Jörg Friedrichs

On Acting and Knowing: How Pragmatism Can Advance International Relations Research and Methodology

This article moves from deconstruction to reconstruction in research methodology. It proposes pragmatism as a way to escape from epistemological deadlock. We first show that social scientists are mistaken in their hope to obtain warranted knowledge through traditional scientific methods. We then show that pragmatism has grown from tacit commonsense to an explicit item on the agenda of the international relations discipline. We suggest that a coherent pragmatic approach consists of two elements: the recognition of knowledge generation as a social and discursive activity, and the orientation of research toward the generation of useful knowledge. To offer a concrete example of what pragmatic methodology can look like, we propose the research strategy of abduction. We assess various forms of research design to further elucidate how pragmatic research works in practice.

Defining the International Public Enemy: The Political Struggle behind the Legal Debate on International Terrorism

Who shall have the power to define international terrorism? To answer this question, which means determining the international public enemy, is an eminently political task. According to Carl Schmitt, politics is essentially about determining the public enemy. When it comes to a situation of emergency, whoever is in the position to distinguish friend from enemy holds ultimate power. While Schmitt was still thinking primarily in terms of the nation-state, the determination of the public enemy has now become an international issue. To demonstrate this point, this article examines the political struggle behind the legal debate on the definition of international terrorism. This is done by comparing two debates on international terrorism, one held in the 1970s and the other in the 2000s. Both these debates had, and still have, their institutional locus in the UN General Assembly and its Legal Committee. In the 1970s the non-aligned countries tried to challenge the discretion of the West in determining the international public enemy. In the 2000s the incumbent regimes of the Third World agree with Western states that terrorism is a common threat. The main cleavage is now between the leading Western powers that would like to determine the public enemy on a case-by-case basis (the United States and the United Kingdom), and the status quo states that would like to tie these hegemonic powers by a legal definition. It is precisely the absence of such a legal definition that makes it possible for the hegemonic powers and their followers to determine the international public enemy on a case-by-case basis. A legal definition would increase the coherence of the international coalition against terrorism and serve as a limitation on the discretionary power of the hegemonic states.

Fighting Terrorism and Drugs : Europe and International Police Cooperation

1. Introduction 2. Essentials Part 1: The International Fight against Terrorism 3. The Comprehensive Approach 4. Antiterrorist Methods 5. Extradition of Terrorists Part 2: The International Fight against Drugs 6. International Drug Prohibition 7. Drug Enforcement Methods 8. Investigation across Borders 9. Results 10. Postscript

Global Governance as the Hegemonic Project of Transatlantic Civil Society

There is an old tradition of politics claiming supremacy over the market and civil society. One may reasonably doubt whether politics was ever able to make good this claim. But whereas it was somewhat plausible to talk about the supremacy of politics during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, after the end of the Cold War this claim has come to be more and more questionable. More often than ever before, economic and societal actors bypass their governments and challenge the autonomy of political decision making. At the international level, it has become an accepted wisdom that globalization and global governance are making inroads into the sphere of politics among nations. This implies that the time-honored concepts provided by the academic discipline of International Relations (IR) are less and less adequate to capture the reality of world affairs. Accordingly, it is increasingly important to engage in the conceptualization of novel analytic instruments. The concepts of globalization and its offspring, global governance, both hold the promise to facilitate such a novel conceptualization. Without denying the importance of globalization, this essay focuses on global governance.

An intercultural theory of international relations: how self-worth underlies politics among nations

© Cambridge University Press 2015 This article introduces an intercultural theory of international relations based on three distinctive ways of establishing self-worth: honor, face, and dignity. In each culture of self-worth, concerns with status and humiliation intervene differently in producing political outcomes. The theory explains important variation in the way states and nations relate to members of their own culture of self-worth, as well as members of other such cultures.

The Neomedieval Renaissance: Global Governance and International Law in the New Middle Ages

Over the last ten years or so, new medievalism and global governance have become stylish expressions to characterize the ongoing transfiguration of the socio-cultural, socio-political and socio-economic world order. In social science in general, and in political science in particular, there has been a stream of publications about global governance and new medievalism, which are said to involve the local, national, regional, and global level.

Sino-Muslim Relations: The Han, the Hui, and the Uyghurs

Abstract Sino-Muslim relations rest upon an informal socio-spatial hierarchy according to which some Muslim groups are more of an asset and others more of a liability. In this informal hierarchy, Hui Muslims are closer to the center than any other Muslim group because they are Sinicized, seen as religiously moderate, and mostly live in proximity to non-Muslim Chinese neighbors. Central Asian Muslims, most notably Xinjiang’s Uyghurs, are more distant from China’s notional center and seen as culturally more alien and prone to religious extremism. This article discusses the historical roots of this socio-spatial hierarchy and systematically examines Sino-Muslim relations in political, economic, and societal terms. It concludes that, despite problematic features from a western-liberal perspective, the hierarchy continues to enable the Chinese majority to manage a set of otherwise challenging relationships.

Useful lies: The twisted rationality of denial

He who increases knowledge increases sorrow. Ecclesiastes 1:18 The truth will set you free. John 8:32 Denial, or the habit of treating a real problem as if it were a nonissue, has both rational and irrational features. The interplay between these is best captured by a utilitarian-rationalist framework stretched to its limits. When in denial, people follow what they feel to be in their best interest by minimizing the psychosocial cost of acknowledging their problems. At its core, denial is thus based on a self-interested rationale of pain avoidance and harm minimization. Depending on the characteristics of the issue at hand, some of the effects are deeply ironic. I demonstrate this by starting from the simplest and most beneficial form of denial, before moving on to cases that are more complex and harmful. I also show how people can be liberated from denial when the practice has become counterproductive. Most of the mystery surrounding denial disappears when we accept that it is premised on a twisted kind of rationality.

Peak Oil Futures: Same Crisis, Different Responses

Peak oil theory predicts that global oil production will soon start a terminal decline. Most proponents of the theory imply that no adequate alternate resource and technology will be available to replace oil as the backbone resource of industrial society. To understand what may happen if the proponents of peak oil theory are right, I analyze the historical experience of countries that have gone through a comparable experience. Japan (1918–1945), North Korea (1990s) and Cuba (1990s) have all been facing severe oil supply disruptions in the order of 20% or more. Despite the unique features of each case, it is possible to derive clues on how different parts of the world would react to a global energy crunch. The historical record suggests at least three possible peak oil trajectories: predatory militarism, totalitarian retrenchment, and socioeconomic adaptation.

Who’s Afraid of Thomas Malthus?

Despite the bad press, modified Malthusian theories constitute a promising bid for grounding the study of resource management on science integration, not only between various social scientific disciplines but also between the social and the physical sciences. The main impediment is a refusal of social scientists to appreciate how deeply the societal sphere is embedded in wider biophysical and social-ecological systems. Physical scientists are more open to Malthusian hypotheses, but their social theorizing often lacks sophistication and is therefore duly criticized. To overcome this unproductive state of affairs, I start from the classical Malthusian framework and gradually add complexity to it. After an introduction and discussion of classical Malthusianism I show how, despite the failing of Malthusian predictions, its logical structure is reproduced by simple neo-Malthusian theories that have been developed to account for contemporary global challenges. Subsequently, I show the potential of more sophisticated neo-Malthusian models. I conclude by pondering the prospects of modified Malthusian theories contributing to better science integration.