learning from other countries, especially for high-income countries to learn from low- and middle-income countries, a practice known as global learning. COVID-19’s rapid disease transmission underscored how connected the globe is as well as revealed stark health inequities which facilitated looking outside of one’s borders for solutions. The Global Learning for Health Equity (GL4HE) Network, supported by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, held a 3-part webinar series in December 2021 to understand the current state of global learning and explore how global learning can advance health equity in the post-COVID-19 era. This paper reflects on these cutting-edge discussions about the current state of global learning, drawing upon the highlights, perspectives, and conclusions that emerged from these webinars. The paper also comments on best practices for global learning, including adapting for context, addressing biases, funding considerations, ensuring bidirectional partnerships, community engagement, and adopting a multidisciplinary approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a conceptual and analytical framework of states' legitimacy-seeking to comprehensively investigate the motivation behind China's climate and environment policy. While previous research has largely overlooked political factors that underlie China's climate policy, this paper argues that these factors are crucial in understanding China's policy changes, which are evident at both domestic and international levels. By examining sources such as government documents, leaders' speeches and authoritative literature, this study contends that China's climate change initiatives are part of a broader effort to enhance domestic and international legitimacy. The issue of climate change has become highly politicised in China under the leadership of President Xi Jinping, and it serves as a crucial test of the ruling party and the state's capacity to govern effectively. As such, legitimacy-seeking is the key driver that links China's domestic measures and international commitments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines Azerbaijan's decision to go to war in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020. It aims to unveil the lessons Azerbaijan learned from the reaction of major regional actors in the South Caucasus to rising tensions in Armenian–Azerbaijani relations from the mid-2000s to the 2020 July border crisis. The paper argues that the consistent unresponsiveness of the international community emboldened Azerbaijan to proceed with its war preparations. It shows that Azerbaijan perceived the attitude of regional powers as inability and/or reluctance to interfere in the conflict, and this created a permissive environment for an all-out war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines Philippine foreign policy under the Duterte government (2016–2022). During this period, Philippine foreign policy is widely acknowledged to have undergone dramatic shifts, with the government making friendly overtures towards China at the cost of its traditional alliance with the US. From a foreign policy analysis perspective, this paper explicitly focuses on the role of political leadership in guiding national foreign policy. This paper argues that the Duterte government made strategic use of political marketing in promoting its populist foreign policy. Thus, political marketing is used as an analytical lens with which to examine much of the rhetoric and behaviour of the Duterte government, particularly in regard to its response to the US–China rivalry. By engaging in this supposedly diplomatic game, the Duterte government tried to sell its foreign policy promises and outcomes as products even when its rhetoric was at times disconnected from its actual performance. Overall, this paper develops an alternative perspective from which to add to our understanding of the role of populist foreign policy initiatives in a fragile democratic setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Republic of Korea's (ROK) Indo-Pacific strategy is widely interpreted as mimicking the language, tone, and agendas of the US Indo-Pacific strategy. Drawing upon existing theoretical work on hierarchy and international relations, this paper challenges simplistic views of the ROK strategy as a pro-US document by presenting a new model of intra-hierarchical messaging to explain how demonstrations of solidarity with a hegemonic order (compliance narratives) can also contain attempts to reassign responsibilities and privileges within this order (distinction narratives). Applying this framework to the ROK strategy reveals how a strong compliance narrative supporting the US hegemonic system exists alongside a distinction narrative articulating a more profitable role for the ROK that deviates from US expectations. Although this strategy has partly elevated Korean status in the US world order, tensions between these narratives may lead to potential negative outcomes for the ROK, such as empty solidarity or reined in leadership. Nevertheless, the article concludes that it may be in US interests to continue this renegotiation of the hegemonic contract. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sino-Australia relations have experienced a rapid deterioration in the past half-decade. From genial ties centred around trade and exchange, the relationship has descended into mutual hostility, prompting the editor of China's Global Times to notoriously liken Australia to a blob of gum on the bottom of a shoe. To explain the deteriorating relationship, scholars have proposed numerous ideas, pointing to factors as wide-ranging as 'Chinese influence', poor diplomacy efforts, and ontological (in)security touched off by neoliberal governmentality. The current paper examines these ideas in a literature review, then synthesises such ideas to provide its own explanation of why things 'went wrong'. It also addresses corollary questions such as why Australia adopted a uniquely assertive China policy, and why this occurred specifically around 2017. We argue that the breakdown in relations can be attributed to the rise of nationalist, sovereignty-oriented movements in the West, and the spillover effect this had on Australian leadership; the profound uncertainty attending the election of Trump and his isolationist tendencies; and the shift to a more rigid, authoritarian approach to foreign affairs under Xi. This perspective adds to the literature by identifying failings on both sides while underscoring significant yet underappreciated global trends, such as nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why did Serbia not impose sanctions against Russia following its aggression on Ukraine in February 2022? As a state seeking membership of the European Union (EU), Serbia's reluctance to join the sanction regime is puzzling. This paper draws from the ontological security literature to show how Serbia, as a political community, is divided between East and West, that is, between a vicarious attachment to Moscow and a relationship with Brussels driven primarily by the prospect of joining the benefits of membership of the EU. The problem of sanctions brought to the fore the conflicted identity of Serbia, showing how Belgrade's hedging in foreign policy reflects not only an attempt to extract concessions and advantages from both partners – the EU and Russia – but more fundamentally its efforts to come to terms with its liminal, ontologically insecure position within the international system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the subject of jihad in the Qur'an and the Prophet's conduct, and seeks to answer the following questions. What is the primary principle in the Islamic state's international relations with non-Muslim states? Is war or peace the primary principle in the relationship of the Islamic state with non-Muslim states? What is the nature of Islamic jihad? The primacy of war means that the cause of war and jihad with infidels and pagan states lies in their people's disbelief. The primacy of peace means that war is an exceptional situation, and whenever it occurs, it is not because of disbelief, but because of the aggression or hostility that has been shown by those states. This paper defends a pacific interpretation of jihad using an intra-textual interpretive method according to which the general verses of jihad should be understood based on the conditional verses, as opposed to claiming that the verses of peace have been abrogated by the verses of jihad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite being often recognized as a middle power, Erdoğan and his aides have firmly believed that Turkey was not a real 'subject' in international relations and could only become one under Erdoğan's rule. This paper examines Turkey's claims to institute itself as a 'subject' in regional politics through the concept of 'actorness'. The article details the two major policy choices that represent Ankara's emergence as a subject, evaluates them with respect to the key attributes of actorness in international politics and discusses the implications of Turkey's militarised and assertive policies for its status in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The paper argues that while Turkey's quest for 'subjectness' has provided the country with some hard power capability and autonomy, it has not produced consistent and coherent policies, damaging its credibility and attractiveness in the eyes of the countries in the MENA region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The resilience approach has recently emerged as a new topic of EU foreign policy debates and research. This paper adopts a complexity theory perspective to analyze the operationalization of the resilience approach in the EU response to crisis in Ukraine during 2014–2021. Building upon this theory, this paper distinguishes between resilience-as-quality of a complex system and resilience-as-thinking about a complex system. The empirical analysis focuses on the complexity features of non-linearity and self-organizing localization of EU interventions undertaken in the framework of the Instrument contributing to Stability and Peace (IcSP). It concludes that the emerging system of intervention displays some complexity qualities, yet the EU crisis response follows the linear and top-down logic embedded in the project-based practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the underlying meaning of Chinese political ideas as represented in the Belt and Road discourse. It aims to contribute to overcoming the bias towards democratic systems in security studies. It challenges the argument that China's peaceful words can be taken at face value and compared with the ideas of democratic regimes. It delivers insights on new perspectives in the 'political threat versus desecuritization' discussion. This paper applies a qualitative discourse analysis with primary data collection of Chinese governmental and state institutional documents, Chinese think tank papers, and joint statements of EU-Chinese governmental officials. The data was analysed with NVivo Software. The empirical analysis shows that Chinese actors have built up a threat narrative idea which is hidden behind words such as 'trust, harmony, pluralism, community of a shared destiny'. Theoretically, this paper shows that the organizing principle, to apply Buzan's words, needs to be acknowledged when interpreting the way Chinese actors frame ideas in the BRI discourse. It challenges the argument of China as a desecuritization actor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japan's war reparations began to be paid to Burma and the Philippines in 1956 and ended in 1976. Approximately 65 years have passed since the reparation payment began. The nature of Japan's Official Development Assistance, which has been based on economic infrastructure and prioritises Asia, began with war reparations. Although post-war reparations are relevant to Japan's economic statecraft, previous studies have analysed only the negotiation process for individual countries. No comprehensive historical analysis of war reparations has been conducted so far. This paper fills this gap by analysing the declassified materials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the state-of-the-art Japanese literature based on those materials. It also clarifies the characteristics of war reparations as part of Japan's Official Development Assistance by looking at the projects and goods paid by the reparations in each country. Furthermore, this paper challenges the conventional understanding of previous research on Japan's economic re-entry into Southeast Asia through reparations. The study concludes that reparations were unimportant in increasing Japan's exports to Asian countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to study the evolution of Britain's involvement in the EU's foreign and security policy in order to highlight the reasons that led the issue to be left out of talks on the post-Brexit future relation. The paper argues Europeanisation or de-Europeanisation largely depends on the degree of politicisation of issues both in the EU, the EU-27 and in the UK. As long as foreign and security issues remained relatively low key, the UK was able to enjoy the magnifying effect of its participation in the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) and contributed to the decision-making process in order to successfully influence EU policies. Politicisation of foreign and security issues was due both to developments in EU-led or national initiatives and to the reaction they provoked in the UK. The EU insisted the UK was to be considered as a 'third country' and stressed the need for future cooperation to be institutionalised. On the contrary, in the UK, public distrust against a putative European 'super state', led successive governments to avoid any formal commitment to new EU initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of 'revisionism' has caught the attention of international relations scholars amid intensifying rivalry between the United States and China. It is a trademark of rising powers, and China was likewise expected to become a revisionist power, intent on changing the status quo. However, history tells us that not all rising powers necessarily become revolutionary states, seeking to overturn the prevailing order and replace it with another through hegemonic wars. This paper presents a novel understanding of revisionism by distinguishing between strategic 'contestation' and 'challenge'. In the context of declining unipolarity, a dissatisfied rising power will contest the rules and principles of issue-specific regimes and demand legitimate adjustments that better reflect the new distribution of power. A challenge emerges when demands are rejected, and a contestation leads to 'deconcentration' and 'delegitimation' of the established order. The establishment of the AIIB can be examined as an example of contested multilateralism that falls short of a challenge. This paper concludes that China is 'contesting', not 'challenging' the liberal international order and suggests a set of countermeasures that the U.S. can think of: selective accommodation, reinforcement of alliances and partnerships, and overcoming domestic challenges such as populism that undermine the liberal values, constitutive of the liberal international order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper revises the bellicist theory of state-making by examining the interconnection between state-making and nation-building in the Third World. It argues that nation-building mobilisations for the purposes of self-preservation and aversion of unbalanced wars are equally crucial. By focusing on the People's Republic of China's involvement in the Afro–Asian cultural cooperation in the 1950s, this paper elaborates on how internationalism plays a role in the state-driven mobilisation of the general public for the purpose of nation-building in China. It looks at the role of transnational exchanges of cultural productions and cooperation in spurring social empowerment and nation-building in the post-World War II Afro–Asian world under the framework of the Afro–Asian solidarity movement. The Afro–Asian cultural cooperation was intended to create alternative visions to the West-centric narratives of modernisation among the general public. These visions in turn inspired the general public to be involved in nation-building movements in respective Global South nations. This synchronic relationship between national independence and internationalism in China is crucial in understanding the state-making in the Global South as a process of political, economic and, more importantly, cultural decolonisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research paper analyzes the activities of the Ford Philanthropic Foundation in Yugoslavia during the Cold War with a special emphasis on Ford's Education Programme through which a significant number of Yugoslavs had the opportunity to study and work in the United States. Using the Ford Foundation archives, this research reveals the foundation's intentions to expose influential individuals from Yugoslavia to Western ideology and culture with the goal of suppressing communist ideology at the beginning of the Cold War. With enormous financial resources and reputation among the Yugoslav population and leadership, the Ford Foundation during its ten years of intense activity in the country (1959–1969) was completely subordinated to the official foreign policy of Washington, which was based on support for an independent Yugoslavia within the communist bloc. Ford's operational activities reduced the stereotypes of Yugoslavs about the United States and greatly contributed to the cultural rapprochement of the two countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the impact the war in Ukraine has had on Russia's great power status. Post-Soviet Russia has been one of the most active status-seekers and sought to re-establish its rank among the existing great power status community. In its claim to high status, Russia has historically relied on traditional status markers, including its permanent seat at the UN Security Council, diplomatic prominence at the summits with other great powers, and the strength of its military. However, as this paper shows, Moscow's fateful choice to launch a war against Ukraine has led to considerable slippage of its status. Russia now struggles to get things done at international fora and has also faced increased diplomatic isolation. Moreover, the war – especially the struggles of the Russian armed forces – challenged Russia's claim of great military power and an exclusive security provider in the former Soviet space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do ideology, foreign policy, and the international system interact with and shape one another? This paper examines the relationship between ideology and foreign policy in the United Kingdom, India, and China and finds three common threads. First, while ideology likely affects foreign policy formulation, the causal mechanisms involved are complex and not necessarily uniform across states. Second, destabilizing forces like populism are increasing around the world with the potential to disturb current conceptions of the international order. Finally, from a policy perspective, distinguishing between a state's operational and symbolic rhetoric can reduce the likelihood of strategic miscalculation. With these commonalities in mind, we contend that foreign policymakers must approach other states understanding that each state's domestic situation is unique and that while Sino-American competition looms large in American policymaking, it might not be the driving force behind other states' foreign policy decisions. Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the official policy or position of the U.S. Army, Department of Defense, or United States Government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the face of the coronavirus pandemic, the German government embraced a major shift towards a grants-based EU recovery fund relying on common European debt. How can we explain this impetus, especially in view of the reticent German fiscal stance in previous years and in the early stages of the pandemic? To elucidate this question, this paper provides a qualitative inquiry into German preference formation during the spring of 2020. Theoretically, it reconciles liberal intergovernmentalist and discursive accounts of preference formation in the context of EU politics stressing the intertwined nature and simultaneousness of preference formation in the national and European arenas. We hypothesise that, along with material self-interests, the construction and framing of the pandemic as a certain type of crisis was key. Examining the stances taken by the federal government, commercial groups and key EU actors such as France and the European Commission, our findings point to a rapid preference realignment in German political and economic circles. Overall, the analysis suggests that especially in times of crisis, assumed national preferences are subject to reconfiguration thus allowing for contingent political responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

IR theory rests on territorial assumptions which shape our understanding of the nature of the state, the rise of the state system and the very concept of the international. The following paper asks, what if we moved away from a fixation on bounded territory to consider the influence of oceans and the maritime sphere? Humanity's interaction with the sea has shaped history from the earliest known polities and early modern history, in particular, saw the rise of several great maritime powers. It was these movements across oceans which essentially shaped the modern world we know today, yet, the maritime sphere is virtually absent from IR theory. Security scholars may discuss piracy or projecting naval power, but this article aims to provide a more comprehensive treatment of incorporating a view of the oceans into IR theory. An examination of early modern maritime empires shows how the British empire developed by seeking to control ocean flows and circulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration (ICEM) played a key role in handling the Hungarian refugee crisis of 1956. It was this body, established in 1951, that organised the registration and transport of some 200,000 Hungarian refugees in Austria and Yugoslavia. This paper examines this international migration organisation in the 1950s based on the archives of the ICEM and the UN Secretariat, as well as on US, British and French foreign policy documents. It focuses on the workings of the ICEM concerning the Hungarian refugee crisis and its influence upon the subsequent history of the organisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reflects on teaching sport in political geography undergraduate courses in the United States, through which I simultaneously aim to de-essentialize geopolitics and de-essentialize sport. I integrate sport examples in diverse courses on political geography and teach a dedicated "Geopolitics of Sport" course. By framing my approach to the political geographies of sport around the specific term "geopolitics," I deliberately tap into a sense among Americans that it is a "more serious" topic than "geography." Since students in my courses rarely come from Geography, but are primarily majors in Political Science and International Relations, "geopolitics" invites them to approach sports geography as a serious subject and to be more open to the field of geography. Since geography remains a neglected subject in US schools and universities, teaching sports geography through geopolitics, and geopolitics through sports geography, can be a powerful way to encourage critical geographic reasoning, especially among non-geography majors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policymakers and governments increasingly frame climate protection in terms of green growth, arguing that continued economic growth and climate protection are complementary and mutually beneficial. With such framing, governments hope to overcome the global common goods problem associated with climate change and to enable higher ambition on climate action within and across states. Yet, no empirical evidence to date has been provided on how widespread the support for green growth is in international climate politics. This paper, therefore, investigates which countries employ green growth framings at UNFCCC negotiations, and whether this relates to domestic factors, in particular economic structure, level of development and climate impacts. We conduct panel-data analysis on green growth positions derived from hand-coding a unique dataset of High-level Segment statements at the Convention of the Parties (COPs) from 2010 to 2019 for 151 countries. The results reveal that, to date, green growth proponents are those countries with the most advanced national clean energy technology (CET) capacities – as measured by the Green Complexity Index. The findings highlight that green growth is not promoted by all countries at international climate negotiations. In international climate negotiations, climate protection is increasingly framed as a green growth opportunity to motivate global ambition. Clean Energy Technology (CET) leading countries are more likely to use green growth framings than other less-technologically advanced peers and those with high exposure to climate risks. Mechanisms to support green growth pathways for all countries should be scaled up, including technology transfer and finance to foster local capacities and human capital. Given that green growth framings are not universally endorsed, further emphasis should be placed on additional co-benefits of climate action beyond economic growth, such as food and energy security, adaptation and resilience-building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we develop a new dataset on indirect state rivalry relations based on different matrix calculations for 154 countries, over the period 1970-2015, and demonstrate their importance in explaining civil wars. After controlling for spatial distances between rival countries, we demonstrate that 1) the presence of direct and indirect rivals exerts a positive and significant effect on the risk of civil war; 2) decreasing levels of military capacity of one state relative to its rivals (direct and indirect) also influence the probability of internal conflict. Finally, we confirm the significance of our indicators by using on the one hand the random forest algorithm, a machine learning method using decision trees and on the other hand, the Kaplan-Meier estimate for the duration of the civil wars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While some social scientists see multi-method research (MMR) as a promising strategy for strong causal inference, others argue that it does little to strengthen the validity of research. This paper offers a systematic review of how MMR has been used in mainstream International Relations (IR) and specifically in security studies. Using the TRIP Journal Article Database and Web of Science citation data, I examine whether MMR has reached its full potential. MMR has grown in prominence since the 2000s. Scholars use it most often to examine domestic rather than interstate issues. They cite MMR articles less than they cite quantitative single-method articles and about as often as they cite qualitative single-method research. This suggests that MMR is not more influential, nor perceived as more persuasive. However, this gap has decreased in recent years. The study provides insights into IR at the research design and disciplinary levels, the utility of MMR, and knowledge accumulation in social science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does power shape foreign policy attitudes? Drawing on advances in psychological research on power, I argue that the sense of relative state power explains foreign policy hawkishness. The intuitive sense that "our state" is stronger than "your state" activates militant internationalism, an orientation centered on the efficacy of force and deterrence to achieve state aims. Beyond general orientation towards the world, this sense of power explains discrete attitudes towards pressing security issues, from threat perception in the South China Sea to nuclear weapons use against Iran. Five original surveys across the US, China, and Russia, as well as an experiment fielded on the US public, lend support to these claims. The psychological effects of state power overshadow dispositional traits common in behavioral IR, like individuals' personalities and moral proclivities. More surprisingly, power changes individuals, making hawks of even the most dovish. Taken together, the paper presents a "first image reversed" challenge to standard bottom-up accounts of foreign policy opinion and offers unique explanatory leverage in a potential era of US decline, China's rise, and Russian belligerence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is threefold. Firstly, it seeks to examine the genesis and widespread adoption of a more inclusive and expansive political trend known as Pashtun neo-ethnonationalism in Pakistan. Secondly, it aims to investigate the various dimensions, trajectories, and growing influence of neo-ethnonationalism among diverse social forces, including left-leaning groups, Islamists, developmentalists, modern professionals, and others. Lastly, the paper aims to discuss the key factors and dynamics that have contributed to the emergence and proliferation of neo-nationalism within the diverse Pashtun social fabric. Contrary to stereotypical assumptions that depict Pashtun nationalist expression as static and primordial and characterized by violence and conflict, this research delves into the dynamics of ruptures, negotiations, and assimilations that shape the evolving neo-Pashtun identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The political economy literature extensively discusses how great powers use asymmetric power relations as a tool in trade negotiations, yet discussion regarding how asymmetric power relations can account for the variety of power asymmetry dynamics in international relations, especially in the cases of middle power countries such as South Korea, is scarce. This paper examines how South Korea's free trade agreement (FTA) strategies with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) were enabled under the Moon Jae-in administration's New Southern Policy (NSP) by analyzing the sources of South Korea's power asymmetry with ASEAN. Understanding power asymmetry as an evolving process, this paper takes the constructivist approach to middle power to demonstrate how South Korea's development of a middle power identity shaped the country's negotiation leverage in trade negotiations. This enabled South Korea to secure in-depth FTAs with ASEAN at the bilateral level under the NSP, despite ASEAN members' initial reluctance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the importance of non-state actors in international relations is now widely acknowledged, formal state-to-state ties remain an essential measure of a state's strength in the international community. When traditional components of sovereignty are eroded, what options remain open to states seeking to forestall international isolation? Drawing on a case study of Taiwan, this paper explores the potential and the pitfalls of using paradiplomacy as a substitute for traditional diplomacy. I argue that Taiwan uses paradiplomacy for three primary purposes: as a 'hedge' against weakness in the central-level US-Taiwan relationship; as a tool for developing long-term relationships with rising political stars; and as a performative strategy for asserting Taiwan's statehood by showing others that it acts like a state. While paradiplomacy enables Taiwan to strengthen ties to US policymakers, these efforts have become increasingly complicated as mainland Chinese influence on local US politics increases. This paper thus sheds light on paradiplomacy in the US-Taiwan relationship, but also on the ways in which American federalism can complicate US foreign policy toward East Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since its inception, in 1992, the Black Sea Economic Cooperation has developed comprehensive and functional legal and institutional structures, which have enabled it to take up an increasing number of tasks for promoting regional cooperation in a variety of spheres and forging a distinct identity of its own in the emerging complex of a new European architecture. Building security and stability in the region, while ever present in the thinking and action of the Member States, was not originally a primary object of BSEC work but was rather seen as an outgrowth of its core business in the economic domain, hopefully resulting in increased mutual understanding and confidence among the nations of the region. The BSEC Decennial Summit Declaration (Istanbul, 25 June 2002) in its paragraph 4 marked a conceptual watershed by putting the security and stability concerns firmly on the Organization’s agenda and charging the Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs (CMFA) to develop policy proposals to that effect. On the strength of that political mandate, the Seventh Meeting of the CMFA (Tirana, 25 October 2002) agreed to assign to the International Center for Black Sea Studies (ICBSS), as the acknowledged BSEC think‐tank, the task of organizing the meetings of an ad hoc Study Group bringing together experts from Member States and partner international organizations for the purpose of producing a Working Paper on the ways and means of enhancing the BSEC contribution to strengthening security and stability in the region. The ad hoc Study Group held four brainstorming sessions in Athens (26–27 March 2003, 10–11 July 2003, 26–27 February 2004 and 21–22 June 2004). This draft Working Paper was elaborated on the basis of individual written contributions from participants and collective debates at the ad hoc Study Group sessions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates how influential policy advice constructs a stable Congo image and upholds the belief in intervention benefits. By investigating analytical blind spots and the way counter evidence is dealt with, this article shows that current policy papers imagine the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)'s economy, politics and society in a reductionist way. The economy is seen as criminal, illegal and unproductive. The state is portrayed as weak, despite obvious examples of its influence. Finally, society is seen as dominated by sexual violence. This ‘functional pathologization’ allows for self-referential reasoning about Western interventions, security sector reform for example, and serves as a recipe to perpetuate them. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Presents the February 2000 white paper by the People's Republic of China about the relations of Mainland China and Taiwan. China's basis and prerequisite for achieving peaceful reunification; Questions involving the One China Principle in cross-strait relations; Adherence to the One China principle in the international community. INSET: PRC White Paper....

The article reprints the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations and the Department of Field Support's document "A New Partnership Agenda: Charting a New Horizon for Peacekeepers': 'Non-Paper.'" The document outlines challenges associated with conducting peacekeeping missions, proposes a partnership approach to future missions, discusses the importance of strategy and direction and outlines the benefits of a partnership approach to peacekeeping.

Examines crypto-optimism in Turkish-Greek relations. Distrust between the two nations created by their 'living history'; Conflict between the two nations stemming from the fact that both Turkey and Greece have obtained their national identities by fighting against, and interacting with each other.

Discusses the Taiwan issue on the white paper of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Information on the sovereignty of the Republic of China (ROC); Coexistence of the CCP and ROC; Factors included in the formation of the so-called issue of China in the international community; Obstacle for the unification of China.

Discusses the agreement on the use and verification of notarized papers across the Taiwan strait. Details on the agreement reached by the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits, the Association of Notary Public of China and the Straits Exchange Foundation; Information on the delivery of duplicate copies of notary documents; Verification of notary documents.

This paper examines Taiwan's New Southbound Policy (NSP-T) from a soft power conceptual perspective. It traces the origins of the NSP-T before the Tsai Ing-wen administration came into power in 2016 and then discusses the NSP-T's subsequent implementation. Through an overview of the earlier 'Go South Policy' (GSP) during the administrations of Lee Teng-hui, Chen Shui-bian and Ma Ying-jeou (1994–2016), this paper finds that soft power was not institutionalised in the policy despite it being a prevalent concept, and repeatedly propagated by successive Taiwanese presidents for their foreign policy goals. Soft power is now outlined as the 'overarching link' connecting Taiwan and the NSP-T countries for the attainment of the former's three strategic aims ─ identifying a new direction and driving force for a new stage of Taiwan's economic development, redefining Taiwan's important role in regional development and creating future value for Taiwan's engagements in the region. This article seeks to extrapolate how soft power contributes to the achievement of the three policy visions in Southeast Asia. Through assessments of NSP-T cooperation programmes and strategies in its six sectors of medical care, agriculture, manufacturing, tourism, education and civil society, an analytical model is introduced to explain Taiwan's soft power projection in Southeast Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through activities such as institutional partnerships, scholarships, mobility and, most recently, offshore campuses and satellite offices, universities and their nations of origin have furthered their relationship with key-countries. This paper aims to understand what factors universities considered when choosing the host country of their satellite offices and possible interest in diplomacy. The exercise focused on the efforts of US universities in Brazil. It tested expressions of soft power versus internal elements of universities' administration to verify their significance. By checking the efforts of 131 US universities, this paper hints that non-academic elements, such as a country's foreign policy, were also statistically significant and must be taken into account when analysing universities' internationalisation strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China remains reluctant in claiming unilateral economic sanctions as a valid form of statecraft. China has consistently withheld official acknowledgment of its use of unilateral sanctions despite using them in different disputes. This has resulted to observations arguing that China is increasingly approaching the use of sanctions in a stealthier, therefore, more aggressive manner. It begs to ask, how does China's reluctant attitude towards its use of unilateral economic sanctions fit into China's overall foreign policy logic? More specifically, how does China's victimhood discourse justify unilateral sanctions and at the same time, promote a positive identity of itself in light of coercion? This paper argues that China's consistent vague acknowledgment and denial in claiming a direct hand on unilateral sanctions comes from its broad foreign policy objective of maintaining a positive identity through its discourse of victimhood. To uncover this understanding, this paper analyzes China's official positions in six bilateral disputes where China has resorted to unilateral sanctions. While existing observations only stop at 'plausible deniability' as primary explanation for China's vague rhetoric, analyzing China's predication strategies provides a necessary nuancing in terms of how this peculiar behavior remains consistent with China's overall foreign policy logic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]