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This article brings a broad array of works, which pertain to different research areas of international relations (IR), into contact with each other via a graphic method, systemism, to obtain insights that otherwise might prove elusive. Completion of these tasks is anticipated to exemplify how the systemist approach can enhance communication throughout IR. Systemism is introduced as a graphic technique for communicating arguments. Systemist graphics are used to convey the contents of (a) two studies that focus on theory per se and (b) a range of topics—foreign policy analysis, forecasting, and conflict processes. Systematic synthesis focusing on the two works about theory and bricolagic bridging that is based on all five studies reveal the contributions of a systemist approach, respectively, to the logics of confirmation and discovery. Value added from the systemist approach is confirmed for both IR research and pedagogy.

Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) is a highly active area within the social sciences, intersecting with the study of International Relations in any number of ways. The purpose of this article is to put...

Over the last twenty years since the introduction of automated coding schemes, research in foreign policy analysis (FPA) has made great advances. However, this automatization process is based on the analysis of verbal statements of leaders to create leadership profiles and has remained largely confined in terms of language. That is, the coding schemes can only parse English-language texts. This reduces both the quality and quantity of available data and limits the application of these leadership profiling techniques beyond the Anglosphere. Against this background, this forum offers five reports on the development of freely available coding schemes for either operational code analysis or leadership trait analysis for languages other than English (i.e., Turkish, Arabic, Spanish, German, and Persian).

What explains authoritarian reversal and resilience in hybrid regimes? This article derives hypotheses from an in-depth case analysis of Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s rule in Turkey. The Turkish case demo...

Political Islam and Islamist organizations have broadly gained strength across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in the post-Cold War era. Following the Arab uprisings, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), generally viewed as the world’s largest and most influential Islamist organization, has shaped the wider landscape of MENA politics. This study examines MB leadership by comparing M. Morsi of Egypt, R. Ghannouchi of Tunisia, and K. Meshaal of Gaza as examples of Islamist leaders to explain their political belief systems and predict their foreign-policy behavior. We use the operational code approach, a content-analysis software and statistical tests to conduct the study. Results show that the three leaders’ foreign policy beliefs are analogous to the averages of world leaders. Results also partially support the hypothesis that their foreign-policy propensities are similar to each other. We conclude that despite the conventional portrayal of MB leadership, these leaders use negotiation and cooperation to settle their differences in foreign affairs, and the best way to approach them is to engage in a Rousseauvian assurance game that emphasizes international social cooperation. Results also suggest important implications in terms of mainstream international relations theories.