EU-China-Africa Trilateral Relations: A New Trend in International Relations
In the context of an emerging multipolar world order, the European Union needs to engage with its Chinese and African counterparts in terms of a mutual exchange.
Is Democracy a Cause of Peace?
As the causal mechanisms and positivist epistemology underpinning it are questionable, the democratic peace should be understood as part of a more complex causal process.
Does the R2P Doctrine Represent a Positive Step for Human Rights?
R2P, although a symbolic moral step for human rights, is not a sufficiently effective positive step, and is too militaristic in its approach.
To what extent does the EZLN political economy framework offer a viable development alternative to its followers?
The EZLN is a Polanyian reaction to a specific type of market subordination, something which is central in understanding the extent to which the EZLN represents a viable political economy model for its followers. Furthermore, the Mexican Revolution triggered the emergence of these markets
Democratization and Peaceful Relations
The proposition that democratic states do not fight interstate wars against each other is one of the most influential ideas in international politics in recent years. Since 1974 eighty-five authoritarian regimes have ended. Yet of these, only thirty states have survived as fairly stable democracies. It seems the shift away from dictatorial rule towards a form of governance offering a more liberal and democratic stance has not always concluded with the construction of peaceful domestic and international relations
Defining Terrorism
Attempts to form a universal and comprehensive definition of terrorism have not yet succeeded, but this lack of consensus need not impede attempts to counter terrorism itself.
Kenneth Waltz, Metatheorist?: Mind-World Monism in ‘Theory of International Politics’
The late-Kenneth Waltz’s ‘Theory of International Politics’ is full of metatheoretical implications that have been largely overlooked by scholars and students of International Relations.
Does Regionalism challenge Globalisation, or build on it?
In a world where the concepts of Globalisation and Regionalism both seem to gain more and more power, it was only a matter of time until the relationship between those two seemingly contradictory processes would become the issue of discussion. What Andrew Hurrell has called the “one world/many worlds relationship” has now become the subject of great academic interest and debate.
Postcolonial Theories as Critique and Challenge to ‘First World-ism’
The critiques of postcolonial feminists and critical feminisms have contributed epistemic, knowledge frameworks, and material insights into hegemonic power relations, and in particular global violence. Such theorizations have raised questions about the ‘geopolitical’ in order to transform IR’s contentious emphasis on geographical and territorial realms of power
Western Depictions of Children and the New Imperialism
The human rights discourse has become a paradigm in international relations, with the transition from the international system to an international society. A vital aspect of that paradigm is the differentiation between adult and child, which has also been primarily instituted by the West. The supremacy of this definition has served the supremacy of the West in the human rights question.
