Articles

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent pause of circumpolar cooperation have challenged the Arctic region's designation as "exceptional." This article seeks to see beyond conventional understandings of “Arctic exceptionalism,” acknowledge a broader range of characteristics and features that make the Arctic unique and consider how this expanded view alters perceptions of the region’s governance. 

This study introduces the Significant Incidents Against Americans Abroad (SIAAA) Dataset, the foremost systematic data compilation capturing antagonistic actions directed toward American nationals, entities, and interests across the globe from 1987 to 2015. Primarily derived from the US Department of State Bureau of Diplomatic Security reports, the SIAAA assembles 5,272 events targeting American citizens and interests, encompassing both violent and non-violent actions across military, diplomatic, business, and civilian dimensions. In this article, we examine the general trend of incidents and introduce key variables including target typology, geographic dispersion, type of the incident, and perpetrator ideology. As an illustrative example of its potential research application, we focus on NATO's aerial bombing of Yugoslavia, highlighting how the SIAAA can be employed effectively. We conclude with propositions for future research, underscoring the dataset’s potential for both academic and policy analysis.

Americans want to know more about the Middle East, and they are taking matters into their own hands. Literally. Last week, two of the five best-selling books on The New York Times' nonfiction paperback bestseller list were about the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The surge in interest highlights a paradox in American politics: Despite the enormous significance of the Middle East, and of the American role there, we tend to learn very little about it. High school world history classes often barely touch on the modern Middle East.

Schools need to do better. But in the meantime, if you're one of those Americans seeking a broader understanding of the conflict, where should you turn? The Globe asked scholars of the region — including Tarek Masoud, a professor at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government; Lior Sternfeld, associate professor at Penn State University; and Susannah Heschel, professor at Dartmouth College — for book recommendations. 

In an interview for The Times of London, Calder Walton recounts the history of the Concorde SST and the role that Soviet espionage played in it.

Racism systematically distorts policymakers’ analyses of their allies’ and adversaries’ capabilities, interests, and resolve, potentially leading to costly choices regarding war and peace. International security scholars have largely overlooked the role of racism, assuming rational choices on the part of policymakers. Research on the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905) demonstrates that this assumption is wrong. 

Why do U.S. leaders struggle to end military interventions? William McKinley’s 1898 decision to annex the Philippines reveals why, through a phenomenon called the “meddler’s trap.” This concept denotes a situation of self-entanglement, whereby a leader inadvertently creates a problem through military intervention, feels they can solve it, and values solving the new problem more because of the initial intervention. 

Racialization—the processes that infuse social and political phenomena with racial identities and implications—is an assertion of power, a claim of purportedly inherent differences that has saturated modern diplomacy, order, and violence. U.S. international security studies has largely omitted racial dynamics from decades of debates. A new framework considers how overt and embedded racialization shape the study and practice of international security. 

During foreign policy disputes involving China and some of its most important commercial partners, why do local leaders punish or protect foreign commercial actors? The decision comes down to the political incentives facing each local leader. Understanding this variation is important because how local leaders treat foreign businesses can influence the overall effectiveness of the Chinese government’s economic coercion against foreign states. 

Power transitions affect a state’s ability to exercise economic statecraft. As a dominating and a rising power approach parity, they face structural incentives to decouple their economies. This decoupling affects business-state relations: high-value businesses within the dominant power tend to oppose their state’s economic statecraft because of its costs to them, whereas low-value businesses within the rising power tend to cooperate because they gain from it. 

Plastic pollution in the Arctic marine system is sparsely quantified, and few enforceable policies are in place to ameliorate the issue. In this paper, Dewey and Mackie estimate the flux of plastic through rivers, sea ice, and ocean, and quantify marine plastic pollution from Arctic shipping and fishing. They also examine how a suite of proposed policy interventions would quantitatively change those concentrations.