Global international relations (IR) disciplinary framework recognizes indigenous cultural resources for the development of homegrown IR theoretical frameworks. Thus, this article theorizes Humanist Relationality to challenge and help shift beyond mainstream IR’s established paradigm of ontological substantialism. We theorize humanist relationality through the anthropocosmic perspective of Chinese Humanism, deriving our inspirations specifically from ancient China’s three humanistic philosophies of Confucianism, Daoism, and Yin-and-Yang philosophy. We adopt an interpretivist methodology to trace the humanistic discourses of ancient Chinese philosophers, applying their philosophical wisdom to conceptualize and generalize on the subject matter of IR. The theoretical framework of humanist relationality is anchored in three foundational pillars. First, humanist relationality is formulated on the alternative ontological foundation of anthropocosmic humanism, to planetarily spatialize the realm of social world as a holistically integral world of oneness. Second, we propound humanist relationality’s core concepts as: humanist state sovereignty, humanist global governance, humanist planetary wholesomeness. Third, we put forth humanist relationality’s defining values of humaneness, moderateness, co-creativity, and pacifism. Anchored in the multiversal metatheoretical foundation of Chinese Humanism, we contend that humanist relationality constitutes an original humanistic contribution to IR theory, through shifting beyond ontological substantialism to visualize a possible planetary world of anthropocosmic oneness.
The aim of this study was to analyse the impact of geopolitical transformations on the development of transport and logistics infrastructure and economic cooperation between the countries of the Middle Corridor. The research methodology was based on the principles of objectivity and systematics, applying comparative and institutional analysis. Special attention was paid to the examination of strategic documents and programmes of Azerbaijan in the field of transport and logistics infrastructure. The study revealed the transformation of the architecture of Eurasian trade routes as a result of the geopolitical crises of 2022-2025, leading to a 51% reduction in the volumes of transport via the Northern Corridor and the redirection of 90% of cargo flows through African routes. There was also a notable increase in the volume of transport along the Trans-Caspian route, from 3.2 million tons in 2022 to an expected 10 million tons in 2027, with a reduction in transit time to 14-18 days. The evolution of economic cooperation mechanisms from fragmented bilateral initiatives to a comprehensive system of multilateral interaction, based on institutional coordination and digital transformation of logistics processes, was demonstrated. Azerbaijan’s central role in the formation of the new architecture of regional integration, due to its strategic geographical location and leading role in the digitalisation of the region’s transport and logistics sector, was justified. The potential of the Zangezur Corridor as a catalyst for deepening regional integration was identified through the creation of a direct land connection between the transport systems of Azerbaijan and Turkey. The formation of qualitatively new mechanisms of regional integration, encompassing political coordination, ensuring collective security, and establishing sustainable partnerships through the development of Turkic cooperation, was established. The practical significance of the study lies in the development of theoretical foundations for understanding the transformational processes in international transport and regional integration in the context of geopolitical instability.
This article rethinks the concept of ‘home’ within ontological security studies. While recent debates in ontological security have moved towards more dynamic understandings of becoming, prevailing accounts of home continue to reproduce a Self/Other binary that obscures the internal instability, violence, and hierarchy that constitute the home. In response, the article develops the concept of the ‘home of becoming’. Drawing on feminist and postcolonial scholarship, and on Taylor, Levinas, and Julia Kristeva’s notion of abjection, it reconceptualises home as an interrelated and unstable space in which troubling otherness is not external to the Self but constitutive of it. Home is therefore not a stable refuge but a mythicised space maintained through violence and the management of anxiety. The article applies this framework to Russian discourse on Ukraine and shows how Ukraine is positioned as simultaneously part of, and threatening to, the Russian home. The ‘home of becoming’ thus offers a more dynamic and emancipatory understanding of ontological security, identity, and violence.
Between 2020 and 2025, Armenia neither pivoted west nor remained static. This article explains this outcome as constrained recalibration: rational diversification filtered through domestic ratification pressures under acute insecurity. Using a nested framework that combines a rational-actor baseline with Putnam’s Two-Level Games, it shows how sequencing, external monitoring, and institutional embedding rendered contentious moves to territorial recognition, Western security engagement, and peace legalization, and both domestically ratifiable and internationally credible. Methodologically, the study employs process tracing of 22 key documents and four semi-structured expert interviews. Empirically, it provides the first systematic, episode-by-episode reconstruction of Armenia’s recalibration through the initialing of the Armenia–Azerbaijan peace text (August 2025) and the Armenia–EU Partnership Strategic Agenda (December 2025). Conceptually, it demonstrates that Putnam’s claim inverts for small states under acute insecurity: narrow win-sets generate exploitability rather than bargaining leverage, refining Two-Level Games under asymmetric interdependence.
The Russia–Ukraine war has reshaped global power dynamics by strengthening cooperation among the authoritarian states such as Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. Bound by shared resistance to Western sanctions and NATO’s expansion, these countries have developed an informal yet cohesive alliance that challenges the liberal international order. Rather than claiming that the Russia–Ukraine war created authoritarian cooperation from the beginning, this study argues that the war accelerated and reorganized pre-existing patterns of coordination among these states. Its main contribution is to identify how post-2022 cooperation has intensified through three connected mechanisms: sanctions adaptation, diplomatic shielding, and selective military-technological exchange. By focusing on these mechanisms, the study clarifies how authoritarian coordination has become more visible and strategically consequential after the war, while also remaining limited by internal contradictions, asymmetric interests, and historical mistrust.
