I am teaching a course on the International Relations of Central Asia. The course is half IR theory and half practical application to the particular region where I am living and teaching. This is the first time I am teaching the course in my last semester at Nazarbayev University. I have enjoyed re-reading many of the papers that I haven't engaged with closely since my graduate school days. The last three weeks we have looked at realism, institutionalism, and the debates between them during the mid 1990s.
One of my students came to me to talk about the readings. They are hard to understand and put in context for many students who are not used to reading about theory at this high level. The students are particularly drawn to two papers that I assign by Mearsheimer. The first was written right before the collapse of the Soviet Union that offers grave predictions for the security of Europe (Mearsheimer 1990). The second is a Foreign Policy piece from 2014 that is an "I told you so" paper about the reasons for Russia's invasion of Ukraine (Mearsheimer 2014). Students are very interested in the back and forth nature of the papers and the passion which dominated the debates. They were also unsure whether these debates really matter in the long run.
While talking to the graduate student I had a thought strike me. These debates are very similar to the dynamic of the fashion industry that is shown in the film "The Devil Wears Prada." I hadn't watched the movie in a decade, but I remembered the scene where Meryl Streep's character cuts Anne Hathaway's character down to size after she scoffs at the passion with which the group is putting together an outfit for the cover of the magazine.
The gist of the speech is that powerful people making decisions in rooms like the one they were in influence the everyday fashion of those that don't really think about it.
I showed the above clip to my class and then made the analogy concrete. The great debates that took place between the Mavens of the intellectual world are very similar to the choices of a fashion editor. They set the terms of the debate, and set the tone for what is studied and how. Those who are "in the know" in the industry know that they need to know and understand the trends, the history, and the balance of power between the elites sitting in powerful rooms setting trends.
My own training and inclination is to be more open about theories and methods. I'm a pluralist by training and inclination. However, my training also took seriously the idea that the Great Debates shaped the study of international relations. My advisor, Cameron Thies wrote a paper on this (Thies 2012) that directly examined how the discourses of realism built an academic community. The elites in this case debate to reinforce the status hierarchy and to maintain boundaries. Like any other elite-driven profession or endeavor (really all of human endeavors), the role of elites is very important.
I think that I understood all of this implicitly for a long time, but the inspiration to compare IR theory to the fashion industry helped me to think more clearly about the ways in which I produce and consume academic information. And to think much more about how I teach that information to my undergraduate and graduate students.
______
Mearsheimer, John J. 1990. “Back to the future: instability in Europe after the Cold War.” International Security, 15(1):5-56.
Mearsheimer, John J. 2014. “Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s Fault: The Liberal Delusions That Provoked Putin,” Foreign Affairs 93:1-12.
Thies, Cameron G. (2002) Progress, History and Identity in International Relations Theory: The Case of the Idealist-Realist Debate. European Journal of International Relations 8: 147–185.
One of my students came to me to talk about the readings. They are hard to understand and put in context for many students who are not used to reading about theory at this high level. The students are particularly drawn to two papers that I assign by Mearsheimer. The first was written right before the collapse of the Soviet Union that offers grave predictions for the security of Europe (Mearsheimer 1990). The second is a Foreign Policy piece from 2014 that is an "I told you so" paper about the reasons for Russia's invasion of Ukraine (Mearsheimer 2014). Students are very interested in the back and forth nature of the papers and the passion which dominated the debates. They were also unsure whether these debates really matter in the long run.
While talking to the graduate student I had a thought strike me. These debates are very similar to the dynamic of the fashion industry that is shown in the film "The Devil Wears Prada." I hadn't watched the movie in a decade, but I remembered the scene where Meryl Streep's character cuts Anne Hathaway's character down to size after she scoffs at the passion with which the group is putting together an outfit for the cover of the magazine.
The gist of the speech is that powerful people making decisions in rooms like the one they were in influence the everyday fashion of those that don't really think about it.
I showed the above clip to my class and then made the analogy concrete. The great debates that took place between the Mavens of the intellectual world are very similar to the choices of a fashion editor. They set the terms of the debate, and set the tone for what is studied and how. Those who are "in the know" in the industry know that they need to know and understand the trends, the history, and the balance of power between the elites sitting in powerful rooms setting trends.
My own training and inclination is to be more open about theories and methods. I'm a pluralist by training and inclination. However, my training also took seriously the idea that the Great Debates shaped the study of international relations. My advisor, Cameron Thies wrote a paper on this (Thies 2012) that directly examined how the discourses of realism built an academic community. The elites in this case debate to reinforce the status hierarchy and to maintain boundaries. Like any other elite-driven profession or endeavor (really all of human endeavors), the role of elites is very important.
I think that I understood all of this implicitly for a long time, but the inspiration to compare IR theory to the fashion industry helped me to think more clearly about the ways in which I produce and consume academic information. And to think much more about how I teach that information to my undergraduate and graduate students.
______
Mearsheimer, John J. 1990. “Back to the future: instability in Europe after the Cold War.” International Security, 15(1):5-56.
Mearsheimer, John J. 2014. “Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s Fault: The Liberal Delusions That Provoked Putin,” Foreign Affairs 93:1-12.
Thies, Cameron G. (2002) Progress, History and Identity in International Relations Theory: The Case of the Idealist-Realist Debate. European Journal of International Relations 8: 147–185.
