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Many students in Germany undertaking academic writing tasks consult one of the numerous German-language books on research writing. Curiously, these works tend to downplay or ignore creativity, compared to their American counterparts. A hermeneutic and rhetorical study that examines the structure, content, and style of 21 German books on research writing with the help of framing theory reveals that, firstly, the rationale given to readers for learning how to do a research project is usually that it enables them to complete difficult tasks and thus to graduate successfully – the potentially fascinating aspects, such as learning through writing, and the possibility of advancing the field are rarely mentioned. Secondly, when defining good academic research, US books stress exploration and invention based on wrestling with questions, while the German ones mostly emphasize rules, correctness within a fixed system, and the mastery of techniques. Finally, in the 21 works, academic work primarily comes across as a solitary, linear process neatly divided into separate phases, not as a holistic, discursive practice that takes place within the research community. The likely reasons for this phenomenon highlight several crucial challenges German writing teachers and consultants are facing: as the rhetoric/composition and writing consultancy scene in Germany is vibrant but somewhat marginalized at universities and relatively new, there is no tradition of mandatory composition courses influenced by writing studies with a creative component, and most guidebooks on research are not by writing experts but by professors in other fields. Moreover, there is still widespread belief that creativity cannot be taught, and that students’ fascination with their chosen field of study should be taken for granted, so that neither need to be mentioned in primers. Terminology might also play a role; the German term for ‘research (writing)’, ‘Wissenschaftliches Arbeiten’ or ‘academic practice’, already appears to emphasize correctness over discovery.

In recent years, voices calling International Relations (IR) a ‘Western-centric discipline’ have become louder and a comprehensive debate about the discipline’s (un)global character has emerged. In many aspects this debate is not very different from earlier struggles for a more pluralized and reflected discipline. Consequently, in the introduction, we promote conceptualizing the current discourse on geo-epistemological divides and diversity as a new ‘Global(izing) IR Debate’ by reviewing its evolution over the past decades and drawing parallels and differences between this and earlier ones. We subsequently locate our own book within this debate by addressing a number of common approaches and trends, for example, the turn from broad criticism toward the study of particular aspects of IR scholarship beyond the West. Starting from these approaches, and against the backdrop of defining a distinct concept of ‘geo-epistemology’ for overcoming the awkward concepts of Western/non-Western, we introduce the book’s structure along two dimensions: the terrain covered (What do ‘West’ and ‘beyond’ mean in the context of our book and each chapter?) and questions asked (What do the single chapters deal with?).

Introduction: The European Union's Foreign Policy 'Actorness and Power': Foundations of and Challenges for a Comparative Research Design Ingo Peters Part 1 Foreign Economic Policy 2 IMF Reform Negotiations in the G20: Comparing Actorness and Power in the Foreign Financial Policies of the EU, the US and ASEAN Steffen Murau and Kilian Spandler 3 The EU in Global Chemicals Governance Katja Biedenkopf 4 The External Reach of the EU Regulatory State: Norway, Russia and the Security of Natural Gas Supplies Nick Sitter and Svein S. Andersen Part 2 Common Foreign and Security Policy/ Peace- and State-building 5 The European Union and the Balkan Wars: Zivilmacht Europa and the "Problem from Hell" Adrian G. V. Hyde-Price 6 EU Performance As A Regional Security Actor: Comparing ENP South to NATO's MENA Policy Pernille Rieker 7 The EU and the US Reactions to the Arab Spring 2011: (New) Response to a Changing Middle East and North Africa Assem Dandashly Part 3 Crisis Management, Missions and Operations 8 State-Building and Police Reform in Afghanistan:EU and US Engagement in Comparative Perspective Dinoj Kumar Upadhyay and Maria Pawelec 9 The European Union's Foreign Policy in Comparative Perspective: The EU and the US in the Sahel Ronja Kempin, Ronja Scheler, and Stefan Steinicke 10 Building a Comprehensive Approach "Bottom Up": A Systematic Comparison of the EU's, the US' and NATO's Strategies for Providing Security to the Horn of Africa Bjorn Olav Knutsen and Eirik Donjar 11 The European Union, the United Nations and the United States Missions and Operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo in Comparative Perspective Ingo Peters and Madina Diallo Conclusions: Actorness and Power of the European Union in Comparative Perspective Ingo Peters

European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP) has become a contentious subject in transatlantic security relations. This essay identifies the ambiguities that have occurred in the policymaking on both sides of the Atlantic that appear to have generated a basic lack of confidence and trust in the other side's good intentions and commitment to cooperation. It does so by sketching three historical time periods—1981–1986, 1988–1996, and 1998–2004—that convey the recurrent patterns and outcomes in the ESDP dispute. These three cases cover the periods (1) from the London Report on European Political Cooperation to the Single European Act and the Western European Union Security Platform, (2) the Maastricht Negotiations on a Common Foreign and Security Policy, and (3) the evolution of ESDP from St. Malo to Brussels.

The Chinese American writer Frank Chin owes his current status as a margin- alized figure in Asian American Studies not only to his anti-feminist vitriolics, but also to his writing style. Judged by common contemporary standards, Chin's novels appear dis- jointed and crude: He routinely puts blunt, didactic statements from his essays into his characters' mouths without even trying to give them any literary embellishment; yet at the same time all these doctrine-like, straightforward, and obviously instructional passages are infused with complex hints at ancient myths, and his competently lecturing pro- tagonists are prone to irritating sudden irrational outbursts of emotion. This article pro- poses that these peculiarities of Chin's style - a combination of passion, plainness, and allegory - do not necessarily have to be seen as literary weaknesses; they can also be interpreted as a radical employment of strategies that helped form an important strain within the American literary tradition: the strategies that the first distinctly American writers (the plain, passionate, and allegorical Puritans) used. Viewed in this light, Frank Chin seems much less of an 'outsider' than before. Frank Chin is not exactly popular among practitioners of Asian American Studies. The Chinese American writer, born in 1940 in Berkeley, author of the first Asian American drama that made it onto an important New York stage, and co-editor of the seminal anthology Aiiieeeee!, suffers from an "institutional negligence" (Li 1991, 211), being regarded as "chauvinist, nativist, or nationalist" by a majority of scholars (Goshert 2000). The demonstrative Asian hyper-masculinity he displays and advo- cates, and his vitriolic and by now legendary attacks on The Woman Warrior by the nearly untouchable Maxine Hong Kingston, in the late nineties the most widely taught author in American academia (Simmons 1999, 15), appear to have turned Chin into a pariah of sorts: When he was nominated for the Distinguished Achieve- ment Award of the Western Literature Association in 1999, massive protest mainly from feminists led to his ending up as the first nominee ever to be rejected (Davis 2000). John Goshert reports that when he attempted to discuss Chin with academ- ics, "respondents at a number of conferences quickly called me to task for even broaching the subject" (2000). The Kingston-Chin dispute with its literary and cultural implications has been competently and comprehensively analyzed already (for instance, by Cheung 1998, 107-24), as has been the question of what Chin's marginalization tells us about the state of Asian American Studies (Li 1991, 211-23). What I am interested in here is something else, something that is related to the judgment of the literary merit of

At the beginning of the 1990s the European political scene is in a state of rapid transformation. While the East–West conflict may not be over, it is clearly undergoing a fundamental change from an ideologically charged contest to a ‘normal’ competition between major actors in the anarchical international system. This change may well entail the elimination of some of the most dangerous threats to peace, whilst at the same time generating requirements for a new framework of European and East–West security. As the ideological conflict fades, so the bipolar alliance system which, in spite of all its shortcomings, burdens and injustices, provided some measure of stability to Europe, is also about to vanish.

In November 1990, the (at that time) 34 CSCE states met at the Paris Summit of heads of states and governments. They adopted the Paris Charta for a New Europe1 which contained basic principles and rules for an intesified co-operation after the East-West conflict had been resolved. Part and parcel of the Charta was the decision to strengthen the CSCE using new structures and institutions which was meant as a cooperative response to the security challenges of the new era. The Paris decisions comprised the following institutional elements:2 On the political level a network of regular high-level meetings — summits, council of foreign ministers, follow-up meetings (later: review conferences) were established or formalised. Additionally, periodical meetings of high ranking government officials and diplomats (Committee of Senior Officials) were created to prepare council meetings and to implement common decisions. On a functional level a. Permanent organs were created which provide a small but effective international bureaucracy as a continuous organisational framework for CSCE activities. These working units, on the one hand, give administrative support to the political level (Secretariat in Prague), and on the other hand, specialised agencies carry out various assignments and are in charge of specific policy areas (Bureau of Free Elections in Warsaw, Conflict Prevention Centre in Vienna). b. Instruments for implementing agreed measures have been developed. Dependant on the areas of assignment, these instruments are ascribed to either the political forums or the organs. Mechanisms provide prearranged procedures for consultations and decision-making in conflicts or crisis situations. For example, the purpose of the mechanism for “unusual military activities” (para. 17, Vienna Document 1990) is to deal with acute threat perceptions, another, the “human rights mechanism” can help to tackle acute concern regarding violations of human rights. These mechanisms for example, facilitate the sending of fact-finding or observer missions to gain or verify information, thus serving as basis for political decisions and measures on the national or international level.

The East-West conflict is over: the overall peaceful revolutions in Eastern Europe brought an end to communist rule and simultaneously to the basic political conflict between the socialist and the democratic parts of the world. It meant also an end to Soviet hegemony over Eastern Europe, and in December 1991 an end to the Soviet Union as an hegemonial power and even as a state. Additionally, the Soviets’ institutional network of “socialist internationalism”, first and foremost the COMECON and the Warsaw Treaty Organisation, was dissolved.