Promoting the Hegemonic Paradigm: The Case Study of the Journal International Security in the Discipline of International Security Studies

This paper seeks to shed light on the evolution of the hegemonic paradigm in the subfield of International Security Studies (ISS) by looking at one highly influential journal, International Security. Questions we will be considering: What are the parameters of the hegemonic paradigm that characterize ISS? What are its main continuities and ruptures? More generally, how do academic journals contribute to building, maintaining or deconstructing the hegemonic paradigm? Using the method of longitudinal content analysis, this paper highlights the different continuities and ruptures in this so-called hegemonic paradigm. Our aim is to show how International Security has contributed to building and maintaining this paradigm and how it can transcend these limits.

Global Governance and Cosmopolitan Democracy: Bridging the gap between proponents and opponents

<p><strong>Abstract</strong></p> <p>The aim of this paper is to seize the middle ground between the advocates and the critics of cosmopolitan democracy. Although a number of critiques raised with regard both to the <em>feasibility </em>and the <em>suitability </em>of the project are rightly raised, a trajectory towards cosmopolitanism is necessary at a time when globalization not only connects different parts of the world in an unprecedented way, but also more than ever creates the need for more extensive cooperation, collective and effective global governance. Bearing that in mind, and with the aim to surpass the pessimism of the critics, the paper examines how global governance can become more inclusive and symmetrical by pursuing a gradualist approach in comparison to the more holistic cosmopolitan project.</p>

Virtual Roadblocks: The Securitisation of the Information Superhighway

<p>The Internet we know today is both content filtered and packet shaped. Subsequently, it is not the free operating zone of meta-space early proponents expected. Contrary to conventional wisdom, a multitude of actors have shown an increased willingness to intervene and control communication via the Internet with precision and effectiveness. This paper employs the Copenhagen School’s conceptualisation of securitisation at the macro level to address the issue of global Internet filtering from a “network” position between traditional “national” security and critical “individual” security. It looks at the ways in which intervention into the Internet’s infrastructure is leveraged for governance through various research programs such as Ronald Deibert’s Open Net Initiative, which probes all aspects of a national information infrastructure over the long term, concluding that the scope, scale, and sophistication of global Internet filtering are increasing in non-transparent fashions.</p> <p>It should come as no surprise that since its dissemination, authoritarian regimes such as China, Iran and, Saudi Arabia have actively engaged in Internet filtering practices. What is troublesome is that advanced industrialised countries including Canada, Germany, and the United States have also followed suit. Reasons for doing so include: the securitisation of information communication after 9/11, to restricting access to material involving the sexual exploitation of children as well as ‘extremist’ websites. Considering these securitising moves, this paper argues that the more that filtering practices are withheld from public scrutiny and accountability, the more temping it is for framing authorities to employ these tools for illegitimate reasons such as the stifling of both opposition and civil society networks. Furthermore, due to increased connectivity, transparent Internet requires desecuritisation of social agents and international security structures in order to ensure more free information.</p>

Pragmaticist explorations: C.S. Peirce, the logic of inquiry and international relations

<p>The philosophical tradition of Pragmatism has recently entered the fray of international relations (IR) debates. Pragmatism has so far been mainly employed in meta-theoretical discussions over the foundations of the discipline, and to address normative and methodological questions characterizing this field of studies. The main sources of inspiration in these discussions have been classic pragmatist writers such as John Dewey and William James. The work of one of the major figures of this tradition, Charles Sanders Peirce, has been by and large neglected in the literature. The claim advanced in this paper is that the application of some of the American philosopher’s key insights, especially those regarding the logic of inquiry, to first order issues in world politics can enrich the current ‘pragmatist turn’ in IR and contribute to the expansion of the theoretical horizons of the discipline.</p>

Conversations on the Regime and the Institution: The Copenhagen Accord and Global Environmental Governance

<p>This paper presents an inquiry into the state of conversations in international politics on the prospects for the global environmental governance of climate change. The essay reviews the literature on regime theory and its discontents to provide a working understanding of the authors’ conception of global environmental governance for climate change as a regime. The most recent cases of global environmental governance on climate change are discussed, focusing on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change as the primary arena for governance-building discussions, leading up to the 2009 Copenhagen Summit. The paper then considers the conversations that posit the failures of Copenhagen and question a current existential crisis facing global environmental governance on climate change. Finally, it is suggested that these failures of the Copenhagen round can be understood within the context of regime theory and its limitations in International Relations. The experience of Copenhagen is representative of continuity with both regime theory and the recent history of global environmental governance on climate change. While the Copenhagen Accord may represent a failure as an international institution on climate change it is perhaps not a failure if interpreted more broadly as part of a governing global climate change regime.</p>

Michel Foucault's Considerable Sway on International Relations Theory

<p>The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the considerable influence that Michel Foucault has had on International Relations theory. To do this, I will present a selection of important contributions to the discipline that have been inspired by his work. Firstly, I will show that the critique of rationalist and scientific paradigms in International Relations was in great part led by commentators who displayed strong foucaultian inspirations. Second, I will introduce a series of scholars who have made cogent uses of discourse analysis, which Foucault developed in philosophical and genealogical works. Lastly, I discuss the uses and interpretations of governmentality, biopolitics and sovereign power in the analysis of emerging networks of power at the international level. In this article, my central argument is that the application of Foucault’s thought to International Relations has given way to a rich and ever-evolving research program and has had considerable impact on the opening and redefinition of the discipline.</p>

Conversations in and on IR: Labeling, Framing and Delimiting IR Discipline

<p>Calling for genuine and open dialogues between research agendas and theoretical orientations, this article seeks to put “conversations” at the center of the process of discipline-building. Just as Steve Smith declared: “We construct, and reconstruct, our disciplines just as much as we construct, and reconstruct, our world” (2004: 510), we intend to convene researchers in IR to reflect on the way we build and represent our discipline, our object of study and our community’s purposes. Applying discursive analysis and Emanuel Alder’s communitarian constructivist approach to the discipline of IR, this article will particularly discuss the use of mechanisms of labeling, cognitive structuring, and disciplinary debates to the framing of IR itself. It will propose some answers to questions such as: “What is the content and appropriate label of the discipline?”, “Who constitutes the disciplinary community?”, and “What is the legitimate purpose of the discipline?” and finally underlie some questions and contradictions in the way we understand such issues.</p>

Bridging and Conversation in International Relations

<p>The community of scholars working in or around the field of international relations is increasingly splintered across multiple empirical, methodological and theoretical divides. Faced with increasing fracturing pressures, what steps can be taken to ensure that a genuine spirit of engagement is maintained? This paper explores the challenges of scholarly conversation in an increasingly complex academic environment in order to develop some strategies and techniques aimed at helping students and young scholars to engage productively with the multiple contestations which continue to shape the field. By encouraging the practice of working to build “bridging resources”, a diverse community of scholars can find ways to demystify terminological and conceptual barriers. Furthermore, a commitment to engaged forms of scholarly conversation can help to distil and re-articulate even the most ambiguous perpectival distinctions and points of contention in such a way that disagreements within the field can be more accurately understood and navigated, even if not overcome.</p>