Can trust – a core element of diplomacy – be taken online and if so, how? This article starts form the concern that trust is tied to face-to-face diplomacy, which is challenged in digitalising settings. We adopt a practice theoretical lens and study diplomatic information sharing in the Council of the European Union. Drawing on fieldwork from 2018–2021, we find that digital tools are indispensable for trust's enactment and, contrary to commonly held assumptions, do not negatively impede diplomatic trust, per se. Theorising from how diplomats handle digital tools, we find that this leads to a renegotiation of the place and boundaries of trust in diplomatic work. First, we show how digital tools create both new opportunities for and challenges to diplomatic trust, though these opportunities are more accessible to some than others. Second, whereas trust is taken online, it is not easily built digitally. Third, digital tools lead to a rearticulation of the place of transparency and confidentiality in diplomatic negotiations. It pushes diplomats to reconsider what it means to share information in an (un)trustworthy manner. Altogether, these findings further our understanding of contemporary diplomatic practice and offer a refined conception of diplomatic trust.

Based upon the current debate on international practices with its focus on taken-for-granted everyday practices, we examine how Security Council practices may affect member state action and collective decisions on intrastate conflicts. We outline a concept that integrates the structuring effect of practices and their emergence from interaction among reflective actors. It promises to overcome the unresolved tension between understanding practices as a social regularity and as a fluid entity. We analyse the constitutive mechanisms of two Council practices that affect collective decisions on intrastate conflicts and elucidate how even reflective Council members become enmeshed with the constraining implications of evolving practices and their normative implications. (1) Previous Council decisions create precedent pressure and give rise to a virtually uncontested permissive Council practice that defines the purview for intervention into such conflicts. (2) A ratcheting practice forces opponents to choose between accepting steadily reinforced Council action, as occurred regarding Sudan/Darfur, and outright blockade, as in the case of Syria. We conclude that practices constitute a source of influence that is not captured by the traditional perspectives on Council activities as the consequence of geopolitical interests or of externally evolving international norms like the ‘responsibility to protect’ (R2P).

The aim of this short paper is to explore the concept of ‘general’ rules of customary international law (i.e., rules in principle binding upon all states, as contrasted with ‘special’ rules binding only on a few states, usually on a regional or local basis), and-the tension which exists between that concept and the consensual basis of customary international law. It will be suggested that it is possible to hold a view of international law which denies the general applicability of most rules of customary law and preserves its consensual character, while admitting that a few rales of truly general application do exist which, however, must derive their binding force from outside the framework of consensual law creation.

Since antiquity justice has been thought of as a political or civic virtue, more recently as belonging in a ‘bounded society’,John Rawls relies on the idea of a bounded society throughout his work. References to Rawls's writings cited here may be abbreviated in subsequent footnotes: A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971); ‘Themes in Kant's Moral Philosophy’ (1989), in Collected Papers, Samuel Freeman (ed.), (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), pp. 497–528; Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993); The Law of Peoples (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999). or as a primary task of states.This view evidently underlies the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948; the text uses a varied range of seemingly nonequivalent terms, including member states, peoples, nations and countries; a coherent reading of the document requires us to take all of these as referring to states. All such views assume that the context of justice has boundaries, which demarcate those who are to render and to receive justice from one another from others who are to be excluded. Yet the view that justice is intrinsically bounded sits ill with the many claims that it is cosmopolitan, owed to all regardless of location or origin, race or gender, class or citizenship. The tension between moral cosmopolitanism and institutional anti-cosmospolitanism has been widely discussed over the last twenty years, but there is still a lot of disagreement about its prpoer resolution.A selection from this literature might begin by noting Charles Beitz, Political Theory and International Relations (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979), ‘Cosmopolitan Ideals and National Sentiment’,Journal of Philosophy, 80 (1983), pp. 591–600 and ‘Cosmopolitan Liberalism and the State System’, in Chris Brown (ed.) Political Restructuring in Europe: Ethical Perspectives, (London: Routledge, 1994); Simon Caney, ‘Global Equality of Opportunity and the Sovereignty of States’, in International Justice, ed. Anthony Coates (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), and ‘Cosmopolitan Justice and Equalizing Opportunities’, forthcoming in Metaphilosophy; Joseph Carens, ‘Aliens and Citizens: The Case for Open Borders’, Review of Politics , 49 (1987), pp. 251–73; Charles Jones, Global Justice: Defending Cosmopolitanism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999); David Miller, ‘The Nation State: A Modest Defence’, in Political Restructuring in Europe, Chris Brown (ed.), pp. 137–62 and ‘The Limits of Cosmopolitan Justice’ in International Society: Diverse Ethical Perspectives, David R. Mapel and Terry Nardin (eds.) (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press), Thomas Pogge, ‘Cosmopolitanism and Sovereignty’ in Political Restructuring in Europe, Chris Brown (ed.), pp. 89–122 and ‘An Egalitarian Law of Peoples’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 23 (1994), pp. 195–224; Onora O'Neill, ‘Justice and Boundaries, in Political Restructuring in Europe, Chris Brown (ed.), pp. 69–88 and Bounds of Justice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), Henry Shue Basic Rights: Subsistence, Affluence and US Foreign Policy, 2nd edn. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996).

This article traces the evolution of the political meaning of secession from an action taken by a state within a compact or union, to an action available to a nation within a state. It is argued that this evolution, often forgotten in the customary attention given to national self-determination in international law and international relations theory, is associated not only with the modern emergence of nations and of states, but also with the emerging importance of the United States in international affairs at the turn of the twentieth century. The article puts the phenomenon of secession, currently dominated by attention to the Balkans, in a broader context by examining features of four cases: the American South, the Irish Free State, Bangladesh and Quebec.

This article explores the ambivalent if not hostile responses of mainstream international historians to what is generally characterized as ‘postmodernism’. It attempts to trace the roots of this antagonism in the sub-discipline's culture and historical evolution as a distinctive mode of knowledge creation with very particular links to the real worlds of politics and international relations. It then suggests that maintaining this sceptical attitude towards ‘theory’ incurs costs for international history that are too seldom recognized, and explores the potential of post-structuralist-inspired critical historiography and discourse analysis approaches to reinvigorate practice.

For Carr, the contrast between utopians and realists was between ‘those who regard politics as a function of ethics and those who regard ethics as a function of politics’. In other words, can we direct society in benevolent directions, perhaps to a utopia, or do we take what we are given and try to rationalize this into some form of moral acceptability? In the context of International Relations, the utopian aspires to a world without war and where power is not the primary determinant of relationships. The realist is more sceptical. Broadly, the realist stresses the constraints in life; the utopian stresses the opportunities. At this level, they are not social theories but temperamental attitudes.

There can be little doubt that the conflict between the UN-authorized and US-led Multinational Coalition and Iraq at the start of 1991, as a result of the Iraqi Ba'athist regime's decision in August 1990 to invade and annex Kuwait, has produced profound changes in the political and diplomatic environment of the Middle East and North Africa, as well as in Mashriqi and Maghribi political attitudes. The new atmosphere of confidence amongst the governments and peoples of the Arab states of the Gulf is clear evidence of these changes, as is the dejection felt in capitals such as Amman, Sanaa and Tunis where government support for the Coalition was less than wholehearted.

RANDAmerica's Role in Nation-Building: from Germany to Iraq (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2003)

Imaging Iraq

On the back cover of this book there is a warm endorsement of its contents by none other than Paul Bremer, effectively the US Governor General of Iraq from May 2003 until June 2004. He claims to regard the book as ‘a marvellous “how to” manual for post conflict stabilization and reconstruction. I have kept a copy handy for ready consultation since my arrival in Baghdad.’ Events in Iraq during the past year would suggest either that he misplaced his copy of the book early in the occupation – or simply chucked it behind a sofa when he realised that it no longer told him what he wanted to know.

Jürgen Habermas's post-secular account is rapidly attracting attention in many fields as a theoretical framework through which to reconsider the role of religion in contemporary societies. This work seeks to go beyond Habermas's conceptualisation by placing the post-secular discourse within a broader genealogy of the relationships between space, religion, and politics. Drawing on the work of Carl Schmitt, the aim of this article is to contrast the artificial separation between private and public, religious and secular, state and church, and the logic of inclusion/exclusion on which modernity was established. Revisiting this genealogy is also crucial to illustrating, in light of Schmitt's political theory, the problems underlying Habermas's proposal, emphasising its hidden homogenising and universalist logic in an attempt to offer an alternative reflection on the contribution of religious and cultural pluralism within Western democracies.

This article examines Soviet foreign policy during the Second World War in the light of new evidence from the Russian archives. It highlights the theme of spheres of influence and the relationship between the pursuit of this goal by the USSR and the outbreak of the Cold War. It argues that the Cold War was the result of an attempt by Moscow to harmonise spheres of influence and postwar cooperation with Britain and the United States with the ideological project of a people’s democratic Europe.

One way to describe the role of the social sciences (international relations included) is by relating to its function of rendering the social world transparent. This is a major conception of moral significance. The social world is a world of moral subjects. To render this world of moral subjects transparent involves exposing the inner states of the human mind. Moreover, according to the moral principle of reciprocity, those who make others transparent should be also transparent themselves. Furthermore, as facts do not order themselves objectively into parsimonious theory, the social scientist requires an extra-theoretical mechanism to classify and filter out data on the way to constructing theory. This extra-mechanism comprises the scientist's a priori assumptions of normative, ontological, and epistemological types: a priori assumptions that constitute the inner states of the theoretician's mind and necessarily precede theory. It is argued here that according to the moral and social principle of reciprocity, theoreticians have an individual and communal moral obligation to ensure that theory and theorising are transparent; an obligation attainable and preceded by strong individual and communal reflexivity. The extra-theoretical mechanism, and especially the ideological inclinations and normative convictions of theoreticians that allows parsimonious theory to be constructed from unbounded social complexity, should be made visible to the public.

Kalevi J. Holsti retired from his position as Killam Professor Emeritus in the Political Science Department of the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, in June 1999. Prof. Holsti's long and wide-ranging career has produced a number of classic works in the IR field, among them The Dividing Discipline (1985), International Politics: A Framework for Analysis (7th edn., 1994), Peace and War: Armed Conflicts and International Order, 1648–1989 (1991), and The State, War, and the State of War (1996). The following interview was conducted in January 2001 in Vancouver. A number of alterations were subsequently made to the raw transcript in consultation with Prof. Holsti.

Our social circumstance is fundamentally changing, so we are told on this historical morning after the Cold War. What was formerly called the ‘Second World' has suddenly disappeared; apartheid appears to be in final retreat; class structures and gender relations are said to be undergoing substantial shifts; there are increased hopes for disarmament and a wider demilitarization of international life; existing state boundaries and to some extent also the nature of the state itself are deeply in question. At the same time, we of the late twentieth century are allegedly experiencing a world-wide upsurge in religious revivalism, an unprecedented global ecological awareness, a shift from states to markets and from globalism towards regionalism in the organization of the world economy, cascading democratization across the continents and so on. There is widespread talk of ‘a new world order’, of the emergence of what is variously called ‘post-industrial’, ‘post-capitalist’ or ‘post-modern’ society, and of ‘the end of history’. Symptomatic, too, of the pervasively felt sense of transition are insistent calls for new theories, new language, new politics, new institutions and new norms that will be equal to the challenges posed by this purportedly revolutionary world situation. True, sceptics might well argue that dynamism and upheaval of the kind that we are witnessing today constitute defining features of modern social life, and that our generation is but the latest in a long string t o succumb to a secular millenarian delusion that it has been granted the historical privilege of living through the dawn of a new epoch. However, whether they adopt a prophetic or an agnostic stance on the matter, most commentators would agree that the question of social change sits high on the agenda of current world affairs.

Over the last few years the term common security has come into widespread use in debates about military policy. To date, however, this potentially important concept has not acquired any clear or generally accepted meaning. It is used by a variety of writers with quite different purposes in mind, and is therefore in danger of degenerating into an empty phrase. This article tries to bring common security into sharper focus. It starts by examining the general meaning of common security in terms of its core insight that the security of states in the contemporary international system is fundamentally interdependent. It goes on to test this meaning against the contents of four recent books all of which specifically address the idea. The discussion centres on the possible linkages between common security as an overall policy objective on the one hand, and a variety of specific policies for implementing it—including disarmament, arms control, minimum deterrence, and non-provocative defence–on the other. The next section makes the argument that a combination of minimum deterrence and non-provocative defence provides the most logically convincing implementation strategy for common security.

Extant studies suggest that criticism of state practices may create ontological crises in states, thus prompting emotional responses. This article examines what happens when target states reject external criticism, and the failure of outside attempts to shame and criticise. We show that recipients can view international criticism as opportunities to consolidate state identity rather than ontological crises. Using Turkey’s foreign policy towards Israel, we focus on the agency of weak states by expanding the range of emotions stemming from non-acceptance of criticism and by emphasising the role of leaders when crafting emotional responses to negative representations.

The last ‘great debate’ in international relations theory occurred in the 1960s, was concerned primarily with matters of method rather than substance, and eventually was called off due to lack of interest. The battle between ‘traditionalists’ and ‘scientists’ was short-lived. The so-called ‘post-behavioural’ revolution in political science conceded some part of the traditionalist case, but the more significant factor in the conclusion of the debate was the prevalence of an attitude of live and let live. Tolerance over method is a virtue in a relatively underdeveloped discipline, for who can predict the shape of future knowledge or the potential sources of insight? Unfortunately, a by-product of tolerance over methodological issues has been the development of such differences over matters of substance that the existence of a coherent discipline is called into question. Perhaps a new ‘great debate’ is called for, this time on matters of substance.

Scholars from various subfields have recognised a dangerous novelty for ethical thought on war in the combination of a detached, or virtual, technical ability to wage war and the ethical imperatives of human rights norms – deemed ‘virtuous war’. This article begins by discussing the contention that the just war tradition acts as the enabling discourse for virtuous war, and the further contention that the wars being enabled are paradoxically unjust. After assessing the validity of the virtuous war claim it is argued that the just war tradition's core ethical commitment not only remains the most sound starting point for thinking about the morality of war, but is a commitment that those in the virtuous war literature suggesting alternate ethical doctrines on war implicitly reject. It is contended, though, that the addition of a third pillar to the just war structure of cause and means criteria – a justice after war or jus post bellum – has arisen due to the virtuous war reality, and is necessary in order for the just war tradition to remain committed to its core ethical principle in a 21st century marked by virtuous war. Lastly, I present a brief sketch of jus post bellum informed by the article's key claims.

In this article I intend to give more attention to Pufendorf's ideas than has been the custom among international relations theorists. The main focus will be upon Pufendorf's distillation and conceptualization of the implications of Westphalia in terms of sovereignty and the integrity of states. Furthermore, his extension of the Aristotelian classification of types of state, and his attempts to go beyond Bodin's and Hobbes's theories of sovereignty, provide the vocabulary and concepts in terms of which the different international actors of the late seventeenth century could be understood. In this respect the focus is altogether different from Linklater. My emphasis upon the historical and emblematic character of the Peace of Westphalia, the personification of the state and its animation by sovereignty, which serves to facilitate Pufendorf's exploration of the idea of a system of states, and my suggestion that his ideas are not wholly redundant and may be used to explore some facets of a modern states system, serve considerably to extend Forsyth's brief analysis.