bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Combined Deficiency of Dystrophin and β1 Integrin in the Cardiac Myocyte Causes Myocardial Dysfunction, Fibrosis and Calcification
Authors: Elsherif Laila , Huang Michael S. , Shai Shaw-Yung , Yang Yuan , Li Rita Y. , Chun June , Mekany Majid A. , Chu Andrew L. , Kaufman Stephen J. , Ross Robert S.
Published: March 2008

The dystrophin–glycoprotein complex is a large complex of membrane-associated proteins linking the cytoskeleton to the extracellular matrix in muscle. Transmembrane heterodimeric (αβ) integrins serve also as cellular adhesion molecules and mechanotransducers. In the animal model for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, the
mdx
mouse, loss of dystrophin causes more severe abnormalities in skeletal than in cardiac muscle. We hypothesized that ablation of cardiac myocyte integrins in the
mdx
background would lead to a severe cardiomyopathic phenotype.
Mdx
mice were crossed to ones with cardiac myocyte-specific deletion of β1 integrin (β1KO) to generate β1KO
mdx
. Unstressed β1KO
mdx
mice were viable and had normal cardiac function; however, high mortality was seen in peri- and postpartum females by 6 months of age, when severe myocardial necrosis and fibrosis and extensive dystrophic calcification was seen. Decreased ventricular function and blunted adrenergic responsiveness was found in the β1KO
mdx
mice compared with control (Lox/Lox, no Cre), β1KO, and
mdx
. Similarly, adult β1KO
mdx
males were more prone to isoproterenol-induced heart failure and death compared with control groups. Given the extensive calcification, we analyzed transcript levels of genes linked to fibrosis and calcification and found matrix γ-carboxyglutamic acid protein, decorin, periostin, and the osteoblast transcription factor Runx2/Cbfa1 significantly increased in β1KO
mdx
cardiac muscle. Our data show that combined deficiency of dystrophin and integrins in murine cardiac myocytes results in more severe cardiomyopathic changes in the stressed myocardium than reduction of either dystrophin or integrins alone and predisposes to myocardial calcification.
Reading Skills and Function of Problem Behavior in Typical School Settings
Authors: McIntosh Kent , Horner Robert H. , Chard David J. , Dickey Celeste R. , Braun Drew H.
Published: March 2008

The authors examined the relation between variables maintaining problem behavior and reading performance for elementary-age students. Participants were 51 students in Grades 4, 5, and 6 who had received two or more office discipline referrals in 2003-2004. Students were grouped by teacher-indicated function of problem behavior. The prevalence of behavioral function for students in general and special education is reported, and differences were determined for the number of discipline referrals and oral reading fluency rates. Chi-square analysis indicated differences in base rates of function between students in general and special education. Multivariate analysis of variance indicated significant differences in oral reading fluency by function of problem behavior, and follow-up analyses indicated significantly lower fluency scores for students whose indicated function was escape from academic tasks. These findings provide evidence for a coercion model in the classroom. The results are discussed in terms of the relevance of using functional behavior assessment and behavior support with general education populations.
Grammatical gender in translation
Authors: Bordag Denisa , Pechmann Thomas
Published: March 2008

In three experiments native speakers of Czech translated bare nouns and gender-marked adjective + noun phrases into German, their second language (L2). In Experiments 1-3 we explored the so-called gender interference effect from first language (L1) as observed in previous picture naming studies (naming latencies were longer when the L1 noun and its L2 translation had different genders than when their genders were congruent). In Experiments 2 and 3 we investigated the influence of gender transparency in L2 (longer latencies when an L2 noun has a gender-atypical or gender-ambiguous termination than when its termination is gender-typical). Although both effects were observed in L2 picture naming, only the gender transparency effect could be demonstrated in L1 to L2 translation tasks. The resulting constraints on L2 gender processing during translation are discussed in the framework of bilingual speech production models.
Foreign Policy and the Politics of Alterity: A Dialogical Understanding of International Relations
Authors: Guillaume Xavier
Published: March 2008

Trying specifically not to fall into either eclecticism or redundancy, this paper is an attempt to develop a dialogical understanding of international relations within the meta-theoretical field of constructivism. Dialogism holds that the social world is constructed through an interweaving of mutually-responsive discourses between several agents. Further, it provides an interpretative tool, the hermeneutical locus, to understand agents' identities as a factor in international relations by discerning their expressivity, contextuality and relationality. Dealing more closely with the questions of identity and identity formation within the discipline of International Relations, the paper further regards national identity as a factor which is expressed in a particular aspect of foreign policy: the politics of alterity. Grounding my approach in the works of the Russian intellectual Mikhail Mikhailovitch Bakhtin, in the first part of the paper I define what is to be understood by dialogism and its constitutive notion of transgredience. The second part is dedicated to the actual integration of dialogism within the discipline of International Relations. An example drawn from Japanese domestic and foreign policy prior to the Second World War further facilitates the comprehension of the theoretical argument concerning the link between the national and the international in a politics of alterity.
Indigeneity and the International
Authors: Shaw Karena
Published: March 2008

What are the conditions under which international relations might become a meaningful political site for indigenous peoples' struggles against colonisation? This paper explores this question through an engagement with disciplinary struggles within international relations, on the one hand, and a reading of the politics of indigeneity, on the other. It traces the disciplinary mechanisms through which the gesture of inclusivity by scholars of international relations towards indigenous peoples functions to re-inscribe colonial relationships and, given this, considers whether and under what conditions indigenous peoples might find any relevance in the study and practice of `international relations' as inscribed through the discipline. This analysis in turn suggests two questions: one about the limits of and inscribed by the discipline read against claims to represent `world politics', the other about the strategic potentialities of `international relations' as a political site for `marginal' peoples.
The Power of Inscription: Beyond Social Construction and Deconstruction in European Integration Studies
Authors: Walters William
Published: March 2008

This article advances a heterodox understanding of `construction' as a way of theorising European integration. The first section sets out this version of construction, which is derived from the work of Bruno Latour and which emphasises the techne of inscription. This new view of construction is contrasted with the typical understandings of construction and deconstruction within European Union studies. The article then demonstrates the value of a focus on inscription in terms of a case study: the construction of Justice and Home Affairs as a sp h ere of EU competence. A concern with inscription does not amount to anything like a new theory of European integration. Instead, it gestures towards a microsocial engagement with some of the materials of integration. This undertaking does not reveal the broad dynamics or processes of European integration, and it certainly does not explain policy outcomes. Instead, it suggests a series of local and situated accounts concerning some of the myriad ways in which Europe is composed as a knowable space of rule, in which the actions of diverse agents might be coordinated in such a way as to promote Europe.
Branding Territory: Inside the Wonderful Worlds of PR and IR Theory
Authors: van Ham Peter
Published: March 2008

The practice of 'branding' has invaded all aspects of public and private life. Increasingly, cities, regions and states are using the services of PR and branding consultants to strengthen their ties with so-called stakeholders, aiming to achieve economic and political benefits. This essay studies the intersection between the two worlds of PR and IR theory; two epistemic communities that have little real contact with each other, despite the fact that they share an interest in concepts such as globalisation, identity and the changing nature of power in international politics. This essay offers numerous concrete examples of the phenomenon of location branding to describe how and why territorial entities have decided to jump on the `brandwagon'. It relates the trend of location branding with some strands of constructivist thinking and explores the possible consequences for the study of nationalism and democracy. In this, it sketches the outlines of a potential new research agenda.
The Ethics of Accounting: The Search for American Soldiers Missing in Vietnam
Authors: Hawle Thomas
Published: March 2008

This paper explores the ethical implications of the United States' ongoing search for the bodies of 1,907 servicemen unaccounted-for in Southeast Asia as a result of the Vietnam War. The essay begins by critically engaging the interpretive commitments of the accounting effort to reveal the various means by which the search secures legitimacy. This engagement enables a reassessment of the United States' insistence upon Vietnam's responsibility to account for missing Americans as a humanitarian gesture, a circumstance all the more important given the nearly 300,000 Vietnamese also missing from the war. Through the work of Emmanuel Lévinas, David Campbell, and Michael Shapiro, the essay proposes an ethical relation which not only foregrounds the Vietnamese as the basis of reflection but also suggests new interpretive possibilities concerning the bodies of absent servicemen.

There is also the question of whether it is not bizarre, perhaps even morally obscene—and an insult to the bravery of the dead—to spend so much money searching for bones in a country where children die for want of antibiotics, and thousands of amputees from the war, many of them former Saigon-government soldiers who fought on the American side, hobble on crutches or go armless, because they cannot afford prosthetic devices.1
Toward Cooperative Security? International Integration and the Construction of Security in Estonia
Authors: Kuus Merje
Published: March 2008

This article investigates how the notion of security is used in Estonia both to legitimise and delegitimise international integration. It outlines the assumptions, claims and modes of analysis that underpin security narratives, specifying what are constructed as threats to Estonia and what are framed as appropriate countermeasures to these threats. The article scrutinises in particular whether this discourse is undergoing a transformation from exclusive confrontational to inclusive cooperative conceptualisations. I argue that a shift has occurred from military definitions of security to those articulated in terms of culture and values, but that this cultural definition works not against but in tandem with the binary oppositions of inside/outside and us/them. The transition has been not from exclusive to inclusive operationalisations of security but from exclusions based on the notion of military threat to those invoking culture and values. This diffuse cultural discourse enables the selective deployment of divergent arguments to different audiences while maintaining the familiar underlying dichotomies.
Post-Imperial and Quasi-Imperial: State and Empire in the Global Era
Authors: Shaw Martin
Published: March 2008

Tarak Barkawi and Mark Laffey highlight an emerging consensus that `empire' is a neglected category of International Relations (IR), indeed of the social sciences. However, while the two authors are largely correct in their critique of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's Empire, this paper identifies limitations in their own argument. It develops a broader conception of the relevance of empire to contemporary IR than that of continuities in American power. It examines the scope of the concept and the transformations and reconstitutions of imperial forms in recent modern history. The paper argues that we must take seriously the post-imperial character of contemporary American and Western power, and recognise a much wider range of contemporary quasi-imperial forms. Its central argument is that imperial power relations are a common feature of many non-Western states, considered `Westphalian' nation-states or `postcolonial' states in previous IR classifications of contemporary statehood.
Globalising Democracy Without a State: Weak Public, Strong Public, Global Constitutionalism
Authors: Brunkhorst Hauke
Published: March 2008

The usefulness of Dewey's conception of a public for contemporary International Relations (IR) theory lies in its explication of an expanding network of problem-solving communities (`deliberative democracy'). The idea of a weak and deliberative public endowed with growing moral influence fits well with the globalisation of communicative media and attention to human rights. Still, inclusive discussion and deliberation combined with political protest movements do not amount to egalitarian democracy. The latter presupposes not only the right to free expression but also constitutional access to processes of representation and decision making. Against the emerging background of global law, this article investigates the question of whether global society has a constitution, and gives a twofold answer. While global society can be said to have a constitution with respect to constitutive core elements of equal rights, it lacks a strong public as well as a democratic constitution. However, the existing global weak public can be optimistically interpreted as a `strong public in the making'. This interpretation corrects the institutional and legal weakness of Deweyan pragmatism, lending his notion of a public some new relevance for IR.
The Pragmatism of Global and European Governance: Emerging Forms of the Political `Beyond Westphalia'
Authors: Albert Mathias , Kopp-Malek Tanja
Published: March 2008

This essay argues that debates on, as well as practices of, global and European governance reflect a `pragmatist attitude' in international relations. This pragmatist attitude is hardly avoidable if global and European governance are seen as evolutionary processes in which a semantics apt for coming to grips with a `post-Westphalian' world is developing. The article considers how the pragmatist attitude of global and European governance discourses is evident in their refusal to fix the contours of the political beyond the nation-state in its analytical, synthetic, and normative dimensions. It further argues that attempts to provide comprehensive accounts of governance beyond the nation-state are necessarily characterised by failure, because they do not engage the meta-theoretical problem of analysing an era in which the constitutive rules of the game of global politics are undergoing a dramatic shift. After establishing some contours of this `non-capital-p-pragmatism' in international relations, the article discusses some of its implications for traditional International Relations (IR) agendas.
How to Make a Social Science Practical: Pragmatism, Critical Social Science and Multiperspectival Theory
Authors: Bohman James
Published: March 2008

Pragmatism and critical theory share a practical and pluralist orientation to social inquiry. On this account, social inquiry is practical not simply by being instrumentally useful but by being oriented toward the realisation of normative ideals, most especially those of democracy. Central to such an enterprise is the relationship between social facts and norms, where facts are understood in the Deweyean sense of a `problematic situation' that contains factors that both inhibit and enable the realisation of normative ideals. Social facts in this sense can best be analysed by `multiperspectival theories' that take into account all the dimensions of the problem as well as the perspectives of all relevant actors. When understood as practical social inquiry, a multiperspectival International Relations theory could contribute to the task of realising new democratic possibilities, especially now given the `fact' of uneven globalisation.
Returning Practice to the Linguistic Turn: The Case of Diplomacy
Authors: Neumann Iver B.
Published: March 2008

The linguistic turn in the social sciences has been fruitful in directing attention towards the preconditions for action, as well as those actions understood as speech acts. However, to the extent that the linguistic turn comprises only textual approaches, it brackets out the study of other kinds of action, and so cannot account for social life understood as a whole. We should return to seminal theorists such as Wittgenstein and Foucault, who complemented a linguistic turn with a turn towards practices. Drawing on the work of ethnographers such as Michel de Certeau and sociologists such as Ann Swidler, in part one of this article I suggest that this may be done by using a simple model of culture as a mutually conditioned play between discourse and practices. In part two, I use this model to study changing Norwegian diplomatic practices in the High North in the aftermath of the Cold War. The claim is that capital-based diplomatic practices are being complemented by emerging local practices which may only be governed from the capital by indirect means. Diplomacy thus changes from being a centralised to being a multibased practice.
The Empire's Back in Town: Or America's Imperial Temptation — Again
Authors: Cox Michael
Published: March 2008

A version of this paper was first presented at the London School of Economics as part of the Miliband lecture series. I would like to thank Professor David Held — a staunch supporter — for having invited me to give the lecture, the audience who turned up on what turned out to be a fine LSE occasion, the two anonymous referees for this article, and the Board of Millennium.
Towards an Integral Perspective on World Politics: Secularism, Sovereignty and the Challenge of Global Ecology
Authors: Litfin Karen
Published: March 2008

Modernity's emblematic faith in technology, the doctrine of progress, the centrality of instrumental reason, the sanctity of individual freedom, the denial of the sacred — all of these have been suggested as sources of an environmentally destructive cultural tendency. The common ground uniting all of these beliefs is the secular worldview, a historically specific story about reduction of reality to matter, the triumph of human reason over the vagaries of nature, and the colonization of space and time by material progress. Rather than reverting to a pre-modern worldview or promoting a deconstructive postmodernism that would reduce all worldviews to mere discourse, I draw upon the neglected understandings of evolutionary idealism to move towards a new story. Starting with the premise that consciousness is ontologically prior to action, I draw upon the works of G.W.F. Hegel, Sri Aurobindo, Jean Gebser and Ken Wilber to trace the outlines of an alternative metaphysic to secularism. The integral worldview, which understands history as Spirit in the process of becoming, offers such an alternative, one that moves beyond but also includes the secular story within its scope.
Rethinking the Nation-State from the Frontier
Authors: Maroya Alex
Published: March 2008

The former frontiers of the European empires,* and the British Empire in particular, pose significant challenges for the study of the nation-state. I argue that countries such as Sudan and Somalia are not simply struggling to be states (the `failed state' thesis), but are struggling with the very concept of statehood as understoodin the contemporary world. This concept views the state as a hermetically sealed geographic container in which sovereign power is exercised by an extensive central government. Stable administration and sustainable development in frontier regions — generally agreed to be a precondition for improved global security as well as desirable on humanitarian grounds — may require moving beyond this view and rethinking the preconditionsfor successful state-building. Ideas of radical decentralisation, confederation and porous borders may provide an opportunity for exploring not just new modes of governance on the frontier but the applicability of such thinking to the state system more broadly.
Seeing IR Differently: Notes from the Third World
Authors: Tickner Arlene
Published: March 2008

This article explores the importance of distinct non-core and non-Western perspectives for critical interpretations of international relations. A series of arguments are offered as to why third world scholarship is invisible within the field, and why features such as culture, everyday life and hydridity make looking at IR from third world loci of enunciation fundamentally different. In order to observe the ways in which such readings complement and refine prevailing understandings of global politics, the article reexamines several key categories, including war and conflict, the state, sovereignty and autonomy, and nationalism, making use of distinct third world perspectives.
Let Them Eat Cyberspace: Africa, the G8 and the digital divide
Authors: Alden Chris
Published: March 2008

The G8's announcement at the Okinawa Summit of 2000 that it would be promoting a new programme aimed at `bridging the digital divide' between the industrialised North and South, with Africa as a particular focus, was touted as a new development strategy that would enable Africa to `leapfrog' into modernity. Not only was this approach grounded in some dubious assumptions as well as a misreading of the antecedents for ICT growth in a developing country, more fundamentally, it served to distort development priorities away from core issues like debt and poverty alleviation towards the pursuit of a `virtual panacea' for Africa's deep-rooted problems. In so doing, it exposed — yet again — the structural inequities that underlie the relationship between the North and the South and the concomitant shortcomings of established mechanisms of global governance.
Weapons of Mass Instruction: Web Activism and the Transformation of Global Security
Authors: Dartnell Michael
Published: March 2008

While the World Wide Web and information technology (IT) have a transformative impact on global security, neither they nor the expectations they arouse are unique to our time. IT creates enormous opportunities for non-state actors and enhances the global profile of previously marginalised issues and movements. IT is a highly visible embodiment of the complexity of contemporary global politics and is present in many settings: facilitating the overwhelming dominance of conventional US military forces; integrating pre-existing technologies such as computers and photography on a single platform; globalising values, ideas, and interests; privatising information about world events for a significant minority of the global population; and, introducing a range of non-state actors who have transnational communication abilities into the global scene. ————————————————————————
Black Code: Censorship, Surveillance, and the Militarisation of Cyberspace
Authors: Deibert Ronald J.
Published: March 2008

Conventional wisdom holds that the Internet's material properties are biased towards openness, and provide the foundation for a global commons of information increasingly beneficial to citizens worldwide. However, pressures from the security and commercial sectors to regulate and control the Internet are beginning to alter its basic material architecture in ways that may undermine not only the activities of global civic networks, but also the long-term prospects for an open global communications environment. As Internet censorship and surveillance becomes more widespread, and as states begin to militarise cyberspace, a radically different environment for global communications is emerging. However, these changes are not uncontested. While not having the influence over Internet security and design issues that security and corporate actors do, a growing number of civil society actors are merging with politically minded computer scientists and engineers to form policy networks and develop `hacktivist' technologies designed to support self-expression, privacy, and security for global civic networks. For the Internet and other information and communication technologies to support a global commons of information the success of this movement over the long term will be critical.
Virtual Security: A Life Science of (Dis)order
Authors: Dillon Michael
Published: March 2008

Digitalisation and virtuality impact most upon our politics of security and (inter)national relations in terms of the changing biologised understanding of life that they are helping install. According to the ontology of code shared by the digital and molecular sciences, `bodies' comprised of information and informational exchange mechanisms are bodies-in-formation. Bodies-in-formation betray a virtual potential towards becoming dangerous and so our politics of security are progressively becoming a virtual security politics. This article explores the logic of virtual security politics and their installation throughout military-strategic as well as biometric security systems.
The Perverse Politics of Four-Letter Words: Risk and Pity in the Securitisation of Human Trafficking
Authors: Aradau Claudia
Published: March 2008

This article unpacks two constructions of human trafficking: as a security threat and as a humanitarian problem. Restricting its focus to trafficking of women for the sex industry, the article highlights the double identification of these women as illegal migrants and victims, prostitutes and suffering bodies. How are these schizophrenic identifications possible? An analysis of the security and humanitarian articulations as governmental interventions in Michel Foucault's sense of the term locates a perverse continuity. As the bodies in pain governed by a `politics of pity' metamorphose into psychological cases to be governed by risk technologies within a `politics of risk', the humanitarian and security interventions are shown to be in no way mutually exclusive.
Building Global Civil Society `From Below'?
Authors: Chandler David
Published: March 2008

Whereas state-based political action is held to reinforce frameworks and hierarchies of exclusion, new social movements, said to constitute a global civil society `from below', are seen to herald new forms of emancipatory political action that recognise and include diversity and build new forms of global `counter-hegemonic' politics. This paper seeks to examine and challenge these claims. It suggests that, rather than expanding the sphere of inclusiveness, global civic activism tends to undermine community connections. This is because the political ethics it advocates are deeply corrosive of social engagement and prone to elitist rather than inclusive consequences. The argument that the individual should have no higher political allegiance beyond their own moral conscience merely reflects and legitimises the radical rejection of collective political engagement and its replacement by elite advocacy and personal solipsism.
The Capabilities and Limits of the Global Civil Society
Authors: Etzioni Amitai
Published: March 2008

We need more transnational governing capacity, as both national governments and intergovernmental organizations are unable to cope with rising transnational problems. Can a global civil society make major contributions along these lines? This article argues that the answer is yes with a significant “but”. Global civil society can make major contributions, but no nearly sufficient ones without the formation of some form of a global state.
Under Pressure? Globalisation and the National Security State
Authors: Paul T.V. , Ripsman Norrin M.
Published: March 2008

A growing body of scholarly literature argues that globalization has weakened the national security state. In this article, we investigate the impact of globalization on four core areas in which globalization scholars contend that the national security function of states has been affected: 1) the frequency of interstate wars; 2) the level of global military spending and the size of armed forces worldwide; 3) the participation of multilateral security providing institutions and international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) in international security activities; and, 4) the challenge of global terrorism. Our analysis reveals that most of the globalization theorists' expectations about the worldwide pursuit of national security remain unfulfilled. There is no major evidence of a decline in global military spending, a reduction in armed forces worldwide or an increasing reliance on international institutions or INGOs to foster security in the contemporary era. Moreover, those changes that are evident — such as an apparent reduction in interstate warfare — cannot be attributed with confidence to the phenomenon of globalization, rather than to other geopolitical factors, such as the end of the Cold War and the entrenchment of American hegemony. Thus, while globalization may transform the pursuit of security in the future, there is no evidence that it has done so profoundly to-date. ————————————————————————
Emperor without Clothes: Financial Market Sentiment and the Limits of British Currency Machismo in the ERM Crisis
Authors: Hassdorf Wolf
Published: March 2008

This paper takes a constructivist approach to the power relations between state authority and international finance. It investigates the nature of `symbolic power' (Pierre Bourdieu), a facet of power with the potential to direct authority-dependent international financial markets by imposing social meaning. I analyse British currency machismo during the 1992 ERM crisis to demonstrate the potential and limitations of symbolic power. British authorities exercised symbolic power to construct credibility for an unsustainable exchange rate commitment. Symbolic manipulation succeeded because intersubjective symbolic capital, the resource constituting symbolic power, is transposable. The reputation for robust, determined and inflexible leadership in the fight against inflation inherited by the Major administration from Thatcher's domestic monetarism was transposed to European exchange rate cooperation to beef up a commitment to defend sterling's ERM parity. However, the government found itself trapped in a `symbolic dilemma': powerless to increase interest rates in defence of sterling, it had to escalate its macho rhetoric when markets started to lose faith. Currency machismo found its limits in a competing and symbolically more powerful vision of the situation: the suggestion by the German Bundesbank that sterling was overvalued. ————————————————————————
The Art of War/The War Question in (Feminist) IR
Authors: Sylvester Christine
Published: March 2008

The war for art within the war for Iraq has gone nearly unnoticed in IR, much the way gender has long been neglected by IR analysts of war. One might say that IR has not yet formulated the gender question in war and is now likely to overlook the possibilities of an art question in IR, too. Feminist IR has no art question in war either, in part because feminists understudy war relative to other tranhistorical and transnational institutions, such as the family and religion. This article highlights these respective myopias and explores theoretical and methodological modes of refusing them. I propose to bring art into war thinking via a method associated with art making, the technique of collage; the article includes three imagined collages. Theoretical connections between art, war, gender, and IR build on the work of two feminist theorists — Ann Orford and Judith Butler — whose emphasis on sensory aspects of war dovetails with the empathetic co-operative tradition of feminist IR. The Iraq war contextualises the analysis and foregrounds interventionist war and its humanitarian claims. Throughout, the eye is repeatedly drawn to the power of art, the power of war, and the power latent in a variegated politics of mourning and touch.
The Concept of Power: a Constructivist Analysis
Authors: Guzzini Stefano
Published: March 2008

Rather than exploring once again what the concept of power can mean for constructivists, this article analyses what constructivism implies for doing a conceptual analysis; here, of power. It will try to show that besides an analytical assessment (`what does power mean'), a constructivist conceptual analysis includes a study of the performative aspects of concepts (`what does `power' do'?), which, in turn is embedded into a conceptual history or genealogy (how has `power' become to mean and able to do what it does?'). The analysis will show that a neutral or descriptive meaning of power cannot be found, since the meaning of power is always embedded in a theoretical context; hence conceptual and theoretical analysis interact with each other. It will further argue that attributing `power' has the effect of `politicising' issues, moving actions into the scrutiny of a public realm where justifications are needed. Finally, it sketches one hypothetical lineage for understanding the origins of these particular performative effects, which relates developments in German political theory to political realism in International Relations. At the same time, the article is meant to convey a more general point for the relationship between constructivist conceptual analysis and power: by stressing the reflexive relationship between knowledge and social reality, such a conceptual analysis is itself part (but only part!) of a more general constructivist power analysis.
Competing Realist Conceptions of Power
Authors: Schmidt Brian C.
Published: March 2008

Realists are the theorists of power politics. Although realists base their analysis of international politics on the role of power, there is a good deal of variation in how individual realist scholars conceptualise the concept. The article makes use of the important insight that rather than being monolithic, there actually are a number of different and competing realist theories. It closely examines how classical, structural, and modified realists understand and employ `power' with the underlying aim to determine how each version of realism comprehends this elusive concept.
Power, Persuasion and Justice
Authors: Lebow Richard Ned
Published: March 2008

Modern conceptions of power tend to emphasise the material basis of power, do not adequately distinguish between power and influence, and generally divorce the analysis and application of power from ethical considerations. The ancient Greeks were sensitive to the social basis of power, and how its exercise might strengthen or weaken the personal or communal bonds on which enduring influence rested. They distinguished between power exercised through persuasion, which strengthened those bonds, and power that relied on coercion, bribery and deceit, which weakened those bonds. Greek concepts, and the rich lexicon in which they are rooted, provide the basis for a critique of contemporary conceptions of power, discourse and American hegemony.
Through the Wire: Relations of Power and Relations of Violence
Authors: Edkins Jenny , Pin-Fat Véronique
Published: March 2008

This article seeks to explore the question, most starkly posed by Giorgio Agamben, of whether sovereign power can be challenged. By deploying readings of Agamben and Foucault that complement and illuminate each other, we propose that although sovereign power remains globally predominant, it is best considered not as a form of power relation but as a relation of violence. By exploring sovereign power in this way, we argue, alongside Agamben, that challenges to it are available in two modes: first, a refusal to draw lines between forms of life; and, secondly, an assumption of bare life. The availability of these forms of challenge is illustrated by examining practices of lip sewing amongst refugees. In the end, the refusal to draw lines and the assumption of bare life seek to reinstate properly political power relations with their accompanying freedoms and potentialities.
The Future of Critical Philosophy and World Politics
Authors: Beardsworth Richard
Published: March 2008

This paper considers the legacy of Derrida's thought in the context of the future challenge of contemporary politics: the construction of world polity. It rehearses, first, the steps of the recent `reconciliation' between Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida, and suggests, from out of the terms of this reconciliation, that the deconstruction of reason has been caught out by the contemporary movements of irrationalism. It then deepens this historical viewpoint by giving a neo-Marxist account of modern history in economic and political terms and by setting up from out of this history the continuing problematic of modernity above and beyond recent distinctions between the modern and the postmodern. The third section of the paper returns to Derrida's late work on world democracy, underlines its critical rigour with regard to modernity, the dilemma of law and world sovereignty, and shows how this rigor can be considered to address critically our future political challenge. The fourth section then contends that the way in which Derridean thought disposes itself to the real but nevertheless occludes concerted development of our historical actuality and, in this sense, falls short of the critical. I conclude, accordingly, by arguing for a renewed engagement between critical philosophy and social science, with a focus on the promotion of international institutions and strong interdisciplinary work between international relations, international economics, and political philosophy.
The Democratic Paradox and Cosmopolitan Democracy
Authors: Doucet Marc G.
Published: March 2008

Democracy's narrative on the source of legitimate political power contains a fundamental paradox which surfaces most clearly whenever there is an attempt to inaugurate a new democratic order. The new order is meant to be founded upon the consent of an authority — the people — which can only exist as such after the order is created. This research note begins with an examination of how this paradox re-emerges with the attempt to theorise cosmopolitan democracy, and how it leads such a theorisation into a logical impasse. Rather than seeking a way out of this impasse however, the second half of this note explores how the paradox may in fact be seen as leaving an irresolvable tension within the modern democratic imaginary which may lend itself to the project of theorising forms of post-national democracy.
A Conversation with Michael Mann
Authors: Lawson George
Published: March 2008

Over the past twenty years or so, there has been a concerted effort by International Relations (IR) scholars to engage with classical social theory, a tradition that takes in figures such as Max Weber and Karl Marx, C. Wright Mills and Raymond Aron, and more recently, Anthony Giddens and Charles Tilly. Of these comparative macro-sociologists, perhaps the most interesting from an IR perspective is Michael Mann whose oeuvre, now spanning four decades, includes a two-volume history of power in world affairs alongside substantial interventions on debates relating to ethnic cleansing, empire, state-formation and fascism. The interview and forum printed below are, in the first instance, attempts to tease out Mann's most important contributions to social science in general and to IR more specifically. But contributors are also keen to impress upon Mann, and historical sociologists more generally, the need to factor in contemporary advances in both IR theory and practice. As a result, the interview, comment pieces and Mann's reply bear close reading not only for IR specialists, but also for those involved in the wider enterprise of classical social theory itself.
The Social Sources of Life, the Universe and Everything: A Conversation with Michael Mann
Authors: Lawson George
Published: March 2008

Michael Mann is best known, in International Relations (IR) circles at least, for his two-volume work, The Sources of Social Power, an attempt to chart and assess the development of world-historical development from `the beginning' to the twentieth century. 1 But Mann's career, which spans over four decades, also encompasses forays into state theory, militarism, empire, fascism, ethnic cleansing and globalisation.2 The interview covers these various strands of Mann's work and examines some of the methodological issues involved in conducting macro-level historical sociology and interdisciplinary work. ————————————————————————
He Hasn't Finished Yet: Achievements and Challenges in the Work of Michael Mann
Authors: Halliday Fred
Published: March 2008

Over the past thirty years, Michael Mann has become established as one of the world's leading social theorists. Mann's contributions to a range of disciplines and to a number of important issues — state formation, empire and what he terms the `dark side' of democracy and modernity — place him on a par with leading figures in both classical and contemporary social theory. At the same time, Mann's engagement with International Relations and his broader discussion with world history remain incomplete for three main reasons: Mann underplays the role of agency in the formation of the modern world; under-theorises the international dimensions of world historical development; and fails consistently to relate normative concerns to his overall enterprise.
Michael Mann, State Power, and the Two Logics of Globalisation
Authors: Weiss Linda
Published: March 2008

It may seem premature to comment on work that is largely still in progress, but some of Michael Mann's writing on globalisation has already begun to make its mark. In this article, I comment on two of Mann's central insights which emphasise complementarities in the global-national relationship and indicate how these may advance the globalisation debate concerning industrialised states.
Explaining International Relations, Empires and European Miracles: A Response
Authors: Mann Michael
Published: March 2008

It is a pleasure to engage with Fred Halliday, John Hobson and Linda Weiss, each of whom has kind words to say about my work. In this rejoinder, I pay particular attention to two critiques: the first, made by Halliday and Hobson, that I have overplayed the hand of IR Realism in my work; and the second, made by Hobson alone, that my account of the rise of the West is unbalanced by dint of its Eurocentrism. Needless to say, I reject both charges. However, I do accept that, to date, I have not provided much in the way of general theoretical statements about international relations — here I begin this task, with a bare-bones explanation of why Europeans have been so warlike and imperialistic when compared to other multi-state systems.
Immigration and the State of Exception: Security and Sovereignty in East and Southern Africa
Authors: Landau Loren B.
Published: March 2008

The imperative to protect national territory from the unplanned movements of people across borders has generated exceptional, often extra-legal, responses from countries throughout the world. Although intended to reassert state sovereignty, little is known about such exceptionalism's lasting effects on the nature of political authority and territorial control. Through a comparison of Johannesburg, South Africa and Western Tanzania's Kasulu District, this article demonstrates that measures designed to alienate or liquidate non-national populations may be broadly popular, but the subterranean and extra-legal practices they engender can criminalise the state and prevent leaders from re-establishing a normal legal order. These effects depend on the measures employed while being conditioned by pre-existing practices of state power. In Tanzania, the creation of temporary camps in response to a massive influx of refugees has generated spatially delimited extra-legality that is unlikely to threaten sovereignty. Amidst South Africa's post-apartheid transitions, emerging networks of corruption stemming from exceptionalism are challenging the liberal state's mandate and creating incentive systems that leaders can no longer control. These findings illustrate the significance of immigration, humanitarianism, and migration management for the exercise of political power and suggest that exceptionalism not only threatens democratic principles, but also may undermine the sovereignty it is designed to protect.
Loud Voices Behind the Wall: Gender Violence and the Violent Reproduction of the International
Authors: Shepherd Laura J.
Published: March 2008

Efforts to criminalise gendered violence in the international domain, through legislation such as the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women (1993), can only ever have limited success. Through my analysis of DEVAW, I argue that the Declaration is produced through discourses of gender, violence, security and the international. What is meant by these concepts is reflected and reproduced within the document. Therefore, in order to understand the limited success of such efforts to criminalise gendered violence, it is necessary to investigate how these meanings have been constructed and how they could be constructed differently. I offer alternatives to the dominant conceptualisations of gendered violence and security, considering the ways in which both gender and the international are violently reproduced through efforts to securitise violence. Through my analysis I demonstrate that a reconceptualisation of both gendered violence and international security is desirable and necessary for the construction of research programs that operationalise these concepts in a more coherent and productive manner.
Orientalising America? Continental Intellectuals and the Search for Europe's Identity
Authors: Heins Volker
Published: March 2008

Against the backdrop of the failure of the Constitutional Treaty and rising scepticism about the prospects of the European Union, this article looks at recent attempts by prominent German intellectuals to turn the tide by endowing Europe with a new sense of mission. It is argued that while the crusading writings by Jürgen Habermas, Ulrich Beck and Thomas Meyer on the political identity of Europe effectively criticise cultural essentialism, technocratic anti-politics and classical Eurocentrism, they are still caught in the trap of a binary moral geography. To varying degrees, their polarising ideological narratives seek to freeze authoritatively the meaning of `Europe' by expurgating its Other, which is now `America'. Partly motivated by fresh world-political ambitions, the new German ideology aims at a symbolic closure of `Europe' at a time when real-world borders have become increasingly flexible and negotiable.
War Hurts: Vietnam Movies and the Memory of a Lost War
Authors: de Carvalho Benjamin
Published: March 2008

You say I am the Jane Fonda of the Right? Listen, I'm not the right wing. I'm not the left wing. I love my country. I stand for ordinary Americans, losers a lot of them. They don't understand big, international politics. Their country tells them to fight in Vietnam? They fight … The men who fought for us in Vietnam got a raw deal. Their country told them to fight. They did their best! They come home and they're scorned. People spit at them … It left scars, that period, and I'm glad we've come out of it. (Sylvester Stallone)1

The phase now is to make up a tolerable explanation for Vietnam. Our appetite is for a substitute answer, not the real answer. We'll salve ourselves. (David Rabe)2