Jennifer Mitzen
Biographic Data
| ID | 984617 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jennifer Mitzen |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jennifer |
| FAMILY NAME | Mitzen |
| SIGNATURE | MITZEN J |
| AFFILIATIONS | The Ohio State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1322-5033 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 24 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 708 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 24 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
New Perspectives on Trust in International Conflicts
This forum proposes to rethink the specific conditions and dynamics under which trust can endogenously emerge in international conflicts. Traditionally, International Relations (IR) scholars have viewed trust and conflict as opposites or antagonists, with trust being seen as essential to overcoming conflict, and conflict seen as corrosive of trust. However, this framing is of limited use when it comes to understanding the complex role of trust in…
The End of Empire and the Social Construction of the Nation-States System
The Politics of Pedagogy: The Problem of Order in the IR Classroom
The Hobbesian problem of order has been central to international relations (IR) pedagogy. What are the political implications of this pedagogy? Giving students conceptual tools to understand world politics feels vital in this moment of anxiety about the erosion of the current international order. But some of the deepest threats to international order are rooted in a multiplicity of justice claims. IR's explanatory orientation, and the many biases…
One Concept, Many Worlds: Teaching toward the Future in an Imperfect Discipline
An earlier version of this Research Note was presented as the Keynote Address at the ISA Northeast Conference November 2022. The conference theme was “Imagining World Futures: Exploring Alternative Visions of International Studies and World Politics in the Next 20–200 Years
The Dark Matter of World Politics: System Trust, Summits, and State Personhood
International relations theory has had a trust revival, with scholars focusing on how trust can enhance interpersonal cooperation attempts between leaders. We propose there is another type of trust at play in world politics. International system trust is a feeling of confidence in the international social order, which is indexed especially by trust in its central unit, state persons. System trust anchors ontological security, and its presence is …
Anxiety, fear, and ontological security in world politics: Thinking with and beyond Giddens
Research on ontological security in world politics has mushroomed since the early 2000s but seems to have reached an impasse. Ontological security is a conceptual lens for understanding subjectivity that focuses on the management of anxiety in self-constitution. Building especially on Giddens, IR scholars have emphasized how this translates to a need for cognitive consistency and biographical continuity – a security of ‘being.’ A criticism has be…
Anxiety, fear, and ontological security in world politics
This symposium addresses the role of anxiety, fear, and ontological (in)security in world politics. Proceeding from the recognition of the scholarly interest and multitude of approaches that characterize the field of ontological (in)security studies, the Symposium homes in on the relationship between anxiety and fear, and between anxiety, subjectivity, and agency. The Introduction critically engages with Anthony Giddens' understandings of ontolog…
Introduction to 2018 special issue of European Security: “Ontological (in)security in the European Union”
The European Union (EU) faces many crises and risks to its security and existence. While few of them threaten the lives of EU citizens, they all create a sense of anxiety and insecurity about the future for many ordinary Europeans. Amongst these crises are the more obvious challenges of sovereign debt and fiscal austerity; refugees from conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria; and the rise of populist far-right parties across Europe. But behind…
Ontological security and conflict: The dynamics of crisis and the constitution of community
Feeling at Home in Europe: Migration, Ontological Security, and the Political Psychology of EU Bordering
While the EU has long been understood as a postnational political project, stressors like migration have prompted “neo‐Westphalian” responses. For insight into such backsliding, I focus on the concept of home. A psychological need for home as a place of “being” is central to an ontological security approach to subjectivity, and home qualities that resonate psychologically underpin political projects such as the Westphalian homeland. At both level…
Ontological Security and Foreign Policy
In the early 21st century, a stream of international relations (IR) scholarship has emerged that interprets states’ foreign policy processes, decisions, and international outcomes through the lens of a distinctive type of security, ontological as opposed to “physical” or “material” security. It is a concept that helps us think about how the ability to make choices and take action depends critically on our sense of self, which is itself produced i…
Response to Barry Buzan and George Lawson’s Review of Power in Concert: The Nineteenth-Century Origins of Global Governance
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
An introduction to the special issue: Ontological securities in world politics
The research community of ontological security scholars is vibrant and wide-ranging, defined by a conceptual core and by the themes through which scholars register their disagreements. In this special issue we have collected some of the work that has been produced or inspired by discussions and meetings during the last few years. The goal is to showcase some of the breadth of insights and possibilities on the topic of ontological securities and i…
Security Communities and the Unthinkabilities of War
Scholarship on security communities often invokes a common goal: for war to become unthinkable. Unthinkable here means impossible, and states are considered to be most secure when war is unthinkable between them. Interestingly, the term unthinkable appears in policy discourse with nearly the opposite meaning, referring to wars that are eminently possible but horrifying to contemplate, such as war with a nuclear Iran. Taking this discrepancy as my…
From representation to governing: Diplomacy and the constitution of international public power
A goal of this volume is to gain analytic traction on what seem to be great changes in the character and effects of diplomacy by bringing international relations (IR) and social theory to bear on the question. Toward this end, the Introduction proposes that while diplomacy has long been understood as a practice of representation, it is now "about much more" in that it also is about governance (Introduction, 111). Several scholars have offered int…
Diplomacy and the Making of World Politics
This book examines world politics through the lens of diplomatic practice. It argues that many global phenomena of our time, from the making of international law to the constitution of international public power, through humanitarianism and the maintenance of global hierarchies, are made possible and shaped by evolving forms of diplomacy. The study of diplomacy is largely dominated by firsthand accounts and historical treaties, with little effort…
Illusion or Intention? Talking Grand Strategy into Existence
Richard Betts argued that strategy—the idea that a state's political ends could be reliably linked to its coercive means—is a necessary illusion. Without strategy, war is mindless killing; but its rationales cannot guide state choices because there is a yawning gap between the macro level where strategy is articulated and the micro level of day-to-day choices. That gap is particularly insurmountable when beginning, as Betts does, from a rationali…
Power in Concert: The Nineteenth-Century Origins of Global Governance
The Irony of Pinkerism
This is quite a book. Its sheer heft is daunting, its central claim bold and sweeping, its data relentless. While the planet goes “cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity,” Steven Pinker argues, the human species has been progressing. We have reduced the fear of violent death for an ever-greater proportion of the population across the centuries. Pinker argues that every sort of violence has declined, from interpersonal cruelty to interst…
The Return of Geopolitics in Europe?: Social Mechanisms and Foreign Policy Identity Crises
The end of the Cold War demonstrated the historical possibility of peaceful change and seemingly showed the superiority of non-realist approaches in International Relations. Yet in the post-Cold War period many European countries have experienced a resurgence of a distinctively realist tradition: geopolitics. Geopolitics is an approach which emphasizes the relationship between politics and power on the one hand; and territory, location and enviro…
Knowing the Unknown Unknowns: Misplaced Certainty and the Onset of War
International Relations (IR) theory grants a privileged place to uncertainty. In practice, however, the problem does not seem to be uncertainty but certainty: if only the decision makers would acknowledge uncertainty, conflict might somehow be avoided. We challenge the "uncertainty bias" of IR scholarship by developing misplaced certainty as a distinct and common pathway to war. By misplaced certainty we mean cases where decision makers are confi…
Anchoring Europe's civilizing identity: Habits, Capabilities and Ontological Security1
What effects might the deepening CFSP have on the EU's identity as a civilian and civilizing power? While greater military capabilities might seem to threaten that identity, raising the specter of 'great power Europe', such fears might not be warranted. Building on the assumption that actors need stable identities – in Anthony Giddens' term, ontological security – and achieve them by routinizing relations with significant others, I examine the ro…
Ontological Security in World Politics: State Identity and the Security Dilemma
This article proposes that in addition to physical security, states also seek ontological security, or security of the self. Ontological security is achieved by routinizing relationships with significant others, and actors therefore become attached to those relationships. Like its physical counterpart, the ontological security motive is a constant. But states may adhere to routines rigidly or reflexively, and variation in attachment style has imp…
Reading Habermas in Anarchy: Multilateral Diplomacy and Global Public Spheres
States routinely justify their policies in interstate forums, and this reason-giving seems to serve a legitimating function. But how could this be? For Habermas and other global public sphere theorists, the exchange of reasons oriented toward understanding-communicative action-is central to public sphere governance, where political power is held accountable to those affected. But most global public sphere theory considers communicative action onl…
Ontological Security in World Politics: State Identity and the Security Dilemma
This article proposes that in addition to physical security, states also seek ontological security, or security of the self. Ontological security is achieved by routinizing relationships with significant others, and actors therefore become attached to those relationships. Like its physical counterpart, the ontological security motive is a constant. But states may adhere to routines rigidly or reflexively, and variation in attachment style has imp…
Anchoring Europe's civilizing identity: Habits, Capabilities and Ontological Security1
What effects might the deepening CFSP have on the EU's identity as a civilian and civilizing power? While greater military capabilities might seem to threaten that identity, raising the specter of 'great power Europe', such fears might not be warranted. Building on the assumption that actors need stable identities – in Anthony Giddens' term, ontological security – and achieve them by routinizing relations with significant others, I examine the ro…
An introduction to the special issue: Ontological securities in world politics
The research community of ontological security scholars is vibrant and wide-ranging, defined by a conceptual core and by the themes through which scholars register their disagreements. In this special issue we have collected some of the work that has been produced or inspired by discussions and meetings during the last few years. The goal is to showcase some of the breadth of insights and possibilities on the topic of ontological securities and i…
Feeling at Home in Europe: Migration, Ontological Security, and the Political Psychology of EU Bordering
While the EU has long been understood as a postnational political project, stressors like migration have prompted “neo‐Westphalian” responses. For insight into such backsliding, I focus on the concept of home. A psychological need for home as a place of “being” is central to an ontological security approach to subjectivity, and home qualities that resonate psychologically underpin political projects such as the Westphalian homeland. At both level…
Anxiety, fear, and ontological security in world politics: Thinking with and beyond Giddens
Research on ontological security in world politics has mushroomed since the early 2000s but seems to have reached an impasse. Ontological security is a conceptual lens for understanding subjectivity that focuses on the management of anxiety in self-constitution. Building especially on Giddens, IR scholars have emphasized how this translates to a need for cognitive consistency and biographical continuity – a security of ‘being.’ A criticism has be…
Reading Habermas in Anarchy: Multilateral Diplomacy and Global Public Spheres
States routinely justify their policies in interstate forums, and this reason-giving seems to serve a legitimating function. But how could this be? For Habermas and other global public sphere theorists, the exchange of reasons oriented toward understanding-communicative action-is central to public sphere governance, where political power is held accountable to those affected. But most global public sphere theory considers communicative action onl…
Knowing the Unknown Unknowns: Misplaced Certainty and the Onset of War
International Relations (IR) theory grants a privileged place to uncertainty. In practice, however, the problem does not seem to be uncertainty but certainty: if only the decision makers would acknowledge uncertainty, conflict might somehow be avoided. We challenge the "uncertainty bias" of IR scholarship by developing misplaced certainty as a distinct and common pathway to war. By misplaced certainty we mean cases where decision makers are confi…
The Dark Matter of World Politics: System Trust, Summits, and State Personhood
International relations theory has had a trust revival, with scholars focusing on how trust can enhance interpersonal cooperation attempts between leaders. We propose there is another type of trust at play in world politics. International system trust is a feeling of confidence in the international social order, which is indexed especially by trust in its central unit, state persons. System trust anchors ontological security, and its presence is …
Ontological security and conflict: The dynamics of crisis and the constitution of community
Security Communities and the Unthinkabilities of War
Scholarship on security communities often invokes a common goal: for war to become unthinkable. Unthinkable here means impossible, and states are considered to be most secure when war is unthinkable between them. Interestingly, the term unthinkable appears in policy discourse with nearly the opposite meaning, referring to wars that are eminently possible but horrifying to contemplate, such as war with a nuclear Iran. Taking this discrepancy as my…
Illusion or Intention? Talking Grand Strategy into Existence
Richard Betts argued that strategy—the idea that a state's political ends could be reliably linked to its coercive means—is a necessary illusion. Without strategy, war is mindless killing; but its rationales cannot guide state choices because there is a yawning gap between the macro level where strategy is articulated and the micro level of day-to-day choices. That gap is particularly insurmountable when beginning, as Betts does, from a rationali…
The Irony of Pinkerism
This is quite a book. Its sheer heft is daunting, its central claim bold and sweeping, its data relentless. While the planet goes “cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity,” Steven Pinker argues, the human species has been progressing. We have reduced the fear of violent death for an ever-greater proportion of the population across the centuries. Pinker argues that every sort of violence has declined, from interpersonal cruelty to interst…
One Concept, Many Worlds: Teaching toward the Future in an Imperfect Discipline
An earlier version of this Research Note was presented as the Keynote Address at the ISA Northeast Conference November 2022. The conference theme was “Imagining World Futures: Exploring Alternative Visions of International Studies and World Politics in the Next 20–200 Years
New Perspectives on Trust in International Conflicts
This forum proposes to rethink the specific conditions and dynamics under which trust can endogenously emerge in international conflicts. Traditionally, International Relations (IR) scholars have viewed trust and conflict as opposites or antagonists, with trust being seen as essential to overcoming conflict, and conflict seen as corrosive of trust. However, this framing is of limited use when it comes to understanding the complex role of trust in…
Reading Habermas in Anarchy: Multilateral Diplomacy and Global Public Spheres
States routinely justify their policies in interstate forums, and this reason-giving seems to serve a legitimating function. But how could this be? For Habermas and other global public sphere theorists, the exchange of reasons oriented toward understanding-communicative action-is central to public sphere governance, where political power is held accountable to those affected. But most global public sphere theory considers communicative action onl…
Anchoring Europe's civilizing identity: Habits, Capabilities and Ontological Security1
What effects might the deepening CFSP have on the EU's identity as a civilian and civilizing power? While greater military capabilities might seem to threaten that identity, raising the specter of 'great power Europe', such fears might not be warranted. Building on the assumption that actors need stable identities – in Anthony Giddens' term, ontological security – and achieve them by routinizing relations with significant others, I examine the ro…
Ontological Security in World Politics: State Identity and the Security Dilemma
This article proposes that in addition to physical security, states also seek ontological security, or security of the self. Ontological security is achieved by routinizing relationships with significant others, and actors therefore become attached to those relationships. Like its physical counterpart, the ontological security motive is a constant. But states may adhere to routines rigidly or reflexively, and variation in attachment style has imp…
Knowing the Unknown Unknowns: Misplaced Certainty and the Onset of War
International Relations (IR) theory grants a privileged place to uncertainty. In practice, however, the problem does not seem to be uncertainty but certainty: if only the decision makers would acknowledge uncertainty, conflict might somehow be avoided. We challenge the "uncertainty bias" of IR scholarship by developing misplaced certainty as a distinct and common pathway to war. By misplaced certainty we mean cases where decision makers are confi…
The Return of Geopolitics in Europe?: Social Mechanisms and Foreign Policy Identity Crises
The end of the Cold War demonstrated the historical possibility of peaceful change and seemingly showed the superiority of non-realist approaches in International Relations. Yet in the post-Cold War period many European countries have experienced a resurgence of a distinctively realist tradition: geopolitics. Geopolitics is an approach which emphasizes the relationship between politics and power on the one hand; and territory, location and enviro…
Power in Concert: The Nineteenth-Century Origins of Global Governance
The Irony of Pinkerism
This is quite a book. Its sheer heft is daunting, its central claim bold and sweeping, its data relentless. While the planet goes “cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity,” Steven Pinker argues, the human species has been progressing. We have reduced the fear of violent death for an ever-greater proportion of the population across the centuries. Pinker argues that every sort of violence has declined, from interpersonal cruelty to interst…
From representation to governing: Diplomacy and the constitution of international public power
A goal of this volume is to gain analytic traction on what seem to be great changes in the character and effects of diplomacy by bringing international relations (IR) and social theory to bear on the question. Toward this end, the Introduction proposes that while diplomacy has long been understood as a practice of representation, it is now "about much more" in that it also is about governance (Introduction, 111). Several scholars have offered int…
Diplomacy and the Making of World Politics
This book examines world politics through the lens of diplomatic practice. It argues that many global phenomena of our time, from the making of international law to the constitution of international public power, through humanitarianism and the maintenance of global hierarchies, are made possible and shaped by evolving forms of diplomacy. The study of diplomacy is largely dominated by firsthand accounts and historical treaties, with little effort…
Illusion or Intention? Talking Grand Strategy into Existence
Richard Betts argued that strategy—the idea that a state's political ends could be reliably linked to its coercive means—is a necessary illusion. Without strategy, war is mindless killing; but its rationales cannot guide state choices because there is a yawning gap between the macro level where strategy is articulated and the micro level of day-to-day choices. That gap is particularly insurmountable when beginning, as Betts does, from a rationali…
Response to Barry Buzan and George Lawson’s Review of Power in Concert: The Nineteenth-Century Origins of Global Governance
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
An introduction to the special issue: Ontological securities in world politics
The research community of ontological security scholars is vibrant and wide-ranging, defined by a conceptual core and by the themes through which scholars register their disagreements. In this special issue we have collected some of the work that has been produced or inspired by discussions and meetings during the last few years. The goal is to showcase some of the breadth of insights and possibilities on the topic of ontological securities and i…
Security Communities and the Unthinkabilities of War
Scholarship on security communities often invokes a common goal: for war to become unthinkable. Unthinkable here means impossible, and states are considered to be most secure when war is unthinkable between them. Interestingly, the term unthinkable appears in policy discourse with nearly the opposite meaning, referring to wars that are eminently possible but horrifying to contemplate, such as war with a nuclear Iran. Taking this discrepancy as my…
Ontological Security and Foreign Policy
In the early 21st century, a stream of international relations (IR) scholarship has emerged that interprets states’ foreign policy processes, decisions, and international outcomes through the lens of a distinctive type of security, ontological as opposed to “physical” or “material” security. It is a concept that helps us think about how the ability to make choices and take action depends critically on our sense of self, which is itself produced i…
Introduction to 2018 special issue of European Security: “Ontological (in)security in the European Union”
The European Union (EU) faces many crises and risks to its security and existence. While few of them threaten the lives of EU citizens, they all create a sense of anxiety and insecurity about the future for many ordinary Europeans. Amongst these crises are the more obvious challenges of sovereign debt and fiscal austerity; refugees from conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria; and the rise of populist far-right parties across Europe. But behind…
Ontological security and conflict: The dynamics of crisis and the constitution of community
Feeling at Home in Europe: Migration, Ontological Security, and the Political Psychology of EU Bordering
While the EU has long been understood as a postnational political project, stressors like migration have prompted “neo‐Westphalian” responses. For insight into such backsliding, I focus on the concept of home. A psychological need for home as a place of “being” is central to an ontological security approach to subjectivity, and home qualities that resonate psychologically underpin political projects such as the Westphalian homeland. At both level…
Anxiety, fear, and ontological security in world politics: Thinking with and beyond Giddens
Research on ontological security in world politics has mushroomed since the early 2000s but seems to have reached an impasse. Ontological security is a conceptual lens for understanding subjectivity that focuses on the management of anxiety in self-constitution. Building especially on Giddens, IR scholars have emphasized how this translates to a need for cognitive consistency and biographical continuity – a security of ‘being.’ A criticism has be…
Anxiety, fear, and ontological security in world politics
This symposium addresses the role of anxiety, fear, and ontological (in)security in world politics. Proceeding from the recognition of the scholarly interest and multitude of approaches that characterize the field of ontological (in)security studies, the Symposium homes in on the relationship between anxiety and fear, and between anxiety, subjectivity, and agency. The Introduction critically engages with Anthony Giddens' understandings of ontolog…
The Dark Matter of World Politics: System Trust, Summits, and State Personhood
International relations theory has had a trust revival, with scholars focusing on how trust can enhance interpersonal cooperation attempts between leaders. We propose there is another type of trust at play in world politics. International system trust is a feeling of confidence in the international social order, which is indexed especially by trust in its central unit, state persons. System trust anchors ontological security, and its presence is …
One Concept, Many Worlds: Teaching toward the Future in an Imperfect Discipline
An earlier version of this Research Note was presented as the Keynote Address at the ISA Northeast Conference November 2022. The conference theme was “Imagining World Futures: Exploring Alternative Visions of International Studies and World Politics in the Next 20–200 Years
The Politics of Pedagogy: The Problem of Order in the IR Classroom
The Hobbesian problem of order has been central to international relations (IR) pedagogy. What are the political implications of this pedagogy? Giving students conceptual tools to understand world politics feels vital in this moment of anxiety about the erosion of the current international order. But some of the deepest threats to international order are rooted in a multiplicity of justice claims. IR's explanatory orientation, and the many biases…
New Perspectives on Trust in International Conflicts
This forum proposes to rethink the specific conditions and dynamics under which trust can endogenously emerge in international conflicts. Traditionally, International Relations (IR) scholars have viewed trust and conflict as opposites or antagonists, with trust being seen as essential to overcoming conflict, and conflict seen as corrosive of trust. However, this framing is of limited use when it comes to understanding the complex role of trust in…
The End of Empire and the Social Construction of the Nation-States System
Political science (21 works) · Sociology (21 works) · Law (19 works) · Politics (18 works) · Epistemology (13 works) · International Relations and Foreign Policy (13 works) · Law (12 works) · Economics (10 works) · Ontological security (10 works) · Political economy (10 works)