Repertoires of statecraft: instruments and logics of power politics

Abstract

Issues involving ‘statecraft’ lie at the heart of most major debates about world politics, yet scholars do not go far enough in analyzing how the processes of statecraft themselves can reshape the international system. We draw on the growing relational-processual literature in international relations theory to explore how different modes of statecraft can help create and refashion the structure of world politics. In particular, we argue that scholars should reconceive statecraft in terms of repertoires. An emphasis on repertoires sheds light on a number of issues, including how statecraft influences patterns of technological innovation, the construction of institutional and normative orders, and the pathways through which states mobilize power in world politics.

(No) Exit from liberalism?

“…Again, the degree of multilateralization varies by region and issue area, while some instances of multilateralism make little substantive difference to the conduct of international relations (see Alter and Meunier, 2009; Hafner-Burton and Montgomery, 2006). But the number of such arrangements decreases markedly as we travel back before World War II and World War I and on into the 19th century (see Goddard, 2018; Goddard et al, 2019; Reus-Smit, 1997).…”

International Relations: The Story So Far

“…Stacie Goddard, Paul MacDonald and Daniel Nexon explain, in ways that would shock those whose reading of IR stopped in the 1990s, how statecraft remains robustly at the heart of most major debates in the discipline. 92 They argue that statecraft in its multiple and sometimes 'fragmented' manifestations, and under various names, continues to occupy 'the center of the study of international relations'; they also show its significance in diplomatic and other practices. In making the latter case, that 'statecraft' (understood by the authors as 'repertoires') is not simply reactive to structure, but causal, the authors converge with the Historical Sociology perspective acknowledging the 'mutually constitutive, interactive processes involved in the formation of nation-states and the global states-system'.…”

WIN-WIN! with ODA-man: legitimizing development assistance policy in Japan

“…In the IR context, this would mean that we would expect to see the Japanese state employ familiar instruments in its foreign policy as well as in its public legitimation and promotion of policies. While facing new circumstances, be them geopolitical, social or economic, may bring about changes, modifications and innovations, these adjustments are often still within the cultural and historical repertoire of the collective (Goddard, MacDonald, & Nexon, 2019;Goddard & Nexon, 2016). In its acknowledgement of the social embeddedness of world politics and the path dependency of doing what is known and familiar, the repertoire concept allows for capturing the cultural aspect of doing foreign policy, providing new and interesting avenues for understanding why states make sometimes puzzling policy decisions.…”