This article asks whether international law is moving towards a more unified constitutional order or whether differentiated types of constitutional processes are emerging. We study the sequencing and ratification pace of 32 ‘quasi-constitutional’ international agreements containing procedural guidelines for inter-state relations and fundamental human rights provisions for individuals drawn up between 1945 and 2007. We do so in a comparative and quantitative fashion applying sophisticated statistical tools, namely event history techniques combined with counting processes. On the basis of our multi-treaty framework, the findings do not lend support to a unified and quick process of global constitutionalisation. Rather, they provide evidence for the idea of a ‘multi-speed globe’ of differentiated constitutionalisation. We also make a first attempt to study antecedents to global constitutionalisation. Our findings show that processes of global constitutionalisation vary across regime types and world regions (while there is no effect for new and old states).

This article examines levels of compliance with the counter-terrorism regime in Africa, where weak states might have been expected to conform. Instead, even under American pressure, some governments have seized the anti-terrorism rhetoric while others have been more reluctant. A comparative analysis of Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda demonstrates that domestic political factors largely explain this variation; compliance is highest in countries with the least democratic institutions and minimal mobilisation of domestic constituencies. Aid dependence and the perception of a terrorist threat also play a role. To the extent that popular pressures in transitional democracies reduce compliance, the article raises questions about the legitimacy and effectiveness of the counter-terrorism regime.

From a critical security studies perspective – and non-traditional security studies more broadly – is the concept of human security something which should be taken seriously? Does human security have anything significant to offer security studies? Both human security and critical security studies challenge the state-centric orthodoxy of conventional international security, based upon military defence of territory against ‘external’ threats. Both also challenge neorealist scholarship, and involve broadening and deepening the security agenda. Yet critical security studies have not engaged substantively with human security as a distinct approach to non-traditional security. This article explores the relationship between human security and critical security studies and considers why human security arguments – which privilege the individual as the referent of security analysis and seek to directly influence policy in this regard – have not made a significant impact in critical security studies. The article suggests a number of ways in which critical and human security studies might engage. In particular, it suggests that human security scholarship must go beyond its (mostly) uncritical conceptual underpinnings if it is to make a lasting impact upon security studies, and this might be envisioned as Critical Human Security Studies (CHSS).

Despite its newness, the concept of the responsibility to protect (R2P) looks back at a stellar career. It has been the subject of numerous conferences and academic publications and has been affirmed by the major UN bodies. Indeed, if one were to assess the development of an international norm by the amount of academic attention and general rhetorical support it enjoys, one could be inclined to believe that the responsibility to protect is rapidly evolving into a norm of customary international law.

This article subjects the R2P hype to critical scrutiny and asks probing questions about R2P's viability as a norm. Beneath the thin veneer of rhetorical acceptance of R2P lies a range of hotly disputed issues – in particular but not exclusively regarding the concept's implications for the use of force – which are unlikely to be resolved in the near future. In this article I examine R2P's potential to ‘ripen’ into an international norm. I argue that in the absence of an intersubjective consensus about what R2P actually means, the concept's chances to ‘harden’ into a norm of customary international law are remote. I posit that R2P cannot be considered a ‘new norm’ or an ‘emerging norm’ as it is frequently called, because the vast majority of states simply does not want to be legally bound to save strangers in remote regions of the world.

This article provides a critique of Louise Arbour's article ‘The responsibility to protect as a duty of care in international law and practice’. Proceeding through criticisms of Arbour's specific propositions, the thesis is advanced that the perverse effect of the ‘duty of care’ is to undermine political accountability and by extension, political responsibility. It is argued that this is an imperfect duty that no specific agent is obliged to fulfil. This poses insuperable problems of agency that are exposed in Arbour's efforts to actualise the doctrine. As there is no mechanism for enacting the ‘duty of care’, I argue that it will be powerful states that will determine the conditions under which the ‘responsibility to protect’ is discharged. This means that the ‘duty’ will remain tied to the prerogatives of states. In order to resolve this problem of agency, it will be shown how Arbour is forced to replace the idea of law with the principle of ‘might makes right’. The ‘duty of care’ is also shown to have regressive effects on the domestic sphere: the demand that states be made accountable to the international community ends up making states responsible for their people rather than to their people.

Liberal peacebuilding has become the target of considerable criticism. Although much of this criticism is warranted, a number of scholars and commentators have come to the opinion that liberal peacebuilding is either fundamentally destructive, or illegitimate, or both. On close analysis, however, many of these critiques appear to be exaggerated or misdirected. At a time when the future of peacebuilding is uncertain, it is important to distinguish between justified and unjustified criticisms, and to promote a more balanced debate on the meaning, shortcomings and prospects of liberal peacebuilding.

This article argues that current discourses on Turkish corruption are marked by a disproportionate emphasis on culture and can thus be understood as part of a broader relationship with Europe's perennial ‘other’. Having traced elements of this within European political elites' response to Turkey's prospective accession to the Union, the article goes on to suggest that the association of corruption with a different cultural orientation represents a useful means of legitimising the extraneous guidance of administrative and economic change. The ultimate aim of such reforms are, the article concludes, to extend the penetrative capacity of European capital, to reduce the transaction costs involved in acquiring Turkish assets and to disable domestic resistance to further marketisation.

‘Architecture’ has emerged as the new catchphrase in Asian security politics. Despite its growing centrality, insufficient attention has thus far been given to defining the term, often leading to its imprecise usage. This article seeks to redress that shortcoming. It reviews the ways in which various scholars and practitioners have employed the term ‘security architecture’ and highlights the anomalies that their often differing employment has created. The article proposes a set of guidelines to aid conceptualisation and application of the term. In so doing it establishes criteria to ascertain what ‘security architecture’ actually exists in the Asian region, and must ultimately exist to assure regional security.

Scholars in international relations have long known that ideas matter in matters of international politics, yet theories of the discipline have failed to capture their impact either in the making of foreign policy or the nature of the international system. Recent reengagement with the insights of classical realists has pointed to the possibility of a neoclassical realist approach that can take into account the impact of ideas. This article will suggest that the study of grand strategy can enlighten the intervening ideational variables between the distribution of power in the international system and the foreign policy behaviour of states, and thus constitute the key element in a neoclassical realist research agenda.

This article seeks to refine the concept of ‘strategic culture’ and to highlight some appropriate methods of analysis through which this concept might be applied in empirical studies. In doing so, I seek to synthesise a much ignored element of strategic culture literature – Bradley Klein's ‘second generation’ approach – with insights drawn from contemporary critical constructivist theory. The resulting conception of strategic culture presents a less deterministic account of culture than that found in much existing literature regarding. It also provides far greater critical potential with regard to the analysis of the strategic practices of states and other actors. More generally, this conception of strategic culture leads us to ask how strategic culture serves to constitute certain strategic behaviour as meaningful but also how strategic behaviour serves to constitute the identity of those actors that engage in such behaviour.

This article introduces a novel way of conceptualising variations of peace in post-war societies. The most common way of defining peace in the academic literature on war termination is to differentiate between those cases where there is a continuation or resumption of large-scale violence and those cases where violence has been terminated and peace, defined by the absence of war, has been established. Yet, a closer look at a number of countries where a peace agreement has been signed and peace is considered to prevail reveals a much more diverse picture. Beyond the absence of war, there are striking differences in terms of the character of peace that has followed. This article revisits the classical debates on peace and the notion of the Conflict Triangle as a useful theoretical construction for the study of armed conflicts. We develop a classification captured in a Peace Triangle, where post-settlement societies are categorised on the basis of three key dimensions: issues, behaviour, and attitudes. On the basis of such a differentiation, we illustrate the great diversity of peace beyond the absence of war in a number of post-settlement societies. Finally, we discuss the relationship between the different elements of the Peace Triangle, and the challenges they pose for establishing a sustainable peace, as well as the implications of this study for policy makers concerned with peacebuilding efforts.

This article focuses on David Miller's recent and influential study National Responsibility and Global Justice (2007). After outlining Miller's methodological commitments in the book, the article offers an interpretation of the major aspects of Miller's case against ‘Cosmopolitan egalitarianism’ before focusing especially on the issue of migration and refugees. Here the article argues that while membership of a nation is (under certain conditions) of intrinsic value, it is not the only thing that is of intrinsic value – friendship, family and other practices can also be sources of intrinsic value – nor is it necessarily the most important. It is therefore not clear, the article argues, why an account of global justice that seeks to take seriously the existence of national communities on the grounds of their intrinsic value, should propose rules of justice concerning freedom of movement that entail the de jure privileging of the value of national community over other sources of intrinsic value. The article concludes by assessing how Miller's arguments can support the movement from mere ‘distributivism’ towards political justice, towards an account that more adequately integrates agency, responsibility and power into our account of global justice.

Although the concept of regional power is frequently used in International Relations (IR) literature, there is no consensus regarding the defining characteristics of a regional power. The article discusses different theoretical approaches that address the topic of power hierarchies in international politics and make reference to the concept of regional power. Marking differences as well as common ground with the more traditional concept of ‘middle powers’, the article outlines an analytical concept of regional powers adequate for contemporary IR research. The analytical dimensions of the framework may be employed to differentiate regional powers from other states and to compare regional powers with regard to their power status or relative power. Furthermore, the article investigates the possible repercussions of the rise of regional powers for international politics and discusses the probable importance and functions of regional governance structures for regional powers.

Explanations for the lack of war between democracies are many, various and contested. The main thrust of research is quantitative but there is also a growing literature of case studies. Such studies can throw light on the issues by showing in particular contexts the complex interaction of different factors, those both consistent and inconsistent with democratic peace theory. The détente in the 1920s between France and Germany offers an interesting example for several reasons. Both were democracies but one (Germany) was still undergoing democratisation. In addition, neither was content with the status quo, the distribution of power between them was unstable and that instability was not resolved by an over-arching alliance system (such as NATO) or strong international institutions. A complex interaction resulted between France's security dilemma, the German Republic's need for foreign policy success and the democratic values of political leaders on both sides.

Despite the development of an increasingly sophisticated literature on comparative regional integration drawing from a variety of cases, the European experience remains the most often used benchmark against which other integrative processes are judged; there is still an often implicit expectation that ‘successful’ processes of regionalism will end up looking something like the European Union. While it is correct to move away from such a ‘Euro-dominance’, the theoretical lessons learned continue to have salience when applied to emerging and competing forms of integrative processes in East Asia. In particular, when economic considerations dominate regional relations – at times of economic crises – then integrative logics and strategies come to the fore. In more ‘normal’ times when geo-strategic considerations reassert themselves, then the consensus over region building and the very nature of the region itself is weakened and cooperation is replaced by competing visions and the over-supply of region.

Pre- and post-agreement discourses are an integral part of international relations. Yet, they only matter sometimes as an empirical analysis of European judicial discourses shows. State of the art Habermasisan and social psychology approaches on effective arguing cannot sufficiently explain variation in the success of discourses. This requires a fine-grained perspective: Only if actors share yardsticks fitting to the issue at stake, they can commonly assess the quality of arguments and incrementally develop a consensus. If such issue-specific reference standards are absent, actors talk at cross-purposes and dissent prevails. The article empirically illustrates the importance of intersubjective validity for the effectiveness of discourses and tests its central claim against alternative constructivist and rationalist explanations.

Regional powers are often conceived of as ‘regional leading powers’, states which adopt a cooperative and benevolent attitude in their international relations with their neighbours. The article argues that regional powers can follow a much wider range of foreign policy strategies in their region. Three ideal-typical regional strategies are identified: empire, hegemony, and leadership. The article is devoted to a theory-led distinction and clarification of these three terms, which are often used interchangeably in the field of International Relations. According to the goals pursued, to the means employed, and to other discriminating features such as the degree of legitimation and the type of self-representation by the dominant state, the article outlines the essential traits of imperial, hegemonic, and leading strategies and identifies sub-types for better classifying hegemony and leadership.

Non-state actors are increasingly assuming an active part in the design and construction of the institutional framework of global governance. The introduction of the concept of private authority in the literature has provided us with an insightful analytical tool for a deeper understanding of the role of private actors in the context of global governance. However, in order to achieve this objective the concept of private authority needs to be defined accurately and applied consistently in the examination of non-state governance schemes. This article aims to delineate the concept of private authority in the context of global governance first, by outlining the main characteristics of authority and identifying instances of inconsistent and loose application of these characteristics in the private authority literature and secondly, by offering a starting point for an analytically consistent typology of non-state authority. Following this analysis, a more thoroughly defined and analytically consistent concept of transnational in authority is presented. This new conceptualisation locates non-state in authority in the amalgamation of public authority and private power in the context of complex transnational governance structures, and can hopefully helps us gain a deeper understanding of the increasing institutionalisation and legitimation of transnational non-state governance.