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"This article revisits the arguments of John Vincent's influential 1986 book, Human rights and International Relations and situates them against the context both of the debates of his own time and the debates of the early twenty-first century. Vincent's arguments are assessed and evaluated in their own terms and compared and contrasted with dominant positions today. The arguments are then assessed in the light of two leading critical perspectives on human rights before considering a final criticism of the possibility and desirability of the current human rights regime in International Relations."

"This article explores why governments commit to human rights enforcement by joining the International Criminal Court (ICC). Compared with other international institutions, the ICC has substantial authority and autonomy. Since governments traditionally guard their sovereignty carefully, it is puzzling that the ICC was not only established, but established so rapidly. Looking beyond traditional explanations for joining international institutions, this study identifies a new causal factor: a country's dependence network, which consists of the set of other states that control resources the country values. This study captures different dimensions of what states value through trade relations, security alliances, and shared memberships in international organizations. Using event history analysis on monthly data from 1998 to 2004, we find that dependence networks strongly affect whether and when a state signs and ratifies the ICC. Some types of ratification costs also influence state commitment, but many conventional explanations of state commitment receive little empirical support."

"This article addresses three recent developments in historical sociology: (1) neo-Weberian historical sociology within International Relations; (2) the 'civilizational analysis' approach utilized by scholars of 'multiple modernities'; and (3) the 'third wave' cultural turn in US historical sociology. These developments are responses to problems identified within earlier forms of historical sociology, but it is suggested each fails to resolve them precisely because each remains contained within the methodological framework of historical sociology as initially conceived. It is argued that their common problem lies in the utilization of 'ideal types' as the basis for sociohistorical analysis. This necessarily has the effect of abstracting a set of particular relations from their wider connections and has the further effect of suggesting sui generis endogenous processes as integral to these relations. In this way, each of the three developments continues the Eurocentrism typical of earlier approaches. The article concludes with a call for 'connected histories' to provide a more adequate methodological and substantive basis for an historical sociology appropriate to calls for a properly global historical sociology."

Systems of governance are legitimised as an almost indispensable response to global co-ordination over matters of environmental degradation. Considering sustainable development as the key label for 'common-sense' political approaches to environmental degradation and a key informant for international environmental policy-making activity, this article seeks to problematise such a widespread discourse as (re)productive of (hetero)sexist power relations. As such, this article, informed by Foucault's conceptions of governmentality and biopower, contends that the global thrust towards sustainable development projects works to construct identities and discipline power relations with regard to gender and sexuality. Specifically, I argue that the disciplinary narratives and apparatuses of international sustainable development initiatives work to construct gendered identities and naturalise heterosexual relations. To demonstrate this, this article focuses on the discourses surrounding one of the most important international documents directed at informing national environmental policy, Agenda 21.

This article addresses the most fundamental question in the philosophy of rights. If there are any moral rights, where do they come from and how do we acquire them? The difficulty of answering the question is compounded when asked in relation to universal rights and obligations where the international community in which they function is far less solidarist than at the domestic level. The suggestion is that while answers that presuppose something about the ontology of the person, such as an emphasis on basic needs, or inherent human dignity, are prevalent, they are a convenient fiction. It is contended that the rights recognition thesis, typically associated with British Idealism, is best exemplified with reference to common law theory, and customary international law, and provides a far more adequate account of what it means to have universal rights and obligations. It is suggested that customary international law functions in a similar way to how natural law used to function. The article concludes by emphasising the importance of customary international law in articulating the universal obligations of states and holding them to account for their actions. It addresses the question of what it means to have a universal right, and not what universal rights it is desirable to have.

The relationship between globalisation and national identity is puzzling. While some observers have found that globalisation reduces people's identification with their nation, others have reached the opposite conclusion. This article explores this conundrum by examining the relationship between globalisation and people's feelings towards national identity. Using data from the International Social Survey Program National Identity II () and the World Values Survey (), it analyses these relations across sixty-three countries. Employing a multilevel approach, it investigates how a country's level of globalisation is related to its public perceptions towards different dimensions of national identity. The results suggest that a country's level of globalisation is not related to national identification or nationalism but it is related negatively to patriotism, the willingness to fight for the country and ethnic conceptions of membership in the nation. An examination of alternative explanations indicates that globalisation has a distinct impact on national identity.

This paper focuses on the demands for autonomy of the Kogui, Arhuaco, Wiwa and Kankwamo peoples of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta with regard to control over their territories, self-determination, indigenous legal jurisdiction, management of the environment, food sovereignty, and political control through their own authorities. The main argument is that the autonomy of indigenous peoples is being influenced by the current context of local, national and international conflicts and other specific circumstances in the region in such a way as to require viewing autonomy as a complex process that transcends national and supranational legal frameworks. Indigenous autonomy is articulated within local, national and international dynamics and within processes of recognition of, and disregard for, indigenous rights - obliging us to understand it as a relational indigenous autonomy. It is relational because it is expressed in different ways depending on the interactions among different social actors and the specificities of the historical contexts.

"The introductory essay offers a brief overview of current trends in critical globalization studies and international relations scholarship that shed light on three intersections: between imperialism and humanitarianism, between neoliberal globalization and "rescue industry" transnationalism, and between patterns of geopolitical hegemony and trajectories of peacekeeping internationalism. These research agendas have been generative and politically useful, but have tended to neglect the forms of humanitarian and peacekeeping agency emanating from the global south. In order to address this gap, this introduction lays out a new research agenda that combines interdisciplinary methods from global studies, gender and race studies, critical security studies, police and military sociology, Third World diplomatic history, and international relations. This introduction also theoretically situates the other contributions and case studies gathered here, providing a framework of analysis that groups them into three clusters: (I) Globalizing Peacekeeper Identities, (II) Assertive "Regional Internationalisms," and (III) Emergent Alternative Paradigms."

"First as intellectual ally and then as adversary, Kenyan political scientist Ali A. Mazrui was embraced by the North American discipline of international relations (IR) in the 1960s and 1970s; he was virtually neglected in the 1980s; and a measure of interest in his scholarship revived in the 1990s and beyond. But Mazrui has not found a place in postcolonialism ever since that school emerged in the critical margins of IR. This essay argues that the estrangement between Mazrui and IR was primarily due to the changing nature of the discipline and his unchanging approach to it. Mazrui became the methodological 'Other' in the mainstream discipline. The essay also claims that Mazrui's marginalisation in postcolonialism is ultimately attributable to his image as the cultural and ideological 'Other'."

In examining the relation between Marxist historiography and the theoretical trajectories of postcolonial studies, the problem posed in Marxist theory under the name of 'the national question' remains decisive. This question is always emerging around the tensions generated between the logic of capital, the purified circuit-process of capital's self-unfolding, and the local conditions of its deployment, typically the modern form of the nation-state. I argue that the history of the prewar debate on the nature of Japanese capitalism, which was itself the fundamental locus for the development of Marxist historiography and theory in Japan, can be a suggestive source of clues for the explication of this relation. In examining the theoretical problems that inhere in this historical moment, I attempt to argue that the national question in Marxist theory can be forcefully renewed through a parallax movement with the question of the postcolonial, that is, the irreversibility of the history of colonialism inscribed in the form of the nation-state. In other words, the national question is not only a question of the levels and stages of capitalist development in given, apparently stable areas; it is also the question of how the logic of capital relates to the historico-epistemological production of 'the national' itself.

This article explores the Ethiopian Women Lawyers Association (EWLA) and its attempts to translate international women's rights norms into national law, examining the problematic geographies of women's networks from local to global levels and showing how Ethiopia remains on the periphery of global human rights networks. In their campaign for legal reform to protect women against violence, activists had to show how the proposed reforms were 'African', as invoking international human rights risked dismissal as evidence of 'Westernisation'. Activists face practical difficulties, including lack of funding and technology, limiting networking beyond the national level. The article shows how the state shapes local activists' ability to form global connections. Legislation banning civil society organisations such as EWLA from conducting work around rights threatens to marginalise Ethiopia further from global human rights networks and norms. Local connectivity to the global is only partial, mediated by the power relations in which activists and the state are embedded.

The problem studied consists of the relations between the interests and militancy and the differences in expectations of rewards in an agrarian reform settlement linked to the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST). In this settlement, many 'leaders' gathered the 'socialisation of production'. The situation arising from these circumstances produced the different reasons for engagement and different relations with the militancy. In the transition from the encampment to the settlement, it becomes important for the leaders to reinforce their positions both of 'leadership' and as mediators of policies and public resources, while it becomes difficult for those settled to maintain their previous investments in strong engagement. Consequently, these new conditions tend to increase the differences between the expectations of rewards from the militancy. These expectations can be pragmatic, such as viability as a farmer, or have a more symbolic character, which is associated with the struggle to create social organisation models.

"This article asks how the international order can be renegotiated with rising powers. Negotiating understood as a process of socialization is the focus of the article. However, given non-Western states' recent practice of powerfully permeating the existing Western order, it is difficult to explain this process by means of neorealist, constructivist, or liberal socialization. Respectively, they presuppose that some states are already socialized while others need to be adopted into the club of socialized members. In contrast, this article suggests the notion of reciprocal socialization. It explains how rising powers are socialized into the order, while reshaping it when they enter. Two conditions need to be fulfilled to accomplish a socializing process that reflects the reciprocal influencing of states of the Western security community and non-Western veto-players; these are employing "small informal groups" and "personalized interactions." Their application can be viewed in informal operational rules which are, in turn, capable of governing the renegotiations."

"In an era of global turmoil generating significant challenges to global security and requiring global solutions, humanitarian intervention, and assistance become central concerns at the intersection of globalization studies and international relations. In this context, Turkey is emerging as a more proactive and autonomous actor in foreign policy and as a regional and global force in peacekeeping and humanitarian operations, making the country one of the key actors of world politics. In this article, we demonstrate Turkey's contributions to global security through its increasing involvement in humanitarian assistance in different regions of the world, and suggest that in doing so Turkey is not only contributing to global security but also creating new norms of democratic global governance that bridge several seemingly contradictory formations: European integration and Islamic solidarity; global South ascendance and NATO stabilization; Ottoman nostalgia and internationalist modernism. But the primary focus will be Turkish protagonism in peacekeeping interventions in Afghanistan to demonstrate the multilateral manner through which humanitarian assistance norms are implemented."

Much research in international political economy (IPE) has been criticised for focussing on large and powerful actors in post-industrial countries, to the neglect of sites, processes and actors in the global South. This article offers a corrective to this bias in two ways: by locating the analysis in two rural Central American communities; and by exploring the social relations of consumption in these communities. In doing this, I challenge assumptions about rural places being excluded from global processes and explore the complexities and contradictions of how such communities are inserted into global circuits of production and consumption.

A regular tourist destination since the early 1990s, Rocinha - the paradigmatic touristic favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - has seen the number of foreigners visitors grow considerably after the successful international release of City of God in 2003. In dialogue with the new mobilities paradigm and based on a socio-ethnographic investigation which examines how poverty-stricken and segregated areas are turned into tourist attractions, the article sheds lights on the ways tourists who have watched Fernando Meirelles's film re-interpret their notion of "the favela" after taking part in organized tours. The aim is to examine how far these reinterpretations, despite based on first-hand encounters, are related back to idealized notions that feed upon the cinematic favela of City of God while giving further legitimacy to it.

Over the past ten to fifteen years, feminism in China has been marked by three closely related characteristics. The first is the introduction of "Western" feminism with "gender" as the core of theory import. The second is the articulation of the "trouble" this import of Western theory has caused. Chinese feminist texts abound with terms such as trouble, difficulty, and clash, which are used to express worries about the consequences of this new orientation of feminism in China. They prove that the import of Western theory and the transition to "gender" as the basic category of analysis are not the logical and unquestionable developments some authors claim them to be. A third characteristic is the search for an identity for Chinese feminism in a global context. Chinese scholars, under the impact of Western theory, turn to spatial definitions of Chinese feminism vis-à-vis international feminism and adopt the notion of the "local" to define their place in the world. This essay highlights the "troubling" effects the import of "gender" has on feminist theory building in China and delineates the various and sometimes conflicting efforts Chinese feminists have made to restabilize feminist theory and identity. These include different translations and definitions of "gender," diverging outlines of the history of Chinese feminism in a global context, various definitions of the "local," differing visions of a regional "Asian" feminism, and more complex models that try to integrate conflicting perspectives. These responses demonstrate that contrary to its universalist claims, "gender" is a specific concept that finds support among particular groups of feminists only. This essay also tries to explain why Chinese feminists insist on the "local" as a site of theory building and identity formation even where they have acquired global horizons.

The life narratives of cô Nhựt, a former communist guerilla fighter and political prisoner during the American War in Vietnam, illuminate a dynamic politics of iteration and innovation at play within each act of remembering. Cô Nhựt lives in Ho Chi Minh City and is part of a women veteran's civic association called the Former Women Political Prisoner Performance Group. She is also a national and international advocate against the use of chemical warfare and a supporter of people living with Agent Orange-related disabilities in Vietnam. Historical and contemporary political contexts in Vietnam - such as decades of colonial rule, brutal wars and communist revolution and governance - dramatically affect the shape of official history and collective memory, including cô Nhựt's narratives.

"Multiple citizenship has in recent decades moved from an unwanted phenomenon in international relations to a fairly common transnational status. Multiple citizenship has nevertheless so far been studied mainly as a political and juridical status by comparing national legislations. Much less notice has been given to actual dual citizens' citizen participation and construction of citizens' identities. Only when citizenship is studied as these kinds of practices do the hypothetic possibilities and problems associated with the status get their meanings and contents. This paper concentrates on examining dual citizens' identifications to their respective citizenships and how these affiliations transfer into possible citizen participation. Results are based on extensive analysis of survey (n = 335) and interviews (n = 48) carried out among dual citizens living in Finland. Contents and forms of dual citizens' national identification and citizen participation were reviewed through ideal types: resident-mononationals, expatriate-mononationals, hyphenationals, and shadow-nationals."

"The meanings attached to "race" across the globe are myriad, particularly as anti-Islamic discourse once again links race and religion. Yet scholars lack a common terminology to discuss this phenomenon. This article hopes to expand critical race theory and scholarship across national lines. This critical examination of recent race-related scholarship provides scholars with empirical suggestions to uncover and document the different processes, mechanisms, trajectories and outcomes of potentially racialized practices that essentialize, dehumanize, "other," and oppress minority groups while imbuing privileged groups with power and resources in nations across the globe. Ten empirical indicators will allow international researchers to assess the particular situation of different groups in different nations to determine whether, and the extent to which, they are subject to racialization. Specifically, this paper calls for a unified terminology that can accurately account for and address race when and where it occurs and a global broadening of a critical comparative dialogue of racial practices."