LUCIR: [Spam:******] LUCIR NEWSLETTER DECEMBER 2021
by Leiden University - Center for International Relations
LUCIR NEWSLETTER DECEMBER 2021
Dear colleagues,
The year is coming to an end – and what a year! The remnants of last year’s doom carried over to early 2021, but as vaccination rates climbed things started to get better. As we close the year, we can now scarcely separate December 2020 from December 2021 as far the covid numbers go. We really hope that you and your families have been safe and continue to remain so in the coming year.
At LUCIR, we had a new team at the helm this year. Our effort has been to bring together the IR community, which is spread across several faculties at Leiden. With extremely limited resources and entirely voluntary work, we have tried to foster closer connections. We have (co-)organized several activities this year, including book talks, special lectures, roundtables, seminars, and a conference. We now have a book club that meets regularly once a month, and we are progressively reaching out to several of you for more engagements. This bimonthly newsletter allows us to keep you updated of our activities.
We are also very pleased to share with you our new feature on our website, Meet A LUCIR Scholar<https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/news/2021/11/meet-a-lucir-scholar-is...>, for which we interviewed Isabelle Duyvesteyn on her new book, Rebels and Conflict Escalation: Explaining the Rise and Decline of Violence<https://services.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/politics-internationa...> (CUP). We will interview more scholars and also students, and are planning a general overhaul of our website, so stay tuned!
In light of the new restrictions, we had to cancel our year-end drinks and a double book release by Mirjam Grandia and Isabelle Duyvesteyn both scheduled for 9 December. But this means that many of us can now attend another event organized by the INVISIHIST project. Dan Plesch (SOAS) will deliver a public lecture titled “The UN as ANTIFA and its necessity in Global Security: hidden histories for dynamic strategies<https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/events/2021/12/unasantifaevent>”. Alanna O’Malley, who leads the INVISIHIST project, will chair the session. Please register here<https://fd24.formdesk.com/universiteitleiden/UNasANTIFA>, for this online event on 9 December, 5pm.
We are in the process of planning lots of events in the Spring semester and will inform you about them in the new year.
Publications
Meanwhile, we have happy news from several colleagues who have published in academic and popular outlets:
Salvador Santino Regilme Jr.’s book “Aid Imperium: United States Foreign Policy and Human Rights in Post-Cold War Southeast Asia<https://www.press.umich.edu/12036762/aid_imperium>” recently came out from Michigan University Press. This book is a multidisciplinary study of how US foreign policy affects state repression and physical integrity rights outcomes in Southeast Asia and the rest of the Global South. Santino also draws attention to the Global South’s state’s active political agency when they are dealing with the United States. You can listen to Santino speak about his book in this Global Asia online podcast<https://open.spotify.com/episode/4XkxxcYlWZffkXaCl9LAhk?si=LU3Y-60dTsSqs1...>.
Dan Thomas’ recently published book titled “The Limits of Europe: Membership Norms and the Contestation of Regional Integration<https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-limits-of-europe-978019920671...>” argues that the limits of Europe are determined by the values shared at particular moments in time by the leaders of the community's member states, regardless of their particular policy preferences. These membership norms shape the community's decisions on enlargement by empowering certain political forces and disempowering others. And contrary to conventional wisdom, these norms have changed considerably over time. Dan examines the cases of EU decision-making on Greece, Spain and Turkey.
Dan also recently published a journal article, “The Return of Intergovernmentalism? De-Europeanisation and EU Foreign Policy Decision-making<https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07036337.2021.1927013>”, in the Journal of European Integration. Here, he elaborates on a theoretical framework for investigating the effects of de-Europeanisation for decision-making processes and policy outcomes in EU foreign policy.
Jonah Schulhofer-Wohl published an article in the Journal of Transatlantic Studies that explores U.S. policy on the Syrian civil war during the Obama Administration. The article, “The Obama administration and civil war in Syria, 2011–2016: US presidential foreign policy making as political risk management<https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057%2Fs42738-021-00085-y>,” looks at the twists and turns of American policy on Syria. Jonah shows how U.S. Syria policy aimed principally to minimize political risk to the president.
Steffen Echard, Ronny Patz, Micro Schönfeld and Hilde van Meegdenburg recently co-authored an article in the Journal of European Public Policy that focuses on challenging the assertion that Intergovernmental deliberations in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) are considered a state-based activity. In “International bureaucrats in the UN Security Council debates: A speaker-topic network analysis. Journal of European Public Policy<https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13501763.2021.1998194>” they look at the role of the UN Secretariat in UNSC debates, concentrating on the debates on Afghanistan (1995–2017). They show that the UN bureaucracy functioned as an autonomous speechmaker even in a venue where bureaucratic agency seems unlikely – the UNSC.
Tom Buitelaar and Niels van Willigen co-authored an article “Vredesmissies in een geopolitieke context: Welke rol voor Nederland?<https://www.militairespectator.nl/sites/default/files/uitgaven/inhoudsopg...>” in Militaire Spectator. Tom and Niels analyse the role of the Netherlands in the UN peacekeeping operations and explore its multifaceted role by examining past operations as well as making remarks about what the future holds.
Announcements
Monções: Revista de Relações Internacionais da UFGD - ISSN 2316-8323 announced a call for papers<https://ojs.ufgd.edu.br/index.php/moncoes/announcement/view/274> for its new special issue “Global South and its Perspectives: Expanding the Frontiers of International Relations”. The aim of this issue is to publish papers that offer tools to understand an ever-changing global order through Global South lenses; question different power diffusion patterns and their consequences for grasping International Relations in different parts of the world; or critically debate the discipline’s state-of-the-art, its limitations and constant exclusion of issues related to race and gender, among others.
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And finally, the customary reminder! Please keep us informed of all your wonderful activities and achievements.
Happy holidays!
Your LUCIR team
Beatrix Campbell, Corinna Jentzsch, Ghulam Ali Murtaza & Vineet Thakur
LUCIR | Leiden University Centre for International Relations | https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/lucir | Follow us on Twitter @LUCIRLeiden<https://twitter.com/lucirleiden> | Follow us on Instagram @lucir.leiden<https://www.instagram.com/lucir.leiden/>
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