In a land as diverse as India, the British championed the technique of divide and conquer for nearly a century. Three thousand years before British explorers even set foot on India’s coast, a warrior by the name of Chandragupta Maurya unified Indian heterogeneity and established unified India’s first monarchical dynasty of the Mauryas. This Bismarckian mission owed its success to Chandragupta Maurya’s astute political adviser, Kautilya.
Whilst the EU has always looked to the future with regards to its outlook and policy directions, there can be no escaping the colonial legacy that Europe forged for itself in the period leading up to the creation of the ECSC in 1947. Special relations exist between each colonial power and its former territories. As a result, this necessitates special relations existing between the EU and former territories of its members
The sheer chaos of an era said to have required a daily calendar to catch the sense of rising tension between all the capitals makes it seem nonsensical to ascribe substantial blame to Britain. Eyebrows should rightly be raised over Britain’s non-interventionist policy on the eve of war in 1914, despite unconcealed German desires to be the main protagonist in global affairs. Which role did Britain play in the slide to war?
The responsibilities and powers enshrined in Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter are central to the Security Council’s ability to uphold international stability and peace by averting or ending conflicts. So why has the Security Council failed to address a range of major conflicts that have occurred over the past 64 years, although it has successfully dealt with others?
Hartmut Behr’s recent book is a fascinating critical reconsideration of how generations of political thinkers have appraised the interplay between universal and particular interests among the relations of states in their understandings of “the world” from Western antiquity through the present-day
British strategy in the Middle East consolidated around a sustained effort to prevent any adversarial penetration into the Persian Gulf, defending its position athwart the principal lines of communication and supply between Northern Europe and British India, and to protect the newly discovered Persian oil that was used to power the Royal Navy
It is now possible for infectious diseases to spread around the globe in a matter of days. The threat of infectious disease brings with it a number of traditional, hard security issues that other health issues do not. However, it is becoming increasingly apparent that IR scholars will need to expand their examination of the ways in which the World Health Organization functions beyond the realm of infectious disease
Academics need to make their arguments accessible and governments need to acknowledge their relevance in determining how to proceed when conceptualizing policy. Until administrations become concerned with changing the level of discourse rather than simply out maneuvering their foes on the political chessboard, any changes in the practices of academic research will fall short of re-enfranchising academics into meaningful advisory roles
There is considerable debate in the academic literature regarding the agency of international organisations. Opinions diverge sharply, from complete autonomy posited by some social constructivists to total IO subservience to states as posited by hardline realists. In truth, the state/organisation divergence is a false dichotomy
The Israel lobby thesis, despite some flaws such as a dismissal of the power of other lobby groups. it is a valid attempt to understand a unique facet in how American policy is forged.
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