Neorealism, neoclassical realism and the problem(s) of history

Following scholarship on IR’s ‘historical turn’ as well as on neorealism and neoclassical realism, this article finds fault particularly in neorealism’s implicit reliance on the historically contingent but incompletely conceptualised transmission of systemic factors into state behaviour. Instead, it suggests that neoclassical realism (NCR) is well-suited to leveraging ‘history’ in systematic and general explanation. This article interrogates two routes towards a historically sensitive NCR (intervening variables and structural modifiers), and how they enable different operationalisations of ‘history’ as a sequence of events, cognitive tool or collective narrative. The first route suggests history underpins concepts and variables currently used by neoclassical realists. Here, history is more easily operationalised and allows a clearer view at learning and emulation processes. It is also more clearly scoped, and therefore less ‘costly’ in terms of paradigmatic distinctiveness. The second route, in which history modifies structural incentives and constraints, is more theoretically challenging especially in terms of differentiating NCR from constructivist approaches, but lends itself to theorising systemic change. Both routes provide fruitful avenues for realist theorising, can serve to emancipate NCR from neorealism in IR and foster cross-paradigmatic dialog. Examining how ‘history’ can be leveraged in realism allows interrogating how other ‘mainstream’, positivist approaches can and should leverage historical contingency, context and evidence to explain international processes and outcomes.

Unnatural narratives, Brexit and ideology in Ian McEwan’s The Cockroach

Against the backdrop of sudden shifts in global political and historical climate, our century has witnessed a convergence of turns in humanities, including the nonhuman turn and the historical turn. Ian McEwan’s latest novella, The Cockroach, is a just work along this line. Through the use of unnatural narratives within realistic context, McEwan presents readers with a world that is both strange and recognisable. By examining the unnatural narrative strategies, including the deployment of nonhuman character and omniscient narrator, McEwan expresses concerns for the future of humanity and fear for social and cultural parochialism, populism and anti-cosmopolitanism.

What Satellite Television Has Done to the Public Sphere and to the Public in the Maghreb

This chapter shows how the advent of satellite television in the Maghreb constitutes a historical turn that recomposes the Maghrebin public spheres. The existing duality between national and satellite televisions has produced a unique configuration where parallel, conflicting ideas and perspectives came into existence. These perspectives, which opposed most of the official discourses’ orientations, are conveyed in daily life practices and interactions, such as the streets and semipublic spaces, and relayed by social media. Hence, the understanding of the novel and complex realities of Maghrebi political public spheres requires that the ordinary practices be considered as spaces and moments of the political fabrics in the Maghreb.