Amid US and Israeli strikes aimed at preventing Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons, sovereignty and security have become an urgent priority for Tehran. This has been reinforced with peace negotiations stuck in limbo while Tehran and Washington have just...
Did the pandemic durably change our pedagogy in International Relations (IR), or were pandemic-induced changes only temporary measures with which we have since dispensed? This is an open question...
Potentially inflammatory rhetoric should be addressed with dialogue, not bans Recent antisemitic attacks have rightly led to concern among the US Jewish population. Over the weekend a man assaulted...
We keep hearing that we live in an unprecedented “age of sanctions.” Trade and globalization data tell a different story — the world got bigger, not meaner.
Why did some states successfully avoid conquest by European empires? Logan Cochrane’s new, co-edited volume tackles this puzzle.
In something of a departure from my typical work, I recently published an article in International Political Sociology on Indigenous political thought in video games. As some of my prior blogging here suggests, I have been thinking about the place of video games in the study of popular...
Our community lost the inimitable Raúl Pacheco-Vega this week. Someone who knew him better than me should write a more definitive remembrance and maybe they have in some other corner of the internet. But, I haven’t seen a longer treatment yet (here is a terrific one!), so I thought I’d have a go...
Alexander Dugin is one of those figures who hover permanently in the discussions about Russian ideology, Eurasianism, empire, conservatism, and whatever else people project onto modern Russia. Contrary to popular belief, he is not “Putin’s favorite philosopher” (that would be Ivan Il’in). But...
There are two posts I could have written about the latest Eurovision song contest. One would focus on another controversy over Israel’s participation and high vote count. The other would focus on the first-time win for Bulgaria; a well-deserved win in my opinion. I choose the latter. Another...
Much of the discourse about the recent UK local elections had to do with the decline of Labour under Keir Starmer and the worrisome rise of the far-right Reform Party. This is obviously important, but the outcome in Scotland’s parliamentary elections may have just as much of an impact on the...
I’ve been meaning to write this for awhile, and unfortunately it hasn’t gone out of date. On April 29th, a man stabbed two Jewish people in London. Shortly before that someone threw a Molotov cocktail through the window of a synagogue. A string of attack preceded that, including the arson near the...
As I have discussed here, I am a proud Protestant. I was raised Lutheran, and am now Episcopalian. While there is some variation among Episcopalians and Anglicans over whether they see themselves as Protestant, both my birth and adopted traditions are united in a rejection of the Pope’s—or as some...
I have a new open-access article out in Global Studies Quarterly, “What’s at Stake in the Indigenous Empire Debate,” in which I argue against historian Pekka Hämäläinen’s claims that the Comanche and the Lakota constituted empires. Many others have provided reasons why we ought not to think of the...
The US and Israel’s war on Iran and regional instability threatens to disrupt critical global migration patterns. These serve as vital pressure release valves for overcrowded and socio-economically stagnant mega cities in the global south. Their disruption may cut off vital income for tens of...
Over the past month, U.S. President Donald Trump has shifted from misogynistic jabs to full‑scale performances of militarized authority, an evolution entirely consistent his political brand of hegemonic, martial masculinity. In late 2025, U.S. Chief of...
For Western Christians, Holy Week—the most important time of the church calendar—just finished. Like many other Christians, it is a powerful and challenging time of the year. We are meant to reflect on how we are self-assured in our devotion to Jesus’ teachings one minute and turn on Him the next,...