Descending from the heights, part Zombie!

Nope, we're not talking about "cruel, demented, vicious pirates who cannot be killed," though that's interesting too:



But rather, as has been extensively well-documented on the pirate blog, Catherine and I are perhaps understandably concerned with being taken seriously, not in spite of, but rather because of, our study of something as popular as pirates. So we're always on the look-out for cases where popular culture is treated as analytically relevant to scholarly research, and the BBC today was happy to oblige. According to an article entitled "Science ponders 'zombie attack'," mathematical researchers at the University of Ottawa have used the hypothetical scenario of a zombie attack as an exercise in infectious disease modeling.

Professor Robert Smith? (the question mark is part of his surname and not a typographical mistake) and colleagues wrote: "We model a zombie attack using biological assumptions based on popular zombie movies. We introduce a basic model for zombie infection and illustrate the outcome with numerical solutions."

The researchers only considered old-school slow zombies, but even so, the results were worrying:

... their analysis revealed that a strategy of capturing or curing the zombies would only put off the inevitable. In their scientific paper, the authors conclude that humanity's only hope is to "hit them [the undead] hard and hit them often". They added: "It's imperative that zombies are dealt with quickly or else... we are all in a great deal of trouble." According to the researchers, the key difference between the zombies and the spread of real infections is that "zombies can come back to life".

This study (available in full here) is an example of the "popular culture as a mirror" approach outlined in the introduction to Harry Potter and International Relations (11-13), as can be seen from the article's abstract:

Zombies are a popular figure in pop culture/entertainment and they are usually portrayed as being brought about through an outbreak or epidemic. Consequently, we model a zombie attack, using biological assumptions based on popular zombie movies. We introduce a basic model for zombie infection, determine equilibria and their stability, and illustrate the outcome with numerical solutions. We then refine the model to introduce a latent period of zombification, whereby humans are infected, but not infectious, before becoming undead. We then modify the model to include the effects of possible quarantine or a cure. Finally, we examine the impact of regular, impulsive reductions in the number of zombies and derive conditions under which eradication can occur. We show that only quick, aggressive attacks can stave off the doomsday scenario: the collapse of society as zombies overtake us all.

Meanwhile, on his Foreign Policy blog, Daniel Drezner briefly and light-heartedly applies some theories of International Relations to a zombie attack. While Drezner's analysis is not fully fleshed-out (sorry!), a brief survey (n=3) I conducted in the last 5 minutes unanimously suggests that zombies should probably be considered alongside Kosovo to understand IR theory. As Daniel Nexon and Iver Neumann write, "The mirror approach is broader than simply deploying popular culture artifacts as a teaching aid. IR scholars can examine popular culture as a medium for exploring theoretical concepts, dilemmas of foreign policy, and the like" (12). As an important caveat, 2/3 of respondents conditioned their response on zombie attacks, unlike extraterrestrial visitations, remaining confined to the realm of hypothetical thought experiments.

Book Critique: The Invisible Hook

The following critique is from a first draft of our literature review. It is deliberately analytical, rather than normative, in keeping with the orientation of our own research project. This is why, instead of objecting to Leeson's characterization of torture as rational on normative grounds, I have pointed out the empirical contradictions in his analysis of torture and looked at his arguments as a means to undermine the explanatory power of rational choice theory on this subject. This is not to suggest that I in any way agree with the normative implications of Leeson's hagiographic treatment of pirates, but merely that for the purposes of our project, it made sense to confine my critical reading to the analytic realm.
***
In his 2009 book The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates, economist Peter T. Leeson argues that rational choice theory is the only way to understand “flamboyant, bizarre, and downright shocking pirate practices” of the 18th century (6). Leeson’s thesis is that ostensibly modern societal ideas such as the democratic process, power-sharing, and racial equality emerged not as liberal ideological ends, but as rationally efficient means by which pirates could operate as a successful criminal social group. Leeson offers an economic basis for accounts of piratical democracies, codes of conduct, and racial tolerance; presents flying the Jolly Roger and torturing captives as rationally-motivated examples of economic signaling; and argues that conscription was the inefficient exception, not the rule, aboard pirate ships. However, because Leeson begins with the assumption that pirates were rational actors (5), his subsequent empirical proof of how pirates’ actions were rational is unnecessary, rendering his analysis an unimpressive contribution to understanding the pirate tradition¹. Indeed, The Invisible Hook is better viewed as a particular configuration of commonplaces than as a conceptual history of piracy (Hansen 2006: 81). There are three main problems with Leeson’s work as a piece of analytical literature: flawed reasoning; empirical errors; internal inconsistencies.

Leeson’s account is unique among modern sources on historical piracy in its acknowledgment of the important role perception plays in the pirate tradition. He argues that pirates deliberately crafted a terrifying image of themselves in order to more efficiently elicit information from hostages, punish government officials, and regulate conduct on board the ship. “Pirates skillfully deployed their infamous instruments of terror, generating a reputation for cruelty and madness that spread throughout the maritime world” (108). Similarly, by flying the Jolly Roger, pirate ships signaled their identity to merchant ships in order to minimize resistance (90), and to capitalize on the fact that merchants were less likely to resist pirates than state-sanctioned attackers (99). Leeson’s research suggests that pirates quite deliberately linked their marginal identity to a discourse of barbarism and excessive violence. Although this argument reveals a particularly interesting rhetorical positioning of piratical identity, as an analytical justification for pirates’ rationality, it is fundamentally tautological. If we begin with the assumption that pirates are rational actors, then of course pirates’ actions can – indeed, must – be read as rational, but this is little more than an elaborate definition of the original assumption, akin to Leeson’s statement that “Pirates’ system of private governance was highly successful, a fact reflected in the success of piracy itself” (79). In addition to being a tautology, the conclusion of this statement is not entirely true. By the late 1700s, piracy would be virtually eliminated as large-scale threat for close to 300 years. The Invisible Hook only explains a discrete moment in the pirate tradition; it does not consider how interpretations of the threat of piracy changed over time nor does it explain how piracy ceased to be regarded as a credible threat at all.

Leeson’s empirical evidence for his claims about pirates’ rational actions is flawed or incomplete in several places. Many of his arguments about piratical democratic institutions and systems of governance are based on so-called pirate codes (58). While there is indeed evidence that pirates drew up such agreements, there is much less to suggest these codes were reliably enforced. There are three reasons to regard the presumed adherence to these codes with skepticism. First, Leeson presents Charles Johnson’s account² of such articles aboard Captain Robert’s ship as evidence for pirates’ private governance (62). Aside from the obvious point that existence of an ostensibly liberal democratic constitution does not in any way guarantee liberal democratic rule, there is textual evidence in the Johnson account itself which suggests that the articles enumerated therein were incomplete and probably whitewashed:

These, we are assured, were some of Roberts's Articles, but as they had taken Care to throw over-board the Original they had sign'd and sworn to, there is a great deal of Room to suspect, the remainder contained something too horrid to be disclosed to any, except such as were willing to be Sharers in the Iniquity of them ... (Defoe 1724: 233)

Second, Leeson also offers Alexander Exquemelin’s description of 17th century buccaneers’ articles of agreement as further evidence of the triumph of piratical private governance. However, if Johnson expressed doubts about the content of the articles aboard Roberts’ ship, the anonymous author of the preface to the 1699 edition of Exquemelin’s Buccaneers of America specifically calls into question the enforcement of the articles designed to prevent negative externalities:

However it is very remarkable, that in such a lawless Body as these Bucaniers seemed to be, in respect to all others; that yet there should be such an Oeconomy (if I may so say) kept and regularity practiced among themselves, so that every one seemed to have his property as much secured, as if he had been a member of the most Civilized Community in the World; tho at the same time when I consider of some of their Laws, such as those against Drunkenness and the like immoralities, I believe I have a great deal of reason to remain suspicious of their Sincerity. (Esquemeling 1699: 5. Emphasis added)

Although neither of these quotations specifically says that pirates’ compliance with their articles of confederation was less than exemplary, they do indicate that even pirates’ contemporaries had reason to doubt the adherence to liberal democratic norms aboard pirate ships. Leeson’s uncritical acceptance of piratical obedience indicates a lack of analytical rigor for the sake of theoretical coherence, since rational choice theory only tells us something about pirate laws if these laws were actually obeyed.

Finally, because Leeson walks a fine line in his analysis (pirates were only just violent enough to craft a public identity for themselves as violent), he ends up undermining his initial claim that adherence to pirate codes was purely voluntary. Leeson contends that private governance is superior to state governments, and he alleges that the primary difference between the two is that governance is voluntary while government is characterized by coercive force (47-50). It is therefore essential that he prove that pirate codes were consented to voluntarily, an argument he makes in his application of Tiebout model to competition among pirate crews (61). Actually, because Tiebout competition describes how governments (not forms of governance) compete for citizens, this concept directly refutes Leeson’s earlier assertion that “If you don’t like the rules government sets up, it’s too bad. You don’t have the choice of saying … ‘no thank you, I don’t much care for your rules, so I’m going to take my money and live according to my own rules’” (50). Tiebout competition assumes citizens can, to use Leeson’s formulation, say, “I don’t much care for your rules, so I’m going to take my money and live according to some other rules.”³

Leeson’s initial assertion is not only a questionable application of social contract theory⁴ and theoretically inconsistent with his use of Tiebout competition, but most importantly it is empirically refuted in his chapter on impressments. Leeson begins this chapter by asserting that conscription and forced adherence to pirate law was seen as inefficient and therefore rare aboard pirate ships (136). However, the empirical accounts he uses to support this assertion suggest that coercive force played a significant role even in “voluntary” adherence to pirate codes:

When Edward Low captured Philip Ashton, for instance, he began with the pirates’ traditional inquiry of the captured crew about who would join them. As Ashton put it, “according to the Pirates usual custom ... [he] asked me, If I would sign their Articles and go along with them.” A man of strong moral fiber, Ashton declined. When this failed Low returned to him later and “asked the Old Question, Whether we would Sign their Articles, and go along with them?” When Ashton refused again, Low waited and then reapproached Ashton, this time demanding “with Sterness and Threats, whether I would Joyn with them?” On his third refusal the pirates “assaulted” Ashton -- but not with fists. Rather, they subjected the upright sailor to “temptations of another kind, in hopes to win me over... [they] treated me with an abundance of Respect and Kindness,” offering Ashton a drink and doing all they could to “sooth my Sorrows.” Only when Ashton rebuffed the fourth advance did a frustrated Low resort to violent intimidation, declaring, “If you will not sign our Articles, and go along with me, I'll shoot you thro' the Head.” Much to Low's consternation, Ashton remained obstinate, and the pirate captain dragged Ashton with him anyway. (137-138)

Though Leeson inexplicably reads the repeated attempts to convince Ashton to sign the articles as evidence of the high value pirates placed on volunteers, there can be no clearer articulation of coercive force than, “If you will not sign our Articles, I’ll shoot you through the head.” The bizarreness of this interpretation is underscored by Leeson’s earlier statement that, “Voluntary choice requires that our options aren’t framed under the threat of force” (50).

Leeson goes on to say that “Some prisoners ‘converted’ because pirate crews denied conscripts the rights afforded to volunteers, such as participation in the ship's democratic decision making, the right to their shares of plunder, and the right to settle disputes with other crew members by duel” (141). However, the denial of rights to those who will not adhere to the laws is yet another example of the sort of coercive force Leeson so strongly objects to in governments (50-51). Despite his professed preference for private governance, Leeson does seem to tacitly admit the necessity of government in some cases. In his chapter in the rational applications of torture, Leeson writes that “In terms of the costs and benefits they faced of bringing justice⁵ to abusive merchant ship captains on the high seas, pirates were better suited to this task than government” (127). However, he later notes that “absent any controls, pirate justice could be unfair, excessive, and in more than a few cases was probably totally unwarranted” (132). This is essentially Hobbes’ argument for why coercive government is necessary.

In addition to being empirically weak and internally inconsistent, Leeson’s book ends up telling us little more than the following: If we assume pirates were rational actors, then we can construct rational explanations for their actions. Leeson has attempted to do this, resulting in an analytically empty tautology that says that rationally self-interested cooperation can lead to ostensibly democratic social groups, excessively brutal torture, racial equality, participation in the slave trade, and colorful flags.

¹Furthermore, Leeson concedes that rational choice theory fails to account for all piratical actions, noting that “although pirates overwhelmingly tortured ‘with purpose,’ there are cases that were no more than sadism as well” (132). The distinction between “rational” torture and “sadistic” torture is left wholly unclear.

²Some editions of A General History of the Pyrates have been inaccurately attributed to Daniel Defoe. Although present-day research indicates that Defoe was not in fact the author, our citations reflect the author listed on the edition being cited.

³Or more formally, “In a Tiebout model, local jurisdictions compete for citizens by offering bundles of public goods. Citizens then sort themselves among jurisdictions according to their preferences.” (Ken Kollman, John H. Miller and Scott E. Page. “Political Institutions and Sorting in a Tiebout Model.” The American Economic Review, Vol. 87, No. 5. Dec. 1997: 977)

⁴For example, Rousseau argues that sovereign authorities only gain their authority from the general will and that when the people are displeased by a law, they can dissolve and reconstitute the existing sovereign and its laws. The distanced formulation “I don’t much care for your rules” is meaningless in such a government. Indeed, most social contract theorists articulate answers to the question of individual disagreement with societal laws. For instance, one can construct a defensible reading of Locke’s Second Treatise on Government that says it is entirely possible and acceptable for people to remain outside a government they have no interest in joining. “This [forming a civil society] any number of Men may do, because it injures not the Freedom of the rest; they are left as they were in the Liberty of the State of Nature” (John Locke. Two Treatises of Government. Ed. Peter Laslett. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989: 331). However, a further extension of this kind of critique is rendered largely unnecessary by the internal contradictions in Leeson’s work.

⁵Leeson is apparently condoning torture as an acceptable form of justice. Although my present critique is deliberately analytical, not normative in orientation, it is worth noting how Leeson’s application of rational choice theory positions piracy as outside the realm of ethical judgment.

Anti-whaling pirates

Whales and whaling seem to have worked their way into our project in a variety of subtle ways this summer, beginning back in May with our theory and methodology reading, when we read Charlotte Epstein's The Power of Words in International Relations: The Birth of an Anti-Whaling Discourse. This book is not only an excellent example of how to conduct a discourse analysis in International Relations, but also examines what James Rosenau would call a "genuine puzzle": how the anti-whaling discourse became dominant and created normative changes that then made certain national and international policies possible.

We ran into whales again in Mystic Seaport (after we had finished our time in the archives) where we watched a video on whaling practices explained through passages from Moby Dick (a significant work in the construction of the anti-whaling discourse for the way in which its representation of whales creates a distance between actual whales out in the ocean and the whale in the story -- a narrative reappropriated by anti-whaling activists) and handled a bronze whaling gun:
However, perhaps the most interesting pirate-whaling link we've come across has been the appropriation of pirate imagery and identity by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, the organization featured in Animal Planet's popular show Whale Wars (a connection we found out about from this Foreign Policy photo essay). Apparently some members of this society have taken it upon themselves to harass Japanese whaling vessels which they believe to be whaling for commercial rather than research purposes (though they would clearly object to the latter as well). This show is of note, first of all, for the extent to which it vividly illustrates Epstein's thesis about the "real-world" power of the anti-whaling discourse and the construction of (disputed) political space for non-governmental environmental actors. It's hard to see the same show being made with another environmental discourse (I can't see the Environmental Liberation Front's burning down of a Colorado ski lodge to save lynx habitat mobilizing quite the same level of enthusiasm), and even more challenging to envision a non-environmental non-state illegal group garnering such wide-spread popularity.

But, an even more interesting twist (at least from the standpoint of our research), involves the deliberate appropriation of the pirate identity by the Sea Shepherds. Faced with accusations of piracy by Japanese whalers, Sea Shepherd Captain Paul Watson asserted his pride in being a "pirate of compassion" in an op-ed published in the Guardian. The op-ed is worth reading in full, but several points jump out.

First, Watson deploys the "pirate as (national) hero" commonplace that enjoyed great popularity in the early 18th century with English descriptions of Captain Morgan and again in the early to mid 19th century in American representations of John Paul Jones and, later, Jean Lafitte. Indeed, these are the pirate heroes that Watson cites:

At least proper piracy has a long list of renowned and admirable practitioners: John Paul Jones, who founded the navies of both the US and Russia; Jean LaFitte, who stood with General Andrew Jackson in defence of New Orleans; and Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh, knighted by Elizabeth I. I stand in honourable company as a modern-day pirate, though I've not shot anyone, burned any ships, looted any cargos or kidnapped anyone.

Watson's grasp on history is tenuous (he denies the British Navy had anything to do with the suppression of 18th century Caribbean piracy, attributing it instead to Henry Morgan), but his strategic deployment of the same pirate-legitimating commonplaces used centuries ago is quite interesting to observe.

Second, having made note of the pirate imagery used by the Sea Shepherd and Whale Wars, I was intrigued to read about both the deliberately defiant way in which it was deployed and also the popular appeal it lent to the Sea Shepherd's controversial cause:

My ship, the Steve Irwin, does fly a modern version of the Jolie Rouge, the original name of the banner that evolved into the skull and crossbones of the Jolly Roger. We decided years ago that if people were going to call us pirates, we would adopt our own version, and designed the crossed Neptune trident and shepherd's staff with the skull.

As soon as we hoisted that black flag, kids from around the world began to write to us in support. Our Jolly Roger hats and shirts have become our most popular merchandise. Why? Because there is a romance associated with piracy that is separate from the reality. Some pirates were noble heroes and some were dastardly villains. It's all a matter of perspective. If you love whales, we be heroes; but if you eat whales then we be pirates.

Finally, the introductory paragraphs of Watson's op-ed suggest he is aware of just how persuasive the popular imagery and language of pirates can be in summoning up enthusiasm:

Shiver me timbers, boys and girls, we is awash in a sea of pirates down here in the Southern Ocean and it's time for a parley to do a little 'splaining on the subject. This ocean now rivals the 17th century Caribbean for reported acts of piracy. The only thing lacking is the Sea Shepherd member Orlando Bloom.

Japanese whalers are accusing the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and Greenpeace crew members of being pirates. Sea Shepherd and Greenpeace are accusing the whalers of being pirates. The whalers and Greenpeace are accusing Sea Shepherd of being pirates. The Japanese government is throwing the word piracy about as freely as the governor of Jamaica once did.

No one has sunk any ships, looted any cargos, kidnapped any damsels (just a couple of blokes) or forced anyone to walk the plank yet - but listening to the rhetoric, the public could be forgiven from thinking these activities are ravaging the Southern main.

That the deployment of pirate rhetoric is being used to legitimate (some) illegal non-state actions in the 21st century is a striking illustration of the extent to which the pirate discourse has shifted throughout history. That the deployment of the same word -- and some of the same commonplaces -- would, at the exact same time, be used to delegitimate other illegal non-state practices (most notably Somali piracy) indicates that, like Epstein, we too have an IR maritime puzzle to explain.

(Photo from: http://www.melbourne.indymedia.org/uploads/sea_shepherd_in_hobart_dec_06.jpg)

Pirates in church?

Well, in a UU church, anyway! Last Sunday, Rev. Louise Green at All Souls Unitarian Church gave a sermon on "The Inconvenience of Compassion" which began with an anecdote about feeling compassion for the Somali teenager, Abdiwali Abdiqadir Muse, who is being tried in New York for piracy. The sermon went on to play the rhetorical commonplace of "pirates as godless and evil" against teachings on compassion, and included a poem by Thich Nhat Hanh, a Buddhist monk, poet, and peace activist:

Please Call Me By My True Names

Do not say that I'll depart tomorrow
because even today I still arrive.

Look deeply: I arrive in every second
to be a bud on a spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with wings still fragile,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
in order to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and
death of all that are alive.

I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river,
and I am the bird which, when spring comes, arrives in time
to eat the mayfly.

I am the frog swimming happily in the clear pond,
and I am also the grass-snake who, approaching in silence,
feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks,
and I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to
Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea
pirate,
and I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and
loving.

I am a member of the politburo, with plenty of power in my
hands,
and I am the man who has to pay his "debt of blood" to, my
people,
dying slowly in a forced labor camp.

My joy is like spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom in all
walks of life.
My pain if like a river of tears, so full it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and laughs at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart can be left open,
the door of compassion.

I don't actually like the poem very much, but I have included it here as an example of a contemporary deployment of the "pirate as ultimate evil/hostis humani generis/enemy of all mankind" commonplace. That this common understanding of pirate is, to varying degrees, deliberately contested and refuted, both in the poem and in the wider context of the sermon, is actually further evidence of its being a rhetorical commonplace: In Civilizing the Enemy: German Reconstruction and the Invention of the West, Patrick Thaddeus Jackson takes great care to establish that a rhetorical commonplace is only weakly shared; it is a "potential resource," and "not a univocal, completely fixed bit of meaning that is identically possessed by multiple people; that would be a strong form of shared meaning, and ... would also have the logical consequence of making debate and discussion unnecessary: if we already agreed in this strong sense, why would we have to talk about it?" (28; 44; 50). Indeed, the sort of contentious conversations about representations of actors that Charles Tilly talks about in Stories, Identities, and Political Change are only possible with what he calls a shared set of idioms and history (116-118). Using pirates to demonstrate the possibilities of human compassion is an attempt to redefine the meaning of pirate, but such redefinition is only possible given that "pirates as evil" is already weakly shared among the congregation.

I feel like T-Rex explains this concept pretty well. (click to enlarge)

Research trip, part VI: Harry Potter and International Relations

(This is unfortunately not Platform 9 3/4)

As Catherine noted some time ago, this project draws upon, among other analytical tools, the theoretical approach of popular culture as constitutive that is articulated in the introduction to Daniel Nexon and Iver Neumann's Harry Potter and International Relations. Primed as I was by a midnight showing of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince at the Morehead City, NC cinema, I decided to read it was my turn to read HP and IR on the train ride back to DC. One can only spend so much time pretending that the Carolinian is the Hogwarts Express, after all, especially as Amtrak refuses to serve pumpkin juice and chocolate frogs in its snack car. My reading generated the following uh, articulation of righteous indignation, posted here as I am not sure what else to do with it. Caveat lector: There are virtually no pirates whatsoever in this post.
***
For the record, I do not automatically critically object to everything I read, my comments regarding Peter Leeson's op-eds, Janice Thomson's footnotes, and deconstructionism notwithstanding. In fact, I thoroughly enjoyed many of the chapters in Harry Potter and International Relations, especially Ann Towns and Bahar Rumelili's chapter on the reception of Harry Potter in Sweden and Turkey; Maia Gemmill and Daniel Nexon's chapter on the religious politics of Harry Potter; Iver Neumann's chapter on the mythical geography of the magical world; and Martin Hall's chapter on mythology as methodology. However, Jennifer Sterling-Folker and Brian Folker's chapter, "Conflict and the Nation-State: Magical Mirrors of Muggles and Refracted Images," got my goat.

Setting aside for a moment the theoretical conclusions they draw by equating the conflict with Voldemort with a nationalist war, my first gut-level reaction to the chapter concerned the authors' unqualified use of the term "mudblood" to describe Muggle-born wizards (117). As anyone who has even skimmed Chamber of Secrets ought to know, "mudblood" is an incredibly derogatory term in the wizarding world, inciting a violent response from the entire Gryffindor Quidditch team when Malfoy uses it against Hermione. There are numerous other examples of the non-neutral connotations of the term from Snape's calling Lily Potter a mudblood in a remembered scene in Order of the Phoenix (a key plot point) to its wide-spread use in the Ministry of Magic after Voldemort seizes control of that particular state institution (more on that later). The obvious equivalent in the muggle world is, of course, the word "nigger," and the parallel becomes particularly acute with Hermione's bold and deliberate reappropriation of the term in Deathly Hallows.

It is odd, then, that not only do the authors cavalierly use the word "mudblood" when "Muggle-born" is clearly the appropriate term within the fictional social context the authors are analyzing, but they go on the explicitly equate the widely-used and value-neutral term "Muggle" with "nigger" (119). While I will grant that wizards often take a paternalistic tone in describing Muggles (and a downright evil one in the 7th book, though the authors could not have known that when writing the chapter, of course) the term "Muggle" itself is widely used by good and evil characters alike in the wizarding world. Indeed, the paternalistic tone the authors refer to is, I would argue, a deliberate literary device that adds some humor to the books (Mr. Weasley doesn't know how electricity works! Archie can't figure out the vagaries of Muggle dress!) and even a way to get young muggle readers thinking critically about their own taken-for-granted cultural norms in the tradition of "Body Ritual Among the Nacirema." Hermione, who clearly loves her parents very much, refers to them as Muggles; Hogwarts offers a class in Muggle Studies; the pre-Thicknesse Ministry of Magic had departments with "Muggle" in the name; even Dumbledore, the embodiment of goodness, talks of Muggle knitting patterns. Indeed, the lack of another term for non-wizarding humans points to the innocuous ubiquity of the term "Muggle." In short, there is nothing to support the authors' statement that "Muggle" is in any way a derogatory term.

These are two fundamental errors of empirical analysis in this chapter of Harry Potter and International Relations. There is no real question of interpretation here; while the precise wizard-Muggle relationship is debatable, that "mudblood" is "a disgusting thing to call someone" and "a really foul name" is not. This type of misreading has two implications: First, it seriously detracts from the authors' credibility in their analysis of Harry Potter and international relations. Either they did not read the books at all and relied instead on secondary sources, or their reading was superficial and ignored the nuances of wizarding social identities. My insistence on this seemingly small linguistic point may sound laughably nerdy and pedantic -- and indeed a social science analysis of a transparently constructed fictional world is always going to be subject to that sort of critique -- but the authors' decision to treat the world of Harry Potter as worthy of academic analysis effectively moots such critiques in this debate. I also felt this misuse of terms detracted from the overall credibility of the book; that sort of misreading should have been flagged by an editor or reviewer. Since the editors of the book were clearly targeting a Harry Potter-literate audience, they should have known to hold their contributors to the same standard.

The second implication of this linguistic imprecision is that it is indicative of a deeper misreading of the Harry Potter texts. Chief among these is the authors' equation of the wizarding world's conflict with Voldemort with identity-based (nationalist, religious, ethnic) conflict in the Muggle world. The authors argue that the fundamental difference between the liberal IR fantasy of the wizarding world and the realist reality of the Muggle world is that in the wizarding world power inheres to the individual and therefore the need for collective action is minimized. The authors' then state that there should be "relatively little cause for collective conflict among wizards and witches themselves as a result," and use this as evidence of the logical inconsistency of Rowling's "ultimate fantasy of liberal philosophy." They are correct in stating that there should be little collective conflict; in fact, there is not.

The problem lies not in Rowling's logic but in their reading of Voldemort's war against elements of the wizarding community as a collective conflict, on par with the Nazis' quest for racial purity. There are parallels, to be sure, and the Harry Potter series is nothing if not a call for greater tolerance in the world, but Voldemort's primary concern is not with creating an exclusively pureblood race (Voldemort himself is a half-blood). While blood purity is certainly the goal of the Death Eaters whose service he needs, Voldemort himself is obsessed with becoming the greatest wizard of all time by overcoming death. (In Rowling's fictional universe, it is occasionally possible to determine a character's motivations directly, but even without relying on a motivational account for Voldemort's actions we can conclude that the image he has crafted for himself is that of a wizard obsessed with power at all costs). The conflict in the Harry Potter series is not between purebloods and half-bloods (in any case, that only starts to become the case in the 7th book, which the authors did not know about); it is between Harry and Voldemort. It is a highly individualized conflict and whether or not that is a liberal fantasy, it is emphatically not an identity-based conflict in the model the authors envision.

The authors' concluding point is that the wizarding world has no link between identity and collective political structures, and this is why Voldemort and the Death Eaters never make an attempt to "seize the reins of power that the state embodies." But if the conflict in the series is read as something other than a collective identity-based movement, there is no immediate need for its instigators to gain state control. It seems to me that a more apt reading of the conflict is that of a lone wolf terrorist or a small guerilla movement that is intent on achieving a deluded, highly individual goal or acquiring power with no wider social agenda. This does not imply that Voldemort's actions do not have broader societal implications; because he does not care who gets hurt in his pursuit of power and because a climate of fear only makes his exercise of power easier, many, many people can and are maimed, killed, and tortured along the way.

The authors of the article write that "the seizure or control of the state is the means whereby muggle collectives can obtain goals such as racial purification and oppression that involve violence en mass [sic]" (122). But since racial purification and oppression are not Voldemort's chief concerns, except as means to an end, it makes sense that taking control of the Ministry of Magic would not be his primary goal, particularly since, as the authors note, the Ministry has only limited power in the wizarding world anyway. Here is where the inevitable and admittedly mediocre pirate reference comes in: desperate for to obtain some sort of power (at least of the economic flavor) but largely unconcerned by larger identity-based social concerns, the Somali pirates are not targeting the incredibly weak Somali government or any government at all. I do not in any way want to equate the Somali pirates with Voldemort's evilness; I merely wish to point out that targeting the state is not always the best way to become powerful, especially when you are starting from ground zero.

Ultimately, of course, Voldemort and the Death Eaters do gain control of the Ministry through holding Thicknesse under the Imperius Curse, literally turning the Ministry into a puppet government and the wizarding world into a police state, though -- in fairness -- the authors of the chapter could not have known this when they were writing. Once the wizarding world accepts that Voldemort is back, spreading fear is a good way for Voldemort to gain power, and control of even weak state institutions helps make this possible. That it would take so long for Voldemort to infiltrate the Ministry is thus indicative of the following: his primary concern with personal power and thus his relative unconcern for collective identity politics (personal power, at least in its early stages, does not require control of the state); the physical and social limitations of his power in the earlier books (does anyone really think Voldemort could infiltrate the Ministry of Magic when he didn't even have a body of his own?); and presumably also the fact that control of state institutions is a subject of little interest to most 10-14 year olds: the audience of the earlier books.

The broader point I wish to make here is that a cursory or incomplete reading of text to support a broader theoretical commitment fails at creating a compelling case on two levels: First, it destroys a scholar's credibility and authority on a given subject; and second, it leads to empirically flawed analysis that does little to support the theory in question. And on a much lower third level, it opens you up to criticism from 20 year-old IR students who grew up reading and re-reading the texts in question and do not like to see them carelessly wielded.

On that note, this quote from Dumbledore seems a particularly apt way to end this post, with its wonderful constructivist overtones* and its recognition the power of myth and story:

That which Voldemort does not value, he takes no trouble to comprehend. Of house-elves and children’s tales, of love, loyalty, and innocence, Voldemort knows and understands nothing. Nothing. That they all have a power beyond his own, a power beyond the reach of any magic, is a truth he has never grasped. (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, 710)

*Dumbledore himself might be more of an interpretivist, however:

"Tell me one last thing," said Harry. “Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?” “Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”

Deconstructing the vegetable-pirate nexus

Aaargh-tichokes, Piradishes, and Cuke-aneers: Deconstructing the vegetable-pirate nexus
Erin Lockwood, American University
From: The Journal of Critical Leguminous International Inquiry, 1, (2009): 1-2.

Introduction
Political discourse and official policy have shown an increased openness to discussions of fruits and vegetables previously considered outside the boundaries of civilized consumption practices, often rhetorically delegitimized through the heteronormative interpellation of such legumes as "crooked," or, colloquially, "wonky." Taking advantage of this recent discursive trend towards the re-introduction of vegetable-based rhetoric into the political sphere and drawing exclusively upon the methodologies of scholars whose names begin with "J" -- specifically J. Weldes, J. Derrida, J. Bially-Mattern, J. Butler, J. Baudrillard, J. Habermas and, perhaps unconventionally, J. Child -- this article analyzes the nexus between the identities of two intersubjectively constituted and otherized social actors -- pirates and vegetables and, more significantly, suggests that the deployment of rhetorical linkages between pirates and vegetables is no different from a patriarchal hegemonic deployment of traditional, weapons-based forms of "power" and "control."

Literature Review
A Google Scholar search of pirate + vegetable reveals that there is no current scholarship on this subject. A troubling find, and one indicative of the extent to which the association of pirate with vegetable has become one characterized by the Gramscian conceptualization of "commonsense."

Methodology
This study is occasionally a small n (n = 2) case study of cultural representations of pirates and vegetables and draws upon the theories and methods of the scholars whose names start with "J" cited above, some of whom say that methodology is inherently Western and rational and that deconstruction is non-method, and some of whom think this is pretty silly. In a performative acknowledgment of the aporetic interpretations of "method" and the liminal identity of both pirates and vegetable in the contemporary collective consciousness my meta-(non)method is therefore to oscillate very quickly between method and non-method while eating my not organic-certified carrot sticks in a politically aware manner.

Findings
Case 1:
One of the seminal basic disourses of the pirate-veggie nexus is found in a deceptively simple 20th century cinematic work of neo-Christian theology ostensibly aimed at children (though like so many other instantiations of so-called popular culture, this work is, to my mind, indicative of much more deeply buried -- indeed, repressed -- processes of repression and dehumynizaton) . This minimalist musical performance rhetorically links these societally marginalized identities with Weber's conceptualization of the capitalist-enabling Protestant work ethic -- or rather, in the Hegelian tradition, with its antithesis. But my interpretation -- indeed, any interpretation -- can only take us so far. Here is the piece in contention:


Case 2
The second basic discourse examined in this study engages in a similarly cartoon-like visual depiction of vegetable pirates -- a form of representational distancing between the perceived "reality" of the politically problematic nature of vegetable consumption and violent non-state actors and the harmless simulacra of the cultural deployment of these identities:

If you have fond memories of playing Pac-Man in your youth, your kids now have an opportunity to discover the fun of controlling a large-mouthed character who likes to eat. With Namco Bandai's The Munchables for the Nintendo Wii, kids come to the rescue of a world being attacked by alien veggies and fruits.All this eating is done in the context of a story about the peaceful but voracious Munchables society whose food is provided to them in great abundance by a set of Legendary Orbs. Space pirates shaped like fruits and vegetables and led by Don Onion have attacked the Munchables' world and stolen their Orbs. These bad guys are now arriving in hordes to put down their vegetarian roots. Luckily, they taste good to your Munchable character who has been recruited by the Great Elder to save the Munchables' world.

But whereas the previous discourse playfully acknowledges the religious origins of modern capitalist oppression by poetically and rhetorically linking the antithesis of the Weberian ethic to vegetable simulacra in a Christian-infused hyperreality, the second case deploys similar representations in a normatively hegemonic wielding of inherently Western nutritional values. By exploiting the commonsense associations of pirates with vegetables, this text implicitly but transparently associates the forbidden fruit (if you will) of these otherized identities with its aggressive imperialist vegetable-consumption agenda while normalizing violence by reifying the character of postmodern warfare in a seductively deceptive simulation of death and destruction:

Like Pac-Man,The Munchables creates addictive game play — it's fun to eat everything in sight. For parents concerned about violence, this is an E-rated game. But it does contain mild violence because you do eat cute anthropomorphized fruits and vegetables. There is no blood or agony — the interloping pirates just disappear into your character's maw as you become the hero for restoring order in your world.

Conclusions
I need to spend less time in the library.

Dissent! Dissent on the pirate blog!

As the Great Howard-Jackson Academia Debate of 2009 shows (see here and here and here and here and even here), a good knock-down, drag-out battle of hearts and minds makes for fascinating reading, so I've decided to drag some more controversy aboard the pirate blog by taking another PhD'ed scholar to task. This project and I thrive on dissent, discussion, and debate, so lest a reader be inclined to think that the whole wide world endorses our non-traditional research inclinations, I thought I would post a critique of the methods of discourse analysis from Janice E. Thomson's Mercenaries, Pirates, and Sovereigns: State-building and extraterritorial violence in early modern Europe. Thomson's book deals with the fundamentally constructivist problem of how the system of state sovereignty that realist theorists treat as an exogenous assumption was, well, constructed:

If all of these boundaries are contested and contingent, the question is, How are they produced and reproduced such that they appear permanent, fixed, and natural? Why do we think we know what sovereignty is? Put differently, how are Ruggie's 'hegemonic form of state/society relations' or Ashley's 'hegemonic exemplar' of 'a normalized sovereignty' constructed? (18)

Thomson recognizes that sovereignty is variable, social, and contingent (12-13) but rather than treating discourse as a constitutive site of sovereignty, she discounts it entirely as such:

Textual (intertextual, contextual) interpretation, discourse analysis, and other deconstruction methods are not the necessary or only alternative. It is not clear that these methods will generate a 'productive' research program in the Keohanian sense ... Moreover, by adopting such unconventional methods, critical theory allows or forces mainstream scholars to dismiss postmodernism based on its research designs, methods, and data. It hardly helps matters that much of postmodernist discourse is opaque (thus, largely meaningless) to ordinary international relations scholars ... Beyond this, the postmodernist focus on discourse poses the danger of diverting attention from the reality of state power to the discourse about it. States are now massive, physical, bureacratic, and coercive institutions that have been developing for some six centuries. While postmodernists are surely right to claim that discourse is the deployment of power, it is implausible to argue that the exercise of power in this form is of central importance to, much less decisive in, world politics. Discourse may contribute to the construction of the state but I am not convinced that the state might be fundamentally altered if the discourse on the state changed or that it would vanish if we stopped talking about it. (161)

These are pretty damning charges that strike at the heart of our research project, especially given the overlap between the construction of sovereignty and the construction of pirates, that Thomson herself observes and analyzes (hence the book's title). My response* to this footnoted assault on my summer's work, then, is four-fold:

1. Thomson questions whether discursive analyses can generate a productive research program, citing Robert Keohane's critique of reflectivism in "International Institutions: Two Approaches." However, Thomson herself, writing in 1994, dismisses this critique on empirical grounds in an earlier footnote, noting that "this charge is unfair to the extent that these scholars have spawned the deconstructionist project in international relations" (160). Fifteen years later, the empirical argument against claims of "no research agenda" is even stronger. IR scholars such as Jutta Weldes, Charlotte Epstein, Neta Crawford, and Janice Bially Mattern have written post-structuralist analyses that explicitly focus on discourse and rhetoric using a coherent and rigorous --if unapologetically non-positivist -- methodology. The theory and methodology informing such works present an implicit research model, and in Security as Practice: Discourse Analysis and the Bosnian War, Lene Hansen offers an explicit description of how to conduct quality discourse analysis research. Works like Dvora Yanow and Peregrine Schwartz-Shea's Interpretation and Method: Empirical Research Methods and the Interpretive Turn represent contemporary attempts to develop a set of serious guidelines around which to orient such textually focused research methods.

As for Thomson's charge that such "unconventional" methods force mainstream scholars to dismiss such research, again, that is a norm that is changing, and articles such as the extended exchange in International Studies Quarterly between Robert Keohane (!) and J. Ann Tickner (see here and here and here and here) indicate that conventional scholars are indeed seriously engaging with non-mainstream methods, even as they critique them.

Next, it is unclear to what extent Thomson herself follows a clearly defined "productive" research program. Her rejection or realist and liberal assumptions about sovereignty puts her squarely outside the realm of mainstream IR theory, and her use of an interpretive institutionalist "protoparadigm" (14) seems open to much the same critique that she levels at postmodernism.

2. Thomson states that postmodernist discourse tends to be incomprehensible to IR scholars. First of all, the arguments above about how unconventional methodologies are theories are becoming increasingly conventional applies here. Second, I would suggest, that this is a relatively silly, red herringish, reason to dismiss such methods. I'm sorry they are difficult to understand, but a methodology that dismisses parsimonious covering laws is bound to be a bit complicated. I'm sorely tempted to say that this criticism has nothing to do with the merits of postmodernist methods, but I'm afraid it would be obnoxiously hypocritical to exempt postmodernist discourse from a critique of postmodernism. A better response is that every discipline has its vocabulary and Thomson's book -- particularly her theory and method chapter -- would be quite difficult to the policy-makers whom she briefly addresses in the final chapter (151-152) if they had no knowledge of academic IR theory. The best response would be to not prejudge the question; we have no intention of gratuitously using esoteric academic jargon -- from any discipline -- in our paper and to the extent that we do, we intend to clearly and concisely define our terms (or at the very least, present an argument for why we don't).

3. Thomson's argument that focusing on discourse about power takes attention away from "the reality of it" is powerfully discounted by every one of the rhetorically-focused constructivist authors whose theory and methods we draw upon in our research. Such authors argue that discourse and policy are mutually constitutive: that there is no brightline between discourse and reality. In "Twisting Tongues and Twisting Arms: The Power of Political Rhetoric," for example, Ronald Krebs and Patrick Thaddeus Jackson outline a particular mechanism (that of rhetorical coercion) by which state power can be discursively deployed. Further blurring the putative line between rhetoric and reality, Jutta Weldes explains how official discourse shapes the national interest and creates the conditions of possibility under which force can and cannot be deployed:

Drawing on and constrained by the array of cultural and linguistic resources already available within the security imaginary, state officials create representations that serve, first, to populate the world with a variety of objects, including both the self (that is, the state in question and its authorized officials) and others ... Second, such representations posit well-defined relations among these diverse objects. These relations often appear in the form of quasi-causal arguments such as ... the domino theory ... Finally, in providing a vision of the world of international relations— in populating that world with objects and in supplying quasicausal, or warranting, arguments— these representations have already defined the national interest.

Weldes argues that examining state discourse helps understand why claims about national interest and threats to state power are believed and thus legitimate state action, using the discursive construction of the Soviet deployment of missiles in Cuba as a "crisis" as a case study. In a similar tradition, Janice Bially Mattern makes the case in Ordering International Politics: Identity, Crisis, and Representational Force that language power is every bit as "real" as military strength and that representational force (what she calls a "threat of potential violence to the victim's subjectivity") can coerce "real" state action just as effectively as the traditional mechanisms of power politics. Specifically, she argues that the mechanisms of language power and rhetorical links between concepts like "betrayal" and "Dulles" made it impossible for the US to intend to use force against British cooperation with the nationalization of the Suez Canal.

Arguments like these demonstrate that discourse is indeed deeply relevant and even decisive in the exercise of world politics. To bring the discussion back to pirates, the fact that the United States can call the Somali hijackers "pirates" makes possible and rules out specific military and non-military reactions to what can be constructed as a threat. It's not as simple as labeling anyone the Navy SEALS want to snipe as a "pirate" -- prior understandings of the word determine whom we can label as a pirate -- but the deployment of the term itself does legitimate "real world" responses.

4. Thomson's final point here is that nothing would change if we altered our discourse on the state and the state would not vanish if we stopped talking about it. In response to the first half of the statement, the above argument applies fairly well. Again, because our use of discourse analysis rests on intersubjective understandings of various rhetorical commonplaces, we are not making the argument that a change in discourse can cause a change in state (or non-state) identities. The causal relationships we are analyzing are not one-directional independent-variable/dependent-variable type mechanisms. Rather, they deal with conditions of possibility and contingent configurations: because we understand a "pirate" to be someone who hijacks ships in international waters (to use a crude definition) based on a series of historical experiences, we can then deploy the term "piracy" to what we understand some Somalis to be doing in the Gulf of Aden. Then, because the term "piracy" carries with it a history of sanctioned state responses, we can respond "appropriately."

Thomson is correct; a deliberate and unilateral (or, I would argue, exclusively academic) change in state discourse -- in and of itself and devoid of the social context that gives it meaning -- would not inevitably change our understanding of the state. But, a change in the discourse about states that resonates with the public or that makes use of rhetorical coercion or deploys representational force -- such a shift in discourse could well change our understanding of states. States, to misquote Wendt, are what states make of them, but states cannot be made infinitely many things.

Thomson's claim that the state would not vanish if we stopped talking about it is a similar sort of perversion of (our flavor of) constructivist thought. It's a silly argument, because in today's political and international context we could not just decide to stop talking about the state. That's why all this constructivist talk of context and intersubjectivity matters; the state-based international system may be a social construction, but, as Thomson notes, we function as though it were real. Discourse does not independent produce or cause the state any more than the state independently produces or causes discourse. Discourse and the state exist only in relation to each other.

Epilogue: Finally, Thomson is correct that the knee-jerk reaction to the label of "postmodernism" by a certain, often generationally-defined, segment of academia (my father, for example) tends to be outright dismissal. Indeed, by labeling all textual and discursive analyses as postmodern, Thomson herself manages to confound theory and method and throw baby and bathwater out the window. Discourse analysis, of course, is a methodological tool that can be used to serve different theories and what Catherine and I are doing is actually constructivist rather than postmodernist in intention, to the extent that our concern lies much more with explicating contingent conditions of possibility and turning points than with revealing hidden structures of violence. But that would have been the easy response to all this and sometimes my own buried identity as a policy debater with eightminutestofillwithrapidfirespeechandnodroppedargumentsontheflow is revealed (I had to work very hard not to type TURN! before the third paragraph of subpoint 1) ...

*Maybe a footnoted methodological criticism doesn't really deserve an extended line-by-line rebuttal. On the other hand, maybe it really, really does. I adhere to the latter position. Additionally, I expect this will come in handy for our lit review.

Descending from the heights, Part the Third

(Are you really going to post about every academic source you can find that legitimates the use of pop culture in IR research? Yeah, probably. It's very exciting!) From Lene Hansen's Security as Practice: Discourse analysis and the Bosnian War:

Analysis investigates whether popular representations reproduce or contest those of official discourse and how representations travel between the spheres of entertainment and politics (Shapiro 1990, 1997). Studies of popular culture include film, fiction, television, computer games, photography, and comic books. It analyzes, for instance, how a particular region, country, or people is cinematically represented (Iordanova, 2001) or how espionage is treated within popular fiction (Der Derian 1992) ... Poststructuralist analysis has often focused on popular culture, but analyses of 'high culture' might be equally valid (and the definition of 'popular' should be extensive and historically situated) in showing, for example, how music, poetry, painting, architecture, and literature have been employed in constructing national and civilizational identities. Travel writing in particular has been an important genre for communicating the construction of 'foreign places and people' to the Western public since the eighteenth century and has been employed by a large variety of professions: by merchants or emissaries; pirates and buccaneers; missionaries; explorers; warriors and Spanish Conquistadores; ambassadors; scientists (botanists and geologists) and engineers; and not least, tourists ... (62-63)

Indeed. Having begun to expand our reading list into the realm of secondary source pirate-related material, Catherine and I have observed that Alexander Exquemelin's 1678 Buccaneers of America (check out this interactive version on the Library of Congress's website) fulfills precisely the role that Hansen talks about. Essentially a very early piece of first-hand travel writing, Exquemelin's book (along with Charles Johnson's A General History of the Pyrates) has -- often explicitly -- informed many, many works on pirates that came after it, including contemporary sources like Benerson Little's The Buccaneer's Realm: Pirate Life on the Spanish Main 1674-1688 and Stephen Talty's Empire of Blue Water: Captain Morgan's Great Pirate Army, the Epic Battle for the Americas, and the Catastrophe That Ended the Outlaws' Bloody Reign.
We're not prepared to assert the direct sort of links Hansen talks about here:

Adopting these guidelines calls forth a variety of genres: from direct links to popular culture, as in the influence of Tom Clancy's novels on Vice President Quayle and Secretary of Defense Weinberger (Der Derian 1992: 195), to secondary sources creating stories of influence, as when John F. Kennedy was said to have been heavily influenced during the Cuban Missile Crisis by Barbara Tuchman's account of the outbreak of World War I in Guns of August (Der Derian 1992: 174), or popular academic works such as Samuel Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations, which was reported as being 'fashionable in America's foreign policy establishment' (Walker 1997c) (62).

Certainly, tracing the genealogy of modern conceptions of pirates requires a few more steps than the direct influence of Robert Kaplan's Balkan Ghosts on Clinton's foreign policy in the Balkans, but we look forward to looking at how we got from Exquemelin's hair-raising eye-witness accounts of 17th century piracy to Vice Admiral William Gortney, Commander of the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet, naming his dog Captain Jack Sparrow. And with President Obama referencing Treasure Island in an (albeit light-hearted) discussion of Somali piracy, it's hard not to accept, on some level, Hansen's points about the mutually constitutive nature of identity and policy.

Madlibs: IR Theory edition

I wanted to call this post "[Verb]ing [International/National/World] [Relations/Interests/Politics]: [Subtitle involving {not more than three of the following: identity, argument, idea, power, ethics, politics, change, discourse, crisis, community, rhetoric, practice} or {a specific historical event}]" but it was way too long for the little box where you type the title of your post. One day, I'll make a chart like this one for how to title your work of constructivist IR scholarship.

As vaguely promised earlier, here is our current reading list. Snarkiness about titles aside, these books and articles are generally very thought-provoking and do an excellent job questioning many received understandings of international relations, both empirically and theoretically. While not directly pirate-related, they are helping us figure out where we fit in what Catherine calls the incestuous little constructivist family. Without further ado and in no particular order:

• Ordering International Politics: Identity, crisis, and representational force (Janice Bially Mattern)
• Constructing National Interests: The United States and the Cuban Missile Crisis (Jutta Weldes)
• Making Sense of International Relations Theory (Jennifer Sterling-Folker)
• "Twisting tongues and twisting arms: the power of political rhetoric" (Ronald R. Krebs and Patrick Thaddeus Jackson)
• Argument and Change in World Politics: Ethics, decolonization and humanitarian intervention (Neta Crawford)
• Security as Practice: Discourse analysis and the Bosnian War (Lene Hansen)
• Identity, Interest and Action: A cultural explanation of Sweden's intervention in the Thirty Years War (Erik Ringmar)
• The Power of Words in International Relations: Birth of an anti-whaling discourse (Charlotte Epstein)
• The Empire of Civilization: The evolution of an imperial idea (Brett Bowden)
• Stories, Identities, and Political Change (Charles Tilly)
• The Foundations of Modern Political Thought (Quentin Skinner)
• Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (Benedict Anderson)
• The Practice of Conceptual History: Timing History, Spacing Concepts (Reinhart Koselleck)
• Wired for War: The robotics revolution and conflict in the 21st century (P.W. Singer)
• Harry Potter and International Relations (Daniel H. Nexon and Iver B. Neumann)
• "Anarchy is what states make of it" (Alexander Wendt)

We're definitely open to suggestions for further readings along these lines, if you have them, though time constraints being what they are, we of course cannot promise to read them.