2017 seminars
Wednesday 8 February: Stronger than Strong. Perceptions and Misperceptions of Power (speaker: Jeff Bridoux, Aberystwyth University)
Addressing the question of decline or resilience of US power in the contemporary international system, this paper attempted to generate a reflection on how knowledge on power is generated by US foreign policymakers. Questioning the dominance of neoliberal rationality and positivist epistemology in knowledge production, the paper argued that, in addition to existing analysis of the material foundations of power, it is essential to also understand how power is perceived by US decision-makers. Going beyond classical neorealist analyses of perceptions of power, and inspired by Gramsci, the paper investigated the ideational and epistemological roots of such perceptions of power and seeks to answer the following question: How is knowledge on power produced and how does it affect its perceptions and misperceptions in US foreign policy-making?
Wednesday 15 February: Revisionist? Neo-imperialist? Anti-Western? Deconstructing Russia's policies in Ukraine and Syria (speaker: Dr Derek Averre, Reader in Russian Foreign and Security Policy, University of Birmingham)
Russia’s alleged breaches of international law following the Crimea annexation and apparent disregard for humanitarian considerations in its military support for the Assad regime have damaged Russia’s relations with the West to the extent that, according to one commentator, we are going through ‘not just a spell of bad weather but fundamental climate change’. Concerns have been expressed about a continuing ‘spoiler’ role for Russia in European security governance and a ‘sphere of interest’ extending from Russia’s western neighbourhood to Europe’s southern periphery. This paper offered a closer examination of recent developments and analyses the opportunities and constraints Moscow faces in its foreign policy.
Wednesday 8 March: The History of Human Rights and the Sovereignty of Ideas (speaker: Robert Lamb, University of Exeter)
The idea of human rights is key to contemporary politics and international relations, and yet there remains no scholarly consensus about its origins. In this paper, Robert argued that scholarly disagreement about the emergence of human rights can be explained through attention to problematic methodological commitments within historical narratives. He discussed two such narratives, explained where they go astray, and unpacked an alternative approach to thinking about the history of the idea of human rights.
Wednesday 10 May: The Ages of History: Periodisation and 'Global IR' (speaker: Brieg Tomos Powel, Aberystwyth University)
In recent years, several scholars have sought to 'globalise' the discipline of International Relations by moving it away from its supposedly Eurocentric foundations. This stems in part from a call by Acharya (2014: 650) for more extensive coverage of ‘the ideas, institutions, intellectual perspectives, and practices of Western and non-Western societies alike’, grounding the discipline in world rather than selective histories. Yet whilst such work has recounted at length examples of Eurocentricity in IR, proposals for a means to decentre its history are harder to discern. This paper therefore aimed to move the debate beyond criticism of the discipline’s Eurocentricity in search for a new, decentred, and global means of understanding the history of international relations, based on periodisation rather than a 'benchmark' approach to this history.
Tuesday 17 October: Failed States and the ‘Big Man’ Phenomenon: The Case of Zimbabwe (speaker: Marta Nowakowska)
Marta Nowakowska is our visiting ERASMUS scholar. She is an anthropologist of culture with a specialist ethnologist perspective in the culture, politics, economics, history and security of southern African countries. Her research focuses on post1994 South Africa where she has published on the topic of ethnicity and identity in the Zulu population, problems of ethnic and cultural identity in sub-Saharan Africa and issues of culture security and migration in the region.
Wednesday 25 October: Brexit debate (speakers: Professor Mary Farrell,
Dr Patrick Holden
and
Dr Lorenzo Cladi
, University of Plymouth)
The UK is due to depart the EU on 30 March 2019, however there remains uncertainty over the terms of Brexit. With negotiations between the European Union and the UK having recently entered a fourth round, academics from the Department of Politics and International Relations within the School of Law, Criminology and Government take the opportunity to reflect upon what Brexit entails in their own areas of expertise.
- Lorenzo shared his insights on how Brexit is likely to affect NATO.
- Mary provided an overview on the UK government's response to Brexit from the initiation of Article 50 to the state-of-play in the negotiations with the European Commission.
- Patrick delved into Brexit and the resurgence of power politics in Europe, with brief case studies of trade and Anglo-Irish relations.
Wednesday 15 November: Britain as a Global Actor: in Search of a Post-Brexit Role (speaker: Professor Mike Smith, Warwick University)
This paper analysed and assessed the prospects for ‘Global Britain’ in the post-Brexit environment, within a framework of role theory. The first part of the paper identified key elements of the ‘Global Britain’ discourse and placed them into the context of role theory, with particular attention to ideas of role conceptions, role performance and role impact. The second part of the paper explored the implications of these ideas in four arenas of UK external action: trade, the ‘special relationship’ with the United States, the United Nations and the Commonwealth. The final part of the paper identified and evaluated key constraints on Britain’s ability to perform the role of ‘Global Britain’ in the post-Brexit environment, in particular the vulnerability of the economy, continuing institutional constraints and the changing international opportunity structure.
Wednesday 22 November: Reactive Rearmament: The Instability of a Post-Nuclear World (speaker: Dr David Blagden, University of Exeter)
If a world multilaterally disarmed of its nuclear weapons was ever achieved, just how strategically stable would that world be? This paper begins from the premise that the scientific capability to reconstruct nuclear weapons can never be expunged. That being the case, an escalatory race towards nuclear reconstitution would always be possible during international crises between latently capable major powers. Crucially, moreover, unlike contemporary deterrence – which is stabilised by the survivability of the major powers’ seaborne nuclear arsenals – the facilities of rearmament would not be survivable, creating acute first-strike incentives and thus crisis instability. As such, the argument that conventional military aggression would be more likely in a world free of nuclear weapons may indeed be commonplace, and a risk that disarmament advocates are willing to bear. But this paper’s rationalist analysis demonstrates that nuclear aggression would also be more likely in a world that had dismantled its extant nuclear warheads, casting doubt on the desirability of the disarmament goal.
