Oumar Ba is an assistant professor of international relations in the Department of Government at Cornell University. His research focuses on the politics of international law, race , empire, violence, and humanity.
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Lene Hansen
Professor Lene Hansen of the University of Copenhagen likely needs no introduction to most listeners of this podcast. She has worked within what would be called the Copenhagen school or securitization theory, emphasizing within that school the overlooked lens of gender. Her work on discourse analysis is famous for being a key contribution to the development of especially interpretive methods in the 2000s and 2010s, and her more recent work in...
On Israel-Palestine, don’t ignore grassroots efforts at peace
I recently submitted the below letter to Foreign Affairs in response to their latest issue's set of essays on Israel-Palestine peace. They decided not to run it, and I assume that's because of all the letters they get. However, I worry that we ignore the small-scale peace efforts that may be the best way to advance peace (or see them as problematic) so I wanted to post it here and try to make the case for them. My letter to Foreign Affairs To...
Staff Rides as Pedagogical Practice in International Relations
Over the past few decades, Political Science has seen an increasing institutionalization of Scholarship on Teaching and Learning (SoTL) through journals, book series, and professional associations. Over at PS: Political Science and Politics, we add to this body of literature by making the case for a pedagogical practice borrowed from Professional Military Education (PME)—the staff ride. A staff ride combines the study of historical campaigns...
So Jin Lee
So Jin Lee is a Stanton Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. She was previously a Nonresident Fellow for the Eurasia Group Foundation/Institute for Global Affairs. She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from Duke University and her research focuses on economic statecraft—namely, positive inducements and sanctions—as foreign policy, nuclear weapons, and...
Driving while looking in the rearview mirror
The takeaway from last night's State of the Union address is that Biden's language continued decades-long trends of decreasing positive emotion, use of the term "we," and overall fewer words per sentence. Polarization data comes from V-Dem and the speeches were analyzed with LIWC. The State of the Union is a useful tool for seeing the U.S. in context over time, as well as demonstrating features that pundits this morning have suggested are...
Leaders’ preambles and world ordering in national security strategy documents: the (un)surprising global strategic ambitions of the US and UK
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.
Andrew Neal
Andrew W. Neal is Professor of International Security at the University of Edinburgh. His most recent monograph is Security as Politics: Beyond the State of Exception (Edinburgh University Press, 2019). He is currently working on a project to collect and analyse all national security strategies in the world, and another on North Sea critical infrastructure protection.
6+1 Questions about Between Mao and Gandhi: The Social Roots of Civil Resistance
What is the name of the book? Ches Thurber. 2021. Between Mao and Gandhi: The Social Roots of Civil Resistance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. What’s the argument? Variation in their social ties helps explain why some dissident organizations embrace the “nonviolent” strategy of civil resistance while others reject it, often turning instead to guns. The logic of civil resistance is predicated on the idea that by using primarily...
Ches Thurber
Ches Thurber is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Northern Illinois University. His scholarship examines the spectrum of global conflict with specific interests in civil resistance, civil wars, and civil-military relations. He is the author of Between Mao and Gandhi: the Social Roots of Civil Resistance. Other work has been published in International Studies Quarterly, the Journal of Peace Research, Conflict Management and Peace...
Huss Banai
Huss Banai of Indiana University is an individual Brent considers himself incredibly fortunate to call a friend. He joins the Hayseed Scholar podcast to tell his amazing story and journey through life and academia. Huss was born in Iran and grew up in Northern Tehran until his family moved to Canada when he was 15. In Iran, Huss and his family experienced the war with Iraq, the fallout from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (his father worked...
To the Grand Peace Strategist
If international relations as a field is to have a just purpose—not just justifying the power-hoarding and power-wielding of a ruling class—it needs more concepts to critique power, relate policy to peaceful ends, and surface rather than shroud the price that others pay for what our states do in the world. Most IR scholars imagine ourselves toiling on behalf of the greater good. But if the policy implications of our work rationalizes more...