William Clapton

Risk in International Relations

Risk is a concept that has recently filtered through into International Relations (IR). However, the literature on risk, risk management and IR is still comparatively small and there is still significant scope for the theorisation of these concepts in an IR context. Thus far, the literature on risk and IR has been largely characterised by the debate between critical realist, constructivist and post-structuralist approaches to risk. At the core of these debates is the ontological question of whether risks are ‘real’ or not. However, this article will suggest that these ontological debates have grown stale and are unhelpful to furthering the research agenda on risk and IR. As this article will demonstrate, we need to systematically develop ways for both explaining risk identification, assessment and management –what might be termed ‘riskisation’ – and why particular forms of risk management emerge in particular situations and not others.

Risk and hierarchy in international society

Several recent works have emphasised contemporary hierarchical trends within international society that suggest a transition away from international societys pluralist constitution. These trends have been most readily demonstrated by the willingness of dominant states, such as the United States, to conduct interventions in support of the promotion and enforcement of liberal democratic values. Yet while many scholars have identified these hierarchical trends, few have considered what such trends suggest regarding the underlying normative constitution of international society. This paper seeks to explain why such a transition within the normative constitution of international society has occurred. Utilising Ulrich Becks notions of risk and the ‘world risk society’, this paper suggests that an increasing preoccupation with globalised security risks within international society, particularly on the part of the West, underpins this constitutional transition. The Wests perceived need to manage global security risks via intervention in so-called ‘risky zones’ structures the new normative basis of international society. Risk has altered the constitutional structure of international society in a way that gives rise to various hierarchical and anti-pluralist trends.

Lessons from Westeros: Gender and power in Game of Thrones

People learn about global politics not (solely or even mostly) from conventional teaching in the discipline of International Relations (IR) but from popular culture. We use the television series Game of Thrones to expand upon this premise. We show how representations of the gendered foundations of political authority can be found in popular culture in ways that challenge the division of such knowledge in IR. Game of Thrones and other cultural texts potentially enable different ways of thinking about the world that subvert both the disciplinary mechanisms that divide up knowledge and the related marginalisation of various knowledge claims.

Managing risk within international society: hierarchical governance in the Asia-Pacific

Several recent works have emphasised new relations of hierarchy within international society, primarily involving the claim by certain Western states of the authority to intervene in particular territories in order to build state capacity and the institutions of sound liberal democratic governance. While several scholars have identified these new hierarchies, few have provided a satisfactory account of what informs their formation and reproduction. This article investigates why new hierarchies have emerged within international society, arguing that they are underpinned by a ‘liberal social logic of risk’, which simultaneously constructs liberal democracies as inherently peaceful and prosperous and non-liberal or weak states as inherently risky and dangerous. Confronted by new forms of debounded security risks, Western societies have sought to manage these risks via interventions in identified ‘risky zones’ aimed at building liberal political and economic institutions. This argument is illustrated by the example of Australias new interventionist development agenda in the Asia-Pacific, notably its leading role in the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI). This interventionist agenda is, in effect, a new mechanism of regional risk management that informs new modes of hierarchical governance in the Asia-Pacific.

Pluralism, decolonization and international society

Abstract The classical narrative of the historical evolution of a pluralist international society emphasizes its European origins: emerging in Europe and then progressively expanding worldwide via European colonialism. It is a narrative that is based on particular dualities, such as those of international system and society and sovereignty/anarchy and hierarchy. These dualities create a dichotomy within the classical narrative between an ostensibly pluralist, European international society and the world beyond it, largely insulating its depictions of the evolution of the norms and institutions of the former from the hierarchies and empires of the latter. This article advances a different narrative of the evolution of pluralism within international society, suggesting that pluralism has only been reflected in the practices of the society of states since decolonization. Even after decolonization, there have been continued exceptions and violations to pluralist norms, signifying a contemporary international society that is both pluralist and hierarchical.

The Hierarchical Society

The concept of an international society is arguably the English School’s most distinctive contribution to the field of IR. Containing elements of realism, liberalism and constructivism, the concept of an international society and the English School in general provide a unique perspective on how states interact with one another and how these relationships are structured and ordered. As Bull famously commented: A society of states (or international society) exists when a group of states, conscious of certain common interests and common values, form a society in the sense that they conceive themselves to be bound by a common set of rules in their relations with one another, and share in the working of common institutions.1

Managing Risks in Europe’s Periphery: The European Neighbourhood Policy

The 2004 and 2007 enlargements of the EU were highly significant events for the Union, in a number of respects. Not only did these enlargements provide membership to many of the post-communist states of Eastern Europe, but they also posed the question of how an enlarged EU would deal with non-EU states in its immediate vicinity. The expansion of the EU through the accession process brought it much closer to identified zones of instability and risk within international society and created a new hierarchy of states both within the EU and between the EU and its new neighbours.1 As Dannreuther notes, enlargement meant that states on the periphery of Europe in Northern Africa, the Middle East and the former Soviet republics could no longer be ignored.2 The EU perceives many of the potential globalised security risks that it faces, such as terrorism, transnational crime or illegal immigration, to originate in the areas that now sit immediately alongside the external borders of the Union.

Preventing Risks and Changing Regimes: The 2003 Invasion of Iraq

The 2003 invasion of Iraq is an important case study in the examination of risk and hierarchy in international society in the post-Cold War era. First, spatially and temporally de-bounded risks and the perceived need to prevent them were central to the justifications and rationale provided by proponents of the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. Second, in response to these risks, the US and its ‘Coalition of the Willing’ sought to reshape the environment from which the risks associated with WMD proliferation and terrorism were perceived to originate by deposing Saddam Hussein’s regime and promoting liberal democracy in Iraq. Indeed, the former Bush administration was explicit that ‘victory’ in Iraq and the management of risk would primarily involve a stable and democratic Iraq.1

Australia and the Management of Risk in the South Pacific

Since attaining independence, most Pacific island states have relied on Australia as a major source of foreign aid and development assistance. Pacific island nations such as Papua New Guinea (PNG), a former trust territory of Australia until 1975 and, more recently, East Timor and Solomon Islands have relied heavily upon Australia for aid funding and support. In turn, Australia has focused heavily on liberal notions of good governance as the pre-requisite for economic development and social and political stability in the Pacific island states.1 Despite this, until recently Australia’s policy position on development aid was largely centred on a ‘hands-off’ approach — provide aid funding to Pacific island states and allow their respective governments to formulate and adopt their own development agendas.2 The point was to avoid any suggestion that Australia was interfering in the internal affairs of these states or was seeking to establish itself as a neo-imperialist regional power.3

The Management of Risk

Risk is a concept that focuses attention on future possibilities, on the probabilities and potentialities of hazards, dangers or threats that do not yet exist and may or may not materialise. Because of this, the management of risk is generally oriented towards activities and modes of behaviour such as prevention, precaution and proactivity. Risk management is essentially about anticipating negative scenarios with adverse consequences before they occur and, thereafter, ensuring that they either do not occur at all or that their impacts are mitigated and controlled. Essentially, this is what Western governments have attempted to do through several interventions in ostensibly risky states. The point has been to prevent globalised or transnational risks to Western security from materialising rather than responding to threats or emergencies as they arise. In effect, Western governments have explicitly taken up the mantle of risk managers, seeking to govern risk and prevent negative future occurrences.