Sort Articles

Latest Articles

The cancelled elections and the mainstreaming of the far right in Romania

January 30, 2025

🧭 Rethinking EU enlargement through informal networks

January 29, 2025

Potential pitfalls of a global international relations

January 27, 2025

Why Trump should overhaul all diplomatic posts in his first 100 days

January 23, 2025

Moldova versus Russian sharp power

January 22, 2025

January 30, 2025

The cancelled elections and the mainstreaming of the far right in Romania

Hard-right ‘TikTok messiah’ Călin Georgescu was leading the Romanian presidential race when suspected Russian intervention prompted the Constitutional Court to annul the elections. Ana Țăranu analyses how the annulment feeds into the Romanian far right's polarising worldview

January 29, 2025

🧭 Rethinking EU enlargement through informal networks

Alexander Mesarovich argues that informal cultures are an often-overlooked aspect of the enlargement process. While the formal changes are essential, socialising candidate state policymakers into the EU’s 'ways of being' is just as – if not more – important in producing deeper and more durable reform

January 27, 2025

Potential pitfalls of a global international relations

In 2018, the distinguished scholar Amitav Acharya proposed a 'global international relations' to challenge Western dominance in the discipline. Since then, Japanese, Indian, Chinese, and Anatolian schools of IR have emerged. But Priya Vijaykumar Poojary warns that these non-Western schools risk merely replacing existing Western ethnocentricity with new forms of hegemonic discourse

January 23, 2025

Why Trump should overhaul all diplomatic posts in his first 100 days

The Biden administration and 118th Congress failed to adequately reform and modernise the organisation of US diplomatic posts. Michael Walsh argues that Trump should urgently reassess the US Foreign Affairs Manual's conceptual model for organising such positions

January 22, 2025

Moldova versus Russian sharp power

Winter is coming to Chișinău. On 1 January, Moscow cut off all gas exports to the former Soviet state of Moldova. John Chin and Noel Overby put this Russian energy embargo in the context of ongoing Moldovan resistance to a protracted Russian sharp power campaign

January 21, 2025

🧭 EU enlargement: process first, outcome second

The EU enlargement process successfully transformed Southern and Eastern European states into market democracies, but faltered in the Western Balkans. Jelena Džankić argues that amid today’s geopolitical challenges, prioritising the transformative mechanisms of EU enlargement is more critical than focusing solely on achieving full membership

January 20, 2025

What Ukraine and Russia might look like after the war

Once the Russia-Ukraine war ends, perceptions of victory and defeat will affect not only the stability of those states' political regimes but the capacity of the state in the long term, says Luis Schenoni. Using examples from nineteenth-century Latin America, he argues that the effects of war outcomes on security and the rule of law will endure for decades

January 16, 2025

🌊 There are no independent regulators under populist rule

Illiberal populists politicise regulatory agencies. Under populist governments, regulatory agencies engage primarily with interest groups which enjoy close connections to the ruling parties. This is bad news for democratic quality and the quality of governance, write Rafael Labanino and Michael Dobbins

January 15, 2025

System trust is key to explaining Covid-19 attitudes and behaviours

During the Covid-19 pandemic, many citizens put full faith in 'the system' to keep them safe. Others were inherently mistrustful. Louise Halberg Nielsen argues that such trust, or the lack of it, was a key source of pandemic-era political disagreement. Her research findings could help societies navigate future collective crises more effectively

January 14, 2025

The struggle for a dignified return of refugees to Syria

The sudden collapse of the Assad regime could result in Syrian refugees being pressured into returning. But Maissam Nimer and Susan Beth Rottmann say refugee returns must be voluntary, dignified, and sustainable – not driven by political agendas. Given Syria's shattered infrastructure, instability, and limited opportunities, 'safety' means more than simply the absence of violence

Latest Articles

The cancelled elections and the mainstreaming of the far right in Romania

🧭 Rethinking EU enlargement through informal networks

Potential pitfalls of a global international relations

Why Trump should overhaul all diplomatic posts in his first 100 days

Moldova versus Russian sharp power

The Loop