Seminars / Reading Group

PACS Reading Group Discussions

All events are 11:30-12:45 unless otherwise noted.

Please read in advance of the meeting; the authors of works will deliver only brief remarks, not a formal presentation. Most of the time will be devoted to discussion.  Registration links are available on the Cornell Events Calendar for each event.  Links to readings will be provided with registration.

9/10       Jennifer Lind, Associate Professor, Department of Government, Dartmouth College, “Comparing National Power in an Age of Transition,” working paper.

9/17       Jack Paine, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Rochester, “Strategic Civil War Aims and the Resource Curse,” Working paper, May 4, 2020.  NOTE SPECIAL TIME: 12:30-1:45 pm.

9/24       Emily Ritter, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, and Director of Graduate Studies, Vanderbilt University (with Peter Carey, PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science, University of California, Merced; Curtis Bell, One Earth Future Foundation & University of Colorado at Boulder; and Scott Wolford, Professor, Department of Government, University of Texas at Austin) “Oil Discoveries, Civil War, and Preventive State Repression,” Journal of Peace Research, forthcoming.  Note that only Emily Ritter will join.

10/1       Adom Getachew, Neubauer Family Assistant Professor of Political Science and the College, University of Chicago, Worldmaking after Empire: The Rise and Fall of Self-Determination (University of Chicago Press, 2019). Introduction and Chapter 4. Please note that this event will be hosted by Buffalo Street Books, not Cornell University.  To understand why, see https://www.academicsolidaritystatement.com/ and https://cornellgradunion.org.

10/8       Fiona B. Adamson, Department of Politics and International Studies, SOAS, University of London, “Pushing the Boundaries: Can We “Decolonize” Security Studies?” Journal of Global Security Studies, 5(1), 2020, 129–135.

10/15     William Spaniel, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Pittsburgh and Iris Malone, Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University, “The Uncertainty Trade-off: Reexamining Opportunity Costs and War,” International Studies Quarterly 63(4) December 2019, 1025–34.  Both Spaniel and Malone are attending.

10/22     Muhammet Bas, Associate Professor of Political Science, New York University Abu Dhabi and Andrew Coe, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Vanderbilt University, “Give Peace a (Second) Chance: A Theory of Nonproliferation Deals,” International Studies Quarterly (2018) 62, 606–617.  Note that only Andrew Coe will join.

10/29     Stuart Schrader, Associate Director of the Program in Racism, Immigration; and Citizenship and Lecturer/Assistant Research Scientist, Department of Sociology, Johns Hopkins University, Badges without Borders: How Global Counterinsurgency Transformed American Policing (University of California Press, 2019). Introduction and Chapter 1.

11/5       Ian Lustick, Professor and Bess W. Heyman Chair, Political Science Department, University of Pennsylvania, Paradigm Lost: From Two-State Solution to One-State Reality (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019). Chapter 5, “The One State Reality and Its Future.”

11/12     Sarah Kreps, John L. Wetherill Professor of Government, Cornell University, Social Media and International Relations (Cambridge University Press, 2020).

12/3       Gaurav Kampani, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Tulsa, “The West's Imagined versus India’s Conventional Nuclear Reality.”

12/10     Rebecca Hester, Assistant Professor, Department of Science, Technology, and Society, Virginia Tech. and Owain D. Williams, Lecturer in International Relations, School of Politics & International Studies, University of Leeds, “The somatic-security industrial complex: theorizing the political economy of informationalized biology,” Review of International Political Economy, Vol 20, issue 1, 2020, 98-124. Co-sponsored by the Department of Science & Technology Studies.  Note that only Rebecca Hester will join.