{"title":"The regional powers research program: a new way forward","authors":"Miriam Prys-Hansen, Derrick Frazier","doi":"10.1057/s41311-024-00563-y","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1057/s41311-024-00563-y","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This introduction to our special issue on Revisiting Regional Powers examines ways in which the study of regional powers can enhance our ability to understand the dynamic nature of the international system today. The article, first, summarizes and highlights how the study of regional powers remains relevant to the broader discipline of international relations but also indicates that there remains much to improve and investigate, for instance by more systematically including less traditional issue areas for regional power engagement, including the environment or public diplomacy, by integrating disciplines beyond IR, including sociological and linguistic approaches. In today’s shifting global order, researching regional powerhood is needed for a better understanding of the emergence of order(s); by highlighting, for example, less-than-global forms of cooperation and conflict, and their often-complex simultaneities. We highlight the need to investigate forms of power beyond increases in military and economic power, but also to expand the types of actors beyond the state that we consider taking on functions of regional powerhood.</p>","PeriodicalId":46593,"journal":{"name":"International Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2024-02-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139954518","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Psychology as a system component: the deterrence logic of communication in China","authors":"Youngjune Chung","doi":"10.1057/s41311-024-00558-9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1057/s41311-024-00558-9","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46593,"journal":{"name":"International Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2024-02-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140439603","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Council of Europe, Russia, and the future of European cooperation: any lessons to be learned from the past?","authors":"Klaus Brummer","doi":"10.1057/s41311-024-00557-w","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1057/s41311-024-00557-w","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The Council of Europe (CoE) was among the first Western institutions to open its doors to Russia after the end of the Cold War. However, during Russia’s membership (1996–2022) hopes of socializing the country into the CoE’s standards, norms, and principles in the areas of democracy, human rights, and the rule of law never materialized. While the CoE’s norms and principles nowadays need to be secured from Russia, there might be a point in the (distant) future where Russia should be reintegrated into European structures, with the CoE then again being a likely forum to that end. Against this background, this paper analyses the CoE’s interaction with Russia from the mid-1990s until today, focusing on the accession period as well as the organization’s subsequent monitoring activities and (non-)use of sanctions during Russia’s membership. It concludes with lessons that could guide future interactions between the CoE and Russia.</p>","PeriodicalId":46593,"journal":{"name":"International Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2024-02-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139927790","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Correction to: Let sleeping bears lie: an analysis of the factors behind Indonesia’s response to the Russo–Ukrainian war and its implications for the Indo‑Pacific region","authors":"Leonard C. Sebastian, K. Marzuki","doi":"10.1057/s41311-023-00544-7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1057/s41311-023-00544-7","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46593,"journal":{"name":"International Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2024-02-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140451287","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"From wages for housework to self-care: feminist perspectives on the care economy","authors":"Anna Moser","doi":"10.1057/s41311-024-00554-z","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1057/s41311-024-00554-z","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article argues that privatization of health care since the 1970s has created a paradox whereby a neoliberal discourse of ‘freedom of choice’ masks the fact that it is increasingly difficult to make good choices when it comes to caring for oneself and for one’s loved ones. Part one historicizes this paradox by examining the pioneering international feminist movement Wages for Housework. I argue that Wages for Housework offered a glimpse of a counter-model of state-renumerated care through its revolutionary demand that all houseworkers receive a government wage. At the same time, I call attention to limitations of the movement. Building on the insights of this case study, part two contends that the privatization and commodification of care – especially in the US and the UK in recent years—is fundamentally linked to the ‘responsibilization’ of female-identified subjects. To demonstrate this, I turn to the issue of self-care, arguing that the emergence of self-care as a lucrative twenty-first century market is an important consequence and indicator of this responsibilization. Specifically, I show how individual choice is recast as a societal obligation to assume a consumerist standpoint of ‘self-investment’ that, in itself, becomes a necessary precondition of the ‘right’ choice. I conclude by asserting that it is unjust to frame care—whether for oneself or for others—as a problem of individual responsibility and explore proposals for a ‘universal basic services’ model as the most equitable solution to the current care crisis.</p>","PeriodicalId":46593,"journal":{"name":"International Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2024-02-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139758036","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Adam Watson and the structure of the Cold War international society: power structure versus social structure","authors":"Yannis A. Stivachtis","doi":"10.1057/s41311-023-00553-6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1057/s41311-023-00553-6","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Nowhere can Adam Watson’s contribution to English School literature be observed better than in his seminal work, <i>The Evolution of International Society,</i> in which he argued that Cold War global international society included two separate sub-global international societies led by the USA and the Soviet Union, respectively. Despite his acknowledgement that the newly established states that emerged from colonialism constituted the majority of the members of international society, he nevertheless did not consider the ‘Third World’ as constituting a third, separate sub-global international society, thereby providing an incomplete picture of the social structure of global international society. To address this omission, this essay examines the social structure of Cold War international society by focusing on the role of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). It argues that during the Cold War, the NAM reflected the existence of a sub-global international society in the sense that its member states were conscious of certain common interests, common values, and conceived themselves to be bound by a common set of rules in their relations with one another, and shared in the working of common institutions, such as sovereignty and non-intervention, diplomacy, human equality, development and trade, anti-hegemonialism and disarmament, and nationalism and self-determination.</p>","PeriodicalId":46593,"journal":{"name":"International Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2024-01-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139588353","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Small power strategies under great power competition","authors":"Ciwan M. Can","doi":"10.1057/s41311-023-00552-7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1057/s41311-023-00552-7","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article presents a theoretical argument, defined as tension theory, to explain how the strategies of small powers during eras of great power competition are influenced by (i) the level of tensions between the great powers, and (ii) the availability of a great power ally. The explanatory power of tension theory will be demonstrated through a re-examination of Norwegian, Swedish, and Finnish diplomatic history from the early Cold War era. The findings strongly suggest that small powers desire low tensions between the great powers as this provides them with the opportunity to position themselves as neutral bridgebuilders to advance their vital and value interests. During periods marked by high tensions, which turn the relations between the great powers into a zero-sum competition, vital and value interests become of secondary importance to survival interest for small powers and force them to integrate with a protective great power to deter the threatening great power. In the absence of a protective great power during periods marked by high tensions, a small power will instead be forced to accommodate the threatening great power and screen itself from the latter’s adversaries.</p>","PeriodicalId":46593,"journal":{"name":"International Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2024-01-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139560296","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Assembling international society","authors":"Tristen Naylor","doi":"10.1057/s41311-023-00546-5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1057/s41311-023-00546-5","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Producing a means of conceptualising and analysing international society as an assemblage, this article reflects on Adam Watson’s Evolution of International Society and demonstrates how an assemblage theory approach allows us to undertake Watson’s general aims to engage in broad, comparative analyses of international societies historically and produce a history of contemporary international society, but without the problematic biases and omissions that plague the empirical dimensions of his work. Understanding international society as an assemblage affords an ability to see that the endurance of so much of Western European international society in contemporary, global international society is owing to its particular form of assemblage. As a highly adaptive form of assemblage, what changes there might be in the international domain tend to occur within the assemblage, as the assemblage’s form renders both a substantive change of the assemblage and the establishment of any rival assemblage unlikely.</p>","PeriodicalId":46593,"journal":{"name":"International Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2024-01-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139517796","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A thin debate: comparing the conflicting political narratives of the UN security council and general assembly on the Gaza Strip from 2006 to 2018","authors":"Chen Kertcher","doi":"10.1057/s41311-023-00549-2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1057/s41311-023-00549-2","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The UN reform movement calls for the UN Security Council to be changed. The underlying assumption is that it will create thicker decision-making that will allow more views on the causes of, dynamics of, and solutions to conflicts. This paper adopts a comparative analysis of three cycles of narratives in the UN Security Council and emergency sessions of the UN General Assembly when both bodies debated the same issue of violence in the Gaza Strip. The findings reveal that, unlike its public image, the emergency sessions of the UN General Assembly were used to make the analysis thinner and less descriptive. Another finding is that it was predominantly Arab, Muslim, and revisionist Latin American countries that influenced the majority to adopt the thin narrative.</p>","PeriodicalId":46593,"journal":{"name":"International Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2024-01-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139517905","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}