The Congolese civil war is one of the oldest and most complex conflicts in African history. Independent Congo has undergone multiple phases of protracted conflict and hostility. While there are several scholarship studies on the causes of civil war, few analysts have examined why civil war persists Continue reading
This powerful essay questions the very meaning and significance of European collective political identity’s emergence within the European integration project. Continue reading
The relationship between the political and the religious right in Israel between 1967 and 1981 was a deep ideological relationship based on a renewal of both their conception of the Israeli national identity and understanding of Zionism. Continue reading
How to make sense of the unexpected survival of NATO after the end of the Cold War ? Understood as a military alliance created to counter the Soviet threat, a realist account would have predicted its disintegration as soon as this commonly perceived threat disappeared. This essay argues that NATO survived because it was identified by its members as the key representative of a self-defined security community of Western liberal-democratic states. Continue reading
This essay attempts to define the main characteristics of “civil wars”, whilst briefly exploring the case of the American Civil War of 1861-1865. This work then explores the more complex case of Mozambique, reflecting on the relationship between decolonization, state weakness and the occurrence of such civil strife. Continue reading
John Ikenberry uses the metaphor of a ‘Liberal Leviathan’ to describe the role of the U.S in world politics. This essay discusses whether this metaphor is analytically helpful or not. Continue reading
The Tragedy of Great Power Politics written by John Mearsheimer is “the latest in a long line of pessimistic accounts of international politics, and as onesided as its predecessors”. This essay assesses this judgement, arguing that realism is by no means one-sided. Continue reading
This excellent paper analyses to what extent the EU is suppporting its declaration policy in DRC through operational policy. Continue reading
This essay argues that Mearsheimer’s structural realism or offensive realism offers little explanatory or predictive value in the complex world of international politics and should rather be viewed as an ideal type of international politics or as a model for policy prescription. Continue reading
