Whiskey & International Relations Theory

Episode 33: Status? You Just Met Us! Oct 15, 2023

[audio updated to fix a mixing error]
The second installment of our live taping at the British International Studies Association annual convention in Glasgow is a "Whisky Optional" roundtable on status and international-relations theory. Our guests are: Ali Bilgic of Loughborough University, Michelle Murray of Bard College, Rohan Mukherjee of the London School of Economics, and Steven Ward of the University of Cambridge.
The taping was sponsored by the Clydeside Distillery.
Related readings: Ali Bilgic, Turkey, Power and the West: Gendered International Relations and Foreign Policy; Michelle Murray, The Struggle for Recognition in International Relations: Status, Revisionism, and Rising Powers; Rohan Mukherjee, Ascending Order: Rising Powers and the Politics of Status in International Institutions; and Steven Ward, Status and the Challenge of Rising Powers.
Some articles mentioned include (implicitly or explicitly) include: Ward, "Lost in Translation: Social Identity Theory and the Study of Status in World Politics," Larson and Shevchenko, "Status seekers: Chinese and Russian responses to US primacy," and Musgrave and Nexon, "Defending Hierarchy from the Moon to the Indian Ocean: Symbolic Capital and Political Dominance in Early Modern China and the Cold War."
An important edited collection on status and international politics is Status and World Politics, eds. Paul, Larson, and Wohlforth.
The classic "chickens" article is Ivan D. Chase, "Social Process and Hierarchy Formation in Small Groups: A Comparative Perspective."

Episode 32: Social Forces, States, and Clydeside Whisky Aug 18, 2023

Robert Cox's landmark article, "Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory," appeared in the journal Millennium in 1981. Among other things, it introduced the distinction between "critical" and "problem-solving" theory to international-relations scholars.
But this isn't just any old episode where Patrick and Dan ramble their way through some decades-old academic article. No, it's the first-ever live recording of Whisky and IR Theory, which took place in Glasgow in June at the annual convention of the British International Studies Association. And we had a sponsor: the Clydeside Distillery, which generously provided everyone with drinks... and souvenir whisky glasses.
A good time was had by most. If you missed out, we'll be holding another live taping in London in October. More to come.

Episode 31: Great Balls of Power Jul 17, 2023

Back in 2019, Uri Friedman wrote that we "find ourselves—as you will have heard in the corridors of power and conference rooms of think tanks, and read in the government’s strategy documents and the media’s coverage of international relations—in an era of “great-power competition." "As Friedman noted, "great-power competition" has even" achieved hallowed acronym status—GPC..."
It's been nearly eight years since the term took off, and international-relations theorists are only just starting to take a close look at its analytical and conceptual dimensions. In this "Whiskey Optional," Ali Wyne, Stacie Goddard, and Jon DiCicco join Dan for a discussion of where, if at all, "GPC" fits into international-relations theory.
Works mentioned in this episode include: Ali Wynne, America's Great-Power Opportunity(Polity, 2022); Stacie Goddard, When Right Makes Might: Rising Powers and World Order(Cornell, 2018) & "The Outsiders: How the International System Can Still Check China and Russia," Foreign Affairs (May/June 2022); Jon DiCicco and Tudor Onea, "Great-Power Competition," Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies, 2023; A.F.K. Organski, World Politics (Knopf, 1958); and Daniel Nexon, "Against Great Power Competition," Foreign Affairs (2021).

Episode 30: A Long, Strange Trek May 18, 2023

It's our first "actual" installment of Whiskey & IR Theory in Space! We discuss Star Trek: The Next Generation's 'gay rights' episode, "The Outcast," which Dan uses to introduce his students to different modes of "reading" the politics of (and in) science fiction. PTJ and Dan summarize the episode (can you spoil an 30+ year-old TV show?), discuss their own reactions to it, and then Dan talks about how his students respond to it differently now than they did a 10-15 years ago. The two hosts conclude by descending into rambling geekery as they discuss what they'll cover in the second installment of the series.
The answer, by the way, is the two short stories that PTJ opens his class with: Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas," and N.K. Jemisin's "Those Who Stay and Fight."
The Whisky: Port Charlotte CC:01

Episode 29: Introducing: Whiskey & IR Theory... in Space! Apr 21, 2023

Patrick and Dan talk about the newest feature of the podcast: a series in which they combine their long-running seminars on (international) politics and science fiction.
In each episode of "Whiskey & IR Theory... in Space!" Patrick and Dan will discuss a book, television episode, or film that they've assigned in classes past. Here, though, they introduce the series by talking about the good, the bad, and the ugly of using popular culture in general — and science fiction in particular — to explore social science and social theory.
Works discussed, inter alia, include Jutta Weldes' To Seek Out New Worlds: Exploring Links between Science Fiction and World Politics and Iver Neumann & Daniel Nexon'sHarry Potter and International Relations.

Episode 28: Are We Living in a Simulation... of Sovereignty? Mar 11, 2023

PTJ and Dan discuss Cynthia Weber's 1994 book, Simulating Sovereignty: Intervention, the State and Symbolic Exchange. Weber examines "the justifications for intervention offered by the Concert of Europe, President Wilson's administration, and the Reagan-Bush administrations" and analyzes them via a combination of "critical international relations theory and foreign policy analysis."
Topics include: why "sovereignty" was so important to critical and constructivist scholars in the 1990s, Jean Beuadriard and International Relations, and the Reagan presidency.
Also mentioned in this episode, inter alia, are Andrew Abbott's Time Matters: On Theory and Method, R.BJ. Walker's Inside/Outside: International Relations as Political Theory, and Cynthia Weber's "Performative States" (Millennium, 1998).
You can contact us via email, and follow us or DM us on Twitter. You can also buy Whiskey & IR Theory merch at our Zazzle store.
Thanks for listening, and if you like the show be sure to leave us a five-star review.

Episode 27: Everything is Relational Jan 29, 2023

It's a nostalgia episode for our two hosts, Patrick and Dan.
They tackle Mustafa Emirbayer's 1997 article in the American Journal of Sociology, "Manifesto for a Relational Sociology." According to Emirbayer, "Sociologists today are faced with a fundamental dilemma: whether to conceive of the social world as consisting primarily in substances or processes, in static 'things' or in dynamic, unfolding relations."
Was that also true of International Relations? PTJ and Dan certainly thought so back in 1999.
Is it still true today? The two may or may not answer this question, but they do work through Emirbayer's article in no little detail.
Additional works alluded to in this podcast include Bhaskar, A Realist Theory of Science(1975); Emirbayer and Goodwin, "Network Analysis, Culture, and the Problem of Agency" (1994); Emirbayer and Mische, "What is Agency" (1998); Mann, The Sources of Social Power, Volume II (1993); Pratt, "From Norms to Normative Configurations: A Pragmatist and Relational Approach to Theorizing Normativity in IR" (2020); Sommers, "The Narrative Constitution of Identity: A Relational and Network Approach" (1994); Tilly, Durable Inequality (1998); and Wiener, Contestation and Constitution of Norms in Global International Relations (2018). The Duck of Minerva symposium on norms is available here.
ETA: this is now the 4th version (02.08.2023) of the episode; apologies again, we're getting used to new equipment and mixing software.

Episode 26: Anarchy vs. The Anarchy Oct 11, 2022

The University of Chicago's Paul Poast claims that G. Lowes Dickinson was the OG "modern" theorist of international relations—and also an "offensive realists." John Mearsheimer invokes Dickinson in Tragedy of Great Power Politics, but notes that Dickinson vocally supported the creation of the League of Nations. Brian Schmidt pays close attention to Dickinson in his work on the history of the discipline. Andreas Osiander also sees Dickinson's account of anarchy as realist, but emphasizes that Dickinson's argument has distinctive "overtones of moralism and voluntarism" and that "Dickinson hope[s] that [anarchy] might be transcended." Jeanne Morefield offers a nuanced appraisal, arguing that we shouldn't read Dickinson through the idealist-realist frame later popularized by E.H. Carr (see also).
Unfortunately, we consulted few of these works before recording the episode, so we unwittingly make arguments that previously appeared in some of this scholarship. We apologize, and hope that listeners go out and read the work that we link to above.
We discuss whether or not Dickinson is a "realist" (which is probably the least interesting aspect of his work), and examine parts of The European Anarchy, The International Anarchy, The Causes of War, and lots of other stuff. Dan reiterates his view that structural realists are best understood as "liberal pessimists" and Patrick discusses Dickinson's biography and some of his work outside of the area of international relations.

Episode 25: The New Hierarchy Studies Aug 09, 2022

Scholars of international relations don't agree on much, but they at least agree that anarchy (the lack of a common authority to make and enforce rules) is the defining feature of international politics, right?
Not exactly. There's a long history of research that emphasizes the hierarchical character of international relations. Now a new wave of scholarship argues that international-relations theory should move beyond anarchy. Some advocate giving it a downgrade. Others want to banish the concept entirely.
What drives the new hierarchy studies? Why is it gaining steam? In this episode, David Lake, Dani Nedal, and Ayşe Zarakol join a "Whiskey Optional" roundtable on the subject of international hierarchy.

Episode 24: International Relations in China Jun 20, 2022

What is the topography of international-relations theory in the People's Republic of China? What is the "Chinese School of International Relations?" Astrid Nordin (King's College, London), Yan Xuetong (Tsinghua University), and Qin Yaqing (Peking University) join the podcast to answer these – and other – questions about Chinese international-relations scholarship.

Episode 23: Being Academic and Pandemic Time Apr 19, 2022

In this “Whiskey Optional” episode, PTJ facilitates a conversation among four colleagues from different countries and different kinds of academic institutions about the current global pandemic – not primarily about research on the pandemic, but about the experience of being an academic during the pandemic. Since part of that experience involves bringing our theoretical predilections to bear on the contemporary situation, we drift back and forth between the pandemic as a scholarly object and the pandemic as an experiential actuality.

Episode 22: So a Deputy Foreign Minister and an Academic Realist Walk into a Bar Mar 08, 2022

In 2014, John Mearsheimer authored a Foreign Affairs article in which he blamed that year's Ukraine crisis on the U.S., NATO, and the EU. The next year he gave a talk on the subject which the University of Chicago uploaded to YouTube.
Last week the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs used excerpts from Mearsheimer's article and talk as part of its efforts to propagandize in favor of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Isaac Chotiner subsequently interviewed Mearsheimer for the New Yorker.
For some reason, Patrick and Dan thought it would be a good thing to record an impromptu podcast on the controversy – and to down more whisky than usual during the process. We've managed to cut the discussion down to two hours, but it's not, shall we say, the most organized episode we've done.
Topics include specific aspects of Mearsheimer's argument, the importance of skepticism about what government officials tell you, and how academics should present their arguments when engaging in public-facing scholarship. Caveat emptor.
Note that this is a corrected version of the original podcast. Dan inaccurately characterized two aspects of the talk. He's added a mea culpa at the start of the episode and edited the discussion accordingly.

Episode 21: Constructivists All the Way Down Jan 26, 2022

Is Constructivism best understood as a scholarly disposition, a body of theory, or an intellectual movement? Is it still relevant, or has it exceeded its shelf life? What if there are lots of Constructivists but they use different labels for their work?
In our third "Whiskey Optional" episode, Dan Nexon sits down with Michelle Jurkovich (University of Massachusetts, Boston) . David McCourt (University of California, Davis), Swati Srivastava (Purdue University), and Brent Steele (University of Utah) to get their thoughts about the state of Constructivism and Constructivist theory.

Episode 20: International Order Oct 07, 2021

In this installment of "Whiskey Optional," Stacie Goddard (Wellesley), Evelyn Goh (Australian National University), and Kyle Lascurettes (Lewis and Clark) join the podcast. You'll never guess what the subject of discussion is.
Unless you read the title of this episode.
Then you'll know that it's about "International order."
The panelists tackle such pressing questions as: What is international order, anyway? Is it everything... or nothing at all? Why do academic debates about international order give a lot of scholars a sense of déjà vu? How can a concept that's taken on such a central place in policy debates remain so elusive?

Episode 19: "W" Stands for "Canonical Realist" Jul 31, 2021

PTJ and Dan pick up where they left off – on Chapter 5 of Arnold Wolfers' Discord and Collaboration. There's a lot going on, including a discussion of revisionism, the question of whether "friendship" is possible in world politics, and the distinction between "power" and "influence." They cover classic essays on, for example, the balance of power and "'National Security' as an Ambiguous Symbol." They ask if Wolfers offers an alternative vision of the study of realpolitik... and if that vision is still relevant more than fifty years later.

Episode 18: Name Your Discord Server "and Collaboration" Jul 17, 2021

Arnold Wolfers is one of the most important figures of "mainstream" mid-20th century international-relations theory, but is now mostly cited for his definition of "revisionism" and for perhaps his most famous essay, "'National Security' as an Ambiguous Symbol." Discord and Collaboration (1962) collects previously published essays and intersperses them with new ones that are aimed at making the collection more cohesive. It covers a variety of issues that remain subjects of debate in the field, such as state-centrism. Patrick and Dan discuss its arguments, the events that drive some of its analysis, and how it slots into later debates in IR theory, such as the "False Promise" dispute covered in the prior two episodes.
This is our first episode to come out since affiliating with the academic international-relations website, the Duck of Minerva. If you have questions or reactions to this episode, you might consider leaving a comment on this episode's associated blogpost.

Episode 17: The Institutionalists Strike Back Jun 22, 2021

Less than a year after the appearance of "The False Promise of International Institutions," the journal International Security published replies from Robert Keohane and Lisa Martin, John Ruggie, Clifford and Charles Kupchan, and Alexander Wendt. Patrick and Dan discuss this important moment in the "paradigm wars" of the 1990s and 2000s.

Episode 16: Promises, Promises Mar 26, 2021

Patrick and Dan continue their nostalgic tour of 1990s international-relations theory and spend some time with John J. Mearsheimer's 1994 article "The False Promise of International Institutions."
This episode runs over two hours, so you can always skip to: biographical material and the whisky selection (13:40); framing of the article (26:55); the article begins (33:50); realism according to Mearsheimer (53:00); the article's criticisms of liberal institutionalism (1:24:30), "collective security" (1:41:30), and "critical theory" (1:45:40); or some concluding remarks (~2:03:30).

Episode 15: Understanding Remains an Open Question Feb 10, 2021

Patrick and Dan discuss J. Ann Tickner's 1997 article, "You Just Don't Understand: Troubled Engagements Between Feminists and IR Theorists." Topics include liberalism and feminist theory, articles as coalition-building efforts, and Australian whisky.

Episode 14: Campbell Writes Security, part 2 Dec 22, 2020

It's not quite Song of Ice and Fire territory, but we're sure a few people will be pleased that the second half of our discussion of David Campbell's Writing Security has dropped.

Episode 13: Campbell Writes Security, part 1 Nov 03, 2020

Patrick and Dan discuss a classic work of critical security studies, David Campbell's Writing Security. Topics include the construction of the Cold War and the film Rising Sun.

Episode 12: The Strange Regime Jul 22, 2020

In a sequel (of sorts) to Episode 11, Patrick and Dan talk about Susan Strange's "Cave! hic dragones: a critique of regime analysis." Topics include a comparison of "American" and "European" IR, realism as critical theory, the evolution of liberal order (redux), and cats.

Episode 11: Embedded Liberalism Jul 07, 2020

John Ruggie's 1982 article, which appeared in a special issue of International Organization on 'international regimes', is an important milestone for theories of hegemony, understandings of liberal (economic) order, and in the evolution of constructivism. Patrick and Dan revisit a piece they remember fondly from graduate school.

Episode 3: Bananas, Beaches and Bases, part 1 Jun 17, 2020

We discuss Cynthia Enloe's classic work of feminist international-relations theory. Note that this is a repost of the episode.

Episode 10: (Epilogue) Race and Securitization Theory May 25, 2020

After we finished recording the material in Episode 9, we stayed on and talked some more. These are the parts we all agreed are worth posting. Featuring special guests: Jarrod Hayes, Nawal Mustafa, and Robbie Shilliam.

Episode 9: Race and Securitization Theory May 21, 2020

Patrick and Dan host a panel discussion with Jarrod Hayes, Nawal Mustafa, and Robbie Shilliam.
Their guests try to provide theoretical context for and some larger analysis of the recent controversy over claims that Securitization Theory is irredeemably marred by its putative reliance on colonial and racist scaffolding.
This is a complete episode. The second part consists of an epilogue in which the panel covers some additional topics that did not make it into the main recording.

Episode 8: A Relational Theory of World Politics, part 2 May 13, 2020

Dan and Patrick finish out their discussion of Yaqing Qin's 2018 book. They focus on aspects of Qin's version of relational theorizing and reflect on some of his normative claims.

Episode 7: A Relational Theory of World Politics, part 1 May 06, 2020

Yaqing Qin's book marks, according to Astrid Nordin, a long-awaited "full-length English-language" outline of the "theorization of world politics by one of China's most influential and interesting scholars!"
What did Patrick and Dan think of it? Listen to find out.

Episode 6: Wendt's (Article) World, part 2 Apr 13, 2020

The second half of our discussion of two of Wendt's most important articles in the development of "Constructivism" as an approach to the study of world politics.

Episode 5: Wendt's (Article) World, Part 1 Apr 09, 2020

Patrick and Dan talk about Alexander Wendt, drop some bits about the early history of Constructivism, and then discuss his important 1987 article, The Agent-Structure Problem in International Relations Theory. [Please note that older versions have some editing issues – which should be fixed now]