International Affairs journal

International Affairs is the world-leading journal of international relations. We are renowned for academically rigorous, practitioner-focused scholarship.

Image — International Affairs issue covers through the ages. Photo: Chatham House

International Affairs has published leading research from across the discipline of international relations since 1922. In 2022, we celebrated 100 years of publishing academically rigorous and policy relevant research.

If you wish to contribute an article to International Affairs, please read our author guidelines.

We are a top-ranked journal of international relations and produce six issues a year.

As the journal begins its second century, we are committed to publishing global, diverse and innovative research. Since 2020, we have successfully worked to ensure that 50 per cent of our contributors identified as women.

The new issue features research on the future of the UN in the Middle East, the role of ignorance in global orders, the moral economy of war, as well as 20 book reviews.

John Ikenberry describes how Russia’s war on Ukraine may be creating three loose, constructed and evolving global factions.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern speaks as Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta leave a press conference at the Pacific Islands Forum in Suva, Fiji on 13 July 2022.

New Zealand is using a Māori foreign policy to differentiate itself from other Western countries.

As an emerging Asian middle power, Indonesia’s notion of international order is based on a commitment to democracy and a desire for autonomy in international politics.

A view of the United Nations Headquarters and the UN General Assembly Hall on 12 July 2022 in New York City.

Kilian Spandler and Fredrik Soderbaum discuss the ways populist leaders like Viktor Orbán and Donald Trump attack international organizations.

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A potted selection of reviews from our sister journal ‘International Affairs’, by its book reviews editor Mariana Vieira

Member content

A potted selection of reviews from our sister journal ‘International Affairs’, by its book reviews editor Mariana Vieira.

Two people sit reading in the Chatham House library. Photo credit: Suzanne Plunkett

Member content

From China’s greatest spying coups to how you spot a ‘grey rhino’ crisis, here are the books the institute’s members borrowed most.

An internship offers an invaluable learning experience through a six-month placement in one of our teams.

The new issue includes research articles and policy papers on climate politics, EU–UK relations and AI governance, plus a special section on Central Asia and the Indo–Pacific.

Member content

A potted selection of reviews from our sister journal ‘International Affairs’, by its book reviews editor Mariana Vieira.

An internship at Chatham House offers an invaluable learning experience through a six-month placement in one of our teams.

The latest issue includes a special section on international peacekeeping and articles on US strategy in Taiwan, child soldiers in Sri Lanka, and UN-BRI relations.

As NATO celebrates its 75th anniversary, the UK must overcome its capability gaps to boost the alliance’s deterrence power and account for threats like China.

The free to access issue includes a special section on NATO at 75, policy papers, book reviews and research articles on Russian foreign policy, Myanmar, global sovereign debt and more.

UK Defence Secretary Grant Shapps’s speech on 15 January described a shift from ‘a post-war to a pre-war world’. How well equipped is Britain to meet this new period?

Whatever effect strikes have on Houthi infrastructure, countries such as Russia and China will note the limited contribution the RAF and Royal Navy were able to make.

An internship at Chatham House offers an invaluable learning experience through a six-month placement in one of our teams.

Tajikistan's President Emomali Rakhmon (C), Russian President Vladimir Putin (2ndR), Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan (R), Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov (back), Kazakhstan's President-elect Kassym-Jomart Tokayev (L) and Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko (2ndL) attend the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) leaders meeting in Yerevan on 23 November 2022.

The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) undertook a ‘symbolic’ military intervention in Kazakhstan, mere months before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

There are significant challenges to member states of the European Union (EU) working together, and a growing gap between EU capabilities and expectations.

Despite claims that Finland would bring little military capability to NATO and would need to invest in its defence capacity, its accession is highly significant.

Chinese President Xi Jinping speaking via video link to the World Health Assembly, on a giant screen beside a street in Beijing on 18 May 2020.

By disseminating narratives of its own supremacy, China deepened relations with the Gulf during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The threat of China’s military aggression is being felt across the world, but this is a phenomenon India has been contending with for decades.

Charting a century of key moments in international relations and International Affairs.

The January issue includes a section on contemporary calls for justice and the challenge they pose for the international order. Find this and seven other articles, all free to access until 9 April.

How have women contributed to international relations?

Stephanie Carvin explains why technology does not overcome the challenges of war.

Bernhard Blumenau explains the significance of Olaf Scholz’s Zeitenwende speech in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Read 14 new pieces of research on key global issues, from the Russia-Ukraine war, to the power of Big Tech and China’s role at the WTO

How did leading academics and policymakers think about and impact imperialism and decolonization from the 1920s to 1970s?

A centenary special issue of International Affairs explores past foreign policy failures to help policymakers avoid future catastrophes.

Drawing on their International Affairs article, Jamal Barnes and Samuel Makinda outline the effect of AUKUS on Australia-France relations and the liberal order.

What drives refugee movements and how should policies manage them?

The July issue of International Affairs includes eight articles on the global nuclear order and eight more covering Chinese lending, abortion rights, and global security.

A rocket is launched from a truck-mounted multiple rocket launcher near Svyatohirsk, eastern Ukraine during the Russian invasion. Photo by YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP via Getty Images.

The twelfth episode of our podcast mini-series examines the military capabilities of both sides and looks at how the invasion impacts the world militarily.

Event recordings

Drawing from the latest issue of International Affairs, experts discuss the future of the EU’s foreign policy and challenges it faces.

Authors from the July issue of International Affairs discuss how Asian nations approach the liberal world order and US–China competition.

Authors from the May issue of International Affairs explore the strategies used by international organizations to gain legitimacy around the world.

This International Affairs webinar explores the ‘polymorphic’ nature of calls for institutional justice today.

Why societies are challenging the international order?

How can policymakers learn from mistakes?

What can we learn from a feminist approach to nuclear politics that takes colonialism seriously?

This International Affairs webinar delves into how three states have approached the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and what can be learned from this.

This International Affairs webinar shares research on US special operations, urban warfare, and digital activism in recent conflicts.

Is research and policymaking on international politics too wrapped up in colonial thinking?

What are the (un)intended effects of counterterrorist strategies in the region?

Tracing the history of global North attempts to transform fragile states into liberal democracies, and what this means for the future.

Is deglobalization causing the global trade order to collapse, or is it a result of its decline?

What will international institutions look like in years to come, and what role will they have in the world order?

This webinar explores deglobalization and the implications for the liberal international order.

How successful is the United Nations (UN) at furthering gender equality, and what is affecting progress?

How are mass surveillance technologies facilitating social engineering processes in Xinjiang?

This webinar examines how Turkey’s role in the international order has changed, and what to expect from Erdoğan’s government in the future.

What are the new security vulnerabilities and how are they changing the nature of conflict?

How is the European External Action Service developing its activities to respond to new challenges?

How have diplomats adapted their practices during the pandemic?

Experts examine the dynamics of transboundary water politics in Iraq and Syria and address the role water can play in future peacebuilding efforts.

Leading academics consider the contribution which feminist theory is making to the study of International Relations.

Academics consider the development of the women, peace and security agenda at the United Nations.

What has the Trump administration revealed about the presidential power in the 21st century?

What is there to learn from how societies responded to past pandemics?

How did societies and financial sectors make decisions at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic?

How can civil society improve the resilience of countries to pandemics?

Chatham House Director Dr Robin Niblett CMG describes the principal challenges to the relevance and credibility of think-tanks today at a time of growing societal distrust of established institutions offering ‘expert’ views.

International Affairs journal

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