International Relations and Governance Studies

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Imperialism, international law, and war are not strange bedfellows but as the historical record suggests can be natural allies. While Anthony F. Lang, Jr in his chapter sheds light on the European discourse of just war, Siddharth Mallavarapu engages with various critical perspectives on the relationship between ‘empire’, ‘law’, and ‘war’: Mediated through questions of race, colonial difference, and ‘standards of civilization’, his contribution seeks to reverse the ‘gaze’ and view this compact not from the victor’s perspective often presented as neutral and disinterested but from the consciously partisan perspective of those who have been recipients of the violence inherent in the imperial way of law-making. It goes on to examine truncations or abridgements of classical sovereignty and shadow invocations of ‘responsibility’ with regard to ‘human shields’, drones and politico-legal responses to assassinations. Ultimately, it poses the question of what might help rehabilitate international law and avoid the logjams of bureaucratic rationality when it comes to dealing with conflict within and between states. © the many contributors 2021.

(SoHSS) School of Humanities and Social Sciences

The Justification of War and International Order: From Past to Present

Imperialism, international law, and war: Enduring legacies and curious entanglements

Humanitarianism and its political derivate, humanitarian intervention, exploded on to the scene a decade back.1The concept of humanitarian intervention was justified as a manifest improvement over the Agenda for Peace approach to global peacekeeping to a more muscular way that sought to protect people from violence across the world and thereby advance the idea of human rights as an ethical imperative or a moral trump over several other competing ideas predicated on claims of juridical sovereignty. This study makes several claims concerning this rather unprecedented dilation of humanitarianism in international politics. First, I show that the idea has evolved from being based on religious piety and charity to crisis mitigation and expedient to one of neoliberal governmentality, a right to save immortal souls more than the perishable bodies. It is at the same time a politics of life and victimhood, which discriminates care as much by ascription and expedient as by the concerns of the well-being and health of the host. Secondly, and as a logical corollary to the first, this requires us to understand humanitarianism as a variant of Foucault’s ideas of biopower and biopolitics, understood as a politics of life, and Derrida’s ideas of hospitality, gift, and forgiveness to understand the challenges of the politics of protection. It explains how the idea of protection is central to humanitarianism and its derivative governmentalism in the form of modern population politics. Thirdly, the paper argues that the modern form of humanitarianism is a product of modern neo-liberal capitalism rather than a form of altruism or love for humanity. Fourthly, I argue that idea of humanitarianism is global in scope, and international humanitarian law as a regulatory basis of global humanitarian governance and the governance practices in the domains of food and health bear a clear testimony to this fact. My central argument is that humanitarian protection is a form of biopolitical governmentality, and, therefore, all contexts of humanitarian protection would show limits and prioritisation of lives. This study argues that the innate diversity of conflicting ethical considerations makes it impossible to arrive at a sanitised version of humanitarianism that can be justified in abstract philosophical terms. Rather, humanitarianism must be understood politically, and considerations of interests, both economic and strategic, are central to the concept.

Refugee Watch

The Politics of Humanitarianism: Some Considerations

‘Comparative Political Theory’ in Leonardo Morlino, Dirk-Berg Schlosser and Bertrand Badie ed. Handbook of Political Science: A Global Perspective (London: Sage, 2020), pp.13-29

This volume discusses a range of key domestic forces driving the current Chinese growth ranging from economic reforms to governance practices to analyze their impact and influence at home as well as on China’s foreign and security policies in its near and extended neighbourhood. At the same time, the volume also looks at specific themes like technology, agricultural development, reform of state-owned enterprises and the use of Party bodies to engage in foreign propaganda work among other things to offer examples of the merging of Chinese domestic political and foreign policy interests. In the process, the book offers its readers a better idea of China’s place in the world as the Chinese themselves see it and the implications over time for China, its neighbourhood and the wider world. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020.

World University root node

China’s Search for ‘National Rejuvenation’: Domestic and Foreign Policies under Xi Jinping

China’s search for ŉational rejuvenation’: Domestic and foreign policies under Xi Jinping

The contributions in the volume do a fine job of recounting the sites and modes of unravelling meaty issue-area 'interface conflicts' and studying their diverse implications. I have sought to consciously read these contestations here from the broader perspective of the global South. My overall plea is for more politics and not less when it comes to studying 'interface conflicts' and norm contestations. What this translates into is to embed the technicalities of norm conflicts in the backdrop of more fully fleshed out political currents and contexts. Methodologically speaking, while sympathetic to the process-driven agential micro-constructivist approach to studying these 'interface conflicts', I argue that 'internalist' accounts of perceptions must ideally tap on insiders to arrive at a richer appreciation of the anxieties and hopes surrounding particular norm contestations in specific issue-areas. © 2020 Cambridge University Press.

Global Constitutionalism

'After fragmentation': Notes from the global South

The COVID-19 pandemic has dented China’s image as an efficient party-state, given how an effort to cover up the outbreak and the resulting delays in reporting led to the virus spreading beyond its origins in Wuhan in Hubei province to the rest of the country as well as rapidly across the world. This article examines China’s massive external propaganda effort launched as part of the effort to repair the damage to its global image and interests. It notes how China has not let the situation stop it from pursuing its traditional foreign policy and security interests, including, of competition with the USA. The article also argues that it is the ruling Communist Party of China’s concerns about its legitimacy at home that have determined the nature and scale of Chinese responses to the pandemic outside its borders. © 2020 SAGE Publications.

Fulltext

China Report

‘To Tell China’s Story Well’: China’s International Messaging during the COVID-19 Pandemic

In this introductory chapter, the editors lay out the context of China’s current political, economic and foreign policy developments with reference to the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC). It argues that promoting an idea of ŉational rejuvenation’ is part of a continuing effort by the CPC to bolster its legitimacy at home. To this end, the Party uses China’s strengths and capacities abroad in the belief that an increased international profile and respect for the country also raises its stock at home. However, the goal of ŉational rejuvenation’ has also been used to recentralize power at home and comes amidst strong economic headwinds both at home and abroad. The rest of the chapter summarizes the key findings in the book and notes that as China’s influence rises globally and its presence becomes more entrenched across domains of politics, economic activity, traditional and non-traditional security and science and technology, how it proceeds to use this influence vis-à-vis other countries will be a function of the confidence of the CPC in its own strengths and capacities to rule China. © The Author(s) 2020.

‘National rejuvenation’ as panacea for China’s domestic and external challenges

The World as Viewed from China: Theorising Governance, Leadership and Relationality in the 21st Century

The world at large when focused on China has tended to focus on its economic prowess, its large domestic market and of late, its rising international economic heft as expressed in such outreach projects as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). However, for the Communist Party of China (CPC) itself, the central focus has always been to use economic capacity to ensure domestic stability and the continuation in power of the Party. This chapter, therefore, looks at the Chinese leadership’s views of the Chinese economy, as gleaned from prominent reports and speeches and what these say of their views, including apprehensions, about the state of affairs of the Chinese economy and the implications for the position and legitimacy of the CPC. © The Author(s) 2020.

Political considerations in the Chinese leadership’s economic assessments

This paper argues that what we do to conserve biodiversity depends on how we know biodiversity. The former Chair of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) is concerned that national policymakers may not take the findings of this global assessment (GA) seriously because of ‘squabbling scientists.’ The paper explores the contentious issues in IPBES, about presenting knowledge to policymakers, and about the integration of indigenous and local knowledge (ILK) into this global scientific knowledge creation. It asks why IPBES fights shy of addressing the dialectical relationship between how we know and how we act on the environment. Given that biodiversity is best understood and conserved by local communities, we present a case study of the protocols or policies of the Maldhari community in the Banni grasslands in India. The institutions or norms of the Maldhari ‘way of life’ govern and co-create their knowledge and policy decisions or protocols for biodiversity and livelihoods. The IPBES conceptual framework places these institutions that govern knowledge generation and policy-making outside and distinct from the direct drivers of nature and human well-being. If IPBES findings are to be taken up by nation states, we need astute policy makers who understand institutions and are capable of public engagement and co-creation of knowledge and policy. The paper makes a plea for building on the IPBES report with national and local public engagement, to enable knowledge-policy relationships of co-ownership and action for biodiversity conservation. © 2020, Springer Japan KK, part of Springer Nature.