- University of Copenhagen, Department of Political Science, Faculty Memberadd
- International Environmental Politics, Sociology, Science and Technology Studies, Globalization, Energy and Environment, Climate Change, and 17 moreSocial Theory, Sociology of Knowledge, International Theory, Epistemology of the Social Sciences, Sovereignty, Global Civil Society, International Relations, Social Movements, Political Sociology, Security Studies, International Politics, Critical Security Studies, Securitization, Metatheory, Critical International Relations Theory, History of International Relations, and Environmental Politicsedit
- Olaf Corry's research explores interlinkages between international politics and global environmental change. He curre... moreOlaf Corry's research explores interlinkages between international politics and global environmental change. He currently focuses on climate engineering technologies and their global security implication. He has published widely on climate change and security politics. His book argues that objects of governance (such as the climate) change historically but increasingly play a central role in determining the structure of world politics.edit
Duncan McLaren and Olaf Corry reflect on the implications of the UNEA-6 non-decision on solar radiation modification for research and governance As we wrote in part 1, a Swiss-led proposal to the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA) to... more
Duncan McLaren and Olaf Corry reflect on the implications of the UNEA-6 non-decision on solar radiation modification for research and governance
As we wrote in part 1, a Swiss-led proposal to the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA) to establish an expert group on solar radiation management (SRM) proved divisive and was eventually withdrawn. Here we explore why, and what that means for any global conversation about SRM.
As we wrote in part 1, a Swiss-led proposal to the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA) to establish an expert group on solar radiation management (SRM) proved divisive and was eventually withdrawn. Here we explore why, and what that means for any global conversation about SRM.
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Tom Hobson & Olaf Corry Existential Security follows prominent thinkers in ERS (Bostrom, 2013; Ord, 2020) in proposing that ‘humankind’ or ‘civilisation’ is increasingly existentially threatened, largely as a result of ‘our’ Pandoran... more
Tom Hobson & Olaf Corry
Existential Security follows prominent thinkers in ERS (Bostrom, 2013; Ord, 2020) in proposing that ‘humankind’ or ‘civilisation’ is increasingly existentially threatened, largely as a result of ‘our’ Pandoran relationships with technological systems we cannot comprehend, or our Icarian hubris in developing artefacts that exceed our capacity to control them. Sears correctly noted that ‘security literature currently lacks a theoretical and policy framework for existential threats to humanity’ (2020, p. 255), yet the first step of this securitising move—the identification of ‘humanity’ or civilisation as the object to be secured—involves its own set of risks. Adopting humanity as a referent o bject potentially belies a multiplicity of entities or identities; as a process, it should not be done without engaging with the history of contestations concerning where the boundaries of humanity—let alone civilisation—lie (Barnett, 2018). A singular notion of humanity risks homogenising all humans (Agier, 2010) though the question of who qualifies as ‘human’ in the sense of being distinct from nature has historically excluded certain people, grouped instead with nature as ‘savages’ etc. (see Patel & Moore, 2017). Those included are articulated as one vulnerable biological population and potentially one species-agent of history. Protecting a singular humanity or civilisation—increasingly a feature of debates about global challenges and risks—glosses over and potentially (re)produces inequities and asymmetries, both in terms of exposure to extreme risks and their production (Cremer & Kemp, 2021). Aggregation of the world's human population—both present and potentially also an unspecified number of future generations—into the biological species category of humanity, or the cultural entity of civilisation within ERS, is, therefore, a much more performative move than many scholars in the field realise.
Existential Security follows prominent thinkers in ERS (Bostrom, 2013; Ord, 2020) in proposing that ‘humankind’ or ‘civilisation’ is increasingly existentially threatened, largely as a result of ‘our’ Pandoran relationships with technological systems we cannot comprehend, or our Icarian hubris in developing artefacts that exceed our capacity to control them. Sears correctly noted that ‘security literature currently lacks a theoretical and policy framework for existential threats to humanity’ (2020, p. 255), yet the first step of this securitising move—the identification of ‘humanity’ or civilisation as the object to be secured—involves its own set of risks. Adopting humanity as a referent o bject potentially belies a multiplicity of entities or identities; as a process, it should not be done without engaging with the history of contestations concerning where the boundaries of humanity—let alone civilisation—lie (Barnett, 2018). A singular notion of humanity risks homogenising all humans (Agier, 2010) though the question of who qualifies as ‘human’ in the sense of being distinct from nature has historically excluded certain people, grouped instead with nature as ‘savages’ etc. (see Patel & Moore, 2017). Those included are articulated as one vulnerable biological population and potentially one species-agent of history. Protecting a singular humanity or civilisation—increasingly a feature of debates about global challenges and risks—glosses over and potentially (re)produces inequities and asymmetries, both in terms of exposure to extreme risks and their production (Cremer & Kemp, 2021). Aggregation of the world's human population—both present and potentially also an unspecified number of future generations—into the biological species category of humanity, or the cultural entity of civilisation within ERS, is, therefore, a much more performative move than many scholars in the field realise.
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International Relations is one of several academic fields that emerged from around the turn of the 20 th Century. However, disagreements concerning whether IR qualifies as 'a discipline' persist, turning largely on whether disciplinarity... more
International Relations is one of several academic fields that emerged from around the turn of the 20 th Century. However, disagreements concerning whether IR qualifies as 'a discipline' persist, turning largely on whether disciplinarity requires only a dedicated set of scholarly institutions, journals and professional positions, or also a distinct and unique subject matter. Some see IR merely as a sub-discipline focused on a subset of power (under Political Science, for example). A recent argument asserts that IR could become an independent discipline by taking the coexistence of multiple societal units (the international) as its 'deep ontology'. Others reject IR's disciplinary status altogether on the grounds that disciplines police and coerce scholarship, in IR's case limiting it to a hegemonic set of concerns. A final position embraces disciplinarity as an imperfect way of managing inevitable power dynamics in scholarship, but emphasises that subject matters co-evolve with disciplines, through contestations and disagreement.
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‘Climate security’ conventionally refers to climate change being a multiplier of threats to national security, international peace and stability, or human security. Here we identify a hitherto overlooked inverted climate security... more
‘Climate security’ conventionally refers to climate change being a multiplier of threats to national security, international peace and stability, or human security. Here we identify a hitherto overlooked inverted climate security discourse in which climate responses (rather than climate impacts) are held to pose an existential threat to dominant fossil fuel-dependent ‘ways of life’, justifying extraordinary measures—societal climate security. In doing so, we seek to make three novel contributions. First, we set out how societal securitization applies beyond a national frame and in relation to transnational threats like climate change, arguing it promotes not just exceptional measures but also palliative ones that avoid challenging incumbent identities. Second, we draw on recent evidence and extant literatures to show that 'societal climate security' already has substantial material emanations in the form of exceptional measures, deployed domestically against climate protestors and externally against climate migrants, in the name of societal order and cohesion. Third, we turn to wider climate policy implications, arguing that societal securitization tilts policy agendas further away from rapid mitigation pathways and toward promissory measures such as ‘geoengineering’—schemes for future, large-scale technological interventions in the climate system—that may appear less threatening to established societal identities. While there are sound ecological and humanitarian rationales to research such technologies, in the context of societal securitization these can be appropriated to defend dominant ‘ways of life’ instead. To conclude, we reflect on how, were it attempted, deployment of solar geoengineering for societal security would affect security politics more widely.
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While disciplinary identities are among the most fraught subjects in academia, much less attention has been given to what disciplinarity actually entails and what risks different disciplinary strategies involve. Analysing current and... more
While disciplinary identities are among the most fraught subjects in academia, much less attention has been given to what disciplinarity actually entails and what risks different disciplinary strategies involve. Analysing current and historical debates in International Relations concerning its subject matter and disciplinary status this article argues that 'disciplinarity versus intellectual freedom' is a false choice. Instead, four disciplinary strategies are set out and each one briefly considered in relation to the future of IR: i) remaining a subdiscipline ('stay put'), ii) viewing IR as an interdisciplinary field ('reach out'), iii) dissolving IR in transdisciplinary moves or abolition ('burn down'), or iv) strengthening IR as an independent discipline ('break out'). Mainstream IR appears to largely happy with IR being a narrow subdiscipline, while critical IR scholars are wary of disciplinarity and split between the other options. However, recent calls for identifying 'the international' positively and independently from the subject matter of Political Science suggest a way forward that could broaden and diversify IR as an independent discipline. Thus, while none of the four strategies should be ruled out categorically-or relied upon alone-I argue all of them ultimately rely on IR becoming a more independent discipline.
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If IR in reaching out to other disciplines replaces its own perspectives with imported concepts, it risks becoming an invaded discipline where a rump-IR supplies issues and data for other disciplines. Paradoxical though it sounds, it is... more
If IR in reaching out to other disciplines replaces its own perspectives with imported concepts, it risks becoming an invaded discipline where a rump-IR supplies issues and data for other disciplines. Paradoxical though it sounds, it is only if IR becomes a more self-conscious discipline with a problematic of its own that it will be most useful to interdisciplinary studies. The conversation and debate around what that problematic precisely is should not end with UCD. But UCD does appear to be a good place from which to start.
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In this chapter, we introduce geoengineering as a new arena of international politics and explain why hopeful technical explorations of alternative climate strategies have not properly factored in the international. We ask how... more
In this chapter, we introduce geoengineering as a new arena of international politics and explain why hopeful technical explorations of alternative climate strategies have not properly factored in the international. We ask how international politics might affect potential development and deployment of geoengineering techniques, and conversely how their emergence could change the international system itself, introducing new dilemmas and modes of interaction characteristic of the Anthropocene. Throughout the chapter, we will draw on two high-profile areas of geoengineering research, namely stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) (see Boxes 1 and 2), to illustrate some of the issues that geoengineering poses for IR, both theoretically and in practice. The chapter proceeds via three sections, addressing three key questions. First, what are geoengineering technologies? Second, why has the international not been factored in properly? Thi...
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Research into solar geoengineering, far from being societally neutral, is already highly intertwined with its emerging politics. This review outlines ways in which research conditions or constructs solar geoengineering in diverse ways,... more
Research into solar geoengineering, far from being societally neutral, is already highly intertwined with its emerging politics. This review outlines ways in which research conditions or constructs solar geoengineering in diverse ways, including the forms of possible material technologies of solar geoengineering; the criteria and targets for their assessment; the scenarios in which they might be deployed; the publics which may support or oppose them; their political implications for other climate responses, and the international relations, governance mechanisms, and configurations of power that are presumed in order to regulate them. The review also examines proposals for governance of research, including suggested frameworks, principles, procedures, and institutions. It critically assesses these proposals, revealing their limitations given the context of the conditioning effects of current research. The review particularly highlights problems of the reproduction of Northern norms, instrumental approaches to public engagement, a weak embrace of precaution, and a persistent—but questionable—separation of research from deployment. It details complexities inherent in effective research governance which contribute to making the pursuit of solar geoengineering risky, controversial, and ethically contentious. In conclusion, it suggests a case for an explicit, reflexive research governance regime developed with international participation. It suggests that such a regime should encompass modeling and social science, as well as field experimentation, and must address not only technical and environmental, but also the emergent social and political, implications of research.
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Recent ‘Anthropocene’ commentaries have argued that as humans have become decisively entangled in natural systems, they collectively became a geological species-agent potentially becoming aware of its own place in the deep history of... more
Recent ‘Anthropocene’ commentaries have argued that as humans have become decisively entangled in natural systems, they collectively became a geological species-agent potentially becoming aware of its own place in the deep history of planetary time. Through this, the argument goes, a pre-political collective consciousness could emerge, paving the way for a progressive construction of a common world, beyond particularistic justice-claims. The reverse case is made in scholarship of settler colonialism: the Anthropocene is rooted in histories of settler colonial violence and is deeply tied up with the dispossession and ‘extinction’ of Indigenous life-worlds. In this article, we foreground nature–human entanglement as crucial for understanding the operations but also the instability of settler colonialism in Palestine. We suggest that fractures and openings become legible when paying attention to the ‘afterlife’ of nature that was erased due to its enmeshment with Indigenous people. We provide a historical and ethnographic account of past and emerging entanglements between Palestinians refugees and their nature, ultimately arguing that indigeneity is recalcitrant to obliteration. With that in mind, we return to the Anthropocene’s focus on universal human extinction and ethical consciousness by critically engaging with it from the standpoint of colonised and displaced Indigenous populations, like the Palestinian refugees. We conclude by arguing that only when the profoundly unequal access to Life entrenched in settler colonialism is foregrounded and addressed, does a real possibility of recognising any common, global vulnerability that the species faces emerge.
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Climate engineering (geoengineering) is rising up the global policy agenda, partly because international divisions pose deep challenges to collective climate mitigation. However, geoengineering is similarly subject to clashing interests,... more
Climate engineering (geoengineering) is rising up the global policy agenda, partly because international divisions pose deep challenges to collective climate mitigation. However, geoengineering is similarly subject to clashing interests, knowledge‐traditions and geopolitics. Modelling and technical assessments of geoengineering are facilitated by assumptions of a single global planner (or some as yet unspecified rational governance), but the practicality of international governance remains mostly speculative. Using evidence gathered from state delegates, climate activists and modellers, we reveal three underlying and clashing ‘geofutures’: an idealised understanding of governable geoengineering that abstracts from technical and political realities; a situated understanding of geoengineering emphasising power hierarchies in world order; and a pragmatist precautionary understanding emerging in spaces of negotiation such as UN Environment Assembly (UNEA). Set in the wider historical context of climate politics, the failure to agree even to a study of geoengineering at UNEA indicates underlying obstacles to global rules and institutions for geoengineering posed by divergent interests and underlying epistemic and political differences. Technology assessments should recognise that geoengineering will not be exempt from international fractures; that deployment of geoengineering through imposition is a serious risk; and that contestations over geofutures pertain, not only to climate policy, but also the future of planetary order.
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How do radical movements seeking fundamental social change engage with nearer-term policy dilemmas? Disciplinary boundaries and practical obstacles have limited research into protester policy engagement. Using a hybrid method combining... more
How do radical movements seeking fundamental social change engage with nearer-term policy dilemmas? Disciplinary boundaries and practical obstacles have limited research into protester policy engagement. Using a hybrid method combining participant-observation and expert-led focus groups, we document activist attitudes concerning controversial climate policy options. Data gathered at 'Climate Camps' in six national contexts are presented alongside evidence from similar 'participant-instigator' events at Green Party conferences. We find activists engaged in direct action outside the established political system had policy knowledge and agendas comparable to or surpassing those active within the system. Support for radical change appears correlated with-rather than opposed to-knowledge and interest in policy agendas. As climate protests escalate it is important to understand 'protester policy engagement'-the processing, production and communication of changes proposed from a position outside the established political system and to theorise this with, rather than in contradistinction to, social movement identity.
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Responses to the COVID-19 emergency have exposed break-points at the interface of science, media and policy. We summarize five lessons that should be heeded if climate change ever enters a state of emergency perceived to warrant... more
Responses to the COVID-19 emergency have exposed break-points at the interface of science, media and policy. We summarize five lessons that should be heeded if climate change ever enters a state of emergency perceived to warrant stratospheric aerosol injection. (Co-authored with Holly Jean Buck, Masa Sugiyama and Oliver Geden)
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Whereas most of the chapters go ‘down’ to the micro-practices of climate governance, this chapter aims to take a step ‘up’ to elucidate a clearer picture or model of what a global climate polity is in terms of its totality: how are the... more
Whereas most of the chapters go ‘down’ to the micro-practices of climate governance, this chapter aims to take a step ‘up’ to elucidate a clearer picture or model of what a global climate polity is in terms of its totality: how are the elements of a global polity structured and what makes a polity a polity? In this chapter, first the question of whether analysis of localized governmental techniques needs an accompanying consideration of a bigger picture or context is considered. Next the global climate polity is theorised beyond the models of hierarchy and anarchy using a generic theory of what constitutes a polity via an elaboration of Foucault’s ideas about how changing objects of governance become central to political entities. The third part looks back briefly asking when a global climate polity thus conceived could be said to have evolved. The final section peers forwards to consider differing visions of the demise of the global climate polity as we know it: will it be superseded by a more encompassing ‘Earth System polity’ centered on governing not only the climate but also other interrelated geophysical systems? Or could it splinter as it is recognized that the climate is too complex and feral to be a governable object?
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Geoengineering (på dansk ’klimaengineering’) dækker over vidt forskellige idéer til, hvordan der kan gribes direkte ind i klimasystemet med teknologi, uden dermed at reducere udslip af drivhusgasser. Forskerne arbejder på at finde... more
Geoengineering (på dansk ’klimaengineering’) dækker over vidt forskellige idéer til, hvordan der kan gribes direkte ind i klimasystemet med teknologi, uden dermed at reducere udslip af drivhusgasser. Forskerne arbejder på at finde måder at køle Jorden kunstigt ned på samt finde tiltag, der skal fjerne enorme mængder CO2 fra atmosfæren. Teknologierne vinder indpas i debatten men er uprøvede og kan komme til at stå i vejen for reelle nedskæringer i drivhusgasudledninger på tre måder: psykologisk, politisk og administrativt. Selvom nogle kan blive nødvendige kan de udgøre en trussel mod regeringens klimastrategi, som er som rottefængeren fra Hameln at gå forrest og vise vejen, så andre følger efter i den grønne omstilling.
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Aerosols in the stratosphere, artificial trees or spraying sea water to whiten clouds – many consider climate engineering essentially to be a range of technologies designed to either extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or reflect... more
Aerosols in the stratosphere, artificial trees or spraying sea water to whiten clouds – many consider climate engineering essentially to be a range of technologies designed to either extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or reflect more sunlight back out into space to counter global warming. Inventors and scientists – but also policy-makers – tend to focus primarily on the physical apparatus and technical systems: how would climate engineering options work and perhaps how much would they cost?While this is a natural place to start it also misses a huge part of the question. What is being considered is not just a set of contraptions but a huge social arrangement and in some cases a new global infrastructure – a so-called megaproject.
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This paper argues that ways of accounting for environmental destruction and the importance of nonhuman nature tend to obscure the significance of the international. Drawing on chapters of this book as well as wider literatures, I first... more
This paper argues that ways of accounting for environmental destruction and the importance of nonhuman nature tend to obscure the significance of the international. Drawing on chapters of this book as well as wider literatures, I first situate the relative invisibility of nonhuman nature in IR, pointing to the demise of geopolitics around the Second World War as part of a wider bifurcation of knowledge into "social" and "natural" sciences. Secondly, I argue that current attempts to take account of nonhuman nature have tended to bring with them globalist framings that underplay or even obscure the importance of the international. Thirdly, I outline an outlook that does not feature prominently in the rest of this book, but which might provide an additional way of further developing its goals, allowing a theorisation of society that has the nonhuman at its core to form the building block for a materialist theory of the international. The overall aim is to take stock of attempts to grasp how the metabolism between humans and nonhuman nature is itself multiple, intrinsically bound up with and marked by relations between societies-the latter at base socio-ecological entities.
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The global environmental crisis requires a grasp of how human society interacts with nature, but also, simultaneously, how the world is divided into multiple societies. International Relations has a weak grasp of nature treating it as... more
The global environmental crisis requires a grasp of how human society interacts with nature, but also, simultaneously, how the world is divided into multiple societies. International Relations has a weak grasp of nature treating it as external to the international-an 'environment' to be managed-while environmentalism has a planetary epistemology that occludes the significance of the international. How to break this impasse? While neither Geopolitics nor 'new materialism' capture the complex conjuncture of socio-natural and inter-societal dynamics, I argue that Justin Rosenberg's theorization of the international as 'the consequences of societal multiplicity' provides a theoretical opening. If a materialist notion of societal is adopted, 'societal multiplicity' allows human-natural and international dynamics to be grasped together. Thus, climate change is not a problem arising exogenously to the international, but something emerging through international dynamics, reciprocally affecting the units, structure and processes of the international system itself.
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At the very moment when the exclusive focus on humans in International Relations and other social sciences is being questioned (cf. the 'Anthropocene') IR may be erecting a fresh edifice of anthropocentrism. Justin Rosenberg has put... more
At the very moment when the exclusive focus on humans in International Relations and other social sciences is being questioned (cf. the 'Anthropocene') IR may be erecting a fresh edifice of anthropocentrism. Justin Rosenberg has put forward a powerful argument that the core subject matter of IR is to study the 'consequences of societal multiplicity’ and that realising this can re-found the discipline and focus it's energy on a precise - but ubiquitous - feature of the social. Rosenberg is right that Waltz’s isolation of 'the international' from the social was artificial and theory driven rather than a claim about them being unrelated, but societal multiplicity similarly exists within a wider set of relations of exchange, competition and dependence: societies are themselves made up of more than humans and while societies are multiple, so are natures, ecologies and technological regimes.
Understanding the dialectics between societies and non-human entities is important for understanding how societal multiplicity itself evolved
- and for how 'the international' works today.
Understanding the dialectics between societies and non-human entities is important for understanding how societal multiplicity itself evolved
- and for how 'the international' works today.
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Geoengineering technologies aim to make large-scale and deliberate interventions in the climate system possible. A typical framing is that researchers are exploring a ‘Plan B’ in case mitigation fails to avert dangerous climate change.... more
Geoengineering technologies aim to make large-scale and deliberate interventions in the climate system possible. A typical framing is that researchers are exploring a ‘Plan B’ in case mitigation fails to avert dangerous climate change. Some options are thought to have the potential to alter the politics of climate change dramatically, yet in evaluating whether they might ultimately reduce climate risks, their political and security implications have so far not been given adequate prominence. This article puts forward what it calls the ‘security hazard’ and argues that this could be a crucial factor in determining whether a technology is able, ultimately, to reduce climate risks. Ideas about global governance of geoengineering rely on heroic assumptions about state rationality and a generally pacific international system. Moreover, if in a climate engineered world weather events become something certain states can be made directly responsible for, this may also negatively affect prospects for ‘Plan A’, i.e. an effective global agreement on mitigation.
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The politics of climate change is not concerned solely with rival scientific claims about global warming but also with how best to govern the climate. Despite this, categories in climate politics remain caught up in the concepts of the... more
The politics of climate change is not concerned solely with rival scientific claims about global warming but also with how best to govern the climate. Despite this, categories in climate politics remain caught up in the concepts of the ‘science wars’, rarely progressing far beyond the denier/believer-dichotomy. This article aims to nudge climate politics beyond the polarized scientific debates while also counteracting the de-politicisation that comes from assuming scientific claims lead directly to certain policies. First existing typologies of climate political positions are reviewed. Diverse contributions make up an emerging field of ‘climate politology’ but these tend to reduce climate politics either to views on the science or to products of cultural world-views. Drawing on policy analysis literature, a new approach is outlined, where problem-definitions and solution-framings provide the coordinates for a two-dimensional grid. The degree to which climate change is considered a ‘wicked’ problem on the one hand, and individualist or collectivist ways of understanding political agency on the other, provide a map of climate political positions beyond ‘believers’ vs ‘deniers’.
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... Related URLs: http://www.eprg.group.cam.ac.uk/wp-conte...(Other). Item ID: 32911. Depositing User: Olaf Corry. Date Deposited: 06 Mar 2012 16:16. Last Modified: 06 Mar 2012 16:16. URI: http://oro.open.ac.uk/id/eprint/32911. ...
In its immediate aftermath the Eastern European revolution of 1989 was interpreted as a ‘rectifying revolution’: the experiment of 1917 had been cast off, liberal institutions were copied from the West and no new ideas were launched.... more
In its immediate aftermath the Eastern European revolution of 1989 was interpreted as a ‘rectifying revolution’: the experiment of 1917 had been cast off, liberal institutions were copied from the West and no new ideas were launched. Subsequent debate has gone some way in challenging this, suggesting that 1989 at least launched historically distinct political methods but lacked novel utopias or critiques of dominant political and economic paradigms. Such interpretations have overlooked that dissidents and protest movements across Eastern Europe also relied widely on a strong environmental critique of industrial society, expansionary economics and instrumental reason. More specifically, many of the human rights and democracy movements began as, or meshed with, environmentalist organizations, and from very early on dissidents linked their non-violent and anti-authoritarian strategies of resistance to explicitly environmentalist critiques of industrialism. This article argues that although overshadowed by human rights and demands for political reform, environmentalism was a significant feature of the revolutionary process in the ways it allowed dissidents to critique socialist as well as capitalist systems, provided a focus to the idea of civil society and tapped into a wider emerging globalist political narrative in which the limits of the Earth and of rationalist control over it were made increasingly apparent.
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The environmental NGO (ENGO) community has previously had a considerable impact on public policy processes, not least through its ability to influence agenda-setting and problem-definition in policy processes (Togerson 1997, van der... more
The environmental NGO (ENGO) community has previously had a considerable impact on public policy processes, not least through its ability to influence agenda-setting and problem-definition in policy processes (Togerson 1997, van der Heijden 2010). However, it represents a particularly critical constituency for technologies such as large-scale CCS for which there is little other rationale than an environmental one, namely that of mitigating climate change (e.g. Shell 2008,3). At the same time CCS is a complex case for ENGOs who may be drawn to it by a sense of urgency related to possible climatic tipping points, yet often harbour deep suspicions of fossil fuel industry actors, ‘end-of-pipe’ solutions and express scepticism regarding whether and how fast CCS will be rolled out and to what effect. Rather than challenging or confirming ENGO views of CCS as accurate or misguided, this chapter analyses the discursive framing of the varied positions environmental ENGOs have taken on Carbon Capture and Storage technology (CCS). Despite agreeing on many of the ‘facts’ about CCS, they differ in terms of whether they oppose or support CCS partly because they differ more fundamentally in how they choose to view the complex of problems and solutions, e.g. in terms of ‘the problem’ that CCS should solve, what exactly CCS is (how CCS is portrayed as a technology) and how they justify their stances. First we explain the importance of political discourses for how CCS is evaluated and draw on problem-definition literature as well as theories of discourse suggesting that the politics of CCS is dependent upon social constructions of the problem of climate change and of CCS itself. Secondly, the discursive positions of a number of ENGOs regarding CCS are analysed in terms of a) how the problem is construed, b) how CCS is viewed as a solution and c) how claims are justified. From this analysis two dimensions and four ideal typical positions are extracted that can help us understand how different concerns and conclusions can be reached without necessarily disagreeing on the facts or science of CCS. This, it is suggested in the conclusion, will have implications for those interested in how representation as well as information impacts technology policy, climate change and energy policy.
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If the basic problem of the international is societal multiplicity – the simple but surprisingly consequential fact that the world is divided into distinct societies (Rosenberg 2006) – the basic problem of the global environment could be... more
If the basic problem of the international is societal multiplicity – the simple but surprisingly consequential fact that the world is divided into distinct societies (Rosenberg 2006) – the basic problem of the global environment could be said to be planetary singularity – that we all inhabit, in the end, one finite interconnected space. Together these two starting points make for the basic conundrum of International Relations and the Earth: how does a divided world live on a single globe? This book takes stock of and explores the ways in which International Relations has confronted and contributed to understanding how a divided world deals with and manages the environment; but it also aims to provide an overview of how IR as a discipline has itself changed and developed as a result of doing so, particularly over the past two decades. Which perspectives have been conceived and/or shaped through analysis of environmental problems? Which actors, processes and images have become part of the IR tapestry as a result of environmental political analysis? Which approaches, theories and concepts have, due to environmental themes, been imported from other disciplines and to what effect, tugging the focus and perhaps even the identity of the discipline itself in various directions? The broad argument is that IR has impacted on the politics of the environment, but the reverse is also true: IR is not what it hypothetically would have been without the international politics of the environment.
This introduction first provides an overview of the recent rise of ‘the environment’ in international politics and offers an account of how this builds on older ways in which the natural world has made up part of the stuff of international politics. Secondly it surveys the main traditions and approaches to studying international relations of the environment, painting a picture of diversification in two senses: from the study of ‘environmental multilateralism’ towards a broader ‘global environmental politics’, and from ‘problem-solving’ to a greater diversity of ‘critical’ approaches, some of which originate in disciplines outside core IR territory. While the traditional problem-solving approaches have tended to treat the environment as just another issue for international-relations-as-usual, critical approaches have begun reflecting on the theoretical implications of taking environmentalism seriously (see also Eckersley 2013). Thirdly, the direction of enquiry is therefore reversed to ask, in effect, ‘what has the environment ever done for IR?’, before the plan for the rest of the book sketches the content and direction of the ensuing chapters that explore the problematique of International Relations and the Earth.
This introduction first provides an overview of the recent rise of ‘the environment’ in international politics and offers an account of how this builds on older ways in which the natural world has made up part of the stuff of international politics. Secondly it surveys the main traditions and approaches to studying international relations of the environment, painting a picture of diversification in two senses: from the study of ‘environmental multilateralism’ towards a broader ‘global environmental politics’, and from ‘problem-solving’ to a greater diversity of ‘critical’ approaches, some of which originate in disciplines outside core IR territory. While the traditional problem-solving approaches have tended to treat the environment as just another issue for international-relations-as-usual, critical approaches have begun reflecting on the theoretical implications of taking environmentalism seriously (see also Eckersley 2013). Thirdly, the direction of enquiry is therefore reversed to ask, in effect, ‘what has the environment ever done for IR?’, before the plan for the rest of the book sketches the content and direction of the ensuing chapters that explore the problematique of International Relations and the Earth.
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Because of its crucial role in the globe’s climate system, the Arctic has been singled out as a region worthy of special attention for possible ‘geoengineering’ (also referred to as ‘climate engineering’) technologies. These aim to... more
Because of its crucial role in the globe’s climate system, the Arctic has been singled out as a region worthy of special attention for possible ‘geoengineering’ (also referred to as ‘climate engineering’) technologies. These aim to intentionally intervene in the climate system to deal with global warming, rather than by limiting emissions of greenhouse gasses or adapting human societies to deal with their effects (The Royal Society, 2009). Some of the leading plans for geoengineering are designed to directly cool the Earth by reflecting more light back into space – and the Arctic is frequently invoked as a site for possible experimentation or deployment to stem recent rapid warming tendencies.
However, discussion about Arctic geoengineering has so far developed largely in technocratic terms and is typically dealt with separately from ongoing analysis of Arctic geopolitics and the regional interests invested in it. Indeed, it is not clear who might be the relevant state or non-state actors, should an intervention to alter or restore the Arctic climate ever be attempted. While a Westphalian gaze on Arctic politics highlights the littoral states with their physical borders and sovereign claims to the Arctic region, this volume suggests various ways of going beyond a neatly territorial sovereign approach to instead analyse the Arctic as a ‘globally embedded space’ (Chapter 1/Keil and Knecht, this volume).
This particular chapter uses an object-oriented approach to explore how the Arctic is being constituted as a global governance-object within an emerging ‘global polity’, partly through geoengineering imaginaries. It suggests that governance-objects – the socially constructed targets of political operations and contestations – are not simple ‘issues’ or ‘problems’ exogenously given to actors to deal with. Governance-objects emerge and are constructed and rather than slotting neatly into existing structures, they have their own structuring effects on world politics. The emergence of the Arctic climate as a potential target of governance provides a case in point.
However, discussion about Arctic geoengineering has so far developed largely in technocratic terms and is typically dealt with separately from ongoing analysis of Arctic geopolitics and the regional interests invested in it. Indeed, it is not clear who might be the relevant state or non-state actors, should an intervention to alter or restore the Arctic climate ever be attempted. While a Westphalian gaze on Arctic politics highlights the littoral states with their physical borders and sovereign claims to the Arctic region, this volume suggests various ways of going beyond a neatly territorial sovereign approach to instead analyse the Arctic as a ‘globally embedded space’ (Chapter 1/Keil and Knecht, this volume).
This particular chapter uses an object-oriented approach to explore how the Arctic is being constituted as a global governance-object within an emerging ‘global polity’, partly through geoengineering imaginaries. It suggests that governance-objects – the socially constructed targets of political operations and contestations – are not simple ‘issues’ or ‘problems’ exogenously given to actors to deal with. Governance-objects emerge and are constructed and rather than slotting neatly into existing structures, they have their own structuring effects on world politics. The emergence of the Arctic climate as a potential target of governance provides a case in point.
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While the rise of “resilience” as a strategic concept has been widely noted, critical security scholars have given it a frosty reception, viewing it as a vehicle and multiplier of neo-liberal governmentality. This article acknowledges... more
While the rise of “resilience” as a strategic concept has been widely noted, critical security scholars have given it a frosty reception, viewing it as a vehicle and multiplier of neo-liberal governmentality. This article acknowledges that resilience does form part of a neo-liberal security regime, but argues that a shift from defense to resilience is not devoid of critical potential, and develops recent calls for critique to be made more context specific. It begins by arguing that blanket condemnation of resilience is part of a wider tendency to apply Foucault's “governmentality” concept as a particular global form of power, rather than as an empirically sensitive analytic framework open to different configurations of power. It then shows how resilience also forms part of a strategy to manage uncertainty—particularly in relation to coping with global environmental risks—which directly challenges neo-liberal nostrums. A comparison with the concept of “defense” is made, arguing that resilience, while problematic for other reasons, potentially avoids the pernicious us-them logic, exceptionalism, and short-termism characteristic of defense strategies.
Despite sustained theoretical and empirical criticism of ‘statism’, a recognisable model of political structure other of hierarchy and anarchy (the models that underpin the state system-model) has long been lacking. Even many proponents... more
Despite sustained theoretical and empirical criticism of ‘statism’, a recognisable model of political structure other of hierarchy and anarchy (the models that underpin the state system-model) has long been lacking. Even many proponents of radical transformation of the international system often remain ‘post-international’, describing world politics essentially in terms of complications to the international system. This article agrees that a new point of departure is needed but offers a different model of political structure by redefining the term ‘polity’ – a term which is increasingly used to capture non-territorial political entities neither constituted by hierarchy nor by the lack of it. With the new definition building on Waltz’s theory of theory as a ‘picture, mentally formed’ in order to simplify a domain, a polity is deemed to exist when a set of subjects are oriented towards a common ‘governance-object’. The new polity model is applied illustratively to the idea of a global polity and a new polity research agenda of international relations is suggested.
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Risk-security writers of various persuasions have suggested that risk is effectively the new security. They say risk works to widen securitisation whereby exceptional measures are made permanent and introduced to deal with merely... more
Risk-security writers of various persuasions have suggested that risk is effectively the new security. They say risk works to widen securitisation whereby exceptional measures are made permanent and introduced to deal with merely potential, hypothetical and less-than-existential dangers. A transformation in the political logic of the security field of this kind is a potentially problematic and momentous change. However, this has so far not been much reflected in the primary theory of what security is, namely the Copenhagen School’s theory of securitisation. This article tries to tackle this problem by identifying the distinct logic of speech acts that turn issues into questions of risk politics suggesting a model for what rules or grammars they follow and what the political implications of them are. A separate kind of speech act – ‘riskification’ – is identified based on a re-theorisation of what distinguishes ‘risks’ from ‘threats’. It is argued that risk politics is not an instance of securitisation, but something distinct with its own advantages and dangers. Threat-based security deals with direct causes of harm, whereas risk-security is oriented towards the conditions of possibility or constitutive causes of harm a kind of ‘second-order’ security politics that promotes long-term precautionary governance. Separating securitisation and ‘riskification’ preserves the analytical precision of the Copenhagen School notion of securitisation, makes a new logic of security understandable to analysts of the security field, and helps to clarify what basic logic ‘normal’ non-securitised politics may follow. The new framework is demonstrated through a critical reading of literature that has suggested that climate change has been securitised.
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This chapter argues that 'assemblages', although rooted in a deep skepticism of grand theory, could also be useful for re-thinking structure and models of structure in international relations. IR models of structure usually restrict... more
This chapter argues that 'assemblages', although rooted in a deep skepticism of grand theory, could also be useful for re-thinking structure and models of structure in international relations. IR models of structure usually restrict themselves to how subjects are ordered. The idea of an ordering principle that concerns objects as well as subjects has not been much considered. But what if not only subjects but also assemblages play a critical role in structuring international relations? I argue that ‘polities’ are basically constituted, not by the emergence of a hierarchy, but by the emergence of a common governance-object and that a ‘global polity’ is therefore a situation where actors orient themselves toward the governing of specifically global governance-objects.
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In this chapter I take a look at how actors in the international system (including states) as well as the things they try to govern are shaped in the first place. The French thinker Michel Foucault coined a new term – governmentality – to... more
In this chapter I take a look at how actors in the international system (including states) as well as the things they try to govern are shaped in the first place. The French thinker Michel Foucault coined a new term – governmentality – to try to capture the ways that not just ideas but bodies of knowledge (savoirs) and technologies of governing provide frameworks (or ‘book-ends’) for behaviour and governing within a society. These ideas have recently been applied to relations between polities. The idea is to uncover how such frameworks for understanding and action operate in the international sphere. The chapter proceeds as follows:
. Section 1 presents a brief account of a shift in frameworks of governing that began to take place from around the seventeenth century. As new knowledge-based tools of statecraft such as statistics began to be increasingly utilised, the basic focus of governing shifted from dominating territory towards a new aim of governing populations and their lives. From this account, I draw out some basic characteristics of ‘governmentalities’.
. Section 2 looks at how governmentalities operated in more recent times and analyses frameworks guiding the politics of development since the 1980s. You will read about the neo-liberal agenda of privatisation, financial liberalisation and the promotion of markets known collectively as ‘the Washington Consensus’. The politics of development illustrates that governmentalities – even ones based on ideas about freedom – are never neutral bodies of knowledge but always expressions of power and therefore often significant political battlegrounds themselves.
. Section 3 considers whether a rival ‘Beijing Consensus’ is emerging around the Chinese model of development, offering a distinct approach to interacting with developing countries. This underscores the idea that even dominant governmentalities are always in competition with others.
. Section 4 offers some reflections on the idea of a ‘global governmentality’ and how it affects not just the actors in international politics and their identities but also objects of governance in international relations.
. Section 1 presents a brief account of a shift in frameworks of governing that began to take place from around the seventeenth century. As new knowledge-based tools of statecraft such as statistics began to be increasingly utilised, the basic focus of governing shifted from dominating territory towards a new aim of governing populations and their lives. From this account, I draw out some basic characteristics of ‘governmentalities’.
. Section 2 looks at how governmentalities operated in more recent times and analyses frameworks guiding the politics of development since the 1980s. You will read about the neo-liberal agenda of privatisation, financial liberalisation and the promotion of markets known collectively as ‘the Washington Consensus’. The politics of development illustrates that governmentalities – even ones based on ideas about freedom – are never neutral bodies of knowledge but always expressions of power and therefore often significant political battlegrounds themselves.
. Section 3 considers whether a rival ‘Beijing Consensus’ is emerging around the Chinese model of development, offering a distinct approach to interacting with developing countries. This underscores the idea that even dominant governmentalities are always in competition with others.
. Section 4 offers some reflections on the idea of a ‘global governmentality’ and how it affects not just the actors in international politics and their identities but also objects of governance in international relations.
Research Interests:
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We present results from a research project examining attitudes of environmental activists to carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) technologies. Research workshops were held in Scotland, Wales, Sweden, Switzerland, and Germany at... more
We present results from a research project examining attitudes of environmental activists to carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) technologies. Research workshops were held in Scotland, Wales, Sweden, Switzerland, and Germany at ‘Climate Camps’ designed to both educate and prepare activists for direct action and at Green Party conferences in the UK. Using a variety of techniques, data was gathered on how environmentalists inside and outside the political system view environmental problems and solutions, and in particular how they view and evaluate CCS as a climate change solution.
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We present results from a research project examining attitudes of environmental activists to carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) technologies. Research workshops were held in Scotland, Wales, Sweden, Switzerland, and Germany at... more
We present results from a research project examining attitudes of environmental activists to carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) technologies. Research workshops were held in Scotland, Wales, Sweden, Switzerland, and Germany at ‘Climate Camps’ designed to both educate and prepare activists for direct action and at Green Party conferences in the UK. Using a variety of techniques, data was gathered on how environmentalists inside and outside the political system view environmental problems and solutions, and in particular how they view and evaluate CCS as a climate change solution.
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In particular, CCS communication is found to be heavily oriented towards explaining the technological and engineering processes involved. Socio-economic questions about costs, burdens, policy alternatives and wider social implications all... more
In particular, CCS communication is found to be heavily oriented towards explaining the technological and engineering processes involved. Socio-economic questions about costs, burdens, policy alternatives and wider social implications all receive much less rigorous coverage. How developing CCS would affect other long-term problems apart from climate change, and how CCS compares to other options, requires greater attention and priority.
In short, communication concerning CCS and society is very much in the shadow of what CCS technology is and how it works.
In short, communication concerning CCS and society is very much in the shadow of what CCS technology is and how it works.
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Starting from the idea that ‘polity’ holds as yet unrealized potential for the discipline named after it, this book is written with three main aims in mind: first, to examine the theories or models of political structure on offer and... more
Starting from the idea that ‘polity’ holds as yet unrealized potential for the discipline named after it, this book is written with three main aims in mind: first, to examine the theories or models of political structure on offer and criticize a pervasive overreliance on hierarchy and anarchy; second, to construct a theory of a global polity designed to fill a gap in the current range of theories on offer; and third to apply the theory constructed in a preliminary way in order to illustrate how the theory works and to indicate the type of research agenda that it might open up.
Research Interests: Sociology, Social Theory, Sociology of Culture, Cultural Policy, Globalization, and 14 moreDemocratic Theory, Sociology of Knowledge, Global Civil Society, Nationalism, Cosmopolitanism, Solidarity Economy, Epistemology of the Social Sciences, Cultural Globalization, Anarchy, Interaction of Polities, Classical and Contemporary Social Theory, Historical and Comparative Sociology, Sociology of the State, and Ecnomic Thought
Hyperglobalism is a label used for diverse claims that globalization has decisively undermined the nation-state as a container and regulator of economic, cultural, and political affairs. Hyperglobalists are held to believe that global... more
Hyperglobalism is a label used for diverse claims that globalization has decisively undermined the nation-state as a container and regulator of economic, cultural, and political affairs. Hyperglobalists are held to believe that global markets and technological advances—particularly in transport and communications sectors—have created globalized flows of such a volume and velocity that socio-economic, cultural entities and patterns of power relations have been radically reconfigured as a result, not just quantitatively but also qualitatively. Some suggest that this will ultimately lead to the emergence of a singular “borderless” world, while others focus on the reconfiguration of new borders along nonterritorial lines, e.g., global networks, global cities, regional states, or global class formations. Hyperglobalist analyses have pointed to new strategies in economic and business management, new political institutions, and, for some, a revised framework of thinking for a global age that differs in fundamental respects from that of modernity. As a term, ...
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Antiglobalization movements are transnational social movements that challenge what they perceive as a monolithic global laissez-faire economic regime. From the 1990s, these movements have accused global political and economic networks of... more
Antiglobalization movements are transnational social movements that challenge what they perceive as a monolithic global laissez-faire economic regime. From the 1990s, these movements have accused global political and economic networks of delivering too much power to dominant elites at the expense of disenfranchised poor populations and countries. The term antiglobalization is rejected by some supporters who, although espousing grassroots resistance to global liberalization and greater local control over resources and decision making, point out that they are themselves global: They draw attention to global inequity, organize transnationally, and maintain a critical stance toward significant aspects of the state system. For this reason, many supporters favor other terms such as alterglobalization movement, global justice movement , or simply the movement of movements . Critics accuse the movements of ideological incoherence, self-interested protectionism, and illiberal and undemocratic political methods, and point to Western liberal elite dominance within the movements. The debate has ...
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Abstract: How do we examine the political effects of the different ways in which societal danger can be articulated? This paper explores what happens if security and risk – rather than being considered ‘primary’ in relation to politics or... more
Abstract: How do we examine the political effects of the different ways in which societal danger can be articulated? This paper explores what happens if security and risk – rather than being considered ‘primary’ in relation to politics or endowed with singular logics or grammars are treated as concepts that take on different meanings in structured arrangements of mutually defining political concepts – i.e. if they are ideological. The morphological approach to ideology is suggested to navigate a path between reified (historical) logics and case-to-case contextualism: ideologies are not stringent logical systems but precisely the place where complexity and multiple contexts are translated into political programs. Through an analysis of the role of two ‘risk-gurus’ in recent UK ideological debate, it is shown how risk has joined ‘equality’ and ‘freedom’ as a central political concept in two contemporary UK ideologies. Instead of having a singular performative logic risk has been enlisted to support very different political projects from government interventionism global governance and activism to financial austerity, deregulation and decentralization. It is suggested that the value of the morphological approach lies in a) highlighting relational meaning-formation and context without giving up on there being a ‘core’ to security or risk, b) analysis of real-world blending of concepts and logics (e.g. threat, risk and uncertainty) rather than logical abstractions c) it allows us to differentiate between core and peripheral elements in risk or security politics and d) leaves the possibility open that one concept may in fact still be ‘primary’ or ‘foundational’ for politics and thus ‘beneath’ the level of ideology. This would bring a critical question of foundations to ideological fields back to ideological/morphological theory.
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It has recently been pointed out that Kenneth Waltz based his seminal theorization of anarchy on a pictorial view of theories as essentially ‘pictures, mentally formed’ and that this provides his main buttress against theoretical... more
It has recently been pointed out that Kenneth Waltz based his seminal theorization of anarchy on a pictorial view of theories as essentially ‘pictures, mentally formed’ and that this provides his main buttress against theoretical criticism. This paper asks what other pictorial theories are in operation in the discipline and finds surprisingly few. Copious criticism of ‘anarchy’ as a theory has not resulted in a host of rival pictorial theories of world politics being developed and the lack of rival ‘theories’ leaving critics dependent upon anarchy. The paper begins with a note on the pictorial understanding of what a theory is before it investigates alternatives including hierarchy, anarchy, empire and network. It concludes that anarchy and hierarchy remain the only two pictorial theories of political structure in town and that this is a constraining factor in the development of fresh theoretical perspectives on world politics. The example of the Global Polity Approach which aimed to
start from a new unit of analysis but lacked precisely its own pictorial theory of political structure is offered as a demonstration of the power of the unchallenged model of anarchy.
start from a new unit of analysis but lacked precisely its own pictorial theory of political structure is offered as a demonstration of the power of the unchallenged model of anarchy.
Research Interests: Critical Theory, Political Sociology, Political Philosophy, International Relations Theory, Feminist Theory, and 13 moreQualitative methodology, Feminist Philosophy, Political Science, Securitization, Michel Foucault, Social Network Analysis (SNA), Biopolitics, Theories of Sovereignty, Empire, Agamben, Imperialism, Kenneth Waltz, and Negri
According to enthusiasts the concept of global civil society is spreading rapidly and becoming pivotal to the reconfiguring of the statist paradigm. However, critics have recently grown more numerous and outspoken in opposition to the... more
According to enthusiasts the concept of global civil society is spreading rapidly and becoming pivotal to the reconfiguring of the statist paradigm. However, critics have recently grown more numerous and outspoken in opposition to the term claiming that it is actually perpetuating statism by grafting the idea of civil society onto the global by way of an unhelpful domestic analogy. This paper examines the role the concept is playing in perpetuating/reconfiguring statism. First it summarizes current criticism by identifying three basic accusations: the ambiguity of the term, the “domestic fallacy,” and the undemocratic effects of using it. Second, these criticisms are considered in turn and it is concluded that all three points relate, ultimately, back to the failure of the critics themselves and some global civil society theorists to move beyond a state-centered framework of interpretation. In the final section it is shown how global civil society discourse is beginning to move not only the concept of “civil society” away from its state-centred historical meanings, but also how it is contributing to changing the content of the concept of “the global.”
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According to some, the third sector is unsuited to singular definitions because it is by its nature unruly. However, different definitions or theorizations can be identified. Ontologically oriented definitions of the third sector offer... more
According to some, the third sector is unsuited to singular definitions because it is by its nature unruly. However, different definitions or theorizations can be identified. Ontologically oriented definitions of the third sector offer differing views on what it is made up of and what is excluded. Thus, an “American” view defines it as a separate sector characterized by organized, private, nonprofit, and voluntary entities. A “European” definition sees it as a hybrid phenomenon combining and connecting other sectors such as state and market (this allows social enterprises and [welfare] state bodies in). In contrast, epistemologically oriented theorizations treat the third sector more as a process or form of practice: a particular type of communication (following systems theory), a form of ordering and governing of people (following discourse theory), or a form of struggle or dialogue between social forces (following critical theory).
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'In this highly innovative book, Olaf Corry provides a fresh take on the problem of world order. Venturing beyond statist and globalist accounts, Corry argues that the concept of polity will help us to make better sense of the structure... more
'In this highly innovative book, Olaf Corry provides a fresh take on the problem of world order. Venturing beyond statist and globalist accounts, Corry argues that the concept of polity will help us to make better sense of the structure of the global realm, as well as the constitution of governance objects within that realm. As such, this book represents a significant contribution to the study of order in world politics, and should be of interest to international relations theorists and sociologists alike.'
-Jens Bartelson, Lund University, Sweden
-Jens Bartelson, Lund University, Sweden
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This module textbook accompanies the new Open University level 3 undergraduate module DD313 and is of interest to anyone who wants to understand the key areas of change, major problems and approaches in international relations today. It... more
This module textbook accompanies the new Open University level 3 undergraduate module DD313 and is of interest to anyone who wants to understand the key areas of change, major problems and approaches in international relations today. It contains chapters by Alex Anievas, Duncan Bell, Simon Bromley, William Brown, Mette Eilstrup-Sangiovanni, Olaf Corry and Alan Shipman. The module is organised around a series of problem areas, or choices, facing the world today, including:
Will the rise of China lead to greater cooperation or conflict with the United States (US)?
Is political and economic change leading to a more uniform world or one split by inequalities and difference?
Can justice be pursued at the international level in the areas of humanitarian intervention and global inequality?
Can issue areas as diverse as economic relations between China and the US, nuclear proliferation and arms control be governed effectively at the international or global level?
How do states and other players pursue security in the international system?
Each of these forms the focus for the first five blocks of the module, which also introduce key theoretical approaches including realism, liberalism, Uneven and combined development, constructivism, feminism, network theory and governmentality.
Block 1 begins with China’s deepening interconnections with the US and analyses whether this key relationship will lead to greater cooperation or conflict. It also sets out the scope of international relations as a subject and introduces realist and liberal themes.
Block 2 tackles the rise of the modern system of nation states and asks: is the world getting ‘flatter’ or more uneven? That is, are the political systems and economies in the world becoming increasingly similar – liberal, democratic and rich – or is the world more diverse, unequal and divided than ever? Theories of uneven and combined development and network theories are introduced.
Block 3 asks whether justice can be achieved in the international system and whether ideas about universal rights can – or should – be applied across the world. Does the historical dominance of the west continue to create injustices in the world today? Theoretically, attention here turns to cosmopolitanism and postcolonial theories.
Block 4 looks at global governance and whether international cooperation is achieved from the top down, in relations between powerful states, or from the bottom up, through the actions of transnational networks of activists. Game theory, regime theory and governmentality give different theoretical accounts of governance beyond the state.
Block 5 assesses how states have traditionally pursued their own security through the balance of power and nuclear deterrence. It questions whose security is being safeguarded and draws on feminist analysis to look at the particular role of gender in war. And it asks how we change an issue dramatically when we say it is a matter of ‘security’. Neorealism, feminism, Critical Theory and securitization theory are also taught.
The final block looks back over the module in substantive and theoretical terms and prepares the ground for students' end-of-module project.
Will the rise of China lead to greater cooperation or conflict with the United States (US)?
Is political and economic change leading to a more uniform world or one split by inequalities and difference?
Can justice be pursued at the international level in the areas of humanitarian intervention and global inequality?
Can issue areas as diverse as economic relations between China and the US, nuclear proliferation and arms control be governed effectively at the international or global level?
How do states and other players pursue security in the international system?
Each of these forms the focus for the first five blocks of the module, which also introduce key theoretical approaches including realism, liberalism, Uneven and combined development, constructivism, feminism, network theory and governmentality.
Block 1 begins with China’s deepening interconnections with the US and analyses whether this key relationship will lead to greater cooperation or conflict. It also sets out the scope of international relations as a subject and introduces realist and liberal themes.
Block 2 tackles the rise of the modern system of nation states and asks: is the world getting ‘flatter’ or more uneven? That is, are the political systems and economies in the world becoming increasingly similar – liberal, democratic and rich – or is the world more diverse, unequal and divided than ever? Theories of uneven and combined development and network theories are introduced.
Block 3 asks whether justice can be achieved in the international system and whether ideas about universal rights can – or should – be applied across the world. Does the historical dominance of the west continue to create injustices in the world today? Theoretically, attention here turns to cosmopolitanism and postcolonial theories.
Block 4 looks at global governance and whether international cooperation is achieved from the top down, in relations between powerful states, or from the bottom up, through the actions of transnational networks of activists. Game theory, regime theory and governmentality give different theoretical accounts of governance beyond the state.
Block 5 assesses how states have traditionally pursued their own security through the balance of power and nuclear deterrence. It questions whose security is being safeguarded and draws on feminist analysis to look at the particular role of gender in war. And it asks how we change an issue dramatically when we say it is a matter of ‘security’. Neorealism, feminism, Critical Theory and securitization theory are also taught.
The final block looks back over the module in substantive and theoretical terms and prepares the ground for students' end-of-module project.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
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Delegates discussed a draft resolution regarding solar geoengineering and carbon dioxide removal (CDR) at the fourth session of the UN environment assembly (UNEA), which took place from the 11th to 15th of March in Nairobi. The Swiss... more
Delegates discussed a draft resolution regarding solar geoengineering and carbon dioxide removal (CDR) at the fourth session of the UN environment assembly (UNEA), which took place from the 11th to 15th of March in Nairobi. The Swiss government put forward the draft resolution with the support of a dozen other countries. The core action proposed by the draft resolution was to “prepare an assessment of the status of geoengineering technologies, in particular, carbon dioxide removal technologies and solar radiation management,” including both current scientific evidence as well as actual and potential governance tools for these techniques. The resolution went through several drafts but was ultimately withdrawn after the parties failed to reach an agreement on it.
Harvard Solar Geoengineering Program asked a set of experts on the governance of solar geoengineering and CDR, some of whom were present for these discussions, to give their take on these developments.
Olaf Corry: Did global governance of geoengineering just fall at the first hurdle?
Ina Möller: Accounting for Political Expectations and Diplomacy
Joshua Horton: Early Thoughts on "Geoengineering” at UNEA-4
Aarti Gupta: Failure of resolution attests to its merits
Matthias Honegger: A battle of paradigms
Jesse Reynolds: UN Environment Assembly geoengineering resolution warrants a closer look
Duncan McLaren: A double injustice?
Sikina Jinnah: The Swiss UNEA Geoengineering Proposal: What could they do differently next time?
Maria Ivanova: Political Lift and Scientific Footing: Engaging the UN Secretary-General and Reviving the UN Scientific Advisory Board
Harvard Solar Geoengineering Program asked a set of experts on the governance of solar geoengineering and CDR, some of whom were present for these discussions, to give their take on these developments.
Olaf Corry: Did global governance of geoengineering just fall at the first hurdle?
Ina Möller: Accounting for Political Expectations and Diplomacy
Joshua Horton: Early Thoughts on "Geoengineering” at UNEA-4
Aarti Gupta: Failure of resolution attests to its merits
Matthias Honegger: A battle of paradigms
Jesse Reynolds: UN Environment Assembly geoengineering resolution warrants a closer look
Duncan McLaren: A double injustice?
Sikina Jinnah: The Swiss UNEA Geoengineering Proposal: What could they do differently next time?
Maria Ivanova: Political Lift and Scientific Footing: Engaging the UN Secretary-General and Reviving the UN Scientific Advisory Board
Research Interests:
Olaf Corry argues that Eastern European revolutions of 1989 did not just mark the defeat of the socialist utopian ideal but also the rise of new political ideas associated with political ecology: the physical and human limits to the... more
Olaf Corry argues that Eastern European revolutions of 1989 did not just mark the defeat of the socialist utopian ideal but also the rise of new political ideas associated with political ecology: the physical and human limits to the modern expansionary project, people-powered politics and a growing global awareness. 1989 was a staging post in the relaunch of older concerns about resources and planetary limits, bringing a substantive critique of modernist ideas of untrammelled material expansion and state power into the history of European revolutions.
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The innovative contribution of the Open University module, International Relations: continuity and change in global politics (module code DD313 ) has been recognised with the 2016 BISA Teaching Excellence Prize. The core of the case for... more
The innovative contribution of the Open University module, International Relations: continuity and change in global politics (module code DD313 ) has been recognised with the 2016 BISA Teaching Excellence Prize. The core of the case for the module to be awarded the BISA teaching prize rested on its innovation in teaching with regard to: a ‘dilemma-led’ strategy for teaching issues and theory in International Relations (IR); the use of multi-media to support IR theory teaching; and development of student skills such as peer-to-peer work in a distance learning environment. In this paper we will concentrate on the first two of these areas which both aim to tackle the question of how to teach IR theory in an accessible and meaningful way that also avoids some of the pitfalls of traditional perspectives-led or theory-led teaching in IR.
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The National Academic of Sciences has recommended a US research program into solar geoengineering and called on countries undertaking solar geoengineering research to create institutions and mechanisms to govern it and to contribute to... more
The National Academic of Sciences has recommended a US research program into solar geoengineering and called on countries undertaking solar geoengineering research to create institutions and mechanisms to govern it and to contribute to developing a future international framework of governance. Given events in Nairobi in 2019 where the US led efforts to stop a study of geoengineering this might seem an important step forward. But are the NAS proposals fit for purpose? How can solar geoengineering research be a responsible part of climate leadership?