https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/whiskeyindiaromeo/episodes/2023-01-29T14_48_01-08_00 It's a nostalgia episode for our two hosts, Patrick and Dan. They tackle Mustafa Emirbayer's 1997 article in the American Journal of Sociology, "Manifesto for a...
A distinctly unoriginal take on the pathologies of overvaluing academic “novelty.”
When it comes norm dynamics and how we theorize them, uncertainty presents something of a paradox. We study norms because we think that they matter. But if norms are inherently uncertain, then how is it possible that they constitute, constrain, and otherwise shape the behavior of global actors? Unless norms produce stable and defined expectations, then how can they have the power to structure international politics?
Since 2014 the international community has considered the issue of autonomy in weapons systems under the framework of the United Nations (UN) Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW)....
At the 1939 World Fair in New York City, the big attraction was "Futurama," an exhibition put on by the U.S. car manufacturer General Motors. Every visitor to Futurama received a souvenir — a small blue-white badge that read “I have seen the future.” That is, the future presented by (at the time) one of most influential companies in the world, one built around its main product: the automobile. Yet the exhibition wasn't exactly wrong. It was part of an effort to sell Americans on automobile-centric planning and development: its "theory of the future" produced a future (or, in current jargon,...
In a world of multiple and overlapping crises, can norms and rules-based institution still create order amidst uncertainty? Do existing norms and frameworks for international cooperation enjoy sufficient legitimacy to help us navigate the interacting and concatenating effects of crises? A new symposium explores the question: “Whither norms (research) in times of uncertainty?”
Looking for some podcast episodes to give a listen to? I’ve got suggestions.
Initial speculation about Nord Stream reveals both the strengths and limitations of using international-relations models to make sense of unfolding events
Some more excerpts from G. Loews Dickinson’s writings on international affairs.
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.
Rather than accept subordination to the Ming and Qing, Southeast Asian states contested Chinese international ordering in the early modern period.
The security dilemma plays a central role in Walt and Mearsheimer’s reading of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But what if they get the security dilemma wrong?