Introduction to International Relations provides a concise introduction to the principal international relations theories and approaches, and explores how theory can be used to analyse contemporary issues. Throughout the text, the chapters encourage readers to consider the strengths and weaknesses of the theories presented, and the major points of contention between them. In so doing, the text helps the reader to build a clear understanding of how major theoretical debates link up with each other, and how the structure of the discipline of international relations is established. The book places a strong emphasis throughout on the relationship between theory and practice, carefully explaining how theories organize and shape our view of the world. It also shows how a historical perspective can often refine theories and provide a frame of reference for contemporary problems of international relations. Topics include realism, liberalism, International Society, International Political Economy, social constructivism, post-positivism in international relations, major issues in IPE and IR, foreign policy, and world order. Each chapter ends by discussing how different theories have attempted to integrate or combine international and domfactors in their explanatory frameworks. The final part of the book is dedicated to major global issues and how theory can be used as a tool to analyse and interpret these issues. The text is accompanied by online resources, which include: short case studies, review questions, annotated web links, and a flashcard glossary.
Thanai Permpul, Abdeel Kadir Bello, Ahmad Abdalaziz Alnusfir
et al.
The article aimed to comprehensively analyse the great powers' rivalries in the current international political and geopolitical landscape, which may be leading to a changing global order. Great Power in the Changing International Order refers to the intensifying competition and conflict among the major powers, especially the US, China, and Russia. It covers various issues such as trade, technology, security, human rights and global governance. The emergence of this rivalry has challenged the existing international order, shaped mainly by the US and its allies after the Cold War. It has created new opportunities and risks for the middle and smaller powers caught between the great-power axis. The latter half of the 20th century saw a shift toward a multipolar world due to globalisation, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and technological advances. However, the 19th and 20th centuries were marked by the dynamic nature of multipolarity, with periods of stability and instability. The receding US influence, the rise of other power centres, and the transition from geopolitics to geoeconomics are among the main factors driving the transition in the world order.
Bibliography Entry
Permpul, Thanai, Abdeel Kadir Bello, Ahmad Abdalaziz Alnusfir and Meshal Abdullah Salman Almaliki. 2025. "Great Power Rivalry in a Changing International Order." Margalla Papers 29 (2): 54-67.
International relations, Private international law. Conflict of laws
LLM-based MAS are gaining popularity due to their potential for collaborative problem-solving enhanced by advances in natural language comprehension, reasoning, and planning. Research in Theory of Mind (ToM) and Belief-Desire-Intention (BDI) models has the potential to further improve the agent's interaction and decision-making in such systems. However, collaborative intelligence in dynamic worlds remains difficult to accomplish since LLM performance in multi-agent worlds is extremely variable. Simply adding cognitive mechanisms like ToM and internal beliefs does not automatically result in improved coordination. The interplay between these mechanisms, particularly in relation to formal logic verification, remains largely underexplored in different LLMs. This work investigates: How do internal belief mechanisms, including symbolic solvers and Theory of Mind, influence collaborative decision-making in LLM-based multi-agent systems, and how does the interplay of those components influence system accuracy? We introduce a novel multi-agent architecture integrating ToM, BDI-style internal beliefs, and symbolic solvers for logical verification. We evaluate this architecture in a resource allocation problem with various LLMs and find an intricate interaction between LLM capabilities, cognitive mechanisms, and performance. This work contributes to the area of AI by proposing a novel multi-agent system with ToM, internal beliefs, and symbolic solvers for augmenting collaborative intelligence in multi-agent systems and evaluating its performance under different LLM settings.
The article examines the formation of a comprehensive humanitarian space in modern conditions. It is determined that it is gaining strategic importance, as it encompasses the integration of policies in the spheres of culture, education, preservation of cultural heritage, formation of national identity, as well as the regulation of interethnic and interfaith relations. The article analyzes the main theoretical approaches to humanitarian policy, presented in the works of Pierre Bourdieu, Stuart Hall, Arjun Appadurai and John Tomlinson. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of cultural practices as a mechanism of social mobilization and a means of ensuring social integration.
The international experience of forming a humanitarian space is studied using the example of Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the USA, Canada, Japan and South Korea. Key trends and challenges in the development of humanitarian policy in the context of globalization are identified, in particular the impact of digitalization, which opens up new opportunities for intercultural communication, interactive knowledge exchange and the formation of a common information space.
Special attention is paid to the Ukrainian context of the formation of the humanitarian space. The processes of adaptation of European and world experience are analyzed, in particular in the field of state regulation of cultural policy and mechanisms for preserving national identity. Key challenges are identified: uneven distribution of funding for cultural initiatives, language barriers, digital inequality, problems of intercultural interaction and information security.
The results of the study can be used to develop public administration strategies aimed at preserving cultural heritage, developing educational institutions, strengthening national identity, and ensuring information security in the context of digital transformation and global challenges.
Political institutions and public administration (General)
The article focuses on analyzing the European Union’s (EU) Digital Connectivity project for Central Asia as a mechanism of the “Global Gateway” initiative to counterbalance the influence of China and other geopolitical actors in the region. It examines the objectives and specific features of the EU’s strategy aimed at minimizing China’s influence by promoting its own digital standards and European values. The study employs a comprehensive approach, including an analysis of key EU documents, a comparative analysis of EU and Chinese projects in Central Asia, and an examination of geopolitical and economic factors affecting the implementation of digital projects. The analysis reveals that the EU’s digital connectivity project within the “Global Gateway” initiative focuses on the development of digital technologies, European standards, and regulatory reforms in Central Asia. At the same time, the proposed projects are designed to align with the EU’s sustainability priorities, as outlined in the Union’s key policy documents. Despite the stated goals of innovation and sustainability, EU projects face challenges related to slow implementation, limited resources, and contradictions between geopolitical interests and the values being promoted. Meanwhile, Chinese projects demonstrate faster implementation and larger scale, posing a challenge to the EU. The success of the EU’s digital engagement with Central Asia states will depend on its ability to integrate regional specificities, enhance coordination among member states, and offer competitive initiatives. Rapid digitalization remains a pressing task for Central Asian countries seeking to close the digital divide. However, without considering local interests and adopting a more pragmatic approach to project implementation, the EU risks losing influence in the region.
Understanding the thickness and variability of internal ice layers in radar imagery is crucial for monitoring snow accumulation, assessing ice dynamics, and reducing uncertainties in climate models. Radar sensors, capable of penetrating ice, provide detailed radargram images of these internal layers. In this work, we present ST-GRIT, a spatio-temporal graph transformer for ice layer thickness, designed to process these radargrams and capture the spatiotemporal relationships between shallow and deep ice layers. ST-GRIT leverages an inductive geometric graph learning framework to extract local spatial features as feature embeddings and employs a series of temporal and spatial attention blocks separately to model long-range dependencies effectively in both dimensions. Experimental evaluation on radargram data from the Greenland ice sheet demonstrates that ST-GRIT consistently outperforms current state-of-the-art methods and other baseline graph neural networks by achieving lower root mean-squared error. These results highlight the advantages of self-attention mechanisms on graphs over pure graph neural networks, including the ability to handle noise, avoid oversmoothing, and capture long-range dependencies. Moreover, the use of separate spatial and temporal attention blocks allows for distinct and robust learning of spatial relationships and temporal patterns, providing a more comprehensive and effective approach.
The most recent observational and theoretical results in the rapidly expanding field of high-energy gamma-ray astrophysics were discussed at the international conference ``Gamma-2024'' that took place in Milano in September 2024. This contribution summarises the 'rapporteur talk' relative to the Galactic science given at the end of the conference.
Since the withdrawal of the US / North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces from Afghanistan in August 2021, Balochistan has experienced a renewed wave of terrorism with improved organisational/operational capabilities and better-equipped Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and Balochistan Liberation Front (BLF). The information environment of Balochistan has also undergone a rapid change in the last three years, with the Baloch population, especially the Baloch youth, becoming more accessible to the Baloch Nationalist Militant Organizations through a very efficient militant narrative creation dissemination system. This system of narrative creation based on the manipulation of facts and fabricated stories matched by a dynamic propaganda dissemination system is quickly replacing the facts with an alternative reality. It has also successfully replaced the national mainstream media and is becoming an alternative media choice for the Baloch population. The Baloch Nationalist Militant Organisations’ narrative has quickly gained popularity among domestic audiences and accrues credence from international media. An effective response mechanism is crucial to counter the far-reaching implications through a comprehensive and all-encompassing national effort.
Bibliography Entry
Iqbal, Jehanzeb. 2024. "Decoding Bots of Terrorism in Balochistan." Margalla Papers 28 (2): 63-77.
International relations, Private international law. Conflict of laws
Moldova is a borderland, lying geographically between Slavic Russia and the modern, liberal states of the European Union. Historically, it took shape after the rise of a multicultural Ottoman Empire to its south and the disintegrating remains of the old Holy Roman Empire to its west. These influences remain, but long before modern history it was on the invasion path between Eastern and Western Eurasia, which itself was divided between Orthodox Christianity and Roman Catholicism. Centuries of wars and occupation left a deep ethnic mark on Moldova, consisting of Dacian, Tartar, Roman, Greek, Ottoman, Russian, Magyar, and Jewish cultures. They all left their mark on Moldovan national identity, which was acquired by accommodating a cultural mix that required negotiation and tolerance which remains part of the Moldovan national identity today. This article looks at the “national question” around the example of Moldova.
This article examines foreign direct investment (FDI) as an indicator of economic integration, focusing on Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) in the two decades they have been EU members. Although CEE countries have remained on the EU’s periphery and struggled with development gaps, they have attracted substantial FDI, especially in the first decade after accession, fuelling the growth of outward FDI and integration into global value chains. Despite CEE economies like Slovenia and Hungary having seen differences in their use of FDI, such investment and European integration will remain central to the region’s economic development, even amid the ongoing geopolitical tensions.
M. Saeri, Ahmad Jamaan, Muhammad Farhan Surez
et al.
Konflik Rusia-Ukraina dimulai pada tahun 2014 hingga saat ini. Pada tahun 2014, Rusia berupaya mencaplok wilayah Donbas dan Krimea. Upaya aneksasi Rusia dilakukan melalui serangan siber. Pada tahun 2022 Ukraina akan didukung penuh oleh senjata NATO. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menjelaskan mengapa Rusia melanjutkan serangannya dari penggunaan operasi siber hingga penggunaan militer penuh. Peneliti menggunakan analisis perspektif realisme ofensif, teori kekuatan besar dengan konsep “kekuasaan”, untuk mengelola konflik secara transformatif. Temuan dalam penelitian ini adalah upaya penguatan kekuatan militer Rusia juga dipengaruhi oleh kehadiran NATO yang mempunyai kepentingan di Ukraina. Dalam perebutan wilayah pengaruh antara dua aktor adidaya, NATO sebagai kekuatan besar berkepentingan menjadikan Ukraina sebagai benteng militer terdekat untuk membendung pengaruh Rusia di kawasan Balkan. Sebaliknya, Rusia sebagai kekuatan besar di kawasan Balkan berkepentingan menjadikan Ukraina sebagai buffer zone untuk mengantisipasi kemungkinan tekanan terhadap NATO Rusia dalam segala aspek, terutama secara militer.
Linda Boudjemila, Alexander Bobyl, Vadim Davydov
et al.
A new type of moving average is developed. Whereas a regular moving average (e.g. of price) has a built-in internal time scale (time-window, exponential weight, etc.), the moving average developed in this paper has the weight as the product of a polynomial by window factor. The polynomial is the square of a wavefunction obtained from an eigenproblem corresponding to other observable (e.g. execution flow I=dV/dt , the number of shares traded per unit time). This allows to obtain an immediate "switch" without lagging typical for regular moving average.
From the back side of the book: In this comprehensive and unique theory-practice study, Ofer Israeli examines complex effects of international relations relating to various indirect—intended and unintended— consequences of intentional human action. These effects may be desirable or undesirable, overt or covert, anticipated or surprising, foreseeable but unanticipated, and anticipated but simultaneously neglected or discounted. Israeli focuses on six case studies from the Middle East, analyzing the unexpected and accidental results of interventions in this region by the United States, the United Kingdom, and other Western powers during the Cold War. From this research, he develops a complex-causal mechanism or practical tool that countries may use to implement foreign policy, with the goal of reducing the number of conflicts and wars globally, especially in the Middle East.
This article situates itself in the context of the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks which launched the ‘Global War on Terror’—coming shortly after the debacle of the Taliban’s triumphant return to power in Afghanistan. The article contends that both terrorism and the war on terrorism have upset the delicate balance between democracy and security, and placed democracy at risk. This article begins by examining the evolution of the nature and scope of terrorism over the past 20 years. It explores critically the vexed nexus and complex relationships between democracy, security and terrorism. Then it delineates the three-fold threat posed to democracy by terrorism and counter-terrorism. It elaborates how these three threats might be not simply countered but indeed transformed through a genuinely democratic response. It seeks to establish that justice, rule of law and the pursuit of human and planetary security are the non-negotiable cornerstones needed today to rescue democracy from these corrosive effects of terrorism and the war on terrorism. The article ends by outlining some key policy recommendations for leaders of global governance that would be essential to rebalance the delicate relationship between democracy, security and terrorism and ensure our collective and planetary wellbeing at this crucial moment of reckoning.
International relations, Economic growth, development, planning
This paper summarizes the arguments and counterarguments within the scientific discussion on the generalization of the main vectors of the tax competitiveness theory’s development. The main purpose of the article is to analyze and systematize the research of scientists on the formation of tax competitiveness of the country, to identify the relationship of tax competitiveness with other economic categories, to determine the most promising areas of research on this issue. The results of trend analysis of scientific publications on tax competitiveness, indexed by Scopus and Web of Science scientometric databases, show a gradual increase in the relevance of these issues. The average growth rate of the number of publications on tax competitiveness in the Scopus database exceeds 12%, and in the Web of Science database – 45%. The methodological tools of the bibliometric analysis are VOSViewer v.1.6.10 and Scopus and Web of Science database analysis tools. The object of analysis is 4,598 publications indexed in the Web of Science database and 4,898 publications indexed in the Scopus database. The issues of international tax competitiveness became most relevant in 2003-2005, which coincided with the period of aggravation of the global economic crisis, which was accompanied by a significant reduction in tax revenues to budgets. The article identifies the top 10 Journals, most of which are indexed simultaneously by two databases and are part of the first quarter, in which the issue of tax competitiveness was considered most often. The study empirically confirms and theoretically proves the intersectoral nature of the study of the problem of the country’s tax competitiveness. According to the Web of Science database, issues of tax competitiveness were most often considered within the subject areas of Economics (39% of publications); Business Finance (6%); Environmental Studies (6%); Political Science (5%); Law (4%); Urban Studies (3%); Business (3%); Management (3%); Environmental Sciences (2%); Public Administration (2%); Regional Urban Planning (2%); International Relations (2%); Operations Research Management Science 2%) and others (21%), while according to the Scopus database – Economics, Econometrics and Finance (published 28% of all papers); Social Sciences (21%); Business, Management and Accounting (13%); Engineering (7%); Environmental Science (7%); Medicine (5%); Energy (4%); Computer Science (2%); Arts and Humanities (2%); Decision Sciences (2%); Earth and Planetary Sciences (1%); Materials Science (1%); Agricultural and Biological Sciences (1%); Others (6%). The paper clusters international research networks on tax competitiveness by geographical area and identifies 5 clusters of cooperation of scientists in the preparation of publications indexed in the Web of Science database and 4 clusters – in the preparation of publications indexed in the Scopus database. According to the results of the analysis of metadata of publications devoted to the tax competitiveness, 14672 keywords, the frequency of use of which exceeds 5, were identified and grouped into 5 patterns. Most often, the concept of tax competitiveness is associated with the concepts of tax, economics, competition, costs, taxation.
Since 2001 the inter-ethnic relations between the two largest ethno-national
communities in the Republic of Macedonia have been regulated by the Ohrid Framework Agreement (OFA). Describing it as an attempt at Complex Power Sharing, the article explores the synthesis (in theory and in practice) between the Agreement’s consociational and integrationist tenets. Situating the genesis and implementation of the OFA at the intersection of internal and international relations and processes, it considers the influence of two strongly interrelated processes: the country’s neoliberal transformation and its accession path to the EU and NATO. Specific internal and international developments in the post-2001 period is analysed in order to
illustrate the entrenchment of consociationalism at the expense of integrationism. As a result of these mutually reinforcing structures and processes, it is argued, inter-ethnic relations in the country have become a zero-sum game, which has eroded the scope for sustainable conflict resolution and inter-ethnic stability.