IR scholarship - best praxis

Stefano Guzzini, splitting his time between Uppsala, Copenhagen, Rio, and Geneva, has sometimes mentioned how he longs to feel that one academic institution is his home: A building you enter, with colleagues and traditions in which you feel integrated. As a post-national European, generational migration, education, love, and career has long denied him that kind of rootedness.

Stefano; it is not for us to give you that building (or that one pension scheme). But with this Festschrift, we hope to remind you that you are not just part of but indeed a cornerstone, of one important academic institution: European International Studies. That institution already is your home - and it is your home. Like that institution, the means for our message is virtual rather than concrete: A virtual festschrift, inclusive like the generous compassion you have shown to generations of young scholars from East, West, North and South.

The seminar space

The point of departure and formal framework for many of us have been one of Stefano's PhD courses. Stefano’s courses were introduced in a time when PhD studies were becoming more and more like ordinary schools with curricula and ECTS points to be obtained. Here, Stefano offered instead a space for mentorship and taught the academic craft to newcomers by offering time and his analytical abilities. The intention was never to dictate a result, but to create space to make bright ideas better – sometimes perhaps even brilliant – and to work constructively to make a written product as good as possible.

In a sense, it is this seminar form – writ large - that became the trademark of Stefano, as we see it. This is the praxis (to use a term from Pierre Bourdieu) that made a difference over the decades and institutional settings that Stefano has contributed to shaping. Stefano was far from a stranger to the sociology of Bourdieu, so we suspect that he sensed an opening – a possibility to challenge the orthodoxy in IR through a systematic engagement with and unflagging encouragement of the heterodoxy of his time. Challenge often comes from the young and creative, however we understand these terms in academia, and from the will to tear down instead of fortifying. Stefano is not exactly known for radical gestures. Yet his everyday praxis and ethos of continuously engaging with new – and not so new - generations of scholars, and of support to those that may not be well-versed in how to play the hegemonic academic game, has cultivated a heterodox room to think, to publish, and to at least affect academic power structures and thus lessen their grip on the academic destinies of numerous colleagues, and friends. The many contributions to this Festschrift are meant as a testament to the power of such praxis. To the power of sustaining the challenge to orthodoxy not just in Europe, but far beyond it.

Formative of a new European praxis

After studying 'at home' at the University of Saarland - in important ways the most 'European' part of Germany - Stefano got his degrees (always with distinction) from top universities in European metropoles. Finally, earned his PhD at the European University Institute in Florence in 1994. His post-graduate studies, hence, took place in a transformative period for Europe, in which it was both necessary and possible to rethink IR in general and the concept of power specifically. For the IR discipline in Europe, Stefano has been intellectually and practically formative in ways that have not readily met the eye of all its practitioners.

Immediately after, Stefano launched his professional academic career – as Assistant Professor – at Central European University in Budapest. He thus started by working from within a periphery which was ripe for change at that historical moment. He was a founding person of a critical scholarly tradition in the International Relations Department, and in the region more broadly, that has taken roots and, in many ways, continues until today. It is marked by a strong attachment to social theoretical and historical inquiry against blunt empiricism which too often gets hijacked for political purposes. This focus on the importance of theory, in teaching and research, is a space of thinking and transformation, of minds if not immediately of material realities.

Mindful of the value of institutionalization, Stefano was also at the forefront of setting up the Central and Eastern European International Studies Association (CEEISA), of which he was a devoted president (2013-19). Conceived initially as a driver for developing regional IR and putting it on the map of IR globally, CEEISA has over decades become a hub of thinking in a distinctively regional-global fashion which is sensitive to nuance and dialectics. Similarly, he revived and edited for a while the Journal of International Relations and Development (JIRD) as a flagship journal of the association. Starting as a niche regional initiative, JIRD has become a core platform for publishing theoretically minded research in global IR and hosted a number of constitutive debates in critical IR.

In 2000, a senior researcher position at the Copenhagen Peace Research Institute (COPRI) began a process, where more and more institutions formally got a piece of Stefano: Danish Institute of International Studies (into which COPRI was merged); Uppsala University; PUC-Rio; University of Ljubljana. A long series of guest professorships testifies that many see Stefano's attraction, and all of us know that brief acquaintances easily turn in to long-lasting conversations, formalized or not.

Now, Stefano will have a building to enter in Fiesole, just uphill from Florence. He talks about it as the last gig before retirement - but we suspect he will never really stop contributing. Nevertheless, it is so fitting, that Stefano will return to Florence armed with theoretical thinking. And it is so promising, that it is the EUI that will house the next stretch of his oeuvre: Here, graduate students from all parts of Stefanos home-continent will benefit from being nudged into imbuing their thinking with theory - taking this enhanced version of their thinking with them onwards, whether that means home (whatever that would mean) or to a European institution or abroad.

A sprawling party that never ends

For the Festschrift, we invited scholars who - young at one point - have benefitted from meeting Stefano to submit pieces, already published. This means that we did not reach out to his ‘contemporaries’, but rather to the academic generations that followed them. Each text is contextualized by a brief reflection on Stefano's contribution to the particular argument or general academic development of the contributor (whether it was clear from the outset or only in hindsight).

It must be clear to everyone, that we tapped into a very, very large pool of potential contributors - so, naturally, we did not reach all of them. Nevertheless, we hope that our collection demonstrates the theoretical, disciplinary, and geographical breadth of the intellectual projects which have benefitted from Stefano' supervision and mentorship across and beyond European IR.

Stefano, we are looking forward to being part of this continued conversation which is European International Studies - a conversation which would not be the same without your voice and your praxis.

The Festschrift was edited by Trine Villumsen Berling and Ulrik Pram Gad (Danish Institute for International Studies). Xymena Kurowska (Central European University) contributed to this introduction. Matthæus Zygmunt provided assistance in the editorial process.

I first met Stefano at one of the regular seminars for PhD students he organised at the Danish Institute of International Studies. For those in the know, a spot at these seminars were highly sought after. The format was collegial; we would take turns to present texts outlining our research design, theoretical frameworks or methods, and each participant would then comment and provide feedback. The peer feedback would often be tough – as early career researchers we knew how to criticise and tear apart each others work, but rarely how to be constructive. Yet, at the end of each round Stefano himself would deliver the prestige, carefully reassembling the intellectual rubbles into something workable, drawing on his seemingly endless overview of different literatures to outline new and original ideas. For myself as for many others this input turned out to be extremely formative, not only for my PhD dissertation but also in regard to my onwards research direction.

Stefano similarly played an instrumental role when, together with another PhD student from this seminar, I carelessly embarked on a book project on the concept of sovereignty. Without ever assuming a formal role or placing himself center stage, he gently supported us at every step of the process, from helping to recruit international contributors to intellectually bringing together the sprawling chapters. The submitted text for this online Festschrift, is a chapter from this early project. His support for us as young scholars moreover extended to his international network. He would encourage us to organise panels at major international conferences and make introductions to what turned out to be future collanborators. When famous professors in international studies would stop by Copenhagen, they would invariably dine at Anna and Stefano’s – but so would we! These dinner parties, seamlessly mixing discussions of IR theory with detailed analysis of European politics, became a pinnacle of intellectual stimulus and inspiration, often lasting well into the small hours.

Anyone familiar with Stefano Guzzini’s work will likely agree that as a scholar he represents a rare breed, capable of combining intellectual breath with a commitment to in-depth and foundational theorising. His significant contributions to IR theory and security studies is testament to this fact. Yet, for those of us who have had the privilege to learn from him and work alongside him, his immense intellectual generosity and commitment to mentoring future generations of scholars are what make him stand out even more.

Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen, Director 
Centre of Excellence for Global Mobility Law, University of Copenhagen

Gammeltoft-Hansen, T. (2008). 'The Refugee, the Sovereign, and the Sea: European Union Interdiction Policies' In: Adler-Nissen, R., Gammeltoft-Hansen, T. (eds) Sovereignty Games. Palgrave Studies in Governance, Security, and Development. Palgrave Macmillan, New York.
  

Stefano was my IR survey course teacher at graduate school in Bremen, where he was a fellow in 2007/8. Although I had not met him in person, I already knew him, through an email list discussing IR theory. Still a master’s student, I had written to him since I was puzzled by his thoughts on power. How can there be power when it is not intentional, or against somebody’s will? Stefano engaged, and I must say, he was quite convincing!

Stefano’s class in Bremen came at a time when I was turning away, disillusioned, from agency theory and a trend in IR to test norms against power. I was turning to global health governance and institutionalism, which I have been passionate about ever since. Back then, since I saw no way forward with the liberal constructivism that I had engaged with for my MA thesis, normative-critical questions had receded into the background. With Stefano’s reading list (strong focus on European scholars, one US constructivist) and teaching, they came back in new guises. Somewhere between Polanyi and Carr and world society and the discussions in our small Bremen group, IR turned into something that is not only deeply historical, but also practical.

And now that I think back, it strikes me that Stefano’s class was deeply and fundamentally about ethics. When I was touched and impressed by Walker’s Inside/Outside, Stefano said, for example: 'People who like Camus tend to like this book' (he did not know that I liked Camus). What a thing to say in an IR theory class! A new register, and many new questions to ask, even if maybe later. That is why I think that my article about 'Orders of Worth and the Moral Conceptions of Health in Global Politics' most directly reflects the intellectual gifts that Stefano has given me over the years. The paper is reflexive, so to say. It is both about institutions and about moral concepts, and it jointly reads IR scholars and institutional devices as part of one practical ordering of global society. No need to see those as opposites.

Happy birthday Stefano! Thank you for all your advice and support over the years, until today. I look forward to reading the other contributions, so happy to join the celebration of your scholarship and your generosity toward students and scholars all over the world.

Tine Hanrieder, Assistant Professor
Health and International Development, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)

Hanrieder T (2016) 'Orders of Worth and the Moral Conceptions of Health in Global Politics' International Theory 8(3):390-421
 

'Chatting for hours' is probably the best way of describing how inspiring it has been along the way to discuss foreign policy, international security, and Russia-related affairs with Stefano. This article is just one piece that benefitted from these 'chatting hours' which go much further than that dinner, panel session, PhD seminar or roundtable discussion. It is the maturing of ideas and motivational support that are enduring. And then become part of a published piece.

Stefano's approaches to international security and foreign policy build on his consolidated work on discourses, norms and identity and the way these are constructed, contested, and transformed. Here I would highlight the way in which security discourses and foreign policy processes might be at the intersection of dynamics of change, co-constituting the shaping and reshaping of practices. In this article the work of Stefano both on international security and foreign policy is piece and parcel of the reflection, as the baseline is exactly the co-constitutiveness and self-reflexiveness of processes. The ontological security perspective applied to EU-Russia relations and a contested neighbourhood allows to analyse narrative construction and identitarian self-definition, to better grasp ontological (in)security feelings. Interestingly, when I was writing this brief note I realized how much my research work has benefitted from Stefano’s own work, dawning somehow on my critical reflection about all I have been taking along with me through the years from the many hours of chatting and discussions.

Maria Raquel Freire, Professor in International Relations
Faculty of Economics of the University of Coimbra

Freire M R (2020) 'EU and Russia Competing Projects in the Neighbourhood: An Ontological Security Approach' Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional 63(1)
 

My work on this article coincided with the publication of Stefano’s magnificent book, The Return of Geopolitics in Europe?. At the time, I began to be interested in alternative geopolitical visions, critical geopolitics as well as the study of foreign policy imaginaries and how they can be shaped by historical legacies, cultural projects, individual intellectuals but also foreign policy shocks. All of that was present in Stefano’s edited volume. In a way, this paper offers something of a prequel to the story of the post-1989 geopolitics revival, sketches some of the paths not taken – and why they were not taken is probably best answered in the book.

Kacper Szulecki, Research Professor
International Climate Governance Climate and Energy Research Group, Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI)

Szulecki K (2015) 'Heretical Geopolitics of Central Europe. Dissidents Intellectuals and an Alternative European Order' Geoforum 65:25-36
 

Like so many other PhD scholars, I profited enormously from participating in the internal PhD workshops that Stefano has arranged for many years at DIIS. Indeed, in my dissertation I express my gratitude (in the Acknowledgments) for having 'received tons of useful comments, not least from Stefano himself'. Looking back at these sessions, I would like to briefly add two observations that reflect the strong intellectual stimulus that Stefano provided to me and other young scholars at DIIS. First, he was unique in his ability to not only introduce us to, but also help us navigate the numerous theoretical and methodological debates in the International Relations discipline. Second, whereas other colleagues would typically identify and drill down on specific problems in your submitted paper, Stefano would rather be offering the final meta-analysis of your paper, situating it within the relevant field and always delivering a sympathetic – critical, but constructive – reading of its potential contributions.

As for my own PhD dissertation, Stefano primarily helped me clarify some of the most complex and onerous questions that every PhD student struggles with, namely how to deal with issues of epistemology and ontology. Writing a dissertation about how China’s identity narratives shape its grand strategy requires some far-reaching initial decisions about the relative boundedness and causality of social identities. In Chapter 2 of my dissertation, I develop what I call a “bounded constructivist approach to social identities” by emphasizing their cognitive, material and structural properties in order to treat them in a quasi-objectified manner. While Stefano would – and did – question some of the underlying premises of such an approach, he did so in a very helpful manner that helped me strengthen my arguments and refine my understanding of “the logic of social identity” (the title of my dissertation). I would therefore like to dedicate Chapter 2 of my dissertation to Stefano!

Andreas Forsby, Senior Researcher,
Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)

Forsby A (2016) 'The logic of social identity in IR : China’s identity and grand strategy in the 21st century’ : PhD dissertation' (1. edition.). Københavns Universitet, Institut for Statskundskab.
 

My article deals with the interplay between cognitive psychology and structural constraints on foreign policy, specifically for the Danish decision to join NATO in 1949. Employing a neoclassical realist framework, it uses very different theory and method compared to how Stefano would likely have approached the subject himself (he is, in fact, a prominent critic of realism).  Nevertheless, Stefano was more than happy to help me with the article giving insightful comments at a meeting at DIIS as well as in helpful conversations about the article afterwards. In doing so, he was brilliantly on point on substance, while also going out of his way to provide/offer insightful advice and help concerning how to get the article out. For me, this goes to show how Stefano embodies a key virtue of academia: to be interested in all approaches of research, and to be able and willing to judge each project or article on its own merits. Add to this Stefano’s ceaseless enthusiasm for helping young researchers prosper, I think it is fair to say that it is people like Stefano that makes research communities function like communities rather than as a collection of individuals.

Mikkel Runge Olesen, Senior Researcher,
Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)

Runge Olesen M (2018). 'To balance or not to balance: How Denmark almost stayed out of NATO, 1948–1949' Journal of Cold War Studies 20(2): 63-98.
 

I was really happy to receive an invitation to participate in this Festschrift. For me, very early on in my academic career, Stefano came to signify some of the best academia has to offer. First, of course, I was impressed by his intellectual capabilities. Secondly, and more importantly today, he was a great example and role model to all of us. Stefano shared his insights and guided a bunch of PhD students in a friendly manner toward their individual academic paths, emphasizing the importance of a reflexive and critical academic praxis. I aspire to help students and PhD-students in the same way today. The paper which I have contributed to the Festschrift to me is an example of how two different disciplines may fruitfully interact and contribute to our reflection on important concepts such as charisma and populism. 

Caroline Howard Grøn, Associate Professor,
Department of Political Science, Aarhus University.

Wivel A & Grøn C (2021). 'Charismatic leadership in foreign policy' International Affairs, 97(2): 365–383.
 

In June 2022, Stefano hosted a range of junior scholars from Danish Institute for International Studies at his Copenhagen apartment and my draft called ‘The Sisterhood of pan-African Femocrats and the African Union Gender Aspirations’ was one of the papers receiving feedback. It is an open secret that many people participate in Stefano’s seminars to hear his take on their paper and learn from his brilliant theoretical engagement with social sciences– and particularly IR. One of the major influences Stefano had on my work, and many others I believe, is that he always challenged us when we positioned ourselves in opposition to existing bodies of work. This is a classic mistake by young inexperienced PhD students. Personally, I found some of the key concepts of constructivist IR difficult to work with. Stefano was excellent in discussing the contributions different IR paradigms have made to the field and their areas of overlap. Stefano also questioned how I used politics of aspiration: Was it a strategy of activist actors or an analytical frame for understanding the work actors and processes within the African Union? I came back to this feedback months later when the editors at RIS asked me to sharpen and clarify my contribution. This is a standard example of when Stefano pre-empted what reviewers would say. I am deeply grateful for the patience, consideration and understanding with which Stefano gives feedback, especially to young scholars- these traits are just as valuable as his academic rigour and excellence.

Karmen Tornius, Research Assistant,
Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)

Tornius K (2023). 'Pan-African gender governance: The politics of aspiration at the African Union.' Review of International Studies, 1-22.
 

My first contact with Stefano happened at the beginning of my PhD at the University of Toronto. In my dissertation project, I wanted to apply Bourdieu’s sociology to the study of world politics, yet at that point in time there were very, very few people in International Relations (IR) who were interested in such a project. I had noticed Stefano’s references to the French sociologist in his Reconstruction of Constructivism (2000) and was curious to know more. So I emailed him out of the blue with a working paper and some questions. As per his habit, Stefano responded swiftly with a long, thoughtful and supportive email. Shortly thereafter, I asked him to sit on my dissertation committee, which he selflessly agreed to do despite the distance. If memory serves me well, we met in person the following year in Budapest, where he took me to the most shadowy bars of the city until dawn. That was the beginning of a twenty years long friendship that I cherish to this day.

From the get-go, then, I was offered a taste of all the personal and intellectual qualities that put Stefano in a league of his own in our community and discipline: an incredibly generous and nice man, a ridiculously sharp and sophisticated mind, and an innate pedagogue who will follow his students no matter strange, uncanny or risky their ideas. As I write this, I realize that my experience with him is far from unique; on the contrary, Stefano managed to positively imprint the lives and careers of dozens of graduate students along the way. That is quite a rare feat in academia–and one well worth this celebration.

Stefano has had many influences on my thinking and picking one piece to represent them is bound to be partial. I decided to go with my very first publication in English, The Essence of Constructivism, because it roughly coincides with our encounter, as I was trying to carve my own path through the fierce debates that were then raging around constructivism. Stefano’s mark on this piece is dual. First, my essay attempts to develop constructivism in a way that takes home the lessons of the linguistic turn and reflexivity, without going all the way to postmodern relativism. In my view, this is the project defended in his Reconstruction of Constructivism in International Relations, which to this day remains one of the most penetrating discussions of social theory ever published in IR. Second, my article gestures toward a turn to practice, as the best unit of analysis available in order to observe the innumerable acts of essentialization that are continuously performed by agents. Unheralded as this origin may be, practice theory and the importation of Bourdieu’s sociology in IR were given a key push in Stefano’s own PhD dissertation, Power Analysis as a Critique of Power Politics (1994). Luckily, he had snail-mailed me a paper copy (those were the days!) of what turned out to be perhaps the best kept secret of IR scholarship. In this treasure trove of new ideas (several of which he continued to develop in ensuing decades), Stefano lays the ground for the kind of structural constructivism that I espoused in my 2004 article–and in all my scholarship ever since.

À mon vieil ami, dont j’apprécie toujours autant l’humour, l’humanité et la vivacité d’esprit, je te remercie pour tout ce que tu m’as apporté et je te félicite chaudement d’avoir mené une carrière– et toute une vie–aussi estimables aux yeux de celles et ceux qui ont eu la chance de croiser ta route.

Vincent Pouliot, Professor,
Department of Political Science, McGill University

Pouliot V (2004) 'The essence of constructivism'  Journal of International Relations and Development, 7(3), 319–336.

Stefano’s work has consistently pushed us to reconsider the concepts we employ to make sense of the world. The article I have chosen to include in this festschrift, ‘Rethinking causal explanation in interpretive international studies,’ owes a great deal to that scholarly disposition. It focuses on how to understand causal explanations from an interpretive perspective. As such, it develops its argument in a space established in large parts by Stefano’s contributions.

Around 2010 Stefano circulated a rough draft for a piece that sought to make sense of the notion of causal mechanisms from a constructivist perspective on security. Further on, this aspect of his work developed in to a more sustained engagement with questions of causality and explanation. This work has had a profound impact on the discussions with which the article engages. More broadly, Stefano supplied key methodological building blocks for a discipline that recognizes (or should recognize) pluralism as the fundamental condition of possibility for meaningful social scientific work.

Stefano has often underlined, explicitly and through his own work, the plural ‘s’ in the social sciences. Pluralism, from his perspective, is not an add-on, or something that can be captured within the narrow confines of debates that have sought, for instance, to extend rationalist perspectives to also capture the impact of ideas, or complementing statistical work with qualitative techniques.

Pluralism was always there, and our task is fundamentally to figure out how the different methodological and theoretical starting points that are made visible by this pluralist position allow researchers to see different aspects of the social world. This applies, if anywhere, to discussions on causality, causal mechanisms and explanation. These are concepts that are key to what we do as researchers but their narrow definition among social scientists is often taken to imply a highly constrained set of concrete research practices. Stefano’s contribution in terms of opening this field up for new perspectives is one that carries implications for how we do research, not only in IR, but more broadly in the social sciences.

Ludvig Norman, Associate Professor
Department of Political Science, Stockholm University

Norman L (2021) 'Rethinking Causal Explanation in Interpretive International Studies' European Journal of International Relations, 27(3): 936-959.
 

How does one begin to grasp, much less portray, the lasting influence that a mentorship has had on you? In other circumstances, I might have asked Stefano for some input. Prevented (for very good reasons!) from doing so, it suddenly dawned on me that having Stefano as PhD supervisor a while back in Uppsala was perhaps the reason that led me not so much to finish the PhD as to stay in academia. While setting the bar high and making it a challenging endeavour, Stefano also made research fun. He opened worlds and routes into literatures that so far had been hidden during my rather conventional political science undergraduate studies and master’s degree. The selected piece for the Festschrift testifies to this. While I cannot promise that it is necessarily a fun read, it came about thanks to ideas around professions, practice, knowledge, and power that I had entertained during the later stages of my PhD. Today, I can see that these ideas were much influenced by adjacent discussions that Stefano and I had previously had, but that I also had not managed to fully think through during the course of the PhD. So, my warmest thank you Stefano for inspiring me to stay in academia – a necessary condition for this piece to be written in the first place.      

Anna Danielsson, Associate Professor and Senior Lecturer,
War Studies, Swedish Defence University  

Danielsson A (2020) 'Reconceptualising the politics of knowledge authority in post/conflict interventions: From a peacebuilding field to transnational fields of interventionary objects' European Journal of International Security, 5 (1), 115–133.
 

When I was working with my PhD thesis that analyzed collaboration between civil society actors, market actors and the state in the crisis and security management (finalized in 2015), Stefano was one of my supervisors. I was really puzzled and perhaps a bit naïvely upset when I found 'unholy' alliances between these actors in a political field that really should be governed and controlled by sovereign power. One of the main objectives with the thesis was to find what kind of governing rationalities that was currently governing the security sectors in Sweden, but I was surprised by the mixed nature of governing techniques. Stefano told me that my way of thinking about the state and the public sphere of politics really resembled neo-republicanism, a sort of ideal understanding of public politics and how power (should) work. This sparked an interest in me to further investigate the theory of neo-republicanism, mainly through Pettit’s (1997) Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government.

This in turn inspired me to consider network governance through the lenses of neorepublicanism and create a framework for analyzing network governance and the way they can produce institutionalized domination. An article that would never had been produced if it was not for Stefano’s great knowledge of the power and domination. I thus would like to thank Stefano for great inspiration during and after the dissertation.

Oscar Larsson, Researcher
Department of Government, Uppsala University

Larsson O (2017) 'A theoretical framework for analyzing institutionalized domination in network governance arrangements', Critical Policy Studies, 13(1), 81-100.
 

As a new grad student in Uppsala, I was astonished and amazed to attend Stefano’s lecture on philosophy of science (something I had never heard about before) and the book Ways of knowing (Moses and Knutsen 2007).  It was the starting point of a long methodological and philosophical learning process, during which Stefano very patiently broadened my horizon on what science is, and how to do research, answering a multitude of questions of varying degrees of stupidity. I had a very weak IR background and was steeped in statistics and positivist case study methods, so the alternative offered by a constructivist meta-theoretical research programme seemed very daunting and difficult to grasp. Yet, I was increasingly aware that I needed it.

Since my research interests concerned world order, Stefano had recommended me to read Bull (1977) The Anarchical Society, Buzan (2004) From International to World Society?, Holsti (2004) Taming the Sovereigns, and Dunne (1998) Inventing International Society. This helped me locate my intellectual home in the English School. But the question of their methodology continued to taunt me, both in my own work and when trying to explain my work to my colleagues. Although Navari (2009) Theorising International Society did contribute some clarifications, I got so hung up on their philosophy that Stefano repeatedly had to remind me to get back to the substance of my inquiry. Some of my struggles with English School philosophy of science  and methodology are contained within my thesis (Friedner Parrat 2017) "On the Evolution of Primary Institutions of International Society", which Stefano supervised, and other parts of them are discussed in the enclosed piece.

Stefano was not only a very knowledgeable supervisor, about meta-theory and IR, but also consistently reflective and kind in his engagement. Because of his quite rare appearances in Uppsala, a large part of our conversations happened in writing, and receiving an email from Stefano was (and still is) always a highlight of any day. In order to write this short reflection, I revisited some of my correspondence with Stefano from my most methodologically confused days and am embarrassed by how much I relied on him to help me through that storm, as well as several other later storms. But apparently, I also rebelled against his advice, for instance, the 'no philosophy of science' one. And all his patience notwithstanding, I remember one occasion when he had to turn to the parental hack of breathing deeply, closing his eyes and counting silently to ten, before replying to a particularly stupid remark I’d made.

I once wrote to him: 'I will have to get to some kind of criteria as to what science really is. What distinguishes Bull from a newspaper analyst? … In short, what is science?' After explaining at length the difference between theory as the generalisation of empirical correlations and theory as a framework through which to analyse theory-dependent empirics Guzzini(2013) "The ends of International Relations theory: Stages of reflexivity and modes of theorizing", he added: 'In a rather not so shallow sense, science is what scientists do. And they do political theory.' That one, at least, I took to heart. For this celebration, I chose a philosophical piece, but in reality, traces of Stefano’s influence could be found in everything I write, as well as in all my teaching. I just would not have made the same trajectory without him.

Charlotta Friedner Parrat, Assistant professor,
Department of War Studies and Military History, Swedish Defence University

Friedner Parrat C (2023). 'Interpretivists in the English School: Aren’t we all?' Journal of International Political Theory, 19(2), 221–241.
 

My ISR article 'The Transitional Justice and Foreign Policy Nexus: The Inefficient Causation of State Ontological Security-Seeking' builds methodologically on Stefano's take on interpretive process tracing and his fundamental CUP book on foreign policy identity crises. But this is but a tip of the iceberg when it comes to weighing the defining and synthetic scholarly influence Stefano's mentorship has had for me. His intellectual generosity and ever alert curiosity, his inspiring example both in scholarship and at the helm of the Central and East European International Studies Association for an extended period before my tenure therein, and last but not least his unparalleled conversational energy have made me, now and again, very grateful for having had the privilege to travel alongside some parts of his singular academic journey.

Maria Mälksoo, Professor of International Relations
Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen

Mälksoo M (2019) 'The Transitional Justice and Foreign Policy Nexus: The Inefficient Causation of State Ontological Security-Seeking', International Studies Review, 21(3), 373–397.
 

I am so privileged to have met Stefano at my very first international conference (the British International Studies Association). Stefano had such a positive impact on my career. Engaging with my work after our initial meeting in the paper room (it was a thing!), he included me in a group of scholars at the dinner. He really modelled how to be an engaging, warm, thoughtful, and inspiring professor; one I try to emulate to this day. Stefano was instrumental in helping me get my first paper published, which I include in this collection. The Journal of International Relations and Development would never has crossed my mind as a PhD student in Sydney Australia, but it proved to be a wonderful outlet for exciting work being done by constructivists in a field dominated by rationalist work. Stefano would then be a blind external examiner for my PhD, and the feedback he prepared on how to improve my dissertation for publication not only helped me refine my ideas, but also validated the research I was doing at a time when there were no constructivists in my Department, and very few in Australia at all. So, thank you Stefano for being inspiring, I reference your ideas to this day. And for being such a lovely, warm and engaging person. I am so grateful to have met you when I did and for showing us how positive and encouraging scholars can be.

Susan Park, Professor
Department of Government and International Relations, University of Sydney

Park S (2005) 'Norm diffusion within international organizations: a case study of the World Bank.' Journal of international relations and development, 8 (2), 111–141
 

It was presumably to be expected that I first met Stefano Guzzini in a collaborative international setting, when I worked as a research assistant for a joint Nordic project on security and defence in 2001-02. Having just read his instant-classic 2000 article on the reconstruction of constructivism, I was probably a little starstruck and I was definitely a little nervous. There was no need to be. From the outset, Stefano made sure to make even a young aspiring scholar feel included.

Over the ensuing decade I would continue to interact with Stefano in international settings. These interactions were always positive and constructive, but even so, I was again more than a little nervous when Stefano was appointed to be the first external opponent at my PhD defence in 2011. And again, the nervousness proved unfounded. We had what I remember as an engaging and engaged conversation about my thesis and how it could be developed further.

Working at an applied research institute implies that developing work further can be an ad hoc process. It took more than seven years for the core of the PhD to make its way into my article “The Emergence of Foreign Policy”, published in ISQ in 2019. The points Stefano made at the defence were incorporated to the best of my ability and the article is much better for it.

I have been lucky enough to interact with Stefano again and again over the years, through NUPI/DIIS-initiatives, Nordic and Scandinavian collaborations and through EISA and ISA. Over conference tables and dinner tables, he continues to make the people around him feel included. Stefano is a true academic in caring deeply both about ideas and about the people who hold them. He is a mensch and one of the finest examples of an intellectual who does not make you feel foreign. Even if you write about foreign policy.

Halvard Leira, Research Professor,
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI)

Leira H (2019) 'The Emergence of Foreign Policy', International Studies Quarterly, 63(19), 187–198. 
 

Stefano Guzzini's scholarship – particularly his writings on security – inspired me for many years, playing a significant role in my formation as a researcher. I later had the opportunity to meet him when he and his wife Anna Leander moved to Geneva. It was then that I realized that his human qualities were as remarkable as his writings. Stefano is a living example that humility, approachability and benevolence are compatible with high academic status and responsibilities. I was very fortunate to have Stefano as a member of my PhD thesis committee. Along with Keith Krause and Elisabeth Prügl, he contributed to make my thesis defense one of the most memorable moments of my life. This article is the first one that came out of my thesis. Exploring the intersecting effects of (in)security discourses and gender norms on immigrant labor, this piece sheds light on the condition of women seasonal workers and wives of seasonal workers in the second half of the 20th century in Switzerland.

Victor Santos Rodriguez, Visiting Lecturer
International Relations/Political Science Department, Geneva Graduate Institute

Santos Rodriguez V (2023) 'Des saisonnières aux « sans-papiers » : migration, genre et économie politique des corps (in)sécurisés en Suisse' Géo-Regards, 9(15): 83–100.
 

I am extremely grateful to Stefano for his invaluable feedback on my doctoral dissertation Investigating the Determinants of International, National and Local Climate Policies at the Department of Government, Uppsala University. Your guidance on the theoretical framing, particularly on the concepts of complementarity and disparity, helped steer me in the right direction. Your contribution has been instrumental in shaping the final outcome of my work, and I am truly grateful for your time and effort. Thank you so much for your support!

Lauri Peterson, Researcher
Department of Government, Uppsala University

Peterson L (2022) 'Domestic and International Climate Policies: Complementarity or Disparity?' International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics 22 (1),  97–118.

I chose this particular article, a collaboration with Max Lesch, because we were inspired by Stefanos interpretivist process-tracing work. Stefano’s writing and teaching on methods is a good example of his unique ability to lift boundaries instead of drawing them. I started working on informal lawmaking for my thesis. As a good PhD student, I attended the main method schools on process-tracing in our field. I tried hard to develop my thesis in the methodological 'right' way. This has surely been beneficial for my research design and method teaching skills, but I felt that many observations from my research got lost. Sharing an office and dinners with Stefano in Geneva expanded my view on what is 'good' research and academia. I am grateful for so many encouraging words, for books and articles he recommended, for the questions he asks and, most importantly, the people I met and got to know because Stefano is our connection. Herzlichen Glückwunsch, lieber Stefano!  

Nina Reiners, Associate Professor
Center for Human Rights, University of Oslo

Lesch M & Reiners N (2023). 'Informal human rights law-making: How treaty bodies use ‘General Comments’ to develop international law' Global Constitutionalism, 1-24.
 

Stefano has been an important figure in both my academic and personal life, mostly because of his intellectual and personal generosity and open mind. Although I didn’t interact properly with Stefano until after my doctoral work, I remember quite well how he organized a dinner at a small trattoria in Turin in 2007 at the SGIR conference, and how him, sitting at the end of the table, sharing knowledge of Italian food and wine with colleagues and the odd Scandinavian doctoral student who had been invited to dine inspired me to think of academia as much more than the narrow production of knowledge and conference presentations.

Although Stefano was never formally my teacher, I have learned a tremendous amount from him. Of course, he has inspired many of my works through generous rounds of comments and advice – such as 'The Making of the Political Subject' included here – at a number of seminars organized by NUPI or DIIS. His careful readings and astute comments on papers are not far from being unparalleled in the discipline. Over the years, though, Stefano became more than a mentor; he became a good friend. The conversations we have had in settings allowing for both engaged academic debate and more social interaction have come to inspire work and contributed to how I interact with others in the discipline. By his very nature and generous habitus, Stefano is and always has been an example to us all. The kindness he shows to others and the perceptive and astute gaze he has for their work continues to mark the discipline far beyond the impressive impact of his writings.

Benjamin de Carvalho, Research Professor,
Global Order and Diplomacy Research Group, Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI)

de Carvalho B (2016) 'The making of the political subject: subjects and territory in the formation of the state.' Theory and Society 45, 57–88.
 

Stefano Guzzini has taught me how to complement and mutually reinforce two ideals: progressive teaching in the spirit of Humboldtian University on the one side and production of competitive theory-grounded research in capital-driven global publication industry on the other side. He was Editor-in-Chief of Journal of International Relations and Development (JIRD) during my 2005-2011 mandate of Managing Editor. Word formatting his 'invitation to a new submission-rejection letters' for numerous mainly CEE-region based junior authors like myself was for me a privileged flipped learning experience on how to think, study and publish in IR. Additionally, these letters taught me that every author’s work – no matter of its current state – has potential for research excellence, realisation of which depends on author’s efforts but equally so on the (in)geniousness of the mentor. Finally, being part of his working team was a demanding but rewarding experience based on which I have ever after been building my cooperative academic mind-set; a progressive social structure change-aiming mission requires leader’s supreme expertise, endurance and zealous focus on success (read JIRD’s entry into SSCI indexation), yet it is more definitively set in motion if the boss nurtures their collective with mutual respect, equality, and open-minded eagerness to learn from each other. 

Ana Bojinović Fenko, Professor
University of Ljubljana

Bojinović Fenko, A. & Kočan, F. (2022). 'Re-examination of EU normative power in light of the revised enlargement methodology towards the Western Balkans'. Međunarodni problemi, 74(3). 411–432.
 

“I remember those discussions”, Stefano said with a smile on his face. As a first year PhD student in 2021, I was trying to set the scene for my own PhD project and grasp how the concept of hegemony has been studied within the field of International Political Economy (IPE). That journey took me through the different waves of hegemony studies in IPE and the history of the field in general. As I was deeply immersed in various analyses of the contemporary international order published in the 1990s, Stefano suddenly popped into the office which I - in that very moment - realized I was fortunate enough to share with him when both of us were in Copenhagen. I had already met Stefano virtually a few times during the past COVID-lockdowns but this was the first time we had a one-to-one conversation. Nonetheless, he immediately engaged with my arguments and shared personal anecdotes as well as experiences with IPE from when it evolved into a more formalized field in the 1990s. Being supervised by one of so-called “Magnificent Seven” of IPE, Susan Strange, he had plenty of insight to share. After all, as he told me, he was there and took part in those discussions that he now found me studying almost 20 years later. Before our very first conversation was over, Stefano had not only invited me to join his feedback group for early career researchers, he had also invited me into his private home – with the rest of the group. He had also invited me into his private home – with the rest of the ECR-group – where we would discuss our work and enjoy Stefano’s great cooking. It was during those meetings that the core arguments of my paper – perhaps my entire doctoral thesis – really started to flourish.

Needless to say, Stefano’s constructive feedback and deep disciplinary knowledge have pushed my thoughts on the study of hegemony forward and strengthened my ongoing PhD work substantially. Yet, in hindsight, Stefano’s greatest impact might have been how he provided guidance to a PhD student who was trying to embark on a PhD journey as COVID-19 was just about to loosen its solitary grip on face-to-face relations. As I continue my PhD studies, that first encounter with Stefano turned out to leave a big footprint on my work and how I approach the study of the international political economy.

Kasper Arabi, PhD candidate,
University of Warwick

The paper is still in the making. A link will (hopefully) be available sooner rather than later.
 

I find it quite appropriate that the article I submit for Stefano's Festschrift was written together with a student of mine, and that the manuscript directly benefited from Stefano's feedback on one of the drafts. I hope that it symbolises transfer of knowledge, or at least scholarly curiosity, across generations.

Among all the people I have interacted with throughout my academic life, Stefano stands out as not simply an intellectual interlocutor, but a mentor, in the best sense of the word. I could say that my intellectual journey, such as it has been so far, started in the summer of 1999, from a CEU Summer University course taught by Stefano and Anna Leander. It was a deep dive in the depth of constructivist IR theory and International Political Economy, and it brought into the classroom many academic stars of the 1990s. I cannot really say I remember everything I learned there, or even that I have been able to put to good use even half of the intellectual baggage I carried with me from Budapest. However, that class gave me a push in the general direction that I continue to follow almost a quarter of a century later.

This article by Maria Leek and myself is significantly more radical than anything we discussed in Budapest back in 1999, in the sense of the poststructuralist problematisation of the social reality. This radicalism also comes in part from Stefano's work, in particular from his theorisation of power and identity. Stefano's contribution to non-essentialist approaches to these concepts has been absolutely crucial for the development of constructivist and poststructuralist IR.

Building on the foundations that have been laid by Stefano and other scholars from the same cohort, our article presents a take on identity as always being in crisis, requiring political work to be maintained and reproduced. Inevitably, historical events constantly threaten to de-centre any established identity, revealing its unstable, crisis-prone nature. This, however, can lead to interesting and generally progressive reconfigurations of the existing identities, as it happened with the EU back in 2011. Unfortunately, with hindsight one has to acknowledge that the transformation was short-lived, and the progressive potential revealed by the crisis remained unused.

Viacheslav Morozov, Professor,
Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies, University of Tartu

Leek M & Morozov V (2018) 'Identity beyond othering: crisis and the politics of decision in the EU's involvement in Libya.' International Theory, 10 (1), 122−152.
 

When I presented a rough draft of this paper at an EWIS workshop on prudence organised by Stefano and Samuel Barkin, one of Stefano’s comments was: “This sounds like my biography to me - from realism to international political sociology, indeed.”

What I always found fascinating about Stefano’s way of travelling this road is that, in spite of his strong commitment to progress, both in theory and in practice, he never allows final destinations to overshadow the journey itself. This reminds me of David Lynch’s film The Straight Story. What can be more conventional than an American “road movie”? But then there is a twist: instead of a car, a bike, or a train, the character travels on a lawn mower. Suddenly, everything slows down, and nothing is conventional anymore. Even the traditional boundaries of Americana are redefined: it is no longer about the road or the traveller but the various conversations that happen along the way; and, as a New York Times critic put it at the time, it is more “about experiencing each encounter to the fullest, than it is about getting anywhere in a hurry”. The change of speed here is a metaphor for a change in perspective.

I do not think Stefano's theoretical perspective has ever changed. His “lawn mower” has always been the sociology of knowledge. This is how he travels, this is what drives his theorising from substantive theories, such as political realism, to the metatheoretical dispositions of constructivism and international political sociology. This is also what gives his diverse interests - be it power, foreign policy analysis, geopolitics or prudence, to name just a few - a distinctive common character of their own.

And so I wonder whether it is really correct to refer to Stefano’s work so far as “travelling”, moving from one point to the next. Perhaps, a better way of thinking about it may be found in this work itself, in one particular metaphor, borrowed from Camus, Stefano keeps returning to again and again: a happy Sisyphus, a man working under severe constraints that he no longer recognises as constraints; not out of acquiescence or self-deception, but as an act of ongoing disciplined revolt. Perhaps, it would be better then to understand this work/revolt by reference to time rather than space, as in time spent in various encounters, each experienced to the fullest. In which case a Festschrift would be a proper occasion indeed.

As far as the paper goes, I am grateful to the participants of the workshop and to the comments by Michael Merlingen, Anatoly Reshetnikov and Monika Kubova. I am indebted to Monika’s ongoing empirical research on the genealogy of neutrality.

Alexander Astrov, Associate Professor
Department of International Relations, Central European University    

Article to be released
 

Even though I have not been so lucky to spend much time with Stefano, a few interactions over the years have been formative for me in ways which make me count him as one of a few academic father figures. I purposively choose this label, since we do indeed need good examples of how to be a white male authority in academia (as elsewhere): Encouraging a plurality of approaches while insisting on coherence in each of them; listening attentively and contributing to other people's projects on their own terms, with a special compassion for young scholars, precariously establishing their voice and position in academia. This, to me, is the figure Stefano has embodied in these formative moments.

A recurring element in Stefano's oral feedback is when he bows his head slightly to look at you over his glasses, intimating that 'Now, there's a literature on that.' My first appearance in Stefano's seminars at DIIS was an early presentation of my PhD project, and I had a frighteningly high number of those glance-over-the-glasses moments. Fortunately, Stefano would in many cases know those literatures. Hence, his feedback on my PhD proposal took - as it often does on particularly incoherent texts - a kaleidoscopic form, like this: 'Reading the introductory section, I would expect you to proceed to theory X, method Y and analytical setup Z. Your literature review, however, points towards theory P, method Q and analysis R. But if the analysis lined up is really what you want to do, you will probably rewrite the intro, and my guess is that you will have to engage theory A and method B. However, there is a literature on that - good news is that...'

In the margins of a much later instantiation of these seminars I suggested Stefano, that we could perhaps cut to the chase, since everyone in the room was really there for his concluding discussion and advice anyway. But he insisted that the only reason he could do his kaleidoscope was that he had listened to rounds of queries and replies, integrating points with his initial notes.

Meanwhile, I co-edited a Festschrift-ish special issue of Security Dialogue on securitization theory. Upon invitation, Stefano replied something to the effect of 'it is not really my thing', but nevertheless wanted to contribute an article 'as a birthday present', since he had an argument ready in his mind that would mend a weak link in the logic of the theory under scrutiny.

At the very last stages, the editorial manager of the journal asked us to cut a few hundred characters of each article. In Stefano's case, I set my eyes on a footnote. His reply was, that I could delete 'anything but that footnote' since it included 'the first reference to the first article, still forthcoming, by a PhD student'.  

These days, whenever addressing IR from my position in Arctic regional studies, I find that my acknowledgements sections include some variation of 'and, as always, the final form of the argument owes a lot to Stefano Guzzini'. This certainly applies to a couple of chapters in a new co-edited volume applying securitization theory to Greenland. Stefano, I sincerely hope we can still lure you to Copenhagen, once in a while. If not, you will now be a separate reason for me to reintegrate in European IR.

Ulrik Pram Gad, Senior Researcher
Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)

Jacobsen M, Wæver O & Gad UP (forthcoming): Greenland in Arctic Security. (De)securitization dynamics under climatic thaw and geopolitical freeze, University of Michigan Press
  

Stefano discussed my Journal of Narrative Politics paper 'When one door closes, another one opens?: The ways and byways of denied access, or a Central European liberal in fieldwork failure' at one of the ISAs; he said it was well-written. He may not have liked it though, he saw something unlikeable there for sure. I am an IR theorist and Stefano has opened the door for theorising IR differently for my generation - we are free to think, and publish the results, in ways which are disciplinarily unprecedented. If Stefano has seen theorising as a means of empowerment, despite the plight of structural limitations for those less materially and therefore epistemically privileged, I do struggle with theory as a form of closure. The story of Stefano's reception of this paper - where I fight that fight quite frantically - tells something of our relationship over the years: We disagree, sometimes a lot, our politics differ. And yet he is patient and invariably there, always responsive to urgent emails seeking advice. And we talk. I do not know if I have ever convinced him of my stances. But he listens and draws out angles that make the bigger picture more bearable. Thank you, Stefano."

Xymena Kurowska, Associate Professor,
Department of International Relations, Central European University

Kurowska, X. (2019). 'When one door closes, another one opens? The ways and byways of denied access, or a Central European liberal in fieldwork failure'. Journal of Narrative Politics, 5(2). 
 

Choosing a publication for this Festschrift hasn’t been easy. Stefano has provided feedback on numerous of my works, but more than that, he has been an intellectual lighthouse, a wonderful mentor, friend, and role model since I first attended his legendary PhD course at the Danish Institute for International Studies in 2006-2007. During the PhD course, Stefano made us take every step of the research process more seriously, he insisted on us striving to make a real difference with our work, to give proper feedback, and, not least, to read, read, and read more, across and beyond the social sciences. He introduced me to everything from Steven Lukes to William Connolly and further stimulated my interest in political sociology and the work of Pierre Bourdieu. Always open-minded, pluralistic, demanding and encouraging, Stefano’s contribution to early career scholars is unparalleled.

To take just one example, my edited volume on Bourdieu in International Relations: Rethinking Key Concepts in IR benefited tremendously from Stefano’s support. Not only did he agree to write a masterful chapter on “Power”, he also supported the organization of the workshop and facilitated contacts to contributors such as Charlotte Epstein, whom I didn’t really know but later became a good friend. As I wrote in the preface “science is a social process” and Stefano has taught me this more than anyone else. Expanding my horizon and kindly connecting me to people around the world, he was crucial to the making of this book and, frankly, he continues to inspire and help me.

Stefano not only sharpens every contribution he comments on. By his own example, he invites us to be kinder and more generous. Academia can sometimes be inhumanly competitive, prejudiced and superficial. Stefano shows us that it doesn’t have to be that way. The discipline of IR is richer because of Stefano.

Yours,
Rebecca Adler-Nissen, Professor,
Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen 

Adler-Nissen R (2013). Bourdieu in International Relations: Rethinking Key Concepts in IR. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.
 

Growing up in academia in two different countries, we both thought that the question of how the social sciences and International Relations (IR) more specifically, actually matter and make a difference in world politics deserves some attention. Since we found existing frameworks rather unsatisfying, we started to explore what difference practice theory could bring. Back then (in 2004-2005) practice theory was not well defined in broader social science, and in IR it was in its infancy.

Without knowing each other yet, in our master dissertations, we had studied the same case: the role of democratic peace theory in world politics. When we met for the first time and recognized the joint passion for understanding what science does, we had just started our PhD research.

While we had the same starting point, it turned out that we embarked on journeys exploring the work of quite different practice theorists: the work of French theorists Pierre Bourdieu and Bruno Latour – theorists of practice which were – and still are - often seen as incompatible or at the opposing spectrum of what practice theory may mean. In trying to puzzle out how to theorize our common case, our young minds, however, didn’t see incompatibility but complementarity.

To cite Luc Boltanski “In Memoriam. Bruno Latour, when we were young” (2023: 1248), a companion of the two theorists, “did they not both practice a form of sociology that was at once constructivist and critical of science?” While Boltanski concludes that no, they did not: “There was in fact no basis for collaboration between Bourdieu and Latour” (ibid), we pressed on and tried to combine the two. We continued – if not fearlessly – then “freely and with joy” (cp. Boltanski 2023: 1253).

Both Latourian as well as Bourdieusian thinking would allow us to tell different parts of the story, for which practice provided the common glue, we thought. Latour allows understanding emergence, Bourdieu stable relations. For those deeply anchored in the French social theory debates, this was an impossible idea, or at the very best naïve. However, brewing this argument in a creative intellectual milieu that became later known as the Critical Approaches to Security in Europe collective (e.g. C.A.S.E. Collective 2006), we were motivated to pursue the quest. The editor to which we submitted our first proper academic article ever found joy and intellectual value in our intellectual twinning of Bourdieu and Latour. He encouraged us to respond to the quite critical reviewers in a productive way. That editor was Stefano Guzzini.

We received reviews like: “from a poststructuralist perspective, the very idea of “distorted knowledge” seems either and oxymoron or a pleonasm” (reviewer 1), or “central claims so far lack precision and the logical and empirical support needed do make it a fully satisfactory contribution to the scholarly debate” (reviewer 2), or that the main argument “appears so naïve to me that I find it hard to believe anyone in our discipline would entertain it” (reviewer 2, again). Reviewer 3 was slightly more encouraging: “The manuscript has several merits that following some substantial revisions can make it worthy of publication and contributing to our understanding of the relations between theory and politics”. Still, “People don’t turn into oracles just because something they claimed to be the case turned out to be true” (Reviewer 3).

To this, we received what most contributors to this festschrift would recognize as a “Guzzini reading” of our paper and the review reports: an encouraging four page long editorial letter that showed which paths we could take We had for some reason sparked academic interest and we were allowed to continue despite R&R reports that could easily have led to a “sorry, bring this somewhere else”. With this concluding line after a long argumentation for upgrading the empirical part: “If your conviction is to upgrade the theoretical (and/or ethical) component that is fine with us, too. We hope that both the referee reports and our letter can be useful in your revision, in whatever direction you decide to take it”, we embarked on what in hindsight looked like an impossible project.

The result is by now a classical article that shows how theoretical bridges can be built and the big questions of IR can be understood by practice theory in new lights. It is attached as an article published in the Journal of International Relations and Development (Büger & Villumsen 2007).

Trine Villumsen Berling, Senior Researcher
Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)

Christian Bueger, Professor
Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen

Büger, C & Villumsen T (2007): 'Beyond the gap : relevance, fields of practice and the securitizing consequences of (democratic peace) research'. Journal of international relations and development. 10(4): 417–448.
 

Stefano Guzzini is one of the living IR thinkers who has inspired me most. First, because of the depth of his thinking and the quality of his writing. Second, because of some of the direct feedback and support he gave me. Apart from being one of the many smart people around, he has also institutionalized mentoring of PhD students through a decade long running PhD seminar, which I had the pleasure of participating in. After that I began writing him sometimes with my questions, and he responded at length and with generosity. Stefano saw me and understood my questions. Most of my questions were about theory and concepts and the role of theory in the world. Often, I would ask in lengthy, roundabout ways and often Stefano knew better than me what I was asking. I would realize this when I read his reply. He also gave me support at a time when I was in that deeply exciting, stressful, lonely anxiety-provoking place, which the last few months of writing a PhD can be. His advice to me in 2021 is as relevant to me as to anyone. At the end of one e-mail on a theoretical subject, he suddenly wrote:  

“I think you are there. Be confident. Pursue writing even without having read the last solution to all these intricate problems. Some other scholars got away with much less substance. In short – just keep going.” 

I needed this pat on the shoulder. It meant a lot.

But third, and even more importantly, I think, Stefano has meant a great deal to me because of the voice he became in my head. Most of what I have learned from Stefano is beyond what he has written. At some point he began to figure often as an abstraction in my head. "What would Stefano say?" I would ask myself in grappling with a theoretical problem. This is what happens when a theorist has gotten under the skin of your conceptual brain enough that you can have a conversation even when the subject is far from something they have addressed, but you know enough of their theoretical craftsmanship to create versions in your own head to dialogue with.

The article included here is the result of an effort by Isabel Bramsen and myself to make sense of Nordic peace research and its relation to practice. Stefano was one of the scholars we asked to reflect on this relationship. The interview gave rise to a much wider conversation with Stefano – on email and in my head - about the end of the Cold War, the interplay between the tectonic shifts in world politics and the theories and explanations we make of them. And about the place of theory and its effects in the policy world. Thinking about the possible paths ideas or concepts may take and how they can work in certain directions and not in others is to me at the heart of much of Stefano’s best work and for me one of the reasons why theory, not least political theory, is so important.

Thank you, Stefano, for your friendship, support, and your inspiring mind.

Anine Hagemann, Special Consultant
Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Bramsen I & Hagemann A (2023) 'How research travels to policy: the case of Nordic peace research', International Affairs. 99(5).
 

Stefano was my supervisor as I was a PhD student at the Department of Government at Uppsala University. From the moment I first heard him lecture on philosophy of science, he became an intellectual role model for me. In my research, I have especially taken inspiration from Stefano’s writings on collective identities, more specifically so on how identity discourses inform interest formation in policy-making. Besides being an intellectual giant, I have always also taken great inspiration from Stefano’s kindness, generosity and humanity.

Kristin Ljungkvist, Senior Lecturer
Department of War Studies and Military History, Swedish Defence University

Gordon D & Ljungkvist K (2022) 'Theorizing the globally engaged city in world politics', European Journal of International Relations. 28(1):58-82
 

The first time I met Stefano was in 2012, in Copenhagen. At that time, I was very inspired by Stefano's various works and thus I was curious and delighted to meet him. I wrote him a simple e-mail, after which Stefano and Anna invited me to dinner at their home. I remember very well (and warmly) the meeting, my curiosity and the unobvious clues having emerged from our discussion of IR issues.

Later, our paths crossed many times, at various conferences and seminars in Europe, the USA, as well as in workshops for junior scholars in Warsaw. I remember particularly our research stays in Ithaca, which fortunately coincided in time, thanks to which we experienced together one of the most terrible moments of recent years, when Donald Trump won the election. I owe a lot to Stefano. His depth of knowledge, his inspiring and stimulating ways of interpreting the world, his intellectual generosity, and his friendship and warmth.

On this fantastic occasion, I would like to dedicate my book on the discipline of IR in Poland. The acquaintance and discussions with Stefano during the work on this book opened my eyes to many things affecting the production of knowledge about international affairs, going well beyond my own country’s experience. Thank you, Stefano!

Anna Wojciuk, Associate Professor
Faculty of Political Science and International Studies, University of Warsaw

Czaputowicz J & Wojciuk A (2017) International Rrelations in Poland: 25 years after the transition to democracy. Springer
 

Notwithstanding the immense thematical range of his work and its well-known sharp insights, one finds little of Stefano's trademark topics, concepts, approaches, or papers in my writing. Little is not nothing, of course, and his 1997 paper on poststructuralism gave me much needed insights regarding what I was doing in my dissertation. But that’s not much compared to the depth of his influence in my life and career. There, Stefano and his work are everywhere to be found: in my syllabi, in my teaching, in my engagement with students and papers, in my career and life decisions, in my stories, and in my email inbox. In these different instances, both our agreements and disagreements allow me to think, teach, and live better.

The paper below, the first I published in a non-Brazilian journal, speaks to that divide. Stefano mentored me and other graduate students on how to navigate the publishing scene in general, and he helped me through the revision process of this particular piece. But that is not much compared to the role he played in the bigger picture. The article is an early product of my dissertation, a dissertation I was only convinced would exist when I finally managed to convince Stefano that it made sense. We got to that point on a sunny Rio de Janeiro afternoon, an afternoon very similar to the one some two years before when, finding out, unprompted, that I was struggling with my work, he invited me to discuss it over coffee. Working towards that recognition shaped my dissertation as much as the scholar I had become; and the conversations, meals, and friendship never stopped since.

These rifts are testaments to Stefano's restless commitment to thoughtfully engage with one's work and one's struggles at each opportunity he finds and creates, across vast swaths of topics and starting points. Whether to comment on a manuscript or an idea; to discuss history or current events; to talk about music or tell stories, to give advice, respond to critics, or help students, Stefano brings the unique mixture of rigor, generosity, and excitement many of us have come to associate with him as much as we do his joyful smile and laughter. Indeed, it is anything but fortuitous that relationality and recognition are at the heart of his work. They are also at the heart of his being. This makes each encounter an opportunity to move from content to form, from manuscripts to dispositions, from scholars to individuals, from mentor to friend.

None of these are ordinary features—and Stefano is no ordinary scholar. I have come to believe that he has had to invent a singular way of being a scholar to be able to realize his trade, and that he has since spent much of his time building relations, paths, and institutions so others could do the same. Ultimately, through content and form, he has opened worlds for the work, career, and lives of new generations. He has also blessed many of us with his friendship. I am grateful for all this, as I am sure so many others are.

Paulo (Paulinho) Chamon, Postdoctoral Fellow
Institute of International Relations, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (IRI/PUC-Rio)

Chamon P (2018) 'Turning Temporal: a Discourse of Time in IR'. Millennium, 46(3), 396–420.