Isolation in International Relations

Fri 10 March 2023

Lady Mitchell Hall

Since the end of the Second World War, diverse aspects of International Relations (IR) – including foreign policy, global governance, negotiation studies, and political economy – have been guided by an understanding that if markets were kept open, and states and their peoples interconnected, both prosperity and peace would stand a far better chance. In contrast, isolation – or its translation into a national strategy, isolationism – is often treated as a profanity in both the study as well as the practice of IR. In my Darwin lecture, I offer a different perspective. I argue that universal interconnectedness can no longer be treated as a rule-of-thumb for securing motherhood and apple-pie; indeed, sometimes, time-bound or party-specific forms of isolation may be just the cure for certain types of political and economic maladies as well as to achieve new and updated goals. I provide illustrations of cases where a move away from interconnectedness and towards (some) isolationism may be advisable, perhaps even necessary. The argument generates some interesting implications for research and policy.

Cost: Free