126 countries now publish a national security strategy or defense document, and 45 of these feature
a leaders’ preambles. How these talk about the world, or not, is surprisingly revealing of historical
global strategic hierarchies.
Recent Posts
6+1 Questions about Subversive Pedagogies
The volume calls on international-relations instructors to make use of “subversive pedagogies” — ones that embrace a more holistic understanding of teaching. It invites academics to interrogate what we teach, how we teach, where we teach, and whom we teach.
A Tale of Two Interviews: IR Theory and the Russian Invasion of Ukraine
Two recent interviews in the New Yorker have received substantial attention in recent weeks. Unfortunately, taken together, they make the IR discipline look terrible. How can IR theorists demonstrate their discipline’s relevance in the face of rapidly changing historical events?
Leveling Cybersecurity Challenges with Graduate U.S. Public Policy Programs
In December of 2020, the U.S. government announced that hackers – most likely from Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU – had compromised over two hundred companies and federal agencies....
More Recent Posts
Does Bannon’s Appointment to the NSC/PC Require Senate Confirmation? Perhaps A Judge Should Decide.
Retired U.S. Navy Admiral Mike Mullen published an op-ed in today's New York Times calling for the removal of Steve Bannon from the National Security Council Principals Committee, a position he apparently obtained without Trump being fully briefed. According to Mullen: "Having Mr. Bannon as a...
Trump and the move away from the sitcom approach to foreign policy
If the United States is Blossom, then Australia is Six. If the United States is Alex P. Keaton, then Australia is Skippy (not this Skippy). These relationships make understanding the recent dust-up between Donald Trump and Australian Prime Minister (no, not president—though republicanism remains a...
Travel Ban Lifted in Early Victory for Non-Violent-Resistance to Trump
My colleague Erica Chenoweth has a great article in The Guardian today on the power of non-violent resistance: Many people across the United States are despondent about the new president – and the threat to democracy his rise could represent. But they shouldn’t be. At no time in recorded history...
Scientists Will March on Washington on April, 22. International Relations Scholars Should Join Them.
As became clear earlier this week in the discussion around how academic associations should respond to Trump's travel ban in organizing their annual meetings, President Trump's policy does not only affect national and religious minorities; it does not only affect scientists from Muslim-majority...
Bannon’s Incoherent Vision of Disruption
In 2013, Bannon is reported to have told Ron Radosh of the Daily Beast that he was a Leninist. He is quoted as saying “Lenin wanted to destroy the state, and that’s my goal too. I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment.” Yet this is such an odd thing...
Announcement: Online Achievement in International Studies Reception and Winners of the Duckies
On behalf of the Online Media Caucus of ISA, I’m happy to announce the following shortlist (in no particular order) for this year’s Online Achievement in International Studies Awards (The Duckies): Best Blog (Group) in International Studies Progress in Political Economy (PPe) Political...
A Drinking Person’s Guide to the Resistance
A guest post by Layna Mosley,* Professor of Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (*with contributions from Jeff Colgan, Beth Copelovitch, Mark Copelovitch, Artie G, Anna Grzymala-Busse, Roger Halchin, Andrew Herring , Steph Jeffries, Julia Lynch, Jon Pevehouse,...
Talk Intel To Me
I remember laughing about an article in The Medium about a TV Sitcom that triggered the downfall of Western Civilization. In case you were wondering, it’s Friends with its “tragic hero” Ross Geller. The author lamented the awful mistreatment of the most cerebral character on the show that...
Mind the Power Gap
I have new online piece, co-authored with Dani Nedal, at Foreign Affairs: President Donald Trump believes that America makes terrible deals—from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Why, according to Trump, do other countries take such...
ISA Takes Strong Stand for Academic Freedom
In a letter released today, the International Studies Association has taken a strong stand against Trump's Executive Order closing US borders to nationals of several Muslim-majority states: As a scholarly organization, ISA has a professional obligation to promote and protect the values of academic...
Tempo, Protest, and Emergency Ethnography in the Trump Moment
This is a guest post by Dr. Sherrill Stroschein, Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Politics, Department of Political Science, University College London We have all been driven to understand what is going on over the past few days. Some of these discussions would be improved with lesser-used...
Party Trumped Policy in 2016
This is a guest post by Christopher Gelpi and Elias Assaf. Christopher Gelpi is Chair of Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies and Professor of Political Science and Elias Assaf is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at The Ohio State...