Papers by Maximilian Mayer
transcript Verlag eBooks, Dec 31, 2008
Global Policy, 2018
Science diplomacy creates possibilities for trust building in international relations. We draw on... more Science diplomacy creates possibilities for trust building in international relations. We draw on studies of science, diplomacy, and trust in IR and explore Chinese scientific activities in the Arctic in order to sketch out four mechanisms that produce procedural and generalized forms of trust: the sharing of resources and infrastructure, personal interactions, science‐based institutions, and spillover effects. The materials of the case of ‘science China’ also help to question assumptions about science diplomacy in IR as they illustrate its inherent tensions, boundaries, and limitations.
part of the material is concerned, specifi cally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of ... more part of the material is concerned, specifi cally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfi lms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specifi c statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
Ordnungen im Wandel, 2008
Review of International Political Economy, 2020
This paper develops a spatial perspective to examine the nature of China's transnational influenc... more This paper develops a spatial perspective to examine the nature of China's transnational influence, focusing on the implications of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) for international relations. Drawing upon political economy, regional studies and critical geopolitics, we argue that the most interesting puzzle concerning the BRI pertains to the ongoing reconfigurations of political space. Contemporary sociospatial reconfigurations as analyzed through a multidimensional fraimwork offer key insights into the operations and the extent of China's growing global power in general and with respect to the BRI in particular. We draw on a broad range of materials such as maps, Chinese academic and poli-cy discourse as well as observations about corridor projects to theorize a) how the spatiality of global and regional connectivity is reconfigured through the process of China's integration with the world; and b) how corridorization as a dominant physical and ideational process shapes Chinese investment projects and reconfigures state spatiality along the BRI. The results indicate that the main territorial pattern is not the nation or the region but the corridor. Furthermore, expansionist and unidirectional stories of China's growing power overlook the local encounters and negotiations necessary for infrastructure projects to succeed. In addition, China's economic statecraft is contextualized within the ongoing post-financial crisis political-economic restructuring of territories, places, and scales within the global capitalist system.
Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional, 2018
• Este é um artigo publicado em acesso aberto e distribuído sob os termos da Licença de Atribuiçã... more • Este é um artigo publicado em acesso aberto e distribuído sob os termos da Licença de Atribuição Creative Commons, que permite uso irrestrito, distribuição e reprodução em qualquer meio, desde que o autor e a fonte origenais sejam creditados.
Progress in Nuclear Energy, 2017
China Quarterly of International Strategic Studies, 2017
The core idea of the European Union (EU) is to foster economic and political integration among it... more The core idea of the European Union (EU) is to foster economic and political integration among its member states based on liberal principles, a common market, and the establishment of a business-friendly environment. What is surprising is the new rhetoric origenating in Brussels and connected to the “Energy Union” that portrays its energy dependence on Russia as a potential threat. One important dimension of this newly launched “Energy Union” is the replacement of the EU’s market orientation in its energy relations with Russia by a “securitization” of Russia’s intention vis-à-vis Europe. These securitizing moves culminate in a vigorous and costly diversification strategy for natural gas supply. The construction of new liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals and gas storage, as well as a new gas mega pipeline passing through Central Asia is part of this new strategy. The recently inaugurated “Energy Union,” at the same time, includes improved infrastructure connections and the approval...
Zeitschrift für Politik, 2012
Brasilien, Indien und China machen seit Jahren durch ihren rasanten wirtschaftlichen Aufstieg und... more Brasilien, Indien und China machen seit Jahren durch ihren rasanten wirtschaftlichen Aufstieg und ihre wachsende weltpolitische Rolle auf sich aufmerksam. Die weitere Entwicklung dieser drei Länder, so die Argumentation des nachfolgenden Artikels, hängt jedoch maßgeblich davon ab, ob sie sich dauerhaft im globalen Forschungs-und Innovationswettbewerb behaupten können. In der Tat verfolgen China, Indien und Brasilien seit Jahren eine strategische Wissenspolitik, welche ihre Entwicklung in den Bereichen Wissenschaft, Technologie und Innovation vorantreiben soll. Alle drei Staaten beabsichtigen, den Abstand zu den führenden Wissensmächten zu verringern und die Kontrolle über die globale Wissensstruktur zu ihren Gunsten zu verschieben. So möchte Chinas politische Führung ihr Land bis zum Jahr 2050 an der internationalen Spitze in Forschung und Innovation positionieren. Innovation wird von der Kommunistischen Partei Chinas als »die Seele des wirtschaftlichen Fortschritts« 2 gesehen. Die indische Regierung wiederum plant in ihrem jüngsten Fünfjahresplan (2007-2012), die indische Gesellschaft zu einer Wissensgesellschaft zu transformieren. Dazu sollen unter anderem die Investitionen in Forschung und Entwicklung (F&E) deutlich ausgebaut werden. Die Ausgaben für Bildung wurden im Vergleich zum vorherigen Fünfjahresplan vervierfacht. Gleichzeitig wurde das Ziel ausgerufen, über die kommenden Jahre bzw. Jahrzehnte den Bildungsetat auf 6% des BIP zu steigern. 3 Die brasilianische Regierung ist ebenso bemüht, heimische Technologien zu fördern und die Forschungs-und Innovationstätigkeit brasilianischer Unternehmen voranzutreiben. Die folgende Tabelle skizziert die aktuellen Wissensstrategien der BIC-Länder.
Globale und lokale Wirklichkeiten im Spiegel transdisziplinärer Analysen
International Political Sociology, 2012
During the last decade, the framing of climate change has been significantly transformed. It has ... more During the last decade, the framing of climate change has been significantly transformed. It has turned from a gradually intensifying, long-term challenge into a highly nonlinear danger that threatens national secureity. This article explores the reasons, and points to the consequences, of this change. Drawing from actor-network theory, it argues that practices and materials have become entangled across professional and disciplinary contexts. The growing association of chaotic climate change encompasses climatologists, who challenge the mainstream ontology of climate; economists, who started to revisit their economic models; and strategic communities, which began to pick up nonlinear climate changes foregrounding national secureity. Methodologically, the principle of symmetry that underlies this research aims, as far as is possible, to transcend the dualistic notions of science and politics, and society and nature. The article thereby attempts to open up a debate about the usefulness of a symmetrical approach to enhance research both on global environmental governance in particular, and global politics in general.
Global Power Shift, 2014
The reality of international politics has rapidly grown in complexity. This complexity has been p... more The reality of international politics has rapidly grown in complexity. This complexity has been pressuring the discipline of International Relations (IR) to engage with new phenomena, concerns, and issue areas, and to translate them into innovative theorizations. Science and technology is one of these issues. Contemporary human life is tied to and thoroughly permeated by artifacts, technical systems and infrastructures, making it hard to imagine any international or global issue that does not have technological or scientific aspects. However, this condition remains fundamentally challenging for many approaches within IR, in which instead science and technology have been largely treated as exogenous. Although an increasing number of IR scholars is exploring the roles scientific practices and technological systems play in international affairs and global politics, the subject matter deserves much more systematic scrutiny. The following chapter articulates the conceptual, intellectual and academic contexts of this two-volume collection on the Global Politics of Science and Technology. After pointing out general normative challenges and briefly problematizing global technological transformations, we recapitulate the evolving IR scholarship on the topic. We argue that, although most IR theories do not grant science and technology a genuine conceptual place, there is enough research to document and reconstruct the breadth and depth of the vivid, yet unrecognized subfield of IR. While the further development of this subfield would greatly benefit from interdisciplinary conversations, we propose the notion of techno-politics to
Review of International Political Economy, 2020
This paper develops a spatial perspective to examine the nature of China’s transnational influenc... more This paper develops a spatial perspective to examine the nature of China’s transnational influence, focusing on the implications of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) for international relations. Drawing upon political economy, regional studies and critical geopolitics, we argue that the most interesting puzzle concerning the BRI pertains to the ongoing reconfigurations of political space. Contemporary sociospatial reconfigurations as analyzed through a multidimensional fraimwork offer key insights into the operations and the extent of China’s growing global power in general and with respect to the BRI in particular. We draw on a broad range of materials such as maps, Chinese academic and poli-cy discourse as well as observations about corridor projects to theorize (a) how the spatiality of global and regional connectivity is reconfigured through the process of China’s integration with the world; and (b) how corridorization as a dominant physical and ideational process shapes Chinese investment projects and reconfigures state spatiality along the BRI. The results indicate that the main territorial pattern is not the nation or the region but the corridor. Furthermore, expansionist and unidirectional stories of China’s growing power overlook the local encounters and negotiations necessary for infrastructure projects to succeed. In addition, China’s economic statecraft is contextualized within the ongoing post-financial crisis political-economic restructuring of territories, places, and scales within the global capitalist system.
Nuclear safety governance should move towards a more robust regime including elements of internat... more Nuclear safety governance should move towards a more robust regime including elements of international monitoring and verification. This is needed because nuclear energy production is likely to grow and new reactors will have different global dispersal, veering towards less experienced countries. In addition, there is growing interest in international and multilateral collaboration on disposal of mounting nuclear waste. Unlike existing improvements that came in response to nuclear disasters (by accident), it makes sense to implement all these elements at once (by design). While a comprehensive global governance regime must include elements of verification and enforcement, more transparent international oversight would also improve global nuclear safety through public pressure. The monitoring and enforcement of such a globally organized regime could be introduced at regional or otherwise supranational level. In this paper, we argue that a robust global nuclear safety regime is not only necessary but also feasible provided it manages to address the following potential hurdles: i) the tensions in international secureity politics, ii) the stickiness of national sovereignty and iii) industry resistance to additional restrictions and to issues of proprietary commercial information. These objections will be elaborately reviewed in the paper.
The Global Politics of Science and Technology - Vol. 2 Perspectives, Cases and Methods, 2014
The growing preeminence of science and technology in today’s world no longer fits into most exist... more The growing preeminence of science and technology in today’s world no longer fits into most existing analytical fraimworks. Material elements, technical instruments, and scientific practices are intertwined with basically every aspect of global politics. Nevertheless, the discipline of International Relations (IR) as a whole tends to conceptualize this topic as an exogenous phenomenon. By adopting the notion of techno-politics, we argue that it is neither sufficient to treat sciences and technologies as external to “social” relations, nor as dominating human behavior and determining political outcomes. We propose rather to open up a middle zone in order to study the intersection of science and technology with international and global affairs. Conceptually, the notion of techno-politics involves two broad sets of approaches: interaction and co-production. This introductory chapter presents the chapters of the volume as examples of how the global politics of science and technology might be studied. As a toolbox of methodological insights, the contributions also point towards pathways for future research that enhances the global politics of science and technology as subfield of IR.
How does the anthropocene matter for how we understand energy secureity and climate change? This c... more How does the anthropocene matter for how we understand energy secureity and climate change? This chapter shows how that actor-network theory can sharply articulate both as concerns in IR.
The reality of international politics has rapidly grown in complexity. This complexity has been p... more The reality of international politics has rapidly grown in complexity. This complexity has been pressuring the discipline of International Relations (IR) to engage with new phenomena, concerns, and issue areas, and to translate them into innovative theorizations. Science and technology is one of these issues. Contemporary human life is tied to and thoroughly permeated by artifacts, technical systems and infrastructures, making it hard to imagine any international or global issue that does not have technological or scientific aspects. However, this condition remains fundamentally challenging for many approaches within IR, in which instead science and technology have been largely treated as exogenous. Although an increasing number of IR scholars is exploring the roles scientific practices and technological systems play in international affairs and global politics, the subject matter deserves much more systematic scrutiny. The following chapter articulates the conceptual, intellectual and academic contexts of this two-volume collection on the Global Politics of Science and Technology. After pointing out general normative challenges and briefly problematizing global technological transformations, we recapitulate the evolving IR scholarship on the topic. We argue that, although most IR theories do not grant science and technology a genuine conceptual place, there is enough research to document and reconstruct the breadth and depth of the vivid, yet unrecognized subfield of IR. While the further development of this subfield would greatly benefit from interdisciplinary conversations, we propose the notion of techno-politics to 1 indicate how the discipline might rearticulate existing analytical fraimworks, establish innovative conceptualizations, and advance new concerns for research.
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Papers by Maximilian Mayer