This event explores the role of concepts as windows into world politics. Prominent concepts like the state, security, or war organise our reality, they guide thought and action. Sometimes their meaning is taken for granted and sometimes it is fiercely contested. Moreover, among scholars of International Relations (IR), long neglected concepts, such as emotions or race, are receiving new attention. Against this backdrop, the roundtable will discuss the power of concepts as analytical lenses and as political instruments, their complexity and changing nature. Using 'international order', 'colonialism' and 'the nation' as examples, speakers will debate the place of concept in IR theories and political agendas, their role in the production of knowledge and in the conduct of international affairs.

The discussion will include a Q&A and be followed by a reception.

Speakers:

Felix Berenskötter is Reader in International Relations in the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. His work explores the creation and uses of international theory and concepts, with a focus on questions of identity, security, power, temporality, and friendship. Empirically, Felix has studied the politics of European security and peace orders, as well as Germany’s relationships with the USA and Israel. He published widely on these topics and also co-edits a book series on International Theory for Bristol University Press. 

Jasmine K. Gani is Assistant Professor of International Relations Theory at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). She writes and teaches on (anti)colonialism, race, knowledge production, theory and history of International Relations, and ideologies and social movements in the Middle East. Her research has been published in International Studies Quarterly, Security Dialogue, International Affairs, Postcolonial Studies, and Millennium, among others. She has authored and co-edited books on anti-colonialism, the politics of the Middle East, and the Syrian conflict.

Jaakko Heiskanen is Senior Lecturer in International Relations at Queen Mary University of London. His research is located at the intersection of International Relations, Nationalism Studies, and Conceptual History, focusing on the conceptual changes that accompanied the global spread of the nation-state in the 19th and 20th centuries. His first book, a global conceptual history of ethnicity titled Ethnos of the Earth: International Order and the Emergence of Ethnicity, was published with Cambridge University Press in 2024.

Elif Kalaycioglu is Lecturer in International Relations in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. Prior to joining KCL, she was an Assistant Professor at the University of Alabama and a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Princeton. Elif’s research explores the role of cultural and historical resources in the conduct of global politics with a focus on UNESCO’s world heritage regime. Her book The Politics of World Heritage: Visions, Custodians, and Futures of Humanity was published with Oxford University Press in 2025.