In this article we critically consider the idea that feminism has performatively failed within the discipline of International Relations. One aspect of this failure relates to the production of sexgender through feminism which we suggest is partly responsible for a weariness inflecting feminist scholarship, in particular as a critical theoretical resource. We reflect on this weariness in the context of the study and practice of international politics – arenas still reaping the potent benefits of the virile political energies reverberating since 9/11. To illustrate our arguments we re-count a familiar feminist fable of militarisation – a story which we use to exemplify how the production of feminist IR is ‘set’ up to ‘fail’. In so doing we clarify our depiction of feminism as seemingly haunted by its inherent paradoxes as well as explaining why it matters to discuss feminism within the locale of the academic study of international politics. We conclude with a consideration of the grammar of temporality that delimits representations of feminism and move to recast feminist failure as aporetic and concomitantly implicated in the process of intervening politically.

The Brandt Line is a way of visualising the world that highlights the disparities and inequalities between the wealthy North and the poorer Global South. Forty years after its popularisation as part of a call for global reform, is the Brandt Line now a misleading way of representing world politics? This article assesses whether the Global South has lost its distinctiveness and coherence relative to the North since 1980. Existing assessments of global inequality do not settle the question of whether the North–South divide remains relevant for international relations because they overlook the most politically significant measures of inequality. Drawing on power transition theory, this article provides a systematic assessment of the North–South divide in terms of levels of economic development, relative inequality, economic power, and political satisfaction. The evidence suggests that the Brandt Line is largely intact. Although the economic diversity of the South has increased and its collective economic power has risen, relative income rankings remain unaltered and the states of the Global South are as dissatisfied as they were four decades ago. Differential growth rates are reshaping world politics without eroding the North–South divide traced by the Brandt Line.

The relationship between militarization and state formation in the West has been the subject of considerable scholarship,1 and there is thus some temptation to simply transfer concepts and arguments from that domain to the study of Third World militarization. Yet state formation dynamics in the two contexts were and are quite different, with important implications for the nature of national security threats. In the West threats tended to be external, rooted in anarchical competition between relatively equal states possessing domestic legitimacy, which meant that militarization could be understood primarily in terms of the political realist focus on security dilemmas and action-reaction dynamics. In contrast, Third World state formation has occurred in a largely dependent context in which relative external security contrasts with domestic insecurity.2 In this case the external environment, rather than being a source of threat, becomes a source of opportunities for elites lacking domestic legitimacy to gain support against internal security threats. In short, national security problems look very different in the First and Third Worlds because of different trajectories and contexts of state formation. Very different mechanisms may therefore account for militarization, suggesting the need for concepts and theories different than those that dominate security studies in the West.

In a growing number of countries diplomatic systems are being overhauled so that the commercial activities of diplomatic services have been centralised, the commercial activities of diplomats have been extended, and business interests have been formally integrated within diplomatic systems. These changes result directly from the tendency of governments to reorganise, and in many cases merge, their trade and foreign ministries, as well as the strategy of building formal business–government links within diplomatic institutions. While none of these features is unfamiliar to previous diplomatic systems, what is exceptional is the relative neglect of the commercial aspects of diplomacy within diplomatic studies. This lack of attention to the commercial and business elements of diplomacy in traditional theories of diplomacy means that we find ourselves trying to analyse contemporary changes to diplomatic organisation and practice without a suitable conceptual and analytical framework. Highlighting the significance of a political economy approach to diplomacy, and also engaging with orthodox approaches to diplomacy, this article begins to develop some analytical and conceptual tools to better identify, explain and understand changes in diplomatic systems as well as the increased influence of private interests in diplomatic practice now under way.

Ex-combatant reintegration programmes are buttressed by a number of problematic assumptions about ex-combatants themselves; namely, that ex-combatants should not receive long-term support because such assistance would amplify the threat they pose to security and exacerbate community resentment towards them. The article uses data collected from Liberia to demonstrate that such thinking stigmatises ex-combatants and works against the objective of reintegration: it disrupts integration into the everyday social, economic, and political life of the post-conflict state and aims instead to render ex-combatants separate from communities. Integration will remain elusive unless assumptions about ex-combatants as programme beneficiaries are challenged.

Hedley Bull's contribution to the theory of international relations is considerable; and nowhere more acute than in the distinction which he made between the concept of a system of states and that of an international society. His definitive formulation is set out in Chapter I of The Anarchical Society. ‘Where states are in regular contact with one another, and where in addition there is interaction between them sufficient to make the behaviour of each a necessary element in the calculations of the other, then we may speak of their forming a system.’ ‘A society of states (or international society) exists when a group of states, conscious of certain common interests and common values, form a society in the sense that they conceive themselves to be bound by a common set of rules in their relations with one another, and share in the working of common institutions.’

Territorial secession and dissolution of empire means a challenge to the established system of states. How are the criteria for recognition of new states worked out? How is the gatekeeping to statehood performed? We shall sort out the answers by putting the new post-Cold War challenge into historical perspective. It is not only a question of changing criteria of entry to the system of states, but also one of a change in the state system whereby the quest for ‘criteria of admission’ became meaningful. The question of ‘gatekeeping’ is therefore intrinsically linked up with the modern evolution of the state system as such. The article is structured in a way that will specify this linkage historically.

Non-governmental organisations use benchmarks as a form of symbolic violence to place political pressure on firms, states, and international organisations. The development of benchmarks requires three elements: (1) salience, that the community of concern is aware of the issue and views it as important; (2) will, that activists and issue entrepreneurs will carry the message forward; and (3) expertise, that benchmarks created can be defended as accurate representations of what is happening on the issue of concern. We contrast two types of benchmarking cycles where salience, will, and expertise are put to the test. The first is a reformist benchmarking cycle where organisations defer to experts to create a benchmark that conforms with the broader system of politico-economic norms. The second is a revolutionary benchmarking cycle driven by expert-activists that seek to contest strong vested interests and challenge established politico-economic norms. Differentiating these cycles provides insights into how activists work through organisations and with expert networks, as well as how campaigns on complex economic issues can be mounted and sustained.

The study of regionalism is often characterised as too fragmented, plagued by disagreements over such fundamental matters as its ontological and epistemological premises, which also hinder efforts at substantive comparison of regionalisation processes. In this article it is argued that to overcome these problems, what is required is a more rigorous incorporation of such studies within relevant work in state theory and political geography. The key insight herein is that regionalism should not be studied separately from the state as these are interrelated phenomena. State-making and regionalisation are both manifestations of contested political projects aimed at shaping the territorial, institutional, and/or functional scope of political rule. Furthermore, the article also distils the lines of a mechanismic methodology for comparative regionalism. Its main advantage is in overcoming the implicit benchmarking of regional development we find in other approaches. The framework's utility is then demonstrated through a comparison of regional governance in Asia and Europe.

The ‘rise of China’ is seen by some observers as a precursor of inevitable hegemonic competition in East Asia. At the very least, it seems likely that China’s influence in East Asia will grow at the expense of the United States. Whether this will eventually amount to a form of ‘hegemonic transition’ is far less clear. It is, therefore, an opportune moment to consider the relative strengths and weaknesses of China and the US in East Asia. This paper suggests that the nature of hegemonic competition and transition is more uncertain and complex than some of the most influential theoretical understandings of hegemony would have us believe.

How does one live according to reason if the other, the alien, the foreigner whether remote or nearby may burst into one's world at any moment?

Raymond Aron, Peace and War

Diplomacy has been particularly resistant to theory. What knowledge we do have of the practice and principles of diplomacy is largely drawn from the works of former diplomatists like Abraham de Wicquefort's L'Ambassadeur et ses Fonctions (1681), Frangois de Callières' De la Manière de Négocier Avec les Souverains (1716), Ernest Satow's Guide to Diplomatic Practice (1917) and Harold Nicolson's Diplomacy (1939).1 Conveying a view of diplomacy as a specialized skill of negotiation, these works seek to ‘maxim-ize’ that skill for the benefit of novices entering the profession. Understandably, their histories of diplomacy tend to be sketchy and rather anecdotal, and their theories of diplomacy, when they do exist, usually consist of underdeveloped and implicit propositions. Moreover, since the authors were serving governments at the apogee of imperial power, they were not interested in looking too widely and too deeply into a past which might undermine the foundations of skilful negotiation—order, continuity, and ‘common sense’.

The government’s targeting of homosexuality in May 2001, following years of ‘turning a blind eye’ to Cairo’s gay scene, is studied here in terms of the links between the sphere of interpersonal relations and notions of national security within international relations. The persecution of men for alleged same-sex relations not only filled newspaper columns and created a spectacle to divert people’s attention away from the government’s failings. More importantly, the event represented an opportunity for government officials, the media and other civil society activists – both within Egypt and abroad – to ‘perform’ a discourse of national security through which national sovereignty was (re)produced and political order was maintained. However, this national security threat was not only posed by the external threat of Western governments, international NGOs and other transnational actors concerned with respect for human rights within Egypt. More importantly, this threat was constructed as originating with those people failing to conform to the ‘norm’ of heterosexual relationships.

Social constructivism has come of age in contemporary international relations (IR) theory. Indeed, more and more submissions to presses and journals in both Europe and America characterise themselves as constructivist or situate their arguments vis à vis those of constructivists. In substantive terms and as the three books under review attest, constructivists also now offer detailed empirical studies that amplify and enrich their earlier conceptual and meta-theoretical critiques of mainstream approaches. Yet, as with any maturing research programme, there are gaps to be filled and challenges to be met. These include a better appreciation and theorisation of domestic politics; more explicit attention to research methods; further work on the linguistic turn so central to much of constructivism; and, finally, a rethink of attempts to build bridges.

Perpetual peace projects constitute a largely undervalued intellectual tradition that has attracted many polemical arrows. One of the most frequent criticisms levelled at the projects is that their authors too often abandon themselves to utopianism. Yet this tradition has proved to be much more influential than is generally recognized: contemporary international organizations, from the League of Nations to the United Nations, from the European Parliament to the International Court of Justice, were sketched out, if only in embryonic form, in these perpetual peace projects. Yet it is rare to find their authors numbered among the founders of internationalist theory.

The ability of International Relations theory to ‘travel well’ to other parts of the world has become one of the central questions within the discipline. This article argues that a Foucauldian-derived ‘analytics of government’ framework has particular advantages in overcoming some of the difficulties IR theory has faced abroad. These advantages include a methodological focus on specific practices of power at their point of application; attention to similarities between practices of power that cut across perceived binaries such as the domestic and international, and public and private; and an illumination of the ways in which practices of freedom are combined and interrelate with forms of coercion and violence. This argument is illustrated in the context of debates about the applicability of Foucauldian theory to African politics, through examples drawn from Bayart's work on globalisation, the power of development partnerships, and violence and civil war. It argues that deploying governmentality as an analytical framework, rather than seeing it as a specifically neoliberal form of power relation, can not only facilitate the application of IR theory outside Europe and North America but can also help develop a broader perspective on genuinely world politics.

Autoethnography is a way and method to reflect on the mutual constitution of the self and the social. It allows one to consider how her/his personal and professional subjectivity was constructed and how her/his actions in the world reproduce or change this world. Autoethnography enables one to acquire an agentive role in the world by highlighting one's uniqueness and voice. It also aims to create mutual empowerment among people, ordinary individuals, by means of identification, connectivity, and empathy. In this article I explore some conceptual issues relating to autoethnography and then present my personal account of why I study International Relations (IR) and how I decided to bring myself more openly into my texts and lectures. I conclude by arguing that autoethnography made me more confident in sounding my voice in print and in class, and that, consequently, I became much more aware of the human capacity to make a difference.

Three different types of arguments were used to justify the 2003 Iraq War. The first was based on the requirements of national security. Iraq was believed to be developing deadly weapons which it might use against neighbouring states or hand over to terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda. A second argument was based on international security. Iraq was supposed to comply with a series of UN Security Council Resolutions and was failing to do so, thereby undermining the credibility of the leading international institutions. The third argument was based on human security. The Iraqi people had suffered too long under a tyrannical regime and this was an opportunity to overthrow it and replace it with something much better.

Recent debates about Habermas's conception of dialogic politics have focused on whether its commitment to ethical universalism has an emancipatory potential or threatens the assimilation of non-liberal forms of life within exclusionary Western cultural frameworks. One way of contributing to this unfinished debate is to ask whether discourse ethics contributes to the modern ‘civilising process’, as Norbert Elias defined that term. All societies, according to Elias, have civilising processes or ways of trying to solve the problem of how persons can satisfy basic needs without ‘destroying, frustrating, demeaning or in other ways harming each other time and time again in their search for this satisfaction’. This formulation invites the question of whether or not the discourse theory of morality is the best available means of extending the civilising process in global politics.

This article examines the complex relations between a violent non-state actor, the Al Qaeda network, and order in the international system. Al Qaeda poses a challenge to the sovereignty of specific states but it also challenges the international society as a whole. This way, the challenge that Al Qaeda represents is putting the survival of the system under risk. Consequently it requires that the international society will collectively respond to meet the threat. But challenges to both the practical sovereignty of states and to the international society do not have to weaken the system. Instead, such challenges if handled effectively may lead to the strengthening of the society of states: a robust international society is dynamic and responsive to threats. Its members could cooperate to adapt the principles and the institutions on which the system is founded to new circumstances. Through its focus on the preservation qualities of the international society this article also reinforces the significance of the English School to the study of international relations. It raises important questions that could be answered in the framework of the English School.