Teaching international relations in Singapore 1956-2008: from supporting development to global city aspirations?

This preliminary survey of international relations (IR) teachingin Singapore argues that while the hegemonic goals of the nation-statehave been pervasive since 1956, the influences upon IR teachinghave become more complex and subtle in tandem with Singapore'stransition from pristine developmentalism to an aspiring globalcity. Today, IR teaching has acquired characteristics of a divisionof labor among the main universities, research institutes, andbusiness-oriented schools. Nonetheless, the dialectics of whetherthe future lies in open-ended knowledge inquiry or hewing tosome version of state-associated pragmatism remains unresolved. Received for publication August 28, 2008. Accepted for publication October 7, 2008.     

What Is Your Research Program? Some Feminist Answers to International Relations Methodological Questions

Methodological issues have constituted some of the deepest sources of misunderstanding between International Relations (IR) feminists and IR theorists working in social scientific frameworks. IR theorists have called upon feminists to frame their research questions in terms of testable hypotheses. Feminists have responded that their research questions cannot be answered using social science explanatory frameworks. Deep epistemological divisions about the construction and purpose of knowledge make bridging these methodological divides difficult. These epistemological standards lead feminists to very different methodological perspectives. Asking different questions from those typically asked in IR, many IR feminists have drawn on ethnographic, narrative, cross-cultural, and other methods that are rarely taught to students of IR, to answer them. Drawing on a range of interdisciplinary scholarship on feminist methodologies and some recent IR feminist case studies, this article analyzes and assesses how these methodological orientations are useful for understanding the gendering of international politics, the state and its security-seeking practices and its effects on the lives of women and men.     

Personality and policy preference: Attitudes in the arms control and disarmament agency and the state department

This is a report of the results of a small project intended to determine what relationships there are between the personality trait of authoritarianism and variations in arms control‐related policy preferences held by bureaucrats in the United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and the State Department. Several moderately strong correlations are found. A major implication of this finding is that as international relations scholarship assumes a greater “policy analysis” focus, it will be advisable to remember that policymaking is embedded in a psycho‐cultural milieu and that therefore the potential substantive and methodological contributions of psychology to policy studies should not be overlooked.     

Methodological nationalism and the domestic analogy: classical resources for their critique

The critique of methodological nationalism arose in the 1970s in sociology, but it only gained salience with the rise of globalization theory in the late 1990s. This article argues that in International Relations the discussion of the so-called ‘domestic analogy’ is closely connected to the one on methodological nationalism as they equally point to the substantive problem of understanding the nation state's position in modernity. The first section of this article revisits the three waves of the debate on methodological nationalism in sociology. The second part connects this with the discussion in IR on the domestic analogy. The last section brings the two disciplinary strands together by suggesting that social theory's claim to universalism is a fundamental resource to theorize current global processes beyond methodological nationalism and the domestic analogy. But for us to do so, we still have to unpack social theory's ambivalent relationship with the natural law tradition.     

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.     

Introduction: Survey and Experimental Research in International Political Economy

Studies in international political economy (IPE) that use survey-response data sets and survey (or field) experiments have grown dramatically in recent years. New developments in survey and experimental methodology have arguably influenced IPE scholars not only to think more deeply about the microfoundations of the preferences, attitudes, and political behavior of key IPE actors but also to use survey or experimental methods to test causal claims and predictions. Yet the reasons for the rapid growth in survey and experimental methods in IPE are more multifaceted. We therefore seek to answer the following three pertinent questions in the introduction. First, what are the main substantive puzzles and issue-areas that IPE scholars analyze via survey and experimental methods in their research? Second, what are the main methodological advantages and drawbacks from using survey and experimental methods in IPE? Third, what are the key substantive theoretical and empirical insights that scholars have learned from recent research in IPE that employs either survey or experimental methods (or both)? In addition to answering these questions here, we also provide a summary of each article included in the special issue. The introduction concludes with a road map for future studies on survey and experimental research in IPE.     

Foreign Policy Analysis: Actor-Specific Theory and the Ground of International Relations

Examining the history, conceptual breadth, and recent trends in the study of foreign policy analysis, it is clear that this subfield provides what may be the best conceptual connection to the empirical ground upon which all international relations (IR) theory is based. Foreign policy analysis is characterized by an actor-specific focus, based upon the argument that all that occurs between nations and across nations is grounded in human decision makers acting singly or in groups. FPA offers significant contributions to IR—theoretical, substantive, and methodological—and is situated at the intersection of all social science and policy fields as they relate to international affairs. A renewed emphasis on actor-specific theory will allow IR to more fully reclaim its ability to manifest human agency, with its attendant change, creativity, accountability, and meaning.     

Hearing Latin American Voices in International Relations Studies

This article offers a general account of international relations studies (IR) in Latin America through an examination of IR thinking in the region, an inventory of IR theory courses in seven Latin American countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, and Trinidad and Tobago), and an analysis of journal articles selected from five specialized IR journals in Latin America. Although considerable U.S. influence upon the ways in which IR is approached in Latin America is made apparent through this narrative, the specific context in which IR studies have evolved in the region has substantially altered the content of U.S. IR discourse. Therefore, the article concludes with a discussion of the possible contributions of Latin American IR to Anglo-American perspectives in the field.     

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.     

Surveys,Experiments, and the Landscape of International Political Economy

The contributions to this issue show that surveys and experiments offer exciting new tools for doing empirical research in international political economy (IPE). This essay cautions that the utility of these tools is not self-evident: Neither appeals to microfoundations nor to methodological individualism in constructing explanations for social phenomena themselves recommend an embrace of surveys or experiments. The field of IPE should worry that the focus on surveys and experiments will constrain not just methodological choice but also theoretical breadth, limiting the field’s ability to conceive of what theories are admissible in learning about the global political economy.     

When Do States Say Uncle? Network Dependence and Sanction Compliance

In this article we address the long-debated question of when and why states comply with sanctions. While the literature remains indeterminate as to whether the key mechanisms driving sanction compliance are tied to interstate relations, intrastate constraints, or a dynamic combination of the two, our theoretical framework and methodological approach provide a novel perspective that incorporates insights drawn from network theory to explain the time until countries comply. Specifically, we argue that reciprocity, a concept with deep roots in both network theory and international relations, has largely been overlooked in the study of sanction compliance. Though often ignored, this concept captures an essential aspect of how cooperation is fostered in the international system and allows us to better analyze the strategic environment underlying sanctioning behavior. Given the theoretical importance of reciprocity in understanding interstate relations, we provide an approach that integrates estimations of this type of network interdependency into extant frameworks for modeling the time until countries comply with sanctions. Our results highlight that reciprocity not only has a substantive effect in explaining the duration of sanctions but that models excluding this concept from their specifications do notably worse in terms of their predictive performance.     

Domestic Politics and International Relations

In reviewing the history of portions of international studies I reflect on how we might best advance knowledge. I dwell on two issues: questions of method and the urgency of refocusing our efforts on leaders and domestic affairs as the centerpiece for understanding the world of international relations. I argue that scientific progress is best made by combining three methodological approaches in our research: formal, mathematical logic to ensure internal consistency in arguments about complex and contingent relations among variables; case studies and archival research to evaluate verisimilitude between theory and action; and statistical analysis to establish the generality of the hypothesized relations among variables. Often such methodologically diverse and progressive research will best be accomplished by encouraging collaboration rather than by perpetuating the current norm of penalizing co-authorship especially among junior scholars. I offer concrete examples of advances in knowledge achieved through the employment of mathematical reasoning and statistical analysis as many have cast doubts about the substantive contributions of these particular approaches. My perspective is, of course, personal and may not be shared by many others. I set out my thoughts, therefore, with the hope that they will stimulate constructive debate and dialogue and that they will serve to integrate diverse approaches to international affairs.     

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.     

The International Community and Bosnia-Herzegovina

The article discusses the most considerable challenges faced by Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) over the past few years and outlines how many of them have been addressed through partnership and cooperation between BiH and the international community. It draws lessons from this cooperation for the general conditions necessary for successful international intervention and engagement, comparing the interventions in BiH and Iraq. It argues that BiH has made substantive progress in reconciliation and reconstruction and that it is now a modern and peaceful state orientated towards the goal of Euro-Atlantic integration. The article assesses some of the remaining obstacles to progress, in particular the paradoxically problematic role of the Office of the High Representative in BiH.     

Survey Research in International Political Economy: Motivations,Designs, Methods

The use of surveys and survey experiments by international political economy scholars is increasing, adding to the ability to study a broad array of topics. In doing so, many scholars in international political economy draw on—and are contributing to—insights and arguments from American politics and comparative politics (Milner 1998), substantive fields with a history of using surveys and survey experiments. In this article, I review motivations for using surveys and survey experiments, the research designs, and analysis strategies in light of this issue’s contributions. I contrast these motivations and their accompanying designs and discuss the pros and cons of ways to approach the data generated by these research designs. The goal of this commentary is to situate surveys and survey experiments—especially those within the special issue—within a larger discussion about research motivations, design, and analysis techniques.     

Forget(ting) feminism? Investigating relationality in international relations

Abstract

What kind of theoretical or methodological changes are needed to more effectively theorize global politics? This question is one increasingly posed, one reason being the ever burgeoning weight of violence on our global political landscapes. To investigate this, the central concept examined at the workshop from which this special section emanates was relationality. Motivated by feminist scholarship, my initial question was, ‘Why did we not focus the whole workshop around feminist theory?’ This question is posed alongside the clear knowledge that the workshop was not ‘about’ feminism and thus it might not seem rational to choose such a focus. Yet given the concept and practice of relationality was so deeply embedded in feminist work, I wondered how feminism could have been forgotten. In this article, I explore the idea of ‘forgetting feminism’ through a further question, namely, ‘Is sexism (still) at work in international relations [IR]?’ This involves a perusal of the work of sexual politics and sexism, IR’s putative ‘failure to love’ and a personal, relational detour into the life, work and career of Lily Ling—corporeally suddenly absent but remaining a vital part of the work in which we are all engaged.     

Power,Patterns, and Process in European Union History

Sebastian Rosato's admirably provocative Europe United retells the origins of the European Union (EU) as a realist story of the balance of power. While he deserves praise for a bold attempt to extend offensive realism into history's greatest instance of international cooperation, the book ultimately reads as a cautionary methodological tale about how not to support a realist argument. Realist theory has been influential mainly because it offers strong expectations about major patterns in the world—relatively unitary decision-making within states and specific kinds of foreign policies between them—but Rosato's evidence focuses on a thin version of process. He selectively cites leaders' statements about their policy choices across the story, providing no leverage on how these statements related to patterned interests within or across countries. Interestingly, a similar error weakens work by the most salient IR scholar writing on EU history, Andrew Moravcsik. Their shared problems hint at a pattern of IR scholars overlooking patterns in historical evidence.     

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.     

World Cricket as a Postcolonial International Society: IR Meets the History of Sport

This article brings together the English School literature, postcolonial approaches to culture, the historical sociology of sport, and IR's own tentative engagement with sport to argue that world cricket constitutes a sui generis postcolonial international society in the sporting sector. The international society tradition within IR has been criticised for its failure to take sufficient note of the history of imperialism, and contributions from postcolonial scholarship can provide a necessary corrective here. However, the adoption of cricket in colonial societies involved a complex mixture of acceptance of and resistance to elements of British imperial culture, as has been documented in the work of some historical sociologists of sport and of philosophers of cricket such as C.L.R. James and Ashis Nandy. Contemporary world cricket is an arena in which the former imperial centre and a number of postcolonial states compete with each other within a framework of quasi-legal provisions (the Laws of Cricket), associated normative expectations (“The Spirit of Cricket”), and an international/transnational sporting organisation (the International Cricket Council). The concept of a geographically (but not regionally) limited, historically specific, and sectoral international society therefore still has some purchase here. This sphere is currently being shaped not by a clash between imperial values and postcolonial resistance, but by tension between the routinisation of international cricket and a shift of wealth and power within the game towards India. World cricket can be characterised as a sphere of non-violent sporting competition which may, perhaps, function as a source of international civility in relations between regions of the world influenced by British imperialism.     

俄罗斯实用主义气候政策探析

气候变化议题在今天的全球治理中居于核心地位。俄罗斯的气候政策对于全球气候变化合作的开展有着非常重要的影响。"气候实用主义"是当前俄罗斯气候政策选择的核心。本文分析了近年来俄罗斯"气候实用主义"的内涵特征、政策特点、选择动因以及造成的影响。本文指出价值观、经济发展模式以及国际体系中的地位是决定俄罗斯实用主义气候政策选择的三个关键变量。这些变量通过观念、利益和身份的路径影响了俄罗斯气候政策的理念框架、国内偏好以及国际合作参与。对于气候变化起源的"怀疑论"、对碳氢能源企业的重点保护,通过气候政策对内增强治理合法性,吸引投资和技术以缓解美欧制裁是当前俄政府实用主义气候政策的突出特点。俄罗斯的这种气候政策为国际气候变化合作的加强提供了新动力,也为中俄区域合作开辟了新领域。但却难以弥合俄罗斯与美欧在气候变化问题上的根本分歧,也不会对俄罗斯依赖能源经济的发展模式造成实质影响。