biography

  • I am political scientist specializing in international relations theory and international historical sociology. My main research focuses on historical and contemporary forms of international hierarchy, imperialism and war. I am particularly interested in how international conditions affect processes of domestic state formation.

    In my current book, Empire Within: International Hierarchy and its Imperial Laboratories of Governance (Routledge, 2015) I explore the various ways in which imperial spaces proved to be significant laboratories of political, social and economic innovations that affected the development of the modern Western state and society. My book shows how certain assemblages such as the concentration camp, surveillance technologies and neoliberalism emerged out of imperial/hegemonic crucibles.

    My current project examines the historical connections between Nazi Germany's grand strategy and the Holocaust. In what way was Germany's war strategy, its desire for an Eastern ‘Empire' and its confrontations with the British Empire and the United States connected with genocidal aims? My goal is to show that the Nazi Holocaust was an integral part of its grand strategy and not something peripheral to it. In order to do so, I wish to write a critical genealogy of the concept of race war, which gains increasing importance in the latter part of the 19th century with the intensification of imperial competition.

    I currently teach courses in International Relations Theory, Development of International Thought and American Foreign Policy. I also teach graduate seminars in International Relations Theory and Contemporary Political Theory. Prior to joining the faculty at Florida International University I was an Assistant Professor at the American University of Beirut.

research interests

  • International Relations Theory, International Historical Sociology, Postcolonial Theory

selected scholarly works & creative activities

full name

  • Alexander Barder

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