Informality in International Relations: Whom (or What) Do You Trust?

Join the Europe and Eurasia Focus Area of the School of Advanced International Studies for the second part of Dr. David Kanin's seminar on informality in international relations (see the syllabus below for details). This event will take place in room 222 at 555 Penn Ave. Lunch will be provided.

International relations theory and practice focus heavily on the relationship between states and international institutions. Liberal Institutionalists and Realists wrestle over which of these dominate but both are schools of thought within a paradigm constructed after the great wars of the twentieth century. Constructionists take a subtler approach to the relationship of states to ideas and non-state agency but still focus largely on the interaction between constructed concepts, the constructors of those concepts, and formal state and international institutions. There is a literature on criminal actors and “state capture” but it treats the concept of “capture” as an unfortunate condition to be overcome rather than as an intrinsic, possibly indelible factor in domestic, international, and transnational relations.

We will discuss actors and systems often treated as subordinate, marginal, backward or illegitimate. “Informality” in this context is the universe of customary non- or anti-legal activities that enable kin, interest and/or commerce - driven networks to exploit, avoid, and manipulate constituted authority and the official organs of power. On the table will be the breadth and depth of informality in norms, power structures and society.

Sept 4: Trust and Distrust: The Diachronic Durability of Informal Networks

Suggested Resources:

Charles Tilly, Trust and Rule (Cambridge University Press, 2005).

Check out the ”state capture” literature and articles on corruption, politics, and social institutions by Louise Shelley and Phil Williams.

Film: “Winter’s Bone” with Jennifer Lawrence and John Hawkes. Directed by Debra Granik, 2010

Sept 25: Organized Crime: Congruent With or Antithetical to the Western Tradition of international law?

Suggested Resources:

Jennifer Pitts, Boundaries of the International: Law and Empire (Harvard University Press, 2018).

Peter Andreas, Smuggler Nation: How Illicit Trade Made America (Oxford University Press, 2013). Also Blue Helmets and Black Markets: The Business of Survival in the Siege of Sarajevo (Cornell University Press, 2008).

Film: “The Godfather, Part 2” with Al Pacino, Robert De Niro and Robert Duval. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola, 1974.

Oct 16: The Structural Relationship of Formality and Informality: How Do Norms and Institutions Compete, Cooperate and Otherwise Interact?

Suggested Resources:

Khalid Mustafa Medani, Black Markets and Militants: Informal Networks in the Middle East and North Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2022).

Henry A. Kissinger, Eric Schmidt, and Daniel Huttenlocher, The Age of AI and Our Human Future (Little, Brown, 2021).

Films: “King Rat” with George Segal, James Fox and Tom Courtney. Directed by Bryan Forbes, 1965. Compare and Contrast to “Bridge on the River Kwai” with Alex Guinness and William Holden. Directed by David Lean, 1957.

Host or Publisher SAIS Europe & Eurasia Focus Area