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In recent years, it has been highlighted in international relations theory that mainstream approaches neglect the role of ideas in relation to the formation of interests and international cooperation. This article critically discusses the renewed emphasis on ideas. 'Cognitive' and 'constructivist' approaches are outlined as the two main strands in the debate and a neo-Gramscian position within it is sketched. Importantly, a neo-Gramscian position is able to conceptualise the material structure of ideas, thereby overcoming the separation between ideas and material structure from the very beginning.

In his article `Facts and Principles', G.A. Cohen attempts to refute constructivist approaches to justification by showing that, contrary to what their proponents claim, fundamental normative principles are fact- insensitive. We argue that Cohen's `fact-insensitivity thesis' does not provide a successful refutation of constructivism because it pertains to an area of meta-ethics which differs from the one tackled by constructivists. While Cohen's thesis concerns the logical structure of normative principles, constructivists ask how normative principles should be justified. In particular, their claim that justified fundamental normative principles are fact-sensitive follows from a commitment to agnosticism about the existence of objective moral facts. We therefore conclude that, in order to refute constructivism, Cohen would have to address questions of justification, and take a stand on those long-standing meta-ethical debates about the ontological status of moral notions (for example, realism versus anti-realism) with respect to which he himself wants to remain agnostic.

Consecutive constructivism is a moral and political theory which mitigates structural injustice by securing individuals' perception of private morality - that is, inventing procedural devices to make people enhance their moral consciousness - and, at the same time, encourages people to voluntarily concern themselves with procedural justice and public morality. The crucial reason for this position is that a detouring method of not directly dealing with the problem of justice but rather discussing the problem of morals is required to avoid the lucid criticisms of statists that the sovereign ruling states with authority or the world government does not exist. This book suggests a new approach to the problem of global justice, termed here "consecutive constructivism". It provides a way of coping with procedural justice at the global level, while also alleviating the problem of structural injustice insofar as it exacerbates procedural injustice. Acknowledging the fact that the discussion of global justice is difficult in a world constituted of lots of sovereign states, it sketches out a political theory which begins with the problem of morals and then consecutively moves on to the matter of justice. The result is a novel normative theory narrowing the gap between Neo-Westphalian and Post-Westphalian traditions

"Global security, climate and health challenges have called into question our capacity to cope with change. Criticizing mainstream norm, practice and realist theory, Jason Ralph offers a 'Pragmatic Constructivist' theory of learning, which is then used to assess international society's problem-solving capacities"--

"Dealing with themes of urban planning, constitutionalism, utopianism and social construction theory, this book analyzes the city of Magnesia, Plato's second-best city-state in the Laws, as if it were an actual ancient city-state. The book details the demographics, economics, military capabilities and polity of Magnesia using (post)modern critical theory and contemporary data on ancient city-states. Examining the key features of the proposed city-state in detail, Kenneth Royce Moore considers Plato's proposed military as well as his invention of national service, and compares this with known militaries of the era. The author demonstrates that economic growth is not its priority, highly restricted with an aim toward stability rather than expansion. Moore also considers the Magnesian political system in the light of existing polities of the era, concluding that Magnesia will have a strikingly different form of government than any other actual city-state in antiquity, albeit derived in no small part from Athenian, Cretan and Spartan traditions. This book puts "flesh on the bones" of Plato's fictional utopia and reveals how surprisingly practical it could have been."--Bloomsbury Publishing

As of 2005, the mainland Chinese government has implemented 'favor-granting policies', the purpose of which is to offer economic benefits in exchange for Taiwanese people's recognition of their political identity. In 2015, this strategy reached its 10th anniversary. Questions that arise are whether such recognition has increased significantly among Taiwanese people during this time, and what factors have influenced Taiwanese people's regime acceptance of mainland China. In order to address these questions, this study analyzed data from the 'Taiwan National Security Studies Surveys' on the basis of social identity, rational choice, social contact and political socialization theories. The findings indicate that the level of regime acceptance of Taiwanese people towards mainland China averaged 3.77 (standard deviation of 2.46) in 2005, and 3.95 (2.22) in 2015, reflecting an increase of 0.18. This study reveals five factors that influence Taiwanese people's regime acceptance of mainland China, namely ethnic identity, going to China for employment, experiences of going to China, sentiments on peace and war, and party identification. The regression model constructed in this study can explain 26.26% of the variance in Taiwanese people's regime acceptance level. (J Contemp China/GIGA)

In Providencia, Rio de Janeiro's oldest favela (shantytown), the Municipality created the "Open-Air/Living Museum" to celebrate its history and link it to a larger infrastructure development project, within the agenda of Brazilian cultural policy to implement UNESCO's global recommendations on safeguarding local intangible heritage world-wide. How do local interpretations of cultural heritage affirm, modify, or enrich the institutional (municipality, state, and UNESCO) policies on tangible and intangible heritage? And how does tourism connect to the imagining of community cultural revival? I develop the concept of heritage kinaesthetics as the moving bodily practices that people imagine and enact to enliven the built environment's static aesthetic looks, or the immobile quality usually ascribed to historic sites. The five main heritage kinaesthetics practiced by residents and visitors include: visual (photographing; seeing vs looking), ambulatory (walking around as exploration), performative (enacting intangible cultural heritage such as samba, capoeira, football, and music; tour guides' performances), oral (telling stories/imagining history), and acoustic (re-creating place-specific sounds). Local heritage kinaesthetics practices are placed within the larger context of Brazilian and internationally UNESCO's cultural policy on heritage safeguarding conceptualized to enhance community quality of life.