Micropolitik“ in den Internationalen Beziehungen: Alltagspraktiken, Emotionen, Bilder - Einzelansicht

Teacher: Dr. Maren Hofius

(Please note that the seminar will start at 8.30 and end at 10.00)

Overview and Themes:

How can we meaningfully study world politics through the lens of International Relations (IR) theory? Inspired by the recent wave of ‘turns’ in IR, this research-oriented class sets out to study micropolitics – or, as Solomon and Steele (2017) call it, ”micro-moves” in international relations: practices, emotions, and the everyday. Looking down on these micro-moves promises insights into how macro-structures, such as the international system, the state, or international institutions are not only reproduced, but also constituted, contested, and possibly changed in mundane sites of the everyday. Both analytically and normatively, this micro-perspective on global politics has the potential to disrupt elitist accounts of politics by politicising it from the ‘bottom-up’. In turn, methodologically, it puts students in a unique position to situate global politics in the lived spaces of the everyday and examine how a multiplicity of political actors enact global politics both practically and aesthetically, ranging from the study of daily routines of diplomats in multilateral fora to intimate spaces of resistance and solidarity created and sustained by ordinary citizens during wartimes.

Organisation:

The course is organised in three phases. During the first phase, students learn about and deepen their knowledge of the theoretical precursors that have instigated the call to move ‘micro’ in IR theory. In a second phase, the course delves into the field of foreign and security policy to study individual cases that highlight the experiential dimension of global politics. Here, by way of teamwork, students critically interrogate the effects that practices, emotions, visuals and/or the everyday have on the field and the normative ends and means (methods) by which the research is conducted (e.g. discourse analysis or ethnographic methods). Building on the previous two phases, the third and final phase allows students to advance a micro-move of their own, that is, they devise an individually developed research project. To this end, students are given the time through independent study outside the classroom.

Sehen Sie untenstehend eine Auswahl von einschlägigen Texten. Es ist kein Vorwissen erforderlich vor Semesterstart.

• Solomon, T., & Steele, B. J. (2017). Micro-moves in International Relations theory. European Journal of International Relations, 23(2), 267–291. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066116634442
• Baele, S. J., & Bettiza, G. (2021). ‘Turning’ everywhere in IR: on the sociological underpinnings of the field's proliferating turns. International Theory, 13(2), 314–340. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1752971920000172
• Bueger, C., & Gadinger, F. (2015). The Play of International Practice. International Studies Quarterly, 59(3), 449–460. https://doi.org/10.1111/isqu.12202
• Hutchison, E., & Bleiker, R. (2014). Theorizing emotions in world politics. International Theory, 6(03), 491–514. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1752971914000232
• Björkdahl, A., Hall, M., & Svensson, T. (2019). Everyday international relations: Editors’ introduction. Cooperation and Conflict, 54(2), 123–130. https://doi.org/10.1177/0010836719845834
• Mac Ginty, R. (2021). Everyday peace: How so-called ordinary people can disrupt violent conflict. Oxford University Press.

Dr. Maren Hofius is a visiting professor during the summer term 2026 and the fall term 2026/27 at the chairs of Prof. Dr. Andrea Liese and Prof. Dr. Thomas Sommerer. 

You can find more information about her profile at the following link: https://www.wiso.uni-hamburg.de/fachbereich-sowi/professuren/wiener/team/hofius-maren/zurperson.html ”