To learn more about the APSA Ideas, Knowledge and Politics section and the former winners of the Friedman Prize follow this link: apsanet.org/membership/o...

I wasn't able to pick up the award in person, hence the picture of me holding it next to a tree looking pleased.

You can find out more about the book - and if you have the money and the urge, buy it - here: global.oup.com/academic/pro...

The prize committee described the book as a “fascinating, well-researched, and beautifully written contribution that speaks well to our section’s goal of highlighting the role ideas play in shaping politics across borders.”

🐳 🥳 Happy news to share! My book - The Grammar of Status Competition - has been awarded the Jeffrey Friedman Best Book Award: The APSA's Knowledge, Ideas and Politics section book prize. This is the first - and perhaps last! - academic award I have ever received, so it means a lot. 1/4

Perhaps the most counter intuitive finding of the issue is highlighted by @bill wohlforth, that with seeking status symbols may be (reasonably) rational after all!

In other words, our contributors highlight latent potentialities and complexity of international status symbols that do not readily lend themselves to generalization but to overlook would impoverish IR’s understanding of status.

Specifically, the introduction develops four analytical lenses and lines of questioning for illuminating status symbols' 1) temporality, 2) multivocality, 3) functionality and 4) manipulatability.

3/ Picking up on Lilach Gillady’s (2018) cue in her magisterial Price of Prestige, we argue that for all the studies showing the prevalence of status seeking & the importance of the motivation for status, the status symbols actually sought have received curiously little theorization 3/.

2/ The issue builds upon the groundbreaking work of what we call “first wave” status research, which has shown beyond doubt the prevalence of status seeking in world politics, among great, small and middle powers, in high politics and low politics alike. 2/?

Conceived at Baltimore 2016, it's fitting that our special issue Status Symbols in World Politics is out in time for #ISA2025! The intro makes case for why status symbols warrant sustained attention in IR & develops a framework for studying them 🧵 1/: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

The forum contributions also wonderfully illustrates how the tricky task of de-centering agency in research can be insightfully and carefully conducted via innovative writing strategies. 4/?

Indeed, the issue's contributions made me rethink several of the canonical writing principles I had long held dear and identify several tensions between the writing principles I try to follow and good research practice (e.g. confident, clear prose versus researching with humility and transparancy).

Hopefully, my reflections in the conclusion on the underappreciated merits of "breaking writing rules" might lead others to reflect upon their writing process. (abstract below). 2/?

brill.com/view/journal...

Publication alert! It was a joy & an honour to write the conclusion to this forum on "writing for reflexivity" (ft. Felix Anderl, Audrey Alejandro, & Carmina Yu Untalan), which I suspect may have permanently transformed what I consider "good academic writing" to be, and what it can aspire to do. 1/

Pleased (and relieved) to have just submitted proofs for our volume "Governing Nature and the Making of World Order". Thanks to our contributors for their wonderful chapters & meeting our rather strict deadlines! Here's a sneak preview of the cover we settled on after extensive public polling...

If the book sounds up you street, here is the link: global.oup.com/academic/pro...

Elsewhere, do say hello if you are at #ISA2024 and want to talk about status/hierarchies in world politics. :)

Extremely happy to announce that my book on the domestic politics of 'international' status competition
(With OUP) is available to pre-order: I'll make proper thread soon, but you can get a teaser from the nice things some of my favourite scholars said about the book (below).

Sneak preview of an article - and joint labour of love with Jaakko Heiskanen - coming soon in @ejir.bsky.social on IR's predilection to turn...