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Jamie Levin

St Francis Xavier University (Nova Scotia, Canada), Political Science, Faculty Member

University of Toronto, Political Science, Graduate Student

London School of Economics and Political Science, International Relations, Graduate Student

University of Washington, Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, Post-Doc

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace, Post-Doc

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Jamie Levin (PhD Political Science, University of Toronto, MsC, LSE) holds a post-doc at the University of Washington Jackson School. Jamie’s research lies at the intersection of international peacemaking and the use of force in international relations. His PhD research focused on the role of weapons in the resolution of civil wars. His post-doctoral research explores the evolution of Israeli diplomacy regarding the use of force. His work has been published in: Journal of Peace Conflict and Development, International Politics, International Peacekeeping, International Studies Review, The Palestine Israel Journal, The Toronto Star, The National Post, Ha’aretz, The Jerusalem Post, and The Walrus.

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Paul E Corcoran

University of Adelaide

University of Houston

Laetitia Ramelet

University of Lausanne

King's College London

Theodore Christov

The George Washington University

Andrew R Murphy

University of Michigan

University of Toronto

King's College London

Silviya Lechner

King's College London

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Papers by Jamie Levin

Domestic entanglements: Family, state, hierarchy, and the Hobbesian state of nature

by Joseph MacKay and Jamie Levin

This article revisits the Hobbesian account of the state of nature and the formation of states, a... more This article revisits the Hobbesian account of the state of nature and the formation of states, attending to Hobbes's account of the family. Drawing on feminist readings, we find in the Leviathan an account of the family as a natural political community. We contend specifically that a focus on conceptions of family life in the Leviathan, and in works by Hobbes's early modern peers, points to the role of the family as a site of socialisation in the prelude to early state formation and in the formation of political hierarchies more generally – including, we suggest, the formation of international hierarchies. These accounts have thus far been missing from International Relations theory. Contra conventional IR theoretic readings of the Leviathan, the Hobbesian state of nature contains the seeds of both anarchy and hierarchy, as overlapping social configurations. While anarchy emerges clearly in the famous condition of 'war of all against all', hierarchy also exists in Hobbes's depiction of family life as a naturally occurring proto-state setting. On the basis of this contemporary feminist analysis of a classic text, we consider implications for the emerging 'new hierarchy studies' in IR.

The Imperative to Explore the Impact of Disarmament on Peacemaking Efforts and Conflict Recurrence

There is today a well-established consensus that belligerents must be disarmed in order to recons... more There is today a well-established consensus that belligerents must be disarmed in order to reconstruct shattered states and establish a robust and durable peace in the wake of internal armed conflict. Indeed, nearly every UN peacekeeping intervention since the end of the Cold War has included disarmament provisions in its mandate. Disarmament is guided by the arrestingly simple premise that weapons cause conflict and, therefore, must be eradicated for a civil conflict to end. If the means by which combatants fight are eliminated, it is thought, actors will have little choice but to commit to peace. Disarmament is, therefore, considered a necessary condition for establishing the lasting conditions for peace. To date, however, no systematic quantitative analysis has been undertaken of the practice of disarmament and the causal mechanisms remain underspecified. This paper is a preliminary attempt to fill that gap. In it we outline a series of hypotheses with which to run future statistical analyses on the effects of disarmament programs. The success of negotiations and the durability of peace are, perhaps, the single most salient issues concerning those engaged in conflict termination efforts. We therefore focus the bulk of this paper on a review of the supposed effects of disarmament on negotiating outcomes and war recurrence.

Immersive Politics and the Ethnographic Encounter: Anthropology and Political Science. In the Routledge Companion to Contemporary Anthropology.

by Joseph MacKay and Jamie Levin

This chapter surveys the use of anthropological ndings and, especially, ethnographic methods, in... more This chapter surveys the use of anthropological ndings and, especially, ethnographic methods, in political science. We show that immersive inquiry is increasingly used to study poli- tics.1 Indeed, the use of these methods is rapidly expanding across a wide variety of topics and geographical areas. Nonetheless, we nd in this area of inquiry a central tension: On the one hand, use of immersion to study power has proven strikingly fruitful, opening a range of new avenues of inquiry for the discipline. On the other, this method, and its attendant theoretical ethos, remains somewhat marginal in a discipline widely in uenced by statistical and formal or rational choice methods.We also nd some practical limitations on how politics can be stud- ied ethnographically, owing to problems of access (because political institutions may be closed to immersive study) and aggregation (because political science so often deals with large-scale phenomena).We conclude that political scientists using ethnographic methods have nonetheless tended to convert these limitations into strengths, using ethnographic methodology to open new areas for inquiry.

Selectorate theory and the democratic peacekeeping hypothesis: evidence from Fiji and Bangladesh

UN peacekeeping has undergone two major shifts since the end of the cold war. The first is a move... more UN peacekeeping has undergone two major shifts since the end of the cold war. The first is a move away from limited efforts to maintain peace in post-conflict environments towards more robust efforts at peace enforcement. Second, the composition of peacekeepers has changed. In 1990, the leading contributors of personnel to UN peacekeeping missions were notable supporters of multilateral cooperation and other liberal-democratic norms with extensive peacekeeping experience. As of 2012, however, the top contributors to UN peacekeeping missions had changed dramatically: Bangladesh, Pakistan, Ethiopia and Nigeria have replaced traditional peacekeepers Canada, Finland, Austria and Norway. While liberal-democratic nations continue to bear most of the costs, they have all but disappeared on the ground, leading to a precipitous decline in the quality of peacekeeping. The consequences of the latter shift are the subject of considerable debate. Some argue that peacekeeping facilitates the transmission of democratic norms and institutions to sending states. Others increasingly argue that the so-called ‘democratic peacekeeping’ hypothesis is a ‘myth’. We go further, suggesting that autocratic states may take on peacekeeping duties as a way of maintaining costly security apparatuses for the purposes of domestic repression. Peacekeeping – a feature of liberal post-cold war global governance – risks becoming a means to facilitate illiberal domestic governance in the developing world. We demonstrate this in two tentative but cautionary cases: Fiji and Bangladesh.

Before and after borders: The nomadic challenge to sovereign territoriality

by Joseph MacKay, Jamie Levin, and Kristin Cavoukian

Although non-state actors have recently proliferated, many predate the modern state system itself... more Although non-state actors have recently proliferated, many predate the modern state system itself. Among these, traditional nomads uniquely challenge sovereignty. Nomadism undermines states' capacity to tax, conscript and otherwise regulate population. However, nomadism constitutes an ideational as well as material threat to states. By disrupting states' territorial configuration, nomadism undermines the ideational foundations of statehood. States have responded to nomadism in three ways. Many forcibly settle nomads. Weak states, unable to secure borders, allow nomads to migrate relatively freely. Others voluntarily facilitate freer migration by reducing the salience of borders. We offer three examples: Bedouins, often forcibly settled; African pastoralists, permitted to migrate through porous borders; and Roma, permitted to migrate transnationally within the European Union. While the Bedouin and African instances suggest a necessary conflict between the role of state and the culture of nomadism, the European experience suggests border relaxation can permit states and nomads to coexist.

A Hegelian realist constructivist account of war, identity, and state formation

by Joseph MacKay and Jamie Levin

This article offers a realist constructivist account of armed conflict, based on the work of G.W.... more This article offers a realist constructivist account of armed conflict, based on the work of G.W.H. Hegel. Hegel has received relatively little attention in mainstream IR theory. When he has been read, four readings have predominated: realist, liberal, critical, and normative accounts. We instead link his thought to both realism and constructivism. For Hegel, a persistent struggle for recognition and identity between individuals and groups drives much of human interaction. In his account of the causes of war in his Philosophy of Right, Hegel traces international violence not only to realist international-structural pressures, but also to nationalism, and to the internal socioeconomic imperfections of the modern state. The result is broadly realist constructivist, linking a major international phenomenon—armed conflict—to interactions between power and ideas. Previous readings of Hegel in IR have deemphasized some or all of these features. Recovering them furnishes realist constructivism with theoretical tools for explaining the processes linking ideas and power politics—tools it has so far lacked—in the context of a substantive phenomenon: armed conflict.

Hanging Out in International Politics: Two Kinds of Explanatory Political Ethnography for IR

by Joseph MacKay and Jamie Levin

The use of ethnographic methods is on the rise in International Relations. However, research in t... more The use of ethnographic methods is on the rise in International Relations. However, research in this area has largely been constrained to critical or interpretive analysis of nontraditional objects of study. This has been driven in part by two practical problems that limit ethnographic analysis: that of aggregation, as international phenomena are necessarily large in scale; and that of access, as institutional settings are often closed or secretive. While we commend critical and nontraditional research for driving much-needed expansion of the disciplinary agenda, we offer a complementary account, arguing that scholars can also use ethnographic methods in explanatory research. To do so, we draw on two methodological literatures in anthropology. The first approximates ethnographic research through historical immersion. The second applies ethnographic methods at multiple research sites, tracking transnational phenomena across them. The paper sketches prospective studies of each kind, concerning the creation and implementation of the United Nations. While neither method is entirely new to IR, the methodological literatures in question have yet to receive systematic treatment in the field.

Peace and Pollution: An Examination of Palestinian—Israeli Trans-Boundary Hazardous Waste Management 20 Years after the Oslo Peace Accords

As part of the Oslo Accords, Israel and the Palestinian Authority agreed to jointly manage issues... more As part of the Oslo Accords, Israel and the Palestinian Authority agreed to jointly manage issues of environmental concern according to internationally recognised standards. The purpose of this paper is to qualitatively evaluate the outcomes of the Palestinian -Israeli Oslo environmental peace agreements regarding trans-boundary hazardous waste management. Hazardous waste is an area of particular importance given the potential for inefficient management to impact on public health and shared ecological resources. Although the environmental negotiations that took place within the framework of the Oslo Accords can be seen as a significant milestone for environmental cooperation, many objectives were never achieved. Ultimately, both parties were left with suboptimal trans-boundary management, in practice, because broader political disputes derailed cooperation in many technical spheres. This outcome can be attributed to four main factors: Israeli security concerns, territorial disputes, logistical ambiguities and Palestinian institutional constraints. The outcomes of the environmental agreements challenge neo-functionalist approaches to peacebuilding at the inter-state level. Given the risks environmental concerns pose to both sides, new models are needed that disentangle the management of immediately shared environmental challenges from the ongoing conflict.

Accord to Discord: A Political Economy Approach to the Oslo Process

Domestic entanglements: Family, state, hierarchy, and the Hobbesian state of nature

by Joseph MacKay and Jamie Levin

This article revisits the Hobbesian account of the state of nature and the formation of states, a... more This article revisits the Hobbesian account of the state of nature and the formation of states, attending to Hobbes's account of the family. Drawing on feminist readings, we find in the Leviathan an account of the family as a natural political community. We contend specifically that a focus on conceptions of family life in the Leviathan, and in works by Hobbes's early modern peers, points to the role of the family as a site of socialisation in the prelude to early state formation and in the formation of political hierarchies more generally – including, we suggest, the formation of international hierarchies. These accounts have thus far been missing from International Relations theory. Contra conventional IR theoretic readings of the Leviathan, the Hobbesian state of nature contains the seeds of both anarchy and hierarchy, as overlapping social configurations. While anarchy emerges clearly in the famous condition of 'war of all against all', hierarchy also exists in Hobbes's depiction of family life as a naturally occurring proto-state setting. On the basis of this contemporary feminist analysis of a classic text, we consider implications for the emerging 'new hierarchy studies' in IR.

The Imperative to Explore the Impact of Disarmament on Peacemaking Efforts and Conflict Recurrence

There is today a well-established consensus that belligerents must be disarmed in order to recons... more There is today a well-established consensus that belligerents must be disarmed in order to reconstruct shattered states and establish a robust and durable peace in the wake of internal armed conflict. Indeed, nearly every UN peacekeeping intervention since the end of the Cold War has included disarmament provisions in its mandate. Disarmament is guided by the arrestingly simple premise that weapons cause conflict and, therefore, must be eradicated for a civil conflict to end. If the means by which combatants fight are eliminated, it is thought, actors will have little choice but to commit to peace. Disarmament is, therefore, considered a necessary condition for establishing the lasting conditions for peace. To date, however, no systematic quantitative analysis has been undertaken of the practice of disarmament and the causal mechanisms remain underspecified. This paper is a preliminary attempt to fill that gap. In it we outline a series of hypotheses with which to run future statistical analyses on the effects of disarmament programs. The success of negotiations and the durability of peace are, perhaps, the single most salient issues concerning those engaged in conflict termination efforts. We therefore focus the bulk of this paper on a review of the supposed effects of disarmament on negotiating outcomes and war recurrence.

Immersive Politics and the Ethnographic Encounter: Anthropology and Political Science. In the Routledge Companion to Contemporary Anthropology.

by Joseph MacKay and Jamie Levin

This chapter surveys the use of anthropological ndings and, especially, ethnographic methods, in... more This chapter surveys the use of anthropological ndings and, especially, ethnographic methods, in political science. We show that immersive inquiry is increasingly used to study poli- tics.1 Indeed, the use of these methods is rapidly expanding across a wide variety of topics and geographical areas. Nonetheless, we nd in this area of inquiry a central tension: On the one hand, use of immersion to study power has proven strikingly fruitful, opening a range of new avenues of inquiry for the discipline. On the other, this method, and its attendant theoretical ethos, remains somewhat marginal in a discipline widely in uenced by statistical and formal or rational choice methods.We also nd some practical limitations on how politics can be stud- ied ethnographically, owing to problems of access (because political institutions may be closed to immersive study) and aggregation (because political science so often deals with large-scale phenomena).We conclude that political scientists using ethnographic methods have nonetheless tended to convert these limitations into strengths, using ethnographic methodology to open new areas for inquiry.

Selectorate theory and the democratic peacekeeping hypothesis: evidence from Fiji and Bangladesh

UN peacekeeping has undergone two major shifts since the end of the cold war. The first is a move... more UN peacekeeping has undergone two major shifts since the end of the cold war. The first is a move away from limited efforts to maintain peace in post-conflict environments towards more robust efforts at peace enforcement. Second, the composition of peacekeepers has changed. In 1990, the leading contributors of personnel to UN peacekeeping missions were notable supporters of multilateral cooperation and other liberal-democratic norms with extensive peacekeeping experience. As of 2012, however, the top contributors to UN peacekeeping missions had changed dramatically: Bangladesh, Pakistan, Ethiopia and Nigeria have replaced traditional peacekeepers Canada, Finland, Austria and Norway. While liberal-democratic nations continue to bear most of the costs, they have all but disappeared on the ground, leading to a precipitous decline in the quality of peacekeeping. The consequences of the latter shift are the subject of considerable debate. Some argue that peacekeeping facilitates the transmission of democratic norms and institutions to sending states. Others increasingly argue that the so-called ‘democratic peacekeeping’ hypothesis is a ‘myth’. We go further, suggesting that autocratic states may take on peacekeeping duties as a way of maintaining costly security apparatuses for the purposes of domestic repression. Peacekeeping – a feature of liberal post-cold war global governance – risks becoming a means to facilitate illiberal domestic governance in the developing world. We demonstrate this in two tentative but cautionary cases: Fiji and Bangladesh.

Before and after borders: The nomadic challenge to sovereign territoriality

by Joseph MacKay, Jamie Levin, and Kristin Cavoukian

Although non-state actors have recently proliferated, many predate the modern state system itself... more Although non-state actors have recently proliferated, many predate the modern state system itself. Among these, traditional nomads uniquely challenge sovereignty. Nomadism undermines states' capacity to tax, conscript and otherwise regulate population. However, nomadism constitutes an ideational as well as material threat to states. By disrupting states' territorial configuration, nomadism undermines the ideational foundations of statehood. States have responded to nomadism in three ways. Many forcibly settle nomads. Weak states, unable to secure borders, allow nomads to migrate relatively freely. Others voluntarily facilitate freer migration by reducing the salience of borders. We offer three examples: Bedouins, often forcibly settled; African pastoralists, permitted to migrate through porous borders; and Roma, permitted to migrate transnationally within the European Union. While the Bedouin and African instances suggest a necessary conflict between the role of state and the culture of nomadism, the European experience suggests border relaxation can permit states and nomads to coexist.

A Hegelian realist constructivist account of war, identity, and state formation

by Joseph MacKay and Jamie Levin

This article offers a realist constructivist account of armed conflict, based on the work of G.W.... more This article offers a realist constructivist account of armed conflict, based on the work of G.W.H. Hegel. Hegel has received relatively little attention in mainstream IR theory. When he has been read, four readings have predominated: realist, liberal, critical, and normative accounts. We instead link his thought to both realism and constructivism. For Hegel, a persistent struggle for recognition and identity between individuals and groups drives much of human interaction. In his account of the causes of war in his Philosophy of Right, Hegel traces international violence not only to realist international-structural pressures, but also to nationalism, and to the internal socioeconomic imperfections of the modern state. The result is broadly realist constructivist, linking a major international phenomenon—armed conflict—to interactions between power and ideas. Previous readings of Hegel in IR have deemphasized some or all of these features. Recovering them furnishes realist constructivism with theoretical tools for explaining the processes linking ideas and power politics—tools it has so far lacked—in the context of a substantive phenomenon: armed conflict.

Hanging Out in International Politics: Two Kinds of Explanatory Political Ethnography for IR

by Joseph MacKay and Jamie Levin

The use of ethnographic methods is on the rise in International Relations. However, research in t... more The use of ethnographic methods is on the rise in International Relations. However, research in this area has largely been constrained to critical or interpretive analysis of nontraditional objects of study. This has been driven in part by two practical problems that limit ethnographic analysis: that of aggregation, as international phenomena are necessarily large in scale; and that of access, as institutional settings are often closed or secretive. While we commend critical and nontraditional research for driving much-needed expansion of the disciplinary agenda, we offer a complementary account, arguing that scholars can also use ethnographic methods in explanatory research. To do so, we draw on two methodological literatures in anthropology. The first approximates ethnographic research through historical immersion. The second applies ethnographic methods at multiple research sites, tracking transnational phenomena across them. The paper sketches prospective studies of each kind, concerning the creation and implementation of the United Nations. While neither method is entirely new to IR, the methodological literatures in question have yet to receive systematic treatment in the field.

Peace and Pollution: An Examination of Palestinian—Israeli Trans-Boundary Hazardous Waste Management 20 Years after the Oslo Peace Accords

As part of the Oslo Accords, Israel and the Palestinian Authority agreed to jointly manage issues... more As part of the Oslo Accords, Israel and the Palestinian Authority agreed to jointly manage issues of environmental concern according to internationally recognised standards. The purpose of this paper is to qualitatively evaluate the outcomes of the Palestinian -Israeli Oslo environmental peace agreements regarding trans-boundary hazardous waste management. Hazardous waste is an area of particular importance given the potential for inefficient management to impact on public health and shared ecological resources. Although the environmental negotiations that took place within the framework of the Oslo Accords can be seen as a significant milestone for environmental cooperation, many objectives were never achieved. Ultimately, both parties were left with suboptimal trans-boundary management, in practice, because broader political disputes derailed cooperation in many technical spheres. This outcome can be attributed to four main factors: Israeli security concerns, territorial disputes, logistical ambiguities and Palestinian institutional constraints. The outcomes of the environmental agreements challenge neo-functionalist approaches to peacebuilding at the inter-state level. Given the risks environmental concerns pose to both sides, new models are needed that disentangle the management of immediately shared environmental challenges from the ongoing conflict.

Accord to Discord: A Political Economy Approach to the Oslo Process