{"title":"Beyond hegemony, world order as domination: Iran’s Green Movement and the nuclear sanctions regimes","authors":"Shabnam J Holliday","doi":"10.1177/00471178231151908","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00471178231151908","url":null,"abstract":"Contributing to neo-Gramscian IR and debates regarding world order, this article puts forward Gramsci’s domination as a framework for better understanding the dynamics of a so-called ‘western liberal order’. It shows how Gramsci can be used to explore the power relations of world order that moves beyond Eurocentrism by highlighting the agency of the ‘non-West’ or ‘Global South’. In so doing, it illustrates the contradictions of a liberal world order. To make its case, it examines the relationship between Iran’s Green Movement, and the EU, US and UN sanctions regimes imposed on Iran in response to its nuclear programme. It is argued that domination, rather than hegemony, allows for a better understanding of the power relations in this case.","PeriodicalId":47031,"journal":{"name":"International Relations","volume":"42 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-01-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90653421","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 purpose of military force and the Obama doctrine: no fighting for face","authors":"Payam Ghalehdar","doi":"10.1177/00471178231151907","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00471178231151907","url":null,"abstract":"The scholarly debate about the Obama doctrine has focused on the extent of military force in Obama’s foreign policy. Offering both a novel definition of presidential doctrines and a reinterpretation of the Obama doctrine, this article shifts the focus from the extent to the purpose of force. More specifically, it claims that the Obama doctrine is better described as a general unwillingness to fight for a reputation for resolve. Unlike most of his predecessors, Obama did not consider the US military as a tool for projecting firmness. Instead, his decisions concerning the use of force were dominated by material considerations, be it in limited or expansive military operations. To illustrate Obama’s refusal to fight for face, the article examines three prominent decision points during the Obama presidency – the 2009 surge in Afghanistan, the 2011 intervention in Libya, and Obama’s reaction to the Syrian regime’s use of chemical weapons in 2013.","PeriodicalId":47031,"journal":{"name":"International Relations","volume":"26 4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-01-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82983727","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":"Anxiety, humour and (geo)politics: warfare by other memes","authors":"Christopher S. Browning, J. Brassett","doi":"10.1177/00471178231151561","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00471178231151561","url":null,"abstract":"Humour is usually overlooked in analyses of international politics, this despite its growing prevalence and circulation in an increasingly mediatised world, with this neglect also evident in the growing literature on ontological security and anxiety in IR. Humour, though, needs to be taken seriously, crossing as it does the high-low politics divide and performing a variety of functions. In the context of the Covid pandemic we argue that the link between humour and anxiety has been evident in three notable respects: (i) functioning as a (sometimes problematic) form of stress relief at the level of everyday practices of anxiety management, (ii) working to reaffirm biographical narratives of (national) community and status and (iii) most significantly for IR, as a form of anxiety geopolitics.","PeriodicalId":47031,"journal":{"name":"International Relations","volume":"14 1","pages":"172 - 179"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-01-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87254328","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":"COVID-19: uncertainty in a mood of anxiety","authors":"Bahar Rumelili","doi":"10.1177/00471178221149636","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00471178221149636","url":null,"abstract":"This contribution to the Forum, Anxiety and possibility: the many future(s) of COVID-19, develops a conception of uncertainty as constituted by cognitive (awareness of possibilities) and affective (mood in which possibility is encountered) dimensions. Based on this conception, it is suggested that the COVID-19 crisis has led to a qualitative leap in our already growing sense of uncertainty, both accentuating our awareness of possibilities that are unforeseen, and rendering us attuned to the world in anxiety rather than fear.","PeriodicalId":47031,"journal":{"name":"International Relations","volume":"67 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135544949","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":"No such thing as a free donation? Research funding and conflicts of interest in nuclear weapons policy analysis","authors":"Kjølv Egeland, Benoît Pelopidas","doi":"10.1177/00471178221140000","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00471178221140000","url":null,"abstract":"Numerous scholars have in recent years concluded that the field of nuclear weapons policy analysis is plagued by widespread self-censorship, conformism, and enduring disconnects between accepted knowledge and available evidence. It has been hypothesized that this tendency is fostered in part by many analysts’ reliance on funding from donors with interests in the perpetuation of the existing nuclear order. In this article, we probe this hypothesis by investigating the financial links between foreign policy think tanks, on the one hand, and nuclear defence contractors and governments that espouse nuclear deterrence strategies, on the other. Relying on semi-structured interviews and a survey of the funding sources of 45 of the world’s top think tanks, we find, first, that effectively all think tanks in the sample accepted funding from nuclear vested interests and, second, that such ‘stakeholder funding’ has real effects on intellectual freedom. Given the widely-held view that democracy relies on intellectual independence, this finding calls for a serious debate about conflicts of interest in foreign policy analysis generally and nuclear policy analysis specifically.","PeriodicalId":47031,"journal":{"name":"International Relations","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87473210","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":"Chasing gender equality norms: the robustness of sexual and reproductive health and rights","authors":"Esther Barbé, Diego Badell","doi":"10.1177/00471178221136994","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00471178221136994","url":null,"abstract":"This article studies Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) at the United Nations (UN). SRHR, a gender equality norm that applies human rights to sexuality and reproduction, have traditionally been supported by a network of actors led by the United States (US) and the European Union. Nevertheless, a rival network has contested SRHR since their conception in the early 1990s. We study the robustness of SRHR in five UN fora between 2009 and 2020, focusing on actor constellations, productive power and norm concordance. Between 2009 and 2016, the normative status quo was maintained, except in the Human Rights Council and the Security Council. In 2017, the US joined the network of rivals and accelerated the norm’s weakening in the Security Council and the Commission on Population and Development. However, to weaken or strengthen the norm further, both networks see a need to address SRHR outside the UN.","PeriodicalId":47031,"journal":{"name":"International Relations","volume":"34 1","pages":"274 - 297"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82181543","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":"Twinning for solidarity: building affective communities in the aftermath of the Nicaraguan Revolution","authors":"H. Ryan","doi":"10.1177/00471178221141603","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00471178221141603","url":null,"abstract":"In the British popular imagination, ‘twinning’ is perhaps most commonly associated with mayoral delegations, civic ceremonies and the post-war peacebuilding project in Europe. However, the model and practice of twinning has also been utilised to develop an impressive array of political, economic and cultural relationships that connect geographically remote communities and institutions all across the globe. Among these relationships are a number of twinnings that have emerged as a part of wider movements to extend political solidarity to peoples and communities facing forms of tyranny and persecution. Despite the renewed interest in the politics and practice of solidarity, ‘twinning for solidarity’ has been scarcely addressed in academic research to date. This paper seeks to redirect the scholarly gaze towards this phenomenon by taking a closer look at transnational relationships that were forged across British and Nicaraguan localities in the aftermath of the 1979 Sandinista Revolution. Building on an empirical base of research undertaken over 3 years, it promises to (a) trace why and how ‘twinning’ emerged within the broader repertoire of solidarity initiatives at this time; and (b) explore just what twinning has and might yet achieve in the particular context of political solidarity.","PeriodicalId":47031,"journal":{"name":"International Relations","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-12-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76199272","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":"Realism, reckless states, and natural selection","authors":"Matthew Rendall","doi":"10.1177/00471178221136993","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00471178221136993","url":null,"abstract":"Why is daredevil aggression like Russia’s war on Ukraine such an important factor in world politics? Neither offensive nor defensive realists give a fully satisfactory answer. This paper maintains that the problem lies in their shared assumption that states pursue security. Tracing neorealism’s roots in evolutionary economics, and hence indirectly in biological theories of natural selection, I argue that many policies are compatible with state survival. What is hard is surviving as a great power. States that rise to that rank, and remain there, behave as if they sought to maximize their influence, not their security. This Darwinian competition selects in favor of states with expansionist institutions and ideologies. Failing to recognize this phenomenon risks conferring a spurious legitimacy on imperialism. At the same time, neorealists have also committed a fallacy familiar to biologists: assuming that traits enhancing group fitness are selected even when they diminish fitness in intragroup competition. Whereas interstate competition selects in great powers for traits that promote influence-maximization, with the spread of democracy, intrastate competition increasingly selects for security-seeking. Yet the former process sometimes still dominates the latter, above all in authoritarian great powers.","PeriodicalId":47031,"journal":{"name":"International Relations","volume":"43 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84280776","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":"Mission saves us all: Great Russia and Global Britain dealing with ontological insecurity","authors":"A. Curanović, Piotr Szymanski","doi":"10.1177/00471178221140093","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00471178221140093","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper we analyse a situation wherein the political establishments of Russia and the United Kingdom, in the face of ontological insecurity, use narratives with messianic overtones in their foreign policies. Although these narratives do not feature prominently in the official discourse, they are nevertheless noticeable and provide a valuable insight into dynamics of national identity. We call them ‘mission narratives’ and interpret their (re)appearance in foreign policy as a reaction to a ‘critical situation’ which undermines the stability of the autobiographical narrative of both countries. Although different in scope and nature, the fall of the USSR and the Brexit referendum both resulted in the status and identity of the two states being questioned. Both countries reacted by emphasising their special role in the world. Referring to mission in foreign policy strengthens a coherent autobiographic narrative which soothes ontological uncertainties.","PeriodicalId":47031,"journal":{"name":"International Relations","volume":"3 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73319937","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 limits of US national identity: interests and values in US military aid","authors":"Evan W. Sandlin","doi":"10.1177/00471178221140087","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00471178221140087","url":null,"abstract":"According to policymakers, US national values shape US foreign aid policy. However, these national values clash with material interests when policymakers are faced with the decision of whether or not to grant US military aid to countries that do not adhere to US national values but do serve US security and economic interests. To what extent are US national values resilient to clashes with these material interests? This paper hypothesizes that national values are resilient to clashes with interests to the extent to which these values are a salient feature of US national identity. The findings indicate that more prominent values (democracy) are almost impervious to countervailing interests while more tangential values (enterprise and human rights) exhibit different effects on US military aid allocation depending on the security and economic importance of the recipient state.","PeriodicalId":47031,"journal":{"name":"International Relations","volume":"56 1-2 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85461310","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}