Whiskey & International Relations Theory

Oct 15 2023 33 ep. 81 mins 1.2k
Whiskey & International Relations Theory Podcast artwork

Patrick and Dan work their way through a piece of international-relations scholarship. And drink whiskey.

  Science  Education
RSS feed Share
Copy RSS


Subscribe on Podcast Addict


Episode 33: Status? You Just Met Us!

Oct 15 2023 75 mins  
[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 Stev

Episode 32: Social Forces, States, and Clydeside Whisky

Aug 18 2023 76 mins  
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 decad

Episode 31: Great Balls of Power

Jul 17 2023 116 mins  
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—

Episode 30: A Long, Strange Trek

May 18 2023 85 mins  
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

Episode 29: Introducing: Whiskey & IR Theory... in Space!

Apr 20 2023 50 mins  
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 ab

Episode 28: Are We Living in a Simulation... of Sovereignty?

Mar 11 2023 158 mins  
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.

Episode 27: Everything is Relational

Jan 29 2023 117 mins  
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 dy

Episode 26: Anarchy vs. The Anarchy

Oct 11 2022 91 mins  
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 hi

Episode 25: The New Hierarchy Studies

Aug 09 2022 86 mins  
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 internationa

Episode 24: International Relations in China

Jun 19 2022 92 mins  
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.