Claudia Zanardi

King's College London | KCL · Department of War Studies

According to the French historian Jules Michelet (1798–1874), the distinguishing characteristic of Great Britain is its geographical island feature. Relatively safe compared to continental Europe, it has developed powerful naval and commercial fleets to support its trade and, thanks to its undisputed maritime power, has managed to build a vast empi...

Established by de Gaulle in 1958, the Constitution of the Fifth Republic enhanced the President’s decision powers to the point that the French political system has been classified as semi-presidential (Duverger, 1980, 1986). Therefore, foreign policy became the President’s domaine réservé, the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, his military adviso...

During the Cold War, Washington vetoed diplomatic relations between the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, 1949–1990) and any state recognising the Democratic Republic of Germany (DRG), except for the USSR. Thus, while the GDR recognised the PRC in 1949, the FRG refrained from recognising the PRC. Although the Hallstein doctrine also excluded the di...

Since Deng Xiaoping’s reforms (Spence, 2013), the re-emergence of China has sparked countless debates among International Relations scholars on how best to respond.

The term ‘actorness’ related to foreign policy was introduced to explain the role of the European Economic Communities (EEC), later the European Union (EU), and namely its ability

This book explores the foreign and security policies of Germany, France and the UK vis-à-vis China. Despite the progress made by the Lisbon Treaty and notwithstanding the first EU Global Strategy, the European Union does not have a strategy to address the rise of China. Since this strategic deficit does not automatically reflect the level of EU mem...

This article highlights the particular conception of China’s of soft power which reflects the dualistic nature of the Chinese strategic culture: it has two components, a direct (zheng) and an indirect (qi) dimension which are not in opposition; rather, they are integrated. The Confucius Institutes and China’s naval diplomacy are two relevant compon...