Open research questions in International Relations and Foreign Policy
120 unresolved questions extracted from the limitations and future-work sections of 7,134 International Relations and Foreign Policy papers in our library. Each links back to the study that raised it.
What the literature leaves open
International Affairs, 111-129. the on Anwar, D. F. (2022). ASEAN Centrality: Opportunities and Challenges. In The Indo-Pacific Theatre. Routledge India. 43 Anwar, D. F. (2020).
governance/edited by Ramesh Thakur and Oddny Wiggen. development sustainable security, and on Viswambharan, A. P. & Priya, K. R. (2016). Documentary Analysis as a Qualitative Methodology to Explore Disaster Mental Health: Insights from Analyzing a Documentary on Communal Riots. Qualitative Research, 16(1) 43–59. Yeh, J. C., & Inman, A. G. (2007). Qualitative Data Analysis and Interpretation in Counseling Psychology: Strategies for Best Practices. The Counseling Psychologist, 35(3), 369–403.
sustainable security, and on 722 governance/edited by Ramesh Thakur and Oddny Wiggen. Thakur, R. C., & Wiggen, O. (2004). South Asia in the world: problem solving good perspectives governance/edited by Ramesh Thakur and Oddny Wiggen. development sustainable security, and on Viswambharan, A. P. & Priya, K. R. (2016). Documentary Analysis as a Qualitative Methodology to Explore Disaster Mental Health: Insights from Analyzing a Documentary on Communal Riots. Qualitative Research, 16(1) 43–59. Yeh, J. C., & Inman, A. G. (2007). Qualitative Data Analysis and Interpretation in Counseling Psychology: Strategies for Best Practices. The Counseling Psychologist, 35(3), 369–403.
While Ozigci is justified in adopting a deeper mode of reflection when analyzing NATO’s past, present, and future challenges, particularly in relation to the transition from bipolarity to multipolarity, one limitation of the work is that it is less explicitly critical of NATO’s leadership in addressing these issues.
This paper contributes by linking theoretical debates on the security dilemma with underexplored empirical cases, bridging a gap in comparative literature. In doing so, the study enriches both theory and practice: it extends the applicability of realism to conflicts often excluded from mainstream analysis, while offering insights into why peace remains elusive.
Explaining Escalation: The Security Dilemma in Three Contemporary International Conflicts · 2026 · DOIStretching the Limits of Balance of Threat Theory effort, and this means that if Venezuela stabilizes its economy, the PRC will likely become an even more important partner for Venezuela in this area, but this trend still remains to be seen. 65 65 It is also important to briefly address the events that occurred in Venezuela at the start of the year 2026, their relevance to this article, and their potential impact on further research on China-Venezuela relations.
Stretching the Limits of Balance of Threat Theory: Case of People’s Republic of China-Venezuelan Relations · 2026 · DOIIn particular, assessments of the Trump period portray Trump’s foreign policy largely as a deviation that weakened the liberal order, isolated the United States from the international system, and fostered autocratic tendencies, while the relationship between this reading and the broader polarization of United States domestic politics is insufficiently problematized.
Two major economic milestones of the last 20 years could be studied in the future, as the moments in which globalisation's unblemished path towards absolute global interconnection was cut short.
Exposing Challenges in the Age of „Slowbalization” – A Review of the Book the Unequal Effects of Globalization by Pinelopi Goldberg & Greg Larson · 2024 · DOIAbstract While the Biden administration has framed US–China relations as part of a broader contest between democracy and autocracy, the potential international repercussions of this stance remain unclear.
Democratic Ties That Bind? US–China Conflict and Foreign Policy Opinion in Japan and Korea · 2024 · DOIHow does a great power ally's demonstration of toughness toward a common adversary influence the sense of security among its weaker ally's citizens? The literature on the effects of standing firm against adversaries has significantly evolved in recent years, but empirical evidence is scarce, especially at the mass level.
Donors may achieve some impact but only under specific circumstances such as the ones explored here, that is, the donor is a unitary actor determined to advance its agenda by resorting to conditionality, alternative donors and funding are scarce, the discipline is either poorly or not institutionalized, and the recipient perceives the donor's preferences as legitimate.
The Cold War Origins of Global IR. The Rockefeller Foundation and Realism in Latin America · 2022 · DOIIt then suggests that new global histories of the First World War give further attention to its economic aspects, particularly in two ways: first, by recovering understudied global financial aspects of the war, including the effects of the 1914 financial crisis and wartime inflation on economies and societies far outside of Europe; and second, by investigating wartime histories of primary production, both in colonial territories and sovereign states in Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia.
Abstract While “Track Two Diplomacy” has been intensively researched since its founding some 60 years ago, much remains to be done to explore important gaps in our understanding of these dialogues.
This article focuses on the linkage between key global moments and the institutional factors that condition IR scholarship, focusing on the important yet under-explored intervening elements in the interrelation between political events and academic practice.
The Institutional “Hinge”: How the End of the Cold War Conditioned Canadian, Russian, and Swiss IR Scholarship · 2019 · DOIThe period has attracted considerable academic interest, but there seems to be a lack of consensus about how to interpret the Danish decision, which has been characterised as everything from an indication of adaptation, to continuation of the Danish acquiescence to great powers, to path-breaking change in Danish foreign policy to an expression of small state independence.
Was something rotten in the state of Denmark? Three narratives of the active internationalism in Danish foreign policy · 2017 · DOIDespite this potential, the role of PC in international conflicts has not been systematically analyzed, due to internal divides within the field of IR between positivist and critical understandings of what PC is and how it should be studied, and due to the very interdisciplinary nature of PC and its operation, which leads to many discussions of PC within different disciplines that do not engage each other.
Still, each embodies a deep analysis rich in heuristics that can spark further research on Sino-US relations, though most of the chapters debate the origins of World War I.
The book does not identify a gap in the literature to fill; does not have a central hypothesis (rather a number of connected ones); or a theoretical framework; is not backed by a character-building duration of ethnographic research; it is light on citations; in its breadth and ambition is often cavalier with details; is narrated more than lectured; and cuts across rather than being limited and defined by methodological or disciplinary delineations.
Timo Kivimäki's study of East Asia's “long peace” is, therefore, a potentially important and welcome addition to a surprisingly limited literature, which actually seeks to explain what has happened over the last few decades, rather than what ought to have happened according to some of the more influential theoretical models of International Relations (IR) (but also see Weissman ).
During the past decades international relations scholars have increasingly emphasized the historical contingency of sovereignty and the mutability of its corresponding institutions and practices, yet these accounts have been limited to the changing meaning and function of sovereignty within the international system.
In a recent discussion of the second, much expanded edition of Stephen Lukes’Power: A Radical View, I argued that the system of states is the site of a major limitation in Lukes’ analysis (Hindess 2007).
The `realists' — long the dominant trend in US foreign policy thinking — aim to maintain US leadership of the pro-western alliance formed during the cold war, whereas the `globalists', whose economic interests are those of transnational capital, seek to rethink US power within the context of an emerging polycentric world system, the parameters of which remain to be fully articulated.
In this article, we consider how to inform and persuade foreign publics that the ideals that Americans cherish--such as pluralism, freedom, and democracy--are fundamental human values that will resonate and should be pursued in their own Associated with this consideration are two questions that are rarely addressed in most discussions of diplomacy: Should the U.
Public Diplomacy: Lessons from King and Mandela · 2005We then illustrate that selection bias does not account for much of the difference between Simmons's (2000) and von Stein's (2005) estimated treaty effects, and instead reframe the problem as one of model dependency.
Political rhetoric has tended to obscure the fact that there is no consensus in either the academic or policymaking communities about how multilateralism should be defined; about when, if ever, unilateral action is acceptable; or about such issues as the relationship between regional multilateral cooperation, such as has unfolded in Europe for the past 50 years, and the kind of global multilateralism embodied in the United Nations.
What Is "Multilateral"? · 2003
Most-cited papers in International Relations and Foreign Policy
- The Kantian Peace: The Pacific Benefits of Democracy, Interdependence, and International Organizations, 1885–1992 · World Politics · 1999 · 312 citations
- How to compare regional powers: analytical concepts and research topics · Review of International Studies · 2010 · 236 citations
- Linkage versus Leverage. Rethinking the International Dimension of Regime Change · Comparative Politics · 2006 · 202 citations
- The ‘Global South’ in the study of world politics: examining a meta category · Third World Quarterly · 2021 · 187 citations
- The Constraining Power of International Treaties: Theory and Methods · American Political Science Review · 2005 · 165 citations
- State Capitalism and the New Global D/development Regime · Antipode · 2021 · 158 citations
- Neorealism and Neoliberalism · World Politics · 1988 · 154 citations
- China's New Diplomacy · Foreign Affairs · 2003 · 139 citations
- Making sense of state socialization · Review of International Studies · 2001 · 117 citations
- International Regimes: Problems of Concept Formation · World Politics · 1980 · 99 citations
Most recent work
- Dialogue instead of mutual neglect? International political economy meets foreign policy analysis · Cooperation and Conflict · 2026
- Decoding Australia’s “China Threat”: Geo-Politics, Knowledge Formation, and Public Opinion · Journal of Contemporary Asia · 2026
- Understanding the regulation of 5G equipment suppliers through the advocacy coalition framework · Politics · 2026
- Transatlantic flashpoints & hegemonic countermeasures: US-Europe intra-elite relations from Nixon to Trump 2.0 · Globalizations · 2026
- When agency meets the Global South: normativity, empirics and anticipated consequences for the study of international relations · Third World Quarterly · 2026
- Responding to Chinese Pressure · Politika – Undergraduate Journal of International Affairs, Politics, and Policy · 2026
- Balancing Shadows · Politika – Undergraduate Journal of International Affairs, Politics, and Policy · 2026
- Can't Always Get What You Want: Conduct Entanglement in U.S. Alliances · Open MIND · 2026
- Middle power defence: balancing strategies in an age of great power hostility · International Journal: Canada’s Journal of Global Policy Analysis · 2026
- A rhetorical study of the trade war discourse between the US and China · Cogent Arts & Humanities · 2026
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