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Analyses of religion and international politics routinely concern the persistence of religion as a critical element in world affairs. However, they tend to neglect the constitutive interconnections between religion and political life. Consequently, religion is treated as exceptional to mainstream politics. In response, recent works focus on the relational dimensions of religion and international politics. This article advances an "entangled history" approach that emphasizes the constitutive, relational, and historical dimensions of religion — as a practice, discursive formation, and analytical category. It argues that these public dimensions of religion share their conditions of possibility and intelligibility in a political order that crystallized over the long 19th century. The neglect of this period has enabled International Relations to treat religion with a sense of closure at odds with the realities of religious political behavior and how it is understood. Refocusing on religion's historical entanglements recovers the concept as a means of explaining international relations by "recognizing" how it is constituted as a category of social life. Beyond questions of the religious and political, this article speaks to renewed debates about the role of history in International Relations, proposing entanglement as a productive framing for international politics more generally.

The War in Ukraine has highlighted the divisions within and between Latin American countries. Although the Russian invasion of Ukraine goes against international norms endorsed by Latin American countries, the conflict seems remote and evokes long-standing rejection of United States policies. Notably, both regional powers, Mexico and Brazil, were reluctant to join the Western condemnation of Russia. Both the left-leaning Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador as well as Brazil's far-right president Jair Bolsonaro have maintained the traditional position of autonomy and neutrality that has characterised their countries' diplomatic histories. The Russian argument that NATO went too far in penetrating its security perimeter finds broad echo in Latin America. Paradoxically, such realist reasoning accepts the old geopolitical theory of great powers' "spheres of influence," which contradicts the autonomist theories historically endorsed by Latin American governments vis-à-vis US power. The war, and especially the sanctions on Russian hydrocarbons, have triggered fuel-price hikes, stimulated a rapprochement of the US with Venezuela, and altered the latter's tense relationship with neighbouring Colombia, easing conditions for the restoration of bilateral relations. Those interested in maintaining relations with Latin America should take note of the divide among the region's governments, many showing only reluctant support for the West's anti-Vladimir Putin policies. The insistence on foreign policy autonomy here cannot be understood as an articulated regional project but rather serves as a discursive framework which allows each government international room for manoeuvre, favouring relations with multiple external actors.

Brazil's very recent emergence on the global stage has fueled debate in the country between those advocating adaption to international norms and those who view Brazil's real interests conflicting with the current world order. The latter position urges the Brasilia leadership to strive to create new norms that serve Brazil's interests. (DGAP-IP)

This War Report provides detailed information on every armed conflict which took place during 2013, offering an unprecedented overview of the nature, range, and impact of these conflicts and the legal issues they created. In Part I, the Report describes its criteria for the identification and classification of armed conflicts under international law, and the legal consequences that flow from this classification. It sets out a list of armed conflicts in 2013, categorising each as international, non-international, or a military occupation, with estimates of civilian and military casualties. In P

This paper sets out to explore the interrelations between safeguarding migration flows between Laos and Thailand and dual models of migrant brokers' subjectivity. Within the anti-trafficking community in the Mekong region there is a tacit dual imagery of "insider" and "outsider" categories, where external brokers are associated with "risk" whereas friends and personal networks within village communities constitute possible avenues for "safe migration". The Thai and Lao governments have over the past years attempted to legalize migration flows. An important rationale for this - which is advocated by international organizations in the Mekong region and elsewhere - is the claim that legalization will "dry out" a market for dubious brokers making labor migration safer. This paper suggests that what sustains this "legalization model" is an implicit utilitarian view of migration which projects ideal types depictions of traffickers and brokers. In light of ethnographic data from the commercial sex industry along the Thai-Lao border, this paper suggests that migration networks do not replace brokers as brokering services are embedded within these very same networks where legality is appropriated as a resource with mixed results. Yet, although legality is being manufactured through the migration process, both consensual and deceptive recruitment (i.e. "trafficking") of young Lao women are taking place within a context where sex workers themselves play a central role as dilettante-brokers within wider informal social networks. In other words, legality does not alter brokering services but the reverse. "Trafficking", then, is taking place in the very same contexts that are deemed "safe" by anti-trafficking programmes. (Pac Aff/GIGA)

This introductory article provides rationales and contextual background for the special issue which examines how weak states in Asia actualise and exercise their agency in the twenty-first century regional or global environments. The article opens with a consideration of why attention is drawn to the agency of the weak. Weak states are often treated as 'objects' of international politics rather than 'subjects', and their foreign policy actions are commonly taken to be 'reflexive' of external constraints, such as fluctuations in the balance of power in the international system. We disagree with this view. We argue that weak actors can demonstrate varieties of agency regardless of their position in the international system in terms of material capabilities. To clarify this point, the article reflects on the changed and changing global and regional environments and order. Rather than seeing them through the lens of great power politics and its signature concept of 'polarity', the article offers an alternative notion, namely a 'multiplex' world, and identifies the key nature of order therein: multiplicity and fluidity. Both material and normative power have already and continue to become fragmented, decentralised, and dispersed within and across states. While emphasising that such a multifaceted and fluid world opens up a wide avenue of agency for weak actors, this article also notes that the weak has varieties of agency as potentials. (Pac Rev/GIGA)

The successful transition from armed conflict to peace is one of the greatest challenges of contemporary warfare. The laws and principles governing transitions from conflict to peace (jus post bellum) have only recently gained attention in legal scholarship. This volume investigates questions concerning the core of jus post bellum: the law ("jus"), the temporal aspect ("post"), and different types of armed conflict ("bellum"). It is the first volume to clarify the different legal meanings and components of the concept, including its implications in contemporary politics and practice. It explores the nature of jus post bellum as a concept, including its foundations, criticisms, and relationship to related concepts (e.g. Transitional Justice, Responsibility to Protect). It rethinks the nexus of the concept to jus ad bellum and jus in bello and its relevance in internal armed conflicts and peacebuilding. It examines problems in relation to the ending of conflict, including indicators for the end of conflict, exit strategies, and institutional responses. It also identifies contours of a "jus," drawing on disparate bodies and sources of international law such as peace agreements, treaty law, self-determination, norms governing peace operations, and the status of foreign armed forces, environmental law, human rights, and amnesty law. Taking into account perspectives from multiple disciplines, the book will be relevant to scholars, practitioners, and students across many fields, such as peace and conflict studies, international relations, philosophy, political science, and international law.

United Nations Security Council (UNSC) membership comes with privileges. Existing research shows that the world's most powerful countries funnel financial favors to governments elected to the UNSC, arguably to influence their votes on matters of international importance. This study investigates whether these governments, whose election elevates them to prominent positions of power, also receive security benefits. We argue that elected UNSC members win the attention and protection of the world's super powers, and, as a result, are less likely to be attacked. But we further argue that the General Assembly and the world's super powers prefer pacific countries on the UNSC. In support of our theory, we find empirically that temporary membership on the UNSC is associated with lower rates of being targeted and lower rates of initiating conflict. We conclude that UNSC membership has existential benefits and is associated with a reduced likelihood of militarized disputes.

Cooperation in science has become an important part of the relations between China and the United States, and is usefully seen in the context of the worldwide phenomenon of increasing international scientific cooperation. Attempts to explain this increase in international scientific cooperation have called attention to the importance of government-to-government agreements and to self-organizing tendencies within the international scientific community. In the China-U.S. case, however, co-ethnic identity, manifested in coauthoring patterns, seems to be an especially important factor in cooperation as well. This article explores these patterns with an eye toward understanding the complex relationships between transnationalism and our understanding of Chinese nationalism and multiple Chinese identities. (Asian Perspect/GIGA)

Die Verschlechterung in den Wirtschaftsbeziehungen zwischen der EU und Russland hat eindeutig Folgen für die wirtschaftliche Entwicklung in Polen. Im Bereich des Handels mit Russland, v.a. im Agrarbereich, gehört Polen zu den am stärksten betroffenen EU-Ländern. Allerdings sind einige andere Staaten in Mittel- und Westeuropa in weiteren zentralen Bereichen der Wirtschaftsbeziehungen mit Russland noch stärker exponiert. Dies muss auf der politischen Ebene in Polen stets mitgedacht werden. Für Polen nicht zu vernachlässigen sind daher auch die indirekten Folgen der Verschlechterung in den Wirtschaftsbeziehungen zwischen der EU und Russland, hier sind beispielsweise Zulieferketten nach Deutschland oder internationale Banken zu erwähnen. Der aktuelle Stand der implementierten Wirtschaftssanktionen zwischen der EU und Russland könnte die polnische Wirtschaft in den Jahren 2014 und 2015 jeweils etwa 0,2 bis 0,4 Prozentpunkte des möglichen BIP-Wachstums kosten. Diese Zahlen sind vordergründig niedrig, sie können aber nicht zu unterschätzende Wirkungen auf die Inflationsentwicklung in Polen haben.