European Journal of International Relations

States often fight side-by-side on the battlefield. As detailed in our new dataset, Belligerents in Battle, 178 of the 480 major land battles fought during interstate wars waged between 1900 and 2003 involved at least one multinational coalition. Though coalition partners fight battles together to increase their odds of securing specific objectives, they vary significantly in their capacity to do so. Why? Drawing on organization theory insights, we argue that coalitions’ variable battlefield effectiveness is a function of interactions between their command structures and the resources each partner brings to the fight. Coalitions adopting command structures tailored to simultaneously facilitate the efficient use of partners’ variably sized resource contributions and discourage free-riding, shirking, and other counterproductive actions will fight effectively; those that employ inappropriate command structures will not. Evidence from Anglo-French operations during World War I and Axis operations during World War II strongly supports our claim. For scholars, our argument and findings about the importance of military organizational dynamics for the operation and performance of coalitions raise important new questions and provide potential insights about coalition formation, duration, and termination. For practitioners, it is significant that, since 1990, 36 of 49 of major battles in interstate wars have involved at least one coalition and the majority of those coalitions have been, like the cases we study, ad hoc in nature. Understanding how command arrangements affect performance and getting organization right at the outset of wars is increasingly important.

Existing research shows that peace after civil wars is more stable with peacekeepers present. Yet, violence persists in many postwar contexts, and although postwar violence is often strategic and closely linked to the faultlines of the preceding war, we know little about the impact of peacekeepers on such violence. What we know, moreover, focuses on the former combatants, while this study shows that the majority of deaths in postwar violence are inflicted by other armed actors. This is a challenge for peacekeepers who – for mandate or capacity reasons – usually focus on the warring parties. I argue that the impact of peacekeepers on postwar violence hinges on the extent to which they fill a public security gap after war, since responsibility for violence not covered by a mission’s mandate lies with the often dysfunctional security agencies of the state. To test this I use a novel spatial approach to generate data that captures the manifold manifestations of violence across different postwar contexts. I find that only UN police – with their broader effect on public security – mitigate postwar violence generally. UN troops have some impact on civilian targeting by former combatants but no such effect could be identified for violence by other armed actors. The findings highlight the importance of peacekeeping police at a time when the modus operandi and capacity of UN police have been questioned, but also the importance of accounting for a multitude of violent actors when analysing the impact of international interventions more generally.

De facto states, such as Somaliland (Somalia), are unrecognized separatist enclaves that display characteristics of statehood but lack an international legal status. To acquire domestic and external legitimacy, these actors engage in a wide range of governance practices: they set up military and police forces; executive, legislative, and judicial branches; hospitals; schools; banks; or social security networks. In spite of the obvious gains that can be accrued through the establishment of a complex governance architecture, de facto states exhibit great variation in the range of statelike institutions that they build: some, like Luhansk People’s Republic (Ukraine), put together a rudimentary governance apparatus, while others, like Transnistria (Moldova), manage to construct a complex system of rule. What explains the variation in governance practices across these separatist enclaves? Using original data on governance institutions across all de facto states (1945–2016), this study offers an empirical examination of the key factors that shape separatists’ incentives to supply governance. The findings reveal that de facto state separatists are less likely to provide governance when they have access to lootable mineral resources but are more likely to do so when they receive external military support, when peacekeepers are present, when they have access to relatively immobile assets, when they adopt a Marxist ideology, and when they control the territory for a long time. The findings help us better understand the conditions under which armed nonstate actors supplant sovereign states as de facto authorities and successfully institutionalize their rule.

Why are acts of organized resistance associated with coups? Inspired by the Arab Spring, a large literature suggests that militaries confronted with civil resistance tend to side with protesters and oust their government. In the historically most coup-prone environment of insurgencies, however, alliances between the military and protesters are implausible because soldiers suspect insurgents behind social dissent. Disentangling different types of resistance, this article analyzes whether and how strikes, demonstrations, riots, and guerrilla attacks affect the military’s disposition and ability to stage a coup during counterinsurgencies. We argue that only strikes trigger coup attempts. Soldiers interpret strikes as manifestations of a strengthening subversive enemy that threatens their victory over insurgents, while economic elites support a coup in the hope that the military will terminate costly walkouts. This interest alignment fosters military takeovers. We provide case-study evidence from Cold War Argentina and Venezuela to show our suggested mechanism at work. Demonstrating the scope of our argument, we quantitatively analyze coup attempts in counterinsurgency worldwide (1950–2005). Results show that strikes increase wartime coup risk, whereas demonstrations, riots, and guerrilla attacks do not. The findings highlight the backfiring potential of nonviolent resistance with important implications for post-coup political orders and democratization prospects.

The International Committee of the Red Cross traditionally seeks to protect and assist victims of armed conflict. Over the past 10 years, however, the International Committee of the Red Cross and several other major international humanitarian agencies have turned their attention to situations of urban violence that fall short of the international humanitarian law thresholds for armed conflict. This article examines the institutional consequences of expanding the International Committee of the Red Cross mandate to include urban violence, to make a three-fold argument. First, the incorporation of urban violence into its mandate has led to significant and surprising shifts in the organization’s humanitarian boundaries: from eschewing any effort to prevent or reduce conflict and prioritising neutrality and dialogue with all parties to conflict, the International Committee of the Red Cross has begun engaging in violence-prevention and violence-reduction activities, compromising its neutrality and limiting dialogue with some armed groups. Second, because the International Committee of the Red Cross is such an important and influential actor in international humanitarianism, these shifts in its boundaries have the potential to transform definitions of humanitarianism. Third, these shifts may serve to undermine the moral authority of the International Committee of the Red Cross to persuade combatants in international humanitarian law contexts to comply with international humanitarian law, irrespective of the rightness or wrongness of their or their opponents’ goals. Ultimately, then, they may erode the distinction between jus ad bellum and jus in bello in the laws of war.

This paper addresses a misconception in the popular contrast between amoral realism and just war theory and clarifies the linguistic source of the misconception by disentangling the two interpretations of necessity. First, we can, and should, distinguish the Thucydidean “causal” conception of necessity, which is the basis for just war thinkers when they attack realist thought, from the Machiavellian “telic” conception. The paper, then, proceeds to reconsider the relationship between realism and morality through a textual analysis of representative contemporary realist theories and clarifies that their necessity judgments contain both causal and telic meanings. According to those supporting the moral view, the pursuit of national interest and security can be interpreted as emerging from their sense of moral duty. Realists are, even if partially, in line with just war theorists in evaluating the moral appropriateness of a war in itself and its methods. Finally, the paper explores the substantive disagreement between the two camps regarding the principle of discrimination, to demonstrate why they should still be assumed to have separate theories. In conclusion, their difference lies in not whether they place importance on the necessity judgment, among other considerations on the morality of war, but the extent to which they do so.

Why did IR pluralism end with so many incommensurable camps? (How) can IR be demarcated as a discipline where these camps can find common ground for dialogue without glossing over theoretical pluralism? To answer the first question, the paper argues that Morgenthau’s critique of IR as social science can explain the proliferation of camps in IR pluralism that are incommensurable and cannot engage in dialogue. By transcending the dilemma of politics as highlighted in Morgenthau’s critique of social science, theories today are ideological camps that bestow on morality an ideological function that justifies their powers-that-be that serve particular means/ends hierarchies. This leads to the proliferation of empirical causal analyses that cannot be debated, since they rely on political interests that theory ideologically justifies and offers internal validation. To avoid this problem, the paper answers the second question by proposing to demarcate the discipline through Morgenthau’s concept of ‘interest defined as power’. It argues that demarcating the discipline on the basis of this concept opens room for engaging in dialogue in IR through leaving open the normative debate of means and ends, and thus acts as a bulwark against the proliferation of ideological camps, while promoting theoretical pluralism.

One empirical regularity in International Relations appears consistent: democracies rarely fight one another. However, this article maintains that the democratic peace comes with hidden costs. Democratic regimes are more pacifistic toward each other, but regimes formed through democratic breakdown are more bellicose than other authoritarian regimes. I argue that autocracies established through democratic breakdown are especially aggressive because they select leaders who tend to be impatient with democratic norms, and these leaders can leverage nationalism and mass mobilization fomented during the democratic era to support international aggression. Additionally, I argue that these factors interact with important institutional features that vary across authoritarian regimes. Post-democratic leaders lacking institutional constraints on their executive authority should be more aggressive than constrained post-democratic leaders and other unconstrained autocrats. Statistical analysis of militarized interstate disputes demonstrates that autocracies are more belligerent following democratic breakdown, especially under institutional conditions favorable to leaders instigating the breakdown. We should therefore be wary of urging democratization based on democratic peace when democracy has a high chance of reverting and focus more effort on ensuring that current democracies do not break down.

Loyalty is part of the glue that holds relationships together in times of difficulty. Surprisingly, however, hardly any literature exists on the role of loyalty in International Relations. The concept is routinely invoked – not least the notion of the ‘loyal ally’ – but typically only in passing and often based on questionable assumptions about the nature and effect of loyalty. Building on literature in moral philosophy on the ethics of loyalty, this paper presents loyalty as persistently partial behaviour driven by affective attachments. Such attachments are, in turn, driven mainly by a sense of shared social identity but also the interaction between subjects and objects of loyalty. I show how this understanding of loyalty differs from how most political scientists use the concept and illustrate why it matters for the study of world politics.

The study of leadership in International Relations has followed two different paths: work on hegemony and work on different leadership types in international negotiations. Yet there is little overlap between them and no agreement on the distinctive features of leadership and what connects leaders and followers in a collective pursuit. This article critically engages with both literatures and offers a reconceptualization of leadership as a form of legitimated asymmetrical influence that is marked off from domination and performs an important social function in facilitating collective agency towards common goals in a given community. This account is then operationalised in relation to multilateral negotiations to examine and clarify the roles of the United States and China in the negotiation of the mitigation provisions of the Paris Agreement. It is shown that the US under the Obama administration performed a sustained but largely transactional leadership role in bringing the parties to an agreement while China’s role was predominantly that of a defensive co-operator but with significant moments of shared leadership with the US towards the endgame. The analysis shows that, despite growing international expectations, China, unlike the United States, did not see its role as leading the world.

Realism has long been criticized by global IR, but the former can contribute to the latter and thereby improve explanations of international relations. Global IR criticizes that realism supposedly applies universally, sidelines non-Western perspectives, and misunderstands much of foreign policy, grand strategy, and international affairs. Reviewing global IR’s case against realism, however, exposes avenues for realism to complement global IR. Realism can contribute to a more global understanding of international relations through its most recent variant: neoclassical realism (NCR). This newest realism allows for contextualization and historicization of drivers of state behavior. It can embrace and has already been engaging global questions and cases; global thought and concepts; and global perspectives and scholarship. Mapping 149 NCR publications produced by 96 scholars reveals a slow shift in knowledge production away from North America toward Europe and to a lesser extent Asia and Africa. Creative research designs and scholarly collaboration can put realism in fruitful conversation with global IR. This has implications for theory building and inclusive knowledge production in realism, global IR, and the wider discipline. Only when we discover new avenues for realists to travel can they contribute to a more global IR. In turn, when global IR scholars engage realism, they may be better able to address the Western versus non-Western dichotomies they challenge.

This paper breaks new ground by looking at the role played by merchant empires, such as the Dutch East India Company (VOC), in shaping European interactions with the non-Western world. It offers a critique of the English School’s state-centric narrative of the expansion of international society by looking to how the VOC and its expansion in Asia influenced developments within Europe. As a non-state actor, the VOC developed networks of trade and power, which were intertwined with the Dutch struggle against Iberian hegemony. As this paper shows, the development of international law, sovereign equality and European international society needs to be understood as being constituted through these colonial encounters. Looking to the VOC as a merchant empire presents a more nuanced approach to the expansion narrative that recognises that states, empires and early modern companies developed in a co-evolutionary manner. This critical approach calls for the recognition of international society as an ongoing process formed by the contestation of hybrid cultures.

We investigate the nature and significance of the vital but neglected “company-states” in helping to facilitate the move from contained regional international systems to the first genuinely global international system. Historically, actors like the Dutch and English East India Companies were crucial in spearheading the first wave of European expansion in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Conceptually, company-states broaden our understanding of international actors. At a time when intra-European politics favored gradual institutional convergence on the sovereign state, the demands of extra-European expansion meanwhile gave rise to diverse competing institutions. Company-states succeeded in an era of weak sovereign states because of their relative efficiency in managing the transaction costs and principal-agent challenges of intercontinental trade and rule. Conversely, company-states later declined as they succumbed to the effects of sharpening worldwide geopolitical competition, and were displaced by increasingly powerful new European empire-building projects. This argument advances earlier work on the creation of the international system by eschewing Eurocentrism and state-centrism, and foregrounding diversity and hybridization.