Political Science Critique

Guideline for manuscript submission

2026-06-30T11:26:40+07:00

Decentralized Reputation-Based Global Governance of Wine Quality Standards

2026-06-11T09:18:06+07:00

This article is the second paper in a two-part research report on “Global Governance of Wine Quality Standards,” focusing on the decentralized reputation-driven framework that has emerged in wine governance. Building upon Lucio Picci's concept of reputation-based governance, this study adapts and extends the framework to address the complexities of the global wine industry. With wine production now globalized beyond Europe, the centralized governance model, traditionally led by the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV), has evolved. In today’s global wine industry, quality perception is shaped by various actors, including wine critics, digital platforms, and award organizations, each contributing to a multifaceted reputation system. This paper explores how each stakeholder must maintain credibility through accurate, impartial evaluations, highlighting that decentralized reputation has become a potent governance tool, establishing global standards and shaping wine quality in contemporary markets.

Militarization and the Role of Military Attaché Wives in Supporting Thai’s Defence Diplomacy

2026-06-25T09:08:26+07:00

This qualitative research examines and analyzes the role of military attaché wives in supporting Thailand's preventive diplomacy policy. The study employed in-depth interviews with 15 military attaché wives and document analysis. The research objectives were to: (1) explore the roles and functions of military attaché wives in both formal and informal diplomatic activities; (2) analyze how wives participate in social networking and support military operations; and (3) examine the impacts of these roles on their personal and family lives.

The research findings reveal significant dynamics of militarization processes in the context of Thailand's preventive diplomacy, which have dissolved the boundaries between operational spaces (public sphere) and family or personal life (private sphere) through two interconnected mechanisms: feminization and housewifization. In the dimension of feminization, wives are deployed to promote and support soft power in preventive diplomacy through social and cultural skills defined as feminine attributes, such as creating friendly atmospheres, cross-cultural communication, and serving as cultural ambassadors in public spaces. Simultaneously, in the dimension of housewifization, wives' caregiving roles are extended from their families to encompass diverse groups of military personnel, including military attaché husbands, government officials visiting from abroad, and exchange military cadets. Additionally, they manage their homes as informal diplomatic spaces.

The convergence of these two processes creates what may be termed "gendered-domestic diplomacy," which transforms skills and labor categorized as "women's work" and "housework" into strategic tools supporting state security policy. However, the expansion of these roles results in loss of personal freedom, increased physical and emotional labor burdens, and lack of formal recognition, despite wives' significant contributions to the success of preventive diplomacy policy.

Public Diplomacy in the Public Sphere

2026-06-19T10:54:54+07:00

This article develops a conceptual framework for understanding public diplomacy (PD) through the concept of the public sphere as an arena in which foreign policy messages are contested, negotiated, and legitimized. The central argument is that existing PD scholarship remains sender-centric, treating PD as a strategic communication process designed and dispatched by states, without sufficiently analyzing the dynamics of the receiving sphere in target societies. The article contends that the public sphere is not a neutral conduit through which messages flow, but a structured arena with power dynamics, discursive logics, and competitive processes that systematically determine the fate of those messages. The article also identifies a fundamental theoretical tension at the core of public diplomacy between communicative action as the normative foundation of the Habermasian public sphere, and strategic action as the logic driving public diplomacy as a foreign policy instrument. This article argues that this tension constitutes the primary theoretical problem that PD scholarship has yet to adequately address. To address this theoretical gap, the article proposes a conceptual framework organized around three analytical dimensions: (1) power asymmetry governing who can effectively speak and be heard in the target public sphere; (2) frame competition through which actors contest the meaning and legitimacy of foreign policy messages; and (3) legitimation processes that determine whether messages gain or lose social acceptance in the receiving society. Together, these three dimensions provide a systematic set of analytical tools for explaining why the same PD message succeeds in some public spheres and fails in others.

Southeast Asia Track II Diplomacy: The Role of ASEAN-ISIS in ASEAN Community Building

2026-06-17T10:57:44+07:00

This article pursues three objectives. First, it provides an overview of the origins and evolution of Track II diplomacy in Southeast Asia over nearly four decades, focusing in particular on the institutional network of ASEAN-ISIS (the ASEAN Institutes of Strategic and International Studies). Second, it examines and assesses the policy role that ASEAN-ISIS has played as a think tank—one that has exerted a distinctive and tangible influence from its founding in 1988 to the present. The discussion centers on how the network has supported and advanced the work of ASEAN as a regional intergovernmental organization, whether through its initiatives, its policy proposals, or its constructive engagement in forums convened to debate security challenges and ASEAN's adaptation to strategic shifts in the region, particularly in the post–Cold War era. Third, it analyzes the achievements, limitations, and future trajectory of ASEAN-ISIS against the backdrop of geopolitical change across Asia and the Indo-Pacific. In doing so, it considers the proliferation of Track II institutions—both in number and in thematic breadth—at the level of individual ASEAN member states and across the wider Asia-Pacific, together with the growing role of civil society, in order to ask whether, and in what ways, these developments bear on the operations and future relevance of ASEAN-ISIS.

Editorial Issue 13 Vol. 25

2026-06-30T11:24:32+07:00