Contents
- Year of publication: 2024
- Source: Show
- Pages: 3-4
- DOI Address: -
- PDF: ppsy/53-4/ppsy20244toc.pdf
The aim of this article is to analyse the ontological and epistemological dimensions of the main stages of the development of regional studies as a sub-discipline of international relations. The research problem of the article focuses on the interdependence and significance of regional studies as a sub-discipline within the scholarly discipline of international relations. The issue of regionalism and the region arose in the period of the establishment of international relations as a scholarly discipline during the interwar years, and was further conceptualized in the 1950s and 1960s during the Cold War period. The status of regional studies was then marginalized in methodological, ontological and epistemological discourse by the main theoretical trends of international relations. As a result, it was only after the end of the Cold War that we witnessed a gradual, systemic process of reintegration of regional studies within the discipline. This article argues that the reintegration of regional studies into the discipline of international relations is a function of two parallel processes that are interrelated: the transformation of the liberal international order after the end of the Cold War and increased pluralism in scholarly discourse within the discipline of international relations. These developments and their associated academic implications have contributed to the consolidation and strengthening of regional studies as a major subdiscipline of international relations.
Liberal International Order Sub-discipline Regional and Global Studies discipline of international relations regional studies
The main aim of this paper is to find a pattern in the possible way the regional and global order interact with each other. To analyse the interaction, India and Indonesia are presented as the case studies. The rationale behind choosing India and Indonesia is, that both of them since their independence have had similar foreign policies and approaches to international order. On the other hand, both of the countries have been coined as the rising power in the current international relations. While the system-led analysis generalizes the top-to-bottom approach to explain the interaction between regional and global order, the increasing multiplicities in the distribution of power made it more difficult to simply generalise it. Thus, this article attempts to fill that gap.
Global Politics Foreign Policy Analysis Liberal International Order (LIO) India Indonesia
The article aims to analyse the significance of liberal norms and values in the development of political relations between the EU and ASEAN, an issue which has been only selectively analysed in academic literature. At the same time, the topic of the article fits into a broader landscape of issues associated with the development of relations between international intergovernmental organisations in contemporary international relations, only partially studied in Polish and international literature to date. Considering the essential framework of classic constructivism, as well as significant contributions added by critical constructivism, the article formulates a research hypothesis whereby the European Union and ASEAN are organisations which, while recognising the importance of liberal values and norms, take a different approach to their promotion and protection. The European Union, which attempted to act towards ASEAN as an interpreter and diffuser of the aforementioned values and norms in the 1990s, adopted a pragmatic approach over time, in response to ASEAN’s stance and actions, limiting its role in this respect and taking regional conditions and dependencies into account. In order to verify this hypothesis, three research questions were formulated, namely: What is the place of liberal norms and values in the EU and ASEAN policy documents? Is the respect and protection of liberal norms and values an important element declared in mutual relations? How do both sides approach the implementation of liberal norms and values in practice in selected cases? This article is structured around these issues and discusses the significance of liberal norms and values in EU and ASEAN policy documents, the place and role of liberal norms and values in documents underpinning EUASEAN relations and in EU documents formulated towards ASEAN and the Southeast Asian region and also provides an analysis of EU and ASEAN policy towards Myanmar.
values and norms of the international liberal order relations between regional international intergovernmental organizations Association of Southeast Asia (ASEAN) political relations European Union (EU)
India’s role in the post-Cold War liberal international order (LIO) has primarily been examined in terms of whether it can become a revisionist or status quo power, both politically and economically. However, the concept of India as a ‘Vishwaguru’ (world teacher), promoted by the BJP government of Narendra Modi since 2014, projects India as a source of norms and principles that can govern international relations. This raises the question of how this new proposal might affect the LIO? Using a ‘normative power’ concept, this chapter seeks to understand the ‘Vishwaguru’ as an alternative proposition of ordering international system. It looks at critical government and ruling party documents, speeches by BJP leaders and supporters, and existing literature to better understand the rationale and goals of this new approach. It finds that India is thereby undermining Western dominance of the global discourse on the international system and poses a normative challenge to the political and economic LIO. While India’s approach reveals its ambitions for global power, it also contains essential flaws and contradictions that will limit the effectiveness of this strategy.
normative power Vishwaguru Liberal International Order global order West India
This paper analyzes Mexico’s foreign policy’s vision of the international order visà-vis the hegemonic competition between China and the United States to better understand the country’s strategies and priorities as an emerging power. The article explains how the Mexican foreign policy strategy as an emerging power reflects its interpretation of its national interest: to maximize its national sovereignty and autonomy by establishing a special relationship with the United States, and defending the fundamental constitutive rules and norms of the international order. By doing so, it benefits from access to the U.S. market and investment, and a stable international system, without assuming the costs of participating directly in international conflicts —especially those which are costly and perceived as distant from Mexican affairs.
emerging power U.S.-China hegemonic competition Mexican foreign policy International Order
Brazil’s position towards the War in Ukraine sheds light on fundamental ambiguities of Brazil’s contemporary self-representations. While Brazil has traditionally defined itself in relation to its identification with the West, it has simultaneously recognized and often claimed its significant place in the “Global South”, either as a Latin American country or as part of coalitions balancing against a western-centric order, such as BRICS. These multiple self-representations have favoured foreign policy analyses that emphasize the country´s ambiguous stance in the international order. This article proposes to take Brazil´s non-alignment as an analytical prism to reflect on the in-between spaces and categories that emerge from polarizing narratives of the liberal international order. By adopting the theoretical lens of liminality in International Relations (Rumelili, 2012), the article shows how the narrative on the “new Cold War” in the context of the war in Ukraine (re)produces liminal spaces as different actors, such as Brazil, are unsuccessfully forced into established social categories, which in turn exposes the very instability of polarities in international politics, such as West and East or North and South, and of the liberal world order itself.
non-alignment Brazil Liberal International Order liminality war in Ukraine
Brazil has come in for a lot of criticism for some of the positions it has taken in response to what has been called a period of ‘permanent crisis’ in world politics. European leaders in particular have shown themselves to be perplexed about what they consider to be contradictory positions in response to two crises in particular: the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the Israeli war in Gaza in response to the Hamas terrorist attacks on 7 October 2023. Yet, the Brazilian response to these crises should not have come as a surprise. Using the conceptual frameworks of Complexity and Human Systems Dynamics, as well as complexity mapping as an illustrative model, this paper argues that the Brazilian positions to these crises are both predictable and internally coherent. What is lacking is mutual knowledge and understanding of these positions. Increasing such understanding is critical as a way of working together more effectively stopping the waste of political capital on issues over which outsiders have little to no influence.
Emerging Powers Brazil Liberal International Order Global South international system
The main assumption of the article is to demonstrate that Latin America, while underrated in the discussion on the international order, has had a significant impact on its functioning. Upon the emergence of a new global balance of power, the region must redefine its international position, which it does primarily by pragmatic alignment with the dynamic international reality and searching for new channels of global insertion. This way, it seeks to minimize the threat posed by the growing rivalry of superpowers and to possibly maximize the resulting potential profits. The article relies on the assumption that Latin America’s activity in the face of the formation of the global order is driven primarily by the overarching goal of the foreign policy of the countries of the region, which is to ensure their autonomy. At the same time, Latin America, rooted both in the Western world and identifying with the Global South, sought to turn its unfortunate perception as a peripheral area into an advantage of sorts, offering concepts such as Active Non-Alignment, going far beyond the passive acceptance of international reality.
active non-alignment international world order autonomy USA Latin America China
The article’s primary purpose is to analyse maritime governance in the Global South. The Global South is responsible for the most significant share of living and non-living resources and the vastest part of the world’s seas and oceans. State and non-state actors located in the Southern Hemisphere face similar challenges of unsustainable exploitation of fishery and fossils, growing expansion of the Global North, illicit actions of non-state actors threatening the security of Sea Lines of Communication, and climate change posing existential jeopardy through the rise of sea level. The article attempts to answer the research questions of how the Global South countries differ in their maritime governance approaches, the reasons behind those differences, and what common points can be identified in their actions. The comparative study is applied to find differences and similarities in their search for the most effective model of maritime governance. The basis of the comparative study is not three oceans – Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic, but two continents – Africa and Asia, and their institutional frameworks in significant areas of maritime governance – legal, security, and blue economy. The article claims that existing channels of coordination and several ideas proposed by leaders of the Global South within the United Nations and regional trade and political platforms of cooperation in the 21st century could serve as instruments enabling the implementation of ideas of trans-continental cooperation and oceanic corridors.
maritime governance Global South blue economy maritime security UNCLOS Africa Asia
The European Union’s development cooperation policy has evolved significantly since its inception in the Treaty of Rome (1957). The main aim of the study is to find the objectives of the EU to reduce disparities between the Global North and the Global South. Despite several policy attempts to bridge the developmental gaps in the Global South, the North-South divide remains a significant challenge. This article analyses how the EU has been actively working to address the disparities between the Global North-South through its development policy. Qualitative empirical analysis involves the interpretation of the EU reports, press briefs, and strategy papers and analysing them to understand concepts, perspectives, and experiences from both primary and secondary sources, as well as Global South responses. The analysis underscores the EU’s dual role as a promoter of international development and a strategic actor balancing political, economic, and security interests.
Reduction Disparities North-South Divide Global South development policy European Union
This article aims to analyse governance as a framework for decision-making, a limes of rationality in terms of broadband deliberation and a bedrock for the rise and transformation of the Global South. Governance will be approached broadly – more as the conceptualisation and framing of political solutions – than narrowly conceived political steering focused on state power and reminiscent of control. The article will provide an opportunity to discuss the characteristics of governance in the public sphere and gain insight into deliberation as a central institution within the governance framework. It will also introduce a discussion about continuity and change in global governance from the standpoint of the emerging Global South capable of building countervailing, deliberative institutions of global governance (the BRICS) that explicitly distanced non-Western states from incumbent powers as well as accentuated change and continuity in global governance from the solidarity-based initiative around the ‘Bandung spirit’.
Informal Intergovernmental Institution G7 Global South BRICS deliberation
With the end of the Cold War research on hegemony has attracted the interest of scholars in IR. Representatives of different schools of thought, such as Neoliberalism or the English school, successfully adopted the term to the new international context. Concepts such as “legitimate” or “soft” hegemony have enriched the discourse in IR. At the same time, realists and neorealists seemed to be on the defensive, as classical and material perceptions of hegemony became outdated. Regardless, with the intensifying US-Chinese rivalry as well as the revisionist policies of the Russian Federation, the IR community seems to look at realist writings more favorably. This research focuses on one of the most prominent research programs in IR, neorealism, and its compatibility with the concept of hegemony. By adopting Imre Lakatos’ concept of Research Programmes, we prove the core ideas of neorealism do not contradict hegemony. This opens perspectives for further work on the concept we refer to as hegemonic neorealism.
hegemonic neorealism Lakatos’ Research Programmes hegemony neorealism
This paper explores the discourse of the Russia-Ukraine war to outline the dominant narrative schemas anchored in the spatial geopolitical representations of globalness and localness. It uses tools from the domains of critical cognitive discourse studies and narrative research (alternative futures, discourse scenarios, deictic space, proximization) to distinguish between two most salient schemas: the Global Conflict Schema GCS narrative and the Local Conflict Schema LCS narrative. The GCS narrative conceptualizes the Russia-Ukraine war as a growing international conflict, producing serious political, economic and material consequences for the global community. GCS uses coercive rhetoric to call for immediate measures to support Ukraine so the war can be stopped before spreading beyond its current borders. The principal narrator of GCS is Ukraine, though the narrative is recontextualized in other countries located in geographical proximity to the conflict. The LCS narrative, performed mostly by the Kremlin, construes the war as a local conflict providing no reasons for foreign intervention. LCS is distinctive for its large number of sub-narratives appropriated for different geopolitical audiences, which include the Russian and Ukrainian people, and different audience groups in the West and the Global South. The latter groups re-contextualize the LCS narrative, focusing primarily on economic issues.
spatial representation political narrative Global Conflict Schema GCS Local Conflict Schema LCS Russia-Ukraine war
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 led to the largest refugee movement in Europe since World War II (Bathke, 2023). It is estimated that around a third of Ukraine’s population has either fled the country or was displaced internally (UNHCR). However, contrary to the other significant humanitarian crisis in Europe, the refugee crisis in 2015, the literature for the current one is still under development (Näre, Abdelhady, Irastorza, 2022). Its implications are massive and yet to fully grasp. Directions of research also differ: whilst for the 2015 crisis, many papers underlined its racialized treatment, the underdoing crisis is particularly explored in relation to the role of the civic society in its management. Taking this into account, we aim to draw a comparison between the reception of the Ukrainian refugees in Poland and Romania, with a particular focus on the role(s) undertook by NGOs to support the activities taken by the state. This is especially important for illustrating the significant – and crucial role of NGOs in providing aid to the victims of this armed conflict.
humanitarian aid refugee crisis Romania war in Ukraine non-governmental organizations civil society Poland
© 2017 Adam Marszałek Publishing House. All rights reserved.
Projekt i wykonanie Pollyart