Eric Van Rythoven
Biographic Data
| ID | 270749 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Eric Van Rythoven |
| GIVEN NAMES | Eric |
| FAMILY NAME | Van Rythoven |
| SIGNATURE | VAN RYTHOVEN E |
| AFFILIATIONS | Carleton University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4491-1706 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 97 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 11 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
High-Level Leader Visits: A Promising Area of Study in IR
Once deemed a “nearly impossible” area of study, high-level leader visits—one of the most visible and consequential practices in global politics—have recently attracted renewed scholarly attention. This resurgence stems from the growing recognition of leader visits as a valuable lens for addressing foundational questions in international relations, including why states act as they do, the consequences of their actions, and how their behavior shap…
After Twitter: Aesthetic Insecurity and the Future of Digital Diplomacy
Cruelty and democracy: Understanding Lippmann’s gambit
A paradox haunts Lippmann’s critique of democracy running through his early work in Public Opinion up through The Public Philosophy . Liberal democracies, despite their claim to securing space for human dignity and freedom, can be sites of incredible cruelty. From the racial prejudices cutting through American politics, to the way Americans treated adversaries during war, democracy appeared to do little to vitiate the human propensity to inflict …
Backstage Mockery: Impoliteness and Asymmetry on the World Stage
In recent years, episodes of diplomatic “impoliteness” have attracted growing attention among international relations (IR) scholars. Whether in the form of sharp-edged humor, insults, or other face-undermining behavior, scholars are increasingly examining episodes where the expected civility of diplomacy breaks down and impoliteness becomes weaponized as a tool of statecraft. While sympathetic to these approaches, I argue that the deployment of i…
Walter Lippmann, emotion, and the history of international theory
The recent ‘emotion turn’ in international theory is widely viewed as a cutting-edge development which pushes the field in fundamentally new directions. Challenging this narrative, this essay returns to the historical works of Walter Lippmann to show how thinking about emotions has been central to international theory for far longer than currently appreciated. Deeply troubled by his experience with propaganda during the First World War, Lippmann …
A Feeling of Unease: Distance, Emotion, and Securitizing Indigenous Protest in Canada
Why do public officials sometimes avoid using security claims to frame an issue, even when there are strong incentives and historical precedent for doing so? Efforts to portray indigenous protest as a security issue are a recurring feature of Canada's settler colonial history. Recently, however, a series of public officials have emphatically rejected these kinds of claims. To explain this puzzle, I argue that a growing feeling of unease over the …
Methodology and Emotion in International Relations: Parsing the Passions
The Securitization Dilemma
Motivated by the neglect of uncertainty and perverse consequences in constructivist studies of security, this article pursues a reconceptualization of the security dilemma. Approaching the dilemma as a “logic of self-limitation” constituted by choice, uncertainty, and tragedy, the article explores how this logic can be transposed to the constructivist context of securitization theory. The resulting “securitization dilemma” draws renewed attention…
Methodology and Emotion in International Relations
Fear in the crowd or fear of the crowd? The dystopian politics of fear in international relations
While Western reactions to ISIS are commonly situated in a ‘politics of fear’, there has been surprisingly little reflection on what role fear plays in disciplinary arguments central to International Relations (IR). I argue this absence of reflection can explained by a shared doxa over fear’s mobilising potential in the politics of security. This doxa can be traced to a 19th Century strand of social theorising concerned with mass movements – crow…
The perils of realist advocacy and the promise of securitization theory: Revisiting the tragedy of the Iraq War debate
Why does realist political advocacy for a more limited national security agenda fail? For nearly two decades, realists in general and Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer in particular have publicly lamented an endemic problem of threat inflation in America, culminating in the unnecessary 2003 Iraq War. This article argues that understanding the failure of realist advocacy requires appreciating its roots in the model of the marketplace of ideas, an …
Learning to feel, learning to fear? Emotions, imaginaries, and limits in the politics of securitization
Despite a growing interest in the role of emotions in world politics, the relationship between emotion and securitization remains unclear. This article shows that persistent, if sporadic, references to fear and emotion in securitization studies remain largely untheorized and fall outside conventional linguistic and sociological ontologies. The tendency to discuss emotion but deny it ontological status has left securitization theory incoherent. Th…
Learning to feel, learning to fear? Emotions, imaginaries, and limits in the politics of securitization
Despite a growing interest in the role of emotions in world politics, the relationship between emotion and securitization remains unclear. This article shows that persistent, if sporadic, references to fear and emotion in securitization studies remain largely untheorized and fall outside conventional linguistic and sociological ontologies. The tendency to discuss emotion but deny it ontological status has left securitization theory incoherent. Th…
Backstage Mockery: Impoliteness and Asymmetry on the World Stage
In recent years, episodes of diplomatic “impoliteness” have attracted growing attention among international relations (IR) scholars. Whether in the form of sharp-edged humor, insults, or other face-undermining behavior, scholars are increasingly examining episodes where the expected civility of diplomacy breaks down and impoliteness becomes weaponized as a tool of statecraft. While sympathetic to these approaches, I argue that the deployment of i…
Fear in the crowd or fear of the crowd? The dystopian politics of fear in international relations
While Western reactions to ISIS are commonly situated in a ‘politics of fear’, there has been surprisingly little reflection on what role fear plays in disciplinary arguments central to International Relations (IR). I argue this absence of reflection can explained by a shared doxa over fear’s mobilising potential in the politics of security. This doxa can be traced to a 19th Century strand of social theorising concerned with mass movements – crow…
The Securitization Dilemma
Motivated by the neglect of uncertainty and perverse consequences in constructivist studies of security, this article pursues a reconceptualization of the security dilemma. Approaching the dilemma as a “logic of self-limitation” constituted by choice, uncertainty, and tragedy, the article explores how this logic can be transposed to the constructivist context of securitization theory. The resulting “securitization dilemma” draws renewed attention…
A Feeling of Unease: Distance, Emotion, and Securitizing Indigenous Protest in Canada
Why do public officials sometimes avoid using security claims to frame an issue, even when there are strong incentives and historical precedent for doing so? Efforts to portray indigenous protest as a security issue are a recurring feature of Canada's settler colonial history. Recently, however, a series of public officials have emphatically rejected these kinds of claims. To explain this puzzle, I argue that a growing feeling of unease over the …
The perils of realist advocacy and the promise of securitization theory: Revisiting the tragedy of the Iraq War debate
Why does realist political advocacy for a more limited national security agenda fail? For nearly two decades, realists in general and Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer in particular have publicly lamented an endemic problem of threat inflation in America, culminating in the unnecessary 2003 Iraq War. This article argues that understanding the failure of realist advocacy requires appreciating its roots in the model of the marketplace of ideas, an …
High-Level Leader Visits: A Promising Area of Study in IR
Once deemed a “nearly impossible” area of study, high-level leader visits—one of the most visible and consequential practices in global politics—have recently attracted renewed scholarly attention. This resurgence stems from the growing recognition of leader visits as a valuable lens for addressing foundational questions in international relations, including why states act as they do, the consequences of their actions, and how their behavior shap…
Cruelty and democracy: Understanding Lippmann’s gambit
A paradox haunts Lippmann’s critique of democracy running through his early work in Public Opinion up through The Public Philosophy . Liberal democracies, despite their claim to securing space for human dignity and freedom, can be sites of incredible cruelty. From the racial prejudices cutting through American politics, to the way Americans treated adversaries during war, democracy appeared to do little to vitiate the human propensity to inflict …
Walter Lippmann, emotion, and the history of international theory
The recent ‘emotion turn’ in international theory is widely viewed as a cutting-edge development which pushes the field in fundamentally new directions. Challenging this narrative, this essay returns to the historical works of Walter Lippmann to show how thinking about emotions has been central to international theory for far longer than currently appreciated. Deeply troubled by his experience with propaganda during the First World War, Lippmann …
Learning to feel, learning to fear? Emotions, imaginaries, and limits in the politics of securitization
Despite a growing interest in the role of emotions in world politics, the relationship between emotion and securitization remains unclear. This article shows that persistent, if sporadic, references to fear and emotion in securitization studies remain largely untheorized and fall outside conventional linguistic and sociological ontologies. The tendency to discuss emotion but deny it ontological status has left securitization theory incoherent. Th…
The perils of realist advocacy and the promise of securitization theory: Revisiting the tragedy of the Iraq War debate
Why does realist political advocacy for a more limited national security agenda fail? For nearly two decades, realists in general and Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer in particular have publicly lamented an endemic problem of threat inflation in America, culminating in the unnecessary 2003 Iraq War. This article argues that understanding the failure of realist advocacy requires appreciating its roots in the model of the marketplace of ideas, an …
Fear in the crowd or fear of the crowd? The dystopian politics of fear in international relations
While Western reactions to ISIS are commonly situated in a ‘politics of fear’, there has been surprisingly little reflection on what role fear plays in disciplinary arguments central to International Relations (IR). I argue this absence of reflection can explained by a shared doxa over fear’s mobilising potential in the politics of security. This doxa can be traced to a 19th Century strand of social theorising concerned with mass movements – crow…
Methodology and Emotion in International Relations: Parsing the Passions
The Securitization Dilemma
Motivated by the neglect of uncertainty and perverse consequences in constructivist studies of security, this article pursues a reconceptualization of the security dilemma. Approaching the dilemma as a “logic of self-limitation” constituted by choice, uncertainty, and tragedy, the article explores how this logic can be transposed to the constructivist context of securitization theory. The resulting “securitization dilemma” draws renewed attention…
Methodology and Emotion in International Relations
Walter Lippmann, emotion, and the history of international theory
The recent ‘emotion turn’ in international theory is widely viewed as a cutting-edge development which pushes the field in fundamentally new directions. Challenging this narrative, this essay returns to the historical works of Walter Lippmann to show how thinking about emotions has been central to international theory for far longer than currently appreciated. Deeply troubled by his experience with propaganda during the First World War, Lippmann …
A Feeling of Unease: Distance, Emotion, and Securitizing Indigenous Protest in Canada
Why do public officials sometimes avoid using security claims to frame an issue, even when there are strong incentives and historical precedent for doing so? Efforts to portray indigenous protest as a security issue are a recurring feature of Canada's settler colonial history. Recently, however, a series of public officials have emphatically rejected these kinds of claims. To explain this puzzle, I argue that a growing feeling of unease over the …
Cruelty and democracy: Understanding Lippmann’s gambit
A paradox haunts Lippmann’s critique of democracy running through his early work in Public Opinion up through The Public Philosophy . Liberal democracies, despite their claim to securing space for human dignity and freedom, can be sites of incredible cruelty. From the racial prejudices cutting through American politics, to the way Americans treated adversaries during war, democracy appeared to do little to vitiate the human propensity to inflict …
Backstage Mockery: Impoliteness and Asymmetry on the World Stage
In recent years, episodes of diplomatic “impoliteness” have attracted growing attention among international relations (IR) scholars. Whether in the form of sharp-edged humor, insults, or other face-undermining behavior, scholars are increasingly examining episodes where the expected civility of diplomacy breaks down and impoliteness becomes weaponized as a tool of statecraft. While sympathetic to these approaches, I argue that the deployment of i…
High-Level Leader Visits: A Promising Area of Study in IR
Once deemed a “nearly impossible” area of study, high-level leader visits—one of the most visible and consequential practices in global politics—have recently attracted renewed scholarly attention. This resurgence stems from the growing recognition of leader visits as a valuable lens for addressing foundational questions in international relations, including why states act as they do, the consequences of their actions, and how their behavior shap…
After Twitter: Aesthetic Insecurity and the Future of Digital Diplomacy
Political science (11 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Politics (8 works) · Law (7 works) · Law (6 works) · Global Security and Public Health (5 works) · International relations (5 works) · Epistemology (4 works) · International Relations and Foreign Policy (4 works) · Peacebuilding and International Security (4 works)