Drezner - Theories of International Politics and Zombies: Revived Edition

REVIVED EDITION

DANIEL W. DREZNER

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

PRINCETON AND OXFORD

Copyright 2015 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540

In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TW

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Drezner, Daniel W.

Theories of international politics and zombies / Daniel W. Drezner.Revived edition.
pages cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-691-16370-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. International relationsPhilosophy. 2. Zombies. I. Title.

JZ1305.D74 2014

327.101dc23

2014011052

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available

This book has been composed in Janson Text

Printed on acid-free paper.

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For my son Sam, who thought this was way cooler than my other books; and my daughter Lauren, for reassuring me that there are no zombies in this land.

Fifteen years ago, on a cross-country drive, I stopped to visit Graceland. By the time my tour hit the Jungle Room, it was obvious that the thirty-odd people walking through Elvis Presleys mansion fell into two groups. The first contingent was thoroughly, utterly sincere in their devotion to all things Elvis. They were hardcore fans, and Graceland was their Mecca, their Jerusalem, and their Rome. Many of them sounded convinced that the King was still walking the earth. They gasped when they saw the jumpsuit collection, bedazzled by its grandeur.

The second group of tourists was equally delighted to be at Graceland, but for a different reason. These people took great pleasure in the kitschy nature of all things Elvis. To them, a mansion that preserved the aesthetics of green shag carpeting and mirrored walls was both funny and tacky. They too gasped when they saw the jumpsuit collection, bedazzled by how ridiculous they thought it was.

As we ambled along, the sheer professionalism of our tour guide struck me. Her task was not an easy one. She had to provide a veritable font of Elvis knowledge to all of the intense devotees. At the same time, she also had to acknowledge the absurdist nature of the experience for of the rest of the tour group.

With subtle changes in her facial expressions and slight adjustments in her tone of voice, our guide accomplished her task brilliantly. At no point in time did she diminish Elvis in the eyes of his devout followers. Still, I believe all left Graceland that day thoroughly satisfied with their visit.

Think of this book as my tour of a different kind of Graceland, only with a lot more footnotes. Ohand zombies.

Thus said the Lord God unto these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am the Lord. So I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a commotion, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. And I beheld, and, lo, there were sinews upon them, and flesh came up, and skin covered them above; but there was no breath in them.

EZEKIEL 37:58

There are many natural sources of fear in world politicsterrorist attacks, lethal pandemics, natural disasters, climate change, financial panic, nuclear proliferation, ethnic conflict, global cyberwarfare, and so forth. Surveying the cultural zeitgeist, however, it is striking how an unnatural problem has become one of the fastest-growing concerns in international relations. I speak, of course, of zombies.

Whether they are called ghouls, deadites, rotters, walkers, skels, stenches, deadheads, post-humans, the mobile deceased, or the differently animated, the specter of the living dead represents an important puzzle to scholars of international relations and the theories we use to understand the world. What would different theories of international politics predict would happen if the dead began to rise from the grave and feast upon the living? How validor how rottenare these predictions?

Serious readers might dismiss these questions as fanciful, but concerns about flesh-eating ghouls are manifestly evident in popular culture. Whether one looks at films, songs, games, or books, the genre is clearly on the rise. As

Figure 1. Popular and scholarly interest in zombies.

Sources: Wikipedia, Web of Science.

Figure 2. Interest in zombies since 2000.

Sources: Amazon.com, Wikipedia.

Nor is this interest limited to celluloid. A series of zombie video games, including the Resident Evil and Left 4 Dead franchises, served as a precursor for the renaissance of zombie cinema. These have been followed up by even more video games, including Plants vs. Zombies and The Last of Us. The undead have spread to television in recent years, including Comedy Centrals Ugly Americans (201012), MTVs Death Valley (201112), BBC Americas In the Flesh (2013), and the CWs iZombie (2014), as well as AMCs ratings powerhouse The Walking Dead (2010). Indeed, in 2013, The Walking Dead beat all other shows in its time slot in the ratingsincluding Sunday Night Football. Zombies have also seeped onto the written page. The popular literature ranges from how-to survival manuals,). Clearly the living dead have lurched from marginal to mainstream.

Figure 3. Media mentions of zombies. Source: Lexis-Nexis.

One could dismiss the zombie trend as merely feeding a mass public that craves the strange and bizarre. Such an explanation would be only skin-deep. Popular culture often provides a window into the subliminal or unstated fears of citizens, and zombies are no exception. Some cultural commentators argue that the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks are a primary cause for renewed interest in the living dead, and the

Some international relations scholars would posit that interest in zombies is an indirect attempt to get a cognitive grip on what former US secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld famously referred to as the unknown unknowns in international security.

One must be wary of overstating the caseafter all, flesh-eating ghouls are not the only paranormal phenomenon to spark popular interest. In recent years, aliens, ghosts, vampires, wizards, witches, and hobbits have also been on the tip of everyones tongue. For some, the specter of zombies pales in comparison to other paranormal creatures. The disdain of cultural elites has abetted this perspective by placing zombies in the derivative, low-rent part of the paranormal spectruma shuffling, stumbling creature that In 2010, the Academy Awards presented a three-minute homage to horror cinema, and only a millisecond was devoted to any zombie filmway less than that Chucky doll. No zombie has the appeal of J. K. Rowlings Harry Potter or the Twilight series Edward Cullen.