THE UNIVERSITY OF EXETER PLANS TO CUT NEAR 25% OF HASS ACADEMICS - BUT NEAR 25% OF ITS PAY COSTS ARISE FROM HIGHLY PAID MANAGERS WHO ARE EXEMPT FROM THE REDUNDANCIES In the last 5 yrs, the Exeter has been cutting costs to the bone while overseeing a vast increase in highly paid staff. [1/8]

My university is cutting almost a 1/4 of academics in humanities and the social sciences. Despite what managers say, it's not about the money. They are using a national crisis born of 15 yrs of govt neglect as a pretext to make ideological moves against HASS fields. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

The number of American intelligence officials with curious and sometimes offshire links to Russia is notable. One would think suchb appointments might indicate that Trump's business networks are deeply tied to Russia. But that would be preposterous!! Oh wait... www.icij.org/investigatio...

2 days left in the Yale UP sale with 50% off books including Dictators Without Borders! Just £7. This pbk edition has an epilogue on Trump (written in 2018). Maybe even we are surprised at the extent to which Trump has adopted kleptocratic & authoritarian practices. yalebooks.co.uk/book/9780300...

Things look grim. But hope can be found in exposing and confronting this mess. open.substack.com/pub/johnheat...

JOIN US! Conducting Research on Illicit Finances & Professional Enablers Date: 16 June 2026 Venue: Public Library, Maqsut Narikbayev University, Astana With @tenaprelec.bsky.social docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

“The task facing a mature society is to adapt its methods of financing universities to sustaining the purposes for which such institutions exist – rather than, as at present, the other way round.” www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Really enjoyed reading and writing up some thoughts on @lkatfield.bsky.social excellent book Furious Minds. She brilliantly demonstrates the perils of ideas-first determinism. I was especially interested in how the Christian Right has been corrupted. open.substack.com/pub/johnheat...

@kevinhargaden.bsky.social "What we find in all of these interactions is not a surplus of religiosity but its deficit. Trump’s depiction of himself with a transfigured glow bringing about miraculous healing rightfully strikes people as egotistical, not faithful." 👍 www.jcfj.ie/2026/04/24/t...

I wrote about Trump’s “empty words” and the reckoning that American evangelicals who have supported him face as his emptiness is unveiled. open.substack.com/pub/johnheat...

Comparing the 1st and 3rd gulf wars is comparing the strategic to the moronic. economist.com/united-state...

The terrible occasion of another war in the Middle East occuring over Holy Week might cause us to reflect on that war’s utter pointlessness. open.substack.com/pub/johnheat...

📣 New #GIACE blog! @jheathershaw.bsky.social argues we need a legal conception of kleptocracy fit our current era of personalist global politics where transnational inter-elite relations and illicit activity have been revealed to span Epstein, Putin, and Gulf monarchies.

We need a legal conception of kleptocracy fit for the kind of transnational inter-elite relations and illicit activity that we see in the era of Epstein, Putin, and Gulf monarchies. giace.org/kleptocracy-...

Doing things neither because they are beneficial for the country, nor because they are just, but because they are popular...

Some thoughts from an extraordinary week in Ukraine. johnheathershaw.substack.com/p/five-thing...

There are so many parallels between the Epstein files and data leaks concerning oligarch and kleptocrat “money laundering”. One thing is the importance of private school fees. For both Epstein and the kleptos it is about networks of influence. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/16/n...

I would encourage anyone who thinks that the US-Israeli attack on Iran is about geopolitics and security dilemma to think again. It’s best understood as the threat perceptions, economic interests & strongman ideology of a small number of males who have unrealistic views about the utility of force.

On the mystery of lawlessness in world politics and the biblical-theological origins of the idea of a “balance of power“. open.substack.com/pub/johnheat...

IR academics, is anyone planning to go to Lisbon for the EISA conference in Septmber? Would you like to be part of a roundtable on kleptocratic networks and international order? Message me. eisa-net.org/pec-2026/

Prayers should hold political leaders to account, and sometimes bring them down, not give them opportunities for grandstanding. www.theosthinktank.co.uk/comment/2026...

“The Trump administration has interpreted efforts in Europe to regulate online content, including on major US social media networks, as an assault on free speech.” For the “populist” Right, corporate interests almost always lie behind “ideology”. giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

Personalist political orders and kleptocratic enterprises are generally more vulnerable to power struggle within than challenges from the outside. What difference will the removal of Tashiyev make to order and enterprise in the Kyrgyz Republic? substack.com/@havli/note/...

No prizes for guessing who this is about! open.substack.com/pub/johnheat...

Great paper which goes beyond simple geopolitical analysis of the rise of Asia to a recognition that entrepots like Dubai offer English legal protections for dubious clients without the inconvenience of the rule of law. "Londongrad" turbocharged. www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/publications...

We presented "the kleptocratic enterprise" in parliament yesterday evening. @marianizzero.bsky.social Tom Mayne and I call for a conceptual shift whereby existing & under-used powers may be utilised to identify patterns of criminal conspiracy between PEPs & their enablers. giace.org/resources/th...

New research by @jheathershaw.bsky.social @marianizzero.bsky.social and Tom Mayne shows how to strengthen the UK’s capacity to recover stolen or corruptly acquired assets, hold enablers accountable, and demonstrate genuine leadership in anti-corruption efforts news.exeter.ac.uk/faculty-of-h...

I wrote this, trying to place the topic of the week into some historical context. open.substack.com/pub/johnheat...

I am not actually asleep in this picture and was very much engaged throughout this excellent roundtable!

David Lammy announces the new UK anti-corruption strategy at Mansion house yesterday, just three years overdue. Evidence from our @oxunipress.bsky.social @tenaprelec.bsky.social Indulging Kleptocracy is cited. But will the many incremental changes proposed fix a problem which is transnational?

"I'm absolutely baffled by the whole thing." It's as if the former treasury minister responsible for anti-corruption measures with respect to the UK financial sector had not considered that family and business ties to a corrupt regime might cause controversy. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

My thoughts on the politics of Remembrance in the UK, written for John Heathershaw's excellent Substack blog 'Security After Christendom.' johnheathershaw.substack.com/p/the-two-wo...

If you've ever wondered about the tension between Remembrance Sunday and the Christian church's call to peace, read this by @nickmegoran.bsky.social johnheathershaw.substack.com/p/the-two-wo...

@tenaprelec.bsky.social @gulnazsharaf.bsky.social @cais-exeter.bsky.social See you next week!

"The way towards better theories of postcommunist oligarchy lies in global comparisons of transnational oligarchic networks that originate in Eastern Europe and Eurasia but are not confined to the region." I enjoyed writing this piece comparing three exc books. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

This reminds me of when our paper on kleptocracy and reputation laundering was edited by Chatham House after legal threats from someone who made his money from kleptocracy and was laundering his reputation. Similar cowardice from the embattled BBC. www.theguardian.com/media/2025/n...

Looking forward to joining this great line-up and my friend Corentin Cohen, the man without a face!

This UK-Kyrgyzstan-Russia connection links street drugs in Britain to Russian sanctions evasion via Keremet Bank in the Kyrgyz Republic. It's the tip of enormous iceberg of illicit finance connecting organised crime and professional enablers. www-bbc-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.bbc....

I wrote something about the character of crisis and the apparent inability of authorities to exercise political reason. open.substack.com/pub/johnheat...

So much for sovereign states with functional independence. The field of International Relations needs to conceptualise elite networks of power and wealth or fall into irrelevance. authoritarian-stack.info?fbclid=IwZnR...

This is an excellent book.

From this minister's op-ed: "People wanting to experience God are more likely to meet the Divine trying to shut down the Broadview, Illinois, ICE facility than we ever were in church...God does not live in our houses of worship, but...with those who are bearing the brunt of cruelty in this moment."

Absolutely fantastic new paper from @katiehiggins.bsky.social "CEO peer groups reveal without a doubt that therapy culture has reached the top tiers of the business class. In fact, their version of self-help is in many ways more cooperative and less individualistic than the mainstream" but... 1/2

It’s tough having a special relationship with a lawless regime. Why Britain may have stopped sharing some intelligence with America economist.com/britain/2025...

I totally agree with @jheathershaw.bsky.social , & have signed the petition. "Say it in English, only louder" was never a good way of dealing with the outside world; in current times, it's even less appropriate.

Languages education at all levels, especially higher, is under existential threat in the UK. It is an impoverished society which produces so few students interested in languages & a shortsighted state that cannot subsidise this public good through tough times. Pls consider signing. c.org/qQMPqxcLCD

Academic freedom is protected according to UUK when we are on “British soil”. What an extraordinarily anachronistic claim about internationalised universities that indicates that UUK has still not grasped the problem. Rules and regs of such kind are not enough. www.theguardian.com/education/20...

My book Security after Christendom is 50% off through November 30. Yes, half price! Use code CONFSHIP at checkout. If you select Media Mail, shipping is free. wipfandstock.com/978153261533...