Philosophy and International Relations

In recent years, International Relations theorists have turned to philosophy in search of new ontological and epistemological foundations or to clarify their existing commitments. Scientific Realism and International Relations, edited by Jonathan Joseph and Colin Wight, is a good example of the former: editors and contributors make the case for Scientific Realism—a leading philosophy of science—in International Relations. Patrick Thaddeus Jackson, author of The conduct of inquiry in International Relations, is motivated by the latter concern, and devises a typology based on two key fissures among social scientists: the relationships between the knower and the known, and between knowledge and observation. The Joseph and Wight volume, while containing some thoughtful essays, does not convince the reviewer that assumptions that might apply in the physical world are relevant to its social counterpart. The Jackson book is an intellectual tour de force and a compelling plea for pluralism.     

Commonwealth perspectives on International Relations

The parallel development of the inter‐ and non‐governmental Commonwealths on the one hand and the field of International Relations and its oldest journal, The Round Table, on the other, should not go unnoticed at the start of the second decade of the century. This article suggests that the Commonwealth nexus has always constituted a distinctive perspective and debate in both the metropole and the rest of the Commonwealth's expanding official and unofficial networks. The Commonwealth 'School’ both reinforces and contrasts with other non‐US and non‐hegemonic approaches presently animating the field.     

The Gorbachev Interlude and International Relations Theory

Richard Ned Lebow and Thomas W. Risse–Kappen, eds. International Relations Theory and the End of the Cold War     

Halliday's revenge: revolutions and International Relations

Fred Halliday saw revolution and war as the dual motors of modern international order. However, while war occupies a prominent place in International Relations (IR), revolutions inhabit a more residual location. For Halliday, this is out of keeping with their impact—in particular, revolutions offer a systemic challenge to existing patterns of international order in their capacity to generate alternative orders founded on novel forms of political rule, economic organization and symbolic authority. In this way, dynamics of revolution and counter‐revolution are closely associated with processes of international conflict, intervention and war. It may be that one of the reasons for Halliday's failure to make apparent the importance of revolutions to IR audiences was that, for all his empirical illustrations of how revolutions affected the international realm, he did not formulate a coherent theoretical schema which spoke systematically to the discipline. This article assesses Halliday's contribution to the study of revolutions, and sets out an approach which both recognizes and extends his work. By formulating ideal‐typical ‘anatomies of revolution’, it is possible to generate insights that clarify the ways in which revolutions shape international order.     

International Relations in a post-hegemonic age

In his valedictory lecture, concluding twenty-five years teaching at the London School of Economics and Political Science, Fred Halliday examines three aspects of the changing reality and intellectual context of International Relations. Placing a broad interpretation on the concept of the 'post-hegemonic' he looks at the changing nature of American power, the growing diversity of, and challenges to, the discipline of International Relations, and the mixed record of different conceptions of internationalism. This lecture is a reassertion of the necessity and vitality of academic reflection on International Relations, a challenge to much conventional thinking on issues of globalization, and a reassertion of the need for, and complexity of, a commitment to global values.     

International Relations after the Cold War

This article, based on Adam Roberts's valedictory lecture as Montague Burton Professor of International Relations at Oxford University, reconsiders the causes and consequences of the end of the Cold War. It argues that a key to understanding these developments is acceptance of pluralism—of theories, of political systems, of cultures, of methods of analysis, and of academic disciplines. Pluralism in at least some of these senses is a recognized strength of International Relations studies in the UK. The long tradition of acceptance of a plural international system, and a plural approach to understanding it, includes figures as varied as John Stuart Mill, Maxim Litvinoff, Alastair Buchan and Hedley Bull. The end of the Cold War was the result of a plural mix of factors: both force and diplomacy; both pressure and détente; both belief and disbelief in the reformability of communism; both civil resistance in some countries and guerrilla resistance in others; both elite action and street politics; both nuclear deterrence and the ideas of some of its critics; both threat and reassurance; both nationalism in the disparate parts of the Soviet empire and supranationalism in the European Community. Paradoxically, the specialists in politics and International Relations who came closest to foreseeing the end of the Cold War were those who made few if any claims to a ‘scientific’ approach, and whose idea of forecasting was based, at the very most, on Mill's modest concept of ‘a certain order of possible progress’. Since the end of the Cold War, simplistic interpretations of how it ended have contributed to narrow understandings of international order. The spirit of imposed universalism having fed from Moscow, has flourished as never before in its other favourite haunt, Washington DC. There is a need to recognize the plurality of perspectives that endure in the post‐Cold War world.     

国际关系视角下的博物馆对外展览:作用与挑战

在国际关系视角下,博物馆对外展览既可以被归为服务于一国对外政策的文化外交,也可以被归为致力于长远宏观目标的人文交流.每个对外展览因动因不同,所发挥的作用也不尽相同,但通常作用包括形塑国家形象、搭建沟通桥梁、增进相互理解.与此同时,国内外政治形势、法律框架、国家政策等都是对外展览发生的重要背景和能够发生的决定条件,而展览能否真正改变观众的行为或态度又受到文化偏见的干扰,这就造成了博物馆对外展览影响力的不可控性和缓释性.面对这些挑战,中国博物馆作为民族国家的形象代表,应当致力于在更高层次上将独特性转化成普遍性,以自己的方式表现其他社会和文化同样注重的价值,为推动构建人类命运共同体贡献力量.     

International History and International Relations Theory: A Dialogue Beyond the Cold War

Until recently, there has been little 'real' dialogue in Cold War studies between International Relations theorists and international historians. In many ways this is not surprising. For the most part, International Relations theorists took the Cold War as an immutable feature of the international system. Historians did indeed seek to explain the outbreak of the Cold War and the historic features that had given rise to American hegemony and Soviet opposition, but they did so primarily by concentrating largely on archival and related research with only limited attention given to the bigger issues of the Cold War world. However, as the article demonstrates, a dialogue between historians and theorists over some key aspects of the Cold War, such as the role of ideology, is now timely. The evolution of both a broader conception of International History, as well as the partial opening of communist archives and a range of new developments in International Relations, means that it is now possible to 'rethink' the Cold War using both history and International Relations theory.