Former Duck guest blogger Betcy Jose has published an excellent Foreign Affairs Snapshot pointing out the irony of a robust norm enforcement operation in Syria to protect the chemical weapons taboo, while perversely ignoring, even permitting, the violation of a far...
Grand Strategy is an arcane and misapplied concept. Developing a Grand Strategy to deal with China that focuses on cyber capabilities is a dangerous move that will have large repercussions for the...
The international news continues to be dominated by Saturday's terrorist attack at Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya. The coverage of the attacks in most major newspapers has been excellent (and...
In my email inbox last week was a notification of a fellowship opportunity. Since I have a sabbatical coming up shortly—okay, in a couple of years, but time flies, right?—I eagerly skimmed the...
That was the apex of Dependency Theory in the US, I am betting. It wasn’t long before it was shelved in the curio cabinet. Dependency Theory had died from neglect, not from critique.
Other entries in the symposium--when available--may be reached via the "EJIR Special Issue Symposium" tag.Terms such as core and periphery (or third world) are largely passé, and may even be conceptually and heuristically objectionable on the grounds that they are rooted in dichotomous language that reproduces power differentials between diverse actors and sites around the world. However, core-periphery like logics similar to those described by world-system and dependency theory in the 1960s and 1970s are still operational in multiple spheres of (globalized) human activity, including...
Syria has raised several questions that pertain to morality, legality, and strategy in international relations. Discussed extensively on the Duck, Opinio Juris, The Monkey Cage, and elsewhere the situation in Syria has sparked a valuable debate on critical issues, both old and new. I would like to touch upon the implications of Syria for Cosmopolitanism. I think Syria has again highlighted the core dilemma of Cosmopolitan theory: the scarcity of politics. Protecting inalienable human rights requires applying normative cosmopolitan principles in practice. Application necessitates a departure...
Sylvester productively draws out the implications of the current ‘camp’ structure of IR: on the one hand, the proliferation of ‘camps’ and communities within IR increases the opportunities for publication and advancement for those whose work does not conform to traditional disciplinary norms; on the other hand, the emergence of camps with their own journals, books series, ISA/BISA sections and common citations productive dialogue across and between camps is difficult if not impossible. Sylvester also usefully points out that the camp system can end up with arrogant competitions within camps...
Editor's Note: This is a guest post by Christine Sylvester. It is the 19th installment in our "End of IR Theory" companion symposium for the special issue of the European Journal of International Relations. SAGE has temporarily ungated all of the articles in that issue. This post refers to Sylvester's article (PDF). A response, authored by Lauren Wilcox, will appear at 11am Eastern. Other entries in the symposium--when available--may be reached via the "EJIR Special Issue Symposium" tag. Other entries in the symposium--when available--may be reached via the "EJIR Special Issue Symposium"...
That's essentially the question Steve Saideman asked here (and which he more explicitly asked on Twitter). His answer, which I find problematic, is But here is the big problem in all of this: perhaps much of IR is not about bargaining and persuasion about commitment and resolve. Perhaps much of IR is a conflict of interests, and that countries engage in conflict when their various interests cannot be resolved. He goes on to say The amateur game theorist might want to argue that this then is not chicken or prisoner's dilemma but deadlock. And they would probably be right--that much of what...
Editor's Note: This is a guest post by Milja Kurki. It is the 18th installment in our "End of IR Theory" companion symposium for the special issue of the European Journal of International Relations. SAGE has temporarily ungated all of the articles in that issue. This post refers to Reus-Smit's article (PDF). His post appeared earlier today. Other entries in the symposium--when available--may be reached via the "EJIR Special Issue Symposium" tag. Christian Reus-Smit’s latest intervention into the seemingly never-ending ‘meta-wars’ published in the long-awaited EJIR special issue on ‘end of...
Editor's Note: This is a guest post by Christian Reus-Smit. It is the 17th installment in our "End of IR Theory" companion symposium for the special issue of the European Journal of International Relations. SAGE has temporarily ungated all of the articles in that issue. This post refers to Reus-Smit's article (PDF). A response, authored by Milja Kurki, will appear at 11am Eastern. Other entries in the symposium--when available--may be reached via the "EJIR Special Issue Symposium" tag. Metatheory is out of fashion. If theory has a purpose, we are told, that purpose is the generation of...