The Fisheries Sector in Ghana: A Political Economy Analysis

The geopolitics of renewable energy: Debunking four emerging myths

This article seeks to nip in the bud four emerging myths about the geopolitics of the rise of renewable energy and the concomitant increase in electricity usage. The article presents alternative perspectives, arguing that (1) the risk of geopolitical competition over critical materials for renewable energy is limited; (2) the resource curse as we know it from the petroleum sector will not necessarily reappear in many countries in connection with renewable energy; (3) transboundary electricity cut-offs will mostly be unsuitable as a geopolitical weapon; and (4) it is not clear that growing use of renewable energy will exacerbate cyber-security risks. In all four areas, the evolving literature could place more emphasis on uncertainty and risks and less on one-sided scenarios and maximization of threats.

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States before relations: On misrecognition and the bifurcated regime of sovereignty

The symbolic structure of the international system, organised around sovereignty, is sustained by an institutional infrastructure that shapes how states seek sovereign agency. We investigate how the modern legal category of the state is an institutional expression of the idea of the state as a liberal person, dependent on a one-off recognition in establishing the sovereign state. We then discuss how this institutional rule co-exists with the on-going frustrated search for recognition in terms of socio-political registers. While the first set of rules establishes a protective shield against others, regardless of behaviour, the second set of rules specify rules for behaviour of statehood, which produces a distinct form of misrecognition. States are, at one level, already recognised as sovereign and are granted rights akin to individuals in liberal thought, and yet they are continually misrecognised in their quest to actualise the sovereign agency they associate with statehood. We draw on examples from two contemporary phenomena - fragile states, and assertions of non-interference and sovereignty from the populist right and non-Western great powers, to discuss the misrecognition processes embedded in the bifurcated symbolic structure of sovereignty, and its implications for debates about hierarchy and sovereignty in world affairs.

Frustrated Sovereigns: The agency that makes the world go around

In this special issue we build on the growing interest in recognition to suggest that a shift from recognition to misrecognition open up new theoretical perspectives. Our point of departure is that failure – not obtaining the recognition one seeks – is built into the very desire for recognition. Thus understood, the desire for recognition is not simply a desire for social goods, for status or for statehood, but for agency. This, we suggest, is Hegel’s fundamental lesson. On this basis, we argue that the international system is defined by a symbolic structure organised around an always unrealisable ideal of sovereign agency. We discuss the implications of such a focus on the workings of misrecognition and the ideal of sovereign agency, and introduce the key themes – focused on failure and the negative, the striving for unity and actorhood, and sovereignty and the international system – that the contributors address in their respective articles.

Review of the Global Focal Point for Police, Justice and Security 2018

In December 2017, an independent Review of the Global Focal Point (GFP) arrangement was commissioned to inform GFP partners, Member States and other stakeholders on how the arrangement has evolved over time and can be further strengthened to deliver rule of law assistance in peacekeeping operation settings, special political mission settings, including in transition contexts, and non-mission settings. The Review examines progress, achievements and challenges of GFP joint support to rule of law activities with a view to strengthening the GFP arrangement, enhancing the delivery of rule of law assistance and adapting it to the United Nations reforms, the implementation of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, and the Secretary-General’s prevention platform initiative. The research, with more than 209 interviews undertaken, was concluded in June and the report was finalized in August 2018.