CIAO DATE: 10/2014
Volume: 17, Issue: 1
January 2014
Russia's energy relations in Europe and the Far East: towards a social structurationist approach to energy policy formation
Pami Aalto, David Dusseault, Michael D Kennedy, Markku Kivinen
In this article, we examine the formation of Russia's energy policies vis-à-vis Europe and the Far East. As energy policy is a very complex field, we propose a new structurationist analytical model to deal with that complexity. Our model highlights the practices by which actors acquire information of their policy environments, which are conceptualised as structures enabling and constraining their actions. These practices involve intentions, interests and schemata. In our case analyses - the Nord Stream pipeline project and the Sakhalin Island's energy politics - we find that profit interests, as part of a wider business frame, most centrally guide Russian actors. The often-hyped energy superpower frame is found to be ambiguous. It generally does not bring the intentions of Russian actors together well, even if such a frame resonates with some of Russia's European customers. Energy security frames are found to be prevalent among Russia's customers and are highly differentiated. Environmental frames are mostly instrumentally deployed. Russian energy actors are capable of displaying collective intentionality, but are incapable of fully controlling the various dimensions of the complex policy environment.
Defending state-centric regionalism through mimicry and localisation: regional parliamentary bodies in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Mercosur
Jürgen Rüland, Karsten Bechle
The creation of parliamentary bodies for regional organisations such as Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) or Mercosur seems to be at odds with the intergovernmental logic on which these organisations rest. We approach this puzzle from the perspective of norm diffusion theory. In the article we argue that transnational legislative bodies in Southeast Asia and South America have been primarily established to retain the respective organisation's ‘cognitive prior', which in both cases rests upon deeply entrenched corporatist norms and ideas. We test our theoretical claims by a comparative study on the emergence and evolution of the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly and the Mercosur Parliament.
Actor-networking the 'failed state' - an enquiry into the life of concepts
Christian Bueger, Felix Bethke
Concepts such as the ‘failed state' are jointly produced by academics and political actors and hence connect academia and global politics. Little attention has been spent to study such concepts and the practices that create them and sustain their relevance. We develop an innovative framework for studying concepts. Relying on actor-network theory, we suggest studying concepts as effects of relations between different actors building an actor-network. We introduce actor-network theory and demonstrate its value for international relations (IR) research. Our empirical case study of the concept of failed states combines bibliometric analysis and qualitative text analysis. We show how various actors have brought the concept of failed states to life; analyse how actors transformed because of their participation; and investigate the persistent struggles to define and homogenise the concept. In summary, this is an article about the life of the failed state, the discipline of IR and its relations to other actors, and an introduction of the actor-network theory toolbox to the sociology of IR.
Expanding the Expansion of International Society: a new approach with empirical illustrations from West African and European interaction, 1400-1883
John Anthony Pella, Jr.
The purpose of this article is to expand upon Hedley Bull and Adam Watson's work The Expansion of International Society (1984a), initially theoretically and thereafter through empirical illustrations. The premise is that Bull and Watson's approach can only take study of the expansion so far, as it creates silences that neglect aspects of international history that were central to the expansion process. As such, I initially focus on three features of Bull and Watson's theoretical approach that are thought to create these silences and a problematic Euro-centrism: historical periodisation, a neglect of non-European regions and the system/society distinction. I thereafter argue that the original Expansion's periodisation scheme needs to be broadened, that research into non-European regions before European contact is necessary and that interaction at the world society level should be considered. The benefits of this new approach are then illustrated, first in a study of the West African international society in its own right, and then in a study of the Afro-European interaction that took place in the context of that society. Ultimately, this new approach suggests that the expansion process was driven largely by the exchange of norms and ideas at the world society level and by the emergence of mutually constructed institutions over the course of several centuries.
Theorising the use of private military and security companies: a synthetic perspective
Andreas Kruck
This article seeks to systematise and advance the theoretical debate on the causes and conditions for the privatisation of security. Drawing on previous research on private military and security companies (PMSCs) and theories from International Relations and Comparative Politics, it reconstructs functionalist, political-instrumentalist and ideationist explanations for why and under what conditions even ‘strong' and democratic Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development states (extensively) use PMSCs. An analysis of inter-temporal and cross-national (United States, British, German and French) patterns of security privatisation indicates that all the three theoretical models point out causes and conditions that are relevant for a comprehensive explanation, but none is sufficient alone. Therefore, the article uses both the models and the empirical evidence to propose a synthetic perspective, which treats different explanatory conditions and logics as complementary, rather than rival. Going beyond the atheoretical conclusion that a multitude of disconnected factors are in some way relevant for a comprehensive explanation of security privatisation, I develop a thin and a thick synthesis that rely on a domain-of-application approach and sequencing, respectively. The thin synthesis spells out how different explanatory factors operate in specific domains, whereas the thick synthesis elaborates how different conditions and mechanisms apply to different phases of security privatisation and how they interrelate.
Replies to Chris Brown's '"Human Nature", science and international political theory' (PDF)
Stefano Guzzini, Ewelina Sokolowska, Daniel Jacobi, Stephen J Rosow
‘Human Nature' is back - and not only in JIRD, which had a special Symposium on the topic several years ago (Freyberg-Inan 2006; Hall 2006; Mercer 2006; Sterling-Folker 2006). Two reasons seem particularly relevant for the discussion here and now. First, and for quite a while now, our normative discussions struggle with or indeed vacillate between a universalism with problematic foundations and a pluralism suspect of relativism. Second, our theories of action smuggle in assumptions about human nature upon which the impetus for a certain behaviour is to be understood, but which are often conveniently left out of the analysis. For instance, with the advent of constructivism in International Relations, the existence and explanatory status of ‘rump materialism' is again up for discussion. More fundamentally, the classical dichotomies of ‘mind/body' and of ‘reason/emotion' have been found wanting. In this context, finding some kind of foundation in a potentially universal Human Nature would be a help welcomed by many.