Intervention Theatre: performance,authenticity and expert knowledge in politicians’ travel to post-/conflict spaces

ABSTRACT

This article explores the role of official travel activities by politicians to post-/conflict spaces in German foreign policymaking. Starting from the observation that official travel justifications stress the value of authentic insights and unfiltered information, while journeys in practice are meticulously planned and staged, it asks what kind of knowing is possible, how actors make sense of the staged nature of field trips, and how multiple performances create and/or undermine notions of authenticity and first-hand expertise. The article shows that official on-site visits are composed of multiple conscious performances by all actors involved, but that these performances do not undermine the notions of authenticity and expertise. On the contrary, knowledge authenticity—or truth claims on the basis of authentic insights—and related expert authority are produced through travel-as-performance. The emphasis policymakers put on on-site presence and (the performance of) localized knowledge contradicts intervention literature’s generalized finding of a prioritization of technocratic over localized knowledge. The article draws on politics and performance scholarship and authenticity theories in tourism studies to make sense of a wealth of empirical material on the claims, practice and functions of German MPs’ journeys to post-/conflict spaces as part of broader political struggles over policy knowledge.     

China’s foreign aid system: structure,agencies, and identities

China’s rise as a (re)emerging donor has attracted attention over the last decade, with a focus on Chinese development assistance as a challenge to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) aid norms. Knowledge of China’s domestic aid structure is needed to understand Chinese aid abroad. This paper addresses gaps in the literature and challenges the accepted nostrum that China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) dominates China’s aid programme. Building on the authors’ experience as Chinese aid practitioners and scholars over more than a decade and drawing on over 300 interviews, the paper explores China’s aid decision-making processes by examining the main agencies, identities and informal interactions. We argue that the Chinese aid system is characterised by fierce and ongoing competition for influence among actors, especially MOFCOM, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and the Ministry of Finance (MoF), as well as the companies responsible for implementing Chinese aid projects.     

Resilience as the new EU foreign policy paradigm: a pragmatist turn?

This article examines the rise of resilience discourses in EU foreign policy. The European Union Global Strategy (EUGS) refers to building state and societal resilience in its neighbourhood as one of the key strategic priorities of the EU. This article argues that the discourse of resilience that permeates the EUGS chimes well with a pragmatist turn in social sciences and global governance. The EUGS introduces resilience-building alongside an emphasis on flexibility, tailor-made approaches and the need for local ownership, capacity-building and comprehensiveness. More importantly, the new EUGS proposes “principled pragmatism” as a new operating principle in its foreign policy. While this might suggest a more pragmatic EU foreign policy, a closer examination of the EUGS discourse reveals significant tensions between a pragmatic and a principled foreign policy, which undermine the added value of resilience-building as a new foreign policy paradigm.     

Understanding the foreign policy of autocratic actors: ideology or pragmatism? Russia and the Tymoshenko trial as a case study

While the literature on the autocratic regimes has been rapidly growing in the last years, there still exists a research gap in this field: which impact do autocratic regimes have on the regime transition in the neighbouring countries? The literature on autocracies has demonstrated that autocratic political leaders tend to support each other. This article argues that the external influence of an autocracy may be more complex. The article analyses the case of Russia's international standing in relation to the trial of Yulia Tymoshenko. Using detailed process tracing, it has been shown that in terms of the Russian position, pragmatic goals may undermine ideological goals. Thus, while the main objective of Russia is to ensure the stability of gas contracts, the unintended consequences of its actions undermine the consolidation of autocratic regime in Ukraine. The article builds on the literature on regime transition, autocracy, and international relations.     

La cooperación internacional para el desarrollo de México Un análisis de sus acciones,institucionalización y percepciones

The Mexican Law of International Development Cooperation (lidc) was published in 2011 with the purpose of reinforcing the institutional framework and developing a State policy as an activity that is inherent to foreign policy. From an institutional perspective, this paper examines some key aspects of Mexican cooperation that were developed in 2011–2014, with an emphasis on the current status of the lidc implementation. It is argued that during Felipe Calderon's administration the utter applicability of the Mexican lidc was not politically supported, thus frustrating the expectations concerning the development of a State policy on this matter. President Enrique Peña Nieto's current administration has made some progress in this direction, but it is also far from fully complying with the lidc and this has slowed down the institutionalization process of international development cooperation.     

War-torn countries,natural resources,emerging-power investors and the UN development system

The unsustainable aid dependency of war-torn countries – most of which are rich in natural resources – makes it imperative to start gradually replacing aid with foreign direct investment (fdi) and exports. This article identifies ways in which stakeholders – governments, the international community, including the UN development system, foreign investors, and local communities – could work together in a ‘win-win’ situation. Most crucial is avoiding conflict-insensitive policies that fuel discord by putting governments and foreign companies, often from emerging markets, in direct confrontation with local communities. The control of natural resources is often a root cause of conflict, and the latter’s exploitation can become a major challenge as wars end. The peculiarities of war-torn countries are discussed along with the specific impediments to attracting fdi into the exploitation of natural resources. An effective and fair legal framework is necessary to ensure that investors do not operate as ‘enclaves’, creating new conflicts.     

The moral purpose of US power: neoconservatism in the age of Obama

The ‘neoconservative moment’ is widely assumed to have come and gone with the George W. Bush administration. This article argues, however, that the hope that the neoconservative chapter in US foreign policy will be definitively closed under Barack Obama's administration is unlikely to be realized in practice, owing to the continuing influence that neoconservatives are able to exercise over national debates regarding the ‘moral’ use of US power in order to shape the international environment. While the moral agenda of the ‘neocons’ is often misconceived as simply a mask for the naked pursuit of the United States' material and strategic interests, this article demonstrates that this misrepresents the rationale that underpins the neoconservative perspective. Exploring the re-articulation of morality in neoconservative thought reveals the nexus that both links the neoconservative domestic agenda for political change to its foreign policy goals and also provides a framework for understanding the ‘staying power’ that neoconservatism continues to exhibit. Although the Obama presidency is widely heralded as a repudiation of this agenda, the neoconservative conception of the United States as a moral power is deeply rooted in US foreign policy traditions and is domestically allied to traditional expressions of social conservatism, which enables neoconservative ideas to continue to resonate in US foreign policy debates.     

With friends like these: foreign policy as personal relationship

Governments are run by humans who have sympathies and moods. The study of leaders' personalities, albeit not widespread, is an important tool for foreign policy analysis. Plus, friendship is a feeling that decision-makers like to express for each other. This paper analyses the activity of Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's three times premier, who has made ‘friendship’ a central tenet of his personal foreign policy. Three cases are considered, namely, Berlusconi's relationship with George W. Bush, Tony Blair and Vladimir Putin. The paper concludes that his friendship-based foreign policy has somehow worked; but, because he decided to ignore Italy's structural constraints in the international arena, he ended up wasting opportunities and resources.     

决策者到底如何归因?——一项基于美国外交档案的研究

面对充满不确定性的世界。个体通常通过一种被称为归因的心理机制从不完全的信息中解释他人做出某种行为的原因。类似但更为特殊的心理机制也会发生在当一个国家的决策者需要理解另一个国家的行为以采取某种应对之策的时候。当外交决策者们在试图解释他国的行为时,他们会将哪些变量纳入他们的考虑范畴?他们对他国行为进行归因的方式是否会因情境的不同而有所变化?如果确实有所变化,那么他们在归因时将会存在哪些倾向和偏见?外交决策者通常从能力、决心、利益、意图和该国所处的战略环境五个维度来认知另一个国家行为的原因。而恐惧和族群中心主义均会作用于这五个维度,并且在不同的情境下,两者在各维度的作用方式有所差异。为了验证唐世平提出的行为归因理论,作者采用了一种特殊的内容分析技术——逐字解释文本分析——对1945-1947年间的美国外交档案进行了分析和编码,试图利用二战结束至冷战开始这段时间内美国的主要决策者对苏联行为所进行的数以百计的归因,并对上述归因理论进行经验上的探索。验证结果表明,描述性的证据分析部分支持了这一新的归因理论,但也挑战了这一理论中关于能力、决心和环境维度的部分推断。