{"title":"Angell versus Mahan: revisiting International Relations on the eve of World War I","authors":"Seán Molloy","doi":"10.1177/00471178241231729","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00471178241231729","url":null,"abstract":"In 1912 a debate erupted between Alfred Thayer Mahan and Norman Angell. The debate revolved around what motivates states and what constitutes the fundamental bases of human conduct in relation to war, peace and material interests. The article traces the thrusts and counter thrusts of Angell and Mahan as they lay bare the errors and misconceptions of each other in a heated exchange that marked an important stage in the development of Angell’s thought and a fascinating coda for Mahan’s influential career. The article concludes that revisiting the debate entails a combination of estrangement and familiarity. To read Angell and Mahan’s imperialistic and often racist discourse is jarring and the level of disconnection experienced is evidence some progress has occurred in the field of IR theory. Yet there is also a certain degree to which we continue to live in Angell and Mahan’s world, one of competing theories of civilisational clashes and the supposedly pacific effects of trade and the rule of law.","PeriodicalId":47031,"journal":{"name":"International Relations","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2024-02-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139962137","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A gendered analysis of US decline: a cautionary tale","authors":"C. Eroukhmanoff","doi":"10.1177/00471178241229372","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00471178241229372","url":null,"abstract":"This article offers an innovative gendered analysis of the thesis of US decline, a prominent theory shared amongst International Relations scholars and US foreign policy experts about the impending end of US hegemony and the US-led international order. Inspired by feminist International Relations, it demonstrates that masculinism underscores the theory in three important ways: the methodologies used to (dis)prove US decline, the values declinism privileges and reinforces, and the way US decline appeals to phallocentric imagery. The article illustrates this argument through a discourse analytical reading of hi/stories of decline since the end of the Cold War in which I argue that US declinism paved the way for ‘Make America Great Again’ (MAGA) and the return to a hybrid masculinity embodied by Donald Trump and his supporters. The article thus acts a cautionary tale against declinism by showing the constitutive effects of alarming scenarios of falling empires. It offers an original inquiry in the thesis of US decline and advances wider studies on declinism, and in so doing, contributes to International Relations scholarship.","PeriodicalId":47031,"journal":{"name":"International Relations","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2024-02-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139781999","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Saudi Arabia’s costly war in Yemen: a neoclassical realist theory of overbalancing","authors":"T. Juneau","doi":"10.1177/00471178241231728","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00471178241231728","url":null,"abstract":"Saudi Arabia faced multiple threats from Yemen in 2015: its southern neighbor had collapsed; a hostile sub-state actor, the Houthis, was entrenching itself along the border; and the presence of its rival Iran was growing. Responding was rational; it would have been sub-optimal for Riyadh to underbalance by doing little to counter the threat. Instead, however, Saudi Arabia overbalanced by launching a major air campaign and imposing a maritime and air blockade; as a result, it became bogged down in a costly war it cannot win. Why was this the case, and with what consequences? To answer this question, this article develops and applies a neoclassical realist theory of overbalancing. The first objective is nomothetic: to develop a theory of overbalancing, an important phenomenon neglected by the balancing literature. The second is empirical: to shed light on the Saudi decision to launch the war in Yemen.","PeriodicalId":47031,"journal":{"name":"International Relations","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2024-02-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139839484","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A gendered analysis of US decline: a cautionary tale","authors":"C. Eroukhmanoff","doi":"10.1177/00471178241229372","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00471178241229372","url":null,"abstract":"This article offers an innovative gendered analysis of the thesis of US decline, a prominent theory shared amongst International Relations scholars and US foreign policy experts about the impending end of US hegemony and the US-led international order. Inspired by feminist International Relations, it demonstrates that masculinism underscores the theory in three important ways: the methodologies used to (dis)prove US decline, the values declinism privileges and reinforces, and the way US decline appeals to phallocentric imagery. The article illustrates this argument through a discourse analytical reading of hi/stories of decline since the end of the Cold War in which I argue that US declinism paved the way for ‘Make America Great Again’ (MAGA) and the return to a hybrid masculinity embodied by Donald Trump and his supporters. The article thus acts a cautionary tale against declinism by showing the constitutive effects of alarming scenarios of falling empires. It offers an original inquiry in the thesis of US decline and advances wider studies on declinism, and in so doing, contributes to International Relations scholarship.","PeriodicalId":47031,"journal":{"name":"International Relations","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2024-02-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139841843","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Saudi Arabia’s costly war in Yemen: a neoclassical realist theory of overbalancing","authors":"T. Juneau","doi":"10.1177/00471178241231728","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00471178241231728","url":null,"abstract":"Saudi Arabia faced multiple threats from Yemen in 2015: its southern neighbor had collapsed; a hostile sub-state actor, the Houthis, was entrenching itself along the border; and the presence of its rival Iran was growing. Responding was rational; it would have been sub-optimal for Riyadh to underbalance by doing little to counter the threat. Instead, however, Saudi Arabia overbalanced by launching a major air campaign and imposing a maritime and air blockade; as a result, it became bogged down in a costly war it cannot win. Why was this the case, and with what consequences? To answer this question, this article develops and applies a neoclassical realist theory of overbalancing. The first objective is nomothetic: to develop a theory of overbalancing, an important phenomenon neglected by the balancing literature. The second is empirical: to shed light on the Saudi decision to launch the war in Yemen.","PeriodicalId":47031,"journal":{"name":"International Relations","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2024-02-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139779634","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Oil, materiality and International Relations","authors":"R. Dannreuther","doi":"10.1177/00471178241231726","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00471178241231726","url":null,"abstract":"Oil is a major topic in International Relations (IR). However, the discipline has tended to focus primarily on the effects and impacts of oil, particularly in relation to conflict, war and empire, and on the international political economy of oil, such as the role of the large oil companies and the oil-rich producer states. This article offers a more holistic approach by adopting a new materialisms framework. This framework has the physical materiality of oil, and its agentic capacity to produce social and political relations over time and space, at its centre. This offers new perspectives along the material journey of oil from exploration, production to transportation, processing and consumption. This, in turn, provides a more differentiated history of oil as a material force that shapes human and political interaction. The benefit of this approach is that it requires IR to be in a more substantive dialogue with other disciplines, most notably with human geography which has a strong tradition of research on energy and spatiality, but also with other disciplines in the social sciences and with the growing body of work in energy humanities. In addition, adopting a new materialisms approach to the study of oil acts as a potential template for the study of other energy resources and products, such as gas and coal as well as renewables such as wind and solar energy.","PeriodicalId":47031,"journal":{"name":"International Relations","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2024-02-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139841578","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Rising Asian transactionalist players in the Middle East: deciphering the roles of China and India in the Persian Gulf","authors":"Chuchu Zhang, Sujata Ashwarya","doi":"10.1177/00471178241231719","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00471178241231719","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines the evolution of China and India’s involvement in the Middle East, and what it means for the region’s geopolitical landscape. Using transactionalist behavior theory, it argues that the rising Asian powers follow different trajectories in the Middle East than the conventional, established powers led by the United States. Instead of following well-designed scripts, these new players’ role making and role performance in the region serve immediate, non-systematic goals, with a focus on short-term benefits. Our case studies of the two Asian powerhouses’ interactions with GCC countries and Iran show that China is now in a better position as compared to India due to the mass resources it possesses. So far, neither Beijing nor New Delhi is interested in playing catch-up with each other or with US. Yet, the regional actors’ increasing reception of ad-hoc, mutual transactions with their new Asian benefactors regardless of common values and long-term commitment diversifies the region’s landscape, ensuring that China and India will always find a role to play.","PeriodicalId":47031,"journal":{"name":"International Relations","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2024-02-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139781090","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Oil, materiality and International Relations","authors":"R. Dannreuther","doi":"10.1177/00471178241231726","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00471178241231726","url":null,"abstract":"Oil is a major topic in International Relations (IR). However, the discipline has tended to focus primarily on the effects and impacts of oil, particularly in relation to conflict, war and empire, and on the international political economy of oil, such as the role of the large oil companies and the oil-rich producer states. This article offers a more holistic approach by adopting a new materialisms framework. This framework has the physical materiality of oil, and its agentic capacity to produce social and political relations over time and space, at its centre. This offers new perspectives along the material journey of oil from exploration, production to transportation, processing and consumption. This, in turn, provides a more differentiated history of oil as a material force that shapes human and political interaction. The benefit of this approach is that it requires IR to be in a more substantive dialogue with other disciplines, most notably with human geography which has a strong tradition of research on energy and spatiality, but also with other disciplines in the social sciences and with the growing body of work in energy humanities. In addition, adopting a new materialisms approach to the study of oil acts as a potential template for the study of other energy resources and products, such as gas and coal as well as renewables such as wind and solar energy.","PeriodicalId":47031,"journal":{"name":"International Relations","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2024-02-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139781590","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Rising Asian transactionalist players in the Middle East: deciphering the roles of China and India in the Persian Gulf","authors":"Chuchu Zhang, Sujata Ashwarya","doi":"10.1177/00471178241231719","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00471178241231719","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines the evolution of China and India’s involvement in the Middle East, and what it means for the region’s geopolitical landscape. Using transactionalist behavior theory, it argues that the rising Asian powers follow different trajectories in the Middle East than the conventional, established powers led by the United States. Instead of following well-designed scripts, these new players’ role making and role performance in the region serve immediate, non-systematic goals, with a focus on short-term benefits. Our case studies of the two Asian powerhouses’ interactions with GCC countries and Iran show that China is now in a better position as compared to India due to the mass resources it possesses. So far, neither Beijing nor New Delhi is interested in playing catch-up with each other or with US. Yet, the regional actors’ increasing reception of ad-hoc, mutual transactions with their new Asian benefactors regardless of common values and long-term commitment diversifies the region’s landscape, ensuring that China and India will always find a role to play.","PeriodicalId":47031,"journal":{"name":"International Relations","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2024-02-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139840831","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The post-hegemonic turn in humanitarian intervention: regional ownership and troubled great power management","authors":"P. Jakobsen, T. Knudsen","doi":"10.1177/00471178231222893","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00471178231222893","url":null,"abstract":"Since the Great Recession in 2008, the academic debate has been flooded with literature that predicts the sunset of the liberal world order including the practice of humanitarian intervention as initiated at the United Nations (UN) in the early 1990s and regulated by the adoption of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) in 2005. In contrast, this article argues that the practice of humanitarian intervention continues to operate under post-hegemonic and multipolar conditions, but in new ways. Based on a theorization of fundamental institutional change and exploratory case studies of the international reactions to the humanitarian crises in Libya, Côte d’Ivoire, Syria and Mali, and supportive evidence from Gambia and DR Congo, we show that contemporary humanitarian intervention is closely related to a normalization of the fundamental institution of great power management and a regionalization of international society. In this post-hegemonic world order, humanitarian intervention is shaped, facilitated or hampered by various practices of great power management including concert, soft balancing and hard balancing. The return of great-power competition means an inconsistent and sometimes counterproductive resort to humanitarian intervention far from the ideals of the R2P, but the growing importance of regional ownership affects the great powers, keeps this potential response to mass atrocity crimes on the table and adds to its legitimacy.","PeriodicalId":47031,"journal":{"name":"International Relations","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2024-01-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139525108","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}