Thierry Balzacq, Peter Dombrowski, and Simon Reich (BDR) enquire whether grand strategy is a field of study or a mature research program. This is an important question, answers to which would be of tremendous interest to scholars of grand strategy and pivotal for the future of this ever-expanding field of study.
Roundtable 10-28 on Emotional Choices: How the Logic of Affect Shapes Coercive Diplomacy
The topic of emotions is receiving increased attention in the social sciences in general and international politics in particular; the latest and most thorough contribution is Robin Markwica’s Emotional Choices.[1] Our three reviewers are well positioned to analyze the book from different perspectives. Rose McDermott is one of the leading political psychologists of her generation,…
Roundtable 10-27 on Status and the Challenge of Rising Powers
Anyone interested in getting up to speed on the state of status research in international politics should read this roundtable review. It is a testimony not only to the quality of Steven Ward’s book but also to the great distance research on this fundamental human motivation and international politics has come since the 1990s and…
Article Review 117 on “Killing Norms Softly: US Targeted Killing, Quasi-secrecy and the Assassination Ban.”
How does a democratic (U.S.) government wield secrecy? This is the core question of Andris Banka and Adam Quinn’s “Killing Norms Softly: US Targeted Killing, Quasi-Secrecy and the Assassination Ban,” which advances a theory of how norms of secrecy can be changed to serve executive needs. Focusing on the case of targeted killing under both…
Article Review 116 on “The Grand Strategy of Militant Clients: Iran’s Way of War.”
When the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, the American media paid little attention to the fact that the U.S. was about to end hundreds of years of Sunni supremacy in one of the Middle East’s most important countries. Among the farthest reaching consequences of America’s introduction of democracy to the Shiite-majority country was the…
Article Review 115 on “A Nation of Feminist Arms Dealers? Canada and Military Exports.”
Canadian military export policies came to unusual public attention following Canada’s 2014 agreement to sell $15 billion worth of armored vehicles to Saudi Arabia. The deal was negotiated under the Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and was subsequently given official approval, through the granting of export permits, by the Liberal Government of Prime…
Article Review 114 on “The Future of Chemical Weapons: Implications from the Syrian Civil War.”
Geoffrey Chapman, Hassan Elbahtimy, and Susan B. Martin test a framework for assessing the security implications of chemical weapons (CW) use in the twenty-first century in their recent Security Studies paper. The authors state that they were motivated by the erosion of a norm of disuse, commonly known as the chemical weapons taboo.[1] In this…
Policy Series 2-5: France’s Yellow Vests: Lessons from a Revolt
In the ongoing saga of contemporary populism, France’s Yellow Vest movement has sounded something like the other shoe dropping. In 2016, Brexit and Donald Trump’s election shattered prevailing political orthodoxies by mobilizing populations around a potent cocktail of xenophobia, protectionism, and sovereignism. Forces with a family resemblance to these movements are calling the shots in…
Policy Series: An Unquiet Grave on Long Island
A growing but not pleasurable sport has taken hold among people who know and care about American political history. It is trying to guess which deceased leader is spinning fastest in her or his grave over the presidency of Donald Trump.
Roundtable 10-26 on Dictators and Their Secret Police: Coercive Institutions and State Violence
With apologies to Tolstoy, every coercive dictatorship is coercive in its own way. This is the central claim of Sheena Greitens important and timely study of authoritarianism, Dictators and Their Secret Police. Greitens argues that dictators face not only the usual array of external threats that all leaders confront; they also face a daunting array…