6/Neo-royalism asks what happens to international politics when small groups of hyper elites (royalist cliques) become the central actor in world politics rather than the state. In short, tribute/extraction and exceptionalism replace rules and sovereign equality. Its all about the squeeze.

5/Its easy (or difficult to swallow) this as corruption/crony capitalism. But in a new paper w/ @segoddard.bsky.social in IO, we argue these interactions suggest something much more fundamental -- a shift in the international order which we call neo-royalism.
www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/mxthh...

Looks enticing, but it's locked behind the Globe's strict paywall. (And few Midwesterners are going to pay to breach it.) Tom, if you have a way of bringing this content to a national audience- I have no idea what that might be! - it would be a service. Anyway, thanks for letting us know about it.

The answer to my rhetorical question comes, of course, from @jayrosen.bsky.social.

Pet peeve: NYT (& many journalists) using "believes, thinks, sees" as synonyms for "says, claims, asserts." Speech is public & observable, but beliefs & thoughts are neither. And we all know political actors often say/ assert/utter words they believe to be false. Why pretend to be naive about that?

Most Israelis oppose annexing or resettling Gaza. But that may not matter, because Netanyahu is not accountable to most Israelis, but rather to the hard-right factions who keep him in power. www.theatlantic.com/internationa...