For a progressive realism: Australian foreign policy in the 21st century

Bisley, Nick; Eckersley, Robyn; Hameiri, Shahar; Kirk, Jessica; Lawson, George; Zala, Benjamin

doi:10.1080/10357718.2022.2051428

Cited by 6 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…Furthermore, in the name of ‘progressive realism’, Australian scholars argue that a left-leaning foreign policy must recognize that the global order is shifting from ‘West to East’, and that, rather than containing the rise of China through the onset of a ‘new Cold War’, redistributing power in the internal order toward a ‘multipolar’ world should be the goal (Bisley et al, 2022). Following this logic, they render the annexation of Taiwan as inevitable.…”

Section: The New Cold War and Its Discontentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…If the cost is sacrificing Taiwanese sovereignty, their view is that doing so will ultimately not be detrimental in a ‘multipolar’ world order: ‘Taiwan is not crucial to the strategic balance and it is not a litmus test of PRC regional hegemony. Nor would it sign the death knell for democracy in a region of mixed political forms’ (Bisley et al, 2022: 154). Both the ‘new Cold War’ and the ‘geopolitical realist’ discourses deny the importance of investing in Taiwan’s defense capacity, deeming it either provocative or futile.…”

Section: The New Cold War and Its Discontentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Under the banner of the new Cold War, any attempt by Taiwan to defend itself is monolithically construed as collaboration with US imperialism. While advocating for a pluralist and power-balanced world, geopolitical realists – including the UN governing body – focus more on the agency of the larger nations and rarely take into account the history, identity-making, and power to influence global relations of small states in the name of peace (Bisley et al, 2022; Mearsheimer, 2014). Whereas the fields of international relations and security studies previously privileged great-power struggles between large nations, recent work emphasizes the diverse ways in which small states may maneuver international relations via non-traditional forms of power (Long, 2017).…”

Section: Anti-‘anti-militarization’: Martial Empiricism and Permanent...mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The mundane politics of war in Taiwan: Psychological preparedness, civil defense, and permanent war

Liu

2023

Security Dialogue

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The concept of war has always been taken for granted in the study of Taiwan vis-a-vis the People’s Republic of China. Under the dominant international narrative, Taiwan is often framed as a contested territory, where its land and sovereignty are up for competition. While recent escalating geopolitical tension has brought increasing international attention to Taiwan, international discourse on Taiwanese sovereignty has been largely limited to a traditional conception of war that views Taiwan as a geopolitical pawn in a ‘new Cold War’ between the United States and the People’s Republic of China or, under the banner of ‘geopolitical realism’, treats the rise of Taiwanese national identity as war-making. Both approaches minimize the significance of Taiwanese sovereignty and subjectivity in the struggle between superpowers. This article intervenes in both of these views by applying the framework of martial empiricism with an analysis of the subjectivity of war preparedness in Taiwanese civil society to demonstrate that war has become a normative and liberal mode of politics in Taiwan. From my ethnographic fieldwork on the grass-roots mobilization of civil defense in the time of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, I illustrate how civil defense rearticulates war not as a distant, spectacular event but as a mundane scenario that can be prepared for through daily practices and communal planning in Taiwan.

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Section: The New Cold War and Its Discontentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The New Cold War and Its Discontentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Anti-‘anti-militarization’: Martial Empiricism and Permanent...mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The mundane politics of war in Taiwan: Psychological preparedness, civil defense, and permanent war

Liu

2023

Security Dialogue

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Global Climate Change: Political Realism and the Case for a World Climate Bank

Bernstein

2024

International Political Theory

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The Paris Agreement’s goals cannot be achieved without sufficient funding, but the funding has been extremely inadequate. Addressing this problem innovatively, John Broome and Duncan Foley offer economic and political arguments in favor of establishing a new international institution, a World Climate Bank (WCB). The economic case for a WCB appears strong insofar as the bank’s main function would be to scale up mobilization of the financial resources needed for decarbonizing the world economy. However, Broome and Foley problematically assert that a WCB must buy up fossil fuel assets. I argue that this could lead to disastrous consequences and must be ruled out. Claims by Broome and Foley about realism play important roles in their proposal, although it is not clearly based on any particular form of realist political theory. I argue that a realistic proposal would include sound arguments, and I show that the political arguments offered by Broome and Foley involve equivocation, vagueness, and self-contradiction. I sketch a provisional political case for a World Climate Bank for Mitigation, Adaptation, and Resilience (WCB-MAR) satisfying certain desiderata. In the course of critiquing and revising the Broome-Foley proposal, I begin to develop a new conception of political realism. Here I aim to motivate political scientists and theorists focusing on international institutions and global justice to help develop and assess political responses to the climate crisis, including my proposal for a WCB-MAR. When doing such work, they should take full account of the gravity and urgency of the crisis. This requires them to be politically realistic in the sense discussed herein.

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