I know everyone is laughing at how quickly Trump turned on ExxonMobil, but it's also a powerful illustration of why the Trump admin is so bad for business. You can never say or do anything that appears to challenge the leader. You are walking eggshells the entire time...

Once again, now would be a good time for Canadian officials to issue a full-throated condemnation of their most favoured social media platform.

Not a big fan of 'history repeats itself' trope, but the convergence between Poilievre cheering on Trump in 2025 and Harper cheering on Bush in 2023 (both while serving as Conservative opposition leaders) is a bit jarring.

It is a bit problematic that the Canadian government's #1 communications tool is a cesspool of AI deepfake porn and Nazi imagery.

I actually have a pet theory that most countries have tended to look past America's transgressive behaviour because it provided important public goods (e.g. trade and security). Take away those things and people are probably far more open to seeing America as having a stigmatized identity.

I get this, it's a colossal mistake, the status quo is cheaper, etc. But that would make the United States a 'partner', and in no uncertain terms does the Trump administration want to be a 'partner' because that implies a relationship among equals. Dominant parties do not have, or need, partners.

I’m truly excited to share that The Oxford Handbook of Emotions in International Relations, co-edited with Andrew Ross , is finally out in the world. lnkd.in/dZYNS2Jb This project has been a journey: full of ideas, conversations, challenges, and inspiration.I’m deeply grateful to all contributors.

This is very much the vibe in Canada right now.

Interesting reporting. Makes me think about how much time different governments spend on simply not offending an incredibly thin-skinned U.S. government.

If true, this would be a major blow against the reactionary right's most important global platform. Let me explain /1

🚨 I am hearing from multiple sources that the EU Commission is announcing its first DSA fine tomorrow against X on ad transparency, blue check & dark pattern, and researcher access to data. The fine is in the "100s of millions of Euros." Elon about to get big mad.

I liked this. Getting the sense that where you stand on the F-35 purchase really hinges on your theory of the future of the United States. Supporters of the purchase see the United States as regressing to 'normal'. Critics see a stable trajectory downward. Hard to see right now where things go.

I finally processed the 2024 TRIP survey on Canadian IR, and here are the results at OpenCanada for the rankings of PhD, MA, undergrad programs and think tanks as well as views towards whether and where should Canadians get PhDs in international relations opencanada.org/the-state-of... 1/2

I liked this. I'd be keen to see data on AI use and having to repeat a course. If you fail a course because you submitted slop, then its not really a productivity machine. Totally agree that over reliance creates literacy/motivation problems...

Very neat article. Congratulations @benrosher.bsky.social and Ian Paterson.

Canadian Government: Let's spend almost a billion dollars on AI and use it to remake government. ChatGPT-5: Lol, I don't even know who the Canadian Prime Minister is.

I’m very excited that years of work with Dorry Noyes (@mershoncenter.bsky.social) and a fantastic group of friends and colleagues finally resulted in this, I think, rather beautiful object. The Global Politics of Exemplarity! @normativeorders.bsky.social @prif.org @brisunipress.bsky.social 1/4

Immigrant helps America triumph, stave off embarrassing defeat from Canada.

One thing I worry Canadians fail to appreciate is just how much the American government is now organized around corruption and theft. You would have to be painfully naive to think this won't affect Canada-U.S. relations, if it hasn't already.

Trade talks not going well. A short thread.

Trade talks are on hold, but here is a very important detail Carney: “The U.S. was less interested in the security element of the partnership, which is their decision,”

One of the most important ideas in Brantly Womack's book on asymmetry in International Politics is that small states know a lot more about great powers than vice versa.

On Trump cutting off trade talks When I wrote about mockery in Canada-U.S. diplomacy, one of the points I stressed was just how sensitive some individuals can be to perceived sleights

I guess we are a bit further from a trade deal than the Carney gov't thought...

One thing that boggles my mind is just how poorly securitization theory was received in the United States, despite being a really useful tool to explain exactly what is happening in America right at this minute.

Article manuscript is stuck at 'Awaiting Reviewer Selection' for five weeks. Is it reasonable to believe something has gone terribly wrong?

Has the guy who *checks notes* popularized “Your body, my choice. Forever,” on social media won over women on the left?

Any IR folks here planning a panel for CPSA this June? I have a paper on Canada-US relations under Trump and a paper on international stigma politics. Let me know if you're interested.

What happens to digital diplomacy after Twitter? Drawing on theories of facework and aesthetic insecurity, @ericvanr.bsky.social argues that Twitter’s recent transformation represents a source of insecurity for states, particularly liberal democratic ones. 📄 👉 rdcu.be/eI4y6

The Canadian government needs to be *extremely* careful about what it promises here. To date, no one has been spared from U.S. sectoral tariffs, and that includes countries that have a 'deal' with the Trump admin. Carney is promising something that no one else has. www.cbc.ca/news/politic...

I'll say one thing. All the people harping on the importance of desire and fantasy in politics, especially the Lacanians--you were right. Please take the win.

I have longer discussion of Musk's reactionary politics in my recent article 'After Twitter' (link.springer.com/article/10.1...), but the TLDR is this: Musk seeks to portray liberal democracies as ugly and undesirable, thereby sensitizing audiences to ideological alternatives.

This is all the more galling for Canadians who have been told we deserve massive tariffs because our inaction in stemming fentanyl is killing millions of Americans.

I'll just say one more thing about the supposed decline of Right-Wing Violence. Where do we think all these people went? Did the surge in ICE-related violence come from nowhere? The likely answer is that right-wing extremists didn't disappear. The government just gave them a badge & a gun.

Lots of good critiques here, but I'll add one more. Simply counting the number of attacks actually obscures quite a bit. Coding Jan. 6th as 'one attack' which has equal weight to an attack by a single, isolated leftwing extremist is a massive misrepresentation of the level of violence.

Several diplomats and world leaders are likely mocking Trump's abysmal performance in private and behind closed doors. To understand why, see my article on Backstage Mockery in Diplomacy in Global Studies Quarterly: academic.oup.com/isagsq/artic...

If you hate political violence, you should hate Charlie Kirk. He was not “practicing politics the right way”—he was a very well paid henchman for the same guys who are trying to make it illegal to oppose them. He bussed people to J6. He encouraged political violence against his enemies.

This is probably one of the smartest critiques of the 'AI enhances productivity' claim I have ever seen. It also comes from what is often seen as the best use case for AI: coding. mikelovesrobots.substack.com/p/wheres-the...

“Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork among MAGA activists…We find [they] are not simply voters responding to policy preferences or culture-war appeals but are also participants in a social movement organized around a shared perception of lost honor, declining esteem, and institutional disrespect.”

One problem with the Trump admin's plan to make life a "living hell" for US government employees is that it makes espionage operations a lot easier. If you employer hates you and is actively trying to make you "miserable," why wouldn't you want to take money from foreign governments?

The year is 2047. Endnote asks if I want to send a Haiku of recognition to the author I just cited. Microsoft word's AI is begging me to use just one space after the period (I decline). TikTok reminds me that it is time to record my 12-second referee report. I nod and get ready to scream...

Among a long list of failures in the last twenty years was the failure to permanently stigmatize the worst members of the Bush administration. I mean, you presided over the worst foreign policy disaster in decades, and you get a cushy stream of high-profile op-eds and speaking engagements...

The irony of this is that governments and consultants are going all-in on AI just as GPT5's launch was an abject failure, AI companies are hemorrhaging money, and concerns are growing that these companies are wildly overvalued.

Since I made the fatal error of being nice about LLMs on here, here’s @garymarcus.bsky.social on the letdown so far of ChatGPT5. This was a big moment for OpenAI and so far a dud. Since US economy is largely being kept afloat by AI investment, this could be inflection point. Hold onto your hats.

I asked gpt5 for 5 academic sources on a simple prompt and received 5/5 hallucinations. I guess my question is whether this is going to do anything to puncture the hype bubble.

Most notably, the Conservatives do not seem to blame the Liberals for failing to reach a deal, but instead make a call for unity (sort of). Six months ago would be very different, and it feels like the politics of blame is shifting.

Lukewarm take: I think most Canadians support this. The US is probably seeking an intensely one-sided deal, and Canada said no. Canadians sees the US as negotiating in bad faith, and any perceived capitulation risks domestic backlash.

Ok wow, this makes the EU deal look a lot less bad.

A very neat piece.