Whiskey & International Relations Theory Drs. Patrick Thaddeus Jackson & Daniel Nexon

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.

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).

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

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's Harry Potter and International Relations.

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.

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.