Michelle Bentley
Biographic Data
| ID | 366157 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michelle Bentley |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michelle |
| FAMILY NAME | Bentley |
| SIGNATURE | BENTLEY M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Royal Holloway University of London |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3016-6194 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 36 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 78 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 36 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1991 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Care and Contemporary Violence: Deconstructing the Monstrous in/as Cavarero’s Horrorism
This article offers a feminist reworking of Adriana Cavarero’s conceptualization of horrorism as a form of extreme violence that targets and dehumanizes its victims through dismemberment and an ontological assault on human uniqueness. While Cavarero’s intervention is motivated by a commitment to resisting patriarchal logics of war and reorienting political thought toward care, we argue that her framework depends on an overly fixed opposition betw…
Flawed strategy: Why smart leaders make bad decisions
Strategic ambiguity and chemical warfare in Ukraine
This article revisits the concept of strategic ambiguity to identify and critically assess the overlooked role of international norms. Addressing a significant gap within the existing analysis of strategic ambiguity which fails to fully explain the role of norms, the article demonstrates how international norms construct and function within deliberately ambiguous foreign policy as the normative exploitation of epistemic ambiguity. Yet the article…
Putin, Taboos, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Even political actors who disregard the international consensus against aggressive war may still fear the taboos surrounding the most powerful weapons
Above Reproach: Rawls, Cavell, and Emersonian Conversation as a New Model for Democratic Counter-Radicalisation Policy
The UK Prevent strategy is strongly criticized: accused of racism, human rights violations, and demonization of the (Muslim) other. Outlining an original interpretation of these problems, the article draws on political theory to identify parallels between this controversy and Stanley Cavell's critique of John Rawls' Theory of Justice. Although aiming to avoid violence, Rawls limited the 'conversation of justice' in advance such that a democratic …
A New Model of “Taboo”: Disgust, Stigmatization, and Fetishization
The conceptualization of taboo within international relations (IR)—that is, what we understand to be taboo—is inadequate. Specifically, current analysis fails to sufficiently distinguish between taboo and non-taboo forms of prohibitory norm, where this failure often facilitates a tendency (explicit or implicit) to comprehend the concept primarily in terms of actor compliance with a taboo in question. This understanding is shown here to be analyti…
Introduction: Trump and unpredictability in international relations
This article introduces the special issue on Trump and unpredictability in international relations. It analyses each of the contributions to the special issue in turn, as they appear in the running order, while also elaborating on the intellectual and political context for the special issue as a whole. Paralleling the special issue, this introduction begins by setting out the problem of understanding the very notion of unpredictability itself as …
Unpredictability as doctrine: Reconceptualising foreign policy strategy in the Trump era
This article tackles the question of whether US President Donald Trump’s foreign policy is informed by doctrine and, if so, what that doctrine is. In doing so, it positions itself with those who argue for the presence of a doctrine and specifically those who argue for a doctrine of unpredictability. The article problematises current understandings of doctrine, and the notion of unpredictability itself. The tendency to rely on the rational decisio…
Obama Doctrine
British Historical Writing
This chapter studies British historical writing, tracing its transformations from the end of the war—when, arguably, much of the late nineteenth-century empiricist agenda was still intact, and political history continued to dominate—through signal events such as the founding of a new journal of radical historiography called Past and Present (1952), to the advent of neoconservatism in the 1980s, the puffing up and eventual bursting of the bubble o…
Life in the Age of Drone Warfare
Enough is enough: The UK Prevent Strategy and normative invalidation
The clash between national security and civil rights comprises one of the most controversial aspects of counter-radicalisation strategy. Analysts present this as a conflict between the need for restrictive security measures (for example, surveillance) and the need to uphold civil liberties (for example, privacy and freedom of speech). In responding to this dilemma, the article examines how this binary normative struggle impacts on the rhetorical …
Fetishised data: Counterterrorism, drone warfare and pilot testimony
Drones now comprise a major part of our culture – primarily as a consequence of the so-called War on Terror and the rise in violent extremism. Yet the available data on what it means to operate a drone (where this can influence wider perceptions on the appropriateness and effectiveness of remote warfare as an act of counterterrorism) is highly contradictory. This article explores a new source of data capable of shedding light on this contested is…
The intervention taboo(s): Strategy and normative invalidation
Intervention comprises one of the most contentious issues in International Relations. This controversy results from the way normative understanding is structured around two key, but mutually exclusive, taboos: the moral expectation to respond in cases of humanitarian need and the protection of state sovereignty. In examining this dilemma, this article asks: what happens to the construction of rhetorical strategy, where that strategy seeks to just…
Trigger warnings and the student experience
The use of trigger warnings (TW) in higher education (HE) is a point of significant contention. Discussion has centred on academic perspectives. This study turns that around to ask what the student experiences of TW are, how they are perceived, and what this contributes to the existing debate. Based on survey and focus group data from two undergraduate modules, this article demonstrates that students are similarly divided on TW. It also re-assess…
Instability and incoherence: Trump, Syria, and chemical weapons
On 4 April 2017, the town of Khan Shaykhun in northern Syria was hit with chemical weapons. More than 70 people were killed by sarin. The finger of blame is still squarely pointed at Syrian Preside
Trump's 100 days: Foreign Policy and Security Implications - Introduction
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Critical Studies on Security on 25 July 2017, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/21624887.2017.1355153\n\n‘I think the 100 days is, you know, it’s an artificial barrier. It’s not very meaningful,’ Trump (2017) declared in an April 2017 interview. Yet candidate Trump (2016) had also issued a ‘100 day action plan to Make America Great Again’. The first ‘…
Scenes of a disturbing nature: Trigger Warnings
Slate magazine declared 2013 the ‘Year of the Trigger Warning’ (Marcotte 2013), emphasising the way that trigger warnings have become a significant feature of online interaction. A trigger warning
The Problem With the Chemical Weapons Taboo
The chemical weapons taboo—the idea that chemical weapons are prohibitively abhorrent—has recently taken a leading role in international politics. In Syria, the taboo has comprised an imperative fo
America's search for security: The triumph of idealism and the return of realism. By Sean Kay
Journal Article America's search for security: the triumph of idealism and the return of realism. By Sean Kay Get access America's search for security: the triumph of idealism and the return of realism. By Sean Kay. London: Rowman and Littlefield. 2014. 330pp. £51.25. ISBN 9781 44222 5626. Available as e-book. Michelle Bentley Michelle Bentley 1Royal Holloway University of London, UK Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Googl…
An ecological public health approach to understanding the relationships between sustainable urban environments, public health and social equity
The environmental determinants of public health and social equity present many challenges to a sustainable urbanism-climate change, water shortages and oil dependency to name a few. There are many pathways from urban environments to human health. Numerous links have been described but some underlying mechanisms behind these relationships are less understood. Combining theory and methods is a way of understanding and explaining how the underlying …
Health promotion in Australian multi-disciplinary primary health care services: Case studies from South Australia and the Northern Territory
This paper reports on the health promotion and disease prevention conducted at Australian multi-disciplinary primary health care (PHC) services and considers the ways in which the organizational environment affects the extent and type of health promotion and disease prevention activity. The study involves five PHC services in Adelaide and one in Alice Springs. Four are managed by a state health department and two by boards of governance. The stud…
Weapons of Mass Destruction and US Foreign Policy: The Strategic Use of a Concept
Strategic taboos: Chemical weapons and US foreign policy
This article examines US President Barack Obama's foreign policy rhetoric on Syria, specifically in relation to the threat of chemical weapons and the prohibitionary taboo surrounding their use. It contends that Obama's rhetorical construction of the taboo is not simply a commitment to the control of these horrific weapons (where such arms have been comprehended as so extensively vile as to preclude their employment), but that this also represent…
War and/of Words: Constructing WMD in US Foreign Policy
This article provides an examination of the use of concepts— specifically “weapons of mass destruction” (WMD)—in security discourse. There are two key aspects to this discussion. First, the paper disputes current perceptions of WMD conceptual meaning. By analyzing the origins of the concept within the context of US foreign policy c.1945–48, it will be shown that, far from the fixed concept this has been assumed to be, WMD has been defined in a wi…
Responding to racism: Insights on how racism can damage health from an urban study of Australian Aboriginal people
Racism, social resources and mental health for Aboriginal people living in Adelaide
Fetishised data: Counterterrorism, drone warfare and pilot testimony
Drones now comprise a major part of our culture – primarily as a consequence of the so-called War on Terror and the rise in violent extremism. Yet the available data on what it means to operate a drone (where this can influence wider perceptions on the appropriateness and effectiveness of remote warfare as an act of counterterrorism) is highly contradictory. This article explores a new source of data capable of shedding light on this contested is…
Introduction: Trump and unpredictability in international relations
This article introduces the special issue on Trump and unpredictability in international relations. It analyses each of the contributions to the special issue in turn, as they appear in the running order, while also elaborating on the intellectual and political context for the special issue as a whole. Paralleling the special issue, this introduction begins by setting out the problem of understanding the very notion of unpredictability itself as …
Unpredictability as doctrine: Reconceptualising foreign policy strategy in the Trump era
This article tackles the question of whether US President Donald Trump’s foreign policy is informed by doctrine and, if so, what that doctrine is. In doing so, it positions itself with those who argue for the presence of a doctrine and specifically those who argue for a doctrine of unpredictability. The article problematises current understandings of doctrine, and the notion of unpredictability itself. The tendency to rely on the rational decisio…
A New Model of “Taboo”: Disgust, Stigmatization, and Fetishization
The conceptualization of taboo within international relations (IR)—that is, what we understand to be taboo—is inadequate. Specifically, current analysis fails to sufficiently distinguish between taboo and non-taboo forms of prohibitory norm, where this failure often facilitates a tendency (explicit or implicit) to comprehend the concept primarily in terms of actor compliance with a taboo in question. This understanding is shown here to be analyti…
Strategic taboos: Chemical weapons and US foreign policy
This article examines US President Barack Obama's foreign policy rhetoric on Syria, specifically in relation to the threat of chemical weapons and the prohibitionary taboo surrounding their use. It contends that Obama's rhetorical construction of the taboo is not simply a commitment to the control of these horrific weapons (where such arms have been comprehended as so extensively vile as to preclude their employment), but that this also represent…
Strategic ambiguity and chemical warfare in Ukraine
This article revisits the concept of strategic ambiguity to identify and critically assess the overlooked role of international norms. Addressing a significant gap within the existing analysis of strategic ambiguity which fails to fully explain the role of norms, the article demonstrates how international norms construct and function within deliberately ambiguous foreign policy as the normative exploitation of epistemic ambiguity. Yet the article…
Enough is enough: The UK Prevent Strategy and normative invalidation
The clash between national security and civil rights comprises one of the most controversial aspects of counter-radicalisation strategy. Analysts present this as a conflict between the need for restrictive security measures (for example, surveillance) and the need to uphold civil liberties (for example, privacy and freedom of speech). In responding to this dilemma, the article examines how this binary normative struggle impacts on the rhetorical …
Trigger warnings and the student experience
The use of trigger warnings (TW) in higher education (HE) is a point of significant contention. Discussion has centred on academic perspectives. This study turns that around to ask what the student experiences of TW are, how they are perceived, and what this contributes to the existing debate. Based on survey and focus group data from two undergraduate modules, this article demonstrates that students are similarly divided on TW. It also re-assess…
The Problem With the Chemical Weapons Taboo
The chemical weapons taboo—the idea that chemical weapons are prohibitively abhorrent—has recently taken a leading role in international politics. In Syria, the taboo has comprised an imperative fo
The intervention taboo(s): Strategy and normative invalidation
Intervention comprises one of the most contentious issues in International Relations. This controversy results from the way normative understanding is structured around two key, but mutually exclusive, taboos: the moral expectation to respond in cases of humanitarian need and the protection of state sovereignty. In examining this dilemma, this article asks: what happens to the construction of rhetorical strategy, where that strategy seeks to just…
Instability and incoherence: Trump, Syria, and chemical weapons
On 4 April 2017, the town of Khan Shaykhun in northern Syria was hit with chemical weapons. More than 70 people were killed by sarin. The finger of blame is still squarely pointed at Syrian Preside
Trump's 100 days: Foreign Policy and Security Implications - Introduction
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Critical Studies on Security on 25 July 2017, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/21624887.2017.1355153\n\n‘I think the 100 days is, you know, it’s an artificial barrier. It’s not very meaningful,’ Trump (2017) declared in an April 2017 interview. Yet candidate Trump (2016) had also issued a ‘100 day action plan to Make America Great Again’. The first ‘…
War and/of Words: Constructing WMD in US Foreign Policy
This article provides an examination of the use of concepts— specifically “weapons of mass destruction” (WMD)—in security discourse. There are two key aspects to this discussion. First, the paper disputes current perceptions of WMD conceptual meaning. By analyzing the origins of the concept within the context of US foreign policy c.1945–48, it will be shown that, far from the fixed concept this has been assumed to be, WMD has been defined in a wi…
The Long Goodbye: Beyond an Essentialist Construction of WMD
This article responds to an earlier article by Christian Enemark to reassess the concept of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). How is the concept defined and can it be removed from policy and academic discourse? Firstly, this paper contests the reduction of WMD to mean a fixed set of armaments (nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons). In contrast to this essentialist approach, it uses American archival and policy examples to demonstrate that t…
Gladstonian Liberals and Provincial Notables: Whitby Politics, 1868-80
Journal Article Gladstonian Liberals and Provincial Notables: Whitby Politics, 1868–80 Get access Michael Bentley Michael Bentley Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Historical Research, Volume 64, Issue 154, June 1991, Pages 172–185, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2281.1991.tb01792.x Published: 12 October 2007
Modernizing England's Past: English Historiography in the Age of Modernism, 1870–1970
What came before 'postmodernism' in historical studies? By thinking through the assumptions, methods and cast of mind of English historians writing between about 1870 and 1970, this book reveals the intellectual world of the modernists and offers a full analysis of English historiography in this crucial period. Modernist historiography set itself the objective of going beyond the colourful narratives of 'whigs' and 'popularizers' in order to esta…
Healthy Cities, local environmental action and climate change
This paper reports results of a study that explored the relationship between the local environmental actions of Healthy Cities programs and the adverse health impacts of climate change. The analysis is primarily based on a limited literature review of climate change and health, with particular attention to the relationships between Healthy Cities and climate change, and on documentary analysis of information from organization reports and website …
Putting Sustainability into Healthy Cities: Reflections from a University Short Course
An investigation of the ways in which public health nutrition policy and practices can address climate change
Objective To develop a framework to guide action in the public health nutrition workforce to develop policies and practices addressing factors contributing to climate change. Design Action/consultative research. Setting Interviews – South Australia, questionnaire – Australia. Subjects Interviews – key informants ( n 6) were from various government, academic and non-government positions, invited through email. Questionnaire – participants were mem…
Methodism, Science and the Natural World: Some Tensions in the Thought of Herbert Butterfield
It is no longer a name that everyone knows. At the height of his fame as historian and broadcaster, Herbert Butterfield (1900–1979) reached into homes and schools through his varied activities and established a public reputation far beyond Cambridge University, where he spent the entirety of his working life from 1923 to his retirement in 1968, and among people who knew nothing of his small and idiosyncratic college, Peterhouse, to which he had a…
Adapting to Climate Change in a Way that Promotes Social Equity and Health: An Examination of South Australia’s Tackling Climate Change Strategy
Developed over a five-year period, Tackling Climate Change has six specific and two crosscutting goals aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and responding and adapting to climate change. The focus of this paper is on the specific Community goal and the cross-cutting Adaptation goal. The Australian policy cycle is used to consider the effectiveness of the development of these goals and the resultant objectives, strategies and actions. The l…
Racism, social resources and mental health for Aboriginal people living in Adelaide
WMD Terrorism: Defining ‘Mass Destruction’ in US Law
This article examines the definition of ‘weapons of mass destruction’ in US law. Specifically, a number of high-profile terrorist incidents have resulted in prosecution on the grounds of WMD use, despite the fact that the weapons employed do not fit a ‘typical’ understanding of WMD as exclusively nuclear, biological, chemical and radiological devices. In discussing this apparent contradiction, it is concluded that there exists no essentialist con…
Responding to racism: Insights on how racism can damage health from an urban study of Australian Aboriginal people
The Long Goodbye: Beyond an Essentialist Construction of WMD
This article responds to an earlier article by Christian Enemark to reassess the concept of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). How is the concept defined and can it be removed from policy and academic discourse? Firstly, this paper contests the reduction of WMD to mean a fixed set of armaments (nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons). In contrast to this essentialist approach, it uses American archival and policy examples to demonstrate that t…
War and/of Words: Constructing WMD in US Foreign Policy
This article provides an examination of the use of concepts— specifically “weapons of mass destruction” (WMD)—in security discourse. There are two key aspects to this discussion. First, the paper disputes current perceptions of WMD conceptual meaning. By analyzing the origins of the concept within the context of US foreign policy c.1945–48, it will be shown that, far from the fixed concept this has been assumed to be, WMD has been defined in a wi…
An ecological public health approach to understanding the relationships between sustainable urban environments, public health and social equity
The environmental determinants of public health and social equity present many challenges to a sustainable urbanism-climate change, water shortages and oil dependency to name a few. There are many pathways from urban environments to human health. Numerous links have been described but some underlying mechanisms behind these relationships are less understood. Combining theory and methods is a way of understanding and explaining how the underlying …
Health promotion in Australian multi-disciplinary primary health care services: Case studies from South Australia and the Northern Territory
This paper reports on the health promotion and disease prevention conducted at Australian multi-disciplinary primary health care (PHC) services and considers the ways in which the organizational environment affects the extent and type of health promotion and disease prevention activity. The study involves five PHC services in Adelaide and one in Alice Springs. Four are managed by a state health department and two by boards of governance. The stud…
Weapons of Mass Destruction and US Foreign Policy: The Strategic Use of a Concept
Strategic taboos: Chemical weapons and US foreign policy
This article examines US President Barack Obama's foreign policy rhetoric on Syria, specifically in relation to the threat of chemical weapons and the prohibitionary taboo surrounding their use. It contends that Obama's rhetorical construction of the taboo is not simply a commitment to the control of these horrific weapons (where such arms have been comprehended as so extensively vile as to preclude their employment), but that this also represent…
The Problem With the Chemical Weapons Taboo
The chemical weapons taboo—the idea that chemical weapons are prohibitively abhorrent—has recently taken a leading role in international politics. In Syria, the taboo has comprised an imperative fo
America's search for security: The triumph of idealism and the return of realism. By Sean Kay
Journal Article America's search for security: the triumph of idealism and the return of realism. By Sean Kay Get access America's search for security: the triumph of idealism and the return of realism. By Sean Kay. London: Rowman and Littlefield. 2014. 330pp. £51.25. ISBN 9781 44222 5626. Available as e-book. Michelle Bentley Michelle Bentley 1Royal Holloway University of London, UK Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Googl…
Scenes of a disturbing nature: Trigger Warnings
Slate magazine declared 2013 the ‘Year of the Trigger Warning’ (Marcotte 2013), emphasising the way that trigger warnings have become a significant feature of online interaction. A trigger warning
Fetishised data: Counterterrorism, drone warfare and pilot testimony
Drones now comprise a major part of our culture – primarily as a consequence of the so-called War on Terror and the rise in violent extremism. Yet the available data on what it means to operate a drone (where this can influence wider perceptions on the appropriateness and effectiveness of remote warfare as an act of counterterrorism) is highly contradictory. This article explores a new source of data capable of shedding light on this contested is…
The intervention taboo(s): Strategy and normative invalidation
Intervention comprises one of the most contentious issues in International Relations. This controversy results from the way normative understanding is structured around two key, but mutually exclusive, taboos: the moral expectation to respond in cases of humanitarian need and the protection of state sovereignty. In examining this dilemma, this article asks: what happens to the construction of rhetorical strategy, where that strategy seeks to just…
Trigger warnings and the student experience
The use of trigger warnings (TW) in higher education (HE) is a point of significant contention. Discussion has centred on academic perspectives. This study turns that around to ask what the student experiences of TW are, how they are perceived, and what this contributes to the existing debate. Based on survey and focus group data from two undergraduate modules, this article demonstrates that students are similarly divided on TW. It also re-assess…
Instability and incoherence: Trump, Syria, and chemical weapons
On 4 April 2017, the town of Khan Shaykhun in northern Syria was hit with chemical weapons. More than 70 people were killed by sarin. The finger of blame is still squarely pointed at Syrian Preside
Trump's 100 days: Foreign Policy and Security Implications - Introduction
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Critical Studies on Security on 25 July 2017, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/21624887.2017.1355153\n\n‘I think the 100 days is, you know, it’s an artificial barrier. It’s not very meaningful,’ Trump (2017) declared in an April 2017 interview. Yet candidate Trump (2016) had also issued a ‘100 day action plan to Make America Great Again’. The first ‘…
British Historical Writing
This chapter studies British historical writing, tracing its transformations from the end of the war—when, arguably, much of the late nineteenth-century empiricist agenda was still intact, and political history continued to dominate—through signal events such as the founding of a new journal of radical historiography called Past and Present (1952), to the advent of neoconservatism in the 1980s, the puffing up and eventual bursting of the bubble o…
Political science (24 works) · Sociology (21 works) · Law (16 works) · Politics (16 works) · Epistemology (14 works) · Philosophy (12 works) · Computer Science (10 works) · International Relations and Foreign Policy (9 works) · Law (9 works) · Law and economics (8 works)