Samuel Barkin

Samuel Barkin is a political scientist with a focus on international relations. Within this subfield his interests range widely, including questions about the epistemology of international relations, the history and norms of the sovereign states system, international organizations, and the global politics of the environment, oceans, and fisheries.

While at CASBS he will be preparing a manuscript on a critical history of the sovereign states system, in the context of the stories that international relations as a discipline tells itself about constancy and change in that system. Those stories often trace the system to the Peace of Westphalia, implying a system that is both deeply historically entrenched and a purely European creation. This project argues instead that the system developed much later through contestations of ideas between European states and former colonies, along with other emerging states. The aim of the project is to return agency in the creation of the international political system to the postcolonial world. 

Barkin is a professor of global governance at the University of Massachusetts Boston. He has published widely on international relations and organization; his books include The Sovereignty Cartel, Realist Constructivism: Rethinking International Relations Theory, and International Organization: Theories and Institutions, 3rd ed.