Ty Solomon
Biographic Data
| ID | 3686532 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Ty Solomon |
| GIVEN NAMES | Ty |
| FAMILY NAME | Solomon |
| SIGNATURE | SOLOMON T |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Glasgow |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5504-3305 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 408 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 19 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Forum
This forum, as a part of the special issue on New Directions for Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA), provides a diversity of answers to the question of how affects and emotions, and the search for ontological security, relate to foreign policy. By foregrounding the various ways to conceive the relationship between foreign policy, ontological security, collective identities, states’ autobiographical narratives, emotions and affective investments, the c…
Up in the air
How did the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement of 2020 resonate at a global level? And how did the ritual practices of the movement spread internationally? International Relations (IR) has seen increasing interest in the role of rituals in global politics, and the wider literature on rituals often explores their stabilizing effects while noting how rituals function by working on the collective emotions of participants. Yet what particular kinds of…
Rhythm and Mobilization in International Relations
International Relations (IR) has rarely considered rhythm as a topic of analytical attention. Yet rhythms permeate many social and political phenomena, and their study contributes to core debates and empirical insights in contemporary IR. Rhythms are similar to but distinct from other forms of repetitive, iterative social action that have garnered increasing interest in IR, such as practices, habits, and routines. Each of these phenomena has rhyt…
Discourse and Emotions in International Relations
The field of International Relations (IR) has recently witnessed the emergence of a wide variety of different approaches to make sense of the many ways emotions work in and through discourse. This forum takes stock of and investigates this link based on two interrelated questions: Why study emotions through discourse? How can we study emotions through discourse? Concerning the first question, we argue that textual and verbal utterances provide us…
Ontological security, circulations of affect, and the Arab Spring
Temporality and insecurity in international practices
The violence of slavery bars Blacks from the psychic commons of the state and civil society, ab initio . Blackness is often misconstrued as an identity of the Human community, but no Black temporality is antecedent to the temporality of the Slave. In Ecrits , Jacques Lacan makes a striking assertion about the role of death in the formation of the subject: The death instinct essentially expresses the limit of the historical function of the subject…
Micro-moves in International Relations theory
This article posits empirical and political reasons for recent 'micro-moves' in several contemporary debates, and seeks to further develop them in future International Relations studies. As evidenced by growing trends in studies of practices, emotions and the everyday, there is continuing broad dissatisfaction with grand or structural theory's value without 'going down' to 'lower levels' of analysis where structures are enacted and contested. We …
The Politics of Subjectivity in American Foreign Policy Discourses
Why are some discourses more politically efficacious than others? Seeking answers to this question, Ty Solomon develops a new theoretical approach to the study of affect, identity, and discourse—core phenomena whose mutual interweaving have yet to be fully analyzed in International Relations. Drawing upon Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytic theory and Ernesto Laclau's approach to hegemonic politics, Solomon argues that prevailing discourses offer subt…
Circulations of Affect in International Conflict
Journal Article Circulations of Affect in International Conflict Get access Mixed Emotions: Beyond Fear and Hatred in International Conflict. By Ross Andrew A. G. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2014. 232 pp., $85.00 hardcover (ISBN-13: 978-0-226-07739-0). Ty Solomon Ty Solomon Reviewer School of Social and Political Sciences University of Glasgow Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Internatio…
Time and Subjectivity in World Politics
Critically inclined International Relations (IR) scholars have recently turned to examining the issue of time and its implications for world politics. However, there has yet to be a thorough account of how a focus on temporality deepens our understanding of one of the field's core concepts: subjectivity. Drawing upon insights from psychoanalytic theory, this paper argues that the discursive decentering of subjectivity (long a focus in poststructu…
The affective underpinnings of soft power
The concept of soft power occupies a prominent place in International Relations, foreign policy, and security studies. Primarily developed by Joseph S. Nye, the concept is typically drawn upon to emphasize the more intangible dimensions of power in a field long dominated by overtly material (i.e. military) power. Recently, some scholars have reframed soft power — specifically the key notion of attraction — as a narrative and linguistic process. T…
Wmd, Wmd, WMD
We seek to reinvigorate and clarify the Copenhagen School's insight that 'security' is not 'a sign that refers to something more real; the utterance ['security'] itself is the act'. We conceptualise the utterances of securitising actors as consisting not in arguments so much as in repetitive spouting of ambiguous phrases (WMD, rogue states, ethnic cleansing). We further propose that audience acceptance consists not in persuasion so much as in joi…
Affect is what states make of it
This article considers the politics of affect and official discourses of ‘9/11’. Drawing on the work of William Connolly and others, it is argued that to understand the resonance of dominant constructions of ‘9/11’ it is necessary to revisit their successful incorporation of prevalent American affective experiences of September 11th. To date, this relationship between affect, resonance, and discourse has been underexplored in International Relati…
Resonances of neoconservatism
Since 2003, scholars and pundits alike have vigorously debated the role of neoconservatism in the run-up to the US invasion of Iraq. Few, however, have examined the power of neoconservatism in terms of its resonance on an affective level. To more fully understand the influence that neoconservatism has had in recent US foreign policy debates, this article argues that scholarly analyses should also examine what could be termed its discursive effica…
WMD
The danger posed by “weapons of mass destruction” (WMD) was the Bush administration’s chief justification for invading Iraq. Amid the din of the chorus that ceaselessly repeated this phrase in 2002-2003, hardly anyone stopped to ask: what is “WMD” anyway? Is it not a mutable social construct rather than a timeless, self-evident concept? Guided by Nietzsche’s view of the truth as a “mobile army of metaphors [and] metonyms ... which have been enhan…
Attachment, tautology, and ontological security
No abstract available
I wasn't angry, because I couldn't believe it was happening’
While the recent interest in affects and emotions in world politics is encouraging, the crucial relationships between affect, emotion, and discourse have remained largely under-examined. This article offers a framework for understanding the relations between affect and discourse by drawing upon the theories of Jacques Lacan. Lacan conceptualises affect as an experience which lies beyond the realm of discourse, yet nevertheless has an effect upon …
Social Logics and Normalisation in the War on Terror
Many have noted how the Bush administration’s linking of Iraq to the war on terror lent a certain degree of legitimacy to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Few scholars who have noted this linkage, however, have theorised about the specific discursive mechanisms that allowed Iraq to be incorporated and normalised within the war on terror. This article utilises the theoretical framework of Ernesto Laclau to analyse how ‘Iraq’ was (re)constructed as a thr…
Norms and Human Rights in International Relations
The three volumes on human rights reviewed here constitute the first wave of in-depth case studies of human rights from a constructivist approach in international relations. By acknowledging the theoretical contributions of these works, identifying their shortcomings and engaging in critiques of the authors’ conceptions of identity and norms, this article provides direction for future studies on human rights through the constructivist framework
Micro-moves in International Relations theory
This article posits empirical and political reasons for recent 'micro-moves' in several contemporary debates, and seeks to further develop them in future International Relations studies. As evidenced by growing trends in studies of practices, emotions and the everyday, there is continuing broad dissatisfaction with grand or structural theory's value without 'going down' to 'lower levels' of analysis where structures are enacted and contested. We …
Discourse and Emotions in International Relations
The field of International Relations (IR) has recently witnessed the emergence of a wide variety of different approaches to make sense of the many ways emotions work in and through discourse. This forum takes stock of and investigates this link based on two interrelated questions: Why study emotions through discourse? How can we study emotions through discourse? Concerning the first question, we argue that textual and verbal utterances provide us…
Time and Subjectivity in World Politics
Critically inclined International Relations (IR) scholars have recently turned to examining the issue of time and its implications for world politics. However, there has yet to be a thorough account of how a focus on temporality deepens our understanding of one of the field's core concepts: subjectivity. Drawing upon insights from psychoanalytic theory, this paper argues that the discursive decentering of subjectivity (long a focus in poststructu…
Wmd, Wmd, WMD
We seek to reinvigorate and clarify the Copenhagen School's insight that 'security' is not 'a sign that refers to something more real; the utterance ['security'] itself is the act'. We conceptualise the utterances of securitising actors as consisting not in arguments so much as in repetitive spouting of ambiguous phrases (WMD, rogue states, ethnic cleansing). We further propose that audience acceptance consists not in persuasion so much as in joi…
I wasn't angry, because I couldn't believe it was happening’
While the recent interest in affects and emotions in world politics is encouraging, the crucial relationships between affect, emotion, and discourse have remained largely under-examined. This article offers a framework for understanding the relations between affect and discourse by drawing upon the theories of Jacques Lacan. Lacan conceptualises affect as an experience which lies beyond the realm of discourse, yet nevertheless has an effect upon …
The affective underpinnings of soft power
The concept of soft power occupies a prominent place in International Relations, foreign policy, and security studies. Primarily developed by Joseph S. Nye, the concept is typically drawn upon to emphasize the more intangible dimensions of power in a field long dominated by overtly material (i.e. military) power. Recently, some scholars have reframed soft power — specifically the key notion of attraction — as a narrative and linguistic process. T…
Ontological security, circulations of affect, and the Arab Spring
Rhythm and Mobilization in International Relations
International Relations (IR) has rarely considered rhythm as a topic of analytical attention. Yet rhythms permeate many social and political phenomena, and their study contributes to core debates and empirical insights in contemporary IR. Rhythms are similar to but distinct from other forms of repetitive, iterative social action that have garnered increasing interest in IR, such as practices, habits, and routines. Each of these phenomena has rhyt…
Resonances of neoconservatism
Since 2003, scholars and pundits alike have vigorously debated the role of neoconservatism in the run-up to the US invasion of Iraq. Few, however, have examined the power of neoconservatism in terms of its resonance on an affective level. To more fully understand the influence that neoconservatism has had in recent US foreign policy debates, this article argues that scholarly analyses should also examine what could be termed its discursive effica…
Up in the air
How did the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement of 2020 resonate at a global level? And how did the ritual practices of the movement spread internationally? International Relations (IR) has seen increasing interest in the role of rituals in global politics, and the wider literature on rituals often explores their stabilizing effects while noting how rituals function by working on the collective emotions of participants. Yet what particular kinds of…
Social Logics and Normalisation in the War on Terror
Many have noted how the Bush administration’s linking of Iraq to the war on terror lent a certain degree of legitimacy to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Few scholars who have noted this linkage, however, have theorised about the specific discursive mechanisms that allowed Iraq to be incorporated and normalised within the war on terror. This article utilises the theoretical framework of Ernesto Laclau to analyse how ‘Iraq’ was (re)constructed as a thr…
Affect is what states make of it
This article considers the politics of affect and official discourses of ‘9/11’. Drawing on the work of William Connolly and others, it is argued that to understand the resonance of dominant constructions of ‘9/11’ it is necessary to revisit their successful incorporation of prevalent American affective experiences of September 11th. To date, this relationship between affect, resonance, and discourse has been underexplored in International Relati…
Attachment, tautology, and ontological security
No abstract available
Norms and Human Rights in International Relations
The three volumes on human rights reviewed here constitute the first wave of in-depth case studies of human rights from a constructivist approach in international relations. By acknowledging the theoretical contributions of these works, identifying their shortcomings and engaging in critiques of the authors’ conceptions of identity and norms, this article provides direction for future studies on human rights through the constructivist framework
WMD
The danger posed by “weapons of mass destruction” (WMD) was the Bush administration’s chief justification for invading Iraq. Amid the din of the chorus that ceaselessly repeated this phrase in 2002-2003, hardly anyone stopped to ask: what is “WMD” anyway? Is it not a mutable social construct rather than a timeless, self-evident concept? Guided by Nietzsche’s view of the truth as a “mobile army of metaphors [and] metonyms ... which have been enhan…
Norms and Human Rights in International Relations
The three volumes on human rights reviewed here constitute the first wave of in-depth case studies of human rights from a constructivist approach in international relations. By acknowledging the theoretical contributions of these works, identifying their shortcomings and engaging in critiques of the authors’ conceptions of identity and norms, this article provides direction for future studies on human rights through the constructivist framework
Social Logics and Normalisation in the War on Terror
Many have noted how the Bush administration’s linking of Iraq to the war on terror lent a certain degree of legitimacy to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Few scholars who have noted this linkage, however, have theorised about the specific discursive mechanisms that allowed Iraq to be incorporated and normalised within the war on terror. This article utilises the theoretical framework of Ernesto Laclau to analyse how ‘Iraq’ was (re)constructed as a thr…
I wasn't angry, because I couldn't believe it was happening’
While the recent interest in affects and emotions in world politics is encouraging, the crucial relationships between affect, emotion, and discourse have remained largely under-examined. This article offers a framework for understanding the relations between affect and discourse by drawing upon the theories of Jacques Lacan. Lacan conceptualises affect as an experience which lies beyond the realm of discourse, yet nevertheless has an effect upon …
Resonances of neoconservatism
Since 2003, scholars and pundits alike have vigorously debated the role of neoconservatism in the run-up to the US invasion of Iraq. Few, however, have examined the power of neoconservatism in terms of its resonance on an affective level. To more fully understand the influence that neoconservatism has had in recent US foreign policy debates, this article argues that scholarly analyses should also examine what could be termed its discursive effica…
WMD
The danger posed by “weapons of mass destruction” (WMD) was the Bush administration’s chief justification for invading Iraq. Amid the din of the chorus that ceaselessly repeated this phrase in 2002-2003, hardly anyone stopped to ask: what is “WMD” anyway? Is it not a mutable social construct rather than a timeless, self-evident concept? Guided by Nietzsche’s view of the truth as a “mobile army of metaphors [and] metonyms ... which have been enhan…
Attachment, tautology, and ontological security
No abstract available
Time and Subjectivity in World Politics
Critically inclined International Relations (IR) scholars have recently turned to examining the issue of time and its implications for world politics. However, there has yet to be a thorough account of how a focus on temporality deepens our understanding of one of the field's core concepts: subjectivity. Drawing upon insights from psychoanalytic theory, this paper argues that the discursive decentering of subjectivity (long a focus in poststructu…
The affective underpinnings of soft power
The concept of soft power occupies a prominent place in International Relations, foreign policy, and security studies. Primarily developed by Joseph S. Nye, the concept is typically drawn upon to emphasize the more intangible dimensions of power in a field long dominated by overtly material (i.e. military) power. Recently, some scholars have reframed soft power — specifically the key notion of attraction — as a narrative and linguistic process. T…
Wmd, Wmd, WMD
We seek to reinvigorate and clarify the Copenhagen School's insight that 'security' is not 'a sign that refers to something more real; the utterance ['security'] itself is the act'. We conceptualise the utterances of securitising actors as consisting not in arguments so much as in repetitive spouting of ambiguous phrases (WMD, rogue states, ethnic cleansing). We further propose that audience acceptance consists not in persuasion so much as in joi…
Affect is what states make of it
This article considers the politics of affect and official discourses of ‘9/11’. Drawing on the work of William Connolly and others, it is argued that to understand the resonance of dominant constructions of ‘9/11’ it is necessary to revisit their successful incorporation of prevalent American affective experiences of September 11th. To date, this relationship between affect, resonance, and discourse has been underexplored in International Relati…
The Politics of Subjectivity in American Foreign Policy Discourses
Why are some discourses more politically efficacious than others? Seeking answers to this question, Ty Solomon develops a new theoretical approach to the study of affect, identity, and discourse—core phenomena whose mutual interweaving have yet to be fully analyzed in International Relations. Drawing upon Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytic theory and Ernesto Laclau's approach to hegemonic politics, Solomon argues that prevailing discourses offer subt…
Circulations of Affect in International Conflict
Journal Article Circulations of Affect in International Conflict Get access Mixed Emotions: Beyond Fear and Hatred in International Conflict. By Ross Andrew A. G. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2014. 232 pp., $85.00 hardcover (ISBN-13: 978-0-226-07739-0). Ty Solomon Ty Solomon Reviewer School of Social and Political Sciences University of Glasgow Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Internatio…
Temporality and insecurity in international practices
The violence of slavery bars Blacks from the psychic commons of the state and civil society, ab initio . Blackness is often misconstrued as an identity of the Human community, but no Black temporality is antecedent to the temporality of the Slave. In Ecrits , Jacques Lacan makes a striking assertion about the role of death in the formation of the subject: The death instinct essentially expresses the limit of the historical function of the subject…
Micro-moves in International Relations theory
This article posits empirical and political reasons for recent 'micro-moves' in several contemporary debates, and seeks to further develop them in future International Relations studies. As evidenced by growing trends in studies of practices, emotions and the everyday, there is continuing broad dissatisfaction with grand or structural theory's value without 'going down' to 'lower levels' of analysis where structures are enacted and contested. We …
Discourse and Emotions in International Relations
The field of International Relations (IR) has recently witnessed the emergence of a wide variety of different approaches to make sense of the many ways emotions work in and through discourse. This forum takes stock of and investigates this link based on two interrelated questions: Why study emotions through discourse? How can we study emotions through discourse? Concerning the first question, we argue that textual and verbal utterances provide us…
Ontological security, circulations of affect, and the Arab Spring
Rhythm and Mobilization in International Relations
International Relations (IR) has rarely considered rhythm as a topic of analytical attention. Yet rhythms permeate many social and political phenomena, and their study contributes to core debates and empirical insights in contemporary IR. Rhythms are similar to but distinct from other forms of repetitive, iterative social action that have garnered increasing interest in IR, such as practices, habits, and routines. Each of these phenomena has rhyt…
Forum
This forum, as a part of the special issue on New Directions for Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA), provides a diversity of answers to the question of how affects and emotions, and the search for ontological security, relate to foreign policy. By foregrounding the various ways to conceive the relationship between foreign policy, ontological security, collective identities, states’ autobiographical narratives, emotions and affective investments, the c…
Up in the air
How did the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement of 2020 resonate at a global level? And how did the ritual practices of the movement spread internationally? International Relations (IR) has seen increasing interest in the role of rituals in global politics, and the wider literature on rituals often explores their stabilizing effects while noting how rituals function by working on the collective emotions of participants. Yet what particular kinds of…
Political science (16 works) · Law (15 works) · Sociology (15 works) · Epistemology (12 works) · Politics (12 works) · Law (11 works) · International Relations and Foreign Policy (9 works) · Aesthetics (7 works) · Gender, Security, and Conflict (7 works) · Global Security and Public Health (7 works)