Using international law to assess elections

This article provides an overview of existing obligations for democratic elections in public international law (PIL), and links these obligations to criteria for assessing electoral processes. We argue that PIL provides a basis for election observation that is more transparent, more objective, and has greater authority with host countries because it relies on states' acknowledged international legal commitments. In addition, the authors argue that this approach provides a solid foundation for building broad consensus on what constitutes ‘international standards for democratic elections’, an often-used term for which there still is no single commonly accepted definition.     

Charting the Ethics of the English School: What "Good" is There in a Middle-Ground Ethics?

This article aims to advance our understanding of the development of English School thinking on international ethics by outlining three phases of ethical inquiry within the British Committee. The article argues that, throughout the life of the Committee, its outlook was conditioned by a pervading moral skepticism, which was reflected in the School's commitment to a "middle-ground ethics"; however, at various times the Committee members' views changed about how maximalist the "good" could be that oriented this ethical position. Awareness of this ebb and flow helps us better understand Hedley Bull's characterization of the ethics of pluralism and solidarism within the School as well as the precise challenge contemporary English School theorists face if they are to move beyond the normative cul-de-sac that British Committee members encountered in each phase of their ethical discussions.     

The Reputational Impact of Investor-State Disputes

To what extent do alleged violations of international commitments damage state reputation? This article explore this question with specific reference to investor-state disputes arising under the protection of international investment agreements. Its main contributions are threefold. First, building on the political institutions literature, the study places the theoretical importance of information about the rules of the game, and the actions of the participants at the center of analysis. Second, in contrast to prior empirical research, the study systematically analyzes the costs of state involvement in investment treaty arbitration by examining all known disputes. Third, the study addresses the impact of investment disputes on both foreign investment flows and state reputational rankings. We show that the consequences of investment disputes vary with the transparency of the investor-state dispute settlement process. The central implication of these findings for the broader body of literature on international institutions is that reputational mechanisms for effective treaty enforcement cannot be taken as given but instead need to be explored on the basis of a nuanced approach that addresses the pivotal issues of institutional design and information costs.     

When Humanitarianism Matters: Liberalism and the Termination of Strategic Commitments

For all of the recent advances in the study of humanitarian norms in international relations, the prevailing sentiment remains that human rights are subordinate to other interests, especially strategic, in great power foreign policy making. This article seeks to lay the foundation to qualify this extant pessimism. It does so through a study of strategic commitments. Focusing specifically on security assistance in Latin America during the Cold War, this study assesses when and how humanitarian norms are most likely to lead democratic states to terminate these types of pledges. In so doing, it contributes to the growing literature on democratic commitments, furthers our understanding of non-governmental organization influence on international politics, and, most importantly, lays the theoretical basis for better assessing the extent to which humanitarian norms frame relationships between democracies and strategic partners.     

The Highs and Lows of Teaching IR Theory: Using Popular Films for Theoretical Critique

This article introduces an approach to IR that uses popular films to teach students how to critically analyze IR theory. By pairing IR traditions (like Realism) and the slogans that go with them (like "international anarchy is the permissive cause of war") with popular films (like Lord of the Flies ), this approach poses questions not about the truth or falsity of IR theories but about how IR theories appear to be true. This technique works because it draws upon visual analytical skills that students already possess and transfers them to analyses of IR theory and international politics. Overall, it challenges the positioning of IR theory as beyond culture and politics rather than as part and parcel of it, transforms what we think of as doing critical IR theory, and repositions students from passive recipients of IR truths into critically active and engaged analysts of IR theory's commonsense views of the world.     

Business engagement in violence prevention and peace-building: the case of Kenya

Kenyan business was important in mitigating episodes of election violence in 2007–2008 and 2013. This article finds that this role was motivated by the ethical and moral commitments of key business leaders to further peace in times of violence; and by interests in preventing future economic loss. However, by adopting a lens that situates business roles in violence prevention and peace-building within Kenya’s conflict systems and political economy, the article finds a paradox: this lens confirms the Kenyan ‘success story’ with respect to specific violent episodes; but it also reveals a much more limited role for business in transforming the underlying sources of conflict; especially when these are congruent with key business fundamentals connected to land ownership, property rights, export-oriented production or services, or a ‘limited’ access order. Overall, the article highlights that business should leverage its comparative advantages within broader multi-stakeholder coalitions, especially in terms of its ability to influence political leaders, entry-points for informal dialogue to diffuse crises and capital to support peace-building initiatives.     

Re-visioning the “Eye in the Sky”: targeted drone strikes and an ethics of the encounter

ABSTRACT

The complexities which beset any attempts to ascribe a foundational ethic to matters of a political stripe are well known, and continue to provoke fierce debate within studies of international relations, geopolitics and security studies. Unsurprisingly, these questions have taken on crucial import within the sub-field of critical terrorism studies (CTS), as authors grapple with the range of counter-terrorism, counter-radicalisation and counter-extremism practices enacted by the Western state as part of an ongoing ‘War on Terror.’ And while much of this scholarship has been invaluable in problematizing the concept of ‘terrorism’ per se, normative questions have proven somewhat more elusive. Through a reading of the film Eye in the Sky, along with its take on the controversial counter-terrorism practice of targeted drone assassinations, this article reiterates the case for an ethical approach which takes radical difference as the basis for any engagement with the Other. Moreover, and following international relations authors of a poststructuralist lineage, it will be argued that supplementing Levinasian ethics with Derridean deconstruction can open up new and useful ways of approaching such seemingly intractable ethical conundrums.     

Gestalt Ontology in International Relations: The Case of European Integration

This article proposes a new interdisciplinary perspective in international relations (IR). It suggests that contributions from perception studies can help us reconceptualize some elements of IR. Specifically, the article takes up the concept of Gestalt and applies it to European integration. The Gestalt laws and phenomena demonstrated by European integration can be identified in other examples of regional integration, as well as in various international organizations, or alliances. They also provide insight into other features of IR, such as the international order. The Gestalt approach per se may contribute to the development of a psychological constructivist theory of IR.     

Moral Economese of Scale? Crisis,Discursive Change and the Varying Authority of Economists

This article examines the varying authority in contemporary governance of 10 prominent economists trained and based in America during the most recent period of economic instability. Despite stemming from diverse backgrounds and adopting a variety of roles, these private actors have each increasingly sought to combine moral authority with the technical authority that has been widely challenged since the outbreak of financial crisis in 2007. The shift from esoteric scientific jargons of economese towards more explicit engagements with overtly ethical issues in a moral economese is identified as an important discursive change through which these actors sought to reconfigure their contested authority. Yet this article maintains that persistent prioritisation of market values impedes rather than supports such attempts to reassert authority. Blends of technical and moral forms of authority are considered highly unstable and not conducive to enhancing the authority of these and other prominent private actors in global governance.     

Mind the (Theoretical) Gap: On the Poverty of International Relations Theorising of Uneven and Combined Development

The uneven and combined development (U&CD) approach in International Relations (IR) claims to offer a solution to the question of “the international” with a single, coherent theory capable of uniting both sociological and geopolitical factors in the explanation of social change. The approach thus claims to provide what IR theorists have long been searching for: a social theory of the international. While acknowledging the importance of this research programme to the field of IR scholarship, this article argues that the U&CD approach takes for granted what needs to be theorised, failing to provide the theoretical solution to the “domestic analogy” problem it so powerfully identifies.     

""Blood on the UN's Hands'? Assigning Duties and Apportioning Blame to an Intergovernmental Organisation

The United Nations is frequently the object of blame for "failing' ' to act in response to what are deemed to be ethical imperatives. Implicit in such condemnations is an understanding of the United Nations as a body that has moral duties, and possesses the various capacities for deliberating and acting that would make this a reasonable conception. Yet this portrayal of the United Nations as a moral agent is one that should only be invoked with great care, and some qualification. By constructing a model of "institutional moral agency'', and examining whether the United Nations meets its criteria, this article aims to offer a preliminary account of the internal features, and enabling conditions that would allow the United Nations to bear the related burdens of duty and blame in international politics. It also suggests who—or what— might bear these burdens when the United Nations is incapable of acting.     

Interwar Internationalism, the British Labour Party, and the Historiography of International Relations

This article questions two interrelated myths pertaining to the interwar internationalism of the British Labour Party and the theories of so-called idealists in the academic discipline of International Relations (IR). In IR, interwar "idealists" are (in)famous for a detached and utopian approach to international politics. Conventional historiographical verdicts on the international policy of the Labour Party in the interwar period suggest that the party was the practical mirror of this naïve international outlook. In fact, the two themes are connected, most notably through Labour's Advisory Committee on International Questions . This article brings the study of Labour's internationalism and the international theories of purported idealists together by focusing on debates on the League of Nations and the use of force. The analysis reveals that conventional historiographical narratives are inadequate and too simplistic for grasping the diversity of Labour's internationalism and interwar progressivist ideas about international politics in general.     

Proto-norms and global media ethics

Abstract

Normativity is a problem of modernity. Relativism has emerged with the negation of moral universals. Clifford Christians consistently argues for the concept of proto-norms as a workable basis for normative ethics applied to media practices that operate on a global scale. Christians declares philosopher Charles Taylor to lie in the background of his theorising, but seldom gives a hint as to how Taylor’s thought influences his own. There appears to be sufficient congruence between Christians’ thinking about proto-norms and the articulation of hypergoods, strong evaluation and persons in Taylor’s philosophical anthropology to consider this to be the influence, among other sources Christians draws on. Of particular interest is Taylor’s insistence that persons always exist in normative moral space as an inescapable horizon of existence. The article explores some aspects of Taylor’s thought that may shed light on what proto-norms are and how they may be applied in the quest for a viable global media ethics in an age when moral relativism seems to be the media's only ethical principle.     

GATS Article XVI and national regulatory sovereignty: what lessons to draw from US—Gambling?

The article examines the World Trade Organization (WTO) Appellate Body's ruling in US—Gambling that United States (US) prohibitions on the foreign supply of gambling and betting services via the internet to consumers in the US violated US market access commitments under Article XVI of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). The article reviews the main arguments criticising the decision and suggests that these views are (i) misguided because they rely excessively on a textual approach to interpreting Article XVI market access commitments, and (ii) lead to results that do not conform with the common intentions of the negotiating parties. The article argues for an approach that relies primarily on examining the facts of each case and the context in which WTO Members' commitments are negotiated. This approach also emphasises the importance of WTO Members making clear and precise market access commitments. In the author's view, the Appellate Body ruling adds more clarity to how GATS market access commitments will be interpreted in the future and, in doing so, facilitates market access negotiations and the making of additional commitments by WTO Members.     

Managing ethical standards: When rhetoric meets reality

In the last two decades, the private sector has been placed under intensifying pressure to ensure it operates in an environmentally and socially responsible manner. Companies have moved through various phases of response, starting with a ‘deny and defend’ position, moving to ‘paying penance’ through donations and philanthropy, and currently settling on risk management through mitigating the negative impacts of their business operations. Drawing on research undertaken by Oxfam International mainly in the retail sector, as well as in the coffee and pharmaceutical sector, this article argues that the current approach is, as yet, inadequate. Simply mitigating negative impacts through castigating intermediaries or suppliers does not contribute to sustainable solutions. For the private sector to meet corporate social responsibility pledges, companies need to pursue alternative business models that forge connectivity, coherence, and interdependence between their core business operations and their ethical and environmental commitments.     

A praxis-based global ethical discourse on development and women

This article explores a praxis-based moral approach to the study of development and women. Drawing upon an illustrative case-study of Ankur Kala – a non-governmental organisation devoted to the development of destitute women in Kolkata, India – the article shows how studying actual development practices on the ground generates valuable insights without which our ethical understanding of women's development globally would be incomplete.     

Feminism and Constructivism: Worlds Apart or Sharing the Middle Ground?

The discipline of international relations (IR) is witnessing a "constructivist turn." In this article, we argue that the new preoccupation with constructivism provides a unique opportunity to further understanding between feminism and the IR mainstream. Feminism and constructivism share a commitment to an ontology of becoming that can serve as a common basis for conversation. Yet there are also profound differences between feminists and constructivists. First, most IR feminists approach gender and power as integral elements in processes of construction, whereas most constructivists consider power to be external to such processes. This failure to conceptualize power and gender as social and pervasive leads constructivists to miss an important part of the empirical reality of power politics. Second, constructivists tend to ignore the implications of a postpositivist epistemology, whereas for feminists the question of "Who knows?" is crucial. We argue that the constructivist failure to problematize the research process as a social (and therefore political) process of construction is logically inconsistent with an ontology of becoming. We introduce empirical materials to illustrate the advantages of feminist approaches. We hope to advance a dialogue between feminism and constructivism because the two approaches add to each other and in combination can yield better theoretical and empirical understandings of the world.     

中日两国忠孝观的比较

考察中日两国的忠孝观,会发现在看似相近的表象下隐藏着各自不同的伦理要素。这一对道德观念反映了两国不同的伦理体系及社会形态。忠、孝道德观念在两国的形成和发展过程中,反映出中日两国传统意识间的差异,以及社会形态的变化,对于正确认识中日两国意识形态的差异,有着重要的指导意义。     

Is International Relations a Global Discipline? Hegemony,Insularity, and Diversity in the Field

Using data from the Teaching, Research, and International Policy (TRIP) project, we address several questions posed by students of the international relations (IR) discipline, specifically, whether and to what extent: US scholars, institutions, and journals dominate the field; national communities of IR scholars are insular or inward-looking; and/or the discipline is theoretically, methodologically, and epistemologically diverse. We draw from two major data sources: a series of cross-national surveys of IR faculty in thirty-two countries and a database of journal articles published in the twelve leading IR journals from 1980 to 2014. We find obvious signs of US hegemony and insularity. Other national IR communities are relatively open to foreign ideas, if not to hiring scholars trained in other countries. Finally, despite US hegemony in the discipline and pockets of geographic insularity, we see a diverse field characterized by a wide range of theoretical, methodological, and epistemological commitments. We conclude with a discussion on the sources and consequences of diversity in the international relations discipline.     

The end of emancipation? CTS and normativity

ABSTRACT

Although CTS can be described as a broad church, scholars working within this approach want to produce knowledge which can help shape, improve, change, or replace contemporary counterterrorism. Guided by Marx’s mantra that the point of theory is not only to interpret the world but to change it, CTS has since its inception challenged the status quo of contemporary counterterrorism on the basis that it is possible to conduct counterterrorism differently, more humanly, and, put plainly, better. The concept of emancipation was identified early on as the foundation and basis for knowledge. However, a deeper debate on emancipation has largely been absent since 2010. Could it be that CTS exhausted the debate on one of its core commitments only five years into its existence? Have we reached the end of emancipation? Or could it be that emancipation is not that attractive at all for CTS and its normative projects? This article begins with a review and a state-of-the-art discussion of emancipation within CTS. While it might be the end of emancipation in its traditional conceptualisation, the article argues that emancipation can be retained as the basis for normative theorising and action within CTS when reconceptualised as a Weberian value-axiom. The article concludes by exploring a transfiguration of the concept of emancipation itself.