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The People’s Liberation Army (PLA), officially the army of the Communist Party of China (CPC) – hereinafter the “CPC” or the “Party” –, has always been a crucial player in the Chinese political system. It is not a national army, although it is the only army China has and its members have been active participants in the life of the State since its founding. The close relationship between the armed forces and the Party has, over time, encouraged Chinese policy analysts to explore the influence of the PLA on national decision-making processes, and consider this interaction as “intrinsic to the Party leadership itself ”. The involvement of the PLA in this regard has been compared to that of an “interest group” capable of exerting pressure on political decisions about aspects of national stability and, more recently, security, defence, and foreign policy. Assessing the weight of the PLA as an interest group, mostly in foreign policy, is also the aim of this analysis, which proceeds as follows. First, it briefly reviews the major reforms that have targeted the PLA, emphasising how such restructurings have stimulated the creation of an identity for the military as an interest group. Second, it investigates the current role of PLA officers in Party institutions, mainly focusing on the functioning of the Central Military Commission (CMC), which is one of the key bodies used by the military to lobby politicians and influence foreign policy decision-making. Third, the article introduces readers to the ongoing shrinkage of civil society that is taking place under the leadership of General Secretary, and President, Xi Jinping and which is having consequences for the performance of interest groups in Chinese policy-making, and more generally for its political system. In this respect, the reform measures that the PLA is currently undergoing also embody Xi Jinping’s desire to reduce the rise of interests, due to the presence of groups not entirely under the authority and control of the Party, which may clash with his policy agenda. The impact of Xi's recent power centralisation efforts on the military's capacity may have contributed to a decrease in the extent to which the PLA continues to have a say in foreign policy.

Despite the US longstanding opposition, the Trump administration’s contestation of the International Criminal Court (‘ICC’ or ‘Court’) has been unprecedentedly severe. Not only did it turn against the wholesale legitimacy of the Court, but it ultimately led to sanctions against the ICC Prosecutor and senior prosecution official, while hindering the enforcement of the principle of non-impunity at the international level. Investigating the US stance towards the ICC during the Trump presidency exemplifies one of the most representative moments of what we term a ‘contestation from within’, hence, a contestation of the Liberal International Order originating from one of its founders, in this case, the US. Drawing on the constructivist literature on norm contestation and a narrative inquiry, this article seeks to explore how the US contestation over the Court and the norm of non-impunity intensified, shifting from applicatory to justificatory, and from discursive to behavioural contestation, specifically, in the Trump era.

The article investigates the evolution of the narrative elaborated by the Chinese Communist Party during Jiang Zemin's Presidency. It aims at highlighting, through an analysis of the official speeches pronounced by the Chinese political leadership, mainly by Jiang Zemin, how China's posture evolved in international relations from the late eighties to the late nineties. Hence, the narrative also plays a crucial role for setting the foreign policy agenda of a country. Furthermore, such article considers how alterations in national collective memory, which occurred in the narrative elaborated by the Chinese government during the nineties, can be interpreted as compatible with its leaders' expectations about the role of China in international affairs.

The article aims at questioning if food can be used as a geopolitical tool, specifically with regard to those policies implemented by the Russian government against Ukraine. The authors intend to show the existence in the Russian geopolitical tradition of a persistent factor, that is using food to pursuit national interests, as revealed during the study of the Soviet Union’s and the Russian Federation’s political history. Furthermore, the analysis enlightens how other international actors occur and influence the production, consumption and protection of the right to food, resulting in severe consequences on the international food supply governance. To this end, the ultimate goal of the authors is to shed a light on food security and how it represents a violated right internationally, due to the adoption of restrictive economic policies, which limit the access to the feeding of involved populations. Thus, despite the existence of international agencies and organizations whose mission is population food security, this is still difficult to achieve, especially in the poorest regions of the world., Bollettino della Società Geografica Italiana, Vol 1 No 1 (2018)