"Dark Matter of World Politics" is now finally published online *open access* in @IntOrgJournal! This began as a conversation with @JenniferMitzen on trust in IR & in world politics, following my Natl Interest blog post on 2019 Trump-Kim Hanoi summit. A🧵https://t.co/G8U9FbjmKc

Much IR trust scholarship focuses on trust between leaders. We propose another type of trust is important in world politics, international system trust, a feeling of confidence in the international social order that conditions the meaning & effects of interpersonal(I-P) trust.
Like "dark matter" of the social world, system trust holds the international system together. Without system trust the system works differently & the dynamics of interpersonal trust would have different world political effects. Therefore, we pull it from the background.
Summit diplomacy is one site for reproducing int’l system trust. The Reagan-Gorbachev 1985 Summit is seen as a triumph of inter-personal trust. Conversing w/@Prof_MHolmes @WheelerICCS we flag int’l system trust thru summit diplomatic practices reproducing state persons.
The + effects of I-P trust that IR trust scholarship assumes rely on ongoing reproduction of int’l system trust. W/ personalistic politics on the⬆️ it’s impt to pay attn to this dark matter. We don’t know much about dynamics/effects of mere interpersonal trust in world politics!
Many thanks to the IO editors for helpful guidance and especially to the two anonymous reviewers for excellent feedback which sharpened our argument tremendously.

More from All

You May Also Like

"I lied about my basic beliefs in order to keep a prestigious job. Now that it will be zero-cost to me, I have a few things to say."


We know that elite institutions like the one Flier was in (partial) charge of rely on irrelevant status markers like private school education, whiteness, legacy, and ability to charm an old white guy at an interview.

Harvard's discriminatory policies are becoming increasingly well known, across the political spectrum (see, e.g., the recent lawsuit on discrimination against East Asian applications.)

It's refreshing to hear a senior administrator admits to personally opposing policies that attempt to remedy these basic flaws. These are flaws that harm his institution's ability to do cutting-edge research and to serve the public.

Harvard is being eclipsed by institutions that have different ideas about how to run a 21st Century institution. Stanford, for one; the UC system; the "public Ivys".