What if religion was taken more seriously during the Iranian revolution in 1979? There are scholars who argue that it would have made a difference in international relations. These so-called ‘religionists’ argue that religion has unfortunately been neglected by International Relations. In their view, religion has never disappeared and it could even be argued that religion has seen a resurgence since the late 1960s. Why, therefore, has religion not been incorporated into theories of international relations? This book provides a critical reconstruction of the position of these religionists. It investigates how Hans Morgenthau’s classical realism and Kenneth Waltz’s neorealism deal with religion. Do these theories indeed ignore religion? Do they ignore it for the reasons put forward by the religionists? The conclusion is that the religionists quite convincingly argue for the importance and relevance of religion in international relations. However, the reasons given do not do justice to Morgenthau's classical realism and Waltz's neorealism, as they overlook the theological inspiration (Augustine and Niebuhr) of political realism and the importance of theorizing. As a result of an evaluation of both positions, this book presents an alternative approach inspired by the Amsterdam School of Philosophy, called a new Christian political realism. It incorporates the theological inspiration of political realism and the necessity of theorizing while doing justice to the relevance and manifold manifestations of religion in international relations.
In: Frank Gadinger, Martina Kopf, Ayşem Mert, and Christopher Smith (eds.). Political Storytelling: From Fact to Fiction (Global Dialogues 12) This essay presents a summary of important perspectives concerning the distinction between what counts as truth or fiction. As a source of inspiration, it starts with two examples found in literature – the first a classical Spanish novel and the second a collection of stories written by the leader of a social movement in Mexico. These two examples of the conflictive relations between truth and fiction, authenticity and imagination serve as a source of inspiration for the rest of this article, which shows that this issue has been a subject of intense debate in philosophy and in the philosophy of science and still presents a challenge in the 21st century. The essay states that absolute, objective truth is a myth. It describes that what counts as ‘truth’ in a particular era, is, among other things, the result of power relations. It suggests productive ways to deal with this problem in modern society, through deliberative, emancipatory processes of reflexivity (Weick 1999), participatory research and dialogue, facilitating innovation and generation of new solutions.
LINK
In many European cities, urban experimentation is increasingly preferred as a method for testing and disseminating innovations that might ignite a transformation toward more sustainable cities. By both academics and practitioners, these experiments tend to be approached as relatively neutral initiatives through which plural urban stakeholders willfully collaborate, while their success is seen as above all dependent on effective management. For this reason, the political nature of urban experiments, in the sense that they entangle different and often contending stakeholders in their innovation processes, remains relatively unarticulated in both practice and the academic literature. Building on the urban experimentation literature and political theory, this conceptual paper argues that the depoliticization of experimental initiatives is especially problematic for unleashing their transformative potential, which requires revealing the existing power-relations and biases keeping the status-quo in place and negotiability of radical alternatives. From this perspective, the paper sketches out four ideal-typical trajectories for experiments as related to their (de)politicization; optimization, blind leap, antagonistic conflict and transformation. Bringing insights from political theory to bear on the urban experimentation literature, we proceed to hypothesize the implications of our ideal-types for urban experiments’ transformative capacities. The paper closes by presenting a future research and policy agenda.
MULTIFILE
The Netherlands is facinggreat challenges to achieve (inter)national climate mitigation objectives inlimited time, budget and space. Drastic innovative measures such as floatingsolar parks are high on political agendas and are entering our water systems.The clear advantages of floating solar (multifunctional use of space) led to afast deployment of renewable energy sources without extensive research toadequately evaluate the impacts on our environment. Acquisition ofresearch data with holistic monitoring methods are urgently needed in order toprevent disinvestments.In this project 10 SMEs with different expertiseand technologies are joining efforts with researchers and four public parties(and 12 indirectly involved) to answer the research question “Which monitoringtechnologies and intelligent data interpretation techniques are requiredto be able to conduct comprehensive, efficient and cost effective monitoring ofthe impacts of floating solar panels in their surroundings?"The outputs after a two-yearproject will play a significant and indispensable role in making Green EnergyResources Greener. Specific output includes a detailed inventory of existingprojects, monitoring method for collection/analysis of datasets(parameters/footage on climate, water quality, ecology) on the effects offloating solar panels on the environment using heterogeneous unmanned robots,workshops with public & private partners and stakeholders,scientific and technical papers and update of national guidelines for optimizingthe relationship between solar panels and the surrounding environment. Projectresults have a global interest and the consortium partners aim at upscaling forthe international market. This project will enrich the involved partners withtheir practical knowledge, and SMEs will be equipped with the new technologiesto be at the forefront and benefit from the increasing floating solar marketopportunities. This project will also make a significant contribution tovarious educational curricula in universities of applied sciences.The Netherlands is facinggreat challenges to achieve (inter)national climate mitigation objectives inlimited time, budget and space. Drastic innovative measures such as floatingsolar parks are high on political agendas and are entering our water systems.The clear advantages of floating solar (multifunctional use of space) led to afast deployment of renewable energy sources without extensive research toadequately evaluate the impacts on our environment. Acquisition ofresearch data with holistic monitoring methods are urgently needed in order toprevent disinvestments.In this project 10 SMEs with different expertiseand technologies are joining efforts with researchers and four public parties(and 12 indirectly involved) to answer the research question “Which monitoringtechnologies and intelligent data interpretation techniques are requiredto be able to conduct comprehensive, efficient and cost effective monitoring ofthe impacts of floating solar panels in their surroundings?"The outputs after a two-yearproject will play a significant and indispensable role in making Green EnergyResources Greener. Specific output includes a detailed inventory of existingprojects, monitoring method for collection/analysis of datasets(parameters/footage on climate, water quality, ecology) on the effects offloating solar panels on the environment using heterogeneous unmanned robots,workshops with public & private partners and stakeholders,scientific and technical papers and update of national guidelines for optimizingthe relationship between solar panels and the surrounding environment. Projectresults have a global interest and the consortium partners aim at upscaling forthe international market. This project will enrich the involved partners withtheir practical knowledge, and SMEs will be equipped with the new technologiesto be at the forefront and benefit from the increasing floating solar marketopportunities. This project will also make a significant contribution tovarious educational curricula in universities of applied sciences.
The Netherlands is facing great challenges to achieve (inter)national climate mitigation objectives in limited time, budget and space. Drastic innovative measures such as floating solar parks are high on political agendas and are entering our water systems . The clear advantages of floating solar (multifunctional use of space) led to a fast deployment of renewable energy sources without extensive research to adequately evaluate the impacts on our environment. Acquisition of research data with holistic monitoring methods are urgently needed in order to prevent disinvestments. In this proposal ten SMEs with different expertise and technologies are joining efforts with researchers and four public parties (and 12 indirectly involved) to answer the research question “Which monitoring technologies and intelligent data interpretation techniques are required to be able to conduct comprehensive, efficient and cost-effective monitoring of the impacts of floating solar panels in their surroundings?" The outputs after a two-year project will play a significant and indispensable role in making Green Energy Resources Greener. Specific output includes a detailed inventory of existing projects, monitoring method for collection/analysis of datasets (parameters/footage on climate, water quality, ecology) on the effects of floating solar panels on the environment using heterogeneous unmanned robots, workshops with public & private partners and stakeholders, scientific and technical papers and update of national guidelines for optimizing the relationship between solar panels and the surrounding environment. Project results have a global interest and the consortium partners aim at upscaling for the international market. This project will enrich the involved partners with their practical knowledge, and SMEs will be equipped with the new technologies to be at the forefront and benefit from the increasing floating solar market opportunities. This project will also make a significant contribution to various educational curricula in universities of applied sciences.
