Abstract
(a) International law, organization and administration/Droit international, organisation et administration internationales
74.1026 AHRENS, Petra ; KANTOLA, Johanna —
Political group formation in the European Parliament (EP) after European elections is a core feature of supranational party politics. The research objective of this article is to scrutinise democratic practices and the role of values, more specifically gender equality, in this political group formation. Complementing extant literature, this article engages with gendered political group formation as a dynamic process consisting of three intertwined layers, which are assessed by analysing formal and informal institutions around democracy and gender. The article draws on a unique data set of 130 interviews with MEPs, political group and parliamentary staff conducted in 2018–2020. The key findings of the article show that gender plays a role in each layer of political group formation, yet there are clear differences between political groups. By deciphering the reasons behind these differences, the article enhances the understanding of the political dynamics and struggles within the political groups. [R]
74.1027 ANFINSON, Kellan —
The European renewable energy transition is a leading model for responding to the urgent threat of climate change, which it does by empowering citizens. Drawing on Foucault’s analysis of German neoliberalism, this article argues that despite some measure of empowerment, the economic constraints structuring the transition ultimately disempower citizens, undermining the attainment of environmental goals. Specifically, the transition gives citizens control of their energy while burdening them with entrepreneurial tasks to do so, substitutes economic activity for political citizenship, and shifts the epistemological terrain they take for granted when determining what environmental crises society faces and how best to respond. Understanding the transition as composed of theories for sustainability governance, policies, and practices of implementation, this article analyzes the “energetic society” governance theory, the Clean Energy for all Europeans Package, and the renewable energy organization REScoop.eu. [R, abr.]
74.1028 ASANO, Rui —
Since the 1990s, United Nations (UN) peacekeepers have been engaged in multidimensional activities in conflict-affected countries. The existing literature, however, focuses predominantly on the effectiveness of military and police peacekeepers involving the threat of force, and does not shed light on the effectiveness of civilian peacekeepers despite the latter’s crucial role in rebuilding local livelihoods and restoring state institutions. Civilian participation in peacekeeping increases both the benefits of peaceful life and the costs of combat. Further, civilian activities, by strengthening the rule of law and political accountability mechanism, contribute to encouraging both the rebels and government to disengage from further violence. Using the original dataset of financial resources for UN peacekeeping operations in the world, from 1988 to 2019, I test hypotheses regarding the impact of civilian expenditures on battle-related deaths. Regression analysis shows that spending on the civilian component in UN peacekeeping reduces battle-related deaths on the government side inflicted by insurgents. [R]
74.1029 BARBÉ, Esther ; BADELL, Diego —
This article studies Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) at the United Nations (UN). SRHR, a gender equality norm that applies human rights to sexuality and reproduction, have traditionally been supported by a network of actors led by the United States (US) and the European Union. Nevertheless, a rival network has contested SRHR since their conception in the early 1990s. We study the robustness of SRHR in five UN fora between 2009 and 2020, focusing on actor constellations, productive power and norm concordance. Between 2009 and 2016, the normative status quo was maintained, except in the Human Rights Council and the Security Council. In 2017, the US joined the network of rivals and accelerated the norm’s weakening in the Security Council and the Commission on Population and Development. However, to weaken or strengthen the norm further, both networks see a need to address SRHR outside the UN. [R]
74.1030 BARBER, Rebecca —
In April 2022 the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 76/262, agreeing that every time a veto was cast in the Security Council, the Assembly would meet and consider the matter on which that veto was cast. Since then, Resolution 76/262 has provided the platform for four General Assembly special sessions. Drawing on those sessions, this article assesses the success of Resolution 76/262 according to the two objectives articulated by states at the time of its introduction: increasing the accountability of the Council; and prompting the Assembly to itself take action when the Council fails. In assessing the success of the veto initiative against this second criterion, this article also considers the difference between the special sessions convened pursuant to the Assembly’s Uniting for Peace Resolution, and those convened pursuant to Resolution 76/262. It finds that the latter are not yet being utilized to their full potential. [R]
74.1031 BAYER, Patrick —
A central claim in the environmental regulation literature is that, in a globalized world economy, governments are willing to offer favorable regulation to firms that threaten to move their operations abroad. This logic, however, overlooks that firms’ relocation threats are not equally credible. Focusing on variation in ownership structure, I argue that, even among generally mobile multinational corporations (MNCs), their foreign operations are more credibly movable, and hence more favorably regulated, than their operations at home. MNCs’ country-specific investments into the economy and politics of their home markets drive this difference in relative mobility. An empirical analysis that relies on within-firm variation in ownership of MNCs’ production sites across European countries and original plant-level carbon regulation data strongly support my argument: foreign ownership becomes an asset for favorable regulation. [R, abr.]
74.1032 BECKER, Peter —
In July 2020 the European Council adopted the new multiannual financial framework (MFF) and the additional European recovery budget ‘Next Generation EU’ (NGEU). Certainly, this agreement marked a clear change in German European policy. Germany was not only prepared to pay significantly higher contributions to the EU budget, but also accepted to launch an additional European economic stimulus programme that will be financed through European common debt. However, Germany insisted on significant constraints and substantive limitations in scope of these new instruments. This restrictive, hesitant and rather defensive policy of prevention can be explained by Germany’s role as status quo-power (SQP) in the European Union (EU). This role implies that Germany is trying to preserve the existing status quo, the agreed structures and rules, and is only prepared to agree to far-reaching changes if this status quo or even the existence of the EU itself appear to be at risk. [R]
74.1033 BERTRAM, Caroline —
This paper provides an in-depth analysis of the European Commission’s trade and sustainable development discourse from 1993 to 2022. By employing a discursive institutionalist framework and examining a comprehensive corpus of over 1,400 press documents, this study traces the discursive process that has created both significant changes to, and persistent elements in, the Commission’s trade-sustainability agenda. The analysis reveals noteworthy shifts within the discourse, notably a transition from a primary concern with labour and human rights during the 1990s to an increased focus on economic development and poverty reduction in the early 2000s. This was followed by a discernible move towards more stringent differentiation among developing countries and an amplified emphasis on reciprocity. In recent years, we are witnessing a strong focus on environmental and climate protection, labour rights, and enforceability. The findings underscore the enduring presence of trade-sustainability ideas within EU trade policy and their gradual evolution over time, while contributing to the literature on the role of ideas in shaping the Union’s external policies. [R]
74.1034 BOER CUEVA, Alba Rosa ; GRIFFIN, Penny ; SHEPHERD, Laura J. —
The concept of empowerment, particularly in relation to women as agents of social and political change, has its origins in grassroots development praxis and theorising under the rubric of post-development, but its meaning is highly contested in contemporary international governance. We analyse the shifting terrain of empowerment in development, peace, and security governance through the case of the Women, Peace and Security Agenda. We present a thematic analysis of the articulation of empowerment, built from a detailed genealogy of the concept and deployed across a dataset of 149 NAPs produced by 90 UN member states. Our analysis shows that the ways in which empowerment is put into discourse in NAPs is worth analysing in detail, and does not foreclose the possible expansion of practice of women’s empowerment, despite the restrictive imperatives of neoliberal governance. [R, abr.]
74.1035 BOGADO, Natalia ; BYTZEK, Evelyn ; STEFFENS, Melanie C. —
National identification strength is a key Euroscepticism driver. We examine how politicians’ framing of immigration policies increases the salience of different national identity representations and its relationship with support for the European Union (EU) in a two-waves between-subject surveyexperiment using French and German samples. As predicted, exposure to assimilation frames (directly for the French sample or via frame perception for both samples) increased the salience of ethnocultural national identity representations. Additionally, as hypothesised, higher ethnocultural representations salience following assimilation frames exposure was related to higher Euroscepticism. However, feeling emotionally attached to the EU reduced this negative impact of ethnocultural national identity representations on EU attitudes. We discuss the role of ethnocultural nationalism in Euroscepticism and the importance of fostering stronger emotional ties to the EU. [R]
74.1036 BOIS, Julien ; DAWSON, Mark —
This article examines the development of judicialization literature in the EU arguing that – in spite of the obvious advantages of inter-disciplinary collaboration – scholarship on judicialization in law and political science is drafting apart in the 21st Century. While early political science research on the European Courts found theoretical inspiration in legal research, law and political science have increasingly diverging epistemological and methodological starting points. As the article argues, using prominent papers, this results in both disciplines producing partial accounts of judicial change with limited external validity. The article concludes by offering routes to improving the inter-disciplinary foundations of judicialization research. [R]
74.1037 BOJAR, Abel ; KRIESI, Hanspeter —
We study how crises situations shape the political decision-making structure of the EU and the responses adopted by European policy makers by comparing EU decision-making in the first wave of the COVID-19 crisis (March 2020-July 2020) and in the refugee crisis (2015 to 2019), based on a new data-set on policymaking. Similarities between the two crises include: comparable polarization and conflict intensity, executive dominance, a greater role of EU institutions in policy domains where the EU has higher competence, more conflict and greater resistance by coalitions of member states in domains where it has lower competence, and minority coalitions of critical member states have been crucial for possible solutions in both crises. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 74.1100]
74.1038 BORA, Salih Isik ; LEQUESNE, Christian —
Scholars working on sovereignty in the EU have been quick to dismiss the French governments’ European sovereignty discourse as a metaphor. In this article, we situate our argument and methodology within the broader literature on sovereignty conflicts in the EU. We demonstrate that the use of sovereignty regarding European integration has evolved in French Presidents’ discourses throughout the Vth Republic. Far from being an invention of President Macron, the term European sovereignty builds on existing discourses by past French presidents since the Mitterrand years. The term European sovereignty has so far been successful and aligned with a more general tendency towards ‘rebordering’ the EU. Important normative issues however remain. Legitimizing the EU on the basis of security concerns can threaten its liberal and cosmopolitan foundations. Second, redefining sovereignty as a capacity to act rather than a legitimate right to rule may prove to be unsustainable. [R]
74.1039 BOSMAN, Aron —
In 2022, the EU published its Strategic Compass, setting the course for the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) in the coming years. The most eye-catching proposal in the Compass is the creation of an EU Rapid Deployment Capacity (EU RDC). The creation of such a multinational force as part of the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) toolbox, which may well engage in armed conflicts, is problematic for the attribution of possible violations of International Humanitarian Law (IHL). This paper describes how the EU may be held accountable for the acts committed by the troops it deploys. Then it will discuss how the differences in the organization of EU operations may affect the opportunities for attribution. Finally, the paper recommends the EU’s CSDP operations to have a command and control structure that is fully integrated as this ensures the highest level of certainty when it comes to the attribution of wrongful acts. [R]
74.1040 BOYKIN, Emily A. —
The functional effects of public procurement on EU integration have largely been neglected outside legal scholarship. However, government contracting is a crucial policy tool identified in social science disciplines and has considerably shaped European integration at large. This narrative review examines articles that have situated EU public procurement through numerous perspectives of integration with an emphasis on the theoretical frameworks adopted throughout its literature. Findings place public procurement as applied to EU integrative literature in numerous disciplines, and its theoretical breadth, rather than depth, points to advantages of public procurement’s scholarly utility in general. [R]
74.1041 BUNEA, Adriana ; CHRISP, Joe —
Modern systems of governance are increasingly adopting measures aimed at fostering public participation in policymaking, while embedding decisions in scientific evidence under the label of Better Regulation policy. Existing research identifies tensions between participatory and evidencebased approaches. This prompts questions about one of the most ambitious reforms to combine and enhance participatory and evidence-based tools of policymaking, initiated by the European Commission in 2016. We assess the extent to which this reform successfully combined and expanded the participatory layer of supranational policymaking while also strengthening its evidence-based credentials by analysing stakeholders’ evaluations. We find that stakeholders assess both sets of measures as part of a single, integrated dimension. Participatory measures received slightly better appraisals and were better known, but both sets of measures were evaluated positively and there are no significant differences in evaluations across stakeholder categories. This points to the complementarity of measures from a stakeholder perspective. [R]
74.1042 BUNEA, Adriana ; NØRBECH, Idunn —
How bureaucracies respond publicly to policy inputs received in the context of stakeholder participation in policymaking provides important insights into their reputation-building strategies. We examine the European Commission’s public engagement with stakeholders’ inputs. We argue this is driven by its attempts to simultaneously consolidate its core, well-established reputation as a responsible policymaker, and cultivate a newer reputation as a responsive to public demands institution. This helps navigating the challenges of having to find new sources of authority and legitimacy (embedded in participatory policymaking) while also maintaining its more established ones (embedded in evidence-based policymaking). We analyse a new dataset recording stakeholders’ inputs received as part of the EC’s legislative simplification programme. We find the Commission prioritised strengthening its core reputation over cultivating its emergent one. Evidence-based inputs were significantly more likely to receive an EC public response and inform its legislative simplification programme relative to opinion-based ones. Citizens’ inputs were significantly less likely to receive a response and inform the programme. Our findings diverge from research indicating bureaucracies prioritise defending their emerging reputations, highlight the Commission’s commitment to maintain its reputational and institutional uniqueness in the EU regulatory state, and reveal a reputation-building approach akin to that of EU agencies. [R]
74.1043 ÇAĞATAY, Selin —
Having roots in women’s struggles in different world regions, the International Women’s Strike (IWS) has, since 2017, generated a global wave of feminist mobilization against attacks on gender equality and sexual rights, neoliberalism’s multiple crises, and authoritarian, fundamentalist, and neonationalist politics. This article discusses the IWS from the perspective of transnational solidarities, with a focus on its manifestation in Turkey. First, differentiating between supra-political and left-leaning currents in transnational feminist politics, I outline the guiding principles of the IWS campaign as an acknowledgment of the systemic dynamics of gender oppression, a broad definition of women’s labor, and an intersectional understanding of solidarity. Second, drawing on field-based and digital ethnography, participatory action research, and interviews with activists from the coalition Women Are Strong Together, I discuss how the IWS principles overlapped with political dynamics and conflicts of interest between different women’s groups, hindering the possibility of a women’s strike in Turkey. [R, abr.]
74.1044 CARLO, Donato Di ; SCHMITZ, Luuk —
Within Europe’s regulatory state, industrial policy has largely remained within national governments’ remit. Yet, a plethora of new supra- and cross-national industrial policy initiatives have recently emerged whereby the Commission proactively engages in pan-European activities to foster innovation and economic development. This article brings the ‘Developmental Network States’ (DNS) literature into dialogue with EU integration scholarship to explain both the timing of EU industrial policy’s rise since the mid-2010s and the variation in forms of EU integration of different industrial policy functions. Our analysis suggests that the Commission increasingly operates four major developmental functions akin to DNSs and aimed at promoting and protecting the single market. Neofunctionalist theories of EU integration explain these momentous shifts. The timing behind the rise of EU industrial policy is best explained as an interplay of functional, cultivated, and political spillovers, driven especially by the Franco-German realignment on pro-EU industrial policy positions since 2016. [R, abr.]
74.1045 CHEN, Xuechen —
The past two decades have witnessed a tremendous increase in the scholarly attention paid to the EU’s external relations as well as the nature of the union’s role in world politics. With an aim to contribute to the EU-as-apower debate, this research explores how EU economic and market-related norms and policies have been promoted and received by taking the EU’s relations with Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as an empirical case study. Drawing on transnational diffusion literature, this paper seeks to bridge existing scholarly discussions on Normative Power Europe and Market or Regulatory Power Europe, offering a more nuanced understanding of subjects of the EU’s externalization, as well as the processes and effectiveness of the EU’s diffusion of market-related norms and regulatory approaches. [R]
74.1046 CHRUN, Elizabeth —
Under what circumstances can the EU be a positive force for anticorruption reforms, even after accession? I demonstrate that the interaction of sustained pressure from the EU and domestic agency can provide the conditions under which anticorruption reforms can succeed even following a state’s formal entry into the Union. I demonstrate this argument through a diachronic analysis of Romania’s anticorruption reforms focusing on its anticorruption agency, the Direcţia Naţională Anticorupţie (DNA) pre-accession (2002-2006) and post-accession (2007-2016). [R]
74.1047 CIANCIARA, Agnieszka K. —
This article seeks to shed light on the evolution of demand for differentiation in Poland. First, it argues that since EU accession Poland has moved from instrumental towards quasi-constitutional differentiated integration, and towards differentiated disintegration de facto. Second, it conceptualizes non-compliance in the rule of law area as a manifestation of differentiated disintegration de facto understood as polity-related deliberate and enduring circumvention of EU legal framework. Third, it argues that this mode of de facto differentiation constitutes a challenger strategy of Poland’s populists in power aimed at undermining the foundations of the European polity. Accordingly, the Polish case provides an illustration of ‘postfunctionalism reversed’: it is not a Eurosceptic public that constrains a prointegrationist government, but a Eurosceptic government that drives differentiation and disintegration without explicit support from the largely prointegrationist public. [R]
74.1048 DATZER, Veronika ; LONARDO, Luigi —
Disinformation, the deliberate spread of false or misleading information, is a worrisome threat for the EU, as its uses in recent events such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 reveal. This article explores policyformulation in the EU. It asks whether it is possible to explain the choice of the European Commission and of the European External Action Service (EEAS) to regulate disinformation in terms of political opportunism: using process tracing analysis supported by interviews with EU officials, this article finds that the European Commission sought to create an opportunity to regulate this matter because it considered it particularly salient, and that, contrary to what the literature on political opportunism might suggest, both the EEAS and the Commission can be considered the political entrepreneur in this domain, because the engagements against disinformation were led by an external threat perception. [R]
74.1049 De VILLE, Ferdi ; HAPPERSBERGER, Simon ; KALIMO, Harri —
The introduction of over half a dozen unilateral EU trade policy instruments in the past few years seems to represent a major shift to the EU’s previous focus on bilateral and multilateral avenues. This article investigates the origins of the recent unilateralization of EU trade policy and the main characteristics of the new instruments. What are the new instruments’ goals and why does the EU introduce them now? We identify six key determinants of this trend: the rise of state interventions, increasing sustainability ambitions, a more adverse geopolitical context, the paralysis of the multilateral trading system, the resistance to bilateral trade agreements and changing preferences within key Member States. The instruments can be divided in three clusters focused on competitiveness, sustainability, and security. They share to a larger or lesser degree five key features: reciprocity, deterrence, built-in engagement, extension of internal policies, and the pursuit of international public goods. Our analysis points at a unilateral turn with EU characteristics, offering a framework for studying trade unilateralization in comparative perspective. [R]
74.1050 DEVINE, Daniel ; TURNBULL-DUGARTE, Stuart J. —
What is the effect of external economic intervention on political support and economic evaluations? We argue that economic interventions systematically worsen support for governing institutions and much of this is mediated through updating economic perceptions, at least during the Eurozone crisis. We evidence this with two analyses. First, we provide the first quasiexperimental evidence to show that intervention worsened both political support and economic evaluations. Second, we conduct a mediation analysis using Eurobarometer data to quantify how much of the effect of intervention is mediated by economic evaluations. This has broader implications for understanding how citizens react to international integration, international cues, and the process of forming judgements of political support. [R]
74.1051 DEYRIS, Jérôme —
In its 2021 strategy review, the European Central Bank’s Governing Council unanimously decided to make climate change one of its priorities for the coming years. In this article, we try to understand how this change was achieved. To do so, we rely on mixed methods, studying ECB policies, speeches, exchanges with the European Parliament, and conducting semi-structured interviews. We present a detailed account of the rapid changes within the ECB regarding the climate challenge, and attempt to unpack its conditions of possibility. We show that climate integration results from the combination and hybridisation of internal dynamics and external pressures. On the one hand, the renewal of the Executive Board and modifications in organisational dynamics secured a growing coalition for a change. On the other, pressures from politicians, NGOs, academics and citizens pushed the institution to develop its expertise and provided willing insiders with further argumentative resources to push their green agenda. While these two intertwined dynamics have allowed ‘green doves’ to forge a consensus around the climate action plan, disagreements remain within the Governing Council on the scope and shape of future greening efforts. [R]
74.1052 DÖRFLER, Thomas —
This article explores how compartmentalised diplomacy, defined as the compartmentalisation of a comprehensive set of previously linked issues into separate but gradually and substantively expanding issues, helps forge an agreement on contested issues among member states in the UN Security Council. Based on a strategic bargaining framework, the article argues that subtracting issues from a comprehensive negotiation serves to create compartmentalised issues disassociated from other issues negotiated in the same context. Once an issue is separated, Council members may exploit a ratchet effect to expand a subtracted issue beyond what veto players initially may have preferred. Based on documentation by the Security Council Report and news sources, an in-depth case study of Security Council action regarding Syria demonstrates how compartmentalised diplomacy helps Security Council members to forge landmark agreements on several contentious issues. [R, abr.]
74.1053 EARSOM, Joseph ; DELREUX, Tom —
Relatively little is known about the precise activities of the European External Action Service (EEAS) headquarters in the EU’s international climate diplomacy, especially since the adoption of the Paris Agreement in 2015. This article therefore sketches the evolution of the climate diplomacy activities undertaken by EEAS headquarters between the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) in 2015 and COP26 in 2021. Based on a triangulation of official documents and twenty semi-structured interviews, the article finds that although the EEAS headquarters continues to coordinate and mainstream EU climate diplomacy, it has also become more outwardly-involved and entrepreneurial. This entrepreneurship can be explained by the creation within the EEAS of an Ambassador at Large for Climate Diplomacy, the working style of the appointed ambassador, increased resources at EEAS headquarters dedicated to climate diplomacy, and a favourable institutional context within the EU. These findings provide a detailed and updated insight into the involvement of EEAS headquarters within EU climate diplomacy. Accordingly, they improve our understanding of the EU as a climate actor and also demonstrate the importance of individuals in shaping how the EU conducts its climate diplomacy. [R]
74.1054 EGE, Jörn —
This study investigates how configurations of bureaucratic autonomy, policy complexity and political contestation allow international public administrations (IPAs) to influence policymaking within international organizations. A fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis of 17 policy decisions in four organizations (FAO, WHO, ILO, UNESCO) shows that all IPAs studied can be influential in favorable contexts. When policies are both contested and complex, even IPAs lacking autonomy can influence policy. If either complexity or contestation is absent, however, it is the variant of autonomy of will that helps the IPA exploit procedural strategies of influence. Low autonomy of will, among other factors, explains why IPAs cannot exert influence. Conversely, the variant of autonomy of action appears largely irrelevant. The study provides new insights into the role of bureaucracy beyond the state, exemplifying how research of bureaucratic influence can yield more systematic results in various empirical settings. [R]
74.1055 ELOMÄKI, Anna —
The EU’s economic governance is pivotal for gender equality in the EU, yet gender equality concerns have been sidelined in governance processes. This article analyzes the struggles involved in integrating a gender perspective into the EU’s economic governance in the EP. It explores how the EP, often perceived as a champion of gender equality, constructs gender in relation to economic governance and how conflicts between the EP’s political groups and committees influence the EP’s ability to challenge gendered inequalities related to the governance regime. This article reveals that the EP’s positions have been characterized by strategic silence about gender and understandings of gender equality as a productive factor that legitimized gendered policies. Party-political conflicts and compromises that have sidelined critical views, and a boundary between social and economic issues and actors, were key barriers for the integration of critical gender perspectives. [R]
74.1056 ENGELS, Florian —
In the early years of the common European Energy policy, France has been labelled a black sheep or a bad pupil when it came to applying European and international energy, climate and energy market frameworks. As the country is currently engaged, in its own energy transition process, the question arises if these attributions are still valid. This article argues that several points of conflict between Paris and Brussels in the field of energy policy can still be identified today, especially in the areas of market liberalisation, the non-ETS sector and the promotion of renewable energy. Following the EU-compliance theory, the reasons for Paris’ deviations can be identified as both intentional and unintentional. France should be seen as an involuntary black sheep today, when it comes to non-compliance in EU-energy policy. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 74.1461]
74.1057 ERKOREKA, Mikel ; BLAS, Asier —
Research in differentiated policy implementation in the European Union is in vogue because of its strengths for deploying public policies and assessing policy outcomes. This article sets out a path dependency argument about the dynamics of differentiated customs policy implementation in the EU. We analyse two highly representative cases of customs fraud to develop a quantitative and qualitative approach to the impact of customisation on customs control performance: the first, linked to an exercise of unfair competition; the second, a case of customs common standards ‘misinterpretation’ related to path dependency. We conclude that differentiated policy implementation has proved inefficient for ensuring an equivalent level playing field of customs controls in the EU, resulting in three substantial negative outcomes: economic and budgetary; problem-solving capacity; and output legitimacy. Differentiated policy implementation can lead to a competitive disadvantage, especially when dealing with policies that do not permit any graduation in their fulfilment. [R]
74.1058 FALZON, Danielle, et al. —
In 1991, in meetings constructing the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the small island state of Vanuatu introduced a proposal requiring wealthy countries to pay for damages related to sea level rise. More than thirty years later, countries finally agreed to establish a financing mechanism for loss and damage associated with climate change. Scholars have observed the slow progress on loss and damage finance, but what tactics did countries use to obstruct negotiations? We answer this question using data from primary and secondary sources, observations at negotiations, and key informant interviews. Our analysis details four periods of obstruction and outlines a typology of fourteen tactics countries have used to delay progress. These tactics limited the issue’s scope, reduced transparency, manipulated language, and advanced nontransformative solutions. These findings contribute to the study of obstructionism in climate governance and can help loss and damage advocates better anticipate and respond to obstruction. [R] [See Abstr. 74.237]
74.1059 FEHL, Caroline —
Since being founded in 2002, the International Criminal Court has frequently intervened in ongoing conflicts and alongside other forms of coercive intervention, specifically sanctions and military measures. In this article, I argue that this pattern has been enabled by governments engaging in strategic norm linkage. To justify their positions on both judicial and nonjudicial interventions, governments have discursively linked international prosecutions to the protection of civilians — in specific ways that have favoured joint judicial and non-judicial crisis responses. My argument, which I test through qualitative and quantitative content analyses of UN Security Council debates, contributes not only to debates on the politics of international criminal justice, but also to general theory-building on international norm dynamics. Adding to recent research on norm complexity and norm interactions, my study underlines and disaggregates the potential for discursive agency at the intersection of multiple international norms. [R]
74.1060 FLAVELL, Joanna —
While scholarship on the topic of gender and the environment is steadily growing, little is known about the challenges faced and successes seen by women and gender NGOs operating as a central part of environmentfocused civil society. In this paper, I offer such an analysis, examining the political strategies — rhetorical and procedural — mobilised by the Women and Gender Constituency (WGC) in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). I argue that the WGC has seen lots of success in mobilising arguments that foreground women’s vulnerability to the effects of climate change. But at the same time, the constituency has seen far more resistance to more intersectional feminist arguments that interrogate the role of masculinised discursive power in shaping climate politics. This is at least in part a result of a wider structure of civil society that pigeonholes different identities (e.g. gender, youth, indigenous peoples) in a way that separates their deeply interconnected struggles. Understanding this structural barrier, or dark side of civil society, is crucial to envisioning a more fruitful integration of civil society in sustainability politics. [R] [See Abstr. 74.149]
74.1061 FUJITA, Masafumi —
Why has the US delegated most of its crisis lending to the in recent years, although it provided large-scale bilateral bailouts to strategically important countries until the mid-1990s? Previous research on the choice of bailout strategy has failed to explain this important change, and a major problem with such research is that it has focused on executive branch preferences, overlooking those of the legislative branch. The legislature can significantly influence the choice of bailout policies, and existing research also implies that the US Congress has steered the recent change. This article hypothesizes that, caught in a dilemma between the need for bailouts and voters’ opposition caused by widening inequality, Congress delegated bailouts to the IMF for blame avoidance. To test this hypothesis, the study conducts a statistical analysis of the IMF’s capital increase votes and case analyses of the Mexican and Asian crises. [R]
74.1062 GANDERSON, Joseph ; SCHELKLE, Waltraud ; TRUCHLEWSKI, Zbigniew —
After a decade of crisis management, the democratic implications of emergency modes of governance in the EU are under the spotlight. The prevailing analysis is critical. Scholars point to an emergent, distinctly European trend of transnational crisis exploitation where elite appeals to exceptional pressures serve asymmetric power and influence, overriding democratic norms and potentially fuelling Eurosceptic backlash. However, the literature does not ask whether citizens consider themselves disempowered by the EU’s emergency politics, with its alleged emphasis on urgency and technocratic problem-solving. The relative symmetry and simultaneity of the Covid-19 crisis across Europe offers an opportunity for an empirical examination of public opinion on traits of emergency politics. We juxtapose the implications of emergency politics for public opinion with the transnational cleavages literature and use survey data from 15 member states on EU- and national-level pandemic responses to examine the competing hypotheses. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 74.1100]
74.1063 GARCIA OLMEDO, Javier —
The ‘unilateral turn’ in EU trade and investment policy is also reflected in the EU’s adoption of restrictive measures or sanctions following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. EU sanctions do not only target the Russian government but also Russian individuals and companies with investments in the EU. They can also indirectly affect the economic activities of other foreign investors running businesses in the territory of Member States. This raises unexplored questions about the interaction between EU sanctions and certain disciplines of international economic law, such as international investment protection law. Member States have undertaken obligations under international investment agreements (IIAs) signed with Russia and other states in respect of investments made in their territory by Russian and non-Russian investors. This article examines whether, and if so to what extent, the EU’s unilateral turn in the form of sanctions can fall within the scope of international investment law. It shows that this policy can trigger claims against Member States under a different set of IIAs. This article also examines potential defences that Member States can invoke against investment treaty claims resulting from the implementation of sanctions. [R]
74.1064 GAWEDA, Barbara ; SIDDI, Marco ; MILLER, Cherry —
Far-right and populist right-wing political parties have garnered significant scholarly attention in recent years. They have acquired importance also in European political institutions such as the European Parliament (EP). We explore this issue by focusing on the European Conservatives and Reformists’ (ECR) group in the EP. We analyse its current and former main national party delegations — the British Conservative Party, the Polish Law and Justice Party, and the Brothers of Italy — and unpack the ideological underpinnings of ‘conservative’ positions of the ECR group. How is ‘conservatism’ constructed in the EP? What role does gender play in these constructions? Significantly, we locate gender equality as a key area, crucial to the identity of what it means to be a conservative party in Europe today. We combine the analysis of ECR political programs with interview and ethnographic data. The article contributes to both the study of EU politics and to research on national conservative parties. [R]
74.1065 GEORGIOU, Christakis —
The debate on the necessity of a federal fiscal capacity in the EU has featured prominently on the EU’s agenda over the past decade. New Generation EU marks a historic breakthrough in that regard. This breakthrough has been accomplished in order to fulfil macroeconomic stabilization functions, but the bulk of the funding has been earmarked for green transition projects. This paper asks whether a federal budget has added value in relation to the green transition and provides a theoretically informed answer. It ends with a call to revise articles 311 and 312 TFEU so as to grant fiscal powers to the EU. [R]
74.1066 GHERGHINA, Sergiu ; TAP, Paul —
The British decision to leave the European Union after the 2016 referendum raises questions about who could be next. This article analyzes why citizens in East European Member States would vote to leave the European Union in the event of further referendums. It proposes an analytical framework that seeks to explain this strong form of Euroscepticism through four variables that are rarely linked to the European Union: political apathy and alienation, dissatisfaction with domestic democracy and economy, conservative values, and social isolation. We use individual-level data from the 2018 wave of the European Social Survey to show that citizens’ conservative attitudes and social isolation are robust determinants of a potential European Union exit vote in Eastern Europe. We also identify several country-specific causes, which means that the European Union faces particular challenges across political settings. [R]
74.1067 GLENCROSS, Andrew —
This article provides a Weberian ideal-type framework to capture elite strategies for managing hard Euroscepticism and their consequences for EU disintegration. It does so by drawing on policy evolution theory to conceptualise two ideal types representing contrasting strategies: taming Euroscepticism by technocratic adaptation or embracing it. This framework is used to analyse empirical examples that match these two ideal-type approaches respectively: France and the UK between 2004 and 17. The use of this framework is a novel way of explaining the evolution and differences between elite French and UK responses to hard Euroscepticism by showing how and why French EU policy remained intra-paradigmatic as compared to the paradigm shift of Brexit. This approach allows for a better understanding of the process and probability of EU disintegration by linking the latter to strategic policy choices. In a UK context, it also offers a way to anticipate the signals leading to a reversal of disintegration. [R]
74.1068 GOETZE, Catherine —
Ralph Bunche, the first African American to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, was a committed anti-imperialist, a fighter against racism and for civil rights. And yet, his action and appearance as special representative of the UN Secretary-General in the Congo, made him appear as hostile to African independence and as a (neo-colonial) “blanc,” questioning the sincerity of his anti-imperialism as well as his anti-racism. The article argues that Bunche’s dilemma is paradigmatic for the paradox that exists between the UN’s declared anti-racism and anti-imperialism, on the one hand, and its politics of peacekeeping and peacebuilding which are effectively a quasi-imperial politics of world order, on the other. The article dissects Ralph Bunche’s writing and thinking on the international system, Africa and the Congo. [R, abr.]
74.1069 GRANAT, Katarzyna —
This article studies the positions of political parties around the rule of law crisis in the EU. What factors explain their position in this crisis? The theoretical expectations focus on populism and government status as the drivers of party positions towards a Member State violating the rule of law. This article assesses these expectations through a comparative case study of the actions of different EU political parties during the first term of the Law and Justice government in Poland (2015-2019). The article examines the relevant documents such as debates and resolutions of parliaments within the EU. It concludes that populist parties are more likely to support the Law and Justice party than mainstream parties, and that parties in government are less likely to challenge Law and Justice than opposition parties. These findings provide important insights into the dynamics of parties’ positioning on the rule of law crisis. [R]
74.1070 HARB, Siba ; VANDAMME, Pierre-Étienne —
This article offers an original political theory perspective on debates about EU integration and EU justice by discussing possible tensions with the demands of global justice. In particular, it asks whether global egalitarians can consistently argue for further European integration and for an egalitarian EU while maintaining that the scope of egalitarian justice should be global. After highlighting several tensions between EU equality and EU integration on the one hand, and global justice, on the other hand, it explores strategies available to global egalitarians to defend the focus on the EU. It concludes that global egalitarians can only have instrumental reasons to value the EU, and not any EU, nor merely a just EU; only the most instrumental to the realization of global justice, which can lead to different conclusions on EU integration or EU justice from the standardly assumed ones. [R]
74.1071 HEHNEN, Melissa M., et al. —
The EU faces many challenges. Chief among them are (1) the growing electoral appeal of EU-skeptic parties, (2) the prevalence of negative narratives about the EU, and (3) frequent marginalization of government leaders openly advocating EU membership. It is hence unsurprising that the EU attitude literature focuses heavily on ways in which leaders undermine (rather than bolster) confidence in the EU. The aim of this conceptual article is to fill this void and to shine a spotlight on how leaders seek to restore confidence in the EU. Rather than to merely describe what pro-EU leaders say in public, we propose a conceptual model that combines older EU attitude research (into “nested” social identities and perceived identity compatibility), with more recent social psychology research (into “identity mobilization” and “identity leadership”). By combining insights from both fields, our framework enables us to gain a deeper understanding of why certain pro-EU narratives can be expected to “take hold” and instill faith in the EU among the public at large. The discussion focuses on the implications for EU leadership. [R]
74.1072 HOSNEDLOVÁ, Pavla ; PITROVÁ, Markéta —
The government plays first fiddle in EU decision-making processes, but a role in EU governance is also performed by the national parliament, which has gained additional competence to submit reasoned opinions based on the subsidiarity principle and participate in the political dialogue with the European Commission. The authors trace the policy-shaping and policytaking processes and explore the impact of parliamentary and government involvement in EU policy-making on belated and timely transposition of EU directives in the Czech Republic. This comparative analysis of six directives, of which three were transposed on time and the other three from the same policy areas not, shows that the connection between ex-ante and ex-post stages still seems weak, and thus, greater involvement by parliament in EU affairs does not alone affect the time of transposition. Instead, the capacity of the government, determined partly by the salience of the legislation and its characteristics, is the main explanation for the transposition delays. [R]
74.1073 HURKA, Steffen —
The complexity of public policies has repeatedly been identified as a key challenge for modern democracies. Yet, we know only very little about the origins of this complexity. Controlling for functional and legal explanations, this article investigates whether complex policies have distinct institutional and political origins. The study builds on the assumption that complex policies are communicated in more complex language and uses textual data from 1771 legislative proposals issued by the European Commission since 1994 to demonstrate that the complexity of public policies is strongly tied to institutional and political costs of policy formulation. Collegial cabinets formulate more complex policies whenever they face more inclusive decision-making processes and struggle with higher internal preference bias and heterogeneity. [R, abr.]
74.1074 JO Hyeran ; YI Joowon —
International actors engage rebel groups in conflict zones for better humanitarian outcomes. What are the political conditions under which such external engagement occurs in internal conflict zones? We argue that “insecure governments” and politically “modulated rebels” are the key factors that explain the international humanitarian engagement with rebels in civil conflicts. With the history of instability marred by coups and frequently changing hands of governments, insecure governments resort to international help and allow international actors to interact with their internal enemies. In contrast, with strong political control and military capacity, secure governments play a gatekeeper role, dealing with internal enemies autonomously. On the rebel side, politically “modulated rebels” are the prime candidates for international humanitarian engagement. Such modulation is likely to occur after civilian-connecting experiences over time by holding territory or after peace talks. We test these arguments using the case of the United Nations (UN) action plans between 2000 and 2015, in which some rebel groups committed to reducing the practice of child soldiering. We find that the combination of “insecure governments” and “modulated rebels” can systematically account for the UN action plans occurrence. Our analysis has implications for the role of external actors in internal conflict zones around the world. [R]
74.1075 KARCHIMAKIS, Eleftherios —
This paper conducts an in-depth case study of the 2010 Greek entrepreneurship attempts that led to the EFSF’s creation, aiming to theorise crisisinduced institutional change in the EU. This research aims to cover the theoretical gap left by existing literature by combining theoretical elements derived from historical institutionalism and institutional entrepreneurship. Crises function as critical junctures. During critical junctures, the structural grip of path dependency loosens; thus, a multitude of paths forward are available. The choice of a specific path, if any, heavily relies on the concept of institutional entrepreneur. In 2010 the Greek government was such an agent, with interest in altering EU institutional design to overcome its financial ordeal and with direct access to the EU Council, the primary decisionmaking body regarding institutional change. The entrepreneur triggers a process of institutional change through their proposal. Once the entrepreneur chooses a path forward, this is further moulded by path dependencies. [R]
74.1076 KATHMAN, Jacob D., et al. —
In the post-Cold War era, UN peacekeeping has been an effective civil conflict mitigation tool. On the path to peacekeeping, the UN Security Council often signals its growing likelihood to deploy an operation by passing resolutions addressing the conflict. How do these signals affect violence levels in a pre-operation environment? We posit that conflict actors have incentives to improve their relative positions through violence as the UN signals its likelihood to intervene. Using a new dataset that links UNSC resolutions to active civil wars from 1989 to 2014, we find that resolution passage is significantly related to an increase in combatant use of anticivilian violence. Additionally, as the signal strengthens with the passage of a greater number of resolutions, violence increases. [R, abr.]
74.1077 KENNARD, Amanda —
How do international regimes change over time? Regimes facilitate cooperation by linking together otherwise ad hoc negotiations. These linkages endogenize the status quo from which subsequent negotiations depart. I develop a theory of endogenous status quo within international regimes: prior outcomes implicitly define the status quo of new negotiations by acting as focal points and by creating inconsistency costs. I test observable implications of the theory in the context of the multilateral trade regime, focusing on new member accession negotiations. These negotiations attract interest from a surprising subset of World Trade Organization members, many with few observable trade ties or other economic incentives to participate. Nonetheless participation enables states to shape the emergent status quo strategically, with potentially far-reaching implications for future bargaining. I employ a text-as-data approach — together with a novel corpus of negotiating documents — finding consistent support for the theory and mechanisms. [R]
74.1078 KNECHT, Sebastian —
The international state system, like all social systems, is permeated by hierarchical relationships sorting societal members into systems of institutionalized inequality. Recent scholarship has produced an impressive record of the varieties, mechanisms and outcomes of inequality production in international society. Less understood is how hierarchies inside intergovernmental organizations (IGO) become institutionalized, how and why they might change or even collapse. Drawing on recent stratification research in global governance, this article shows how institutionalized inequality through systems of tiered membership can be a highly instable mechanism of hierarchy production under constant pressure for adaptation and de-hierarchization from below. I use the example of a multi-layered system of membership stratification as it emerged over time in the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) to demonstrate how agency restraint and system rigidity designed into institutional systems of IGO membership can emerge as central drivers for stratification to go awry. [R]
74.1079 KYRIAZI, Anna ; PELLEGATA, Alessandro ; RONCHI, Stefano —
This article examines the trends and differences in predictors of public support for EU fiscal solidarity using two individual surveys conducted in 2019 and 2020, before and during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, in six Western European countries. We focus on individual self-interest and European/national identification as the two major determinants of public preference formation. Empirical analyses show that, while the average level of public support for European fiscal solidarity did not change from 2019 to 2020, the negative associations between exclusive national identification and economic vulnerability, on the one hand, and EU fiscal solidarity on the other were weakened. Among both, the identitarian source retained substantive (although reduced) relevance in 2020, while utility did not. Country-level analyses reveal a more complex picture, but the overall pattern holds across the member states included in our sample. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 74.1100]
74.1080 LAFFAN, Brigid —
Since the onset of the global financial crisis in 2008, the EU has been tested and contested as it struggled to come to terms with a series of crises, sometimes labelled a polycrisis. In response to crises, the EU has emerged as a collective power and the concept ‘Collective Power Europe’ (CPE) offers a promising lens with which to analyse the 21st-century European Union and the nature of the polity that is emerging. The aim of this article is to unpack the concept of CPE and to analyse its core features — collective leadership and framing, institutional coordination and the evolving policy toolkit — in response to three crises: Brexit, the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine. [R]
74.1081 LERNER, Adam B. ; O’LOUGHLIN, Ben —
This paper offers a theory of incremental theoretical evolution connecting the practice of international politics with disciplinary IR. It theorizes how international political actors engaged in strategic local decision-making exert productive power over dominant scientific ontologies of the international system. We refer to the narratives emerging from these processes as strategic ontologies, defined as gradual reformulations of the subjects, objects, and relational logics of the international system according to positionally determined priorities. As strategic ontologies gain acceptance, their innovations endure beyond the context of their utterance, leading to meso-level theoretical evolution. We substantiate this account with comparative case studies of contested strategic ontologies that have yet to become dominant in either the international arena or IR theory. [R, abr.]
74.1082 LESCH, Max —
How do violations affect international norms? This article demonstrates that violations develop norms by analyzing how international institutions determine the meaning of deviant behavior and the breached norm. Decisions by courts, ad hoc tribunals, commissions of inquiry, and expert committees influence formal and informal lawmaking and drive the contested and often ambiguous development of international norms. To illustrate the impact of these norm applications and lawmaking efforts, the article compares two institutions with different mandates to oversee the international torture prohibition. In the 1960s and 1970s, the European human rights institutions defined torture for human rights law and found that Greece and the UK had violated the torture prohibition, but created ambiguity regarding the threshold of torture. In 1984, the UN Convention against Torture (CAT) adopted this definition, which was informed by earlier norm violations. [R, abr.]
74.1083 LIEDTKE, Enrico —
Although the activities of political parties have for some time extended to the level of the EU, the institutionalisation of forms of party organisation beyond the nation-state has remained manageable. It is the national parties and their elites that stand in the way of a serious Europeanisation in the sense of transferring decision-making competences to a European organisational level of political parties. Yet there is potential in this for the parties to bundle their shrinking resources and use them in all areas of EU policy-making. In addition to securing their own position in the political system, they would at the same time contribute to the democratisation of the EU. [R]
74.1084 LONGO, Francesca ; PANEBIANCO, Stefania ; CANNATA, Giuseppe —
The EU has reacted to the migration crises of the last decade with growing externalization of migration management to neighbor countries often accused of not respecting human rights and individual liberties. Focusing on EU cooperation with the Southern neighborhood, as defined within the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) framework, this paper investigates the recent developments in the EU’s external migration policies, demonstrating that there is a gap between EU discourses and policy instruments identified by the EU as strategic tools of the European migration and asylum policy (MAP). Five Southern neighbor countries (SNCs) have been selected, Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon, to assess the extent to which the EU, when cooperating on migration and asylum issues, places international protection at risk instead of playing the role of humanitarian actor in accordance with the ideals and principles it defends. The research critically analyzes the EU’s cooperation with SNCs concerning migration, as developed via international agreements, action plans, and mobility partnerships under the umbrella of the ENP. In particular, it explores the incompatibility between the European MAP instruments and international protection. MAP, the qualitative analysis shows, represents a clear mismatch between EU talk and action, outlining another case of organized hypocrisy. [R]
74.1085 LUNDGREN, Magnus, et al. —
When are international organizations (IOs) responsive to the policy problems that motivated their establishment? While it is a conventional assumption that IOs exist to address transnational challenges, the question of whether and when IO policy-making is responsive to shifts in underlying problems has not been systematically explored. This study investigates the responsiveness of IOs from a large-n, comparative approach. Theoretically, we develop three alternative models of IO responsiveness, emphasizing severeness, dependence, and power differentials. Empirically, we focus on the domain of security, examining the responsiveness of eight multi-issue IOs to armed conflict between 1980 and 2015, using a novel and expansive dataset on IO policy decisions. [R, abr.]
74.1086 MANGENOT, Michel —
To explore what we call the ‘European art of governing’, this article examines the Cabinets of the members of the European Commission. They function at the interface between levels and modes of governance, between the Commission and Member State governments, between national interests (of capitals) and sectoral interests (their portfolios). A new interpretation of the ‘denationalization’ process is given, focusing more on profiles than on practices. Cabinets have been remarkably stable since the end of the 1960s in their role as conduits of collegiality. However they also reflect a new form of ‘intergovernmentalization’ of the Commission. Using a historical and sociological approach, the article shows how collegiality at the Commission has been exercised since the Delors period of presidentialization and Juncker’s introduction of real Vice-Presidents, generating complex forms of competition between horizontal and vertical coordination processes. [R]
74.1087 MARTIN, Aaron R. —
The literature on party group switching in the EP claims that members who are ideological outliers have the highest odds of changing their group label, but is it true that the most incongruent legislators are also the most successful at switching groups? This article seeks to determine whether or not voicing dissatisfaction by casting votes against the party line is associated with an increased probability of party group switching. Using logistic regression with a penalized maximum likelihood estimator, the analysis of ambitious switching (1979-2009) uses loyalty and policy distance variables to show that moderate, not extreme, outliers have the highest odds of exiting their group. These findings revise what we know about the relationship between legislative voting behavior and party switching, and they have important implications for examining the effect of policy-seeking on party switching in national parliaments. [R]
74.1088 McDONALD, Matt —
Climate change has increasingly featured in UN Security Council (UNSC) debates since the first discussion of this topic in 2007. However, the UNSC has yet to agree a resolution formally recognizing its own role in addressing the implications of climate change for international security; a draft resolution on this issue was voted down in late 2021. Examining the statements and contours of 2021 debates preceding this vote, this article points to fundamental impediments to such a resolution, with the position of opponents (Russia, China and India) suggesting intractable obstacles linked to different visions of world order. While opponents’ stated concerns about the UNSC’s role in addressing climate change find some support in existing scholarship, the authenticity of claims made by opponents is called into question by the internal inconsistency of these arguments, the gap between stated concerns and foreign policy in other contexts, and the broader foreign policy interests and identities of these states. [R, abr.]
74.1089 McMAHON, Richard ; LIU, Hongsong —
This special issue examines Chinese representations of the EU in the first ever China-themed special issue of any leading EU studies (EUS) or Europe-focused comparative politics (CP) journal. Based on solid qualitative, quantitative and, very often, mixed-methods empirical research, we ask how different Chinese social groups represent (portray or talk about) the EU. We argue that despite China’s authoritarian political system, social actors interact to construct complex representations that may even influence government policy. [R] [First article of a thematic issue, edited by the authors. See also Abstr. 74.]
74.1090 MEERSHOEK, Nathan —
EU public procurement law provides different options for preventing geopolitically undesirable dependency on third country suppliers in critical infrastructure. Their effectiveness solely depends, however, on the willingness of national authorities to use those. Recently, the EU therefore adopted the International Procurement Instrument (IPI) Regulation, within the sphere of the Common Commercial Policy (CCP), to condition the access to public contracts for third country entities on reciprocity. This article explores the security dimension of this issue. After generally considering the role of sovereignty as a limit to international trade, the article specifies the security risks which may arise in a public procurement context and sets out the legal options for Member States to address those. The article then discusses how security intrinsically shapes CCP instruments and how the new regulation could indicate a shift in the EU’s role, from facilitating legal options for Member States, towards the Commission itself restricting the market access for certain third countries. Although such bans ought to be based on a lack of reciprocity rather than security, in times of weaponized dependencies the security dimension is undeniable. When considering interdependence as a stabilizing force in international relations, reciprocity itself has in fact become a security objective. [R]
74.1091 MOISE, Alexandru D. ; DENNISON, James ; KRIESI, Hanspeter —
Why do attitudes to refugees vary? An original panel is used in five EU states — France, Germany, Hungary, Italy and Poland — to explain European attitudes towards three groups of refugees following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. It is shown that European attitudes to Ukrainian refugees are determined by predispositions to immigration and perceptions of the war and actors involved, with European identity and contact with refugees being relatively unimportant. These findings are validated with dynamic panel models and attitudes towards the Temporary Protection Directive. A ‘spill-over’ effect is further demonstrated, whereby attitudes to Ukrainian refugees positively affect attitudes to Afghan and Somali refugees, and a declining ‘rally-around-the-flag’ effect over time. These findings contribute to the literature on attitudinal formation, showing the relative malleability of attitudes to refugees as a function of their embeddedness in broader attitudinal patterns (particularly to immigration and geopolitics), changing context (the different stages of the war), and spill-over from views towards other refugee groups. [R]
74.1092 MOLONEY, David ; WHITAKER, Richard —
This article assesses the factors associated with member states’ bargaining success during the negotiations in the European Council’s 2010 task force on strengthening economic governance, the pre-decision stage for the Six-Pack. We test theories of decision-making based on the expertise of institutions, and EU member states’ preferences and power resources using new data. With methods derived from the decision-making in the EU projects, we find that proximity to the European Central Bank was associated with greater bargaining success for member states and that the opposite was the case for closeness to the Commission’s preferences. We find mixed evidence that member states’ level of indebtedness is associated with bargaining success, defined as the minimum distance between the position of a member state and the final outcome. The findings indicate the importance of the ECB’s role given its technical expertise, in defining the outcomes of the task force. [R]
74.1093 MOOIJ, A. M. —
This article evaluates the role of the ECB in response to COVID19. The article assess this response in light of the separation of economic and monetary policy. It concludes that the ECB has responded in a more conservative manner during the COVID19 crisis. The ECB did however confirm its willingness to respond to an economic crisis. The ECB has confirmed this willingness by generating a framework of different policy options. This article then concludes that whilst these policies deviate from a very conservative central bank, they are not perse illegal. There is however some indication that the ECB is deviating from its capital key and thereby violating important rules. This violation may erode some of its legitimacy. This article further briefly assesses whether these changes should be considered permanent. Based upon the structure of policies that the ECB is creating these measures indicate permanence. [R]
74.1094 MRÁZ, Attila —
I explore the implications of three moral grounds for the justification of supported voting — respect as opacity, respect as equal status, and respect as political care. For each ground, I ask whether it justifies surrogate voting for voters unable to either communicate or give effect to their electoral judgments, due to some cognitive or communicative disability. I argue that respect as opacity does not permit surrogate voting, and equal status does not justify such support — although the latter account can make sense of the value loss involved in the persistent non-participation of individuals with cognitive and communicative disabilities. Finally, I argue that an account of supported voting based on the ethics of political care can account for the inclusive approach of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to supported decision-making. [R, abr.]
74.1095 MUHHINA, Kristina —
This article explores the potential of the EU’s sectoral cooperation for the advancement of good governance by exploring the relationship between alternative policy designs and types of target country regime contexts in the Eastern neighbourhood. Informed by the scholarship on policy instrument choice and political settlements analysis, this research offers a framework of policy designs that match instrument mixes with specific implementation arenas. Once rigorously tested, it will be able to shed light on how the ENP’s sectoral cooperation could be attuned to elicit desirable feedback effects on governance improvement in the Eastern neighbourhood. [R]
74.1096 MURPHY, Michael P. A., et al. —
Within the disciplines of Political Science and International Relations, rich debates around pedagogy have crystallized into a robust set of scholarly institutions. This review article analyzes the current state of the disciplinary scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) by canvassing the field’s journals where SoTL research is published and situating current developments within the broader SoTL ecosystem. We analyze the growth of publications, methodological and topical trends in the literature, and assess the scientometric impact of these debates. Moving forward, we call on these debates to methodologically prioritize rich expressions of student voice and to promote further collaborative practices in SoTL research. [R]
74.1097 MWABA, Anna Kapambwe —
The African Union is emerging as a prominent actor in election assistance and observation. Considering the continued centrality of the electoral process to democracy-building efforts in Africa, African continental and regional organisations are increasingly monitoring elections and taking the lead in election observation processes across the continent. This paper contributes to the African agency literature by showing how agency is operationalised and implemented through international election observation. Focusing on Malawi’s recent electoral history (2004-2020), this paper argues that the African Union is institutionalising its election observation protocols and challenging the dominant position of western international actors, through enacting the role and agency of continental and regional actors. It critically assesses the African Union’s ability to undertake these efforts and how it has addressed elections, and the politics surrounding them. [R]
74.1098 NATILI, Marcello ; VISCONTI, Francesco —
The present study considers whether the Russian invasion of Ukraine constitutes an opportunity for EU policy centralisation and polity-building in non-military domains, according to a social security logic. It argues that the war and growing concerns about energy security and prices have presented EU policymakers with a transboundary policy puzzle on how to ensure autonomy in energy supply, fight climate change and protect household disposable income. Then, it examines public preferences on energy and social policy options, evaluating whether the war contributed to increasing demand for supra-national capacity building and investigating the priorities (and divides) across and within EU countries in these policy areas. The findings show that social security concerns related to the war in Ukraine have been translated into greater support for policy centralisation, but they have not helped to overcome divides over conflicting policy goals, leaving policymakers with some difficult decisions. [R] [See Abstr. 74.1290]
74.1099 NILI, Shmuel —
Foreign exile has often served as an important solution to high-stakes standoffs between opposition forces and beleaguered autocrats. I assess the moral status of autocratic exile, by focusing on the tension between exile’s contribution to domestic peace and its threat to global deterrence against autocracy. I begin by contending that transitioning societies normally have the moral prerogative of accepting an exile arrangement for their autocrat, even though such an arrangement harms global deterrence against autocracy. I then suggest that, in the absence of clear evidence of majority opposition to an exile arrangement within the transitioning society, foreign countries who have been entangled in an autocrat’s rule will normally have a decisive duty to facilitate his exile, despite exile’s repercussions for global deterrence. I explain why such foreign entanglement, particularly on the part of affluent Western democracies, is inevitable in the case of kleptocrats. But I also show that the entanglement argument for exile extends even to murderous autocrats, whose crimes fall under the purview of the International Criminal Court. Countries entangled in a murderous autocrat’s rule ought to prioritize their particular duties toward his victims over their general moral reasons to advance international criminal justice. [R]
74.1100 OANA, Ioana-Elena ; RONCHI, Stefano ; TRUCHLEWSKI, Zbigniew —
This introduction presents the theoretical framework, aims, and summary of this special issue. We explain the EU’s response to the COVID crisis from a ‘polity perspective’ (Kriesi 2021; Ferrera 2005). We conceptualize the EU as a compound ‘experimental’ polity which develops along three dimensions: binding (capacity building and sovereignty), bounding (bordering), and bonding (solidarity and loyalty). We structure the contributions around the following themes: polity building and polity maintenance (how did COVID affect policymaking in the EU?); reactions to polity building: public support, populism, and emergency politics (did the European public perceive emergency politics as illegitimate? did the EU’s policy response spur populism?); and solidarity and bonding (to what extent did the crisis stimulate cross-national solidarity?). We show that, overall, the EU weathered the COVID storm better than expected for a potentially fragile multilevel polity. [R, abr.] [First article of a thematic issue, edited by the authors. See also Abstr. 74.846, 995, 1037, 1062, 1079, 1109, 1313]
74.1101 PALESTINI, Stefano ; MARTINELLI, Erica —
The Inter-American Democratic Charter (IADC) is the most comprehensive multilateral framework for dealing with democratic breakdowns and backslidings in the Western Hemisphere. In such cases, the Organisation of American States (OAS) is supposed to defend democracy by suspending states, imposing sanctions or taking other multilateral measures. Oftentimes, however, the OAS has looked the other way. The question, then, is what makes the difference. In this comparative case study, we use crosscases comparisons and process-tracing to identify the actors and causal mechanisms that determine when and whether the IADC is actually enforced. We explain inconsistent enforcement by analysing interactions among three sets of actors — the governments of powerful member states, OAS secretaries general and civil society organisations — during coups, executive takeovers and electoral frauds in OAS member states between 2001 and 2020. Our analysis reveals that cooperation between an activist secretary general and civil society actors was neither sufficient nor necessary for IADC enforcement. By contrast, US support for enforcement was a necessary but insufficient condition for the OAS to act. To get it to do so, the United States required the support of two leading regional powers: Mexico and Brazil. [R, abr.]
74.1102 PAPAGEORGIOU, Achillefs ; IMMONEN, Waltteri —
In this article, we demonstrate how solidarity between member states can have a positive effect on the image of the EU, even if the latter’s actions in handling a crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic are deemed unsatisfactory. Employing data from a special Eurobarometer survey enriched with data from the Oxford’s COVID-19 government response tracker, we show that European citizens who are more satisfied with interstate solidarity have to a greater extent a positive image of the EU compared to citizens who are less satisfied. We also show that this effect is further pronounced in the case of EU citizens who are less satisfied with institutional solidarity, which is the solidarity going from EU institutions to the member states. [R]
74.1103 PAVLOVIĆ, Dušan —
Can the theory of autocracy promotion learn something from the most recent erosion in democracy seen across the Western Balkans (WB)? The case of the WB is interesting because it takes place within the context of the EU enlargement process, which is a form of democratic promotion (dissemination). I argue that the current version of the EU enlargement process is a form of hybrid regime enabling rather than democracy dissemination. My major claim is that the significant driver for autocratic tendencies and the authoritarian stability of these regimes comes from within the EU enlargement process and only subsequently from these regimes’ internal political dynamics and other autocracies’ influences. I offer several contributions to the existing research on autocracy and democracy promotion. I model the problem as a strategic bargaining game between the promoter and receiver. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 74.58]
74.1104 PIZZOLO, Paolo —
The Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) embodies Russia’s latest attempt to restore interconnections among former Soviet countries through economic means rather than military might. The literature on the EAEU views the initiative as a geopolitical tool, a post-imperial escamotage, a platform to enhance reforms, or a counterhegemonic strategy. This article wishes to understand the EAEU as an example of Carl Schmitt’s theorizations, especially in relation to the concept of Great Space. The EAEU resembles the Schmittian Great Space in four main respects: the existence of a regional hegemon with spheres of interest beyond its fixed borders, the expression of an “imperial” community of cultural and historical affinity, the overcome of the rigid Westphalian state model expressed by the jus publicum Europeaum in favor of a large space, and the manifestation of the nomos of the Earth, that is a telluric civilization within the Schmittian contraposition between Land and Sea. [R, abr.]
74.1105 PORTELA, Clara —
At their inception in the early 1990s, conditionality clauses were introduced in the General Scheme of Preferences (GSP) as an instrument for the protection and promotion of labour standards and human rights in the Global South. Conditionality in the GSP as an instrument of development and trade policy was conceived as separate from foreign policy tools in the context of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). Notwithstanding the very limited suspension practice, previous research highlighted indications of political contamination in withdrawal decisions. This article explores the question as to whether GSP withdrawals are becoming more similar to CFSP sanctions. Relying primarily on policy documents and legislation, the article discusses the evolution of GSP conditionality from its origins to present, including the proposal for a new Regulation governing the GSP tabled by the Commission in July 2021 and currently under consideration. With this aim in mind, it first outlines the evolution of the design of withdrawal mechanisms, taking issue with the changing focus of the GSP conditionality, which has expanded considerably while withdrawal practice remains marginal. Following that, the implications of the identified trend(s) for the European Union (EU) are teased out. [R]
74.1106 RABINOVYCH, Maryna —
The EU’s decision to grant Ukraine and Moldova a candidate country status and the recognition of Georgia’s European perspective in June 2022 has significant effects for both the EU’s enlargement and security and defence policies. So far, ‘hard’ security issues have played little role in the framing of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) and the Association Agreements (AAs) with Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia. Their full integration into EU security and defence arrangements will thus require considerable strategy-making and implementation efforts. This article discusses the extent to which existing external Differentiated Integration (DI) constellations can be seen as ‘building blocks’ for Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia’s prospective full integration into the EU’s security and defence architecture. It is shown that, in legal and practical terms, such DI constellations are conducive to the deepening of these countries’ integration with the EU in the security and defence domain. From the political viewpoint, the focus on DI with the new accession countries may, however, be (mis)used as a substitute for fullscale integration into the EU security and defence architecture. We, nonetheless, suggest several pilot domains that can be used to test the limits of new accession countries’ DI with the Union. [R]
74.1107 RAUH, Christian —
The public politicisation of European integration indicates a growing demand for public communication of supranational politics. This paper highlights that the messages the European Commission sends to its citizens do not meet this demand. A text analysis of almost 45,000 press releases the Commission has issued during 35 years of European integration rather indicates an extremely technocratic style of communication. Benchmarked against large samples of national executive communication, public political media, and scientific discourse, the Commission used and notably continues to use very complex language, specialized jargon, and a nominal style that obfuscates political action. This appears disadvantageous in a politicized context and more research on the reasons for this apparent communication deficit is needed. [R]
74.1108 REINERS, Konstantin ; VERSLUIS, Esther —
The European Union is increasingly resorting to a decentralised enforcement strategy in which it relies less on the Commission-initiated infringement procedure, and more on domestic litigation by particularly NGOs. In order to better understand whether this is a suitable strategy to tackle the compliance deficit, we need more insight into NGOs as decentralised enforcers of EU law. What do NGOs do to stimulate domestic compliance, and is this a potentially effective alternative to the centralised enforcement strategies? Analysing the actions by the German NGO Deutsche Umwelthilfe in relation to the Ambient Air Quality Directive, reveals high potential for the role to be played by NGOs. This exploratory case illustrates that particularly the strategy of flooding the country with a wave of legal proceedings was effective in increasing the salience of the topic, thereby indirectly releasing those capacities that the authorities had still lacked to comply. [R]
74.1109 RUSSO, Luís —
COVID-19 created profound shockwaves across the Union, pushing supranational crisis policymaking to the forefront of European politics and fostering an unprecedented expansion in fiscal solidarity with which to support the economic recovery ahead. This development lends pertinence to a contemporary reappraisal of the main determinants underlying individual support for European solidarity and its implications to the consolidation of a political basis for a supranational solidaristic space. Using an original large-N survey dataset and employing a fixed-effects linear regression analysis, this paper empirically reviews ideal-type theoretical predictions for individual support for European solidarity by conducting a comparative assessment of their correlates’ explanatory power in the new pandemic context. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 74.1100]
74.1110 SAKAMOTO, Takuto —
Since the end of the Cold War, the notion of global security, and presumed threats to it, has undergone considerable expansion and diversification. This process has been led by the UN Security Council (UNSC), where active deliberations concerning “threat(s) to the peace” have taken place among major international actors. Despite a sizable accumulation of scholarly arguments, however, the defining features of the structure and dynamics of the post-Cold War security discourse remain ambiguous. To address these ambiguities, this study investigates the entire body of Council deliberations over the past three decades. Based on an original dataset consisting of policy statements delivered at the UNSC, the study employs quantitative text-analysis tools, including word embedding, to examine how council members have conceived the notion of security threat in terms of the various issues and entities discussed. [R, abr.]
74.1111 SAZ-CARRANZA, Angel, et al. —
To what extent do non-treaty-based global governance bodies (GGBs) constitute a truly novel type of governance body, distinct from traditional treaty-based international organizations (IOs)? How do the distinctive features of GGBs affect their role in global governance? To what extent are GGB’s patterns of emergence and development specific to policy sectors? This article tackles these questions, drawing on an original dataset on GGBs in five distinct policy areas (banking and finance, energy, global health, Internet, and migration policy). We combine a micro-organizational perspective with a meso-level network approach to unpack the main features of non-treaty-based GGBs vis-à-vis, traditional IOs. Our results provide support to the general expectation that non-treaty-based GGBs offer distinctive opportunities for global governance with respect to traditional IOs. However, importantly, this relationship is not dichotomous. [R, abr.]
74.1112 SCHÄFER, Constantin ; TREIB, Oliver ; SCHLIPPHAK, Bernd —
How to reform the EU in times of fundamental conflict over the future of European integration? Although Europe’s future is fiercely debated, we still know little about what kind of EU citizens want and how their reform preferences relate to the emerging transnational cleavage. We argue that there are two kinds of reform trajectories. First, any changes that touch upon the vertical and horizontal balance of power should be highly contested, as people’s EU reform preferences depend on their position in the conflict between Eurosceptics and Europhiles. Second, reforms that do not activate this fundamental conflict, such as reshaping the EU’s input, output, and throughput legitimacy dimensions, should be favored by citizens across the board. Analyzing original data from conjoint survey experiments with 12,000 respondents in six EU member states largely corroborates our arguments. These findings carry important implications for the political debate about reforming the EU. [R]
74.1113 SCHAPPER, Andrea ; BLISS, Cebuan —
In this article, we argue that animal rights and welfare are largely neglected at the UN and in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The UN Sustainability Agenda is not transformative because it lacks a serious (re- )consideration of the relationship between human beings, non-human animals and other components of nature. We propose four ways to strengthen animal rights and animal welfare at the UN: (1) we suggest creating a UN organisation working on animal protection, (2) we support earlier ideas to include an additional SDG on animal welfare in the UN Sustainability Agenda, (3) we propose to strengthen animals rights within the rights of nature framework using the UN as a forum to advance nonanthropocentric norms, (4) we recommend introducing procedural rights for animals in projects linked to SDG funding. Our research is based on an integrative literature review and a document analysis of UN documents, declarations and resolutions. [R] [See Abstr. 74.1156]
74.1114 SCHERZINGER, Johannes —
After more than 25 years of scholarship, the deliberative turn in international relations (IR) theory is ready to be revisited with a fresh perspective. Using new methods from automated text analyses, this explorative article investigates how rhetoric may bind action. It does so by building upon Schimmelfennig’s original account of rhetorical entrapment. To begin, I theorize the opposite of entrapment, which I call rhetorical hollowing. Rhetorical hollowing describes a situation in which actors use normative rhetoric, but instead of advancing their interests, such rhetoric fails to increase their chances of obtaining the desired outcome because the normative force of their rhetoric has eroded over time. To provide plausibility to both entrapment and hollowing, I present two mechanisms by which language is connected with action in the United Nations Security Council. Finally, I run a series of time-series-cross-section models on selected dictionary terms conducive to entrapment or hollowing on all speeches and an original Security Council resolution corpus from 1995 to 2017. [R, abr.]
74.1115 SCHMEER, Laura —
In 2017, member states established the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO), an EU body investigating and prosecuting offences against the EU financial interests. This article analyses the relation between the institutional design of the EPPO and sovereignty concerns of member states. Combining the core state powers framework with literature on Council negotiation dynamics, it argues that the Council was divided regarding how far-reaching the authority of this new body vis-à-vis member states should be or to what extent member states should retain control over the body. A qualitative discourse analysis shows that the competition between states sharing a supranational position regarding the EPPO and those sharing an intergovernmental position resulted in the creation of a complex and ambiguous body. These findings contribute to the literature on agencification of Justice and Home Affairs as well as, more broadly, to scholarship on the construction of new types of authority. [R]
74.1116 SCHOELLER, Magnus G. —
Leadership by powerful states is considered crucial to the success of regional integration. Since the EU entered a ‘polycrisis’, many eyes have therefore been on Germany. But does the German political elite see itself as a leader in Europe? To date, whether German political elite members have cast off their much-cited ‘leadership avoidance reflex’ has not been empirically investigated. Based on an original elite survey, this article therefore investigates the extent to which Germany conceives of itself as a leading power in the EU. The findings show that the time of a ‘leadership avoidance reflex’ is gone. Instead, there is a high level of agreement across EU policies that Germany should take on a leadership role. However, the study also exposes a gap between leadership aspirations and perceived reality, especially when it comes to Germany providing a vision for the future of Europe. [R, abr.]
74.1117 SCHUMANN, Maurice P. ; BARA, Corinne —
UN blue helmets increasingly deploy in partnership with regional organizations and coalitions of states. While this development is hailed as a way out of geopolitical fragmentation and capacity overstretch, little is known about the effectiveness of these peacekeeping partnerships. We argue that UN and non-UN operations exercise different forms of power, which reinforce each other to reduce battle violence in active wars. If non-UN military operations actively engage in combat, the UN can focus on what it does best-employing its broad toolbox to coerce, induce, and persuade. Our quantitative analysis of the interaction between UN and non-UN peacekeeping supports these expectations: partnership peacekeeping works. Regional and coalition peacekeeping can only support the UN, not replace it. [R, abr.]
74.1118 SEABROOKE, Leonard ; STENSTRÖM, Annika —
Finding direction in new policy areas requires a combination of mandate, expertise, and stakeholder engagement. Here we investigate the formation of the EU’s sustainable finance agenda through activity in and around its High Level Expert Group and Technical Expert Group. Actors from different professional ecologies struggle to determine the treatment of sustainable finance and establish policy practices. Those who shape issue treatments can be supported by a capacity to influence from either official mandate, scientific esteem, or claims to experience. These are contending conjectures to locate action among the professionals engaged in the process. We adjudicate between mandate, esteem, and experience with an assessment of the network ties and career histories of those involved in sustainable finance. Our findings suggest that those with many ties and mixed careers win. [R, abr.]
74.1119 SHYROKYKH, Karina ; DELLMUTH, Lisa ; FUNK, Elisa —
The EU is increasingly relying on regional policy networks to govern climate change outside its borders, both in the areas of climate change adaptation and mitigation. Although the functioning of such policy networks has consequences for climate policy in participating countries, little is known about the role of such networks. This article focuses on the example of climate cooperation with the European Neighbourhood Policy region, conceptualizing the EU as a network manager. Using a novel dataset on climate networks in the European Neighbourhood Policy region for the period 2013-2017, we show that the EU uses climate networks for multiple purposes. The results suggest that the EU uses climate networks not only to mitigate the risks associated with climate change, but also to manage varying contexts in the region. [R]
74.1120 SIMON, Julia —
The strong state-centric orientation of the EU crisis discourse has produced an important blind spot that limits our understanding of the Migration Crisis. Conceptually engaging with international migration studies and the politicization/identity nexus that postfunctionalism has put on the map in EU studies, this contribution advances original empirical evidence to visibilize the ongoing intra-EUropean struggle over the meaning of the crisis and the identity relationships underlying it. As the findings show, the externalizations the dominant crisis narrative promotes on the order dimension (vis-à-vis the EU) are clearly challenged by the European Commission as a politicizing agent: Along the EUropean identity markers ‘responsibility’ and ‘solidarity’, it has endogenized the Migration Crisis, located difference in the Member State-collective and consistently pursued integrative steps and the development of competencies. Taking into account this ‘crisis resolution’ counter-narrative allows to enhance our understanding of the Migration Crisis and of the permanent contestedness of European (dis)integration. [R]
74.1121 SMEETS, Sandrino ; BEACH, Derek —
This article analyses the EU’s third attempt to reform its asylum and migration regime. Our focus is on process management. Instead of looking at positions or policy substance, we analyse how to manage the migration reform negotiations. We use the method of embedded process tracing to analyse, in real-time, the interplay between the member states and EU institutions, from the Commission’s Pact on Migration of September 2020 until the end of the French Presidency in June 2022. On a conceptual level, we unpack the notion of an the EU that is ‘failing forward’ in this, and in other major, crisis reforms. We argue that this failing forward notion obscures a variety of patterns of intra- and inter-institutional coordination. We conclude that, in spite of déjà vu sentiments, the role of the European Council, the Commission, and the Council of Ministers was notably different during this round, and arguably more effective. [R]
74.1122 STOCKMANN, Nils ; GRAF, Antonia —
EU environmental policies such as the Ambient Air Quality Directive 2008/50 are highly relevant in this age of the looming climate crisis and interconnected sustainable transitions. However, implementation efforts such as low-emission zones, road pricing, and driving bans affect citizens in heterogenous situations and in ways that evoke questions of socio-ecological justice. This has resulted in an increasingly polarized reluctance to respective governance across Europe. The EU policy implementation literature often omits these less clearly operationalized norms that EU policies transport and pays little attention to how stakeholders in cities discursively and practically translate EU directives. Constructivist norm research underlines the importance of ‘localizing’ by highlighting that justice does matter for norm translation. This article offers a heuristic to address this research gap by combining a translation perspective from IR norm research with an environmental justice lens. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 74.1461]
74.1123 SUNN BUSH, Sarah ; STROUP, Sarah S. —
The study of global politics is frequently organized around fields, but the boundaries of these fields are little understood. We explore the relationship between two proximate fields, human rights (HR) and democracy promotion (DP), in order to understand the emergence and maintenance of field boundaries. The two fields are closely linked in international law and practice, yet they have remained largely separate as fields of action, despite vast changes in global politics over four decades. The disjuncture has been largely maintained by HR organizations who police the boundary to keep DP out. We identify differences in anchoring norms as the key factor driving boundary maintenance. Actors in the two fields hold different foundational ideas about how to protect and advance rights, norms that we describe as cosmopolitan and statist. This account is superior to alternate explanations that emphasize functional demands or resource flows, and complements historical institutionalist accounts. Our research offers a theoretical contribution to the study of fields and practical insight into two important areas of global practice. Our qualitative research is supplemented by digital annotations, supported by the Qualitative Data Repository. [R]
74.1124 TACEA, Angela ; TRAUNER, Florian —
To what extent does the cooperation of national parliaments and the European Parliament strengthen the oversight of EU executive actors in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice? The article provides an ideal-typical conceptualisation of individual and joint parliamentary oversight in the EU’s multi-level system. Legislative scrutiny is examined for the case of the General Data Protection Regulation and agency oversight is analysed for the case of Europol. In both cases, the article demonstrates that the interparliamentary cooperation has not led to a joint oversight. Legislative scrutiny was badly timed, characterised by diverging interests, and a high fluctuation of the participating parliamentarians. The Joint Parliamentary Scrutiny Group over Europol has turned out to become a primarily symbolic layer to the ‘individual oversight’ exercised by the European Parliament’s LIBE committee. [R]
74.1125 TAN, Yeling ; DAVIS, Christina L. —
Does state ownership limit the liberalizing effects of the WTO? We examine the case of China, which is not only the largest exporting state but also lends active support to state-owned enterprises (SOEs) that could distort global trade. Using data on import purchases disaggregated by ownership from 1993 to 2012, we analyze how WTO entry affects the commercial orientation of state-owned and private imports. We demonstrate that after WTO entry, tariff cuts have a larger effect on private compared to SOE trade. We then show that state ownership alone does not block the WTO’s liberalizing effects. For most industries, SOEs and private firms are alike in their commercial orientation. However, where strategic goods targeted by industrial policy hold a large share of bilateral trade, lowering tariffs has no impact on SOE trade. [R, abr.]
74.1126 TORNIUS, Karmen —
The African Union (AU) has developed an elaborate gender governance architecture, including gender machineries and women’s desks, policy frameworks, path-breaking women’s rights laws, and ongoing campaigns on women’s rights-related issues. At the same time, the member states’ engagement with this architecture is at best lukewarm, with a lack of domestication, compliance, and accountability. This paradox is addressed in this article by developing the theoretical thinking around aspirational politics (Martha Finnemore and Michelle Jurkovich, ‘The politics of aspiration’, International Studies Quarterly, 64(4 ), 2020: 759-769; Abstr. 71.3351) and political brokers, showing the social and relational origins of pan-African gender governance. In doing so, the article examines how ‘aspirational politics’ can be operationalized to examine the sociocultural and political production of shared future imaginaries. The paper focuses on AU femocrats as the key actors for AU’s aspirational gender agenda and argues for their importance as political brokers between AU member states, donors, UN agencies, and civil society organisations. By mobilizing actors and facilitating common ground and agreement, their institutionalized broker position allowed for various political entrepreneurs to emerge and thrive. At the same time, their pursuits are met with ‘aspirational fatigue’ or outright contestation by the member states. The case of the AU demonstrates how aspirational politics is not a ‘phase’ leading to norms governance but part and parcel of normative negotiation and engagement. [R]
74.1127 UNGER, ; Doris,, et al. —
In 2020/2021, the EU and its member states had to tackle the largest shock of the twenty-first century yet, the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 led to an unprecedented health and economic crisis. In this article, we analyse public opinion on redistributive EU measures based on an original survey in Austria, Germany and Italy and ask whether EU citizens support a common aid package, common debt and redistribution to those countries that are economically most in need. Testing the influence of three explanatory concepts — self-interest, justice attitudes and general support of European integration — we find that all three explanatory concepts have predictive power. However, we find stronger effects on support for EU-level redistribution for citizens’ instrumental calculations concerning whether their country benefits from EU aid, and on general support for EU integration, than for justice attitudes. [R]
74.1128 VERELLEN, Thomas ; HOFER, Alexandra —
As part of the European Commission’s Open Strategic Autonomy agenda, the European Union has reformed its unilateral trade and investment policy toolbox. Existing instruments have been updated (e.g., Trade Defence Instruments, the Enforcement Regulation) and new instruments have been adopted (e.g., the Foreign Subsidies Regulation, the Foreign Direct Investment Screening Regulation, the Anti-Coercion Instrument). These developments are significant: taken together, they herald a unilateral turn in the EU’s trade and investment policy. This special issue explores aspects of this unilateral turn. It combines a bird’s-eye perspective with studies of specific instruments; it brings together political science and legal methodologies; and it looks at the unilateral turn from the inside-out and from the outside-in. The special issue scratches the surface of what we consider to be a seismic change in the EU’s trade and investment policy. We hope it will trigger further debate and scholarly analysis of this important topic. In this introduction, we set the scene and introduce the six articles that are part of this special issue. [R]
74.1129 WALLACE GOODMAN, Sara —
When the European Union is not in active crisis, do we characterise it as experiencing a period of stability? What can scholars learn by studying the EU as it toggles in between the two? This special issue presents some of the best papers from the European Union Studies Association’s 2022 conference in Miami, Florida. Two themes structure this collection. First, by temporally and conceptually locating the EU between stability and crisis, we see these contributions on EU policy, institutional evolution, financial resilience, and identity formation as a substantive reflection of the variety of emergent and ongoing challenges that comprise everyday uncertainty. Second, in showcasing contributions that study the EU in a variety of ways — as both a political actor and context, or site, of politics, this special issue aims to encourage a widening of the EU studies field. [R]
74.1130 WESTENDORF, Jasmine-Kim —
Twenty years ago, the UN adopted a zero-tolerance policy on sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) by its personnel. After prohibiting sex with children and the exchange of sex for “cash, food and things,” it “strongly discourages” sexual relationships with beneficiaries because “they are based on inherently unequal power dynamics” and undermine the UN’s credibility and integrity. Taking inspiration from the critical feminist project of understanding what happens when feminist ideas and projects become institutionalised, I consider the effectiveness and unintended consequences of the policy’s discouraged relationships standard. I argue that by centring an “inherent power imbalance” between peacekeepers and local people, the policy undermines the UN’s capacity to meaningfully address that imbalance in practice. Based on research in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Timor-Leste, Geneva, and New York, this article generates insights about the persistent challenges to preventing and punishing SEA. [R, abr.]
74.1131 WESTENDORF, Jasmine-Kim —
This article critically reflects on twenty years of efforts to prevent and punish sexual exploitation by peacekeepers and humanitarian actors through the UN’s zero-tolerance policy (‘the Bulletin’). I trace the assumptions and motivations that underpin the Bulletin’s framing of (un)acceptable sex and investigate the operational and normative implications of its strong discouragement of sexual relationships with beneficiaries. I argue that, by construing the power differential between local communities and UN/NGO personnel as inherent, singular and totalizing, the Bulletin first reinforces conservative gender norms by framing women as perpetually and uniquely vulnerable and reinscribing gendered power imbalances. Second, it denies women agency in an era of Women, Peace and Security, laying the foundation for a detrimental separation between local people and international personnel. Third, it restructures paternalism in ways that entrench power imbalances between local communities and the organizations mandated to ‘protect’ them, reproducing colonial patterns of dealing with sex and sexuality. [R, abr.]
74.1132 WESTERMEIER, Carola —
‘Follow the money’ is currently the central principle of international financial security, although money itself is probably one of the most unlikely objects to make traceable. Two recent scandals around a security unit and the payment processor Wirecard show how existing systems of financial surveillance that seek to capture ‘flows’ of money for security purposes are either enabled or frustrated. While this current regime of financial surveillance adheres to demanding the free flow of money through financial infrastructures and various actors and intermediaries, new digital currencies build on a set type of ledger(s) in which money is stored as data. Hence, what we understand as money does not ‘flow’, but is rather updated. This change in the underlying infrastructure means that traceability does not need to be enacted; it is an intrinsic feature of digital currencies. With new central bank digital currencies (CBDC), the regime of financial security thus changes from the monitoring of financial flows and flagging of (potentially) illicit transactions towards the storage of financial data in (de)centralised ledgers. This form of transactional governance is engendered by shifting geopolitical agendas that increasingly rely on fractured instead of globalised financial infrastructures, thus making CBDCs themselves subject to security efforts. [R]
74.1133 WILLUMSEN, David M. —
To what extent do individual members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have policy and ideological incentives to vote against their European Political Groups (EPGs) and national party delegations (NPDs), and how often they act on these by voting against the party line? Documenting overtime variations in incentives to dissent in floor votes using five waves of surveys of MEPs, covering the years 1994-2019, this article shows that while these have generally decreased over time, they remain substantial. Further, by combining individual floor voting records on legislation and individual MEP survey responses for the 2004-2009 EP, the article shows that while individual MEP preferences significantly influence the decision to dissent from the EPG line in floor votes, this is not the case for voting against their NPD, lending support to the argument that the primary principal for MEPs is their national party, not their EPG. [R]
74.1134 ZGAGA, Tiziano —
NextGenerationEU, the recovery programme adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic, did not provide the EU with fiscal sovereignty. Fiscal sovereignty remains under the control of the member states which are, however, constrained by the Stability and Growth Pact. Comparative federalism shows that central fiscal sovereignty requires granting the power to tax to the centre but without impairing the fiscal sovereignty of the units. The coexistence of two distinct, yet connected, fiscal sovereignties (EU and member states) would mean departing from the regulatory model of fiscal integration created with the Maastricht Treaty, and would thus require treaty change. Future research should perform a more thorough comparison between the EU and fiscally centralized and decentralized federations. Qualitative comparative analysis could complement process tracing and systematic content analysis to identify combinations of conditions that make the co-existence of fiscal sovereignties possible in consolidated federal polities – and still impossible in the EU. [R]
74.1135 ZHELYAZKOVA, Asya ; HAVERLAND, Markus ; JOOSEN, Rik —
This study analyses how preference heterogeneity across EU member states affects the adoption of soft-law acts over time. On the one hand, high diversity in policy preferences is expected to increase the proportion of soft-law instruments because governments are less likely to agree to binding measures. Conversely, preference heterogeneity could also decrease soft law due to the perceived threat of compliance problems. We test these competing arguments using a dataset on all EU soft-law and hard-law instruments adopted between 1967 and 2019. The results show that preference heterogeneity increases the share of soft EU instruments. However, more past heterogeneity prompts EU legislators to decrease the proportion of softer measures in areas that experience high levels of past non-compliance. [R]
(b) Foreign policy and international relations/Politique étrangère et relations internationales
74.1136 ABERG, John H. S. ; BECKER, Derick ; BURNS, Jacqueline —
Foreign policy, as a bureaucratic enterprise of protocol and institutional practices, is the ideal ground to assess the value of practice in International Relations. But as our case study of sanctions relief in Sudan shows, crossing the levels of analysis is hardly a smooth process as clashes emerge and challenge the status quo requiring departures from existing norms. When descending the levels of analysis into the very weeds of actual diplomatic issues, one finds a range of practices that challenge a singular view of international practices. Success or failure of policy, its direction, and evolution must address the harmony or clash of practices across these levels. This paper assesses the value of practice by studying a case with a clear evolution in practices in the development of sanctions relief in Sudan. [R, abr.]
74.1137 AGOSTINIS, Giovanni ; NOLTE, Detlef —
Latin American regionalism displays a long history of crises, which have affected almost all regional organisations (ROs) across different waves of regionalism. The article conducts the first comparative analysis of the outcomes of crises in Latin American ROs across time, tackling the following questions: What have been the outcomes of the crises faced by Latin American ROs? Under what conditions does a crisis result in the survival or breakdown of the affected RO in Latin America? We adopt a multimethod approach that combines QCA with process tracing to identify the causal pathways to the survival or breakdown of ROs across a universe of eight crises. The findings show that Latin American ROs have been resilient to crises, which resulted in RO survival in seven cases out of eight. [R, abr.]
74.1138 AKBAR, Ali —
This article explores the language-related instruments Tehran uses to pursue its soft power goals in the Middle East. The article first defines soft power and the role of language in its promotion, and then summarises Iran’s overall Persian-language strategies across the region. The main part of the article uses a rich array of primary source material in Persian to focus specifically on Tehran’s efforts to use the Persian language as a soft power resource in Lebanon, Iraq and Syria. The article demonstrates that over the last decade, Iran has increasingly engaged in strategies to enhance its soft power reach in these countries through the development of Persian language programmes. It argues that Iran at times uses the promotion of the Persian language to further other soft power goals, such as the development of its key foreign policy platforms and the spread of Shiism based on the context. [R]
74.1139 ALBADAWI, Sobhi —
Thousands of Palestinians have been imprisoned in Israeli jails since 1948, reflecting an objective of Israel’s occupation of Palestine to break the spirit of Palestinians in their struggle for liberation. A form of protest often undertaken by Palestinians in response to their political imprisonment is hunger strike. Indeed, when considered in relation to governance as an enactment of power upon people in prison, hunger strikes are an attempt of powerless prisoners to exercise some level of power over their circumstances. Concepts around hunger strike as form of protest are complex and multidimensional, and may reflect the interests of an individual or group, and/or speak more to the broader rights of people. Of interest to this study is the relationship between hunger strike and human dignity as manifest as a form of protest by Palestinians incarcerated in Israeli jails. [R, abr.]
74.1140 ALLAN, Jen Iris, et al. —
After a decade-long search, countries finally agreed on a new climate treaty in 2015. The Paris Agreement has attracted attention both for overcoming years of gridlock and for its novel features. Here, we build on accounts explaining why states reached agreement, arguing that a deeper understanding requires a focus on institutional design. Ultimately, it was this agreement, with its specific provisions, that proved acceptable to states rather than other possible outcomes. Our account is multi-causal and draws methodological inspiration from the public policy and causes of war literatures. Specifically, we distinguish between background, intermediate, and proximate conditions and identify how they relate to one another, jointly producing the ultimate outcome we observe. Our analysis focuses especially on the role of scientific knowledge, non-state actor mobilization, institutional legacies, bargaining, and coalition-building in the final push for agreement. This case-based approach helps to understand the origins of Paris, but also offers a unique, historically grounded way to examine questions of institutional design. [R]
74.1141 ALSHAMSI, Reem —
The effectiveness of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) international regime to govern anti-money laundering (AML) and counterterrorist financing (CTF) has been questioned since its establishment. In theory, the FATF’s network of multilevel actors should protect the integrity of the international financial system. The empirical evidence in this article shows that the FATF has made a difference in ensuring states’ (official) compliance with its measures, using extrinsic motivation tools; for example, ranking noncompliant states. However, it argues that such motivation only ensures actors’ minimum compliance, meaning that the regime’s effectiveness is suboptimal, while fostering intrinsic motivation would improve actors’ performance. Therefore, it is essential to understand why actors comply with the FATF approach and how they could be persuaded to achieve better compliance so that the regime’s effectiveness is feasible. This article explores these questions, using interviews with thirty practitioners in three locations, supported by a qualitative analysis of documentary data. [R]
74.1142 BAJPAI, Kanti ; LAKSMANA, Evan A. —
How do major Asian states regard the current international security order? Do they agree or disagree among themselves? This is an introduction to a special section on ‘Asian conceptions of international order: what Asia wants’. It draws on articles analysing the stances of China, India, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines and Vietnam towards the existing international security order usually described as a liberal international order (LIO). It argues that Asian states substantially support the main constitutive and regulatory norms and institutions of the LIO, but they worry that the LIO does not consistently honour these norms. Asians disagree on the centrality of political liberalism, but even Japan and South Korea, the most liberal states, are uncomfortable with strident criticism, punishment and the exclusion of less liberal states. [R, abr.] [Introduction to a series of articles. See Abstr. 74.1176, 1223, 1230, 1231, 1244, 1245, 1250, 1270, 1285, 1291]
74.1143 BAKIR, Ali —
This study explores Turkey as a newcomer to Gulf security. It addresses why Turkish decision-makers want Turkey to play an elevated security role in the Gulf. It offers a holistic yet detailed outlook of Turkey’s potential enhanced security role and develops a systematic argument that assesses Ankara’s aspiration, will, and capacity to play such a role. Finally, it adopts a comparative perspective to show how the regional actors (Arab Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, and Iran) might perceive an enhanced Turkish security role in the Gulf; and where Turkey stands vis-à-vis the capacity of other extra-regional actors (the US, China, India, and Russia) concerning Gulf security. [R]
74.1144 BAL, Sinem —
Instead of acting consistently with international law and its own refugee law, the EU has adopted an ambivalent stance over refugee arrivals to Europe. Member states’ increasing anxiety led the EU to tighten border controls and outsource its humanitarian responsibilities by agreeing on a statement with Turkey to prevent refugees from entering the EU irregularly. This paper focuses on the human rights breaches and contradictions of the EU-Turkey Statement by specifically investigating the one-in-one-out mechanism and the argument that Turkey is safe country. It is argued that the Statement has turned the refugee issue into the subject of the European market because the political architecture of EU human rights norms has historically been part of the neoliberal hegemony. Hence, the refugee case reveals how inadequately produced norms inside Europe’s borders reproduce inequalities and cause mismatches between the EU’s claimed role as rights promoter and its practical inadequacies and market-based pragmatism. [R]
74.1145 BANKA, Andris —
How can powerful states best extract domestic concessions from their junior allies? What are the conditions under which the powerful state is more likely to succeed in inducing such domestic policy change? This article explores the link between US security commitments and Washington’s ability to attain favourable policy outcomes within the allied domestic arena. It provides an illustrative case of how the USA, using security guarantees as leverage, can enter allied domestic space and shape its decision-making process. After it was revealed that Latvia had served as a key node through which North Korea attempted to evade the sanctions regime, the USA, by playing its security guarantor card, pressured Riga to carry out substantial policy reforms in relation to its financial system. [R, abr.]
74.1146 BDOUR, Farah —
This article argues that Jordan should advocate for transforming the Abraham Accords’ regional integration initiatives into a regional security architecture that brings prosperity and security to all its members — including the Palestinians. Jordan is well positioned to influence the Accords’ strategic planners given its credibility, diplomatic assets, and strategic location; it will continue to be a lynchpin in regional security and future integration plans. [R]
74.1147 BECKLEY, Michael —
From ancient times to the present, rising powers have taken up arms to reorder the world. Yet such violent revisionism poses a puzzle: If a rising power is profiting from the existing order, why would it disrupt that progress with a reckless fit of expansion? One reason is slowing economic growth. Over the past 150 years, peaking powers, meaning rising powers whose economic booms have slowed but not yet stopped, have been the most dangerous kind of country. An extended period of rapid growth equipped them with the means to shake up the world, and then a protracted growth slowdown motivated them to move aggressively to try to rekindle their rise. Peaking power dynamics help explain some of the most consequential geopolitical events in modern history, including the surge of US imperialism in the late nineteenth century, the outbreak of World War II, and Russia’s 2014 aggression against Ukraine. [R, abr]
74.1148 BENSTEAD, Lindsay J. —
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently reiterated US support for the expansion of the Abraham Accords and called for renewed Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. As highlighted by this volume’s authors, the Accords are the most significant regional peacemaking achievement in decades, having already reduced Arab-Israeli tensions — particularly at the government level — and provided opportunities for Arab states to mediate between Israel and the Palestinians. The changing regional security architecture can only be welcomed by the US. Yet, due to political authoritarianism in the region, the Accords may fall short of their potential if the economic gains fail to reach marginalized populations. This essay contends that trade relations that support job creation and access to water and energy may increase public support. [R, abr.]
74.1149 BIANCO, Cinzia ; COK, Corrado —
Europe’s relations with the states of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are facing a critical juncture. When looking at a regional security architecture, Europe’s overarching interest is stability as it prevents conflict and state vacuums from menacing trade and energy supply routes, creating safe havens for terrorist organizations or hostile powers and fueling refugee flows toward Europe. However, compared to the past, European actors are confronted with a sharply new scenario in MENA that challenges these interests, given a progressive retrenchment of the United States, the rise of China, and MENA actors playing a more assertive role in regional politics and conflicts. The February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine is further accelerating these trends. Against this shifting background, MENA countries have intensified efforts to diversify their partnerships with rising global and regional players. [R, abr.]
74.1150 BLOCKX, Jan ; MATTIOLO, Pierfrancesco —
EU Regulation 2022/2560 on foreign subsidies distorting the internal market (the Foreign Subsidies Regulation, FSR) is a unilateral tool designed to fill a perceived regulatory gap in the existing EU and WTO rules on foreign subsidies. After a description of the new Regulation, this paper demonstrates that the FSR follows in the footsteps of a long European tradition of scepticism towards EU Member State subsidization in the internal market, but that it also arises in a context where the EU’s approach to subsidization as a tool in international trade has been more ambiguous, combining initiatives to fight government subsidies (the ‘defensive’ approach) with examples of the active use and promotion of subsidization (the ‘offensive’ approach). The paper subsequently aims to forecast how the FSR’s implementation will be affected by contextual factors, such as the perceived crisis of globalization and the crisis of the WTO, and the resurgence of industrial policy in the United States (e.g., the US Inflation Reduction Act) and in the EU itself (where various recent initiatives facilitate the granting of subsidies), as well as by factors internal to the Regulation, such as its dependence on policy choices and certain practical challenges to its application. [R]
74.1151 BUTLER, Graham —
The European continent has only one micro-state that is not landlocked: the Principality of Monaco. This city-state along the French Riviera is an independent state under international law and is not an EU Member State. Therefore, the law and policy of the EU’s external relations applies, which must cater for the Principality’s peculiar existence because of practical necessity. The EU retains differentiated legal relations with its closest geographical neighbours, and the EU-Monégasque relationship sees several unilateral EU measures taken to account for Monaco, as well as a limited array of international agreements between the parties, including a monetary agreement. These cumulatively make up the legal aspects to their international relations with each other. At first sight, these legal relations appear limited. Yet, as this article establishes, EUMonégasque legal relations have widened and deepened over time, and an association agreement is on the horizon to account for the necessitated intensity of cooperation on a legal footing. Such a development would bring the Principality legally closer to the EU than it ever has been before. [R]
74.1152 CARBONE, Giovanni —
A steadily increasing number of European countries recently adopted their own ‘Africa policies’. The temporal and geographical clustering of such plans suggests that a policy diffusion process might have been at play, with the introduction and the shape of a policy in a given country being influenced by those of other countries. This paper tests the policy diffusion hypothesis through an in-depth analysis of the case of Italy, a country that in recent times stepped up substantially its engagement with sub-Saharan Africa. Tracing the origins and features of Rome’s policy towards the region, however, shows that external influences were much more limited than expected. It was primarily two country-specific drivers — namely, the enduring effects of the European debt crisis on the Italian economy and a sudden and massive, if temporary, increase in irregular migration — which pushed Italy towards Africa and shaped its approach. The paper thus sheds light on how the marked resemblance of policies almost contemporaneously adopted by distinct EU member states — that is, a tight succession and a highly interconnected environment strongly pointing at crosscountry influences — can hide motives and processes that are actually highly specific to each of them and essentially by-pass policy diffusion dynamics. [R]
74.1153 CARCELLI, Shannon P. —
Effective foreign policy necessitates a well-functioning bureaucracy. However, many states fragment foreign policy authority to bureaucratic actors with little interest or expertise in foreign affairs, such as labor, agricultural, and commerce ministries. This is especially common in foreign aid, where research suggests that fragmentation can be deleterious. Why do some states allow their foreign aid bureaucracy to become fragmented? I suggest that the fragmentation of the foreign aid bureaucracy results from domestic distributive politics. Leaders building electoral coalitions can fragment aid to many projects, programs, and bureaucracies to satisfy special interests. Using a novel coding of a bureaucracy-level foreign aid data set, I find that institutions incentivizing distributive politics increase aid fragmentation and that nontraditional aid bureaucracies are more open to distributive politics. I also qualitatively trace the theoretical mechanisms using a case of UK foreign aid. [R, abr.]
74.1154 CARLETTI, Dafne ; TONSY, Sara —
Knowledge production is one of the most important elements of human interaction. It shapes identities, determines policies, and reflects the understanding of borders and geographies. For instance, how Europe and the MENA region perceive one another depends largely on who creates the discourse, and under which disciplines these discourses are elaborated. For centuries, however, discourse creation has been regulated by neoliberal and patriarchal interests. Such (super-)structures frame how these regions are represented, leading to colonial assumptions, biased knowledge and objectifying research. We argue that knowledge of Europe and the MENA, its creation and diffusion should be critical and horizontal practices, moving towards deterritorialization and decolonisation. Not to succumb to a ‘regional’ hierarchy of global North/South, we need to reflect on the positioning of researchers, acknowledging the liminality of identities, to appreciate the dynamic nature of boundaries, and to revisit various elements of knowledge production as language, freedom of movement, and funding. [R]
74.1155 CASLER, Don ; GROVES, Dylan —
How does cross-national empathy influence public attitudes toward international cooperation? Few studies have considered whether the capacity to see the world from the perspective of other actors promotes international cooperation or how partisanship may condition empathy’s influence. In this article, we argue that cross-national empathy increases support for international agreements because seeing issues through the eyes of other states expands the range of considerations that individuals use in forming their attitudes. However, partisan attachments undercut this effect. Across three waves of an original survey experiment covering 6,292 respondents, we find that cues to “step into” the perspective of other states modestly increase aggregate support for international cooperation. But this effect is concentrated entirely among those with weak partisan attachments, regardless of the issue area (climate change or nuclear nonproliferation) and potential partner country (China or India). [R, abr.]
74.1156 CASTRO PEREIRA, Joana ; RENNER, Judith —
Animals are integral to world politics, yet largely neglected in International Relations (IR). This Special Issue (SI) aims to address this gap and offers a collection of original research articles that investigate issues pertaining to sovereignty, power, diplomacy, the ethics of war, justice and emancipation, environmental governance, activism and international law. The articles make animals visible within those realms, raise novel questions and develop approaches through which the specific role(s) of animals and human-animal relations in international politics may be theoretically understood and empirically explored. They open a conversation between IR and Critical Animal Studies (CAS). The SI contributes to a broader understanding of the complex and interconnected nature of human-animal relations, and therefore to the reorientation of IR towards a post-anthropocentric perspective of world politics that renders the field better equipped to understand and address our current Anthropocene predicament. To introduce the SI, this article starts by addressing the invisibility of animals in IR and why this is problematic. It then provides an overview of the articles included in the SI and concludes by outlining a research agenda for the study of animals in IR. [R] [First article of a thematic issue on "Animals in International Relations". See also Abstr. 74.161, 1113, 1171, 1189, 1241, 1264, 1284]
74.1157 CHA, Victor D. —
Since the 2010s, China has used economic coercion against Western and Asian states to achieve territorial and political goals. China’s leveraging of its market is a form of “predatory liberalism” that weaponizes the networks of interdependence created by globalization. The US and other likeminded partners have mostly used piecemeal “de-risking” measures such as decoupling, supply chain resilience, reshoring, and trade diversion to reduce dependence on China and thereby minimize vulnerability to its economic coercion. But these practices do not stop the Chinese government’s economic bullying. “Collective resilience” is a peer competition strategy designed to deter the Xi Jinping regime’s economic predation. What informs this strategy is the understanding that interdependence, even asymmetric interdependence, is a two-way street. [R, abr]
74.1158 CHAROUNTAKI, Marianna —
Does the Greek foreign policy fail to capitalise on extant weaknesses of an existential threat and if so, why? The study highlights the role of the ‘Eastern threat’ as key foreign policy concern in the Greek foreign policy agenda. It demonstrates why the Greek Middle Eastern foreign policy practise, developed in a context of ambiguity, is marked by discontinuities to maintain consistent policies and patterns of relationships compared with its (Middle Eastern discourse). The result of these persistent discontinuities for almost five decades is an ad hoc Greek foreign policy practise. The paper addresses this puzzle by triangulating novel data from recent interviews with Greek foreign policy officials with public announcements and speeches as well as with secondary sources and official documents. [R, abr.]
74.1159 CHEN Muyang —
China has become the world’s largest bilateral creditor to low- and middleincome countries, and yet its participation in collective debt-relief frameworks led by western multilateral institutions — the IMF, the World Bank and the Paris Club — has not met those institutions’ expectations. Prevailing discussion perceives China’s ‘reserved’ participation as free-riding on or contesting the international sovereign debt regime. This article advances ongoing discussion by drawing a historical parallel between China’s current debt-relief approach and that of the US and the multilateral institutions during and after the debt crisis of the 1980s. The article finds that towards the end of the 1980s, the US transitioned from practicing a new money approach — continued financing for existing projects — to a haircut approach — increasingly writing off debts. Around the same time, multilateral institutions started to become more acceptive of debt forgiveness. Yet China’s policy banks, the main financiers of its overseas projects, have been primarily practising a commercially oriented, new money approach. [R, abr.]
74.1160 CHO Joonhwa —
There is some speculation as to the incentive South Korea has in pursuing cooperation with its recipient country, Rwanda. This relates to the fact that Rwanda has been consistently and repeatedly selected as a priority African aid recipient state, though there is a consensus that it is more advantageous for a donor country to support a recipient country with a large population or with rich natural resources. This does not fit the profile of Rwanda, which is land-locked and relatively small in population. This article chiefly argues that South Korea as a latecomer donor needs the recipient of Rwanda which would nicely complete a development project to meet the required outcomes. Such recipient’s attitude is being interpreted as a good governance among the Korean policy-makers. [R]
74.1161 CHONG Ja Ian ; HUANG, David W. F. ; WU Wen-Chin —
Taiwan’s opposition to PRC demands such as acceptance of the ‘92 Consensus’ and ‘One Country, Two Systems’ formula since 2016 has invited a series of retaliatory measures from Beijing, designed to coerce Taiwan into compliance. Given the stark asymmetry in economic size, military capability, and diplomatic status, Taiwan provides a case for studying coercive diplomacy that takes the form of threats to punish. Material differences suggest that Taiwan should capitulate, and ‘cheap talk’ theses expect PRC threats to have no discernible effect, while balance of threat arguments expect resolve. In this article, we use the survey data collected in the 2016, 2019, and 2020 rounds of the Taiwan National Security Study to examine how Taiwanese respond to China’s intensifying and expanding threats. Our paper identifies four strategies that the public sees as responses to PRC coercion: isolation, bandwagon with China, balance against China by allying with the USA and Japan, and hedge by deepening economic ties with China while aligning with the USA and Japan against China. [R, abr.]
74.1162 CHTATOU, Mohamed —
Even before normalization — in December 2020, under the auspices of the US — Israel and Morocco had had “normal” relations for 2,500 years. Morocco has always been a homeland for the Jews, but also a sacred place where many of their saints are buried. Muslims and Jews have lived in Morocco for centuries in peace, mutual respect, and care. This mutual understanding of the past, with its rich cultural heritage, translates today into a friendship without equal. Morocco and Israel are moving into the future hand in hand to write new chapters of understanding, harmony, and human development. [R]
74.1163 CHUBB, Andrew ; WANG, Frances Yaping —
Why do authoritarian states sometimes play up dangerous international crises and embarrassing diplomatic incidents in domestic propaganda? Recent studies in comparative politics have focused on regime legitimacy and stability as key drivers of authoritarian propaganda practices, leaving aside other possible motivations such as mobilization of the regime’s domestic allies or strategic signaling aimed at foreign audiences. This article argues that once the multiple domestic and international audiences for authoritarian propaganda are brought into view, many supposedly competing explanations turn out to be logically compatible and, in many cases, mutually reinforcing. We identify four sets of explanations — mobilization, signaling, diversion, and pacification — first showing how they fit together logically, before illustrating their convergence in the PRC’s otherwise puzzling high-intensity propaganda campaign in 2016 over the Philippines vs. China arbitration on the South China Sea. [R, abr.]
74.1164 CHUNG, Alec —
This study aims to investigate, using statistical analysis, whether the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) increases its provocations and aggressions toward other states, especially toward the Republic of Korea (ROK), when the US is involved in conflicts around the world. The empirical findings show that, during 1995-2021, the DPRK’s provocations, conflicts with other states, and aggressions toward the ROK increased when the US got involved in more global conflicts. Particularly, when the US had conflicts with China-Russia-MENA (Middle East and North Africa) states, the DPRK’s provocations, conflicts with other states, and hostile actions toward the ROK increased. Such findings imply that the DPRK regards the US being preoccupied with multiple conflicts around the world as a chance to act aggressively toward other states because the US will not be able to hinder the DPRK’s actions. [R]
74.1165 CIFTCI, Sabri —
Turkish foreign policy has taken a military turn in recent years. Turkey is now a major arms exporter, it hosts military bases in its neighborhood and beyond, and has engaged in conflicts in Syria and Libya. Scholars have highlighted identity and international system theories to explain the military assertiveness in Turkish foreign policy. This study proposes a domestic economy explanation. It argues that national wealth, a take-off in defence industry, and an alliance of conservative bourgeoisie and political Islamists are the primary drivers of the military turn in foreign policy. Analysis of Turkish economic development and historical trajectories of economic and bureaucratic wings of the defence industry shows that complex businesspolitics interactions and commercial interests of defence companies propel military assertiveness. This domestic economy framework supplements insights from the identity and international system theories to significantly add to our understanding of the military turn in Turkish foreign policy. [R]
74.1166 COLLINS, Neil ; O’BRIEN, David —
This study investigates the relations between China and seven small European states with particular reference to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. It highlights the gap between the rhetoric of economic liberalism and the realities of neo-mercantilism with Chinese characteristics. The article analyses China’s geopolitical strategy and its support of infrastructural projects abroad in relation to the “China Dream” as articulated by Xi Jinping. The impact of engaging with a more assertive China for smaller countries is examined. The article concludes that, increasingly, there is a distinction in the EU between liberal and illiberal democracies. China’s preference for bilateral relations with countries on the BRI is informed by its broader geopolitical aims that resonate well with the neo-mercantilist model. The impact of China’s stance seems to be more muted in the more democratic small nations and more pronounced in autocracies. [R]
74.1167 CONRAD, Justin —
Why do some states allocate more resources to their military than others? Governments are likely to perceive acute threats to their authority and legitimacy when they face insurgencies in which rebel groups earn significant revenues from the exploitation of natural resources. In response, governments allocate greater amounts to their military budgets. Using data on the exploitation of natural resources by rebel groups and defense spending for states around the world, I find that states where rebel groups profit from natural resources allocate more to their defense budgets than other states. This finding holds even after controlling for the presence of civil conflict itself. The study suggests that rebel exploitation of resources may have an indirect impact on interstate relations. [R, abr.]
74.1168 COOPER, Luke —
Drawing on the concept of uneven and combined development this article critically interrogates Benedict Anderson’s theory of the ‘imagined community’ through an historical investigation into the English-realm-cum-Britishempire. Placing its rise in the context of the conflicts of Post-Reformation Europe, it identifies vectors of combined development (money, goods, ideas, people) which shaped the formation of new imagined communities. These post-Reformation struggles were not defined by nationality but subjecthood, which saw ‘the realm’ displace the monarch as an object of rights and duties. The 18th century rise of British nationalism was a response to the long crisis of subjecthood (1639-1688). However, this emergence was uneven and non-linear, such that it co-existed as a political imagination with continued belief in — and political support for — subjecthood. Ironically, given its latter-day mythology, the American Revolutionary War was fought to protect subjecthood under the Crown from subordination to the British nation and its parliament. [R]
74.1169 CORCACI, Andreas —
Multilevel governance of energy transitions depends on the coordination between national, supra- and international administrative actors. Coordination takes place in systems of multilevel administration, which constitute highly dynamic arenas dominated by legally non-binding instruments and reciprocal interactions and relationships. This article seeks to gain insights into the underlying coordination processes by asking which conditions account for the change over time of coordination between administrative actors in multilevel administration systems. First, research on multilevel administration is summarized. Second and starting from historic and discursive institutionalist theory, a conceptual framework is outlined to assess the conditions and modes that account for the dynamics of coordination in general, and the change of coordination instruments in particular. A trend towards persuasive coordination in a process of institutional layering driven by endogenous conditions is expected. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 74.1461]
74.1170 CORRADI, Edoardo —
Since the emergence of the Islamic State (ISIS) as one of the leading insurgent forces in Syria and Iraq in the 2010s, the academic literature has increasingly focused on the phenomenon of foreign fighters. Most studies have analyzed transnational insurgents joining the ISIS; however, research on non-jihadi foreign fighters remains underdeveloped. The article sheds much-needed light on the factors motivating non-jihadi fighters to join conflicts abroad. Specifically, it presents the findings of an in-depth analysis of the factors leading Italian nationals to join the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG/YPJ) after 2011, their military contribution on the battlefield, and their reasons for returning to Italy. The contributions of the paper are twofold. First, it enriches our general understanding of the motivations of non-jihadi foreign fighters through detailed qualitative analysis, including first-hand accounts and an analysis of fighters’ biographies. Second, it offers a more complete picture of the specific factors informing the Italian experience of transnational non-jihadi fighters in recent years. The qualitative data highlight the role of non-material factors in triggering the armed mobilization of foreign fighters. The findings indicate that the Italian foreign fighters contingent within the YPG/YPJ and the SDF has been highly committed, made up mostly of young males with no military experience, and had little to no impact on the battlefield. [R]
74.1171 CUDWORTH, Erika ; HOBDEN, Stephen —
This article explores what it means to ‘animalise’ International Relations (IR). The posthuman move in the social sciences has involved the process of de-centring the human, replacing an anthropocentric focus with a view of the human as embedded within a complex network of inter-species relations. In a previous work we drew attention to the lack of analysis within International Relations of the key role played by more-than human animals in situations of conflict. The current COVID-19 pandemic again indicates that an analysis of international relations that does not have at its core an understanding of a more than human world is always going to be an incomplete account. The paper argues for the animalising of International Relations in order to enhance inclusivity, and suggests five ways in which this might be approached. As it becomes increasingly clear that a climaterelated collapse is imminent, we argue for a transformative approach to the discipline, stressing interlinked networks and a shared vulnerability as a political project which challenges capitalism (advanced/late/carboniferous/genocidal) and the failure of states to address the concatenation of crises that life on the planet confronts. [R] [See Abstr. 74.1156]
74.1172 DAR, Arshid Iqbal —
This article discusses the strategy India is pursuing to protect its interests within the changing dynamics of the Indo-Pacific. The Indo-Pacific hailed as a new arena for great-power politics in the 21st c. is marked by extreme unpredictability and instability. Although China mostly drives India’s Indo-Pacific policy, New Delhi has been reluctant to acknowledge this. India is sending a message that it supports the Quad ideals, engagement with China, and the importance of the ASEAN in the Indo-Pacific by participating concurrently in the ASEAN, Quad, RIC, SCO, and BRICS. The article makes the case that the concept of "hedging" is the best explanation for India’s policy in the Indo-Pacific. As a result, this article examines the hedging component of India’s Indo-Pacific policy as well as the driving factors of such a policy choice. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 74.1301]
74.1173 DAVIES, Cleo —
Assessing the impact of Brexit involves disentangling the extensive and complex web of rules and relations that developed over decades of EU membership and integration, as well as analysing the effects on businesses, citizens, and the state. For scholars, the exercise is all the more challenging because Brexit has been a ‘moving target’. Nevertheless, what does emerge is the transformational reach of Brexit for the UK, with implications for its polity, politics, and policies. The UK seems at a crossroads. Relations with the devolved administrations will need to be rethought even as the Westminster model appears reinforced. The UK is still grappling with balancing newfound regulatory autonomy and managing divergence from the EU, and its role in the world is still in flux. For the EU, Brexit did not transform into a full blown existential (disintegrative) crisis. It still faces potential existential crises, but these are not because of Brexit. [R]
74.1174 DEYERMOND, Ruth —
This article examines the Trump administration’s policy on Russian aggression in Ukraine and the problem of incoherence in Trump’s foreign policy. It argues that the Trump administration’s policy on Russia-Ukraine was characterized by incoherence, an absence of clear relationships between the views of senior administration members and official policy, and an unprecedented lack of transparency. Its policy on Russian aggression in Ukraine highlights the unconventional behaviour of the Trump administration as a foreign policy-making body, something which limits the ability of the foreign policy analysis (FPA) field to explain Trump policy. It argues that assumptions about foreign policy and the methods for researching it need to be rethought when administration practices fall so far outside US foreign policy-making norms. [R, abr.]
74.1175 DILL, Janina —
Does international law restrict the use of force by states in self-defense even when their survival is threatened? Should it? To answer these questions, I compare international law to domestic law and develop two idealtypes of emergency: in a ‘subject emergency’ law imposes absolute, justiciable limits on self-defense. In a ‘community emergency’ the sovereign, not law, determines what is necessary for the survival of the community and its legal system: sustaining the rule of law justifies its temporary retreat. I show that international law has elements of both ideal-types. It imposes some absolute limits on self-defense. However, international law also retreats, allowing the victim state to determine the (1) aims, (2) ad bellum proportionality, and (3) end of self-defense, as if armed threats triggered community emergencies. These three retreats serve the function of sustaining the rule of international law over the states at war. Retreats (1) and (3) also help sustain the rule of international law over the international community. [R, abr.]
74.1176 DO, Thuy T —
Vietnam’s conceptualization of the international and regional orders has changed remarkably over the past decades. Previously an outsider if not a challenger of the western-crafted liberal order, Vietnam has in recent years increasingly leaned toward a rules-based international order. This article argues that the reason for Vietnam’s changing perceptions about the liberal international order is largely threefold: domestic reform and modernization; deepened integration into the international political economy; as well as growing strategic concerns over great power coercion stemming from China’s rise. Vietnam’s pivot to the rules-based international order, however, is cautious given Hanoi’s lingering worry over western intentions to undermine Vietnam’s socialist orientation, the path dependence of Vietnam’s relationships with its traditional partners as well as the occasional clashes between the old, conservative worldview and the new, open-minded thinking in shaping its foreign policy. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 74.1142]
74.1177 DOUGALL, Andrew —
This article explores the relationship between the 19th century ‘global transformation’ and the contemporary intensification of communication media through the lens of Greater Britain, a late-Victorian ordering imaginary centred on the integration of Britain and its white settler colonies. Contrary to existing conceptions of globe-spanning media as either components of ‘interaction capacity’ or boundary conditions that set broad outer limits for political thought, I advance an understanding of media as socio-technical and political structures in their own right and explore how they surface meanings and representations upon which imaginaries such as Greater Britain depended. The argument thereby contributes to International Relations (IR) debates on global modernity, communication media and the dynamics of historical change. [R]
74.1178 DRAPER, Matthew ; HAGGARD, Stephan —
The return of authoritarian great powers, the slowing of the democratic wave, and outright reversion to authoritarian rule pose important questions for international theory. What are the implications of an international system populated with more autocracies? This question was posed by a diverse array of social scientists, public intellectuals, and policy analysts in response to the autocratic wave in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s. We show that a series of conversations emanating from quite diverse intellectual priors — from Christian realists to international lawyers and disaffected Marxists — converged on the risks these autocratic regimes posed to democratic regimes and the international order they sought to forge. These risks included unconstrained rulers, an inability to sustain international commitments and political processes that undermined rational deliberation at home and spread disinformation abroad. The reading of this work suggests an under-appreciated strand of liberal international relations theory, and these debates have direct implications for liberal arguments about the democratic peace. Rather than theorizing why democracies avoid war, they underscore the importance of understanding why authoritarian and democratic countries are particularly prone to conflict. [R]
74.1179 EDINGER, Harald —
This article tests the plausibility of an affect-centered framework for foreign policy analysis, using the 2014 annexation of Crimea as an illustrative case. It identifies questions left open by prevailing accounts based on international relations theory and shows how a supplementary conceptual lens can improve existing explanations. The affective perspective suggests that the Russian president deemed intervention in Ukraine without alternative. Otherwise, Russia would have surrendered any claim to relevance in European security. More saliently, the ouster of Yanukovych, as a possible precedent for Russia, frightened Putin and increased his resolve to take action. Also, contrary to the interpretation of the annexation as an improvised reaction to a political crisis, evidence suggests that the Russian elite welcomed the opportunity to break free from uncomfortable partnership dynamics with the West. [R]
74.1180 EGGELING, Kristin Anabel ; VERSLOOT, Larissa —
Can trust — a core element of diplomacy — be taken online and if so, how? This article starts form the concern that trust is tied to face-to-face diplomacy, which is challenged in digitalising settings. We adopt a practice theoretical lens and study diplomatic information sharing in the Council of the European Union. Drawing on fieldwork from 2018–2021, we find that digital tools are indispensable for trust’s enactment and, contrary to commonly held assumptions, do not negatively impede diplomatic trust, per se. Theorising from how diplomats handle digital tools, we find that this leads to a renegotiation of the place and boundaries of trust in diplomatic work. First, we show how digital tools create both new opportunities for and challenges to diplomatic trust, though these opportunities are more accessible to some than others. Second, whereas trust is taken online, it is not easily built digitally. Third, digital tools lead to a rearticulation of the place of transparency and confidentiality in diplomatic negotiations. It pushes diplomats to reconsider what it means to share information in an (un)trustworthy manner. Altogether, these findings further our understanding of contemporary diplomatic practice and offer a refined conception of diplomatic trust. [R]
74.1181 EIJKING, Jan —
What IR scholars refer to as “the international” gets constructed and performed to specific ends, depending on time and place. This results in a plurality of claims to the international, subject to historical variation. To bring such variation into view, this article shows how 19th-c. claims to internationality were tied to particular conceptions of legitimacy. The article explores this legitimation-by-experts through a case study of the 1855-56 Suez Canal Commission. Based on original archival research, the article shows that expert advice played an important role in claiming the internationality of the Suez Canal by limiting contestation to technical aspects. The central argument is that expertise and claims to the international can get co-constituted in arrangements that are intended to produce legitimacy. These arrangements narrow the terms of contestation in self-serving ways. [R, abr.]
74.1182 ENGEL, Benjamin A. —
The withdrawal of 20,000 US troops from the Republic of Korea (ROK) in 1970-71 was a significant event in US-ROK relations. This policy decision was a catalyst in other important events, including Park Chung Hee’s decision to implement the Yusin Constitution. Previous literature has focused on how unilateral decision-making by the US government made it difficult for the ROK to mount substantial resistance. This paper, using a framework based on the two-level game theory, argues that Korean domestic politics were also a critical factor in Park Chung Hee’s acquiescence to a policy in 1970-71 that, in his perspective, was dangerous for ROK security. More broadly, this analysis calls for more consideration of the impact of Korean domestic politics in studying Cold War ROK-US relations. [R]
74.1183 ESTEBAN, Mario ; ARMANINI, Ugo —
Spain has recently endorsed a more critical stance towards China. This article explains this posture through the application of role theory and the concept of (mis)trust. Role conflict has intensified from the interplay between China’s new roles of great power and economic and technological competitor, Spain’s higher expectations towards China, and Spain’s selfidentified role, greatly influenced by its relations with its traditional European and US allies. This has generated mistrust, and Spanish authorities have shown greater concerns about Chinese behaviour. As a result, they have turned to a more conditional co-operation as evidenced by a series of recent foreign policy outcomes on the BRI, foreign investment, and 5G networks. [R] [See Abstr. 74.1305]
74.1184 FAKHOURY, Tamirace ; McCULLOCH, Allison —
Research has started to explore the relationship between consociational governance and non-ethnic or non-sectarian social groups. Yet, we still know little about how consociations interact with refugee flight on the one hand, and with the ethics of refugee protection on the other. As a form of thick institutional complexity, consociationalism risks limiting the ability of the state to respond to refugee displacement in a manner that is timely, effective, and which respects the rights and dignity of displaced individuals. We draw on Lebanon’s response to the arrival of some 1.5 million displaced individuals in the country since the start of Syria’s lethal conflict in 2011 as an exploratory case study that seeks to further knowledge on how consociations craft and implement their asylum policy. [R, abr.]
74.1185 FAZAL, Tanisha M. ; SANCHEZ, Maria —
We report on the development and use of a course-long, online simulation in a recent, upper-level undergraduate course on the International Relations of COVID-19. We demonstrate how to conduct a simulation in an entirely online environment by including a description of our processes and logistical advice, guidance, and specific examples. This simulation format can be easily translated to fit varying durations, issue areas, and in-person formats. Our students reported that the simulation was a rewarding and thought-provoking experience, as they were offered a front-seat view to the inherent substantive and logistical challenges of international negotiation about an ongoing international crisis in real time. [R]
74.1186 FINDLEY, Michael, et al. —
In the policy community, there has been growing optimism about the prospect for aid to improve conflict-affected and fragile areas. We investigate whether foreign aid decreases, or even increases, violence during ongoing armed conflict. We advance a theoretical argument that concentrated foreign assistance allocated during ongoing armed conflicts increases military fatalities but decreases civilian fatalities. Using geographically coded data on all sub-Saharan African countries in conflict between 1989 and 2008, within a matching frontier design and supplemented by instrumental variable analysis, we find strong substantive and statistical support for our expectations about military conflict intensity though less support for the expectations about civilian fatalities. The paper provides novel insights about the effects of concentrated aid on military versus civilian conflict intensity, characterizes the effects at a sub-national level, and expands the spatial-temporal period of the analysis. [R, abr.]
74.1187 FINIGUERRA, Anna —
Over the past decade, images of boats crossing or sinking in the Mediterranean have become extremely familiar to European publics. What is less familiar is the processes through which those boats are re-purposed, becoming artistic or even commodified goods once they reach a port of landing. Caught between being considered waste and valuable objects, these debris have been moved and re-purposed with scarce acknowledgement of the political work that these practices perform. This paper argues that practices of translation transform objects into waste or valuables and reveal crucial fault lines in the politics of migration — such as the limits of a politics of posthumous commemoration and the de-politicisation of border deaths. Translation works through a wide variety of professional practices and the assembling of value, which informs the staging of materials as waste or as valuables. By analysing the case of the art installation Barca Nostra, this article rethinks the role of migratory debris and the multiplicity of meaning attributed to them by highlighting how they must be read simultaneously as waste and objects of value to fully understand how practices of translation contribute to the de-politicisation of border deaths, leaving state violence in the Mediterranean unchallenged. [R]
74.1188 FONG, Brian C. H. —
The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD) was first initiated by the US, Japan, Australia, and India in 2007 but did not succeed and was quickly deactivated. Ten years later, the QUAD was revived in 2017 and has been reinvented by the four powers into an informal alliance. Adopting the theoretical lens of offensive realism, this study explains the QUAD’s transformation according to the changing relative power distribution in the Indo-Pacific region. It empirically argues that the increasingly unbalanced multipolarity in the Indo-Pacific region is the structural factor that led to the revival and reinvention of the QUAD since 2017. The future of the QUAD hinges on the future trajectories of the US–China great power competition in the Indo-Pacific region. [R]
74.1189 FOUGNER, Tore —
If diplomacy is considered an alternative to war, can the ongoing human ‘war against animals’ be replaced with diplomacy between humans and other animals? While many scholars and practitioners of diplomacy can be expected to dismiss such an idea out of hand, this essay encourages us to think more seriously and thoroughly about what it might imply to engage diplomatically with nonhuman animals. Doing so requires a somewhat unconventional conception of diplomacy, and some scholars have already done much to rethink diplomacy in suitable ways (despite the persistent anthropocentrism). Combining such work with political science scholarship on human-animal relations, indigenous peoples’ relations with animals, various notions of animal ambassadorship and the study of animal behaviour in natural settings, the essay argues that interspecies diplomacy is possible and urges scholars to further explore this and how the possibility in question can be translated into reality. [R] [See Abstr. 74.1156]
74.1190 FOUKA, Vasiliki ; VOTH, Hans-Joachim —
When does collective memory influence behavior? We highlight two conditions under which the memory of past events comes to matter for the present: the associative nature of memory and institutionalized acts of commemoration by the state. During World War II, German troops occupying Greece perpetrated numerous massacres. Memories of those events resurfaced during the 2009 Greek debt crisis, leading to a drop in German car sales in Greece, especially in areas affected by German reprisals. Differential economic performance did not drive this divergence. Multiple pieces of evidence suggest that current events reactivated past memories, creating a backlash against Germany. This backlash also manifested in political behavior, with vote-shares of anti-German parties increasing in reprisal areas after the start of the debt crisis. [R, abr.]
74.1191 FRANK, Nicholas —
Fifteen countries recently signed the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and formed the world’s largest trade bloc between some of the globe’s largest and fastest-growing economies. Employing a text-as-data analysis, this article systematically compares the text of the RCEP to the previous agreements of its members to determine the sources of language in the RCEP and investigate why particular treaty text is replicated more frequently relative to others. The results indicate that language derived from the multiparty and multicontinental trade agreements of the US, a state not involved in the RCEP negotiations, accounted for a disproportionate share of the finalized text. These findings highlight the temporal dimension of power asymmetries as well as the importance of treaty design itself in the diffusion of regulatory norms and suggest that specific trade agreements serve as reference points for subsequent agreements. [R]
74.1192 FRIEDMAN, Brandon —
Saudi Arabia’s turn to regionalism during the past three years, principally in partnership with Egypt, is an expression of both its weakness and its power. Its role as the world’s swing producer in the global oil markets makes it an international power. This economic power, in turn, has allowed the Kingdom to help stabilize weaker economies in the region, like Egypt, that have been hard hit by global recession, inflation, and food insecurity. On the other hand, its military failure in Yemen and the US’s attenuating security commitment have forced it to build regional and inter-regional partnerships for protection and defense. Under the leadership of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS), Saudi Arabia would prefer to impose its will on the region without having to build a regional consensus for its initiatives. [R, abr.]
74.1193 FRITZ, Barbara —
The variety of monetary and regional cooperation institutions often is characterised as uneven, fragmented, and partially contested. In contrast to this narrative, Grabel (2018) applies a Hirschmanian mindset to monetary and regional cooperation that highlights the experimental nature of recent innovations as a ‘productive incoherence’. This paper presents a case study of such productive incoherence. We examine the institutional set up of the Local Currency Payments System (SML) between the Mercosur countries based on interviews with Central Bank staff and statistical analysis. We assess the factors that explain the emergence, limitations and institutional linkages of the SML. The results suggest that, despite its small scale, the mechanism expanded and provided to be remarkably robust in midst of a generally agonising Mercosur, representing the first cooperation between the Mercosur central banks after decades of absence of coordination of exchange rate policy and foreign exchange regulation. Our findings confirm and further refine Grabel’s approach: assessing incremental changes in terms of highly specific and contingent policies is key to understanding the role institutions play for development. We conclude that even very small-scale initiatives such as the SML can contribute to developmental monetary and financial governance as a building block of reform and change. [R]
74.1194 GHEYLE, Niels ; RONE, Julia —
As the third-largest exporting country in the world, Germany is a clear beneficiary and proponent of free trade. Few, therefore, expected the magnitude of contention that emerged within Germany during the negotiations between the EU and the US for a Transatlantic Trade deal (TTIP). This paper explores the politicisation process of TTIP within the context of the broader transformations of German politics including not only the entry of new issues and new players in the electoral and protest arenas but also the increased hybridisation of forms of protest. Theoretically, we draw on the ‘Players and Arenas’ framework to put forward a sequential, strategic interactionist approach to the unfolding process of politicisation, in which various types of players face dilemmas when interacting with each other over time. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 74.696]
74.1195 GLASIUS, Marlies —
The statist focus of comparative politics has withheld from view the ability of powerful actors such as transnational corporations to engage in authoritarian practices on their own initiative, in different alliances, regardless of the national regime type in which they find themselves. Focusing on plantation-level interactions, this article analyses how the United Fruit Company and its successor companies could control and exploit its workers, using silencing, secrecy and subterfuge so as to sabotage accountability, from the 1900s to the early 2000s. Over time, the company’s practices evolved from violent repression and mass dismissals to manipulating trade unions to a mix of engagement, deception, and outsourcing to evade accountability. This corresponded to scalar shifts: the company always operated transnationally, but workers moved from local to national and finally transnational organising, curtailing the company’s room for manoeuvre. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 74.58]
74.1196 GRIECO, Kelly A. ; HUTTO, J. Wesley —
Weary of costly on-the-ground military interventions, Western nations have increasingly turned to “Remote Warfare” to address the continued threat of terrorism. Despite the centrality of drone strikes to the practice of Remote Warfare, we still know relatively little about their effectiveness as instruments of coercion. This article offers a conceptual framework for assessing their coercive efficacy in counterterrorism. We argue that remote control drones are fundamentally different from traditional airpower, owing to changes in persistence, lethality, and relative risk. Critically, these technological characteristics produce weaker coercive effects than often assumed. While persistent surveillance combined with lethal, low-risk strikes renders armed drones highly effective at altering the cost–benefit calculations of terrorists, these same technological attributes cause them to be less effective at clear communication, credibility, and assurance — other key factors in coercion success. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 74.1266]
74.1197 GROSSMANN, Matt ; MAHMOOD, Zuhaib —
US foreign policy proposals are more likely to be enacted than other items before government and more likely to reflect the views of the affluent public than the middle class. We assess these patterns. Internationalist policies, such as foreign aid, international involvement, and trade agreements, draw support from think tanks and the affluent and are especially likely to pass. In line with populist critiques, Washington expands its international entanglements despite less support from the American middle class. [R]
74.1198 GRZYWACZ, Anna —
The institutionalisation and strengthening of cooperation between Asia – Pacific states has been discussed for over 30 years. While experiencing institutional thickening, assessing integration in the region highlights some obstacles to deepening cooperation such as the lack of a common identity. Multiple forms of cooperation affect regional identity formation, but the question of how states explain belonging to different platforms of cooperation within one region remains neglected. If an actor initiates and contributes to multiple forms of cooperation, what narratives are employed, and what factors determine this discursive approach? By applying the concept of strategic narratives, I analyse how an understanding of a region changes with different platforms of cooperation involving the Asia — Pacific and Indo-Pacific, and I offer an explanation of discursive politics drawing from foreign policy analysis. I argue that variation in a state’s narratives display coherency if they are complementary and that a state’s discursive approach can be explained through three drivers: a state’s self-conception, perception of regional changes, and patterns of regional institutionalisation. The arguments are substantiated by an analysis of Indonesia’s regional engagement and narratives thereof. [R]
74.1199 GUPTA, Aditi —
Utilising the US’s pursuance of remote warfare and its network of partnerships as a site for examination, and a three-part typography of the ‘civilian’ encompassing legal protections, protections via sovereign power and the use of frames to underpin civilian status, this article will show the devastating and eroding impact of remote warfare on the civilian. Civilian status and protections are not only easily subverted in the name of military necessity in the context of remote warfare, but fundamental to its strategic ends and continuance. Taken together, though not exhaustive, these three areas will outline what makes a civilian visible and deserving in the eyes of the international system — and so worthy of protection. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 74.1266]
74.1200 HADJIGEORGIOU, Nasia ; KAPARDIS, Dina —
Since 1974 the Republic of Cyprus only exercises effective control in the south, while the unrecognised ‘Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus’ exercises effective control in the north of the island of Cyprus. An increasing realisation among the two sides that effective policing requires the collaboration of their respective law enforcement agencies, led to the creation of the Joint Communications Room (JCR). The article frames the JCR as an example of engagement without recognition and assesses its effectiveness through an analysis of the cases it has been involved in between its creation in 2009 and 2018. [R]
74.1201 HAGSTRÖM, Linus ; WAGNSSON, Charlotte ; LUNDSTRÖM, Magnus —
‘Othering’ — the view or treatment of another person or group as intrinsically different from and alien to oneself — is a central concept in the International Relations literature on identity construction. It is often portrayed as a fairly singular and predominantly negative form of self/Other differentiation. During the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Sweden at first glance emerged as exactly such a negative Other. This article problematises such a view of Othering. Departing from a narrative analysis of news reporting on Sweden’s management of COVID-19 in the United States, Germany and the Nordic states, the article proposes an ideal type model with four forms of Othering — emotional, strategic, analytic and nuanced — not recognised in previous research. These types differ in their treatment of the Other as more or less significant and in involving a more or less self-reflexive construction of the self. Although narratives in all these settings drew on previously established narratives on Sweden, they followed different logics. This has implications for our understanding of Sweden as an Other in the time of COVID-19, as well as of self/Other relations in International Relations more broadly. [R]
74.1202 HAMANAKA, Shintaro ; JUSOH, Sufian —
The compatibility in terms of domestic systems that embed specific values of particular legal traditions is a critical determinant of international cooperation. We analyze international cooperation on professional qualifications because a domestic qualification system best showcases its distinct approach to social governance. Civil law states, which value written rules and certainty, use paper examinations as a core component of competency assessment of professionals, and upon international cooperation they opt to harmonize paper examinations. Common law states regard track record as important in assessing competence, and they often mutually allow professionals from partner states who have a good track record to practice in their territory. Cooperation between civil and common law states is possible when both parties make a conscious effort to align their domestic systems. In this case, an international mechanism has features of harmonization and mutual recognition. [R, abr.]
74.1203 HEINZEL, Mirko ; CORMIER, Ben ; REINSBERG, Bernhard —
Since the 1990s, the funding of multilateral development assistance has rapidly transformed. Donors increasingly constrain the discretion of international development organizations (IDOs) through earmarked funding, which limits the purposes for which a donor’s funds can be used. The consequences of this development for IDOs’ operational performance are insufficiently understood. We hypothesize that increases in administrative burdens due to earmarked funding reduce the performance of IDO projects. The additional reporting required of IDOs by earmarked funds, while designed to enhance accountability, ultimately increases IDOs’ supervision costs and weakens their performance. We first test these hypotheses with data on project costs and performance of World Bank projects using both ordinary-least-squares and instrumental-variable analyses. We then probe the generalizability of those findings to other organizations by extending our analysis to four other IDOs: the African Development Bank (AfDB), Asian Development Bank (ADB), Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), and International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). Using data on the performance of 7,571 projects approved between 1990 and 2020, we find that earmarked funding undermines both cost-effectiveness and project performance across IDOs. [R, abr.]
74.1204 HOLLAND, Lynn —
In the field of IR, we tend to apply the premises of political realism to our understanding of transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) in the US and Latin America. In this perspective, TCOs are regarded as autonomous state-like actors or insurgent groups seeking political and ideological domination over the nation-state. This view is reinforced by notions of the “weak” or “failed state” in which TCOs are seen to be mounting a successful challenge to nation-states for control over governance. I contend that this view reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of TCOs, which are disinclined toward political and ideological domination and inherently dependent upon the state for their functioning and survival. An alternative view, which acknowledges interdependence between the state and TCOs, highlights the importance of strengthening civil society and the democratic norm as a more effective strategy for weakening the power and influence of TCOs. [R, abr.]
74.1205 HOOPER, Stuart J. —
The political persecution of Julian Assange and Wikileaks by the American state is best explained by understanding the classified revelations as threats to the ideological legitimacy of its foreign policy hegemony. I apply Gramsci’s conception of hegemony, as adherence to universalized principles, to American foreign policy, which explains why ideas matter and their role in a hegemonic system. My empirical analysis primarily focuses on Wikileaks’ Collateral Murder video, and I offer three reasons to argue why Wikileaks undermines the hegemonic structure. [R, abr.]
74.1206 HORNAT, Jan —
The United States has improved relations with no other country during the Trump administration as much as it advanced its relationship with India. US-India relations have arguably marked their historical high points since Trump entered office and India seems to be overcoming its suspicion of closer cooperation with the US. Given these developments, this article aims to theorize the relationship through the hegemonic stability theory and explain US strategy toward India. We first demonstrate why India is accepting the hegemonic standing of the US in the Indo-Pacific and then — since balance of power politics are still a staple of policymakers’ approach to stability in the Indo-Pacific — we introduce the notion of induced balancing to show what approach the United States has adopted to empower India to expand its balancing capacity vis-à-vis China. The last section of the article empirically maps the various incentives that Washington offers to New Delhi in order to situate it in the desired position of a proxy China-balancer. [R]
74.1207 INNES, Alexandria —
Ontological security studies have added complexity to the state level of analysis in International Relations (IR) by embracing an approach that permits moving across and between levels of analysis without calcifying an assumption as to who or what constitutes the key actors of international politics. I draw on a case study of gender-based violence and subsequent responses to argue that ontological security studies in IR have thus far failed to fully account for intersectional inequalities within social narratives of security. I argue that the state is incapable of providing ontological security because of inherent inequalities that underlie national identity. It is only in attending to those inequalities that we can attend to the biases at the heart of the state. Looking to ontological insecurity in the context of trauma provides a delineated means of accessing these dynamics in a way that is formulated around a pathologised ontological insecurity (rather than an existential, and therefore normalised, process of ontological insecurity). Through the case study of the murder of Sarah Everard and the responses, the value and necessity of an intersectional approach is made clear: trauma responses that are positioned as transgressive by the patriarchal and White supremacist dominating narrative are used within that narrative to undermine the credibility of alternative narratives of security. [R, abr.]
74.1208 JANG Woojeong —
IR scholars have examined the relationship between international ties and democratization. However, they disproportionately focus on elite-level calculus and behavior. Such a narrow focus on elite behaviors can only partially account for the impacts of international ties on democratization. Most studies focus on specific policy areas falling short of democratization. I argue that international ties of societal actors increase the chances of democratization while political, military, and economic elites do not have independent causal effects. I empirically test the hypothesis by disaggregating international ties into different types based on actors involved in the interaction. The case study on South Korea’s democratization process substantiates the hypothesis by shedding light on the previously overlooked role of the medical community and its international ties. [R, abr.]
74.1209 JONES, Emily —
There is a need for the field of global constitutionalism to consider a wider array of voices, such as women’s voices and perspectives from the Global South. Here, I argue that global constitutionalism must pay attention not only to a wider array of human perspectives, but also to non-human perspectives and to different understandings of what the law is and can be. Evaluating how international law categorizes the environment and non-human animals as things or objects to be exploited for human needs, I argue that posthuman feminism provides an alternative epistemic frame for rethinking both global constitutionalism and international law. [R
74.1210 JOST, Tyler —
When is China prone to miscalculate in international crises? National security institutions — the rules shaping the flow of information between leaders and their diplomatic, defense, and intelligence bureaucracies — offer one important answer to this question. A medium-N analysis of China’s international security crises from 1949 to 2012 demonstrates that national security institutions help to explain the majority of its crisis miscalculations. Case studies on the 1962 Nationalist invasion scare, the 1969 Sino-Soviet border conflict, and the 2001 EP-3 reconnaissance aircraft incident illustrate the mechanisms by which national security institutions shape the risk of miscalculation in international crises. [R, abr]
74.1211 KANG, Daniel S. ; CHO, Young Nam —
This paper investigates the changes in China’s strategic partnership with Singapore under the influences of China’s rise and the escalating US-China rivalry. When China had just started its economic reform, it was attracted by Singapore’s capabilities of maintaining high economic growth with strong party leadership, laying the foundation for a special relationship. But Singapore soon had to learn to strategically rebalance its policies in new geopolitical realities with China’s rising power. Differing national interests has put China-Singapore relations at a new low point. To deliver the above argument, this paper reviews the start of the China-Singapore relationship, then analyzes the changes in the development of China-Singapore relations in the economic and political spheres. The main findings are that China and Singapore’s pragmatism in the struggle for power and survival erodes past relations and that political deterioration overpowers economic cooperation despite its expansion. [R]
74.1212 KARIM, Moch Faisal —
In recent years, scholars have devoted increased attention to the notion of roles in foreign policy analysis and international relations. However, role theory literature has so far less frequently explored re-conceptualising role conflict. To further understand the concept of role conflict, this article aims to unpacks the notion of international audiences. To do so, this article advances the application of role conflict by arguing the importance of notion of vertical role conflict that considers the different levels of international audiences, specifically regionally and globally. Building upon the symbolic interactionist conceptualisation of social interaction as a stage, regional and global levels can be seen as arenas for role-playing but with different expectations to fulfil. The article proposes two types of vertical role conflict, stemming from the difference between the regional and global levels. These theoretical claims will be elucidated through the study of Indonesia’s regional and global engagement in two areas: human rights and trade. [R]
74.1213 KARLAS, Jan —
In the last 40 years, the international community has made considerable progress towards the regulation of inhumane conventional weapons (ICWs) by adopting treaties that regulate or ban these weapons. However, many states have still not joined these treaties or have joined them with a considerable delay. These ratification decisions cannot be satisfactorily explained by the existing literature on the origin of ICW treaties, which stress the role of global socialization processes. This article offers a theoretical argument that explains state decisions on the ratification of ICW treaties. It argues that while democracies and countries located in regions with high ratification rates are prone to ratify ICW treaties, an insecure external environment impedes or delays ratification. The argument also claims that security costs resulting from the characteristics of the individual treaties can modify the effects of these explanatory factors. To provide an empirical test for the argument, the article conducts a survival analysis that covers the ratification processes of the three existing ICW treaties. [R]
74.1214 KHOO, Nicholas —
Great power rivalry is a structural feature in Southeast Asia’s international politics which three decades of post-Cold War academic analysis and diplomatic activity has sought and failed to transcend. The acknowledgement of its return to a central role in the analysis of Southeast Asia’s international politics is both illuminating and instructive. Accordingly, this article centres discussion of three recent books on the region’s international politics around the following great power-related themes: the arrival of Chinese power in Southeast Asia; the return of Chinese activism and US-China rivalry in Southeast Asia; contingent Southeast Asian agency; and the value of theory in illuminating these dynamics. [R]
74.1215 KIM, Seongryeol —
A commonplace assumption among scholars in the North Korean studies was that North Korea is “evil” or a country threatening the international community. Instead, this research argues that North Korea’s aggressive approaches with nuclear weapons to the United States were not originally intended in the 1970s. Unlike the conventional wisdom of US-North Korea relations, this research analyzes the origin of North Korea’s rapprochement toward the United States, and it became the aggressive approach through constructive entanglements in historical factors in the Northeast Asia region. It demonstrates that the US’s indifference to the acute security anxieties caused by exogenous factors associated with the end of the Cold War led to North Korea’s adoption of an asymmetrical deterrence posture in its foreign policy toward the United States. It also suggests that bilateral and multilateral dialogues are needed to resolve and normalize the relations between the United States and North Korea. [R]
74.1216 KINNE, Brandon J. ; KANG, Stephanie N. —
How do states distribute the burdens of collective defense? This paper develops a network theory of burden sharing. We focus on bilateral defense cooperation agreements (DCAs), which promote cooperation in a variety of defense, military, and security issue areas. Using a computational model, we show that DCA partners’ defense spending depends on the network structure of their agreements. In bilateral terms, DCAs increase defense spending by committing states to defense activities and allowing partners to reciprocally punish free riding. However, as a state’s local network of defense partnerships grows more densely connected, with many transitive “friend of a friend” relations, DCAs have the countervailing effect of reducing defense spending. The more deeply integrated states are in bilateral defense networks, the less they spend on defense. We distinguish two potential mechanisms behind this effect — one based on efficiency improvements, the other on free riding. An empirical analysis using multilevel inferential network models points more to efficiency than to free riding. Defense networks reduce defense spending, and they do so by allowing countries to produce security more efficiently. [R]
74.1217 KODABUX, Adeelah —
At their yearly summit, the bloc of the Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa (BRICS) countries issues an annual intergovernmental declaration. While these declarations are scrutinised for challenges they allegedly represent for global affairs, how they self-construct a positive representation about their global purpose is little studied. Notably, there is insufficient examination of the political deliberations behind the statements among the five different countries. By conducting a thematic content analysis based on coding content of the first ten intergovernmental declarations from 2009 to 2018, it is found that BRICS countries speak positively of their cooperative role to solve world problems without mentioning any internal disagreement. In parallel, they present Western institutions negatively in their communication strategy. An absence of deliberations does not imply an apolitical discourse. On the contrary, it can be a deliberate political communication strategy especially among the five different countries aiming to showcase alignment about their purpose in world politics. [R]
74.1218 KOLMAŠ, Michal ; KOLMAŠOVÁ, Šárka —
Why do some actors possess more leverage to diffuse norms than others? Although it is often assumed that norm diffusion simply ‘happens’ through the interaction of political and cultural systems, we argue that individuals and institutional flexibility play a crucial role in the success and failure of norm diffusion. Analyzing the contending interpretation and diffusion of the Common but Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR) norm between the Independent Alliance of Latin America and the Caribbean (AILAC) and ASEAN within the UNFCCC, we illustrate how larger political mandates, the use of informal negotiation platforms and the skills and connections of negotiators played a crucial role in the respective success and failure of norm diffusion. While the more flexible and ad-hoc AILAC was able to effectively diffuse its interpretation of CBDR into the climate regime, the strictly intergovernmental ASEAN was unable to do the same. [R, abr.]
74.1219 KONTOS, Michalis ; GEORGIOU, Eleni —
This paper examines the US’ contemporary strategic approach on the Eastern Mediterranean in the analytical context of renewed great power tensions. Even though the Eastern Mediterranean does not constitute a high priority for Washington, following the 2017 strategic reorientation toward tackling rival great powers’ international influence US foreign and security policy in the region is organized according to a dual balancing strategy vis-à-vis Russia and China. To investigate this hypothesis, we focus on two relevant subjects: developments in relations among Turkey, Greece, and Cyprus in conjunction with Russia’s influence in the region and Europe’s energy security and China’s moves in the Eastern Mediterranean in the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative. [R]
74.1220 KOSTOVICOVA, Denisa ; POPOVSKI, Vesna —
Scholars have studied how women’s domestic and transnational civil society activism addresses the gendered nature of transitional justice. In contrast, they have paid scant attention to women’s impact on transitional justice policy-making in institutions. We leverage the feminist institutionalist perspective that makes visible gendered norms, rules, and discourses in institutions. Homing in on women’s influence in parliaments where women are outnumbered by men and marginalised by adversarial discourse, we develop a conceptualisation of women’s discursive agency. Foregrounding discourse in women’s ability to drive change, women’s agency is enacted through their linguistic communication style and substantive normative positions that constitute micro- and macro-level structures of domination. Quantitative and qualitative discourse analysis is applied to a corpus of parliamentary questions about transitional justice in the Croatian parliament from 2004 to 2020. Our results show that women adopt the adversarial style of questioning, which they use to broaden the scope of entitlements and press for reparations for female and male victims. They overcome constraints posed by partisanship and ideology, while constraints of nationalism are less easily broken. The article advances feminist transitional justice by demonstrating how women’s language contributes to dismantling men’s policy domination in institutions, with implications for mixed-sex interactions in non-institutional domains. [R]
74.1221 KRYVETS, Volha —
The article contributes to a contemporary debate over how to understand China’s latest institution-building activities in Asia and to explore whether the latest regional dynamics in Asia can be construed through the lens of connectedness among main actors. The network analysis method and two recent datasets of regional organisations in Asia (2015 and 2020 years) allow us to delve into the counterintuitive idea, suggesting that the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) has constrained a significant aspect of China’s network power in Asia. The AIIB became an organisation that has decreased China’s betweenness centrality while enhancing network connectivity for other actors in Asia. Despite these immediate benefits of the AIIB to the region, the possible long-term effect of China’s institutional statecraft on the existing system of international relations is the major reason why the straightforward advantages of the AIIB are often ignored. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 74.1301]
74.1222 KUANG, Shuxiao ; SONG, Xinning —
Despite many studies on Chinese representations of the European Union (EU), limited attention has been given to how this is shaped by the EU’s trade policy. This article considers recent developments in EU trade policy, in the context of China’s rise as an economic power and the EU’s labelling of China as a systemic rival. Using a reversed analytical framework of actorness, this article shows how the EU’s trade policies are represented by the Chinese official media and intellectual elites. Our thematic analysis centres on these two types of Chinese social actors’ discourses about EU trade from January 2013 to July 2021. The findings reveal that their representations of the EU’s trade actorness highlight (1) the EU’s importance with regard to China’s competition with the US, (2) the EU’s decreasing normative attractiveness for China due to its institutional and ideational incapability, and (3) China’s positive expectations for EU-China relations in the future with China’s own active efforts. This research also contributes a nuanced approach in analysing the relevance of Chinese social actors’ representations for China’s foreign policy making. [R] [See Abstr. 74.1089]
74.1223 KUIK, Cheng-Chwee —
This article argues that in the case of small states like Malaysia, historical memories, structural realities and domestic imperatives combine to explain their conceptions of and responses to the liberal international order (LIO). The article traces the features and unpacks the factors underpinning the paradoxes of small-state pragmatism vis-à-vis international order: a) rejecting power hierarchy but recognizing (and leveraging) power asymmetry; b) acknowledging its smallness but actively punching above its weight whenever possible; and c) promoting co-existence through principled contradictions. Such paradoxical pragmatism is quintessentially an act of hedging aimed at mitigating and off-setting multiple risks amid increasing uncertainties. While structural conditions drive states to hedge, domestic factors determine the extent and manner in which states hedge. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 74.1142]
74.1224 LABENSKI, Sheri —
Feminists have utilized manifestos and utopias in order to make important, often revolutionary, contributions to international law. However, these engagements have not been reflected in the substance of international law. The sources of international law — specifically customary international law — rely on a narrow understanding of historical knowledge. This article centres the 1924 manifesto and the ‘New International Order’ created by the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, as tools to assess the exclusion of the under-utilized history of feminist peace work from the sources of international law. This allows for a reflection on customary international law’s weaknesses and reaffirms the importance of feminist approaches to international law. [R]
74.1225 LAI, Christina —
The impacts of COVID-19 pose one of the greatest crises of our generation. The policy decisions that the US and Chinese governments take will shape the current order of international relations, the global supply chain of medical supplies, and US-China relations. The COVID-19 crisis leads to the empirical puzzles: how do the two great world powers construct their narratives on the global pandemic and toward each other? What are the meanings, if any, of fear in US-China relations? This study explores the narrative of fear that is constituted in the US and China discourse. The historical analogies, such as the Boxer Indemnity, sick man of Asia, and Pearl Harbor attack, offer great examples to the political construction of the “fearful” other through specific representations amid the outbreak of COVID-19. [R, abr.]
74.1226 LAURENS, Noémie, et al. —
Although most international agreements are concluded for indefinite periods, the issues they address and parties’ preferences are constantly evolving. In some cases, parties seek to close any growing gaps between negotiators’ expectations and the changing context by updating their original agreement to its new circumstances. States have several formal tools at their disposal to do so, such as protocols, amendments, and addenda. We refer to this process as institutional adaptation. This paper seeks to explain why some agreements are adapted numerous times during their lifetime while others are not. It argues that state parties are more likely to adapt their international agreements when they acquire new information about their partners’ behavior, preferences, or the state of the environment. We focus on two key elements facilitating this process. [R, abr.]
74.1227 LEBOW, Richard Ned —
The five books under review address nuclear weapons and the risk of war during the Cold War. Four of the five contend this risk was higher than understood by policymakers at the time or many scholars in its aftermath. They attribute this risk to strategic alerts, close encounters of opposing forces in crisis, and lack of access to critical intelligence. They consider the superpowers to have emerged unscathed from the Cuban missile crisis as much due to luck as leader commitments to avoid war. I interrogate the concept of “luck” and use my analysis to evaluate these arguments. [R]
74.1228 LEES, Nicholas —
The voting record of states of the global South at the United Nations General Assembly indicates they are dissatisfied with the US-led liberal international order. Against existing interpretations, this article challenges the notion that states belonging to the Group of 77 (G77) express discontent because they are illiberal and undemocratic. Instead, the article argues that the G77 is composed of a diverse group of states influenced by a common South-South ideology. This foreign policy ideology has a distinct intellectual history and conceptual morphology, grounded in common experience of colonial domination and international peripheralisation. These arguments are tested using a series of multiple regression models, controlling for illiberal characteristics of states and examining the reciprocal influence between G77 membership and voting stance at the United Nations. Disaggregation of General Assembly resolutions and analysis of the text of General Debate speeches corroborates the argument that a coherent set of shared ideas shape how global issues are conceptualised and framed by members of the G77. [R, abr.]
74.1229 LIN Cheng-Yi —
Even though D. Trump spoke with President Tsai Ing-wen on the phone before he took office, he was not truly friendly to Taiwan. Trump’s administration was concerned with trade negotiations with China, which limited his ability to leverage the "One China" policy to contain Beijing. Although President Trump signed the Taiwan Travel Act before finalizing trade negotiations with China, he did not send any cabinet members to visit Taiwan until 2020, and did not sell F16V fighter jets to Taiwan until August 2019. President Trump’s relationship with Xi Jinping deteriorated in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, Chinese fighter jets increasingly frequently entered Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone, and the relationship between the US and Taiwan improved significantly. The Senate and the House of Representatives opposed China’s aggressive actions, passed Taiwan-friendly bills. The team accelerated the improvement of relations with Taiwan in 2020, which also challenged the US-China relationship more than at any point since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries. [R]
74.1230 LIU Ruonan ; YANG Songpo —
How can we make sense of China’s perceptions of and relationship with the liberal international order (LIO)? The majority of notable works on this topic have been written by foreign scholars who emphasize China’s discontent with, or challenges it poses to, the LIO, while Chinese scholars have either focused solely on academic debates or attempted to interpret official foreign policies. This article provides a balanced analysis of China’s view of order by examining theoretical thought and policy practices from a Chinese perspective, drawing insights from both Chinese academic writings and government statements. We argue that there exists a perceptual difference between China and the West in understanding the postwar international order, with China emphasizing the functional part of the order and the West regarding it as based on its preferred ideological values. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 74.1142]
74.1231 LOH, Dylan M. H. —
The liberal international order (LIO) is undergoing significant challenges, and this has given rise to debates about its purported decline. In this context, most studies of the LIO focus on major powers with little attention paid to small states’ conceptualizations of the LIO despite its ubiquity in international life. Focusing on the Singaporean case as a small state, it asks the question: how does Singapore conceptualize the LIO and what are the effects of this conceptualization? Through a mixed-method thematic analysis of 192 parliamentary replies, media interviews and UN speeches by Singaporean officials between 2000 to 2022, I find Singapore accepting and defending the existing international order in two main ways: demonstrating respect for international law and the UN Charter, and supporting economic liberalism. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 74.1142]
74.1232 LUCIANO, Bruno Theodoro ; BORGES JUNQUEIRA, Cairo Gabriel —
This article aims to assess how national and subnational parliaments have engaged with recent trade negotiations, by examining how they have been responding to the conclusion of the Association Agreement with the Southern Common Market (Mercosur), agreed in principle in June 2019. It argues that — even though the executives from both sides have reached an initial agreement — national and some subnational parliamentary actors have been playing a key role in the revision and implementation of this comprehensive inter-regional agreement, succeeding in stalling the accord even before its signature and the beginning of the ratification process. Besides, the article unveils major differences between the involvement of EU and Mercosur’s national and subnational parliaments concerning the agreement: while a high level of parliamentary mobilisation was observed in the EU, so far parliamentary involvement has been quite low in the Mercosur side. [R]
74.1233 LUKIN, Alexander —
This article provides an analysis of the current strategic rivalry between the US and the People’s Republic of China in the context of the history of international relations and the expansion of civilisations. It demonstrates that most attempts to analyse the substance of this important phenomenon in world politics are based on an excessively narrow view, in terms of both world history and the entire system of modern international relations. The article concludes that the current Sino-American conflict is neither purely civilisational nor geopolitical, but indicates that a civilisationally united Westernised world is entering a period of political disunity. This is how the conflict should be understood, and the process involved should be referred to, in today’s foreign policy language, as the transition from unipolarity to multipolarity. [R]
74.1234 LUNDBORG, Tom —
The Anthropocene rupture refers to the beginning of our current geological epoch in which humans constitute a collective geological force that alters the trajectory of the Earth system. An increased engagement with this notion of a rupture has prompted a lively debate on the inherent anthropocentrism of International Relations (IR), and whether it is possible to transform it into something new that embraces diverse forms of existence, human as well as non-human. This article challenges that possibility. It shows how much of the current debate rests on the idea fulfilling future desirable ideals, which are pushed perpetually beyond a horizon of human thought, making them unreachable. As an alternative, the article turns to Jacques Derrida’s understanding of the future to come (l’avenir), highlighting the significance of unpredictability and unexpected events. This understanding of the future shows how life within and of the international rests on encounters with the future as something radically other. On this basis, it is argued that responding to our current predicament should proceed not by seeking to fulfil future ideals but by encountering the future as incalculable and other, whose arrival represents an opportunity as much as a threat to established forms of international life. [R]
74.1235 MAHÉ, Anne-Laure ; MARTEL, Stéphanie —
The term ‘resilience’ is widely used in current analysis of world politics to refer to a situation where institutions surprisingly sustain themselves against otherwise dire prospects. Yet, discussions of institutional resilience tend to underappreciate its dynamic character. This article proposes a reconceptualization of institutional resilience that centers the productive power of crisis. It argues that institutional resilience is best understood as an interpretative process rooted in a co-constitutive dynamic of crisis and adaptation. Resilience is made possible through the (re)production of a crisis narrative in context. We illustrate this argument with two case studies looking into how this dynamic unfolds in the context of political regimes (Cameroon) and international organizations (ASEAN). [R, abr.]
74.1236 MANTILLA, Giovanni —
Why do states create weak international institutions? Frustrated with proliferating but disappointing international environmental institutions, scholars increasingly bemoan agreements which, rather than solving problems, appear to exist “for show.” This article offers an explanation of this phenomenon. I theorize a dynamic of deflective cooperation to explain the creation of compromise face-saving institutions. I argue that when international social pressure to create an institution clashes with enduring disagreements among states about the merits of creating it, states may adopt cooperative arrangements that are ill-designed to produce their purported practical effects. Rather than negotiation failures or empty gestures, I contend that face-saving institutions represent interstate efforts to manage intractable disagreement through suboptimal institutionalized cooperation. I formulate this argument inductively through a new multi-archival study of conventional weapons regulation during the Cold War, which resulted in the oft-maligned 1980 UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. A careful reconsideration of the negotiation process extends and nuances existing IR theorizing and retrieves its historical significance as a critical juncture and complex product of contesting diplomatic practices. [R]
74.1237 MARTILL, Benjamin —
The effects of Brexit on British foreign, security and defence policy have been complex. Initial efforts to agree structured cooperation failed, with later governments refusing to negotiate on this area, followed by unstructured re-engagement after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This article argues that these changes can be explained by reference to the factional politics during the Brexit negotiations within the Conservative Party, with the defeat of May’s Withdrawal Agreement bringing to power a pro-Brexit faction with a distinct foreign policy worldview and incentives to demonstrate a cleaner break from the European Union. Empirically, the article draws on a series of interviews conducted with UK and EU policymakers. The findings demonstrate the significance of ideology and party factions in a policy domain where the UK is powerful enough to treat EU institutions as useful rather than necessary, and shows the direct and indirect ways factional politics brings about external change. [R]
74.1238 MATSUI, Hirokazu —
In December 1956, Japan gained membership of the UN, marking a significant milestone in Japan’s return to international society. In approximately five years since the San Francisco Peace Treaty took effect in April 1952, this had been a difficult diplomatic issue for the Australian government. This article examines how the Australian government dealt with this issue by focusing upon the intersection of Australia’s policy towards Japan and Japan’s status as a member of the emergent Afro-Asian bloc. This article argues that Japan’s engagement with the rest of the bloc was a rising factor in Canberra’s consideration of Japan’s place in the world, thereby helping revisit the orthodox historiography of Australia-Japan relations during the early Cold War era which often over-emphasises rapid growth of bilateral trade. [R]
74.1239 MATTINGLY, Daniel C. ; SUNDQUIST, James —
How does public diplomacy shape global public opinion? In this note, we theorize that positive public diplomacy that emphasizes aid and friendship works, while negative messages that criticize international rivals are ineffective. We conduct an experiment, to our knowledge the first of its kind, that randomly exposes Indian citizens to real Twitter messages from Chinese diplomats. We find that positive messages emphasizing aid and friendship improve perceptions of China, even in times of escalating violent conflict. However, messages from so-called “Wolf Warrior” diplomats that harshly criticize the United States are ineffective and can backfire in times of crisis. We argue public diplomacy can be a useful tool for global powers, but that domestic political pressures have pushed some diplomats, like China’s Wolf Warriors, toward nationalist messages that do not appeal to foreign audiences. [R]
74.1240 McGOWAN, Lee —
Competition policy has been at the core of the European integration project from its very inception. The UK played a truly pivotal role in the development of EU competition policy with the policy long presenting one of the best illustrations of Europeanisation. The public vote for Brexit in 2016 pushed the reset button for the UK’s engagement with the EU and saw successive UK governments all pursuing a de-Europeanisation trajectory as part of their objective of ‘taking back control’. State aid emerged as a contentious issue during the Brexit negotiations. The UK government hailed its new Subsidy Control Act (2023) as a clear departure from the EU state aid regime, but is this a case of de-Europeanisation or partial de-Europeanisation? This article argues that the UK has still not entirely broken free from EU’s state aid regime and finds itself in a state of orbiting Europeanisation. [R]
74.1241 MEIJER, Eva —
In this article I argue for and sketch the outlines of a multispecies social connection model, based on the work of Iris Marion Young. This multispecies social connection model responds to shortcomings in existing approaches to multispecies global justice in animal philosophy and IR. Because the model focuses on concrete structures of injustice, it allows for taking into account relations without categorizing other animals beforehand and for being attentive to nonhuman animal agency, and it recognizes the entanglement of political and economic forces in perpetuating injustice towards animals. The multispecies model also brings to light problems with anthropocentrism in theorizing structural injustice and responsibility. Analyzing multispecies structures of injustice shows how different forms of oppression are connected globally, which offers a better view of animal and human oppression than anthropocentric theorizing. This is important for determining the responsibilities of different kinds of social, political, and economic actors in working toward social change, and for knowing what to work toward. This model can either complement existing political models, or function as the starting point for new multispecies politics. [R] [See Abstr. 74.1156]
74.1242 MENDE, Janne —
International studies investigate the governance authority of state versus non-state actors in terms of their public or private authority. However, the public-private distinction does not sufficiently capture the variety of governance actors, or the forms of their authority, beyond that distinction. Focussing on businesses, this paper argues that certain governance actors assume public and private roles, as well as a third category of roles it calls ‘societal’ that transcend notions of public and private. To understand these roles and how they affect governance authority, this paper treats the public-private relationship as mediated and extends it with the ‘societal’ category, then translates it into the concept of business authority, which constitutes a particular form of governance authority alongside public and private authority. It does so by operationalising governance authority as a triadic concept composed of power, legitimacy and a connection to public interests. In all three components, business authority escapes the binary distinction between public and private without simply merging the two. [R]
74.1243 MIN, In Young —
This article argues that secondary states in international hierarchy pursue distinctive strategies to define and secure their identities. When and why do they adopt strategy of socialization and emulation? When and why do they prioritize security of identity even at the expense of physical security? To address these questions, I empirically examine the relationships between Korea and imperial China during the Ming and Qing dynasties. I ask why Chosŏn Korea chose to voluntarily subordinate to the Ming, and why it risked its survival during the period of obvious power transition with the rise of the Qing. I develop a theory of secondary states’ identity-seeking based on social identity theory and ontological security studies. Theoretically, it suggests a new mechanism in which secondary states’ statusseeking generates a lock-in effect through deep socialization. Empirically, it adds to the growing literature on historical East Asian international relations by explicitly theorizing secondary states’ quest for identity. [R]
74.1244 MISALUCHA-WILLOUGHBY, Charmaine —
What factors are at play when a state subscribes to the rules-based order or decides to abandon those commitments and shift to an alternative version of order? [I argue] that this choice is a function of domestic dynamics and the expected foreign policy gains of the sitting leader. In questioning the automaticity of a small power’s choice, the article supports the idea that orders persist because of the mutually constitutive actions of great and small powers. It lends credence to the claim of intersubjectivity in international relations and emphasizes that agency is anchored in relations between states. At the policy level, the article finds that while the Philippines seems to automatically subscribe to the US-led order, pockets of resistance are a function of a colonial past that lingers to this day. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 74.1142]
74.1245 MISHRA, Atul —
Examining India’s official thinking on international order over the past quarter-century, this article maps the shift in the country’s preference from liberal internationalism to the rules-based international order (RIO). Despite Delhi’s current narrative of a ‘New India’, the country’s order conception shows continuity in being essentially reformist and mostly consistent with the pillars of the 1945 order. While its marked unease with liberalism is a consequence of the changes afoot in India’s domestic politics, this development is consistent with, and contributes to, the decline of liberalism as a global force. The current Indian preference for economic protectionism also reflects the larger trend of economic deglobalization. The description of India as a resurgent civilizational state rather than a liberal democracy, while discursively arresting, does not indicate a divergence with the West on the grand strategic question of order-building. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 74.1142]
74.1246 MISRA, Manu —
The EU’s investment screening mechanism (ISM) has been a prime example of the unilateral turn in EU trade and investment policy and of a broader global trend of a rise in ISMs. Being a champion of market liberalization and open investment regimes, however, for the EU to introduce a regulatory barrier to cross-border capital flows is particularly remarkable. This contribution argues that conceptually, ISMs may be understood as exposing a problem of trust in international relations (IR) and that a greatly consequential, if not decisive, underlying factor affecting both the introduction and usage of the EU ISM has been the level of trust between the EU and the People’s Republic of China. The introduction of the EU ISM is a symptom of mistrust in EU-China relations in its legislative form, and a test of trust in its individual decisions at Member State (MS) level. Discussing the above, the article aims to fulfil two objectives. First, it demonstrates how the concept of trust can illustrate the genesis and later the functioning of the EU ISM. Secondly, it explores what legal tools may be adopted to either rebuild trust or to render trust inessential by curtailing the security vulnerabilities which require it. [R]
74.1247 MITSILEGAS, Valsamis ; GUILD, Elspeth —
The article will evaluate the current state of UK-EU police and criminal justice cooperation and its implications for UK criminal justice policy. The article will place current developments within the broader historical and constitutional context of the ambivalent UK participation in the EU area of criminal justice before Brexit and highlight the significance of criminal justice and police practitioners in shaping UK European policy in the field. The article will map the constitutional evolution of the UK position in the field and assess the relevance of pre-Brexit challenges to the post-Brexit era. Looking at both how UK policy has been influenced — and has in turn influenced — EU criminal justice policy, the article will evaluate the provisions of the TCA and focus on key current challenges, including the constitutional constraints underpinning UK participation in EU police and criminal justice structures after Brexit, the challenge of regulatory divergence in the field (in particular regarding data protection) and the development of mutual trust and credible benchmarks of collaboration (including compliance with European human rights norms) after Brexit. [R]
74.1248 MUGURTAY, Nihat ; MUFTULER-BAC, Meltem —
Turkey’s post-Arab Spring regional rivalry with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) influences the allocation of its Official Development Assistance (ODA). Our paper provides a comprehensive comparison of Turkish and UAE’s ODA on global and regional levels. To understand the effects of power struggle on Turkish ODA, we employ a time-series cross-sectional model, taking Turkey’s annual ODA allocations as our dependent variable, and the UAE’s global and regional ODA levels as our independent variables. We observe that Africa emerges as the main region where the rivalry between Turkey and the UAE intensifies. Based on our regression analysis covering 2000-2020, our findings demonstrate the limits of religiouscultural explanations of foreign aid, suggesting donors’ geopolitical interests playing a higher role. Our case studies on Egypt and Somalia demonstrate competition between Turkey and the UAE for regional influence. [R, abr.]
74.1249 NAIR, Deepak —
This article takes the study of populism beyond political parties and individual leaders and foregrounds coalitions in the making and unmaking of populist projects. It compares Rodrigo Duterte’s presidency in the Philippines with figures of an older vintage in postcolonial Southeast Asia—the Cold War neutralists President Sukarno of Indonesia and Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia, neither of whom fit neatly within dominant frameworks of populism in International Relations (IR). Drawing on Rogers Brubaker’s conceptualization of populism as a “discursive and stylistic repertoire,” I argue that the projects of Duterte, Sukarno, and Sihanouk embody populism in general and are suggestive of a distinct type vis-à-vis right- or left-wing party and individual populists. Specifically, these are populists who presided over ideologically diverse coalitions in contexts of intrusive Great Power competition. This comparison advances the study of populism in IR in three ways. First, rather than populist political parties and leaders, this article focuses on populists crafting coalitions in contexts of weak party milieus. Second, it draws on a capacious conceptualization of populism (as repertoire) which pushes beyond exclusively “ideological,” “strategic,” and “discursive” conceptions and better accounts for the empirical diversity of this phenomenon outside Euro-American shores. Third, this article highlights a novel pathway by which international politics shapes the fates of populism. [R, abr.]
74.1250 NAKANO, Ryoko —
This article examines Japan’s security and foreign policy as an example of how a major power engages in the liberal international order (LIO) and what this implies for the future of that order. Facing China’s increased power and influence in the past two decades, Japan has made strategic adjustments in response to regional and global power transitions while developing an idea of a wider geopolitical landscape on Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s initiative. However, Japan’s idea of an expanded regional scope and its vision of order were addressed decades earlier through ‘comprehensive security’ (sogo anzen hosho). While the country is an ally of the US and clearly accepts the alliance as a key part of international order, Japan has its own ideas about international order; these accept much of the LIO but go beyond it. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 74.1142]
74.1251 NEGRO, Gianluigi —
This article maps the evolution of the Chinese activities within the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), with a focus on the Chinese standard-setting experience. It analyzes three different moments of the ITU-China standard-setting history: Audio Video Coding Standards (AVS) from 2002 to 2007; TD-SCDMA and TD-LTE standards from 1998 to 2013; and 5G standards from 2012 to 2013. The study contributes to the literature, first, by demonstrating that China-ITU relations have been useful to China to support the shift from norm taker to norm maker into the standard-setting process through techno-nationalism in the case of AVS, techno-globalism in the case of TD-SCDMA and TD-LTE, and neo-techno-globalism in the case of 5G. Second, it highlights how China benefited from its ITU presence to improve its abilities in lobbying for promoting new standards globally. Third, it highlights the ITU’s role as actor, arena, and antenna in the field of techno-diplomacy and standards’ definition. [R]
74.1252 NIEMANN, Dennis ; KROGMANN, David ; MARTENS, Kerstin —
Recent challenges to the liberal international order (LIO) have called into question the efficacy of international organizations (IO s) in global governance. However, it remains unclear if the anticipated crisis of the LIO affects all policy fields to the same degree. Based on organizational ecology, this article explains compositions and trajectories across three fields — climate, education, and health. It shows that the three subpopulations of IO s are stable since the early 2000s, while regional IO s constitute a significant share of the subpopulations. It further finds notable variation in the distribution of generalist and specialist IO s. While the number of generalist IO s in relation to specialist health IO s decreased over time, the article finds generalist education and climate IO s have been on the rise. It argues that — as policy issues grow ever more interconnected over time — IO s expand their thematic scopes to new niches. [R]
74.1253 NYMAN, Jonna —
Existing scholarship has demonstrated that theorising about security is Eurocentric. This leaves us with a partial account of the concept of security, which is presented as universal. This in turn generates explanatory problems because we are only seeing part of the picture. Yet there have been few attempts to move beyond critiques of Eurocentrism to examine the concept of security ‘elsewhere’. This paper takes China as its starting point, asking: what can looking at China tell us about security? In answering this question, the paper makes two contributions. First, it presents new empirical findings, building a conceptual history of security in China. Drawing on 140 key texts dating 1926-2022, the paper traces the emergence of the concept of security in China and its evolution through three explicit security concepts. Drawing on postcolonial insights it demonstrates that these concepts are hybrid, evolving out of multiple domestic and international influences. They have similarities as well as differences with the Eurocentric concept that dominates International Security Studies (ISS) and produce a discrete approach towards security that has been overlooked in a discipline that uses ‘Europe to explain Asia’. Second, considering these insights, the paper demonstrates that the universal concept of security that underpins theorising in ISS is partial and misleading. [R, abr.]
74.1254 OTJES, Simon ; VAN DER VEER, Harmen ; WAGNER, Wolfgang —
The heterogeneity of foreign policy preferences has hampered a more effective Common Foreign and Security Policy. We examine the dimensionality of the EU foreign policy space by analyzing foreign policy votes in the European Parliament (1999-2019). As it contains the EU’s full geographical and ideological diversity, it is an important laboratory for testing expectations about what predicts foreign policy positions. Party ideologies structure voting on foreign policy: party-political disagreements over the CFSP and military interventions matter more on foreign policy votes than others. The left-right dimension and the EU integration dimension still explain a considerable share of voting patterns, although they matter less on foreign policy votes than others. [R]
74.1255 PACHECO PARDO, Ramon ; KIM, Saeme —
South Korea’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been marked by Seoul siding with NATO, the USA, Europe, and, thus, Ukraine, and distancing itself from Russia. At the time of writing, South Korea is the only country in Asia to condemn Russia including in UN votes, impose sanctions on Moscow, provide aid and non-lethal military equipment to Ukraine directly, and, via third parties, transfer arms to Kyiv to fend off the Russian invasion. In other words, no other country in Asia has provided Ukraine with such a wide-ranging level of support. In this article, we answer the four questions set out by the editors of this special issue to understand how and why South Korea has reacted to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in the way just described and regardless of the type of government in office. [R]
74.1256 PAN Hsin-Hsin —
This paper examines US public opinion after the drastic changes in US-China relations during the Trump presidency. I argue that the perceived China threat influences Americans’ evaluation of the China-Taiwan tension. Based on the US dataset of the 2018 Survey on Global Attitudes and Trends by the Pew Research Center, Americans tend to perceive the China–Taiwan tension as a serious problem for the USA when Americans identify China as a major threat and its military strength as a concern. As US public opinion shapes the US foreign policy on China, the findings shed light on the public support for the ongoing US–China conflict. [R]
74.1257 PAPAMICHAIL, Andreas —
The COVID-19 pandemic led to debates within IR as to the extent to which it would cause a rupture in the so-called liberal international order (LIO). This article is concerned with why such a rupture did not occur and draws on theories of racial capitalism to answer this question. It explores the political economy of three dynamics of the global response to the pandemic — lockdowns, border controls and vaccine distribution — and argues that rather than causing a rupture, COVID-19 has reinscribed various domestic and global racial hierarchies. By drawing theories of racial capitalism into the IR literature on global health, the article points to the need for domestic and global health policy to address the deep-rooted racial inequities that characterized the COVID-19 pandemic ahead of future disease outbreaks. [R, abr.]
74.1258 PAYNE, Andrew —
In an era of increased politicization of the military, there are powerful disincentives for commanders-in-chief to challenge the preferences of the senior military leadership. Even though presidents may have the constitutional “right to be wrong,” they require considerable political capital to test that proposition. Dominant normative theories of civil-military relations focus on ideal-type scenarios that do not reflect the messy, inherently political character of elite decision-making. A case study of civil-military dynamics during the Iraq War identifies four decision-making strategies that George W. Bush and Barack Obama used to avoid incurring a domestic political penalty for being seen to go against the preferences of the uniformed military. The findings indicate that both administrations used these strategies during key episodes of civil-military friction in the Iraq War (the 2007 surge and the troop drawdown that followed). [R, abr]
74.1259 PÉREZ-PINEDA, Jorge Antonio —
In 2019, the Second High-Level UN Conference on South-South Cooperation was held, revitalizing South-South and triangular cooperation. It was intended to incorporate the principal advances in the international agenda on the effectiveness of aid, financing, and the 2030 Agenda, which is the framework of this article. From an analytical perspective, the aim is to identify the main challenges posed by the conference for the private sector in its connection with South-South and triangular cooperation in relation to the Sustainable Development Goals, which require multistakeholder approaches in a post-pandemic context of international crisis. Three levels of challenges are identified: programmatic, operational, and general. [R]
74.1260 PLANK, Friedrich —
Interregionalism constitutes a main feature of EU external policy and unfolds specifically in Africa-EU-relations. However, research has merely focused on the EU as a coherent actor, although many EU institutions implement cooperation with African partners. Likewise, principal-agent research, a prominent path to unpack the internals of EU policies, on the EU´s interregional relations is nascent. This paper seeks to fill these research gaps by applying a principal-agent framework to internal processes of the EU in its Africa relations. After analyzing acts of delegation, it analyzes the discretion of the agents. Pointing specifically to the EU-Africa Partnership on Peace and Security, the study investigates on principalagent relations from a non-principal-related perspective that puts forward structure-induced and interest-induced factors for increased agent discretion. The results suggest that agents enjoy substantial discretion enabled by the specific environment and agent actions in a policy field of high importance to the principals. [R]
74.1261 POST, Abigail S. —
How does moral language affect international bargaining? When countries rely on moral language to frame a disputed issue, they decrease the probability of peaceful compromise and increase the probability of the dispute escalating with military action. This language operates through two pathways. First, moral language prejudices domestic audiences against compromise over the disputed issue, thereby limiting the options available to negotiators during bargaining. Second, moral language prompts the dispute opponent to also utilize moral arguments to defend its position. The ensuing moral debate moralizes both sets of domestic audiences, consequently reducing opportunities for compromise and narrowing the bargaining range. Negotiated concessions then frustrate the bargaining opponent and elicit accusations of hypocrisy from domestic audiences for compromising on the principle at stake. An examination of the effects of moral language on negotiation breakdown and dispute escalation in the Falkland Islands/Islas Malvinas case probes the theory. [R, abr]
74.1262 QUINTON-BROWN, Patrick —
This article argues that contemporary debates around intervention, and especially humanitarian intervention, have misunderstood the meaning of these concepts in Cold War international society. By comparing a specific kind of humanitarian interventionism with a specific kind of internationalism, that of a revolutionist strain of Third World practice, it shows that existing studies have paid too little attention to discursive entanglements of coercion, self-determination, and humanitarianism. The Angola case provides a significant illustration: in 1975 the problem of intervention comes to be tied not just to dictatorial interference, but to a logic of self-determination, which is itself tied to causes of anticolonialism and anti-racism. It is too easy to say that the period’s rules of non-intervention precluded the legitimate coercive prevention of atrocities and related international crimes. Particular practices of internationalism, linked to the promotion of self-determination, provided a basis for enforcing international human rights treaties, including the Genocide Convention. All this seems very different from what we usually know of the legitimacy of saving strangers and the character of Third World organising in the mid-20th century. [R]
74.1263 RABINOVYCH, Maryna —
This article dismantles the popular myth that the strategic framing of the EU’s trade with Russia following the 2014 ‘Ukraine crisis’ was nurtured by the liberal peace logic, and the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine should be thus seen as an ultimate failure of a ‘liberal peace’ hypothesis. To challenge this argument, we provide a nuanced conceptualization of the tradepeace and trade-security nexuses in EU trade policy and apply it to the case of EU-Russia trade relations (2014-2022). We find that the tradepeace and trade-security nexuses in the EU’s framing of its approach to Russia has been shaped by the bargaining and restrictive logics. Though the case of Russia’s war against Ukraine does not immediately refute the liberal peace theory, we call for the critical reconsideration of the connections between peace and security concerns in the strategic and legal framing of the EU’s trade policy. [R]
74.1264 RENNER, Judith —
This article suggests a way to inquire into animal protection politics as a specific field of international politics which regulates human-animal relations. Based on a genealogical analysis of the emergence of animal protection thinking in 19th and 20th century Great Britain, it argues that animal protection is structured by two specific strategies, anti-cruelty and animal welfare, that constitute our knowledge of what animal protection is and how it can be achieved. Whereas animal welfare suggests that animal protection means the meticulous technical standardisation of animal use along the scientific knowledge about particular species’ stress levels, anti-cruelty takes a moral approach and suggests that animal protection can be achieved by taming the cruel human subject by means of legal prohibition. The article uses these strategies as an interpretative lens for analysing the EU’s behaviour in the seal products case. It argues that the ban of the trade in seal products can be understood as the result of the anti-cruelty strategy gaining dominance in the EU debates on its seal policy. Moreover, in the ensuing WTO struggle the moral undertones of anti-cruelty made it possible for the EU to frame the ban as the protection of public morals under Article XX (a) GATT and thus to establish animal protection as a legitimate ground for trade restrictions. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 74.1156]
74.1265 RICKARD, Stephanie J. —
As opposition to globalization grows, many governments seek policy responses. One response — the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund — provides support to workers in European Union member states who are made redundant as a result of globalization. Proponents argue that by offsetting some of the costs of globalization, the programme may bolster public support for international economic integration and the political parties that support it. I investigate the impact of the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund on voters’ support for protectionist political parties using a difference-in-differences research design and official election results at the district and commune level. I also examine individual-level voting data. I find that in regions exposed to rising imports, assistance from the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund generates a small decrease in the vote share of one of Europe’s most prominent anti-globalization parties, which ranges in magnitude from 0 to 1.5 percentage points. While consistent with the logic of embedded liberalism, the finding suggests that the theorized connection between compensation and support for globalization may be conditional rather than categorical. [R]
74.1266 ROGERS, James —
Remote Warfare is a product of the bellicose 21st c. in which we live. Promises of a century, that would shun violence, revere international law, and outshine the darkness of the Cold War, have long since fallen by the wayside. Instead, the tragic events of 9/11, 2001, led the US and its allies down the path to war and to the unforeseen consequences that transpired. As Sir Michael Howard argued back in 2006, ‘President Bush’s declaration of a “War Against Terror” was a war for which the United States claimed a hunter’s licence to use force anywhere in the world and the right to dispense with all the restraints of international law that they had done so much to create’. This special issue analyses the legacies and emerging international implications of this ‘hunter’s licence’ and the remote military technologies/remote practices of Western warfare that were pioneered to fulfil it. [R] [First article of a thematic issue, edited by the author. See also Abstr. 74.12, 114, 199, 1196, 1199, 1267, 1286]
74.1267 ROGERS, James ; GOXHO, Delina —
Remote warfare has become a ‘catch-all’ term, used to describe the socalled ‘light footprint’, ‘low-risk’, and ‘distant’ characteristics of contemporary Western warfighting. Typified by a reliance on military airpower, new weapon technologies, special operations forces, and the support of local partners, proxies, and surrogates, this form of modern warfare has allowed the USA and its Western coalition members to meet national security threats globally, yet without having to endure the heavy cost to their soldier’s lives that defined Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003). Nevertheless, we argue that this perception of remote warfare needs reappraising. By analysing the case of Niger, we highlight how the means and mechanisms of remote warfare have now proliferated to a plethora of state actors, with varying ambitions, who combine their ‘light footprint’ to saturate distant zones of conflict and sovereign nations considered to be ‘strategic chokepoints’. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 74.1266]
74.1268 ROLF, Jan Niklas —
This paper argues that peace studies and the Welsh school of critical security studies both define themselves in opposition to the traditional view of security, with the only difference that the former goes through the concept of peace in voicing its critique of security. Pointing to some striking similarities in the epistemology, methodology and ontology of Johan Galtung and Ken Booth, it shows that the two studies have been driving on parallel roads and that they would profit greatly from joining forces. Peace studies could provide the Welsh school with greater practical applicability and access to everyday life. The Welsh school, in turn, could endow peace studies with academic reputation and a solid critical foundation. This would not only put peace back on the agenda of IR, but also contribute towards the decolonization of the discipline. [R, abr.]
74.1269 RØREN, Pål ; WIVEL, Anders —
The Scandinavian states’ pursuit of status in world politics is well documented. However, little is known about whether these endeavors have resulted in higher status for these states. In this article, we suggest that the Scandinavian countries represent a useful case to explore whether similar foreign policy profiles and common club membership equalizes or exacerbates the unequal distribution of status recognition in world politics. To measure the status recognition of Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, we use a network centrality measure of diplomatic representation and exchange from 1970 to 2010. We also measure how well the states have performed to increase their status recognition given their available status resources (measured by military capabilities and wealth) and their status-seeking effort (measured by relative diplomatic outreach). Our results show that Sweden has received significantly more recognition and performed much better than both Denmark and Norway in the measured period. We offer three explanations for these developments. First, the spoils of seeking status using the Scandinavian brand is akin to a regional zero-sum game in which Sweden, as the most visible state of the three, is the main beneficiary of the status recognition in the direction of the club. Second, status recognition often lags achievements or increases in status resources because the beliefs of foreign policy practitioners are only updated sporadically. This status lag is especially visible when states struggle to convert their resources into status (Norway), or when they succeed in maintaining their status despite experiencing a drop in status resources (Sweden). Third, an increase in status resources will only influence status recognition if it plays into a corresponding narrative. [R, abr.]
74.1270 RYU Yongwook —
Despite South Korea’s general support of the liberal international order (LIO), its actions often deviate from or weaken the practices and values of the LIO. This apparent contradiction in South Korea’s foreign policy arises from a situation of role conflict due to its multiple and conflicting role conceptions. Following an analysis of leaders’ speeches and official policy statements, the article contends that it is the interpretation of the past, not just the past per se, that matters for role conception and contestation. For South Korea, the experience and differing interpretations of the Korean War have simultaneously produced both LIO-supporting role conceptions (‘responsible international citizen’, ‘middle power’ and ‘global pivotal state’) and LIO-deviating or weakening roles (‘US ally’, ‘balancer’ and ‘independent nation’), thereby causing role conflict and inconsistency in the country’s foreign policy behavior. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 74.1142]
74.1271 SABARATNAM, Meera —
What does international order look like when analysed from its margins? Such a question is the obvious consequence of efforts within International Relations (IR) to take empire, colonialism and hierarchy more seriously. This article addresses this question by examining one of IR’s most important touchstones — the Great War — through the experiences of peoples in southeast Africa. It argues that to do this, we should use the methodological approaches of histories ‘from below’ and contrapuntal analysis. When looking at the Great War from the vantage point of southeast Africa (contemporary Mozambique), the key patterns of interaction organising the international look different to those emphasised in traditional accounts of international order and hierarchy. Notable features are the significant continuities and intersections between structures of war and colonialism, the racialisation of death and suffering, the effects of white imperial prestige as a strategic preoccupation and the deep historical roots of anti-colonial resistance. Reading upwards and contrapuntally from these histories, the paper argues for a redescription of international order as reflecting not predominantly a balance of power or a normative framework for the organisation of authority, but a dynamic matrix of structural violence. [R, abr.]
74.1272 SAIDOU, Abdoul Karim —
This article discusses Sino-African relations within the framework of comparative analysis of foreign policies. It offers a constructivist analysis of the diplomatic strategies of Niger and Burkina Faso in their relations with the PRC and Taïwan since the sixties. Drawing inspiration from an eclectic approach combining, on the one hand, agents and structures and, on the other, domestic and systemic factors, it explains the fluctuating strategies of diplomatic recognition of the two States with regard to the two “China” by the social construction of the national interest. The results corroborate the postulates of constructivism on the weight of ideas and contexts in the making of the national interest. [R]
74.1273 SCHMIDT, Brian C. ; WIGHT, Colin —
The commitment to the rational actor model of state behavior is said to be a core assumption of realist theory. This assumption is listed in most textbook accounts of realism. Yet is rationality a core supposition of realist theory, and if so, what kind of rationality is implied in these claims? Debate on the relationship between realism, and what is often labeled as rationality is replete with misunderstandings. Authors deploy terms such as rationality, rationalism, and rational actor in diverse and contradictory ways. This article aims to cut through this confusion and provide an account of the different ways in which these terms are used in the field of International Relations (IR). We argue that much of the confusion surrounding rationalism/rationality in IR arises due to a failure to distinguish between rationalism as an epistemological position (the observer rationality assumption) and rationality as an ontological position (the rational actor assumption). We use this distinction to examine carefully the relationship between the concepts of rationalism/rationality in realist theory. [R]
74.1274 SCHULZ, Carsten-Andreas ; LEVICK, Laura —
Latin American states have long been active participants in multilateral treaty-making. However, the rich history of Latin American legal activism contrasts with debates about the degree to which these states commit to international agreements. We probe the existence of this purported ‘commitment gap’ by analyzing the signing and ratification of multilateral treaties. Are Latin American states less likely to ratify agreements they have signed than states from other world regions? Using survival analysis of an original dataset on multilateral treaties deposited with the UN Secretary-General, we find no difference between Latin America and North America/Europe in terms of ratification. If a commitment gap exists, it appears to be more evident in other regions, particularly East Asia, Africa, and the Anglo-Caribbean. [R, abr.]
74.1275 SERBAN, Ileana Daniela —
The European Union-Japan political and international development dialogue is resurging through the Strategic Partnership Agreement recently agreed between the two actors. The current paper argues that in order for this agreement to deliver on its promises, the EU and Japan need to build on their similarities, but more importantly on their differences and lessons learnt through their distinct international experiences. While common values and norms have helped them to agree on such document, building on their differences will help both actors to make this bilateral dialogue more productive and strategic. Through the theoretical lenses of policy entrepreneurship used to consolidate knowledge for development on horizontal cooperation, the paper questions how sharing their experiences as international donors can be of strategic relevance for both the EU and Japan. [R]
74.1276 SHAVER, Andrew ; BOLLFRASS, Alexander K. —
Any act of battlefield violence results from a combination of organizational strategy and a combatant’s personal motives. To measure the relative contribution of each, our research design leverages the predictable effect of ambient temperature on human aggression. Using fine-grained data collected by US forces during the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts, we test whether temperature and violence are linked for attacks that can be initiated by individual combatants, but not for those requiring organizational coordination. To distinguish alternative explanations involving temperature effects on target movements, we examine situations where targets are stationary. We find that when individual combatants have discretion over the initiation of violence, ambient temperature does shape battlefield outcomes. There is no such effect when organizational coordination is necessary. We also find that ambient temperature affects combat-age males’ endorsement of insurgent violence in a survey taken during the conflict in Iraq. Our findings caution against attributing strategic causes to violence and encourage research into how strategic and individual-level motivations interact in conflict. [R]
74.1277 SHISHIR, Foysal Jaman ; SAKIB, Nurul Huda —
States always function as rational actors as protecting the national interests of a state depends on the choices it makes in the international context. Hence, choices and preferences are central to the study of both public policy and international relations. Policies are driven and influenced by the attention and behaviors of the actors which ultimately create a path to failure or success. In the Bay of Bengal Initiatives for Multisectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC), India, in the absence of Pakistan, can enjoy a friendly environment and establish its goal of geopolitical and economic dominance in South Asia and Southeast Asia, while countering China’s continuous upsurge. On the other hand, in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), constant intervention from Pakistan means that India shifts its attention to use its full potential elsewhere. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 74.1301]
74.1278 SKIRIUS, Juozas —
The declaration of the US Diplomatic Service of July 28, 1922, recorded in a covert form the temporary statehood of Lithuania, at the same time of Latvia and Estonia, i.e., as long as Bolshevik Russia exists, and the conditionality of these states, recognizing only their governments, but not the states themselves. In principle, this way in line with the Western countriespromoted vision of the national governments of autonomous Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia as part of democratic Russia. Such a vision was supported not only by the governments of the USA, France and Great Britain, but also by the leaders of the White Russians. The wording "full recognition" used in the declaration of recognition meant recognition de jure and de facto. The USA, in envisioning its relations with the future democratic Russia, did not name these concepts directly in its document of recognition. Before the official, though peculiar, diplomatic act, the USA maintained informal relations with the Baltic States. Their basis waw the indirect recognition de facto based on the May 26, 1919, note to Amiral A. Kolchak. The USA, unlike major European countries; did not announce it officially until 1922. [R]
74.1279 SMITH, Nicholas Ross ; HOLSTER, Bonnie —
In 2021, Aotearoa New Zealand’s Foreign Minister, Nanaia Mahuta, sketched out a kaupapa Mâori (collective Mâori vision) foreign policy for New Zealand based on four tikanga Mâori (Mâori customary practices and behaviours): manaakitanga (hospitality), whanaungatanga (connectedness), mahi tahi and kotahitanga (unity through collaboration), and kaitiakitanga (guardianship and the protection of intergenerational wellbeing). This article makes a novel contribution to the global IR body of literature by questioning to what extent New Zealand’s ‘Mâori foreign policy’ has been applied to its relationship with China. It is argued that New Zealand is attempting to consolidate the maturity of the Sino-New Zealand relationship, as well as differentiate itself from the other Anglosphere countries that have recently pushed back on China. [R, abr.]
74.1280 SOBELMAN, Daniel —
Although coercion literature has traditionally focused on two-actor dyads, coercion in three-actor settings is a prevalent yet understudied strategy in International Relations. Such cases of “triangular coercion” represent a phenomenon whereby a coercer who lacks direct leverage over a resilient target coerces a third party who does possess leverage over the target, and to whom the target is vulnerable, and manipulates it into a clash of interests with the target. By forcing an otherwise uninvolved intermediary to align with the coercer, a coercer can alter the balance of vulnerability vis-à-vis its otherwise resilient target and enhance its susceptibility to coercion, albeit by extension. Existing scholarship tackles triangular coercion from different angles and mostly focuses on actor typology. This article seeks to promote our understanding of this strategy by proposing a conceptual model that distills its logic into the abstract components of vulnerability, resilience, and leverage. To demonstrate the dynamics of triangular coercion, the article draws on three empirical cases: Israel’s failed attempts to force Lebanon to rein in Hezbollah in the 1990s, Nazi Germany’s successful manipulation of Britain and France into coercing Czechoslovakia in 1938, and the Soviet Union’s success at forcing the United States to coerce Israel in 1973. [R]
74.1281 STAHL, Anna Katharina —
For years, the EU has sought to portray itself as a normative ‘force for good’ in the world. With the rise of China, the international environment is changing and elements of rivalry are sharpening. As a response, the EU’s leadership has promised to make the EU a geopolitical actor that would be more assertive in pursuing its own strategic interests. Taking the example of China’s expanding footprint in North Africa, this article examines the EU’s changing role in the region. By applying role theory and interactionism to the analysis, the article offers a better understanding of the European response to China’s strategic emergence in North Africa and the EU’s gradual transformation from a normative power into geopolitical actor in the region. [R] [See Abstr. 74.1305]
74.1282 STEELE, Carie A. —
A growing portion of aid directed through multilateral channels is earmarked for specific recipients and purposes, giving donors greater control, also known as multi-bilateral aid. This project examines competing explanations of donors’ use of this multi-bilateral aid for different problems within the same sector, specifically development aid for disease control. Using explanations from the literature on multilateralism and principal-agent dynamics, I compare donors’ use of multi-bilateral and bilateral delivery of disease-specific foreign aid. The results suggest that while donors deliver a greater portion of aid through multi-bilateral channels for larger, more complex problems, they are reluctant to delegate issues that most affect their populations. [R]
74.1283 SUN, Degang ; XU, Ruike —
Despite the limitations of its bilateral trade volume and security cooperation with China, Egypt was the first Middle Eastern and Arab country that established a strategic partnership with China in 1999 and the second to build a comprehensive strategic partnership in 2014. This article employs role theory to unpack this seeming paradox, and argues that it is largely because of the compatibility of their national role conceptions that China and Egypt have managed to broaden and deepen their cooperation in the Xi-Sisi era. A thorough examination of the two countries’ official documents and a variety of other related literature reveals that China and Egypt are determined to build a comprehensive and complementary partnership with the strategic docking of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and Egypt’s ‘Vision 2030’ plan. As pivotal states in Asia and the Middle East respectively, China and Egypt aim to reshape the global power structure through the pursuit of multipolarity and solidarity of rising powers. [R] [See Abstr. 74.1305]
74.1284 TAUBER, Steven —
International Relations (IR) scholarship on Global Social Movements (GSMs) has helped usher in post-realist theories, such as constructivism and critical IR. Despite its innovativeness, extant GSM research is limited because it ignores the relevance of the Global Animal Advocacy Movement (GAAM), which seeks to end animal exploitation. The omission of GAAM is emblematic of IR’s anthropocentric disregard of the relevance of animals in global politics. An emergent literature recognizes the importance of animals in IR, and this paper contributes to the establishment of this animal-inclusive IR by examining the significance of GAAM. First, it demonstrates that GAAM fits the criteria of a GSM; therefore, it is worthy of study in IR. Additionally, this paper argues that IR should recognize that nonhuman animals also participate in GAAM. Both arguments not only demonstrate GAAM’s relevance, but they should also contribute to the development of an animal-inclusive IR. The paper closes by advocating for a methodologically diverse research agenda on GAAM. [R] [See Abstr. 74.1156]
74.1285 THALANG, Chanintira na —
Based on statements made by political and military elites and government officials, the article explores how Thailand selectively supports and capitalizes on certain elements of the contemporary world order, namely US-led security cooperation and economic liberalism, while half-heartedly embracing the ideals of liberal democracy. Although this never caused problems with the West during the Cold War, matters began to change in the 1990s against the backdrop of systemic-level shifts. While these developments have caused sporadic tensions with the West and effectively brought Thailand closer to China, Thailand has pragmatically sought ways to maintain its autonomy from both the US and China. Based on Thailand’s experience, this article reveals how smaller states pursue a variety of strategies to enhance their agency despite their lack of material capabilities. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 74.1142]
74.1286 THEUSSEN, Amelie —
New means and methods of war such as remote warfare by drones — the focus of this special issue — challenge international law, as there no longer exists agreement between states regarding the rules regulating the use of force. The existing legal norms are interpreted in widely diverging manners and seemingly put aside if not in the interest of the state in question. Yet, this article argues that, taking a closer look at the state practice of drone strikes beyond the paradigmatic case of the USA, the demise of international legal norms regulating the use of force seems overstated. Instead, the analysis reveals that the international laws addressing the use of force and means and methods of warfare are not as dead as the general discourse asserts, and can still serve to regulate state action. [R] [See Abstr. 74.1266]
74.1287 THORLEY, Martin —
The growing international presence of actors, entities and capital tied to elite networks of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) represents a major development in the global economic exchange that underpins the international political economy (IPE). Amid growing academic discourse on the topic, this paper explores interaction between transnationalising PRC capital and the wider geopolitical landscape, asking what it reveals about the IPE of authoritarianism. The paper excavates and explores linkages of actors connected to high value property acquisitions in London by PRC and Hong Kongese entities and individuals between 2010 and 2020. Informed by PRC party-state realities and supported, where appropriate, by Chinese-language sources, the study employs an investigative research approach to generate data in an opaque environment. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 74.58]
74.1288 TICKNER, J. Ann —
This review essay engages three texts focused on women who engaged with international thought in the early to mid-20th century. Women’s International Thought: A New History and Women’s International Thought: Towards a New Canon, both edited by Patricia Owens and her co-editors. The third, To Turn the Whole World Over: Black Women and Internationalism, edited by Keisha Blain and Tiffany Gill. A few women discussed in these texts are recognized today, most are completely forgotten. Some aspired to careers in the academy but encountered obstacles on account of their sex and/or race. Many were scholar activists who claimed that their writings should address real world problems. These texts foreground the work of African American scholars, focused on racism and imperialism, subjects that IR ignores. Since some were denied publication outlets many wrote journals and published in newspapers. Although previously ignored, all these women had important things to tell us about international relations. [R]
74.1289 TRAN, Emilie —
Among the Mediterranean states, France has arguably the most complex bilateral relationship with China: their intense economic exchange and allencompassing cooperation are not only the longest and eventful, but they are also marred with enduring and mounting concerns. Intersecting two distinct concepts from the international relations’ literature, i.e., role theory and trust, this article makes both empirical and theoretical contributions. It examines sixty years of France-China interaction mechanisms, looking at France’s role conception, expectations, performance and adaptation. On the theoretical front, it proposes to characterize the concurrent cooperation and competition between France and China as coopetition, thus adding a new role enactment, that of coopetitor, to the existing conceptions of national roles. [R] [See Abstr. 74.1305]
74.1290 TRUCHLEWSKI, Zbigniew ; OANA, Ioana-Elena ; MOISE, Alexandru D. —
Recent research argues that external threats like war spur EU polity formation (Kelemen & McNamara, 2022). One key mechanism of this process is public support for policy responses designed by policymakers. However, like the ‘rally-round-the-flag’ effect (Mueller, 1970), public support wanes over time and we decompose this decrease into two elements: salience and polarisation at the domestic level for national and European policies in both soft and hard security (aid and sanctions). We show that while salience can sustain public support for European policy innovations, polarisation about national and (unexpectedly) European policies accelerates its decline. We thus qualify the story of EU polity formation through external security crises. [R] [First of a series of articles on "EU polity building after the Russian invasion of Ukraine", edited by Alexandru D. Moise, et al. See also Abstr. 74.996, 1098]
74.1291 UMAR, Ahmad Rizky Mardhatillah —
This article focuses on Indonesia’s conceptions of international order as an example of an emerging Asian middle power. It addresses two key questions: what is Indonesia’s understanding of international order, and how has Indonesia engaged with liberal international order in the past twenty years? I argue that the foundation of Indonesia’s conception of international order is premised on a desire to pursue autonomy in international politics. This vision was articulated by Vice President Mohammad Hatta and it has been maintained by different administrations. After its democratic reform in 1998, Indonesia began to articulate democracy as its preferred conception of international order. This was primarily demonstrated by two Indonesian presidents, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (2004-2014) and Joko Widodo (2014-present). By articulating democracy, both presidents have been able to constructively engage with the liberal international order. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 74.1142]
74.1292 VAYNMAN, Jane ; VOLPE, Tristan A. —
Almost all technology is dual use to some degree: it has both civilian and military applications. This feature creates a dilemma for cooperation. States can design arms control institutions to curtail costly competition over some military technology. But they also do not want to limit valuable civilian uses. How does the dual use nature of technology shape the prospects for cooperation? We argue that the duality of technology presents a challenge not by its very existence but rather through the ways it alters information constraints on the design of arms control institutions. We characterize variation in technology along two dual use dimensions: (1) the ease of distinguishing military from civilian uses; and (2) the degree of integration within military enterprises and the civilian economy. Distinguishability drives the level of monitoring needed to detect violations. When a weapon is indistinguishable from its civilian counterpart, states must improve detection though intelligence collection or intrusive inspections. Integration sharpens the costs of disclosing information to another state. For highly integrated technology, demonstrating compliance could expose information about other capabilities, increasing the security risks from espionage. Together, these dimensions generate expectations about the specific information problems states face as they try to devise agreements over various technologies. [R, abr.]
74.1293 WANG Liqin —
The article examines to what extent China and Japan compete in infrastructure investment in Southeast Asia. At the state level, China pursues more geo-economic goals whereas Japan seeks more mercantilist objectives, which mitigates their competition to a substantial extent. At the institutional level, the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the Japan-led Asian Development Bank (ADB) compete for potentially valuable infrastructure projects in Southeast Asia from the supply-side perspective. It is necessary and sensible for the AIIB to cooperate with other multilateral development banks (MDBs), including the ADB. That the AIIB keeps a low profile, other MDBs accommodate the AIIB’s preference, and the non-condition principle catalyses the cooperation between the AIIB and other MDBs. Therefore, there is no need to be alarmed by the competition in infrastructure investment in Southeast Asia between China and Japan. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 74.1301]
74.1294 WEHNER, Leslie E. —
Populist leaders unfold anti-elite rhetoric to sustain the ‘in-group’ morale of the ‘people’ they represent. Populist projects contain an ‘us’ versus ‘them’ dimension constituted by the stereotyped images that serve to inform the role-selection process in foreign policy. When images shaping roles on the international stage are used against the ‘out-group’, they become stereotypes of other actors. Therefore, this article explores how antipluralist populist leaders such as Jair Bolsonaro and Donald Trump use stereotyped images, and how these images — which speak to intention, affective tags and the evaluation of options — shape the foreign policy role behaviour of the states in question. The article develops a framework at the interplay of images and roles to analyse how these two aspects are used by the leader in an oversimplified manner to delineate boundaries between self and other, and thus to identify the membership base of the populist project versus those who are seen as a threat to their populist foreign policy. [R]
74.1295 WIEDEKIND, Jakob —
To what extent and under which conditions do presidents challenge foreign policy legislation through Statements of Administration Policy (SAPs)? While the presidents’ use of executive orders and signing statements has been studied extensively, this paper argues that SAPs are a subtler and less politically costly tool that is more important than scholars realized. Delivered at a crucial intervention point along the legislative process, these communications provide a key gateway for assertive presidential challenges. Relying on a novel assertiveness-score, this paper finds that SAPs target legislative content more aggressively over time and that the composition of government predicts executive assertiveness particularly well. Next to that, I show that presidents are more assertive when their term comes to an end. These insights contribute to our understanding of spiking interbranch tensions in American Politics. [R]
74.1296 WINSTON, Carla —
This theory note argues that international norms, as currently understood by IR scholars, can be seen as emergent properties of a complex adaptive system (the international political system). Arising from the microlevel interactions of agents within and across various levels of analysis, they have the potential to become system properties that (1) influence the constitution, relationships, and behavior of agents within that system and (2) are not analytically reducible to the sum of the interactions between those agents. They also exhibit evolutionary dynamics common to complex, rather than merely complicated, systems. Thinking of norms in this manner helps point norms scholars toward particular spaces and methodologies of research. After a brief resume of complexity theory in IR, the note proceeds with an introduction to complex systems theory. [R, abr.]
74.1297 WOO Su Yun ; DONG Lisheng ; KÜBLER, Daniel —
China-EU relations have become more challenging recently, especially with China being labeled a ‘systemic rival’. We therefore examine Chinese perceptions of the EU, particularly to see if recent developments have led to changing representations of the EU. This article specifically attempts to discern nascent changes in the complex representation of the EU amongst the general Chinese public by analyzing and comparing original data from two surveys of 3000 Chinese citizens in six major cities conducted in 2010 and in 2020. Our study uncovers the Chinese respondents’ perceptions of the EU in a multifaceted way by providing evidence that they are reconstructing the image of the EU and reconsidering its global role. The overall assessment of China–EU relations by the Chinese public remains one of general goodwill. However, there are more discerning and critical opinions of the EU from the respondents as well, suggesting a much more differentiated view toward the EU. In highlighting the continuities and changes, and situating this discussion within the theoretical lens of two specific forms of complex representation, role and image theories, this study provides a timely and topical discussion of the emergence of a complex portrayal of the EU. [R] [See Abstr. 74.1089]
74.1298 WRATIL, Christopher ; WÄCKERLE, Jens ; PROKSCH, Sven-Oliver —
The role of domestic public opinion is an important topic in research on international negotiations, yet we know little about how exactly it manifests itself. We focus on government rhetoric during negotiations and develop a conceptual distinction between implicit and explicit manifestations of public opinion. Drawing on a database of video recordings of negotiations of the Council of the European Union and a quantitative text analysis of government speeches, we find that public opinion matters implicitly, with the exact pattern depending on governments’ stance toward the EU. Pro-EU governments are responsive to public opinion in their support for compromises and attempts to stall negotiations, whereas Euroskeptic governments tend to remain silent when confronted with a public positively disposed toward the EU. [R, abr.]
74.1299 YANG Yifan —
By studying representations of European integration and China-EU relations after Brexit in China’s state-owned newspapers, this article examines how China views the EU in the context of Brexit. Brexit has been a turning point for European integration, reflecting a trend of regional Euroscepticism and worldwide anti-globalism. Both Chinese and European representations of Brexit have impacted the bilateral relations between these two major international actors. Chinese views on European integration and China-EU relations after Brexit not only influence Chinese foreign policy towards the EU but also perform some — if not all — aspects of China’s self-perceived identity. As with other countries, the Chinese news media has taken part in this performance of national identity and interest, representing the EU after Brexit as the “Other” in comparison to China as the “Self”. This article argues that the representations of the EU projected by the Chinese media to internal and external audiences reflect and help construct Chinese identity as a global actor in a multipolar world. It also emphasises the media’s complex, evolving role as both a mouthpiece for official government discourse aiming to guide public opinion and a forum for debate among professional academic and journalistic commentators within an emerging public sphere. [R] [See Abstr. 74.1089]
74.1300 YAU Hon-Min —
This paper focuses on US foreign policy behavior and cybersecurity policy during the Trump administration in light of Sino-US tech competition. The paper reviews US deployment of Information Communication Technology policies to confront China in the digital domain. The digital structural shift described here started in 2013 with China’s proposed One Belt One Road Initiative, and accelerated when the US Trump administration reacted with its Blue Dot Network and Clean Network Initiative. This paper adopts an International Relations analytical approach to foreign policy to investigate the Sino-US interactions in the digital domain, with structural factors of the wider Sino-US technical environment taken as the independent variable, and the agential factor of Trump’s intentions is recruited as part of the intervening variable. In this way, it is hoped the analysis will make possible an examination of the contextual development of digital competition, and unpack the implications for China and the world in relation to cyberspace. [R]
74.1301 YILMAZ, Serafettin ; SUN, Tong —
The China-US great power relationship appears to have entered a stage in which anarchy is less responsive to the control mechanisms that allowed a certain degree of methodological predictability in much of the post-WWII international relations. The present research aims to offer an introductory analysis of this problematic. For this end, we pose the following exploratory questions: What are the parameters of the new anarchy in the China-US great power relationship? What kind of international relations does this situation allow us to envision? Finally, what are the methodological implications of the new anarchy? At the same time, certain caveats apply. This article is an introductory endeavor seeking to highlight the need for methodological innovations to account for contemporary international relations in the context of great power rivalry. [R, abr.] [First article of a thematic issue on "Challenges in Asian geopolitics". See also Abstr. 74.1172, 1221, 1277, 1293, 1398]
74.1302 YÖNTEN, Hasan ; DENEMARK, Robert A. —
Turkish foreign policy under the Justice and Development Party (AKP) has been the subject of much change, especially as regards relations with the countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). We create and analyze a novel dataset of Turkey’s treaties with MENA countries to offer and assess several arguments empirically. We find that Turkey became more diplomatically active in the MENA and emerged as a ‘trading state’ in the AKP’s first decade. In the wake of the Arab Uprisings, especially after 2016, Turkey became less diplomatically active and more security oriented. However, it did not necessarily lose all of the characteristics of a ‘trading state.’ [R]
74.1303 ZAVERSHINSKAIA, Polina —
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which started on February 24, 2022, has marked a turning point in Russian-Western relations. While liberal democratic societies’ unanimous condemnation of that invasion was followed by unprecedented sanctions and a rupture of diplomatic and economic relations with Russia, some Western social and political actors supported, to some extent, the Russian rhetoric regarding the invasion of Ukraine. Consequentially, this paper not only reveals that Russian state discourses aimed to justify the invasion, it also identifies the selective dissemination of Russian state discourses by the AfD in Germany. Moreover, it compares the antagonistic discursive dynamics in the authoritarian pseudo-civil sphere and the similar discourses of the radical right in the democratic civil sphere, and examine their reception in Russia and Germany. [R, abr.]
74.1304 ZHANG Biao ; LI Qian —
While Brexit has profoundly affected the EU, few have examined its impacts on the EU’s image in China. Based on an analysis of the Chinese academic representation of the EU in 222 academic journal articles published between 23 June 2016 and 31 December 2021, this article finds that Chinese scholars’ perceptions of the EU, while broadly consistent with previous findings, show several notable changes. Regarding the EU polity, Chinese scholars display an increasingly pessimistic view of the prospect of European integration. Regarding the EU’s actorness on the global stage, they see the Union as a weakened but aspirational actor, and an economic giant with a protectionist tendency and in pursuance of political, environmental and maritime status. Finally, regarding the EU’s position toward China, they see the EU’s relationship with China as being subject to fluctuation, American influence, and growing competition. [R] [See Abstr. 74.1089]
74.1305 ZHANG Chuchu ; XIAO ChaoweI —
As Beijing is actively investing in and constructing infrastructure overseas within the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), numerous rumours and misconceptions have arisen about the changes China can and will bring through its infrastructure diplomacy. By way of an analysis of Chinese infrastructure projects and diplomatic activities in the Mediterranean, examining government documents, companies’ briefings and media reports, we found that China’s infrastructure diplomacy goals are two-fold: 1. to promote infrastructure cooperation and economic ties overseas through political means. 2. to enhance political trust between China and other countries via collaboration in infrastructure development. Despite the preliminary achievements, both China’s economic gains and political influence through infrastructure diplomacy, including in the Mediterranean Region, remain limited. This derives from several factors, the most important of which being China’s predicament in its role-taking, which makes its foreign policies such as the infrastructure diplomacy subject to shifts and open to interpretation. [R] [First article of a thematic issue on "China in the Mediterranean: an arena of strategic competition?", introduced, pp. 685-703, by Emilie TRAN and Yahia H ZOUBIR. See also Abstr. 74.1183, 1281, 1283, 1289, 1307]
74.1306 ZHANG Li —
Despite many studies having investigated journalism and media transformation in China in recent years, how Chinese media communicate international issues to its public, and particularly its relations with government policies, remains an underexplored area. Although the extent and quality of the relationship between the EU and China has developed fast over the past 20 years, the crises, such as the financial crisis, Eurozone debt crisis, refugee crisis, Brexit, and COVID-19 that the EU has faced have had a negative impact on Chinese perceptions of the EU. Adopting framing theory, this paper focuses on the role of, and the challenges to, Chinese media organizations in communicating the Eurozone crisis and the European refugee crisis to the Chinese public. The study uses content analysis and semi-structured interviews to explore how Chinese journalists and editors balanced journalistic professionalism and the national interest in framing the EU crises. This balance aimed to reduce to a minimum the negative impact of the crises on perceptions, thereby securing domestic support and the government’s closer ties with the EU. [R] [See Abstr. 74.1089]
74.1307 ZOUBIR, Yahia H. —
This article analyses the evolution of China’s political and economic relations with the Greater Maghreb States (Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia), a major part of the Southern Mediterranean that has attracted foreign powers. It discusses how China has gradually incorporated the Southern Mediterranean states into the New Silk Road through bilateral and multilateral relations, strategic partnerships, and the development of interconnectivity not only in the Southern Mediterranean but also onto the adjacent Sahel. Notwithstanding their dependence on Europe, the Maghreb countries’ economic relations with China have grown noticeably. Due to shared historical legacy and overlapping roles, Algeria has the closest ties with China, which signed in 2014 a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with Algeria, the first of its kind in the Middle East and North Africa. China strives for an environment in the region that is conducive to advancing its economic and national security interests. It seeks to enact that objective through its self-attributed roles as South-South collaborator and developer. The multilateral forums it has instituted contribute to its external altercasting of ‘developmental values’, to cultivate trust, and engage in greater socialisation with its partners. Through altercasting, Beijing expects its partners to assimilate and support its policies and accept China’s national role conceptions. [R] [See Abstr. 74.1305]
74.1308
Introduction by Martin COWARD and Andreja ZEVNIK. Articles by Shiera S. el-MALIK; Himadeep MUPPIDI; Benjamin MEICHES; Marta FERNÁNDEZ and Pedro Paulo DOS SANTOS SILVA; Lester SPENCE.