Visiting Scholar Reports

Strategic Ontologies: Narrative and Meso-Level Theorizing in International Politics

By Ben O’Loughlin, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK, and Adam B. Lerner, University of Massachusetts, Lowell.

Ben O’Loughlin was a Visiting Scholar at IPDGC in Spring 2023. He presented and recently published his paper titled Strategic Ontologies: Narrative and Meso-Level Theorizing in International Politics, Dr. O’Loughlin offers a new theory of incremental theoretical evolution that connects the practice of international politics with disciplinary IR. 

This research paper is available in PDF.


Beyond Soft Power: Analyzing Russian and Chinese Vaccine Diplomacy in the South Caucasus  

By Mariam Gamdlishvili, Georgian Institute of Politics, Policy Paper No. 27, December 2021. 

Mariam Gamdlishvili was a Muskie Fellow attached to IPDGC in Summer 2021. Her role at the Institute was to assist with designing a Distinguished Humphrey Fellow program on Media and Disinformation for a group of media professionals from Eastern and Central Europe, Central Asia, and Turkey.

Her paper looks at the use of soft power – the abilities of states to influence behavior and attitudes of foreign populations through attraction, rather than through military or economic means (i.e., hard power) – by a number of international actors is not a novel phenomenon and is exercised in various ways targeting societies and countries globally.

This research paper is available in PDF.