The editors of this special issue on NATO have put together a fabulous set of essays that contain a great many new insights and information about the alliance from leading scholars in this field. Covering both the Cold War and post-Cold War periods, the articles together shed light on how the alliance has managed differences,…
Review Essay 62 on Stories from the Field: A Guide to Navigating Fieldwork in Political Science
While global COVID-19 vaccination rates remain uneven and unequal, the resumption of safe and ethical in-person fieldwork has started to become possible in some parts of the world. As scholars begin considering and preparing for this, both new and seasoned field researchers would benefit from reading Stories from the Field: A Guide to Navigating Fieldwork…
Tribute to the Life, Scholarship, and Legacy of Robert Jervis: Part I
This is a very special issue of the H-Diplo/International Security Studies Forum (ISSF). Robert Jervis, the founder of ISSF and, in the judgment of the forum’s organizers, the most distinguished international relations scholar of his generation, succumbed to cancer this past December. As a way of honoring his memory, we wanted to give people in…
Policy Series 2021-60: Trump and Russia—Less than Meets the Eye
After all the controversy, accusations, angry tweets, impeachment hearings, and conspiracy theories, how is the Trump administration’s Russia policy to be assessed? Russia consumed an unprecedented amount of domestic energy during Trump’s presidency, casting a shadow over the White House during the four years Trump lived there. And yet there has been scant systematic analysis…
Response to Forum 31 (2021) on the Importance of the Scholarship of Ernest May
On December 17, 2021, H-Diplo published a Forum on “the Importance of the Scholarship of Ernest May.”[1] I chaired the Forum and introduced the subject. The contributing essays were penned by Anne Karalekas, Francis Gavin, Daniel Sargent, and Niall Ferguson.
Roundtable 13-7 on The False Promise of Liberal Order
The classic international relations debate between realism and liberalism has long been seen as rather old hat, if not reactionary, by scholars who are interested in new ways of understanding IR. Yet in a post-Cold War world of American unipolar preponderance this dusty debate has taken on a new and unexpected angle.
Review Essay 61 on Pedagogical Journeys Through World Politics
Teaching is often treated as the ugly step-child of academia. Unloved, undiscussed, and often hidden from sight on the third or fourth page of one’s CV, teaching is typically relegated to an afterthought at the start of one’s career—a fact reinforced by how many graduate programs provide little to no training on how to teach. …
Policy Series 2021-59: Racialized Threats and Security Rationales in U.S. Immigration Policies
In late August 2021, Afghans huddled in military airplanes amidst a massive evacuation. Crowds at the airport gates were denied access, then targeted by suicide bombers. These dramatic images encapsulate how security studies scholars typically view migration: refugees as a collateral consequence of conflict; innocent women and children in need of humanitarian assistance; asylum applicants…
Roundtable 13-6 on Scorecard Diplomacy: Grading States to Influence their Reputation and Behavior
What convinces a country to adopt policies it might have previously eschewed as unimportant or against its interests? In practice, the global governance toolbox is notoriously limited. States, international organizations, and Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that want other actors to change their behavior are typically reduced to selecting between the unsatisfying options of economic sanctions, military…
Article Review 154- “The Durability of a Unipolar System”
In his recent article in Security Studies, Yuan-kang Wang tackles a vitally important question in international relations: is unipolarity durable?[1] Two opposing views can be derived from the extant literature. Declinists posit that unipolarity is doomed due to the formation of counter-unipolar balancing coalitions, the unipole’s imperial overstretch, and the uneven growth rate between the…