The RITUAL DETERRENCE team attended the International Studies Association’s 67th Annual Convention in Columbus, Ohio, USA in 22-25 March 2026. In the project-convened panel “The Ritual Politics of Deterrence”, Maria Mälksoo, Cameron Hunter and Thomas Fraise presented their work in progress.
Maria Mälksoo also served as a discussant for two panels (“Constructing Enemies and Allies: Identity, Discourse, and Strategic Relationships”; “Ontological Security and Identity in Fragmented Societies”) and represented the Review of International Studies at the panel dedicated to RIS’s latest Special Issue “International Politics of Cultural Heritage” alongside the session on “Publishing in Leading Journals: Meet the Editors”.
Cameron Hunter served as a discussant for the panel “Nuclear Strategy: Theory and Practice” and further presented a paper on “Ideologies of Utopian Nuclear Managerialism and the Prospect of Emancipation”.
Cameron Hunter and Thomas Fraise convened, chaired and discussed the panel “Political Theory by Default: An Exploration of the Ideology-Technology Nexus in the 21st Century”. Thomas further presented a paper “The nukes made me do it: nuclear threat making and the production of unaccountability”.
The team also held a workshop to discuss the work in progress with the project international advisory board members at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies at the Ohio State University on 24 March 2026, with Profs Dorothy Noyes, Jennifer Mitzen, Tarak Barkawi, and Jared Rabinowitz in attendance.
