Iain Ferguson | National Research University “Higher School of Economics” (HSE), Moscow, Russia (original) (raw)

Iain is an assistant professor in the Department of Politics and Governance at HSE University in Moscow. He is primarily interested in the practices and theory of global governance in international relations.

He has published book chapters and journal articles focusing on the character of international relationships in global governance – between the EU and Russia, between the EU, NATO and Russia, and between the USA and the other permanent members of the UN Security Council – for the purpose of understanding the EU–Russia origins of ‘spheres of influence’, the practice of ‘revisionism’ in Russian diplomacy, and the USA–centric ‘crisis’ in the political thought of liberal internationalism after 9/11.

He is currently working on a series of Russia–centered papers that aim to disclose and explain events in global governance for debates about the practices and theory of contemporary international relations. His empirical focus is on the rhetoric of Russia’s presidents, diplomacy, security strategy and foreign policy in the twenty–first century. This rhetoric and the logic to accompanying international practices are understood in the context of representations of instrumental and unsatisfied ends in Russia’s relationships with Western powers (esp. the USA, NATO and the EU) and non–Western powers (principally China) during an incomplete project of UN reform that began in 2003–5 in response to the moral controversy of the war in Iraq. According to this analysis, this project of global reform continues to be thwarted in these international relationships by practices that are, paradoxically, for and against the expansion of the (allegedly) legitimate grounds for the use of force.

In his research on global governance, Iain looks to bring together perspectives from normative political theory (esp. from Michael Oakeshott, Eric Voegelin, Nicholas Rengger, Stephen White, and Richard Bellamy), international relations theory (esp. constructivism, the English School, liberalism and realism), contemporary strategic / security studies and peace & conflict studies in international relations, debates on the interpretive logic of inquiry in international relations, and debates in philosophy on: understanding and explanation; necessity and contingency; agency and structure; narrative and political epistemology; epistemic disagreements and dilemmas; the rationality and morality of special relationships; and the methods and limits of immanent critique, rhetorical criticism, and world disclosure.

Iain holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from the University of St. Andrews. Before becoming an academic, he had a brief career in global political journalism (in London) and in international security and development (in Central Asia).

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