Search results

Abstract
The International Political Science Association (IPSA) is a unique case against the common perception that Beijing has the upper hand when the two regimes by the Taiwan Strait contest to join international (non-governmental) organisations. Beijing relentlessly pushes international organisations to acknowledge the One China principle; Taipei also relentlessly denies this principle while it seeks to join. In the 1980s, Chinese and Taiwanese political scientists, representing their own regimes, applied Track II diplomacy to compete over membership of this organisation. IPSA membership mattered to both regimes and their political scientists. After many years of Track II competition, The Chinese Association of Political Science in Taipei became a "collective" member without compromising on how to name itself in April 1989. As a result, Beijing's counterpart withdrew from the IPSA. This situation has now persisted for over thirty years. The IPSA case not only challenges the current understanding of Cross-Strait relations but also throws light on the theoretical understanding of Track II diplomacy.

This book examines in depth science diplomacy, a particular field of international relations, in which the interests of science and those of foreign policy intersect. Building on a wealth of examples drawn from history and contemporary international relations, it analyzes and discusses the links between the world of scientists and that of diplomats. Written by a professor of economics and former Embassy counselor for science and technology, the book sets out to answer the following questions: Can science issues affect diplomatic relations between countries? Is international scientific cooperation a factor for peace? Are researchers good ambassadors for their countries? Is scientific influence a particular form of cultural influence on the world stage? Do diplomats really listen to what experts say when negotiating on the future of the planet? Is the independence of the scientist threatened by science diplomacy? What is a scientific attaché for?

Drawing upon extensive research in the United States, Colombia, and Great Britain, The Diplomacy of Modernization examines the evolution of United States foreign policy in Colombia between the world wars, concentrating on the period of the Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt administrations, years generally associated with the formulation and implementation of the Good Neighbor Policy. Historians of the United States-Latin American policy have concentrated on the giants of the inter-war years - Mexico, Cuba, Brazil, and Argentina. Yet the second-ranking powers such as Colombia are particularly significant for an understanding of the factors which shaped inter-American relations, the objective of U.S. policy, and the impact of a major industrialized nation on a developing society. By the end of the First World War Colombia occupied an important, though clearly secondary, place in United States-Latin American policy. During the 1920s Colombia was the third- or fourth-ranking trading partner of the United States in South America. Her strategic proximity to the Panama Canal also made her adherence to a pro-United States position an important objective of Washington's policy, as did the promise of major petroleum reserves that were yet to be exploited. Conscious of these issues and concerned that the spark of nationalism generated by the Mexican revolution would inflame other developing nations in Latin America, United States officials in the 1920s and 1930s re-examined the methods of American diplomacy and gradually moved away from the cruder forms of military intervention, gunboat and dollar diplomacy. In analysing the commercial, financial, and industrial presence of U.S. interests in Colombia and their diplomatic manifestations, this study suggests the extent to which the United States erected a policy designed to provide primacy for American interests rather than the equality of treatment implied in the terms 'good neighbor' and 'open door.'

Acknowledgement -- Contents -- List of Abbreviations -- 1: Introduction -- References -- 2: What Is Science Diplomacy? -- 2.1 The Emergence of Science Diplomacy in Contemporary International Relations -- 2.1.1 In Search of a Definition -- 2.1.2 Science Diplomacy Is a Form of Diplomacy of Influence -- 2.2 A Historical Perspective -- 2.2.1 Great Voyages of Exploration and Colonization -- Box 2.1 Bonaparte´s Egypt campaign (1798-1801): An unprecedented combination of hard and soft power -- 2.2.2 The World Wars of the Twentieth Century -- 2.2.3 The Cold War: Science in the Ideological Competition -- 2.2.4 After the Cold War -- References -- 3: Science Diplomacy as a National Issue -- 3.1 Universal Science and the Power of Nations -- 3.1.1 The Scientist and the Diplomat: Contours of Two Types -- 3.1.1.1 Science Without Borders Versus National Political Spaces -- 3.1.1.2 Search for Truth, Fairness and Transparency Versus Strategy, Manipulation and Secret -- 3.1.2 The Scientist and the Diplomat: A Proximity of Convenience? -- 3.2 The Challenges of Science Diplomacy -- 3.2.1 Attraction -- 3.2.2 Cooperation -- 3.2.3 Influence -- 3.2.3.1 Presence in International Organizations -- 3.2.3.2 Scientific Expertise as Means of Influence -- 3.2.3.3 Hosting International Scientific Organizations and Major Research Infrastructures -- Box 3.1 The choice of the headquarters of the General Secretariat of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiver... -- References -- 4: Science in Diplomatic Apparatus: The Diversity of National Approaches -- 4.1 Scientific and Technological Networks -- 4.1.1 Science Counselors -- 4.1.2 Networks -- 4.2 Science Diplomacy of Major European Countries: France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and the UK -- 4.2.1 France -- 4.2.2 Germany -- 4.2.3 Italy -- 4.2.4 Switzerland -- 4.2.5 United Kingdom

A review essay on a book by Heikki Patomaki, The Political Economy of Global Security: War, Future Crises and Changes in Global Governance (London & New York: Routledge, 2008).

AbstractWhether it is in climate change negotiations, pandemic scares, security threats or sustainable development agendas, science and technology are today at the heart of international affairs. Yet there is still limited academic work that deals with the complex relationships between international diplomatic and scientific endeavours. How can we bridge this divide and possibly 'rebalance' the encounter between the practice of science diplomacy, its practitioner‐driven literature, and the discussions of international relations theory (IR) that underpin the study of world politics? Here we propose that this move could start from a more explicit placing of science diplomacy discussions across the IR spectrum. We pose that taking seriously science 'diplomacy', whilst undoing conventions around the hitherto limited 'IR' reading of science in its literature, would do well in establishing this reality not just as a domain of reflective practitioners, but as an effective launchpad for international theorizing as much as more academically‐driven practice.

In recent decades, the discipline of International Relations (IR) has experienced both dramatic institutional growth and unprecedented intellectual enrichment. And yet, unlike neighbouring disciplines such as Geography, Sociology, History and Comparative Literature, it has still not generated any 'big ideas' that have impacted across the human sciences. Why is this? And what can be done about it? This article provides an answer in three steps. First, it traces the problem to IR's enduring definition as a subfield of Political Science. Second, it argues that IR should be re-grounded in its own disciplinary problematique: the consequences of (societal) multiplicity. And finally, it shows how this re-grounding unlocks the transdisciplinary potential of IR. Specifically, 'uneven and combined development' provides an example of an IR 'big idea' that could travel to other disciplines: for by operationalizing the consequences of multiplicity, it reveals the causal and constitutive significance of 'the international' for the social world as a whole.