Causation, complexity, and the concert: the pragmatics of causal explanation in international relations

A causal explanation provides information about the causal history of whatever is being explained. However, most causal histories extend back almost infinitely and can be described in almost infinite detail. Causal explanations therefore involve choices about which elements of causal histories to pick out. These choices are pragmatic: they reflect our explanatory interests. When adjudicating between competing causal explanations, we must therefore consider not only questions of epistemic adequacy (whether we have good grounds for identifying certain factors as causes) but also questions of pragmatic adequacy (whether the aspects of the causal history picked out are salient to our explanatory interests). Recognizing that causal explanations differ pragmatically as well as epistemically is crucial for identifying what is at stake in competing explanations of the relative peacefulness of the nineteenth-century Concert system. It is also crucial for understanding how explanations of past events can inform policy prescription.

Justice, community, and dialogue in international relations

This book is concerned with the issue of cultural diversity and international morality. The author asks whether cultural diversity presents an obstacle to the development of ethical codes which could be acceptable to cultures around the world. He argues that the human capacity to engage in conversation and the ability to understand each other despite linguistic and cultural differences can provide the basis for the development of a world-wide, cosmopolitan moral community. Conversation can be a moral act, in which participants treat each other as equals despite their differences.

Environmental factors and product adaptation in Middle Eastern markets : the experience of Australian companies

This paper examines the impact that environmental factors have on the decision of Australian companies to adapt products for Middle Eastern markets. It  concludes that of all product aspects, labeling requires the greatest amount of adaptation and that socio-cultural factors have the greatest influence on overall product adaptation. Furthermore, environmental factors impact on product   adaptation in different ways, reflected in the adaptation of different aspects of the overall product.

Theories of international relations

The substantially revised second edition of this widely-used text provides a broad-ranging introduction to the main theoretical approaches to the study of International Relations. The introduction focuses on the nature of theory in the study of global politics and the discipline's internal debates. The following nine substantially revised and updated chapters, including an entirely new one on Constructivism, provide thorough examinations of each of the major traditional and more recent approaches currently prevailing in the discipline.

Multivariate granger causality between electricity consumption, exports and GDP : Evidence from a panel of Middle Eastern countries

This paper examines the causal relationship between electricity consumption, exports and gross domestic product (GDP) for a panel of Middle Eastern countries. We find that for the panel as a whole there are statistically significant feedback effects between these variables. A 1 per cent increase in electricity consumption increases GDP by 0.04 per cent, a 1 per cent increase in exports increases GDP by 0.17 per cent and a 1 per cent increase in GDP generates a 0.95 per cent increase in electricity consumption. The policy implications are that for the panel as a whole these countries should invest in electricity infrastructure and step up electricity conservation policies to avoid a reduction in electricity consumption adversely affecting economic growth. Further policy implications are that for the panel as a whole promoting exports, particularly non-oil exports, is a means to promote economic growth and that expansion of exports can be realized without having adverse effects on energy conservation policies.

Iraq's December 2005 election : reporting democratisation in the Australian and Middle Eastern print media

Throughout the coverage of Iraq since the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s and especially since September 11, the Western mainstream Media have eschewed key historical and contextual data about Iraq, thereby serving to reduce and homogenize the complexity of the issues surrounding the region and the conflicts therein. In so doing, the media has tended towards Orientalism (Said, 1978) by trivialising Iraq and its people and thereby reinforcing the hegemony of the West over the ‘backward, barbaric’ East. Building on earlier research (Isakhan, 2005a), this paper further examines the reductive and homogenising reporting of Iraq in the Western media by using both quantitative and qualitative assessment methods to compare and contrast the discursive practices used to construct the Iraqi election of December 15, 2005 in Australia’s leading daily newspapers with newspapers from the Middle East. In essence, it finds that while the Australian media propagates Orientalism through its one-eyed coverage, the Middle Eastern papers are more contemplative, focusing on the impact that this election could have throughout the region.

The early Australian press and the Middle Eastern 'other'

In recent years, and particularly since the events of September 11 2001 and the subsequent “War on Terror”, much scholarly attention has been paid to the Australian news media’s role in stereotyping, homogenising, victimising and demonising people of Middle Eastern descent or of the Islamic faith. However, contemporary Australian journalists have not so much invented the tropes and stereotypes that they have used to construct this negative image and limited discursive field, as they have invoked a rich tapestry of pre-existing notions about the non-Western world. This paper therefore seeks to investigate the relationship between Edward Said’s notion of Orientalism and the Australian press of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Beginning with its deplorable coverage of Australia’s Indigenous people and the paranoia surrounding the “Asian Invasion” this paper sheds new light on the coverage of Islam and the Middle East in the early Australian press and the emergence of the “Muslim Menace”. Finally, this chapter concludes by noting that such a racialist history raises a host of questions and challenges for the contemporary Australian news media.

Media discourse and Iraq's democratisation : reporting the 2005 constitution in the Australian and Middle Eastern print media

This paper analyses in detail the coverage of two milestones in Iraq's shift towards democracy: the drafting and approval of the constitution by Iraq s interim government (August 2005) and the ratification of this constitution via the Iraqi polls (October 2005). Aside from some rudimentary quantitative analysis, a critical discourse analysis method is utilised to compare and contrast the discursive practices used in three of Australia s leading daily newspapers (The Australian, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age) with three Middle Eastern English-language papers (The Daily Star, Anadolu Agency and the Jordan Times). The paper finds that the Australian print media continues the neo-Orientalist tradition of media coverage of Middle Eastern democracy, while the Middle Eastern press eschews these discourses in favour of a more open, varied debate on Iraq s constitution and the future of democracy across the region.