Pre- and post-agreement discourses are an integral part of international relations. Yet, they only matter sometimes as an empirical analysis of European judicial discourses shows. State of the art Habermasisan and social psychology approaches on effective arguing cannot sufficiently explain variation in the success of discourses. This requires a fine-grained perspective: Only if actors share yardsticks fitting to the issue at stake, they can commonly assess the quality of arguments and incrementally develop a consensus. If such issue-specific reference standards are absent, actors talk at cross-purposes and dissent prevails. The article empirically illustrates the importance of intersubjective validity for the effectiveness of discourses and tests its central claim against alternative constructivist and rationalist explanations.

This article investigates the fragmented knowledges that migrants need to deal with in order to get access to asylum, and the related effects of disorientation it generates on them. The piece argues that disorientation is as a constitutive political technology of refugee governance and develops this argument by focusing on the Greek asylum system. It starts by drawing attention to the multiple technological steps and forced digital intermediations that asylum seekers in Greece need to navigate, focusing in particular on the Cash Assistance Programme, and it shows how asylum seekers need to deal with dispersed knowledges. The article moves on by analysing how the governing through disorientation underpin the asylum legal system in Greece and how this ends up in debilitating asylum seekers and hampering them from accessing rights and humanitarian support. The final section explores how asylum seekers are racialised and treated as deceitful subjects, and argues that not only their speech but also their conduct and behaviour are assumed to be deceptive, and therefore their knowledge turns out to be pointless. It concludes by challenging claims for more transparency and more knowledge as a response to the governing through disorientation.

Time constitutes social life and time management is central to the everyday conduct of international politics. For some reason, however, the practice turn in International Relations (IR) has produced knowledge about how past practices constitute international politics but not about how the future is also a constitutive feature in and on social life. Introducing a novel perspective on practice and temporality, the article argues that intersubjectively situated representations of the future by practitioners in international politics contribute substantially to our understanding of political processes and the making of international politics. To develop what appears a contradiction in terms – that ‘future-practices’ are driven by tacit know-how and conscious reflection simultaneously – the article develops the concept of doxic futures: representations of the future rooted in practical knowledge and tacit assumptions about the self-evident nature of the social world. The argument is illustrated with a case study of European security and defence diplomacy after the UK voted to leave the EU. Through the envisioning of two concrete doxic futures, a ‘Europe of buying together’ and the UK as a third country in EU defence, diplomats effectively tried to save European security and defence cooperation from the potentially disintegrating effects of Brexit.

IR scholars have recently paid increasing attention to unequal institutional orders in world politics, arguing that global governance institutions are deeply shaped by power inequalities among states. Yet, the literature still suffers from conceptual limitations and from a shortage of empirical work. The article addresses these shortcomings through a study of the historical evolution of global arms control institutions since 1945. It shows that in this important policy area, the global institutional order has not been marked by a recent trend toward deeper inequality, as many writings on unequal institutions suggest. Instead, the analysis reveals a pattern of institutional mutation whereby specific forms of institutional inequality are recurrently replaced and supplemented by new forms. This process, the article argues, is driven by states' efforts to adapt the regime to a changing material and normative environment within the constraints of past institutional legacies.

The literature on International Relations theory has yet to align relational theory with role theory, despite the fact that these two theories share so much epistemological common ground. This article uses role theory to bridge the gap between the Confucian and Western conceptions of relationality, whose practitioners regard each other as strangers. With the support of role theory, the comparative analysis of relationality in this article has mainly focused on two different types of relations: prior rule-based relations and improvised relations. The differences in the cultural preparation for these two relations partially explain the plurality of the relational universe and the perception of stranger. Role theory is one way to reconnect the seemingly irreconcilable relational universes. To illustrate the value of a composite agenda of relational theory and role theory, the article will use Kim Jong-un of North Korea as its case. Confucian relations propose that, for all nations, the necessity of having a certain role relation is a more important agenda than insisting on exactly what role to take.

People who are seriously concerned with international relations—whether as scholars, officials, or interested citizens—generally purport to prefer that states should act in accordance with principle in their dealings with each other. This preference is usually stated wistfully, or even plaintively, as an ideal that is unfortunately far from any prospect of realization. The proposition is that states do not, but certainly should, consistently engage in principled behaviour in the international setting.

This article explores how various aspects of the ‘global War on Terror’ may be affecting the future development of international law on the use of force. I examine these effects within three areas of international law – the law of anticipatory self-defence, the law of self-defence against non-state actors, and the applicability of international humanitarian law to non-state armed groups. Only in the latter two areas do I find evidence that international law is evolving to accommodate the new realities of global terror. While such developments in the law reflect the supposed need by states to use military means to combat terrorism, they also seem to confer at least a limited international legal personality upon terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda. This not only indicates a shift in the basis for legal personality, but also potentially undermines the legitimacy of international law and frustrates states' efforts at combating terrorism.

This article seeks to question the epistemological monopoly of territory and scale in analyses of the Syrian conflict. It does so to both challenge static conceptualisations of space in the study of politics and analyse how seemingly remote actors influence wartime outcomes. Since 2011, NGOs, government bodies, and merchants have worked to connect Damascus to Tehran, Idlib to Istanbul, London to Dara‘a. These connections have proven crucial to the reliable supply of food, funds, and firepower. Yet rather than reveal the importance of foreign patrons or proxies on the ground, such dynamics speak to a world in which relationships matter more than distance, practices more than geopolitical position or a priori forms of alliance. Drawing on the work of John Allen, I suggest why thinking topologically about these dynamics better equips us to understand the political outcomes they help engender. To demonstrate the promise of this approach, I hone in on the partnerships, intermediaries, and connections that shape performances of political authority in Syria by examining one object crucial to its enactment: bread.

This article explores ways of decolonising Development Studies by: (1) examining the discipline’s tendencies towards what some have called ‘imperial amnesia’, that is, proclivities towards disavowing if not erasing European colonialism, most evident in 1950s–1960s Modernisation theory, but also more recently in the work of such analysts as Bruce Gilley and Nigel Biggar; (2) considering the opportunities and perils of ‘epistemic decolonisation’, that is, ways of decolonising knowledge production in the discipline, including the limits of ‘non-Eurocentric’ pedagogies; and (3) reflecting on forms of material decolonisation (e.g., the reduction of socioeconomic inequalities by improving better access to education or resisting the corporatisation of publicly funded research) that need to accompany any epistemic decolonisation for the latter to be meaningful.

Justus Lipsius (1547–1606) was among the most influential thinkers of the late 16th/early 17th centuries. His guides for action were highly influential in the establishment of moderate absolutism and what has been called the fiscal-military state across Europe. In this article I explore Lipsian thought in an International Relations context. Special attention is paid to his ideals of discipline, which were meant to order both the ruler and those that he ruled. Dignity, self-restraint and discipline were the recipes for the foreign policy of the prince, while the individual was subordinated to the purposes of the state, and taught to control his own life by mastering his emotions. If not a seminal thinker in his own right, it is necessary to understand Lipsius’ thought and influence to be able to fully understand the 17th century theoretical approaches to peace and prosperity and the relative discipline of early-modern statecraft.

Discussion of what is ‘(post)-Soviet studies’ has become one of the most lively sub-fields of the discipline (if, indeed, it is a discipline), reflecting the mood of introspection and self-doubt that prevails in the area today. What precisely, is the subject in question? There is no consensus even over the name. The title of this short review was initially set as ‘post-Soviet studies’. Although from the outset aware of the shortcomings of the term, it was only as I began to think how to approach the subject that I realised that it was impossible—or at least profoundly misleading—to work under such a rubric. The concept of ‘Soviet’ grounds the emerging discipline too narrowly in the experience of a single country. The notion of ‘post-Sovietology’ is also emerging as a contender to describe the field, but that is doubly misleading, inheriting at best a mixed intellectual baggage and controversial legacy of the original subject of ‘Sovietology’, now compounded by the addition of the prefix ‘post’. The subject is indeed as much about the terms it uses and the methodologies it applies as it is about the events and processes it describes.

The West is now less dependent on Persian Gulf oil than at any time in the last decade. However, the area remains economically and strategically vital. The fact that the recent escalation of hostilities in the desultory Iran-Iraq war has attracted world-wide attention bears disturbing witness to the West's continuing vulnerability in this region. This vulnerability stems, in part, from three crucial decisions—two made in London and one in Washington—during the years 1968 to 1973, Until then, the Persian Gulf was viewed, when it was considered at all, as something of an international anachronism—a sleepy outpost of the fast-dwindling British Empire where Britannia still ruled the waves and the ‘Pax Britannica’ applied as it had since the 1820s. In that six-year period the Labour government of Harold Wilson announced that Britain would end its historic role in the Gulf; the Conservative government of Edward Heath chose not to alter the Labour policy, despite indications that it would do so; and the Nixon administration decided not to ‘fill the vacuum’. This paper assesses these three cases in terms of decision making theory, testing the utility of various theoretical decision making paradigms. Developments in the Gulf itself are treated only in so far as they had an effect on the making of policy in London and Washington.

David Mitrany was one of the originators, almost the founding father, of the functional approach to world government, and his pragmatic ideas have proved as relevant at the end of this century as when they were first fully expounded in the early 1940s. At that time Mitrany, with many other political thinkers, was concerned with new approaches in planning for the international organization of peace in the postwar world. His advocacy of functionalism was to be effective, even welcomed, in keeping with public demands for the future; and was to be taken into account by those working on the Charter of the new United Nations, in particular in the establishment of its specialized agencies.

This article argues against a recent development within anglo-phone political philosophy which treats almost all group conflicts as deriving from cultural differences, thus downplaying the notion that conflicts may simply be over the distribution of things to which all the participants attach value: power, money, land and so on. Normative political philosophy, it is claimed by those who take this view, should be primarily concerned with issues of identity, recognition and culture at the expense of issues concerning distribution. There is however, little basis for these claims, whose implications are sketched in here and form the foundation for a defence of a liberalism ‘that has confidence in its own insights, a liberalism possessed of clarity as well as compassion.’

The contention that ‘democracies don't fight against each other’ has received considerable attention in recent years from academics, policy analysts and world leaders. While the accuracy, significance and implications of the claim are still debated, supporters and critics alike have, virtually without exception, agreed that they are addressing the significant topic: the absence of war between democracies. Both accept the terms of the debate which is to focus upon the existence of a ‘separate peace’ between democracies or liberal states. Supporters of the contention are engaged in devising an explanation of the relationship between democracies/liberal states and peace which ‘needs to explain, simultaneously, both (a) the fact that democratic states have rarely clashed with one another—the democratic peace phenomenon, and (b) the fact that democracies are about as war prone as non–democracies’ in their relations with non–democracies. Critics (mostly Realists) are engaged in refuting the accuracy and challenging the significance of the claim. It is the argument of this article, however, that the concentration upon this agenda is misguided, and that the absence of war between liberal states is but a sub–category of a broader and potentially more significant relationship: a connection between liberalism and peace that is actually more extensive than that apparent in inter–liberal state relations.

This article examines the relationship between India's nuclear programme and its postcolonial identity. In particular, I argue that making sense of the anomalies and contradictions of India's nuclear behaviour, such as the gap of two decades between its nuclear tests, its promotion of nuclear disarmament and its failure to sign non-proliferation and test-ban treaties requires an understanding of the racially gendered construction of India's postcolonial modernity and the central roles given to science and morality within it. I suggest that India's postcolonial identity is anchored in anticolonial discourses that are deeply ambivalent toward what was viewed as a Western modernity that could provide material betterment but was also potentially destructive. What was desired was a better modernity that took into account what was believed to be Indian civilisation's greater propensity toward ethical and moral conduct. India's nuclear policies, such as its pursuit of nuclear technology and its promotion of disarmament cannot be seen in isolation from the successes and failures of this broader project of fashioning an ethical modernity.

This article considers the United Nations (UN) as a creator and facilitator of innovative ideas in world politics. It thereby breathes new life into the world organisation's overlooked characteristics: the quality and diversity of its intellectual leadership, and its value-based framework for dealing with the global challenges of our times. The nature of UN ideas are examined – the good, the bad, and the ugly – while recognising that most have multiple origins and various carriers, and it continues by assessing impact. Three types of UN ideas – positive, normative, and instrumental – are discussed. Positive ideas are those resting on hard evidence, open to challenge and verifiable. Normative ideas are beliefs about what the world should look like. Instrumental (which some might label ‘causal’) ideas are often about what strategy will have what result or what tactic will achieve a desirable outcome, usually less verifiable and with a normative veneer. The article then examines nine UN ideas that changed the world, before illustrating the significance of this by examining two counterfactuals: a world without the world organisation and its ideas as well as with a more creative institution.

This article develops and applies the role of ‘common sense’ in a Gramscian theory of transnational counter-hegemony. Building on recent interpretative literature on the alter-globalisation movement, it applies this framework to then evaluate empirically the impact of the alter-globalisation movement on the realm of global ‘common sense’ understandings of the world in the period 2002 to 2007. It shows that there is little empirical support for the notion that the alter-globalisation movement effected a legitimation crisis for neo-liberalism as a hegemonic project on a global scale. Instead, a more ambivalent and potentially reactionary situation amongst collectively held norms is revealed. This indicates the shortcomings of the alter-globalisation movement as a coalition of social forces capable of mounting an ideological attack on neo-liberalism and forging a new intellectual-moral bloc.

The literature of recent UK policy toward Syria focuses on the 2013 chemical weapons crisis. We examine policy discourses leading up to that. The government supported the removal of Assad but faced the challenge of explaining how that would be realised. Given its unwillingness and inability to mobilise support for military intervention, or to tailor policy goals to match available means, government strategy arguably lacked credibility. Our purpose is to examine how the government tried to close this ends means gap and how, having failed to do that, its ‘discursive strategy’ legitimised its approach. We argue the resources for the government’s discursive strategy on Syria can be found in the earlier articulation of ‘liberal conservatism’. A policy that from an ideal-liberal or ideal-conservative position might have been criticised as half-baked was maintained by a strategy that gave consideration to, but did not completely follow through on, either archetype. Drawing on an analysis of 2,152 sources and supplemented by elite interviews, we illustrate how this strategy managed the interplay of two basic discourses: a liberal insistence that the UK should support ‘the Arab Spring’ and a conservative insistence that military intervention was imprudent because ‘Syria was not Libya’.

Hans-Martin Jaeger argues in this Journal that Hegel endorses a ‘reluctant realism’, whereby Hegel's theory of international politics institutionalises a transnationalising civil society of states. In Jaeger's view, Hegel's conception of individuals in civil society is analogous to states in international politics. On the contrary, I argue Hegel's conception of abstract right is far more commensurable with his theory of international politics. The mutual recognition existing in civil society – which helps to produce legal relationships – does not exist beyond the state where there are no legal relationships. Thus, Hegel is a realist of a more familiar sort, without any ‘reluctance’.