Initial speculation about Nord Stream reveals both the strengths and limitations of using international-relations models to make sense of unfolding events
Why Would Putin Sabotage Nord Stream?
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Month: September 2022
Making Sense of “Rules-Based” Anti-Liberalism
Dozens of regimes around the world are anti-liberal—autocratic to varying degrees—but also big fans of a "rules-based" international order, which for the past 50 years or so has been...
What makes for a successful conference?
Like many, I've finally gotten back on schedule after the American Political Science Association conference last week. The travel was easier for me than most others; the site, Montreal, is only two...
Antagonistic Trust, Asian Insecurity, and “Strategic” Competition
I was on a refreshingly contrarian panel recently as part of Victoria Forum, this big shindig in Canada (at University of Victoria in British Columbia, not to be confused with Victoria University of...
More Month: September 2022 Posts
The More Things Change…
Some more excerpts from G. Loews Dickinson’s writings on international affairs.
Our syllabi should be full of surprises
It’s no surprise that current events regularly lead us to update our syllabi. That doesn’t mean we can’t make “surprise” an important feature of our courses.
6+1 Questions about Social Positioning and International Order Contestation in Early Modern Southeast Asia
Rather than accept subordination to the Ming and Qing, Southeast Asian states contested Chinese international ordering in the early modern period.
6+1 Questions about The Difficult Policies of Peace: Rivalry in Modern South Asia
Christopher Clary on his new book, which looks at why international rivalry is a hard habit to break.
Five Lessons for responsible engagement when the world is on fire
Waves of global crises have generated challenges in nearly every corner of human life. Catastrophic climate change, an ever-morphing global pandemic, widening democratic decline, rising economic inequality, increasing violence, geopolitical rivalry, and war join deeply entrenched systemic racism and sexism to create a toxic cocktail. How can “experts” productively engage at this moment? Practitioners often seek out guidance from experts during upheavals like ours, but policy-engaged scholars face dilemmas that complicate their response. To begin, crises are often the product of complex,...
The Qatar crisis ends…in the most boring way possible
The Qatar crisis threatened to upend Middle East politics. Instead, it fizzled out. That says a lot about international relations, and how to study it. In June 2017, Saudi Arabia and the UAE--along with a few other states--announced a blockade of Qatar. Frustrated with Qatar's tolerance of revolutionary actors during the Arab Spring protests and relative friendliness with Iran, these states cut Qatar off from international travel and commerce. They issued a series of demands, including ending support for groups the Saudis deemed extremist and limiting ties with Iran. [sc name="left_call_out"...