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The use of ethnographic methods is on the rise in International Relations. However, research in this area has largely been constrained to critical or interpretive analysis of nontraditional objects of study. This has been driven in part by two practical problems that limit ethnographic analysis: that of aggregation, as international phenomena are necessarily large in scale, and that of access, as institutional settings are often closed or secretive. While we commend critical and nontraditional research for driving much‐needed expansion of the disciplinary agenda, we offer a complementary account, arguing that scholars can also use ethnographic methods in explanatory research. To do so, we draw on two methodological literatures in anthropology. The first approximates ethnographic research through historical immersion. The second applies ethnographic methods at multiple research sites, tracking transnational phenomena across them. The paper sketches prospective studies of each kind, concerning the creation and implementation of the United Nations. While neither method is entirely new to IR, the methodological literatures in question have yet to receive systematic treatment in the field.

For most of its existence, the Second Amendment was largely ignored by Constitutional scholars. Recently, a veritable cottage industry has developed in which two distinct camps have surfaced: so-called “Standard Modelers,” who argue that individuals have a right to bear arms for self-defense, the defense of the state, and, in the most extreme examples, to overthrow the government should it become tyrannical, and those who view the Second Amendment as a collective right vested in the state militias for the purposes of law enforcement, to protect against foreign aggression, to quell domestic insurrection, and as a check against federal overreach. Despite the enormous gulf between them, both sides agree that the right to bear arms provides a counterbalance against the federal government. This paper uses insights from game theory to shed new light on the adoption of the Second Amendment. The states suffered a commitment problem. They wished to cooperate with each other by founding a new republic, but feared the consequences of doing so: losing their freedom to a powerful government. The Second Amendment militated against the need for a large federal army, acted to counterbalance federal forces, and created the offensive means with which to confront a tyrannical government.

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