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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]

This paper analyses Latin America's role in an international system in flux, with high levels of uncertainty and transformations that signal a shift in the geoeconomic and geopolitical landscape across the world. Against this backdrop, the paper examines the challenges (both old and new) the region must face, focusing on the impact of global changes on regional dynamics and the capacity of the different countries to find answers both to the international situation and old and new internal problems. In addition, as an introductory paper to this monograph entitled "Geopolitics from Latin America: a change of cycle and multipolarity", it identifies the fulcrums of these changes, their impact, the main actors involved and the processes underway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This intervention paper discusses the recent paper on the history of geoeconomics by Mallin and Sidaway. Some notes are made on the conceptual potential of critical geoeconomics vis‐à‐vis contemporary geopolitical scholarship. A particular focus is on the relationship between the concepts of geoeconomics and geopolitics. Conceptualising geopolitical and geoeconomic discourses as if they were distinct or even complementary geostrategic discourses – typical especially in mainstream strategic analysis and International Relations – risks reproducing the discursivism and noncritical outlook of state‐centric geostrategic arguments. In this paper, I discuss the conceptual potential of critical geoeconomics vis‐à‐vis contemporary geopolitical scholarship. This is arguably an important issue given that critical human geographers may be well positioned to reclaim the concept of geoeconomics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wake of significant international events like the Russian invasion of Ukraine and China’s assertive diplomacy, the recently developed concept of strategic corruption has been increasingly employed to discuss how corruption infiltrates international affairs. Unlike traditional corruption, strategic corruption is commonly understood to be a sophisticated mechanism that states use to achieve geopolitical objectives, intertwining economic and security concerns. This paper explores this concept, analyzes its relationship with related phenomena, and proposes a theoretical framework to contextualize strategic corruption within national and international arenas. The framework depicts strategic corruption as a multifaceted process spanning three spheres: domestic (source), international, and domestic (target). Each sphere involves unique pathways aimed at corrupting institutions in the target domain. This approach contributes to our understanding of the complex dynamics between corruption, national security, and foreign affairs, offering a coherent tool to address these challenges within the fields of international relations and anti-corruption studies. [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]

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]

TikTok, one of the most downloaded apps in the world, has been banned in India since June 2020, following military clashes on the India-China border. This article focuses on government narratives of the TikTok ban in the Indian media and situates the issue within the broader geopolitical framework of deteriorating Sino-Indian relations and attempts for digital sovereignty. At a time of strong nationalist discourses dominating the political and social communication in India, it is perhaps unsurprising that the narratives have been seen outside India as protectionism. However, this paper argues that the digital sovereignty in the Indian context is not exclusionary but aims to create a robust digital infrastructure that is critical for economic development and self-reliance. Highlighting the lessons from India, this paper concludes the following: (i) digital sovereignty is a form of discourse which does not imply any specific policy, (ii) digital sovereignty relates to user control over their data, however, the role and limits of the State is not clearly defined and (iii) digital platforms are highly vulnerable to changing geopolitics in which their existence is not determined by user-platform interactions but by international relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a world of growing international competition and rivalry between China and the United States, Latin America and the European Union (EU) are caught in the same thorny dilemma. Positioned between these global giants, both regions are facing a retorn to a Westphalian system of nation-states, which undermines their roles as emerging regional players. In view of these new global challenges in Latin America and the EU, this paper uses a qualitative and comparative approach to explore foreign policy discourses on autonomy in both regions. It examines their goals and priorities and assesses the potential regional and interregional consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although literature on energy cooperation highlights that cooperation is more successful at the regional level, it largely fails to understand and conceptualize energy cooperation as part of the wider phenomenon of regionalism. Energy cooperation tends to be analyzed through prisms of security and geopolitics, thus, downplaying other important regional integration processes. The present paper addresses this lacuna, defining energy regionalism and conceptualizing its various dimensions, logics, motivations, and interests. We apply a comparative perspective, examining two regions which exhibit extensive energy cooperation yet differ in several ways: North America and the European Energy Community. Our findings suggest various trajectories and models, and indicate that formal institutionalization is neither a necessary condition for nor a guarantee of strong energy regionalism. We discern that regional anchor is key in North American and European energy regionalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nearly a century after Afghanistan gained independence in 1919, the question of autonomy and originality in the nation's 20th-century foreign policy remains a topic of contention within the country. Following its independence, Afghanistan found itself in a unique situation shaped by the influence of major global powers' competition. Over the past century, geopolitical shifts have significantly influenced both the internal and external circumstances of Afghanistan. This article seeks to address the query: How did regional geopolitical developments impact Afghanistan's foreign policy from the time of its independence to the events of September 11, 2001? This article is descriptive-analytical in which the relationship between the geopolitics of the region and Afghanistan's foreign policy is examined. The geopolitical situation of Afghanistan in the geopolitical theory of the world order of Saul Cohen has shaped the theoretical discussion of the author, Afghanistan as a quasiindependent state in the geopolitics of the region, not just in the post-Cold War period. The special feature of Afghanistan in the region has been prominent since the independence of this country until now. The findings of this paper show that the foreign policy of Afghanistan after independence in the phases of geopolitical stability and transformations in the security structure of the region is more towards a neutral and balanced strategy. The country has had relations with the great powers of every period and has always distanced itself from such a strategy. It is and the independent or what was once a semi-independent position in the regional geopolitics has evolved into a pivotal and crucial region with the accompanying strategy with great power, coup, revolution and even military occupation has also occurred in this country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Eurovision Song Contest has long served as a platform for cultural diplomacy among its participants. This paper examines how Russia and Ukraine have approached cultural diplomacy in and around the Eurovision Song Contest in the wake of the Russo-Ukrainian war. Following an outline of pertinent events from 2014 to 2022, including the Song Contest and the respective countries' selected entries as well as the public discourse surrounding them, two distinct types of cultural diplomacy—culturalist versus neo-propagandist—are employed in a congruence analysis. The findings show that Russia employed a largely neo-propagandist approach to cultural diplomacy characterized by their projected image of peacefulness, innocence, and strength to alter their situational image. Ukraine has employed a mostly culturalist approach mainly focused on mutual recognition and the representation of national culture. The conscious instrumentalization of the platform to counter misconstrued perceptions of Ukraine shaped by the Kremlin's rhetoric also adds neo-propagandist elements. [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]

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]

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]

This paper analyzes the ambitions, challenges and limits of the contemporaneous Turkish strategy in Libya. The North African country has faced a state of insecurity, close to anarchy, since the NATO intervention that led, first to the fall of the Gaddafi regime (1969-2011), and then to his death. The objective of this research is to understand about the role that Turkey wants to play in this country and the evolution of its foreign policy in the last years. Through the Libyan context, it is possible to analyze the possible ambitions of the Turkish government as a hegemonic power and the risky implications it may have. Turkey is facing many strategic challenges (economy, energy and military) with an important geopolitical impact. Its new role in Libya is ambitious and risky, for various reasons we will try to explain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The geopolitical situation created by Russia and China over Ukraine has made it difficult for businesses in Germany, mostly small and medium-sized enterprises, to manage their logistics and supply chain processes effectively. The objective of this paper was to examine the impact of the geopolitical situation on the supply chain of German family-owned SMEs in 2022, focusing on the Russia-Ukraine conflict and China. The researchers used a quantitative research study that sampled 50 participants drawn from four family-owned SMEs in Germany. Questionnaires were used to collect data from the participants. The path analysis results reveal a significant relationship between price changes and Germany's family-owned SMEs' supply chain processes (b = 0.716, t = 15.469, t < 0.05). The positive sign indicates that an increase in the independent variable results in an increase in the dependent variable. The positive sign indicates that an increase in organizational characteristics increases attitude towards green practices. The study concludes that supply inflation, price cost, and supply cost fundamentally affect the supply chain processes of Germany-owned SMEs. The German government and other stakeholders in the SME sectors should develop policies that aim to provide financial and regulatory assistance to small and medium-sized enterprises in Germany through public-private partnerships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The world is not any longer as it used to be before the Russian aggression in Ukraine, was the dominant political statement as the war started. war in Ukraine is the most impactful development in post-Soviet international relations and security arrangements in Europe and beyond. Based on the multifaceted impact it had, it can be considered of a global impact. It affected the post-war international order foundations, driving states' and great powers' behaviour changes to reconsider their foreign policy, geo-political and geostrategic objectives. The same can be claimed about the major powers' policies towards the Western Balkans. The Russian assertive and aggressive behaviour, the US further commitment, and the EU revival of the enlargement policy. The paper aims to look at the impact of the war in Ukraine in the Western Balkans as a region and at individual countries. It will try to explore how such developments pushed the major power present in the region, the EU, the US, and Russia to reconsider their policies towards the region, and how this impacted the foreign policies of the Western Ballkan states in turn? The paper will be based on secondary sources, policy papers, documents, reports, media news, and other relevant sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the underlying factors that pushed Russia, the European Union (EU), Türkiye, and somehow the U.S. to offer mediation to settle the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The eruption of the fierce clashes between Azerbaijan and Armenia ended the war that happened in 2020 when Russia brokered the ceasefire. However, Russia's war in Ukraine was signaling renewed fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh. Hence, some actors started to step into the hostility to facilitate diplomatic efforts to lower the temperatures of the conflicting parties. Meanwhile, Azerbaijan made a military assault on Artsakh in 2023 and gained a final victory over Nagorno-Karabakh. Amid tension, the EU, Russia, and Türkiye will hold a responsible role and bring hopes that diplomacy may bring Azerbaijan and Armenia closer to peace, and an eventual settlement will ensue. The research demonstrates that a new geopolitical change has been taking place in the South Caucasus region, which is causing complexities amid some options set by the mediators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is democracy's place in the shifting international order? There is a fear that a more geopolitical order will only aggravate the general crisis of democracy; or that a more plural order will dilute the efforts to defend the rules governing it. Yet, while recent political and normative trends corroborate this concern, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has in some ways given greater prominence to the defence of democratic values around the world. This paper explores the impact that geopolitical tensions and shifting international order on global democracy. And in the context of the crisis of meaning affecting democracies, it examines whether Russia's war in Ukraine has served both as a catalyst of the international dimensions of support for democracy and as a factor magnifying its fragility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The liberal international order established after the end of the Cold War is currently an order in transition. The shift in material power - following the rise of China - is necessary to understanding the changes in the international order, but it is not the whole story. We are seeing both material and ideational changes. The present moment is one of rules under challenge. But the normative contestation the international order is facing is not just about the rivalry between China and the United States or the tired description of "the rest against the West"; its parameters are more complex and diverse. To demonstrate that, this paper looks at three very different issues on the international agenda: a) governance of the Internet, b) sexual and reproductive rights and c) migration management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the introduction to the 40th anniversary issue of Revista CIDOB d'Afers Internacionals, this paper looks at developments in international relations over the last four decades, alongside the publication's content and against the backdrop of the current crisis of the international order (or disorder). It spans the end of the Cold War and the faith deposited in globalisation and liberal democracy in the unipolar world of the mid-1990s, taking in the spread of the values and ideas of global governance at the end of the last century, before arriving at the growing multipolarity, rivalry between China and the United States and the challenge to the liberal order and permacrisis of recent years. Special mention is made of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia's war in Ukraine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geopolitics explains the regularity of political action in international relations by finding the determinants of political decisions in geographical factors. The result of geopolitical thought are possible patterns of behavior of states in international relations which are used to explain past and present and predict future events. Starting from the basic principles of Mackinder’s and Spykman’s theory, the paper presents the historical and contemporary geopolitical tendencies of the Great Powers in Europe, with special reference to the territory where the modern Serbian state is located. At the end, we identified indicators of future development of the geopolitical situation with implications for the security of the Republic of Serbia could be predicted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research paper attempts to understand and analyze the concept of return of geopolitics. This contemporary world is referred to as the era of the return of geopolitics. The revisionist powers try to contain and challenge the unipolar structure and existing world order. This paper also aims to bring out the relevance of geography and territory, highlighted and explained, in the foreign policy agenda of the revisionist powers. This creates a dilemma for the US and its unipolar structure of power. Thus, the international system is transforming into a multipolar than unipolar one. In the present age, the economy is the driving force that ensures the applicability of Ratzel's Organic State Theory. The struggle for power and sustenance is visible at the systemic, regional, state, and institutional levels. Technological advancement and kinetic warfare have some ground relevance in the present age, but geography has never become obsolete in the state foreign policy agenda. China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and Turkey and their authoritative leader's foreign policy choices illustrate their plan for territorial security and occupying the land force for their survival and hegemonic ambitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New modes of analysis are required to account for current developments in international cultural politics. To that end, this paper introduces the concept of geocultural diplomacy. It seeks to move beyond current debates about cultural diplomacy, which foreground the nation-state and suffer from narrowly conceived definitions of culture. The concept of the geocultural is offered to explore new developments in world affairs that demand more critical attention.The paper focuses on the example of the Silk Road, which, through its Belt and Road Initiative, China now proclaims to be 'reviving' for the twenty-first century. Three themes – narrative, materiality, values – critically consider how geocultural forms can emerge and stabilize as contexts across which complex, multi-actor diplomatic and cooperative structures form. Through this lens, we begin to see China's desire to build regional alliances combines internationalist values of peace, harmony and openness with strategic national interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How are we to understand China's decades-long sovereignty claim over Taiwan? One assumption upheld by many international relations scholars is that state behaviour will change according to a variance of polarity in the international system. Yet while China can flexibly manage its territorial issues elsewhere, its goal of unification with Taiwan has not changed despite multiple structural changes in the international system over the decades. This paper argues that historical and nationalist approaches alone do not explain China's unswaying obsession with this island. Geopolitics plays a far more prominent role in the minds of Chinese leaders than scholars have previously acknowledged. Since 1949, China has viewed Taiwan as a geopolitical buffer protecting the security of Chinese coastal areas. China's buffer thinking towards Taiwan was a significant factor in China's decisions to launch military action against Taiwan in 1954, 1958, and 1996. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The religion–politics nexus has become a thriving field within the study of global politics. However, the fast development has translated only into a moderate diversification of the research. Building on Bourdieu's analysis of the social field, this paper argues that this limited pluralization is related to the strong heteronomy of the field. This heteronomy has three "concentric" sources—the dependence on the field of politics, the continued influence of the secularist bias of Western social science, and the dependence on the theoretical developments in the broader discipline of international relations. Methodologically, the article builds on a detailed analysis of eighteen top academic journals and their scholarly output related to religion in global politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The subject of the study is the relationship between entities in the Western Balkans and the United Arab Emirates as a process of adaptation to a new international environment and, consequently, the adoption of new roles and positions. The research question adopted is: What are the new role and the Western Balkans position from the perspective of the dynamics of relations between the countries of this region and the United Arab Emirates? To find an answer to the research question, appropriate scientific measures and methods were adopted, based on the theory of adaptation and international roles, using quantitative and qualitative methods. The answer to the posed research question is the statement that the Western Balkans, from their relations with the United Arab Emirates perspective, achieve a stronger role and position as a connector of strategic North-South transport and energy routes. However, the condition for the long-term increase in the importance of the Western Balkans is anchoring in the membership of the European Union and the Three Seas Initiative (3SI). The answers and the results obtained are significant because the problem under consideration concerns the processes of shaping a new international order. In addition, the presented research paper is innovative and based on original data. Thus, the results of the completed research described in this article set future directions of research focusing on the interdependence of processes taking place in the Western Balkans-Middle East-Caucasus triangle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With China and Russia acting more assertively vis-à-vis Central Asia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan have gradually moved to the core of contemporary Eurasian geopolitics – albeit to varying degrees. The European Union (EU) has purposefully sought to promote its norms and values in the region for quite some time in the past. However, considering the ongoing Western "polycrisis" exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic most recently, our paper investigates how the EU has been recalibrating its relationship towards Central Asia – within the timespan of its two EU Central Asia Strategies, dating from 2007 and 2019, respectively. We argue that the reformulation of EU policy towards Central Asia is pragmatically taking its lead from the growing constraints of EU foreign policy as well as Chinese and Russian intervention in the region; it is, in the end, geographical proximity that continues to shape geopolitics in Central Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's vigorous involvement in the Pacific Island countries (PICs) is often surmised by scholars of international relations (Wesley-Smith 1; Pryke 2) to be primarily motivated by geopolitical calculations. This paper argues that China's increasing presence in the Pacific Islands indeed helps China create a "sphere of influence," but such geopolitical dynamics are characterized not merely by China's response to its perceived containment imposed by the USA and its allies in the region, but also by China's willingness to engage with PICs on its own terms. This is reflected in China's multifaceted approaches to offering economic assistance and expanding its economic and political presence in the region. China has increasingly cemented its strategic partnership with PICs by pursuing its traditional strategy of "non-interference" that satisfies PICs' demands for political independence and self-determination. China reaps not only economic but also geopolitical benefits from its intensified economic, and by extension, political, and strategic partnership with PICs, thus assisting its rise at the systemic (global) level. This paper examines the rationale behind China's economic and political approaches to the region and evaluates its promises and pitfalls as regional power dynamics continues to evolve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Three Seas Initiative was launched in 2015 by Croatia and Poland; today, it brings together 12 European states located in the Adriatic, Baltic, and Black Seas basins. To understand the rationale behind this seemingly precarious regional project, this paper employs the optics of critical geopolitics, which shifts the focus away from the exclusive concerns of great powers machinations, counters the dominant narrative by emphasising the multiplicity of voices in the geopolitical spectrum and stresses the emancipatory nature of the whole project balanced by its heterarchical characteristic. This angle allows us to capture the full complexity of this geopolitical design characterised by two phenomena: 'being in between' (monolithic powers, areas of domination, or at least domination, one religion and one language) and 'fragmentation and multinationality'. The analysis demonstrates that Intermarium is an attempt to break away from everything that prevents the region 'between Berlin and Moscow' from being a subject, not an object of political affairs, and shows how Central and Eastern Europe fits into the post-liberal international order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contributing to the scholarly debate on the European Union's (EU) foreign policy, this paper focuses on an under-explored, yet central, subset of the latter, namely the EU's cultural relations with the Eastern Partnership (EaP). Concretely, it examines what discursive articulations the EU advances through its cultural relations with the region. To do so, it applies a poststructuralist approach to a selection of data retrieved from EU policy documents and declarations (2007–2020) and semi-structured interviews with EU officials and cultural operators. The analysis reveals that three discursive articulations of EU identity are advanced: a) 'United in Diversity', showcasing 'Europe' as a model; b) 'co-creation', promoting dialogue and mutuality with the EaP; and c) 'messaging', framing Russia as an existential threat. Despite some contradictions, the analysis detects an important tendency towards geographical othering, and notably towards the externalising of the threat location in identity production. By resorting to default conceptions of culture, EU discourse splits the EU and Russia into two organic systems of differences. Overall, EU identity reproduction within the cultural terrain – and the antagonism that comes with it – produces and nurtures the very contested world that the EU seeks to navigate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we explain how the international relations of authoritarian regimes shape their reaction to nonviolent popular mobilisation. We identify four main strategies of authoritarian survival and argue that – from the incumbents' perspective – repression and democratic opening are riskier than informal and formal co-optation. Thus, we ask why some nondemocratic rulers select riskier rather than safer strategies. Although recent studies have devoted much attention to the relevance of international factors in shaping domestic politics, this proposition has not been thoroughly theorised nor scrutinised empirically. We focus on authoritarian regimes that have established patron–client relations with foreign powers and argue that patrons' regimes influence the selection of specific survival strategies by threatened clients. We hypothesise that dictators with democratic patrons are induced to adopt riskier strategies of survival, whereas clients of autocracies are more likely to select safer strategies. We test our hypothesis on MENA countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim/Purpose The integration of knowledge through the transdisciplinary method with the three concepts civilization, ideology, and geopolitics (CIG) enables the analysis of international relations in a new perspective and the informing strategists of countries, organizations, analysts, clients, etc. These three concepts express the transdisciplinarity that offers a new theoretical explanation and the informing science approach. Background The integration of knowledge using the three concepts for the analysis of international relations has found adequate explanations from 1890 until the withdrawal of the United States from Afghanistan. Therefore, the CIG model theoretically and practically finds support for more than a century, as argued in the paper. Methodology The present paper uses a mixed theory based on transdisciplinary methodology and informing science. The literature was reviewed to find and build the theoretical basis and provide appropriate examples. The theory is also based on the model used by Francis Fukuyama in his books on building and dissolution of states (middle-range theory). Contribution This paper enables the rethinking of the limitations of research on a theoretical and practical basis that is done in many scientific circles, not to eliminate others but to enrich science even more. Findings In the paper, the main findings are the following: Integrating the three CIG concepts according to the transdisciplinary method offers a new perspective to explain international relations using the IS method; The integration of the three concepts is worthwhile after 1980, when the model of cabinet governments falls, Bismarck falls, and public opinion starts to emerge; It was after 1980 that theories of civilization and geopolitics began to emerge along with ideologies to apply in practice; These three concepts offer explanations based on a CIG zone and in the periphery of the CIG zone. In the CIG zone the security sphere is more stable and long-term, while in periphery the cooperation is temporary and not long termed; The paper shows that the Cold War period is divided into two periods; The paper also finds that CIG explains with examples the events that happened after the Cold War and until present days; The paper also shows, based on the strategies of the superpowers, how they are extending their influence based on the CIG concepts. The paper also shows new patterns of cooperation and clashes between the superpowers' security zones, which also provide an explanatory perspective for the USA withdrawal from Afghanistan. (We do not talk in the paper about the Afghanistan issue and USA withdrawal). Recommendations for Practitioners The attributes identified by the transdisciplinary implementation of the three concepts express the evolution and behaviour of major policies and, as such, constitute a scheme for practitioners to analyse international relations and build strategies on an integrative rather than an exclusionary basis. Recommendations for Researchers Scientific attributes in the integration of knowledge give researchers a more open and comprehensive perspective to make more accurate and practical analyses of international relations. According to this model, other theories are enriched that use the transdisciplinary method, IS, and the CIG as a model for the integration of knowledge. Impact on Society This type of model enables an accurate understanding of cooperation between companies, their representatives, and the creation of safer areas and plans. Through this model, society no longer belongs to the abstract but is part of the analysis. Future Research Researchers and practitioners of this CIG model can find answers such as "Why did the USA fail in Afghanistan and why was it successful in Kosovo?" as well as other questions about finding a solution for Iraq, cooperation with China, etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine - Europe’s worst security crisis in decades - has prompted the EU to make unprecedented decisions on EU security, defence and enlargement. For the first time, decisions have been made to deliver deadly weapons to a third country and decisions to strengthen defence co-operation amid a new perception of the threat. The 2001 Temporary Protection Directive, which grants temporary residence to Ukrainian refugees, was activated for the first time. The overwhelming support for the UN resolution condemning the Russian invasion clearly proves that countries around the world see the invasion as an attack on global norms. However, policy makers in certain countries are managing the crisis in terms of their national interest. This paper will analyse the differences in regional and national attitudes regarding the events in Ukraine, ie geopolitical, economic and security factors that influence decision-making to deal with the Ukrainian crisis. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine - Europe’s worst security crisis in decades - has prompted the EU to make unprecedented decisions on EU security, defence and enlargement. For the first time, decisions have been made to deliver deadly weapons to a third country and decisions to strengthen defence co-operation amid a new perception of the threat. The 2001 Temporary Protection Directive, which grants temporary residence to Ukrainian refugees, was activated for the first time. The overwhelming support for the UN resolution condemning the Russian invasion clearly proves that countries around the world see the invasion as an attack on global norms. However, policy makers in certain countries are managing the crisis in terms of their national interest. This paper will analyse the differences in regional and national attitudes regarding the events in Ukraine, ie geopolitical, economic and security factors that influence decision-making to deal with the Ukrainian crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the question of what drives proxy alignment in war and argues that current proxy war scholarship needs further thinking to go beyond focusing on the principal–agent theory and individual actors' motivation analysis. Rather, there is a need to look at the generative mechanisms of proxy alignment as a process that constitutes patterns of friend–enemy relations. The paper argues securitization patterns from domestic to regional and international levels drive actors to re-evaluate their positions and define their enemies and friends. This is a process of securitization alignment and confluence, which serves as a generative mechanism for proxy alignment in a conflict. Securitization alignment is based on a convergence of securitizations by different actors that create a friend–enemy dynamic and convergence of security interests between actors. The confluence of securitizations from the domestic level to regional and beyond also connects actors across different levels to be in alignment and impact the conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why does a state change its foreign policy objectives and who is responsible for instigating such change? According to Hermann, four primary change agents are central to this process: leaders, bureaucracies, changes in domestic constituencies, and external shocks. This paper argues that the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) is a complementary policy process framework that can explain foreign policy change (FPC) and that accounts for all four of these primary change agents. Additionally, it is a broader framework of the policy process that facilitates a more comprehensive understanding of the factors influencing FPC than traditional FPC research. The ACF has the potential to broaden our understanding of FPC by emphasizing the intersection of the international system with domestic politics and focusing on a myriad of policy actors coordinating their advocacy efforts to influence FPC. To support this argument, the paper discusses how FPC can benefit from the ACF and reviews past applications. It proposes a research agenda using the ACF to study FPC and draws conclusions about future challenges and directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Questions regarding the political significance of international relations (IR) and how scholarly practice relates to/constitutes a political practice appear newly resonant, but are longstanding concerns. This article utilizes the growing literature on temporality within international politics to analyze the political potential of these intellectual interventions and generate new ways of framing scholarly practice. We observe two trends within the field. First, IR as a discipline remains largely—although not exclusively—imagined as an English-language discipline generated by scholars in the Global North. Each area's political discourse is currently dominated by fears surrounding foundational political and institutional change due to the rise of racialized authoritarianism within these self-imagined democratic societies. Despite these purportedly dramatic developments, there has not been a similarly dramatic shift in the scholarly relationship with politics. Scholars continue to successfully intervene in their collective presents, but scholarship itself remains oriented toward enduring claims that accumulate knowledge and resist the possibility of "failure." This paper theorizes the temporality of critical intervention to better relate positively to the bodies that co-constitute our political present. Ultimately, this paper concludes by arguing for a reconsideration of contradiction and failure as frames for thinking scholarly practice in time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contributions to the Italian intelligence studies literature have seen an expansion since the major reform of Italian intelligence introduced in 2007. Italian civil society also increasingly recognizes the importance of intelligence. This paper first explores Italian intelligence studies literature as it stands today before considering the academic research. The six main categories of Italian intelligence literature are presented within: history, sources of intelligence, international relations and geopolitics, theories of intelligence and theoretical frameworks, great figures and memoirs, law enforcement, and the fight against criminal organizations. A short comparative analysis between the Italian literature and international intelligence studies is drawn which includes a comparison of categories, topics, key questions, and projects. The goal of this paper, therefore, is to draw a likely depiction of the state of Italian intelligence studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work has the purpose of presenting the Latin American Integration Route (RILA) as the achievement of diplomatic objectives already traced in the Brazilian imperial era between itself and Paraguay. This paper will show how, in the diplomatic field, the Empire can be qualified as the historical period which designed Brazil, fixing it as a regional power and positioning itself in the way of ensuring policies whose consequences would be beneficial even for its neighbors. The border relations between Brazil and Paraguay will be treated with its peculiarities, besides a description of the region’s hydrography with regards to the River Plate Basin. So, this work will enter in its historical part by analyzing the formation of the Brazilian Empire’s Second Reign, explaining its development and characteristics that interest to this paper, presenting its diplomatic conceptions, showing the problems faced by the tropical monarchy in the Platine Region and the objectives and paths searched to bypass them. In the end, it will be brought to analysis the idea of the RILA and its Latin American integration project, with investments aiming to use the region’s hydrography to export local products, linking it with the geopolitical objective searched since imperial times to guarantee the free access to the Platine rivers. This research utilized qualitative methodology, analyzing books and articles in the area to base the central thesis. The result achieved met the original goal, showing that the RILA comes from the development of a conception of foreign relations created, for Brazil, in the Monarchy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Th e presented study examines the origins of cooperation between the US President Richard Nixon and his National Security Advisor and later Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Th e aim of the paper is to analyse under what conditions Nixon’s administration came to office in 1969, the causes that led the new President to approach Kissinger with the off er of a key foreign policy position and what attitudes both the protagonists had towards the U.S. role in the world. Despite being an unlikely partnership, their subsequent cooperation, which operated until Nixon’s resignation in August 1974, signifi cantly changed the course of the Cold War. During Nixon’s administration, the crucial summits between Americans and representatives of the then Communist powers took place in Beijing and Moscow in 1972, becoming the most prominent di plomatic legacy of their eff orts to reduce international tensions. Up to that time, in contrast, similar attempts to negotiate with China and the USSR were unprecedented due to the then tense geopolitical situation associated with the ongoing Cold War. Th e study concludes that the fundamental reason for this unexpected connection between two diff erent politicians was a shared vision of transforming the decision-making process within the American administration and the idea of a grand strategy in international politics that would get the United States out of the crises of the 1960s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pakistan occupies an elevated role in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and hosts its so-called flagship project, the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Existing literature has often interpreted this project from a geopolitical perspective, as a vehicle through which a rising China projects influence on a peripheral country and advances its own centrality in international affairs. While such motivations certainly played a major role in getting the project off the ground, they are not the sole determinant of its design, or the heated controversies it triggered within Pakistan. This paper seeks to capture both dimensions by analysing the development of CPEC, and the handling of the conflicts it sparked, through a lens of overlapping centre–periphery relations: one between China and Pakistan at the international level, and one between Islamabad and peripheral regions and groups within the country. I argue that this model best captures the pivotal position and resulting agency of national governments in shaping local BRI implementations. It also shows how the BRI is not a straight case of Chinese influence radiating outwards; rather, contestation by local actors in turn forces adaptations in Chinese foreign and security policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When great powers such as the United States and China grow especially hawkish with more uncertainties, how does a smaller state react to such a complex and dangerous territorial conflict? Given the competing frames of influence between China and the United States, what are the underlying reasons for the shift in the Philippines' foreign policy? This paper focuses on the Philippines' changing foreign policy on the South China Sea dispute and examines the main rationale for its shift in strategy towards China. We use the perspective of neoclassical realism to unpack the constraining factors that underlie the Philippines' domestic politics and ongoing global exigencies. With changes in its domestic politics and the security challenges posed by the evolving geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific region, the Philippines is in a difficult situation, having to choose between a territorially hostile trading partner and its historical security guarantor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The changing global environment has become an opportunity for Russia and Pakistan to redefine their relationship. Both countries believe in strong multilateralism as the way to go in foreign relations. They are quite conscious of peace and stability in the Eurasian region. Given the mutual benefits of fostering ties, Moscow and Islamabad are trying to move forward in three key broad areas where the convergence of interests is evident. They are emerging geopolitical and security milieus, geo-economic outlook and regional connectivity. Pakistan-Russia relations are set to exploit these realms and take them on an upward trajectory in years to come. In this paper, qualitative data has been dealt with analytically to identify how both countries could benefit from the changing strategic landscape to achieve these objectives. It pertains to the evolving geopolitical environment, interregional economic prospects, and emerging threats to regional stability (especially Afghanistan), which hold much in store for both in opting for a mutual course of action on regional and international fronts. The study explicitly examines the factors that may shape the commonality of interests in their foreign policy options. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The megatrends of climate change, China's Belt and Road Initiative, and the Western sanctions against Russia have made the once calm Arctic an arena of geopolitical competition. Before the Crimea crisis of 2014, the Nordics were the primary advocates for a Chinese role in the Arctic when Russia was still hesitant. In 2017 Russia and China agreed to build a Polar Silk Road along the Northern Sea Route, which complements China's 21st Century Maritime Silk Road plans. Russia financially depends on China for its aspirational Arctic plans. Meanwhile, China increasingly perceives the five Nordic states as a unit to negotiate projects under the Belt and Road Initiative and suggested a 5 + 1 format. Thus, China's rising Arctic presence made the age-old Nordics-Russia relations triangular. What does the Sino-Russian strategic partnership mean for the Nordics' preference formation concerning the Polar Silk Road? This paper traces the triangular ties before and after the Crimea crisis and finds that the actors switched from liberal towards defensive neorealist perspectives. The Nordics have become worried about the Sino-Russian Arctic honeymoon, Russia's Arctic military assertiveness and China's intentions. As the triangular links are out-of-balance, the Nordics might apply complex balancing to achieve collective goods along the Northern Sea Route. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyzes the challenge to India from China, and the dilemmas faced by India in shaping an appropriate response. A two-level theory analysis indicates that some diminishing cooperation is possible at the global level, for example over environmental issues. However, regionally, this has been overtaken structurally by increasing sharp confrontation along the Himalayas and by rising geopolitical and geo-economic competition across Asia and the Indo-Pacific. This has been overlaid in 2020–2021 by the particularly negative effect on Indian relations with China of the clashes and casualties at Galwan and the impact of Covid-19. Given this sharpening challenge, the paper finds that India's cherished axiom of full strategic autonomy now has to be tempered in its response by balancing dictates, particularly in the light of Stephen Walt's balance of threat model. India's responses pose various dilemmas in terms of effectiveness and counter-productiveness. Geopolitically, dilemmas continue to revolve for India around how far to invoke a Tibet Card and a Taiwan Card in its One China policy; and how far India can shape an immediate web (in effect around China) through strengthening security links with Vietnam, Mongolia and South Korea. Dilemmas also follow from how far India should pursue tighter security/military arrangements with more powerful China-concerned states like Australia, Japan, France, and above all, the United States. Geo-economically, India's dilemmas revolve around how to respond to the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and to China's Maritime Silk Road scheme. Looking forward, an important factor will be how far India pulls away from Covid-19 disruption to the economy, and how far it will need to divert long-term economic funding away from immediate short-term military projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role of affective atmospheres in "doing" politics in diplomacy. By offering a thick exegesis of the ways in which these moods practically unfold at two International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) aviation summits, the paper shows how affective atmospheres have a potent steering effect on (geo)politics, constituting the virtual infrastructures of its conduct. While geographers have recently begun paying attention to the salience of affective atmospheres in diplomacy, current approaches still tend to treat them – if at all – as situational productions at specific sites. Engaging in ethnographic immersions in two ICAO summits, the paper offers an intimate reading of international‐relations‐in‐action, across multivalent atmospheric experiences and transects. In particular, it highlights two modes of atmospheric conditioning in aviation diplomacy: one, the intermingling of work and play across time and, two, the overlap of various affective captures across space. The paper advocates a fuller appreciation of the contingency and adaptive nature of (geo)politics in its atmospheric productions. It also highlights the influence that these virtual infrastructures can have on decision‐making in diplomacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since donning the mantle of authority, President Putin has taken actions which have uninhibitedly been geared at reasserting Russia's hegemony around the world. Putin's Look East policy stems from his schematic geopolitics, a plan which was formally announced in 2010. Through the prism of Putin's Look East policy, the paper contextually analyses Russia–South Asia relations, with reference to India and Pakistan. By cross-examining Russia's official foreign policy documents, the paper establishes why South Asia is paramount to Russia's economic and geostrategic reassertion. Every new policy has its challenges, and the same holds true for the Look East policy vis-à-vis South Asia. Premised on the unfolding geopolitics in the region, the paper surmises that striking a balance between New Delhi and Islamabad will be problematic for Moscow, just as it has always been for Washington. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper argues that the dominant geopolitical analysis draws from a tradition of thought that privileges a geographical approach to space. The process that extends such impetus most compellingly can be found in security intervention. Interventionism, specifically under the War on Terrorism (WoT) thinking projects a cartography of (in)security and threat that disrupts on the one hand existing dynamics of space production and on another redefines space as geography with violent consequences for a variety of life-forms. The question that guides my endeavor is the following: how does a rethinking of the geographical question in international relations (IR), particularly with regards to intervention and the WoT enable us to expand an understanding of geopolitics beyond power struggles over space? Thinking from the Sahel-Sahara region, I wish to offer an alternative view of space where life, government, intellectual representations, commerce, culture, landscape, and belief lead to different kinds of relationships. This view is meant to suggest the beginning of the sketching of different systems of thought and morals through which to apprehend more productively a notion of space in IR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India and Africa have been sharing a multidimensional relationship of cooperation and friendship since the ancient civilizations. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought new possibilities and opportunities for India to leverage its soft power diplomacy towards Africa. The paper's main focus is to analyze how India has made soft power part of its foreign policy and examine India's relationship with the African continent through health diplomacy. A literature search was done in major databases, such as Web of Science, Medicine/PubMed, Scopus, OVID, and Google Scholar search engine to gather relevant information. Through humanitarian assistance and geopolitical influence, India had won the support and heart of Africans. Besides, India has become a global healthcare provider in the African continent through its global health diplomacy and vaccine diplomacy. India has achieved impressive gains through its soft power diplomacy and has become a compassionate and benevolent actor in the African continent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Infrastructure has played an agential role in the securitisation of everyday life in the Karakoram high mountains of north Pakistan. Geopolitics bear heavily on this region where Pakistan shares borders with China, with whom it has aligned its foreign and security policy, and with India, with whom Pakistan remains embroiled in a long‐standing territorial dispute. Consequently, in the Karakoram, geopolitical anxieties have reflected inwards onto local populations through both security infrastructure and securitised infrastructure. In this postcolony frontier space, statecraft also frequently bypasses normative legal and administrative structures; such exceptions to normative law and administration have antecedents in colonial statecraft on the territorial margins of empire. This paper also argues that long cycles of military rule have allowed the military to acquire and project technocratic expertise, become custodians of state‐led development, and recently, to assume guardianship of, and to enter into joint financing with China on, construction projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]