Centre for Security Research

What is time and how does it influence our knowledge of international politics? For decades International Relations (IR) paid little explicit attention to time yet remained beholden in its discourse to two seemingly contradictory visions of time: the time of the clock and a longstanding tradition treating time as a problem to be solved. International Relations and the Problem of Time develops a unique response to these interconnected puzzles. It reconstructs IR's temporal imagination by developing an argument that all times - from natural rhythms to individual temporal experience - spring from social and practical timing activities, or efforts to establish meaningful and useful relationships in complex and dynamic settings. This innovative account of time enables a more systematic and rigorous account of time in international politics. It also develops provocative insights about IR's own history, its key methodological commitments, supposedly 'timeless' statistical methods, historical institutions, and the critical vanguard of time studies. In reimagining time in this way, it shows us how we might also rethink the analysis and interpretation of international politics.

Join us as Dr Andy Hom, Senior Lecturer in Politics & International Relations and Associate Editor of the journal International Relations, discusses his new book International relations and the problem of time (Oxford University Press 2020). We are pleased to welcome our discussants: Dr Christopher McIntosh (Assistant Professor, Bard College, USA); Dr Ryan Beasley (Senior Lecturer, St Andrews); Dr Mihaela Mihai (Senior Lecturer, PIR and Director of CRITIQUE). We are grateful to CRITIQUE, CeSeR, and IR Research Group for their support of the event.

Event practicalities

This event will take place on Zoom. Registered participants will receive joining instructions by email in the week of the event. For general information about joining an event on Zoom, please see their website.