Intra-elite, state-centric society is a strategic front, and ought to be defended and put to use in the continued development of a global and decolonial turn in IR.
Intra-elite, state-centric society is a strategic front, and ought to be defended and put to use in the continued development of a global and decolonial turn in IR.
What is the name of the book? Ches Thurber. 2021. Between Mao and Gandhi: The Social Roots of Civil Resistance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. What’s the argument? Variation in...
Our next Bridging the Gap Book Nook features Rachel Whitlark, an associate professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She discusses her recent...
WHAT IS THE NAME OF THE BOOK AND WHAT ARE ITS COORDINATES? Peter S. Henne, Religious Appeals in Power Politics, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2023 WHAT'S THE ARGUMENT? Religious...
As long as international organizations have existed their relationships with their member states have been conflict-ridden. States use numerous methods to influence international organizations according to their interests or to contest the authority and policies of international organizations, including by reducing financial contribution, threatening withdrawal, and by actually exiting. Between 2014 and 2020, the United States cut its contributions to numerous international organizations, several African states threatened to withdraw from the International Criminal Court, and the United...
Peter Cutler is living the quiet life of a Princeton professor when the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate asks him to become his foreign policy adviser. Cutler takes the job and his gambit pays off: the presidential candidate wins and Cutler is appointed to be Under Secretary of State in the new administration. As he becomes more and more absorbed in the new environment, he is shocked to learn how ruthless political life in Washington really is. When it seems that things cannot get more complicated professionally and personally, Cutler’s ex-girlfriend appears and he falls again for...
The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) originated in provincial-level efforts that sought to simultaneously integrate interior and frontier provinces to the rest of China as well as neighboring countries during the 1990s.
Whenever we talk about the liberal international order, we actually also talk about globalization. The former promoted international trade and financial liberalization , the spread of democracies, and the growth of global governance. These, in turn, promoted interdependence. Markers of global economic interdependence — such as global trade flows and global financial direct investment — increased. In integrating regions, and especially among advanced industrial democracies, boundaries lost political and cultural salience. Over the course of the 1990s, Europe took on new significance as an...
The practice of maintaining a long-term, peacetime military presence in another state (or “sovereign basing”) only developed in the last century. Before World War II, a foreign military presence usually meant one of three things: occupation, colonization, or a wartime alliance. This changed radically in the years after 1945.
Coup d’états are less likely to succeed against rulers who “counterbalance” their militaries with presidential guards, militarized police, and other security forces outside of military command. But there may be downsides.
Not many know that Trump was on the verge of publicly announcing U.S. withdrawal from the alliance at the 2018 summit. Congress would have prevented a formal end to U.S. membership, but Trump’s announcement itself would have caused irreparable damage. Why then did Trump change his position on NATO in 2019? And why was NATO, at least in military terms, in better state when Trump left office than when he began his term?
The United States has repeatedly used its military to overthrow foreign regimes – at least sixteen times from 1906 to 2011 – but these interventions seldom work out particularly well. So why does Washington continue to engage in violent regime change? The answer is that US leaders forcibly overthrow regimes to relieve emotional frustration.