This Site
This site brings together two of my favourite things: international relations (IR) theory and the musical brilliance of Steven Patrick Morrissey, former iconic frontman of the Smiths and current solo artist. Known simply as Morrissey or Moz, this Mancunian muse has been called other things as well, from the “Pope of Mope” to “an effete but acid-tongued champion of outcasts, losers and misunderstood mopers” (Rolling Stone). But, to my knowledge, he has never been called a theorist of IR—until now.
Theory is typically presented as a coherent set of ideas and general principles intended to explain something distinct from ourselves as observers. This version of theory has been challenged, for good reasons and to good effect. But it sits at the core of long dominant “realist” accounts of IR and, if these theorists and this version of theory no longer dominate, they live on in various forms and various schools, and, like Morrissey, realist conceptions of world politics are far from defunct. Realists, again like Morrissey, are frequently decried for an essentially pessimistic view of life but, unlike Moz, are seldom accused of being funny. They are, like most academics, bereft of any capacity for self-mockery or irony. The genius of the Smiths—upbeat melodies and downbeat messages about the human condition—is analogous to political realism as well, whose failure to imagine the world as anything other than a life and death struggle for power between states in a realm without meaningful, independent global authority delivers a theory powerful enough to do just about anything short of actually making anything better. Rather perversely, realist theory may derive its evidently great insights into political life from its very inability to change it, or even imagine its change. It is, in this sense, the IR theory version of Morrissey’s glib oneliners. As a follower of E. H. Carr and firm believer in the wisdom of his claim that the pure realist and pure idealist are dangerous extremes equally to be avoided, there’s more realist in me than I like to admit. But I remain an unabashed devotee of what I am canonizing the Manchester school of IR—not to be confused with the Manchester school of political economy—and present Moz, and to some extent the peculiarly protean musical environment of greater Manchester in which he is the greatest of some pretty great bands, not as an idol to be worshipped but a muse and guilty pleasure I would rather not be without.
Morrissey’s interest in politics is obvious, in his lyrics, onstage performances, between song banter in seemingly endless live shows, and increasingly rare interviews. But his views can come across as a bizarre blend of militant vegetarianism and scattergun outbursts directed against any institutions, countries, and individuals that rub him the wrong way. His many victims include Canada—to which he has vowed not to return until it stops killing seals—the USA (despite choosing to live there), the royal family (fair enough), the Olympics, Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross, and even the eminently likeable Ed Sheeran and Sam Smith. Given that Moz’s tongue is literally in his cheek so much of the time (see photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons), it’s hard to know when or if if to take these outbursts seriously. Certainly there is no obvious consistency, as witnessed by his attacks on the greed of record company marketers while relentlessly pushing his own merchandise, or placing animal lives ahead of human lives, or railing against inequalities despite apparent undercurrents of racism and xenophobia in a number of his songs. But when it come to IR, he is a consistent, coherent, and forceful realist: “and if you think peace is a common goal that goes to show how little you know” (Death of a Disco Dancer).
Morrissey of course does not deliberately or directly engage a single actual IR theorist. But he engages their issues and ideas, and embraces (albeit lightheartedly perhaps) the misanthropic undertones that serious academics try so hard to deny. This is especially true of the 1980s—or as Morrissey would have it the “19-haties”—a decade largely devoid of happiness and hope. Paradoxically, however, and with benefit of hindsight, it was the heyday of realist IR theorizing and, until the middle of the decade, a sense of shared purpose and confidence pervaded what was then called THE DISCIPLINE of IR. From that point onward, debates about theory in IR have become increasingly abstract, acrimonious, messy, and—for all but the best read and bravest student—indecipherable.
Like IR, the world of Morrissey was forged in, contaminated, and possibly irrevocably tainted, by the experiences of the 1980s and his brilliant, knife-edged one-liners offer a nice alternative point of entry to the more academic theorizations on offer in IR texts. In the Smith’s single “Ask,” for example, Morrissey economically, deftly, and vividly captures, and conveys, the very core of Kenneth Waltz’s then dominant (and still resonant) structural-realist account of the world: “Because if it’s not love, then it’s the bomb, the bomb, the bomb, the bomb, the bomb, the bomb, the bomb that will bring us together?” Even better, Morrissey claims “Nature is a language, can’t you read?,” a perfect, far more poetic, and gender neutral rendering of Waltz’s exhortation that “the most important causes of political arrangements and acts are found in the nature and behavior of man.” With my own tongue partly in cheek, I offer this site as a slightly gratuitous nod to England’s greatest living songwriter and wit, and most accessible IR theorist.
Myself
(coming soon)