Arie M. Kacowicz’s research while affiliated with Hebrew University of Jerusalem and other places

International organizations play an important, if imperfect, role in world politics, solving collective action problems in security, economic, environmental, and global health among others. While many believe that international organisations have formed critical pillars of global governance, sceptics contend that they reflect the power politics of the day and the interests of hegemonic powers. This volume examines whether international organizations contribute to or detract from peaceful change, acting as agents of both status quo and stasis. Providing a historical overview of international organizations, from the nineteenth century to the current day, a team of leading scholars offer an overview of how major theoretical approaches – Liberalism, Constructivism, Rationalism and Realism – have contributed to our understanding of the role played by international organizations in peaceful change. In particular, the roles of the United Nations General Assembly, UN Peacekeeping, UN Environment Program, World Health Organization, World Trade Organization and G20 are analysed.

This article explores the distinctive features of Latin American regionalism by examining its rhetorical justifications during the onset of the COVID-19 crisis. The pandemic offered an exceptional opportunity to witness the professed role of regional organizations in the Global South as bridges between national and international systems: how this role is discursively constructed and the practical limitations it faces in times of disruption. We address different attempts to (self-)justify the relevance of regionalist visions, analyzing how three (inter-)regional organizations of the Americas reacted discursively to the global public health crisis: the Common Market of the South (Mercosur), the Organization of American States (OAS), and the Ibero-American Summits (SEGIB). We examine three features that have traditionally shaped Latin American visions of regionalism: coping with world hegemony; striving for regional autonomy; and expressing transnational solidarity. The findings provide insights for further understanding the legitimation of regional and global governance under conditions of uncertainty.

In this chapter, I reflect on my personal experience as an Instructor in the core course “Introduction to the Study of International Relations,” which I taught at the Department of International Relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, from 1998 to 2021. Teaching International Relations Theories in Israel is a unique experience due to the particular characteristics of the country. The geopolitical and cultural constraints of Israel have party determined the menu of choice about teaching IR theories in the country, emphasizing sub-fields such as security studies and conflict studies, while neglecting global studies, peace studies, and even IPE. Eventually, I try not to teach my Israeli students just theories of IR, I want to help them evolve into critical thinkers, aware of the complexities of social realities, as true disciples of Socrates, the Talmud, and Maimonides, preparing them to become citizens of the world.

In this paper, I aim to update and apply the idea and practices of “international society,” as developed in the classic book written by Hedley Bull (1977). This, by assessing its continuing relevance in the first decades of the 21st century. For scholarly, practical, and policy reasons, I believe that Bull’s masterpiece offers a relevant ‘guide to the perplexed’ to navigate world politics in our turbulent times. The two research questions to be addressed in the paper are: First, what are the challenges confronting the idea of the contemporary international society and its practices in the third decade of the 21st century? Second, what is the relevance of the idea of the international society and its practices nowadays? To answer the first question, I compile a list of significant contemporary challenges to the international society. In a nutshell, these include the rise of non-state actors and their challenge to the centrality of states; the impact of globalization and the preponderance of global issues (such as COVID-19 and climate change); and the lack of agreed global and shared norms, in both cultural and normative terms, which make international cooperation more difficult to obtain. Facing these four intertwined challenges, I argue that the idea and practices of international society can be updated to face the complex realities of our times. I sustain this argument by linking the concept and practices of the international society to the relevant mechanisms of global and regional governance, including the institutions of the international society. I refer to alternative world orders from the North and the South that reflect the resilience of the international society. Moreover, the opportunities for the flourishing of international society might include its potential decoupling from the Liberal International Order.

This essay explores the evolution of the diplomatic relations between Israel and Latin America, with a particular focus on the ways the dynamics of their relations has been affected by a reciprocal (though asymmetrical) search for legitimation and recognition; economic cooperation and development; and power and influence. Special attention is devoted to identifying the underlying patterns that characterized the gradual development of diplomatic links as well as the elements that have influenced the shifts experienced over seven decades of international interactions. The essay refers in general to the relations between Israel and the region, as well as to specific examples from key Latin American countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and Venezuela.

Scholars of international relations generally consider that under conditions of violent conflict and war, smuggling and trans-border crime are likely to thrive. In contrast, this book argues that in fact it is globalisation and peaceful borders that have enabled transnational illicit flows conducted by violent non-state actors, including transnational criminal organizations, drug trafficking organizations, and terrorist cells, who exploit the looseness and demilitarization of borderlands. Empirically, the book draws on case studies from the Americas, compared with other regions of the world experiencing similar phenomena, including the European Union and Southeast Europe (the Western Balkans), Southern Africa, and Southeast Asia. To explain the phenomenon in itself, the authors examine the type of peaceful borders and regimes involved in each case; how strong each country is in the governance of their borderlands; their political willingness to control their peaceful borders; and the prevailing socio-economic conditions across the borderlands.

In this chapter, we argue that there has been a rich and not-enough-emphasized literature from the Latin American region that has suggested responses, complementary and alternative scenarios to the world orders formulated in the North. We examine the Latin American responses and reactions to alternative world orders in analytical and normative terms. First, we assess general attempts of theorizing in the region, and from the region, about world order(s). Second, we present the different Latin American approaches along several issue-areas: (1) peace and security, through the promotion of norms of international law and institutions; (2) international political economy, (under) development, and globalization, through the assessment of developmentalism (desarrollismo) and the South American dependency school (dependencia); and (3) foreign policy formulations, through the autonomy approach, peripheral Realism, regionalism, including the recent trend of post-hegemonic regionalism and multilateralism. Finally, we explain the relative silence and limitations of the Latin American approaches, as well as the potential dialogue between Northern scenarios and Latin American responses. Ultimately, the formulation of alternative scenarios and responses by Latin American scholars and practitioners is relevant not only to understand the realities of the region but also to make sense of international relations at large, and not only in the Western Hemisphere.