International Relations and Security
My disciplinary research focuses on questions of the philosophical foundations of International Relations and security studies. Three main threads include the application of quantum physics to social theory and International Relations, the intersection of political theology and international political theory, and critical security studies. These threads are interconnected, with theoretical models from quantum IR and political theology often applied to questions of security and sovereignty.
I have been active in the "quantum IR" community since organizing a panel for the 2018 International Studies Association Northeast Regional conference. Key outputs of my quantum IR research have been my book Quantum Social Theory for Critical International Relations Theorists: Quantizing Critique (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021), two articles in Competition & Change and Millennium, and chapters appearing in forthcoming volumes edited by Alexander Wendt and James Der Derian, and the Critical Border Studies Research Unit at the University of Lethbridge.
Drawing on the philosophical methodology of Giorgio Agamben, my work in political theology and international political theory seeks to understand how dominant Western conceptualizations of sovereignty, security, and the politics/economics relationship were secularized from early Christian political theology. Research outputs have been presented at various conferences and published as articles in venues such as International Relations, International Politics, the Cambridge Review of International Affairs.
My work in the area of critical security studies has focused on the area of emergency powers, including securitization theory, sovereign exceptionalism, and the relationship between securitization and exceptionalism. A recent article applying securitization theory to the "Emergency eLearning" protocols enacted in response to COVID-19 in post-secondary institutions is the most-downloaded article in the history of the journal Contemporary Security Policy (over 30,000 as of September 2020). Other articles have appeared in Critical Studies on Security, the Journal of Borderlands Studies, and elsewhere.