The Duck of Minerva

Website

Peter Henne is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and Global and Regional Studies Program at the University of Vermont. His research focuses on global religious politics and the Middle East. His first book, Islamic Politics, Muslim States and Counterterrorism Tensions, was published in 2017 by Cambridge University Press and he is currently working on a book analyzing how states try to use religion in foreign policy. His scholarly research has been published in International Journal of Religion, International Studies Perspectives, Journal of Church and State, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Peace Research, Politics and Religion, Religions, States and Societies, and Terrorism and Political Violence. In addition to the Duck, he has written for the Washington Post's Monkeycage, Political Violence at a Glance and The Huffington Post.

Recent Posts

A tale of two realisms

A tale of two realisms

by | 3 March, 2022 |

It's been a rough week for John Mearsheimer. He has come under a barrage of criticism for his claim that Russia's aggression towards Ukraine is the West's fault. His theoretical tradition, realism, has also come under fire, for producing not only (arguably) bad policy takes but policy takes that don't seem to flow from the theory itself. Does this mean that all of realism is flawed? I would argue no, by pointing to another target of such claims, Stephen Walt. This says something about how to make/keep realism relevant. The trouble with realism? Before the Russian invasion of Ukraine,...

read more
How do we get IR to notice something?

How do we get IR to notice something?

by | 23 February, 2022 |

I excitedly read this recent tweet by Evan Perkoski of UConn, about a new article he co-authored that has been accepted in International Organization. Beyond being glad for a colleague's success, I was excited by the substance of the publication. They produced a new dataset on violent non-state actors and analyzed the conditions under which they cooperated, finding a major role for both group ideology and religious identity. That is huge! Well-crafted data published in one of the top journals in the sub-field that found that religion drives a crucially important security issue. This should...

read more
Why we should call 1/6/21 a terrorist attack

Why we should call 1/6/21 a terrorist attack

by | 6 January, 2022 |

One year ago today, a pro-Trump crowd attempted to shut down the certification of Joe Biden's electoral victory. America is still making sense of it. We're debating how it could have been prevented, whether it can happen again, how to prevent it happening again. But there's also a foundational debate about what to call the events of the day. I would argue 1/6/21 needs to be called a terrorist attack, for both conceptual and strategic reasons. And this need reveals the importance of the term "terrorism," despite its many detractors. What to call that day? There have been various labels for...

read more
Phill Scott demonstrates what’s wrong with Biden’s Democracy Summit

Phill Scott demonstrates what’s wrong with Biden’s Democracy Summit

by | 13 December, 2021 |

Joe Biden's "Summit for Democracy" was held last week. This summit meant to bring together the world's democracies, strengthening them and pro-democratic global norms. The hope is that this would reverse the growing trend of authoritarianism around the world. Some were hopeful. In his opening address, President Biden called on the "global community for democracy" to "stand up for the values that unite us." Some agree this gathering may be beneficial. Max Bergman of the Center for American Progress argues the United States should be gathering democracies, even if the "what next" aspect of the...

read more
What’s Left of Liberal Internationalism without military intervention? …A lot

What’s Left of Liberal Internationalism without military intervention? …A lot

by | 7 December, 2021 |

Canadian scholar and politician Michael Ignatieff had a piece in Persuasion recently on the "collapse of liberal internationalism." For Ignatieff to admit this (as one of the strongest proponents of this foreign policy orientation) says a lot. However, he inadvertently gives too much of the argument away. Liberal internationalism is more than military interventions, something both its critics and proponents seem to have forgotten. The fall of liberal internationalism Liberal internationalism is the claim that state interests are best served by engaging with the world to advance liberal...

read more
Did Biden Really Abandon Nigerian Christians?

Did Biden Really Abandon Nigerian Christians?

by | 24 November, 2021 |

The US State Department recently released the lists of Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) on religious freedom, part of its responsibilities under the International Religious Freedom Act (IRF). The list now includes Russia alongside countries like Burma and China. But one change angered many religious freedom advocates: the removal of Nigeria from the list. IRF advocates claim this is tantamount to abandoning Nigerian Christians, who are often the target of violence in that country. I think the situation is more complicated than that: Nigeria's addition to the list was the result of the...

read more
Do Liberals Believe in Diplomacy or Not?

Do Liberals Believe in Diplomacy or Not?

by | 10 November, 2021 |

When I first started teaching introduction to international relations, I included a lecture on the use of force in my foreign policy unit. We talked about Art's four uses of force, Schelling's diplomacy of violence, etc. But I worried I was downplaying the importance of diplomacy. So beginning last year I've changed the use of force lecture to the "use and non-use of force," covering both force and diplomacy. The takeaway is that, as liberal internationalists have argued, diplomacy is not "weakness." It can be just as effective, if not more effective, in advancing interests than coercive...

read more
Are we misinterpreting UAE foreign policy?

Are we misinterpreting UAE foreign policy?

by | 15 October, 2021 |

Anwar Gargash, a diplomatic advisor to the UAE, recently spoke to an international conference on the UAE's desire to smooth over tensions with Turkey and Iran. Turkey and the UAE found themselves on opposite sides of the Arab Spring, with the former supporting revolutionary movements around the Middle East and the latter trying to frustrate them. And the UAE shares Saudi concerns about Iran's influence. This may be, as Trita Parsi recently wrote, part of a broader pattern of regional reconciliation sparked by America's withdrawal. But I think there is something unique to the UAE in this...

read more
Did Security Studies learn from 9/11?

Did Security Studies learn from 9/11?

by | 17 September, 2021 | ,

The twentieth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks has come and gone. We've reflected on what led to the attacks, its human toll, how well America handled it, and what impacts the US response has had on the world. I thought it was also worth asking what effects these attacks had on the sub-field of international relations, particularly mainstream security studies. The answer? Not much. As a result of these attacks, IR should have abandoned its secular, state-centric focus and explored these interconnecting elements of the twentieth century, revolutionizing the...

read more