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Dr Ilan Zvi Baron, BA (Hons), MSc, PhD
(email at ilan.baron@durham.ac.uk)
Media Contacts
Available for media contact about:
- Philosophy: Philosophy and Global Politics, focusing on multiculturalism, human diversity, ethics and the politics of identity.
- Geography: The connections between identity, obligation and security.
- Politics & Society: The connections between identity, obligation and security.
- Geography: Dual loyalty or the problem of holding multiple allegiances to conflicting states or political communities.
- Politics & Society: Dual loyalty or the problem of holding multiple allegiances to conflicting states or political communities.
- Geography: Diaspora Politics
- Politics & Society: Diaspora Politics
- Politics & Society: Zionism
- Ethics, Religion & Beliefs: Death and the ethics of war
- International politics: Death and the ethics of war
- International politics: International Relations Theory
- Politics & Society: Political Philosophy of International Relations
- Political thought & theory: Political Obligation
Biography
Ilan Zvi Baron completed his PhD at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, in 2007 where he was an E.H. Carr Scholar and recipient of an Overseas Research Scheme grant. He completed an MSc in International Relations at the London School of Economics and a BA (Hons) in Political Science at the University of Victoria, Canada. He has been deputy editor of Millennium, and has worked with various international NGOs in Geneva and Zurich. Before coming to Durham, he was a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for International Studies at the London School of Economics, and a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Institut Barcelona D'Estudis Internacionals.
Current Research
Dr. Baron is currently working on research project about identity and security, focusing on the Jewish Diaspora, and of how diasporic identity functions in the creation of security discourses. Drawing on political theory, literature, international theory, sociology and Jewish Studies, this project touches on questions concerning the relationship between political obligation and security, about how individual and collective identity narratives contextualize and/or create security discourses, and how the politics of space are important in linking identity to security. This project is guided by such questions as: What happens when groups of citizens locate a political allegiance outside of the authority of the state? What is the relationship between identity and security and how are they linked? Why are minority groups susceptible to perceptions of disloyalty? How are diaspora and minority groups implicated as specific state security risks? What is the relationship between membership in a diasporic community and security?
In addition, Dr. Baron is working on a critical investigation of the disciplinary framing of International Relations. This project is concerned with what defines International Relations (IR) as a distinct academic enterprise, of what it means to "think internationally", and the extent to which IR as a distinct academic field influences interdiscplinary scholarship on global politics.
Research Interests
- Diaspora Politics
- International Political Theory
- International Relations
- Jewish Politics and Zionism
- Just War and the Ethics of War
- Normative Theory
- Political Theory
Selected Publications
Articles: review
- Baron, Ilan Zvi. (2009). Globalisation, Democracy and Terrorism by Eric Hobsbawm. Intelligence and National Security 24(6).
- Baron, Ilan Zvi. (2005). The Spirit of Terrorism by Jean Baudrillard, Ground Zero by Paul Virilio, and Welcome to the Desert of the Real by Slavoj Zizek. Millennium Journal of International Studies 34(1).
- Baron, Ilan Zvi. (2003). Sovereignty, Rights and Justice: International Political Theory Today by Chris Brown. Millennium Journal of International Studies 32(1).
Books: authored
- Baron, Ilan Zvi. (2009). Justifying the Obligation to Die: War, Ethics, and Political Obligation with Illustrations from Zionism. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
Journal papers: academic
- Baron, Ilan Zvi. (2010). 'Dying for the State: The Missing Just War Question?'. Review of International Studies 36(1): 215-234.
- Baron, Ilan Zvi. (2009). The Problem of Dual Loyalty. The Canadian Journal of Political Science 42(4): 1025-1044.