I was on a refreshingly contrarian panel recently as part of Victoria Forum, this big shindig in Canada (at University of Victoria in British Columbia, not to be confused with Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, where I teach). The topic was “Trust-Building in Asia in an Era of Great Power Competition.” Unlike most panels on “great power competition,” and I've been on a few, this one didn’t have anyone cheerleading for a new...
Some more excerpts from G. Loews Dickinson’s writings on international affairs.
It’s no surprise that current events regularly lead us to update our syllabi. That doesn’t mean we can’t make “surprise” an important feature of our courses.
Eleonora Mattiacci is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Amherst College, where she directs the IR Lab. Her research focuses on ways in which actors that we traditionally think of as weak can force actors with greater material capabilities to behave differently, so as to prevail in conflict. She focuses in particular on nuclear weapons and civil wars. Her latest book, Volatile States in International Politics, offers in-depth...
Rather than accept subordination to the Ming and Qing, Southeast Asian states contested Chinese international ordering in the early modern period.
Colin Chia is a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Political Science at the University of Waterloo and the Balsillie School of International Affairs. His research focuses on the contestation and politics of global governance and international orders, particularly over the issues of international trade and development. His research also investigates the politics of sovereignty and economic nationalism.
Christopher Clary on his new book, which looks at why international rivalry is a hard habit to break.
Waves of global crises have generated challenges in nearly every corner of human life. Catastrophic climate change, an ever-morphing global pandemic, widening democratic decline, rising economic inequality, increasing violence, geopolitical rivalry, and war join deeply entrenched systemic racism and sexism to create a toxic cocktail. How can “experts” productively engage at this moment? Practitioners often seek out guidance from experts during...
Deborah Avant is Distinguished University Professor and Sié Chéou-Kang Chair at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver. Her research has focused on the US role in the world, networks of global governance (surrounding business, security, and human rights, climate change, and internet governance/cyber security), relations between companies and communities, non-violent action and violence, civil-military relations,...
The Qatar crisis threatened to upend Middle East politics. Instead, it fizzled out. That says a lot about international relations, and how to study it. In June 2017, Saudi Arabia and the UAE--along with a few other states--announced a blockade of Qatar. Frustrated with Qatar's tolerance of revolutionary actors during the Arab Spring protests and relative friendliness with Iran, these states cut Qatar off from international travel and commerce....
The security dilemma plays a central role in Walt and Mearsheimer’s reading of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But what if they get the security dilemma wrong?
Eric Van Rythoven (PhD) is an Instructor in the Department of Political Science at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. His research focuses on the intersection between the politics of emotion, International Relations, and security. His articles have been published in the Journal of Global Security Studies, the European Journal of International Relations, and Security Dialogue, among others. He is the co-editor (with Mira Sucharov) of...