Militarism and International Relations : Political economy, security, theory, edited by Anna Stavrianakis and Jan Selby, Abingdon, Routledge, 2012, 212 pp., £80.00 (hardback), ISBN 978-0-415-61491-7

An engaging narrative is maintained throughout this edited collection of articles that address the issue of militarism in international relations. The book seamlessly integrates historical and contemporary perspectives on militarism with theory and relevant international case studies, resulting in a very informative read. The work is comprised of three parts. Part 1 deals with the theorisation of militarism and includes chapters by Anna Stavrianakis and Jan Selby, Martin Shaw, Simon Dalby, and Nicola Short. It covers a range of topics relating to historical and contemporary theories of militarism, geopolitical threat construction, political economy, and the US military’s ‘cultural turn’.

National governments and international relations,

Mode of access: Internet.

The electoral geography of the Slovak Republic: A comparison of the 1994, 1998, and 2002 parliamentary elections

In what can rightly be said to be one of the most dramatic geopolitical shifts in modern times, the collapse of communist regimes in Central Europe and the former Soviet Union brought about dramatic changes in the entire region. As a consequence, wide ranging political, economic, and social transformations have occurred in almost all of these countries since 1989. The Slovak Republic, as a newly democratic country, went through the establishment of the electoral and party systems that are the central mechanisms to the formation of almost all modern democratic governments. The primary research purpose of this dissertation was to describe and explain regional variations in party support during Slovakia’s ten years of democratic transformation. A secondary purpose was to relate these spatial variations to the evolution of political parties in the post-independence period in light of the literature on transitional electoral systems. Research questions were analyzed using both aggregate and survey data. Specifically, the study utilized electoral data from 1994, 1998, and 2002 Slovak parliamentary elections and socio-economic data of the population within Slovak regions which were eventually correlated with the voting results by party in the 79 Slovak districts. The results of this study demonstrate that there is a tendency among voters in certain regions to provide continuous support to the same political parties/movements over time. In addition, the socio-economic characteristics of the Slovak population (gender, age, education, religion, nationality, unemployment, work force distribution, wages, urban-rural variable, and population density) in different regions tend to influence voting preferences in the parliamentary elections. Finally, there is an evident correlation between party preference and the party’s position on integration into European Union, as measured by perceived attitudes regarding the benefits of EU membership.

The national interest in international relations theory

The concept of the 'national interest' is an ever-present feature of contemporary diplomatic discourse, and has been widely analysed by historians and political scientists. However, there has not been a systematic investigation of the term from the range of theoretical perspectives which comprise the discipline of International Relations. This book fills this gap by explaining how the term is variously understood by realist, Marxist, anarchist, liberal rationalist (English School) and constructivist theories of International Relations. It is argued that far from having a clear and unambiguous meaning, 'the national interest' is a problematic term which is largely devoid of substantive content. While realists traditionally, and constructivists more recently, claim that 'the national interest' is a key explanatory tool in the analysis and understanding of contemporary foreign policy.
Scott Burchill argues that beyond the narrow aspect of security policy, the national interest has little residual value as an insight into the motivations of state policy in the external realm.

Turkish-American relations in the post-Cold War era, 1990-2005

This study examines the contours of Turkish-American foreign relations in the post-Cold War era from 1990 to 2005. While providing an interpretive analysis, the study highlights elements of continuity and change and of convergence and divergence in the relationship between Ankara and Washington. Turkey’s encounter with its Kurdish problem at home intertwined with the emergence of an autonomous Kurdish authority in northern Iraq after the Gulf War that left a political vacuum in the region. The main argument of this dissertation is that the Kurdish question has been the central element in shaping and redefining the nature and scope of Turkish-American relations since 1991. This study finds that systemic factors primarily prevail in the early years of the post-Cold War Turkish-American relations, as had been the case during the Cold War era. However, the Turkish parliament’s rejection of the deployment of the U.S. troops in Turkey for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 could not be explained by the primacy of distribution of capabilities in the system. Instead, the role of identity, ideology, norms, and the socialization of agency through interaction and language must be considered. The Justice and Development Party’s ascension to power in 2002 magnified a wider transformation in domestic and foreign politics and reflected changes in Turkey’s own self-perception and the definition of its core interests towards the United States.

Illicit interest groups: The political impact of the Medellin drug trafficking organizations in Colombia

Although drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) exist and have an effect on health, crime, economies, and politics, little research has explored these entities as political organizations. Legal interest groups and movements have been found to influence domestic and international politics because they operate within legal parameters. Illicit groups, such as DTOs, have rarely been accounted for—especially in the literature on interest groups—though they play a measurable role in affecting domestic and international politics in similar ways. Using an interest group model, this dissertation analyzed DTOs as illicit interest groups (IIGs) to explain their political influence. The analysis included a study of group formation, development, and demise that examined IIG motivation, organization, and policy impact. The data for the study drew from primary and secondary sources, which include interviews with former DTO members and government officials, government documents, journalistic accounts, memoirs, and academic research. To illustrate the interest group model, the study examined Medellin-based DTO leaders, popularly known as the "Medellin Cartel." In particular, the study focused on the external factors that gave rise to DTOs in Colombia and how Medellin DTOs reacted to the implementation of counternarcotics efforts. The discussion was framed by the implementation of the 1979 Extradition Treaty negotiated between Colombia and the United States. The treaty was significant because as drug trafficking became the principal bilateral issue in the 1980s; extradition became a major method of combating the illicit drug business. The study's findings suggested that Medellin DTO leaders had a one-issue agenda and used a variety of political strategies to influence public opinion and all three branches of government—the judicial, the legislative, and the executive—in an effort to invalidate the 1979 Extradition Treaty. The changes in the life cycle of the 1979 Extradition Treaty correlated with changes in the political power of Medellin-based DTOs vis-à-vis the Colombian government, and international forces such as the U.S. government's push for tougher counternarcotics efforts.

Trading Democracy for Security? The Effects of the International Drug War on the Quality of Democracy in the Dominican Republic, 1996 -2008

The purpose of the research is to study the relationship between international drug interdiction policies and domestic politics in fragile democracies, and to demonstrate how international drug control policies and the use of force fit the rhetoric of war, are legitimized by the principles of a just war, but may also cause collateral damage and negative unintended consequences. The method used is a case study of the Dominican Republic. The research has found that international drug control regimes, primarily led by the U.S. and narrowly focused on interdiction, have influenced an increasingly militarized approach to domestic law enforcement in the Dominican Republic. The collateral damage caused by militarized enforcement comes in the form of negative perceptions of citizen security, loss of respect for the rule of law and due process, and low levels of civil society development. The drug war has exposed the need for significant reform of the institutions charged with carrying out enforcement, the police force and the judicial system in particular. The dissertation concludes that the extent of drug trafficking in the Dominican Republic is beyond the scope of domestic reform efforts alone, but that the programs implemented do show some potential for future success. The dissertation also concludes that the framework of warfare is not the most appropriate for the international problems of drug traffic and abuse. A broader, multipronged approach should be considered by world policy makers in order to address all conditions that allow drugs to flourish without infringing upon democratic and civil rights in the process.

What is a good project manager? Reconceptualizing the “do” : an Aristotelian perspective

In Social Science (Organization Studies, Economics, Management Science, Strategy, International Relations, Political Science…) the quest for addressing the question “what is a good practitioner?” has been around for centuries, with the underlying assumptions that good practitioners should lead organizations to higher levels of performance. Hence to ask “what is a good “captain”?” is not a new question, we should add! (e.g. Tsoukas & Cummings, 1997, p. 670; Söderlund, 2004, p. 190). This interrogation leads to consider problems such as the relations between dichotomies Theory and Practice, rigor and relevance of research, ways of knowing and knowledge forms. On the one hand we face the “Enlightenment” assumptions underlying modern positivist Social science, grounded in “unity-of-science dream of transforming and reducing all kinds of knowledge to one basic form and level” and cause-effects relationships (Eikeland, 2012, p. 20), and on the other, the postmodern interpretivist proposal, and its “tendency to make all kinds of knowing equivalent” (Eikeland, 2012, p. 20). In the project management space, this aims at addressing one of the fundamental problems in the field: projects still do not deliver their expected benefits and promises and therefore the socio-economical good (Hodgson & Cicmil, 2007; Bredillet, 2010, Lalonde et al., 2012). The Cartesian tradition supporting projects research and practice for the last 60 years (Bredillet, 2010, p. 4) has led to the lack of relevance to practice of the current conceptual base of project management, despite the sum of research, development of standards, best & good practices and the related development of project management bodies of knowledge (Packendorff, 1995, p. 319-323; Cicmil & Hodgson, 2006, p. 2–6, Hodgson & Cicmil, 2007, p. 436–7; Winter et al., 2006, p. 638). Referring to both Hodgson (2002) and Giddens (1993), we could say that “those who expect a “social-scientific Newton” to revolutionize this young field “are not only waiting for a train that will not arrive, but are in the wrong station altogether” (Hodgson, 2002, p. 809; Giddens, 1993, p. 18). While, in the postmodern stream mainly rooted in the “practice turn” (e.g. Hällgren & Lindahl, 2012), the shift from methodological individualism to social viscosity and the advocated pluralism lead to reinforce the “functional stupidity” (Alvesson & Spicer, 2012, p. 1194) this postmodern stream aims at overcoming. We suggest here that addressing the question “what is a good PM?” requires a philosophy of practice perspective to complement the “usual” philosophy of science perspective. The questioning of the modern Cartesian tradition mirrors a similar one made within Social science (Say, 1964; Koontz, 1961, 1980; Menger, 1985; Warry, 1992; Rothbard, 1997a; Tsoukas & Cummings, 1997; Flyvbjerg, 2001; Boisot & McKelvey, 2010), calling for new thinking. In order to get outside the rationalist ‘box’, Toulmin (1990, p. 11), along with Tsoukas & Cummings (1997, p. 655), suggests a possible path, summarizing the thoughts of many authors: “It can cling to the discredited research program of the purely theoretical (i.e. “modern”) philosophy, which will end up by driving it out of business: it can look for new and less exclusively theoretical ways of working, and develop the methods needed for a more practical (“post-modern”) agenda; or it can return to its pre-17th century traditions, and try to recover the lost (“pre-modern”) topics that were side-tracked by Descartes, but can be usefully taken up for the future” (Toulmin, 1990, p. 11). Thus, paradoxically and interestingly, in their quest for the so-called post-modernism, many authors build on “pre-modern” philosophies such as the Aristotelian one (e.g. MacIntyre, 1985, 2007; Tsoukas & Cummings, 1997; Flyvbjerg, 2001; Blomquist et al., 2010; Lalonde et al., 2012). It is perhaps because the post-modern stream emphasizes a dialogic process restricted to reliance on voice and textual representation, it limits the meaning of communicative praxis, and weaking the practice because it turns away attention from more fundamental issues associated with problem-definition and knowledge-for-use in action (Tedlock, 1983, p. 332–4; Schrag, 1986, p. 30, 46–7; Warry, 1992, p. 157). Eikeland suggests that the Aristotelian “gnoseology allows for reconsidering and reintegrating ways of knowing: traditional, practical, tacit, emotional, experiential, intuitive, etc., marginalised and considered insufficient by modernist [and post-modernist] thinking” (Eikeland, 2012, p. 20—21). By contrast with the modernist one-dimensional thinking and relativist and pluralistic post-modernism, we suggest, in a turn to an Aristotelian pre-modern lens, to re-conceptualise (“re” involving here a “re”-turn to pre-modern thinking) the “do” and to shift the perspective from what a good PM is (philosophy of science lens) to what a good PM does (philosophy of practice lens) (Aristotle, 1926a). As Tsoukas & Cummings put it: “In the Aristotelian tradition to call something good is to make a factual statement. To ask, for example, ’what is a good captain’?’ is not to come up with a list of attributes that good captains share (as modem contingency theorists would have it), but to point out the things that those who are recognized as good captains do.” (Tsoukas & Cummings, 1997, p. 670) Thus, this conversation offers a dialogue and deliberation about a central question: What does a good project manager do? The conversation is organized around a critic of the underlying assumptions supporting the modern, post-modern and pre-modern relations to ways of knowing, forms of knowledge and “practice”.

La pelota no se mancha: Un estudio histórico sobre el desarrollo y la política en FIFA

Esta investigación se centra en la Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) como organización política. Intenta responder dos interrogantes primordiales: 1) ¿cómo la FIFA ha constituido el poder que tiene actualmente y, así, hacerse del monopolio indiscutido del fútbol? Y 2) ¿cómo ha cambiado en el tiempo la política interna de FIFA y su vínculo con la política internacional? Para lograr esto, se realiza un estudio histórico, basado principalmente en documentos, que intenta caracterizar y analizar los cambios de la organización en el tiempo. Se enfatizan las últimas dos presidencias de FIFA, de João Havelange y Joseph Blatter, como casos de estudio.

Covert or Overt Intervention? The Reagan Administration in Latin America

In my thesis I looked at Cold War interventionism by America. In the Post WWII period, many countries were searching for freedom from colonial rule, and many were attracted to the idea of communism or socialism. In this context of a destabilized world and power struggle between the U.S.A and the U.S.S.R., revolutions often became points of interests and parts of this larger power play. Any type of revolution was a destabilization, in a system that was unstable at best, and peace between the powers rested precariously on the idea of “Mutually Assured Destruction.” I would like to look more specifically, at the Latin American Region, which seemed full of upheaval, and was an area of much intervention, especially during the Reagan Administration. This administration had varying goals and conflicts about the region. The large amount of interventionism in the 1980s was in part a response to the Vietnam War, which was seen as an American failure, since prevention of communism did not occur. Following this, American strength needed to be shown again in the international stage, especially in Latin America, due to its close proximity to America. I would like to explore the intervention in Grenada and see if it followed a pattern of intervention in the region. This will be contrasted with the case of Nicaragua, which seemed more typical of interventions in the region. The causes of intervention in the region as well as the reasons these interventions took such different courses will be explored and investigated.

Sexual Minority Rights as Human Rights: Mapping the Evolution of LGBT Norms in Swedish and U.S. Foreign Policy

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2016-06

Beyond Economics and Security: Strategic Export Control Practices in Advanced Countries

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2016-06