Karen Devine | Dublin City University (original) (raw)

Papers by Karen Devine

This paper examines how gender has been deployed or worked into arguments for robust military pea... more This paper examines how gender has been deployed or worked into arguments for robust military peace enforcement activities beyond the traditional scope of peacekeeping in the ‘post-neutral’ states. We argue that these states provide a unique and complex case study through which to examine the transition in support for military action in specific contexts, such as neutral states transitioning to ‘post-neutrality’, collaborative regional security cooperation, ‘cosmopolitan militaries’, and increasingly muscular forms of humanitarian intervention. This is primarily due to the legacy of neutrality, which we argue contains a gendered history that has not fully been explored. Having been ‘infantilised’ as neutrals, the argument goes that in order to transition to ‘maturity’ they need to shed their traditional neutrality; this involves specifically gendered forms of securitizing that engages discourses of identity, gender and violence with cosmopolitan and progressive security that permits...

Irish Political Studies, 2009

Irish Political Studies Vol. 24, No. 4, 467490, December 2009 ... ISSN 0790-7184 Print/1743-9078... more Irish Political Studies Vol. 24, No. 4, 467490, December 2009 ... ISSN 0790-7184 Print/1743-9078 Online/09/040467-24 © 2009 Political Studies Association of Ireland DOI: 10.1080/07907180903274776 ... Neutrality and the Evolution of the EU's

Cooperation and Conflict, 2011

Swiss Political Science Review

This article seeks to solve the puzzle of what explains Irish peace policy norm consistency for o... more This article seeks to solve the puzzle of what explains Irish peace policy norm consistency for over three centuries and the recent reversal of these norms. The methodology analyses values and identities in Irish leaders' foreign policy discourses and practices, producing evidence that Irish peace policy norms are consistently: independence and neutrality for Ireland in the cause of peace and security; self‐determination; anti‐imperialism; third world solidarity; and resistance to famine and slavery. In the early 1900s, after Ireland gained statehood, the addition of: institutional cooperation; a constitutional commitment to peaceful resolution of disputes; armed neutrality; UN peacekeeping; and an explicit subordination of material interests for moral, justice‐based norms, made this small postcolonial state an historically‐driven Natural Born Peacemaker. Elite‐led norm reversals consolidated in the 2000s suggests a vital explanatory relationship with elite corruption and associ...

Irish Studies in International Affairs, 2008

This article takes a comparative, empirical look at the practice of Irish neutrality during the W... more This article takes a comparative, empirical look at the practice of Irish neutrality during the World War II. It critiques a model of neutrality presented in a thesis on Irish neutrality called Unneutral Ireland, consisting of factors derived from an analysis of three states regarded as well-established European neutrals, Austria, Sweden and Switzerland that reflect the practice of neutrality. That model focused on the rights and duties of neutrality; the recognition of Ireland's status by belligerents and others; the disavowal of external help; and the freedom of decision and action. This present article focuses on the factors flowing from these latter obligations that are cited in an analysis of the practice of Irish neutrality, in the Unneutral thesis as proof of Ireland's 'unneutral' status, i.e. ideology; involvement in economic sanctions; partiality; the practice of Irish citizens joining the British army; and post-World War II factors such as Ireland's EEC membership. In this article, Ireland's practice of neutrality is evaluated against the practice of other European neutral states-Sweden, Switzerland, Austria and Finland (including Norway's truncated practice of neutrality)-visà-vis the above variables. This article also deals with the perennial myths that crop up in 'unneutral' discourses on Irish neutrality, for example, the oft-cited incidence of de Valera's alleged visit to the German legation in Ireland to sign a book of condolences on Hitler's death and the suggestions of a British government offer of a deal on Northern Ireland in exchange for Ireland dropping its neutral stance and supporting the Allies in World War II. The article concludes that the practice of Irish neutrality is equivalent to or superior to the practice of other European neutral states, thus undermining the dominant discourse that Ireland's neutrality is a myth and that Ireland is 'unneutral'.

n a 2006 International Political Science Review article, entitled “Choosing to Go It Alone: Irish... more n a 2006 International Political Science Review article, entitled “Choosing to Go It Alone: Irish Neutrality in Theoretical and Comparative Perspective,” Neal G. Jesse argues that Irish neutrality is best understood through a neoliberal rather than a neorealist international relations theory framework. This article posits an alternative “critical social constructivist” framework for understanding Irish neutrality. The first part of the article considers the differences between neoliberalism and social constructivism and argues why critical social constructivism's emphasis on beliefs, identity, and the agency of the public in foreign policy are key factors explaining Irish neutrality today. Using public opinion data, the second part of the article tests whether national identity, independence, ethnocentrism, attitudes to Northern Ireland, and efficacy are factors driving public support for Irish neutrality. The results show that public attitudes to Irish neutrality are structure...

This article approaches ‘neutrality’ as an essentially contested concept and traces its meaning a... more This article approaches ‘neutrality’ as an essentially contested concept and traces its meaning and purpose over centuries-long historical timelines and situated political, societal and security contexts. It distinguishes neutrality from other concepts such as ‘neutralization’ ‘non-belligerency’, ‘non-alignment’, ‘military non-alignment’, ‘military neutrality’ and ‘non-allied’. The article explains the politics of defining neutrality in the current European political and legal landscape and in the context of shifting definitions and practices of war, peace, security and state sovereignty. This episteme-based analysis focuses on changes to neutrality in accordance with the rise and fall of particular empires and international actors over time, and changes to its status linked to the development and reification of particular meta-theoretically-based subfields of International Relations and Political Science, setting the background to this special issue of Cooperation and Conflict. A renewed emphasis on the normative aspects of neutrality (i.e. the role of domestic values, politics, preferences, history and mass publics in foreign policy formulation) is achieved by employing a range of perspectives, characterized by increased pluralism in levels of analysis and theoretical approaches. Through this pluralism, authors engage with (1) the strategic and normative drivers underpinning the norm of neutrality, (2) the potential for neutrals to serve as norm entrepreneurs in the field of peace promotion, (3) the tenuous legal status of elites’ quasi-neutral foreign policy constructions underpinned by tensions between discourses and practices and (4) the discursive strategies underpinning the move from neutral states’ traditional forms of neutrality to what is termed ‘post-neutrality’ in the current politico-legal context.

This article seeks to solve the puzzle of what explains Irish peace policy norm consistency for o... more This article seeks to solve the puzzle of what explains Irish peace policy norm consistency for over three centuries and the recent reversal of these norms. The methodology analyses values and identities in Irish leaders' foreign policy discourses and practices, producing evidence that Irish peace policy norms are consistently: independence and neutrality for Ireland in the cause of peace and security; self-determination; anti-imperialism; third world solidarity; and resistance to famine and slavery. In the early 1900s, after Ireland gained statehood, the addition of: institutional cooperation; a constitutional commitment to peaceful resolution of disputes; armed neutrality; UN peacekeeping; and an explicit subordination of material interests for moral, justice-based norms, made this small postcolonial state an historically-driven Natural Born Peacemaker. Elite-led norm reversals consolidated in the 2000s suggests a vital explanatory relationship with elite corruption and associated specific personality characteristics, and the need to revise elite socialisation theory to incorporate these variables.

In a 2008 International Politics article, David Patrick Houghton questions the importance of ‘The... more In a 2008 International Politics article, David Patrick Houghton questions the importance of ‘The Third Debate’ in IR theory between ‘positivism and postmodernism’ and the relative worth of contrasting epistemological positions. Houghton's main argument is that the philosophical underpinnings of IR have not been central to what IR scholars actually do; specifically, the epistemological differences between positivists and postmodernists have little practical effect upon their empirical findings. In short, epistemology does not matter. This article analyses Houghton's thesis within the context of a dominant discourse in the discipline that derides postpositivism and, by corollary, rejects methodological pluralism incorporating both positivist and postpositivist approaches, what I refer to as ‘epistemethodological pluralism’. This article questions the main assumptions underpinning this discourse by deconstructing the definition of ‘postpositivism’ that underpins the ‘naysayer’ arguments deriding or dismissing epistemological differences between positivism and postpositivism. Using examples of positivist and postpositivist research that focus on the foreign policy of the United States, European Union integration and Middle East politics, the article demonstrates how epistemological issues have a significant impact on empirical research in International Relations and illustrates the benefits of integrating the different epistemological approaches.

Keywords: epistemethodological pluralism; poststructuralism; postpositivism; epistemology; positivism; methodological pluralism

This article examines the content of concepts of neutrality articulated in elite and public disco... more This article examines the content of concepts of neutrality articulated in elite and public discourses in the context of the development of the European Union’s (EU) Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). In parallel with security and defence policy developments in successive EU treaties, many argue that the meaning of neutrality has been re-conceptualized by elites in EU ‘neutral’ member states (specifically, Austria, Finland, Ireland and Sweden) to the point of irrelevance and inevitable demise. Others argue that the concept of ‘military’ neutrality, as it is termed by elites in Ireland, or ‘military non-alignment’, as it is termed by elites in Austria, Sweden and Finland, meaning non-membership of military alliances, is compatible with the CSDP in the Lisbon Treaty. An investigation of these paradoxical discursive claims as to the status of neutrality yields findings of a divergence in public ‘active’ and elite ‘military’ concepts of neutrality that embodies competing foreign policy agendas. These competing, value-laden, concepts reflect tensions between, on the one hand, the cultural influences of a domestic constituency holding strong national identities and role-conceptions informed by a postcolonial or anti-imperialist legacy and, on the other hand, elite socialization influences of ‘global actor’ and common defence-supported identity ambitions encountered at the EU level that can induce discursively subtle yet materially significant shifts in neutral state foreign policy. The article concludes with an analysis of the compatibility of both ‘military’ neutrality and the ‘active’ concept of neutrality with the CSDP in the Lisbon Treaty and draws conclusions on the future role of neutrality both inside and outside the EU framework.

This article traces the evolution of attitudes and policies of Irish political parties towards Ir... more This article traces the evolution of attitudes and policies of Irish political parties towards Irish neutrality and the European Union Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) across four decades. The article provides conceptual snapshots of the position of parties’ policies along two policy dimensions. The first dimension captures policies of limited ‘military’ neutrality and ‘positive’/‘active’ neutrality. The second dimension captures minimalist EU foreign and security policy, defined as ‘civilian’ or ‘soft’ security policy, to a maximalist EU CFSP/ESDP ‘hard security’ policy amounting to a ‘militarized’ EU. The positioning starts with the campaign for Irish membership of the European Economic Community (EEC), focusing on the accession negotiations and the 1972 referendum campaign and finishes with an analysis of parties’ positions on the Security and Defence Policy aspects of the Lisbon Treaty in 2008. Evidence shows the positions of the larger parties of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Labour Party shifted away from fundamental neutrality to embrace treaty-based progress towards a maximalist EU ESDP. Over the same time period, the smaller parties of Sinn Féin and the Green Party were more consistent in their adherence to positive neutrality and in their opposition to the development of a maximalist EU ESDP. The forces of Europeanization have been evident in influencing evolving party discourses in Ireland. Much of this influence has been occasioned by the impact of participation in government on parties and the sporadic requirement to engage with referendum campaigns. The process of Europeanization has thus been subtle and muted and has interacted in intricate ways with domestic party agendas and objectives.

This article takes a comparative, empirical look at the practice of Irish neutrality during World... more This article takes a comparative, empirical look at the practice of Irish neutrality during World War II. It critiques a model of neutrality presented in a thesis on Irish neutrality called Unneutral Ireland, consisting of factors derived from an analysis of three states regarded as well-established European neutrals—Austria, Sweden and Switzerland—that reflect the practice of neutrality. That model focused on the rights and duties of neutrality; the recognition of Ireland’s status by belligerents and others; the disavowal of external help; and freedom of decision and action. This present article focuses on the factors flowing from these latter obligations that are cited in an analysis of the practice of Irish neutrality in the Unneutral thesis as proof of Ireland’s ‘unneutral’ status, i.e. ideology; involvement in economic sanctions; partiality; the practice of Irish citizens joining the British army; and post-World War II factors such as Ireland’s EEC membership. In this article, Ireland’s practice of neutrality is evaluated against the practice of other European neutral states—Sweden, Switzerland, Austria and Finland (and also Norway’s truncated practice of neutrality)—vis-à-vis the above variables. The article also deals with the perennial
myths that crop up in ‘unneutral’ discourses on Irish neutrality, for example, the oftcited incidence of de Valera’s alleged visit to the German legation in Ireland to sign a book of condolences on Hitler’s death; and the suggestions of a British government
offer of a deal on Northern Ireland in exchange for Ireland dropping its neutral stance and supporting the Allies in World War II. The article concludes that the practice of Irish neutrality is equivalent to or superior to the practice of other European neutral states, thus undermining the dominant discourse that Ireland’s neutrality is a myth and that Ireland is ‘unneutral’.

A number of academics, journalists and political elites claim that Irish neutrality is a 'myth', ... more A number of academics, journalists and political elites claim that Irish neutrality is a 'myth', and many also characterise public support for Irish neutrality as 'confused' and 'nonrational'. This 'unneutral' discourse in the academic literature and mainstream Irish media is based on an academic thesis, that of an Unneutral Ireland. The Unneutral thesis constructs a particular concept of neutrality in order to draw its conclusion that Ireland is 'unneutral'. Using a poststructuralist approach-a rarity in the discipline of International Relations (IR)-this paper deconstructs concepts of Irish neutrality using a framework of IR theories. The results show that the concept of neutrality put forward in the Unneutral Ireland thesis and the dominant discourses on Irish neutrality are based on a hegemonic IR theory, the theory of neorealism, rather than on seemingly 'objective' scientific research methods. The paper concludes that non-realist theories and approaches may provide a better understanding of Irish neutrality and of the dynamics of public support for Irish neutrality

Conference Presentations by Karen Devine

Irish Political Studies, 2009

Cooperation and Conflict, 2011

Swiss Political Science Review

Irish Studies in International Affairs, 2008

This article seeks to solve the puzzle of what explains Irish peace policy norm consistency for o... more This article seeks to solve the puzzle of what explains Irish peace policy norm consistency for over three centuries and the recent reversal of these norms. The methodology analyses values and identities in Irish leaders' foreign policy discourses and practices, producing evidence that Irish peace policy norms are consistently: independence and neutrality for Ireland in the cause of peace and security; self-determination; anti-imperialism; third world solidarity; and resistance to famine and slavery. In the early 1900s, after Ireland gained statehood, the addition of: institutional cooperation; a constitutional commitment to peaceful resolution of disputes; armed neutrality; UN peacekeeping; and an explicit subordination of material interests for moral, justice-based norms, made this small postcolonial state an historically-driven Natural Born Peacemaker. Elite-led norm reversals consolidated in the 2000s suggests a vital explanatory relationship with elite corruption and associated specific personality characteristics, and the need to revise elite socialisation theory to incorporate these variables.

Keywords: epistemethodological pluralism; poststructuralism; postpositivism; epistemology; positivism; methodological pluralism