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I was delighted, on 5 March 2021, to participate in an online and highly interdisciplinary workshop on 'Discourses of Mass Violence in Comparative Perspective,' hosted by the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich.
My talk at the workshop, 'Ideology and Mass Killing: How Groups Justify Genocides and Other Atrocities Against Civilians,' discussed the current state of the debate over ideology's role in mass violence against civilians, as well as previewing some of the key arguments in my forthcoming book, Ideology and Mass Killing, with Oxford University Press. You can watch my talk, as well as videos of most of the other workshop talks, at the link below. This was a terrific event, and I highly recommend checking out the other videos too! My thanks to Juliane Prade-Weiss, Dominik Markl and Vladimir Petrovic for inviting me, and for organising the event. https://www.komparatistik.uni-muenchen.de/personen/professoren/prade_weiss/discourses_violence/index.html I'm delighted to announce that my second foray into the debate over realism in political theory - part of my broader research interest in methodological debates in political theory and political science - has just been published in the leading philosophy journal Ethical Theory and Moral Practice.
You can get the Online First Version via the link below (Open Access - so anyone can read this), and the print version will appear in a forthcoming special issue of ETMP on Political Normativity. https://rdcu.be/ciD2T My thanks to Carlo Burelli, Illaria Cozzaglio, Chiara Destri, Eva Erman, Favara Greta, Matthew Longo, Enzo Rossi, Cord Schmelzle, Matt Sleat, Manon Westphal, Alex Worsnip and all participants of the ‘Political Normativity: Realism Meets Critics’ workshop at the University of Milan (10/10/2019) and the ‘Realism and Moralism in International Politics’ panel at the ECPR General Conference (held online 25/08/2020) for their invaluable feedback on earlier versions of this paper. I am really honoured to have been named as one of two runners-up for the Nils Petter Gleditsch Journal of Peace Research Article of the Year Award 2019, and congratulate the winners - Emily Kalah Gade, Mohammed M Hafez, and Michael Gabbay - for their terrific paper on 'fratricidal' violence between rebel movements in Syria. I saw Emily and Michael present an early version of their paper at a workshop we attended in Montreal in 2017, and have gratefully benefited from Mohammed's generous feedback on my own article, so I'm really delighted for them.
The full announcement about the prize is here: https://www.prio.org/JPR/ArticleOfTheYear/. Copies of the winning article, my article, and the other runner-up article (Juan Fernando Tellez's study of peace agreement design in Columbia) can be found on the Journal of Peace Research website, here: https://journals.sagepub.com/home/jpr. I was delighted to appear on Dr Brian Klaas's exciting new podcast series, Power Corrupts, for an episode on 'The Anatomy of Evil'. The episode focuses on genocides and other mass atrocities, and asks how leaders and ordinary rank-and-file perpetrators are able to initiate and execute these most horrific forms of political violence.
The podcast (free to access) can be found here, or on all standard podcast apps. My article on 'Ideology and Armed Conflict' has just been published in Volume 56, Issue 5 of the Journal of Peace Research. The article can be found here, and the abstract is pasted below:
A growing wave of scholarship suggests that ideology has demonstrable effects on various forms of armed conflict. But ideology remains a relative theoretical newcomer in conflict research, and scholars lack developed microfoundations for analyzing ideologies and their effects. Typically, existing research has primarily presented ideology as either an instrumental tool for conflict actors or a source of sincere political and normative commitments. But neither approach captures the diverse ways in which contemporary social science theorizes the causal connection between ideas and action, and both struggle to reconcile the apparently strong effects of ideology on conflict at the collective level with the relative rarity of ‘true believers’ at the individual level. This article addresses such problems by providing key microfoundations for conceptualizing ideologies, analyzing ideological change, and explaining ideologies’ influence over conflict behavior. I emphasize that ideology overlaps with other drivers of conflict such as strategic interests and group identities, show how ideologies can affect conflict behavior through four distinct mechanisms – commitment, adoption, conformity, and instrumentalization – and clarify the role of both conflict pressures and pre-existing ideological conditions in ideological change. These microfoundational claims integrate existing empirical findings and offer a foundation for building deeper explanations and middle-range theories of ideology’s role in armed conflict. I'm delighted to announce that The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Evil, in which I have a chapter on 'Evil, Genocide and Mass Atrocities', has just been published, edited by Stephen de Wijze (University of Manchester) and Thomas Nys (University of Amsterdam).
This is by far the most extensive existing volume on the study of evil in political theory and philosophy, so strongly recommended to all interested audiences! More information can be found here. I recently appeared on Toby Buckle's Political Philosophy Podcast for an episode on 'What is Ideology?' alongside Dr Matto Mildenberger (UC Santa Barbara).
Matto and I recently co-authored a major review article on the current state of research on ideology, which formed the starting point for our discussion with Toby. Our article, in the British Journal of Political Science, can be accessed here for those with a personal or institutional journal subscription. You can access the podcast (available to everyone!) at: https://www.politicalphilosophypodcast.com/what-is-ideology. I was delighted to be invited to give a public talk on 'Ideology and Violence in World Politics' at the University of Victoria on 25th September 2018, hosted by the Center for Global Studies.
A video of this talk is now available to view online, on the website for the Ideological Conflict Project, here: https://www.ideologicalconflict.org/resources/video/ New Publication: Correspondence Article on Barbara Walter's 'The Extremist's Advantage in Civil Wars8/12/2018
Kai Thaler and I have written a short correspondence article, which has just been published in published in International Security (vol.43, issue 1), on Barbara Walter's 'The Extremist's Advantage in Civil Wars'. Though Walter's article advances a growing literature on ideology's role in armed conflict, we suggest that her argument paints an excessively instrumental picture of ideology's role, and implausibly claims that extremist ideologies thrive because they attract moderate support.
The correspondence, alongside another letter on Walter's paper by Max Abrahms, can be found here (journal access required): https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/full/10.1162/isec_c_00324 Over the course of Hilary Term 2018, the Department of Politics and International Relations will continue last year’s successful Ideas and Political Violence (IPV) seminars, with seven planned talks held on Thursdays at 4pm, in Lecture Room 6 at New College. We have an exciting line-up of speakers and welcome interested attendees from across the university. The relationship between ideas and political violence is a key interdisciplinary interest of modern academia, and this seminar series will seek to capitalise on the expanding wave of new scholarship, bringing this into the DPIR’s research community and adding momentum to it by providing a forum for discussion between academic staff, graduate students, and visiting speakers on cutting-edge research work.
The Hilary Term seminars are listed below. Anyone interested in further information, should email one of the seminar convenors, Dr Elizabeth Frazer (elizabeth.frazer@politics.ox.ac.uk) and Dr Jonathan Leader Maynard (jonathan.leadermaynard@politics.ox.ac.uk). 1st Week (18th January) Omar McDoom (LSE), Extremism, Genocide, and Ideological Contestation 2nd Week (25th January) Julia Amos (Oxford) Structural Violence, Public Health and the Militarization of Assistance 3rd Week (1st February) Zoe Marks (Edinburgh), “Self-Reliant Struggle” or Revolution?: On the Limits of Ideology in African Civil War 4th Week (8th February) NO SEMINAR 5th Week (15th February) N.B. LR4. Jerome Drevon (Oxford), How do Salafi Jihadi Ideological Commitments Matter in Multiparty Civil Wars: Rationales, Costs, and Regulations 6th Week (22nd February) The Lord John Alderdice (House of Lords/Oxford), Conflict, Complexity and Cooperation 7th Week (1st March) Janina Dill (Oxford), The Resonance of Moral and Legal Principles in Civilians’ Attitudes towards Wartime Harm: Qualitative Evidence from Afghanistan 8th Week (8th March) Christopher Finlay (Durham), Politics and the Promise of Violence Ideas and Political Violence Seminars
Over the course of Hilary Term and Trinity Term 2017, the Department of Politics and International Relations is convening a new seminar series on Ideas and Political Violence, with six planned seminars each term held on Thursdays at 4pm, in Lecture Room 6 at New College. We hope that participants and guest speakers may then continue the discussions over drinks at the Turf Tavern. The series continues this Trinity Term, and we welcome interested attendees from across the university. Anyone interested in further information, should email one of the seminar convenors, Dr Elizabeth Frazer (elizabeth.frazer@politics.ox.ac.uk) and Dr Jonathan Leader Maynard (jonathan.leadermaynard@politics.ox.ac.uk). 3rd Week (11th May) Corinna Jentzsch (Leiden), Auxiliary Armed Forces and Innovations in Security Governance in Mozambique’s Civil War 4th Week (18th May) Siniša Malešević (UCD), Why do Combatants Fight? The Irish Republican Army and the Bosnian Serb Army Compared 5th Week (25th May) Laia Balcells (Duke), Rivalry and Revenge: The Politics of Violence during Civil War Book Panel with Kristin Bakke (UCL), Jonathan Leader Maynard (Oxford) and Andrea Ruggeri (Oxford) 6th Week (1st Jun) Alex Bellamy (University of Queensland), Syria and the Battle of Ideas 7th Week (8th Jun) Matt Walton (University of Oxford), Reconciling Narratives of Conflict and Peace in Contemporary Myanmar 8th Week (15th Jun) Nick Hewlett (Warwick), How should we approach the paradox of violence in pursuit of peace and equality?  Tomahawk missile launch off the USS Ross, 7/4/2017 Check out my commentary on recent developments in Syria, after the chemical attack in Idlib and subsequent US air strikes, in two interviews with BBC Radio Oxford.
Links here: https://www.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/jonathan-leader-maynard-comments-on-attacks-in-syria.html Over the course of Hilary Term and Trinity Term 2017, the Department of Politics and International Relations will convene a new seminar series on Ideas and Political Violence, with six planned seminars each term held on Thursdays at 4pm, in Lecture Room 6 at New College. We hope that participants and guest speakers may then continue the discussions over drinks at the Turf Tavern. The series will begin this term, in 2nd Week.
We have an exciting line-up of speakers for Hilary Term and would like to welcome interested attendees from across the university. The relationship between ideas and political violence is a key interdisciplinary interest of modern academia, and this seminar series will seek to capitalise on the expanding wave of new scholarship, bringing this into the DPIR’s research community and adding momentum to it by providing a forum for discussion between academic staff, graduate students, and visiting speakers on cutting-edge research work. The Hilary Term seminars are listed below. Anyone interested in further information, should email one of the seminar convenors, Dr Elizabeth Frazer (elizabeth.frazer@politics.ox.ac.uk) and Dr Jonathan Leader Maynard (jonathan.leadermaynard@politics.ox.ac.uk). 2nd Week (26th January) Peter Neumann (King's College London), The Crime Terror Nexus: European Jihadists and the New Convergence between Terrorism and Crime 3rd Week (2nd February) Andrea Ruggeri (University of Oxford), Emotions, Ideology and Civil War 4th Week (9th February) Roddy Brett (University of St. Andrews), The Dehumanisation-Rehumanisation Dynamic Shaping Political Violence and Post-Conflict Reconstruction in Latin America 5th Week (16th February) Colin Covington (Society of Analytical Psychology), Flirting with Fantasies: Will Populist Politics Turn Fantasies into Violent Realities? 6th Week (23rd February) No seminar as dates clash with the International Studies Association Conference 7th Week (2nd March) Kimberly Hutchings (Queen Mary University of London) and Elizabeth Frazer (University of Oxford), Violence and Nonviolence in Contentious Politics 8th Week (9th March) Roger Griffin (Oxford Brookes University), The Destructive Power of Manichean Ideologies Coming Up in Trinity Term: Nick Hewlett (Warwick), Siniša Malešević (University College Dublin), Laia Balcells (Duke University), Alex Bellamy (University of Queensland) Below are listed all my speaking appearances over the course of Oxford's Hilary Term 2017:
Lectures - Sexual Violence and Gender in Conflict (International Security and Conflict, Undergraduate Paper), Monday 16th January, 13.00, Exam Schools - A History of the Present: International Politics since 1990 (IR Core Course 214, Undergraduate Paper), Wednesday 18th January, 12.00, Exam Schools - Germany and the Origins of the Second World War (IR in the Era of Two Worlds Wars 212, Undergraduate Paper), Monday 13th February, 11.00, Exam Schools - Culture Wars (PPE Prelims Lectures, Undergraduate Paper), Wednesday 1st March, 10.00, Exam Schools - Humanitarian Intervention (IR Core Course 214, Undergraduate Paper), Wednesday 8th March, 12.00, Exam Schools Talks - The Comparative Study of Perpetrator Ideologies (Oxford Seminar for the Study of Violence), Monday 30th January, 17.00, Wolfson College - Comparing Theories of Civilian Victimization (Oxford International Relations Society), Wednesday 1st March, 19.30, Trinity College - The Role of Ideology and Propaganda in Mass Killing (Politics and Media Research Group, Bournemouth University), Wednesday 8th February, 16.00, Trinity College Hear my thoughts on the current effort to take Mosul off Islamic State/Daesh, in an interview with BBC Radio Oxford:
http://www.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/jonathan-leader-maynard-comments-on-proposed-capture-of-mosul.html Below are listed all my speaking appearances over the course of Oxford's Michaelmas Term 2016:
Lectures - The Origins of the First World War (IR in the Era of Two World Wars 212, Undergraduate Paper), Monday 10th October, 11.00, Exam Schools - The Origins of the Cold War (IR in the Cold War 213, Undergraduate Paper), Friday 14th October, 11.00, Exam Schools - Cold War, Peaceful Coexistence and Containment (IR in the Cold War 213, Undergraduate Paper), Friday 21st October, 11.00, Exam Schools - Terrorism (International Relations and Security, Undergraduate Paper), Monday 24th October, 14.00, Exam Schools - Social Constructivism (IR Core Course 214, Undergraduate Paper), Wednesday 16th November, 12.00, Exam Schools - Mass Atrocities and Genocide (International Relations and Security, Undergraduate Paper), Monday 21st November, 14.00, Exam Schools - Critical and Marxist Approaches to IR (IR Core Course 214, Undergraduate Paper), Wednesday 23rd November, 12.00, Exam Schools - Germany and the Origins of the Second World War (IR in the Era of Two Worlds Wars 212, Undergraduate Paper), Monday 28th November, 11.00, Exam Schools - Culture and Identity in International Security (IR Core Course 214, Undergraduate Paper), Wednesday 30th November, 12.00, Exam Schools Talks - The Role of Ideology in Mass Atrocities (Changing Character of War Programme Seminar Series), Tuesday 15th November, Manor Road Building - Seminar Room G - The Study of Ideology in International Relations (International Relations Colloquium), Thursday 1st December, Manor Road Building Over the last week I was interviewed twice by Jonny Gould for talkRADIO on the tragic attacks in Brussels, Belgium and Lahore, Pakistan. You can hear my views on what the attacks tell us about the current terrorist threat, and how to respond, by listening to the two interviews through the links below:
http://talkradio.co.uk/highlights/brussels-bombings-dr-jonathan-leader-maynard-believes-terrorism-attacks-are-becoming-new http://talkradio.co.uk/highlights/pakistan-bombing-why-lahore-attack-was-different-brussels-160329460 I'm delighted to announce that my article 'Dangerous Speech and Dangerous Ideology: An Integrated Model for Monitoring and Prevention', co-authored with Susan Benesch of Harvard University, has been published in Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal.
The article examines the role of speech and ideology in causing mass atrocities and genocide, and offers a framework for identifying the major risk factors associated with certain forms of speech and ideology. You can access the article here. OXPOL, the politics blog of the University of Oxford, have just published a post in which I pose questions to Professor Jonathan Wright about his excellent new book (co-authored with Steven Casey) Mental Maps in the Era of Detente and the End of the Cold War 1968-91.
You can read the full post here: http://blog.politics.ox.ac.uk/mental-maps/. Many students and scholars are interested in studying ideology, but there are few available introductory volumes or reading lists to give methodological and theoretical guidance. My website will now contain a reading list, which I will continue to update, on my 'Teaching' page. You can check out the current version here:
http://www.jleadermaynard.com/teaching.html |