Search

Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI), combined with a proliferation in use, have led to a newfound emphasis on strengthening the global governance of AI. In this article, we assess the prospects for stronger global AI governance and consider potential pathways forward. We map the nascent landscape of international regimes focused on AI governance and conclude that a governance deficit remains due to the inadequacy of existing initiatives, gaps in the landscape and difficulties reaching agreement over more appropriate mechanisms. First-order cooperation problems stemming from interstate competition and second-order cooperation problems from dysfunctional international institutions problematize overcoming current deficiencies in global AI governance. In light of these cooperation problems, we evaluate two pathways for strengthening global AI governance: (a) developing new centralized international AI institution(s); and (b) strengthening coordination between, and capacities of, existing institutions. We argue that strengthening the existing weak 'regime complex' of international institutions is the more politically legitimate and viable path forward. Improving coordination between, and capacities of, existing international institutions governing AI would support inclusive and mutually reinforcing policy change that can mitigate a range of risks associated with these technologies. As first steps for strengthening the weak AI regime complex, we recommend that the OECD is foregrounded as a centre of expert AI knowledge so that it can facilitate peer pressure among states and harmonization of policies. We also encourage scrutiny of different nodes in the regime complex to ensure that they are fulfilling appropriate functions based on their democratic mandates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has become a hallmark of China's global rise. While the BRI has unfolded as a global platform focused on bilateral relations, the Chinese government has also tried to expand links between the BRI and international organizations, notably the United Nations. Available evidence about UN–BRI relations suggests, however, that an initial honeymoon phase with mushrooming projects and public endorsements was followed by a sharp decline in engagement. This article argues that a focus on inter-governor legitimation attempts helps understand the rise and fall of UN–BRI relations. Based on publicly available evidence, internal documentation and stakeholder interviews, it shows how legitimation informed motivations on both sides to invest in UN–BRI relations, and how western opposition subsequently led to UN entities reducing their engagement. Empirically, the article contributes to the literature on China's global role, evolving power relations at the UN, and the proliferation of geopolitically motivated flagship initiatives across UN member states. Conceptually, it speaks to the expanding debate about legitimation in world politics through a more systematic engagement with relational legitimation dynamics. A focus on one-sided or mutual legitimation attempts offers a conceptual tool for analysing how interactions among global governors and their audiences unfold, and how international organizations try (and fail) to strengthen their resilience in light of an increasingly polarized membership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND The World Health Organization (WHO) system for the classification of disorders of ovulation was produced 50 years ago and, by international consensus, has been updated by the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO). OBJECTIVE AND RATIONALE This review outlines in detail each component of the FIGO HyPO-P (hypothalamic, pituitary, ovarian, PCOS) classification with a concise description of each cause, and thereby provides a systematic method for diagnosis and management. SEARCH METHODS We searched the published articles in the PubMed database in the English-language literature until October 2022, containing the keywords ovulatory disorders; ovulatory dysfunction; anovulation, and each subheading in the FIGO HyPO-P classification. We did not include abstracts or conference proceedings because the data are usually difficult to assess. OUTCOMES We present the most comprehensive review of all disorders of ovulation, published systematically according to the logical FIGO classification. WIDER IMPLICATIONS Improving the diagnosis of an individual's ovulatory dysfunction will significantly impact clinical practice by enabling healthcare practitioners to make a precise diagnosis and plan appropriate management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is a book review of "Reimagining the International Legal Order," edited by Vesselin Popovski and Ankit Malhotra. The book explores the need to rethink and improve the existing international legal framework due to its inefficiency and the changing global landscape. Divided into six parts, the book covers various aspects of the international legal order, including international law, international organizations, courts and tribunals, specific jurisdictions, and laws of war. The review acknowledges the frustration with international law and practice and praises the book for its attempt to go beyond the traditional framework and include considerations of private international law. Overall, the book is seen as an interesting and topical read that contributes to the existing scholarship in the field. [Extracted from the article]

Important French foreign policy dyads, such as relations between France and the United Kingdom and France and the United States, have consistently been subject to empirical, historical and policy analysis. However, France's relationship with the broader Anglosphere is rarely considered or conceptualized. This article theorizes France's relationship with the Anglosphere at a pivotal historical juncture. The 2021 announcement of AUKUS, a security partnership between Australia, the UK and the US, spectacularly excluded France despite a shared proclivity to use military force in defence of liberal international order. To analyse this vital contemporary case, we undertake a comparative, computer-aided discourse analysis of 540 political and media texts, triangulated with thematic analysis of 37 elite interviews. First, contributing to constructivist and ontological security theory, we develop a novel theorization of alliance politics, generally, through the concept of 'brOthers in arms', whereby a double identity inscription binds allies antagonistically together. Second, contributing to critical studies of foreign policy and research on national identity, we locate France–Anglosphere relations, specifically, towards the thick end of an alliance identity spectrum, held together in mutual alterity by complementary, competing and co-constitutive exceptionalisms. Third, contributing to studies of foreign policy and alliance politics, our analysis situates AUKUS within the fractious longue durée of France–Anglosphere relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

NATO's involvement in Kosovo and its transformation from a military intervention to a UN-authorized peacekeeping operation has played a key role in the evolution of the alliance's strategic and political agenda. This article explores the importance of NATO's engagement with Kosovo in retrospect and in relation to the future outlook for European and global peace and security. It focuses on the centrality of this case for NATO's post-Cold War identity and as a key issue in the renewed political conflict associated with the transitional international order. We make three arguments. First, we argue that NATO's involvement in Kosovo has shaped and exacerbated the broader friction associated with the shifting international order. Second, we make the case that this engagement has played a key role in the strategic, political and operational development of NATO and its evolving identity. Thirdly, as a result of this, we argue that NATO's evolution and transformation in Kosovo was guided by what we call the logic of successful security practices. This entails making prudent political choices and implementing practical steps to harmonize divergent strategic interests among NATO members, adapting to shifting security circumstances, and upholding the organization's significance, credibility and influence both within and beyond the Euro-Atlantic community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Russia's invasion of Ukraine brought both condemnation and vindication to the European Union. EU policies were condemned for being complacent, naive and greedy. However, when European leaders conducted a coordinated response backing Ukraine, the war also vindicated the EU as a liberal project. The crisis has led to a surge in support for the EU, unprecedented cooperation across policy areas and new accession negotiations with the EU's eastern neighbours. To understand this shift, the article argues that crisis has catalysed the EU becoming a sceptical liberal actor. Sceptical liberalism is characterized by a bleak view on the trajectory of the international order, a self-critical understanding of Europe's role in it, and a willingness to intervene, including with military means, to tackle political predicaments. The transition changes EU leaders' previous optimistic liberal approach of pursuing peace and prosperity though mediation and interdependence. Distinguishing between ideals and actions, the article argues that liberal ideals remain intact, but a sceptical outlook implies different actions to pursue those ideals. The article's argument challenges longstanding scholarly debates on 'normal versus normative power Europe', which build on an excessively bifurcated assessment of EU foreign policy that fails to capture contemporary dynamics and the dilemmas they cause. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

NATO has for 75 years been a remarkably resilient organization because it has been able to change when the world changed. NATO's longevity is in large part due to a dual structure, which has enabled the alliance to oscillate between a role as a military alliance and as a community of value. The Russian invasion of Ukraine and global geopolitical shifts such as the rise of China prompted NATO to prioritize its role as a military alliance and to add a new political focus on China. However, this article demonstrates that NATO's reading of the geopolitical transformation is incomplete. NATO should recognize the new global ordering architecture as a multi-order one, which requires NATO to distinguish clearly between the 'unbounded' global rules-based order in which several international orders now exist and the 'bounded' liberal international order of which NATO is a key institution. NATO needs to develop its policies accordingly—policies governing relations within the liberal international order must be clearly anchored in liberal values and designed to defend liberal international order, while policies governing relations between international orders cannot be anchored in liberal values, but must seek rules-based cooperation in areas of shared interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many theoretical conclusions core to the study of international politics rely on having access to, and understanding, the rhetoric of international actors. One important development in advancing the empirical study of international relations (IR) theory, therefore, is the availability of machine-analyzable speech data. A collection of fine-grained textual representations of states' speeches in the context of an important international organization, such as the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), is needed to understand the ideas, preferences, and values that states put forth in their statements. An especially promising use for such a corpus of texts would be to measure states' preferences based on their statements. In an effort to add to the burgeoning field of text-as-data in IR, I present the UNGA Speech Corpus, a collection of over 34,000 speeches delivered by states in the UNGA from 1993 to 2018. I use it to improve on recent work that links text to preferences in IR by combining a structural topic model with locally trained word embeddings to estimate the policy positions of states on specific topics. I then show how these "topic scores" can help scholars to improve their analyses of exigent international issues, such as global climate change governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital and non-digital modes of governing the international legal order co-exist. This imbrication brings with it a particular constellation of actors, new sites and processes of governance and new modalities of law-making. Claudia Aradau and Tobias Blanke, in Algorithmic Reason , guide us through the complex cartographies of global governance. They eloquently map the networks and infrastructures of algorithmic governance and show how they affect the relations between the governing and the governed. Thereby, they help us visualize the imbrication of the local and the global, of private and public infrastructural logics beyond the static binaries that shape our traditional understanding of the international legal order. Throughout multiple case studies, two major transversal claims emerge in the book that are relevant to international lawyers. The book, in my view, argues for (i) an anti-solutionist and (ii) an anti-formalist analysis of global algorithmic governance. As these two transversal claims are not always fully unpacked and explicitly embraced, this review essay aims to draw the contours of these claims, unpack them and show how valuable they can be to think about global algorithmic governance and the functions of international law in the equation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces a new dataset on how international organizations (IOs) justify their authority. For a long time, IOs were believed to derive legitimacy from member-state consent and technocratic problem-solving capacities. Over recent decades, the growing politicization of IOs, political polarization within Western democracies, and power shifts in the international system have spurred IOs' efforts to justify their right to rule, using a variety of legitimation practices. While research on the theory and practice of IO legitimation has grown considerably over the past decade, much of this work builds on case studies of prominent global and regional IOs. As a result, we lack data suitable for systematic comparative analyses across time, IOs, and world regions. The Legitimation Strategies of Regional Organizations (LegRO) dataset aims to narrow this gap, providing data on the standards, intensity, and modes of legitimation for twenty eight regional IOs from 1980 to 2019. These variables inform theoretical and policy-relevant research on contemporary global governance by providing the first systematic overview of IOs' legitimation practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper starts from the supposition that civilization is an important concept for thinking about world order, and one that is increasingly coming back into play in world politics. It opens with a close look at the Global Civilization Initiative (GCI): what does it say, what does it imply, about what is it silent, and what are its policy contexts? It offers the theory of Uneven and Combined Development (UCD) as a way of looking at multiple modernities in terms of civilizational pluralism. This is followed by a historical unfolding of UCD since the early 19th century, showing how it has generated both single and multiple modernities cast in civilizational terms. The penultimate section focuses on the risks and opportunities that a world order of civilizational pluralism would create specifically for China. The conclusions summarize the main points of argument, and set out a more detailed global vision of what the GCI might aim to achieve if played well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The geopolitical rise of emerging economies has led to contestations and renegotiations of the boundaries of the developing country status. Established powers put pressure on emerging economies to give up this status and the benefits it comes with in global regimes. In this article, we analyse the (re)negotiation of China's developing country status within the context of US–China geoeconomic competition with respect to two core areas in the global economy—finance and trade. We show that whether private or public actors are responsible for status classification influences the outcomes of contestation over China's status. When private sector actors are central, China is more likely able to defend its developing country status against US pressure. We also find that these processes are mitigated by how decision-making processes are institutionalised. Our two case studies thus illustrate that regulatory processes such as status classification influence the outcomes of geoeconomic competition in international politics. These findings also shed new light on the power of states versus non-state actors within global governance amidst the geoeconomic turn: the public–private divide can serve as an important context factor that influences the probability of the international economic order to cater more towards US or Chinese geoeconomic strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alliances are generally understood as groupings of states that combine to aggregate their physical capabilities against security threats. In this article we suggest transposing this well-established terminology of inter-state allegiance to the dimension of narrative. Focusing on the example of the 'rules-based order' (RBO), we provide a new conceptual entry point for understanding the complex relationship between order and discourse at the international level. Specifically, we examine how countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, India and Japan—with varying degrees of consistency and coherence—go beyond merely proclaiming the existence of an established international system of cooperation, commitments and norms. They collectively tell a political story of the rules-based order—including its age, nature, purpose and sources of vulnerability—that rests on declaring some codes of conduct acceptable and appropriate while denouncing others as deviant. We argue that rallying behind a shared vision of international organization demarcates the boundaries of international legitimacy and establishes imperatives to act in defence of particular visions of international organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article addresses the diversity of digital diplomatic strategies used by governmental actors to fight international stigmatization. Faced with structural limitations, the leaders of small states use it to defend their political project's image or reputation when they come under international criticism for deviating from or transgressing international norms. Borrowing from Erving Goffman, I draw on the idea that social networks can be conceptualized as orders of interaction, in which digital diplomatic strategies can be put in place and international politicization and normative debates can develop. An examination of Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele's Twitter posts from January 2019 to May 2022, during a period of increasing international criticism regarding the authoritarian–populist drift in El Salvador, improves our knowledge of the diversity of digital diplomatic strategies. Consequently, this enlightens us on the constitutive elements of how small states manage their relationship with external actors, their image and status, and eventually how they challenge the international order, international norms and powers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the many impacts of Russia's war on Ukraine, the most consequential may be in pushing the world in the direction of Three Worlds—the global West, the global East and the global South. One is led by the United States and Europe, the second by China and Russia, and the third by an amorphous grouping of non-western developing nations. These Three Worlds are not blocs or coherent negotiating groups, but loose, constructed and evolving global factions. This article makes four arguments. First, the Three Worlds system has the makings of a fairly durable pattern of global order, shaping struggles over rules and institutions. Second, the Three Worlds system will encourage a 'creative' politics of global order-building. The global West and global East will have incentives to compete for the support and cooperation of the global South. Third, there are deep principles of world order that provide a foundation for the Three Worlds competition. Finally, if the global West is to remain at the center of world order in the decades ahead, it will need to accommodate both the global East and the global South, and adapt itself to a more pluralistic world. But in the competition with the global East for the support of the global South, it has the advantage. The global South's critique of the global West is not that it offers the wrong pathway to modernity, but that it has not lived up to its principles or shared sufficiently the material fruits of liberal modernity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

States are keen to send representatives to international organizations, instructing them to pursue national interests and monitor staff. Yet academics tend to ignore these individuals and approximate state influence by vote shares and other state-level attributes. Against this background, I examine when state representatives in international organizations wield outsize influence on decision-making. Based on scholarship of bureaucrats in international organizations, European studies and an interdisciplinary literature on negotiation, I argue that state delegates matter beyond their national affiliation. Empirically, I study one especially powerful institution in global governance: the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Elite interviews with IMF state representatives demonstrate that delegates carefully plan their interventions, behaving independently while also extending their constituents' interests. Based on the analysis of these interviews, I theorize 'respected individuals' to describe state representatives who can wield outsize influence on decision-making. Their prestige and impact depend on: first, perceived autonomy from their home governments; and second, relevant expertise, social skills and deliberative craft. In the IMF, respected individuals are most likely to represent relatively weak states; more generally, my work speaks to debates on the power of small states in international financial institutions and multilateral negotiations. Together, the findings explicate how individuals impact organizational decision-making, with important implications for practitioners in such institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the book "Global Policymaking: The Patchwork of Global Governance" by Pouliot and Thérien, which explores the political dynamics of global governance. The authors argue against the rationalist view that global governance is a functional response to collective action problems and instead propose a framework that views global policymaking as a form of social "bricolage". They apply this framework to case studies on development, human rights, and security, and identify key political cleavages that characterize global policymaking. The book contributes to the literature by shedding light on political struggles, bridging interests and ideologies, and connecting different issue areas of global governance. However, the authors' theoretical framework of political cleavages may oversimplify the complexities of each case. Overall, the book broadens the understanding of global governance by highlighting exclusion and value conflicts in policymaking. [Extracted from the article]

The decline of the liberal international order (LIO) has been swift, with challenges from state actors like China and Russia. Gerlinde Groitl's book examines this assault on the LIO, focusing on the choices made by the leaders of these countries. Groitl argues that China's approach is characterized as "constructive" while Russia's is "destructive." China has actively sought to counter and replace international institutions based on Western values, while Russia attacked the post-Cold War settlement with its invasion of Ukraine. Groitl's neo-classical realist model suggests that the survival of political systems, rather than states themselves, drives international strategies. The book concludes that as long as the attractiveness of Western democracies persists, counter-movements will continue to emerge, necessitating a strategy of "neo-containment." [Extracted from the article]

"The Origins of Global Economic Governance" by Jamie Martin explores the early development of international economic governance from the 1910s to the 1940s. The book highlights how the World Wars, self-determination movements, and economic crises during this period blurred the lines between national and international affairs. It discusses the emergence of international economic institutions and their impact on state sovereignty, as well as the debates surrounding the democratic legitimacy of institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. The author argues that these institutions transformed the exercise of sovereignty in a new international order based on principles of self-determination. The book provides a comprehensive analysis of the historical context and offers potential avenues for further research in the field of international economic governance. [Extracted from the article]

When different entities (actors) accept a certain norm or a particular agreement about normative principles, they are likely to have an overlapping but not necessarily fully shared understanding of the given norm. This article theorises and assesses the strength of such normative overlaps in international politics. It conceptualises normative overlaps as normative congruences across and within political orders. It follows a norm's connection to constitutional layers of political orders (congruences within orders) and the way these constitutional layers of political orders, among which the norm is shared, overlap (congruences across orders). To do so, it builds upon and interconnects the literature on norms, especially norm diffusion, and the English School and constructivist literature on the composition of international order. The theoretical framework is utilised to analyse how China fits into the liberal international society, especially when it comes to human rights (HR) and humanitarian protection. The effect of the normative overlaps in this realm is China's active engagement with the liberal HR regime, however, without deeper convergence or socialisation. The limits of convergence are underpinned by significant differences between the Chinese developmentalist and liberal conceptions of the moral purpose of politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is commonplace to say that international organizations (IOs) face a legitimacy crisis because they are perceived as undemocratic, unaccountable, and inefficient. Plausible as it may seem, this still must count as a conjecture. In this article, I review the rapidly growing literature that has explored this connection empirically. I follow three strands of research that approach the legitimacy of IOs from different angles. The first strand explores individual beliefs through observational and experimental surveys. The second strand analyzes public discourses, mapping arguments deployed to (de-)legitimize IOs. The third strand studies political action related to legitimacy, such as protest voting, street demonstrations, and withdrawal of member states from IOs. The empirical evidence shows that citizens expect fair procedures and balanced outcomes also in international politics; that legitimation discourses revolve around democratic standards and not only performance; and that institutions respond to protests. It is less clear, however, how the three dimensions of (de-)legitimation interact. I argue that we need to triangulate them more systematically to see the connections between beliefs, arguments, and political action at work. I suggest in-depth case studies, sensitive to the context and content of legitimation debates, that cover these three dimensions and their interactions simultaneously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global populist backlash is considered threatening to the multilateral order, but its impact on individual attitudes toward international organizations, like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), is understudied. We bridge insights from research on the IMF and populism to develop a theoretical framework centered on three propositions. We argue that populist individuals should be more prone to blame the IMF for economic problems than non-populists, but that this effect is highly conditional on sovereignty intrusion, escalating when an IMF program exists and as the program becomes more onerous. In contrast, IMF scapegoating by populist politicians should be largely ineffective. Analyzing survey data from across the European Union and an original survey experiment in Greece, we find support for each contention. The paper advances understanding of the partisan politics of the IMF and shows that the implications of the populist wave for international order are more complex than often assumed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the examination of dominant functionalist approaches in international organizations law and explores the quest for alternative theoretical perspectives, particularly regarding accountability. It reflects on past efforts to identify alternative modes of thinking through the examination of influential scholars and concludes that international organizations law largely remains entrenched in functionalism.

The document is an annual index of the journal "International Affairs" for the year 2023, containing articles on various topics related to international affairs. These topics include injustice and the crisis of international order, climate change, global justice, the invasion of Ukraine, India as a 'civilizational state', the Iraq War, women, peace, and security, and buffer zones in international rivalry. The document provides a range of perspectives on these topics and can be a valuable resource for library patrons conducting research on specific international affairs issues. It consists of three separate sections from different volumes of the journal, each focusing on different themes and regions. [Extracted from the article]

This article uses a new concept—multiplexity, rather than multipolarity or liberal hegemony—to describe and analyse the changing world order. Instead of conventional measures like economic or military power, it uses 'interaction capacity' among states, or the relative ability of nations to exercise leadership and organize cooperation as the key world order measure. Using a new dataset composed of post-Second World War treaties to measure interaction capacity, it finds the world order changing from United States leadership, toward a more de-centered, pluralistically led (multiplex) world—a decline in the relative importance of great powers, an increase in the interaction capacity of middle and small powers, and the significance of clusters of cooperation among nations that are not necessarily geographically close to each other. We conclude that, while leadership in global cooperation is increasingly pluralized along actors and issue areas, it is not collapsing or becoming overly transactional. These findings should guide debates on the future of world order and reform of international institutions. While policy makers must prepare for a transition from the unipolar moment and the rise of non-western nations, they should not succumb to undue pessimism about the collapse of global cooperation, which is underpinned by long-term dynamics of interaction capacity among nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the increasing use of military actors in the governance of migration in the Mediterranean basin. The article analyses maritime migration as distinct from migration via other routes. It investigates the understudied features of the securitization processes of maritime migration and discusses their repercussions for migrants' rights. To this end, building on critical security perspectives and inspired by critical geopolitics, the article conducts a textual and discourse analysis of NATO and the European Union's security assessments and strategies, and examines the practices ensuing from these organizations' security narrative. The article's main arguments are two-fold: first, it contends that framing migration as a 'hybrid threat' by NATO and the EU expands the spaces of containment of human mobility at the expense of migrants' protection and rights; and second, it argues that such a 'threat discourse' simultaneously provides legitimacy for military operations and eliminates accountability for infringement of the human rights of migrants and refugees. The article ends with a summary of the analysis and the subsequent conclusions, as well as suggestions for overturning the current trends of dehumanization of migrants and law-breaking in the name of security in the Mediterranean. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the failure of the Conference of the Parties (COP15) in 2009 in Copenhagen, the European Union has significantly altered its negotiation strategy in the global climate regime. It moved from an emphasis on 'leadership by example' and an insistence on top-down, binding targets within a framework of strong global governance institutions (impartiality in global justice terms) towards a strategy of shared leadership, increased dialogue (mutual recognition) and acceptance of more voluntary instruments (non-domination). This article traces this shift through an examination of EU policy documents and makes sense of it by reference to learning effects of an EU with solidarist ambitions in a pluralist international society, and the changing power distribution and contestations of the post-Cold War liberal order on the global level. Furthermore, it assesses the consequences of the shift for international society (especially concerning different 'solidarisms') and global climate justice. We argue that while a changed EU approach has been vital to maintaining the EU's status as a relevant actor and to secure the Paris Agreement, too much emphasis on the pluralist dimension and non-domination may also hinder effective global solutions to climate change. It is therefore vital that the EU continues its solidarist ambitions by pushing for rigorous measures of accountability, but also by alleviating structural domination in the climate regime and particularly by better recognizing and including civil society actors from the global South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Russia's large-scale war against Ukraine is rightfully viewed as a major violation of the fundamental norms of international society. It creates a problem for the literature on the liberal international order, which used to treat Russia as engaging in contestation—a legitimate practice which, according to some accounts, constitutes an essential aspect of any order. This article aims to develop a conceptual frame for the radical rupture resulting from the war by describing it as an expansion of antagonism. In the post-structuralist theory employed here, antagonism is always present at the margins of any order as a daily experience of failure, of the impossibility of total ordering. Russia's war started from the rhetorical negation of Ukraine's existence as a sovereign nation, but expanded into an antagonism that eventually threatens to 'cancel' Russia itself. To explore this case conceptually and empirically, I approach international order as a set of performative practices unfolding within a hegemonic structure. Russia is not alone in perceiving the liberal hegemony as unjust, but the expansion of antagonism on such a scale is rather unique. It can be damaging to democracy worldwide unless it is mobilized for the construction of broader anti-war coalitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relevance of bordering practices and dynamics for the European Union has significantly increased in recent years, ranging from Brexit to the open-border policies towards Ukrainians fleeing Russia's military aggression, through the crises in the Schengen area due to migration and COVID–19. In its attempts to respond to these challenges, the EU has been widely criticized in particular for its approach to migration; it has been alluded to as being cynical, negligent and even 'illiberal'. The aim of this article is to analyse whether and in which sense this allegation is correct, providing clear normative criteria. Drawing from political theory, we identify three different understandings of 'just' migration governance, all compatible with a liberal approach, and use them as benchmarks to evaluate the EU's stance. Focusing on selected EU bordering practices—physical, administrative and external bordering—we detect a general trend towards re-bordering, meaning processes through which the control of borders is enhanced and their exclusionary meaning is increased. Most of all, the article shows that EU policies have been leaning towards one specific understanding of liberalism to the detriment of the others, which poses significant challenges to the EU's credentials as a pillar of the liberal international order (LIO). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union has been characterized as a vanguard of a rights-based liberal international order. A prime example is making all cooperation agreements with third states conditioned on respect for human rights. But the EU's approach is contested on grounds of inconsistency and power imbalance. This article contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between authoritative human rights procedures and contestations of the liberal order. In doing so, the article brings to the fore ambiguities that are often glossed over in the literature related to representation in supranational political arrangements. Through a longitudinal case-study of the centrepiece of the EU's external human rights policy, the human rights clause, the article shows that the EU vacillates between supranational and intergovernmental political arrangements. It insists on a human rights clause that allows for sanctioning of non-compliance, but that also maintains core features of intergovernmental decision-making where executives in the EU and partner governments maintain the authority to initiate and settle disputes on human rights. The result is a half-hearted move towards a rights-based liberal order that neither fully respects nation-states' sovereignty nor fully allows for an impartial settlement of human rights disputes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The conventional expectation that middle powers support the liberal international order (LIO) is now increasingly being questioned. This article seeks to explore why and how emerging authoritarian middle powers contest the LIO through a study of Turkey's contestation of the EU. By conceptualizing contestations of the LIO as claims to global justice, the article examines the justice claims that underlie Turkey's contestation; with regard to discourse, it does so through a qualitative content analysis of President Erdoğan's speeches, and with regard to practice, through a survey of Turkey's contestatory foreign policy practices. The article shows that middle powers can discursively attack the legitimacy of the LIO by underlining its constituents' failures in upholding their moral duties towards citizens extending beyond their borders (impartiality) and to those who suffer from structural inequalities in the international order (mutual recognition). It demonstrates that their contestatory practices, however, are made with a view to pursue the sovereign interests of the state, with minimal regard for impartiality and mutual recognition. The article unpacks this inconsistency and finds that authoritarian middle powers' contestation of the LIO is mainly driven by concerns for regime security, where the centrality of an issue area to the government's survival prospects is the key factor which determines whether contestation will occur. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reflects on how European Union (EU) narratives of the crisis of the liberal international order (LIO) have reshaped its resilience approach and its foreign and security policy more broadly. Drawing on qualitative textual analysis, we trace the evolution of the EU's resilience approach over time and the way it has been shaped by crisis narratives. While the idea of resilience was introduced in EU foreign policy to foster the resilience of crisis-affected societies from the bottom up, the perception of an increasingly contested world first led to a reinterpretation of resilience in pragmatic ways, with values and interests combined selectively to protect the rules-based international order. More recently, on the grounds of a worsening crisis of the LIO, resilience has taken a defensive turn, adopting a more geopolitical stance to strengthen the EU's own resilience and that of the LIO. We argue that EU crisis narratives about the LIO thus serve to sustain and to rescue it. Furthermore, we conclude that the defensive reinterpretation of resilience is eroding the normative character of EU foreign and security policy. It also challenges the persistence of the LIO in the long term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Article One stated: "Every nation has the right to exist, and to protect and to conserve its existence; but this right neither implies the right nor justifies the act of the state to protect itself or to conserve its existence by the commission of unlawful acts against innocent and unoffending states." He was explicit about his fervent opposition to the Monroe Doctrine and Pan-Americanism, for he stressed: "my purpose is to contribute to the formation of the history of North-American imperialism", and thus these "notes can be useful for the political and diplomatic history of America and the understanding of applied Pan-Americanism."[54] He argued that the Monroe Doctrine operated as an elastic and flexible principle, consolidating the United States's exceptional role on the continent, as a nation that committed to certain international legal values and institutions and at the same time violated them. He affirmed that the Monroe Doctrine "should be enacted and covenanted among all the nations of the continent that the territory of the American nations is no longer a subject for conquest whether from within or from without the continent", since "Pan-Americanism - the real, the genuine - rests primarily upon the Monroe Doctrine."[35] All in all, the outbreak of World War I and Wilson's Pan-American Pact contributed to popularizing Pan-American approaches to the Monroe Doctrine across the Americas. [Extracted from the article]

This research note introduces the International Treaty Ratification Votes Database, which covers more than 6,000 votes on the ratification of international treaties in Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Slovakia, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States between 1990 and 2019. In addition, the database presents data on the voting behavior of ninety parties in eight of these countries, resulting in more than 11,000 party observations. The research note presents the two datasets with their two units of analysis, the parliamentary and the party level, and describes the main variables, reaching from descriptive vote and cabinet data to issue areas, comparative party family classifications, and actual voting records. Furthermore, we suggest avenues for using the data for future research on the domestic politics of foreign policy: Our data can be used to study patterns in the politicization of international treaties and organizations, ratification delays, legislative–executive relations, the party politics of foreign policy making, and the crisis of the liberal international order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Open in new tab Download slide OBJECTIVES Transcatheter heart valves (THVs) are investigated according to International Organization for Standardization requirements using in vitro heart simulators to evaluate hydrodynamic performance. In contrast to surgical valves, a THV's performance heavily depends on the configuration and shape of the aortic anulus. In International Organization for Standardization regulations, there is no detailed definition for the construction of a compartment in which a THV has to be tested. Therefore, the aim of this in vitro study was to compare different in vitro models for functional testing of THVs. METHODS Porcine aortic conduits (23-mm diameter) were implanted in Dacron prostheses and calcified with double-distilled water and calcification buffer at 37°C over 83 million cycles in a Hi-Cycler (durability testing) mimicking nearly 3 patient-years. Hydrodynamic testing of Evolut PRO 26 mm was performed within 3 models (plexiglass, native conduit and calcified conduit; all 23-mm diameter) at a frequency of 64 bpm and different stroke volumes (55–105 ml). RESULTS Calcified conduits showed significantly higher mean pressure gradients (MPG) and lower effective orifice areas (EOA) in comparison to native conduits (without THV; P  < 0.001). EOA and MPG of Evolut PRO differed depending on the model tested. Calcified conduits resulted in the lowest EOA and highest MPG of the THV compared to plexiglass and the native conduit. Full expansion of the THV was least impaired in the native conduit, while lowest geometric orifice area, lowest minimal internal diameter and highest pin-wheeling index of Evolut PRO were seen in the calcified conduit. CONCLUSIONS Full expansion and functional performance of the Evolut PRO THV depends on the configuration of the testing compartment in an in vitro setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The book "Unilateral Sanctions in International Law" edited by Surya P. Subedi is a comprehensive collection of essays that examines the rules and implications of unilateral sanctions in international law. The book covers various topics such as the legality of unilateral sanctions, their impact on human rights, and their effectiveness as a tool of international law enforcement. Each chapter focuses on a specific aspect of unilateral sanctions, including their economic impact, implications for aviation and trade, effects on regional economic integration and foreign investment, and their relationship with international organizations and environmental obligations. The book provides valuable insights and case studies that contribute to a deeper understanding of the complexities surrounding unilateral sanctions. [Extracted from the article]

Jason Ralph's book, "On global learning: pragmatic constructivism, international practice and the challenge of global governance," offers ethical guidance for practitioners in a changing world. Ralph suggests that practical judgment based on human imagination and experimentalism should guide practices that serve the global public interest, rather than relying on abstract principles. He develops two normative tests to assess existing international practices and norms, and explores the problem-solving capacities of communities of practice in the areas of security, climate, and health. Ralph also emphasizes the importance of inclusivity, sympathy, and democratic methods in these communities. [Extracted from the article]

"The Spirit of Global Health" is a book that explores the history of the World Health Organization's (WHO) engagement with the concept of spirituality in global health. The authors trace this history chronologically, from early debates over the inclusion of a spiritual dimension in health to more recent initiatives addressing the COVID-19 pandemic. The book highlights the ongoing debate and politicization surrounding spirituality in health and healthcare, emphasizing that it is a political decision. While the authors advocate for the inclusion of spirituality in global health, they also acknowledge the uncertainty and unease within the WHO about the direction of this initiative. The book is commended for its thorough documentation of the WHO's engagement with spirituality, but it is noted that it does not extensively reference the existing literature on religion and public health. Overall, "The Spirit of Global Health" is recommended for those interested in the intersection of medicine, religion, and global governance. [Extracted from the article]

"The New Atlantic Order: The Transformation of International Politics, 1860-1933" by Patrick Cohrs explores the reconfiguring of the world order during this time period. Cohrs focuses on the rise of military and economic cooperation in the new Atlantic order, particularly the transatlantic alliance between France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The book examines the role of experts and policy-makers in shaping peace after World War I, as well as the evolution of the transatlantic system and the legitimacy deficits that arose in the late 1920s and early 1930s. While the book could have delved more into the League of Nations' efforts on disarmament, it provides valuable insights into the rise of Pax Atlantica and its relevance to contemporary global alliances. [Extracted from the article]

International Relations scholarship has examined how technical knowledge boosts the performance of international organizations, but has found that it could also lead to behaviour undermining their broader goals. Research has not reconciled these contrasting observations by specifying when and how technical proficiency leads to such dysfunction. Addressing these gaps, this article examines the connections among Communities of Practice (CoPs) within the organization in linking technical knowledge with other forms of knowledge, actors and tools crucial to address the larger environment, enhancing performance. To illustrate this, the article examines the role of two CoPs, namely, the technical CoP and the diplomatic CoP, in developing and deploying African Mediation Support Structures. The research uses qualitative analysis of official documents, reports, scholarly works and semi-structured expert interviews of officials, partners and analysts. It finds that disconnections among relevant CoPs foster an excessive focus on specific sets of knowledge and tools, particularly technical knowledge, at the expense of engaging others also crucial in addressing the IOs' operating environment, leading to dysfunction. Connections among CoPs promote a holistic response to the environment, enabling the organization to function according to its mandate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does China view the world? While much has been written about how China's international relations are best seen as intercultural relations that do not exclude the Other, this article examines how self/Other relations are visualized in terms of the human face in China, in particular through iconic images that construct the Chinese self with and against foreigners with large noses. It employs interpretivist methods to consider the interplay of social relations and international relations in order to see how 'external appearance' and 'external relations' inform each other in Chinese theory and practice. It mobilizes the classical Chinese concept 'deep-set eyes and high-bridged nose' to compare iconic Chinese images of noses from the Tang dynasty, the Korean War, and twenty-first century China and Taiwan. This critical juxtaposition shows how foreigners are visualized as both friends and enemies in a hierarchical social system. The article's use of visual International Relations (IR) methods enables us to re-examine foreign affairs as a site of affective politics, and thus appreciate how China's ideological world-view resonates with how its artists, scholars and officials aesthetically view the world. This is a concern for IR scholars because world-views shape how foreign policy-makers frame foreign policy problems—and thus foreign policy solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Azo dyes are among the most widely used dyes in the textile industry, releasing a series of carcinogenic aromatic amines that can be absorbed through the skin. Objective: This work aims to show that 22 azo dye amines in a textile matrix can be quantified using a GC-MS method. Methods: Based on the notion of total error and b-content, c-confidence tolerance intervals (b, c-CCTI), a chemometric approach known as the "uncertainty profile" has been used to completely validate a GC-MS method for the simultaneous assay of 22 azo amines in fabrics. According to International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in ISO 17025 guidelines, analytical validation and measurement uncertainty estimates have evolved to be two main principles for ensuring the accuracy of analytical results and controlling the risk associated with their use. Results: The calculated tolerance intervals allowed for the determination of the uncertainty limits at each concentration level. These limits when compared to the acceptable limits show that a significant portion of the expected outcomes is in conformity. Additionally, the relative expanded uncertainty values, calculated with a proportion of 66.7% and a 10% risk, do not exceed 27.7, 12.2, and 10.9% for concentration levels 1, 15, and 30 mg/L, respectively. Conclusion: The capability and flexibility of the b-content, c-confidence intervals have been established through the use of this innovative approach to carrying out qualimetry of the GC-MS method depending on the behavior, required conformity proportion, and acceptable tolerance limits of each amine. Highlights: An efficient GC-MS technique for the simultaneous determination of 22 azo amines in a textile matrix has been developed. Analytical validation using a new strategy based on the uncertainty concept is reported, uncertainty associated to measurement results is estimated, and the applicability of our approach to the GC-MS method is investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several recent studies have pointed to the increasing relevance of relatively informal, non-treaty-based global governance bodies (GGBs). Yet, a systematic fine-grained assessment of these bodies and their implications for global governance are still pending. To what extent, do non-treaty-based GGBs constitute a truly novel type of governance body, distinct from traditional treaty-based international organizations (IOs)? How do the distinctive features of GGBs affect their role in global governance? To what extent are GGB's patterns of emergence and development specific to policy sectors? This article tackles these questions, drawing on an original dataset on GGBs in five distinct policy areas (banking and finance, energy, global health, Internet, and migration policy). We combine a micro-organizational perspective with a meso-level network approach to unpack the main features of non-treaty-based GGBs vis-à-vis, traditional IOs. Our results provide support to the general expectation that non-treaty-based GGBs offer distinctive opportunities for global governance with respect to traditional IOs. However, importantly, this relationship is not dichotomous. We find that GGBs exist on a continuum of fit-to-purpose designs ranging from hard, formal, and intergovernmental models to a soft, informal, and multistakeholder-based form of governance. Lastly, we also find notable variations across policy areas, where global health stands out given its decentralized network structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dominant perspectives on International Relations (IR) focus on the rise of the Western civilization and the global expansion of the European Westphalian system as their starting point. This leads to a narrow Eurocentric understanding of IR that obscures the role and contribution of other civilizations to the evolution of world order. However, during the last 5000 years, many civilizations have risen, fallen, and survived. This essay focuses on five world orders that made their mark before the "rise of the West" or the advent of European colonialism around roughly the 16th century AD: Near Eastern, Indian, Chinese, Islamic, and Indian Oceanic. A study of classical civilizations and world orders can help IR scholars to more fully engage history and reshape the study of IR theories and concepts in several ways. It helps us to understand, and if necessary, challenge, the dominance of certain key ideas that claim to be universal and have been taken for granted as such. Moreover, studying IR from a historical–civilizational perspective opens the door to understanding both material and ideational relationships among states and societies. It also encourages a shift in IR thinking from the conventional state-centric category of the "international system" to the broader framing of world order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is currently not only a retrogression of the global economy and governance in progress but also one of international morality, which the growth of populism has destructed. Moral retrogression has yet to arouse the same level of awareness among policymakers and the public as has economic retrogression. Scholars like Yan Xuetong, Joseph Nye, and Richard Ned Lebow, however, have discerned this problem and its significance. This article compares Yan and Nye, with respect to the gradual convergence of their views on leadership, along with that of Lebow's perceptions of morality. But how can the research agendas of a moral realist, a neoliberalist, and a constructivist converge? It is argued that deep underlying similarities exist between their views on the nature of world politics and the perceptions of the current international order that may facilitate a much broader account of the international system. The relevance of this theoretical movement to real-world events is clear. Such convergence on moral leadership both reflects the reality of a moral leadership deficit and constitutes an antidote to the current global chaos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the world becomes increasingly "smaller," global governance too shifts beyond states and formal agreements to include norms and actors at all levels of government and society. Cities, in particular, are emergent actors in global affairs. This paper examines a new type of experiential learning model for this burgeoning local–global governance: academic partnerships with city governments for undergraduate international relations courses. Occidental College and Pomona College have partnered with the Los Angeles Mayor's Office to localize and adopt the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This study focuses on two Spring 2021 Task Force courses, where students worked in consultation with the Mayor's Office to conduct policy research on local implementation of SDG 5 on gender equality. It analyzes the pedagogical value of the Task Force courses with a focus on student learning outcomes and challenges. Through qualitative content analysis of student reflection papers, we find that the courses generate substantial student learning, particularly in higher forms of learning, including development of research and professional skills and metacognitive reflection on "doing theory," or praxis, within the international relations discipline. Further, these partnerships also benefit the city, as they generate valuable data that inform policymaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Middle powers have been increasingly influential in world politics. Nevertheless, the study of international order pays little attention to their conceptions of order, and how they articulate these conceptions in world politics. This article focuses on Indonesia's conceptions of international order as an example of an emerging Asian middle power. It addresses two key questions: what is Indonesia's understanding of international order, and how has Indonesia engaged with liberal international order in the past twenty years? I argue that the foundation of Indonesia's conception of international order is premised on a desire to pursue autonomy in international politics. This vision was articulated by Vice President Mohammad Hatta and it has been maintained by different administrations. After its democratic reform in 1998, Indonesia began to articulate democracy as its preferred conception of international order. This was primarily demonstrated by two Indonesian presidents, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (2004–2014) and Joko Widodo (2014–present). On the one hand, Yudhoyono sought to 'perform' Indonesia's identity in the liberal international order as a home-grown democracy. Widodo, on the other hand, has been highlighting how material impacts of the liberal international order can deliver equitable development. By articulating democracy, both presidents have been able to constructively engage with the liberal international order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on statements made by political and military elites and government officials, the article explores how Thailand selectively supports and capitalizes on certain elements of the contemporary world order, namely United States-led security cooperation and economic liberalism, while half-heartedly embracing the ideals of liberal democracy. Although this never caused problems with the West during the Cold War, matters began to change in the 1990s against the backdrop of systemic-level shifts. While these developments have caused sporadic tensions with the West and effectively brought Thailand closer to China, Thailand has pragmatically sought ways to maintain its autonomy from both the United States and China. Based on Thailand's experience, this article reveals how smaller states pursue a variety of strategies to enhance their agency despite their lack of material capabilities. In turn, the discussion exemplifies how smaller states are not always determined by systemic level factors but possess the ability to prioritize and actualize regime security and national ideals while navigating the evolving international and regional orders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]