Liberal Institutionalism: An Alternative IR Theory or Just Maintaining the Status Quo?
Institutionalism rejects the realist assumption that international politics is a struggle for power in which military security issues are top priority and argues that instead, force is an ineffective instrument of policy. In order to understand the impact of internationalism on IR theory and its criticisms we must first look at its definition and how it differs from realist perspectives.
Analysing EU Foreign Policy on Russia before the 2022 Invasion of Ukraine
A change in power image resulting from militarisation would restrain Europe’s normative impulses and introduce greater cognitive flexibility to policymaking.
Global Governance: Political and Economic Governance
An introduction to the political and economic dimensions of global governance and its institutions – with a principal focus on the UN due to its centrality within the global system.
The Evolution of International Relations in France
French approaches to IR which sit between a sociology of IR and international political sociology might prepare scholars to increase their international impact.
Civil Society and NGOs as Drivers of Change in Environmental Governance
Civil society’s involvement in global environmental governance and the effects of internationalisation processes on civil society forms of autonomy and expertise have had considerable impact.
The Responsibility to Protect: a new response to humanitarian suffering?
The “responsibility to protect” principle (R2P) has radically transformed the international community’s approach to major cases of humanitarian suffering, shifting its focus from “intervention” to “prevention”. Nevertheless, the tragic case of Darfur has clearly demonstrated its limitations.
Relationship Advice: The International, The State, The Local, And Why They Just Can’t Seem To Make It Work
What the international community needs is a dose of reality and a bit of retrospection by re-evaluating failed endeavors in peace and statebuilding.
Understanding the Illegality of Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine
Russia has not only broken international law in the most flagrant manner, but has devalued the system of norms, values and practices that underpins international society.
International Relations Theory after the Cold War: China, the Global South and Non-state Actors
The preponderance of China and the broader Global South have already begun transforming IR theory, whilst themselves undergoing occasional clashes.
Is Contemporary International Society Founded on a Common Culture or Civilisation?
Scholars of the ‘English School’, such as Hedley Bull, argue that states exist not in an anarchic system guided purely by power-politics, but rather in an ‘international society’ formed as a result of certain global norms; namely shared interests, values, rules and institutions. For the majority of English School thinkers, some form of common culture is a necessary prerequisite for these elements, and is therefore crucial for the creation and cohesion of international societies. Wight argued that a ‘states-system will not come into being without a degree of cultural unity among its members’ (1977: 33), and Bull pronounced that ‘the prospects for international society are bound up with the prospects of the cosmopolitan culture’ (1984b: 304).
