Julia Calvert is a Senior Lecturer in International Political Economy at the University of Edinburgh. Her research examines the role that low- and middle-income countries and emerging economies play in shaping global governance institutions, with a special focus on Latin America, trade and investment policy, and international investment law. She is the author of The Politics of Investment Treaties in Latin America (2022, Oxford University...
I've had four potential posts on Israel, anti-Israel actions and antisemitism this week. As new events occur, the old post falls to the wayside. I was stuck on whether I should pick one, or try to weave the events together into some kind of narrative and draw conclusions. I've decided I can't, or don't want to, do either. And I wonder how much of the morass Israel-Palestine discourse feels stuck in is due to our compulsion to create such a...
Renowned international relations scholar and practitioner Joseph S. Nye passed away last week. Numerous tributes have been written, noting his high quality scholarship and influence on US foreign policy. While most have discussed his major idea--soft power--I'd encourage today's IR scholars to look into his work on complex interdependence as well. Soft power and Nye's legacy Many have noted his specific contributions to our understanding of...
“Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in” is something I would say at the risk of alienating the younger readership of this blog, but given that most of us are old here, it should be fine. I have been busy working on Russian Neo-Nazis, so I almost forgot that back in the simpler times I was also interested in how identities are eaten. Thankfully, a Russian outlet Agentstvo reminded me of that in their recent material about kefir....
Charles A. Dainoff, Robert M. Farley, and Geoffrey F. Williams answer questions about their new book
On Easter Monday, Pope Francis died at the age of 88. His passing marked the end of a 12-year papacy characterized by a commitment to the poor, an insistence on peace over posturing, and an often-controversial emphasis on mercy over rules. As white smoke issues from the Vatican--indicating a new pope has been chosen--most commentary has focused on familiar terrain: his views on women, LGBTQ+ rights, his political moderation, his Latin American...
Maddie Shorman is a PhD student at the University of Texas at Austin’s LBJ School of Public Affairs. Her research focuses on the intersection of religion, diplomatic history, and U.S. foreign policy in Latin America, with particular attention to the role of the Catholic Church in Cold War diplomacy and national security. She is a Graduate Fellow at the Clements Center for National Security and has presented her work at international conferences...
I was born a proud Protestant. A Lutheran in a town still marked by Catholic-Protestant tensions, with Catholic friends who told me I don't worship right, neighbors who claimed Catholics were polytheists, and a grandmother who wore orange on St. Patrick's Day (I never quite got that, as we had no connection to Ireland). But I also felt drawn to the Roman Catholic church. As I read more theology and myth in college, I appreciated the mysteries...
It’s hard to keep track of the problems confronting Americans these days. But, just in case a reminder is needed, climate change is still a thing. Casual observers may have noted that US climate policy has been…underwhelming, see-sawing between ‘Build Back Better’ aspirations and climate denialism. Now climate policy wunderkind Varun Sivaram has called for a rethink on US climate (foreign) policy. Noting the overall failure of US climate...
Dr. Robert Farley has taught security and diplomacy courses at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce at the University of Kentucky since 2005, except for one year as a visiting faculty member in the Department of National Security and Strategy at the United States Army War College. He received his BS from the University of Oregon in 1997, and his PhD from the University of Washington in 2004. Dr. Farley is the author of...
This a crosspost from Saideman's Semi-Spew. This week, we found out that Brandon Valeriano died. It is quite gutting as he had such a terrific spirit, and he was too damned young. Brandon stood out from the crowd at all the conferences as he was literally bigger than most of us, and he was also one of the very few Latinos in the field of IR. But mostly he stood out because he was always surrounded by the large groups of...
Charles Dainoff has been an assistant professor of political science at the University of Idaho since 2017, where he has pursued a research agenda involving the role of finance on international stability, whether through the impact of tax havens in his 2021 book Outlaw Paradise: Why Countries Become Tax Havens, the diffusion of weapons technology, or the ways in which countries use finance to compete for hegemony in the 2023 book he co-authored...