How can we understand Tump 2.0 foreign policy? It’s the product of the fusion of two different forces: Christian Nationalism and Personalist Rent-Extraction.
Trump’s Foreign Policy and the Purpose of the MAGA State
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Recent Posts
My Best Classroom Reads of the Year
Amid the annual deluge of end-of-year lists, I started to think about what readings generated the best classroom discussions I have overseen in the past calendar year. That list of readings is...
Another terrorful Christmas, this time for complex reasons
As someone who studies terrorism and religion, I approach each Christmas with dread due to the possibility of terrorist attacks around the holiday. A string of bombings hit churches in Indonesia and...
The Classroom and the Magic Circle
I wrote a chapter for a newly published edited volume, Teaching Political Science and International Relations for Early Career Instructors. The volume itself, capably edited by Michael P.A. Murphy...
More Recent Posts
The Iraq War didn’t kill liberal internationalism, just our ability to debate it
Twenty year recollections of the 2003 invasion of Iraq are popping up. Some are debating whether there were any positive outcomes from the war, others reflecting on what it meant for those who fought (on the US side) or suffered (on the Iraqi side). The Iraq war has played a big role in my career,...
Odesa and World Heritage Politics
The Convention Concerning the Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage (“The World Heritage Convention”) entered into force in 1975. The world heritage regime, in effect, produces the shared heritage of humanity. States use their right, as set by the Convention, to...
Episode 28: Are We Living in a Simulation… of Sovereignty?
PTJ and Dan discuss Cynthia Weber’s 1994 book, Simulating Sovereignty: Intervention, the State an…
Why Blog Now? An Introduction
The blogosphere peaked somewhere in the mid-2000s, so why would anyone start blogging in 2023?
6+1 questions about “The Politics of Pseudoscience: Power and Knowledge in Contemporary Russia.”
The Russian government has developed a symbiotic relationship with the country’s pseudoscientific community.
The transnational coalition that wasn’t: Russia, the West and Ukraine
One year ago, Russia launched an illegal war on Ukraine, committing horrific war crimes against the people of Ukraine. Analyses and memorials abound, and I'm probably not the only person writing about this on the Duck today. I wanted to address a specific aspect of this war, though: why Russia's...
Debbie Lisle
Professor Debbie Lisle of Queens University, Belfast, grew up in North Vancouver, in an environment of 'liberal feminism' which gave her a sense of possibility in life, but it was an interesting journey thereafter. Debbie chats with Brent about her decision to go to McGill for college,...
6+1 Questions about U.S. Military Deployments and Host Country Public Opinion
What is the name of the book and what are its coordinates? Michael A. Allen, Michael E. Flynn, Carla Martinez Machain, and Andrew Stravers. 2022. Beyond the Wire: U.S. Military Deployments and Host Country Public Opinion, Oxford University Press. Paperback (use code ASFLYQ6 for 30% off), ebook...
What does Andor Believe?
According to conventional wisdom, Disney’s Andor is the best Star Wars narrative in years. Political scientists seem to agree. Dan Drezner speaks for many when he writes that the show's "writing is stellar," its "locations are great," and its "visuals"...
Climate, Justice, and IR
Adam, Daniela and Jarrod discuss the challenge of thinking about climate justice in the context of IR and existing models of justice and reparations. Does the Holocaust and other human rights cases provide a good or useful template? Can IR approaches even handle climate change?...
How should IR scholars respond to tragedy?
Like many, I woke up in shock at the massive earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria. The earthquake, centered in Gaziantep, has killed 3,000 as of Monday afternoon devastated southeast Turkey and northern Syria. In addition to Gaziantep, other affected Turkish cities were Sanliurfa and Diyarbakir...
Episode 27: Everything is Relational
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 Relational Sociology." According to Emirbayer, "Sociologists today are faced with a fundamental dilemma: whether to...