Promoting Polyarchy: Globalization, US Intervention, and Hegemony
Abstract
Promoting Polyarchy is an exciting, detailed, and controversial work on the apparent change in US foreign policy from supporting dictatorships to an 'open' promotion of 'democratic' regimes. William I. Robinson argues that behind the façade of 'democracy promotion', the policy is designed more to retain the elite-based and undemocratic status quo of Third World countries than to encourage mass aspirations for democratization. He supports this challenging argument with a wealth of information garnered from field work and hitherto unpublished government documents, and assembled in case studies of the Philippines, Chile, Nicaragua, Haiti, South Africa, and the former Soviet Bloc. With its combination of theoretical and historical analysis, empirical argument, and bold claims, Promoting Polyarchy is an essential book for anyone concerned with democracy, globalization and international affairs.
Gramsci's concept of hegemony remains a highly contested topic, sparking a diverse body of literature that debates its historical, political, and theoretical relevance. This paper focuses on the theoretical debates surrounding hegemony, examining three key Gramscian frameworks: dominant ideology, discourse theory, and the neo-Gramscian approach in International Relations (IR) and International Political Economy (IPE). The central concern is how class and class struggle, central to Gramsci’s original concept, have been marginalized or eclipsed in these interpretations. The paper argues that class struggle is often substituted with ideology, culture, and discourse in both theoretical frameworks and concrete analyses of hegemony, which limits the understanding of contemporary politics despite claims to the contrary. This shift toward the ideational and consensual aspects of hegemony results in a limited theorization, offering a one-sided and partial view that leaves aside its structural, material, and coercive dimensions. By critically engaging with these approaches, the paper highlights the need to reintegrate class struggle into contemporary Gramscian theories, allowing a comprehensive understanding of hegemony to address the evolving, structural and class-based dynamics of politics in both national and global contexts.
There has been an organic crisis in terms of governing the world-system. The United States and its vassal states (e.g. the European Union countries, the Commonwealth countries, and Japan) have been struggling to maintain the status quo of the capitalist world-system. Under these circumstances, it appears that the bourgeoisie of the core may have attempted to introduce a new project to preserve the status quo, which can be identified as fascism. For many years, there has been a liberal democracy, which is essentially an oligarchy. However, over the years, liberal democracy has deteriorated and failed to respond to the needs of the bourgeoisie of the core. This has led to the possibility of fascism being considered as a solution to the structural/systemic crisis of the capitalist world-system. Given these developments, it has been analyzed the situation of fascism in the 21st century in terms of the capitalist world-system in this study.
How does the US intervene in the Taiwan question? To answer this question, existing studies have formulated three schools of thought—the strategic perspective, the congressional perspective, and the agenda-setting perspective—but these perspectives still suffer from the problem of a single attribution and fail to provide a comprehensive typology of explanations. By applying high/low politics as indicators, this article categorizes the US’s strategic interventions as hybrid interventions, hard interventions, soft interventions, and maintaining the status quo. Additionally, this article argues that the US’s China policy and Taiwan’s mainland China policy are the two independent variables shaping the different types of strategic intervention. Empirical studies have demonstrated that US intervention activities related to the Taiwan question have transitioned from the status quo to hybrid interventions. The new typology breaks the traditional boundaries of tactics and may help deepen the theoretical understanding of the increasingly diversified and complicated the US’s Taiwan policy, particularly as the US–China rivalry intensifies and grows.
This article posits that US-led imperialism remains the most fundamental contradiction to be assessed when analysing the material, social and political development of countries in Northern Africa. After grounding its conceptual discussion around the Marxian analytical character of imperialism, the article focuses on the military–financial nexus and then assesses the ideological implications of this. It argues that imperialism operates according to rational and interlinked strategies that deploy the systematic use of violence and intimidation that are central to undermining the political and developmental potential of Northern Africa. The discussion shows how imperialist policies curb the space of national autonomy required to advance a developmental path in the interests of popular classes and regional solidarity, at both the material and ideological levels.
What forces will shape the global future? We begin with discussion of the central roles of globalization and the ecologically destructive Anthropocene and then move onto more current popular and political debates about questions of unchallengeable globalization versus de-globalization and re-globalization. We side with the former. The broad story is how historical global capitalism, with different leading core states or hegemons, inexorably pushed global society into an increasingly tight related connected world-economy, meshed together by commodity webs and supply chains that linked increasingly far-flung locations, geologies, landscapes, and ecosystems. The vision is one of a world-system, embedded to a large degree on market and nation-state capitalism and political power, conflict, and cooperation, that grows more and more tightly integrated, spatially widespread, and ecologically destructive as it expanded for six hundred years. We disagree with a fundamental “break” from the old political economy view. In fact, we are confident that today’s current Anthropocene global consciousness remains – with major concern with climate change and worldwide pandemics. There is little doubt that worldwide globalization is not only needed but essentially inescapable.
Merkezî Amerika Birleşik Devletleri’nin (ABD’nin) Washington eyaletinde bulunan ve uluslararası bir düşünce kuruluşu olan Freedom House, ülkelerin demokrasi düzeyini ölçmede kendine özgü bir metod kullanarak ve İnsan Hakları Evrensel Beyannamesini referans alarak devletlerin demokratik durumlarını etkin bir şekilde izlediğini ve özgürlüğün gelişimine katkı sunduğunu iddia etmektedir. Söz konusu iddiadan hareketle çalışma, Freedom House’un demokrasiyi ölçerken nasıl bir metod ve puanlama yöntemi kullandığını ve ABD’nin Freedom House aracılığıyla nasıl bir hegemonya kurguladığını ortaya koymayı amaçlamaktadır. Böylelikle Freedom House’a salt bir bilgi kaynağı olarak yaklaşmak yerine, onun nasıl bir politik ve ideolojik arka plana sahip olduğu eleştirel bir bakış açısıyla irdelenecektir
Countries worldwide are experiencing a sharp wave of democratic decline that is cutting away at the gains made toward democracy that had occurred in decades prior. While the majority of scholars demonstrate a robust positive association between civil society and democracy, historical case studies in political sociology have demonstrated that nations with robust civic spheres can become cauldrons of anti-democratic politics under particular circumstances, particularly when the country has weak and ineffective political parties and when the country has autocratic movements working to degrade the democracy. While these case studies illuminate important caveats to leading research on civil society, these findings have not been tested at a cross-national level. In this paper, we ask how weak political parties and autocratic mobilization moderate the extent to which countries with more civic participation have stronger democracies around the world. We examine this research question using the continuous level of electoral democracy. Findings of our statistical analysis reveal support for the conditioning effects of weak political parties and autocratic mobilization on the relationship between civil society and electoral democracy and stability.
Gramsci's thought can contribute much to expanding the scope of IR research by investigating state–society relations in foreign policymaking through the concepts of hegemony, historical bloc, hegemonic project, and so on. In this article, I present an analytical method of explaining the social causes of foreign policy change, based upon the Gramscian notion of the correlations among state–society relations, hegemony, and foreign policy. Later, I apply this method to the empirical case of the radical change in South Korea's policy toward North Korea from 1998. Susan Strange’s question cui bono? [who benefits?] remains fundamental in the study of international affairs. An understanding of the hegemonic struggle found at the national level, located behind the change in foreign policy, can be instrumental in answering this question.
The term Afro‐Colombians refers to Colombians of African ancestry. Their presence dates back to the first decade of the sixteenth century when Africans were imported to replace the declining indigenous population. Africans worked as slaves in gold mines, in large haciendas, on sugar cane plantations, and on cattle ranches, mainly in the departments of Chocó, Antioquia, Cauca, Valle del Cauca, and Nariño in western Colombia. In eastern Colombia, near the cities of Vélez, Cúcuta, Socorro, and Tunja, Africans manufactured textiles and worked in emerald mines outside Bogotá, and labored in tobacco and cotton fields as well as in artisan and domestic work. Today Afro‐Colombians make up 21 percent (9,154,537) of the population according to the National Administration Department of Statistics (DANE) of 2002. Due to discrimination, only 4.4 million Afro‐Colombians actively recognize their ancestry. They are concentrated on the northwest Caribbean coast and the Pacific coast in the department Chocó, in Cali, Cartagena, and Barranquilla. Indeed, Chocó began as a palenque , a town founded by escaped slaves known as cimarrones . Colombia has the third largest African‐descended population in the western hemisphere, following Brazil and the United States.
The complex and disparate processes associated with contemporary globalization have produced a vigorous debate about the significance, novelty, and reach of globalization. A key element of these debates centers on questions of homogeneity versus difference/hybridity. In other words, does globalization increasingly result in a world that is economically, politically, and culturally the same, or does globalization produce hybrid forms resulting in more diversity and difference? The concept of “Americanization” often stands in for the term “globalization” in these debates. There are at least three variants of what could be called an Americanization thesis.
Avrupa Birliği'nin (AB) demokrasi yardımı politikalarına rağmen, Balkanlar'da demokratikleşmeye ilişkin yaygın beklentilerin tersine bir gelişme yaşanmasının nedeni nedir? Mevcut literatürde AB’nin genişleme politikasının Balkanlar’daki demokratikleşme sürecini desteklediği, ancak AB’nin demokrasi yardımı politikalarının sonucunun, bölgede ülkelerinin iç özellikleri tarafından belirlendiği görüşü öne çıkmaktadır. Bununla beraber son araştırmalar AB’nin demokrasi yardımı politikalarının sınırlılıklarına dikkat çekmişlerdir. Bu makale, Arnavutluk gibi literatürde ihmal edilmiş bir örneğe odaklanarak bu eleştirel literatüre katkıda bulunmayı amaçlamaktadır. Makale, eleştirel ekonomi politik bir bakışla AB'nin demokrasiye yardım politikalarının Arnavutluk örneğinde demokratikleşme sürecini nasıl etkilediğini incelemektedir. Makalenin temel savı, AB’nin Balkanlar’daki demokrasi yardım politikalarının, bölgede teşvik ettiği neoliberal model tarafından kısıtlandığıdır. Makale, AB’nin desteklediği neoliberal birikim stratejisinin demokratikleşme sürecini kısıtladığı varsayımdan hareketle, Arnavutluk’taki devlet-toplum-piyasa ilişkisinin, uluslararası kurum ve aktörlerin neoliberal öncelikleri kapsamında nasıl şekillendirildiğini göstermektedir. Makale, AB’nin genişleme politikaları çerçevesinde yaptığı demokrasi yardımının neoliberal modelin uygulanmasıyla sınırlı olduğu ve Avrupalılaşma ideolojisinin neoliberal birikim stratejisinin doğallaştırılmasına hizmet ettiği sonucuna ulaşmaktadır.
This paper argues that the paths taken by Estonia and Latvia in their departure from the rouble zone are illustrative of authoritarian neoliberal governance. By challenging the widely assumed simultaneity of ‘democratic’ and ‘market’ revolutions, it critiques institutionalist literature on Baltic exchange-rate regimes and sheds light on the various methods employed to curtail democratic political discourse and participation. The paper delves into the origins of the Baltic neoliberal historical blocs and identifies the social forces that influenced the development of monetary reform initiatives. It then explores the construction of exchange-rate systems through the lens of power struggles within the state bureaucracy, as well as the restructuring of state apparatuses to limit public oversight of monetary policy formulation and implementation. Finally, the paper demonstrates how Baltic currency boards effectively facilitated the establishment of externally-oriented capital accumulation regimes.
The second decade of the twenty-first century was marked by an expansion of interest in hybrid threats to national security. Foreign election interference became actual during the 2016 US presidential elections. As one of the modalities of subversive activities, foreign election interference faced a practical transformation along with the development of new technologies and the expansion of the social networks' influence. The hybrid character of foreign election interference is shown both in the fact that it can be realized in physical cyberspace by state or non-state actors. This hybrid threat is limited only by the imagination of its creators and the ability of its implementers. 2016 and 2020 United States presidential elections have shown that countries with the most complex security systems are not able to predict where the hybrid threat will realize. The author concludes that foreign election interference will remain actual in contemporary international relations, because of avoiding direct armed confrontation in gaining dominance in the interest zones of great and regional powers.
This paper is organised in three interconnected parts. First, contemporary political economic approaches to understanding the structure of the global economic system are outlined and synthesised. Specifically, it is suggested that the current structural configuration of the globe is a transitional phase between the spatially-bounded configuration hypothesised by world-system theory and the configuration hypothesised by globalisation theorists. Second, the contemporary problem of environmental degradation is situated in a global structural context. Third, an outline and critique of Ulrich Beck's theory of the ‘Risk Society’ is presented to illustrate the increasing inadequacy of nation-state-centric theories in explaining the dynamic linkage between global capitalism and local environmental degradation.
There has been an increasing debate regarding the relationship between the state and unions and how this relationship tends to affect employment relationships in the changing business environment. However, within the African context, little is known about this union-state relationship despite being one of the crucial factors affecting labour employment in Africa, particularly Zimbabwe. Consequently, this chapter explored the changing relationship between trade unions and the state, using Zimbabwe as a study context. The chapter highlighted the challenge of defining and theorising trade unions, engaged in a critical discussion of the framework of state-union relations in Zimbabwe, considered the role of trade unions as civil society, and the contested role of the West and the issue of trade union involvement in politics and political alliances.
Why does the United States either continue to support or turn its back on a friendly dictator once that dictator is faced with internal uprisings? This study argues that a US president's decision to either remain loyal to or abandon dictators when they are in trouble ultimately depends on the preservation of acquired influence (PAI). This argument is tested by considering three crises in which the White House was faced with a choice between prolonging support or abandoning established alliances with Batista in Cuba (1956–1959), Mobutu in Zaire (1990–1991), and Mubarak in Egypt (2011). In all three case studies, the PAI argument is found to account for observed variations in US foreign policy toward friendly dictators in trouble.
Die Geschichte der Friedenskonsolidierung hat mehrere Etappen durchlaufen, die alle durch eine Auseinandersetzung zwischen normativen Perspektiven, Machtkämpfen und Pragmatismus gekennzeichnet waren. Die Wiederentdeckung interner gewaltsamer Konflikte nach dem Kalten Krieg wurde von einer Periode konzeptioneller Autorität begleitet: Die Schaffung liberal-demokratischer politischer Institutionen im Prozess der Staatsbildung sollte Frieden und Stabilität ermöglichen. Da der angestrebte Erfolg ausblieb, musste sich die Friedenskonsolidierung die Kritik des „local turn“ und anderer Ansätze zu eigen machen. Kontextbezogene Ansätze und Kenntnisse sollten einen neuen Hintergrund für nützliche Interventionen bieten. Die Akzeptanz des Kontexts und die Generierung von entsprechendem Wissen überforderten jedoch die Friedensförderung. Die Erkenntnis des Scheiterns zwang die Friedensförderung schließlich dazu, ihre Umweltbedingungen zu bekräftigen. Ein auf prinzipiengeleitetem Pragmatismus basierender Übergangsansatz, der auf bestehenden, bisher vernachlässigten Praktiken in Friedensprozessen aufbaut, könnte eine mögliche Antwort auf diesen Zustand der Affirmation bieten.
This article uncovers the pre-1991 origins of Baltic neoliberal regimes. It highlights the role of the communication networks between reformist economists in the Baltic National Fronts and social forces advocating neoliberalism in Scandinavia and the United States. We assert that those networks functioned as the early carriers of ideational and policy change, even if reform contents were authored by domestic rather than transnational agencies. Firstly, the article previews the structural factors conducive to network formation. Secondly, it examines the networks by highlighting cross-national differences. Finally, it chronicles the idiosyncratic paths of neoliberal reformers' ascendance to the positions of influence.
This article critically reconstructs militant democracy’s ‘institutional conservatism’, a theoretical preference for institutions that restrain transformation. It offers two arguments, one historical and one normative. Firstly, it traces a historical development from a substantive to a procedural version of institutional conservatism from the traditional militant democratic thought of Schmitt, Loewenstein and Popper to the contemporary militant democratic theories of Kirshner and Rijpkema. Substantive institutional conservatisms theorize institutions that hinder transformation of the existing order; procedural conservatisms encourage transformation but contain and limit it within the boundaries of existing institutions. Secondly, the article uses resources internal to this historical reconstruction to make the normative case that even the procedural version of institutional conservatism, which characterizes contemporary theories of militant democracy, is problematic from a democratic perspective. The reason for this is that it unjustifiably restricts fundamental democratic change to existing institutions. In conclusion, the article calls for further engagement with modes of democratic defence that do not limit the possibility of radical democratic change but nevertheless enable the protection of democratic institutions against authoritarian regression.
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 the field-specific demand for policy orientation. (Western) Scholars and, particularly, scholar-practitioners occupy central positions, and field-specific practices of policy orientation include stocktaking, evaluation, problem identification, and critical intervention. While we derive these insights from analysis of DPR, our findings are useful for the study of policy orientation in similar academic fields. For the reflexive and systematic analysis of how policy orientation shapes, for example, development studies and human rights research, we suggest a focus on interrelations between academic fields, field-specific struggles, and relationships with the respective policy fields.
İletişim çağında uluslararası politikanın kültürel çekicilik gibi parametrelerle kurduğu ilişki, en az ekonomik, politik ve askeri güç unsurlarıyla olan ilişkisi kadar önem arz etmektedir. Devlet aygıtının aktif rıza temeline dayanma ihtiyacının artması anlamına gelen bu durum iktidar ile sivil toplum arasındaki ilişkinin doğasını anlamaya yönelik çalışmaları daha da önemli kılmaktadır. Bu çalışmada hegemonik iktidarın inşasında kültürün bir araç vazifesi gördüğü ön kabulünden hareket edilerek sivil toplum ile kültür ilişkisinin doğasına odaklanılmaktadır. Bu çerçevede Antonio Gramsci ve Robert Cox tarafından hegemonik iktidarın kaynağının ne olduğu, hegemonik düzenin nasıl tesis edildiği ve hegemonyanın nasıl sürdürülebilir kılındığı üzerine yürütülen tartışmalar ve bu tartışmalar ışığında ortaya konulan kavramlar mercek altına alınmaktadır. Neticede gerek Gramsci’nin gerekse Cox’un perspektifinden hegemonik sistemlerin devletler arası ilişkilerle sınırlandırılmadığı, iktidarın köklerini sivil toplumdan aldığı, rıza üzerine kurulduğu ve aydınların yürüttükleri kültürel faaliyetlerle kritik bir rol üstlendikleri sonucuna varılmaktadır. En nihayetinde ortaya çıkan kavramsal çerçeve ile literatüre katkı sağlanmaktadır.
Based on an online survey conducted among a representative sample in the United Kingdom (n = 1013), this article investigates the role of traditional and new media in predicting climate change awareness. It suggests that individuals make choices under an ideological convincement that is organised within specific cultural and political-economic boundaries. It shows that the Gramscian concept of cultural hegemony is still valuable to make sense of an incessant process of formation and fragmentation of equilibria between social groups. Interpreting hegemony as a not totalitarian communicative process also suggests that the media represent a ground for counterhegemonies to flourish and trigger political transformation. This study constructs two indexes of both scepticism and advocacy of climate change by showing some traits of these two perspectives in the United Kingdom. It also shows that the division between sceptics and advocates' convincement is not 'black and white', but a transitional space exists between hegemonic and counter-hegemonic forces.
Foreign influences on elections are widespread. Although foreign interventions around elections differ markedly-in terms of when and why they occur, and whether they are even legal-they all have enormous potential to influence citizens in the countries where elections are held. Bush and Prather explain how and why outside interventions influence local trust in elections, a critical factor for democracy and stability. Whether foreign actors enhance or diminish electoral trust depends on who is intervening, what political party citizens support, and where the election takes place. The book draws on diverse evidence, including new surveys conducted around elections with varying levels of democracy in Georgia, Tunisia, and the United States. Its insights about public opinion shed light on why leaders sometimes invite foreign influences on elections and why the candidates that win elections do not do more to respond to credible evidence of foreign meddling.
Patterns of Empire comprehensively examines the two most powerful empires in modern history: the United States and Britain. Challenging the popular theory that the American empire is unique, Patterns of Empire shows how the policies, practices, forms and historical dynamics of the American empire repeat those of the British, leading up to the present climate of economic decline, treacherous intervention in the Middle East and overextended imperial confidence. A critical exercise in revisionist history and comparative social science, this book also offers a challenging theory of empire that recognizes the agency of non-Western peoples, the impact of global fields and the limits of imperial power.
The end of the Cold War demonstrated the historical possibility of peaceful change and seemingly showed the superiority of non-realist approaches in International Relations. Yet in the post-Cold War period many European countries have experienced a resurgence of a distinctively realist tradition: geopolitics. Geopolitics is an approach which emphasizes the relationship between politics and power on the one hand; and territory, location and environment on the other. This comparative study shows how the revival of geopolitics came not despite, but because of, the end of the Cold War. Disoriented in their self-understandings and conception of external roles by the events of 1989, many European foreign policy actors used the determinism of geopolitical thought to find their place in world politics quickly. The book develops a constructivist methodology to study causal mechanisms and its comparative approach allows for a broad assessment of some of the fundamental dynamics of European security.
The end of the Cold War demonstrated the historical possibility of peaceful change and seemingly showed the superiority of non-realist approaches in International Relations. Yet in the post-Cold War period many European countries have experienced a resurgence of a distinctively realist tradition: geopolitics. Geopolitics is an approach which emphasizes the relationship between politics and power on the one hand; and territory, location and environment on the other. This comparative study shows how the revival of geopolitics came not despite, but because of, the end of the Cold War. Disoriented in their self-understandings and conception of external roles by the events of 1989, many European foreign policy actors used the determinism of geopolitical thought to find their place in world politics quickly. The book develops a constructivist methodology to study causal mechanisms and its comparative approach allows for a broad assessment of some of the fundamental dynamics of European security.
The end of the Cold War demonstrated the historical possibility of peaceful change and seemingly showed the superiority of non-realist approaches in International Relations. Yet in the post-Cold War period many European countries have experienced a resurgence of a distinctively realist tradition: geopolitics. Geopolitics is an approach which emphasizes the relationship between politics and power on the one hand; and territory, location and environment on the other. This comparative study shows how the revival of geopolitics came not despite, but because of, the end of the Cold War. Disoriented in their self-understandings and conception of external roles by the events of 1989, many European foreign policy actors used the determinism of geopolitical thought to find their place in world politics quickly. The book develops a constructivist methodology to study causal mechanisms and its comparative approach allows for a broad assessment of some of the fundamental dynamics of European security.
The end of the Cold War demonstrated the historical possibility of peaceful change and seemingly showed the superiority of non-realist approaches in International Relations. Yet in the post-Cold War period many European countries have experienced a resurgence of a distinctively realist tradition: geopolitics. Geopolitics is an approach which emphasizes the relationship between politics and power on the one hand; and territory, location and environment on the other. This comparative study shows how the revival of geopolitics came not despite, but because of, the end of the Cold War. Disoriented in their self-understandings and conception of external roles by the events of 1989, many European foreign policy actors used the determinism of geopolitical thought to find their place in world politics quickly. The book develops a constructivist methodology to study causal mechanisms and its comparative approach allows for a broad assessment of some of the fundamental dynamics of European security.
The end of the Cold War demonstrated the historical possibility of peaceful change and seemingly showed the superiority of non-realist approaches in International Relations. Yet in the post-Cold War period many European countries have experienced a resurgence of a distinctively realist tradition: geopolitics. Geopolitics is an approach which emphasizes the relationship between politics and power on the one hand; and territory, location and environment on the other. This comparative study shows how the revival of geopolitics came not despite, but because of, the end of the Cold War. Disoriented in their self-understandings and conception of external roles by the events of 1989, many European foreign policy actors used the determinism of geopolitical thought to find their place in world politics quickly. The book develops a constructivist methodology to study causal mechanisms and its comparative approach allows for a broad assessment of some of the fundamental dynamics of European security.
The end of the Cold War demonstrated the historical possibility of peaceful change and seemingly showed the superiority of non-realist approaches in International Relations. Yet in the post-Cold War period many European countries have experienced a resurgence of a distinctively realist tradition: geopolitics. Geopolitics is an approach which emphasizes the relationship between politics and power on the one hand; and territory, location and environment on the other. This comparative study shows how the revival of geopolitics came not despite, but because of, the end of the Cold War. Disoriented in their self-understandings and conception of external roles by the events of 1989, many European foreign policy actors used the determinism of geopolitical thought to find their place in world politics quickly. The book develops a constructivist methodology to study causal mechanisms and its comparative approach allows for a broad assessment of some of the fundamental dynamics of European security.
The end of the Cold War demonstrated the historical possibility of peaceful change and seemingly showed the superiority of non-realist approaches in International Relations. Yet in the post-Cold War period many European countries have experienced a resurgence of a distinctively realist tradition: geopolitics. Geopolitics is an approach which emphasizes the relationship between politics and power on the one hand; and territory, location and environment on the other. This comparative study shows how the revival of geopolitics came not despite, but because of, the end of the Cold War. Disoriented in their self-understandings and conception of external roles by the events of 1989, many European foreign policy actors used the determinism of geopolitical thought to find their place in world politics quickly. The book develops a constructivist methodology to study causal mechanisms and its comparative approach allows for a broad assessment of some of the fundamental dynamics of European security.
The end of the Cold War demonstrated the historical possibility of peaceful change and seemingly showed the superiority of non-realist approaches in International Relations. Yet in the post-Cold War period many European countries have experienced a resurgence of a distinctively realist tradition: geopolitics. Geopolitics is an approach which emphasizes the relationship between politics and power on the one hand; and territory, location and environment on the other. This comparative study shows how the revival of geopolitics came not despite, but because of, the end of the Cold War. Disoriented in their self-understandings and conception of external roles by the events of 1989, many European foreign policy actors used the determinism of geopolitical thought to find their place in world politics quickly. The book develops a constructivist methodology to study causal mechanisms and its comparative approach allows for a broad assessment of some of the fundamental dynamics of European security.
The end of the Cold War demonstrated the historical possibility of peaceful change and seemingly showed the superiority of non-realist approaches in International Relations. Yet in the post-Cold War period many European countries have experienced a resurgence of a distinctively realist tradition: geopolitics. Geopolitics is an approach which emphasizes the relationship between politics and power on the one hand; and territory, location and environment on the other. This comparative study shows how the revival of geopolitics came not despite, but because of, the end of the Cold War. Disoriented in their self-understandings and conception of external roles by the events of 1989, many European foreign policy actors used the determinism of geopolitical thought to find their place in world politics quickly. The book develops a constructivist methodology to study causal mechanisms and its comparative approach allows for a broad assessment of some of the fundamental dynamics of European security.
Comparative Political Communication studies often take the same basic regime-type Stage of Democracy Development (SDD) classification as a basis for analysis. In this model, societies can fall into three basic categories: (1) established democracies; (2) transitional democracies; or (3) authoritarian regimes. This article presents a critique of the SDD model. First, it enshrines ethnocentric prejudices as a basis of global comparison in political communication research. It also lacks analytical consistency and scholars using these categories do not feel compelled to justify their choices. Not rarely, they outsource the task of classifying societies to non-scholarly institutions. This makes the model vulnerable to institutional political bias. Finally, the SDD model-which originated in the time of the US global hegemony-is becoming growingly obsolete, in a time when the global order evolves toward a more multipolar structure, and western democracies (the US, in particular) experience a major crisis. Comparative Political Communication studies often take the same basic regime-type Stage of Democracy Development (SDD) classification as the basis for analysis. According to this model, societies can fall into three basic categories: (1) established
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