This paper examines the determinants of alignment in bilateral partnerships. While it was impossible to think about international cooperation without referring to the term "alliances" during much of the Cold War period, strategic partnerships have taken a central place in many states' diplomatic...

Ten years ago, President Barack Obama's unprecedented address to the Muslim world from Cairo was hailed as a landmark in US-Middle Eastern relations and described by contemporary observers as a historical break in US foreign policy in the region. Yet it soon became clear that the president's...

It has long been argued that identity matters in international relations. Yet, how identity impacts enmity and conflict among states remains the subject of debate. The existing literature asserts that differences in identity can be a source of conflict, whereas convergence and similarity lead to...

In the Middle East and North Africa, EU foreign policy has tended to prioritise regime stability over democratisation. Existing research has argued that this could create anti‐European sentiment in the respective populations. However, empirical evidence on the relationship between the EU's...

Rising powers have attracted tremendous interest in international politics and theory. Yet the ways in which secondary powers strategically respond to regional changes in the distribution of power have been largely neglected. This article seeks to fill this gap by presenting a systematic...

The politics of contestation on the part of secondary regional powers such as Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Venezuela towards Brazil as the regional leader oscillate between competition and cooperation, inasmuch as the South American region has one regional power and is a zone of negative peace...