Infrastructural Vanguards and the Problem of Connectivity Under Anarchy


Historically deepening ‘interaction capacity’ – or inter-polity connectivity – has formed a crucial pre-condition for the emergence of a truly global politics. Who drove increases in interaction capacity, how did they do so, and for what purposes? This paper contends that IR lacks a convincing answer to these questions and responds by theorising the role of private infrastructure builders in the making of a global international system.

Money Flows: The Political Consequences of Migrant Remittances

Remittances, the repatriated earnings of emigrant workers, have risen spectacularly in recent decades. They are a crucial lifeline for the households that receive them and one of the largest sources of capital for developing economies, outstripping both aid and foreign direct investment. The book Money Flows studies how remittances shape the relationship between remittance recipients and the authorities in migrant-sending countries by providing a comprehensive study of the political effects of remittances on the attitudes of their recipients.

Identity and the Social Construction of Reputation in World Politics

Scholarship on reputations in IR has thus far left out one of the most striking features of
human psychology: identity. Categorizing others as either “us” or “them” is an automatic
and pervasive process that has significant implications for how reputations are generated and
maintained. We provide a theoretical framework—based on social identity theory—to explain
how ingroup bias affects both how we perceive other actors’ “type” and estimate their likely
behavior; in short, their reputations. Empirically, we provide two contributions. First, we

Workshop on Global Interpolity Relations, 1500-1800

This project brings together historians and International Relations scholars to describe and compare how interpolity relations worked in different regions of the world before or during the early phases of European imperialism. Our aim is to investigate the wide spectrum of interpolity relations that existed globally prior to Europeans imposing their own principles, and to comprehend the distinct legal and diplomatic practices of non-European polities in their own contexts.

Miranda Richman

I am a Clarendon Scholar and doctoral candidate in international relations at University College, Oxford. My research explores how the US built and maintained security order in the Indo-Pacific, with a specific focus on alliance triangles, the role of historical memory in security paradigms, and the process of ordering over time. My DPhil follows my MPhil in International Relations at Lincoln College.

Giuseppe A Cumella

I study the history of Ancient Greek and Roman ethical and political philosophy. My recent work has focused on questions of rule and judgement in Aristotle. Specifically, I am interested in the place of ruling in Aristotle’s account of learning and human well-being, and how the development of political expertise informs his view of judgement. I also maintain interests in contemporary ethical and political philosophy, including questions of democracy and egalitarianism.

Book Talk: Atmospheric Violence: Disaster and Repair in Kashmir

Atmospheric Violence explores how people in the militarized, ecologically fragile borderlands of Kashmir attempt to flourish in an environment where violence is everywhere, or atmospheric. Omer Aijazi takes us to remote mountainous valleys in the portion of Kashmir under Pakistan’s control, where life has been shaped by recurring environmental disasters and by the violence of the India/Pakistan border.
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