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In this episode Bahar Rumelili (Koç University, İstanbul) discusses the concept of ontological security (OS) with host Beste İşleyen (University of Amsterdam). By unpacking the notion of ontological security, we learn how OS as a concept relates to, and differs from other critical security concepts within IR scholarship. Arguing that existing critical approaches to security tend to conflate ontological security and physical security, Bahar Rumelili elaborates on the relationship between identity and security, and her work on identity construction through difference.
By drawing on the Hobbesian state of nature and existentialist philosophy, Bahar Rumelili emphasises the constitutive notion of anxiety...

This first edition of the new VOICES series "What is...?" focuses on liberalism as a concept in International Relations (IR). Liberalism in its many contexts - be it in political tradition, in economic ideology, social understandings, or polemical attacks - elides a single definition. In this episode, Vineet Thakur (Leiden) talks with Prof. Beate Jahn (Sussex), who has devoted much of her academic career to the study of liberalism, about the empirical and methodological potential of the concept for research in IR. Prof. Jahn argues that the consistent failures of liberalism, for example in peacebuilding operations, are inherent in its...

What can the Grenfell Tower fire in London 2017 teach us about the racialized structure of the cities we live in? What are the implications of understanding the violence of neoliberal urbanism for the study of global cities in IR? In ‘The Fire This Time: Grenfell, Racial Capitalism and the Urbanisation of Empire’, Ida Danewid (Sussex), award-winner of the 2020 EISA Best Article in the European Journal of International Relations award, argues that the IR literature on global cities has largely neglected questions of race and racism. In this conversation with Maj Grasten (Copenhagen Business School), Ida Danewid discusses how...

What makes ASEAN diplomacy distinct? Deepak Nair (NUS Singapore), the co-winner of EISA’s 2020 best article award, rejects both essentialist/orientalist as well as generic readings of ASEAN diplomacy and presents a micro-sociological account of ‘face-saving’ practices. In this conversation with Vineet Thakur (Leiden University), Deepak discusses his background, his interest in Southeast Asia and practice theory, his immersive fieldwork, and more.