Older Research News 2024

from the Department of International Relations
Summer/Autumn 2024

• Watch Professor Fawaz Gergeson CNN discussing the evolving situation in the Middle East, specifically addressing the recent developments in Syria and the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.
  Professor Fawaz Gerges joined Deutsche Welle(DW) to discuss the latest developments in Syria and the likelihood of Assad's fall.
  Read an interview with Professor Fawaz Gerges in The New Yorker, discussing changes to the Assad regime in the last decades and its impact on the region.
  Check out this interview with Professor Fawaz Gerges in Foreign Policy(FP), where he discusses the situation in Syria, the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire, and what the future holds for the region.
• During a debate on Detained British Nationals Abroad, Sir John Whittingdale raised and discussed the case of our Visiting Senior Fellow, Dr Gubad Ibadoghlu, who was arrested while visiting his family in his home country of Azerbaijan.
• DINAM Fellow Teona Giuashvili offers insights into the protests erupting in Georgia in response to the government's decision to suspend EU accession talks and the potentia; actions the EU should take in her latest post on the EUROPP Blog.
  DINAM Fellow Teona Giuashvili moderated a panel on the implications of Russia’s war against Ukraine on European Security at the University of Oxford.
• Professor Fawaz Gerges joined CBC/Radio-Canada's Sunday Magazine with Piya Chattopadhyay to discuss the implications of the ICC's arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu.
  Watch Professor Fawaz Gerges as he discusses the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire on CNN.
• Dr Ulrich Sedelmeier has contributed to a symposium on "Rhetorical action in a liberal international order in crisis: theorising EU and NATO enlargements post-2022," published in the Journal of European Public Policy.
• DINAM Fellow Teona Giuashvili participated in a conference in Vilnius titled "Taking CSDP Partnerships Forward: The Case of the Eastern Partnership," organised by the EU, the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of National Defence.
• Read PhD candidate Meg O'Mahony's article titled "Curating Conflict-related Sexual Violence: Museological Visibilities at the Imperial War Museum" in Memory Studies.
• IRD Fellow Dr Alice Engelhard has contributed to the paper titled "Nomads and international relations: post-sedentarist dialogues" with the chapter "Mobile states and territorial nomads: the British Empirein Maasai-land" published in the Cambridge Review of International Affairs(CRIA).
• Professor Peter Trubowitz's, whose book Geopolitics and Democracy: The Western Liberal Order From Foundation to Fracture was shortlisted for the prestigious 2024 Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Book Award.
• Read PhD candidate Shireen Manocha's book review of Lives of Circumcised and Veiled Women: A Global-Indian Interplay of Discourses and Narratives by Debangana Chatterjee in E-International Relations.
• Senior Visiting Fellow Gubad Ibadoghlu, currently under house arrest, spoke with the BBC News about the political situation in Azerbaijan.
  Read an article about Gubad Ibadoghlu and his current health condition titled, "Gubad was beaten and jailed for criticising fossil fuels in his country. It's now hosting COP29"
• Watch Professor Fawaz Gerges as he discusses the likely impact of Trump's administration on the Middle East.
• Visiting Senior Fellow Dr Anahita Motazed Rad's paper titled "Regional Transition in Complex and Chaotic International Systems: With a Focus on the Middle East," has been accepted for presentation at the International Studies Association (ISA) 2025 Annual Convention in Chicago.
  Read Dr Anahita Motazed Rad's paper "Middle East in the light of International Order Strategies, Past and Present" in the collected research report published by LSE IDEAS.
  Dr Anahita Motazed Rad presented her paper, "Iran's Foreign Policy in the Post-Arab Uprisings Middle East: A Perspective from Offensive and Defensive Realism," at the 30th International DAVO Congress held at the University of Göttingen, Germany in September 2024.
• Ulrich Sedelmeier has co-edited a special issue of the Journal of European Public Policy on "The Multi-level Politics of Countering Democratic Backsliding." You can now read the co-editors’ introductory article, "The multi-level politics of countering democratic backsliding: the state of the art and new research directions"
• Professor Fawaz Gerges spoke with NBC News about what Donald Trump’s victory means for the Middle East.
• Professor Michael Cox spoke with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation regarding what Donald Trump's presidency means for Ukraine.
• On the LSE United States Politics and Policy blog, Professor Peter Trubowitz offers an analysis of the presidential election campaign, exploring how Trump and Harris are making their final appeals to core supporters.
  You can also listen to Peter Trubowitz on Bloomberg Surveillance podcast, as he discusses the geopolitical and geo- economic implications of US elections, from 15:39 to 23:17.
• Rohan Mukherjee has written an article about what India could be expecting from a new administration in relation to the United States’ economic policy, security strategy, and overall influence.
• Professor Fawaz Gerges discussed on CNN the implications of Israeli attacks on Iran and the prospects of a ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon.
  He also spoke with France 24 on the war between Israel and Hezbollah.
• PhD candidate Kazimier Lim spoke with the ABC News Australia about the consequences of the unfolding conflict in the Middle East on air traffic.
• DINAM Fellow Dr Teona Giuashvili participated in a conference in Paris, titled "European security and strategic autonomy around the Black Sea," organised by the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI).
  She also spoke with a French newspaper, Les Echos, about the political crisis in Georgia and the visit of the Hungarian PM Orban to Georgia.
• Professor Chris Alden spoke with Newsweek about the ability of BRICS to help end Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
• Our Senior Visiting Fellow Dr Gubad Ibadoghlu has been selected as one of the three finalists for the prestigious 2024 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. The laureate will be announced on 24 October 2024.
  Read his recent publication titled "Russia’s Economic Interests in Azerbaijan: Geopolitics and Geostrategic Views" in SSRN.
• ReadNoah Zucker's latest publication titled "Global Governance under Populism: The Challenge of Information Suppression" in the World Politics.
  Also read his interview on the effects of populism on the fate of international scientific cooperation.
  His paper titled "Breadwinner Backlash: The Gendered Effects of Industrial Decline," received the Award for Best Paper on Women, Gender, and Politics from the American Political Science Association.
  Read his latest publication "Identity, Industry, and Perceptions of Climate Futures" in the Journal of Politics.
  Read his interview on the latest iteration of the Bridgetown Initiative in Devex.
• Watch Professor Fawaz Gerges on CNN discussing the significance of Israel killing the top Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.
  He also spoke with NBC News about the deployment of the US defense system to Israel and its potential to escalate the situation in the Middle East into a wider regional war.
  He also spoke with NBC News regarding Netanyahu's rhetoric, warning of its potential to escalate tensions in Lebanon.
• PhD candidate Kazimier Lim recently published a short article for the Lowy Institute, "When the friendly skies above go dark, rockets light up."
• Professor Robert Falkner gave an interview to Spanish newspaper El Liberal on international climate policy and the net zero transition.
• Stephanie Schwartz discussed with The New York Times the unequal treatment of Palestinian refugees compared to the rest of the world’s refugees.
• Professor Jens Meierhenrich has published a new book The Violence of Law.
• Professor Karen E Smith has a new article "Why does diplomacy have a women issue" in the October 24 edition of Research for the World.
• Ulrich Sedelmeier had his co-authored article "Sanctioning democratic backsliding in the European Union: transnational salience, negative intergovernmental spillover, and policy change" published in the Journal of European Public Policy.
  
  He has also had a piece published in the LSE European Politics and Policy (EUROPP) blog, "Why the EU has started to act against democratic backsliding-and why it may even stay the course".
• Katharine Millar has published a piece in International Theory"Limitations of hypocrisy as a strategy of critique in international politics."
• Professor Fawaz Gerges' latest op-ed is in The Guardian discussing the future of the Middle East.
  He has also published an op-ed in The New York Times on the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
• Theresa Squatrito has published an article in Regulation & Governance entitled Informal governance and transnational access in world politics.
• Dr Irene Morlino, LSE Fellow, was recently received the first Dominique Jacquin-Berdal PhD Prize for her outstanding thesis entitled "Assessing the effectiveness of EU humanitarian aid. The cases of Myanmar, Lebanon, Mozambique."
• LSE Fellow Dr Jonny Hall's latest publication "The War on Terror and the Victory Trap" in Foreign Policy Analysis.
• Read Stephanie Schwartz's latest publication "Do Ethics Matter to Researchers? Introducing the Ethics References in Conflict Studies (ERICS) Dataset" in the Journal of Global Security Studies.
• Watch Professor Fawaz Gerges' video about his new book, What Really Went Wrong: The West and the Failure of Democracy in the Middle East.
  Also watch Professor Fawaz Gerges' interview with CNN about the consequences of Israel targeting Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
• PhD Candidate Mariah Thornton has recently published a piece for Taiwan Insight, "Optimism from One Island to Another: Prospects for UK-Taiwan Relations Under the New Labour Government.
• PhD Candidate Chris Deacon has published an article in International Studies Quarterly, "Mnemonic Encounters: The Construction and Persistence of International 'History Wars' and the Case of Japan–South Korea Relations."
• Read Katharine M Millar's co-written article in Security Studies"Masculinist Actionism: Gender and Strategic Change in US Cyber Strategy".
  
  She has also joined the Freedom Online Coalition-Advisory Network and is the research co-lead on a Canadian Department of Defence Research Network Grant on Women, Peace, and Security (specialising in Futureproofing WPS via an emphasis on ICTs and cybersecurity).
• Read LSE Fellow Dr Dimitrios Stroikos' new chapter 'NATO’S Space Policy and The Global Context: Issues and Challenges', in the open access book Space: Exploring NATO’s Final Frontier.
• Fawaz Gerges' book What Really Went Wrong: The West and the Failure of Democracy in the Middle Easthas just been published. Read a book review by the LSE Review of Books.
  
  You can also read his article "America’s Reckoning with Gaza at Home and the Great Rupture in International Relations", published by Yale University Press.
• Lauren Sukin and PhD Candidate Woohyeok Seo's new article, 'East Asia’s Alliance Dilemma: Public Perceptions of the Competing Risks of Extended Nuclear Deterrence', explores public concerns about nuclear deterrence and proliferation in Australia, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. They find that nuclear anxiety in East Asia is driven by abandonment or entrapment with Washington in its regional security structure.
• Visiting Senior Fellow Dr Anahita Motazed Rad presented her paper 'Intensifying Domestic Challenges of Iraqi Kurdistan: Bolstering Iran's Influence in the Middle East'.
  She also presented a paper and chaired the final panel at the LSE Middle East Centre workshop, Beyond the Israel-Hamas War: Arab-Israeli Relations in a Wider Context. You can read the abstract of her paper 'Complexity of Foreign Policy in the Middle East: Iran and Regional Alliances Amid Chaos', here. The full paper will be published in September 2024.
• Senior Visiting Fellow Geoffrey Swenson has published his new book Contending Orders: Legal Pluralism and the Rule of Law.
• PhD candidate Sara Wong and IRD Fellow Alice Engelhard have received BISA's Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial (CPD), Early-Career Researcher Paper Prizes.
• Martin Bayly has a new article The Empire Cites Back: The Occlusion of Non-Western Histories of IR and the Case of India.
• LSE Fellow Dimitrios Stroikos was recently quoted in Nikkei Asia's article on China's far side of the moon launch.
• Fawaz Gerges has contributed to MSN's article 'US campus protests spread to the Middle East and Europe'. You can also watch him on CNN discussing the implications of the death of the Iranian President.
• Noah Zucker has won an LSE RISF grant of £20k. The grant is for a project entitled "Markets for Climate Experts," which examines how competition between the public and private sectors for a scarce pool of climate experts affects the quality of climate policymaking
• The UN Refugee Agency has posted a data visualisation story, which is the first use of an index Stephanie Schwartz and Lama Mourad (Carleton University) have developed that looks at how states restricted access to asylum during the pandemic.
  Stephanie Schwartz has also published a blog post on The Researching Internal Displacement network, that discusses a new project she's working on with Adam Lichtenheld (Stanford University) and Abbey Steele (University of Amsterdam) on state responses to internal and international displacement.
• Rohan Mukherjee has an article published in Foreign Affairs, "A Hindu Nationalist Foreign Policy," which examines contemporary nationalism in India through the theoretical and historical lenses of domestic politics in rising powers.
  Rohan Mukherjee was also quoted in Reuters' article "Modi invokes foreign policy achievements in election push".
  Rohan Mukherjee has published an article 'Hierarchy and Endogenous Contestation in the Liberal International Order' in Global Studies Quarterly.
• There are seven past, present and future LSE IR Dept academics' articles featured in Vol 68, June 2024 International Studies Quarterly Journal. Check out Boram Lee, Lauren Sukin, Anna Getmansky, Mirko Heinzel and Ben Cormier, Sophie Rosenberg, and Jasmine Gani's articles.
• Mathias Koenig-Archibugi and Mirko Heinzel have published new research on how global efforts to keep antibiotics effective are hampered by low public financing of health care.
• Senior Visiting Fellow Geoffrey Swenson has published "Avoiding the Political Resource Curse: Evidence from a Most Likely Case" in Studies in Comparative International Development.
• Howie Rechavia-Taylor's essay "German Colonialism in the Courtroom - Law, Reparation, and the Grammars of the Shoah" has been awarded the Early Career Essay Prize for best essay published in the Humanity journal in 2023. The prize is open to scholars working outside the tenure track at the time of submission.