Introduction: Decentring the study of international interventions

International interventions are an omnipresent and increasingly diverse instrument in world politics. This special issue of Cooperation and Conflict follows broader calls to ‘decentre’ the study of International Relations and seeks to contribute to a research agenda that goes beyond the prevailing focus on Northern actors and interests in interventions research. The special issue advances two interrelated research strategies to decentre the study of international interventions. First, it promotes research that gives voice to the diversity of experiences and perspectives outside the Northern centre. Second, it embraces an emerging set of methodological advances that draw on sociological and ethnographic research traditions in order to advance the in-depth study of interventions. With contributing authors from the fields of peace and conflict studies, regional and area studies, as well as International Relations, the special issue sets out to build bridges across disciplinary boundaries by bringing together a set of experts who normally speak to separate audiences within their respective research fields. Taking research beyond the ‘classical’ cases of intervention, the articles provide in-depth case narratives of intervention practices in the Solomon Islands, Colombia, Somalia, Puntland, C？te d’Ivoire, Lebanon and Jordan