What is the name of the book? Michael Lee. 2020. From Malaise to Meltdown: The International Origins of Financial Folly, 1844-. (Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press). What’s the argument? Great-power competition over financial primacy is responsible for...
There is perhaps no greater film institution than the James Bond franchise. Over 27 movies and 59 years from Doctor No (1962) to Goldfinger (1964) to the modern era of Goldeneye (1995) and Skyfall...
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...
Matt Hancock, a Conservative MP and the UK’s Health Secretary during most of the Covid lockdowns, has failed upwards. Less than four months ago, Hancock resigned in ignominy, caught breaking his own social distancing rules when he and an aide had an affair in his Whitehall office. Yet, after a brief summer holiday, he’s now been resurrected, appointed a UN special representative in sub-Saharan Africa. Why do we allow political leaders to revive their careers after they’ve failed miserably? Who, exactly, wants more of Matt Hancock?
The academic job market is terrible. It’s worse for international students.
Over the past six months or so, I've gotten a lot of pings about NATO and the "Big 3" (UK, France, and Germany) taking on a role in Asia — and specifically a bigger military presence in the region. The issue has come up a few times on my podcast. I got an early preview of a book about a closely...
While political comedy thrives, IR comedy, whatever that phrase might mean, is virtually non-existent. omedy gap’? Is it a figment of my imagination or a real problem?
At a press conference on Sept. 20, 2011 Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) displayed a postcard. It was signed only “An Army Soldier.” She read the postcard aloud. “I will still be deployed in Afghanistan on 20 Sept. when DADT is finally repealed,” it read. “It will take a huge burden off my shoulders –...
Australia’s attempt to balance against China using nuclear submarines is not just a material decision. It’s one shaped by over a century of deep fear about Australia’s role as an outpost of whiteness in Asia.
Professor Rebecca Adler-Nissen joins the Hayseed Scholar podcast. Professor Adler-Nissen is a proflic scholar known for her work on diplomacy, integration, practice theory, and her deep knowledge and use of social theory. She talks to Brent about growing up in Denmark, but also Israel and the...
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...
Every self-respecting foreign policy expert who fancies themselves part of a realpolitik tradition talks as if the balance of power were everything. Now, I don't necessarily think of myself as a realist (in the IR sense), but I too think global and regional balances of power are something that...
Numerous pundits have lamented the that Americans have not responded to the Covid pandemic with the unanimity they demonstrated after 9/11. But do we really want to return to the post-9/11 era of emergency consensus?
Taking my children to their dance class yesterday morning in Quincy, MA I found, as the traffic ground to a halt, the town center draped in red, white, and blue bunting. A giant flag hung suspended from two cranes. A parade, I was told, was in the offing. To anyone not looking at a calendar the...
California is home to the US’ largest garment industry, where many migrant women toil for far less than minimum wage. I examine recent legislation to improve conditions, as well as how the LA garment industry is shaped by global forces that create gendered and racialized patterns of vulnerability among workers.
I was an enlisted Airman studying Korean at the Defense Language Institute (DLI) in Monterey, California on September 11, 2001. When the first two planes struck, none of us had any idea whether it was a high-profile accident or an attack. It was only when a third plane flew into the Pentagon that...