Daniel H Nexon
Biographic Data
| ID | 301258 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Daniel H Nexon |
| GIVEN NAMES | Daniel H |
| FAMILY NAME | Nexon |
| SIGNATURE | NEXON D H |
| AFFILIATIONS | Georgetown University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4163-0450 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 37 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 817 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 37 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1999 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2022 |
| H-INDEX | 14 |
Estimating Alliance Costs: An Exchange
Network Theory and Grand Strategy
A number of analysts claim that the rise of various “networks”—from transnational terrorism to global supply chains—necessitate changes in grand strategy. But only recently have scholars turned to tools and concepts from network analysis to study grand strategy. This chapter reviews the different meanings of “networks” in the broader literature on grand strategy. It argues that attention to the network structure and relational dynamics of interna…
Exit from Hegemony: The Unraveling of the American Global Order
We live in a period of uncertainty about the fate of American global leadership and the future of international order. The 2016 election of Donald Trump led many to pronounce the death, or at least terminal decline, of liberal international order—the system of institutions, rules, and values associated with the American-dominated international system. But the truth is that the unraveling of American global order began over a decade earlier. Exit …
(No) Exit from liberalism
Post-Cold War expansion of liberal order rested on three legs: the implosion of major alternative ordering projects, the enjoyment by liberal democracies of a “patronage monopoly,” and the dominance of liberalizing transitional activist networks and movements. By 2019, all three of those legs have been turned upside down. China and Russia, among others, offer new ordering projects, countries enjoy “exit options” in the form of alternative patrona…
Hegemony Studies 3.0: The Dynamics of Hegemonic Orders
After the end of World War II, various iterations of hegemony studies focused on such topics as the connection between hegemonic powers and the provision of international public goods, the causes of war during hegemonic transitions, and the stability of hegemonic orders. In this article, we discuss and forward the emergence of a new wave of international hegemony studies. This research program concerns itself with the politics of hegemonic orders…
Reclaiming the social: Relationalism in anglophone international studies
Even in the North American and European context, relationalism comes in many flavours. We identify the common features of relational approaches, including varieties of practice theory, pragmatism and network analysis. We also identify key disagreements within relationalism, such as the relative explanatory importance of positional and process-oriented analysis. Our discussion reveals the problems that come from associating relationalism solely wi…
Towards global relational theorizing: A dialogue between Sinophone and Anglophone scholarship on relationalism
What is ‘relational theorizing’ in International Relations and what can it offer? This article introduces a thematic section that responds to these questions by showing two things. First, relational theorizing is not a doctrine or a method, but a set of analyses that begin with relations rather than the putative essences of constitutively autonomous actors. Second, relational theorizing has emerged from different geo-linguistic traditions, and a …
Revising order or challenging the balance of military power? An alternative typology of revisionist and status-quo states
Unimensional accounts of revisionism – those that align states along a single continuum from supporting the status quo to seeking a complete overhaul of the international system – miss important variation between a desire to alter the balance of military power and a desire to alter other elements of international order. We propose a two-dimensional property space that generates four ideal types: status-quo actors, who are satisfied with both orde…
Repertoires of statecraft: Instruments and Logics of Power Politics
Issues involving 'statecraft' lie at the heart of most major debates about world politics, yet scholars do not go far enough in analyzing how the processes of statecraft themselves can reshape the international system. We draw on the growing relational-processual literature in international relations theory to explore how different modes of statecraft can help create and refashion the structure of world politics. In particular, we argue that scho…
Anarchy and Authority: International Structure, the Balance of Power, and Hierarchy
Beyond anarchy: Logics of political organization, hierarchy, and international structure
Many scholars now argue for deemphasizing the importance of international anarchy in favor of focusing on hierarchy – patterns of super- and subordination – in world politics. We argue that only one kind of vertical stratification, governance hierarchy, actually challenges the states-under-anarchy framework. But the existence of such hierarchies overturns a number of standard ways of studying world politics. In order to theorize, and identify, va…
Gender in the International Studies Quarterly Review Process
While we see considerable variation in the number of female authors in each issue of International Studies Quarterly (ISQ), women publish in the journal at a rate lower than we would expect given the number of research-active female scholars in international studies. The December 2017 issue has 26 authors, six of whom are women. Only two articles are single authored by a woman and only one is coauthored only by women. The pooled average across th…
Defending Hierarchy from the Moon to the Indian Ocean: Symbolic Capital and Political Dominance in Early Modern China and the Cold War
Why do leading actors invest in costly projects that they expect will not yield appreciable military or economic benefits? We identify a causal process in which concerns about legitimacy produce attempts to secure dominance in arenas of high symbolic value by investing wealth and labor into unproductive (in direct military and economic terms) goods and performances. We provide evidence for our claims through a comparative study of the American Pr…
Hegemonic-order theory: A field-theoretic account
This article outlines a field-theoretic variation of hegemonic-order theory - one inspired primarily by the work of Pierre Bourdieu. We argue that hegemony derives from the possession of a plurality of meta-capital in world politics; hegemons exercise "a power over other species of power, and particularly over their rate of exchange." Recasting conventional hegemonic-order theories along these lines carries with it at least three advantages: it h…
Interpersonal Networks and International Security
This chapter challenges the new hierarchy studies by demonstrating that while subordinate states may strike bargains with patrons that cede some of their sovereignty, they can also strategically manipulate personal ties with a patron to consolidate influence within the patron’s decision-making structures. Personal ties between regimes actually can reduce the authority and capacity of the patron to control the client and result in “reverse sociali…
The Dynamics of Global Power Politics: A Framework for Analysis
We call for a research program focused on the dynamics of global power politics. Rather than link realpolitik to structural-realist theoretical frameworks or the putatively anarchical character of world politics, the program treats power politics as an object of analysis in its own right. It embraces debate over the nature of global power politics among scholars working with distinctive approaches. It sees the structural contexts of power politic…
The global transformation: More than meets the eye
Buzan and Lawson’s The Global Transformation establishes that many of the basic parameters of world politics originated in the ‘long 19th century’. Despite finding much to admire in their book, we are concerned that it lacks an explicit theory of change. In its drive to highlight the novelty and exceptionalism of the 19th century, it offers insufficient guidance on two key issues: first, how international relations scholars should situate Buzan a…
A Discussion of Robert Vitalis’s White World Order, Black Power Politics: The Birth of American International Relations
In White World Order, Black Power Politics: The Birth of American International Relations , Robert Vitalis presents a critical disciplinary history of the field of international relations, and the discipline of political science more broadly. Vitalis argues that the interconnections between imperialism and racism were “constitutive” of international relations scholarship in the U.S. since the turn of the 20 th century, and that the perspectives o…
Singularity or Aberration? A Response to Buzan and Lawson: A Response to Buzan and Lawson
Buzan and Lawson (2012) urge IR scholars to consider what the 19th century can teach us about the contemporary world. Although we agree that IR scholars should draw from a wider range of historical experiences in formulating and testing their theories, we disagree with Buzan and Lawson's contentions that the lessons of the 19th century are self-evident. We argue that the 19th century may have been either an aberration in human history, during whi…
The Empire Will Compensate You: The Structural Dynamics of the U.S. Overseas Basing Network
Many commentators refer to the U.S. overseas network of military installations as an “empire,” yet very few have examined the theoretical and practical significance of such an analogy. This article explores the similarities and differences between the basing network and imperial systems. We argue that American basing practices and relations combine elements of liberal multilateralism with “neo-imperial” hegemony. Much, but far from all, of the ne…
International theory in a post-paradigmatic era: From substantive wagers to scientific ontologies
Concerns about the end of International Relations theory pivot around at least three different issues: the fading of the ‘paradigm wars’ associated with the 1990s and early 2000s; the general lack of any sort of ‘great debate’ sufficient to occupy the attention of large portions of the field; and claims about the vibrancy of middle-range theorizing. None of these are terribly helpful when it comes to assessing the health of International Relation…
Things of Networks: Situating ANT in International Relations
We come to this forum not to advocate for actor-network theory (ANT) but to raise friendly questions about its role in International Relations (IR). As outsiders to ANT, we recognize that these issues may be addressed within that broader literature. But since we are proponents of the use of frameworks that share with ANT a commitment to the analytical priority of processes, relations, and practices, we also have a particular interest in its devel…
The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe: Religious Conflict, Dynastic Empires, and International Change
Scholars have long argued over whether the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, which ended more than a century of religious conflict arising from the Protestant Reformations, inaugurated the modern sovereign-state system. But they largely ignore a more fundamental question: why did the emergence of new forms of religious heterodoxy during the Reformations spark such violent upheaval and nearly topple the old political order? In this book, Daniel Nexon demo…
The Balance of Power in the Balance
This article reviews four recent books on balancing and the balance of power. Both in isolation and when taken together, they provide strong analytical and empirical warrants against the proposition that balance of power equilibria represent the “normal condition” or “natural tendency” of international relations. They also reflect the growing dissensus among realists concerning how to conceptualize and operationalize the key concept of “balancing…
Paradigmatic Faults in International-Relations Theory
American scholars routinely characterize the study of international relations as divided between various Kuhnian “paradigms” or Lakatosian “research programmes.” Although most international relations scholars have abandoned Kuhn's account of scientific continuity and change, many utilize Lakatosian criteria to assess the “progressive” or “degenerative” character of various theories and approaches in the field. We argue that neither specific areas…
What's at Stake in the American Empire Debate
Scholars of world politics enjoy well-developed theories of the consequences of unipolarity or hegemony, but have little to say about what happens when a state's foreign relations take on imperial properties. Empires, we argue, are characterized by rule through intermediaries and the existence of distinctive contractual relations between cores and their peripheries. These features endow them with a distinctive network-structure from those associa…
Relations Before States: Substance, Process and the Study of World Politics
In recent years, paradigmatic debates in International Relations (IR) have focused on questions of epistemology and methodology. While important in their own right, these differences have obscured the basic divide in the discipline between substantialism, which takes entities as primitives, and relationalism, which takes processes of social transaction as the basic building blocks of theory. We argue that while both approaches can be fruitful, th…
Defending Hierarchy from the Moon to the Indian Ocean: Symbolic Capital and Political Dominance in Early Modern China and the Cold War
Why do leading actors invest in costly projects that they expect will not yield appreciable military or economic benefits? We identify a causal process in which concerns about legitimacy produce attempts to secure dominance in arenas of high symbolic value by investing wealth and labor into unproductive (in direct military and economic terms) goods and performances. We provide evidence for our claims through a comparative study of the American Pr…
The Balance of Power in the Balance
This article reviews four recent books on balancing and the balance of power. Both in isolation and when taken together, they provide strong analytical and empirical warrants against the proposition that balance of power equilibria represent the “normal condition” or “natural tendency” of international relations. They also reflect the growing dissensus among realists concerning how to conceptualize and operationalize the key concept of “balancing…
Hegemonic-order theory: A field-theoretic account
This article outlines a field-theoretic variation of hegemonic-order theory - one inspired primarily by the work of Pierre Bourdieu. We argue that hegemony derives from the possession of a plurality of meta-capital in world politics; hegemons exercise "a power over other species of power, and particularly over their rate of exchange." Recasting conventional hegemonic-order theories along these lines carries with it at least three advantages: it h…
Hegemony Studies 3.0: The Dynamics of Hegemonic Orders
After the end of World War II, various iterations of hegemony studies focused on such topics as the connection between hegemonic powers and the provision of international public goods, the causes of war during hegemonic transitions, and the stability of hegemonic orders. In this article, we discuss and forward the emergence of a new wave of international hegemony studies. This research program concerns itself with the politics of hegemonic orders…
Paradigmatic Faults in International-Relations Theory
American scholars routinely characterize the study of international relations as divided between various Kuhnian “paradigms” or Lakatosian “research programmes.” Although most international relations scholars have abandoned Kuhn's account of scientific continuity and change, many utilize Lakatosian criteria to assess the “progressive” or “degenerative” character of various theories and approaches in the field. We argue that neither specific areas…
The Empire Will Compensate You: The Structural Dynamics of the U.S. Overseas Basing Network
Many commentators refer to the U.S. overseas network of military installations as an “empire,” yet very few have examined the theoretical and practical significance of such an analogy. This article explores the similarities and differences between the basing network and imperial systems. We argue that American basing practices and relations combine elements of liberal multilateralism with “neo-imperial” hegemony. Much, but far from all, of the ne…
The Dynamics of Global Power Politics: A Framework for Analysis
We call for a research program focused on the dynamics of global power politics. Rather than link realpolitik to structural-realist theoretical frameworks or the putatively anarchical character of world politics, the program treats power politics as an object of analysis in its own right. It embraces debate over the nature of global power politics among scholars working with distinctive approaches. It sees the structural contexts of power politic…
Reclaiming the social: Relationalism in anglophone international studies
Even in the North American and European context, relationalism comes in many flavours. We identify the common features of relational approaches, including varieties of practice theory, pragmatism and network analysis. We also identify key disagreements within relationalism, such as the relative explanatory importance of positional and process-oriented analysis. Our discussion reveals the problems that come from associating relationalism solely wi…
Beyond anarchy: Logics of political organization, hierarchy, and international structure
Many scholars now argue for deemphasizing the importance of international anarchy in favor of focusing on hierarchy – patterns of super- and subordination – in world politics. We argue that only one kind of vertical stratification, governance hierarchy, actually challenges the states-under-anarchy framework. But the existence of such hierarchies overturns a number of standard ways of studying world politics. In order to theorize, and identify, va…
International theory in a post-paradigmatic era: From substantive wagers to scientific ontologies
Concerns about the end of International Relations theory pivot around at least three different issues: the fading of the ‘paradigm wars’ associated with the 1990s and early 2000s; the general lack of any sort of ‘great debate’ sufficient to occupy the attention of large portions of the field; and claims about the vibrancy of middle-range theorizing. None of these are terribly helpful when it comes to assessing the health of International Relation…
Towards global relational theorizing: A dialogue between Sinophone and Anglophone scholarship on relationalism
What is ‘relational theorizing’ in International Relations and what can it offer? This article introduces a thematic section that responds to these questions by showing two things. First, relational theorizing is not a doctrine or a method, but a set of analyses that begin with relations rather than the putative essences of constitutively autonomous actors. Second, relational theorizing has emerged from different geo-linguistic traditions, and a …
Paradigm Lost? Reassessing Theory of International Politics
Constructivists attack the social theory of Kenneth Waltz’s Theory of International Politics (TIP), arguing its positions on change, agent-structure interaction and culture are irrevocably flawed. We argue that many of these criticisms are mispecified, as they overlook the structural-functionalist assumptions of Waltz’s theory. Seen in this light, structural realism specifies mechanisms of change, provides a plausible account of agent-structure i…
Repertoires of statecraft: Instruments and Logics of Power Politics
Issues involving 'statecraft' lie at the heart of most major debates about world politics, yet scholars do not go far enough in analyzing how the processes of statecraft themselves can reshape the international system. We draw on the growing relational-processual literature in international relations theory to explore how different modes of statecraft can help create and refashion the structure of world politics. In particular, we argue that scho…
Revising order or challenging the balance of military power? An alternative typology of revisionist and status-quo states
Unimensional accounts of revisionism – those that align states along a single continuum from supporting the status quo to seeking a complete overhaul of the international system – miss important variation between a desire to alter the balance of military power and a desire to alter other elements of international order. We propose a two-dimensional property space that generates four ideal types: status-quo actors, who are satisfied with both orde…
Things of Networks: Situating ANT in International Relations
We come to this forum not to advocate for actor-network theory (ANT) but to raise friendly questions about its role in International Relations (IR). As outsiders to ANT, we recognize that these issues may be addressed within that broader literature. But since we are proponents of the use of frameworks that share with ANT a commitment to the analytical priority of processes, relations, and practices, we also have a particular interest in its devel…
Constructivist Realism or Realist-Constructivism
In his article “Realist Constructivism,”Barkin (2003:338) described constructivism as a cluster of research methods and analytical tools: a “set of assumptions about how to study world politics” rather than a “set of assumptions about how politics work.” As such, constructivism is subject to E.H. Carr's dialectic between realism and utopianism. Barkin also argued that the problem with contemporary constructivism is that it has been dominated by l…
What’s This, Then? “Romanes Eunt Domus”? 1
This article cautions against a number of errors endemic to recent attempts to derive “lessons of empire” for United States foreign policy and grand strategy: (1) justifying the comparison between the United States and past imperial polities based on shared characteristics unrelated to the analytic category of empire, (2) failing to offer recommendations specific to imperial dynamics, (3) assuming that “empire” serves as an “analytic box” compose…
What Moves Man: The Realist Theory of International Relations and Its Judgment of Human Nature
What Moves Man: The Realist Theory of International Relations and Its Judgment of Human Nature. By Annette Freyberg-Inan. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004. 266p. $59.50 cloth, $19.95 paper. Human nature is the subject of Annette Freyberg-Inan's sustained attack on political realism. She argues that all realist theory shares a common set of assumptions about human motivations. In short, realists believe that humans are, and always …
Anarchy and Authority: International Structure, the Balance of Power, and Hierarchy
Singularity or Aberration? A Response to Buzan and Lawson: A Response to Buzan and Lawson
Buzan and Lawson (2012) urge IR scholars to consider what the 19th century can teach us about the contemporary world. Although we agree that IR scholars should draw from a wider range of historical experiences in formulating and testing their theories, we disagree with Buzan and Lawson's contentions that the lessons of the 19th century are self-evident. We argue that the 19th century may have been either an aberration in human history, during whi…
Zeitgeist? The new idealism in the study of international change
(No) Exit from liberalism
Post-Cold War expansion of liberal order rested on three legs: the implosion of major alternative ordering projects, the enjoyment by liberal democracies of a “patronage monopoly,” and the dominance of liberalizing transitional activist networks and movements. By 2019, all three of those legs have been turned upside down. China and Russia, among others, offer new ordering projects, countries enjoy “exit options” in the form of alternative patrona…
Gender in the International Studies Quarterly Review Process
While we see considerable variation in the number of female authors in each issue of International Studies Quarterly (ISQ), women publish in the journal at a rate lower than we would expect given the number of research-active female scholars in international studies. The December 2017 issue has 26 authors, six of whom are women. Only two articles are single authored by a woman and only one is coauthored only by women. The pooled average across th…
Relations Before States: Substance, Process and the Study of World Politics
In recent years, paradigmatic debates in International Relations (IR) have focused on questions of epistemology and methodology. While important in their own right, these differences have obscured the basic divide in the discipline between substantialism, which takes entities as primitives, and relationalism, which takes processes of social transaction as the basic building blocks of theory. We argue that while both approaches can be fruitful, th…
Which historical sociology? A Response to Stephen Hobden's ’Theorising the International System‘
In a recent article in the Review of International Studies, Stephen Hobden does a great service by initiating a critical evaluation of the potential for historical sociology in international relations theory. Hobden considers seminal studies by Michael Mann, Theda Skocpol, Charles Tilly, and Immanuel Wallerstein, and concludes that each is inadequate for building an historical sociology of the international system. Articles such as Hobden's are p…
International Relations and the Challenge of Postmodernism: Defending the Discipline
Journal Article International Relations and the Challenge of Postmodernism: Defending the Discipline Get access International Relations and the Challenge of Postmodernism: Defending the Discipline by D. S. L. Jarvis. Columbia, University of South Carolina Press, 2000. 288 pp. $34.95. Daniel H. Nexon Daniel H. Nexon Columbia University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Political Science Quarterly, Volume 116,…
Historical Sociology of International Relations
Part I. Introduction: 1. What's at stake in 'bringing historical sociology back into international relations?' John M. Hobson 2. Historical sociology: back to the future of international relations? Stephen Hobden Part II. Historical Sociologies of International Relations: 3. The two waves of Weberian historical sociology in international relations John M. Hobson 4. Neo-Weberian historical sociology and the question of epochal transformations Rand…
Constructivist Realism or Realist-Constructivism
In his article “Realist Constructivism,”Barkin (2003:338) described constructivism as a cluster of research methods and analytical tools: a “set of assumptions about how to study world politics” rather than a “set of assumptions about how politics work.” As such, constructivism is subject to E.H. Carr's dialectic between realism and utopianism. Barkin also argued that the problem with contemporary constructivism is that it has been dominated by l…
What Moves Man: The Realist Theory of International Relations and Its Judgment of Human Nature
What Moves Man: The Realist Theory of International Relations and Its Judgment of Human Nature. By Annette Freyberg-Inan. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004. 266p. $59.50 cloth, $19.95 paper. Human nature is the subject of Annette Freyberg-Inan's sustained attack on political realism. She argues that all realist theory shares a common set of assumptions about human motivations. In short, realists believe that humans are, and always …
Zeitgeist? The new idealism in the study of international change
Creating Insecurity: Realism, Constructivism, and US Security Policy
Paradigm Lost? Reassessing Theory of International Politics
Constructivists attack the social theory of Kenneth Waltz’s Theory of International Politics (TIP), arguing its positions on change, agent-structure interaction and culture are irrevocably flawed. We argue that many of these criticisms are mispecified, as they overlook the structural-functionalist assumptions of Waltz’s theory. Seen in this light, structural realism specifies mechanisms of change, provides a plausible account of agent-structure i…
Religion in an Expanding Europe
With political controversies raging over issues such as the wearing of headscarves in schools and the mention of Christianity in the European Constitution, religious issues are of growing importance in European politics. In this volume, Byrnes and Katzenstein analyze the effect that enlargement to countries with different and stronger religious traditions may have on the EU as a whole, and in particular on its homogeneity and assumed secular natu…
What's at Stake in the American Empire Debate
Scholars of world politics enjoy well-developed theories of the consequences of unipolarity or hegemony, but have little to say about what happens when a state's foreign relations take on imperial properties. Empires, we argue, are characterized by rule through intermediaries and the existence of distinctive contractual relations between cores and their peripheries. These features endow them with a distinctive network-structure from those associa…
What’s This, Then? “Romanes Eunt Domus”? 1
This article cautions against a number of errors endemic to recent attempts to derive “lessons of empire” for United States foreign policy and grand strategy: (1) justifying the comparison between the United States and past imperial polities based on shared characteristics unrelated to the analytic category of empire, (2) failing to offer recommendations specific to imperial dynamics, (3) assuming that “empire” serves as an “analytic box” compose…
The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe: Religious Conflict, Dynastic Empires, and International Change
Scholars have long argued over whether the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, which ended more than a century of religious conflict arising from the Protestant Reformations, inaugurated the modern sovereign-state system. But they largely ignore a more fundamental question: why did the emergence of new forms of religious heterodoxy during the Reformations spark such violent upheaval and nearly topple the old political order? In this book, Daniel Nexon demo…
The Balance of Power in the Balance
This article reviews four recent books on balancing and the balance of power. Both in isolation and when taken together, they provide strong analytical and empirical warrants against the proposition that balance of power equilibria represent the “normal condition” or “natural tendency” of international relations. They also reflect the growing dissensus among realists concerning how to conceptualize and operationalize the key concept of “balancing…
Paradigmatic Faults in International-Relations Theory
American scholars routinely characterize the study of international relations as divided between various Kuhnian “paradigms” or Lakatosian “research programmes.” Although most international relations scholars have abandoned Kuhn's account of scientific continuity and change, many utilize Lakatosian criteria to assess the “progressive” or “degenerative” character of various theories and approaches in the field. We argue that neither specific areas…
Singularity or Aberration? A Response to Buzan and Lawson: A Response to Buzan and Lawson
Buzan and Lawson (2012) urge IR scholars to consider what the 19th century can teach us about the contemporary world. Although we agree that IR scholars should draw from a wider range of historical experiences in formulating and testing their theories, we disagree with Buzan and Lawson's contentions that the lessons of the 19th century are self-evident. We argue that the 19th century may have been either an aberration in human history, during whi…
The Empire Will Compensate You: The Structural Dynamics of the U.S. Overseas Basing Network
Many commentators refer to the U.S. overseas network of military installations as an “empire,” yet very few have examined the theoretical and practical significance of such an analogy. This article explores the similarities and differences between the basing network and imperial systems. We argue that American basing practices and relations combine elements of liberal multilateralism with “neo-imperial” hegemony. Much, but far from all, of the ne…
International theory in a post-paradigmatic era: From substantive wagers to scientific ontologies
Concerns about the end of International Relations theory pivot around at least three different issues: the fading of the ‘paradigm wars’ associated with the 1990s and early 2000s; the general lack of any sort of ‘great debate’ sufficient to occupy the attention of large portions of the field; and claims about the vibrancy of middle-range theorizing. None of these are terribly helpful when it comes to assessing the health of International Relation…
Things of Networks: Situating ANT in International Relations
We come to this forum not to advocate for actor-network theory (ANT) but to raise friendly questions about its role in International Relations (IR). As outsiders to ANT, we recognize that these issues may be addressed within that broader literature. But since we are proponents of the use of frameworks that share with ANT a commitment to the analytical priority of processes, relations, and practices, we also have a particular interest in its devel…
Interpersonal Networks and International Security
This chapter challenges the new hierarchy studies by demonstrating that while subordinate states may strike bargains with patrons that cede some of their sovereignty, they can also strategically manipulate personal ties with a patron to consolidate influence within the patron’s decision-making structures. Personal ties between regimes actually can reduce the authority and capacity of the patron to control the client and result in “reverse sociali…
The Dynamics of Global Power Politics: A Framework for Analysis
We call for a research program focused on the dynamics of global power politics. Rather than link realpolitik to structural-realist theoretical frameworks or the putatively anarchical character of world politics, the program treats power politics as an object of analysis in its own right. It embraces debate over the nature of global power politics among scholars working with distinctive approaches. It sees the structural contexts of power politic…
The global transformation: More than meets the eye
Buzan and Lawson’s The Global Transformation establishes that many of the basic parameters of world politics originated in the ‘long 19th century’. Despite finding much to admire in their book, we are concerned that it lacks an explicit theory of change. In its drive to highlight the novelty and exceptionalism of the 19th century, it offers insufficient guidance on two key issues: first, how international relations scholars should situate Buzan a…
A Discussion of Robert Vitalis’s White World Order, Black Power Politics: The Birth of American International Relations
In White World Order, Black Power Politics: The Birth of American International Relations , Robert Vitalis presents a critical disciplinary history of the field of international relations, and the discipline of political science more broadly. Vitalis argues that the interconnections between imperialism and racism were “constitutive” of international relations scholarship in the U.S. since the turn of the 20 th century, and that the perspectives o…
Hegemonic-order theory: A field-theoretic account
This article outlines a field-theoretic variation of hegemonic-order theory - one inspired primarily by the work of Pierre Bourdieu. We argue that hegemony derives from the possession of a plurality of meta-capital in world politics; hegemons exercise "a power over other species of power, and particularly over their rate of exchange." Recasting conventional hegemonic-order theories along these lines carries with it at least three advantages: it h…
Anarchy and Authority: International Structure, the Balance of Power, and Hierarchy
Political science (32 works) · Law (30 works) · Sociology (30 works) · International Relations and Foreign Policy (29 works) · Politics (25 works) · Law (22 works) · Epistemology (19 works) · International relations (19 works) · Philosophy (18 works) · Political Conflict and Governance (18 works)