The foreign policy and intervention behaviour of Nigeria and South Africa in Africa: A structural realist analysis

This article assesses the foreign policy and intervention roles of Nigeria and South Africa in Africa, given their status as regional powers, and the regional complexes within which they operate. Drawing references from a plethora of conflicts in which these two states have intervened, this article argues that structural realism, given its emphasis on the material structure of power and the pursuit of relative gains, is useful as a theoretical framework in this assessment. The article makes a contribution to the literature by illustrating the value of structural realism as an international relations (IR) approach within which the intervention behaviour of these two African states can be analysed. The author acknowledges that while structural realism points to the fact that the pursuit of relative gains may be behind the normatively-clad role conceptions of states, foreign policy cannot be reduced to the pursuit of relative power alone.     

Normative behaviourism as a solution to four problems in realism and non-ideal theory

ABSTRACT

This article advances the case for ‘normative behaviourism’ – a new way of doing political philosophy that tries to turn facts about observable patterns of behaviour, as produced by different political systems, into grounds for specific political principles. This approach is applied to four distinct problems at the heart of the ideal/non-ideal theory and moralism/realism debates: (1) How to distinguish good from bad idealisations; (2) how to rank options of variable feasibility, cost, and danger; (3) how to distinguish legitimate acceptance of a given political system from acceptance based on coercion or false consciousness; and (4) how to translate abstract principles into concrete institutions. Objections against the general viability of normative behaviourism, and against the types of behaviour it tracks, are also considered.     

Coming to Grips with Realism

Retrieving Realism renders the joint philosophical goals of Hubert Dreyfus and Charles Taylor into what is probably their final and most concise form. It has two main objectives: first, it aims to deconstruct the mediationalism that undergirds Western philosophy, and second, it endorses contact theory, or embodied/embedded coping, as an alternative. In this essay, I present the book’s most salient themes and reveal areas that are ripe for further philosophical consideration. I also direct the reader to the work’s genuine ontological challenge: how to come to grips with contact theory beyond the borders of epistemology.     

Intervention and Statebuilding Beyond the Human: From the ‘Black Box’ to the ‘Great Outdoors’

This article analyses intervention and statebuilding as shifting towards a posthuman discursive regime. It seeks to explore how the shift to ‘bottom-up’ or post-liberal approaches has evolved into a focus upon epistemological barriers to intervention and an appreciation of complexity. It attempts to describe a process of reflection upon intervention as a policy practice, whereby the need to focus on local context and relations – in order to take problems seriously – begins to further undermine confidence in the Western episteme. In other words, the bottom-up approach, rather than resolving the crisis of policy practices of intervention, seems to further intensify it. It is argued that the way out of this crisis seems to be found in the rejection of the aspiration to know from a position of a ‘problem-solving’ external authority and instead to learn from the opportunities opened up through the practices of intervention. However, what is learnt does not seem to be able to fit into traditional modes and categories of expertise.     

International society: the social dimensions of Indonesia's foreign policy

Realism has been the dominant conceptual approach to studying Indonesian foreign policy. This article, however, considers realist analyses to be insufficient since their emphasis on the struggle for power and security in the system of states has led to the neglect of the importance of perspectives which focus on order. To fill the gap it then intends to apply the English School perspective which focuses on the concept of international society to trace the nature and function of Indonesian foreign policy. Two cases are examined, including the Asian African Conference and Association of South East Asian Nations, to demonstrate the relevance of international society for policy ideas and action. The central argument is that the Indonesian elite worldview indicates that the creation and maintenance of order in international societies are ones which are prominent objectives legitimizing the conduct of Indonesia's external relations.     

Who wants to pay more? The European Union's military operations and the dispute over financial burden sharing

In 2014, the European Union (EU) launched the sixth review of the Athena mechanism that finances the common costs of military operations launched in the framework of its Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). In the run up to the review, there were expectations that it would improve financial burden sharing in CSDP operations by expanding common funding for them. However, these hopes were disappointed; the review became a diplomatic tug of war between France, the strongest supporter of expanded common funding, and the UK, its strongest opponent. In the end, France agreed to the UK's terms to ensure that the existing level of common funding would not decrease. This article analyses the Athena review from a neoclassical realist perspective. It argues that the review's outcome was due to the imbalance of influence among EU member states and the diverging preferences of their Foreign Policy Executives (FPEs). These factors caused the Athena review to remain in the hands of a small group of member states that had diverging utility expectations and ideological preferences. Thus, the article shows that a surprisingly intense burden-sharing dispute has emerged within CSDP.     

政治领导与大国崛起安全

道义现实主义国际关系理论的核心原理是:决定大国兴衰的根本原因是大国的政治领导力,其本质是一国政府为适应不断变动的国际国内战略环境而进行改革的方向、决心与能力。根据道义现实主义原理,中国综合国力居世界第二位是中国制定崛起目标和策略的基础,符合国力基础的目标和战略就易于成功,而超越实力基础的目标和战略则会削弱中国的实力。道义现实主义认为,外交承诺与实力保持一致有利于提高国际战略信誉,从而减少国际社会对崛起国的恐惧和反对;为周边国家提供安全保障可获得对崛起国的战略支持;为减少崛起的国际阻力,崛起国应在新兴领域拓展利益范围而尽量避免在传统领域的利益冲突。在信息化时代,在网络空间拓展中国国际战略利益应成为中国主攻方向,网络战略应采取"走出去"原则而非为了安全的防御原则。在外部威胁不足以颠覆中国崛起的情况下,为防止中国的崛起半途夭折的重点将是防范国内的极左陷阱。"台独"正在成为中国崛起面临的首要威胁,中美在南海的战略竞争将长期化,朝鲜拥核是中国的东北亚地区政策无法回避的既成事实。     

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.     

融贯论、道德实在与法律——一个基于内在实在主义的整合

不同的真理理论导致不同的法律方法论。符合论实在主义的哲学会导致哲学的和自然主义的法律发现,而融贯论则是规范分析和法律解释的基础。不少哲学家认为没有脱离融贯论的符合论(如普特南)。但同时,从真理的客观性维度讲,融贯论只能保障认知的客观性,而不能获得形而上的客观性。融贯论的结果必然是相对主义。因此,法律哲学的认识论选择必然是折中的,这个折中的认识论可以由普特南的内在实在主义来承担,而内在实在主义将最终引向包容的法律实证主义。     

东亚安全:现实主义和自由主义的视角评析

东亚地区日益成为21世纪国际政治的中心舞台之一,有关该地区的安全问题也逐渐被人们提上了议事日程。时至今日,该地区仍尚未形成一种稳定的国际关系格局。不同学者对于东亚地区未来安全的前景也存在多种解读,本文从国际关系理论的两大流派———现实主义和自由主义的不同视角,综合分析对东亚安全的不同解释,并提出东亚安全面临的现实挑战及可能选择。