Reconsidering the ontological foundations of international energy affairs: realist geopolitics,market liberalism and a politico-economic alternative

Accounts of international energy affairs often present a divergence between geopolitical/realist and liberal market-based approaches. This article suggests that this state of affairs reflects the (often implicit) legacies of realist and rationalist international thought in the study of energy affairs and the corresponding political and economic ontological hierarchies of analytical frameworks employed in different accounts of energy politics. Consequently, this article recommends a greater explicit attention to scientific ontological foundations in studies of energy relations and, in line with the calls of Keating et al. and Strange, suggests an approach based in the literature on I/GPE, which merges political and economic ontological axioms, as most apposite for the study of energy affairs. Building on this framework, and giving particular examples from the context of Eurasian energy politics, this article then outlines a number of politico-economic heuristic models (structural diversity, territorial non-coincidence, milieu-shaping and market-authority bargains) that are particularly useful concepts in helping to explain the intricate interactions of international energy relations.     

Norms in International Relations: Some Conceptual and Methodological Reflections

Acknowledging the social constructivist turn in the study of norms, this article offers to demonstrate that the notion of norms is useful as an analytical tool and likely to become a lasting element in international relations theory. Ideational causality and the independent explanatory power of norms are methodological issues that have been debated widely. Despite arguing that norms matter, social constructivism has problems making a successful case for the independent influence of norms. This article explores social constructivism as an approach to understanding international norms and their origins.     

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.     

Reviving the Russian empire: the Crimean intervention through a neoclassical realist lens

Although many policy-makers and scholars maintain that international norms have altered the motivations underlying state behaviour, this article argues that states continue to pursue national self-interest, but in ways that remain understudied. While traditional realist assumptions explain a great deal of state behaviour, they have not been widely used to account for important alternative tools of state intervention, such as economic and normative strategies. Focusing on the case of Russia's 2014 intervention in Ukraine, this article offers insights into how, and under what circumstances, these tools are used to accomplish traditional state objectives. Guided by the tenets of neoclassical realism, the article argues that in the case of Russia, military force is no longer the sole, or even the primary, means used to accomplish traditional security goals. Such dynamics have significant theoretical and policy implications for contemporary international relations.     

Power and agency in the human security framework

The concept of human security is arguably a progressive move away from the narrow conceptions of military and territorial security that have traditionally dominated international relations. The human security framework is argued to have the potential to empower and emancipate individuals by putting them at the centre of policy, analysis and debate and addressing the problems they face in their daily lives. In this paper I will argue that the human security framework cannot live up to its promises to empower the citizens of poor and developing countries. Whilst the human security framework problematizes the relationship between the state and its citizens, the framework replaces this relationship with relationships with other states or international agencies that lack accountability, effectively further disempowering citizens in weak or unstable states. The human security framework serves to reinforce international power inequalities and renders criteria for intervention by powerful states and international institutions less transparent and less accountable.     

Hierarchy Amidst Anarchy: A Transaction Costs Approach to International Security Cooperation

This article provides an interest-based explanation for hierarchy in international politics. The study suggests that—even in a self-help system—self–interested actors voluntarily curtail their sovereignty to obtain needed assurances, yet that these actors have a choice among cooperative security arrangements with different degrees of "bindingness." The key to understanding countries' international institutional choices is in focusing on economic theories of organization and, more specifically, transaction costs. The study begins with the conceptualization of a continuum of cooperative security arrangements with different degrees of bindingness. It then examines different bodies of literature—the traditional realist model and economies–of–scale arguments—and claims that both fail to account for hierarchical security structures in the international system. Recognizing that economists explain hierarchy amidst market anarchy by examining transaction costs, the study makes use of this insight by developing an analogous argument for hierarchy in international politics. Finally, to test the propositions advanced in this article, a brief case study examines plans for the creation of a European Defense Community.     

Norms from the periphery: tracing the rise of the common but differentiated principle in international environmental politics

Abstract

Over the last three decades, constructivist scholars of international relations have created a rich body of literature on the influence of global norms. Until recently, the vast majority of that work focused on norms originating in the developed world and neglected the ideational impact of developing countries. This article confronts this oversight in the literature by tracing the rise of the “common but differentiated responsibility” (CBDR) norm in international environmental politics. The CBDR principle traces its origins to the developing world and today it is part of the framework principles of international environmental agreements. Thus, it represents a global norm promoted by, rather than diffused to, the developing world. In the process of tracing this norm’s rise, this article generates a set of hypotheses about the conditions under which developing countries create global norms.     

Two Stages of Transition from a Region of War to a Region of Peace: Realist Transition and Liberal Endurance

How do war-prone regions stabilize? This article tests realist, liberal, and constructivist hypotheses against the paradigmatic case of regional peacemaking, Western Europe after World War II. It concludes that none of the three theories perfectly explains the process of Franco-German reconciliation after 75 years of bitter conflict. Instead, the transition to stability occurred in two stages. The first stage, the transition , was driven by realist factors, principally the existence of a common Soviet threat and active American hegemonic participation. In the second stage, however, stability and cooperation were entrenched by liberal mechanisms, notably the institution of democratic political regimes and cooperative international institutions. I thus inductively arrive at the novel theoretical position that realist mechanisms may initially be required to compel regional rivals to put aside their differences, at least temporarily, and cooperate on the grounds of realpolitik, but liberal mechanisms are ultimately useful to sustain and deepen regional peace.     

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.     

From Kosovo to Syria: the transformation of NATO Secretaries General's discourse on military humanitarian intervention

The civil war in Syria began approximately four years ago and has resulted in the murder of thousands by the Assad regime and the flight of millions to neighbouring countries. The international community's reluctance to intervene to halt the ongoing massive human rights violations has been explained in geopolitical, military-strategic, diplomatic, and legal terms. Yet, what does this imply normatively? And does the weakening of the military humanitarian intervention (MHI) norm support arguments regarding the poverty of constructivist security studies? This article examines these two questions and demonstrates the weakness of the MHI norm, especially in light of the new interpretations and meanings which authoritative agents ascribe to its key conceptual components in changing strategic, social and political contexts. Yet, the article employs constructivist tools to explore the endogenous challenges to the MHI norm while proving the added value of constructivist security research, not only for explaining “norm evolution” but also “norm decline”. Taking discourse as a reflection of social norms and an arena for encouraging new intersubjective interpretations of concepts, it examines the above assertions by analysing the discourse of NATO Secretaries General from 1999 (Kosovo crisis) to today.     

Untimely Russia: Hysteresis in Russian-Western Relations over the Past Millennium

This article draws on Pierre Bourdieu's sociology to explain how a lack of fit between a repertoire of bodily practices accumulated through history, on the one hand, (here, Russian habitus) and the field in which it is employed, on the other, (here, diplomacy) can take shape in world politics. Such “hysteresis” provides a longue durée reading that challenges both the realist idea that similar outcomes are due to invariant structures and the constructivist idea that structures “socialize” states. Social stability stems from agency, more specifically, from habitus. Our empirical examples are breaking points in Russian relations with neighbors: the Rus’ and the Eurasian steppe empires (ca. 800–1500), Muscovy's diplomatic interactions with Europe, and Russia's bid to join European international society and situation during the twentieth century. In each case, Moscow's relentless quest for equal status prompted quixotic practices that were often dismissed by Western countries and hampered the security of both parties.     

Hidden in plain sight: racism in international relations theory

This article addresses the centrality of racism in international relations (IR) theory; specifically, in realism and liberalism, two of the most prominent paradigms of IR. It examines the extent to which these major paradigms of world politics are oriented by racist—primarily, white supremacist—precepts that inhere within their foundational construct, namely, anarchy. I maintain that due to the centrality of anarchy—and other racially infused constructs—within these prominent paradigms, white supremacist precepts are not only nominally associated with the origins of the field, but have an enduring impact on IR theory and influence contemporary theses ranging from neorealist conceptions of the global system to liberal democratic peace claims, and constructivist theses as well.     

“No More War?” Belgian Reception of the League of Nations and Arbitration After the First World War

After the horrors of the First World War, different initiatives were taken to introduce and institutionalise principles of international organisation such as collective security and arbitration in international relations. The League of Nations was founded, and different bilateral and multilateral arbitration treaties were concluded. This article studies the reception of these internationalist principles by Belgian policymakers and diplomats. I will argue that this reception initially ranged from cautiousness to clear scepticism. Although an evolution towards increased trust in collective security and arbitration can be observed between 1919 and 1929, Belgian policymakers' and diplomats' views during this period remained predominantly based on realist premises and beliefs.     

You Just Don't Understand: Troubled Engagements Between Feminists and IR Theorists

This article reconstructs some conversational encounters between feminists and IR theorists and offers some hypotheses as to why misunderstandings so frequently result from these encounters. It claims that contemporary feminist perspectives on international relations are based on ontologies and epistemologies that are quite different from those that inform the conventional discipline. Therefore, they do not fit comfortably within conventional state-centric and structural approaches to IR theorizing, nor with the methodologies usually employed by IR scholars. As an illustration of how these differences can cause misunderstandings, the article offers some feminist perspectives on security, a concept central to the discipline. It also suggests how feminist approaches can offer some new ways to understand contemporary security problems. In conclusion, it suggests how feminist/IR engagements might be pursued more constructively.     

After Postpositivism? The Promises of Critical Realism

This article argues that the current self-understanding of IR theory is misconceived and that it is time to move beyond the stagnant positivism/postpositivism debate. We argue that the attempt to occupy a middle ground compromise position between positivism and postpositivism is untenable because these two positions share much in common. In this sense a middle ground position between two problematic positions does not produce a less problematic position. What is needed is a metatheoretical analysis of the two extreme positions. We attempt to show how both positivism and postpositivism are embedded in a discourse of philosophical anti-realism. This anti-realism occurs as a result of what we call the post-Kantian-Humean 'problem-field' of international relations from which most contemporary positivist, constructivist, and post-structuralist IR approaches stem. We then try to overcome this 'problem-field' by means of radically reclaiming reality through a critical realist philosophy. Once outlined we try to show how this critical realist philosophy can help transcend some of the antinomies currently faced by IR scholars.     

‘Bringing Geopolitics Back In’: Exploring the Security Dimension of the 2004 Eastern Enlargement of the European Union

Notwithstanding the functional and technocratic basis of the European integration process, and the fact that the accession criteria hardly mentions security issues, the 2004 eastern enlargement brought to the forefront of EU politics important geopolitical and security issues. Eastern enlargement came on to the agenda of the EU in the wake of 1989's peaceful revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe. Security and geopolitics mattered to the decision taken by the EU to embark on expansion in the early 1990s, and thereafter security issues remained prominent in enlargement debates. This article seeks to analyse the most important geopolitical issues that eastern enlargement has brought to the fore. In exploring the geopolitical dimension of the eastern enlargement process, the article foregrounds some key issues including: the potential power realignments in Europe triggered by enlargement, the EU's relationship with Russia and its importance to the unfolding of the enlargement process, and how eastern enlargement was conceived as a mechanism for stabilising the EU's external environment. The article contrasts realist and constructivist images of post-1989 Europe and the eastern enlargement process and assesses their contribution to enlargement scholarship. It argues that constructivist imagery best explains the way in which EU actors interpreted key geopolitical issues within the enlargement framework. In particular, it presents enlargement as the expansion of the existing European security community, wherein geopolitical issues were subject to a process of securitisation and desecuritisation.     

"Do Ourselves Credit and Render a Lasting Service to Mankind": British Moral Prestige, Humanitarian Intervention, and the Barbary Pirates

This paper raises the issue of moral credibility in international relations and shows that considerations of preserving moral prestige can become crucial for armed humanitarian intervention. It contrasts realist and constructivist explanations about the causes of humanitarian intervention and demonstrates that traditional accounts do not provide a complete understanding of the phenomenon of intervention. In the case studied here, Britain engaged in a relatively costly humanitarian intervention against the Barbary pirates, slave trade in Christian Europeans due to her willingness to defy moral criticism and exhibit consistency with her professed moral principles. No material incentives and/or constraints influenced the British decision, and neither was it affected by a sense of felling, with regard to the Christian slaves. Instead, allegations that Britain urged Europe to abolish the black slave trade out of selfish interests, while at the same time turning a blind eye toward the Christian slave trade of the pirates, undermined British moral prestige and became the cause of the Barbary expedition.     

‘A good investment?’ State sponsorship of terrorism as an instrument of Iraqi foreign policy (1979–1991)

Governmental support for nonstate actors designated as terrorist organizations is not only a policy that carries significant international and domestic costs; it further poses a theoretical challenge to structural realist thinking about alliance politics in international relations. By debating, firstly, the utility of terrorism as a means to influence systemic power distribution, and, secondly, the functional equality of nonstate actors, this article considers under what conditions state sponsored terrorism occurs despite the expected security loss. Drawing on the example of Iraq between 1979 and 1991, the assumption that the interplay of external security challenges—as well as domestic dissent as an intervening, unit-level factor—affects governmental alignments with terrorist groups will be reviewed in the cases of the Iranian Mujahedin al-Khalq Organization, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and armed Palestinian factions. The article concludes by addressing whether state sponsorship of terrorism is inevitably linked to policy failure or whether it could be seen as a good investment to balance external and internal security challenges successfully.     

“No More War?” Belgian Reception of the League of Nations and Arbitration After the First World War

After the horrors of the First World War, different initiatives were taken to introduce and institutionalise principles of international organisation such as collective security and arbitration in international relations. The League of Nations was founded, and different bilateral and multilateral arbitration treaties were concluded. This article studies the reception of these internationalist principles by Belgian policymakers and diplomats. I will argue that this reception initially ranged from cautiousness to clear scepticism. Although an evolution towards increased trust in collective security and arbitration can be observed between 1919 and 1929, Belgian policymakers' and diplomats' views during this period remained predominantly based on realist premises and beliefs.