Now that the myth of “theory-practice gap” has been largely refuted what role might IR and journals like International Affairs play in crafting a “reparative praxis”?
Now what?
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imperialism
Ordering Power: Hegemonic Architecture in a Multipolar World?
Who, if anyone, rules the world? Answering a question like that requires grappling with both the character of international order and the global distribution of power—facets of political life that...
The Blue Pacific Has a Sphere-of-Influence Problem
On the sidelines of the Pacific Islands Forum, Australia and Tuvalu just signed a new, major agreement—the Australia-Tuvalu Falepili Union Treaty. It binds Australia and Tuvalu much...
To Fear or Love Multipolarity?
The global distribution of material power changes from time to time. It’s something that happens, not something we should spend any amount of time pursuing or avoiding. I say this as someone who...
More imperialism Posts
Neoliberals, Anti-Imperialists, and the China Question
Does China's more ambitious foreign policy and bid for "national rejuvenation" come at America's expense? It's a question where some neoliberals and some on the anti-imperialist left converge — in opposition to Washington conventional wisdom. Most of the D.C. Establishment now takes for granted that, obviously, China seeks to displace the United States, in Asia and the world. The Sinologist community is divided on the question. The neoliberal view of China that prevailed from roughly the Tiananmen Square massacre to the 2008 Great Recession sought to make China a "responsible stakeholder" in...
Does it Pay to Divide and Conquer?
The intuition behind the maxim divide et impera is clear.  If they're busy fighting each other, they not fighting you.  And that's obviously in your interest (assuming, that is, you are some sort of occupier or metropole seeking to extract rents from a local population.)  Devious and underhanded?  Sure.  Morally repugnant?  If you're inclined to view politics through such a lens.  But effective?  Self-evidently. Or so you might think. Brenton Kenkel, a University of Rochester doctoral student currently on fellowship at Princeton, argues otherwise in this fascinating working paper. To...
Taking Liberalism on Intervention Seriously: a 12-Step Program
Editor's Note: This is a guest post by Tim Dunne. He is Research Director of the Asia-Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect at the University of Queensland and the past editor of the European Journal of International Relations. tl;dr warning: ~2400 words. In a recent lively and provocative post, Stephen Walt argues that liberal imperialists are like ‘neocons’ only more human rights-friendly. They are alike in the sense that both ‘are eager proponents for using American hard power’. And combined, these two sets of protagonists have been responsible for bad foreign policy decisions...
Baseball and American Foreign Policy
Not long ago, Robert Elias, a Professor of Politics at University of San Francisco (and editor of Peace Review), published The Empire Strikes Out: How Baseball Sold U.S. Foreign Policy & Promoted the American Way Abroad (The New Press, 2010). Unfortunately, I have not yet had a chance to obtain a copy of the book -- or read it. However, thanks to my SABR membership, I learned this week of his related article "Baseball and American Foreign Policy," which came out in Transatlantica in 2011 (but was just published on-line this month).As both a baseball fan and an academic who has taught a...
The Hurt Locker
When I heard that the "Hurt Locker," a drama set in the midst of the Iraq War, was nominated for several Oscars, I was intrigued. Americans have not shown much interest as a people in either of the current official wars and even less interest in documentaries about and dramas set in these conflicts. My initial hunch was that this film, was selected to balance out "Avatar", the narrative of which clearly questions militarism and imperialism (while also reveling in astounding levels of mindless violence). So I assumed that "The Hurt Locker" would make a conservative counter-argument which...