International Studies Perspectives

Fontana, Giuditta; Wilcox, David J

doi: 10.1093/isp/ekaf012pmid: N/A

This article presents two innovative exercises that can be utilized in undergraduate and postgraduate education courses to introduce war and peacebuilding, whilst also encouraging teambuilding and the inclusion of students with different language backgrounds and learning styles. The exercises engage students in building, concept analysis, and storytelling with and through LEGO® bricks. They draw on the literature on playful learning, which proposes that kinesthetic experiences (such as those provided through LEGO®) provide the freedom to experiment, reflect, and anchor thoughts, allowing for critical reflection without directly challenging individuals on sensitive topics. The article provides the full process of the two exercises, from their theoretical grounding in playful learning, to the execution of the activities, and finally to presentation of the benefits and shortcomings of using LEGO® in the classroom, as captured through our observations and a student survey. On these bases, we suggest that LEGO®-based activities could be a valuable addition to the existing portfolio of playful learning techniques.

Mirilovic, Nikola; Kim, Myunghee

doi: 10.1093/isp/ekaf013pmid: N/A

A backlash to the Western-led international order and the associated liberal values influences perceptions of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin abroad. Individuals opposed to increasing diversity and gender equality, and who want China rather than the USA to lead the world, are more likely to favor Putin. Individuals to whom religion is important are more likely to favor Putin, who has promoted traditional religious values, than individuals to whom religion is not important. However, contrary to the expectations stemming from Putin’s identification with conservative or traditional values or a backlash against liberal ones, the backlash effects are conditional and pertain primarily to the context of developed democracies—members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Outside of the OECD, economic factors influence perceptions of Putin more strongly. We analyze 2018 individual-level data from Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes survey by using multilevel estimates to examine variation across twenty-six countries. Our results contribute to our understanding of the role of ideology, norms, and values in international relations.

Wang, Kai; Liu, Chuyu; Chen, Xintong

doi: 10.1093/isp/ekae023pmid: N/A

Although Western security scholarship often focuses disproportionally on conflict, cooperation-oriented research dominates Chinese security studies. To account for this divergence, we draw on Bourdieu’s notion of field as an analytic framework. We argue that a dual power asymmetry—the core–peripheral relations between Western and Chinese international relations (IR) scholars, and the Chinese IR community’s structural dependence on the party-state—profoundly shapes the knowledge production of Chinese security studies and leads to the hegemony of cooperation-centered research. We use a unique combination of empirical materials, including bibliometric data from China’s leading IR journals, content analysis of projects funded by a prestigious Chinese government grant, and qualitative interviews with IR academics at Chinese institutions. We find strong evidence for our theoretical propositions. Our findings shed new light on the global IR debate, national IR parochialism, and the sociology of IR epistemic practice in non-democratic contexts.

Njoku, Emeka Thaddues; Akintayo, Joshua; Mohammed, Idris

doi: 10.1093/isp/ekae024pmid: N/A

What happens to knowledge production when African-based researchers studying intersections between terrorism and wartime sexual violence interrogate prevailing heteronormative socio-norms? As the influence of socio-political bias in reflexive methodology in international relations (IR) continued to be discussed, critics argue that reflexive discourses have yet to address their entrenched racial and colonial logic, which centers on Western voices. Thus, African-based researchers’ fieldwork experiences in the research process are poorly reflected in IR or terrorism studies. We reflect on our experiences studying fellow nationals on issues of sexual violence victimization of men and boys in areas affected by terrorism. We argue that irrespective of shared national/ethnic identity, researcher–researched relations are strained when researchers pose vexing questions that interrogate heteronormative social norms. This leads to researchers’ feelings of vulnerability, anxiety, and physical harm as their gender and sexuality become open to social scrutiny. We also argue that study participants strategically silence ethnographic encounters, demonstrating their power when researchers disregard existing social norms and study participants’ sense of existential security. Our study embodies the Feminist-Informed Researchers’ Commitment to IR, which addresses the politics of field research, nuances the methodology of uneasiness concept on wartime sexual violence, and advocates flexibility to mitigate methodological messiness.

doi: 10.1093/isp/ekaf005pmid: N/A