“Panopticons and Chokepoints,” an interview with Richard Byrne

A new view of international relations puts global networks – and how they can be weaponized – at its center. What’s the future of regulation in this new landscape?

“The debate we see at the moment is never going to be about trade and open markets in the same kind of way anymore,” says Farrell. “Once the door has been opened to thinking about these things in terms of their consequences for security, different actors will enter into the scene and begin to gobble up this policy area that you think is defined in these terms, and start redefining in it in very different ways indeed…. We’re not going back to where we were – and once you’ve opened up the door to these kinds of concerns, they are going to metastasize through the entire system.

Access the full interview at the Wilson Quarterly

Other Writing:

Academic Article

Weaponized Interdependence: How Global Economic Networks Shape State Coercion – with Abraham Newman

Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman (2019), “Weaponized Interdependence: How Global Economic Networks Shape State Coercion,” International Security 44, 1:42-79. Reprinted in Daniel Drezner, Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman, The Uses and Abuses of Weaponized Interdependence, Brookings Institution 2021. Liberals claim that globalization has led to fragmentation and decentralized networks of power relations. This does not ...
Read Article
Academic Article

Formal and Informal Institutions under Codecision: Continuous Constitution-Building in Europe – with Adrienne Hèritier

Current approaches examining the effect of institutions on policy processes have difficulty in explaining the results of the legislative process of codecision between the European Parliament and Council within the European Union. The formal Treaty changes that gave rise to codecision have, in turn, given rise to a plethora of informal institutions, in a process ...
Read Article