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This book responds to a gap in the literature in International Relations (IR) by integrating technology more systematically into analyses of global politics. Technology facilitates, accelerates, automates, and exercises capabilities that are greater than human abilities. And yet, within IR, the role of technology often remains under-studied. Building on insights from science and technology studies (STS), assemblage theory and new materialism, this volume asks how international politics are made possible, knowable, and durable by and through technology. The contributors provide empirically rich and pertinent accounts of a variety of technologies relevant to the discipline, including drones, algorithms, satellite imagery, border management databases, and blockchains. Problematizing various technologically mediated issues, such as secrecy, violence, and questions of how authority and evidence become constituted in international contexts, this book will be of interest to scholars in IR, in particular those who work in the subfields of (critical) security studies, International Political Economy, and Global Governance.

It is time for International Relations (IR) to join the relational revolution afoot in the natural and social sciences. To do so, more careful reflection is needed on cosmological assumptions in the sciences and also in the study and practice of international relations. In particular it is argued here that we need to pay careful attention to whether and how we think 'relationally'. Building a conversation between relational cosmology, developed in natural sciences, and critical social theory, this book seeks to develop a new perspective on how to think relationally in and around the study of IR. International Relations in a Relational Universe asks: What kind of cosmological background assumptions do we make as we tackle international relations today and where do our assumptions (about states, individuals, or the international) come from? And can we reorient our cosmological imaginations towards more relational understanding of the universe and what would this mean for the study and practice of international politics?The book argues that we live in a world without 'things', a world of processes and relations. It also suggests that we live in relations which exceed the boundaries of the human and the social, in planetary relations with plants and animals. Rethinking conceptual premises of IR, Kurki points towards a 'planetary politics' perspective within which we can reimagine IR as a field of study and also political practices, including the future of democracy.

An assessment of scholarship on India's International Relations (IIR) shows some significant weaknesses. At the global level, the discipline has not kept pace with rising interest in India. There is an appreciable degree of theoretical content in IIR, but it is relatively narrow in range. At the Asian level, interest in IIR is weak and, with exceptions, lacks engagement with theory as well as breadth of scope. In India, the discipline exhibits a wider spread but low-level theoretical content and relative isolation. Taken as a whole, the field needs greater creativity, theoretical depth and breadth of scope. The article concludes with a brief assessment of the reasons for these shortcomings and identifies the pathway to develop IR in India as a more vibrant discipline.

AbstractChina's evidently unstoppable "rise" energizes PRC political and intellectual elites to think seriously about the future of international relations. How will (and should) China's international roles change in the forthcoming decades? How should its leaders put the country's rapidly-increasing power to use? Foreign China specialists have tended to use an overly-streamlined "resisting" the West versus "co-operating" with it (or even simpler "optimistic" versus "pessimistic") scale to address such questions, partly reflecting the divide between Realism and Neoliberalism in American international relations theory. By 2002, a near-consensus had developed (though never shared universally) that China had become an increasingly co-operative power since the mid-1990s and would continue to pursue the policy prescriptions of Neoliberal international relations theory. But using more nuanced "English school" analytical techniques – and examining the writings of Chinese elites themselves, aimed solely at Chinese audiences – this article discovers an unmistakably cynical Realism to be still at the core of Chinese thinking on the international future. Even elites who appear sincere in their promotion of co-operation firmly reject "solidarism" among the world's leading states and insist upon upholding the difference between China and all others. Many demand – and foresee – China using its future power to pursue world objectives that would depart in significant respects from those of the other leading states and non-state actors.

Most economic theorists nowadays appreciate that particular theories are peculiarly relevant to particular historical situations, and gain their chief importance from this relevance. In place of one absolute set of propositions, economists are becoming accustomed to the idea that their theoretical arsenal needs to include, for example, weapons suited to conditions of approximately full employment, and different weapons suited to conditions of depression. The dependence of theory on conditions properly goes further than this. We need to ask whether our fundamental concepts are appropriate to the historical conditions of the time to which they are to be applied.

In recent decades, the internationalization of modern states and dealing with national matters has increased markedly. The various forms of multilateral diplomacy are taking on growing importance. Adapted from the source document.

Frontmatter -- Contents -- List of Figures and Tables -- Preface -- Introduction: The Dawn of the Global Event Horizon -- Part I: International Security -- One: Tools of the Trade (1): Understanding War and Peace from Three Perspectives -- Two: Tools of the Trade (2): Game Theory -- Three: World War I -- Four: The Cold War and After -- Five: The American Invasion of Iraq in 2003 -- Resources -- Part II: The Global Economy -- Six: Tools of the Trade: Comparative Case Strategy and Hegemonic Stability Theory -- Seven: Three Views of Economics and Politics -- Eight: Paradigmatic Legacies: Variations in Capitalism -- Nine: The International Economic Order and the Question of Convergence -- Resources

Drawing on existing literature, this research offers a theoretical delineation of the gray zone conflict, that is, conflict below the threshold of armed conflict. It begins by identifying the characteristic features attributed to the gray zone to propose a definition of the concept. It then situates gray zone conflict within the framework of the International Relations theory of Realism before setting out the main lines of strategic action used. Lastly, it examines the various levels of escalation that can arise in conflict of this nature.

The ability of International Relations theory to 'travel well' to other parts of the world has become one of the central questions within the discipline. This article argues that a Foucauldian-derived 'analytics of government' framework has particular advantages in overcoming some of the difficulties IR theory has faced abroad. These advantages include a methodological focus on specific practices of power at their point of application; attention to similarities between practices of power that cut across perceived binaries such as the domestic and international, and public and private; and an illumination of the ways in which practices of freedom are combined and interrelate with forms of coercion and violence. This argument is illustrated in the context of debates about the applicability of Foucauldian theory to African politics, through examples drawn from Bayart's work on globalisation, the power of development partnerships, and violence and civil war. It argues that deploying governmentality as an analytical framework, rather than seeing it as a specifically neoliberal form of power relation, can not only facilitate the application of IR theory outside Europe and North America but can also help develop a broader perspective on genuinely world politics. Adapted from the source document.