My employers think I know something about the practice and theory of international relations. Perhaps I shouldn’t draw attention to my shortcomings in this area given that my university is currently in the business of “letting a few people go.” Between ourselves, though, I can’t quite work out whether we’ve just had a good year or one of the worst on record.
As is often the way in academia, it’s possible to make a pretty respectable argument for either case. One might be forgiven for thinking that in a year when conflict in the Middle East assumed rather apocalyptic proportions at times, and when the apparent threat from terrorism seemed ubiquitous and inescapable, the evidence was compelling and overwhelming.
And yet for those of us fortunate enough not to live in Syria, Iraq, or Afghanistan, the chances of coming to a sticky end at the hands of Islamic State [ISIS] or any other “death cultists” remain vanishingly small. I’m about to head off to Paris to teach for six months and the last thing I’m worrying about is a random act of violence. Packing on the pounds or getting lung cancer from all that passive smoking—is smoking actually compulsory in France?—are different matters.
