Constructivism and globalisation: from units to encounters in international affairs

In this article I argue that there is a link between constructivism and globalisation, and it is a strong one. Constructivism evolved as part of a more general trend in international relations scholarship, a trend that has seen a shift from the study of the relationship between assumed fixed, given units, nation‐states, to the study of encounter between political entities. The study of the encounter, however, affects a subtle but significant change in the assumed spatial context in which international relationships are taking place. The underpinning image of the geographical space, the envelope in which international relationships take place, has shifted from an image of a divided space made of separate and isolated nation‐states to an image of a global space, an arena that give rise to problems of encounters between social units. Encounter theories, of which constructivism in all its variations is a good example, are predicated, in other words, on an assumed global world (however ambiguous and inchoate this notion of global might be), and in that sense they advance, unwittingly, a theory of globalisation.     

Challenging international law: a dilemma of private security companies

Since the end of the Cold War, there has been a marked increase in the sale of military services by private security companies (PSCs).1 ?1. The term private security company is used throughout the article instead of private military companies or private military firms. View all notes These companies sell anything from combat support for government military operations to military training and assistance, logistical support and more conventional security protection services. They have undertaken operations in countries as diverse as Sierra Leone, Croatia, and Columbia and now Iraq and Afghanistan. The presence of these companies on the international stage raises fundamental questions about the way war is now being fought. Unfortunately, the legal issues raised by their presence in conflicts have not yet been properly addressed. This article sets out to examine the suitability of international law in defining and controlling the activities of PSCs on the battlefield. It then goes on to discuss the problems associated with national regulation. Here the focus is on the attempts by the United States (US), South Africa, and United Kingdom (UK) governments to introduce effective legislation to control the industry.     

Investing in international security: rising powers and organizational choices

How do rising powers choose to allocate their finite resources among the multiple global and regional security organizations? Building on the literatures on forum shopping and rising powers, we argue that the different organizational investment choices of rising powers are explained by varying regional ideational affinities. Organizational settings have ideational foundations that can look very different from region to region. We argue that regional ideational affinity leads rising powers to invest in regional rather than global organizations. However, if the ideational composition of the region is highly diverse, global organizations are a better vehicle to accommodate rising powers’ emergent ambitions. To demonstrate our argument, we examine the choices of Brazil and South Africa in terms of their material and ideational investments in regional and global organizations.     

Explaining the behaviour of small states: an analysis of Jordan's nuclear energy policya

Conventional analyses claim that small states bandwagon with leading international powers. The dominant view is that small states' vulnerabilities and limited power hinder their ability to pursue policy goals. This study critiques this position by investigating why and how Jordan continues to pursue a nuclear energy programme despite objections from the United States—its principal ally. By using theories of small states, this study analyses discursive practices in Jordanian policymaking. This approach is used to describe Jordan's nuclear energy policy and posit a logic of the effects that energy insecurity has on the government's perception of Jordan as a ‘small state’. I use this to create hypotheses concerning the conditions under which small states may not simply bandwagon with key international allies, but may have more freedom to pursue their goals than traditional analyses predict. Explanations that assume small states always have limited freedom to pursue policy goals without the backing of key allies are not supported by the evidence considered here.     

South African news in international radio broadcasting: a comparative analysis

SUMMARY

This is a comparative content analysis, over a five year period from 1987 to 1991, of the coverage of South African news in international radio broadcasting, specifically Voice of America, Radio Moscow and Radio RSA. This study takes as its point of departure the premise that different ideologies produce differing concepts of news, and this in turn will produce differing images of South Africa in that news. As there is no suitable theory to explain the findings of this study, a triadic model of international radio broadcasting news has been constructed, based on a Three World's taxonomy. This study establishes the importance of South Africa to international radio news, the topics covered, and determines the trends and differences in that coverage over the study period. These findings are discussed in terms of ideologically determined news values.     

Nordic involvement in the Baltic states security: Needs,response and success

Since regaining their independence in 1991, the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have sought to bolster their security by applying for NATO membership. This article examines their security context and the security challenges they face. It shows the attempts by the Nordic states to address these problems by offering assistance to the three countries, by supporting them in international institutions and by introducing them to new concepts of security. Thus the Nordic states have tried to ease confrontation in the Baltic, and have created a Nordic project of some importance.     

Radicalisation and violent extremism in West Africa: implications for African and international security

This article interrogates emerging trends and patterns in the process of radicalisation and violent extremism in West Africa and the implications for regional and international security regimes, practices and thinking. It argues that there are real and imagined challenges of radicalisation and violent extremism. The overarching view is that the emergence of intra- and extra-African preoccupation with violent extremism alone, rather than alongside seriously addressing its structural undercurrents related to preventing and interrupting the process of radicalisation, distorts the security realities and further exacerbates the security situation in Africa. Radicalisation and violent extremism further integrates West Africa into global security assemblages, yet the absence or non-incorporation of an indigenous African (civil society) perspective or counter-narrative about radicalisation and violent extremism uncritically fuses and conflates the strategic interests of major powers with the local realities in Africa. Moreover, there is a huge potential that national governments could exploit local, regional and international interests in counteracting terrorism for domestic political advantages, such as mis-characterisation of subsisting conflicts, regular political opposition and other local grievances as cases of terrorism, thereby risking a deterioration in security conditions.     

Multi-layered justice and security delivery in post-conflict and fragile states

This paper examines the value of an alternative approach to SSR policy, namely a multi-layered one in post-conflict and fragile state environments. It begins by arguing that there is a state-centric bias in current SSR policy and practice. This contradicts development principles of a ‘people-centred, locally owned’ approach in post-conflict and fragile state contexts. The SSR's state-centric approach rests upon two fallacies: that the post-conflict and fragile state is capable of delivering justice and security; and that it is the main actor in security and justice. The paper goes on to present the outline of a multi-layered strategy. This addresses the issue of who is actually providing justice and security in post-conflict and fragile states. The paper continues by describing the accountability mechanisms that could be pursued by SSR programmes in support of this approach. The conclusion is that the advantage of the multi-layered approach is that it is based not on the state's capacity, but on the quality and efficacy of the services received by the end user, regardless of who delivers that service.     

The levels of analysis problems and the study of foreign international,and global affairs: A review critique,and another final solution

Discussions about the “levels of analysis problem” have proliferated the field for almost two decades. In 1961, J. David Singer began the discussion in a now classic article. In response to Singer, analysts like Robert Isaak have attacked the Singer interpretation while many others have carelessly or obliviously skirted the issues surrounding the levels of analysis problem. Much of the confusion can be traced to a failure to view the importance of analytical levels in the aggregate analytical process and a failure to differentiate between causal and effectual levels of analysis. Causal levels of analysis are those whose variables or factors are antecedent to a particular behavior; effectual levels are those on which the behavior or phenomena in question actually occur, that is, on which the effect or result of the causal variables manifests itself. With reference to the aggregate analytical process, whenever scholars engage in inquiry they necessarily employ at least one causal and one effectual level of analysis. When properly conceptualized, levels of analysis considerations can lead to more structured and more productive foreign policy, international, and global analyses. Some of these analyses can be strengthened even more via the use of analytical frameworks constructed from conceptualizations of dual levels of analysis.     

Mediation by small states: Some lessons from the CSCE

Most writing on international mediation has tended to focus on either efforts by representatives of powerful states or of international organisations such as the United Nations. This study suggests we might benefit from looking at the mediatory role of small states in a relatively little studied but crucial forum. The writer draws of his personal experiences and the existing literature to examine the case of a few key states in the Madrid Review Conference of the CSCE. These states are suggested to have been primordial to the success of this conference, against all the odds given the Afghanistan and Polish crises of the early 1980s. The paper also discusses the extant literature on small states and mediation to make a plea for a more empirical approach to this area of conflict resolution.     

Malaysia's 2005-2006 refugee stand-off with Thailand: a security culture analysis

In September of 2005, Malaysia–Thailand relations werestressed by an incident in which 131 Thai Muslims fled acrossthe Southern Thai border to seek refuge in Malaysia. The Malaysiangovernment initially refused to return these ‘asylum seekers,’and eventually chose to internationalize the situation by callingon the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR). Malaysia'sdecision to internationalize the issue points to potential instabilityin Malaysia-Thailand bilateral relations and reflects severalinternal political problems faced by United Malays NationalOrganization (UMNO) central decisions makers. This paper seeksto explain the Malaysian central government's security perspectiveon the northern border region. To do this, I employ MuthiahAlagappa's framework for security culture analysis in an attemptto understand Malaysian security culture from the perspectiveof that culture's central decision makers themselves. (Alagappa,M ed., (1998) Asian Security Practice: Material and IdeationalInfluences. Stanford: Stanford University Press.) Received for publication September 15, 2006. Accepted for publication October 10, 2007.     

Deep history and international security: social conditions and competition,militancy and violence in West Africa

Concern about terrorism in, and from, West Africa has prompted both military responses and criticisms of these. Criticism has focused on ‘hegemonic’ international attention to the region, the inappropriateness of a military and a misplaced focus on religion, and specifically Islam, where a range of ethnic, social, economic and historical problems are said to have been the real factors incubating radicalisation and violence—although empirical evidence to support this assertion was absent. We argue that a more nuanced and variegated approach is needed. On one side, contrary to the critics, we show: why international attention is warranted and inevitable, with a specific link to international terrorism (as well as local contexts) since 2001, and why a militarised approach is also relevant; why Islam and a religious focus cannot be completely ignored in assessing militancy and violence in West Africa. On the other, we use original qualitative empirical research to explore beliefs, values and attitudes in the region, which reveals that, across the region, a variety of social issues and perceptions of history are regarded as being salient factors in radicalisation—whether or not that radicalisation leads to violence. Notable among these are a ‘youth bulge’ and youth disaffection and perceptions (no matter their empirical accuracy) concerning the ‘deep history’ of colonialism in the region.     

The study of international relations in Japan: towards a more international discipline

We deploy Waever’s sociology of science approach in a criticalcomparison of the American and Japanese international relations academies.We argue that there are four great debates in the American academy, andfour traditions of scholarship in the Japanese academy. We describethese debates and traditions in some detail, and identify andexplain points of contact and difference between the two respectiveacademies. We conclude by making a general case for methodologicalpluralism and offer reasons why the Japanese international relationsacademy is keen to sponsor a journal which is, in the wordsof Waever, able to ‘draw on national traditions while keepingup with American developments’.     

The structure of the international telecommunications regime in transition: A network analysis of international organizations 1

This paper examines the structure of the international telecommunications regime in terms of networks of social interaction and institutional affiliation among international actors. Social interaction and overlapping membership data of 69 international telecommunications organizations in the Yearbook of International Organizations 1994/1995 are analyzed to describe the social structure of the international telecommunications system through network analysis. The analysis reveals a center‐periphery structure with the Western industrial countries at the center and the less developed countries at the periphery. The international telecommunications system is also regionally structured suggesting influence by geopolitical and cultural proximity. The results indicate that inter‐governmental global organizations such as the ITU and UNESCO play intermediate and coordinating roles at the central linking‐pin positions (or cut‐points) in the international telecommunications regime. In summary, this research shows that transitional trends in international telecommunications have affected the interaction patterns of international actors.