Suchergebnisse

In 2010, Kelly Greenhill published her highly acclaimed book Weapons of Mass Migration: Forced Displacement, Coercion, and Foreign Policy. In this article, I focus on the uses and implications of Greenhill's theory and specifically the metaphor Greenhill uses in place of "coercive engineered migration"—"weapons of mass migration." The metaphor unmistakably links refugees to "weapons of mass destruction." This should not be dismissed as just a phrase, considering that metaphors are one of the fundamental elements of thinking in international relations. Inquiring into the utility of the metaphor, I argue that associating refugees with weapons (1) weaponizes the metaphor against refugees, (2) frames the problem and possible solutions in a restrictive, securitized way that should be questioned, and (3) even undermines one of four policy options Greenhill herself proposes. After highlighting the merits of Greenhill's analysis and its embrace among far-right ideologues and conspiracy theorists, using Paul Chilton and George Lakoff's delineation of three utilities of metaphors in foreign policy, I analyze the "weapons of mass migration" metaphor. The article ends with a discussion of possible ways to mitigate the metaphor's effects and discusses alternative metaphors.

Unfortunately, Adam Smith's undeserved legacy as a proponent of laissez-faire and liberal institutions at the international scope inhibits profiting from his refined analysis of international affairs. I argue that the Wealth of Nations' chapter on colonies contains Smith's discussion of the sovereign's adaptation to ignorance in global politics. I examine the sense in which the sovereign is ignorant according to Smith and how sovereigns adapt to ignorance with varying success. His comparative analysis suggests that reduction of one's share in ignorance is not always desirable, and a priori rejection of ignorance is impractical because it deprives of a potentially advantageous resource. A careful reading of his work enables learning from his approach to global politics, without filtering it through his ideas on the free market.

Ignorance has tremendous impact on political stability, distribution of rights, andtheorization of social justice, yet it remains undertheorized. Focusing on the Anglo-American political scene, I ask how contemporary ignorance differs from past renditions with respect to the parameters of what it can be used for in different political orders, the particular ways of challenging its operation, and the problems around it. To expand the understanding of ignorance, I apply the genealogical method Michel Foucault employed to expose that knowledge is a historical practice or a continuous struggle of imposing power that (re)produces itself. I argue that ignorance is not a pejorative condition, but a historical practice—practice of ignorance regardless of intention and not just narrowly the opposite of not knowing—affecting political order, and various strategies for contesting how it works become viable and impossible with changes in ignorance's framework. Combininganalysis of historical and visual materials with textual analysis of the conception ofignorance in the writings of King James I, Thomas Hobbes, Adam Smith, and John Rawls, I find three significant historical shifts in ignorance's framework: (1) the shift from ignorance's unequal distribution that revolves around the royal prerogative to the equalization of the distribution under the rule of law; (2) the secularization of ignorance that disassociates it from sin; and (3) the shift from metaphysical framing of ignorance to economic framing with time or lack thereof at the core. The investigation contributes to the scholarship on each of the thinkers in focus by establishing the role that understanding of ignorance plays in their political theories. Just as importantly, the genealogical route enables me to lay out the contemporary alternative approaches to the operation of ignorance and call for more vigorous contestation of its operation for instance with respectto how practices of ignorance play into institutional treatment of various parties or how governments practice ignorance towards actors' financial activities.