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sgiadurham.bsky.social
SGIA Durham
@sgiadurham.bsky.social
56 followers 71 following 26 posts
School of Government and International Affairs at Durham University
https://durham.ac.uk/departments/academic/school-government-international-affairs/
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by SGIA Durham
econsocjournal.bsky.social
Monday 15th December 2025 is the final closing date for submissions to our Early-Career Paper Prize 2026. Last-minute submissions are very welcome!
files.taylorandfrancis.com/economy-and-...
files.taylorandfrancis.com
December 14, 2025 at 1:39 PM
sgiadurham.bsky.social
in this new publication @ncrm.ac.uk, Adrian Millican, Fanni Toth (both SGIA researchers) and Andrew Hamilton, disability rights activist and one of our students in politics & IR, offer insights into teaching statistics to visually impaired students
durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/49191...
Seeing differently: Making R accessible for visually impaired students through collaborative learning design
This is an experiential rather than research case study of pedagogic practice. In this document, we provide an overview of the resources that were created...
durham-repository.worktribe.com
December 11, 2025 at 3:57 PM
sgiadurham.bsky.social
Wondering what it’s like to study on SGIA’s MSc in Defence, Development and Diplomacy? Hear directly from recent graduate, John Loudon.
durham-student.org/studying-def...
Studying Defence Development and Diplomacy – The Durham Student
durham-student.org
December 10, 2025 at 10:35 AM
Reposted by SGIA Durham
rpmccarthy.bsky.social
My friend Salim Hmimnat and I have a new essay out in The Middle East Journal on the latest developments inside Morocco's Party of Justice and Development. We ask how viable is the Islamist project today.

muse.jhu.edu/article/975851

@sgiadurham.bsky.social @imeisdurham.bsky.social
muse.jhu
December 9, 2025 at 9:15 PM
Reposted by SGIA Durham
mybisa.bsky.social
📢We have kicked off todays @astropoliticswg.bsky.social workshop at Durham University!

☄️We started the day with an introduction on the intersection between space and international politics from James Osborne, director of Durham's Space Research Centre (SPARC)

🪡Follow this thread for more
December 9, 2025 at 11:00 AM
sgiadurham.bsky.social
Ferran Perez Mena, our assistant professor in international relations of East Asia, joins BRI dialogue to discuss transnational elite connections between Chinese and Western non-state actors and their impact on world politics.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-Np...
BRI D#56 w/Dr.Ferran Perez The Transatlantic Decay & The Dragon's 🇨🇳Ascent: Are They the Same Story?
YouTube video by BRI Dialogues
www.youtube.com
December 9, 2025 at 10:38 AM
Reposted by SGIA Durham
imeisdurham.bsky.social
We were honoured to host Former Ambassador James Watt for an insightful and engaging talk. Drawing on his distinguished diplomatic career, he offered a nuanced reflection on the challenges and opportunities shaping the Middle East’s political landscape. @sgiadurham.bsky.social
December 6, 2025 at 3:41 PM
sgiadurham.bsky.social
The 2025 Ann Lambton Memorial Lecture was held 12th Nov by @imeisdurham.bsky.social and BIPS who hosted her Former Majesty’s ambassador to Iran, Qatar and Yemen, Mr. Nicholas Hopton.
The title: "A British Diplomatic Perspective on Iran’s Position & Policies in the Middle East Since 7 October 2023"
December 4, 2025 at 3:15 PM
Reposted by SGIA Durham
imeisdurham.bsky.social
Join us on 1 December 2025 at 17:00 for the Annual Ambassadorial Lecture:
“Kuwait’s Priorities in a Changing Middle East”
delivered by His Excellency Bader A. Almunayekh, Ambassador of the State of Kuwait to the UK.

Location: WB-2003, The Waterside Building, Durham.
@sgiadurham.bsky.social
November 29, 2025 at 6:12 AM
Reposted by SGIA Durham
imeisdurham.bsky.social
Join us on 4 December at 17:00 for a talk by James Watt, former ambassador and now partner at Ambassador Partnership LLP:
“Two Years on from 7 October: What Future Awaits the Middle East?”

All welcome.
Hosted by Durham Diplomatic Society and IMEIS, Durham University.
@sgiadurham.bsky.social
November 29, 2025 at 6:08 AM
Reposted by SGIA Durham
durhamchina.bsky.social
Join us for a guest lecture by @kevinyangmx.bsky.social on the grassroots Marxists in the 1978-81 Chinese democracy movement!
📅 Thursday 11 December 2025
🕔 11:00 - 12:30
📍 TLC039 (Teaching and Learning Centre)
event poster: This talk will explore the ideas of Chinese grassroots Marxists during the 1978-81 democracy movement and the intellectual exchanges between them and the Hong Kong Trotskyists, as well as the political repression they faced. The crackdown on these voices arguably cleared the path for the Party-led neoliberal economic experiments that followed. As a result, liberal intellectuals who embraced free market ideas and the rise of global neoliberalism rose to prominence within the intelligentsia.
November 27, 2025 at 8:43 AM
Reposted by SGIA Durham
emilarchambault.bsky.social
Dipping back into my academic identity for the @sochistorywar.bsky.social conference at the ZMSBw in Potsdam. As far as conference premises go, this is quite a nice one!
I’m looking forward to presenting tomorrow on Giulio Douhet and Future War - apt for a history conference!
@sgiadurham.bsky.social
A small white cottage house A grand looking beige villa
November 27, 2025 at 7:50 AM
Reposted by SGIA Durham
olgademetriou.bsky.social
Happy to share this piece on ethnography in political science:

doi.org/10.1017/S153...
August 18, 2025 at 2:50 PM
Reposted by SGIA Durham
imeisdurham.bsky.social
Institute for Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies (IMEIS)
Wednesday 26th November 2025
4 – 5pm, Online

“Islam in Russia: Formations of Tolerance”
November 24, 2025 at 1:55 PM
Reposted by SGIA Durham
globalsociety.bsky.social
Our final monthly pick for November is the #OpenAccess article "Counter-Conduct and the Everyday: Anthropological Engagements with Philosophy" by @olgademetriou.bsky.social (@sgiadurham.bsky.social). Be sure to give it a read!

#CounterConduct #Greece #Cyprus

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
This article critically examines counter-conduct as an analytical tool for understanding minority subjectivity. It revisits the concept within its Collège lecture context and alongside alternative descriptions of opposing governmental power. Its affinities with the anthropological notion of the “everyday” are explored in depth. The anthropological everyday, it is argued, points to nuances that enrich our understanding of the political. Heidegger's notions of “everyday” and “they” are discussed alongside ethnographic insights from Greece and Cyprus. This anthropological-philosophical encounter yields a more meaningful understanding of counter-conduct, as embedded in the everyday, that addresses both its broad scope and its analytic specificity.
November 24, 2025 at 12:24 PM
Reposted by SGIA Durham
chenchenzhang.net
🚨new open-access article!🚨
what do drastically different representations of the Paris Olympic opening ceremony on Chinese social media tell us about competing narratives of civilization & transversal alignment in digital reactionary politics?
academic.oup.com/isagsq/artic...
Abstract: Scholarship on “non-Western” civilizational discourse in international relations remains largely limited to the versions crafted or endorsed by the state. This paper takes the representation of the Paris Olympics opening ceremony on Chinese social media as an entry point to exploring vernacular and competing narratives of civilization in global cultural politics. Drawing on data from multiple platforms, I scrutinize visions of civilizational progress, decay, and betrayal, interlaced with contested imaginaries of “China”, “France”, and “the West”, in celebratory and demonizing discourses on the spectacle. First, I argue that ideas of “civilizational standards” have always been co-produced, appropriated, and negotiated by actors from the peripheries, rather than monopolized by the centre. A nuanced and situational reading of the celebratory discourse shows how users employ civilizational and universalist vocabularies to contest locally hegemonic structures, which may simultaneously reproduce and challenge homonationalist logics. Secondly, the paper contributes to the emerging literature on the co-opting of the anticolonial language in reactionary politics, showing that in this case, the accusation of coloniality is turned inwards to target the internal other, whose identification with progressive values is recast as colonial subservience and betrayal. Finally, I show that the trope of “Western civilizational decay” and certain constructions of difference/affinities are instrumental to queerphobic nationalist narratives. However, civilizational signifiers such as “West” and “East” function in digital reactionary discourse less as a tool for narrating cultural distinctiveness than as flexible transnational codes, allowing for transversal alignment to emerge across conventional geopolitical and ideological boundaries.
November 24, 2025 at 10:09 AM
sgiadurham.bsky.social
🚨In this PiRM Episode: @pmkuhn.bsky.social is joined by @cjfinlay.bsky.social, who draws on his essay "Beware the Boomerang Effect" to dissect the profound legal and ethical challenges posed by "assassination as policy".
open.spotify.com/episode/3BRc...
Assassination as Policy: The Militarization of US Law Enforcement
open.spotify.com
November 21, 2025 at 10:26 AM
sgiadurham.bsky.social
🎙️In this episode, @omarhgallego.bsky.social discusses public opinion and perceptions of migration, the recent migration policies of UK parties, and the politics behind them.
open.spotify.com/episode/4NwR...
UK Migration Policies 2025: Public Opinion, Politics, and Policy Alternatives
open.spotify.com
November 21, 2025 at 9:41 AM
sgiadurham.bsky.social
Read the latest review of Jessica Begon's book, Disability Through the Lens of Justice (OUP 2023), by Sara Purinton. "Begon’s theory marks a significant contribution to the philosophical literature on disability and to political philosophy.
ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/disa...
@oxfordacademic.bsky.social
Disability Through the Lens of Justice
Jessica Begon aims to give an account of disability that can help guide “how disabled individuals should be justly treated in the public policy o...
ndpr.nd.edu
November 17, 2025 at 2:02 PM
Reposted by SGIA Durham
jackcopley.bsky.social
Another banger! Carla studies the most depraved neoliberal writings so you don't have to. This is a must read.
cibled.bsky.social Carla Ibled @cibled.bsky.social · Nov 6
My new article with @econsocjournal.bsky.social on Gary Becker's analyses on suicide is out! I use Becker's assertion that ‘Most (if not all!) deaths are to some extent suicides’ to reflect on how the late Chicago School framed death and mortality as a choice, thus normalising mortality inequality
‘Most (if not all!) deaths are to some extent suicides’: Human capital and endogenous mortality in Gary Becker’s work
Chicago School economist and Nobel Memorial Prize winner Gary Becker writes that ‘most (if not all!) deaths are to some extent “suicides” in the sense that they could have been postponed if more re...
www.tandfonline.com
November 17, 2025 at 1:50 PM
Reposted by SGIA Durham
durham.ac.uk
Dr William Plowright from our @sgiadurham.bsky.social reflects on Ahmed al-Sharaa’s remarkable transformation from former jihadist to political leader welcomed at the White House.

Read more: www.durham.ac.uk/research/cur...
@uk.theconversation.com #Syria
How former jihadist Ahmed al-Sharaa ended up being welcomed to the White House - Durham University
www.durham.ac.uk
November 13, 2025 at 1:36 PM
sgiadurham.bsky.social
✨PHD FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES AT DURHAM UNI✨

Funding is available from NINE DTP, China Scholarship Council, and Transformative Humanities. For more info visit our website: www.durham.ac.uk/.../research...
Join the Information session on 28th Nov, 12-1pm here: teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-joi...
A tall tree stands in front of the Al Qasimi building at Durham University
November 13, 2025 at 4:41 PM
sgiadurham.bsky.social
Congratulations to Adam Lovett, an assistant professor in political theory at SGIA, for being shortlisted for the Royal Institute of Philosophy's book prize in interdisciplinary philosophy! @triphilosophy.bsky.social
Four people stand on a small stage holding awards in front of a banner that reads “Practical Philosophy. For Everyone.” A person stands on a stage holding an award in front of a banner that reads “Practical Philosophy.”
November 12, 2025 at 10:59 AM
sgiadurham.bsky.social
In this new paper, Renu Singh, an assistant professor in comparative politics at SGIA, and co-authors Pengyu Zhu, Zining Wang, and Xinying Tan investigate how China's multi-level EV policies enabled "technology leapfrogging"
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
China's model of technology leapfrog: A case study of electric vehicle policies and the development of green technology
The development of green technology is vital for driving economic growth and building low-carbon economies. In this era of technological advancement, …
www.sciencedirect.com
November 12, 2025 at 10:50 AM
sgiadurham.bsky.social
🚨NEW PiRM Episode: @pmkuhn.bsky.social is joined by
is joined by Prof. Ilan Baron, Professor in International Political Theory at SGIA, for a conversation on anti-Semitism, Israel, and the problem of proxy representation
open.spotify.com/episode/2HCj...
Anti-Semitism, Israel, and the Problem of Proxy Representation
open.spotify.com
November 7, 2025 at 4:03 PM