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This article draws on feminist security studies (FSS) to construct a more inclusive cybersecurity. We ask: What can a gendered lens do for cybersecurity? Methodologically, this exploratory piece brings FSS insights to bear on studies in cybersecurity (both traditional and critical) to better conceptualize the risks and benefits embedded in the cybersphere, as well as the role of gender in cyberspace. We propose incorporating a gendered lens (an intersectional approach) to shed light on violence and insecurity online. Without recognizing gendering in the cyber realm, including how gender intersects with other systems of oppression, cybersecurity scholars and policy-makers cannot fully understand what we term the crisis of cyber(in)security. Additionally, we challenge simplistic solutions that rely solely on human rights protections in cyberspace. Such approaches often reinforce existing gender and power hierarchies through protectionist discourse. Our FSS-based understanding of cybersecurity has important policy implications. It calls for increased access and diverse participation in cybersecurity policy-making and diplomacy, and promotes a more thoughtful approach to human rights protection to address a broader range of cyber-based insecurities and forms of violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Like most global sports, professional tennis is eager to claim that politics has no place on its playing field. On closer investigation, however, this 'myth of autonomy' soon cracks. In addition to adding tennis as a much-needed case to the study of sport and international affairs, this article develops the concept of 'the circuit' to approach phenomena that criss-cross traditional levels of analysis in international relations. In its first part, the article zooms in on the practice of writing celebratory messages onto the lenses of TV cameras as an example of the power relations that exist in and around professional tennis courts today. In its second part, it zooms out to map the themes and questions that have framed tennis as a political activity around the world and over time. The analysis identifies and characterizes the global tennis circuit as a site within which many of the most pressing political questions of our time are contained, focusing on the prestigious tournaments which make up the Grand Slam, and the elite athletes that participate in them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores India's historical pursuit of major power status in international relations, from the Nehru era to the Modi government. It discusses the challenges India faces in achieving this recognition, including human development issues, military weaknesses, and the need for democratic governance. The author, T.V. Paul, compares India's status-seeking efforts with China's and argues that India must address its shortcomings to gain the respect it seeks in the global arena. [Extracted from the article]

The article "Wealth, power, and authoritarian institutions" by Michaela Collord compares the dominant parties and parliaments in Tanzania and Uganda, focusing on their institutional trajectories and the impact of ruling elites' wealth accumulation strategies. Collord highlights how Tanzania's party-building led to centralized resource accumulation and reduced legislative autonomy, while Uganda's decentralized wealth accumulation resulted in fragmented elite enrichment and challenges in instilling party discipline. The author also discusses authoritarian discontinuities in Tanzania post-1985 and the skepticism regarding the correlation between legislative strengthening and democratization in both countries. [Extracted from the article]

"Centers of Power in the Arab Gulf States" by Kristian Coates Ulrichsen explores the topic of power within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. The book examines different types of power and authority in the six Gulf states, including dynastic families, consultation practices, institutions, representation, opposition, distribution processes, and the role of the military. Ulrichsen takes a relational approach to power, highlighting the influence of external security partners on the Gulf states. While the book provides valuable insights into the power structures of the Gulf monarchies, it also acknowledges the limits of their power. [Extracted from the article]

The article discusses three books that challenge the dominant narratives surrounding China's foreign policy and its role in the international order. The first book, "The authoritarian century" by Chris Ogden, argues that while China's economic power is increasing, it is not leading a new illiberal world order. The second book, "A hierarchical vision of order" by Antoine Roth, explores China's historical and cultural influences on its international relations, suggesting that China's behavior is not simply a reaction to the West. The third book, "China's asymmetric statecraft" by Yuxing Huang, examines China's regional relations and argues that China's strategies are context-dependent and not driven by a monolithic grand strategy. Overall, these books challenge the binary narratives and offer nuanced perspectives on China's global outreach. [Extracted from the article]

This article discusses the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on democracy and offers potential solutions to address the challenges it presents. The author highlights the misuse of AI in election campaigns and the potential for it to undermine democratic principles. They emphasize the need for a deeper understanding of democracy and the political dimension of technology to address these issues. The article also explores the ethical and political concerns surrounding AI surveillance and its potential to infringe upon individual liberties. The author proposes the concept of "democratic AI" and advocates for embedding ethical and political considerations in the design process. They discuss strategies such as institutional reforms, regulatory frameworks, and global governance mechanisms to fortify democracy in the face of AI-related challenges. However, the article is criticized for not adequately addressing systemic inequalities and power dynamics within society, and for potentially silencing marginalized communities affected by AI-driven discrimination and surveillance. Overall, the article provides a timely examination of the impact of AI on democracy and encourages readers to critically engage with these challenges to promote a more inclusive and resilient democratic future. [Extracted from the article]

Kira Huju's book, "Cosmopolitan elites: Indian diplomats and the social hierarchies of global order," examines the complexities of elite belonging in international society. Huju argues that cosmopolitanism is a performance of elite aesthetics that perpetuates exclusion and dominance. Through a case-study of the Indian Foreign Service (IFS), Huju explores how class, caste, gender, and religion shape the composition of the IFS and influence participation in international society. The book also highlights the neglect of caste as a factor in International Relations and discusses the impact of Hindutva nationalism on the IFS. Despite some repetition, the book's focus on caste and its reflexive approach make it a valuable contribution to the field of IR. [Extracted from the article]

This article provides a review of the historical trends that are shaping global competition for standard setting in emerging technologies. Specifically, it explores how the traditional rule-makers of international standardization, namely the United States and Europe, are responding to the rise of China in standard-setting. The article argues that three polities are adapting their standard-setting strategies to shifting power dynamics in the international technology order. To preserve its competitive advantage, the US is becoming more interventionist and proactive in setting technology standards. China has developed a long-term standardization strategy to bolster its domestic industrial development, increase its influence and reap greater profits from the process of rule-making. Finally, the EU is seeking a third way that strikes a balance between competition and cooperation to preserve values like interoperability, which have historically benefited its single market and the global economy at large. Our historical review shows that, while the three polities have different priorities and face distinct challenges, they all seem to converge towards a greater role for governments in standard-setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The international community's sobering track record of sustainably reducing the number of armed conflicts worldwide, as well as the increasing involvement of non-human complexities in times of climate crisis suggest that current approaches to foster peace are too narrow and inflexible. So far, demands and calls for more flexible and adaptive peace practice made by policy-makers and researchers have not led to a related paradigm shift. In order to contribute to such a change of practice, this article advances a speculative analytical attempt that seeks to conceptually uncover new modes of engaging with the world for the purpose of peace. It builds on Baruch Spinoza's materialism and describes peace as intimately interrelated with the issue of political community. Following Spinoza, the article reconsiders the imaginary of political community as something that is constantly being rearticulated by a contingent complexity of human and non-human actors, and thus transcends the geographic scope of its formal borders as well as its epistemic scope across power hierarchies. Finally, the article introduces the human–non-human multitude as political subject that is able to detect and interpret the constituents of a political community, and therefore to maintain and sustain peace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pragmatism, responding to the call for 'decentring International Relations', fosters analytical eclecticism for resolving inter-paradigmatic disputes. John Dewey's pragmatism aligns seamlessly with constructivism, offering nuanced insights. However, in bilateral relations, pragmatism is often confined within realist frameworks, lacking analytical rigor for understanding governmentality. In this article, the author challenges this by emphasizing relational power dynamics and non-neutral knowledge, introducing 'balancing pragmatism' rooted in 'bricolage' for nuanced governance. Leveraging Foucauldian insights, the author reconceptualizes governance pragmatism within the power-knowledge interplay, illustrated by the India–Bangladesh Land Boundary Agreement (LBA). The LBA's success challenges realist power paradigms, recognizing the pivotal role of Foucauldian dynamics in enhancing pragmatic balancing. This enriches the constructivist paradigm with discerning governance. Interpreting pragmatism through a Foucauldian lens in the LBA underscores implications for bilateral governance, highlighting analytical eclecticism and adaptability within a Foucauldian framework to address geopolitical challenges. It advocates for a more inclusive analytical approach in international relations. Understanding 'balancing pragmatism' is crucial for practitioners, challenging the state-centric paradigm and emphasizing nuanced governance through the transformative intersection of power and knowledge. Interpreting pragmatism as a Foucauldian-informed balancing act, as seen in the LBA, holds broad implications for IR, urging scholars to integrate Foucault's dynamics for nuanced global analyses of pragmatic balancing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the relationship between the environment, energy, and the history of US-Canada relations. It argues that nature has been forgotten by the wealthy and that environmental diplomacy in the 1980s helped revive the connection with nature. The book examines the three-way relationship between Canada, the United States, and the environment, focusing on the importance of understanding the history of this relationship in relation to the environment and energy. It highlights the impact of natural resources on ecosystems and human systems, as well as the power asymmetries that can arise from interfering with ecosystems or blocking access to natural resources. The article also mentions the importance of balancing sovereignty and prosperity in diplomatic relations, using the example of acid rain as a significant bilateral issue. The book emphasizes that borders do not diminish the connections between physical environments and human relationships, and that when in harmony, people and nature benefit equally. It explores the role of water in shaping early bilateral relations and Canada's political economy, as well as the shift from hydroelectricity to fossil fuels as the top energy export. The article concludes by discussing the wider geopolitical pressures that nature imposes on the US-Canada relationship and the importance of considering nature as a silent actor in international diplomacy. [Extracted from the article]

"Crown, cloak and dagger: the British monarchy and secret intelligence from Victoria to Elizabeth II" is a comprehensively researched book that explores the relationship between the British monarchy and intelligence agencies. The authors, Richard Aldrich and Rory Cormac, draw on newly opened archives to trace the origins of organized intelligence in England and describe how the royal family has acted independently and in concert with intelligence agencies on intelligence matters. The book covers topics such as Victoria's concerns about empire, the world wars, the Cold War, and the reign of Elizabeth II. It also delves into the personal experiences of British monarchs with assassination attempts and their involvement in intelligence operations. Overall, the book provides valuable insights into the role of intelligence in defending the position of the Crown and the British empire. [Extracted from the article]

The timid response of member governments of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to Russia's invasion of Ukraine has puzzled many western observers as it flagrantly violates the most basic norms of international law to which ASEAN expressly subscribes. This article seeks to provide answers to this puzzle. Informed by practice theory, the article transcends conventional realist explanations of how small and medium-sized countries respond to great power politics. Combining material and cognitive arguments, practice theory allows identifying the cultural and ideational roots of these policies and uncovering mismatches between rhetoric and agency. It suggests that, conceptualized as communities of practice, ASEAN member countries' foreign policy elites have developed a path-dependent pragmatism, which guides their response to great power politics and hence the war in Ukraine. Employing a qualitative mixed-methods approach, the empirical part of the article examines how south-east Asia's diplomatic communities of practice define pragmatism and shows that, historically, pragmatism has strongly guided their foreign policies. It traces ASEAN governments' pragmatic responses to the war in Ukraine at three levels: the national, regional and the (global) multilateral level. The article concludes that liberal proselytism does not help the West to win over ASEAN member countries to support its pro-Ukraine course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Somaliland's endurance as Africa's longest de facto state has for decades preoccupied scholarship on state formation and democratization. The prevailing democratic success narrative has, however, downplayed the complex internal political dynamics and crises that have characterized Somaliland's independence since 1991. Relying on a number of robust resources, including 110 interviews and archival work conducted in Somaliland from 2015 until 2021, this article examines at close range Somaliland's political economy and provides a more cautious assessment of Somaliland's democratization trajectory. It argues that the political authority of cross-border oligarchic–corporate structures and the securitization of aid created an 'oligopolistic state' and 'peaceocracy' rather than a national, democratic government. This analysis highlights how de facto states struggle to balance political control and financial hardship generating creative and uneven governance structures. This study also raises important questions about how donors in the Gulf and in Asia provide new opportunities for recognition through Islamic finance and business that may affect de facto states' commitments to democratization. Finally, it contributes to theorizing about the ideologies of privatized governance that emerge in peripheral and developing economies and the political consequences of perennial non-recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article "Resisting domination in Palestine" delves into the complexities of Palestinian resistance against settler-colonialism, highlighting the moral imperative and collective struggle for liberation. The text explores various forms of domination and resistance at political, economic, environmental, and epistemic levels, shedding light on the structural intricacies of the Zionist project. While emphasizing the need for internal and external liberation efforts, the article also raises concerns about perpetuating settler-colonialism as an enduring phenomenon, urging for direct, uncomfortable, and uncompromising anti-colonial struggles. The book serves as a crucial resource for understanding and dismantling the mechanisms of control in the ongoing fight for Palestinian liberation. [Extracted from the article]

Commercial liberalism would suggest that whereas globalization was conducive to great power cooperation—or at least moderated competition—deglobalization is likely to ignite greater competition amongst the Great Powers. In reality, however, the picture is much more complex. To begin with, the intense globalization of the 1990s and 2000s is not responsible for moderating Great Power tensions; instead, it is itself a product of the security situation resulting from the end of the Cold War. Furthermore, while globalization did serve to reinforce cooperation between the United States and rising challengers, such as China, which sought to harness the economic gains of globalization to accelerate their rise, it also created or intensified fault-lines that have led to heightening tensions between the Great Powers. Finally, while we are currently witnessing increasing tensions between the US and both China and Russia, deglobalization does not appear to be the primary cause. Thus, geoeconomic conditions do not drive security relations; instead, the geoeconomic environment, which is itself influenced by Great Power politics, is better understood as a medium of Great Power competition, which may affect the character of Great Power competition and its intensity, but does not determine it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cynthia Enloe's book, "Twelve feminist lessons of war," offers a feminist perspective on the complexities of wartime scenarios. Enloe examines the experiences of women and girls in various conflicts throughout history, using stories and everyday objects to illustrate the pervasiveness and complexity of gendered power. The book challenges the notion of "later" as a patriarchal construct and explores the tension between women's involvement in the military as liberation or patriarchal exploitation. Overall, the book provides tools to dismantle and rebuild perceptions about war and gender roles, emphasizing the importance of curiosity and solidarity in resisting patriarchy. [Extracted from the article]

In the wake of the 2011 Arab uprisings, the wealthy Gulf states of Qatar and the United Arab Emirates began hosting and establishing associations of influential Islamic scholars. These clerical associations, the Doha-based International Union for Muslim Scholars (IUMS) and the Abu Dhabi-based Muslim Council of Elders (MCE) and associated peace initiatives, have afforded a platform for more credibly entering into religious and political debates, for cultivating new networks of influence among Muslim publics, and engaging non-Islamic countries and organizations. Drawing upon interviews and primary resources, this study investigates this exercise in religious statecraft, comparing the discourse and policy interventions of these associations, and analysing their improbable challenge to the predominant religious terms set by the traditional heavyweight in the Gulf, Saudi Arabia. It finds that the effectiveness, or resonance, of these religious soft power projects depends upon credibility—their alignment with national religious traditions and policy directions—and positioning—the targeting of particular audiences and stakeholders. It concludes that the UAE holds certain advantages over Qatar in its soft power positioning in the current nationalist moment, as states gain ground over transnational Islamic movements and relations with powers such as India, Russia, China and Israel—all hostile to independent Islamic movements—gain in importance. Policy-makers acknowledging the surprising hard power projection of these small states through military interventions and economic leverage may benefit from this study of their new religious soft power influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Understanding Ethiopia's Tigray war" is a comprehensive analysis of the complex and devastating conflict between the Ethiopian government and the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) from 2020 to 2022. The book explores the historical context of Ethiopia, including shifts in political power and tensions between centralized and decentralized power struggles. It also examines contemporary politics, including Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali's rise to power and Eritrea's role in escalating the conflict. The book details the military operations, humanitarian crisis, and the use of sexual violence and hunger as weapons. It also addresses the dangerous rhetoric and hate speech that exacerbated the war and emphasizes the need for dialogue, reconciliation, and tolerance among Ethiopia's ethnic groups. The book concludes with a summary of themes and lessons learned from the analysis. Overall, it provides valuable insights into the Tigray crisis and its broader implications in the Horn of Africa. [Extracted from the article]

This article discusses the concept of soft power in US foreign policy and its future under the Biden administration. The article highlights a recent summit between the US, Japan, and South Korea as an example of the US using its soft power to counter China's influence in the East and South China Seas. The article also explores the evolving landscape of soft power and its relationship with hard power, as well as the implications of these changes for diplomatic futures. The article concludes by suggesting that greater investment in soft power resources, such as cultural production and public diplomacy, may yield reputational benefits regardless of who is in power. [Extracted from the article]

The article discusses the book "Southeast Asia in China: historical entanglements and contemporary engagements" by Ying-kit Chan and Chang-Yau Hoon. The book aims to address the power asymmetry in discussions about China's rise by exploring the reciprocal dynamics between China and Southeast Asia. It focuses on three central themes: the periphery, people, and ideas. The authors examine the centrality and agency of Southeast Asia(ns) in their interactions with China, analyze the role of non-state actors in the region, and critically interrogate the ideas that China has developed through its interactions with Southeast Asia. The book provides a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between China and Southeast Asia and is recommended for students and scholars of international relations. [Extracted from the article]

This article examines Japan's security and foreign policy as an example of how a major power engages in the liberal international order (LIO) and what this implies for the future of that order. Facing China's increased power and influence in the past two decades, Japan has made strategic adjustments in response to regional and global power transitions while developing an idea of a wider geopolitical landscape on Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's initiative. However, this article argues that Japan's idea of an expanded regional scope and its vision of order were addressed decades earlier through 'comprehensive security' (sogo anzen hosho). While the country is an ally of the United States and clearly accepts the alliance as a key part of international order, Japan has its own ideas about international order; these accept much of the LIO but go beyond it, particularly in the articulation and operationalization of comprehensive security. By adopting the concept of norm localization, this article argues that Japan does not have the power to coerce others to take any actions to defend the current international order, but it can adapt and tweak the dominant LIO norms, principles and practices to build congruence with local norms of sovereignty and territorial integrity embedded in its own region. To create a broader consensus in favour of sustaining the LIO, major powers like Japan can approach the sceptics by presenting an alternative to either total rejection or total acceptance of the LIO norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do weaker states perceive the liberal international order (LIO) with ambivalence? This article argues that in the case of small states like Malaysia, historical memories, structural realities and domestic imperatives combine to explain their conceptions of and responses to the LIO. The article traces the features and unpacks the factors underpinning the paradoxes of small-state pragmatism vis-à-vis international order: a) rejecting power hierarchy but recognizing (and leveraging) power asymmetry; b) acknowledging its smallness but actively punching above its weight whenever possible; and c) promoting co-existence through principled contradictions. Such paradoxical pragmatism is quintessentially an act of hedging aimed at mitigating and off-setting multiple risks amid increasing uncertainties. This article makes three contributions. First, it contributes to the literature on international order by presenting a small-state perspective on the LIO, highlighting that small-state responses are more about 'struggle for survival', rather than 'struggle for power'. Second, the notion of 'paradoxical pragmatism' engages the ongoing debate on 'hedging' in international relations. Third, the article's findings suggest that, theoretically, hedging and its dualistic elements are attributable to both structural and domestic-level factors. While structural conditions drive states to hedge, domestic factors determine the extent and manner in which states hedge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is becoming widely accepted that we have transitioned, or are now transitioning, from an international liberal order to a different reality. Whether that reality is different solely in terms of power dynamics, or also in terms of values and institutions, is up for discussion. The growing body of literature on 'post-liberalism' is used as an entry-point for this article, which aims to explore how the post-liberal transition applies to cyberspace. We explore how power dynamics are evolving in cyberspace, as well as how established norms, values and institutions are contested. The article then looks at the emergence of cyber diplomacy as a consequence and response to the post-liberal transition. As it will be argued, if cyberspace was a creation of the liberal order, cyber-diplomacy is a post-liberal world practice. What role it plays in shaping a new order or building bridges between different political visions, and what it means for the future of cyberspace, will constitute key points of discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Myanmar's changing political landscape: old and new struggles" is an edited volume that explores the political landscape in Myanmar. The book discusses the country's transition from an oppressive military regime to a quasi-civilian government and the subsequent gradual liberalization process. It also examines the impact of the 2021 coup d'état on Myanmar's political landscape. The book covers various topics including the military, governance, rights, and international relations, providing diverse perspectives from both Myanmar researchers and international experts. While the book is well-researched and organized, it would benefit from a concluding chapter and a supplementary volume to discuss the post-coup changes in Myanmar. Overall, the book offers valuable insights into Myanmar's political development and provides new perspectives on its changing political landscape. [Extracted from the article]

In the realist tradition of International Relations (IR), hegemony denotes the primacy of a state or group of states, and it is commonly associated with hegemonic stability theory. With China's rise, commentators have been claiming the end of US hegemony. To conclude, Martin offers a brief overview of the arguments seeking to reveal the "hegemony of hegemony". [Extracted from the article]

The recent Russian invasion of Ukraine has led many commentators to remark that 'geopolitics is back'. And with geopolitics, the interest in buffer zones is back as well. Yet, International Relations scholarship on buffer zones is confusing and outdated. Scholars disagree on the definition of buffer zones and whether such zones are a vestige of the great power politics of the past or a continuous phenomenon. In this article, we take three steps to reconceptualize buffer zones and their role in international relations. First, we clarify the conceptual confusion by advancing a new definition differentiating between nominal and active buffer zones. Second, we make the case that buffer states and internal buffer zones (i.e., geographic borderlands located within states in rivalry, adjacent to the international borders between the two rivals) share much in common and therefore should be analysed in tandem. Third, we offer a typology of buffer zones with short case-studies based on the dyadic relations of rival states vis-à-vis buffer zones between them. Our goal is to provide a new analytical framework that can serve as a base for a robust research agenda on the role of buffer zones in regional and international stability and security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While emigration and population displacements have long been a feature of Iraqi history, this article argues that the 2003 Anglo-American intervention in Iraq and its legacy has contributed to the gradual disappearance of many non-Muslim Iraqi minorities from Iraq. Though the legacy of 2003 can be attributed to a confluence of domestic and geopolitical factors, it is argued here that the 2003 intervention set in motion a process of nation-destroying instead of nation-building, as Iraqi nationhood was divided along primordial lines. Caught between competing ethnic and sectarian nationalisms, Iraqi non-Muslim minorities became targets in the quest for territorial gain and political power heralding an unprecedented and steady level of emigration. This has changed the ethnic and religious demographic of Iraq, the identity of the Iraqi nation-state, as well as fragmented Iraq's multiple ethnic and religious nations both inside and outside the country. Indeed, the effects of nation-destroying have also been transported to the diaspora, strengthening communal identities, altering attachments and creating distance between Iraqi communities abroad. This has led to distanced transnational ethnic and religious Iraqi nations in diaspora who must now also contend with assimilation, a loss of culture and language in the absence of physical links to Iraq. The article offers the first comprehensive and scholarly treatment of the effects of emigration of Iraq's non-Muslim minorities on Iraqi nationhood within the new Iraqi nation-state. It therefore contributes conceptually and empirically to advancing our understanding of the role of nation-destroying and emigration in nationalizing processes, a neglected area in current migration and nationalism scholarship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document provides a list of books that have been reviewed in the November 2023 issue of the journal "International Affairs." The books cover a wide range of topics, including power dynamics, transnational communism, imperialism, Southeast Asia, genocide, terrorism, memory activism, gender and security, democracy, European Union communities, artificial intelligence, the American order, counter-terrorism, eco-emancipation, politics of memory, Eurasian empires, nation-building, extremism, soft power, Iran, world politics, Russia-Ukraine conflict, international prosecutors, Brexit, African and Asian intelligence cultures, money, self-identity, military juntas, international law, and global discord. [Extracted from the article]

The book builds on a wide array of theoretical literature, including the scholarship on power transitions, rising powers behaviour and status in world politics. Mukherjee's critique of established structural theories on power shifts is not absolute and he focuses instead on the context of rising powers' behaviour within international institutions. [Extracted from the article]

China has been a major market for elephant ivory for centuries. However, the Chinese government recently enacted bans on imports and exports of ivory (2015) and on the domestic ivory trade (2017). These bans appear to have come in response to intensive influence campaigns and public shaming from domestic and foreign activists, who cited declining elephant populations and highlighted China's role. However, this shaming-narrative is at odds with conventional wisdom regarding Chinese policy-making: China typically resists international pressures and its authoritarian government is thought to be largely insulated from domestic efforts by civil society groups. This article reconciles Beijing's ivory policy with these conventional beliefs about policy-making in China. I argue that the Chinese government saw unique benefits to banning the ivory trade, under growing international scrutiny, as doing so enhanced Chinese soft power while having very little impact on its sovereignty or development. Non-government organizations (NGOs) operating both inside and outside of China played a role as well: NGOs in China helped to shift Chinese public opinion towards favouring the bans, while those operating abroad led public relations efforts to publicize Chinese demand for ivory to foreign audiences. Efforts by the latter group of NGOs intensified pressure on the Chinese government to rein in the ivory market, while increasing the soft power benefits that banning ivory would bring to Beijing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Margot Tudor's book provides a history of UN peacekeeping efforts from the second half of the twentieth century, highlighting the UN's role as an actor in its own right. Tudor argues that UN peacekeeping missions were largely ideological, colonial, racist, hierarchical, and self-serving. These missions often destabilized societies and perpetuated violence, acting as a vehicle for wealthy and powerful western states to wage the Cold War and reinvent colonialism. The book covers case-studies from different continents, including the Arab-Israeli War, the Korean War, UN operations in the Congo, and the United Nations Force in Cyprus. While the book focuses on the actions of mid-level UN bureaucrats, it also discusses the role of senior officials. Tudor's work is critical of the UN's actions, with a focus on the Indigenous Peoples who often suffered as a result of UN peacekeeping missions and colonial regimes. The book offers new approaches for understanding the Cold War, decolonization, and multilateral institutions, making it a valuable resource for those interested in the shortcomings of the UN and the broader international system. [Extracted from the article]

Debates on China's rise often limit the focus on the continuity and sustenance of the United States' hegemony and the liberal global order. This debate often ignores the primacy of the regional actors, who are generally reduced to 'pawns' in great power politics, acting without agency, interests, or values of their own. Instead, this article suggests that as China rises—like any other great power of the past—it will first aim to secure regional primacy through an array of policy instruments. To test this it examines three case-studies: 1) China–Pakistan relations in nuclear proliferation; 2) China–India relations with respect to border conflict; and 3) Sri Lanka–China relations for development infrastructure. It finds that China's rise has not been benign and instead Beijing has adopted aggressive policies in its neighbourhood. This article finds that the strategic binary of balancing (interest-based containment) and engagement (constructive cooperation) does not reflect immediate realities and long-term sustainability for regional actors. Instead, it suggests the latter would be better advised looking for closer cooperation with like-minded allies in the region (and beyond) as a way forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's ascendancy as a global development actor has significant implications for geostrategic dynamics and international development. While the push to 'go out' has been seen as a major strategy of the Chinese state, the actors are increasingly diversifying, including Chinese state agencies, businesses and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). We analyse the inconspicuous but important involvement of international NGOs (INGOs) in China's globalizing strategy. Drawing on in-depth interviews, we develop an integrated framework for INGOs as intermediaries in China's 'going out' strategy, based on the content of intermediary support (tangible vs intangible resources) and the function of the intermediary (bridging vs initiating). These intermediary roles have implications for how INGOs navigate conflicts between their domestic work in China and their outbound efforts, INGO legitimacy as actors that promote global norms or as ambassadors of the party-state, and the extent to which they facilitate Chinese expansion and soft power or shape China's global engagement. We show how INGOs as northern actors continue to play a role in South–South Cooperation. Our findings shed light on how global civil society chooses to invest its significant material and discursive resources, and how global actors under authoritarianism internalize, resist or promote its projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Power is shifting from the West to the East. Asia is experiencing the initial throes of this shift, where the key protagonists are the United States, the established power or hegemon, and China, the rising challenger and peer competitor. This article argues that the ongoing geopolitical competition between the United States and China is best viewed as a competition over the hierarchy of prestige, with China seeking to replace the US as the most prestigious state in the international system within the next thirty years. Although the competition is a global one, with China having made significant economic–political inroads into Africa, Latin America and even Europe, Asia is where China must establish its prestige or 'reputation for power' in the first instance. China seeks the top seat in the hierarchy of prestige, and the US will do everything in its power to maintain its pole position, because the state with the greatest reputation for power gets to govern the region: it will attract more followers, regional powers will defer to and accommodate it, and it will play a decisive role in shaping the rules and institutions of international relations. In a word, the state at the top of the prestige hierarchy gets to translate its power into the political outcomes it desires with minimal resistance and maximum flexibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are four areas in which soft power is open to critical scrutiny. First, research has centred on large and/or developed nations, notably in North America, Europe, east Asia and the BRICs. Second, scholars have called for greater clarity of the concept, noting that it lacks clear explanation of how instances of attraction equate to various power outcomes. Third, others suggest Joseph Nye developed an Americanized-centric understanding of soft power, and hence a narrow account of what constitutes 'attraction'. Finally, research has failed to examine how states' soft power attempts can backfire, leading to what we call 'soft disempowerment'. Drawing on the case of Qatar—with a particular focus on the state's acquisition of the 2022 FIFA World Cup finals—we seek to offer responses to these criticisms. We do this by refining the concept of soft power to take account of variegated power outcomes, and by focusing on a small state and a non-American context, in order to explore the intersections of soft power and soft disempowerment. In doing so, we introduce the 'soft power–soft disempowerment nexus' which, we go on to argue, affords an analytical framework for examining how soft power works and how it may be hampered through negative international scrutiny. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In their critique of liberal modernity, classical realists theorized its consequence for the heightened sense of insecurity and powerlessness of the individual on the one hand, and the individual's identification with extreme nationalism and violence on the other. This became the challenge posed by liberal modernity in the post-1945 international order. The article argues that the present international order is an extension of the post-1945 order that never resolved this challenge. While the 'embedded' form of liberalism that lasted until the early 1970s made social compromises that mitigated the socio-economic insecurities of the individual in liberal modernity, it did not resolve this challenge. The later advancement of neo-liberalism only further intensified it. The article thus critiques existing debates that downplay the challenge of liberal modernity in their analyses of the crisis of the present international order. It concludes that if the present international order is to be put on more stable and peaceful grounds, it requires a more radical break from its post-1945 and post-Bretton Woods past: a break that does not simply call for 'leadership' or 'offshore balancing' but addresses the psycho-social needs of the individual in liberal modernity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European populist leaders and movements often extol the virtues of sovereignty, but how exactly are they using this term? Scholars have typically relied on conventional understandings of the concept—Westphalian, popular and national sovereignty—to interpret populist discourses, but some have noted that these categories seem inadequate. This article asks whether much older, long overlooked, versions of sovereignty might help to explain the sovereignty discourse of European populists. These older variants include extralegal sovereignty (a leader's power to act outside the constraints of formal rules) and organic sovereignty (the power of a political community understood as a single 'organism'). Both are inherently illiberal: extralegalism rejects constitutionalism, while organicism is inimical to political pluralism. An examination of the public speeches and statements of one prominent European populist leader, Prime Minister Victor Orbán of Hungary, reveals that he has, indeed, invoked these illiberal versions of sovereignty. By retrieving these older concepts, populists gain a powerful rhetorical tool to advance illiberal principles of political authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2005, the United States recognized India as a 'responsible state with advanced nuclear technology'. How did India go from pariah to a legitimate nuclear state? This article historicizes the concept of nuclear responsibility to explain India's shifting place in the nuclear regime. Existing perspectives view responsibility as a function of discrete state behaviors to the detriment of understanding the relationship between power and responsibility as a discourse. This article tracks the evolving discourse of early proliferators, such as the US, UK and France, who legitimated their possession of nuclear weapons by linking responsibility with deterrence. In its early nuclear history, India challenged these hegemonic perspectives but more recently adopted the deterrence model of responsibility to be granted recognition and legitimacy in the global nuclear regime. The article concludes that nuclear states' success in linking deterrence with responsibility complicates the place of disarmament as an alternative nuclear responsibility discourse. Tying deterrence to responsibility reshaped the global order around the continual presence of nuclear weapons, narrowing moral agency and limiting a nuclear weapon-free future. Reclaiming responsibility will require moving beyond the typical state-centric politics of blame towards institutional and structural approaches to moral agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Very little is known about how Indian diplomats have made sense of the change in political power in New Delhi since 2014, when the election of Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi signalled a radical break from the internationalist credo of the Nehruvian Congress establishment. Attending to this gap in knowledge, this article engages with the ongoing debate about the influence of Hindu nationalism on Indian diplomacy, but departs from the conventional emphasis on foreign-policy analysis or Modi's persona. Instead, it centres on the lived experience of career diplomats in the Indian Foreign Service to whom it falls to conduct everyday diplomacy under Hindu nationalist rule. This focus invites a broader question in the global age of populism: how do contemporary diplomatic services adjust to the arrival of nationalist governments? I suggest that the delays in internalization of nationalist norms and diplomatic practices are only partly a function of ideological misalignment between an internationalist bureaucracy and a nationalist government. What matters is also the extent to which the status of the social class represented by the bureaucrats is invalidated by the government's political project. Building its arguments on the back of 85 elite interviews and archival research in India, the article considers changes to diplomatic discourse, protocol, priorities and training, and details how Indian diplomats have adjusted to and resisted Hindu nationalism. It suggests that we study nationalist critiques of 'cosmopolitan elites' both as an ideological denunciation of internationalist commitments and as a social rejection of the elites who hold them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Russia's own extensive political, economic, social and cultural links point to something more like integrative power between Russia and central Asia, whereby Russian influence remains strong more than 30 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Nonetheless, China has seen a drop-off in Sinophobia and an increase in its powers of attraction, while Russia remains the indispensable power in the region, popular with all generations. China's vast increases in trade with central Asia have intensified its regional relations of exchange and, in so far as these changes flow through state actors, this may increase China's power to attract and persuade. [Extracted from the article]

What is the utility of US military power when seeking to generate international economic arrangements preferential to its national interests? Conventional theories of relational power, whereby actor A compels actor B against their own will, offers a narrow range of explanations. We argue that theories of structural power, whereby an actor can utilize positional advantages to shape the structural contexts of other states international preferences offers a more nuanced account of the close interaction between geopolitics and the global economy. We taxonomize structural power into positive and negative components, applying these to a case-study of regional American primacy in east Asia. We argue that US primacyhas allowed it to leverage its military power into generating political-economic institutional outcomes that have reinforced its broader leadership role. The US may well continue its deep engagement or follow a path of retrenchment under President Trump, but both grand strategic options will impact on its capacity to leverage such structural power and have implications for US hegemony and the region's political economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A series of failed predictions, and the erosion of international order, augur an age of uncertainty. Rapid technological change is also fuelling anxiety about the 'sociomaterial' future of collective life. Demand for forecasting is now unprecedented. But the prediction industry has a poor record. Perverse incentives exacerbate the problem: the biggest pundits make the worst predictions. Some also worry that this industry legitimizes the preferred future of powerful interests. Forecasting should be a rigorous professional activity that is held to account, reviews its record and revises its practices. Complexity and chaos impose limits on prediction, but not decisive ones. Big data can play a big role, but needs the discipline of human judgement rich in history and detail. Organizations should create the incentives and culture that foster expert predictions which leaders listen to. This is hard, but good precedents exist. The costs of not doing so are demonstrably high. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inequality in all its forms is the defining global problem and increasingly the defining political problem of our age. A monumental body of scholarly research seeks to understand the drivers behind the vast and accelerating patterns of socioeconomic inequality in the global political economy. This article, an adapted version of the 2016 Martin Wight Memorial Lecture, contributes to this effort by focusing on a dimension of the picture which has received surprisingly little attention, namely, the implications for socio-economic inequality of the particular form of industrial organization that has come to underpin the contemporary global economy-one organized around global value chains and global production networks. It proposes an approach which sees inequality as arising at the intersections of three dimensions of asymmetry-asymmetries of market power, asymmetries of social power and asymmetries of political power-which underpin and crystallize around global value chains. It explores these dynamics in the particular arena of labour and labour exploitation in global value chains, as a means of shedding a valuable wide-angle beam on the big questions of power and inequality in the contemporary global political economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Falkner and Buzan provide a persuasive conceptual basis to understand the core challenges countries must overcome if equity and responsibility in international environmental policy are to be accepted and advanced by those with significant environmental great power. Buzan and Falkner argue that, while environmental power is a neutral concept, the balance of positive or negative power influences how a country is viewed by others. Crucially, contributors explore the relationship between great power status, the management of global international society and the nature of great power responsibility. [Extracted from the article]