The fields of geography and diplomacy have traditionally been closely intertwined. Diplomacy is conventionally the conduct of statecraft in the nonviolent manifestations of external relations by a specific institution. These nonviolent manifestations can be variously merged with the use of armed force. The political order of the system of states—statecraft emanates from its separate entities—is deeply permeated by geography, notably by the application of territorial control. The art of diplomacy is inextricably linked to spatial perceptions, aims at place-based assets, and plays out in a given geographical context.
As the system of states has evolved by incremental increase, functional cooperation, fragmentations and mergers, and internal centralization and decentralization of separate states, the diplomatic institution has had to adapt. As more and more non-state parties commit themselves to transboundary relations or find themselves so implicated, diplomatic practice becomes more widely required, the core of the diplomatic institution still settled in the apparatus of states.
This article is consecutively concerned with different aspects of the overlap of geography and diplomacy. In the introduction the ways in which academic geographers have over time shed light on this common ground is briefly reviewed. The next section provides an inventory of the mappings of the diplomatic web to get a sense of its general cartography, followed by descriptions of the diplomatic niche, the places where diplomacy is practiced. In the diplomatic worldview and the geographic frame, the geographic notions that are relevant to the diplomatic institution are followed according to reasoning and travel practice. Finally, shifts in the practice, contents, and functions of diplomacy are dealt with over time, based on the major geographical forces that affect the system of states in and beyond which diplomacy operates.
Article
The Geography of Diplomacy
Herman van der Wusten and Virginie Mamadouh
Article
Great Power Leadership
Wesley B. O'Dell
The notion that Great Powers fulfill a leadership role in international politics is old, influential, and contested. As the actors in the international system with the greatest capacity for taking action, Great Powers are assumed to think both further ahead and in broader, more systemic terms than other states; they then use their preeminent positions to organize others to promote public goods, reaping benefits along the way thanks to their direction of events. At the core of this understanding is the assumption that Great Power actions are, or ought to be, inspired by something more than simple self-interest and the pursuit of short-term gains. As an organic creation of international practice, Great Power leadership was traditionally the domain of historians and international legists; early students of the topic utilized inductive reasoning to derive general precepts of Great Power sociology from the landmark settlements of the 18th and 19th centuries. The framing of Great Powers as a leadership caste originated in the struggle against Louis XIV, was given tentative institutional form through settlements such as the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), and deepened considerably in both institutionalization and sophistication in the 19th century Concert of Europe. The return of France to full Great Power status, the Congress (1878) and Conference (1884) of Berlin, and the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion (1899–1901) all demonstrated the willingness and ability of the Powers to cooperate in the management of international change. In the early 20th century, the leadership of the Great Powers was both challenged as an unjust agent of catastrophe as well as increasingly formalized through recognition in new international institutions such as the League of Nations and the United Nations. Theorists of international relations began to formulate theories based on Great Power management at the time of the discipline’s beginnings in the early 20th century. Realists and liberals frequently utilize Great Power concepts to explain processes of equilibrium, hegemonic competition, and institution building, while approaches influenced by constructivism focus on the role of ideas, statuses, and roles in the formulation of Great Power identities and policies. The doctrine of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) is a 21st-century manifestation of the application of Great Power leadership to international problems; though hailed by some as the future of Great Power management, it provokes controversy among both theorists and practitioners. Similarly, extensive scholarly attention has been devoted to the management and accommodation of “rising powers.” These are states that appear likely to obtain the status of Great Power, and there is extensive debate over their orientation toward and potential management of international order. Finally, the position of Russia and China within this literature has provoked deep reflection on the nature of Great Power, the responsibilities of rising and established powers, and the place of Great Power management amidst the globalized challenges of the 21st century.
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Informal International Relations
Thomas Kwasi Tieku
There has been a proliferation of works on informal dimensions of international relations. Putting the scholarship under the banner of informal international relations (IIR), [A1] the value preposition of research and publications on informal aspects of international political life is critically explored in order to chart promising pathways to further research in this growing field of study. Three generations of IIR scholarship may be identified. The first-generation scholarship took the IIR approach without explicitly acknowledging it. The second-generation scholars treated it primarily as an anomaly that ought to be explained. The third-generation scholarship seeks to give IIR a conceptual clarity, theorize it, and show the analytical utility of the concept.
Although the IIR scholarship has given us a new outlook into international political life, the IR literature on informality is biased in at least three ways. First, it focuses mostly on informal politics in international organizations (IOs) housed in Western Europe and North American states. It is insightful and informative in the discussion of informality in member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) but lacks similar cutting-edge analysis when it comes to informal aspects of international life in the rest of the world. The IIR scholarship neglects the rich tapestry of materials and insights from the Global South and Eastern Europe. Second, it is dominated by studies of informal governance. Other aspects of informal relations, namely, informal practices, processes, norms, and informal rules, have received little attention. Third, it is dominated by rational choice approaches. Perspectives such as critical constructivism, practice theory, intersectionality, neocolonialism, decolonial perspective, and postcolonialism, among others, are rarely used by third-generation scholars to explore informal international life.
Finally, IIR ideas are deployed primarily as a last resort or as something used to explain negative political outcomes. IR scholars turn to the informal as a unit of analysis when traditional issue-areas such as formal state structures, formal IOs, official processes, codified norms, and written rules cannot help, and they deploy informal ideas only when well-known variables including state power, powerful registered domestic groups, and legalized nonstate actors are unable to explain a given political problem. But as those who have studied the issue carefully observed, the informal rather than the formal should be the baseline for IR analysis. The discipline of IR will be improved considerably if informality is prioritized and all facets of informal international life are explored in a systematic manner.
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The Institutions of International Society
Tonny Brems Knudsen
The “fundamental” or “primary” institutions of international society, among them sovereignty, diplomacy, international law, great power management, the balance of power, trade, and environmental stewardship, have been eagerly discussed and researched in the discipline of international relations (IR), at the theoretical, meta-theoretical, and empirical levels. Generations of scholars associated with not only the English School, but also liberalism and constructivism, have engaged with the “institutions of international society,” as they were originally called by Martin Wight and Hedley Bull in their attempt to develop a historically and sociologically informed theory of international relations. The fact that intense historical, theoretical, and empirical investigations have uncovered new institutional layers, dynamics, and complexities, and thus opened new challenging questions rather than settling the matter is part of its attraction. In the 1960s and 1970s, the early exponents of the English School theorized fundamental institutions as historical pillars of contemporary international society and its element of order. At the turn of the 21st century, this work was picked up by Kal Holsti and Barry Buzan, who initiated a renaissance of English School institutionalism, which specified the institutional levels of international society and discussed possibilities for institutional change. Meanwhile, liberal and constructivist scholars made important contributions on fundamental institutions in key engagements with English School theory on the subject in the late 1980s. These contributions and engagements have informed the most recent wave of (interdisciplinary) scholarship on the subject, which has theorized the room for fundamental institutional change and the role of international organizations in relation to the fundamental institutions of international society.
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International Competition and Cooperation in the New Eastern Mediterranean
Zenonas Tziarras
In the 21st century and particularly during the 2010s, the Eastern Mediterranean acquired unprecedented attention and significance as a distinct geopolitical space with new international and security dynamics. This “new” Eastern Mediterranean geopolitical order was largely “constructed” by global and regional power shifts as well as local developments, such as the trajectory of Turkish foreign policy and the discovery of offshore hydrocarbon reserves. The result was a change in the region’s patterns of interstate conflict and cooperation. On the one hand, countries such as Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, and Israel became part of an emerging network of cooperation and security architecture. On the other hand, owing to its problematic relations with these states, Turkey remained an outsider wanting to “deconstruct” this new state of affairs and change it to its own benefit. As such, the new Eastern Mediterranean was ushered in during a period of geopolitical polarization that is more conducive to crisis rather than peace and stability and often transcends its boundaries.
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International Insertion: A Non-Western Contribution to International Relations
Fabrício Chagas-Bastos
International insertion is a concept that comes from non-Western intellectual origins and can help individuals understand how peripheral and semi-peripheral countries behave in world politics, and their interests, core values, and strategies. International insertion also expands the knowledge to characterize how agency spaces are created by peripheral countries. Insertion is a necessary step to those countries attempting to transition from the condition of one who seeks to be recognized as part of, to one who is admitted as possessing and capable of seeking status and acting within political, economic, and military global hierarchies. In a nutshell, insertion means being recognized by the small group of gatekeeping states as a relevant part of the specific social networks that constitute the global hierarchy. The conceptualization of international insertion allows a robust middle-range explanation that considers multiple dimensions (political, economic, and military) of the national and international structural and contextual aspects these actors must translate to navigate world politics.
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International Order in Theory and Practice
Kyle M. Lascurettes and Michael Poznansky
International relations scholars of all stripes have long been interested in the idea of “international order.” At the most general level, international order entails some level of regularity, predictability, and stability in the ways that actors interact with one another. At a level of higher specificity, however, international orders can vary along a number of dimensions (or fault lines). This includes whether order is thin or thick, premised on position or principles, regional or global in scope, and issue specific or multi-issue in nature.
When it comes to how orders emerge, the majority of existing explanations can be categorized according to two criteria and corresponding set of questions. First, are orders produced by a single actor or a select subset of actors that are privileged and powerful, or are they created by many actors that are roughly equal and undifferentiated in capabilities and status? Second, do orders come about from the purposive behavior of particular actors, or are they the aggregated result of many behaviors and interactions that produce an outcome that no single actor anticipated? The resulting typology yields four ideal types of order explanations: hegemonic (order is intentional, and power is concentrated), centralized (order is spontaneous, but power is concentrated), negotiated (order is intentional, but power is dispersed), and decentralized (order is spontaneous, and power is dispersed).
Finally, it is useful to think about the process by which order can transform or break down as a phenomenon that is at least sometimes distinct from how orders emerge in the first place. The main criterion in this respect is the rapidity with which orders transform or break down. More specifically, they can change or fall apart quickly through revolutionary processes or more gradually through evolutionary ones.
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International Relations and the 19th Century Concert System
Tobias Lemke
International relations (IR) scholars have long been fascinated by the politics of the European Concert of Great Powers—the diplomatic institution said to have provided relative peace, calm, and stability across Europe in the wake of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Interest in the Concert is boosted by arguments that the institutional and normative framework of the post-1815 European international order can serve as a useful template for managing great power relations in the increasingly multipolar and multicultural world of the 21st century. From this perspective, the ability of statesmen such as Metternich and Castlereagh to keep the European peace for almost 4 decades and provide pragmatic solutions to the most vexing international problems of revolution, dynastic rivalry, and national competition is meant to inspire contemporary world leaders to provide security and accommodation in the context of declining American hegemony and rising powers.
The persistent centrality of the European Concert as a distinct subject area in IR scholarship raises a number of important questions: What exactly was the Concert and how long did it last? How did the Concert as an institution of great power management change over time? How do different theoretical approaches explain the ability of the Concert to structure interstate dynamics in meaningful ways? Most importantly, is it analytically feasible and normatively desirable to use the 19th century European Concert system as a blueprint for reorganizing international relations today? These questions identify key debates across the existing literature and demonstrate the conceptual, theoretical, methodological, and political diversity of the field. They also reveal that the formation of a disciplinary consensus on the Concert remains an elusive goal. As a result, scholars should remain attuned to ongoing historiographical developments and critically reflect on their own theoretical and political priors regarding the history and future of concert diplomacy.
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International Relations as a Discipline in Argentina: Historical Roots and Theoretical Contributions
Melisa Deciancio
Many scholars have addressed the relevance of thinking on processes, actors, ideas, and institutions that marked the development of International Relations (IR) in order to understand the way, it is studied and taught in modern times. As such, examining the constitution of the IR field in Argentina carries a twofold objective. Primarily, an in-depth study on the origins of the field in Argentina from a historical perspective brings to light how the field’s historical trajectory marked its development in modern times. Underlining the specific theoretical and methodological endeavors of Argentine IR allows researchers to establish how the field managed to gain density and gradually establish its own boundaries among other disciplines such as international law, diplomacy, geopolitics, political economy, and foreign policy analysis. Identifying the contributions of the Argentine IR field to a more universal and inclusive IR study allows for the definition of a broader non-Western IR agenda. Following Bourdieu’s study on scientific fields, this work answers the question of how the field has been shaped, and how the historical process of autonomization and internal differentiation that has allowed the discipline to legitimize itself as such in Argentina was shaped. From the observation and analysis of a number of components, it addresses the way its subject of study was outlined, through the contributions of agents of knowledge production and the areas of specialized knowledge involved in the process. The period carved out for analysis goes back to 1889, with the First Pan-American Conference in Washington DC, which triggered intense public debate in the country on how to participate in world affairs. The period of analysis ends in 1990, when the IR discipline was clearly considered an autonomous field of study. This temporal selection does not imply that the work follows a chronological and lineal path. Instead, it will consider and flesh out the “strong moments” of the complex, multidimensional, and nonlinear process of institutionalization of a field. As a result, it is possible to identify different arenas of struggle, where various forces are opposed in seeking internal legitimacy. Understanding these spaces as part of an internal struggle does not imply a tacit confrontation, but more a series of dilemmas that emerge from the process of legitimizing and defining the field.
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International Relations in West Africa
Azeez O. Olaniyan
Relations among the states making up West Africa have endured over the years. It has passed through the phases of precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial. Each phase has its own dynamics. Shortly after the attainment of independence, political leaders in West Africa felt the need for more integration and unity to confront the major problems of underdevelopment and conflict bedeviling the region. This led to the formation of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) as a regional platform to address the problems. However, the contemporary time has brought more challenges, which include terrorism, climate change, migration, the trafficking of humans and drugs, corruption, violent conflicts, money laundering, and health issues. These new problems demand decisive, collective, and robust interventions. ECOWAS, as a regional organization, was found adapting to these new challenges, and re-engineering itself, thereby making it an important institution to focus on when interrogating relations in West Africa. Some of the interventions and responses to the challenges operate in the form of protocols and the establishment of agencies within ECOWAS. In addition, there is a noticeable incursion of China into the region, mostly as a development partner and a provider of soft loans. This has tended to influence the foreign policies of several states in the region. Despite the various intervening efforts, several of the problems facing the region remain largely unsolved. The issues of language barriers, violent conflict, vestiges of colonial rule, vested external interests, and a lack of strong institutions are some of the obstacles undermining the pace of bilateral and multilateral relations among the states and the drives toward development in the subregion.
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International Relations of the Pacific Islands
William Waqavakatoga and Joanne Wallis
The Pacific Islands region occupies 15% of the world’s surface, yet there have been relatively few analyses of the international relations of the Pacific Island countries (PICs). Existing analyses tend to view the region through the lens of the interests of major and metropolitan powers. They consequently focus on how geopolitical competition between those powers is likely to develop in the region but afford little consideration to the agency of PICs to shape how that will occur. This article reimagines the international relations of the Pacific Islands to capture how Pacific Island countries are exercising their agency in pursuit of their interests and to manage the behaviour of great and metropolitan powers. This reimagining involves three analytical moves. First, it subverts stereotypes of “smallness”, “weakness”, and “fragility” which tend to dominate the policy and academic literature of metropolitan powers about the region. Second, it better recognises the agency and activism of Pacific Island countries captured by the concept of the “Blue Pacific”. Third, it accounts for the dynamism and diversity of the nature and interests of the entities and actors that make up, and are involved in the Pacific region.
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IR in Mexico
Arturo Santa-Cruz
Mexican International Relations (IR) is peculiar not only in that it stands apart from the contributions of both culturally similar countries, such as those in Latin America, and structurally similar positioned states, such as Canada, as well as from those originating in the United States, but also for its paucity.
Since very little IR theory is done in Mexico, it is not surprising that Mexican IR appears to be “an American social science.” However, beyond the syllabi in the discipline’s university departments throughout Mexico, the practice of what little IR research there is in the country is anchored in approaches that are not mainstream in the United States. Thus, counterintuitively, Mexican IR is very similar to IR in other countries—and U.S. IR, not Mexico’s, is an outlier.
Article
Israeli Foreign Policy
Aviad Rubin
The main principles of Israeli foreign policy emerged during the pre-state period and were shaped by Zionist ideology and the lessons of the Holocaust. The primary goal of this policy was, and still is, to secure a sovereign Jewish state in the land of Israel, and a safe haven for world Jewry. Another dominant factor in the shaping of the foreign policy of Israel was the need to encounter the country’s challenging geostrategic situation—small territory; lack of natural resources, until the discovery of natural gas depots in water in the Israeli exclusive economic zone during the last decade; fragile Jewish communities around the world; and a hostile neighborhood. Combined together, these considerations are the issues that rank high on the agenda of Israeli foreign policy and affect Israel’s relationship with the international community, ranging from the global superpowers to third world countries. After maintaining a relatively steady foreign policy program throughout the 20th century, in the 21st century the state made some significant policy shifts, especially under Benjamin Netanyahu’s consecutive governments. These included a halt in Israeli–Palestinian negotiations for peace; a high-profile campaign against Iran’s nuclear weapons program; more emphasis on the maritime domain; and strengthening ties with illiberal leaders around the world. In 2021, the seeming epilogue of Netanyahu’s tenure as prime minister leaves an open question about the relative weight of structural and ideational factors vs. powerful political agents in the design of Israel’s foreign policy.
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The Maghreb in International Relations
Yahia Zoubir
Since their independence from colonial rule, the three Maghreb states (Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia) have interacted with foreign powers bilaterally rather than as an integrated region. Despite the foundation of the Arab Maghreb Union (UMA) in 1989, the Maghreb countries have pursued discrete foreign policies that reflected the nature of their anticolonial struggle and the ideological choices that they made following, or even prior to, their independence. While Algeria chose nonalignment as the foundation of its foreign policy, Morocco and Tunisia remained attached to the West despite proclaiming attachment to nonalignment. In the decade from 2010 to 2020, the Maghreb states have faced numerous political and socioeconomic challenges which created complicated geopolitical constraints. Thus, even if they wished to drastically reduce their dependency, primarily on the European Union (EU), their “pressing financial constraints and security imperatives in their borderlands ultimately prevented any change of direction or transgression of the existing patterns of their foreign policies,” for “structure prevailed over agency.” Nonetheless, the region is gradually moving away from Europe and the United States in some areas. At the same time, the 2019 pandemic and other constraints have created new geopolitical dynamics that were already in the making, for outside powers had already shown increased interest in the region. While the United States (under President Trump) neglected the Maghreb until September 2020, Russia, China, the Gulf countries, and Turkey have increased their presence. With the extension of the Belt and Road Initiative to the Mediterranean, China has increased its economic presence and extended its Maritime Silk Road, which requires access to ports. Russia has made its return in search for opportunities, including access to ports, which will position it close to NATO’s southern flank. The competition among the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states (e.g., Qatar versus the UAE), on the one hand, and the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and UAE, Turkey, and Israel (since normalization with Morocco), on the other, have spilled over onto the Maghreb. Thus, domestic challenges and evolving geopolitical dynamics have compelled the Maghreb regimes to seek the support of outside powers to offset their internal instability and to compete with one another (Algeria versus Morocco).
Article
Mediation of Interstate Conflicts and Civil Wars
Isak Svensson
Mediation is a process of managing or resolving a conflict through the intervention of a third party, based on the consent of the combatants. It is one of the primary diplomatic tools available to third parties seeking to decrease violence, find joint agreements on conflictual issues, and transform bellicose relationships. There are different types of mediators. While mediators are always individuals, the mediating agency providing the basis for mediation in interstate conflicts and civil wars can be a single country, formal or informal groups of countries, regional or global intergovernmental organizations, civil society organizations inside or outside the country in conflict, or even, occasionally, individuals acting on their own. These different types of mediators all take actions bringing the parties together toward an agreement on the substance of the conflict or on the procedure for managing it, without relying on the use of direct force or a law-based authority. However, they differ in their motivations, styles, access to—as well as leverage over—the parties, degree of biasness and neutrality, and their ability for internal coordination. On the path from war to peace, mediation plays an important role. Mediators contribute with marginal but important tasks in the process, including the diagnosis of the problem, getting the parties to the table, finding a formula for a settlement, and helping to work out implementation guarantees as well as many other duties. In order to perform these tasks, mediators need to build trust, mount pressure, and sometimes do both. However, mediation is not the only factor and often not the primary one behind the peaceful settlement of armed conflicts. Whereas there are many structural similarities when mediating between governments (interstate conflicts) versus between governments and nonstate armed actors (civil wars), the primary difference is that civil war contexts are permeated more intensively by issues relating to international recognition, power asymmetry, fragmentation, and complexity.
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Mexican Foreign Policy
Jorge A. Schiavon
Mexican foreign policy should be analyzed in a comprehensive and systematic way. To do so, it is necessary to study the history of Mexican diplomacy, explaining how foreign policy has been used as a central instrument for the creation and consolidation of the Mexican national sovereign state. Then, it is necessary to examine the most relevant actors and institutions involved in the decision-making process and implementation of foreign policy, evaluating their powers, capacities, and actions. Based on this, it is possible to analyze the strategies and actions of Mexican foreign policy vis-à-vis the most important regions of the world (North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Middle East, and Africa), with a special emphasis on its relationship with the United States, as well as its participation in multilateral and regional organizations.
Article
Middle Powers
Marion Laurence
Formal diplomatic recognition of “middle powers” began with the Congress of Vienna, but the concept gained increasing currency after World War II because medium-sized countries like Canada used it to distinguish themselves from smaller states and secure a relatively favorable position in the postwar order. Early definitions of middle powers focused on states that lacked the system-wide influence of great powers but whose resources and capacities were recognized as being more significant than those of small states. The term’s exact meaning remains contested, but early definitions capture three important dimensions of the concept. First, it is inherently relational, from both a material perspective and a social perspective, and often used as a residual category. Some scholars define middle-power status using material factors like geographic size or population, while others emphasize social roles and recognition, but all of these approaches focus on a state’s position, roles, and status relative to other states. Second, the middle-power concept is both state-centric and practitioner-adjacent. National policymakers invoke, reify, and continually reinvent the concept to achieve specific foreign policy objectives. Third, the middle-power concept is bound up with wider debates about global order. Middle powers were long conceptualized as good international citizens and champions of the liberal world order. The rise of “emerging” middle powers raises questions about their orientation toward existing global institutions. Going forward, the most pressing questions about middle powers and their foreign policy behavior will be linked to broader conversations about geopolitical change and the future of contemporary global governance arrangements.
Article
Migration Cooperation Between Africa and Europe: Understanding the Role of Incentives
Abu Bakarr Bah and Nikolas Emmanuel
The issue of mass migration and north–south relations are increasingly becoming complicated in international relations. In the case of the interactions between Africa and Europe, irregular migration has become a major problem that is also breeding new forms of relations between the two continents. Migration into Europe through the western Mediterranean corridor from Morocco into Spain is a central part in the development of this new relationship. In these changing relations, it is important to ask how the security concerns of mass irregular migration, the emergence of diverse efforts to manage mass migration, and the forms of collaborations that have emerged between the European Union and Spain on the one hand and Morocco on the other hand have had an impact on overall south–north human flows. In particular, this line of inquiry focuses on the way incentives (aid-based, diplomatic, legitimation, etc.) are deployed by Spain and the European Union to ensure that Morocco prevents irregular migrants from crossing into Europe. Overall, it is important to address two kinds of questions relating to the security issues in mass migration and the forms and nature of international collaborations to manage mass migration from Africa to Europe. The intersection of security issues with pragmatic collaboration in international relations is critical to examine. In terms of security, mass irregular migration is tied to human, cultural, and state security concerns. In terms of the management of migration, the various forms of incentives, mainly development assistance and diplomatic support, are used to get Morocco to enforce stringent anti-immigration practices. However, the system of incentives created by actors in the north also creates a form of mutual dependency between Morocco and Europe in a way that enhances the agency of Morocco in its relationship with Spain and the European Union as a whole.
Article
Mill’s Method of Agreement and Method of Difference as Methods of Analysis in International Relations
Payam Ghalehdar
John Stuart Mill’s Method of Agreement and Method of Difference have been well known both in international relations (IR) scholarship and methods discussions. Despite numerous methodological innovations since the publication of Mill’s A System of Logic in 1843, the persuasive logic and intuitive appeal of the Method of Agreement and the Method of Difference have allowed them to remain a staple in IR scholarship. The utility of Mill’s methods, however, has not gone unquestioned. Claims persist that the two methods are not suitable for social science research because their requirements are too demanding.
Sustained criticism of Mill’s methods requires a sober look at their promise and potential to facilitate causal inference. Cautionary notes necessitate awareness of the logic of Mill’s comparative methods, their underlying assumptions, and remedies for potential pitfalls and weaknesses. Three underlying assumptions are associated with Mill’s methods—determinism, the inclusion of all causally relevant causes, and the independence of cases. Three core criticisms have been leveled at Mill’s methods: the inability to deal with equifinality, the narrow focus on single causes, and the purported incompatibility with observational research. Causal inference in observational settings can be strengthened by dealing with interaction effects, by specifying causal connections as correlational or set-relational, by supplementing the use of Mill’s methods with within-case procedures like process tracing, and by using qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) as a similar yet more complete comparative method.
Article
Modern Grand Strategic Studies: Research Advances and Controversies
Thierry Balzacq and Mark Corcoral
Grand strategy offers an effective framework to understand and explain how and why a state interacts with other actors in a given way and how it combines various military, diplomatic, economic, and cultural instruments to achieve its ends in a largely coherent fashion. Yet, the term “grand strategy” conjures different meanings and attitudes, with some treating it as synonymous with strategy and foreign policy, thus raising questions about its relations with policy and politics. History teaches us that grand strategy remains a demanding enterprise, partly because of actors’ differential status and partly because its time horizon (mid to long term) subjects it to unforeseen conditions that threaten to derail it. However, does this make grand strategy impossible? Modern grand strategic scholarship is studded with tensions, but this must not eclipse research advances. In fact, the more disconnected controversies are from empirical contexts, the more they tend to become ends unto themselves. The first controversy relates to the definition of grand strategy and the best way to chart its landscape; the second deals with the sources of grand strategy (internal vs. external, material vs. ideational); and the third revolves around the feasibility of grand strategy in a capricious and fast-paced environment. These tensions are both defining, in the sense that they outline the state of the field, and productive, as they point toward future research avenues.
