Welcome to Relations International. This is developing into a new blog in International Relations (IR), addressing topics of global politics and the study of global politics, broadly defined. In the coming days, the contributors will be introducing themselves, and the blog will be getting off the ground.

Relations International is meant to share many of the properties of IR blogs that have existed in the past – drawing on a broad-based group of contributors that come from a wide variety of perspectives, including but not limited to different theoretical perspectives, different career stages, different locations (both geographically and in terms of the scholar/practitioner divide), addressing current events, discussing debates in the field, and suggesting interesting cross-fertilizations with other blogs, journals, and the like.

That said, Relations International is also being constructed with an aim to distinguish itself from other IR blogs in a couple of ways. First, it is meant to have a (broad-based) emphasis on relations – that is, on interactions – both in global politics and in the discipline of IR. Second, it takes a particular perspective on the value of a group blog, and the responsibility of its contributors for its content. In constructing this blog at a particular moment in the history of blogging in the discipline, I am aware of the perils of a group blog and the question of responsibility for the content of some posters by other posters, especially in my particular position as an editor of a journal of the International Studies Association (ISA). While I will discuss those issues in more detail in a future post, it is my goal that Relations International be largely though not entirely unedited – where the editing, if necessary, will be in service of a goal that the bloggers share together – making Relations International a safe place for people of all sexes, genders, sexual orientations, national origins, races, and ethnicities to discuss both global politics and the enterprise of studying it. I do not see these as at odds with free speech and free expression, and I look to construct an atmosphere which is one of vigorous debate with respect and decorum. Let me/us know if you want to be a part of this effort and/or have any suggestions for how it works.