International Relations researcher with expertise in Regionalism, Global Governance, International Relations Theory and qualitative methods, as well as teaching experience on undergraduate and graduate level. Supervisors: Gunter Schubert, Thomas Diez, and Thomas Risse
Watch me introduce the new Cambridge Element "Contestations of the Liberal International Order: A... more Watch me introduce the new Cambridge Element "Contestations of the Liberal International Order: A Populist Script of Regional Cooperation", co-authored with Fredrik Söderbaum and Agnese Pacciardi.
Cambridge Elements in International Relations, 2021
A seemingly never-ending stream of observers claims that the populist emphasis on nationalism, id... more A seemingly never-ending stream of observers claims that the populist emphasis on nationalism, identity, and popular sovereignty undermines international collaboration and contributes to the crisis of the Liberal International Order (LIO). Why, then, do populist governments continue to engage in regional and international institutions? This Element unpacks the counter-intuitive inclination towards institutional cooperation in populist foreign policy and discusses its implications for the LIO. Straddling Western and non-Western contexts, it compares the regional cooperation strategies of populist leaders from three continents: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, former Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. The study identifies an emerging populist 'script' of regional cooperation based on notions of popular sovereignty. By embedding regional cooperation in their political strategies, populist leaders are able to contest the LIO and established international organisations without having to revert to unilateral nationalism.
This book explores the normative foundations of ASEAN and the EU. It revives the history of the t... more This book explores the normative foundations of ASEAN and the EU. It revives the history of the two organizations in an in-depth narrative of the protracted arguments surrounding their establishment, legal integration and enlargement. While political actors used norms to legitimize their ideas for institutional change, the complex and dynamic nature of these norms also provided the breeding ground for contestation and, sometimes, institutional sclerosis and failure. Recasting these processes in an innovative English School framework, the volume makes a crucial contribution to the literature of Comparative Regionalism that goes beyond Eurocentric perspectives.
This article offers a new conceptualisation of the meaning of norms in world politics. It starts ... more This article offers a new conceptualisation of the meaning of norms in world politics. It starts from the observation that existing norm scholarship in International Relations has underestimated the role of ambiguity in the constitution of norm meaning. To address this shortcoming, we advance a conceptualisation that sees norm polysemy – the empirically observable plurality of norm meanings-in-use – as resulting from the enactment of inherently ambiguous norms in different contexts. By foregrounding norm ambiguity, this view offers a radically non-essentialist understanding of norm meaning, one that eschews any attempt to salvage final or ‘true’ meanings behind the polysemy of norms. Using empirical illustrations from different fields of contemporary global governance, we identify four mechanisms through which actors practically cope with the multiplicity of norm meanings that arises from norm ambiguity (deliberation, adjudication, uni- or multilateral fixation attempts, and ad hoc enactment) and outline their varying effects on the legitimacy and effectiveness of global governance. Based on this discussion, the article points to the normative implications of a radically non-essentialist conception of norms and suggests harnessing the positive potential of norm ambiguity as an ethically desirable condition that promotes human diversity and the plurality of global life.
ASEAN member states have invested substantially in cooperation on humanitarian assistance and dis... more ASEAN member states have invested substantially in cooperation on humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR). Despite broad support for the idea of ‘localizing’ HADR governance, the rise of regional agency has in practice led to uncertainty and frictions between humanitarian stakeholders. The article makes sense of these tensions by investigating the narratives through which intra- and extraregional agents construct the role of the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management (AHA Centre). Based on the assumption that narratives are central legitimating practices when new agents enter a governance arena, it analyzes textual material produced by different humanitarian organizations that operate in Southeast Asia, as well as interviews with representatives from these organizations. Their accounts of the AHA Centre’s role can be grouped into four narratives that are bound up with competing ideas about regional humanitarian order: an affirmative one, a skeptical one, a critical one and a transformative one. The article thus rejects characterizations of regional HADR as a rationally designed ‘architecture’ and instead defines it as a deeply political arena where different conceptions of order are asserted, contested and negotiated.
The ‘hybrid' United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) was initially hailed as a mo... more The ‘hybrid' United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) was initially hailed as a model for peacekeeping cooperation between the UN and African regional organizations. However, UNAMID soon faced contestation from different stakeholders, and the UN and the AU have now essentially abandoned the hybrid approach. The article reconstructs how the mission’s deteriorating legitimacy relates to changing self-legitimation strategies by the two organizations. The UN and the AU pursued mutual legitimation when establishing UNAMID, but later mobilized historical narratives and diverging normative standards to promote competing authority claims. The article thus advances an understanding of inter-organizational relations as inherently political.
Der Beitrag argumentiert, dass die variierende Erklärungskraft klassischer Theorien regionaler In... more Der Beitrag argumentiert, dass die variierende Erklärungskraft klassischer Theorien regionaler Integration auf normativ eingebettete Diskursdynamiken zurückzuführen ist. Grundlegend für diese These ist ein Modell regionaler Integration, das Anleihen bei Theorien kommunikativen und strategischen Handelns einerseits und der English School andererseits nimmt. Im Gegensatz zu den rationalistischen Frameworks von Intergouvernementalismus und Neofunktionalismus stellt es die diskursive Verfasstheit von Integration in den Vordergrund. Dementsprechend begreife ich konkurrierende Integrationslogiken nicht als objektive Kausalmechanismen, sondern als Diskursmotive. Deren Resonanz in konkreten Aushandlungsprozessen von institutionellem Wandel wird von einem normativen Kontext bedingt, der sich aus regionalen Primärinstitutionen konstituiert. Durch eine vergleichende Studie von Verrechtlichungsprozessen in der Europäischen Union (EU) und der Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) zeigt der Beitrag die variable Bedeutung funktionalistischer frames für institutionellen Wandel in Regionalorganisationen und erweitert so unser Verständnis der ‘scope conditions’ klassischer Theorien. Damit schlägt er eine Brücke zwischen der Europäischen Integrations- und der Vergleichenden Regionalismusforschung.
For regional organizations (ROs) as geographically defined entities, questions of membership ofte... more For regional organizations (ROs) as geographically defined entities, questions of membership often raise moral questions about the very foundations of regional identity. To date, comparative approaches to the role of norms in the politics of RO enlargement are a missing piece in the regionalism literature. This paper assumes that enlargement practices are shaped by discourses about legitimate actorness. Drawing on the concept of Bstandards of civilization,^ I argue that prospective RO members are judged against a set of norms—the standard of membership—which constitute basic ideas about the identity of the regional international society. As evidence from the Spanish and Greek accession to the European Community and the accession of Myanmar and Cambodia to ASEAN shows, this standard is not a static catalogue of cultural values, as existing accounts suggest, but develops in response to accession requests which trigger normative crises among the existing member states. In such situations, RO actors may argue for the inclusion of new norms in the standard of membership by drawing on Bcognitive priors^. Enlargement processes thus reveal a dialectical relation between regional norms and boundary-drawing; while a regional standard of membership informs the redefinition of an RO's boundaries, the accession of new candidates also transforms that very standard.
This article intends to contribute to the theorising of institutional change. Specifically, it as... more This article intends to contribute to the theorising of institutional change. Specifically, it asks how dynamics in the ‘deep structure’ of international society correspond to changes in more specific institutions as embodied by regimes and international organisations. It does so by taking up the distinction of primary and secondary institutions in international society advocated by scholars of the English School. It argues that, while the differentiation offers analytical potential, the School has largely failed to study secondary institutions such as international organisations and regimes as autonomous objects of analysis, seeing them as mere materialisations of primary institutions. Engaging with the concepts of structuration and path dependence will allow scholars working in an English School framework to explore more deeply the relation between the two kinds of institutions, and as a consequence devise more elaborate theories of institutional change. Based on this argument, the article develops a theoretical model that sees primary and secondary institutions entangled in distinctive processes of constitution and institutionalisation. This model helps to establish international organisations and regimes as a crucial part of the English School agenda, and to enlighten the political mechanisms that lead to continuity and change in international institutions more broadly.
This article compares the European Union’s (EU) actorness in foreign financial policy to that of ... more This article compares the European Union’s (EU) actorness in foreign financial policy to that of the US and ASEAN. It thus contributes to the dialogue between EU studies and the New Regionalism by putting it into practice through comparative research. It argues that a process-oriented interpre- tation of the actorness concept can be used to compare the EU to both nation-states and interna- tional organizations at the same time. This makes it possible to examine the ‘nature of the beast’ in specific foreign policy contexts on empirical grounds. The case study analyses EU, US and ASEAN actorness in the IMF reform negotiations within the G20 framework. The findings suggest that a ‘two-way comparison’ of the EU is not only possible but also provides valuable empirical insights into the role of informal politics in the EU and other regions.
This chapter asks in what way the English School (ES) is a helpful framework for addressing quest... more This chapter asks in what way the English School (ES) is a helpful framework for addressing questions that are likely to concern International Relations researchers in the years to come. We draw on recent scholarship to demonstrate the utility, often underestimated, of the English School in making sense of topical issues in world politics. We revisit research on, first, the role of emerging powers and the future of world order; second, globalization and regionalization; and third, European security and Brexit. In each case, the ES sensitivity to nuance and its historical awareness make sense of the complexity and apparent contradictions of ongoing transitions. We conclude that the unique theoretical, conceptual and methodological approach of the English School makes it an essential resource for understanding and critically investigating current world politics.
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies, 2020
Research on regional organizations in Southeast Asia began to form during the Second World War. A... more Research on regional organizations in Southeast Asia began to form during the Second World War. Although not always explicit, realist assumptions informed most of this early scholarship. From the organization’s foundation in 1967 until the end of the Cold War, research focused almost exclusively on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). In the 1990s, new regional initiatives led to a broadened empirical scope and encouraged the adoption of new perspectives from broader debates in International Relations theory, such as liberalism and constructivism. However, this increasing pluralism was still highly Western-centric in terms of its theoretical underpinnings. Since the 2000s, there has been a conscious effort, driven by scholars from inside and outside the region, to draw on critical and indigenous traditions of political thought in accounting for the distinctive features of regionalism in Southeast Asia. Despite the diversity of research questions and approaches, researchers keep returning to three central, long-standing themes: ASEAN’s institutional features, its effects and relevance, and its relation to the broader regional and global context. By exploring these issues, scholars of regional organizations in Southeast Asia have not just passively adopted insights from broader International Relations research but also driven conceptual and theoretical innovation, most notably regarding the development of non-Western approaches in International Relations.
In: Peters, Ingo (ed.) (2016) “The European Union’s Foreign Policy in Comparative Perspective: Wh... more In: Peters, Ingo (ed.) (2016) “The European Union’s Foreign Policy in Comparative Perspective: What kind of power and what kind of actor?”, Routledge.
This chapter analyzes the European Union's (EU) actorness and power in foreign financial policy, using the IMF reform negotiations in the G20 as a case study. To account for the hybrid nature of the EU, it is compared both to a nation state (the United States) and an international organization, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Actorness and power are operationalized using a number of effectiveness indicators surrounding the policy-making processes of the actors, which involve both the internal decision-making and the behavior at the international negotiation table. The findings of the analysis suggest that, despite the lack of formal Treaty provisions in the realm of foreign financial policy making and its fragmented representation in the G20, the EU's performance is closer to that of the U.S. than that of ASEAN. To account for this relatively high degree of actorness and power, three exploratory hypotheses are formulated. Accordingly, the EU benefits from a low degree of politicization of the policy issue, unitary perception by other actors and an ad hoc adaption of its representation to the developments in the negotiations.
ASEAN has the chance to develop normative power thanks to its diversity – assuming it can overcom... more ASEAN has the chance to develop normative power thanks to its diversity – assuming it can overcome social divisions.
"Bebas dan aktif” – independent and active –
is Indonesia’s stated foreign policy,
the guiding ... more "Bebas dan aktif” – independent and active –
is Indonesia’s stated foreign policy,
the guiding principle that has been the focus of the country’s
international role since independence. While Suharto,
during his long-term autocracy, and his successors interpreted
this doctrine mainly at a regional level, it has taken
on an increasingly global scope since the election of Susilo
Bambang Yudhoyono as president in 2004.
Watch me introduce the new Cambridge Element "Contestations of the Liberal International Order: A... more Watch me introduce the new Cambridge Element "Contestations of the Liberal International Order: A Populist Script of Regional Cooperation", co-authored with Fredrik Söderbaum and Agnese Pacciardi.
Cambridge Elements in International Relations, 2021
A seemingly never-ending stream of observers claims that the populist emphasis on nationalism, id... more A seemingly never-ending stream of observers claims that the populist emphasis on nationalism, identity, and popular sovereignty undermines international collaboration and contributes to the crisis of the Liberal International Order (LIO). Why, then, do populist governments continue to engage in regional and international institutions? This Element unpacks the counter-intuitive inclination towards institutional cooperation in populist foreign policy and discusses its implications for the LIO. Straddling Western and non-Western contexts, it compares the regional cooperation strategies of populist leaders from three continents: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, former Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. The study identifies an emerging populist 'script' of regional cooperation based on notions of popular sovereignty. By embedding regional cooperation in their political strategies, populist leaders are able to contest the LIO and established international organisations without having to revert to unilateral nationalism.
This book explores the normative foundations of ASEAN and the EU. It revives the history of the t... more This book explores the normative foundations of ASEAN and the EU. It revives the history of the two organizations in an in-depth narrative of the protracted arguments surrounding their establishment, legal integration and enlargement. While political actors used norms to legitimize their ideas for institutional change, the complex and dynamic nature of these norms also provided the breeding ground for contestation and, sometimes, institutional sclerosis and failure. Recasting these processes in an innovative English School framework, the volume makes a crucial contribution to the literature of Comparative Regionalism that goes beyond Eurocentric perspectives.
This article offers a new conceptualisation of the meaning of norms in world politics. It starts ... more This article offers a new conceptualisation of the meaning of norms in world politics. It starts from the observation that existing norm scholarship in International Relations has underestimated the role of ambiguity in the constitution of norm meaning. To address this shortcoming, we advance a conceptualisation that sees norm polysemy – the empirically observable plurality of norm meanings-in-use – as resulting from the enactment of inherently ambiguous norms in different contexts. By foregrounding norm ambiguity, this view offers a radically non-essentialist understanding of norm meaning, one that eschews any attempt to salvage final or ‘true’ meanings behind the polysemy of norms. Using empirical illustrations from different fields of contemporary global governance, we identify four mechanisms through which actors practically cope with the multiplicity of norm meanings that arises from norm ambiguity (deliberation, adjudication, uni- or multilateral fixation attempts, and ad hoc enactment) and outline their varying effects on the legitimacy and effectiveness of global governance. Based on this discussion, the article points to the normative implications of a radically non-essentialist conception of norms and suggests harnessing the positive potential of norm ambiguity as an ethically desirable condition that promotes human diversity and the plurality of global life.
ASEAN member states have invested substantially in cooperation on humanitarian assistance and dis... more ASEAN member states have invested substantially in cooperation on humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR). Despite broad support for the idea of ‘localizing’ HADR governance, the rise of regional agency has in practice led to uncertainty and frictions between humanitarian stakeholders. The article makes sense of these tensions by investigating the narratives through which intra- and extraregional agents construct the role of the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management (AHA Centre). Based on the assumption that narratives are central legitimating practices when new agents enter a governance arena, it analyzes textual material produced by different humanitarian organizations that operate in Southeast Asia, as well as interviews with representatives from these organizations. Their accounts of the AHA Centre’s role can be grouped into four narratives that are bound up with competing ideas about regional humanitarian order: an affirmative one, a skeptical one, a critical one and a transformative one. The article thus rejects characterizations of regional HADR as a rationally designed ‘architecture’ and instead defines it as a deeply political arena where different conceptions of order are asserted, contested and negotiated.
The ‘hybrid' United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) was initially hailed as a mo... more The ‘hybrid' United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) was initially hailed as a model for peacekeeping cooperation between the UN and African regional organizations. However, UNAMID soon faced contestation from different stakeholders, and the UN and the AU have now essentially abandoned the hybrid approach. The article reconstructs how the mission’s deteriorating legitimacy relates to changing self-legitimation strategies by the two organizations. The UN and the AU pursued mutual legitimation when establishing UNAMID, but later mobilized historical narratives and diverging normative standards to promote competing authority claims. The article thus advances an understanding of inter-organizational relations as inherently political.
Der Beitrag argumentiert, dass die variierende Erklärungskraft klassischer Theorien regionaler In... more Der Beitrag argumentiert, dass die variierende Erklärungskraft klassischer Theorien regionaler Integration auf normativ eingebettete Diskursdynamiken zurückzuführen ist. Grundlegend für diese These ist ein Modell regionaler Integration, das Anleihen bei Theorien kommunikativen und strategischen Handelns einerseits und der English School andererseits nimmt. Im Gegensatz zu den rationalistischen Frameworks von Intergouvernementalismus und Neofunktionalismus stellt es die diskursive Verfasstheit von Integration in den Vordergrund. Dementsprechend begreife ich konkurrierende Integrationslogiken nicht als objektive Kausalmechanismen, sondern als Diskursmotive. Deren Resonanz in konkreten Aushandlungsprozessen von institutionellem Wandel wird von einem normativen Kontext bedingt, der sich aus regionalen Primärinstitutionen konstituiert. Durch eine vergleichende Studie von Verrechtlichungsprozessen in der Europäischen Union (EU) und der Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) zeigt der Beitrag die variable Bedeutung funktionalistischer frames für institutionellen Wandel in Regionalorganisationen und erweitert so unser Verständnis der ‘scope conditions’ klassischer Theorien. Damit schlägt er eine Brücke zwischen der Europäischen Integrations- und der Vergleichenden Regionalismusforschung.
For regional organizations (ROs) as geographically defined entities, questions of membership ofte... more For regional organizations (ROs) as geographically defined entities, questions of membership often raise moral questions about the very foundations of regional identity. To date, comparative approaches to the role of norms in the politics of RO enlargement are a missing piece in the regionalism literature. This paper assumes that enlargement practices are shaped by discourses about legitimate actorness. Drawing on the concept of Bstandards of civilization,^ I argue that prospective RO members are judged against a set of norms—the standard of membership—which constitute basic ideas about the identity of the regional international society. As evidence from the Spanish and Greek accession to the European Community and the accession of Myanmar and Cambodia to ASEAN shows, this standard is not a static catalogue of cultural values, as existing accounts suggest, but develops in response to accession requests which trigger normative crises among the existing member states. In such situations, RO actors may argue for the inclusion of new norms in the standard of membership by drawing on Bcognitive priors^. Enlargement processes thus reveal a dialectical relation between regional norms and boundary-drawing; while a regional standard of membership informs the redefinition of an RO's boundaries, the accession of new candidates also transforms that very standard.
This article intends to contribute to the theorising of institutional change. Specifically, it as... more This article intends to contribute to the theorising of institutional change. Specifically, it asks how dynamics in the ‘deep structure’ of international society correspond to changes in more specific institutions as embodied by regimes and international organisations. It does so by taking up the distinction of primary and secondary institutions in international society advocated by scholars of the English School. It argues that, while the differentiation offers analytical potential, the School has largely failed to study secondary institutions such as international organisations and regimes as autonomous objects of analysis, seeing them as mere materialisations of primary institutions. Engaging with the concepts of structuration and path dependence will allow scholars working in an English School framework to explore more deeply the relation between the two kinds of institutions, and as a consequence devise more elaborate theories of institutional change. Based on this argument, the article develops a theoretical model that sees primary and secondary institutions entangled in distinctive processes of constitution and institutionalisation. This model helps to establish international organisations and regimes as a crucial part of the English School agenda, and to enlighten the political mechanisms that lead to continuity and change in international institutions more broadly.
This article compares the European Union’s (EU) actorness in foreign financial policy to that of ... more This article compares the European Union’s (EU) actorness in foreign financial policy to that of the US and ASEAN. It thus contributes to the dialogue between EU studies and the New Regionalism by putting it into practice through comparative research. It argues that a process-oriented interpre- tation of the actorness concept can be used to compare the EU to both nation-states and interna- tional organizations at the same time. This makes it possible to examine the ‘nature of the beast’ in specific foreign policy contexts on empirical grounds. The case study analyses EU, US and ASEAN actorness in the IMF reform negotiations within the G20 framework. The findings suggest that a ‘two-way comparison’ of the EU is not only possible but also provides valuable empirical insights into the role of informal politics in the EU and other regions.
This chapter asks in what way the English School (ES) is a helpful framework for addressing quest... more This chapter asks in what way the English School (ES) is a helpful framework for addressing questions that are likely to concern International Relations researchers in the years to come. We draw on recent scholarship to demonstrate the utility, often underestimated, of the English School in making sense of topical issues in world politics. We revisit research on, first, the role of emerging powers and the future of world order; second, globalization and regionalization; and third, European security and Brexit. In each case, the ES sensitivity to nuance and its historical awareness make sense of the complexity and apparent contradictions of ongoing transitions. We conclude that the unique theoretical, conceptual and methodological approach of the English School makes it an essential resource for understanding and critically investigating current world politics.
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies, 2020
Research on regional organizations in Southeast Asia began to form during the Second World War. A... more Research on regional organizations in Southeast Asia began to form during the Second World War. Although not always explicit, realist assumptions informed most of this early scholarship. From the organization’s foundation in 1967 until the end of the Cold War, research focused almost exclusively on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). In the 1990s, new regional initiatives led to a broadened empirical scope and encouraged the adoption of new perspectives from broader debates in International Relations theory, such as liberalism and constructivism. However, this increasing pluralism was still highly Western-centric in terms of its theoretical underpinnings. Since the 2000s, there has been a conscious effort, driven by scholars from inside and outside the region, to draw on critical and indigenous traditions of political thought in accounting for the distinctive features of regionalism in Southeast Asia. Despite the diversity of research questions and approaches, researchers keep returning to three central, long-standing themes: ASEAN’s institutional features, its effects and relevance, and its relation to the broader regional and global context. By exploring these issues, scholars of regional organizations in Southeast Asia have not just passively adopted insights from broader International Relations research but also driven conceptual and theoretical innovation, most notably regarding the development of non-Western approaches in International Relations.
In: Peters, Ingo (ed.) (2016) “The European Union’s Foreign Policy in Comparative Perspective: Wh... more In: Peters, Ingo (ed.) (2016) “The European Union’s Foreign Policy in Comparative Perspective: What kind of power and what kind of actor?”, Routledge.
This chapter analyzes the European Union's (EU) actorness and power in foreign financial policy, using the IMF reform negotiations in the G20 as a case study. To account for the hybrid nature of the EU, it is compared both to a nation state (the United States) and an international organization, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Actorness and power are operationalized using a number of effectiveness indicators surrounding the policy-making processes of the actors, which involve both the internal decision-making and the behavior at the international negotiation table. The findings of the analysis suggest that, despite the lack of formal Treaty provisions in the realm of foreign financial policy making and its fragmented representation in the G20, the EU's performance is closer to that of the U.S. than that of ASEAN. To account for this relatively high degree of actorness and power, three exploratory hypotheses are formulated. Accordingly, the EU benefits from a low degree of politicization of the policy issue, unitary perception by other actors and an ad hoc adaption of its representation to the developments in the negotiations.
ASEAN has the chance to develop normative power thanks to its diversity – assuming it can overcom... more ASEAN has the chance to develop normative power thanks to its diversity – assuming it can overcome social divisions.
"Bebas dan aktif” – independent and active –
is Indonesia’s stated foreign policy,
the guiding ... more "Bebas dan aktif” – independent and active –
is Indonesia’s stated foreign policy,
the guiding principle that has been the focus of the country’s
international role since independence. While Suharto,
during his long-term autocracy, and his successors interpreted
this doctrine mainly at a regional level, it has taken
on an increasingly global scope since the election of Susilo
Bambang Yudhoyono as president in 2004.
The traditional dominance of Western state and non-state actors in the governance of humanitarian... more The traditional dominance of Western state and non-state actors in the governance of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) has frequently led to frictions around questions of sovereignty and authority. Affected states often resent what they perceive as external intervention, while aid agencies routinely accuse governments of denying their populations much-needed help. Against this background, states in the non-Western world are increasingly cooperating regionally to foster their own agency in HADR. To some extent, these developments are compatible with discourses supporting the 'localization' of humanitarian action. However, empirical evidence shows that there is persistent uncertainty about the role of regional mechanisms in HADR governance. Based on a case study of the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management (AHA Centre) in Southeast Asia, this paper offers a counterpoint to the pursuit of a governance 'architecture' by arguing that the rise of regional mechanisms fundamentally unsettles the humanitarian order and its liberal underpinnings. Drawing on theories of ordering and narrative legitimation, and based on extensive interviews with policy-makers and stakeholders in the region, the study shows that regional mechanisms have acquired an ambiguous standing in HADR governance. The role of the AHA Centre remains suspended between four competing narratives that correspond to the classical genres of narrative analysis: romance, tragedy, comedy and satire. These accounts do not just offer diverging ideas about the legitimacy of regional HADR mechanisms, but are also bound up with competing perceptions of liberal order. Diverging interests and normative predispositions militate against a convergence of actors' narratives around a common vision of regional HADR governance. The paper thus rejects characterizations of regional HADR as a rationally designed 'architecture' and instead defines it as a deeply political arena where different conceptions of order are asserted, contested and negotiated.
This paper takes its departure in the fact that national sovereignty understandings are crucial f... more This paper takes its departure in the fact that national sovereignty understandings are crucial for explaining why states chose to cooperate on a regional basis. While there is a rich literature on the nexus between national sovereignty and transboundary cooperation in the field of Comparative Regionalism, it fails to account for the empirical variation of different forms of regional cooperation across policy fields and regions. This failure arises, we argue, because scholars are too narrowly concerned with 'instrumental' notions of national sovereignty. To systematically explore how different sovereignty understandings affect states' propensity to engage in different forms of regional cooperation, we conceptualize national sovereignty understandings as social constructs that carry different ideas about how transboundary cooperation relates to the purpose of the state. Not only instrumental but also principled and status-oriented national sovereignty understandings shape policy-makers preferences for regional cooperation in different policy fields. Depending on which combination of national sovereignty understandings become dominant in a region, six ideal-types forms of regionalism may result. The paper illustrates each ideal-type with an empirical cooperation initiative, and proposes a research agenda to explore the role of national sovereignty understandings in regionalisms around the world.
This paper relates the varying explanatory power of classical integration theories - neofunctiona... more This paper relates the varying explanatory power of classical integration theories - neofunctionalism and intergovernmentalism - in different regional contexts to dynamics of normative arguing. To this end, it proposes a model of regional integration that takes inspiration from theories of communicative action and the English School. Unlike the rationalist frameworks of classical theories, this approach puts the discursive constitution of integration front and center. In this view, competing logics of integration appear not as objective causal mechanisms but as frames whose resonance depends on a normative context of primary institutions. A comparative study of legal integration in the EU and ASEAN demonstrates the varying significance of functionalist frames for the development of different regional organizations. Putting European integration theory and Comparative Regionalism in dialogue, the paper thus helps to clarify the scope conditions of different theoretical approaches to integration processes around the world.
Since the early 2000s, the UN and its African partner organizations have increasingly engaged in ... more Since the early 2000s, the UN and its African partner organizations have increasingly engaged in joint planning, resourcing and implementation of peacekeeping operations. Intensifying cooperation was a way to address the criticism of traditional top-down approaches in which the UN delegated peacekeeping tasks to regional actors. At the same time, new legitimacy problems and ongoing contestation among global and regional security actors have emerged. In fact, the most integrated instance of joint peacekeeping to date, the 'hybrid' UNAMID operation in Darfur, has decidedly lost its former status as a model for African peacekeeping. This paper interprets the seemingly paradoxical standing of hybrid peacekeeping-creating legitimacy problems despite being introduced as a more legitimate solution-as a consequence of dynamic legitimation discourses. Applying a framework inspired by frame analysis, it shows that while the UN and the AU initially engaged in mutual legitimation in the context of the Darfur crisis, normative divergences have subsequently led to more contested legitimation. Supporting cooperation can thus be a strategy for global and regional actors to legitimate peacekeeping, but it also heightens the potential for frictions, as it leads to a pluralization of legitimation agents and audiences.
Major transformations have made global security governance – including traditional peacekeeping b... more Major transformations have made global security governance – including traditional peacekeeping but also other areas like post-conflict peacebuilding and disaster response – more complex than in the heyday of the so-called ‘liberal world order’. While the United Nations (UN) continues to claim supreme authority in matters of peace and security, regional organizations have built up their capacities and are pursuing their own aspirations – in part as a response to what they perceive as shortcomings of the UN. As a consequence, the UN and regional organizations now operate alongside or in cooperation with each other in a large number of conflict and emergency settings. In this presentation, I critically discusses this trend and its implications for security governance beyond the state. Evidence from cooperation instances from Europe, Africa and Southeast Asia shows that no single model for global-regional cooperation has materialized. Instead, the UN and its partners are operating with varying success in a baffling variety of institutional arrangements. I argue that these developments reflect an increasing diversity of ideas about legitimate security governance held by stakeholders on different scales. Just like the institutional models, an evaluation of the effectiveness and legitimacy of global-regional security cooperation can therefore not follow a one-size-fits-all approach. Instead, any assessment needs to take the specific context of actors and stakeholders in concrete instances of security cooperation into account.
In the field of international security governance, new forms of cooperation between the United Na... more In the field of international security governance, new forms of cooperation between the United Nations (UN) and regional organizations (ROs) have recently emerged. The conventional top-down delegation of tasks from the UN to regional bodies is increasingly supplemented by 'hybrid' missions, which are characterized by joint planning, shared resourcing and integrated command structures. This trend not only makes the operational implementation of security governance on the ground more challenging but also complicates its legitimation, i.e. the practices through which stakeholders assert that it is an appropriate form of security governance. Indeed, while many policy-makers and academics have ardently advocated for global-regional collaboration, some stakeholders remain highly skeptical towards hybrid approaches. To account for this contentious standing, the paper engages with the literature on legitimacy in global governance and develops a framework for analyzing the legitimation discourses surrounding UN-RO cooperation. Existing approaches to legitimacy in global governance have not systematically explored how normative contexts shape ideas about legitimacy. Consequently, we do not understand well what happens when organizations with different ideas about legitimacy come together to debate the possibility of cooperation, and how potential frictions can be mediated. To remedy this shortcoming, the paper makes conceptual and methodological suggestions. Conceptually, I treat legitimation as a discursive practice that is embedded in a normative context encompassing different visions of international society on the global and regional level. This context does not causally determine ideas about legitimacy but constitutes a realm of possible claims that agents can strategically employ in the process of legitimation. Methodologically, this contextual framework calls for a context-sensitive discourse analytical approach which is both sensitive to what is actually said and to the implicit normative foundations of legitimation talk. In lieu of an empirical application, I provide a methodological outline for an application in a comparative case study design that demonstrates the benefits of the framework. The approach promises new empirical and theoretical insights about the legitimation of hybrid security governance but may also enrich the study of legitimacy in global governance more broadly.
New forms of cooperation between the United Nations (UN) and regional organizations have recently... more New forms of cooperation between the United Nations (UN) and regional organizations have recently emerged in the field of international security governance. Conventional top-down delegation of tasks from the UN to regional bodies is increasingly supplemented by hybrid missions with shared planning and command structures. This development does not only change the character of activities on the ground but also has important implications for the legitimacy of international security governance. While many policy-makers and academics have ardently advocated global-regional cooperation, some stakeholders remain highly reluctant. I argue that we need to understand this contentious standing of UN-RO security cooperation against the background of the discursive processes through which global and regional actors construct, assert and negotiate different understandings of legitimate security. To date, there is no comparative analysis of the processes of legitimization through which the UN and its partners in different world regions deliberate whether joint action is desirable. To fill this gap, the paper sketches out a research project which sheds light on the discursive struggles between promoters and opponents of cooperation, and how divergent legitimacy standards affect these processes. I engage with the literature on legitimacy in international society and develop a framework for analyzing the legitimizing discourses surrounding the emergence and implementation of global-regional security cooperation which takes into account their embeddedness in different global and regional 'primary institutions'. Since such divergent normative convictions are a potential source of friction in the legitimizing discourses, the way in which the UN and its regional partners construct, represented and negotiate them are crucial for the legitimacy of global-regional cooperation.
The study of institutions of regional governance is largely a-historic and negligent with regard ... more The study of institutions of regional governance is largely a-historic and negligent with regard to the embeddedness of international regimes in the regionally specific 'deep structures' of international society. This paper exemplifies how a historically informed institutionalist perspective can shed light on processes of European integration. To this end, I analyze the development of the main institutions of European international society from the interwar period to the institutionalization of the European Communities. The theoretical framework which is employed merges the English School concepts of international society and international institutions with constructivist ideas about constitution and institutionalization. The narrative that emerges from my analysis is one that sees the development of European institutions as a historically contingent result of a partial and dialectical transformation of international society in response to WWII that affected two levels of international structure: While from a global perspective, Europe ceased to be the core of international society, on a regional level the dynamics gave rise to a genuinely European international society. In this society, the existing state-centered institutions were modified towards a less hierarchical but at the same time more complex and hybrid international order.
Most analysts and practitioners from the political establishment interpret the rise of populism i... more Most analysts and practitioners from the political establishment interpret the rise of populism in Europe as a challenge to EU institutions. This is an intuitive conclusion, given the frequent association of European populist parties with nationalist ideology and anti-EU positions. However, our research shows that while there is reason for concern, the relation between the populist inclinations of political leaders and their stance on regional cooperation is not as straightforward as many pundits suggest. This blog post draws on an analysis of the regional strategies and discourse by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to show that populist leaders engage with the EU for their domestic political purposes. Fears that the European project will implode, therefore, overplay the populist challenge. At the same time, the liberal core of the EU (if such a thing exists) needs to be careful when building bridges across the populist-liberal divide.
In 2015, the international community agreed on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a new ... more In 2015, the international community agreed on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a new framework for global development. Against this background, the EU is currently revising its own development policies. The review of its Consensus on Development provides an opportunity for the Union to reflect on how to define its self-proclaimed role as one of the principal global development actors in the future. This article presents the three main challenges the EU is facing in this process.
With the change of leadership looming, recent events in Beijing evoked a sense of discomposure an... more With the change of leadership looming, recent events in Beijing evoked a sense of discomposure and polarization within the Chinese inner power circle. What do the incidents tell us about the upcoming personnel and, more importantly, policy decisions? Not much, to be honest. Still, the game of Chinese politics might be about to change.
ASEAN’s stance towards Burma has often been criticized for being too soft. It’s true that the org... more ASEAN’s stance towards Burma has often been criticized for being too soft. It’s true that the organizations policy options towards the country were restricted. But without the organization’s approach of continuous engagement, the change we are now witnessing might not have been possible.
When Asian leaders convene in November to hold the sixth East Asia Summit (EAS) in Bali, presiden... more When Asian leaders convene in November to hold the sixth East Asia Summit (EAS) in Bali, presidents Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama will be representing their countries as full-fledged members for the first time. What are the implications of Russia’s and the U.S.’ accession for Asia’s fledgling regional architecture? As this article outlines, the accession of the two major powers can boost Asia Pacific multilateralism – if it is managed well by the smaller states.
Since 2010, East Asia’s waters are becoming more and more stirred up. With China at the forefront... more Since 2010, East Asia’s waters are becoming more and more stirred up. With China at the forefront, East Asia’s states are reaching out to satisfy their growing hunger for resources. But the People’s Republic is not the only bully in the schoolyard: For decades, Japan and South Korea have been struggling over two small islands in the Sea of Japan. And while power is a driving factor in all of East Asia’s territorial disputes, there are others at play as well. As this analysis of the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute between Japan and South Korea shows, all major International Relations (IR) schools contribute to understanding the origins of the conflict and the obstacles to its resolution.
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a crowd is usually only ever seen at UN General Assemblies: over one hundred heads of state... more Such
a crowd is usually only ever seen at UN General Assemblies: over one hundred heads of state and government have been invited to the Indonesian city of Bandung in April to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Afro-Asian Conference. In 1955 – ten years after the European post-war policy was finalised at the Conferences of Yalta and Potsdam – the representatives of Europe’s former colonies met on the island of Java to take their political fate into their own hands. What remains 60 years after Bandung?
Policy Paper of the First IFAIR Impact Group ‘EU-ASEAN Perspectives’, February 2014 – jointly cha... more Policy Paper of the First IFAIR Impact Group ‘EU-ASEAN Perspectives’, February 2014 – jointly chaired and organized by Kilian Spandler, Lukas Rudolph (IFAIR Regional Directors ‘South and East Asia’) and Steffen Murau (IFAIR Regional Director ‘EU and Europe’). http://ifair.eu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/IFAIR-Unlocking-the-Potential-of-Interregionalism.pdf
This paper proposes a number of normative claims about the effectiveness and legitimacy of global... more This paper proposes a number of normative claims about the effectiveness and legitimacy of global governance institutions under conditions of norm ambiguity. We address three interrelated questions: how is global governance possible under conditions of normative ambiguity? What are the ethical implications of governance in an ambiguous normative environment? And how can global governance arrangements effectively accommodate the effects of ambiguity? In contrast to both rationalist and mainstream constructivist scholarship, we understand ambiguity neither as an occasionally occurring problem nor as an instrument at the disposition of actors, but as a fundamental structural feature of international society, and therefore as an inescapable condition of governance. Ultimately, a global consensus on clear and uniformly interpreted norms is neither necessary nor possible or even unequivocally desirable. It is not necessary since we already observe cooperation under conditions of ambiguity on a broad range of issues globally. Instead of resolving ambiguity at the level of norms themselves, actors have managed to create governance formats which allow them to pragmatically cope with it. Perfect norm clarity is also ultimately not possible since ambiguity is a fundamental feature of the very ‘stuff’ in which norms are cast: language. Finally, clarity is not unequivocally desirable over ambiguity. Rather, the challenge is to find structures and mechanisms of governance which channel disagreement over different interpretations of norms in a productive way, giving in neither to hegemonic imposition nor to relativism. To develop normative standards informing such mechanisms, we draw on radical pluralist scholarship in Political Theory and International Law. However, we also acknowledge that ambiguity needs limits, and consequently engage with some of the universal ethical claims typically associated with cosmopolitan solidarism.
For regional organizations (ROs) as geographically circumscribed entities, boundary-drawing is a ... more For regional organizations (ROs) as geographically circumscribed entities, boundary-drawing is a central issue, particularly in times of a changing external environment. This paper assumes that concrete redefinitions of an RO's membership are informed by discourses about legitimate actorness. Drawing on the concept of 'standards of civilization', I argue that prospective RO members are judged against a set of principles and norms that constitute basic tenets of the regional international society. As evidence from the Spanish and Greek accession to the European Community and the Cambodian accession to ASEAN shows, this standard is not a static catalogue of cultural values, as existing constructivist accounts suggest, but develops in response to accession requests in an ongoing process of contestation. Drawing on 'cognitive priors', RO actors may argue for the inclusion of new norms in the standard of civilization. Enlargement processes thus reveal a dialectical relation between regional norms and boundary-drawing: While a regional standard of civilization informs the redefinition of an RO's boundaries, the accession of new candidates also transforms that very standard.
Ever since the end of the Cold War, regionalism is on the rise. However, the regional organizatio... more Ever since the end of the Cold War, regionalism is on the rise. However, the regional organizations formed in various parts of the world look markedly different. Existing Comparative Regionalism literature largely neglects the way in which regional norms contribute to the reproduction of these differences. Against this background, my thesis aims to identify the social conditions and the political mechanisms that cause regional organizations to develop along divergent pathways. Using concepts and arguments from the English School, social constructivism and institutionalism, I develop an approach to the analysis of change in regional organizations that takes into account their connection to a regionally specific normative context. I argue that actors talk about regional governance on two levels: that of abstract norms (‘primary institutions’) and that of concrete rules and procedures (‘secondary institutions’). A historical comparison of decolonization, regionalization and enlargement processes in the EU and ASEAN as well as their respective predecessors demonstrates that pathways in the development of regional organizations depend on how actors connect these primary and secondary institutional levels in the discourse about regional governance. The analysis illustrates that the normative context of regional organization-building is often malleable and ambiguous, and that decision-makers use different strategies to translate this dynamic framework into concrete rules and procedures.
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Available and free to download until 15 June 2021 at https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009030915
This chapter analyzes the European Union's (EU) actorness and power in foreign financial policy, using the IMF reform negotiations in the G20 as a case study. To account for the hybrid nature of the EU, it is compared both to a nation state (the United States) and an international organization, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Actorness and power are operationalized using a number of effectiveness indicators surrounding the policy-making processes of the actors, which involve both the internal decision-making and the behavior at the international negotiation table. The findings of the analysis suggest that, despite the lack of formal Treaty provisions in the realm of foreign financial policy making and its fragmented representation in the G20, the EU's performance is closer to that of the U.S. than that of ASEAN. To account for this relatively high degree of actorness and power, three exploratory hypotheses are formulated. Accordingly, the EU benefits from a low degree of politicization of the policy issue, unitary perception by other actors and an ad hoc adaption of its representation to the developments in the negotiations.
is Indonesia’s stated foreign policy,
the guiding principle that has been the focus of the country’s
international role since independence. While Suharto,
during his long-term autocracy, and his successors interpreted
this doctrine mainly at a regional level, it has taken
on an increasingly global scope since the election of Susilo
Bambang Yudhoyono as president in 2004.
Available and free to download until 15 June 2021 at https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009030915
This chapter analyzes the European Union's (EU) actorness and power in foreign financial policy, using the IMF reform negotiations in the G20 as a case study. To account for the hybrid nature of the EU, it is compared both to a nation state (the United States) and an international organization, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Actorness and power are operationalized using a number of effectiveness indicators surrounding the policy-making processes of the actors, which involve both the internal decision-making and the behavior at the international negotiation table. The findings of the analysis suggest that, despite the lack of formal Treaty provisions in the realm of foreign financial policy making and its fragmented representation in the G20, the EU's performance is closer to that of the U.S. than that of ASEAN. To account for this relatively high degree of actorness and power, three exploratory hypotheses are formulated. Accordingly, the EU benefits from a low degree of politicization of the policy issue, unitary perception by other actors and an ad hoc adaption of its representation to the developments in the negotiations.
is Indonesia’s stated foreign policy,
the guiding principle that has been the focus of the country’s
international role since independence. While Suharto,
during his long-term autocracy, and his successors interpreted
this doctrine mainly at a regional level, it has taken
on an increasingly global scope since the election of Susilo
Bambang Yudhoyono as president in 2004.
a crowd is usually only ever seen at UN General Assemblies: over one hundred heads of state and government have been invited to the Indonesian city of Bandung in April to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Afro-Asian Conference. In 1955 – ten years after the European post-war policy was finalised at the Conferences of Yalta and Potsdam – the representatives of Europe’s former colonies met on the island of Java to take their political fate into their own hands. What remains 60 years after Bandung?
http://ifair.eu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/IFAIR-Unlocking-the-Potential-of-Interregionalism.pdf
In contrast to both rationalist and mainstream constructivist scholarship, we understand ambiguity neither as an occasionally occurring problem nor as an instrument at the disposition of actors, but as a fundamental structural feature of international society, and therefore as an inescapable condition of governance. Ultimately, a global consensus on clear and uniformly interpreted norms is neither necessary nor possible or even unequivocally desirable. It is not necessary since we already observe cooperation under conditions of ambiguity on a broad range of issues globally. Instead of resolving ambiguity at the level of norms themselves, actors have managed to create governance formats which allow them to pragmatically cope with it. Perfect norm clarity is also ultimately not possible since ambiguity is a fundamental feature of the very ‘stuff’ in which norms are cast: language. Finally, clarity is not unequivocally desirable over ambiguity. Rather, the challenge is to find structures and mechanisms of governance which channel disagreement over different interpretations of norms in a productive way, giving in neither to hegemonic imposition nor to relativism. To develop normative standards informing such mechanisms, we draw on radical pluralist scholarship in Political Theory and International Law. However, we also acknowledge that ambiguity needs limits, and consequently engage with some of the universal ethical claims typically associated with cosmopolitan solidarism.