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Cet article explore les repercussions du Brexit sur la politique etrangere italienne. Bien que l'Italie n'ait pas modifie fondamentalement sa politique etrangere a la suite du Brexit, nous soutenons qu’il a cependant entraine une modification de l'equilibre des pouvoirs au sein de la politique etrangere europeenne, entrainant une necessaire adaptation de la politique etrangere italienne. Les gouvernements italiens successifs ont du depuis 2016 repenser, concevoir et mettre en œuvre un nouveau role pour l'Italie parmi les principaux pays de l'UE. Ils ont du le faire face a la perspective de perdre un allie tel que le Royaume-Uni, qui s'est souvent revele etre un contrepoids aux puissances de l'Europe continentale. Neanmoins, l’article constate que les coalitions au pouvoir ont reagi differemment au Brexit. En s’appuyant sur une approche realiste neoclassique, nous analysons ainsi la maniere dont la reponse italienne au Brexit en matiere de politique etrangere a ete influencee par deux facteurs cles : la necessite de preserver le statut de l'Italie dans le cadre europeen, et l'engagement des coalitions au pouvoir a tenir leurs promesses electorales. L’analyse montre comment les gouvernements italiens ont adopte une approche differente de la politique etrangere italienne apres le Brexit, et quelles en sont les implications.

When the people from Tunis to Aleppo protested against repression back in 2011, Fukuyama's classic promise seemed to materialize. Yet, rather than an extension of the liberal world order, we were t...

O presente artigo tem como objetivo analisar a política do Pivô para a Ásia durante o governo de Barack Obama (2008-2016) por meio do Realismo Neoclássico. Nesse sentido, o presente artigo analisa as percepções das lideranças com relação às ameaças ou oportunidades no Leste Asiático, bem como as pressões domésticas que influenciaram a construção, a implementação e a condução do pivô durante o governo Obama. O artigo também analisa como a política do pivô afetou a percepção de países do Leste Asiático em relação ao comprometimento norte-americano com a região. Do ponto de vista metodológico, o artigo segue o método qualitativo, baseando-se em fontes primárias e secundárias para embasar os argumentos da pesquisa. O artigo conclui que os problemas orçamentários nos EUA, a ascensão de lideranças discursivamente contrárias aos custos das ações de segurança dos EUA em outros países, bem como pontos relacionados com a balança de poder interna norte-americana, afetaram negativamente a política do pivô. Ao passo que tal política se desenvolveu, as dúvidas sobre se os EUA continuariam, teriam capacidade de e agiriam no Leste Asiático impactaram as percepções dos países na região, impulsionando processos de militarização e dilemas de segurança no tabuleiro asiático., The objective of this article is to analyse the “Asia Pivot” US policy during Barack Obama’s government (2008-2016) through the lenses of Neoclassical Realism. With that in mind, this article analyses the leadership perceptions regarding threats and opportunities in East Asia, as well as domestic pressures that influenced the development, implementation and actions of the policy during the Obama administration. The article also analyses how the Asia Pivot policy affected the East Asian countries’ perception regarding US commitment with the region. From the methodology point of view, the article follows a qualitative approach, based in primary and secondary sources as the base of the research arguments. The article concludes that US budget problems, the rise of new leaderships against US expenditure and security actions in other countries, as well as issues involving the US internal power balance, affected in a negative way the Pivot policy. As the policy developed, doubts regarding US willingness and capacity to act in East Asia affected the perception of countries in the region, fuelling militarization processes and security dilemmas in the Asian theater.

This study refers to the importance of the neoclassical realist approach in international political economy studies. The domestic structures of the states will be emphasized in order to understand the reasons for the varieties of capitalist models and hybrid economic systems that emerged after the Cold War. In this sense, the article argues that neoclassical realism could be useful to understand the regional differences in international political economy, despite the critics. Accordingly, the dominant view of the international system, which is liberalism, is the independent variable and the domestic variables of states are the intervening variables. The outcomes that are the hybrid systems are the dependent variable. The theoretical part of the study will examine these variables in detail. The Eurasian Economic Union will be taken in the last section of the work as the case study to test the validity of the model.

*Şahin, Mehmet( Aksaray, Yazar ), This article aims to puzzle why the leading military power of the world, namely the United States, was pushed back from the negotiating table in the Syrian Civil War, and conversely, how and why the world's declining power, namely Russia, became the sole actor in that conflict. The article will try to answer this question from the neoclassical realist perspective. In this perspective, states do not always act rationally. Instead, they can fail because of miscalculations. The United States, in this respect, miscalculated on the Syrian Civil War as well as its domestic politics. In contrast, Russia behaved in accordance with its strategic culture, which resulted in its dominance both in the field and in diplomacy. The systemic stimulus, which is the independent variable, forces both countries to form alliances in the civil war. The domestic actors of both countries, which are the intervening variables, diversified the systemic stimuli in opposite directions. While the US political elite was misguided due to the divided structure, the Russian elite was more unified, which resulted in outcomes in favor of the latter.

Desde el ascenso de Vladimir Putin al poder, Rusia ha combinado estabilidad política y económica con asertividad internacional, lo que ha sentado las bases para el regreso de Moscú a la primera plana del escenario mundial. El artículo presenta las principales discusiones en torno a la gran estrategia de la Federación de Rusia y analiza la trayectoria de su política exterior desde la llegada de Vladimir Putin al poder hasta el inicio de la crisis global de la covid-19. Desde la perspectiva del realismo neoclásico, el principal argumento es que Rusia posee una gran estrategia pragmática basada en un trípode de objetivos –preservación de estatus como potencia global, primacía en el espacio postsoviético y disuasión a la expansión de la otan– que se implementan mediante la utilización de una gama amplia de herramientas, incluida la coerción por vías militares. A continuación, se desarrolla la evolución de la estrategia internacional del pragmatismo estratégico ruso que generó una serie de tensiones con Occidente tras las crisis de Georgia en 2008 y Ucrania en 2014, en paralelo con el ascenso de un vector alternativo eurasiático.

International audience; How are the systemic constraints transformed through the transmission belt of leader's idiosyncrasies and domestic pressures in order to result in the outcome, which is the pursuance or non-pursuance of regime change policy by the United States? This study analyses the foreign policy decision making of President Bush vis-à-vis Iraq, President Obama vis-à-vis Libya, and President Trump vis-à-vis Iran. It raises the following questions: What is the US policy of regime change, and why and how has it pursued this policy? Why were the US policies different in Iraq, Libya, and Iran, and what have been the implications of these policies upon the region as a whole? While using neoclassical realism as the theoretical paradigm and using qualitative content analysis, this study hypothesizes that the interplay of systemic and domestic level variables results in the foreign policy outcomes in the form of action or inaction towards a particular issue.; Comment les contraintes systémiques sont-elles transformées à travers la courroie de transmission des idiosyncrasies des dirigeants et des pressions internes pour aboutir au résultat, qui est la poursuite ou la non-poursuite de la politique de changement de régime par les États-Unis? Cette étude analyse la prise de décision en matière de politique étrangère du président Bush vis-à-vis de l'Irak, du président Obama vis-à-vis de la Libye et du président Trump vis-à-vis de l'Iran. Elle soulève les questions suivantes: Quelle est la politique américaine de changement de régime, pourquoi et comment a-t-elle poursuivi cette politique? Pourquoi les politiques américaines étaient-elles différentes en Irak, en Libye et en Iran, et quelles ont été les implications de ces politiques sur la région dans son ensemble? Tout en utilisant le réalisme néoclassique comme paradigme théorique et en utilisant une analyse de contenu qualitative, cette étude émet l'hypothèse que l'interaction des variables systémiques et nationales aboutit aux résultats de la politique étrangère sous la forme d'une action ou d'une inaction face à un problème particulier.

Drawing on a neoclassical realist approach, this article delves into the impact that Brexit is likely to have on Italian foreign policy. We argue that there are two areas of issue, which are partic...

Traditionally the phenomenon of the European integration towards South East Europe is regarded starting from the XXI century. The explanation for such a periodization are resolution of the open conflicts on the territory of the former Yugoslavia and implementation of the complex EU strategy for the region. Starting point of the majority of researches is the year of 2003 when the EU Agenda for the Western Balkans was started in Thessaloniki. The topic of EEC-Yugoslavia relations, SFRY having been first socialist country to institutionalize its trade and economic relations with Brussels, are unfairly ignored in domestic and foreign scientific literature. It is regarded solely as a chronological period of trade agreements. Nevertheless, this issue is of fundamental importance for understanding the current neighborhood of the European Union. The main thesis the author proves is that in the 1960s and 1980s as it is the case nowadays, the main imperative of Brussels' policy towards the Balkans was to prevent Moscow from increasing its influence. This led to the formation of a very specific format of relations with Belgrade and was one of the reasons why the economic crisis in Yugoslavia became extreme and its economy irreformable. In addition, at a later and structurally much more complicated stage of relations between the countries of the former Yugoslavia and the European Union the specificity and main components of relations of the Cold War period did not fundamentally change. As for the policy of so-called containment of the external actors one could see that besides Moscow, we can speak about similar attitude of the EU towards China. It makes it possible to consider the EU policy towards the countries of the former Yugoslavia in the paradigm of neoclassical realism, rather than in the paradigm of traditional liberal European integration approaches which allows us to unite neorealists elements with the specifics of internal processes, including the modernization of institutes, relations between society and state, types of political leadership.

Starptautiskā pārvaldība un diplomātija Socioloģija, politoloģija un antropoloģija International Governance and Diplomacy Sociology, Politics and Anthropology Maģistra darba mērķis ir analizēt un salīdzināt, kā Krievijas-Ukrainas karš ir mainījis uztveri par iespēju stiprināt militārās savienības Somijas aizsardzības politikā. Tāpat darbā tiek aprakstīti Somijas aizsardzības politikas pamatvirzieni attiecībā pret Krieviju, kā arī Somijas militārās nepievienošanās politikas tradīcija. Tēmas aktualitāti nosaka Ukrainā notiekošais karš (2022. gada pavasaris), kā arī Somijas aizsardzības politikas izmaiņu ietekme uz Baltijas jūras reģionu. Darbā tiek izmantota neoklasiskā reālisma teorija. Pamata bāze, kas tiek izmantota teorētiskā ietvara izstrādei ir Rendela L. Švellera (Randall L. Schweller) grāmata “Unanswered Threats”. Rendela L. Švellera grāmatas ietvaros identificēti un analizēti iekšējie faktori, kas nosaka valsts reakciju uz ārējiem draudiem. Turklāt, darbā izvirzītā hipotēze tiek pārbaudīta, analizējot attiecīgos datus, tostarp Somijas valsts iestāžu sniegto informāciju, aizsardzības politiku noteicošo dokumentāciju (t.i., valdības ziņojumi par aizsardzības politiku), nevalstisko organizāciju, domnīcu un ziņu portālu raksti. Līdz ar ko, darbs balstās uz kvalitatīvo pētījuma metodi – dokumentu satura analīzi. Maģistra darba struktūru veido trīs nodaļas. Pirmajā nodaļā tiek izstrādāts darba teorētiskais ietvars. Otrā nodaļa tiek veltīta apraksta veidošanai par Somijas un Krievijas attiecībām, kā arī Somijas aizsardzības politikas attiecībā pret Krieviju pirms 2022. gada Krievijas uzsāktā kara Ukrainā vadlīniju skaidrošanai. Trešajā nodaļā ir definētas izmaiņas Somijas aizsardzības politikā, kas notika tūlīt pēc Krievijas iebrukuma Ukrainā. Pētījuma gaitā secināts, ka izvirzītā hipotēze – Krievijas agresija Ukrainā ir nostiprinājusi elites vienprātību par iespēju stiprināt militārās savienības Somijas aizsardzības politikā - ir apstiprinājusies. Karš starp Krieviju un Ukrainu ir veicinājis gan elites, gan sabiedrības vienprātību par iespēju stiprināt militāro savienību, uz atteikšanās no ieilgušās militārās nepievienošanās politikas tradīcijas rēķina. Turklāt, Somija turpināja stiprināt teritoriālo aizsardzību, lai gan bruņoto spēku savietojamība ar starptautiskajiem partneriem šodien kalpo par tās neapstrīdamu prioritāti, savukārt Somijas tirdzniecības un enerģētikas nozare arvien vairāk pietuvojās aizsardzības dimensijai. The objective of the Master’s thesis is to analyze and compare how the Russia-Ukraine war changed the perception of the option of strengthening military alignments in Finland’s defence policy. The basic directions of the Finnish defence policy toward Russia and the tradition of Finnish military non-alignment also are described. The relevance of the topic is defined by the ongoing war in Ukraine (Spring 2022), as well as the impact of changes in Finland’s defence policy on the Baltic Sea region. The theory applied throughout the research is Neoclassical realism. The primary work used to develop a theoretical framework is Unanswered Threats by Randall L. Schweller. His work analyses which internal factors define the state’s reaction to external threats. Furthermore, the hypothesis is verified via the analysis of relevant data, including the information provided by Finland’s governmental institutions, defence sector’s policy defining documentation (i. e. Government’s Defence Report), articles from non-governmental organizations, think tanks, and media outlets. Thus, the research method is qualitative – document analysis. The Master’s thesis is structured in three parts. The first chapter establishes the theoretical framework. The second chapter is dedicated to describing both the context of Finnish-Russian relations and Finland’s defence policy guidelines toward Russia before the Russia-Ukraine war. The third chapter examines changes in Finland’s defence policy that occurred in the immediate aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It is concluded that the hypothesis “Russian aggression in Ukraine has solidified elite consensus in Finnish defence policy regarding the option of strengthening military alignments” is confirmed. The Russia-Ukraine war has facilitated the consensus of both the elite and society regarding the option of strengthening military alignments at the expense of abandoning the long-standing military non-alignment policy. Furthermore, Finland continued to strengthen the territorial defence, albeit with the interoperability of the armed forces with international partners from now being an undisputed priority, while the trade and energy sectors became increasingly intertwining with the defence dimension.

Bu doktora tezinin temel amacı, 11 Eylül saldırıları sonrasında ABD başkanları George W. Bush ve Barack H. Obama’nın, başkanlıkları döneminde devamlılık gösteren Afganistan ve Irak sorunları odağında, ABD’nin askeri güç kullanımlarını karşılaştırarak, Bush ve Obama’nın her iki soruna yaklaşımlarında devamlılığın mı, yoksa değişimin mi gözlendiğini çözümlemektir. Bu amaç doğrultusunda tezde, Bush’un 2003’te Irak’ta askeri güç kullanmasına başından itibaren karşı çıkan Obama’nın, 2008 Başkanlık seçimlerinde ABD’nin Irak ve Afganistan’daki askeri angajmanını sonlandıracağına yönelik vaatlerini hangi çerçevede ve koşullarda gerçekleştirdiği veya gerçekleştiremediği hususları sınanarak, Bush ve Obama yönetimlerinin Irak ve Afganistan odağındaki askeri güç kullanımları karşılaştırılmaktadır. Bu kapsamda açıklanması amaçlanan olgunun bir devlet olan ABD’nin, milli güvenlik ve dış politika kararlarının sonucu olan askeri güç kullanımı olmasından dolayı tezde, uluslararası sistemde bir aktör olan devletin davranışlarını açıklamayı hedefleyen “Neoklasik Realizm”in kuramsal açıklayıcılığından yararlanılmıştır. Neoklasik realizmin devletin milli güvenlik davranışlarının oluşumunda dış etkenlerin yanı sıra, klasik realistlerin “kapalı kutu” olarak tanımladıkları iç etkenleri (ara değişkenler olarak belirlenen lider (başkan), toplum-devlet ilişkisi, siyasi, ekonomik ve askeri imkânlar) analizine dâhil etmesi, kuramın ABD’nin Bush ve Obama dönemlerindeki askeri güç kullanımının kapsamlı ve sistemli bir şekilde ele alınmasını sağlamıştır. Nitekim bu doktora tezinde, Bush ve Obama’nın Irak ve Afganistan’daki askeri güç kullanımı karşılaştırılırken, her iki başkan döneminde, başkanların ve yönetici elitin uluslararası güvenlik ortamını nasıl algıladıkları, hangi milli güvenlik politikalarını hedefledikleri, hedefledikleri politikalara ulaşmak amacıyla siyasi, ekonomik ve askeri imkân/kabiliyetlerinin olup olmadığı ve politikalarına toplumun desteğini sağlayıp sağlayamadıkları incelenmektedir. This PhD thesis aims to analyze whether continuity or change has been observed in Bush and Obama’s approaches, focusing on Afghanistan and Iraq problems continuing during both Bush and Obama’s presidency following the September 11 attacks. In this thesis, the use of military force of Bush and Obama administrations on Iraq and Afghanistan have been compared and contrasted by examining the issues about under which frame and conditions Obama, who opposed invasion of Iraq from the beginning, has redeemed his promises on ending the military engagement with Iraq and Afghanistan and about the ones he has not redeemed.On the other hand, the thesis has benefitted from Neoclassic Realism, which aims to explain the behavior of the state, which has been an actor in the international system due to the fact that the case aimed to be explained is use of force which is an outcome of the national security and foreign policy of a state. The fact that Neoclassic Realism includes the internal factors (the image/perception of the leader (the President), their positions in the internal institutions and their capacity defined as intervening variables) which the Classical Realists define as the “black box” in addition to the external factors in the state’s establishment of the national security behavior has enabled the hypothesis to examine the use of military force comprehensively. The thesis, which questions the continuity and change in a such a short period of 16 years for states, has benefitted from the Presidents’ speeches in order to display the perception of a leader, and the National Security Documents. The State documents of the US have been used so as to reflect the attitude of the internal institutions in addition to the comparative case study method used in the study. In the thesis, as a result of the analysis of the tendencies of the Obama and Bush administrations to use military power, it has been concluded that both tendencies are the results? of the values, principles and the character of the USA that have shaped since its founding period ,and that the Democrat party has a rather continental approach, while the Bush Administration has adopted a more interfering approach, following from the Republican Party conventions.

Körfez İşbirliği Konseyi devletleri uluslararası düzeyde ABD ile koruma ilişkisine sahiptirler, ancak bölgesel düzeyde farklılaşan dış politika stratejileri uygulamaktadırlar. Bu farklılık kısmen bölgesel düzeydeki kapasite dağılımındaki değişimden kaynaklanmaktadır. Ancak neoklasik realistlere göre, göreli güç kapasitesine ek olarak, devletlerin dış stratejileri lider algıları, rejim istikrarı vb. gibi ara değişkenler vasıtasıyla şekillenmektedir. Bu çerçevede Schweller'e göre, elit uyumu, elit fikir birliği, toplumsal uyum ve rejim istikrarı birleşenlerinden oluşan devlet tutarlılığının derecesi dış tehditlere karşı devletlerin dış politika stratejilerini belirlemektedir. Bu çalışmada da KİK devletlerinin farklı tutarlılık birleşenlerine ve düzeylerine sahip olmasının farklı tehdit algılamasına yol açtığı ve bölgesel düzeyde farklı dış politika stratejileri izlemlerine neden olduğu iddia edilmiştir. Bu çerçevede BAE, Katar ve Kuveyt’in 1991- 2021 döneminde uyguladığı dış ve güvenlik politikaları incelenmiş; sistemsel faktörler, devlet tutarlılığı ve devletlerin bölgesel düzeydeki dış politika çıktıları arasında ilişki bir model çerçevesinde ele alınmıştır. The Gulf Cooperation Council states have a protection relationship with the United States at the international level, but they implement different foreign policy strategies at the regional level. This difference is partly due to the change in capacity distribution at the regional level. However, according to neoclassical realists, in addition to the relative power capacity, the external strategies of states are shaped by intermediate variables such as perceptions of leaders, regime stability, etc. In this framework, according to Schweller, the degree of state coherence, which consists of elite cohesion, elite consensus, social cohesion, and regime stability, determines the foreign policy strategies of states against external threats. In this study, it has been argued that GCC states' having different coherence components and levels causes different threat perceptions and different foreign policy strategies at the regional level. In this context, the foreign and security policies of the UAE, Qatar, and Kuwait during 1991-2021 were examined; the relationship between systemic factors, state coherence, and foreign policy outputs of states at the regional level was discussed within the framework of a model.

Following scholarship on IR’s ‘historical turn’ as well as on neorealism and neoclassical realism, this article finds fault particularly in neorealism’s implicit reliance on the historically contingent but incompletely conceptualised transmission of systemic factors into state behaviour. Instead, it suggests that neoclassical realism (NCR) is well-suited to leveraging ‘history’ in systematic and general explanation. This article interrogates two routes towards a historically sensitive NCR (intervening variables and structural modifiers), and how they enable different operationalisations of ‘history’ as a sequence of events, cognitive tool or collective narrative. The first route suggests history underpins concepts and variables currently used by neoclassical realists. Here, history is more easily operationalised and allows a clearer view at learning and emulation processes. It is also more clearly scoped, and therefore less ‘costly’ in terms of paradigmatic distinctiveness. The second route, in which history modifies structural incentives and constraints, is more theoretically challenging especially in terms of differentiating NCR from constructivist approaches, but lends itself to theorising systemic change. Both routes provide fruitful avenues for realist theorising, can serve to emancipate NCR from neorealism in IR and foster cross-paradigmatic dialog. Examining how ‘history’ can be leveraged in realism allows interrogating how other ‘mainstream’, positivist approaches can and should leverage historical contingency, context and evidence to explain international processes and outcomes.

Over the past few decades, several European countries have imported majority of energy resources from Russia and this allowed the dependence on Russian energy sources to persist. Through this research, we aim to find out why Germany has not decreased its dependence on Russian gas during Angela Merkel's tenure as the Chancellor of Germany. We have applied the theory of neoclassical realism through which we analyse the systemic stimuli as the independent variables and domestic intervening variables which impact the decision making and implementation process. The primary factors that allowed for the dependence to persist are the long-term German strategic culture and the Germany-Russia Modernisation Partnership, and the short-term nuclear phase-out. Findings of this research can be applied in future research in countries where a change of strategic culture occurs as might be the case of Russia after the end of Russo-Ukrainian war.

Neoclassical realism entered the fields of International Relations and Security Studies in the late 1990s as a powerful new approach to explaining foreign policy. Building on the combination of structural and classical realism, it promised to offer better explanations than other existing approaches, such as liberalism or offensive and defensive realism. As such, it quickly became a popular and an arguably potent choice for many a scholar, progressively growing into prominence that continues to hold even as it enters its third decade. That said, there exists something of a paradox surrounding neoclassical realism: despite its popularity and scores of sound empirical works under its banner, the school appears dramatically ill-defined to the extent that nobody seems to be sure what it is and what it is about. This is where this thesis comes in to play: building on hitherto scattered and piecemeal critiques of neoclassical realism, it seeks to shed more light on the school's apparent success by providing the first truly comprehensive metatheoretical critique of neoclassical realism. Following the simple question of 'what is neoclassical realism', the thesis arrives at the conclusion that though it may be far from a uniform research program or a general theory, neoclassical realism exhibits a number of...

Recent trends demonstrate that states with sufficient capabilities to be granted regional power status by its peers (primarily other states within their region) can nonetheless renounce regional leadership. This article analyzes the puzzling behavior of these detached or reluctant regional powers. We argue that resorting to an approach grounded in neoclassical realism is helpful to explain why regional powers might not exercise leadership. In this article regional leadership is conceptualized as an auxiliary goal within the grand strategy of a regional power. This goal will be pursued in the absence of certain structural and domestic constraints. Great power competition determines the incentives for regional leadership at the structural level. Capacity to extract and mobilize resources for foreign policy affects the decision to pursue leadership at the domestic level. We apply the analytical framework to analyze Brazil’s detachment from South America after the Cardoso and Lula presidencies.