Does economic deprivation fuel terrorist recruitment? A large empirical literature has explored this question, but the findings remain contradictory and inconclusive. We argue that this is due to inconsistencies in the way deprivation has been defined and measured. This article identifies these deficiencies and provides a roadmap toward more precise measurement of deprivation and consequently toward

The COVID-19 crisis created, and continues to produce, unprecedented challenges globally. Marginalized and racialized families, communities, and nations are experiencing their worst impacts, and in particular, women and girls are the hardest hit. The most pressing concerns raised by COVID-19 include a surge in gender-based violence, a rise in care burden, the feminization of poverty, and growing unemployment

The article argues that International Relations, and especially those approaches that are informed by the epistemological and methodological premises of reflexivity, would benefit from a more diversified range of comparative methodologies other than those deriving from the work of J.S. Mill and more recent developments within the neopositivist canon. While discussions of methodology in International

In a world of accelerated movements, this article examines how infrastructures matter in international relations. We first show that the International Relations (IR) discipline has relegated infrastructures to the background of their studies and treated them as passive tools despite their forcible role in the establishment of the modern state system. By adopting a sociological definition of “the international

Women increasingly feature in nuclear diplomacy, both as participants and as subject matter. Research institutes report a steady increase in women's representation in large multilateral disarmament forums. Diplomats emphasize the importance of women in statements and working papers. The recent conversation on women in nuclear diplomacy forms part of a wider discourse on women in the nuclear weapons

Why do states arm? And why do they, sometimes, do so together with other states? International relations and security studies scholars have long explored the causes that propel states to arm. However, the extant literature has yet to provide a coherent theoretical framework to explain arms production and collaboration. Drawing from work in eclectic theorizing, this article contributes a systematizing

This Presidential Special Issue brings together a diverse array of scholars and perspectives to address contemporary challenges to the world—and to international studies. Drawing together contributions from the Sapphire Series and the 2023 International Studies Association Annual Meeting, contributors grapple with uncertainty, complexity, and the imperative of inclusivity in the field and beyond.

This article addresses growing calls for a fifth debate on international relations’ (IR) “race amnesia.” The central argument is two-fold. First, contrary to conventional wisdom, racial justice was not omitted in “orthodox” scholarship—in particular Morgenthau’s realism. On the contrary, classical realists repeatedly critiqued the lack of racial justice throughout their careers. Second, racial justice

In this analytical essay, we situate truth commissions as relevant sites for International Relations (IR) research, in particular on professional communities and knowledge hierarchies. With an empirical focus on report-making, we argue that there is a need to rethink and revise established professional community concepts. While these concepts stress professional communities’ detachment from mundane

Back-channel negotiations are commonplace in peace negotiations and can serve as crucial mechanisms for reaching agreements. While there has been a moderate increase in scholarship examining back-channel negotiations in the last two decades, none has explored the gendered nature of these spaces. This article analyzes how and why back-channel negotiations are highly gendered processes and why their

In line with the call for greater engagement with the affective and emotional dimensions of conducting research in conflict and post-conflict settings, this article addresses the methodological implications of incorporating emotionally sensed knowledge into the research process. It argues that emotions serve as fundamental heuristic keys for entering the field and acquiring situated knowledge. By reflecting

Territory is a distinctive feature of modern international politics, but there is little consensus over what about it is distinctively modern. Recent scholarship in historical international relations (IR) takes modern territoriality to be defined by the practice of creating and enforcing borders. Scholarship therefore dismisses the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, once thought to be the origin of the sovereign

This article argues that interpersonal commitment is statespersons’ most highly coveted aim, the greatest benefit that interpersonal relations can yield in diplomacy. Accordingly, statespersons employ a range of relational practices in encounters with counterparts, seeking to create and harness commitment that will advance professional aims. We argue that statespersons can follow one of two paths to

International relations (IR) scholars are increasingly interested in the role of memory in world politics. In this paper, we examine a key tension in the uptake of memory in IR between its status as a topic studied within IR and its use as an optic through which the basic categories of IR might be rethought. Focusing on the problem of scales of analysis, central within memory studies more broadly,

In various conflict contexts where the state is unable to maintain security and public order, non-state armed groups (NSAGs) and the United Nations (UN) conduct their activities alongside one another. While previous research has focused on hostile relations between the UN and NSAGs, less attention has been given to collaborative interactions. This paper aims to address this research gap by formulating

What strategies can be employed to conceptualize peace? In recent years, scholars have introduced an impressive array of “peace with adjectives” in order to make sense of some of the normative and empirical underpinnings of peace. Negative, positive, everyday, virtual, illiberal, partial, insecure, relational, emancipatory, agonistic, and feminist are some of the qualifiers that have been associated

A recent wave of civil conflict scholarship examines rebel governance, the process through which insurgent groups organize local affairs in areas under their control. While current research predominantly focuses on the supply side of rebel governance, the attention given to the demand side has been relatively limited. In this study, we take stock of recent scholarship on the dynamic relationship between

This article reviews one of the expanding research programs in international relations (IR): the study of populist foreign policy (PFP). Recent years have witnessed a significant proliferation of IR scholars researching the nexus between the global rise of populism and their foreign policies across different countries, regions, and sub-fields. However, scientific progress at such stage of this research

International studies scholarship has benefitted from insights from anthropology, peace and conflict studies, geography, and other disciplines to craft a thoughtful set of reflections and considerations for researchers to take with them “into the field” when they embark on “fieldwork.” In this essay, we map out a history of critical approaches to fieldwork, starting with the encounters that initially

Across the world, so-called warlord democrats (WDs) – former military or political leaders of armed groups who subsequently enter formal electoral politics – strongly influence the dynamics and trajectory of post-civil war politics. However, scholarship on war-to-peace transitions and post-conflict politics have often failed to pay attention to the agency of these important actors. This article rectifies

This paper proposes a comprehensive research program for determining the epistemological foundations of analytic wargaming. Wargaming has been used in military, government, and private sectors for decades, with tens of millions of dollars spent annually on it. In light of the changing strategic circumstances of the twenty-first century, it has only become more popular. However, the epistemological

It is commonplace to say that international organizations (IOs) face a legitimacy crisis because they are perceived as undemocratic, unaccountable, and inefficient. Plausible as it may seem, this still must count as a conjecture. In this article, I review the rapidly growing literature that has explored this connection empirically. I follow three strands of research that approach the legitimacy of

The international (non)recognition of governments is a composite macro practice that has grown in visibility in recent years in response to contentious domestic political processes such as coups d’état, revolutions, and civil wars, yet it remains understudied in international relations. Doctrinal debates in international law and foreign policy reveal the normative vacuum and normative competition that

Artificial intelligence (AI) represents a technological upheaval with the potential to change human society. Because of its transformative potential, AI is increasingly becoming subject to regulatory initiatives at the global level. Yet, so far, scholarship in political science and international relations has focused more on AI applications than on the emerging architecture of global AI regulation

The last two decades have seen an increased focus on reporting bias in large-N datasets. Research on coups d’etat has similarly increased given the availability of coup datasets. This essay argues that while the availability of such data has pushed scholarship forward, the data collection process behind these efforts remains plagued with limitations common to event datasets. Rather than building on

How does armed conflict affect the social fabric of societies? This question is central if we want to understand better why some countries experience repeated cycles of violence. In recent years, considerable scientific work has been put into studying the social legacies of armed conflict. This article brings these academic studies together in a novel way, taking a holistic perspective and analyzing

Intelligence services are important sites of contestation, often the foci of reform and calls for greater transparency. Yet, while growing attention has been paid to intersectionality, gender equality reform, and progress in other areas of international affairs, little of this same transparency and attention has been paid to diversity in the intelligence sector. This paper seeks to bridge the gap,

International organizations (IOs) dispatch fact-finding missions to establish epistemic authority by objectively and impartially assessing contested facts. Despite this technocratic promise, they are often controversial and sometimes even fuel international disputes that challenge the epistemic authority of the dispatching organizations. Although the twenty-first century has witnessed a proliferation

The strategy of deterrence by denial is widely used by different actors. Despite its prominence, however, the scholarship on deterrence by denial stands to be developed further. It lags behind scholarship on deterrence by punishment on two points: in identifying the conditions under which the strategy works and in examining elements affecting its adoption. Deterrence by denial also carries some conceptual

Despite significant advances in our understanding of the politics of religious ideology and identity across time and space, scholars disagree on how to conceptualize “religious” conflicts and “religious” actors, and how to infer religious motivations from actors’ behavior. This Forum brings together scholars with diverse research agendas to weigh in on conceptual, methodological, and ethical questions

The global project of transitional justice (TJ) traditionally has been packaged in a multi-pillar model with criminal justice, truth recovery, reparations, institutional reform, and memorialization, and the norms they enshrine, seemingly presented as interventions of equivalent status at the level of policy. This article aims to enhance the theorizing on TJ as a “norm cluster” by comparatively examining

Neoclassical realism has carved a unique niche by offering a theoretically derived and empirically rich foreign policy analysis framework. Over the years, it has branched out as a theory of mistakes (Type I), a theory of foreign policy (Type II), and a theory of international politics (Type III). This article proposes another challenge to consolidate its offer of a progressive research agenda to position

There is a widespread perception that we are witnessing a period of democratic decline, manifesting itself in varieties of democratic backsliding such as the manipulation of elections, marginalization and repression of regime opponents and minorities, or more incremental executive aggrandizement. Yet others are more optimistic and have argued that democracy is in fact resilient, or that we are observing

The religion–politics nexus has become a thriving field within the study of global politics. However, the fast development has translated only into a moderate diversification of the research. Building on Bourdieu’s analysis of the social field, this paper argues that this limited pluralization is related to the strong heteronomy of the field. This heteronomy has three “concentric” sources—the dependence

In the 3 years between the 2019 and 2022 International Studies Association (ISA) meetings, the profound state of global economic, social, and political upheaval around the world has become unavoidably evident for much, if not most, of the world. Against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, movements for inclusion and resulting backlashes sprang up across the globe. As scholars of international affairs

Because of the novel explanations it generates for states’ security- and identity-related behavior, the concept of ontological security has been used increasingly in the International Relations (IR) literature in recent years. However, the abundance of interpretations of the concept means that it is often used in conflicting ways. To counter the risk of conceptual stretching and provide the foundation

The primary purpose of this article is to advance the ongoing global international relations (Global IR) debate and to offer some possible paths toward Global IR 2.0. To this end, this article first analyzes how Global IR has emerged, what contributions it makes to giving new impetus to IR knowledge (production), and, more importantly, what charges are leveled against Global IR. Although Global IR

Defense ministries regularly frame climate security in their national security strategies. Recently, “civil” ministries also begun mentioning climate security. However, they do not mean the same thing. This article develops four indicators to assess the commitment of climate security framings to an understanding of climate security as either human/environmental or national security issue. It applies

This article brings a broad array of works, which pertain to different research areas of international relations (IR), into contact with each other via a graphic method, systemism, to obtain insights that otherwise might prove elusive. Completion of these tasks is anticipated to exemplify how the systemist approach can enhance communication throughout IR. Systemism is introduced as a graphic technique

Aspirations toward technological sovereignty increasingly pervade the political debate. Yet, an ambiguous definition leaves the exact goal of those aspirations and the policies to fulfil them unclear. This opens the door for vested interests who benefit from misinterpreting the goal, e.g., as a strive for autarky, nationalism, and the rollback of globalization. To close this gap, we show how certain

This essay reviews four recent books on Germany's foreign policy with emphasis on the era of Angela Merkel. The evaluation is based on their (a) added value to scholarship on German foreign policy, (b) theoretical sophistication and contribution to IR, and (c) relevance also for the post-Merkel era. I argue that the books bring in valuable insights regarding the enduring, yet also changeable role of

This paper seeks to contribute to the English School's (ES) understanding of the European Regional International Society (ERIS) through the work of Karl Polanyi. While ES theory has long been interested in regional international societies, its general approach remains limited to a methodologically internationalist frame that fails to capture the dynamism and historical change of regional formations

This article presents a conceptual framework for analyzing the strength of ceasefires in intra-state conflict. The framework is based on the perspectives of ceasefire practitioners. The practitioners view the essence of ceasefire design as the reduction and management of risk, which ranges in severity from violations to complete breakdown of the ceasefire agreement. The framework identifies three determinants

The study of intra-state violence has been a main focus of scholars since the end of the Cold War, and in recent years particular attention has been paid to the consequences of civil wars on future political, social, and economic development. Yet, understanding the consequences of political violence requires a clear working definition of what we mean when we say that someone was “exposed to” or was

Almost a decade after Sweden first declared that it would follow a feminist foreign policy (FFP), a further eleven countries from across Europe, North and South America, and North and West Africa have adopted, or have signaled an interest in potentially adopting, an FFP in the future. These developments have been accompanied by a growing body of feminist scholarship. Although still in its infancy,

This paper integrates the scholarship on compliance with international human rights courts to reflect upon how the literature approaches delays and compliance cycles. Building on this review, we propose a new analytical approach that helps distinguish between reparations prone to immediate or protracted implementation. We introduce two metrics to facilitate the interpretation of delays: the yearly

In this article, we address the question of how policy orientation shapes academic research from a sociological perspective. Policy orientation involves the mobilization of scientific resources and the “mobilization of the world.” Our analysis is based on Bourdieusian field theory and focuses on democracy promotion research (DPR). It shows that DPR is a heterogeneous academic field characterized by

Databases constitute key research tools in sanctions scholarship. Over the past few years, we have witnessed a proliferation of sanctions databases: while only a single dataset was available until 2009, this number had increased to five by 2020; thus, the choice has more than doubled in less than a decade. This essay assesses the evolution observed. It reviews the five major datasets, comparing some

This article takes a reflexive look at the dilemmas and challenges of accessing a predominantly male circle of political and nongovernmental elites in the Central African Republic from the perspective of a young Black African male student researcher. It focuses on questions of positionality, arguing that certain African social norms regarding seniority and hierarchy can affect data generation, specifically

Through its potential to contribute to mass suffering, economic disruption, and social unrest, climate change poses a security threat to the constitutional identities of states (as democratic, autocratic, or hybrid regimes). This paper proposes a conceptual framework of mediated causality for climatic impacts on constitutional identity and engages in novel theory-building for one mediating vector of

The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has passed over eighteen thousand resolutions since its foundation. It is a very heterogeneous collection, containing at once landmark documents, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and scores of less important and even controversial pieces. Hence, scholarship for the past 75 years has been divided on the actual relevance of UNGA resolutions

Scholars of world politics can readily list the global governors of our time, but why and how did these particular actors gain agency in the first place? While there is impressive scholarship on single global governors and their respective impact, there is little comparative work and systematic theorization on what agency in world politics is and how actors gain it. This forum brings together contributions

Over the last two decades, climate security has become an increasingly salient policy agenda in international fora. Yet, despite a large body of research, the empirical links between climate-change and conflict remain highly uncertain. This paper contends that uncertainty around climate–conflict links should be understood as characteristic of complex social–ecological systems rather than a problem

Research on armed conflict's gender dynamics has expanded significantly in the past decade. However, research in this field pays little attention to sexual orientation and gender identity. Moreover, where scholarship focused on violence against sexual and gender minority (SGM) individuals during war exists, it is largely divorced from work on gender-based violence (GBV) in conflict-related environments

This paper criticizes the epistemic foundations of democratic state-building, which are derived from a model of political transitions according to which liberal democratic institutions will transform a hitherto authoritarian and troubled country into a more prosperous and stable society and, therefore, foreign interventions to establish these institutions are realistic and worthy investments, provided

Power-sharing provisions have been included in many peace agreements intended to end intra-state violent conflict, including, for example, in Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Sudan, and Lebanon. Power-sharing has been subject to extensive scholarly examination. Many of these examinations focus on the impact of power-sharing on peace, often defined as the non-recurrence of violent conflict. However, the results

Scholarship drawing from a wide array of perspectives including field theoretical and functional differentiation approaches has shed increasing light on the sectoral dimensions of world politics. In contrast to dominant approaches emphasizing hierarchy and power in relations between global fields, this article offers a novel interpretive framework for understanding how diverse fields, systems, or sectors

Some norms go through long contested periods, resulting in norm change, rejection, or persisting conflict. Others are adopted quite quickly, with little resistance across diverse societies. An underlying and unanswered theoretical question is why? A foundational characteristic of a norm as a concept, and a key aspect of constructivist scholarship on norms, is the role of values and moral principles

Recent work in international relations has problematized state-centric assumptions of governance to explore variations in authority by a range of nonstate actors (e.g., nongovernmental organizations, criminal syndicates, gangs). This forum centers on the phenomenon of rebel group governance during civil wars and leverages the concept to advance our understanding of current theories and conceptualizations

Diplomats in embassies and permanent representations are increasingly using the messaging application WhatsApp to communicate with their peers. They use WhatsApp groups to coordinate initiatives at multilateral forums, communicate more rapidly with headquarters and stay in touch with organizational developments at home, as well as form more personal working relations among their peers. To make sense