Online WS 2020

Online WS 2020

WS A: Anxiety in International Relations

The online workshop Anxiety in International Relations will be held from 1-3 July 2020.

A brief summary of the workshop:

During the last few years, statements according to which we are currently living in an age of anxiety seem to have become increasingly common. Given the uncertainties surrounding the future of the world economy, the unforeseeable terrorist attacks, the unexplainable lure of radical fundamentalist ideologies, and unexpected shocks to global governance, such as the British exit from the European Union, not to mention the pandemic in which we currently find ourselves, such statements appear more accurate than ever. However, despite being the prevailing emotion of our times, anxiety has received scant attention in international relations theory. It has wrongly been conflated with fear, and almost since its inception, international relations theory has assumed that much of international behaviour is guided by the fear of specific threats to state survival rather than anxiety.

This workshop bring together scholars who share an interest in the concept of anxiety but draw on different theories, focus on different phenomena and empirical cases and work within different research programs. In doing so, the workshop facilitates discussion between different theoretical approaches to anxiety, and explores how theories of anxiety can help illuminate and provide novel interpretations of a range of pressing issues in current international politics.

WS I: Intelligence in Contemporary Times: Towards a Transversal Research Agenda

WS M: Multiplicity: IR’s Strangely Familiar Common Ground

WS Q: Post-Growth in World Politics: Exploring the Strange within the Familiar