Last week on Deep Dive, we looked at cutting edge attempts to mathematically measure racism’s impact on international relations by looking specifically at the link between racism and migration decisions. This week, we’ll investigate new work that explores how considering racism in international politics is remaking international relations theory.

Kerem Nisancioglu has a new article in the European Journal of International Relations that examines the role racism plays in one of the foundational concepts of international relations: sovereignty. Scholars have long preferred to see racism and sovereignty set apart as distinct concepts with no overlap between them. Racism, the theory goes, is a social ill that sometimes takes hold within states, while sovereignty is a fundamental fact of an international system that is not concerned with questions of race. That distinction, however, is a historical fiction.

As Nisancioglu points out, one of the core purposes of the concept of sovereignty as it developed in Europe was to differentiate “normal” European states from polities around the world that those European states would colonize. Colonialism, of course, is an intensely racist process, consistently justified on the basis of racial hierarchies that paint colonizers as more capable of rule than the colonized. Sovereignty became a privilege of those atop white-dominated racial hierarchies to set the terms of their own governance and conduct international politics of an equal footing — privileges not initially extended to non-white people.

The era of decolonization allowed many international relations scholars to memory hole sovereignty’s racist past. Europe and America recognized many of their former colonies as sovereign states, and organizations like the United Nations emphasized the equality of rights afforded to each country in the international system. This was certainly preferable to colonialism but, Nisancioglu argues, many took it as an indication that modern international relations were post-racial.

Yet, Nisancioglu writes, the concept of “racial sovereignty” is still alive and well today. It can be seen in the appeal of Brexit, which explicitly rests on claims of both national sovereignty — the European Union having too much control over British policy — and the threat of racial dilution — migrants are being allowed to “flood” Britain as a result of EU control. The Leave campaign’s infamous “Breaking Point” poster, for example, paired an image of a long line of Middle Eastern migrants with the text, “We must break free of the EU and take back control of our borders.”

Such an appeal would be nonsensical if sovereignty was a post- racial concept — racial dilution would be no threat to “Britishness” in that world. Yet not only did the Leave movement win the Brexit referendum, but racist hate crimes spiked in Britain in the referendum’s aftermath. The idea of sovereignty as a tool to enforce racial hierarchy, it seems, has not been left in the dustbin of history.

Halima Gikandi described the latest step in efforts to end South Sudan’s civil war. President Salva Kiir welcomed former vice president Riek Machar back into government last week, part of a delayed implementation of the power-sharing agreement the two rivals signed in 2018. The two have been leading opposing sides in a civil war that dates to 2013 and has killed over 400,000 people. Observers are cautiously optimistic that the new coalition will hold, bringing much-needed stability to the young country.

Caroline Smith outlined an approach to feminist foreign policy that goes beyond questions of women’s representation to focus on empowering a range of marginalized groups harmed by patriarchal American foreign policy. Whether you focus on the people most immediately in danger from climate change — 80% of whom are women — or girls suffering from war-induced poverty in Afghanistan or Yemen, the apportioning of pain caused by American foreign policy decisions is heavily gendered. Feminist foreign policy, Smith argues, should be measured by effects of policy outcomes on marginalized people at least as much as on the gender split of those involved in policymaking.

Monica Campbell spoke to Mohammed, an interpreter for American forces in Afghanistan, who is trying to get a visa for him and his family to move to the United States. He continues to risk his life by helping the US train Afghan government forces while continuing his decade-long wait for a promised visa that will allow him to get him and his family to safety. Visa wait times have increased under the Trump administration, and Mohammed worries that an impending peace deal between the US and the Taliban will leave him without any protection before the visa comes through.

It’s a tale as old as time: A man in New Jersey with little to no knowledge of the Saudi telecom industry got on Twitter, got mistaken for the Saudi state telecom firm’s online presence, sold his Twitter handle, and is now the subject of one of the most bizarre ads ever produced.

There’s only one thing to say to this nuclear dad joke: Boo-235. 

The coronavirus will spread from Edmonton to Los Angeles, breaking the heart of every Canadian.

Shoutout to the CDC official who got approval to hang out in north Brooklyn breweries as “research” for this graphic.

Three cheers for journalistic integrity.

Really any reasonable person: You can’t securitize “pancake week.”

Russia: Bet.

Congratulations to Captain Wolfe and whoever came up with her incredible callsign.