Owen D Thomas

In their EJIR article, Faiz Sheikh and @drowendthomas.bsky.social draw on Ibn Khaldun's political thought to rethink the crisis of liberal international order— as an unresolved and destructive tension between LIO's claim to universalism and its entrenched whiteness.

Read it here: t1p.de/pgzmo

Pls RT: @cais-exeter.bsky.social @ejir.bsky.social @europeanisa.bsky.social @researchspin.bsky.social

🔗 The article is open access at doi.org/10.1177/1354...

🚨 New paper out in European Journal of IR 🚨 Faiz Sheikh and I draw on Ibn Khaldun’s political thought to rethink the crisis of liberal international order—not as a problem of technique, but as an unresolved and destructive tension between LIO’s claim to universalism and its entrenched whiteness.

Call for Chapter Proposals - New SPIN Edited Volume, Initial Deadline: 1 June - SPIN Call for Chapter Proposals: Deadline 1 June 2025     Working title: Secrecy Studies: Enduring Themes, New...

🗓️ Less than a month to go! We’re seeking contributions for an edited volume on secrecy in an era of polycrisis.

Call for Chapter Proposals for edited volume: Secrecy Studies: Enduring Themes, New Directions
Details at: buff.ly/bSnIaw6
Deadline: 1st June

11/ 🔗 Read the full paper here: doi.org/10.1177/2399...
@cais-exeter.bsky.social @researchspin.bsky.social

10/ Why does this matter?
🔹 The idea that violence in global cities like London is an aberration furthers myths about how violence is meant to happen to some people and places but not others.
🔹 Denial undermines social justice; it forecloses the pursuit of structural change.

9/ Our findings challenge the idea that social media & public discourse disrupt elite narratives. Instead, sensemaking often discredited or sidelined alternative ideas for peace and security.

8/ "It is what it is”
🔹 Calls for systemic change were dismissed.
🔹 Responses seen as ‘political’ were rejected.
🔹 Proposed ‘solutions’ were often fatalist—barriers, trampolines, walking sticks—rather than tackling root causes.

7/ "It’s not us, it’s them”
🔹 Blame was assigned to ‘others’—enemies, traitors & strangers.
🔹 Grenfell victims often racialised & seen as ‘other’; politicians accused of ‘hiding the facts’.
🔹 Responses to London Bridge invoked a war with Islam, homogenising Britain’s Muslim communities as suspect.

6/ "This is not who we are”
🔹 Violence was framed as an exception, belonging to another place or time.
🔹 Both events were treated as disconnected from ‘our way of life’—even though global connections made them possible.

5/ We analysed 8,000+ social media comments, news op-eds & elite statements. We identify three modes of sensemaking—'discourses of denial'—that became ‘common-sensical’, defining the parameters of who or what was to blame and what should be done:

4/ Academic research suggests that global cities like London are entangled in the exploitative global hierarchy (see @idanewid.bsky.social), which is implicated in producing the fragility of places from which the threat of terrorism emerges. Would such connections be part of public sensemaking?

3/ The way societies make sense of disorder reveals that we are ‘already part of communities of sense’ that dictate the boundaries of inclusivity & care—shaping how we think & feel about where, when & to whom violence is expected to happen (@jamcjo.bsky.social).

2/ In 2017, the London Bridge terror attack & Grenfell Tower fire unsettled common ideas about London as a ‘global city’—a place where violence might occur, but not a violent place. How did people make sense of this?

1/ 📢 New research! How do societies make sense of violent events? In a new paper with @politicsandspace.bsky.social, Victoria Basham, @rhyscrilley.bsky.social and I explore how the London Bridge attack & Grenfell Tower fire were understood in media & public discourse—and why this matters. 🧵👇

Chris Mason: Can opposites Trump and Starmer find common ground? - BBC News The prime minister and the new president of the United States are rather different characters.

Nice to see the article I wrote with @drowendthomas.bsky.social and Victoria Basham on Keir Starmer and the juridification of politics being used by Chris Mason to frame their analysis of the recent meeting between Starmer (Mr Rules) and Trump (Mr Break the Rules)

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...