Recent articles
-
Being Small but Smart in the International Arena
(2024 - Volume 18, Issue 2)LITSAS, N. Spyridon. Smart Instead of Small in International Relations Theory. Switzerland: Springer, 2023. ISBN: 9783031446368 (e-book). Small states have attracted the attention of researchers for decades. Historians and political scientists have analysed small states within the context of international relations, delving into facets encompassing foreign affairs, security, power relations and antagonism, diplomatic engagements, as well as peace and conflicts. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s,...
-
Geopolitical Positioning of a Small State: Serbia in the Shadow of Yugoslavia’s ‘Third Way’
(2024 - Volume 18, Issue 2)Abstract This article examines Serbia’s positioning in the East-West axis during the post-Cold War era. This is a specific example of the ‘third way’ in twenty-first century geopolitical behaviour. The small country remains non-aligned within the existing alliances of the East and the West, trying to find a balance between their influence and remaining faithful to its national interests. Although with far more modest resources, the situation of the Serbian state is reminiscent of the fate of...
-
The Institutionalisation of Security Norms in the Context of Cyber Alignments: The Transatlantic Alignment in the Cyber Domain
(2024 - Volume 18, Issue 2)Abstract Realists argue that security alliances are established to confront military threats posed by one state to others. In contrast, this study argues that nonmilitary cyberthreats have become a factor in establishing new security arrangements that do not necessarily take the form of an alliance, but rather emerge in the form of alignments. Cyberthreats lie in the political, economic, societal and military repercussions caused by the employment of cyber technologies, not these technologies...
-
Two’s Company, Three’s a Crowd: Tripolarity and War
(2024 - Volume 18, Issue 2)Abstract International systems of three great powers, tripolar systems, remain an understudied topic. In this article, I make three claims about tripolarity. First, it is more warlike than either bipolarity or multipolarity. Second, the two weaker poles of a tripolar system usually ally against the most powerful one. Third, when a pole abruptly declines, the two others have a strong incentive to race to prey on it. To demonstrate this, I develop three cases of past tripolar systems rarely...