Polina Whitehouse

Polina Whitehouse is a first-year DPhil student in political theory. Supervised by David Leopold, she is working on a thesis that defends the holistic and systematic dimensions of utopia, understood as a method for political theory, and interprets prison and family abolition as constructive utopian projects rather than merely negative objectives. She completed her MPhil thesis on a closely related topic, approached through engagement with the work of Theodor Adorno, Alexander Bogdanov, and Angela Davis.

Andrew Dougall

I am a Departmental Lecturer in International Relations, based jointly at Oxford’s Department of Politics and International Relations and St Hilda’s College. I also hold an affiliation with Pembroke College, where I am a Career Development Lecturer in International Relations. 

Dr Dana Mills, 'Dissenting Against War and Colonialism in Writing and in Action'

Part of the Vera Fine-Grodzinski Programme for Writing Jewish Women’s Lives

The questions of war, militarism, colonialism, imperialism, dissent and Jewishness have been anything but theoretical conundrums in 2023-2024. For three months since October 7th, Dr Dana Mills wrote near-daily essays, reporting her fears, thoughts and – occasionally – hopes. These diaries were published in March 2024 as One Woman’s War.

Revisiting Human Rights Treaty Withdrawals: A Process-Based Approach

This Article presents the case for revising the rules governing withdrawals from human rights treaties that explicitly allow for denunciation. Once a rarity, withdrawals (and threats of withdrawal) from global and regional human rights treaties have been on the rise across the globe. Standard rules of international law address these withdrawals by giving unfettered powers to executive organs of the state, only limited by notification requirements.

Credibility of Issue Linkage: How Treaty Recognition Unites Firms and Activists in Promoting Trade Liberalization

Why does issue linkage gain support from some domestic groups, not others? Al- though governments have long used economic tools to promote environmental and climate goals internationally, we know relatively little about when such linkage gains support or elicits backlash from environmental activists. Based on the premise that ac- tivists face severe commitment problems during linkage processes, I argue that activists’ positions on linkage vary by their ties to intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

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.
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