Bücher von Jan-David Franke

Essay from the year 2016 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Topic: Miscellaneous, grade: 1, Oxford University, language: English, abstract: With the collapse of the Soviet Union the United States benefitted from an unprecedented unipolar moment in its establishment of unilateral hegemony, be that in the form of a modern empire as Johnson (2000) and Todd (2004) argue, as an empire by invitation (Lundestad, 2003), or as liberal hegemon (Ikenberry, 2011). All of these authors feature vast disagreements regarding hierarchy and coercion in American hegemony but accept the same premise: a post-Cold War unipolar American world order. Many argue that as the unipolar moment is waning, American hegemony, and the norms, practices, and institutions of international society it has so predominantly shaped, are being challenged, however, by both the rise of other actors, first and foremost China but also a re-emerging Russia, and the endogenous deconstruction of American hegemony (see Todd¿s (2004) argument on demographics and social norms and most recently the advent of power by a protectionist, isolationist nativism). In this paper I will add to that debate by evaluating the extent to which China has been socialized into international society since the end of the Cold War and, on that basis, examining what is to be expected for the future both in terms of Chinäs course and the implications thereof for international society. I will do so by amalgamating many different approaches and schools of thought in an attempt to be ¿paradigmatically prudent¿ (cp. Monteiro & Ruby, 2009). First, I will sketch the discussion in the literature on Chinäs rise and contrast it by means of a syncretic framework of intentions and outcomes based on Schweller & Xiaoyu (2011) and Goh (2005). Within that framework, I present optimist and pessimist approaches derived from realism, liberal institutionalism, and constructivism and the various analytical categories they place emphasis on. I will then argue that an integration of these polarized perspectives is necessary to provide an accurate and realistic account of Chinäs past, present, and future role in international society that places particular importance on differentiated spheres of geopolitical influence.

Essay from the year 2016 in the subject Politics - International Politics - General and Theories, grade: 1, Oxford University, language: English, abstract: What do the Ghanaian Convention People¿s Party, the Narmada Bachao Andolan, and the Occupy movement have in common? Answer: they all are (Southern) social movements inhabiting and representing the subaltern. What is more, they are indicative of how the dynamics in which such social movements are embedded and to which they respond have changed and of the subsequent transformative impact that has had on counter-hegemonic social action and representation. In this paper, I will first delineate three waves of Southern social movements, namely national liberation, anti-developmentalist, and anti-neoliberal movements, trace their dialectic interlinkages, and address their differentiated levels of success. To that end, I will shed light on one particular social movement of each phase and discuss how they contended with the prevailing status quo, their motivations, aims, and achievements. I will then argue that, as both the spaces and groups they represent and the structural mechanisms they oppose have become consolidated, deterritorialized, and globalized, we should reject the state-based North-South binary in favor of a cosmopolitan rearticulation of Marxist class antagonism that makes the transnational subaltern the centerpiece of both oppression and resistance. Thereby, I am endorsing the post-sovereign counter-hegemonic project which does not only recognize the inexorability of globalization but also the dialectic potential inherent in that fact.

Essay from the year 2016 in the subject Didactics - Politics, Political Education, grade: 1, Oxford University, language: English, abstract: ¿Nation, nationality, nationalism ¿ all have proved notoriously difficult to define, let alone to analyse¿, Anderson writes somewhat consternated before trying to change just that in about two-hundred pages. In this essay, I shall have a go at the principle of national self-determination in about a fiftieth of the space and sketch its impact on the international system. For that purpose, I will first establish a neo-realist conception of the international system and define national self-determination to then go on and delineate how the latter has hurt the former. By looking at two historical cases, Nazi-Germany and decolonization, I will focus on the way self-determination highlights the independent significance of norms in international order, undermines the balance of power and ¿ while seemingly cementing an international Westphalian system of stable states ¿ is a continuous force of disruption within it.