Teaching international relations in Thailand: status and prospects

International relations (IR) as it is taught in Thailand possessesdevelopmental characteristics that have curbed its growth inthe past. Through a combination of institutional and trend analyses,it will be argued that IR teaching in Thailand is at a turningpoint where externally driven developments are compelling acertain level of professionalization and engagement with globaldebates. Received for publication August 28, 2008. Accepted for publication September 30, 2008.     

Forecasting in international relations: Problems and prospects

The author argues that forecasting is a problem of reasoning, of reducing uncertainty, and of bounded speculation, and she identifies four types of forecasting goals: (1) understanding the unknown (i.e., prophecy), (2) controlling future outcomes, (3) understanding the overall dynamics of a system to appreciate present conditions, and (4) planning for the immediate future. The author then specifies alternative forecasting methodologies, from least to most systematic: normative, exploratory‐projective, model‐based (both statistical and functional), simulation‐based, and artificial intelligence. A forcast may further be anchored in four types of initial conditions: structure, probability, preference, and trends and projections (the most prevalent type today). A forecast may also have various purposes, each with an attendant time frame: retrospective, long range, or short range. Having made a forecast, it may be validated in many ways, including interrogation processes, statistical methods, and comparisons with data. In considering the policy implications of forecasts, the researcher must identify a system's manipulables, the costs of manipulations, and the sensitive points. In conclusion, the author notes some critical imperatives for further developments in international relations forecasting.     

Inter-regionalism in international relations: Comparing APEC and ASEM

  Depending on one's theoretical perspective, inter-regionalism is assumed by IR scholars to have arisen in response to the need to check the exalted power of the United States (and, in the economic realm, also the European Union and East Asia) and/or the growing complexity of world politics (the rise of “interdependence” or “globalisation”). More recently, inter-regionalism has also been interpreted as a way to enhance regional collective identities. This paper looks at the evolution and recent performance of APEC and ASEM in the light of these theoretical assumptions about the origins and the functions of APEC and ASEM. Its principal findings are puzzling: while there are indications that APEC and ASEM were indeed meant by governments to fulfil some of the functions identified by those theoretical perspectives, the evidence that APEC or ASEM effectively served any of them is thin. Their actual functions and their durability against the background of a seemingly poor political track record therefore need to be rethought. RID="*" ID="*" A more extensive version of this paper will be published in: H?nggi H/Roloff R/Rüland J (eds), Interregionalism and International Politics: Stepping Stone to Global Governance? London & New York: Routledge (forthcoming).     

Sociology and international relations: legacies and prospects

While sociological concepts have often been implicitly used in International Relations (IR), recent years have seen a more explicit engagement between IR and Sociology. As with any such interdisciplinary assignation, there are both possibilities and challenges contained within this move: possibilities in terms of reducing IR's intellectual autism and opening the discipline towards potentially fertile terrain that was never, actually, that distant; challenges in that interdisciplinary raiding parties can often serve as pseudonyms for cannibalism, shallowness and dilettantism. This forum reviews the sociological turn in IR and interrogates it from a novel vantage point—how sociologists themselves approach IR concepts, debates and issues. Three sociological approaches—classical social theory, historical sociology and Foucauldian analysis—are critically deployed to illuminate IR concerns. In this way, the forum offers the possibility of (re)establishing exchanges between the two disciplines premised on a firmer grasp of social theory itself. The result is a potentially more fruitful sociological turn, one with significant benefits for IR as a whole.     

国际关系民主化与国际法

任何理论问题的探究都植根于一定的时代背景.当今经济全球化以前所未有的深度、广度改变着人类生活的多维层面,全球性联系要求民主化的国际合作,全球性问题需要民主化的国际协调,全球性挑战呼唤民主化的解决方式.民主化成为当代国际关系发展的客观要求与基本趋势.     

COIN flips: American international relations and counter-insurgency

The essay examines the recent rehabilitation of counter-insurgency doctrine, especially as conducted by third party interveners. The advent of the refurbished US (United States) Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency field manual, a volume with scholarly self-presentation, is the focal point. This essay is concerned with the dubious bases of the doctrinal justifications driving recent US interventions. The Vietnam War turns out to be the crucial case for American scholars and policy-makers who have construed the history of counter-insurgency there as an unacknowledged success, which today has become the standard account in American International relations scholarship. The essay is a critical examination of this development and of its implications.     

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’.     

Teaching international relations in Southeast Asia: historical memory, academic context, and politics - an introduction

The teaching of international relations (IR) at universitiesin Southeast Asia plays a role in the production of knowledgeabout the IR of Southeast Asia. As a complement to the scrutinyof published research output, a focus on teaching offers onepathway toward comprehending the constitution of meaning inboth the IR of Southeast Asia and the broader IR discipline.This introduction to a collection of essays on the teachingof IR in Southeast Asia also discusses the potential ways bywhich attention to teaching may uncover the socializing roleof pedagogy. An inquiry into the discipline as it is taughtin the region throws light on how particular national legitimatingmyths are reproduced, the transmission of collective historicalmemories, the dominance of certain schools of internationalthought, and the role of civil society in Southeast Asian knowledgeproduction. Received for publication August 28, 2008. Accepted for publication October 7, 2008.     

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.     

Another Weber: state,associations and domination in international relations

While there has arguably been a partial reception of Weber in international relations (IR), we argue here that his ideas have either been misunderstood or neglected. In order to highlight the most valuable Weberian insights, we focus on two topics of crucial importance to IR. First, in our view, Weber's crucial contribution to the study of states is not his alleged emphasis on the monopoly of violence but his concern with the problem of legitimacy, which is the key to understanding why individuals actually orient an action according to their beliefs in the idea of a state. Second, Weber conducted seminal historical investigations on religion, the rationalization of economic ethics, and organizations that show that the diffusion of isomorphism has little to do with supposedly uninterested and persuasive scientific and professional associations. Instead, more attention should be paid to rational domination and less to reified concepts such as John Meyer's ‘rationalized otherhood’. These arguments are also examined empirically.