Does the 2026 United States intervention in Venezuela mark the death of the non-intervention norm in International Relations? Drawing on practice theory and contemporary social norms scholarship, we argue that the episode is analytically significant not because it violated non-intervention, but because it abandoned the performative practices associated with the norm, through which such violations have historically been rendered intelligible and contestable. We develop a framework that distinguishes between norm performativity and institutional robustness, generating four ideal types of norms: embedded, ritualised, residual, and defunct. Applying this framework, we show that while non-intervention remains institutionally robust, Washington’s neglect of the usual vocabulary and diplomatic practices surrounding the intervention marks a shift in its position from embedded to residual engagement with the norm. We conclude by discussing the implications of this change for both social norms theory and the practice of non-intervention as one of the key pillars of the contemporary global order.
This article examines the political economy of foreign aid in Northern Cyprus, a de facto state that has depended heavily on Turkey since 1974. Despite sustained financial assistance, governance in Northern Cyprus remains weak, marked by fiscal imbalances, clientelism, and an inflated public sector. Adopting a public choice perspective, we argue that politically motivated, continuous aid inflows from Turkey have created a moral hazard by discouraging tax collection, incentivizing excessive public expenditure, and sustaining patronage politics. Combining historical analysis with statistical evidence, we show that while recent fiscal improvements stem from Turkish pressure, long-term aid expectations have entrenched inefficiency and dependency. The findings also demonstrate that high budget deficits induce more aid, as local political elites exploit Turkey's commitment trap. The article demonstrates how aid to unrecognized states diverges from conventional aid relationships, while also situating the Northern Cyprus case within broader debates on aid rentierism, moral hazard, and dependency.
This article introduces the concept of cogmotional warfare to capture the multidimensional character of Russia's contemporary cognitive strategy. While existing scholarship largely approaches cognitive warfare as an instrument of external confrontation, this article argues that Russia's strategy also serves broader ontological security functions through the integration of ontological narratives, socio-technical infrastructures, and emotional conditioning. The ontological dimension concerns the production of civilizational identity and existential threat narratives; the infrastructural dimension examines how digital platforms, AI-driven media systems, and communication networks shape perception and social coordination; and the emotional dimension explores how fear, uncertainty, grief, and patriotic attachment are synchronized through mediated affective environments. By foregrounding the emotional and infrastructural dynamics often overlooked in existing literature, the article advances a more comprehensive understanding of how Russia's cognitive warfare reinforces domestic cohesion while contesting external social and perceptual environments.
Democratic backsliding by populist leaders impacts democracies worldwide. Existing frameworks either focus on institutional dimensions while overlooking socio-cultural transformations or capture comprehensive breadth but conceptualise backsliding as sequential steps rather than concurrent dimensions. We introduce the backsliding protocol, a seven-category framework integrating both approaches to capture how right-wing populists simultaneously erode institutional checks and reshape social-cultural norms. Drawing on an original dataset of anti-democratic legislation in Israel's 25th Knesset (December 2022-July 2023), we demonstrate backsliding across all seven categories: judicial overhaul, electoral manipulation, civil service politicization, media control, human rights violations, religious coercion and academic freedom constraints. Comparison with the 20th Knesset reveals an eightfold increase in anti-democratic bills. Temporal analysis shows tactical flexibility: when judicial reforms met resistance, the coalition pivoted to social-cultural legislation. Extending the protocol to Hungary and India reveals systematic patterns across contexts, providing tools to identify, monitor and counter these threats.
How do young people living in a strongman's heartland express dissent and advance political alternatives? This article develops the concept of 'calibrated participation' to theorise how young people engage politically under conditions of dominant strongman support. It moves beyond the distinction between 'thin' and 'thick' participation to discuss how calibrated participation captures a relational and risk-conscious mode of engagement. Drawing on qualitative research with young people in the political stronghold of the Marcos dynasty in the Philippines, the article shows how political expression is continuously adjusted across different contexts. The analysis conceptualises silence, humour, or selective (dis)engagement as forms of political labour and foregrounds self-care as a constitutive element of political participation. Calibrated participation offers a vocabulary for understanding how democratic commitments persist in politically charged and polarised environments, where dissent is neither fully suppressed nor easily expressed, but must be continuously negotiated.
This research examines the emergence of an EU-Moroccan community of practice (CoP) in the green energy transition, focusing on early large-scale solar plants and the subsequent development of green hydrogen. While shared strategic objectives - framed through the EU-Morocco Green Partnership and the Paris Agreement - have consolidated an evolving CoP, its repertoire remains shaped by colonial practices, including land dispossession, resource extraction, control of technical knowledge and exclusion of local communities. Drawing on primary sources - interviews with EU and Moroccan actors, governmental documents, activist accounts, media and civil society reports documenting local contestations - the article examines how affected communities articulate alternative visions of energy democracy. It further explores how contestations interact with the CoP's practices and background knowledge, producing surface learning within normative and utilitarian dimensions, while deeper learning is blocked by a persistent coloniality of knowledge informing the ways of knowing and doing of both European and Moroccan actors.
Aotearoa New Zealand is a liberal democracy with among the world's best functioning institutions. Yet we document that it has experienced a subtle democratic backsliding over the last two decades, with some mechanisms of state power changing in ways that limit democratic dissent and protect capitalist interests and economic elites. We note that it is part of a global authoritarian turn among neoliberal democracies since the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. Hence, we draw on the Authoritarian Neoliberalism school to show that New Zealand policymakers, like elsewhere, have weakened democratic oversight of parliamentary select committees and public scrutiny by governing through urgent decrees and centralising power in the executive, and introduced coercive measures to constrain the space for peaceful public protests against capitalist interests. We view this backsliding as likely to exacerbate the country's already entrenched inequalities along class and ethnic lines.
This study argues that cancel culture in post-coup Myanmar operates as a form of moralizing politics through which citizens enact moral judgment to enforce democratic norms and accountability in digital political spaces while risking polarization and the contraction of deliberative dialogue. After the 2021 coup, activists, journalists, and civil society actors increasingly use social media to condemn, boycott, and socially sanction individuals and businesses perceived to collaborate with the military regime. The study draws on two theoretical frameworks. It uses Reactive Attitudes Theory to interpret public blaming, resentment, and moral condemnation as socially embedded responses that regulate accountability within political communities. It also applies Deliberative Democratic Theory to examine how these responses gain legitimacy through inclusive and reasoned public discourse. The findings show that cancel culture reinforces collective moral accountability and strengthens movement solidarity but also risks narrowing deliberative space and deepening fragmentation within opposition communities.
This article explores how knowledge about Vietnam's supposed emergence as a middle power is produced and how domestic role contestationinfluences Hanoi's middle-power identity and behaviour. Although Vietnam's material capabilities and diplomatic activism have expanded over the past decade, debates about its middle-power identity and status remain fragmented. Official narratives promoted by political leaders and policy elites often portray Vietnam as a rising, increasingly influential state, yet these claims sit uneasily alongside alternative role conceptions circulating among other experts, journalists, and segments of society. By analysingelite narratives, policy documents, and public discourse in Vietnam, this article argues that Vietnam's middle-power identity is neither fixed nor merely a top-down projection. Instead, it is the product of ongoing contestationamong actors who hold differing expectations about Vietnam's capacities, responsibilities, and appropriate international behaviour. This contested process helps explain the variation and occasional incoherence in Vietnam's diplomatic conduct.
This article examines the State of Qatar's distinctive diplomatic strategy as a non-Western mediator in the protracted Afghan conflict, offering a structural critique of the traditional liberal peacebuilding model. Guided by foreign policy role theory, the study operationalises the concept of 'hybrid mediation' to demonstrate how Qatar analytically bridges the non-threatening ideational posture of a small state with the infrastructural capacity typically reserved for great powers. Process-tracing the Doha negotiations, the empirical analysis reveals a profound intrarole conflict between Qatar's projected identity as an impartial broker and the geopolitical imperatives of facilitating a rapid United States military exit. Ultimately, while Qatar's hybrid approach achieved unprecedented diplomatic success in brokering the historic 2020 U.S.-Taliban withdrawal agreement to secure a negative peace, its structural marginalisation of the Afghan Republic underscores the limitations of transactional diplomacy in generating a sustainable positive peace.
Demand for and participation in deliberative practices have often been studied in democratic settings where they were available or took place. However, there is limited information about what shapes people's attitudes towards deliberative practices in countries that struggle with representative democracy and where deliberation is not available. This article addresses these gaps in the literature and aims to explain why people in the Republic of Moldova support deliberative practices and would engage with them should they happen in their country. We draw on individual data from a survey conducted in November 2024 on a national representative sample. We isolate baseline orientations towards deliberation and find that most Moldovans have positive views about deliberation, but many support deliberation strongly without striving to engage. Support for deliberation is influenced by area of residence and gender, while the willingness to engage is the result of people's attitudes towards politics and decision-making.
This article addresses a central problem in international relations: how emerging middle powers pursue upward status mobility within an international order structured by enduring hierarchies. It introduces the concept of the Emerging-Power Trap (EPT) to analyze how interactions between established great powers and emerging middle powers shape opportunities for recognition within global governance. Drawing on social constructivism and theories of stigmatization, the article conceptualizes the EPT as a systemic-level causal mechanism operating within international social hierarchy. The analysis shows how established powers deploy normative and institutional instruments that condition the status-seeking strategies of emerging actors, while still leaving room for agency. Empirically, the article examines how emerging middle powers grapple with these constraints through both individual and collective strategies, focusing on India's nuclear trajectory and the recent expansion of the BRICS grouping.
Participatory mechanisms are growing around the globe. However, it remains contested whether citizens genuinely want to participate, and what motivates politicians to share power. Existing research has largely examined these attitudes separately. This paper, however, adopts a comparative perspective to analyse preferences for participatory versus representative governance among citizens and politicians in five European countries. Using two web-based surveys, we estimate different models with comparable variables to understand these preferences. Results reveal a well-known gap, with citizens showing stronger support for participatory arrangements, while also revealing partial overlap in the underlying drivers across groups. Across both groups, individuals who are dissatisfied with democracy, lean left ideologically, and trust citizens' competence (or their own ability) are more supportive of participatory democracy. Among citizens, populist attitudes and participatory experience are influential, while among politicians, the level of office held matters. Finally, cross-country differences underscore the influence of national contexts in these preferences.
This article examines how U.S. foreign aid and diplomacy shaped authoritarian durability and human rights violations in Egypt under Hosni Mubarak (1981-2011). Drawing on interest convergence theory (Regilme 2021), the analysis demonstrates that U.S. assistance functioned less as a vehicle for democratization than as strategic support embedded in a stability-first bargain that privileged regional order, counterterrorism, regime survival, and the Egypt-Israel peace over human rights protection. Using process tracing, the article analyzes U.S. aid data, official statements, and human rights reports to identify four mechanisms: strategic localization of donor discourses by regime elites, resource mobilization into coercive and patronage capacity, selective repression of opposition and civil society, and a culture of impunity that insulated abuses from accountability. The findings show how material transfers and legitimizing narratives reinforced one another, expanding coercive governance while rendering rights politically expendable. The article contributes to debates on foreign aid, authoritarian resilience, and Middle East politics by specifying when and how external support entrenches repression.
How has China defended its overseas interests when threatened by backlashes and how are clientelist governments colluding with their authoritarian patron when the patronage relationship is threatened by the domestic public? Using the framework of external image management, we unpack the responses from the Zimbabwean government and different Chinese actors to opposition against Chinese investments in Zimbabwe, which were channelled through the domestic Zimbabwean state-media. We show how initially problem-acknowledging coverage shifted towards framing CSOs, journalists and opposition as instruments of Western 'smear campaigns-' and regime-change agendas. Chinese diplomatic and business actors reinforced and internationalised these narratives, while also engaging in direct intimidation and reputational attacks. The case illustrates how Chinese external propaganda and host-country authoritarian strategies become mutually reinforcing, normalises Chinese presence and marginalises contestation. This speaks to broader debates on China's global image management, civil society repression, and the changing conditions for democracy promotion in the Global South.
Soft power is one of the most widely used concepts in political science, but it has underestimated the attractiveness of illiberal or autocratic states due to its inherent liberal bias. In response, this article proposes a framework of authoritarian attraction emphasising the relational nature of power with three distinct analytical categories: (1) sender strategies, (2) audience preferences, and (3) behavioural outcomes. By drawing on and synthesising existing literatures on (soft) power, authoritarian legitimation, diffusion, and audience studies, the article uses the case of China to explore authoritarian attempts to attract and persuade, how these attempts are perceived abroad, and to what extent authoritarian proliferation is driven by learning and emulation. Finally, the article provides an agenda for further research to sharpen our research questions and improve our methodological approaches towards a better understanding of authoritarian attraction.
Research on authoritarian regimes has demonstrated how the use of regime legitimation rhetoric is an important strategy of the authoritarian playbook, but has insufficiently addressed how it permeates and structures everyday life. Based on qualitative research in Zimbabwe, we argue that everyday discursive practices of regime legitimation operate as symbolic power and reproduce authoritarianism, whereas discursive practices are also important for everyday forms of resistance. The article advances an emerging debate on everyday authoritarianism by demonstrating how narratives of regime legitimation have been promoted through diverse regime-aligned networks and institutions as well as by local-level regime agents and urban residents, thus reproducing authoritarianism. Moreover, it highlights the interaction between online and offline discursive practices as national-level narratives are adopted in everyday discourse. At the same time, discursive practices are used as acts of resistance, including online, which do not subvert actual regime power but maintain a critical consciousness concerning its illegitimacy.
Why do states adopt human rights certification regimes, and how do these instruments become entangled with foreign policy strategy? This article examines Indonesia's Fisheries Human Rights Certification, introduced following the 2015 Benjina slavery scandal, as a state-led response to governance failures linking labour exploitation with illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing. Drawing on document tracking, interviews, and focus group discussions in Indonesia, the article argues that the certification in the fisheries sector serves two interrelated functions: first, as a regulatory response to overlapping mandates and legal gaps in labour protection; second, as a foreign policy instrument to promote Indonesia's leadership in rights-based maritime governance in Southeast Asia. By reconceptualizing certification through the lens of state strategy, the article contributes to broader debates on transnational governance and the evolving role of the state in setting regulatory agendas beyond market logic.
While prior research has extensively examined factors shaping attitudes towards women's political leadership, empirical evidence on how broader cultural value shifts shape citizens attitudes across diverse democratic contexts remains limited. Using World Values Survey data, this study employs a three-level multilevel logistic regression models to assess how individual post-materialist values interact with national democratic quality and women's parliamentary representation to shape citizens attitudes towards in women political leadership. Results show that post-materialist values are strongly associated with support for women's political leadership, especially in countries with higher democratic quality and greater women's representation. This suggests that cultural value shift is conditioned by institutional reinforcement to produce egalitarian political attitudes. These findings extend value change theory and feminist institutionalism by demonstrating how culture and institutions jointly condition gender equality in political life, inviting deeper engagement with post-materialism in global gender politics.
There is significant research on authoritarian power and housing debt globally, yet less is known about how debt stigma evolves over time as a vehicle of authoritarian power. Through the case of Hungary, this paper analyzes how a government-backed foreign-denominated mortgage loan called the F & eacute;szekrak & oacute; hitel ('homemaker' credit), introduced in the mid-2000s, evolved from a site of victimhood nationalism by successive Viktor Orb & aacute;n led Fidesz-KDNP governments, to a figure of invasive migrancy and illicit indebtedness within provincial cities. By interrogating the subnational level, within the city of Miskolc, this paper shows how the 'F & eacute;szekrak & oacute;' is manufactured as a figure of illicitness - a Roma person, of invasive, and financially insolvent migrancy - through phases of stigmatization. Drawing from long-term qualitative research in Miskolc, this paper argues that stigmatization processes are essential affective and discursive components of authoritarian consolidation, and by elucidating moments of stigma production, theorizes how authoritarian practices embed in daily life.
