Journal articles on the topic 'International relations theory; complexity theory; order'
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1
KURKI, MILJA. "Causes of a divided discipline: rethinking the concept of cause in International Relations theory." Review of International Studies 32, no. 2 (April 2006): 189–216. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s026021050600698x.
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During the last decades ‘causation’ has been a deeply divisive concept in International Relations (IR) theory. While the positivist mainstream has extolled the virtues of causal analysis, many post-positivist theorists have rejected the aims and methods of causal explanation in favour of ‘constitutive’ theorising. It is argued here that the debates on causation in IR have been misleading in that they have been premised on, and have helped to reify, a rather narrow empiricist understanding of causal analysis. It is suggested that in order to move IR theorising forward we need to deepen and broaden our understandings of the concept of cause. Thereby, we can radically reinterpret the causal-constitutive theory divide in IR, as well as redirect the study of world politics towards more constructive multi-causal and complexity-sensitive analyses.
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Kahraman, Filiz, Nikhil Kalyanpur, and Abraham L. Newman. "Domestic courts, transnational law, and international order." European Journal of International Relations 26, no. 1_suppl (September 2020): 184–208. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1354066120938843.
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This article revisits the relationship between law and international order. Building on legal research concerned with transnational law, we argue that domestic courts are endogenous sites of international political change. National courts are constitutive of international order by generating new rules, adjudicating transnational disputes, and bounding state sovereignty. We illustrate the ways in which national courts create new political opportunities by updating three core international relations theory debates. Recognizing the role of domestic courts as global adjudicators enhances our understanding of regime complexity and international forum shopping. By re-interpreting aspects of conventional international law, and engaging in cross-border dialogue, domestic courts challenge our understanding of international diffusion and judicialization. By redefining the boundaries of state authority and sovereignty, national courts create potential for conflict and cooperation. A transnational law perspective illustrates the porous nature between domestic and international spheres, highlighting how domestic courts have become adjudicators for state and non-state actors that operate across mainstream levels of analysis. Our approach calls on scholars to move beyond analyzing national legal systems as mechanisms of compliance to instead consider domestic courts as co-creators of international order.
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ISH-SHALOM, PIKI. "Theoreticians' obligation of transparency: when parsimony, reflexivity, transparency and reciprocity meet." Review of International Studies 37, no. 3 (September 1, 2010): 973–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0260210510001026.
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AbstractOne way to describe the role of the social sciences (international relations included) is by relating to its function of rendering the social world transparent. This is a major conception of moral significance. The social world is a world of moral subjects. To render this world of moral subjects transparent involves exposing the inner states of the human mind. Moreover, according to the moral principle of reciprocity, those who make others transparent should be also transparent themselves. Furthermore, as facts do not order themselves objectively into parsimonious theory, the social scientist requires an extra-theoretical mechanism to classify and filter out data on the way to constructing theory. This extra-mechanism comprises the scientist'sa prioriassumptions of normative, ontological, and epistemological types:a prioriassumptions that constitute the inner states of the theoretician's mind and necessarily precede theory. It is argued here that according to the moral and social principle of reciprocity, theoreticians have an individual and communal moral obligation to ensure that theory and theorising are transparent; an obligation attainable and preceded by strong individual and communal reflexivity. The extra-theoretical mechanism, and especially the ideological inclinations and normative convictions of theoreticians that allows parsimonious theory to be constructed from unbounded social complexity, should be made visible to the public.
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Donnelly, Jack. "The Elements of the Structures of International Systems." International Organization 66, no. 4 (October 2012): 609–43. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0020818312000240.
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AbstractStructural international theory has become largely a matter of elaborating “the effects of anarchy.” Simple hunter-gatherer band societies, however, perfectly fit the Waltzian model of anarchic orders but do not experience security dilemmas or warfare, pursue relative gains, or practice self-help balancing. They thus demonstrate that “the effects of anarchy,” where they exist, are not effectsof anarchy—undermining mainstream structural international theory as it has been practiced for the past three decades. Starting over, I ask what one needs to differentiate how actors are arranged in three simple anarchic orders: forager band societies, Hobbesian states of nature, and great power states systems. The answer turns out to look nothing like the dominant tripartite (ordering principle, functional differentiation, distribution of capabilities) conception. Based on these cases, I present a multidimensional framework of the elements of social and political structures that dispenses with anarchy, is truly structural (in contrast to the independent-variable agent-centric models of Waltz and Wendt), and highlights complexity, diversity, and regular change in the structures of international systems.
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Acharya, Amitav. "From Heaven to Earth: ‘Cultural Idealism’ and ‘Moral Realism’ as Chinese Contributions to Global International Relations." Chinese Journal of International Politics 12, no. 4 (2019): 467–94. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/cjip/poz014.
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Abstract The discipline of International Relations (IR) is increasingly being criticized for ignoring and marginalizing states and societies outside of the core countries of the West. The idea of a ‘Global IR’ has been proposed since 2014 a pathway toward a bridging the ‘West and the Rest’ divide and thus develop a more inclusive discipline, recognizing its multiple and diverse foundations. At the same time, there is a trend toward developing theories, or ‘schools’, on a national or regional basis, the leading examples of which come from China. This article examines some theoretical constructs emerging in China, such as the ‘Relational Theory’ of Qin Yaqing, who is the foundational scholar in the ‘Chinese School of IR’, the Tianxia (‘all under Heaven’) concept as applied to IR and world order by Zhao Tingyang, and ‘Moral Realism’ of Yan Xuetong, who is the leading figure of the ‘Tsinghua School’. To many scholars, both inside and outside China, the relationship among the various Chinese approaches and their overall contribution to the IR field remain unclear. Without claiming to capture all their nuances and complexity, this article hopes to stimulate a conversation among scholars, Chinese and foreign, with a view to generate greater clarity and highlight their importance to the study of IR. I argue that while making important contributions, the Chinese approaches to International Relations Theory (IRT) also face a number of challenges. This includes the need for them to offer more convincing proof that the concepts and explanations they propose can apply to other societies and to IR more generally. Moreover, there is the need for these approaches to attract a critical mass of followers worldwide, stimulate a research agenda for other, especially younger scholars, and distance themselves from the official Chinese policy framings. The Global IR approach offers a helpful framework for highlighting and perhaps addressing these challenges, especially in avoiding cultural exceptionalism and ensuring their wider relevance beyond China.
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SAWARD, MICHAEL. "Shape-Shifting Representation." American Political Science Review 108, no. 4 (November 2014): 723–36. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0003055414000471.
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Shape-shifting representation is common in practice but largely shunned in theoretical and empirical analysis. This article resurrects, defines, and explores shape-shifting and closely linked concepts and practices such as shape-retaining. It generates new concepts of representative positioning and patterning in order to aid our understanding, and makes the case for placing this critical phenomenon front and center in the analysis of political representation. It examines crucial empirical and normative implications for our understanding of representation, including the argument that shape-shifting representation is not intrinsically undesirable. Developing the theory of shape-shifting representation can prompt a new level of analytical purchase on the challenge of explaining and evaluating representation's vitality and complexity.
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Mukha, Viktoriia. "The Institution of a Referendum in the United Kingdom in the Context of the Political and Legal Fundamentals of Brexit." Історико-політичні проблеми сучасного світу, no. 43 (June 15, 2021): 167–78. http://dx.doi.org/10.31861/mhpi2021.43.167-178.
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The article clarifies the essence and potential of the Referendum Institute in the UK in the context of the political and legal foundations of Brexit. The complexity of the subject of scientific research led to the use of an interdisciplinary approach. The article used general scientific methods of analysis and synthesis, historical and comparative methods. It has been proven that the British referendum on EU membership has provoked a lot of discussion about the expediency and consequences of Brexit. The results of the Brexit referendum will affect the transformation of the system of international relations and the formation of the international order. Brexit has many legal and constitutional aspects and problematic consequences. It has been established that referendums in Great Britain are not legally binding and the voting results are consultative, not mandatory for the country's Parliament on which the last word remains, since only the Parliament has legislative competence. In theory, representatives of the authorities could legally neglect the will of the people. Consequently, the decision to leave the EU lies not only in the plane of law, but also in politics.
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Artamonov, V., V. Lukin, and T. Musienko. "Strategic culture: to the question of the evolution theory." National Security and Strategic Planning 2020, no. 3 (September 30, 2020): 5–15. http://dx.doi.org/10.37468/2307-1400-2020-3-5-15.
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Status of the issue. The development of the theory of strategic culture began more than seven decades ago. To date, the theory has evolved from the theoretical justification of the behavioral styles of elites representing institutions and security services, to the development of models for the use of national strategic cultures as an important tool for political struggle at the global and regional levels. It should be noted that Russian political science is significantly lagging behind foreign science in the theoretical understanding of the problem and in the development of effective models for countering the Anglo-Saxon strategic culture, which has an openly aggressive Russophobic content.
Results. In the course of political analysis of the evolution of the theory of strategic culture, four stages of its development and their features were identified.
At the first stage-the 40-60s of the XX century, the main content was the study of national styles in strategic planning in the field of national security, caused by a military clash during the World War II. Stereotyping of the initial grounds and a certain ethnocentrism as the main features of the stage, were subjected to reasonable criticism and stimulated the further development of theoretical provisions of the problem.
At the second stage – the 70-90s of the XX century researchers developed a methodology for structural and functional analysis, institutionalism and modeling of competitive relations between regional actors. This was caused by the advent of the era of nuclear deterrence.
The third stage of the wave of research on strategic culture is formed at the turn of the XX and XXI centuries. Theoretical and methodological research is carried out during this period in the framework of a critical rethinking of previous approaches and the formation of a trend towards neorealism. On the basis of comparative analysis, distinctions and justifications of different types of strategic culture and corresponding strategic thinking, as well as the behavior of actors, were identified.
At the present stage of theory evolution, the main attention of researchers is focused on the dynamics of changing strategic culture under the influence of threats and risks of globalization and specific events, identifying competing narratives within countries themselves, searching for effective models for changing existing national strategic cultures in the interests of the dominant regional strategic cultures – Anglo-Saxon, European, Asian (Chinese). The effectiveness of applying the results of Western research programs in political practice is proved by the process of reformatting, for example, the Ukrainian strategic culture with an anti-Russian trend.
Application. Political science – in order to continue the debate on strategic culture, the further development of the theory in the light of modern conditions of the clash of strategic cultures on a global level, and also political practice of compromise to minimize the challenges, risks and threats in international relations at the regional and global levels.
Conclusions. Further development of the theory of strategic culture is actualized by the sharp aggravation of the confrontation between national and regional strategic cultures in different geopolitical strategic regions of the planet.
This confrontation is caused by two main factors: the presence and strengthening of a number of national strategic cultures and the desire to dominate individual national and regional strategic cultures.
In the context of using national strategic cultures as an important tool of political struggle, the development of models for interaction of strategic cultures based on compromise can help to minimize risks in international relations.
The level of modern theoretical understanding of the problem does not correspond to the complexity of tasks to ensure national, regional and global security.
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Cerny, Philip G., and Alex Prichard. "The new anarchy: Globalisation and fragmentation in world politics." Journal of International Political Theory 13, no. 3 (June 20, 2017): 378–94. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1755088217713765.
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Modern International Relations theory has consistently underestimated the depth of the problem of anarchy in world politics. Contemporary theories of globalisation bring this into bold relief. From this perspective, the complexity of transboundary networks and hierarchies, economic sectors, ethnic and religious ties, civil and cross-border wars, and internally disaggregated and transnationally connected state actors, leads to a complex and multidimensional restructuring of the global, the local and the uneven connections in between. We ought to abandon the idea of ‘high’ and ‘low’ politics, ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ once and for all. This does not remove the problem of anarchy but rather deepens it, involving multidimensional tensions and contradictions variously described as ‘functional differentiation’, ‘multiscalarity’, ‘fragmegration’, disparate ‘landscapes’, the ‘new security dilemma’ and ‘neomedievalism’. Approaching anarchy from the perspective of plural competing claims to authority and power forces us to think again about the nature of global order and the virtues of anarchy therein. Will the long-term outcome be the emergence of a more decentralised, pluralistic world order or a quagmire of endemic conflict and anomie?
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Cha, Taesuh. "Re-reading Friedrich Hayek and Karl Polanyi in the Late-Modern Condition of Fragility." Political Studies Review 15, no. 3 (June 10, 2016): 391–403. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1478929916644943.
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The cardinal role of complexity in Friedrich Hayek’s theory of the market has hardly gone unnoticed. Indeed, there is now a considerable corpus of literature that has established the importance of spontaneity as a central concept around which neoliberal economic theory revolves. However, as William Connolly analyzes, its closed conception of economic processes simplifies real economic volatilities and ignores both modes of self-organization and creativity found in democracy and social movements that periodically irrupt into market processes. This article builds upon this critique of neoliberalism and employs Karl Polanyi’s genealogy of modern capitalism to understand historical imbrications between the market and the social and their contribution to the fragility of capitalism. Polanyi’s notions of “(dis-)embeddedness” and the “double movement” not only show us a more “complex” view of modern political economy but also provide us with important lessons for political responses to the recent crisis of neoliberal capitalism. Connolly WE (2013) The Fragility of Things: Self-Organizing Processes, Neoliberal Fantasies, and Democratic Activism. Durham: Duke University Press. Hayek F (1973) Rules and Order. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hayek F (1976) The Mirage of Social Justice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Polanyi K (1944) The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time. Boston: Beacon Press.
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Vuong, Thanh H. "Théorie des contextes et relations internationales : Départ de la première guerre d’Indochine." Études internationales 17, no. 3 (April 12, 2005): 571–97. http://dx.doi.org/10.7202/702047ar.
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Bateson's "Eurêka" has been his application of Russell and Whitehead's theory of types to the social sciences. They had postulated a discontinuity between the levels of the members of a class and a class of classes and so on. Hence a class may not be a member of itself. The cat scratches and the word "cat" does not bite. Confusion between levels, or the signifier and the signified, or the map and the territory, or the menu and the meal, is a sign of disorder. Having been introduced to Bateson's ecology, Anthony Wilden has formulated a theory of contexts, already present in "System and Structure". In order to avoid simplicity through the flattening of social and organic levels into inorganic levels of matter-energy, the theory of contexts suggest the organisation of constraints, complexites, or levels of reality into levels of logical types, using the rule of extinction. It goes on to suggest the use of the rule of commutation to eliminate spurious similarities and inappropriate symmetries which lead to oppositions and Imaginary "contradictions". It is suggested to use Korzybski and Hayakawa's rule of communication in order to get over conflicts due to misperception. To illustrate all of this, we propose to dismanthe the processes which have led to the misunderstanding behind the first Indochinese war of 1946-1954. From one misunderstanding to another, the VPA (Vietnam People's Army), in the 1980's, mobilised at the Kmer-Siamese border, at the door of Thailand who since 1939 has claimed to be the land of the Thais and heir to the Champa empire which was established in 192 and, soon after 1471, was dissolved by the "gnawing" of the Vietnamese peasants in their "long march" towards the South. The most revolting of working, conjugal and international disputes is that which emerge from misperceptions where each party is convinced of its own good will and of the foul bad will of the other. A mutual consent regarding the context, that of metacommunication, may lead to a common signification (consensus) of beings, events and objects.
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Pérez-Jiménez, Mario J. "The P versus NP Problem from the Membrane Computing View." European Review 22, no. 1 (February 2014): 18–33. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1062798713000598.
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In the last few decades several computing models using powerful tools from Nature have been developed (because of this, they are known as bio-inspired models). Commonly, the space-time trade-off method is used to develop efficient solutions to computationally hard problems. According to this, implementation of such models (in biological, electronic, or any other substrate) would provide a significant advance in the practical resolution of hard problems. Membrane Computing is a young branch of Natural Computing initiated by Gh. Păun at the end of 1998. It is inspired by the structure and functioning of living cells, as well as from the organization of cells in tissues, organs, and other higher order structures. The devices of this paradigm, called P systems or membrane systems, constitute models for distributed, parallel and non-deterministic computing. In this paper, a computational complexity theory within the framework of Membrane Computing is introduced. Polynomial complexity classes associated with different models of cell-like and tissue-like membrane systems are defined and the most relevant results obtained so far are presented. Different borderlines between efficiency and non-efficiency are shown, and many attractive characterizations of the P ≠ NP conjecture within the framework of this bio-inspired and non-conventional computing model are studied.
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Van den Stock, Ady. "Beyond the Warring States." Asian Studies 9, no. 2 (May 7, 2021): 49–77. http://dx.doi.org/10.4312/as.2021.9.2.49-77.
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The intellectual impact of the First World War in China is often understood as having led to a disenchantment with the West and a discrediting of the authority of “science”, while at the same time ushering in a renewed sense of cultural as well as national “awakening”. Important developments such as the May Fourth Movement, the rise of Chinese Marxism, and the emergence of modern Confucianism have become integral parts of the narrative surrounding the effects of the “European War” in China, and bear witness to the contested relation between tradition and modernity in twentieth-century Chinese thought. Through a case study of a number of wartime and post-war texts written by the “cultural conservative” thinker and publicist Du Yaquan (1873–1933), this paper tries to draw attention to the complexity and occasional ambiguity of responses to the “Great War” in modern Chinese intellectual history. More specifically, the following pages offer an analysis of Du’s critique of “materialism” in the context of his quest for social freedom and cultural continuity, his enduring commitment to scientific notions of social evolution and political governance, and his approach to the relations among war, the nation-state, the individual, and the international interstate order developed against the background of the First World War.
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Wamberg, Jacob, and Mads Rosendahl Thomsen. "The Posthuman in the Anthropocene: A Look through the Aesthetic Field." European Review 25, no. 1 (October 3, 2016): 150–65. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1062798716000405.
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The posthuman summons up a complex of both tangible challenges for humanity and a potential shift to a larger, more comprehensive historical perspective on humankind. In this article we will first examine the posthuman in relation to the macro-historical framework of the Anthropocene. Adopting key notions from complexity theory, we argue that the earlier counter-figures of environmental catastrophe (Anthropocene entropy) and corporeal enhancement (transhuman negentropy) should be juxtaposed and blended. Furthermore, we argue for the relevance of a comprehensive aesthetical perspective in a discussion of posthuman challenges. Whereas popular visual culture and many novels illustrate posthuman dilemmas (e.g. the superhero’s oscillation between superhuman and human) in a respect for humanist naturalist norms, avant-garde art performs a posthuman alienation of the earlier negentropic centres of art, a problematization of the human body and mind, that is structurally equivalent to the environmental modification of negentropic rise taking place in the Anthropocene. In a spatial sprawl from immaterial information to material immersion, the autonomous human body and mind, the double apex of organic negentropy, are thus undermined through a dialectics of entropy and order, from abstraction’s indeterminacy to Surrealism’s fragmentation of the body and its interlacing with inorganic things.
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Hofmann, Stephanie C., and Benjamin Martill. "The party scene: new directions for political party research in foreign policy analysis." International Affairs 97, no. 2 (March 2021): 305–22. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiaa165.
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Abstract Research on political parties and foreign policy has grown in recent years in response to disciplinary and real-world changes. But party research still bears the imprint of earlier scepticism about the role of parties. The result is scholarship which is disaggregated, which avoids difficult cases for parties, and which has focused more on showing that parties matter relative to structural accounts of foreign policy-making. This article takes stock of recent research on political parties, party politics and their role in foreign policy-making. We argue that it is time for party research not only to embrace the question of whether parties matter but also how, when and where they matter. This requires a move away from most-likely cases and the realist foil towards an embrace of the complexity of party positions. Building on International Relations, comparative politics and foreign policy analysis scholarship, we suggest four avenues deserving of greater scholarly focus: 1) ideological multidimensionality; 2) parties as organizations and the role of entrepreneurs; 3) parties as transnational foreign policy actors; and 4) the interaction between parties and the changing global order. We propose how these literatures can help identify new research questions, contribute to theory development and help define scope conditions. This will hopefully help scholars establish benchmarks for judging the efficacy of parties in foreign policy-making.
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Trubnikov, D. "Ordoliberal Foundations of European Economic Policy: Myths and Reality." World Economy and International Relations 65, no. 4 (2021): 50–57. http://dx.doi.org/10.20542/0131-2227-2021-65-4-50-57.
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Received 20.09.2020. The theme of the role and place of ordoliberal views in contemporary European economic policy has attracted attention of many researchers. While some scholars raise their concerns about the ongoing ordoliberalization of Europe and criticize the ordoliberal foundations of the European Union, the others call for the restoration of the ordoliberal principles in economic policy and argue about the necessity of ordoliberal reforms. This article is focused on this discussion and aims to assess the various arguments that use the ordoliberal issue to justify their positions. The analysis leads to the conclusion that this discussion very often faces misinterpretations of the main outlook of the ordoliberal theory, what can be explained by the dominant role of Germany in the European political scene, complexity of the relationship between ordoliberalism and the social market economy model, as well as by political, economic and ideological motives. For ordoliberals, the main task for the state was to create and maintain a competitive order that will allow market forces to distribute the wealth according to merits and will result in what can be called achievement of social justice. Meanwhile, it has become apparent that European policymakers have noticeably eschewed the competitive order proposals, and modern arrangements of the European economy might be better characterized in terms of regulatory capitalism and managed competition. Moreover, it can be argued that the raising concentration of economic power makes the appeals for the return to the ordoliberal principles very reasonable. The Freiburg school ideas continue to be a real alternative not only to the neoclassical mainstream, but also to the socialist wishes to control and direct economic and social processes.
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Shevchenko, A. Yе, and S. V. Kudin. "Variety of theoretical approaches to legal interpretation." INTERPRETATION OF LAW: FROM THE THEORY TO THE PRACTICE, no. 12 (2021): 109–14. http://dx.doi.org/10.33663/2524-017x-2021-12-17.
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The article explores the variety of theoretical approaches to legal interpretation. It has been determined that the variety of approaches to legal interpretation is due to the complexity of the nature of the origin of this phenomenon, the conditions for the development of post-non-classical science, and the recent influence of the paradigm of comparism, which assumes pluralism of opinions and ideas in legal research. It was found that in modern science there are four traditional theoretical approaches to the essence of legal interpretation. It has been determined that the content of the first approach is revealed within the framework of legal hermeneutics through a number of categories. The essence of the second approach (formal dogmatic or static) is expressed in the fact that the subject of interpretation must strictly and rigorously follow the letter of the law, establish only the meaning of the normative legal act, which the lawmaking body enshrined in it at the time of the publication of the act. That is why normative legal acts cannot, through interpretation, adapt to the changing economic, social, political, cultural internal and external conditions of public life. It is proved that the essence of the dynamic theoretical approach lies in the fact that the subject of legal interpretation adapts the normative legal act to the changes that occur in various social relations. It was found that there is a contradiction between the dynamic and static approaches in legal interpretation, which is reflected in the traditionally called objective and subjective theories of interpretation. According to the subjective theory, the purpose of legal interpretation is to establish the «will of the legislator», and according to the objective theory – to establish the «will of the law». It has been substantiated that the essence of the activity approach is that interpretation is considered as a special kind of legal activity aimed at understanding and clarifying the content of legal texts. The authors of this article point out that in order to establish the true nature of legal interpretation, the methodological foundations of the study should be presented much broader and more diverse, and not be limited only to traditional approaches. When studying it, a comprehensive, integrative approach is needed, which, based on the relevance of interdisciplinary relationships, would include logical, language (linguistic), philosophical, sociological, psychological, axiological (value), ethical, legal, historical, economic, political, mathematical and other substantiation of legal interpretation. Keywords: diversity, theoretical approach, legal interpretation, interpretive practice, integrative approach
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Srivastava, Jayati, and Ananya Sharma. "International Relations Theory and World Order." South Asian Survey 21, no. 1-2 (March 2014): 20–34. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0971523115592471.
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Nygren, Anja. "Competing Claims on Disputed Lands: The Complexity of Resource Tenure in the Nicaraguan Interior." Latin American Research Review 39, no. 1 (2004): 123–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0023879100038978.
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This essay analyzes the complexity and contradiction of resource-tenure regimes on tropical forest frontiers by drawing on a case study carried out in the department of Río San Juan, southeastern Nicaragua. The main attention is given to competing claims over productive resources and to contradictory relationships between the diverse modalities of resource control. The resource struggles emerging in Río San Juan are analyzed in the context of larger political-economic and socio-legal processes to understand the wider relations of politics and power that affect local resource access. The main goal is to reveal how control over resources is defined and contested in the everyday reality of legal pluralism where multiple legal orders intersect in people's lives, and where the conflicts over whose law applies, and who gets what resources and why, have increasing significance.
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Kelly, Laura. "Poverty and International Relations Theory." Politikon: The IAPSS Journal of Political Science 10 (November 1, 2005): 23–33. http://dx.doi.org/10.22151/politikon.10.2.
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World Poverty. Why has this problem persisted through years of unprecedented economic growth throughout most of the world? This paper proposes that the problem is theoretical. The main theories, such as Realism and Modernization rely on fundamental assumptions such as international order through the maintenance of state power, or free market ideology, which serve to exacerbate, rather than solve, the problem of poverty. The result is either the misrepresentation of poverty, or the blatant ignorance of its existence by these dominant theories.
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Wendt, Alexander. "Bridging the theory/meta-theory gap in international relations." Review of International Studies 17, no. 4 (October 1991): 383–92. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0260210500112070.
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The field of international relations (IR) theory is something of a misnomer; since it is constituted by two distinct, though not unrelated, scholarly enterprises. Its core consists of first order theorizing about the structure and dynamics of the international system, and as such it attempts to contribute directly to our understanding of world politics in the form of substantive theories like realism, liberalism, and so on. The proliferation of such theories in recent years, however, has been a cause for some disciplinary concern (or celebration as the case may be), not least because the substantive disagreements between them are as often over what kinds of questions and answers are important or legitimate as they are over the 'facts of the matter'. This has helped open the door since the mid-1980s to a wave of second order or meta-theorizing in the field. The objective of this type of theorizing is also to increase our understanding of world politics, but it does so indirectly by focusing on the ontological and epistemological issues of what constitute important or legitimate questions and answers for IR scholarship, rather than on the structure and dynamics of the international system per se.
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Woyach, Robert B., Tong Whan Park, Wil Hout, Arie Kacowicz, William Reno, Iver B. Neumann, Hans-Henrik Holm, and Georg Sorensen. "International Relations Theory and the New World Order." Mershon International Studies Review 40, no. 2 (October 1996): 339. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/222798.
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Posner, Richard A. "JERVIS ON COMPLEXITY THEORY." Critical Review 24, no. 3 (September 2012): 367–73. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08913811.2012.767046.
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Bousquet, Antoine, and Simon Curtis. "Beyond models and metaphors: complexity theory, systems thinking and international relations." Cambridge Review of International Affairs 24, no. 1 (March 2011): 43–62. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09557571.2011.558054.
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Degterev, D., and I. Istomin. "System Modeling of International Relations." World Economy and International Relations 59, no. 11 (2015): 17–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.20542/0131-2227-2015-59-11-17-30.
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The article provides an overview of international and Russian literature on the genesis and development of System Research in IR studies, demonstrates the emergence of System Research in Russia and in the world, the development of the general theory of systems. It is shown that at the first stage, the representatives of natural sciences tried to identify the isomorphism between the international relations system and other systems (biological, physical). In this context, the attempts to form a general theory of international conflict could be viewed. It is noted that at the beginning of the 1970s, these attempts ended unsuccessfully in general. The second area of international relations system modeling is related to the work of structural realists, primarily K. Waltz and M. Kaplan. Despite the fact that in their papers the verbal analysis dominates over the formal international relations system model, they have made a significant contribution to the political science in perception of the systems theory. The paper also describes the system modeling in the context of the Neo-Marxist theory of international relations, first and foremost, in the meaning of the I. Wallerstein's world-system theory. Special attention is paid to the systemic research crisis in the IR science at the turn of 1980–1990s, also due to a sharp change in the international situation, and the transition from a predominantly deterministic world of the Cold War to the post-bipolar non-equilibrium international system. The authors clearly reveal the evolution of the international relations perception in terms of the systems theory. They also illustrate the intensification of the international system modeling in the XXIst century on the basis of a new methodology – via the use of the more sophisticated complexity theory (the theory of complex systems), as well as by adapting the sociological theory of structuration by A. Giddens in political sciences. Showing the most promising areas of the complexity theory practical application in the modeling of international relations – agent-based modeling and simulation of system dynamics, – the authors enumerate the most promising spheres for the system modeling in international studies.
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Boucher, David. "British Idealist International Theory." Hegel Bulletin 16, no. 01 (1995): 73–89. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0263523200003050.
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International relations theorists have long complained about the paucity of rigorous political philosophy in their discipline, and especially bemoan the lack of classic texts to guide them. It is suggested that with the exception of Thucydides, there is little exclusively concerned with International Relations, and nothing that international relations theorists have constructed to resemble the received canon comparable with its sister subject of political theory. Yet all of the major political theorists accommodate international relations in some way, and are invoked by contemporary international relations theorists as having something important to say. Contemporary international relations theory, however, is immersed in its own sense of self-importance, seeing the value of everything in utilitarian or practical terms. The desire to change the world, and not merely to understand it, predisposes the discipline to scale the obligatory heights of Machiavelli, Grotius, Kant, Hegel and Marx in order to pillage what is useful, and to ignore the attempts of philosophers more immediately at the root of modern international relations theory who addressed many of the questions currently thought important and which pointed the way to some of the contemporary answers. Hegel's ill-deserved, but not wholly unfounded, reputation as a brutal realist, and the association of Bosanquet and the rest of the British Idealists with German or Prussian philosophy during and between the two world wars in popular and learned journals, newspapers, and the publications of leading philosophers, including Hobhouse, Hobson, Dewey, Santayana, Laski, Delise Burns, Cole and Joad, have served to bury almost without trace a wealth of literature that applied what are now fashionably called communitarian principles to international questions. Even Chris Brown, who relates Hegel, Green and Bosanquet to the communitarian approach to international relations, ignores the fact that British idealists addressed the key issues of the possibility of extending the community to the international sphere and the establishment of supranational institutions.
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Zinov'eva, E., and A. Kazantsev. "Complexity of World Politics: Methodological Aspects." World Economy and International Relations, no. 4 (2015): 58–67. http://dx.doi.org/10.20542/0131-2227-2015-4-58-67.
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The article addresses the use of complexity theory in the analysis of international relations. Complexity theory points to the inherent unpredictability of world relations theories. The current international system has reached such complexity level of politics that it cannot be analyzed on the basis of linear rationality used in the international standard, which leads to non-deterministic causality. The article discusses the evolution and basic tenets of the complexity theory, approaches to the world politics analysis established within its framework. The complexity research methodology focuses on actors and their values, interests and beliefs, as well as on the nature of interactions between them. In this regard, complexity theory is closely related to the modern constructivist theory of international relations. Today, the number of international actors is increasing, which increases the complexity of the world system. Therefore, analytical methodology should take into account the role of non-state actors as well as the high complexity of contemporary world politics, which is multi-layered and dynamic. In this respect, the complexity theory is associated with contemporary neoliberalism. Agent-oriented computer-based modeling is the main and a very promising scientific methodology applied to the study of complex adaptive systems, including world politics. In the complexity theory, this modeling implies the simulation of agent behavior (in this regard, agents are international relations actors), based on the simulation of the patterns, according to which agents process the information using adaptive mechanisms or behavior limiting norms and rules. In general, in terms of the complexity theory, foreign policy issues are always multidimensional, decisions have unintended consequences and are never simple. However, complex systems can be controlled, and even their structure can be altered. Still, there are no unambiguous tools of influencing the situation, and all recommendations should be taken with caution. The authors conclude that the complexity theory offers new explanations, research directions and practical perspectives for international relations research. Agent-oriented computer simulation also allows the incorporation into the analysis of a significant part of the knowledge accumulated in the international relations traditional theory framework. Acknowledgements. The article was prepared as a part of the project № 14-18-02973 “Long-Term Prognosis of the International Relations Development” fi nanced by the Russian Scientifi c Foundation. The authors express gratitude to M.M. Chaikovskii, Dr. Sci. (Physics and Mathematics), for the consultations on the mathematical aspects of the complex systems analysis.
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Burley, Anne-Marie Slaughter. "International Law and International Relations Theory: A Dual Agenda." American Journal of International Law 87, no. 2 (April 1993): 205–39. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2203817.
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Writing in 1968 on the “relevance of international law,” Richard Falk described his efforts as part of the larger endeavor of “liberating the discipline of international law from a sense of its own futility.” In 1992 that task appears to have been accomplished. International legal rules, procedures and organizations are more visible and arguably more effective than at any time since 1945. If the United Nations cannot accomplish everything, it once again represents a significant repository of hopes for a better world. And even as its current failures are tabulated, from Yugoslavia to the early weeks and then months of the Somali famine, the almost-universal response is to find ways to strengthen it. The resurgence of rules and procedures in the service of an organized international order is the legacy of all wars, hot or cold.
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Havercroft, Jonathan, and Alex Prichard. "Anarchy and International Relations theory: A reconsideration." Journal of International Political Theory 13, no. 3 (July 20, 2017): 252–65. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1755088217719911.
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In this introduction to the Special Issue, we undertake a little ground clearing in order to make room in International Relations for thinking differently about anarchy and world politics. Anarchy’s roots in, and association with, social contract theory and the state of nature has unduly narrowed how we might understand the concept and its potential in International Relations. Indeed, such is the consensus in this regard that anarchy is remarkably uncontested, considering its centrality to the field. Looking around, both inside and outside International Relations, for alternative accounts, we find ample materials for helping us think anew about the nature of and possibilities for politics in anarchy. In the second part of the introduction, we show how our contributors develop and expand on these resources and what we hope the Special Issue brings to International Relations.
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Dale, Gareth. "In search of Karl Polanyi’s International Relations theory." Review of International Studies 42, no. 3 (September 21, 2015): 401–24. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0260210515000273.
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AbstractKarl Polanyi is principally known as an economic historian and a theorist of international political economy. His theses are commonly encountered in debates concerning globalisation, regionalism, regulation and deregulation, and neoliberalism. But the standard depiction of his ideas is based upon a highly restricted corpus of his work: essentially, his published writings, in English, from the 1940s and 1950s. Drawing upon a broader range of Polanyi’s work in Hungarian, German, and English, this article examines his less well-known analyses of international politics and world order. It sketches the main lineaments of Polanyi’s international thought from the 1910s until the mid-1940s, charting his evolution from Wilsonian liberal, via debates within British pacifism, towards a position close to E. H. Carr’s realism. It reconstructs the dialectic of universalism and regionalism in Polanyi’s prospectus for postwar international order, with a focus upon his theory of ‘tame empires’ and its extension by neo-Polanyian theorists of the ‘new regionalism’ and European integration. It explores the tensions and contradictions in Polanyi’s analysis, and, finally, it hypothesises that the failure of his postwar predictions provides a clue as to why his research on international relations dried up in the 1950s.
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Epp, Roger. "Review: International Relations Theory: Global Order, World of Our Making." International Journal: Canada's Journal of Global Policy Analysis 46, no. 1 (March 1991): 183–86. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/002070209104600109.
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Nardin, Terry. "Kant’s republican theory of justice and international relations." International Relations 31, no. 3 (September 2017): 357–72. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0047117817723064.
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Kant’s primary concern in writing on international relations is how to achieve ‘justice’ ( Recht) between states. This means that instead of reading Kant as a theorist of peace or world government, as IR theorists have usually done, he is better read as a theorist international justice. His view of justice, which identifies it with a legal order that respects freedom as independence or nondomination, is broadly republican. But he equivocates on the possibility of justice at the international level, and this narrows what is usually seen as a wide gap between Kant’s thought and political realism. The paradox his uncertainty reveals is that it is wrong for states to remain in a lawless condition yet impossible for them to escape it so long as they remain independent. An international order cannot generate genuine law because there are no institutions to make, interpret, or enforce it. This means that states are entitled to determine their own foreign affairs. The gap between sovereignty and justice cannot be closed so long as these ideas are defined as they are within the state. The problem is not that a full, secure, and nonvoluntary system of justice that preserves the sovereignty of states is contingently unlikely. It is conceptually impossible. This conclusion poses a challenge to current theories of global justice.
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Abbott, Kenneth W. "International Relations Theory, International Law, and the Regime Governing Atrocities in Internal Conflicts." American Journal of International Law 93, no. 2 (April 1999): 361–79. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2997995.
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Over the last ten years, international relations (IR) theory, a branch of political science, has animated some of the most exciting scholarship in international law.1 If a true joint discipline has not yet emerged,2 scholars in both fields have clearly established the value of interdisciplinary cross-fertilization. Yet IR—like international law—comprises several distinct theoretical approaches or “methods.” While this complexity makes interactions between the disciplines especially rich, it also makes them difficult to explore concisely. This essay thus constitutes something of a minisymposium in itself: it summarizes the four principal schools of IR theory—conventionally identified as “realist,” “institutionalist,” “liberal” and “constructivist”—and then applies them to the norms and institutions governing serious violations of human dignity during internal conflicts (the “atrocities regime”).
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Behr, Hartmut, and Michael C. Williams. "Interlocuting classical realism and critical theory: Negotiating ‘divides’ in international relations theory." Journal of International Political Theory 13, no. 1 (October 12, 2016): 3–17. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1755088216671735.
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The history of the discipline of International Relations is usually narrated as a succession of theories that would pursue different ontologies and epistemologies and focus on different problems. This narrative provides some structure to a multifaceted field and its diverse discussions. However, it is also highly problematic as it ignores common problems, intersections and mutual inspirations and overemphasizes divides over eventual commonalities. Rather than such overemphasis, we suggest instead negotiating between ‘IR theories’ and elaborating their shared foci and philosophies of science in order to provide new perspectives on and approaches to international politics. We here negotiate between the two theoretical movements of classical realism and critical theories that are typically treated as opposites, yet which nonetheless are characterized by shared concerns about political and social crises, modernity and humanity.
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Yi, Muyu. "Saudi Arabia Neoliberalism Theory in International Relations." Journal of Education, Humanities and Social Sciences 1 (July 6, 2022): 341–45. http://dx.doi.org/10.54097/ehss.v1i.681.
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For the purpose of this essay, we will look at how Saudi Arabia's admission to international organizations has caused a significant shift in the country's ability to become a better nation. Saudi Arabia's oil sector, which is the largest in the world, has supplied the Kingdom with a number of benefits. The fact that Saudi Arabia earns a considerable amount of recurring foreign currency income, which can be used to enhance the Kingdom's economic growth and the well-being of its population, is undoubtedly the most crucial factor. When it comes to international relations, Saudi Arabia is studied through the perspective of Neoliberalism. A piece of work titled Neoliberalism and International Organizations is applied in this essay to examine the dominant political theory driving international relations today. When it comes to international relations and politics, the ideology of neoliberalism has been a relatively outspoken option, as indicated by the readiness of nations to collaborate and to expand their own sphere of influence into other countries' spheres of influence. Aside from that, during the last 30 years, the governance of international cooperation to confront the most serious global crises, such as the forced migration crisis and the global financial crisis, has improved in terms of efficiency and effectiveness. In order to effectively manage regional governing bodies, it is necessary to grasp the decision-making process. By becoming members of organizations such as the World Bank, the World Trade Organization, and the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), these organizations have demonstrated their ability to make significant advances in either the condition of international relations or the economic position of the country in which they are active. According to this assessment, the neoliberal theory of international relations is a valuable tool for understanding the dynamics of international organizations, as well as the dynamics of international conflict and cooperation in general.
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Hashimoto, Tom. "Introduction: EU-Russia Relations and the International Society Theory." Journal of Contemporary European Research 7, no. 2 (November 8, 2011): 155–58. http://dx.doi.org/10.30950/jcer.v7i2.450.
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Freire, Lucas G. "Is Neorealism a Deterministic Theory of International Relations?" International Studies 56, no. 1 (January 2019): 58–67. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0020881718824760.
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This article is a contribution to the clarification of the central claim of Kenneth Waltz’s neorealist international relations theory. Over the years, the notion that Waltz’s Theory of International Politics postulates a deterministic connection between the configuration of the structure of the international system and the behaviour of each of the units has gained traction in textbooks and in straw-man critiques of the neorealist approach. Two major groups of critics of neorealism’s alleged determinism have formed. The first group focuses on instances where predicted balancing behaviour did not occur in order to refute neorealism’s central claim about the link between structure and behaviour. The second group objects to any strong claims about structural features as such. In response, this article shows that a careful reading of Waltz’s writings suffices to indicate that the presupposition adopted by both groups of critics is flawed. Neorealism was never presented by its main proponent as a deterministic international relations theory.
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Miller, A. J. "Review: International Relations Theory: The Quest for a Just World Order, Global Order." International Journal: Canada's Journal of Global Policy Analysis 42, no. 2 (June 1987): 403–5. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/002070208704200211.
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Tesón, Fernando R. "The Rawlsian Theory of International Law." Ethics & International Affairs 9 (March 1995): 79–99. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-7093.1995.tb00172.x.
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Tesón critiques a recent article by John Rawls in which Rawls extends his acclaimed political theory to include international relations. Tesón first summarizes Rawls' theory and then presents a critique. With this essay, Rawls joins an already vigorous scholarly reaction against traditional state-centered models of international law and relations. When measured against such models, Rawls' theory of international law moves in the right direction in assigning a role, albeit a modest one, to human rights and political legitimacy. However, to the extent that Rawls' effort purports to be a rational reconstruction of international law for our new era (as he certainly intends it to be), it fails to capture central moral features of the international order. His proposal is still too forgiving of serious forms of oppression in the name of liberal tolerance. The theory thus falls short of matching the considered moral judgments prevailing in today's international community. Moreover, it fails Rawls' own test of epistemic adequacy.
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Lorenz, Hans-Walter. "Complexity in Economic Theory and Real Economic Life." European Review 17, no. 2 (May 2009): 403–21. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1062798709000799.
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Complex dynamic behaviour in terms of chaotic motion, catastrophic events or other seemingly irregular and unexpected features of and in theoretical economic models – aimed at describing real-world phenomena – are nowadays known as a common property of many nonlinear approaches to an understanding of the motion of actual time series, such as inflation rates, unemployment figures, and many other – mainly macroeconomic – economic variables. Since most existing models in economic dynamics are constructed in the tradition of classical mechanics, this result does not appear as a real surprise. However, the real ‘complexity challenge’ for economic theory still persists in identifying the complex structure of economic reality, which cannot be satisfactorily represented by simple deterministic laws of motion, although such ‘laws’ might possess the possibility of very complicated dynamic motion.
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Cochran, Molly. "Postmodernism, ethics and international political theory." Review of International Studies 21, no. 3 (July 1995): 237–50. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s026021050011767x.
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A group of writers have taken up Nietzsche's hammer against the constructions of contemporary international theory. Postmodern approaches problematize the dominant understanding of international relations as a world of sovereign states which demarcate inside from outside, order from anarchy, identity from difference. More generally, they challenge the notion of sovereignty as an ahistorical, universal, transcendent concept, be it applied to the sovereign state, the sovereign individual or a sovereign truth. Sovereignty and the dichotomies regulated by its power are mechanisms of domination and closure which limit the play of political practice. It is the aim of these writers to hammer away at these limitations, opening space for plural and diverse practices in world politics.
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ALBERT, MATHIAS, OLIVER KESSLER, and STEPHAN STETTER. "On order and conflict: International Relations and the ‘communicative turn’." Review of International Studies 34, S1 (January 2008): 43–67. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0260210508007791.
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AbstractThis article begins from the observation that while communication is a widely used catch-phrase in current IR theorising, the very concept of ‘communication’ is still mainly treated in terms of simple sender-receiver models which do not sufficiently elaborate how the insights of the ‘communicative turn’ can be made fruitful for IR theorising. The argument is developed in three steps. First – particularly drawing on the work of Karl W. Deutsch – we identify those pockets in IR theory, namely conflict studies and theories of ‘communicative action’, in which ‘communication’ plays a considerable theoretical role. Second, it is claimed that placing ‘communication’ at the centre of any theory of IR requires taking full account of the theoretical consequences of the ‘linguistic turn’. To develop this argument requires an examination of the often implicit notion of ‘communication’ in contemporary uses of speech act theory and symbolic interactionism in current IR theory. Such a move necessarily leads to the diagnosis that all social systems and orders of exchange, including international relations, are communicatively constituted. Finally, such a view enables a reconfiguration of the central problems of ‘order’ and ‘conflict’ in IR theory in an innovative fashion: while the problem of order can be restated not as the problem of establishing regularities and patterns but as a problem of disconnecting communications, the problem of conflict can be restated not as a problem of a disruption of communication but as a problem of continuing conflict communication.
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van Aaken, Anne. "Experimental Insights for International Legal Theory." European Journal of International Law 30, no. 4 (November 2019): 1237–62. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ejil/chaa009.
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Abstract Insights from experimental psychology and economics have rarely been applied to the study of international law and never to the study of international legal theory. This article applies them to socio-legal international theory that has grosso modo two important background paradigms with several variants: rationalist and constructivist. In both paradigms, the interest in understanding and explaining international law by uncovering causal mechanisms in international cooperation and compliance and in asking how cooperation is sustained in a system as decentralized as international law is paramount. In both, fundamental assumptions regarding the behaviour of actors are made. However, regardless of the theoretical standpoint, both fall short of experimental evidence about their behavioural assumptions. The article uses experimental evidence provided by public good games as a conceptualization of how social order is constructed and upheld in systems without central authority such as international law. It aims to illuminate the behavioural basis of important building blocks of international cooperation and law by discussing the preferences of states and strategic interaction, reciprocity, sanctions, communication and trust as well as consent and legitimacy, reflecting on what the experimental insights teach us on the assumptions of rationalist and constructivist approaches to international legal theory. These experiments are one means to test behavioural assumptions in international legal theory.
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Kavalski, Emilian. "The fifth debate and the emergence of complex international relations theory: notes on the application of complexity theory to the study of international life." Cambridge Review of International Affairs 20, no. 3 (September 2007): 435–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09557570701574154.
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Bebber, Robert, and Aaron Liberman. "Bioterrorism preparedness through the lens of complexity theory." International Journal of Public Policy 3, no. 5/6 (2008): 328. http://dx.doi.org/10.1504/ijpp.2008.020986.
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Room, Graham. "Social mobility and complexity theory: towards a critique of the sociological mainstream." Policy Studies 32, no. 2 (March 2011): 109–26. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01442872.2010.541764.
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Stone, Alec. "What Is a Supranational Constitution? An Essay in International Relations Theory." Review of Politics 56, no. 3 (1994): 441–74. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s003467050001891x.
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Under the banner of “regime theory,” the study of international relations has experienced a massive if largely unacknowledged return to law, the study of the nature, scope, and relevance of norms international politics. Regime is shorthand for forms of institutionalized cooperation in the international system. The article provides one way to assess this movement. In part I, I develop an abstract conception of constitutions as bodies of metanorms, those higher order norms that govern how lower order norms are to be produced, applied, and interpreted. I then examine the extent to which international relations theory is equipped to recognize that some international regimes are constitutional in form (part II). In part III, I propose a means of situating all regime forms, from the most primitive to the full blown constitutional, along a continuum. The central claim is that the distinction made between international and domestic society, for the most part a matter of dogma in mainstream theory, is relative not absolute.
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Ferreira, Marcos Farias. "Book Review: Nicholas J. Rengger, International Relations, Political Theory and the Problem of Order: Beyond International Relations Theory? (London: Routledge, 2000, 232 pp., £17.95 pbk.)." Millennium: Journal of International Studies 29, no. 1 (January 2000): 253–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/03058298000290010440.
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Smith, John, and Chris Jenks. "Reshaping social theory from complexity and ecological perspectives." Thesis Eleven 114, no. 1 (February 2013): 61–75. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0725513612460032.
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This article argues that Durkheim’s founding insight – uniquely social phenomena – presents us with both a foundation for the discipline of sociology and the risk that the discipline will become isolated. This, we argue, has happened. Our contention is that the emergent social phenomena need to be understood in relation to, but not reduced to, their biological and psychological substrates. Similarly, there are a number of other characteristics, notably of self-organization, which are distinguishing properties of social phenomena but also of quite different phenomena. The comparison is instructive. We therefore argue for an ecological approach to sociological theory, which has important relationships to the general theories and philosophy of ecology and biology. We explore a number of terminological and conceptual parallels that may inform our understanding of the relation of social theory to these and other disciplines.
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Dabic, Dragana. "Critical international relations theory at the beginning of the 21st century." Medjunarodni problemi 69, no. 2-3 (2017): 332–48. http://dx.doi.org/10.2298/medjp1703332d.
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The article deals with contemporary tendencies and research in the field of critical theory of international relations. Focusing on the analysis of global power relations, this specific approach within the framework of the science of international relations, draws attention to the different capacities of international actors to influence their own political and economic circumstances. Its contribution to the science of international relations is reflected in the opening (and politicization) of issues that the representatives of traditional theories take as a given fact, or for various reasons do not pay needed attention. The article will present the evolution of the critical theory of international relations, ranging from the radically critical point of view of its founder Robert Cox to the strictly normative orientation of Jurgen Habermas. Contrary to the question of the ?inevitability? of the existing world order (on which the realists insist in particular), as well as the acceptability of dominant patterns and practice of demonstration of power in world politics, it offers alternative visions of the architecture of global relations. It is concluded that the critical theory of international relations, despite numerous criticisms, is relevant, because it approaches the phenomenon of power in a diametrically opposite way, in comparison to the traditional schools of thought in international relations. It provides researchers with analytical tools, so that they can identify the role and significance of both ideas (theory) and practices (political actions) in creating and maintaining the structures of the world order.