PTJ and Dan discuss Cynthia Weber’s 1994 book, Simulating Sovereignty: Intervention, the State an…
Episode 28: Are We Living in a Simulation… of Sovereignty?
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Featured
Dealing with the Digital Mob
Academics are increasingly becoming targets of online harassment, but too many universities and colleges are unprepared to support and protect their faculty. What steps should they take?
Counterfactual Thinking and NATO Expansion
The counterfactual analysis used in debates about NATO expansion is far too limited. It makes the untenable assumption that the world would like mostly the same. This piece offers an alternative.
6+1 QUESTIONS ABOUT Resowing the Seeds of War: Presidential Peace Rhetoric Since 1945
What if how presidents talk about ending wars contributes to the cycle of U.S. military intervention? Stephen J. Heidt answers 6+1 questions about his new book.
More Featured Posts
Size Doesn’t Matter
Any woman would tell you that. What matters is what you do with it and whether you know how to use it. Whatever Brobdingnagian thing you’ve got going on there, it’s way more important to have a game plan and understand the sweet spots you need to target. Otherwise, both parties may come away less than satisfied from the encounter. I am talking, of course, about the nuclear arsenal size and the ever-lasting dick-measuring contest that is international politics. After the ridiculous Trump tweet that Kim John Un’s nuclear button is smaller and less powerful than that of #45, IR Twitter was...
The top 5 issues in International Politics for 2018
2017 was not a great year for international politics. The sentence I heard the most during conferences and other academic gatherings was that “the global order is in crisis.” Granted. It all started in 2016 with the victory of Trump, Brexit and the No to the Peace Agreement in Colombia. Nationalist ideologies have nothing but grown in 2017, when the victories of Marine Le Pen in France and of Geert Wilders in the Netherlands all of a sudden seemed plausible. Luckily, they did not materialise. We also had auto-proclaimed nations that demanded independence, such as Catalonia or Kurdistan. To...
Happy New Year
If anybody is planning to collude with some Russians for New Year's (but not in order to swing an election), I compiled a brief checklist. Originally, I wanted to take apart an article from a prestigious newspaper that described "a Christmas encounter with a Russian soul", but then I decided against it. After all, if you don't buy "the case for colonialism", then you probably also won't think that "Russians do not share the ethical heritage of the West, but moral intuition exists everywhere, and is able to be inspired". But enough with the narcissistic white bigotry, let's learn about...
Us Too
We knew it was coming and here it is. An open source spreadsheet designed by The Professor Is In blog's Karen L. Kelsky for the purpose of collecting up stories of sexual harassment, abuse, and plain old taking advantage from within the Academy in the wake of the #MeToo movement. "I am not surprised at the number. I am surprised at the severity of many of the stories. I expected more quid pro quo or handsy passes made after drinking at an open bar at a conference. I didn’t expect as many stories of rape and stalking and abuse." (Kelsky) Unlimited to the discipline of International Relations...
Nothing Compares to You
For Russia watchers Christmas always comes early (or Hanukkah comes right on time!) when Putin gives his annual presser in mid-December to the journalists from Russia and around the world. This year was no exception, and Putin provided an almost 4-hour spectacle of economic indicator juggling, question evading and what looked like battling the flu. Even devoted supporters noticed that Putin was not on top of his game that day. He had to constantly clear the throat and looked like he had fever. There was something for everyone. Putin came out against abortion ban and spun a conspiracy theory...
Challenges to the Contemporary World Order
A guest post by Thomas Pepinsky, is Associate Professor of Government at Cornell University and Stefanie Walter, Full Professor for International Relations and Political Economy at the Department of Political Science at the University of Zurich. Many observers of contemporary global politics conclude that the present moment represents one of the most unsettled times in global politics since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Shock events such as the Brexit vote, the continued success of radical right populists in continental Europe, the continuing Eurozone crisis, and the unprecedented foreign...
Look What You Made Me Do
Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the sovereignest of them all? Asked no head of state — ever. And yet, the Russian Parliament is in the process of devising a document, which assesses levels of sovereignty among the G20, and devises punishments for countries or individuals who infringe on state sovereignty. I have to admit, it fits well with the ISQ’s new online symposium on International Systems in World History. Hierarchy, international system, definition of state, coercion – it’s all there! Russian Parliament does not reflect on the Eurocentrism of their concepts though… The Interim...
Mugabe: The Musical!
Picture the scene: throngs of people gathering as the night descends. They are looking up at the building across the way—patiently, expectantly. There is a low-hum of voices. Gradually, the voices converge and they begin singing the same song… “Mu-ga-be! Mu-ga-be!” Finally, the bespectacled 93-year-old Robert Gabriel Mugabe steps out on to a veranda of his residence, known as Blue Roof. He lifts his arms, the crowd hushes, and he begins to sing a torch song which captures the emotional heft of his fellow Zimbabwean patriots and inspires people in the crowd to hug each other and think that...