This scholarly article examines the continued existence of NATO after the end of the Cold War. Despite the disappearance of its primary adversary, the Soviet Union, NATO has continued to exist. The ...conventional neorealist explanation for the alliances longevity, which states that NATO was established as a counterbalance to the Soviet Union and thus should have been dissolved upon its collapse, is challenged by the constructivist perspective. Constructivism argues that NATO persists as a result of the desire of liberal democracies to cooperate for the sake of peace and the influence of member states collective identities. However, this constructivist explanation is criticized for being predicated on a specific understanding of NATO and for neglecting the crucial role of the United States in sustaining the alliance. This study contends that offensive neorealism, which takes into account the role of the United States in a value-neutral way, offers the most comprehensive explanation for NATOs persistence after 1991.
Some authors have been highly critical of populism and naturally, this has raised the question of whether populism is dangerous for democracy or not. I wish to provide a critique of this claim and ...instead suggest that populism is sometimes necessary for established democracies. Developing this argument, this paper proceeds as follows: Firstly, I will outline Urbinatis criticism of populism. Secondly, using Poppers paradox of tolerance, I will show how Urbinatis view is teleological and becomes a defence of the status quo thereby impeding political progress. Thirdly, I will show how populisms relationship with democracy is best conceptualised as a creatively destructive one and how populists, once having accepted the Popperian condition of tolerance, can be a force for good in democracies by illuminating issues which were previously left outside the realm of mainstream politics.
The Cold War is not an event, it seems, but a process that continues nowadays, too. In this scholarly article, we defend the thesis that the asymmetric end of the Cold War left a lasting memory on ...Russia‘s foreign policy. In developing this thesis, we proceed as follows: firstly, we will outline the realist counterargument to our thesis which suggests that no lessons can be learned from the ending of the Cold War because the bipolar struggle itself and the period after were continuations of the constant struggle for power between states in which historical narratives and ideas have no part to play. Secondly, building on the existing constructivist perspective, we will show that understanding the different ideational frameworks that developed in Washington and Moscow are paramount to understanding the deterioration of Russia’s relations with the West in the past decade. Thirdly, we will show how the narratives that developed within Russia about the ending of the Cold War and Russia’s place in the world are critical to understanding the potential for change in the domestic system.
