Ronald R. Krebs

Bio: Ronald R. Krebs is an academic researcher from University of Minnesota. The author has contributed to research in topics: Politics & National security. The author has an hindex of 20, co-authored 58 publications receiving 1835 citations. Previous affiliations of Ronald R. Krebs include University of Washington & Columbia University.

Twisting Tongues and Twisting Arms: The Power of Political Rhetoric

Abstract: While scholars of International Relations and comparative politics have usually treated rhetoric as epiphenomenal, one strand of constructivism has recently returned rhetoric to the heart of political analysis, especially through the mechanism of persuasion. We too maintain that rhetoric is central to political processes and outcomes, but we argue that persuasion is theoretically and methodologically problematic. We aver that rhetoric’s role may be more usefully conceptualized in the context of coercion, and we advance a stylized model that illustrates how rhetorical coercion operates, explains why it works, and identifies key scope conditions. We subsequently illustrate our model’s relevance through a detailed examination of a ‘hard’ case. This article’s agenda is twofold. First, it advises scholars in these fields to avoid focusing on unanswerable questions about actors’ motives and to examine instead what actors say, in what contexts, and to what audiences. Second, it lays the groundwork for a ‘coercive constructivism’, complementing the liberal version so prevalent today.

Fixing the meaning of 9/11: Hegemony, coercion, and the road to war in Iraq

Abstract: As the costs of the invasion and occupation of Iraq mount, scholars have sought to explain how the United States came to launch this war in the first place. Many have focused on the “inflation” of ...

Narrative and the Making of Us National Security

Abstract: Dominant narratives - from the Cold War consensus to the War on Terror - have often served as the foundation for debates over national security. Weaving current challenges, past failures and triumphs, and potential futures into a coherent tale, with well-defined characters and plot lines, these narratives impart meaning to global events, define the boundaries of legitimate politics, and thereby shape national security policy. However, we know little about why or how such narratives rise and fall. Drawing on insights from diverse fields, Narrative and the Making of US National Security offers novel arguments about where these dominant narratives come from, how they become dominant, and when they collapse. It evaluates these arguments carefully against evidence drawn from US debates over national security from the 1930s to the 2000s, and shows how these narrative dynamics have shaped the policies pursued by the United States.

A School for the Nation? How Military Service Does Not Build Nations, and How It Might

Abstract: Theodore Roosevelt and his fellow Progressives hoped that universal military training would “Americanize” the mass of newcomers who had recently landed on America’s shores. Leonid Brezhnev similarly believed that widespread service in the Red Army would forge a uniaed Soviet citizenry committed to “the Socialist Motherland,” internationalism, and “the friendship of the peoples.”1 Like many leaders before and after them, Roosevelt and Brezhnev turned to the armed forces and the policy of universal military service at least in part to help build cohesive national communities out of their countries’ multinational jumbles. This view of the military as a key institution for the labeling and transmission of social values has roots stretching back to ancient Greece,2 but the armed forces arst achieved great popularity as a nation builder toward the end of the nineteenth century. At that time, the military was widely hailed across Europe as a “school for the nation,” and its apparent success was emulated as far away as czarist Russia and Meiji Japan. As countries across Africa and Asia won independence in the decades following World War II, they charged their armies with weaving a national fabric rent by communal rifts. Throughout the twentieth century, countries across the ideological spectrum have turned to the armed forces in the quest for national integration.3 A School for the Nation?

The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion.

Abstract: Originally published in Contemporary Psychology: APA Review of Books, 1994, Vol 39(2), 225. Reviews the book, The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion by John Zaller (1992). The author's commendable effort to specify a model of mass opinion formation offers readers an introduction to the prevailing vi

Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany.

Abstract: Preface Introduction: Traditions of Nationhood in France and Germany I. The Institution of Citizenship 1. Citizenship as Social Closure 2. The French Revolution and the Invention of National Citizenship 3. State, State-System, and Citizenship in Germany II. Defining The Citizenry: The Bounds of Belonging 4. Citizenship and Naturalization in France and Germany 5. Migrants into Citizens: The Crystallization of Jus Soli in Late-Nineteenth-Century France 6. The Citizenry as Community of Descent: The Nationalization of Citizenship in Wilhelmine Germany 7. \"Etre Francais, Cela se Merite\": Immigration and the Politics of Citizenship in France in the 1980s 8. Continuities in the German Politics of Citizenship Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

Time and Narrative

Abstract: In the first two volumes of this work, Paul Ricoeur examined the relations between time and narrative in historical writing, fiction, and theories of literature. This final volume, a comprehensive reexamination and synthesis of the ideas developed in volumes 1 and 2, stands as Ricoeur's most complete and satisfying presentation of his own philosophy.