As a result of the fact that ‘most secondary works on Hegel’s political philosophy neglect its international dimension or tend to limit the latter to [his] account of war’, it would seem that the full scope of Hegelian thought has had a limited impact on contemporary international theory. Appearances can be deceiving. While we might not find many international theorists who would actively identify as Hegelians, Hegel’s work has informed many different strands of international theory, often in unexpected ways.
Since the creation of the United Nations in 1945, over 100 major conflicts around the world have left some 20 million dead’[1]. In An Agenda for Peace, Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali set out visions for preventive diplomacy and strategies to strengthen the United Nations’ (UN) capacity to maintain the peace. The collapse of Cold War bipolarity has seen a surge in demand for UN involvement. The UN has cast its net wide, beyond narrow conceptions of collective security, into human rights, environmental politics and human security. The response from the Security Council, General Assembly and member states to An Agenda for Peace was cautiously optimistic; the rhetoric, asserts Chesterman, ‘was euphoric, utopian, and short’.
Nearly half a century separate Cardinal Richelieu and Francesco Guicciardini but the parallels between the two men betray the similarities in their understanding of power politics and theories of negotiation. Richelieu may have operated outside the Renaissance and Guicciardini from its Florentine apex, but both were influenced by the developing political theories of early modern Europe and the realist raison d’ état of Machiavelli; Guicciardini counted Machiavelli as a friend, and Richelieu was his intellectual descendent – the first politician to prosecute state national interest above notions of medieval universal Christian morality.
Lyndon Johnson’s decision to “Americanize” the Vietnam war resulted in failure. Popular thought seems to suggest that his inability to judge the situation in South East Asia caused America to suffer the biggest military embarrassment in its history to date. However, a closer look at the facts, suggest that the blame should be shared with his predecessors, in particular Ike Eisenhower.
The resurgence of ‘the left’ in Latin America has received a great deal of attention from policy makers, academics and journalists alike. The November 2006 victory of Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua is merely the most recent in a string of electoral triumphs which has seen Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Bolivia come under the control of leftist governments. Following five decades in which civil, political and socio-economic rights have been damaged variously by authoritarianism, neo-liberalism and clientelism, many hope that a new era may be on the horizon.
Traditionally the Security Dilemma has been employed at the inter-state level. This paper will begin by reviewing the existing literature. It will then see whether the security dilemma can be applied to the India-Pakistan conflict with regards to their nuclear relations.
Following the September 2001 attack on America’s ‘World Trade Centre’, the ‘causes of terrorism’ has been a subject of intense investigation and speculation. Despite the educated and generally wealthy backgrounds of the 9/11 hijackers, poverty has been cited by numerous world leaders and respected academics as a central and direct cause of terrorism in the twenty first century. However, recent studies have suggested that there is little or no direct causal link between poverty and insurgent terrorism.
The epic struggle between the Ogoni, an African tribe with deep roots in the environment of the Niger Delta, and Royal Dutch/Shell, one of the world’s most powerful multinational oil companies, is a story which has caught the imagination of ‘Western’ publics. However, whilst there is little doubt over Shell’s devastating role in the Delta, the understanding of the Ogoni ‘nation’ as natural guardians of the Delta’s Eden-like environment deserves our critical analysis. Is this anything more than simply a story?
Nationalism is often used in times of war; it calls people to serve a higher cause and legitimises mass human sacrifice in the name of the state. In this essay I will examine the changes in the nationalism of President George W. Bush over the period of 9/11 and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Torture can be defined as, ‘the officially sanctioned infliction of intense suffering, aimed at forcing someone to do or say something against his or her will.’ (Rodley, 2000: 7) Under international law it is illegal to use torture in any situation whatsoever. Although torture undoubtedly continues throughout the world, the moral argument prohibiting it was won during the enlightenment and the debate was closed by twentieth century international legal prohibitions. However, the question of torture has resurfaced in the context of the “War on Terror” as people face up to the possibility of WMD terrorism. The dilemma is most commonly expressed in the problem of the ‘ticking bomb terrorist.’
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