Suchergebnisse

Many of the central concerns of international relations—war, diplomatic relations, international trade and investment, and alliance politics—are also central to the state-making processes that are essential for the survival of states. The overlap between international relations and state making is profound but largely unrecognized. I present a framework emphasizing connections across these currently disparate areas of scholarship, thereby providing a more comprehensive basis for IR research. The framework I advance emphasizes the pursuit of capacity and legitimacy throughout a state's existence, suggests new research topics, and raises new concerns about research design.

AbstractThe nonstate actors of interest in this article are territorial contenders: political entities that control populated territory, function like sovereign states but are not recognized as sovereign states by other members of the international system. Sometimes they are de facto states, sometimes they are rebel groups, sometimes they are neither of these, instead existing in control of territory with neither conflict against the sovereign state within whose borders they exist nor claims to a state of their own. New data about territorial contenders permit me to evaluate arguments about changing rules and norms in the international system. I find support for claims about the consequences of changing rules about which actors are recognized as sovereign states but not for claims about a norm against conquest after World War II. In the discussion section, I consider implications of these findings for future research.

AbstractScholars debate whether Eurocentric theories of International Relations (IR) offer useful explanations of African international politics. They also debate the applicability of Eurocentric theories of state making for understanding African state making in the post-colonial era. I argue that theories like realism and war-and-state-making appear inconsistent with African political reality because when IR scholars apply these theories to Africa, they study the wrong actors. The 'right' actors for understanding these theories include not only the official states IR scholars traditionally analyse, but also all of the autonomous political entities that control territory, possess military resources, and struggle to survive under anarchy. I substantiate my claims about the usefulness and necessity of expanding the roster of actors studied with an historical narrative of the first six years of Congo's independence. During this time six autonomous political entities, in addition to the one official state, warred with each other, allied with each other, and struggled to make states.