Vincent Charles Keating

Trusting relationships in international politics: No need to hedge

Keating, V. C., Ruzicka, J. (2014). Trusting relationships in international politics: No need to hedge. Review of International Studies, 40 (4), 753-770.

Contesting the International Illegitimacy of Torture: The Bush Administration's Failure to Legitimate its Preferences within International Society

Research Highlights and Abstract This article, is a contribution to the theoretical debate over whether the Bush administrations defection from international torture norms led to a norm cascade favouring the Bush administrations preference for a more lenient definition of torture; is a contribution to the theoretical debate over the relationship between material power and the ability to legitimate preferences in international society; is a clarification of the utility of material capabilities with respect to legitimacy; is a detailed historical presentation of the discursive interactions between the United States and other states within international society over the defection of the United States from the torture norm which is currently not present in the literature. This article examines the effect of Bush administrations human rights preferences during the war on terror with respect to torture by analysing a large-n sample of public legitimation strategies of both the United States and other members of international society. The article asks two questions: first, has the defection of the United States from these human rights norms led to a ‘norm cascade’ that delegitimized the norms? Second, did the material preponderance of the United States help it to legitimate its preferences in international society? The article argues that despite initial ambiguity in the response to the Bush administrations preferences from key liberal states, there is little evidence by the end of the Bush administrations term that a core group of states supported their preferences, nor did its material preponderance help the Bush administration to legitimate its position.

Going global: Trust research and international relations

In this review article we explore the growing body of literature on the subject of trust in the field of international relations. We argue that the international level represents a unique challenge for trust research. This is so because some of the most pressing problems facing the world today require the development of trusting relationships internationally. In addition, the international environment is structurally different from domestic or personal relations on which much of the trust literature has focused so far. We identify three main strands of trust literature in international relations – rationalist, social and psychological. We not only note the contributions these have made to understanding the role of trust internationally, but also highlight areas where more research is needed. Particularly, we argue that this includes theorising processes of trust-building, the identification of trusting relationships and the development of a normative case for trust among states.

NGOs, Trust, and the Accountability Agenda

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are undergoing an alleged crisis of trustworthiness. The past decades have seen an increase in both academic and practitioner scepticism, particularly given the transformations many NGOs have undergone in size, professionalism, and political importance. The accountability agenda, which stresses transparency and external oversight, has gained a significant amount of traction as a means to solve this crisis. But the causal link between the implementation of these recommendations and increased trustworthiness among donors has never been considered. This article bridges this gap by drawing on theoretical innovations in trust research to put forward three arguments. First, the proponents of the accountability agenda are implicitly working with a rational model of trust. Second, this model does not reflect important social characteristics of trust between donors and NGOs. Third, this mismatch means that the accountability agenda might do more to harm trust in NGOs than to help it.

The anti-torture norm and cooperation in the CIA black site programme

Does the interstate cooperation in the CIA rendition programme imply the anti-torture norm was severely degraded in the war on terror? Most scholarship currently suggests yes, pointing to the widespread cooperation of dozens of states, including many liberal democracies, in a programme designed to facilitate torture. This article argues that this conclusion is driven primarily by a focus on outcome, that states cooperated, and ignores the process through which cooperation happened. Using the data provided in the Senate report on the CIA’s detention and interrogation programme, this article demonstrates that studying the process of cooperation instead of merely the outcome allows us to see that the anti-torture norm had continuous causal effects that are currently unrecognised in the literature. This finding not only provides a counterpoint to much of the literature on the United States rendition programme that focusses on the negative human rights outcomes, but also builds on research which has argued that fundamental international human rights norms were not as damaged by American conduct in the war on terror as many scholars and activists had initially feared.