International Relations and Politics

The rise of China presents a long‐term challenge to the world not only economically, but also politically and culturally. Callahan meets this challenge in China: The Pessoptimist Nation by using new Chinese sources and innovative analysis to see how Chinese people understand their new place in the world. The heart of Chinese foreign policy is not a security dilemma, but an identity dilemma. Chinese identity emerges through the interplay of positive and negative feelings: China thus is the pessoptimist nation. This positive–negative dynamic intertwines China's domestic and international politics as national security is closely linked to nationalist insecurities. To chart the trajectory of its rise, the book shifts from examining China's national interests to exploring its national aesthetic. Rather than answering the standard social science question “What is China?” with statistics of economic and military power, this book asks “When, Where, and Who is China?” to explore the soft power dynamics of China's identity politics. China: The Pessoptimist Nation examines Beijing's propaganda system and its patriotic education policy to see how Chinese identity is formed through a celebration of ancient civilization and a commemoration of humiliation suffered in modern history. It shows how China's relationship with itself and the world takes shape in the pessoptimist dynamics of patriotic education policy and the national humiliation curriculum, national days and national humiliation days, national maps and national humiliation maps, foreign brothers and domestic strangers, and Chinese patriots and foreign devils. Together the chapters demonstrate how the identity politics of Chinese nationalism produce the security politics of Chinese foreign policy. They show how the pessoptimist link between China's dream of civilization and its nightmare of humiliation is not fading away. It provides the template of China's foreign relations that inflames popular feelings for future demonstrations, and primes the indignant youth for explosive protests. Callahan concludes that Chinese identity grows out of a dynamic of reciprocal influence that integrates official policy and popular culture. This interactive view of China's pessoptimist identity means that we need to rethink the role of the state and public opinion in Beijing's foreign policy‐making.

This book considers who should undertake humanitarian intervention in response to an ongoing or impending humanitarian crisis, such as found in Rwanda in early 1994, Kosovo in 1999, and Darfur more recently. The doctrine of the responsibility to protect asserts that when a state is failing to uphold its citizens' human rights, the international community has a responsibility to protect these citizens, including by undertaking humanitarian intervention. It is unclear, however, which particular agent should be tasked with this responsibility. Should we prefer intervention by the UN, NATO, a regional or subregional organization (such as the African Union), a state, a group of states, or someone else? This book answers this question by, first, determining which qualities of interveners are morally significant and, second, assessing the relative importance of these qualities. For instance, is it important that an intervener have a humanitarian motive? Should an intervener be welcomed by those it is trying to save? How important is it that an intervener will be effective and what does this mean in practice? The book then considers the more empirical question of whether (and to what extent) the current interveners actually possess these qualities, and therefore should intervene. For instance, how effective can we expect UN action to be in the future? Is NATO likely to use humanitarian means? Overall, it develops a particular normative conception of legitimacy for humanitarian intervention. It uses this conception of legitimacy to assess not only current interveners, but also the desirability of potential reforms to the mechanisms and agents of humanitarian intervention.

The book presents an analysis of the justice of Zionism. After a short historical introduction, the first two chapters discuss the justifiability of Zionism's defining principles: its ethnocultural nature and the principle calling for the Jewish return to the Land of Israel, which is mainly based on the historical rights argument and the defense of necessity. It is argued that if these principles are properly interpreted, they are compatible with liberal justice. Chapter 3 argues that the hegemonic interpretation of Jewish self-determination common in Israel is justified only circumstantially and is applicable only to the domains of demography and security. Chapter 4 discusses the implications of this limited hegemony for the arrangements between Israel and the Palestinian people outside Israel. Specifically, it addresses the implications of the justice of Zionism with regard to the Palestinian demand for the return of Palestinian refugees to Israel, and some arguments concerning the just borders between Israel and a future Palestinian state. Chapter 5 spells out the implications of the limited hegemony conception of Jewish self-determination for internal Israeli policies. It deals with issues related to the inequality between Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel. The concluding chapter sums up the main points of the book and explains how Israel's implementation of a just version of Zionist ideology today would affect not only Zionism's moral standing in the present and in the future but also the legitimacy of Israel's reliance on the justice of the Zionist past.

This book studies international treaty ratification processes in multiple issue areas. This study sets out to fill a gap in political science scholarship by investigating the role that international and domestic political actors and conditions play in the critical, post-commitment phase of cooperation. The book employs the comparative case study method, drawing on original research, elite interviews, and discursive analyses of government documents in Europe, Australia, and North America. Cases examine a select number of treaties on trade cooperation, the environment, European integration, and the nuclear nonproliferation regime. It concludes that the role of norms and executive strategies play an especially significant role in shaping ratification outcomes. It is argued that the book will appeal to a broad audience interested in the question of whether international treaties remain powerful instruments for cooperation in the twenty-first century.

Why does political decentralization reduce intrastate conflict more in some countries than in others? Can political institutions be designed to engender peace? If so, how? Addressing these questions, this book advances the current debate on decentralization beyond a discussion of whether or not decentralization is effective in reducing conflict, to when and under what conditions it is successful. The book bridges opposing views while offering an original one, arguing that decentralization's ability to reduce conflict hinges on the electoral strength of regional parties, which, in turn, varies according to different institutional features of decentralization. Various aspects of political systems likewise affect the extent to which regional parties stimulate conflict and conversely, the degree to which statewide parties mitigate it. This book illuminates the exigent issue of how to design political institutions in order to promote peace.

This book examines recognition of new states, the practice historically employed to regulate membership in international society. The last twenty years have witnessed new or lingering demands for statehood in different areas of the world. The claims of some, like those of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Eritrea, Croatia, Georgia, and East Timor, have achieved general recognition; those of others, like Kosovo, Tamil Eelam, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and Somaliland, have not. However, even as most of these claims gave rise to major conflicts and international controversies, the criteria for acknowledgment of new states have elicited little systematic scholarship. Drawing upon writings of English School theorists, this study charts the practice from the late eighteenth century until the present. Its central argument is that for the past 200 years state recognition has been tied to the idea of self-determination of peoples. Two versions of the idea have underpinned the practice throughout most of this period – self-determination as a negative and a positive right. The negative idea, dominant from 1815 to 1950, took state recognition to be acknowledgment of an achievement of de facto statehood by a people desiring independence. Self-determination was expressed through, and externally gauged by, self-attainment. The positive idea, prevalent since the 1950s, took state recognition to be acknowledgment of an entitlement to independence in international law. The development of self-determination as a positive international right, however, has not led to a disappearance of claims of statehood that stand outside of its confines. Groups that are deeply dissatisfied with the countries in which they presently find themselves continue to make demands for independence even though they may have no positive entitlement to it. The book concludes by expressing doubt that contemporary international society can find a sustainable basis for recognizing new states other than the original standard of de facto statehood.

Two decades ago, the idea that a “radical right” could capture and drive Israeli politics seemed highly improbable. While it was a boisterous faction and received heavy media coverage, it constituted a fringe element. Yet by 2009, Israel’s radical right had not only entrenched itself in mainstream Israeli politics, it was dictating policy in a wide range of areas. The government has essentially caved to the settlers on the West Bank, and restrictions on non-Jews in Israel have increased in the past few years. Members of the radical right have assumed prominent positions in Israel’s elite security forces. The possibility of a two state solution seems more remote than ever, and the emergence of ethnonationalist politician Avigdor Lieberman suggests that its power is increasing. Quite simply, if we want to understand the seemingly intractable situation in Israel today, we need a comprehensive account of the radical right. This book provides an analysis of its ascendance to the heights of Israeli politics. After analyzing what, exactly, they believe in, the book explains how mainstream Israeli policies like “the right of return” have served as unexpected foundations for their nativism and authoritarian tendencies. It then traces the right’s steady rise, from the first intifada to the “Greater Israel” movement that is so prominent today. Throughout, the book focuses on the radical right’s institutional networks and how the movement has been able to expand its constituency. The closing chapter is grim yet realistic: the book contends that a two state solution is no longer viable and that the vision of the radical rabbi Meir Kahane, who was a fringe figure while alive, has triumphed.