ABSTRACT

What does responsibility mean in International Relations (IR)? This handbook brings together cutting-edge research on the critical debates about responsibility that are currently being undertaken in IR theory.

This handbook both reflects upon an emerging field based on an engagement in the most crucial theoretical debates and serves as a foundational text by showing how deeply a discussion of responsibility is embedded in broader questions of IR theory and practice. Contributions cover the way in which responsibility is theorized across different approaches in IR and relevant neighboring disciplines and demonstrate how responsibility matters in different policy fields of global governance. Chapters with an empirical focus zoom in on particular actor constellations of (emerging) states, international organizations, political movements, or corporations, or address how responsibility matters in structuring the politics of global commons, such as oceans, resources, or the Internet.

Providing a comprehensive overview of IR scholarship on responsibility, this accessible and interdisciplinary text will be a valuable resource for scholars and students in many fields including IR, international law, political theory, global ethics, science and technology, area studies, development studies, business ethics, and environmental and security governance.

part I|108 pages

Theories of responsibility in International Relations

part II|80 pages

Mapping responsibility relations across policy fields

chapter 13|15 pages

Delegating Moral Responsibility in War

Lethal autonomous weapons systems and the responsibility gap

chapter 15|14 pages

From Lisbon to Sendai

Responsibilities in international disaster management

part III|128 pages

Responsibility relations: Subjects, objects and speakers of responsibility

chapter 16|13 pages

Responsible Diplomacy

Judgments, wider national interests and diplomatic peace

chapter 18|15 pages

Responsibility as an Opportunity

China's water governance in the Mekong region

chapter 19|14 pages

Responsibility as Practice

Implications of UN Security Council responsibilization

chapter 20|17 pages

Rebel with a Cause

Rebel responsibility in intrastate conflict situations

chapter 21|13 pages

What Responsibility for International Organisations?

The independent accountability mechanisms of the multilateral development banks

chapter 24|14 pages

Social Media Actors

Shared responsibility 3.0?

part IV|62 pages

Global commons as responsibility objects

chapter 27|11 pages

A Responsibility to Freeze?

The Arctic as a complex object of responsibility

chapter 28|14 pages

Shareholders, Supervisors, and Stakeholders

Practices of financial responsibility and their limits

part V|57 pages

Critical reflections and theoretical debates