Bridges: Conversations in Global Politics

Bridging and Conversation in International Relations

Mark Busser et al. — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 10:57:05 PDT

The community of scholars working in or around the field of international relations is increasingly splintered across multiple empirical, methodological and theoretical divides. Faced with increasing fracturing pressures, what steps can be taken to ensure that a genuine spirit of engagement is maintained? This paper explores the challenges of scholarly conversation in an increasingly complex academic environment in order to develop some strategies and techniques aimed at helping students and young scholars to engage productively with the multiple contestations which continue to shape the field. By encouraging the practice of working to build “bridging resources”, a diverse community of scholars can find ways to demystify terminological and conceptual barriers. Furthermore, a commitment to engaged forms of scholarly conversation can help to distil and re-articulate even the most ambiguous perpectival distinctions and points of contention in such a way that disagreements within the field can be more accurately understood and navigated, even if not overcome.

Conversations on the Regime and the Institution: The Copenhagen Accord and Global Environmental Governance

Mark S. Williams et al. — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 10:57:02 PDT

This paper presents an inquiry into the state of conversations in international politics on the prospects for the global environmental governance of climate change. The essay reviews the literature on regime theory and its discontents to provide a working understanding of the authors’ conception of global environmental governance for climate change as a regime. The most recent cases of global environmental governance on climate change are discussed, focusing on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change as the primary arena for governance-building discussions, leading up to the 2009 Copenhagen Summit. The paper then considers the conversations that posit the failures of Copenhagen and question a current existential crisis facing global environmental governance on climate change. Finally, it is suggested that these failures of the Copenhagen round can be understood within the context of regime theory and its limitations in International Relations. The experience of Copenhagen is representative of continuity with both regime theory and the recent history of global environmental governance on climate change. While the Copenhagen Accord may represent a failure as an international institution on climate change it is perhaps not a failure if interpreted more broadly as part of a governing global climate change regime.

Michel Foucault's Considerable Sway on International Relations Theory

Philippe Fournier — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 10:57:00 PDT

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the considerable influence that Michel Foucault has had on International Relations theory. To do this, I will present a selection of important contributions to the discipline that have been inspired by his work. Firstly, I will show that the critique of rationalist and scientific paradigms in International Relations was in great part led by commentators who displayed strong foucaultian inspirations. Second, I will introduce a series of scholars who have made cogent uses of discourse analysis, which Foucault developed in philosophical and genealogical works. Lastly, I discuss the uses and interpretations of governmentality, biopolitics and sovereign power in the analysis of emerging networks of power at the international level. In this article, my central argument is that the application of Foucault’s thought to International Relations has given way to a rich and ever-evolving research program and has had considerable impact on the opening and redefinition of the discipline.

Conversations in and on IR: Labeling, Framing and Delimiting IR Discipline

Felix Grenier — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 10:56:57 PDT

Calling for genuine and open dialogues between research agendas and theoretical orientations, this article seeks to put “conversations” at the center of the process of discipline-building. Just as Steve Smith declared: “We construct, and reconstruct, our disciplines just as much as we construct, and reconstruct, our world” (2004: 510), we intend to convene researchers in IR to reflect on the way we build and represent our discipline, our object of study and our community’s purposes. Applying discursive analysis and Emanuel Alder’s communitarian constructivist approach to the discipline of IR, this article will particularly discuss the use of mechanisms of labeling, cognitive structuring, and disciplinary debates to the framing of IR itself. It will propose some answers to questions such as: “What is the content and appropriate label of the discipline?”, “Who constitutes the disciplinary community?”, and “What is the legitimate purpose of the discipline?” and finally underlie some questions and contradictions in the way we understand such issues.

Bridges: Conversations in Global Politics - Aims and Scope

Bridges Editors — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 10:56:53 PDT

The Editors of Bridges: Conversations in Global Politics are pleased to introduce the first issue of the journal, which aims to engage a diverse audience by blending the strengths of peer-reviewed academic journals with the advantages of twenty-first century multimedia technology. This short introductory piece sets out the aims and scope of the journal, and suggests some of the elements that will constitute its unique approach to academic engagement.