The critique of silence in International Relations theory has been long-standing and sustained. However, despite the lasting popularity of the term, little effort has been made to unpack the implications of existing definitions and their uses, and of attempts to rid the worlds of theory and practice of silences. This article seeks to fill this vacuum by conducting a twofold exercise: a review and revision of the conceptualisation of silence current in the literature; and a review of the implications of attempts to eliminate silence from the worlds of theory and practice. Through the discussion, the article suggests that we deepen and broaden our understanding of silence while simultaneously accepting that a degree of silence will be a permanent feature of theory and practice in international politics. Finally, the conclusion illustrates the possibilities for analysis and theory opened by these arguments through an exploration of how they may be used to interpret and address recent events in Yemen.

This article introduces an innovative approach to the role-play teaching technique: one driven by the presence of substance incentives. We analyse the effectiveness of this incentive-driven role-play approach in the engagement of students with International Relations and Security Studies seminars. We assess its usefulness on multiple fronts. We propose that incentive-driven role-play is an effective method of teaching that caters for students' different learning styles, particularly in theory topics. Its interactive component makes theory tangible for students, allowing them to grasp why certain actions are taken and the consequences of these actions. The use of incentives was found to be important in ensuring motivation, participation and providing easily understandable outcomes that can be transferred to the theory they were studying. This article also highlights the practicalities involved in incentive-driven role-play exercises, noting the importance of clear instructions and precursor lectures on the subject matter.

The failed state thesis has been a matter for discussion in the international relations academy for more than two decades. However, the soundness of this analytic framework has been questioned. This article critically engages this debate by examining the ability of the thesis to provide insight into the practice of statecraft in the case of Yemen. It argues that as a result of its rigid and Eurocentric approach, the failed state thesis is unable to recognise the strategies employed by states like Yemen to ensure their survival, which include the purposeful production of chaos.

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This article examines the conceptualisations of peace and its preconditions manifested in the critical turn in peace theory: bottom-up approaches which begin with particular contexts and postulate diverse local actors as integral to the process of peace-building. This article argues that the turn is at an impasse and is unable to address the crucial charge that its conceptualisation of peace is inconsistent. To explain the persistence of inconsistency and to move us forward, the article analyses, evaluates and responds to the turn through the lens of Nicholas Rengger’s work on the anti-Pelagian imagination in political theory. This is defined as a tendency to begin theorising from non-utopian, anti-perfectionist and sceptical assumptions. Through this examination the article argues that the critical turn is anti-Pelagian but not consistently so because it often gives way to perfectionism, adopts naïve readings of institutions and postulates demanding conceptions of political agency and practice. This inconsistency with its own philosophical premises makes the turn’s conceptualisation of peace and its preconditions incoherent. Finally, the article sketches an alternative account of peace which draws upon a number of anti-Pelagian scholars and mobilises Rengger’s particular defense of anti-Pelagianism. The suggested alternative, the article argues, provides us with a more coherent theory of peace and a way out of existing dead ends.

This collection contributes to debates, which seek to move feminist scholarship away from the reification of the war/peace and security/economy divides. However, rather than focusing on the terms of the debate, it foregrounds the empirical reality of the breakdown of these traditional divisions, paying particular attention to the 'state of exception' and similar frameworks. In doing so, contributors to this collection trouble the ubiquitous concept and practices of '(in)security' and their effects on differentially positioned subjects. By gendering (in)securities in 'states of exception' and other paradigms of government related to it, especially in postcolonial and neo-colonial contexts, it provides an approach, which allows us to study the complex and interrelated security logics, which constitute the messy realities of differentand particularly vulnerablesubjects' lives. In other words, it suggests that these frameworks are ripe for feminist interventions and analyses of the logics and production of (in)securities as well as of resistance and hybridisation.

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