2020

Resilience in EU and International Institutions

This book is published by Routledge and co-edited by Trine Flockhart and Elena Korosteleva. Within a volatile, uncertain and complex world hit by crises, pandemic, and diminishing control, the book explores the concept and practice of resilience. It proposes a new understanding of resilience, both as a quality and a way of thinking that can lead to a more sustainable way to govern the world today.

New publication on the figure of the deserter in American film and culture

CWS’ associate professor Thomas Ærvold Bjerre has just published the article “Military Masculinity and the Deserting Soldier in Stop-Loss,” examining the figure of the deserter in American culture, with a focus on the 2008 Iraq War film Stop-Loss.

How to challenge an international order: Russian diplomatic practices in multilateral security organisations

In this article Olivier Schmitt contributes to this debate through a theoretical contribution to practice-based approaches to International Relations. Using De Certeau’s understanding of practices, it analyses Russian diplomatic practices in multilateral security organisations and illustrates how this helps infer foreign policy motives, contrary to the field-specific relationalism of Bourdieu-inspired practice approaches. The article was published on the European Journal of International Relations.

Wartime Paradigms and the Future of Western Military Power

In this article Olivier Schmitt introduces the concept of ‘wartime paradigm’ as a heuristic device to understand the relationship between the perception of time and the conduct of warfare, and argues that after the Cold War, a specific ‘wartime paradigm’ combining an optimization for speed and an understanding of war as risk management has guided western warfare, from force structure to the conduct of actual operations.

Fluctuating Regional (Dis-)Order in the Middle East

Martin Beck (SDU) and Thomas Richter (GIGA) argue that a new regional order has emerged that can be characterized as a highly contested multipolar system in flux. Papers come from the two guest editors, and May Darwich, Raymond Hinnebusch, and Sean Yom. They cover the American retreat from the Middle East, the aggravated struggle for regional power between Saudi Arabia and Israel versus Iran, Saudi Arabia’s new petro-aggression, escalation in failed Saudi and Emirati military interventions, and the battle over the reconstruction of Syria.

Is this the end? Resilience, ontological security, and the crisis of the liberal international order

Trine Flockhart analyzes the current crisis of the liberal international order and the need for urgent attention. In her article in Contemporary Security Policy, Trine seeks to understand why agents often fail to take decisive adaptive action, even when such action is desparately needed. (Picture: cropped from Neptuul under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license)

Russian diplomatic practices in multilateral security organizations

In this article Olivier Schmitt analyzes the Russian diplomatic practices and illustrates how this helps infer foreign policy motives, contrary to the field-specific relationalism of Bourdieu-inspired practice approaches. The article was published on the European Journal of International Relations.