Editorial

Abstract

In this issue, readers will find two subject matter sections: 1. Contemporary Security and 2. International Relations Casuistry

Contemporary Security

César Ross and Gonzalo Montaner Correo open the Volume 12 Number 2 issue with the article titled “The Post-9/11 Security Studies Agenda: What is Being Discussed and Who are Being Discussed?”, offering a context for the new era of international security from the starting point of those terrorist attacks which imbued in the international system the friend-enemy ideology. In addition, these attacks managed to modify the traditional concepts of war, and in concordance we present Mariano César Bartolomé’s contribution, his article “The Current Use of the Concept ‘War’ in International Relations”. In it, a deeper insight on the epistemology associated with the new deontological needs stemming from the mutation of revolutions is offered. Accordingly, and in order to close this subject matter section of the International Relations, Strategy, and Security Journal, you can find “The Perception of Political Elites and the Predilection for Private Forms of Violence: From Mercenaries to Military Private Security Companies”, by Mario Iván Urueña Sánchez, a document in which the contributions from the previous authors come to fruition.

International Relations Casuistry

Ernani Contipelli wrote the article “Global Governance and Comparative Analysis of the Integration Processes in Latin America: The Andean Community and the MERCOSUR”. Following a similar approach, we find Jerónimo Ríos Sierra’s contribution, “The UNASUR and the Bolivarian Alliance for the People of Our America: Another Lost Decade?” Here, he meticulously analyzes the toll paid due to the auctioning of other regional international organizations. In turn, Wilson Fernández Luzuriaga presents “Uruguay and its Incorporation to the United Nations Security Council. International Law in the Role of a Small State”. He describes tendencies that could be adopted by peripheral actors in the international system and that can be perfectly spotted in other case studies, as the one carried out by Mariano Turzi in “Latin American silk road: China and the Nicaragua Canal”. Now, and from the south of the American continent, Melisa Deciancio enriches our issue with the article “The Construction of the Argentinian International Relations (IR) Field: Contributions from Geopolitics”. Meanwhile, María Cecilia Míguez reflects on “The Unorthodox Autonomy and the Classification of Foreign Politics in Argentina”. Finally, two related articles are presented in our issue; both focus on the “hot” topic of drug trafficking, one from Brazil and the other from Argentina. The former was written by Esteban Arratia Sandobal and is titled “Beyond Pacification/Competition: State-Making in Rio’s Favelas”, and it could be contrasted with the peculiarities of the Argentinian territory, so well described by Carolina Sampó in the latter, “Drug and Human Trafficking: A Sample of How Organized Crime Advances in Argentina”. To close this current edition, we present “62 Years of Indonesia – Mexico Diplomatic Relations: Some Reflections and Ways Forward”, from the author Sulthon Sabaruddin Sjahril.

We expect that, with this collection of research efforts and reflections from expert social scientists from a variety of disciplinary approaches, this current issue of the International Relations, Strategy, and Security Journal will please all its readers.