How can the UK navigate the illiberal world order? @jasonralph.bsky.social and myself argue policymakers should embrace philosophical pragmatism. We pick out four aspects. Together it adds up to a practical framework for the 21st century. These four aspects are: 1/ www.newdiplomacy.uk/articles

As @teamlabouruk.bsky.social marks its one year anniversary in office, Prof @jamiegaskarth.bsky.social & Prof @jasonralph.bsky.social ask the question "can foreign policy be pragmatic and progressive?" www.newdiplomacy.uk/articles/kar...

Can we find the middle way between being “simultaneously too offensive and too thin-skinned.” ?https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/06/art-self-control-provocation/683205/?gift=gYjbc9Gs4NbGCDR6zPZBTpw_ofttzcdPFxwYs3CXFBs

Important contribution from across ‘the pond’ - A Progressive Future Depends on National Identity www.nytimes.com/2025/06/19/o...

“And in the floating jubilee that was his band, the Family Stone, he gave America a vision of itself: racially and emotionally integrated, celestially oriented, if not healed then at least open to healing. “ www.theatlantic.com/culture/arch...

"If either party to this internal debate should be apologizing, it’s not the liberals who presciently warned that the left risked going off the rails and enabling Trump to win."

Pleased my paper “American Pragmatism, The Frankfurt School and the future of Critical IR theory” has been accepted for publication in Review of International Studies. Abstract 👇

Filip Balunovic is the author of “Revival of the Left in the Balkans: Counter-Hegemonic Activism and Ideas That Fueled It.” www.nytimes.com/2025/05/12/o...

📣 Don't miss this new blog by @jasonralph.bsky.social Read 'Trump’s defiance of the courts shows how foreign policy can enable an imperial presidency' here: blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/20...

Trump’s defiance of the courts shows how foreign policy can enable an imperial presidency writes @jasonralph.bsky.social of @universityofleeds.bsky.social blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/20...

„The wrong way to respond is to promise, as Biden did, that America will be “back.” That ignores the enormous mistakes elites made over the last three decades and the political context that allowed Mr. Trump to return to power with the mind-set of an arsonist.“ www.nytimes.com/2025/04/27/o...

"We cannot give everyone a trial," says the president of these United States.

🎉There have been several new @ejisbisa.bsky.social articles published on FirstView this week!🎉 Link to read - buff.ly/FB1bFzp @cambridgeuppolisci.bsky.social @justinmassie.bsky.social @tberger.bsky.social @jasonralph.bsky.social @ruthdeyermond.bsky.socialv @amirajadoon.bsky.social

“For decades, progressivism has deluded itself into believing that process can obviate the need for discretion. Reformers became so obsessed with ensuring that government would not trample the powerless that they have prevented government from doing its job.” www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

“…it sounds like one of the primary means of persuasion that you used was very patient public education, going out to people.” www.nytimes.com/2025/04/02/o...

My book “On Global Learning” is now available in paperback with a 20% discount. See flyer below. It offers a theory of social learning that allows us to assess and critique (or support) institutionalised practices in the face of the global security, health and climate challenge.

Trump and Musk believe our country belongs to them. They're taking everything they can get their hands on and daring us to stop them. On Saturday, we're taking to the streets nationwide to fight back with a clear message: Hands off! Please join us: handsoff2025.com/?SQ...

“The U.S. will support Europe with nuclear deterrence of Russia, and NATO should only count on U.S. forces not required for homeland defense or China deterrence missions, …” www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

I thought US policy on Ukraine might have been part of a US-Russia-PRC tacit agreement to have regional spheres of influence. But this suggests it is about shifting priorities to get the US, as well as Russia & Europe, to deny the PRC a sphere in its backyard. www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

The lag between the ISA conference bar and reality is long, sometimes infinite. In this case? 3 weeks @cbueger.bsky.social

Witkoff on UK troop proposals. “it’s a combination of a posture and a pose and…simplistic. I think there’s this … sort of notion of we’ve all got to be like Winston Churchill, the Russians are gonna march across Europe. I think that’s preposterous” singjupost.com/transcript-o...

Brooks: “As a matter of principle, Democrats should be screaming bloody murder about Trump’s threat to the Constitution. As a matter of political tactics, I think they’re better off emphasizing Trumpian incompetence….and there is a lot of it.” www.nytimes.com/2025/03/21/o...

"I have a confession. I’ve been having a 35-year love affair with American democracy." Professor Jason Ralph explores American Pragmatism and American Democracy in his latest blog piece for @cdpleeds.bsky.social cdp.leeds.ac.uk/2025/03/12/a...

“Musk’s insight, which he is now putting to such destructive use, is that a third instrument—the power of data—may be as consequential as that of the purse or the sword.” www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Latest blog inspired by my conversations, presentations, worries, walks and a visit to a certain museum in and around #ISA2025 Chicago cdp.leeds.ac.uk/2025/03/12/a...

“a buffer zone at least six miles wide to separate the two armies, and a plan for 5,000 civilians and police officers to patrol it. The paper argued that about 10,000 foreign troops may be needed to provide security for those monitors.” www.nytimes.com/2025/03/09/w...

“When we fix our eyes on Selma, we are reminded that it is not the men in high places – whether Nixon or Trump, Justice Kennedy, or Justice Roberts – who teach us how to love our country. It is ordinary people who risk it all to demand a place in this nation, …”

democrats, we have a problem. On “Undercutting your own message in the fight against Trump, making your party look small & desperate, & making Trump look like the commanding figure he wants to be”https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/03/05/donald-trump-address-democrats-protest-column-00205584

In 1943 the US government made an antifascist film called "Don't Be a Sucker" in which we see a college professor in Germany removed from his classroom by government officials who do not approve of what he's teaching about race. youtu.be/vGAqYNFQdZ4?...

“centrism is not the same as meekness. America does not need a “resistance,” or stale slogans, or people putting those slogans on little paddles. It needs an opposition party that boldly defends the nation’s virtues, the rule of law, and the rights of its people.” www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

The work of J.Ann Tickner, Jacqui True, Molly Cochran and others alerted me to the importance of Jane Addams & her feminist pragmatism. So today I took some time out of #ISA2025 Chicago to visit Hull House where Addams and others did so much good work.

Three generations of @ejisbisa.bsky.social editors together at #ISA2025! With @mybisa.bsky.social

Excited that @jasonralph.bsky.social and myself have an article in this issue arguing for pragmatism in foreign policy, over 'progressive realism'. I'll try and do a thread soon but it's here and free to read: academic.oup.com/ia/article/1...

Professor Jason Ralph's piece on Keir Starmer's 'progressive realism' is available to read for free in 'The Conversation': theconversation.com/keir-starmer...

Even when it’s right (to support Zelensky’s Ukraine) it’s wrong (to cut ties with Trump’s America). We can’t be slaves to “us-them” logics. It seems as though the one person that might be able to persuade King Trump is King Charles (as long as he doesn’t sing the lines from “Hamilton”).

I wrote this b4 Zelenskyy’s WH visit. Harder to achieve now, but still possible: “a peace that does not include Ukr is imprudent because it creates grievances, which cause conflict…Kyiv’s involvement in peace negotiations has to be meaningful, not symbolic” 👇 theconversation.com/keir-starmer...

Things are moving so fast right now it’s difficult to pin anything down, but here are some reflections from me on Starmer’s DC visit, pragmatism, realism and progressivism in foreign policy theconversation.com/keir-starmer...

Challenges for Starmer: no real clarity on ‘backstop’ for Ukr. other than US digging ‘rare earth’; Trump just telling UK & Ukr what it wanted to hear on Ukr. lands when likely saying total opposite to Putin; Trump not echoing Starmer on 2 state solution Isr-Pal.

Positives for Starmer: Uk facing threat of US tariffs this morning, now on the verge of a trade deal!! And he puts down Vance on free speech.

“Democrats talk a big game about “inclusion,” but as Buttigieg notes, they don’t produce a message that feels inclusive to most voters, because they’re too focused on appealing to the very nonrepresentative set of people who make up the party apparatus.” www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

RFK JR on Measles Outbreaks just now: "It is not unusual. There are measles outbreaks every year." It is actually very unusual. This is the first Measles death in the US in 10 years.

Interesting from Rauch in Atlantic. Trump’s patrimonialism is bound to fail because “Eventually, incompetence makes itself evident to the voting public without needing too much help from the opposition. But helping the public understand patrimonialism’s …corruption requires relentless messaging.”

“patrimonialism is suspicious of bureaucracies; after all, to exactly whom are they loyal?… People with expertise, experience, and distinguished résumés are likewise suspect because they bring independent standing and authority” www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

#pied5515M students. Here’s a nice summary of some of the issues we discussed this week. Quite a week to be thinking about then end of the ‘liberal’ international order www.theatlantic.com/internationa...

USDA says it accidentally fired officials working on bird flu and is trying to rehire them In a statement, an Agriculture Department spokesperson told NBC News that officials are "working to swiftly rectify the situation." www.nbcnews.com/politics/dog...

Transfixed by the Sky Atlantic drama “Mussolini - Son of the Century” I did a bit of research on ‘futurism’ 👇 relates it to the present www.wired.com/story/italy-...

If democracy is to solve as well as reveal the public’s problems it needs to know when to trust experts. “The whole enterprise” now however “is an attack against civil servants and the very notion of apolitical expertise.” www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

On the subject of epistemic insecurity … “The scientific literature is an essential ocean of knowledge, in which floats an alarming amount of junk.” www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...

My CUP book "On Global Learning" is now available in paperback. Pre-order for March delivery www.cambridge.org/gb/universit...