2026
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Friday, May 1, 2026
Amoz JY Hor, Assistant Professor of Politics and Asian Studies, Centre College
Olin Humanities, Room 205 11:30 am – 1:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 This talk offers a revisionist account of the formation of the U.S.-led international order by centering the colonial political economy of Southeast Asia in three key moments: US entry into the Pacific War, the formation of NATO, and the perceived absence of a NATO equivalent in Asia. Despite its significance, Southeast Asia is rarely foregrounded in International Relations accounts of global order. Yet both historiography and primary sources reveal that the region’s colonial political economy was central to U.S. foreign policy in Europe, Northeast Asia, and the South Pacific. By recentering Southeast Asia, the talk argues that the self-characterized “liberal international order” was not simply illiberal or hypocritical; rather, it is more accurately understood through what Charles Mills terms “racialized liberalism”—the belief that only white people are fully capable of democratic self-governance, making white freedoms especially sacred. More broadly, the talk suggests that globalizing International Relations requires more than incorporating non-Western cases or theories; it demands a shift in analytical vantage point—reconsidering where we look from, not just what we look at. This talk is part of the Politics Assembly, a new weekly workshop in the Politics program for students and faculty to gather to discuss. |
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Friday, March 6, 2026
Julie L. Rose
Professor of Government, Dartmouth College Lippman 100, Union College 5:00 pm EST/GMT-5 In the United States today,work is increasingly polarized around “good jobs” and “bad jobs”, generally following familiar patterns of social stratification.There is, however, a striking exception to the congruence between labor market polarization and socioeconomic inequality. That is, in the US today, the good jobs of the socially and economically advantaged are often marred by one undesirable feature: long work hours. If people have claims to limits on their work hours, should such claims apply universally, protecting even those workers who are otherwise advantaged? Or should highly-paid professionals be excepted, as they are in the Fair Labor Standards Act? Recent arguments in political philosophy support an ‘exempt the elite’ position. On this view, the elite’s long hours are acceptable, even desirable, because they generate tax revenue that can be redistributed to the less advantaged. I here challenge the position that the elite’s long hours should be welcomed by showing how their long hours generate a range of inegalitarian social costs. If the elite’s long hours are more detrimental than beneficial to the realization of broadly egalitarian commitments, there is an egalitarian justification for not exempting the elite from work time regulations. Paper will be pre-circulated. Contact [email protected] or Pinar Kemerli at [email protected] for the paper. The Hudson Valley Political Theory Workshop is a new collaborative project launched by Bard College and Union College. The workshop aims to bring together political theorists working in or near the Hudson Valley region in a series of workshops to share their work in progress, create new networks, and open up possibilities for new collaborative research projects that further advance humanities. |