The first twenty years of the twenty-first century have witnessed a seemingly never-ending sequence of global calamities. From 9/11 and the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 to the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-2009 and Great Recession, the Arab Spring, the Syrian civil war, Brexit, the 2016 election of Donald Trump, and the 2020 COVID…
The Robert Jervis International Security Studies Forum
For the past fourteen years, in partnership with H-Diplo, ISSF has published hundreds of open-access reviews, essays, policy forums, and commentaries, offering a connecting point for academics and policy experts across the globe to discuss the most important new publications as well as world events. Our pages have been read by over 600,000 scholars across…
The Importance of the Scholarship of Dorothy Borg, Part II
For insight into Dorothy Borg’s scholarship, readers will find Part I of the tribute to her most useful—although even then none of us could avoid mention of her magnetism.[1] In the essays that follow, three very different scholars, each with a different perspective, describe how they were drawn into her orbit.
H-Diplo|ISSF Commentary I-3 on the 2022 US National Security Strategy
[Our essayists decided that the best analysis of the Biden administration’s 2022 strategy would take the form of a Gothic dialogue between American founders –ed.] Outside Philadelphia, Two Ghosts Walk into a Bar. James Madison: [cheerily] Who wants a drink? President Biden’s National Security Strategy [NSS] is here! John Adams: Convince me to care. Every…
H-Diplo|ISSF Conference Report: “History and Memory in International Relations”
October 26-28, 2022 marked the twelfth year in which the European Network Remembering and Solidarity (ENRS) hosted its flagship academic conference, Genealogies of Memory. Since its inception in 2011, the annual conference has developed into a leading international forum for contemplating memory politics in Europe. The theme of this year’s conference, history, and memory in…
H-Diplo | ISSF Roundtable 14-7 on Barder, Global Race War: International Politics and Racial Hierarchy
“Theory” makes the world of the professors go ‘round. It is the gold ring on the dissertation-award, post-doc, tenure ladder, lead article, monograph, promotion, citation count endowed chair carousel. In political science in the United States the dominant view of theory among a self-identified ‘mainstream’ roughly corresponds to that of their colleagues in the natural…
H-Diplo | ISSF Roundtable 14-6 on Stewart, Governing for Revolution: Social Transformation in Civil War
In Governing for Revolution, Megan A. Stewart examines variation in rebel governance, asking why some rebel movements undertake expansive and costly governance initiatives during war, while others refrain from doing so until the conflicts end. According to Stewart, governance can be both extensive and intensive. Intensive governance refers to intrusive projects that have the potential…
H-Diplo Essay 503- Isabel V. Hull on Learning the Scholar’s Craft
The H-Diplo editors have asked about the “formative years” of scholars’ interest in international affairs. I honestly don’t know where it all started. I was a nerdy kid interested in history, natural and (I guess) unnatural, and politics very early on. I was an avid reader of Time, despite its “strange inverted Timestyle” (“Backward ran…
H-Diplo|ISSF Commentary: Avey, “The Biden and Trump National Security Strategies: Continuity, Change, and the Implications for Scholars”
Despite a sense that most formal strategy documents do not matter much, there is a great deal of attention to a President’s National Security Strategy (NSS) when it is released.[1] Scholars, think tank analysts, and pundits are quick to comment on its strengths and, more commonly, highlight its flaws. The release of President Joe Biden’s…
H-Diplo | ISSF Roundtable 14-5: Zegart, Spies, Lies and Algorithms: The History and Future of American Intelligence
Amy Zegart’s book Spies, Lies and Algorithms: The History of Future of American Intelligence, provides a well-written and easy to read overview of the multiplicities of American intelligence; everything from what intelligence is, to intelligence in classrooms and the effects of “spytainment,” and of course, intelligence of the digital age. Zegart describes the initial concept…