International organisations (IOs) hold important governance functions and power. Yet, they are several steps detached from the constituencies that have entrusted them with functions and resources to carry them out, even as accountability expectations remain significant for their legitimacy. This article presents a broadly generalisable theoretical framework for understanding the variable accountability of IOs, seeking to advance the understanding of international accountability in three new ways. First, it elaborates on the concept of the scope of IO accountability, which can vary across organisations, over time, and across contexts. The idea of a scope of accountability moves beyond the dichotomy of accountable versus non-accountable power holders and advances an understanding of accountability as a multi-layered phenomenon, whereby both the expectations and practices of accountability can evolve over time and with respect to different audiences. Second, the article identifies three political factors – namely the formal and informal excercise of power, institutional structure, and public salience – that can shape, in important ways, the variable scope of IO accountability. Finally, it critically explores the tensions and contradictions between these political dynamics, and the implications for access to and the efficacy of accountability systems.

Recent crises have cast doubt on the legitimacy of technocratic power, yet its role in global economic governance remains poorly understood. Revisiting the collapse of Bretton Woods, we propose a dynamic theory of global monetary governance to explain how expanding central bank discretion can destabilise systems. While most studies attribute the postwar system’s failure to power-political struggles, institutional weaknesses, or shifting economic ideas, they overlook the policies designed to manage and stabilise it. Drawing on historical institutionalism, we show how coordination tensions between rule-bound and discretionary policymakers – and the mutually reinforcing adaptation risks they faced – produced responses that appeared stabilising in the short term but ultimately eroded long-run stability. New archival evidence from the International Monetary Fund, Bank for International Settlements, and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development reveals how tools like the London Gold Pool and currency swap lines extended central bank power, concealed macroeconomic imbalances, and crowded out political momentum for structural reform. As technocratic authority grew misaligned with political support and functional economic adjustment, it became a liability. In building this theory, we highlight the sociological, agent-level sources of instability rooted in technocratic policy discretion and interpersonal ties among central bankers – challenging the dominant view that technocratic actors are inherently superior in managing global economic policy.

The breakdown of liberal hegemony, the rise of the New Right, and the violent realignment of world order have been accompanied by a retreat from traditional humanist concerns in critical international theory, including emancipation, political subjectivity, social totality, universal history, and the anticipatory-utopian dimension of critique. Scholars have identified numerous shortcomings in first-generation and contemporary critical International Relations (IR), and our discipline still questions its purpose and object of study. This article proposes a more radical and realistic approach to critical international theory based on a reappraisal of Andrew Linklater’s oeuvre. It frames the critical project in IR as a Lakatosian research programme and calls for a progressive problem shift that foregrounds what Linklater, drawing from Kant and Marx, calls the necessarily tripartite structure of critical theory. I argue that by tracing an alternative path through classical sources of the tradition, pivoting from Hegel and the deep social relationalism that follows, while integrating a tripartite commitment with a more rigorous reflexive methodology, we can revitalise the emancipatory approach to IR and provide renewed purpose and direction to the discipline. Grounded in a left-Hegelian tradition of thought, the argument aspires to resonate with other critical theoretical traditions both within and beyond IR.

Two states can have several bilateral agreements between them, some of which are legally binding and others are not. Is there a discernible pattern to how states structure the chronological sequence of binding and non-binding agreements governing a specific issue area? For example, do states prioritise a framework treaty to establish the foundation of their cooperation and let bureaucrats iron out details in non-binding instruments? Or do they first experiment with low-commitment agreements before eventually settling on a more permanent treaty? This paper explores these questions using the example of space governance, which is characterised by a high number of bilateral agreements. Examining space agreements between 287 state dyads, it argues that a combination of power asymmetry and trust levels influences the likelihood of certain types of sequences of binding and non-binding agreements. These findings are particularly relevant to the literature on informal governance, regime complexes, and space politics.

This article explores surrealism as an overlooked critical resource for International Relations theory (IR) and argues that surrealism’s legacy for international theorizing lies in its capacity to provoke radical reimaginings of the political status quo and to offer engagements with catastrophes that are not grounded in end time. Tracing the movement’s intellectual genealogy beyond its artistic origins, this article draws on key surrealist texts, particularly those of its founder, André Breton (1896–1966), to emphasise surrealism’s value as a sophisticated intellectual response to the horrors of the early and mid-twentieth century: nationalism, industrial warfare, rationalism, imperialism, and totalitarianism. The article offers two main contributions. First, its historico-political reading of surrealism enables a reinterpretation of the long-standing debate between realism and utopianism in IR. Highlighting important intersections between surrealism and international theory – most notably classical realism – it shows that the surrealist stress on the imagination as a radical, transformative force offers a stark reminder to contemporary IR theory of the necessity of utopian thinking. Second, the article claims that the surrealist foregrounding of myths opens imaginative pathways for confronting the Anthropocene, providing a crucial counterpoint to contemporary IR scholarship that predominantly frames planetary challenges through narratives of imminent collapse.

This article examines the democratic potential of global network governance. It critiques conventional legitimacy frameworks that focus on the institutional qualities of governance networks for evading deeper ethical questions about how to deal with diversity as a fundamental condition of global life. Drawing on contestation theory, English School pluralism, and radical democratic theory, I argue that democratic network governance thrives by embracing diverse norm interpretations and fostering agonistic engagement among its members. I illustrate how this idea can guide a critical analysis of global governance networks through a case study of humanitarian governance in Southeast Asia. I assess to what extent diverse humanitarian actors have been able to assert and practise their own interpretations of humanitarian norms, how they relate to the fact that others advance competing understandings, and whether the boundaries for legitimate norm enactments are drawn on legitimate grounds. By highlighting the ethical significance of these dynamics from a pluralist standpoint, the study offers a novel way of thinking about democracy in a world that is characterised by complex policy problems, diffuse authority, and vocal demands for recognition by an increasingly diverse array of actors.

The existing literature offers contrasting views on the causes and effects of non-aggression pacts. Some scholars contend that these agreements impose audience costs that prevent an ongoing rivalry from escalating to war. Others claim that states use non-aggression pacts to signal to others that their rivalry is over and that their future relations will be peaceful. Scholars disagree as to the impact non-aggression pacts have on violent conflict. I demonstrate that various definitional and coding issues beset the literature, resulting in the incorporation of many agreements that should not be considered as non-aggression pacts. I then make a threefold argument about non-aggression pacts. First, non-aggression pacts came into being in the 1920s amid emerging norms proscribing interstate warfare. Second, they saw frequent use in interstate Europe. Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union used them to manipulate those norms so as to make themselves appear more acceptable despite their revisionism. Finally, many friendship treaties, which have been miscast as non-aggression pacts, are a separate type of agreement that became common among those post-colonial states that acquired independence during and immediately after the Cold War. Timeless arguments regarding non-aggression pacts thus reify these agreements and overlook key motives behind their use.