China’s notion of sovereignty – 独立自主

Source (Google maps) Sovereignty is a key concept within international relations. It is commonly used in the real world – it is enshrined within the workings of international institutions and has been a contested concept within the Brexit discourse and Chinese foreign policy. Sovereignty is also very common in International Relations discipline. It is aContinue reading “China’s notion of sovereignty – 独立自主”

Who has a greater impact in formulating BRI – leadership or bureaucracies?

Source (World Intellectual Property) This blog post argues that bureaucracies have a greater impact in foreign policy formulation when applied to the case study of China’s flagship Belt and Road initiative (hereafter known as BRI), with Xi’s increasing centralisation of foreign policy making power not directly applying to BRI formulation. Instead, Xi and the NRDC’sContinue reading “Who has a greater impact in formulating BRI – leadership or bureaucracies?”

What does IR theory say about nuclear proliferation policies regarding North Korea?

Image Source (Stephen) Written by James Lo This is the second part of a three part series on using nuclear proliferation theories to analyse current nuclear proliferation foreign policies. In part one, I provided a succinct summary of various theories. In this post, I will argue that Etel Solingen’s nuclear proliferation theory, outlined in NuclearContinue reading “What does IR theory say about nuclear proliferation policies regarding North Korea?”